148: When Prospects Say "I Need To Think" With Devin Reed

Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. This episode, as always, is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft, Vanilla Soft, Gong, and Vidyard. Thank you so much for everything you do for the sales community and our customers. We appreciate you. Today, we are joined by a very special guest, Devin Reed, Manager of Content Strategy at Gong.io, is going to be talking about what to do when people need to think about making the decision. This is something that every sales rep struggles with, and Devin is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to how to acknowledge and handle objections. We appreciate you coming on the show, Devin.

I hope this is a helpful episode for everyone out there going through your sales routines. Let's get into it and make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend and are figuring out a way to stay sane through this shit mess that we're all in right now. Hopefully, we're going to have some info today that will help you get through this mess that we're all in because I'm actually super excited for this conversation. I reference this data pretty much every single call, every single training I do. I always say I've learned more about selling in the past six months and reading just this blog alone than I have in the past six years of selling.

Devin is the one who brings it all to us. Devin, the head of content strategy over at Gong. How are you doing, brother? I'm good, man. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic, man. Devin, give us a little bit of background. Give us some context to where you're coming from and what you're doing these days over at Gong because this is some really, really timely, relevant information that we're going to be talking about today. Yeah, for sure. So before being head of content at Gong, I've got six years of SaaS experience, always as a quarter-carrying rep. So I had the burden and the luck of being a self-sourcing AE for six years. So I know how to fill the funnel, no pun intended. I definitely know how to close.

So I was doing, I was the second sales hire at Gong when we were about 12 employees down in San Mateo with a few in Israel. Grew that team out, became the lead part of the mid-market team. So essentially, as we started to go up market, me and the first sales rep kind of tackled that, tried to figure out the sales process, how the playbook changed, all that good stuff. Closed over a million bucks there and then jumped over to the content team where folks might be from Chris Orloff. I was going to give him props. He's like the godfather of Gong Labs. He handed me the torch and now I had content strategy, which is get to do different sales presentations. But the most fun part of it is diving into some of the data behind sales, sharing that.

I'm part of Gong Labs, see us on social media, content marketing, all that good stuff wraps up to me. Before we get into the topic, how has data changed your approach in sales? Right. Because I think in some context on that question, I think historically, I always look at sales as why hasn't it been an educated profession up until relatively recently? Why haven't you done in universities? And I think a lot of the times it's because the perception is you either have it or you don't. You know what I mean? Like you're a natural born sales rep and it really can't be taught. You have to kind of own it, whatever. But there's so much data that we can learn from personas to approaches to everything else.

And I love where we're going as a profession that it is now something that you can apply data to. But just from your perspective, before and after you saw the value of data, like what has it done for you personally? I would agree to what you said, where it was like, some people have it and some people don't. Right. And I think the reason I really would stand by that is you go ask the top rep, which I've either been or asked others. Hey man, how did you, how'd you ramp? How did you get this? How'd you get that? You get whatever that person feels like that day. Like, gosh, man, you see me in here, I'm in here every day at 7am. I'm in here at 7am. I'm like, okay, cool. But that, that's time. That's not quality.

So that can't be the answer. Right. And then as I've been the top rep, I looked at myself and was like, it's a different answer every week. Some week I crushed discovery calls. Others, I was a great negotiator. And so I never really got an answer. Like there's no anatomy of a perfect sales rep. Right. Like it was just, you know, depending on that sales cycle, depending on that month, that quarter, who had the good leads that quarter. Right. And so I was one of the top producers over at Eventbrite, which is where I was before Gong. And I was, you know, you know, for the folks listening in sales, like, you know, you can kind of get an autopilot if you've been doing a sales job for enough time, right?

You know, the objections, you know, your flow. And I was kind of an autopilot for a little bit, you know, kind of just like brushing the dirt off my shoulder. I'm like, I'm killing it. Like this is easy. I've got it. Like I'm just cruising. And I remember when I moved over to Gong, I had my first three demos and of course they're being recorded. And I look at the talk time afterwards. 85% on average, the talk time for three demos. And I'm like, okay, I was crushing it at Eventbrite with an 80% talk time. Imagine if I had like known this two, three, four years ago, I could have been so much better. So kind of like an anecdotal answer, but it's like, if you can have an objective view on your performance and on what works and what doesn't, you can just accelerate your learning curve so much faster and you can be so much more effective.

Yeah. And it also gives you a baseline. Like I'm not saying, I think one of the dangers in data is obviously can be sliced and diced in a million different ways to tell whatever story you wanted to tell. But you know, I always say with trainers, right? We used to be able to get away with saying shit that sounded really good, but ultimately when you tried it, it didn't really work all that well. But because I was so polished in how I said it, and I've said it a billion times, like you listen to it and you're like, holy shit, that must work because man, that guy sounds like a wizard. Right. But now we can't get away with that. Right. Now the data, there's a, there's at least a baseline of, okay, no, this is what good in the, cause you guys compare what good reps and explain your data process.

Cause it's going to lead to why this is so important. Right. Because, cause Gong, you know, for everybody out there is listening. Um, you know, it's a call recording software, right? So it's great for coaching. Um, but what it does is, is you guys use the, the, the, the artificial intelligence to analyze those millions calls. Right. And then you compare the best reps to average reps, give or take. Right. Right. So, so yeah. So in the platform, and this will make sense for the data, cause you kind of kind of know what we do. We just use user data. So we capture all the sales interactions from what we were doing in person, but now phone, web conferencing, and email. So we capture all that stuff.

Now for the folks that use the platform, it was like what I was saying. I can see Devin's talk time. I can search competitors across my whole, you know, my whole organization. So that's what our product does. What I get to do is I work with our data science team and we look at across, not just our calls, but like our customers calls. Right. So up to like literally millions of data points from all these different conversations. And I pitched them hypothesis. It's like, Hey, I have a feeling that this is true. Then they go, okay, cool. Like, how do you define this? You know, we define success. What is all these parameters? And they go, okay. And they come back to me like, you know, a few days later and they're like, here's this Excel doc.

