How do you maintain the importance of personal relationships in marketing campaigns? Bridging the gap between marketing and sales, Carole Mahoney shares with us ways to create a foundation of relationships that create true value. We’ll discuss how personalization is essential for creating a lasting connection with customers and increasing engagement rates. Marketers need to gather data on customer behavior to personalize campaigns effectively, and often sales and marketing can work together to share these insights. Shifting your mindset for effectively personalizing marketing campaigns, such as segmenting customers based on their interests and behavior, creating targeted messaging, and offering personalized promotions. We’ll discuss the role of technology in personalization, such as AI and machine learning algorithms that can analyze customer data to provide more personalized recommendations. Understanding PLG and sales-led growth, and where they overlap. Ultimately, personalization is not only crucial for driving sales and ROI but also for building trust and loyalty with customers.
The world is changing so fast and customers’ patience is wearing thin, which means sales and marketing need to stick together!
That’s why we invited a Sales Coach for the Harvard Entrepreneurial MBA Program to share her tips on integrating sales and marketing while making it all about our buyers, not about us.
In this episode of Markigy Podcast, your host Leanne Dow-Weimer welcomes Carole Mahoney, Founder of Unbound Growth, to explain the fundamentals of buyer-first sales and marketing. Carole offers her candid advice on how to change your mindset around sales so you can have better conversations and sell with your buyers, instead of selling to/at them.
In this episode, we discuss:
Remember, none of these tactics are a silver bullet. You still have to do the work to understand your customers and find a solution that works for their unique situation.
Meet the Host:
Leanne Dow-Weimer, Founder & Host of Markigy Podcast https://www.linkedin.com/in/leannedow
Meet the Guest:
Carole Mahoney, Founder of Unbound Growth, expert sales coach
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolemahoney
Links to content here:
Visit Unbound Growth’s website: https://www.unboundgrowth.com
Pre-order Carole’s book, Buyer First: Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling: https://carolemahoney.com/books
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Markigy: The Science of Marketing Strategy in your favorite podcast player.
This episode was produced and brought to you by Reignite Media.
Full Audio Edited
[00:00:00] [00:00:05] Welcome to Markigy the Science of Marketing Strategy, a biweekly [00:00:10] podcast where all the cool marketers discuss their favorite marketing strategies. Study by study. On this [00:00:15] show, we feature marketing risk takers who believe long-term wins for the customer. [00:00:20] Equal long-term wins for the business. Two, how human [00:00:25] led marketing, the combination of where science, creativity, and strategy meet, [00:00:30] or as we also like to call it Markigy.
Let's break down the marketing [00:00:35] trends, myths, and methodologies together. I'm your host, Leanne Dow-Weimer. Let's [00:00:40] go. Good morning. Welcome to Margi, and [00:00:45] today we have joining us is Carole Mahoney. She's an author, she's a public speaker. [00:00:50] She's amazing and she has so many of these wonderful ideas that I'm so [00:00:55] excited that she's gonna share her message with us today.
Carole, will you tell us more about you? Well first [00:01:00] thank you so much for having me, Leanne. As you mentioned, my name's Carole Mahoney. I am the [00:01:05] founder of Unbound Growth. And Unbound Growth is a sales coaching [00:01:10] consultancy and training firm. And the premise of it is that we believe that growth is [00:01:15] possible for anyone personal and professional, and that there are no limits to it.
So hence [00:01:20] the name Unbound. And you know, the irony of it all is that I [00:01:25] started off my career and my education in marketing and made the conversion to the dark [00:01:30] side of sales, but I still have a marketing head, even though I have a sales heart. And you [00:01:35] know, I really look at sales and marketing as this collaboration and integration.
There's [00:01:40] this, the idea of like silos being between the two of 'em, it, for me has never been the case. [00:01:45] I'm really excited to kind of share, you know, where I see the crossover in sales and marketing, but [00:01:50] as well as how they can actually benefit each other in a more productive and buyer first [00:01:55] way. I love it.
I mean, there's so much to, to kind of unpack there [00:02:00] because I came from the reverse. I started off in sales and then I moved to marketing. [00:02:05] And so let's, let's just kind of get to the meat of it. Like how do you [00:02:10] define where marketing starts and stops and where sales starts [00:02:15] and stops? I look at the, the where the stop and starts is in terms [00:02:20] of who is it that you're talking to?
So when I think of marketing, I think of [00:02:25] marketing as a one to many, right? As a, whether it's one to 10 or one to a thousand, or one [00:02:30] to a million, it's one message that's being spread throughout, and [00:02:35] it's also something that's a. Like higher volume, but lower touch type of a thing. [00:02:40] So, but whereas sales, and also to preface with that, that when you look at the way that [00:02:45] people buy today, the majority of the responsibility is on marketing because they're doing their [00:02:50] research online.
They're going onto your website before they ever even talk to a salesperson. And [00:02:55] that's whether you're buying something on Amazon or something for your business, or even if when it's an enterprise [00:03:00] solution, people are going online to learn. And so it is almost like you can't [00:03:05] necessarily see the person who you're talking to, but you have to be able to know them enough to be able [00:03:10] to appeal to what's going on in their world and make them feel that you understand what's going on with them [00:03:15] before they're ever gonna be willing to talk to a salesperson.
And then, you know, the start and stop for [00:03:20] sales is, When they're ready to have that conversation with a human being and not a chat bot or your [00:03:25] website or you know, G2 reviews, but they actually wanna talk to a human being that [00:03:30] can help them put context into all of the things that they've learned about their problem or the possible [00:03:35] solutions that are out there.
