162: Ashley Welch On Design Thinking

What's going on, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft, Gong, Vanilla Soft, Vidyard, Proposify, Owler, Sendoso Out of the Box, and Zoom Info. Today, we're talking to Ashley Welch, co-founder of Somersault Innovation, and she's going to speak to us about the neuroscience behind curiosity in sales, connecting as a human being, how curiosity and discovery play together, and the magic behind what curiosity can do to open doors are all on the docket today. Don't forget to check JB Sales On Demand out at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Now let's pass it over to John and Ashley to make it happen.

Take it away, John. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows to Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend. I am super excited for this conversation because I've been searching for the answer to this question that we are going to dive into today. But before we talk about what we're going to talk about, I'd like to introduce a good friend of mine, a repeat guest on Make It Happen Mondays, Ashley Welch, co-founder of Somersault Innovations. How are you, Ashley? I'm good. It's so good to be here. Thank you. Yeah. How are you hanging in there these days? Yeah, good. We were just talking. And it was a whirlwind, but we're back at it and doing well. And a lot of things about this, actually, I like.

I like seeing my girls more. I like not being on the road all the time. So there's some good things, too. I, you know, I hate to, I don't want to, you know, boast about this, but as fucked up as it is right now, I couldn't be happier. Yeah. I mean, you know me, I mean, same thing on my end, but I was traveling so much that I was missing everything. And I now, even if I'm, even though sometimes I'm, you know, training from six o'clock in the morning until 10, you know, eight o'clock at night, all remotely. And yeah, it's resume fatigue and all that other stuff. But I still get to see my daughter every night. I see my wife every night and I couldn't be fucking happier about this. Like if it never goes back to on-site training again, personally, I'm going to be thrilled.

It's all right. Yeah. Anyways, Ashley, for those of you, so for people who don't know, talk to us a little bit about Somersault Innovations and what you guys are doing, because you take a very interesting and unique approach to sales that I think more people need to find out about. And we're going to kind of dig into it a little bit more today, but could you give us a little background here? Yeah. So we're a sales enablement firm, just like you. What we've pioneered is bringing the tools and techniques from the world of design thinking into the sales environment. And design thinking is a customer-centric innovation or problem-solving process. It's quite simple, actually. And what's different about this problem-solving process is it always starts with a customer.

It's customer-centric from beginning to end. So you're always focused on what does the end user or customer care about and using that as your inspiration for whatever you create if you're innovating around a product or service. But of course, in sales, that's what we should be doing too, right? We should be staying ruthlessly customer-centric and paying attention to what they care about throughout the entire process and co-creating with our customers. So basically, we said, well, wait a second. What if we took some of these tools from the world of design and gave them to sellers? What would happen? And it was miraculous what happened in terms of adding millions of dollars to the bottom line at places like Salesforce and AT&T and other big tech companies.

So we basically have a program called Sell by Design. We work with sellers at all different levels, give them different tools, particularly in the space of discovery, insight, and then how do you accelerate a deal cycle? And it kind of leads to our conversation about discovery and curiosity that we're going to get to. But I wanted to... This happens recently. There's a couple of trolls out there who are on my LinkedIn feeds and they hate salespeople because they think like us cold calling and stuffing stuff down people's throats. We're dirtbags and all this other stuff, whatever. I've stopped paying attention to them. But, you know, the point that they were making is like, you have your product, you're stuffing it down people's throats.

If there's no need, you know, I mean, if they needed it, they would have asked for it. So like an all marketing poll campaign where like, I'm the buyer, I've recognized that I have this problem. You know, there should be no sales call in the world. I should just self-identify and then say, oh, let me go find a vendor that does that, which shut the fuck up. I like, that's my point to this guy. But it does kind of come into play here with, let's talk about design thinking in that, I mean, I have something I sell, right? I have a very specific solution that I sell that solves a problem. So when we talk about product design, I fundamentally understand that when it comes to, I always use, I think you gave me the example, like Apple, right?

Apple doesn't just come up with a product and say, hey, we're smarter than you, buy it. Here you go. They watch how we work, right? And then they design products around that. So I understand a company can do that to say, okay, I'm solving a problem. Let me talk to my customers. Let me come up with the solution that my company is going to now create, right? Founders, entrepreneurs do that all the time. Usually most companies are founded because there's a problem that that entrepreneur is trying to fix. But I am a sales rep. And I am tasked with selling my solution. How do I design think that when it is what it is? I mean, I guess there's some complex sales where I can get creative and I can kind of put together different pieces here.

