211: Kristina Finseth On A Quality Over Quantity Approach In Sales

What's poppin' y'all, it's your man James, Say What Sales Buckley, and this is your weekly dose of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, John Barrows. Huge thank you to all of our partners, SalesLoft, Gong, Proposify, Vidyard, and Rise, incredibly talented teams that we're fortunate to work with every day. Today we're bringing in a strong leader with incredible insights because of a diverse marketing and sales background. My good friend and one of my personal heroes, Christina Finseth, will be joining JB to discuss how her sales expertise has been sharpened and perfected by mixing elements of her marketing knowledge into her routines. Christina's framework has been spreading through the sales community rapidly, and it's the personalization techniques and messaging delivery that make an impact in sellers' results.

This is sure to be a great conversation. One quick thing before we get started in this episode, if you're looking for some world-class training that companies like LinkedIn, Salesforce, and Google implemented with their leading sales teams, join us at ondemand.jbarrows.com. This is where we host all of our online sales training courses, webinar replays, resources, and much, much more for you, the individual sales rep or manager. Yes, it is the exact same content that we use to train the companies that I just mentioned, plus other leading software and SaaS companies like Slack, DocuSign, and Snowflake. And it's available to you on demand. What I'm telling you is that you don't need to rely on anyone but yourself and your willingness to learn how to be the best sales rep possible in order to start seeing big wins.

We're watching people get promoted. We're seeing people get jobs. We're watching pipelines become healthier than ever before. Join us and our growing sales community of sales reps that are making things happen at JBSales On Demand. Sign up today at ondemand.jbarrows.com. Let's pass it over to Christina and John to make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Monday. Hopefully, you had a fantastic weekend. Mine was interesting. I took a trip home from Aruba. And if anybody wants to see something crazy, go to my Instagram stories and look at my highlights and look at Spirit Air because it was pretty much one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had and most annoying experience.

But I'm back in Boston now. And even though the cold's here, I'm ready to rock. And I'm here with a very special guest, Christina Finseth over at Interceller, growth marketing manager. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm definitely had a better weekend than you probably did with your experience. People should definitely check that out because, yeah, that was interesting. But you're back. I'm back. And look, I'm trying to turn a negative into a positive, right? But I'm still trying to wrap my head around what happened. But regardless, and like I said, I don't want to go into too much details. But yes, I'm in a good space now. So Christina, just for context with the group here, talk to everybody about where you're coming from and what you're up to these days.

And then we're going to set the stage for this conversation about prospecting and trying to crack through that noise. Yeah, awesome. I appreciate that. So I, like you kind of alluded to, I lead growth marketing here at Interceller, which is essentially just a prospecting and outreach platform for recruiting teams. So we're really niche focused there. And what's interesting about my role is that I actually spent, after being in marketing for a few years, I spent a year long experiment as a full cycle AE. Nice. I don't suggest every marketer needs to do that to get more in tune with sales, but it definitely made me a better marketer. But now in my role, I lead both marketing and sales development.

So it's definitely never boring and it's a lot of fun kind of sitting on the fence and bridging that gap between the two departments. I love it. And actually it kind of leads into where my head's going, because I have a marketing background, right? So I went to, I mean, I go, I went to school as a marketer and then I kind of morphed into sales along the way. And so I have that perspective and I've always had a healthy respect for marketing. And I actually think that in today's world, that sales reps need to become more like marketing, right? This isn't, this is not really like, cause this is, it's an impression world these days, right? Like they see us, they hear us, they, you know, whatever it is.

And it all builds this, this positive impression bulb, you know, bubble, if you will, so that when they're ready, they either reach out to you, right? Because you're the familiar one. Or when you make that one call, when there is really something to have a conversation about, there's a familiarity with it, right? So talk to me a little bit about, I mean, you have a whole framework here, which I'm very curious about because one of the things you said, and I was looking through the notes here that you, when you reach out, you don't even talk about the product. You don't even talk about like the value proposition or whatever it is, and you're getting some pretty decent results. So talk to me about like what you were doing before and to, to figure this out and then how this evolved.