And even though the majority of the buying journey [00:03:40] happens in digital channels or without a salesperson involved because there's so much [00:03:45] information available, the challenge today for buyers isn't a lack of information. It's a lack of [00:03:50] context as to how does this apply to me? And that's when we really wanna human being to be able to help [00:03:55] us to make decisions based on what we know now.
And obviously, I do [00:04:00] the work I do because that's severely lacking in a lot of sales conversations today. But for me, I [00:04:05] really do look at the integration between sales and marketing, where there's that crossover, if you [00:04:10] will, is that when sales is having these one-on-one conversations with individuals who've done [00:04:15] this research and maybe they're frustrated that they're not finding the answers that they're looking for, or the [00:04:20] questions that they're trying to answer aren't readily available for information out there, that's information [00:04:25] that sales can feed back to marketing to make even more quality content for them to be able [00:04:30] to help people to understand where they need to go next in their decision.
Absolutely. I [00:04:35] love it. When you and I first met you were coaching us on these sales methods [00:04:40] and so, you know, it's really easy for me to like skip to the, the end and [00:04:45] I don't wanna do that cause I wanna share all the insights with everyone listening [00:04:50] now, there was kind of part of the challenge was [00:04:55] understanding where to start or, or what framework to kind of think about it as.[00:05:00]
Can you tell me a little bit more about. So the thing of the question that a [00:05:05] lot of people have today in sales is, where do I start with my buyers? Right? We have, [00:05:10] you know, we have the product led growth movement where we are leading with product information online [00:05:15] so that people can help to understand and see what the actual solution looks like.
And you know, that's what they [00:05:20] wanna know is how does it work, what does it cost? Those types of things. And then we also have this motion like [00:05:25] this, the sales led growth, where we're really focusing on understanding and [00:05:30] diagnosing and doing these types of things. And it's almost, it's like, like people think it's an either or.
You're either [00:05:35] product led growth or you're sales led growth. And it's not an either or situation. And really [00:05:40] understanding where your buyers are really is as simple as asking a couple of question. [00:05:45] So, you know, if someone's coming into your website and they filled out a particular form, you know, [00:05:50] the analytics don't always tell you exactly what keyword they search for or how they got there.
[00:05:55] So ask those questions, you know, how did you become aware of this particular problem? What research have you [00:06:00] already done? How did you hear about us? What did you hear when you heard about us? So that you can get [00:06:05] an understanding and a framework of where they're at in their mindset and where they've already [00:06:10] taken those steps and understanding what is it that they've already learned so that you're not repeating the same [00:06:15] information that they've already heard and you can actually help fill in some of the gaps in their knowledge or things that they [00:06:20] might not know that they don't know.
Oh my God. I can't tell you how often I've [00:06:25] been on the recipient side of a call with a vendor [00:06:30] possibility, and I already know what they're spending our first 20 minutes telling me. And we could have used that [00:06:35] time so much more valuably. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a simple question like what do you wanna learn on this [00:06:40] conversation in the next 30 minutes?
Or what are you hoping to be able to do by the end of this [00:06:45] conversation? What are your goals, Mr. And Mrs. Byer, as to what it is that you would like to get [00:06:50] done? Because it's not about us, it is about them. Right. And their own internal processes. [00:06:55] Like you don't start on the call knowing if the person you're talking to is [00:07:00] necessarily.
1 0 5, 1 0 1, 1 0 30. I [00:07:05] mean it, it's really ambiguous, which is why preparation for those calls is so important. Like if, if someone puts [00:07:10] a meeting on my calendar, I wanna email them a day or two beforehand and ask, Hey, see that we're seeing, [00:07:15] you know, talking Friday at three o'clock. Yeah. Go Those questions.
How did you hear about us? [00:07:20] Should I be thanking someone for sending you our way? What is it that you'd like to get done on this [00:07:25] conversation that's coming up? You know, what are the most important things out of a list of things? Like you can do that work before you [00:07:30] ever get into the conversation. And then for the love of God, go to their website, go to their LinkedIn [00:07:35] profile, you know, see what articles they've written.
Just get an understanding of how they think, like, This is [00:07:40] like the super easiest thing to do is to go onto someone's LinkedIn profile and then look at what are [00:07:45] the recommendations that they've given to other people. That'll give you a pretty clear sense on the kind of values [00:07:50] and things that are important to them with the people that they work with.
You know, if it says something like, has great attention to [00:07:55] detail and I love the way that she was, you know, one step ahead of everything that tells you, you make sure you [00:08:00] have your ducks in a row before you start engaging with this person, cuz they're not gonna put up with fluffing. [00:08:05] Right. Or the opposite.
Maybe they say something about how they love that someone could adapt to changing [00:08:10] circumstances. Exactly. That's something you should know as a salesperson. Yeah. Or that they, you [00:08:15] know, I loved working with this person. I would highly recommend them because they were engaging and, you know, [00:08:20] conscientious of everybody on the team and made everyone feel welcome included.
These are all the clues that [00:08:25] give you like what's important to them in a conversation or in a relationship with someone, and that you [00:08:30] can adjust your own style accordingly so that you can better relate to them. [00:08:35] Absolutely. And then because as a marketer that is previously [00:08:40] a salesperson, I love stealing sales techniques.
I'm putting it into [00:08:45] marketing. I know like we're not reinventing the wheel here, but if you are lacking in [00:08:50] qualitative data about your potential customers and you do exactly what you just [00:08:55] said, All of a sudden you can kind of start to piece together some tea [00:09:00] leaves still tea leaves, but you know, you can, you can still guess some things that you might wanna [00:09:05] test out in your content.
Yeah, and I think that's the key and the, the [00:09:10] commonality that I see in sales and marketing is the willingness and openness to [00:09:15] test. Experiment, reiterate, refine, and continue to do that over and over [00:09:20] again because the reality is nothing stays the same. Buyer behaviors are still rapidly changing and will [00:09:25] continue to change rapidly.
