160: Frank Dale On Deal Management

What's poppin' everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, Jon Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, SalesLoft, Gong, VanillaSoft, Vidyard, Proposify, Owler, Sendoso, Out of the Box, and Zoom Info. Today, we are talking to the one and only Frank Dale, a VP at SalesLoft. Frank's going to talk to Jon about deal and op management, and he's also going to touch on getting acquired by SalesLoft and how his software will be implemented into the popular sales engagement platform. Let's hop into the conversation and let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Jon Barrows with Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, all having a fantastic week.

I'm just getting back from a two-week vacation, so all fired up to get back to business here and super excited to have one of my good friends and colleagues back on the podcast, Frank Dale, VP of Product over at SalesLoft. Frank, what's going on, brother? How you doing? Good, man. How are you? Good to see you. You're looking right to see you, too. Yeah, well, it's funny. I told you that, you know, I took this RV trip and, again, never thought I'd be an RV guy, but, you know, you do what you do when things, when circumstances arise. So, I will say, you know, RVing is not exactly the most relaxing vacation, but it's definitely a fun and interesting one. So, but we had a blast. I shut off email for two straight weeks.

I didn't check the news for two straight weeks, which is the first time in my entire career that I did that, which was awesome until I got back and saw 2,000 emails in my inbox, but it was still totally worth it. So, yeah. Good, man. And we haven't really caught up since you got acquired. So, let's talk about this story, because we're going to talk for people listening here, deal advancement, right? So, now in the world of COVID with where we are, every deal matters. And so, we're going to talk about the details, getting, you know, getting into the nitty gritty here, but let's put some context on this, Frank, because you and I met when you were, you had started Costello and Costello was, you know, the meeting, right?

And I really liked the structure of how, you know, conversational intelligence and meetings. And then you made a shift to, you know, deal management. And then that's what got you acquired by Staples. Because you just walked through that little journey right there for us. First of all, start off with, I always love to know from founders, why did you decide to start a company? Did you have that entrepreneurial itch when you were younger? Like, what was that? And then walk me through briefly how you kind of got to Sales Loft and what you're doing today. Yeah. So, I did have that itch. I always knew that I wanted to start a company. My problem was, I didn't know what it was going to be. So, when I was, you know, 43 now, when I was like 21, getting out of school, I didn't know how to start a company, right?

I mean, most 21-year-olds don't. And I was naive enough. I think they do, but... Yeah, I think they do. I grew up in a small town. I was naive enough to think if I just reached out to entrepreneurs, they would talk to me. So, I did some cold calls from people, emailed them. Some of them were kind enough to take pity on me and let me meet with them. And then what I would do is I'd go to coffee and I would ask them a bunch of questions. And the one I always finished with was, knowing what you know today, what do you wish you had known when you started your business? And they always told me two things. One, I wish I understood finance because it turns out that's important. And two... Turns out, go figure.

Yeah, it turns out. Two, man, I wish I knew how to sell because I do it all the time. I do it to get employees to join my team. I do it to recruit investors if, you know, we're invested now. I do it to get customers, which is the most important thing. Man, I wish I knew how to sell because if I did, it would have made the beginning earlier. And I kept hearing that over and over and over again. And so when I thought about it, I'm like, you know what? I know what I have to do. I got to go learn to sell because my dad sold. And that guy sold for 40 years. He was good. Like he was really good. So the idea of going into sales, some people have a hang up around it. I didn't. I grew up around it. It was dinner table talk.

So I got a job in sales and I got a job in sales to learn how to sell because people kept saying, that's the most important thing you need to learn to do. Um, so started selling eventually ended up, um, over the course of my sales career as an operations leader at a company called compendium was there for like six months. And then one of the founders asked me to be the CEO. So I took that over, turn that company around. Uh, we got acquired by Oracle, uh, and I had to kind of figure out what I wanted to do next and did some consulting for a little bit. And as part of that consulting, I've been asked by a nonprofit here in Indianapolis where I'm based to help some early stage companies with their sales and marketing problems.

And so I would go and I would talk to the companies. And what I kept hearing at the time was, you know, the buyer we sell to can do a lot of research now. It didn't used to be that way, but it is now. And when they make call, when my team makes calls, the person on the other hand is a lot smarter. So we need to up our game and we're struggling. And I said, you know, again, naive question. Hey, can I come watch your teamwork? So a couple of people said, yes. So I sat in the back with like a legal pad and I was just taking notes, right? I was just observing. And what I noticed really quickly was they were all doing the same stuff I did at the beginning of my sales career. They had like post-it notes all over the monitor, the notebooks out on the desk.