But how do I do it if I'm just like, I got this product. I got the solution. It is what it is. How do I design think that? Such a good question. I love it. So first of all, I want to say that I'm not saying that sellers need to do a whole design thinking process like someone who's going to innovate around a charger or create a new charger, right? What we're saying is like, what are the tools that designers know and use that really help them be good at discovery, that help them get super curious or discover underlying motivations and interests about their customers that the customer doesn't even know that I can use in service of having a better dialogue with you to figure out whether there's a place for us to work together with what I'm selling and what you need.

So I'm not saying that if you use design thinking, you're all of a sudden going to, I'm going to figure out a way to make sure that you need what I'm selling. But I am saying if you use some of these techniques, you all of a sudden build this trusted advisor relationship, I might undercover a greater opportunity and you and I together, because it's all about co-creation, are going to figure out whether this is a marriage or not. And I, the less invested I can be in whether you're going to buy my product, actually the more successful I'm going to be. Yeah, I always say like that, you know, what helps with design thinking is a big fat pipeline, right? Because, because if you got a big fat pipeline, you know, that's why I lean in on prospecting all the time, because that solves all the problems and it allows you to sell the right way.

It allows you to ask the right questions. And I, and I always say like, it puts me in a position where I want your business. I don't need it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I would guess, I don't know if there's like a study on this, but I would guess if I need your business, design thinking goes out the window. If I want your business, it really accelerates, right? Well, I was going to say, it doesn't have to go out the window, but your frame of mind forces you to say like, I can't stay curious. I need to close this. I'm going to buckle down here. I'm going to figure out how to make sure you do need what I'm selling. I do think that there's this paradox in that, um, the more detached we can become and the more curious I can stay and the more open and connected I can say, the more you're actually going to tell me, right?

They know that from research, the more open, the more I listen, the more you will tell me, the more narrow I get in trying to ask you just very specific questions or close you into a certain space that I want to get you, the less creative and generative you're going to be with me. So that's the antithesis of what we want in sales, right? I, if I can stay open, you stay open and together we create more. And it kind of, you know, I'm a, I'm a little bit embarrassed to say this, but somebody had said this about a, about a year ago and it was like a fucking light bulb went off in my head. Um, and I think I inherently knew this, but however he said it, it really resonated with me, which is there's a huge difference between qualification and discovery and discovery and even impact.

Right. So qualification I look at is that's about us, right? Like I'm trying to qualify you so that you fit into my world so I can figure out what to sell you. And look there, you need that, right? Like from, like how many sales reps do you have? You know, what do you go? Blah, blah, blah. But then there's discovery. Yeah. And it's almost like, I want to get that qualification shit out as fast as I possibly can and compartmentalize that. It almost tell the client, Hey, look, I have to ask you these five questions here. Could you just bear with me? How many sales reps do you have? What's your average conversion ratios? What are your sales cycle? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, cool. Now, now let's talk.

Yeah. Right. So, so, and what I've been digging into a lot about is, is not, is like discovering and understanding, but also impact. Like what is the, what is the problem and what is the impact of that problem and how big is it? Because the bigger it is, the easier I can sell. So, but that takes, there's, there's, I think qualification anybody can do. Yeah. I think discovery, there needs to be this aspect of actually being genuinely curious. And, and, and not stopping at an answer, but digging deeper on that. And I've asked, I don't want to say every guest I have on the, on the podcast here, but a lot of them. Yeah. I asked, can you teach genuine curiosity and the prevailing feedback from most, you know, cause I usually spring it on them.

I mean, you are deep in this topic. So other people are kind of like, they have to give an answer right off the top of their head, but the genuine mentality is no, you can't teach genuine curiosity, but I can give you a framework of reference so that you can be curious. What are your thoughts first on that? And then let's talk about how we become curious. What are your thoughts on can, can, can, is it inherent in you that you are genuinely curious or can you teach it? Yeah. It's interesting question. Um, and I don't, I don't have a simple answer. So I think the second part of it, can you teach people skills to actually get better at curiosity? Yes. Yes. Can you teach genuine curiosity? I think in some ways, I think we're wired actually to be curious, like from an evolutionary standpoint, we need to understand our world.

