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A Conversation with a CRO About the Evolution of Selling and Methodology
33 Plays5 days ago
In this episode, Brian Dietmeyer talks with Chris Vercelli, a seasoned go-to-market advisor for tech companies, about the transformative potential of AI in sales methodologies. They dive into the challenges traditional sales training faces in terms of ROI and adherence, and how AI-native approaches can revolutionize this by ensuring methodologies are not only learned but effectively implemented and sustained in real-world scenarios. This discussion is crucial for sales leaders looking to leverage AI for more dynamic and successful sales strategies.
Timestamps:
00:54 - Introduction to the new AI-native sales methodology.
01:44 - Challenges with traditional sales training ROI and adherence.
03:45 - The need for a shift to AI in sales methodologies.
10:00 - Defining what a modern sales methodology entails.
14:17 - How AI-native methodology transforms sales training delivery.
19:02 - Addressing the coaching and training pull-through with AI.
23:48 - The comprehensive impact of AI on sales processes and strategies.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Close Mode Podcast
00:00:06
brian
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Close Mode, the enterprise sales show. I'm Brian Dietmeyer CEO of Close Strong, the home of precision guided selling.
Meet Chris Vercelli: Sales Leadership Expert
00:00:16
brian
And today I'm legit excited to be here with Chris Vercelli. Chris is a go-to-market advisor for tech companies, and I've been leaning into his brain a little bit on that. Thank you, Chris.
00:00:27
brian
He's also, he's got huge chops and in sales leadership and revenue leadership, having been a VP of global sales at Treasure Data, VP of sales at SalesLogic, and CSO at California Technologies, et cetera, et cetera.
00:00:40
brian
Chris, welcome to the show.
00:00:42
Chris Vercelli
Thank you, Brian. A pleasure to be here.
Evolution in Sales: Current Market Needs
00:00:44
brian
So, Last week, we were chatting about sort of the evolution of selling and the evolution, more importantly, about how how we're enabling and helping salespeople in this new market.
00:00:57
brian
and we We wandered into sales methodology and and today's podcast is going to be a little bit different because I started talking to you about this new AI native sales methodology we've built.
AI Native Sales Methodology: A New Approach
00:01:09
brian
And I typically don't talk about our stuff on the program, but you said, hey, I'm going to jump on and and talk about this. So we're going to do that today. So let me let me tee it up for you this way, Chris. One of the things we were talking about is that American companies are spending $26 billion a year on sales.
00:01:24
brian
sales methodology events. And you know leading leading up to the design of Close Strong, I interviewed 65 revenue, sales, and enablement execs and all of them were frustrated with their ah on sales training events. They pull that lever often. They look at a sales problem, they pull the sales training lever.
00:01:46
brian
And then all of them to a T were like, yeah, a few weeks after the consultants are gone, you know, and the problem is not the methodology. The problem is the pull through and getting it to stick. The other thing they told me, Chris, and um and this is where I'm really curious.
00:01:59
brian
I'm telling you to a person, they said,
00:02:00
Chris Vercelli
yeah.
00:02:02
brian
I kind of went through their their forecast and their funnel with them and said, where are you stuck? What are you struggling with? And they they were struggling with qualification, multi-threading discovery.
Challenges in Sales Training and Retention
00:02:13
Chris Vercelli
yeah
00:02:14
brian
They were frustrated that their teams were kind of reacting to what the customer was ordering in order fulfillment, ah ah kind of motion versus versus prescribing solutions. And and and i so go back to what I was saying you a moment ago, $26 billion in training to fix some of those basics. Why the hell are all of these leaders I talked to still frustrated with the basics after that massive investment? That was a long question.
00:02:38
Chris Vercelli
No, but it's a great question. And the fundamental problem is we as sales leaders have been using traditional sales methodologies like Sandler, Challenger, selling for a long time.
00:02:50
Chris Vercelli
and And we default to those because we've used them in our past.
00:02:54
brian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:55
Chris Vercelli
These programs, you know, they're based on a training workshop and there's documents that follow and a process. And as sales leaders, we trust that our team is adhering to the sales methodology training.