I mean, you know, first it was the internet, then it was SaaS software. [00:09:30] Now it's artificial intelligence. So our world is only changing at a faster rate. [00:09:35] So the idea that what we did yesterday is gonna work here, I don't know how anyone can still [00:09:40] think that way and. I would wish that they wouldn't , [00:09:45] you know, and, and I always bring up the, the old stereotype [00:09:50] of sales and marketing being the very heavy handed like hard sales tactics.[00:09:55]
And thankfully that is not how things usually work [00:10:00] now. And when people start to sense that you're very sharky about your marketing [00:10:05] or your sales, they back off and they, they run. Yes, exactly. [00:10:10] And you know, on this this vein, I do a lot of coaching calls where sellers are like, I just need to [00:10:15] get this meeting, I need to get this deal.
And it's almost the same with marketing. Like we wanna, [00:10:20] we wanna get everything all out there so that it's all front and center and present. But really you're just trying to get people [00:10:25] to engage first of all. Because if you can't get them to respond and you can't get the to engage, you're not gonna get [00:10:30] any further than that.
So make that your goal to. Engaging and communicating. [00:10:35] Not get the meeting, get the deal, get the next step in. It's a shift in mindset for. [00:10:40] Yeah. I mean, and they are mutually exclusive, right? Because the more that you [00:10:45] build that first relationship, the more likely you are to end up having a longer [00:10:50] term relationship.
Right? And that's, that's one of my favorite metrics is lifetime value, right? [00:10:55] Because if people are churning in there, if you did the heavy-handed tactics, And let's say you [00:11:00] acquired people and then they just burn. They jump, they're, they're turning, they're like, they're [00:11:05] not just turning, they're turning angrily,
Then you've got it. Credit is never done. [00:11:10] Happily. Usually. Yeah. . Well, I mean, there's cases where you just lost to a different competitor [00:11:15] because maybe budget, maybe preference, maybe needs shifted. [00:11:20] You know, for example, if someone starts off with one C r m and then they outgrow, its [00:11:25] capabil. You know, and they, they go with more of an enterprise level.
One that kind of churn [00:11:30] is more friendly, you know, it's more neutral versus someone who [00:11:35] desperately needs your product but just can't stand you because you set the wrong [00:11:40] expectations, you didn't treat them right. and they just didn't get what they wanted or needed [00:11:45] from the relationship. Yeah. Sorry.
That's my soapbox, right? . [00:11:50] Well, when you know, an interesting thing about churn, I actually, I wrote about in this, in [00:11:55] my book that's coming up in September, is a lot of people assume that [00:12:00] churn happens after the sale. When they get into onboarding and customer [00:12:05] success. It's a customer success issue. It's a customer experience issue.
When we are facing churn [00:12:10] in our. And Mark Robers, who was the C R O at HubSpot in the early days, is [00:12:15] now a senior lecturer at Harvard. He had done a regression analysis on a churn issue that was [00:12:20] happening at HubSpot in the early days, and on the podcast that he gave around this, he just, he [00:12:25] talked about how his, you know, everybody thought that the reason for the churn was due to the customer success rep [00:12:30] rep.
You know, there was some issue going on in onboarding and implementation that caused them to turn later [00:12:35] on. And the thing that was interesting is that he found. When he went and looked at where it was coming from, it didn't [00:12:40] tie back to anything happening in customer success, but he was seeing patterns happening with [00:12:45] who the salesperson that sold them and how they were sold to begin with.
So it was actually the [00:12:50] buying experience that then later caused churn. And it was when they started [00:12:55] changing the mindset behind sales from like, do whatever it takes to get the deal, to do whatever it takes to [00:13:00] do what's right by the buyer and the customer, and setting the proper expectations in the sale.[00:13:05]
Then churn went down as a result. So, you know, and there's other data that's out [00:13:10] there from, you know, other companies that have examined churn in, in sast tech companies, for example. And [00:13:15] you know, one of the things that they found is that your likelihood of churn rises exponentially. The [00:13:20] bigger the discount that you gave them in the sales process.
And if you're giving a discount in the sales process because you're [00:13:25] not able to sell it under any other way, then you're not doing your job in. Yeah, you have [00:13:30] not established the value in my wall of books. There's a wonderful book about luxury [00:13:35] strategy. Mm-hmm. , and one of the things that in like the economies of luxury is [00:13:40] that people will accept flaws and pay a higher price for a flawed [00:13:45] but transparent product.
Mm-hmm. , they're okay with it not being perfect. [00:13:50] They just wanna know what it is that the problem's gonna. and then they just choose to accept [00:13:55] it and And pay whatever they're gonna pay anyways. Exactly. And so you know what you're talking [00:14:00] about with the sales process. I totally see it. Discounts are not discount, need to [00:14:05] die.
They just need to die. . I mean, they're great for me if I wanna [00:14:10] go shopping on like pre day weekend or the 4th of July, but they're not great as a [00:14:15] long-term strategy to build value with other. No, it, it's, it's, it's a [00:14:20] salesperson's, lazy way to create a false sense of urgency because they haven't uncovered a compelling [00:14:25] reason for them to make a change and a compelling reason for their solution to make that change [00:14:30] happen.
You know, you, it's interesting you said with the luxury brands that they're willing to accept flaws as long as [00:14:35] they know about them and they're transparent about them. Some of the research that I came across when I was writing [00:14:40] buyer first was that there's something called the IKEA effect. Have you ever heard of this?