And when I would ask him, Hey, what are you doing with that? They would say, well, I've got three or four things I want to remember to ask in this call, or I've got a question I'm working on as a skill and I need a way to remember. Because if I don't and I miss it and I don't do a good job in this first call, we're not getting that second call. And I'm like, great. I noticed you're taking notes too. Where are those going? And they're like, sometimes it goes into the CRM mostly when my manager's mad. Right. And I get it. I was, I was a rep. I hated entering stuff into Salesforce. We all do, right? It's not really made for reps. No. So I started looking at that and I'm thinking, you know what?

I've spent my career in software. I've been in sales. I understand how to run a product. This feels like something software is uniquely qualified to do, but I didn't want to build something that nobody loved. So I went out and I did 40 hours of interviews. I interviewed VPs of sales, I interviewed managers, I interviewed reps, and I did a big companies. So I talked to people at Salesforce, Adobe and Oracle, all the way down to like five person startups. And I kept seeing the same problem over and over and over again. So at that point, I iterated into a product over the course of these interviews. And by the end, I pre-sold it to four companies. Like they bought it. Like they signed contracts, not letters of intent.

Like I'm going to do, like, we'll pay you if you build it. So I turned around, took that, raised about a million dollars in venture capital to get the first part out. And then we got started. So that's how the business started. And then I started, I lived that problem, right? I grew up around that problem. Those are the best companies to start, man, is when you have the problem and you want to, are fixing it for yourself, right? You're like, screw this. I know there's an issue here. I'm I'm going to solve this for myself and holy shit, this will probably benefit a lot of other people. Yeah. Now you, now you, so that was Costello. That was conversational intelligence. It was meetings. We loved it.

It was structured. I was very interested that all of a sudden you made this pivot to deal management. And because we, I mean, it's funny because it actually aligns with Kyle over at sales loft because when Kyle first started sales loft, it was all, this was way before sales navigator and everything else. And it was the, you know, I got alerts when Frank, when you moved from Costello to sales loft, I would get an alert that said, Hey, Frank just moved. And it was brilliant, right? And I was like, holy shit. And this was before LinkedIn did that. And then all of a sudden he shut it down. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? That's like one of my favorite things. I tell everybody about it. He's like, yeah, LinkedIn's coming out with that in about a month or two.

So we have to pivot our business. Right. Then he went into lead scraping, right? So scraping leads out of LinkedIn and getting contact information. I was like, okay, that's fantastic. So I started telling everybody about that. And then he shut that down. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? And he's like, nope, they're going to shut down the APIs in a couple of months. And so he pivoted it again. And so I guess my question was, it seemed like Costello was doing really well with this, you know, with this meetings and note taking and structure and AI, you know, serving up information to reps during the call, but you made a very distinct shift from that to negotiations less deal management. Talk to me about why, because I think that's a, I don't know, tell me if I'm wrong here.

It's a hard thing for an entrepreneur to, I don't want to say give up on your baby, but really make a hard shift on your baby to say like, we created this thing that we think is really great, but we got to go in this direction. Talk to me about how did that happen? Like when did that realization and why did that realization happen? Well, I think it happened. It's the kind of realization that I think happens to a lot of people. And so you talked about Kyle's story. That's a great story. I hadn't lived that story before. So when I took over that company in Indianapolis called Companion, we had rather a 45% renewal rate and 90 days of cash, right? And the way we turned that around, I called a hundred customers.

I interviewed them. We rebooted our roadmap and we found out that this product that had been built for corporate blogging was, you know, pretty cool for that, but people weren't loving it. They weren't renewing it the rate we wanted, but it was really great for content marketing. So we shifted the roadmap that way. And suddenly that was a great business, right? Oracle bought that business. So usually with most of these things, what you start doing and what you end doing are not always the same thing. So you have to be open to changing. You got to listen to what the customers are saying. Now, what I will tell you is we knew from the jump when we started this company that we were going to build the opportunity management stuff.

It's just, our belief at the time was that if we started with getting the call, right, getting the conversation, right, then we pre-fill out the data. I'll tell you what we learned. Once we started rolling out the opportunity management stuff, two things happen. People use that like at an insane rate and an insane level because it solves a real, real deal problem for people. And two, it actually made the, the guided selling piece make sense to them, right? So like, if you think about the way Salesforce tends to lay out the opportunity data, you can't really see it the way a salesperson really needs to say to see it, which is why we built that part of Costello, right? We show you immediately, what do I know?

And what do we not know? Right. Once that's viewable, I can suddenly get a view of all of my opportunities and I see all the gaps, like which stakeholders are missing. Do I actually have legit pain points? How we confirm that there's a budget, right? All of those things, like is security in this deal? Do they need to be in this deal or not? Yeah. You suddenly understand, man, if I'm looking at this board and there are holes all over it, my team needs to run their conversations more consistently. Now you understand the other piece. So if we'd known that, I would tell you that we would have built it in reverse. I would have built it in reverse. We just didn't know. And that's, that's how these things go sometimes.