00:03:08
Chris Vercelli
And that our field leaders are inspecting the deals on a regular basis using that methodology with regards to the training. The fact is sales reps fall back into their old ways.
00:03:19
Chris Vercelli
Sales leaders fall back into their old ways.
00:03:21
brian
yeah
00:03:22
Chris Vercelli
And we never realize this until it's too late. The sales rep and the sales leaders get caught up in the next deal in front of them and they skip the steps.
00:03:30
brian
Yeah. yeah
00:03:31
Chris Vercelli
it's it's It's based on documents that follow. This is the problem with your traditional training and workshops, the stuff we've been using.
00:03:38
brian
Yeah.
00:03:39
Chris Vercelli
If we really want the best sales methodology, in my opinion, ai is the new and improved way.
Why AI Over Traditional Sales Methods?
00:03:47
brian
Yeah. And we're going to wander into that for sure. But one of the things we talked about last week, and I'd like you to share with listeners, is you and I we're kind of, we we even went back to the basics of saying, well, let's define methodology.
00:03:58
brian
And I think both of us agreed that the actual IP, which is what most people think of as the methodology, right? The form you fill out at the end of the class, the purple sheet, whatever it is.
00:04:07
Chris Vercelli
right
00:04:09
brian
But we we define that more broadly. So but before we introduce a new method, give me your sense of when we say methodology, when you say methodology, what does that whole system of methodology look like?
00:04:22
Chris Vercelli
Well, we need to kind of go back to the but components of the methodology. And we need to start thinking about it in a broader way. We need to consider the actual methodology itself.
00:04:35
Chris Vercelli
Is it worth anything? Does it breed success? How easy is it to customize to the customer's specific needs? That's very important. The actual delivery of the methodology so that the team absorbs it And embraces it.
00:04:52
Chris Vercelli
And then really, in my opinion, this is where I've fallen down the post training coaching and pull through to ensure the adherence of it. We also need to keep in mind, we may have a strategy change in our business, or there may be market dynamics that change.
Aligning Sales Methodology with Strategy
00:05:07
Chris Vercelli
And how easy is that methodology to shift to those dynamics?
00:05:11
brian
Yeah. Yep. It was helpful when you and I talked through that. And so when we talk about a new... native AI sales methodology.
00:05:21
brian
It is that whole system. That's what you and I were talking about.
00:05:24
Chris Vercelli
i
00:05:24
brian
It's like the whole, the the problem again is not just that IP. In fact, most of those IPs are probably okay. it's It's this entire system of, you're right, delivery, customization, pull through, application to actual deal strategy.
00:05:37
brian
So what one other thing before we we launch into AI native methodology I know a lot of the traditional or legacy methodology companies are attempting to kind of retrofit their approaches and connecting with some so third party AI methodology company. I think most of them agree with you. Hey, we need some kind of AI in our solution, but they're, they're retrofitting with third party and that troubled you. Why is that?
00:06:03
Chris Vercelli
Well, I think you just hit it. They're retrofitting. These legacy sales methodology companies are trying to achieve what I consider a me too solution.
00:06:06
brian
Yeah.
00:06:12
Chris Vercelli
The problem these legacy methodologies are frankly outdated and they're not an AI methodology platform. truly built from the ground up, taking these approaches that we we talked about previously into consideration.
00:06:27
Chris Vercelli
They're peeling apart their legacy program and attempting to insert some assemblance of AI. Why not go with a more modern sales methodology, something new that is comprehensive, it's built on an AI platform.
00:06:40
Chris Vercelli
from the initial creation it will assist in building a successful methodology that will give them a better future for their sales training, for their sales pull through, and frankly, to drive revenue.
Motivation for AI-based Sales Methodology
00:06:53
brian
yeah So we're going to you suggested you you became intrigued enough. And and again, you I were just chatting offline. You became intrigued enough about this idea, about this this new sort of hyper hyper relevant solution to today's market that we're rolling out.
00:07:09
brian
And you suggested we turn the tables. and And I think I think you're going to interview me now. I like being on the receiving end. So have at it. You're the host now, my friend.