Here's the high level. Cause we know you don't understand it like we do. And then I'm like, damn it. I'm my hunch is never a hundred percent. Right. It's literally never been a hundred percent. Right. The closest I got was like, we did a multi-threading report. And I'm like, I know that more people involved in your deal is better. But like, when you see the data of like, well, here's like a sharp decline or an incline, like, you know what I mean? You can really like pull back a couple of layers and see like, oh, there's like the absolute truth, the objective truth. Yeah. And I think that's what I tell reps all the time. In order to survive moving forward, we have to become scientists, right?

Marketing is science to everything out. Marketing is using artificial intelligence to write better messaging, to profile us better. So marketing is getting smarter and smarter and smarter with their approach to engaging with us. And they're getting closer and closer and closer and closer to what sales reps used to do. Right. And so if we as sales reps, we need to take that from marketing and become analysts, analyze every aspect of our sales calls, every aspect of how we go through deals so that we can figure out what is that layer, that 10%, that 20% that makes us special compared to the technology. Right. Because I think you guys, I reference this all the time. You have this great post about why your sales reps can't sell to the C-suite.

And it starts with this nexus, right? Which is what do you fundamentally believe that is a polarizing statement. And I love yours, which is, you know, in the future, it doesn't matter what you sell. It's all about how you sell. Yep. Right. So who gives a shit about the features and functions of whatever your stupid fucking product is? Because if you're in that world, you're going to be on the spreadsheet of doom, where it's like, here's the 50 features, here's product one, you know, company one, company two, company three, and then you're going to have to discount if you get to the end. Right. Yep. How you sell matters. And that's what Gong is all about. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you say, because we all have our ideal customer profile.

Where we're heading now is trying to understand the ideal deal profile. Yep. Right. So how long should we be at each gate? Who should really be involved? How many questions should we be asking? You can get as granular as you want. And the cool part is some of the stuff like that we post is like universal. It's like, this is just across. And again, for all our data, for anyone listening is, is the B2B community. So 90% of the folks are B2B mostly in the technology space. But yeah, it's just like interesting. Like, imagine if you could actually say like, Hey, you're, this deal is in forecast, but you won't have a decision maker involved. You only have two people involved. And we know, you know, you have a 94% likelihood that this will not come in unless you check a couple more of these boxes.

Like that's where we're starting to get towards. And that's what we're starting to help our clients with. I love it. So let's talk about something that's kicking everybody's ass right now. Right. So we're, we're right in the middle of this. Fuck show that we're in right now, like this, this, this COVID, whatever. But, you know, and I, and I do think that we're, you know, when it first started, there was kind of three buckets that I was saying people were in, right? One is when it was locked down, like they are literally in bleed out mode and they're doing everything they can't even keep the lights on. And so, I mean, don't even bother. Right. The other group is the yellow. So it's like, I use the stoplight analogy, right?

Red, yellow, yellow is, they're not, they're not losing, they're not going to go out of business. They're not on fire though. They're not like selling like crazy. They're in that middle zone of, you know what, we've kind of settled in and we realize this sucks, but this is what we're going to do. So I might not be making decisions right now, but I, but I have time to evaluate some solutions. Right. So when I come out of this, when I can start making decisions, I'm making better decisions. And then there's the third bucket, which is the ones who are on fire, like in one of two ways. One is they all of a sudden became, instead of a like to have, they became a must have. Right. So like, you know, gong is one of those tools.

It's like a lot of people probably say, oh yeah, no, coaching is good, but you know, all my reps are here. So what the fuck do I, I can just sit in on the right. But now that everybody's sitting home, holy shit, I need something to listen in on what the the hell my reps are saying every day. So I'm guessing, right. You guys went from yeah. Yeah. To holy shit. This is something I probably should do. Right. Um, and then there's the other part of the green section of the on fires, which are like me, which are people that I can't, I don't have millions of dollars in the bank right now. I have to sell my way through this. So I can't sit still. I have to go. Right. And so those buckets, you know, that's redefining your ICP and who's in those buckets and who you can sell to.

But I think a vast majority of people are settling into that second bucket right now where they've kind of settled in and they're like, this sucks, but this is kind of the new normal. I still don't, I still can't see more than 60 days out right now. So I don't want to make any major decisions, but I'm willing to look at some things. And what's happening right now is a ton of reps are getting the, Hey, um, sounds interesting. Let me think about it. And usually, and that's the, that's an objection, right? Because usually in a normal world, that's a horrible objection. It's like, Oh fuck man. Like, come on. Like, didn't that, that means I sucked in my value proposition here because I should have, but you think I call, I always say the kiss of death.

And actually I want you guys to, I think you might've even done a post on this one. Literally the word digest, right? The word digest, I think is a kill shot, right? Cause it's saying it, but it's good. But, but maybe not compared to this data, but I would be interested in that specific word compared to let me think. Cause I think the, cause the phrasing of this matters, right? Yeah, absolutely. Cause when somebody says I want to digest this to me, that tells me I didn't give you enough information. If you walk out of the conversation more confused than you were walking into the conversation, right. I'm I sucked as a sales rep, right? I mean, we have a little checkbox in Salesforce that says, did they say digest?

And we have a 0% close ratio on companies that say, when they say the word digest, we have a 0% close ratio. Now, I need to think about it though. That usually to me is a red flag. Damn it. It kind of is, is analogous to me to digest, but your data says something different. So, so talk me through, first of all, how did it come up that this is something that you wanted to look at? And then what did the data say to you that was like, what? Yeah. So we were, uh, we're at celebrate on tour, which was our, our, uh, roadshow for Gong. And, um, one of our partners on stage and we're a Sandler shop. So we've had Sandler training here and our, my CRO, Ryan Longfield leans in and he goes, you know, it'd be really interesting if you could look into that.