But do you think you would have gotten this, your same attention and traction if you had done it in reverse? I don't know. That's a great question. I mean, it's clearly we were solving a real problem because I would tell you, uh, so like the benchmark most of the time for like daily active users and software, if you can get above 60%, you're really, you know, you're doing well, like Slack is sitting above 60%. Um, we were like in the seventies, eighties. So reps were in there all day, every day. Wow. And that's exactly what you want. I mean, that means you're building something really valuable. So I think we would have, um, but you, you never know. Right? Like, I think the, if there are entrepreneurs listening to this, the important thing to take away from my experience, Kyle's experience or Slack's experience, right?

They started doing something totally different. And that, that product was just an internal check tool. Yeah. You gotta listen, you gotta listen to what the market's telling you, what the customer is telling you, and then you move that way. Yeah. Yeah. Don't fall in love, right? You can't fall in love with what you, what you think is great. You gotta, you gotta adjust to the marketplace. So, so now that you're, you got acquired by sales loft, you're now a VP of product and GM, right? Yeah. Um, on the deal management stuff. So you're now, you're now getting some pretty interesting insights on deals on, uh, like what makes a good one, what makes a bad one, how to accelerate, how to decelerate and what reps do and don't do.

Right? So in this world, I'm going to start with a little broader question here, which is in this world of COVID, what has changed, um, pre COVID up until now, right? So the deals that you saw last year, and, and how they advanced through and that type of stuff versus today, what are the major trends that you're seeing changing? And then we're going to get into some of the details of what to look for and how to, how to make some adjustments here. Yeah. Good question. So, so two things. So my former co-founder is the product leader for deals. Uh, and I collaborate with him because my job is to think through what are we going to do for the account executable, which is the big reason we went to sales loft.

So, uh, I have conversation intelligence. So our part of conversation intelligence at sales loft is part of that. Um, so any integrations, we might deal with, uh, opportunity management product, that kind of thing. Um, so I, to answer your question, I'll tell you what we're seeing. Um, one, if I am selling today, if I was a seller today, I would understand how to talk to finance because they're showing up in deals that they did not show up in before. Small ones, small deals, like 5k deals, 6k deals, 10k deals, they're showing up. Right. And so sometimes they're showing up in the background and sometimes they're going on the call. So if I were you, I would know how to talk to them and I would ask to talk to them and I would have a talk track ready for that and questions to ask because what are they judging?

They're judging return on investment. I was going to say, what do you talk, what it like if you're a young rep out there right now, you know, finance scares a lot of people who aren't in finance. Right. I mean, I don't know about you, you know, me looking at a fucking EBITDA spreadsheet, bullshit. I'm like, my eyes get blurry and I'm like, what the fuck? You know, I read through a 10k or annual report and I'm like, dude, that first paragraph from the CEO is the only one I actually give a shit about. Right. So, so what do you, when you, when you say learn how to talk to finance, what are some of the things that you suggest the reps really focus on that will get them at least a converse, you know, at least getting them some credibility without having to, for them to go get a finance degree?

Yeah. Good question. So here's the good news. It's easier than it sounds. Right. Because at the end of the day, people buy outcomes. Right. They buy outcomes. They buy what you do for them. And generally when you're talking to finance, you're either making them money or you're saving them money. So if you can put whatever you do in that context, you're probably in business there. Like you don't have to do some, like a complicated discounted cashflow analysis model. Are we going to make you more money or are we going to save you more money? So let's save yourself off. It's, we're going to help you generate more pipe. We're going to help you close more of the deals that you manage. And in doing that, you're going to make more money.

Do you think one's better than, so there's all the statistics out there that people are, you know, four times more likely to avoid loss than achieve gain. So when talking about making versus saving, I think the prevailing, you know, assumption by sales reps is that finance is always about budget. Finance is always about saving money, cutting costs, blah, blah, blah. Even in the world of COVID, like, what are you seeing that? Or are you seeing a balance? Like, help me, help me understand what, what do you think, uh, saving versus making is a better pitch these days? And that's like, that's always the best question in sales, isn't it? I mean, generally I would tell you loss aversion moves people, right?