So we understand where am I going to get food or shelter? Um, but I was just reading a fast company, um, article and they were talking about the fact that there's, um, in us, we, we actually, um, have to figure out things so fast that we make assumptions about the other person. And all of a sudden I, I'm like, why did you ask that? Or why did you say that? I'm assuming this, that your posture gives me this. And actually I'm making false assumptions a lot of the time. And I don't stay curious. Cause I'm also, there's something else called motivational bias, which means I'm always looking for confirmation of what I think. Right. So I think one thing about you, you do something, I make that fit my narrative.

And then stereotypes, that's where stereotypes are, right? And then stereotype, exactly. And then everything confirms my stereotype. So there's a lot of things actually in ourselves conspiring against us from staying genuinely curious because genuine curiosity would mean I'm letting go of all of my, my agenda. I'm letting go of what, whether I care, whether you like me or not, whether I think I'm going to be smart. I'm just sort of like zenning it out here and staying curious. And that's not always the easiest thing to do. So can you teach genuine curiosity? I think you can give people, uh, the rationale for why it matters to be genuine, curious, genuinely curious, how much goodness comes from it.

And what's the groundwork to lay to enable them to become more genuinely curious. And then it's up to the person. Yeah. And I call it the give a shit factor. Like, do you give a shit? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, and I mean that, like, do you give a shit about the person? Do you give a shit about the, the, the, you know what I mean? Like, do you give a shit about your own product? Do you genuinely believe in your own product? Those types of things. I think those are all table stakes, but there is that unfortunately in sales, give a shit factor of my commission check. Like in those types of things, which gets in the way horribly. And that is what, I mean, you could say that in many different aspects of our life, like you're with your significant other and you're getting in a fight, you all of a sudden become like rigid and you're in the defensiveness, which makes you less curious.

And in sales, there's tremendous pressure and then there's the promise of pay. And I think like money corrupts us, no doubt. And so when you've got money on the table, you have to work harder to stay curious and open. And when you do, you are actually paid back in spades, but it's hard. Yeah. That's funny. I use the, I call it catching your sales groove. Right. And I use the Tommy boy example of like, you know, Helen, you look like a Helen, you know, cause he, cause he sucked all the way up until, cause he was trying so hard. And then he just didn't give a shit. And he was like, yeah. And he goes through this whole jib, jib, the circus boy, the pretty new pet. And she's like, wow, you're twisted.

And his whole thing was like, Hey, you know, we have the pizza in the trunk, so it doesn't matter if we get the wings, but it was about that confidence. It was about how he caught his sales groove. And I say sales reps, there's a, there's a moment in sales reps lives where, and you don't know when it is, or you don't know what happened where you wake up one day and it's just a little bit easier than it was the day before. Yeah. And, and it's when you stop pitching your, your solutions, you start having conversations about them, you start caring more about what the client needs. Then you do your commission check. And oddly enough, that's when your commission check goes through the roof. Exactly.

So you can get that wisdom earlier, which is like you're saying, it's like wisdom and experience is hard to buy, right? It's hard to train. But if you can, you know, try it on a little bit earlier, you probably, you start to see the results. And I do think that there's like this flywheel effect in terms of you start to do it. And this is what we see in our classes. You know, they may not like understand what we're talking about or feel genuinely curious, but they try it and then they get this response, not only in terms of the commission and opportunity, but like the connection that happens. And people will always say to us, Oh my God, they told us everything. Like, I'm like, yeah, people, people just want to be listened and love to.

Yeah. If you give them that, they'll tell you anything. If you're genuine. Exactly. And it has to come across that way. So talk to, so talk to us, how, how, what is that framework that I could use? And I want to, I want to go with, I think, you know, from what I understand of you, like the, the real, let's start with the easy stuff and then move, move to the more difficult stuff. And I mean this from a sales standpoint. If I'm a major enterprise rep and Salesforce is my biggest client, then, and from what I understand about design thinking, I, I actually probably spend my own money to buy a license of Salesforce. I go buy something. I download the app. I sign up for their newsletter. I, I read through, yes, there are any reports and such.

I talk to some of their customers or people I know who use Salesforce. And I kind of come up with this hypothesis, if you will, about what their actual problems are based on information. I did this at Xerox without even knowing it. So this is what, this is my story. So let's talk here about how you can give me a framework for this. Cause I did it unconsciously. I would have rather done it consciously, but I got thrown into a situation where, uh, at Xerox, uh, I was 22 years old and I was thrown into a territory that it was government and it was, it was been ripped apart. Like there was been six reps in three years, no trust at all. So I come in, everybody else, all my other colleagues selling, you know, flipping copiers all over the place.