00:07:18
Chris Vercelli
I am going to interview because there's a few things that as we were talking through and getting to know each other that I had some questions about. So I was intrigued when we spoke about the new approach.
00:07:30
Chris Vercelli
What was your motivation after all these years, like 30 plus years, there's been these methodologies. What was your motivation in developing a precision guided selling system that's based on A.I.?
00:07:43
brian
Yeah, so some some of our listeners may know that you know I still run Think Inc., which was a negotiation training and deal coaching company, right? We we did global rollouts in 47 countries, Microsoft, Google, FedEx, and people loved the workshops.
00:07:59
brian
i And at one point, though, one of those customers asked us to coach a billion dollars of deals in their pipe renewals.
00:08:06
Chris Vercelli
Thank you.
00:08:07
brian
And so we did it one to one, Chris and b Brian working on a $5 million dollars renewal. And I realized yeah people loved the two day events we were running. They filled out the little smiley sheets and said, yeah, Carrie was a great facilitator. We loved Chris.
00:08:20
brian
But when we did these one on ones, it was so effective to work on this deal in context, right? Just not diving into it. I also found out that was difficult to scale. The customer liked it, wanted more.
00:08:34
brian
And I'm embarrassed to say we ended up adding more consultants to the team and and and not all those were A players, right? We added some B and eventually by the time we added C players, we we we told that customer we needed to cut back.
00:08:46
brian
It was also not scalable for that customer. i think I think we're charging 10 grand a day for this in-person coaching. But so to answer your question directly, that was that experience. I was saying we need to rethink sales training from, you know you go through this two day class, you do spend all this time on skills acquisition, and then you try to customize it and jump directly. How do you scale deal by deal by deal support for every rep at every deal for the next year in context of your strategy right with with a a coach?
00:09:18
brian
or a guide who understand that's how we're trying to redefine sales training is that way is a complete redefinition of that whole system you talked about earlier. So let me, Chris, it might help. Let me give you a quick example.
00:09:31
brian
So when we talk about an AI native methodology, I'll give you an example of a telecom company, right? And they were they were parts, kind of kind of contract parts manufacturer, right? So telecom companies reach out, say, I need this widget built. Here's the specs, you know, typical RFP crap.
00:09:48
brian
and And they said, wow, weve we've got to get upstream into integrated design and manufacturing because the design pulls us upstream, right?
00:09:55
Chris Vercelli
Okay.
00:09:57
brian
Now I'm working with the execs before we determine what it is we have
AI in Action: Telecom and Client Examples
00:10:00
brian
to build. I'm helping design build it. So they built out all those capabilities. rolled it out at SKO to the sales team. And on Monday, the reps went back to selling component manufacturing. The customers, even more importantly, because that's how they knew this company,
00:10:16
brian
the customers were still ordering component manufacturing. And so the question is, this to try to get this down into the level of application, when when you have an existing or a strategy shift, now now that we're moving into design and manufacturing, what do a what does a qualified opportunity look like?
00:10:34
brian
right Because that's different than than what we were selling before.
00:10:36
Chris Vercelli
That's
00:10:37
brian
And we've got to get into the weeds of what what are the hurdles this opportunity needs to meet to raise our win rate, raise deal optimization, raise renewal. and And so, you know,
00:10:50
brian
AI methodology is is jumping directly to that. There's no skills acquisition. It's saying, all right, here's your strategy. Here's how the accounts qualify. The next piece is, so which new stakeholders do we need to be talking to to execute the business strategy of the company?
00:11:04
brian
What KPIs can we now impact that we couldn't impact before? how Now when we're going up against competitors, that competitive analysis has shifted because we're we're we're competing in a different way.
00:11:13
Chris Vercelli
Yeah.
00:11:15
brian
Even discovery, who do we need to be doing discovery with and what is it we need to be getting after to find the opportunities to sell this new solution? And then finally, how how do we package the new solution? How do we configure the the solution itself and the commercial terms. And then how do we get that in front of customers?