You know that, like we're both the Chris Foss fans, you've talked to them. Loss aversion is going to move people, but the way you frame that loss aversion can vary, right? Um, sometimes it's lost opportunity, right? So you, you can kind of hook in the game and not just sell the loss. Sometimes it is just cost cutting, right? But there are creative ways to deal with that. I mean, well, one of the other things we're seeing is people, you know, finance is showing up because of budget conscious and they're also looking for things to cut. So, you know, we are benefiting from that at sales lock because we offer a complete solution. Um, and so when people want to consolidate, they're coming to us, right?

You can do conversation intelligence, you can get sales engagement, you can do opportunity management. So if I was selling and finance was involved today and they were talking to me about like budget, the question I would want to answer is, are there other things that they won't need that maybe they have in the stack today that we can replace? Okay. Cause I think that's, I mean, that's the fear right now. And, and, and, and from an executive standpoint, a little, little of a slightly different question, cause you have a different perspective than I do in working with the companies that you do. Um, executives used to be able to look out two, three, four years, right? Five years, map out that plan.

I don't know about you guys at sales loft, but I'm looking at like two, three weeks at this point. You know what I mean? Like who the fuck knows what's going to happen next month? I mean, the elections coming up, the world could explode, you know, all this other stuff. So how, let me ask you at sales loft, how far are you guys really planning out? And then what are you seeing your customers as far as strategies? Cause, cause I think that dictates a lot of the conversation too, which is short term, I got to fix my problem right now. Um, and look, I don't know what the future is going to look like. So stop trying to pitch me on some plan here that you have to get, help me get, you know, 10 X revenues or whatever it is.

I got to solve my problem now. But are you starting to see people turn around with, with kind of a, a optimistic or, or futuristic view, or you think that we're still a little bit short, shorter term focused right now with where we are? Yeah. So this is the answer people hate. It depends, right? And it depends kind of on who you are. So in our business, people are realizing how important that business is. The world's transforming. Sales is transforming. It's becoming more digital. So we're growing, we're still growing, right? We provide a great product. We have a great team that backs it. People are buying, right? And so are we, um, investing in the way that we would have invested in the middle of 2019?

No, because the economy is not as good as 2019, but we're still growing and we're seeing people that want to buy. So for us, you know, if you're Kyle, if you're Rob, if you're Chad Gold or CFO, they're thinking 24 months now, that doesn't mean we're stuck on that plan. The worst thing, you know, I've, I've led two companies now and I can tell you the worst thing you can do is make a plan and refuse to change it. Right. You know, usually the point of that plan is to help you think through all the letters and understand what you need to do to get where you want to go. Right. You don't never move exactly in the direction that you set it down in the plan. Yeah. Right. Um, there are though, some businesses out there that this is really hurting and in their world.

Yeah. At best, they're thinking of quarter out and you better, you better attach to something that is really important outcome for them, but they're not going to take time to deal with you and they're not going to want to do business with you. And I think that's the key there, right? It's like people talk about, you know, creating urgency and those types of things. Like you can't create urgency. You can uncover it, you can drive it, but you can't create it. And it has everything to do with what those outcomes are in the, you know, in the short term here about, okay, what, what are you really trying to accomplish? I mean, as an example, and I've said this before, you know, when COVID really hit, we went from 4 million to 2.5 overnight, but it, but 4 million, you previously last year, December, whatever, January, you could sell me on the vision of how you can help me hit 4 million, right?

And if you qualified me, you would understand that that was my priority. My revenue mix, 70, 30, blah, blah, blah. COVID crushes us. 4 million goes to 2.5. My priority though, wasn't 2.5 anymore. My priority was retaining all my employees. That was my priority. So if you were selling to something that you would, you would qualified me on in January and February about 4 million, I was ghosting the shit out of you now because 4 million wasn't anywhere near what I was concerned with. I was concerned with making sure that the P the people that I worked with could feed their families. So if you uncovered that now you could get me to move, but if you kept selling me on this fucking go get $4 million, I'd go to tell you to pound sand because that's not my priority anymore.

So with that, you know, with the deals, because now going back to the kind of the premise of this, like every deal matters right now. Insights into deals is so critical for making adjustments, like you said, and not being married to your own sales process. I think agility right now and adaptability are the critical characteristics of success moving forward. I really do. messaging wise, the highest response rates that we get is when I legitimately put agility in the subject line. And then I talked to them about how I can make them a more agile sales team, right? That type of stuff. And so with the insights of what you get to see, you know, what are you seeing as what the best teams are doing to help keep those deals moving in the right direction?

And what are some of the gaps, the big, you know, big or minute gaps that reps are doing wrong and need to really start paying attention to, to make sure that we're capitalizing on every deal that we have in our pipeline right now? Yeah, good question. So it's going to be two things. And so it's kind of like you are stuff that I would do to go build sales organization or company, but it's on steroids. Now I'm going to do it faster and more aggressively. And that is primarily visibility. So get information quickly as to what's happening on the front lines. That's why I love conversation intelligence. What what are the buyers saying to us? What are we saying to them? It's one of the primary benefits that we provide right now to show everyone, show everyone what's working.