I come in to start flipping copiers and they're like, yeah, piss off kid. Right. Like you're, we're going to see another one of you in three months anyways. So who cares? So I was like, holy shit, I couldn't sell anything. And I came in like the, the, the expectations on me were really high. They get, that's why they gave me this hardest territory. So I was like, well, shit. So what I, I had one Ashburton place in Boston, all secretary of state, treasury, all that stuff. And what I would do is I would go start at the top and I would just go shake hands, kiss babies. I w I wouldn't, I wouldn't like sell anything. I, and I just, I started understanding workflows and saw how people, you know, got up and had to go to the copier.

I started understanding click through rates and, and the work. And, and it took me about nine months and I almost got fired because my boss was like, you haven't sold shit in nine months here, kid. If like, who the hell, why did we hire you? I'm like, would you just give me a minute here? Cause you've destroyed this territory and I got to figure out how to do this. I got to build trust back. Nine months later, I had all these click throughs, all this stuff. And I went with like a binder to each one of my clients. And I said, Hey, look, I've been mapping out your whole click through rates and everything like that. And, and look, here's your workflow. See how people have to walk this far to get copiers like that waste time.

And, and by the way, you're spending on these analog devices, this, and if we flipped them to digital, you'd actually save money here. Would this be something to be interested? And I made it rain after that. I mean, it was like million dollar here, $500. And I just dumped them on my, on my boss's desk and give them the big old F you. And, but it was, it was out of necessity, right? Because I had no other choice. There was no other way I was going to push my way through this. So how do you, how do you coach people on how to, what's the framework that you provide to help me become curious in, in my scenario? And then I want to talk about how I do it as an SDR. Okay. So, well, first of all, I want to point out what you did.

So first of all, let's say it's very much about the art of sales versus the science. Like you, in that case, you were unconscious and you were just following your instinct around what to do. And so much of what we're talking about is like follow that human instinct around connection and discovery. And, and then we'll give you some tools. So that's one thing. Secondly, you sounded to me like you really were genuinely curious, even though you were motivated by a fire on your ass to make something happen, but, and you were, and that's why people gave you the information and you were able to discover so much. And then lastly, you came back and gave them valuable information about themselves, right?

You started with information about themselves. It sounds like, like, here's your workflow. Here's your inefficiencies. You weren't coming in again and saying, well, now I'm ready to tell you all about the Xerox machine. Right. So, so I just want to point out what you did unconsciously, which is a lot of what we teach. So I think for us, what we start with is, and we talked about this a little bit before about this idea, start with sort of understanding the ecosystem of your customer, which is who is your customer? What are all the different groups or divisions? And then who are their customers? Like, and in your case, your, your customer was the government and then they had, you know, these different divisions and then the customer, they're, so the customers internally were the people using the machines.

So if you start to map that out and that can be art, you're not going to get them all right. Just like sort of put them on a whiteboard and look at them and then figure out, okay, well, how can I get close to them? Like you were fortunate that you could actually walk in, walk around, talk to them. Like that's the best, but there are other ways. Like you said, you can go online, you can look at Glassdoor, you can look at reviews. Your cousin might work there. You know, you got to get creative again to get close to them. And then you're, then this is where we sort of teach both the curiosity prompts and sort of discovery techniques, which I'll tell you to use those to gather great information.

And I think the mindset is like, I'm a detective. Um, I'm a detective. I'm trying to figure out, like, let's find out the things that nobody else sees. That's always right there, right in front of me. What's up everybody. We interrupt this program to tell you that you can now send us your sales wins at james@jbarrows.com. Today, we're going to highlight Patrick Buckley, who started using JB sales video strategy after a recent training session on his last campaign. He saw a 72% open rate and 11% reply rate and a 9% click rate. Those are incredible stats. Keep standing out, Patrick. Way to be. Let's get back to the program and make it happen. Real quick. Do you create a, like in science, right?