[00:14:45] Please explain it to me just in case. So Ikea, the store where you go and you buy something and then you get to put it [00:14:50] together yourself. So some Harvard researchers wanted to find out would people be willing to [00:14:55] pay more for something that they'd put together themselves versus something that was put together for them by an expert.[00:15:00]
And what they were surprised to find is that people were willing to pay much more for something [00:15:05] that they had a collaboration in creating. Like they had done something, they had put some skin in the game [00:15:10] themselves and some effort, and they felt that that had more value than the thing that was put [00:15:15] together for them by an expert.
which tells me that, and you know, there's additional research and studies that [00:15:20] show that people want to feel like they're being collaborated with, not marketed to or [00:15:25] at, or sold to an ad. You know, you think about all of the things that happened today with [00:15:30] even subscription brands like my haircare. I use pros, haircare in, I go [00:15:35] online and I create a quiz and I then take, take the information from that quiz and the [00:15:40] information that I've given them, and then they create this profile for my hair, which is looking pretty fabulous.[00:15:45]
And then that collaboration helps me to put more value on their product because it's [00:15:50] specially designed for me. This is where I see sales and marketing going in the future. I love it. [00:15:55] Absolutely. Because Wayne, it turns into an us. Instead of a me versus [00:16:00] you. Right. You completely changed what's the scenario and and who, where [00:16:05] the affinity lies.
Yeah. Yeah. And maybe the stickiness of the relationship too, [00:16:10] right? Yeah. So now you mentioned product led growth versus sales [00:16:15] led growth. Yeah. Where do you see the commonalities and kind of that middle, if we [00:16:20] were to put 'em in a Venn diagram? So the commonalities that I see between the two is [00:16:25] that we both require you to meet the buyer where they are in their [00:16:30] process, whether it's in the sales led growth side.
So the mistakes that I see in the [00:16:35] sales led growth side is that we're gonna make everybody go through our checklist of discovery questions. [00:16:40] Then we're gonna go to our next phase of demo, where we're gonna show you all of these particular features. Doesn't really matter what those questions were. [00:16:45] We're gonna still do the same demo, and then we're gonna then go into our qualification and bant and do [00:16:50] you have the budget and the authority and the timeline to make this happen?
And we go through all of our steps in the [00:16:55] process. And then on the other side of it, when you're talking about product led growth, the issues that [00:17:00] I sometimes see with that is that there isn't a lot of challenging or question asking to [00:17:05] really uncover what's going on. It's more of a, okay, you wanna see this, here's that.
Now what's next? Now what's [00:17:10] next? And instead it's, you know, either I'm gonna lead it or they're gonna lead it. And the [00:17:15] intersection, I think, is that when. Able to find out where the buyers are at and where they're trying to [00:17:20] get to, and understanding the gap in between there and why that gap is a compelling reason [00:17:25] for them to make the jump that we combine the sales led and the product led growth [00:17:30] to, you know, for example, the way that I coach and train my sellers and leaders in how to run a [00:17:35] sales process like this is to understand, all right, what are three most important things that you wanna uncover [00:17:40] on this particular conversation?
Why are those three. Important. What's happening [00:17:45] now that you don't think that this is working? What have you tried? What's worked? What hasn't worked? What's the impact of [00:17:50] that? Now, what if you could do it this way and you give them a piece or a snapshot of how this [00:17:55] solution might particularly fit within their scheme of things?
It's a combination [00:18:00] of leading with sales growth, understanding questions, but then giving them the [00:18:05] product information they need to satisfy that particular requirement so that they can get in their [00:18:10] mind, okay, we are going in the right direction with this. This is something that can solve the immediate issues and problems that [00:18:15] we have Now, it's worth exploring more.
It's not one or the other. It's a combination of the two, [00:18:20] which is how most of things are in. I love it. And, and as you're saying this, what what [00:18:25] goes in my hamster wheel is yes. Okay. And so now you get that on a gong recording, [00:18:30] and then you put out content that, or you use those [00:18:35] keyword or you, you know, create social media or events or, you know, you [00:18:40] market it up using that.
Information of what the people, a wider, you know mm-hmm. , [00:18:45] statistically significant amount of people are there looking for. Also, to make it easier [00:18:50] for the sales teams to just be prepared with those [00:18:55] answers. Yes, be prepared with those answers and then be prepared with the [00:19:00] questions. Is it that you need to ask to get a further understanding of what's really going on?
It's again, that [00:19:05] one of those things that's like you either ask all the questions or you give all the answers. It's always a combination of the two because [00:19:10] you can't give an answer sometimes if you don't fully understand the issue that's going on, [00:19:15] which is why. Sequential open-ended questions to clarify that before you start [00:19:20] pitching and prescribing and diagnosing.
You know, there's nothing worse than waiting [00:19:25] 45 minutes in a doctor's office after they have all of your medical records to then go in to give them all that information [00:19:30] again, to spend 10 minutes with them to tell you what's wrong with you. And they have absolutely no idea other than what they see on a [00:19:35] chart.
And that's how happens in sales and marketing sometimes today, is that, you know, we do all of [00:19:40] this work in marketing to get all of these messages out there, assume that the buyer understands it and [00:19:45] goes with that. And then we get 'em in the room and it's 10 minutes of, tell me this, tell me this, tell me this.
Okay, here's [00:19:50] your problem. You should buy this. Not much of an experience. No, no. It feels [00:19:55] still, I'm just, it feels so cringy, right? Like no one, no one wants to [00:20:00] be patronized or condescend to, and especially, You [00:20:05] know, in the BDB setting, not that we all have the luxury of [00:20:10] just wasting time being sold to for no reason, but like time is of the [00:20:15] essence, right?
Like if you're collecting more than two people or even two people [00:20:20] sometimes into one meeting, it's just, you just gotta finesse it [00:20:25] differently. , yes. But you know, so one of the things that you mentioned was [00:20:30] questions. And I think that Good question asking. Is a great way [00:20:35] to signal understanding and connect.