So once you see that, replicate that quickly across the team. Like that, that is the key because you're right. You have to be agile. Things are changing. I mean, I would, I will tell you think like, uh, one of the things that's helping our business right now is companies are realizing, and everybody's at home. I have no idea what they're doing. I have no idea what they're doing. Right. The second we understood that, what did we start talking about? We are going to help you make sure that whatever your playbook is, they can run it from anywhere and you know what's happening and you know what's working. So everyone can change immediately to do what's working. Yeah. I think it's funny because I tell, I'm telling reps right now, or no, not reps leaders.

When I get it, I'm like, look, every deal you close right now, any deal you close right now, put the AE up on zoom, interview the shit out of them to say, where did this deal come from? How did you get engaged? What was the process? Who was involved? What were the objections and dissect deals like you've never dissected them before in your life to look for those trends to then go find other people like them? Because you know, I think I still think we're in this world of, you know, in March, I put this out there as the, you know, the red, yellow, green, like the different types of prospects, right? Red is locked down. Fuck. We might go out of business. Literally leave those companies alone. You know, if you can give them free shit to help them out, please do yellow.

We've settled in. We might not be making any long-term decisions, but we have time to evaluate where we've kind of understand that this is the quote unquote, new normal. So we're adjusting and I might be open to some conversation. Then the greens, like we got to get going, right? And you got to figure out where those greens are these days so that your sales reps aren't smashing their head up against the wall on, on shit that'll never close. So what are those greens? Like, what do you look for from a trending standpoint that are helping the reps find those things and what are the reps doing to accelerate those deals today? Not just at sales loft, but what you're seeing with your customers as well.

Yeah, that's a great question. So I think it's a couple of things. One, you're going to have to run some experiments and you need to take that mindset. You and I have talked about this before, right? What do you do early on in your career? What do you teach people? We're going to A/B test some stuff and we're going to see what works. So understand that you're going to A/B test some things and that's going to help you find a couple of things. One, what's the message that gets the conversation started? And that's hard right now. And then two, once you're doing that, and this is why I love the product that we created for deals. Can I systematically see what's going on with each one of these deals?

And what is the business case for each one of these deals? What is the outcome that people are buying from us today? And in what industries? Because that answers the other part of the question, how do I replicate it? So I'll give you an example. There are businesses right now, and I'm actually proud of this, that our sales team has brought on as customers. We are keeping people employed. We're keeping them employed because the companies that they were calling on did all of their revenue at trade shows before coming. All of it. So overnight, they had to figure out another way to drive business. And we've actually kept people employed at those companies. And I feel really good about that. So you have to look for those kinds of trends.

And some of them are going to be obvious. Like if there's a delivery business right now, it's probably booming for them, right? And if you can do anything for delivery companies, call them. But there'll be hidden opportunity pockets, like what I just described. But the only way you're going to see that is if you are systematically capturing all the data, you are evaluating it and you're making it visible for everyone. Yeah, definitely. And are you seeing, we talked earlier about like the devils in the details, right? And the nitty gritty shit. Like, you know, anybody can run a sales process where there's a defined need, you got the decision maker on board, you do your discovery, you do your nice little presentation, you bring in the SE, you get some competitive pricing, giddy the fuck up, right?

I mean, that's okay, good for you. Where are you seeing the gaps right now that people are falling down now compared to what they were before? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I've always believed, now I know you believe this, this is why we're friends, right? Selling should be done the right way, right? Like you sell the right way, you are helping somebody, not just your company, not just yourself, right? Like there's the right way to do it, and a wrong way to do it. The difference I would say today is pre COVID, when the economy was really strong, you could be kind of lazy, there were reps out there that could be kind of lazy, if you're at the right company, you could get back to people a couple days late, you may not follow through on everything, and people were still buying, the economy was great.

Now, if you're not delivering a fantastic buying experience, they're not going to buy from you. Because I guarantee you, the other people in your industry are just as hungry for revenue as you are right now, and they're calling them. So you are competing against someone else that is also desperate. So you better hustle, you better deliver a great experience, because if you don't, somebody else will, and they're going to get the business. Yeah, I think that it's funny. I've always believed that how you sell is more important than what you sell, right? And that buyer experience goes a long way, long way. I mean, it's funny, let's go back to the RV example. When we bought the RV, I mean, you think car sales and gross, like I hate this, right?