00:11:34
brian
That's what AI native sales methodology is all about is saying, what is your strategy? Let's apply it for every rep at every deal at every sales stage.
00:11:43
Chris Vercelli
Okay, so when we talk about that methodology, what you're telling me is that's the genesis of where yours came from. That whole situation, that process.
00:11:53
brian
Yeah.
00:11:54
Chris Vercelli
Okay, how is your customization different?
00:11:54
brian
Yes.
00:11:57
Chris Vercelli
I want to dive a little little deeper into what you said. How is CloseStrong's methodology and customization different to customize that app?
00:12:07
brian
Yeah, it's this to me is so exciting because we there's there's two aspects aspects to what we do. We think of it as two kind of modules. One is the strategy center, which is the brain of the guide who does precision guided selling.
00:12:20
brian
And the other is the closed plan, which is where the brain is is pushing data to the rep to help them execute the company's strategy one deal at a time.
00:12:28
Chris Vercelli
Mm-hmm.
00:12:29
brian
And the strategy center used to be a place where we would go collect data from humans. I'd interview you and your executive team and find out what your strategy was and then translate that into, you know, qualification, stakeholder mapping, you know, solution config, all that, and then put that into the brain of the guides.
00:12:46
brian
I won't get into why because it would take too long, but our view our goal a year and a half ago was have the strategy center create itself, right? using Leveraging AI, of course. And it's taken us 18 months to get there. And I can now literally, within a push of a button, we just did this for a Fortune 500, right?
00:13:03
brian
five hundred And we created the strategy center, what deals should look like at every stage of the deal process. Again, qualifications, titles, stakeholders. And this company rated the data at 87% accurate. So we fully customized.
00:13:19
brian
right? A unique instance for this customer at the 87% level in a matter of minutes that their executives, product, deal desk, VP sales, enablement, they all looked at it and said, wow, you know, this is this is right on. We then interviewed those exacts. We interviewed, Chris, we interviewed the guy the deal desk, I think with your so CRO background, you'll appreciate this. And I And we record the interview and say, okay, what's your greatest frustration when the reps are pushing deals into the deal approval process?
00:13:48
brian
You know, a solution config, commercial terms. what what What frustrates the heck out of you? What do you want them selling? How do you want the solutions configured?
00:13:56
Chris Vercelli
All right.
00:13:57
brian
how do How do you want the commercial terms structured? Record that interview. throw it into our strategy center, which summarizes it and then puts it actually into a prompt.
00:14:07
brian
So when the rap when the when the rep is getting ready to configure the solution, the guide is...
00:14:10
Chris Vercelli
hope
00:14:13
brian
And when that this was so fun when when we shared back. So we we interviewed this gentleman, we threw the recording in there, it went directly into the prompt and his unique instance. And when it was developing solutions, when we went back and showed it to him, he was just like, holy blank, you have just scaled me.
00:14:29
brian
This is a conversation I have 10 times a day.
00:14:29
Chris Vercelli
Yeah. All
00:14:32
brian
And and our AI can now have that conversation 30, 40, 50, 100 times a day. And you know what? If you change your priorities, tell me and we'll update the prompt. So it's that unique instance for this customer based on their strategy.
00:14:46
brian
and And that was just at the solution config stage. But this lives at every stage of the sales cycle.
00:14:52
Chris Vercelli
right. So I bring close strong in. How's the delivery different? What is different with your delivery versus the ones I've used for 30 years?
00:14:56
brian
Yep.
00:15:01
brian
Yeah. So, I mean, first is it's sustained, right? So it's 365, every three sixty five every rap every sales stage right for as many times as they want. so it's I used to tell people when when I ran two day classes, i had to and you know, you've been on the receiving end of this, I had drink to drink through a fire hose, feed this content into this team of 20 for two days because I'm never going to see them again.
00:15:28
Chris Vercelli
That's right.
00:15:29
brian
But when I'm going to see you on maybe, we we don't suggest 100% of deals in the pipe are guided, but let's say I'm going guide you on 50% of your pipe opportunities. I'm going to see you 25, 50, 75 times over the next year.