What are your, some of your favorite [00:20:40] questions that you've kind of found powerful? . So when I, I'm, I'm [00:20:45] laughing because I'm thinking back to when I first started doing, you know, sort of my own transformation in sales and [00:20:50] thinking differently about sales and acting differently in sales and. You know, one of the things that I [00:20:55] would, I would always, I started asking questions and practicing on everybody around me, not just in my [00:21:00] sales conversations.
And of course, you know, I work from home and my husband is [00:21:05] probably the only actual physical person that I see on any given week sometimes. So he was the one I [00:21:10] practiced on all the time. And so it used to be that he would come home from work and he would complain about all of [00:21:15] these issues that were happening at work.
And I'm a management consultant, so of course I have advice to give. And I'd start [00:21:20] telling him, well, you should do this and you should do that. And you know, that guy's crazy and you should say this. And his [00:21:25] reaction was, you have no idea what it's like there. You don't know what this guy is like, that's never going to work [00:21:30] here.
You know, can we just, you know, forget it and move on now? And he'd get all upset with me and I would get [00:21:35] upset with him because like, no, you don't think my advice is valuable, but. When I started asking [00:21:40] questions like, has it always been this way? Why do you think that this is still continuing to happen?[00:21:45]
What do you think's going on in their mind when these particular things happen? And these [00:21:50] kinds of simple open-ended, you know, who, what, where, why, how kinds of [00:21:55] questions that are simple, that are non-threatening, they're uncomplicated, can [00:22:00] really easily get people to open up. And when I started practicing asking these kinds of [00:22:05] questions on my husband, All of a sudden our conversations completely changed.
He went from being [00:22:10] annoyed that I was giving him advice to, I had never thought of it that way. Maybe I could [00:22:15] try this, and he started coming up with new ideas and thinking about things differently. There's some [00:22:20] research that came out from Hartford and Stanford University a couple of years ago that talks about these [00:22:25] kinds of open-ended sequential questions that when.
These kinds of questions. When we get [00:22:30] people to share what they think and how they've gone about it and what your opinions and [00:22:35] thoughts are on a particular thing. The person who's being asked the question suddenly, like, [00:22:40] who of us doesn't like to talk about the things we think about? We love talking about what we think.
Right? Like that's what [00:22:45] podcasting's all about. And why I love being on podcasts because it releases this dopamine in my brain, which [00:22:50] is, you know, creates this pleasure for me and a reward system for me. And what [00:22:55] happens is that at the same place in our brain where this dopamine is taking place, is also the same place [00:23:00] in our brain where we form relationship attachments, where we start to build trust with people.
So [00:23:05] as a salesperson or a marketer, when you're asking these kind of open-ended sequential [00:23:10] clarification questions to understand more, you're actually in the process of building trust with [00:23:15] someone. . But the other thing that happens is that the person who's being asked the questions starts to see [00:23:20] things differently.
Their perspectives on their problems, their perspectives on their solutions and [00:23:25] options to solve those problems start to change. It's almost like that, you know, you've had that experience when [00:23:30] you've talked with your friends and you're struggling with an issue and you just start talking out loud about it.
And even though they [00:23:35] haven't said anything, by the end of you, you figured out what it is that you wanna. . My husband does that all the time. He's like, do [00:23:40] I even need to be involved in this conversation or can I just like step over here ? But that's what's [00:23:45] happening is, is as we're talking these things out with other people and voicing the things that are in our [00:23:50] head, suddenly we start to see them more clearly.
And when we ask these kinds of questions, [00:23:55] we're doing that with our buyers and that helps us to then move conversations and decisions. [00:24:00] Absolutely, and I don't want to come across as sounding [00:24:05] back to that hard sales way, but letting people come up with your solution [00:24:10] as their own idea is superior than telling them [00:24:15] that it's the right way to do it.
Yes. And. You know, maybe this is just my [00:24:20] perspective as, you know, a partner or you know, in family life or in different places, [00:24:25] but it works very, very effectively to do the sequential [00:24:30] questioning and be like, you know, well, what do you wanna do today? Do you wanna do [00:24:35] something active? Do you want to maybe go to this one or this [00:24:40] one?
Present two choices. And then Toda, you have one of the two choices you wanted. [00:24:45] And I mean, it, it works in my life. I'm not sure if that's necessarily the sales approach you wanna go with, but [00:24:50] in a way it is what we do when we have the three levels of psychological pricing. [00:24:55] Do you want the basic skin and bones one?
Do you want this one that you're probably gonna pick? Or [00:25:00] do you want the extra fancy one, which you know, if we're lucky, you'll pick. I mean, we, we [00:25:05] rely on the narrowing of decisions and then coupled with letting people think [00:25:10] it's their, their own idea by the questioning it, it does feel better for everybody [00:25:15] involved.
It does well, and the person who's asking the question, the thing that happens in our minds when we ask [00:25:20] these kinds of questions. And we're fully in the present moment, and we're actively listening and we're controlling [00:25:25] our emotions so we're not all wrapped up in our heads, so we can actually hear clearly when we ask these kinds of [00:25:30] questions.
It helps us to better understand where they are, where they're coming from, where they're trying to [00:25:35] get to. So it actually helps us to build our empathy with them. This is the power of asking [00:25:40] good open-ended, sequential questions. And it's not an interrogation, but it's just a [00:25:45] natural kind of a conversation, one that's built out of curiosity.
Yeah, definitely. And, and [00:25:50] it builds rapport. So I've gotta ask, is there ever a time when [00:25:55] this type of strategy or, or mindset is a bad fit? There [00:26:00] are times where, say for example, you're dealing with a high level executive, you know [00:26:05] there's data from Gong that suggests that, you know, on average you wanna ask between 10 to [00:26:10] 14 questions in a discovery call to really have a chance of winning that deal later on.