I said, what's that? He goes, I need to think about it. I hate when prospects say that. Yeah. And then it like clicked. I'm like, yeah, of course. Like I hate it as well. Like my skin got flush. I hate, I hate hearing that as a seller. And so I'm like, cool, let's do it. So we started looking into it and it's funny you say, um, kiss of death because that was my like header as I'm like working on this report. I'm like, I know it's the kiss of death. I'm going to run with this. It's going to be, it's going to blow up. Yeah. And we got the data back. So I talked to the data scientists. We look at the phrase, I need to think about it. We need to think about it and about a dozen variants. I admit digest, I don't think was on the list.

I had to double check, but it was, you know, all the ways. And we looked and gone, we did some searching on it. And so I'm like, I'm telling the data science, I'm like, I'm no, it's just a matter of how bad the damage is. Like the deals are dead. Tell me this 95%. This is going to like, you know, shock the world. And we get it back and they're like, we want to get on a call with you because we know you're not going to believe us. So they sent me the report and I see that we got on the call. But anyway, so the, the outcome was there is no negative correlation to win rates when buyers say, I need to think about it. That's insane to me. It's crazy. Right. There's a, there's a slight uptick. I wouldn't coach people to like work on, you know, getting people to say it.

Cause I don't think that's the point. It looks like they're actually thinking about it, but we wanted to go into it more. And so the first thing was win rates. The second part was my other hunch, which was like, it has to draw out the sales cycle. Right. Because what happens when someone says, I need to think about it, John, those reps, like they don't get like, they don't get next steps pinned down. Right. Basically it's saying they're really saying an unspoken objection, which is, I don't know what's next. And I'm not going to tell you what that is either. I don't know, or I don't want to tell you because a lot of times it feels like a polite, uh, don't want to continue talking to you. I'm going to tell you, I need to think about it.

I'm going to ghost you for three weeks until you get tired. And then you send me that crappy closing or filing. And so, um, but the next one was looking at the extension of the, of the sales process, which is 173% longer when buyers say that. And so this one isn't correlated. It's causation because what we did was we looked at when the phrase is mentioned compared to the next sales meeting. It's like, when is the next step in the sales process compared to when the phrase has never been mentioned and you look at it, you know, what is the next step in sale? So the next meeting is 55% further out when that phrase happens. All right. That makes sense. Basically, if you think about it, you're chasing, right?

You get off. You go, okay, John, you need to think about it. Click. Yeah. You actually don't have a next step because you don't even know what the next step should be because you don't know what that unspoken objection is. And you're chasing for a couple of weeks, trying to get people lured back into another meeting to figure it out. Have you combined, just sidebar, but related, have you combined those two data points as far as the ability to get a next step compared to somebody who says, because I know, I think what I was reading one of your blogs and they said like the most, the highest indicator of success is somebody agreeing to a defined next step, right? Yep. So have you correlated, have you made the connection where say you and I are talking right now and you're like, and I'm like, so Devin, so, you know, what do you think?

Right. And you're like, you know what, John, this looks great, man. We got to think about it though. So we'll be in touch. And I'll say, Hey, you know what, Devin, look, I appreciate that. How long do you think you're going to need to think about it? Right. A week or two. Hey, you mind if we just throw something on the calendar in a couple of weeks? This way we don't have to play chase, right? Like, have you made that connect? Cause that would be my flow, right? If somebody says, I want to think about it, I'd be like, okay, no problem. How long do you need to think about it? Like, I'm not just going to let you off the hook and say, let me think about it. I'm going to say, how long do you need to think about it?

Uh, probably a week or two. Okay. When do you want to schedule a call? Boom. Right. And now I feel comfortable. Cause if you say yes to that, I don't give a shit that you said, think about it. Cause that means that you probably, I mean, that might've be an ultimate blow off where you're going to blow me off in two weeks anyways, just to get me off the phone, but it's a much higher likelihood that you're going to be there. Yeah. So, so we did look at that. Cause that was my thoughts too. I'm like, maybe people aren't going through next steps. You know, they're hearing that in like letting their hands off the wheel and being like, you know, screw it. Um, there wasn't any, like, there wasn't any like difference.

It wasn't like one group of people, you know, when the phrase was mentioned, they weren't talking about next steps. Like next steps was discussed about the same. And so since we couldn't look at the topic of next steps, we looked at like, okay, if it was, if it was the right next step, you would have a meeting on the calendar soon. Right. Like that's really what we're getting towards. And then we just looked at that on the activity of when there was a call. And that's where we saw the difference. It was like 55% further out when people said that phrase. But it also depends on when it happens, right? Like early, mid, late, right? So early on, I cold call you, I do a quick little value proposition and you're like, yeah, you know, sounds interesting.

Why don't you send me some info? I got to think about it. Versus midway, I've just done a demo. I've, I've qualified you, I've showed you my stuff and you say it then, versus at the end, I'm ready to close. You got the proposal and you got to think about the proposal. Is there a relation to which, like when it's said one is one better than, is it better to get it early, mid or late, or does it matter? Sure, sure. So yeah, we did look at when it occurs. For this one though, we didn't look at cold calls. So we only looked at an opportunity, say like deals. So we're looking at deals specifically, just so just for any cold callers, I want to set you on the wrong foot there. So yeah, so it happens about 80%.

It happens, excuse me, it happens in about two spots. One is mid funnel about call number two. And then the other time it occurs is essentially the last call or the end of the sales cycle towards the end. And I think it was like 80% was mid funnel. So it's much more common to hear early than late. And so, yeah, there wasn't like, we looked at that too. Like you would think that there's some like, if it happens early, then your deal dies or happens late. It really wasn't that. And so what we did was look at like, okay, well, if it happens mid funnel, what would that mean? Why am I telling, why am I saying this as a buyer versus if I'm saying it late? And so when people are saying it mid cycle, it's because one of two things, they're either not interested, and they're telling you to get off the phone, which is what we all feel like it is as a salespeople, right?