Transforming Sales Training with AI
00:15:43
brian
right So I can just in time, we think we have training events is just in case you roll them out in an industrialized manner. um But this is this is just in time when you need a Tuesday night, you're sitting home, you're at the stage of qualify.
00:15:58
brian
You can jump in and this guide can can guide you right and then pick up on it and keep the record going.
00:16:01
Chris Vercelli
Right.
00:16:03
brian
So I think that's that's really the biggest piece is You know, what what's more effective, two-day events and hoping people lightly customize two-day events or unbelievably in context, 365, 24-7, every rep, every stage. That's how we're trying to completely redefine how we think about enablement.
00:16:22
brian
there There used to be no choice other than which methodology do I choose. Now there's a choice to say there's an entirely different system of methodology.
00:16:26
Chris Vercelli
right
00:16:30
brian
It's the same lever. It's just an entirely different solution to deliver that.
00:16:33
Chris Vercelli
right Right. and And the team is getting it 365.
00:16:38
brian
Yes.
00:16:38
Chris Vercelli
and remember Before it was just maybe for the first 30 days, they'd act on it.
00:16:43
brian
Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:44
Chris Vercelli
All right. So now couple more questions. How is the deal application different?
00:16:50
brian
yeah Yeah. It goes. it i was talking to a friend of mine who's been running a methodology company for many years, a good friend. And And it's funny because he I was showing him what we're doing. and And it starts out with, I mean, the training, if you want to call it that, is, all right, Chris, what are you selling?
00:17:09
brian
Who are you competing against? What vertical are you in? Is it new renewal? And then it reaches back into the strategy center, into its brain, and it pulls out that data specific to this deal.
00:17:21
brian
the The guide does and has it right in its brain.
00:17:21
Chris Vercelli
All right.
00:17:24
brian
And And then, so the first thing we're gonna do is, okay, cool. I now have all that customized information in my brain. I'm gonna guide you. Let's qualify this thing. here here's Here's what a qualified opportunity looks like.
00:17:36
brian
let Let's go through these six or seven qualifiers. And some of those are even weighted. These two are more important than others. Let's do some analysis of your deal. Okay, the the guide will quickly say, all right, you're 47% qualified.
00:17:50
brian
And in order to get to 80% or 90% qualified, here are the red flags. Here are the risks associated with this deal. Here are the actions, the specific actions, sometimes even specific discovery questions for specific stakeholders to get rid of these red flags and get your deal qualified.
00:18:08
brian
And so that's really the difference. And so I was bringing up my friend in the methodology business and he kept saying, but where's the training? You know, where's the skills acquisition? And I was like, it's immediately anybody in adult learning knows we jump direct to deal and direct to sales stage and direct to application in context of your strategy.
00:18:29
brian
Right. There's no filling in blank forms of saying, here's your qualified criteria. Let's do the analysis of this deal. And that I found this person's head exploding because I kept wanting to know where the training was. I said, this is training in the 21st century. This is it.
00:18:42
Chris Vercelli
all right When we first started this, I mentioned some areas that are were a concern to me. Most important, we would do the methodology. We do the two-day workshop.
00:18:53
Chris Vercelli
They'd have documents that we'd send them home with, blah, blah, blah.
00:18:56
brian
Yep.
00:18:58
Chris Vercelli
My biggest frustration, and I am guilty of it, is how... The coaching and more importantly, the training pull through is different because this is where I fall down.
00:19:06
brian
Yep. Yep.
00:19:10
Chris Vercelli
This is where the reps get complacent, go back to their old ways. We talked about that. I'd really like to understand because this is what would excite me.
00:19:20
brian
So...
00:19:22
brian
So I'm going to start answering that at a reasonably high level. I mentioned this before. So what what percentage of your pipe, if if you are a CRO, that's what I would ask you.
00:19:34
brian
what What percentage of your pipe are you coaching today? We we know the average is 5%. So let's say you and I deem 50% is the correct percentage that we want those guided, right, in context of our strategy.
00:19:39
Chris Vercelli
Yeah.
00:19:47
brian
All right, so 50%. So let's identify what those are for the reps. And then we we start guiding against those.