But when [00:26:15] you're talking with executives, you wanna reduce the number of questions that you're asking because they're tolerance for being asked [00:26:20] questions is going to be relatively. And are lower. And the other part of it is that if [00:26:25] you think about it, when you are going in, you're talking with an executive.
At that point you've probably talked [00:26:30] with their team, you've talked with the other people that are stakeholders on their team. So you should have a [00:26:35] sense of what's going on without having to ask them all those same types of clarification questions. [00:26:40] So instead, what you wanna then be able to do is create very targeted.
That [00:26:45] share, this is the information, this is what we've discovered, and then add some type of an [00:26:50] insight that maybe they didn't fully realize or hadn't considered before. And then ask your targeted [00:26:55] diagnostic question about, you know, how do you see this playing out in your team, or the impact that that [00:27:00] would have, and limiting that number of questions and creating that targeted question [00:27:05] based on the information that you've learned before.
The other times in places where this doesn't really work is [00:27:10] where. You know, it requires someone on the other end to be open-minded to, and to sharing that [00:27:15] information. I have a client or a couple of clients with mine. One, her, her name was Ellie. [00:27:20] And Ellie is, she's a very type A person. She's, you know, in the Israeli army and military.
[00:27:25] And she's just like, do, do, do. This is how we're gonna get it done. And when I first started working with her, She [00:27:30] struggled with like the small talk and the building of rapport and those kinds of things. And you know, so [00:27:35] she was meeting with someone and she was trying to, you know, start to ask these kinds of open-ended [00:27:40] questions and she was getting all of these one word answers.
And you know, which was really unusual because she had talked with this [00:27:45] gentleman before and he was really kind of open and warm, and now they're face-to-face and she's asking [00:27:50] questions again and he's like one word answers. And he seems very cur. And [00:27:55] she was in enough state of mind and presence of mind to, to think, all right, something is up here and [00:28:00] I'm not gonna just ignore, ignored, and plow through.
And so she stopped with her questions and she's like, how are [00:28:05] you feeling? and he just looked at her. He's like, you know, my plane was late. There's an issue at [00:28:10] home going on with my kid. The talk that I was supposed to give has just been moved up by two hours, and I'm [00:28:15] scrambling to figure out what it is that I'm gonna do, and I'm a little stressed right now.
And she had the wherewithal in the [00:28:20] frame of mind to understand that now is not the time to be asking these questions. And you know, [00:28:25] that takes a certain level of emotional control and being present in the moment and having empathy for [00:28:30] someone to say, let's reschedule this for later, because you're not in the frame of mind right now [00:28:35] where you're gonna be able to be open to answering these kinds of questions.
So that's when it's not a good [00:28:40] idea to just keep plowing ahead with these kinds of questions. You have to have an idea of what's going on with the person on the [00:28:45] other side before you start diving. Absolutely. I mean, that emotional [00:28:50] intelligence is not like you can't even, you cannot [00:28:55] overestimate its power because you know that this is how we beat the bots, right?
This is how we're going to beat AI [00:29:00] in the bots, is that we still crave and need that human connection and until we are [00:29:05] comfortable as a species with machines making life or death decisions for us, [00:29:10] we're still gonna want that human connection. And so we have to get out of. Do [00:29:15] this, do that. This is the step and this is the question.
And we have to be human. It seems [00:29:20] so simple, but so difficult. Well, we're, we're so complicated as humans and [00:29:25] that's what, what I think the fun part is, is just figuring people out cuz people, yeah. [00:29:30] Yeah. There's. There's rules, but there's not, like everyone's human, [00:29:35] human, I, I'll never get bored of studying them.
Love it. So, [00:29:40] oh yeah, like we're, AI is a whole new, whole new ball game, but it's also [00:29:45] about doing non-scalable things. So there's things that scale and then there's things [00:29:50] that should scale and then that there's things that shouldn't scale and you should not try [00:29:55] to do it in mass and you should give it the attention it.[00:30:00]
I feel like we're talking about automation sequences and workflows right now. ? [00:30:05] A little bit. A little bit. All of it. Some of it, you know, there's, there's a time and [00:30:10] place for an automation sequence and it's not all bad and it's not all [00:30:15] good. It's not, yeah. None of these strategies are, tactics are gonna be a silver bullet.
[00:30:20] They have to be used at discretion. Know your people. So, [00:30:25] you know, coming back to that, where do you think the future is going with [00:30:30] marketing and sales? and where do you think it should go in comparison? So where I [00:30:35] think it's going, I think right now we are at a place that we were back in [00:30:40] 1995 to 2003, where the internet just kind of, you know, [00:30:45] 93 was really the first year that the internet was commercially available for people the same year I graduated high school.[00:30:50]
And yes, I know managing myself. But, and, and if you think about back then, it was this big [00:30:55] rush, right? Like everybody was rushing to be, you know, online and, and do all of these things [00:31:00] online and the web is gonna change everything and the world is gonna burn and, you know, all of that. [00:31:05] Then we had the big internet crash where the bubbles happened and everybody kind of took a step back for a [00:31:10] little bit from it and then started to think about it like, You know, it wasn't the gold rush anymore.
Now it's like, okay, [00:31:15] what? How are we gonna actually settle down with this thing? What are the actual sort of slower impacts that we're gonna [00:31:20] see? And that's where we are right now, again, with ai. So where I think it's going right now, I think the direction [00:31:25] that it's going is that everybody's gonna rush to get onto the ship called ai, [00:31:30] AI Titanic.