And this was a family run business. This guy, our sales rep, his name was actually, where's his card? Jerry. I don't know his card here, but his name is Jerry, right? Older guy, been doing it for 20, 30 years, lived the RVs. I mean, talk about no pressure sale. He almost didn't sell us, because it was just like, he just showed us the stuff. He's like, "Oh yeah, this is what this one does," and answered all our questions. He's like, "Look, here's the deal. There's no pressure. If you put down $500, we can hold whichever one you want, and then you call us in three days. And in three days, if you don't want it, whatever, we release it. But if you put that 500, then we can't release it to anybody else.

But if you need it extended a few days, because you need a few more times to think about it, just let me know, right?" And it was like such a, it was such a, like, just an enjoyable experience that it made me want to, like, we didn't go to another dealer, right? We just looked at it, we found one that we liked, and we worked with him. We did go home for a few days, but we came back, right? And we said, you know, like, one more thing I want to check. And it was the experience, right? And I, there's, but then there's been other things that I've bought that I've really, really wanted, and I've seen value in, and I believe that the product is the best for that thing. But the sales experience was such shit that I ended up bailing on them and going and, you know, working with their direct competitor just because, right?

So, you know, I think selling the right way, what does that mean? Let's, let's do that. Like, what does that mean to you? Because I know, I think we have a similar view on this, but what does it mean for you to sell the right way? So a couple of things, one, be honest, like don't sell things you can't do. The reality is even today, there is business out there to be done. So you don't have to do that to get business, right? And there are people that will. Two, empathy matters, man. Like, like, if we think about the experience you're comparing, that process was about you. What do you need? What do you want? What is right for you? And you know what, that probably got you to open up to that person.

And you told him what he needed to know, to know whether or not he can help you and who'd you buy from, right? You bought from that person. So to me, I think that's the big thing, right? And the piece that matters is, when they buy, they're choosing not just the company, they're choosing you. But when you sell that way, when you sell with empathy, when you do it the right way, you're basically teaching them what it's going to be like to work with your company, right? And I think that gets missed a lot. And smart buyers, they think about that. I mean, you know, let's compare Jerry to somebody else you could have bought the RV from. My bet is, where Jerry works, if you have to come in for service or you need help, you're going to get a similar experience, right?

And so people judge that. But I'd love to hear your answer. Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to the core foundation, right? Believe in what you sell, integrity, transparency, no bullshit. I think, you know, a flip that I made earlier, a little bit earlier in my career was to disqualify more than qualify. You know what I mean? It was a hard shift for me to make, because I always was qualifying. And then, and then, oh, once they were qualified, I would sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Now, I'm like, no, we're not the right fit for everybody. And I almost flip it around on them. And the psychology around that's interesting, because then it's almost like the client wants to work with you, because they're like, wait a minute, you don't want to work with me?

No, I'm like, no, I want to work with you. I just don't need to work with you. And I only want to work with you if it's the right fit. And the amount of credibility that I've gotten in my career by doing that, I mean, dude, you know, it's funny, you know, Morgan and James, they've listened into a lot of my calls. And they're just like, dude, like 70% of the time, you tell them not to do business with, you know what I mean? Like you recommend, you know, whoever you're like, oh, no, no, no, you should actually probably call Trish Bertuzzi over the bridge group, or you should probably call Keenan because that's a better fit. And they're like, what the fuck, man? Like, you could have sold that. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, they would.

And yes, I probably would have done something that was good and they would have liked it, but it wouldn't have been great. And I, I don't, and I think in this world of NPS scores and, you know, G2 crowd reviews and all that other stuff, it's amazing what one bad review, one bad customer experience can do to your credibility in this space, right? I mean, it's crazy. Like we're, we're hardcore for a while on G2, right? Trying to get reviews and all that other stuff. And we were there, we were like 4.99 something top of the list or whatever for a while. And then one, we had one kid who came into a training, misset expectations. He was not, he wasn't supposed to be there. He didn't know what it was about.

And he left this, like, this is bullshit review. And it was a one star and it fucking ruined our score. Like it dropped us down to like a two point, or I'm sorry, like a 4.2. Like we had nines across the board, like fives across the board and one shit one. And it took our score from 4.9 to 4.2. And I was like, oh, come on. But you know, our bad for, for not delivering what the expectation was for that, for every single person in that room. Now, can you, can you satisfy everybody? Absolutely not. But you got to do what you can these days to make sure that that buyer experience and the expectations are clear because now, yes, it's hard to, you know, get a client, but what is it? What are the numbers?