I create a hypothesis and then I try to prove the hypothesis right or wrong. Is that, do you walk in saying, I'm an open book here. I'm trying to learn everything before I formulate my hypothesis. Or do you, based on the situation that you're walking into, say, here's my, here's my hypothesis about the situation that this client, let me go dig to find out if that is right or wrong. Like, which approach do you use there? I would highly recommend you don't have by hypothesis because then you're more likely to fall into this idea of motivational bias that you're looking to prove your hypothesis versus the more open you really can be, the more will show up for you. And I'll just give you one example.

The stories are great. We were working at AT&T, an executive enterprise seller in London. He had UK cancer research. That was his client. So we did the whole mapping of the ecosystem. He figured out that one of the places that they actually, sort of one of their sites was these used clothing and product stores in London because they would sell things and then they would make money for the UK research center. So he was like, oh, interesting. I'm in London. I'll just go and see what's this all about. So he walked into one of these centers, sort of talking to people that were shopping there and working there. And, um, he realized two things in talking to the people who work there, they were trying to figure out what things were, would cost by looking at their phone.

So they, you know, they'd get a t-shirt and they'd look up the brand and then they'd figure out the price and figure out what they could charge. And he said to them, like, well, if I could give you like Google analytics or something that a Google lens that would make this easier and really quick to, to price things, wouldn't that, would that be helpful? And he learned like, yes, that would be super helpful. And the second thing he learned is that a lot of people who came into that store actually came in for cancer advice or conversation, not to buy things. And so then he thought, well, what if we created a soundproof booth in here that we, you had some sort of cancer expert present and that people could come in for advice and sort of a safe space to have a conversation.

What would that do in terms of bringing people into the store? Anyway, it turned into a multimillion dollar proposal that they were psyched about. He didn't have any of that in his thinking before. Because UK research cancer, I mean, UK cancer research was his client. He never would have come up with any of that if he hadn't done this sort of investigatory work. So a key is their customers. Exactly. So your customers, whether it's an internal and external, you have to, and it's funny because I keep telling people in today's world of COVID and stuff that everybody's ICP has changed, right? And we, in sales, we're kind of lazy in the ICP. It's like, okay, you're in this industry, you have this many employees and, you know, some other factors there.

But I tell them like, look, first of all, A, reset that, right? Because it's changed. But B, look at your customer's ICP because who they sell to now has changed. Yeah. And if you don't look like that company might look good for you, but if they're selling to somebody who's hurting, they're not going to buy your shit. So, so how do you, how do you do that? And like, how do you gather that insight in an expeditious way? And I, and I, and I know that's, that's kind of the, all of the rub. It's like, like, if we had all the time in the world, if I didn't have the pressures of hitting my quota, if I, you know, that type of stuff, I'd, I'd spend the research, I'd talk to everybody and I'd do the right thing, but I got my boss leaning down my back about where's that thing.

So how do you gather the enough insight to be able to see that's it. That's where I can help. You know what I mean? Like what, what, what is there a, is a threshold? Is there a structure that you can give me to say, I have enough information now to, to have this conversation? Well, there's a couple of things I'd say to that. So first of all, you're not looking for an insight in the way we talk about it to be right, or to like, like I can tell you something that's so smart that you never thought of. Challenge your sales stuff. Well, yeah. What I'm looking for is something that's interesting to say, I had this experience. I realized this. What do you think? To the extent that you say anything, I can give me more information, I win.

And what you might say is like, actually, that's not the way I see it, but here is how I see it. Right. But by just doing any kind of research that's authentic like that, I'm showing to you that I care and that I'm interested. And so you're much more likely to say something back to me that's useful. So that's first. And secondly, I think partly it's just a mindset shift also that changes even how you ask questions. So you, one question that sort of people start to take out of this is, uh, for me to say to you, John, uh, tell me about your customers. Like, what do they care about? What do they love about your training? So I'm talking to you about your customers now versus talking about you and everybody can get around their customers and, you know, are interested in talking about that.

So even if I haven't done a ton of research, like now, right now, like, I don't really know your customers. I don't know what they care about it, but even if I can start the dialogue with you about them, that's an interesting place to start. Okay. Um, there's a great example. Youssef and, um, he worked for Salesforce, Toronto. He was going after all ML meat, which is a meat distribution company. It sells meat to the supermarket. Then I go by, we ate meat. So he, uh, I've been trying to get this guy forever. The it guy on the phone, the it guy was like, I do not need you. I don't want you. Please stop calling me. Keeps going. Of course. And it was like an SDR role. Right. And, um, it's fine. The guy picks up again and, and you said, I'm not trying to tell you anything.