And we're all gonna like make it across the sea and this great big, huge [00:31:35] thing. Titanic is gonna sink, and there's gonna be some people that make it. And what's gonna [00:31:40] happen is that when they're going to then look at how do we actually put this into the context of the [00:31:45] real value that it has? And you know, instead of it being the gold rush and you know, [00:31:50] everybody's rushing to it, it's gonna be a more thoughtful approach to it.
How is it going to help us [00:31:55] enhance the human experience, not replace the human? And I think that [00:32:00] a lot of people, like I just got an email earlier today about how online is, or how AI is gonna [00:32:05] replace this and why it's such a great big risk to this, this, and that. And, and I just kind of, all right, [00:32:10] go ahead and, you know, lock yourselves in the cave somewhere and freak out about it.
I'm just go waiting to kind [00:32:15] of see how it happens. I'm trying it out and testing it out in certain ways and places and seeing how can [00:32:20] it help me to be more effective in my human activity. So, you know, if AI can help me to. [00:32:25] First draft of something and do some research for me so that I can have, instead of a blank page, [00:32:30] I have a starter that I can then add my human, uh, intellect and capital and empathy [00:32:35] to.
I'm all for that if it helps me to have a better connection with someone [00:32:40] else, but I don't see it as this thing that's gonna replace sales and it's gonna replace people [00:32:45] writing and it's gonna wipe it all out. Is it gonna change it? Sure. But it's figuring out how it's gonna [00:32:50] change it to help you to have a.
Process for yourself and experience with others. That's gonna be [00:32:55] the real place where I think it should be ending up to go. And that's kind of how I see it's going to be, is that [00:33:00] those that just, you know, plug it into the AI and have it, write it out for them and then send it off [00:33:05] somewhere. You know, those are the ones that are, you know, it's like when SEO first came out and [00:33:10] Pay Per Click came out and they still had the mentality of old school advertising when they [00:33:15] first started doing it.
And now since then, it has evolved to become something so much more as far as like funnel [00:33:20] Economics is. So I think that's where it's going to end up, and I'm [00:33:25] hoping and wishing and praying that instead of everybody rushing forward and freaking [00:33:30] out over it, that they take a kind of calm step into look at, all right, how is this going to [00:33:35] actually integrate into how I'm doing things now?
Yeah, absolutely. Part of what you said made me [00:33:40] reminisce about when data science like first took. and [00:33:45] the I love the emperor has no clothes fable, and I feel like it's [00:33:50] so applicable to so many of these trends, but you know, I hate to spoil it for people, but almost, [00:33:55] not almost all, but a significant proportion of machine learning [00:34:00] and data science that's actually happening are just fancy, linear, regress.[00:34:05]
And, and like honestly, most of what data [00:34:10] scientists spends their day on is cleaning up human errors, making sure things are [00:34:15] like matching up that they make sense, you know, validating the data. It's [00:34:20] not like cooking up something lab that's a matching formula into the future. Yeah. [00:34:25] That's the kind of thinking that made the internet bubble happen.
That's the kind of thinking that's gonna make the AI bubble happen [00:34:30] is that it is this, everybody wants the magic pill that's gonna make 'em lose a hundred pounds in 10. [00:34:35] Right. AI is still lines of code. It's the same, you know, it's just a different [00:34:40] language, but it's it's lines of code. Mm-hmm. , and you know, you get in what you put in and.[00:34:45]
It's, I personally don't want to sit around and train an [00:34:50] AI to respond to me appropriately when I could just do it correctly myself [00:34:55] the first time. just adds another chore to my list of things to do. But [00:35:00] there's benefits. You know, I, I've, I've heard a lot of people echo your thoughts about having it [00:35:05] be support system, right?
There's a lot of benefit to that, especially, you know, [00:35:10] if it's looking for, Making, there's shortcuts for sure to be had, you know, [00:35:15] analyzing word clouds or different things like that. But finding out things, I mean, for me, I look [00:35:20] at it as a way for me to, you know, instead of me going to five different places on the web to find [00:35:25] information, if I can have a AI bot that goes out and finds this relevant information for me, [00:35:30] that I can then look at and check and make sure that it's, you know, credible and accurate, instead of me [00:35:35] having to actually just try and find it and save me time, I'm all for.
Yeah, [00:35:40] absolutely. Or you know, if Amazon is using AI to tell me, you know, five things [00:35:45] that it thinks I wanna buy so I don't have to search for those five things, I'd like some convenience like [00:35:50] that. Like please. Yeah. You know, like go for it. You know? I ultimately decide whether or not I'm gonna buy it. [00:35:55] But yeah, I found some great new music and bands because AI analyze the kinds of music [00:36:00] and beats that I like to listen to, and then found other songs or other.
That are similar to that. And [00:36:05] so I've discovered all kinds of new things that I wouldn't have found on my own, but I listen to the same old playlist. [00:36:10] Yeah. Like when Pandora was brand spanking new, it did that and it was like it's whole value prop. [00:36:15] And now we've made like all of these different ones.
There's a lot of fun to be had with this for [00:36:20] sure. . So, you know, I know that in the next few months you've got some big things coming up. [00:36:25] Yeah. Could you tell me about that? So, on April 20th, so my book comes out September 5th, [00:36:30] which is buy your First, how to Grow Your Business with collaborative selling.
And on April [00:36:35] 20th we're doing a special pre-order day where if you pre-order the book on April [00:36:40] 20th specifically. And uh, what'll happen is that if you forward the copy of the receipt [00:36:45] of the pre-order that you've done, whether it's an individual or a team of people, Then what I will do is create an [00:36:50] invite only sort of session for those people where we'll get a sneak peek into the book before it comes [00:36:55] out and you know, do a little bit of a workshop and training for people to get some quick wins in their [00:37:00] sales processes now so that when the book comes out later on, and we've already had some people that have [00:37:05] had some experience with it.