Or they just don't know what the next step in the process is. In the article, we said for folks to respond as, you know, hey, John, when most people tell me they need to think about it, typically, because they're not interested, or I missed something in our meeting. Right. So you get one of two responses. Someone says, no, you didn't miss anything. I'm interested. It's just that blah, blah, blah, right? Whatever that objection is. So what it is, it's an unspoken objection that you're getting to the surface, which is essentially cool. Now you just confirmed that you are interested, but I did miss something. Let's jump into what that is. And that should be your next step for the next meeting. It's like, let's talk about that thing that you need to think about.

Okay. Or they say, no, you didn't miss anything, which tells me that you're not interested, which is fine. I'd rather DQ you now than try to chase you for the next few weeks or get you in my forecast knowing it's never going to come in. Now, do you say that? Are you that forward? Because I am. I'll give you a quick example. Somebody would say, send me information to me. When I was really cramming on cold calls, I would say, look, people ask me to send them information. There's really only two reasons people ask me to send them information. One is they're genuinely interested and they want to schedule some time and that type of stuff. The other is they're just trying to be nice and get me off the phone.

Which one are you? Right. And I would just put it to them. And you know, half the time I'd get, you know, I just, yeah, I was just trying to blow you up. Okay, good. Thanks. Cause I don't want to waste my fucking time here. So like, do you recommend reps? Like if somebody, if they go through and they say, you know what? Yeah. You know what? I need some time to think about this. Okay. Well, usually that means either, you know, I missed something or, you know, whatever. And they're like, no, you didn't miss anything. Like, what would your, I don't know about data, but what would your approach to that be? Like when somebody says, no, you didn't miss anything. I just need some time to think about it.

I mean, it kind of depends like the tone, right? And I think, you know, you have to read the tone a lot, which is when, where the data gets tough. You know, we're not at the sentiment level yet, but it's like for salespeople who are a little cautious of being that forward, would you rather know, right? Would you rather be forward and maybe ruffle a little feathers, but get to the truth right now or sidestep it and you have a phony deal in your pipeline and you probably have, and if you do it now, you probably have 10 deals in your pipeline that aren't real. Right. So it's like, I'd rather have a little or frankly, a lot of friction right now and get my answer and know what's next. Then, you know, look at my pipeline when I wake up tomorrow and go, oh, that's right.

Johnson, you think about it. I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing here. You know, I'll send him a, you know, a white paper. I'll send him a case study and see if that gets him. Like that never works. No. And that's, and that's, you know, so let's bring in Sandler to this, right? Cause I'm a big Sandler fan. Um, you know, and your data got me to reassess, uh, my opinion on the upfront contract. Okay. Again, this is opinion versus facts versus data. Uh, and this tells me also that training is so 50, 50, right? It's 50%, the content and 50% who delivers it. Um, because I remember when I was like 22, 23 years old, when I took Sandler for the first time, the way, like, I'm not going to call him out, but man, the Sandler trainer that trained me was like the cheesiest dude you'd ever seen in your life.

He was wearing like a suit that was four sizes too big. You know what I mean? And he was just like, and it like the way he delivered the upfront contract, I remember even at 22 years old, I was like, that is the cheesiest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. There's no way I will ever do that. I literally immediately said never. Okay. So for legit 20 years of my career, I shit on the upfront contract. I'm like, that's the dumbest thing. Fuck it. It's stupid. Gong blog comes out, best reps, average reps, says the best reps use the upfront contract. So does the upfront contract help prevent? I need to think about it. Cause if you do it the right way, Hey Devin, my goal of this call, look, I got a few questions I would need to ask you just to make sure that we're on the same page here.

And then from there, I just want to show you a couple of pieces of our solution that I think align with what you're going to talk to me about your priorities and stuff like that. And based on that, you know, my goal is to maybe set up a more detailed, you know, meeting where I can walk you through a demo and those types of things. So is that cool? Right. Because if I do that, well then at the end, and you say, I need to think about it. Now you're contradicting because I gave you a yes or a no. I gave you either. Yes. You're going to tell me to piss off or no. You're going to tell me to piss off or yes. You're going to say we're going to, there's no in between on this and let me know. I need to think about as a middle ground.

So does, have you, have you connected that to the upfront contract to the effectiveness or the likelihood of, I'll think about it. We didn't associate it with any of the, um, data because an upfront contract is literally one of the most challenging things to like pinpoint. Right. Because in terms of how it's said, I could say it a hundred different ways just for gong, depending on how I feel that day, let alone over, you know, millions of data points and hundreds of companies. So what we looked at, it was like, we went through the prescriptive approach of like said mid funnels do this. If it's late funnel, you know, it's, it's, there's buyer uncertainty. You've got to figure out how to, how to get to the buying circle.

The upfront contract is something where you can help you prevent it, but it doesn't help the phrase from being said. It just, uh, it binds your buyer from squirming out. Right. So if you do your upfront contract, John, we're going to do this. You know, if this goes right, we're going to go, we're going to go there. Is that cool with you? You're going to say yes. Right. You're going to verbally tell me, yes, you're going to commit to that agenda. Then when we get to the end and you try to squirm out with, I need to think about it and say, Hey John, you know, 30 minutes ago, you told me we were either going to do this or we were going to do that. So which one is it? Right. And so if anyone's familiar with the Cialdini's influence, one of the most, mine too.