He said, I just want to, I want to ask you, how do you make sure that when someone comes into the supermarket that they choose all ML meat and not someone else's meat? And the guy said, well, that's the question, isn't it? He's like, fine. I'll have a conversation, but it's because he just flipped what he was talking about. He wasn't talking about Salesforce. All right. So, so you brought it to the SDRs, you know, we, we train them to, you know, do a little bit of homework, right? Go on the website, look at something, you know, find a trigger. Right. But again, a lot of these are trying to find, replace, like, oh, you'll merger and acquisition. We help people merge and acquisition. So, so what do you, what, how do you expedite this, this knowledge from that perspective where now everything's online, the likelihood of me being able to go on site at this point is not high.

So you personally, Ashley, you got your own LinkedIn, you're doing your thing, your company's doing some stuff. I'm an SDR trying to get you on the phone. What do I do? Oh, good. So you're going to be trying to get to me. Yeah. I'm trying to get to you. So I, I'm an SDR. I've, I've listened to this podcast. I'm like, this design thinking thing sounds interesting. It sounds a little above my pay grade though, because I'm not a senior AE. I don't have AT&T as a client, that type of stuff. I'm trying to call into a, an Ashley Welsh, you know, who has, you know, three or four employees and I'm trying to sell her my, uh, uh, yeah, something like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's so great. Okay. So what would you do?

Um, well, uh, so one of the things I always talk to people about is like, get creative, right? Like all the other SDRs are doing exactly the usual things, right? So what can you do this different? What would I do for me? Well, I would look at to see who my customers were first of all, and then I, uh, I might look at like a quote from our website and see a quote from various people. And then I might reach out to that person and be like, Hey, it looks like you left a really nice quote on her website. Can you tell me more about your experience with them? If you called me up and said, Hey, I just talked to Rita Wilson from Microsoft and, or she, I just linked in with her and she just came back and said something super positive.

You know, would you talk to me and tell me more about your business? I'd be like, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Um, how old are people? I've been thinking about that. Cause like part of me wants to do like a survey of, uh, their, like if I, if I got a prospect that I'm working on, what I would love to do is like a survey of their customers unbeknownst to that client and say, Hey, look, you know, tell me about your experience with XYZ, right? And get all this fantastic insights. But how open do you find, um, customers are to providing insights to a sales rep about their experience with said vendor? Like there's gotta be some tack to that. Yeah. I think there has to be some tack. Again, it comes back to like, how genuine are you and what's your intent?

Um, I mean, I, I, when I do it, I usually have built off, I'm doing it off of relationships I've built. Now I'm not making a hundred calls a day. So that's different. Um, but anybody should, by the way. Yeah. But I didn't either. Um, I do think that at the end of the day, people do want to talk. So, um, if you give them an opportunity to, because you're genuinely curious and nice, people do give you more information than than you think. So I think I wouldn't make the assumption that people won't, um, you know, not everybody will, of course, but, um, I think, uh, you know, I think, you know, we did that. Um, can we, we did that little presentation in downtown Boston about looking at emails, right?

If people write like so many of the emails and the SDR calls I get are still so canned, like delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. If you just said to me, Hey, Ashley, you know, I'm about to call on X, Y, Z. Can I just get five minutes of your time? I have one question to ask you. I'd love to talk to you. I'd probably say yes. Did it, did you see my LinkedIn posts, uh, when I came back from vacation? No. What'd you say? I got, so there's the first time in my life for two straight weeks. I did not check email. I turned it off. I turned off all the alerts, didn't check it once. Didn't even have the urge to, as a matter of fact. So that was a, that was a, that was a milestone for me. Cause I've never done that in 25 years of my career, but I came back 2,040 emails are in my inbox.

Right. So I'm like, Oh, this is brutal. But I'm like, let me see, let me not just hammer through these. Let me learn something from this. And I, and I segmented out all my emails, uh, about, and put them in categories like marketing email, uh, LinkedIn stuff, whatever it is. I got out of the 200, I was actually a little surprised how little sales emails I got. I'd only got 78 sales emails and zero were personalized. Yeah. Not one, not one. And of course they're going to say, well, I don't have time to personalize them. And you, and I would say, well, who's writing you back? Right. Like pick, do 10 personalized, not a hundred impersonal. How much? So, cause I think there's some shortcuts here too, that we can take with this, with glass door with G2, like how, how, how valuable is it to say, Hey, look, I read through all the G2 crowds and you know, reviews and the common theme of some of the dislikes or the negatives were this.