AI's Role in Frontline Management
00:19:58
brian
And we might look at that 50% and I would ask you, hey, Chris, what of that 50% do you then want double clicked by a frontline manager?
00:20:09
brian
Right.
00:20:10
Chris Vercelli
Right.
00:20:10
brian
du What do you what do you really want? Like coached after after our, you know, we've guided the thing at every sales stage. And let let's say you say it's the top 10%. Right. And then what happens is the The reps are guided and they're they're scored. We're de-risking the deal. We're giving them an action plan.
00:20:27
brian
It's all tied to this deal. We're helping them configure solutions, all of that. The manager can then ask the guide for a deal summary. Like Chris might say, hey, I want i want Brian's GE deal.
00:20:40
brian
And you get a nice one-page deal summary. and And a friend of mine, Gary, who works at Sitecore, I was showing him this and he said, man, I could three to five X the quality of my one-on-ones if I had this.
00:20:53
Chris Vercelli
Right.
00:20:53
brian
He's like, this deal summary is all the basic crap that I spend 50% on my one-on-one downloading. And and you you've already done it for me.
00:21:01
Chris Vercelli
right
00:21:03
brian
So he said, I could quality and quantity. I could three to five X my one-on-one. So the p the pull through happens again immediately. We start with live opportunities at every stage. There there is no skill acquisition to stage per se. It goes directly.
00:21:19
brian
Let's apply my strategy to these deals, one deal at a time. So the pull through starts by the AI. And then the question is, again, with you as a CRO, how much do you want your frontline managers double clicking? And one of the things we're finding out is we we've even got to skill up the frontline managers on how do you coach against a deal that in essence is pre-coached, right? Because they're used to like zero basing everything. So there's a little onboarding with managers to say, this is going to be a lot lot easier for you and you're going to be able to do a lot more frontline
Benefits of Adopting AI-native Methodology
00:21:51
brian
coaching.
00:21:52
Chris Vercelli
Well, that's going to be exciting because that's really where, in my pi opinion, the laziness comes in.
00:21:58
brian
Yeah.
00:21:58
Chris Vercelli
So you've just taken that and de-risked that for me. And as you said, I'm going to be able to have a more productive pipeline review, deal review, all the way down to the rep level, management level, et cetera.
00:22:13
Chris Vercelli
I have to tell you, Brian, this is exciting. I've used all the old methodologies for 30 years, and it's very refreshing to have somebody have thought through this in a different light using new technology like ai
00:22:27
brian
Thank you. I appreciate it. And that's that's why we call it you know AI Native, because we built we built it. And by the way, we built the methodology that that we were talking to this one tech company, and they said, wow, you have a point of view.
00:22:41
brian
Your guide has a point of view, which I suppose is our methodology about about what gets deals closed.
00:22:43
Chris Vercelli
Yes.
00:22:46
brian
And that comes from 20 years of deal coaching all over the world and ah and our other practice. So about the only thing we pulled over is what do we know at each stage of the deal cycle?
00:22:58
brian
what do we What do we have to do to de-risk the deal? What do we have to know? What data from our company do our reps need to know and owner in order to be able to get deal closed? And we built that. ground up, right? So that that was, there there was no band-aids. It was a complete zero base blank slate after interviewing 65 execs and saying, what what do you need?
00:23:19
brian
And so, yeah, we're pretty excited too. I think it's, ah it's a you and I chatted about this the other day. I don't think there's been a new sales methodology in 20 years, probably. ah some Some of the existing ones have tweaked theirs a little bit, but there certainly hasn't been an entirely new system from customization to delivery to pull through.
00:23:28
Chris Vercelli
Right.
00:23:35
Chris Vercelli
Great.
00:23:36
brian
It's all built on variations of the old school.
00:23:36
Chris Vercelli
I agree.
00:23:39
brian
So yeah, I appreciate the the prep you did for this and your time. You've been super generous and I love being on the receiving end of being interviewed by you.
00:23:49
brian
So thank you so much.
00:23:51
Chris Vercelli
It's a pleasure. Thank you, Brian.