Love it. And a commitment is one of the principles of persuasion. Right. And so it's like, or compliance, which basically saying once your buyer at the beginning of that call says, yes, 29 minutes later, because they said yes earlier, they're going to be a lot less likely to go back on their word now. Right. Right. So that's why I think it has like, that's, you know, you can't track that per se in data with data, but it has that psychological effect as well. You know, it's funny on that one. Have you, uh, do you follow Chris Voss? Of course. Yeah. Right. So never split the difference. Right. There's the, there's the two. So like, I'm in the middle because he's, he's a lot of like the, the neuroscience of like the, so data, but really brain science data type of stuff.

And he says the whole getting to yes, like that book is bullshit. Right. Like getting a bunch of pre because you get, you know, the theory is you get a bunch of yeses and they're preconditioned to say yes at the end. Right. He says early though, you want them to say no first. Right. Because when I say no, I feel more, more, more confident. Like I, I feel more in control. Right. If I say yes, I'm not feeling like I'm in control. And in my correlation to that is even if you get them ultimately to say yes, it leads to buyer's remorse and therefore they have to reflect on there and you might get a lot more cancellations if you do it that way. Um, so he, when he, and this goes to kind of intros when cold calling and stuff, you know, he doesn't mind, is this a good time or is this a bad time?

Right. Because you get to know either way. So is this a good time? No. Is this a bad time? No. Now I hate, is this a, is a good time? Cause it's never a good time. Right. And then what's your recourse there? Oh, when is next week? Okay. Touch base. Check it. Now I don't, I don't mind. Is this a bad time? Right. Because again, it gets that no, but have you done any, uh, data around the, like the yeses versus the nose and where they sit? Right. Cause I'm, I'm kind of, I'm curious on that one as far as like, which one is that? Cause it sounds slick. This goes back to trainers versus data, right? It sounds slick as shit when he says it and it makes sense psychology wise. Right. But data wise, does it prove out?

I don't know on the data, the data aspect, because I think, uh, again, there's like a lot of ways you could look at that cold call and be like, well, just cause he said yes, or he or she said yes, you know, early for that part of the call. Does it really, you know, if it's an eight minute call or two minute calls and impacts, there's a lot of variables in there. I think to kind of just like go to a very, uh, again, just cause I'm the data guy does not mean you don't have opinions. I got plenty. Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, just cause I say yes to you doesn't mean I'm like in my like gut agreeing with this. Right. There's things you say you're going to do that. We know we're not going to go do.

Right. Right. Hey man. Yeah. We'll go, you know, we'll go get drinks next week. Give me a text. I'll give you a buzz. And you know, you're never going to go get a drink. So it's like, let's be honest. Every time you say yes, you don't really mean it. But that's like to Chris Voss's point is like, he's saying he's playing chess with like, I'm going to, I don't care what the words that you say, I'm going to change the way you feel and the way you view this conversation. And I'm still in control of the whole thing, whether you say yes, no, or maybe like, I'm going to get to the end. So that's why I like Chris Voss a lot. It's, it's, it's way, it's way deeper than a quick yes or no. Oh, it's way deeper.

Like, I mean, I, I sat here with him on my podcast and I'm sitting there, I'm like, Oh my God, I am so stupid compared to this person. You know what I mean? Like, uh, I, you know, I've talked for him for years. Um, but let's go back to, to, we need to think about it, because I think the, the, the fear right now with where we are, I mean, I, I can look at this without data and say, look, decisions are being scrutinized now more than ever. Okay. Um, decision, like there's, it's no longer, you know, I know there's, you know, in any enterprise sale, there's whatever, however many seven to 15 buyers and blah, blah, blah. Uh, but in, you know, even in SMB and mid market right now, it's like, it's going to take longer period because people are, first of all, a, they have more time to make those and, and, and be whatever decisions they're making right now, they better be the right ones.

Right. So I think the process has changed. The decision-making process has shifted as well. A hundred percent. I mean, you know, Hoffman and I were talking recently. Um, well, he, he did a webinar, Jeff Hoffman did a webinar recently about, and I've been thinking about this cause we've been trying to play around with like, you know, decision. It's brutal to get people on the phones these days and all this other stuff. So we're like, Hey, fuck it. Why don't we start going bottom up? Right. I mean, our whole approach, we've built our whole business off of teaching reps, how to go top down and learn how to speak the executive speak. But what he said was something super interesting. He goes, um, nobody right now in a bad economy, right?

Nobody is going to make unpopular decisions. So the only, like it used to be, I, like if you were a VP, right, I could go, I could learn about your business initiatives and what you're trying to do as an organization. I could then reach out to you and be like, Hey, Devin, I read through your 10 K and I noticed you guys are really focusing on these areas. I got a solution that helps you address that and boom. Right. And then you would then tell everybody else to go do, you know, to go, Hey, evaluate this and right. Um, and if the people liked it or not, didn't matter as much if it aligned with what you were trying to do. Now you better get a bunch of people wanting your solution. So it's almost better now to do groundswells and build little champions all over the place and then gain that insights to then go up top to say, Hey, Devin, I've been speaking with 12, 15, 10 of whatever of your employees.

And they're telling me that right now, man, they're getting crushed in these areas and they need this. So I have a solution that can help address that. Are you seeing that shift right now, as far as like the correlation of how long things are taking and, and, and a shift in how people are, you said, you know, you noticed that people are making decisions differently these days. Yeah. Yeah. So right, right before this post, we did one around COVID just looking at like, it was like mid March, right. When everyone was in lockdown mode where everyone, you know, froze and was like, let's just look out the windows and see what's going on. Um, and yeah, so I met with our, our CFO, uh, Tim Ritters, who used to be the CFO over at pure storage.

And so very, very seasoned guy. And was just like, talk to me, like, what are we doing in our business? First of all. And two, like, what are you hearing? Cause obviously CFOs hang out with other CFOs. And the main thing he said, he's like, everything is hitting my desk. You want to renew the exact same line item for the exact same cost last year. Congrats. Like you're going to, you have to talk to me now. He's not doing it in a bully way. He's just like, I have to, I have to look at every single thing. Um, it's not that he even wants to, right? Like we have other people on the finance team. Like he, he needs to look at these things. And he said for other teams, uh, you know, CFOs he's talking to, it's the same thing where they're not in that growth mindset.