Like five times it's hard to get a client than it is to keep a client. But if you lose that client, man, these days it is brutal. I mean, you get, you guys are in direct competition out there with some pretty heavy hitters and it's pretty easy for one, somebody to bounce to another one if they don't have that good experience. Right. That's the world we live in. Right. The internet is like infinite supply. Yeah. You have to know that. And I'll tell you the other piece that matters because you're reminding me as we're talking about this. And I read something the other day, like for each additional person that's part of the evaluation process on the buy side, like your odds of closing can go down by 10%.

So like by the time you get to like six, your odds of closing can go below like 20%, 30%. And that's not including, by the way, those are non-competitive deals. So think about what happens when you do have competition. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it's just getting fiercer out there. And to your point, you know, with everybody in finance and all that other stuff, I mean, so many companies, unfortunately I'm seeing are literally dropping their pants to get deals. Like don't care about the sales process. And, and the one thing I want to, you know, and I don't know if you have any data or insights around this, but I find discount selling to be absolutely the worst approach because it destroys your credibility as an organization.

Right. And look, I don't get, I understand giving a discount when a client asks, right. Negotiating that way. I totally understand that. But like legit dropping your pants and proactively discounting so you can get that deal. You develop all the rapport you've built with me throughout this whole process and the value I've had in my head about where you are. And all of a sudden out of nowhere, I get this email that says, if you close by the end of the month, I'll give you 20% off or Hey, you know, we're cutting our prices in half. I'm now questioning everything about your business. I'm being like, wait a minute. So were you screwing me beforehand by giving me that fucking price? Like, and if you're automatically going to give shave 50% off, then I'm actually, I'm going to go for way more because I didn't even ask for that.

Right. And, and legit your credibility is ruined. So have you seen like those types of trends, even in this world? Cause everybody thinks, Oh, COVID no budget. So let me, let me figure out from a pricing standpoint, how, where does pricing fit in what you do and what you're seeing out there? Yeah, I will tell you, uh, there are people in some of them we compete with, but that's what they're doing right now. Right. They're doing it off the jump. And I'm with you. What, you know, I think there's a difference between like somebody asking and saying, Hey, here's, here's the deal. I absolutely want to buy from you. Here's, here's my challenge. I got a budget of X. I'm not BSing you on this. I can only do X.

Is there a way we can make this work? That's one thing. Like that's a conversation. Let's figure it out. But Hey, I'm not sure if you're going to close. I'm just going to proactively. The worst is like, they just email you out of nowhere. And then you're exactly right. Because what does that say? Like, well, why didn't you give me that price from the beginning? Right. Going back to credibility and authenticity and transparency and all that other stuff, you just shattered all of that. So, and I think now as, as hard as it is, I think for reps, and I'm guessing some of your reps are struggling with that in the sense that because X competitor is, is dropping their pants, it's like, okay, you know, apples to apples comparison, they're dropping it by 50%, 30%, whatever it is.

How can I compete with that? Um, but you're still winning deals, right? You're still winning deals by not doing that. We are. Yeah. And you know, I'm proud of that sales team. I would tell you the sales team at this company is the best that I've seen. You're, you've helped train them. Uh, and part of that is just they're high integrity, right? Number one, they're high integrity. They actually care about the people who are helping, right? We, we are, I mean, my reason for saying yes to an acquisition, and I love being an entrepreneur and someday again, in the future, I'm going to do it again. Yeah. You know, I'm a missionary in this vertical, right? I sold, my dad sold for 40 years. Like I actually care about the way this stuff is done.

So do the people I work with, right? And that that's what made this a good fit. Um, and that shows up when they go to sell, right? It shows up when they go to sell. And then the other thing that I think they do really well, when we run into those price situations, they build value and they build value by anchoring to an outcome. Because what I will tell you that at least I have seen our sales team encounter is we, we do run some people where, um, if we're in the deal and a certain competitors in the deal, um, that, you know, I'm sure, you know, who I'm talking about their first move is just drop the price. That is like the first move, right? And then, you know what? We still have people buying from us and they're paying more and you know why they're paying more?

Because we understood what outcomes they were trying to drive, what the priorities were, and we showed them how we were going to help them do that. Because that's what people are buying. That's what they've always bought. Just the difference is in the past, in a better economy, it can be squishier. Today, it can't. Like you got to dial that in. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the, the D like you, like we started this conversation, like the D the detail matters, right? The, the, the, the process going through understanding the real needs, not just going through and checking off the boxes, but really digging into that. What's the outcome you're looking for? What's the impact of this on your business?

You know, I always love asking the question, okay, fine. What happens if you don't do this? You know what I mean? Because if you don't, if you don't have a good answer to that, then the likelihood of me closing, this is not I, right. But if there's like, Hey, if we don't do this, we're going to lose out on this, we're going to miss out on this opportunity. You know, if I was selling the sales loft, you know, and Kyle, I'd be asking, Hey, what is the trajectory for IPOs? And, you know, acquisition, like what's your plan for that? How can I help you get there so that your evaluation is the highest possible? Those types of things, as opposed to how many fucking emails do you want to send out today?