So I'm really excited for that. Because I wanna get it in the hands of [00:37:10] people as quickly as possible. Like I'm literally finishing up edits this week and I'm just waiting for [00:37:15] people like to see it and to try it out. So this is a way that I can kind of give a little sneak peek into it [00:37:20] and, uh, get some feedback from people and how it's impacting them later on.
I'm really excited for [00:37:25] that. And then, you know, September 5th, we're gonna be doing a big launch of the buyer [00:37:30] first book at Inbound in Boston that week. So we're gonna be doing lots of sessions and [00:37:35] talks and, you know, having a lot of like interviews and videos and things like that. So I'm really excited for that.[00:37:40]
And then the idea is to is, you know, Next end of this year and into next year is [00:37:45] just, you know, traveling around the world, kind of bringing this message of making it all about [00:37:50] our buyers and not about us, and how to change our mindsets around sales so that [00:37:55] we can have better conversations and sell with our buyers, not at them and to them.
[00:38:00] Love it. That's so exciting. It's gonna be so great. I can't wait. And just what a tremendous [00:38:05] value. Not to sound like an infomercial myself, but like what? But like that's [00:38:10] pretty cool that you're gonna sit there and dev like workshop with people [00:38:15] that, that are in search of that. You know, I think that that's something that, you know, is gonna help [00:38:20] like raise the tide for everybody and I'm really excited to hear about those results and read the [00:38:25] book.
I've seen little bits and pieces. And I'm so excited. I, I definitely think this message [00:38:30] needs to be kind of shouted from the rooftop. So yeah, we need to change the perception that people have of [00:38:35] sales that, you know, we still think of the pushy, slimy used car salesman when the majority of us think [00:38:40] of sales.
And that impacts how we actually act when we have to get into a sales conversation. And there [00:38:45] are, there are specific mindsets in psychologies behind those mindsets that impact the [00:38:50] behaviors that we have. You know, it's kind of like, , you know, you know the things that you should do and you know that you [00:38:55] can do them.
But why is it that when you get in the moment to do it, you can't seem to quite do the things you know you [00:39:00] can and should do. You know, like we know we should eat vegetables and exercise, but we don't actually do it. [00:39:05] Why is that? Like, this is the thing that I've been kind of obsessed with since I can remember of [00:39:10] why do people not do the things they know they should, that's good for them.
And then why do they do the things that they know [00:39:15] are bad for them, but they do it anyway? And it really comes down to our beliefs and mindsets about those [00:39:20] particular things that impact us. So much of sales coaching and training and advice that's [00:39:25] out there are tactical. This is this hack and this process and this acronym, and it's the [00:39:30] alphabet soup of hacks and processes.
And we still haven't seen much of a 50, [00:39:35] more than a 50% increase in ability of people to actually reach their numbers in quotas and goals. [00:39:40] So obviously something is missing. And I think the thing, I know that the thing is that's missing [00:39:45] is it's not about what you do, but it's about how you think about the things that you're doing, that it's gonna make the [00:39:50] biggest.
for sure. Yeah. I mean, there's so much quota that's just not being met [00:39:55] and lots of reasons. But one of 'em is just how you try to do it. [00:40:00] Yeah. It's when we make it all about ourselves and our products and what we want, that [00:40:05] prohibits us from being collaborative with our buyers, like we were talking about in the beginning and asking those [00:40:10] kinds of questions.
We just wanna get to the point where we can pitch what we do. So you can buy it. Yeah. And no [00:40:15] one wants to just feel like you're tolerating them so you can. No. [00:40:20] Exactly. . Exactly. . I think it's the long and short of it. No one wants to feel like that. [00:40:25] Yeah. And, and, and, and you're listening. Just so you can figure out what it is that you can say next.
[00:40:30] Definitely. I mean, we all know what face that looks like, when we see it across from us. Yes, we do. [00:40:35] Exactly. Well, hopefully I'm not making that face now, but I do wanna remember to, [00:40:40] if people wanna reach out to you, how should they do that? Maybe if you could spell out like letter [00:40:45] by letter. Yeah, so obviously you can find me on LinkedIn by my name.
It's LinkedIn [00:40:50] slash in, you know Carole Mahoney, c a r o l e. M a h o [00:40:55] n e y. So don't forget the E. You can also go to my new website that I have up. [00:41:00] That's for the book and the speaking engagements that I do, which is carolemahoney.com, so [00:41:05] c a r o l e M A H O N E y. And then you can also reach me [00:41:10] on my other website where I do all of my sort of corporate training programs for [00:41:15] individuals and teams@unboundgrowth.com, which is
[00:41:20] U N B O U N D G R O W T H. [00:41:25] A lot of people confuse it with inbound and outbound. It's unbound because it's unlimited. Awesome. I love [00:41:30] it. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I am listeners, if you could, as [00:41:35] usual, my requests are that you like, subscribe, review, reach out with any ideas or questions.[00:41:40]
Hopefully you enjoyed all this, cuz I know I did . Thank [00:41:45] you so much for having me, Leanne. It's, it's not very often that I get to talk about marketing anymore, so [00:41:50] this has been good and refreshing for me and, and you know, I came into sales, [00:41:55] I'm sorry I can't went into marketing because I hated the idea of sales.
And then when I changed my mindset [00:42:00] about what sales was, I knew that I could have a bigger impact there and, but I still, [00:42:05] you know, I still have a marketing heart that just won't go. Yeah, they're, they're like [00:42:10] conjoined twins. Really, really are. They really are. Well, thank you again. Thank you, Leanne.[00:42:15]
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