And I have a solution like a, I'm going to two part question. One is how valuable is that insight. And can I use that as a, in lieu of interviewing and be, how do I spin a negative to a positive? Yeah. Like say I'm going on glass door and every thing is the reps are just like this company, blah, blah, blah. There's no manager or, you know, I, we talk about triggers like, uh, you had a bad quarter, right? How do you flip that into a positive or your G2 crowd reviews are negative? Like, how do you take that? Cause that's the problem. That's, I mean, I could try to like tell you, I can help you achieve your goals all day long, but we all know that people are far like four times more likely to, uh, avoid, uh, yeah, respond to a negative than the positive.

So, but how do I take that negative and turn it into a positive or get to do it without being like shitting on you? Like, Hey, Ashley, I saw you like a two on the G2 crowd review, man, that sucks. I got, I can help. Like, how do you, you know what I mean? Well, I think you think about, I mean, people are people, right? Yeah. So, um, whether you like it or not, you're still talking to a person on the other side. So I think you have to think about it as like, if it was your friend and you were trying to tell them something and in the mindset of like, I'm trying to tell you something that's helpful, but maybe disappointing to hear. So like, what's the tone you're setting then and saying that, and then how are you saying it?

So first of all, I do think it is very useful to go on a glass door and, uh, any other Yelp, like any review, any customer sat review site forum, totally useful because it's not what most people are looking at. And then I would just say, look, I, I did some research because I'm interested in connecting with you. So I went on G2, G2 crowd, right? Yep. I went on G2 now. Yeah. They changed the name to just G2. And here's what I discovered. Um, if this is true, this might be hard to hold. I'm curious what you think. I wouldn't even say, and I have got a solution to solve for you, but you're, I think it's all about the way you say it and something interesting and meaningful in terms of how you interpret it.

Yeah. Um, I, I also think, you know, I was just, I was so struck the other day. I were talking to some folks at Oracle. So I had gone on their website and downloaded a report. And, um, and I, of course that cued their marketing team to reach out to me. And the next thing you know, I have someone talking to me, Somersault, we've got, what, two employees and then contractors about whether we would be interested in their HCM. ERP or yeah. Exactly. Literally. So I'm like, oh, yes, I would. I would like to talk to you. So she gets on the phone, couldn't be more lovely. And she's like, you know, I don't really, she didn't ask me one question about Somersault, not one, zero. And, um, so, and then she said, well, would you like to see, you know, an example of this?

I said, well, you know, we're pretty small business. So what do you have? She's like, well, you know what, actually I don't have a small business review, but I'll show you about the medium business. I was like, okay. So it had nothing to do with Somersault whatsoever. And then, so of course I used an opportunity to chat her up and I'm like, your job must be hard. And, uh, so she was like, oh my God, it's impossible. I got to sell all these things. But I was just like, I couldn't get around the fact that like, she didn't ask me one question and she was a genuinely nice person. Right. And not one. And there was no way in hell I could ever afford an Oracle system nor need it. I got, so why it, it, I don't know, maybe this is one of those, like, I've been doing this for too long.

Uh, I probably forgot more about sales than I know. Um, how the fuck are we still in this product pitch world? Like I still see solution selling being an issue that companies are trying to grasp and they're like, so that the reps stop pitching. Like, are we living in a, like a, a SaaS consultant bubble that, that just kind of understands it's about the customer? Because my, my experience is, is that like 80% of the sales world is still feature function product dump. Here's my shit. Buy it. Is it, I mean, are you, do you see the same thing? I want to say I don't, but I feel like I do. And you know, you're reminding me that because I thought the question you asked is like, well, you were asking like, how is this still happening?

Because I wanted to ask her actually, how are you comped? Is it just the number of calls you make? Like, so it doesn't even matter whether I'm a qualified lead or not. You just made your call, so you can check that off. And that's partly what I assume. And I think partly, you know, in the work that we do, it would be so much more powerful if you combined it with looking at how people are compensated. Oh yeah. Right. And what are the, what are the incentive systems? Because that is not helpful when all you're incenting is, you know, numbers, or even just like, you got to get me 50,000 by the end of the week, John, I don't care how you get it. Get it. And I think that that kind of my perception right now is that, that our generation, right?