Like you said, like, Hey, you can get the CMO to get excited about this new initiative and like, you know, do this growth mindset of, we're, you know, let's give you 50 K and see if we get a million back or whatever. He's like, now it's like, we're just trying to look for visibility and agility, right? We have the least amount of visibility as before. We need to be able to, uh, react quickly when we can. And then now I need productivity tools like Asana and things like that. Like you said earlier, like companies that are on fire in a good way, remote productivity tools are where it's at right now. And so, um, in terms of like the data approach to it, we actually have a study that we're working on right now in terms of like, how important is it really to get a decision maker involved?

When should they be involved? How involved should they be? So stay tuned for that. But in terms of like right now, what's going on just from like word of mouth for someone who knows like, yeah, everything is up a level and that VP, even if it's his or her own budget, can't get things done. Like you still have to go tell the CFO, um, which is why we ended up creating an asset to help people help salespeople with that CFO letter template. And it's like, Hey, it's Mad Libs for your deal, fill this out with your champion. And it takes the way that people were previously, uh, you know, messaging their product of like, you know, hyper growth, you'll be able to onboard faster. You build all these things.

It puts your product or you're offering in a way where it's like, cool, this is what matters to budget holders, which is visibility, productivity, and agility. I love it. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's, it's what I'm, what I'm recommending to reps right now is, you know, we do a lot. I mean, I love the data, right. Of, of if we can find it, but you know, we do a lot of guessing, you know, as sales reps, like, Hey, I think this message works, I think this is a good reason to reach out. I think this is a good question to ask, but it probably work again. Yeah, maybe. Right. But why not leverage our, you know, people who know, which is our customers. Right. So it's almost like, you know, I think if, if anybody is struggling right now, what I always, what I'm suggesting is if their sales reps are struggling, trying to figure out what messaging, how to position their value proposition or anything like that, go grab five or six of your customers that fit that profile and the personas, right?

So go grab five CFOs in SaaS that are customers of yours, existing customers of yours, and get them on a Zoom call like this and just say, Hey, what's working these days? Where, you know, how are you guys making decisions? What messaging would resonate? Why does our product help you right now? Those types of things and get it from the horse's mouth. Right. And then translate that over to other people. I mean, I think that's the easiest way to figure out what's actually working without any real subset of data to work from. You have data, you have clients, and hopefully they're what they want to help you succeed. Right. Because if you go out of business, they're like, hopefully they're getting value out of whatever solution you're bringing to them.

Right. Sure. And so if you go out of business, they're going to lose that value. So they don't want you to go out of business. So why not, you know, give a little give take or whatever it is, maybe offer them a few free licenses or something. And, and just for an hour of their time so that you can get some insights into what the hell your customers really are going through. Right. For sure. For sure. Talk to me a little bit more about the CFO letter. Cause I know you're, you're, it's coming out right now. Is it already out? Yeah. We put it out a month ago and within about 30 or 40 days, it became the top five most downloaded piece of content from Gong. Um, which is, is no humble brag for me.

I was just like, wow, this thing was really timely. Right. As a content creator, everything you make, you, you, you hope it's, it's as relevant as you're, you're hoping it resonates. Um, but yeah, I saw the dashboard and it's just like, you know, day over day people are downloading it. And so, yeah. So what it was, was, um, actually the same interview with Tim, our CFO. Um, we were just talking about kind of the state of things. And I'm like, you know, Tim, what are you doing with our sales team? Like has this information made it to our sales team? Uh, fun, fun side note, the call was recorded in Gong, which we were okay with that interview before I had time the next morning to ask the CRO, if it's cool, I share with the team, someone found it in Gong and it spread like wildfire.

Everyone was like, dude, you have to hear Tim. Like, this is exactly what we're going up against. Um, and so I was like, cool, let's take what you just told me and what some of the things our team is doing. Let's make this template for salespeople. Um, it's for sellers, but I'm pretty sure any VP and below, like, if you have a deal that you care about, it'll, it'll be helpful. And so what it does is it outlines, uh, see me outlines like why you need to buy this now, which is a different message and why you need to buy this in January. Right. And so going back to those three things I was talking about it, like line items that where it's like, does this give me visibility? If it gives me visibility, why does that visibility matter?

And how did we lose it? Um, if we are less productive than we were in the office, I think everyone's going to say yes, except for maybe people that work at Slack or maybe you're used or used to this. Right. Um, so it's like, how does your, your offering make them more productive? And then the agility one was like, can you help me adjust faster, which is a little more nuanced, right? It's very specific. And so it's like, this is a how to buy now situation, not your recovery plan. This is like for deals that are, you know, mid pipeline. When all this happened, I know there's a bunch of stuff in commit that it was no longer in commit because the world done changed. Right. And so, yeah, you literally fill this thing out with your champion.

And then if you can get in the meeting with your CFO and your champion to present the outline at the, at the worst, you now have a very concise way for your champion to be armed, to go to the CFO, speaking the CFO's language, which is crucial because realistically you only get one shot with the CFO to get that. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, that's, that's cool. I love that. Cause I think right now we have to sell, have to sell to the P and L. You know what I mean? Like you have to sell to, I mean, in a growth economy and it's a growth economy, people are willing to throw money at stuff to help them grow faster. Right. But in a non-growth, in a recession economy, all things are changed, right?

Like it's almost like everything's been flipped upside down. Um, from a decision-making process standpoint, it's now bottom up. They have to grit groundswell. Um, you can't just get champions who have budget and just go right for stuff that seems like, you know, soft ROI type of shit, you know, those types of things. Um, I mean, and again, I mean, I don't know about you guys over at Gong, but I mean, we're, we're, we literally are looking 60 days out, maybe 90 days out. Like me as the CEO of my little company here, like I'm not looking at, yeah, I got a pin mark at the end of the year of what I hope we end up coming in at now with our adjusted stuff. But really we're on a, we're on a quarter by quarter plan at this point.