Right? Like who gives a shit about that? So awesome. And well, any other, any other things that, uh, before we wrap it up, any other kind of things top of mind or that you're seeing out there that we should be paying attention to? I think those are the big ones. I'll tell you what I would leave you with. And I read this quote the other day and you will, you'll love this. Like I know you're going to love this. So it's kind of Alan Cooper, right? And if you are young in sales, man, internalize this, right? So Alan Cooper, just as the background, a famous guy from the early days of Microsoft built a lot of the kind of groundbreaking interactions that drove a lot of their products, that made a lot of their success possible.

And so smart guy, good product thinker, right? But it's really applicable to sales. So here's what he said. He said, you know, uh, technology, when it changes, that makes things change. Let's say that again. Technology makes what technology changes. Tasks often change, but goals never do. Right. Goals never do. And so if you think about it, it's the truth, right? Like the, the same, you know, outcomes that my dad was trying to sell 40 years ago and that his peers were trying to sell 40 years ago, we're all still selling those same outcomes today. We're just selling a different way to get there. Right. And you know, I, I'm at sales loft because I think this is a better way, right. And a way I can be proud of.

Um, but if I was in sales right now, I would really understand what those outcomes are. And if you understand today, you're going to be good 10 years from now because those outcomes aren't changing. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think that couldn't be more accurate as far as like outcomes, you know, helping people. I always tell people like, I don't sell you shit. All right. I help you achieve your goals or solve your problems. And if your goals aren't big enough and your problems aren't big enough, why are we talking? Right. Cause, cause me, you know, the cell, I'm not trying to convince you of shit. It's just, I'm trying to ask the right questions so I can understand what your situation, what the outcome is and show you how I can help you get there.

And if, and if I can't do that, then whatever, it's my bad or the, or the need or the priority isn't, isn't big enough. Right. But I think that, that mentality there of solving problems or achieving goals is where the mindset needs to be. Cause it, it ultimately ends on the outcome. Like, what are you trying to accomplish? And that's both personally you, but also organizationally, what are you trying to do? Yeah. So awesome, man. Well, always love catching up with you, Frank. Um, what's, uh, what are you working on right now? What do you want to, what do you want people to pay attention to over at sales loft these days and how, and how can they connect with you? Yeah. So, uh, LinkedIn, uh, Twitter app, Frank C Dale, you know, happy to connect there.

I'll tell you what I'm excited about. So going back to like solving the problems that you have lived. Um, so I've sold, I've managed sales teams. Uh, what excites me is combining our products and sales loft to solve real problems for people. So we were talking about this earlier. Uh, I'm in the middle of putting together a way to take our conversation intelligence product and our opportunity management product and use them together. So like, imagine I am, I'm a seller. I'm trying to figure out how to move deals from discovery to whatever we call the next step. And I need an easy way to see who's the best on the team. Right. And we'll give you an easy visualization. I can watch my conversion rates and the close rates for everybody in the team.

I click on it. I immediately see all of the calls that I've done at that stage and all of the deals or all of the calls and the deals that someone else is doing in that stage. And I can learn, I can suddenly understand, Hey, Jane's doing it this way. You know, it turns out she sets like a hard agenda at the start. She gets some hard agreements at the start and I'm not doing that. And that's why my conversations don't get off on the right foot. Uh, and I don't learn the things that I need to do or, or whatever it is. Right. But the point is we're solving like real problems that will not only save people a lot of time, at least a better outcome for them. Right. And that outcome is I'm a seller.

I close more deals. I'm the manager. I have less stress because my team's closing more deals and I'm the company. We hit our targets. Right. And in today's world, that means I'm helping people stay employed. So that is what I'm excited about right now. Awesome. Awesome, man. We'll keep up the great work. Like I always say, you know, with, uh, out of all the, I would never work for anybody else. Like I'm unemployable cause I'm too much of a pain in the ass, but, but sales loft is definitely on the list of companies that, uh, that I would, uh, because of culture, because of what you guys are doing, help elevate the profession. And I think that's why we align so well. So appreciate the conversation as always, Frank, hopefully everybody, uh, you got as much value out of this as I did.

And, uh, look, as I always say, uh, tonight today, more than ever, man, you know, even if you're having a shitty day, uh, go out there and make somebody smile. Cause if you can make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and we need a little bit, a lot more of that these days. So Frank, again, thank you very much. Appreciate it, my friend. Yeah. Good to see you about it. Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody make it a great week. Make it happen. Thank you very much. you