Gen Xers. We grew up in a volume world. It was make 50 dials. Here's your script, make your ears bleed. And the reason for that was because the, the access to information just was not available. Right. We had the information and you couldn't figure it out. Right. The internet had just got it started when I was in, you know, 2000, that type of stuff. And so we still had like, Hey, here's my pitch. And somebody said, Holy shit. I didn't even know that was available. Right. Right. So we were ingrained in that mentality. Now, Gen Xers are, and baby boomers, right? Both. We're now the decision makers. And I understand fundamentally that quality is the answer, account-based marketing, all these different things.

But the problem is, is that's hard to coach. You know, what's easy for me to coach, make 50 dials, make a hundred. So I think we're in this weird transition phase of, we get it, but, and this is also my fear of artificial intelligence because our artificial intelligence is going to come in and get it faster than we will. Yeah. So I, I agree with you. And, and I don't know whether it's because it's sort of the old school, who's still the manager leader set, leadership set that is driving the metrics. And even these young kids who might come in and think differently, then they're put into the machine. I don't actually have a good answer. Um, you know, and I think then you add distraction onto it.

Like I was talking to someone at HubSpot, I'll leave it there. I'm like, I don't understand it. Why are you having them still dial a hundred times a day? And, and he's, he did say part of it is like, people are so distracted now because of our modern world that it's, I can't even get you to pay attention. So unless I'm hitting you via email, LinkedIn phone, I'm not going to get you at all, no matter what I say. That's true. That's true too. I mean, it is, it is about the multi-touches, impressions. And so I guess you could consider a voicemail or a cold call, an impression, they see you on the phone, that type of stuff. So, you know, I get it. It's just, it is inherently frustrating to me that, that we're still in this, like, I still come across clients like, ah, I wish my rest would just stop and shut up and, and stop pitching their thing.

Right. And, and I, and I'm like, just like you went through with Oracle, like I get pitched all the time. And I just, I'm like, what in the fuck? You didn't ask me a single question about what I, what my outcomes were looking, what my clients, you know, any of that stuff. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, look, we can't solve the world's problems today in this call, but hopefully we got some good conversations, uh, and people thinking at least a little bit about how to move further in the direction of giving a shit. Yeah. I think stay serious and stay like this co-creative mindset is also another really important one. Like I'm here to figure this out with you. I'm going to go side by side with you, not you versus me.

Yeah. There's actually gone last point on that. Like we talk about objection handling. Gong has this really cool, we worked on this, uh, objection handling technique. And one of them is, is you, you know, you listen, you ask a question, you rephrase it to them. And then at once you isolate the actual sales objection, then instead of saying, Hey, can I make you a, make a suggestion to fix that? You say, Hey, do you mind if we just bounce a few ideas around here? Yeah. That shift of, Hey, can I, can I tell you what I think versus, Hey, why don't we just, why don't we just bounce that right there? That collaborative mindset of, I don't know what the answer is here. It sounds like you got a problem.

I might have a solution, but I don't know. Let's talk this through. Yeah. And we're smarter together. Exactly. Awesome. Well, Ashley, uh, it's always a pleasure talking to you. Um, how can people find out more about what you're doing these days? Uh, where can they find out more information about you? Yeah. Thanks. Somersault innovation, somersault with one N innovation, not plural.com. Or find me on LinkedIn and, uh, I'll respond. Perfect. And it's Ashley Wells, W E L C H, right? Correct. Yep. Co-founder of Somersault Innovation. Awesome. All right, Ashley. Well, like I said, pleasure as always. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And maybe we, hopefully we can grab a drink one of these days, uh, in person, uh, heaven forbid, but, uh, look, everybody, hopefully you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and got something out of this.

Uh, as I say all the time at the end of the podcast here, uh, even if you're having a shitty day, go out there and make somebody smile. Cause if you made somebody smile today, then, you know, you had a good day and we need a lot more of that in today's world. So for sure. All right. Thanks so much, John. Have a good one. Cheers. All right, everyone. We hope you enjoyed the show and had a lot of takeaways. Don't forget to send us your wins and remember that you can access our world-class training at on-demand.jbarrows.com. Join our community on Facebook by searching, make it happen with JB sales. I'll definitely see you there. And if this has been helpful or informative in some way, leave us a review on iTunes.

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