It's like, let's reassess because, you know, we, we, we applied for PPP, right? We got that, that, that holds you for, you know, 60 days or whatever it is with the salaries. So it's like, okay, after 60 days, we're going to have to see where we stand at this. Right. And, you know, and hopefully we'll be able to get through the other side of that. But, you know, I think that's the problem right now is that people are looking very, very short term to say, how can you either save me money right now, make me more efficient right now, or put me in a better position to, to your point, be agile right now. So I can adjust because who the fuck knows what's going to happen in two months. Right. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, this is good shit. Any, like, just out of curiosity, like, since you've been doing this, uh, one more question, what was it, what do you think that, and you could say this one, but, uh, what data point really just out of all of them, you were like, what? Like, was there one that you just were like, holy shit? I had no, like, I was so far off. I mean, this one's a big one, right? Like I, I would have thought that I need to think about it. Like that would crush all deals. Right. But is there, is there another one that you were like, no fucking way? And, and, and it panned out to be true. So this one was the, this one was the biggest like sales process, like just my like sales instincts were like, this was surprising.

Uh, the one I actually said no fucking way was the cursing data that we looked at. Which as I know me and you are, I've done a good job on this podcast, trying not to curse, but I am, uh, I'm a, I'm street smart more than I am book smart. And so I curse fairly frequently. And I remember just like, I was in a team meeting and I, and you know, I just let a few go. And I kind of realized, I was like, damn, it's probably not the best thing to do all the time. And then I was like, do I curse with my prospects? I'm like thinking about it. I'm like, I'm sure I have. But then I was like, when they curse, it's way different. When they curse, my instinct is like, oh, this is, this is good. John, trust me now.

Like, you know, John, you, you curse all the times. I don't know if it applies to you, but like with a CEO or you're with a VP and you're like, you know, Devin, let's just get this fucking done. You're like, oh, okay. Like guards are down. I'm in and all this. So we looked at the data and it was like, okay, let's, let's look at this thing. Let's look at a bunch of calls, a bunch of deals and reps, cursing buyers, cursing. And I, I think I wanted to, I wanted it to come out and be like, cursing is all good. My gut was like, I'm probably going to see HR after this. Cause I just like buried my own grave of like, you know, you asked for the truth. Now you have the truth and I need to stop cursing.

So the data came back and it was very shocking. A lot of people did not like me for posting it, but in fact, it has no negative correlation and a positive correlation than that. And so the takeaway is it's okay to curse as long as your buyer curses first. Yeah. That's exactly. You'll see if both of you guys curse in that order, I think it was like an 8% lift. So of course there's a lot of fun to be had. You know, I don't think you should go curse at anybody, but you know, Hey, if you're a buyer and someone curses, it's a good thing. And, uh, you know, feel free to reciprocate if that's your style. I love it. You know, and, but I, there is some, I think there's some neuroscience to that as well.

And this goes a little bit to Chris Voss and neurolinguistic programming and everything else about mirroring. Right. Like I remember vividly quick story on this. I, I, so I worked for Jack Welsh for a couple of months to get his online MBA program off the ground and him and Susie Welsh. Right. And I didn't think I was going to interview with Jack. Like they said, Oh, Susie's really looking forward to meeting with you. So, and I had my own company. So I really was just like, ah, fuck it. You know, I might as well just go down to protect, you know, check my inner. And this is interesting, you know, Jack and Susie Welsh was super cool. Right. But Jack Welsh was like literally my, one of my all time business idols.

Right. At least growing up was. And I remember I'm sitting there preparing for my interview with Susie. Right. And I'm, you know, pretty confident going in. Right. And I'm fully not expecting to meet with Jack. And all of a sudden in the doorway, Jack shows up in the doorway and he, and, and it's this little tiny office would, you know, startup office. Right. And I'm in this little conference room and he looks down at me. He's like, John Barrows. And I'm like, Jack Welsh. Right. And, and, and, and immediately I'm like, shit, I'm nervous. Right. Cause I don't, I don't usually get, I don't get nervous. Right. I've been in front of a thousand, whatever. And, um, so now I'm sitting across the table from the man.

Right. And I'm like legit three feet from him, four feet from him. And I'm like, okay. You know, and I was about to ask him and he had just, uh, he had just done this, uh, he had tied his school to Chancellor University, which is this piece of shit college in, in Cleveland, Ohio. Right. And my first instinct was like, what the fuck? Like Jack, you could have gone to MIT. You could have gone to Harvard and been like, Hey, I want to start an MBA in any school would have been like, yes, please let's do this. And you tie your like to a what? So that was going to be my first question. I can do all that stuff, but I'm nervous. Right. Before I even get a word out of my mouth, he goes like this, he goes, so let me tell you about this bag of shit, college Chancellor University.

I got myself involved. And he's like, he goes, boy, did I make a fucking mistake? And as soon as he said, boy, did I make a fucking miss? Like, as soon as the word fuck came out of his mouth, I was like, Oh, Jack, I'm like, what's up. And everything just felt like so, cause he's a Boston kid too. Right. So we were just like, and after that, it was like, Oh fuck this. And have you heard of that fucking guy? And this and fucking, fucking, and I'm sitting there dropping the F bomb, every other word with the man. And it felt so natural. And I think that's the, there's a part of this about mirroring, but I also want to caution people that it has to come naturally to you. If you are not somebody who swears, don't swear just because you think it's going to help.

Right. Even if I'm dropping the F bomb 45 times, cause look, I'm from Boston. The F bomb is just part of our vocabulary. Like we use it as a noun, a verb of, you know, an adjective, like you name it. Like we use the word, however we use it, but it, but it comes out as natural. You know what I mean? There's other people when they, when they swear, you could literally, like you literally feel it. You know what I mean? It's like, ah, that hurt. It's like when a 12 year old curses for the first time. And you can tell it's just like, it don't really mean it. They don't really know how it should come out. And you're like, that's not you, man. That's worse to have that cringy feeling than to just not curse at all.

Then just like leaving, like, you know, have a meeting with John. It's better that John leaves thinking, uh, I guess Devin doesn't curse. Then dude, you remember that? What was he saying? Hey, fuck a second ago. Like that weird, you know, that weird memory. It's like, no, don't step outside of yourself. Like, you know, do you, it's all good. But, uh, yeah, it was, it was really interesting to say. And then of course, for like the next week's 30 to 60 days in the office, anytime someone cursed, it's like, well, Devin taught me to do it. Devin says it's okay. And I'm like, I bet, I bet the reps probably had a blast with that one too. Like even with clients like dropping the F bump. Well, our data says, well, that's what's funny.

No, it happened actually last week. Someone, a CSM, uh, no, uh, SMB rep was closing, like going towards the closing motion for a large deal. And the CEO was like, like, you know, 55 minute call CEO was pretty buttoned up until the very end. They started talking about golf and he was like, yeah, man, I got a fucking tea time tomorrow. I'm so excited. And there was like eight people on the call and you could hear the whole shift of the room, just down. Everyone's laughing, talking shit to each other. And I was like, dude, that's it. That's exactly. And the rep never even had to curse. Like the rep didn't even reciprocate. Right. But it still had that effect. Um, so it was, it was funny. And so, uh, yeah, it's where we live in today.

I'm, I'm, it works for me. Yeah, exactly. I'm a, I'm a, uh, that's why I jumped on that post. I was like, you're goddamn right. It does. And there was some people like, you know, swearing shows like, you know, a lack of intelligence. I'm like, dude, fuck you. I think I answered. I think there was a couple of people in there. I was like, fuck you. I was like, call me lack of intelligence all day long. I don't give a shit, which is ironic. Cause there's actually studies that show people that curse have a bigger vocabulary and potentially higher IQs. I'm not going to go to market with that. I'm not going to say I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm just saying, you know, you can be a little lax with the four letter.

Well, to your point, EQ versus IQ, right? I would, I would venture to guess that the EQ is a lot higher. The IQ, maybe not, but the EQ definitely. So I'll take one. I'm good with one. Awesome. Well, look, uh, I always tell people to go follow the gong blog, literally every training that I do, uh, every workshop I do all that stuff. And, um, but other than their blog, um, what, what should people, uh, how could people a get in touch with you directly? Uh, and B what should they keep an eye out for with what you guys are coming out with right now? Yeah, absolutely. So, um, if you're like me go to LinkedIn, Devin Reed, R double E D, um, follow, uh, connect with me, whatever, hang out. Um, if you like the data approach, check out a gong on LinkedIn, just hit follow.

We release, I mean, weekly, we kind of share some of these tips and just like things that are going on with the data, but every like two or three weeks, we have a new report. Um, so we're due for one pretty quick here. And for folks interested, we're really looking at, uh, you know, deals. So looking at different things like activity, decision makers, really just diving into the anatomy of good deals. So that sounds interesting. Give us a follow, sign up for the newsletter and you'll, you'll get an email from me once a week. Love it. Do you take suggestions too, on what people would be interested in learning about from a data standpoint? For sure. Always interested. Always interested. Yeah. I actually have a list from your team.

Uh, some things we're taking into consideration for sure. Yeah. It's always just interesting too, to hear what people care about, you know, it might not be on like my immediate radar and what we're trying to do, but it's just good to know. Like, um, there's a good one that came up the other day of just like, um, ID'ing a decision maker based on I language or we language. So like the theory was that leaders say, uh, we and us versus individual contributors or people below the powerline say me and I, so I'm like, we're going to look into that. And that was someone tagged me on a comment section on some LinkedIn posts. I'm like, yeah, that's awesome. Let's look into that. I like that one. Do me a favor.

It's like, if it's easy enough to figure out the digest one, as it relates to it, I need to think about it. Cause I've, I've been, I've been preaching that for you. I'll make it a birthday gift for you. I'll make us a specific search. Just there you go. That's it's in December. So it's a ways out. But, uh, but if you could throw it in there as a simple, just search for the word digest and see how many of those deals closed, I'd be curious. All right. I got you. Awesome. Well, thank you very much for coming on, man. I appreciate it. And, uh, you know, I learned everything. Uh, like I said, I mean, and this is genuine, you know, I say I've, I've learned more in the past six months to a year reading the gong blog.

And then I have in the past six years of selling. Um, and I just, and I just appreciate the, the, the, the no bullshit data science aspect of this to use as a baseline. Does it mean it's true for everybody? Does it mean it works for everybody? No, but it should be when I talk about split testing, different approaches. What I always recommend is, hey, look, go use the gong data as a baseline. And then whatever your approach is, right. Go test it against that and see if yours is better. And if yours is better for you, for whatever reason, good for you, but at least you have a data set that you can actually compare it to and make some better decisions on. So. Absolutely. I mean, that's the best way.

That's what I've always been to is like, well, once I obviously got the data approaches, like start there, add your flavor to it, see what works. And then just, you know, you're, you're better off having both than, than one or the other. Exactly. Perfect. All right, everybody. Well, hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did. And as I always say, especially in today's world, uh, go out and make somebody smile today if you can. Uh, because no matter how shitty your day is, uh, if you made somebody else's day a little bit brighter than you, that means you had a pretty good day. So we all need a little bit more sunshine in our lives these days. All right. So hang in there, everybody.

Uh, keep grinding and, uh, make it happen. Have a great week.