And then what is it? Good question. I mean, there's a lot of dynamic there. I mean, first and foremost, it's not like I magically woke up and was like, man, I got a framework and it works. There are definitely a lot of failed experiments. Like being a marketer, I experiment very frequently. I think that's part of staying fresh and finding new strategies that work for, for both marketing and sales tactics. But, um, you know, I was kind of, uh, I've always thought that I was a really strong copywriter, right? Like I can write good, good one to many marketing emails. Right. Um, and so when I first jumped over into the sales seat, I remember the first thing I would do would send like these 300 prospect email campaigns.

And I'd get like a one to 2% conversion, sometimes 3%. And I was like, all right, I'm doing pretty well. Um, and then there was one day I was watching something from Beck Holland. This was like a little over a year ago about her personalization at scale. And I know you've had her as a guest too. Beck is awesome. Um, and I just remember going, what if I started doing really, really small batches of highly personalized emails and see where it goes. Super, super counterintuitive for me because I don't know. Yeah. I was scared. Like I'm only going to reach 40 people today. No, that's not doing my job. But what I found through that experiment is that it works. Um, holy shit. Personalization works.

Holy shit. Caring works. Yeah. And what's really interesting is, you know, there's a lot of speak around relevancy. Right. And I have a little bit of a different, maybe a hot take on where relevancy really fits into the process, at least from my experience and what I've seen work for others as well. And I really think relevancy is in prospecting. So if I know that I am reaching out to the right contacts, like, so again, relevancy comes into play in that prospecting, what's going to happen is when I send email or when I reach out to someone, I don't have to spill everything for them. I don't have to spell it out. In fact, I'd argue that as consumers, we like to do our own research, connect dots and make decisions and conclusions on our own for the most part.

And so what I've found after looking at data is that there's almost a direct correlation to the percentage of people who click on the website in the signature block to do their own research and digging to the percentage of people who respond to you and with context. So you don't have to spell it out for them. Okay. So give me an example, like, and I know you're, you're in the recruiting space here. And look, my fear these days is that, that it's almost impossible to stand out right now because of the noise, because sales reps are becoming mass blast with all the cadence tools. Marketing is doubling down on content, right? And so inboxes are just getting flooded. And also the, just the deliverability rate here is crazy.

And, and, you know, whether people want to do their own research or not, I mean, there's a counter argument that everybody's fucking lazy and so they don't want to. So you almost have to spoon feed them that. And that's where I look on the rep side that frustrates me because all rep, you know, a lot of reps are looking for the perfect email, the perfect template to get that message. And there is none of that, right? So there's the spoon feed factor. And then there is that group that is, no, I want to go figure this out on my own. I think that's unfortunately maybe 10% of the population in general. So how are you using the lack of information and the curiosity factor? It sounds like to drive me to go do that homework or look into what you have based on that compelling message.

So like, what, what does that framework look like? Yeah. So I'll give you an example. I'll actually, I have one up on my screen right now. I'll read you an example of one that I reached out to that ended up responding back to me. So first of all, you're right. You can get in a total rabbit hole with personalization. And so, you know, I'm, I'm really, even for my SDR team, like I'm a big proponent of giving them creative freedom within a process or a science or a framework. And so there's definitely creative freedom that not everyone has the ability to just like play on that right away. But I think you can learn over time. And then there's also just an order of prioritization when it comes to research.

So we have four areas. We check if those don't exist, there's a backup plan, right? Just out of curiosity. The four areas, den or social content that they're posting or engaging with, right? LinkedIn company content, if you can't find content from them. Yep. And then company content. So their website, press releases, Google search, whatever. If none of that exists, then quickly throw them into your fallback, which might not be quite as personalized and that's okay. Yep. But I usually like to go to LinkedIn and if I find someone who has something, it could be sharing an HBR article. It could be whatever, like you can put spins on things. And here's an example of an email that I would send. And this kind of goes along the core framework.

John, about your LinkedIn post. Hi, John. I noticed you recently posted on LinkedIn about an article, an article about remote work and its complexity and thought I'd reach out. Your comment, remote work is here to stay along with its various complexities, was right on the money and I couldn't agree more. Especially love the point in the article to transform legacy systems into agile systems. With that said, and this is always standard, by the way, with that said, I'd love, and yes, we prompt for the call. I know that's taboo for some people, but love to get you on a quick 10 to 15 minute call to learn about you, JB Sales, and your priorities for 2021. Would love to earn the right to talk through how InterCellar might fit in.

Do you have time for a quick call this week or next? That's literally the first framework. So there's really two parts that we're really switching out, which keeps your deliverability fresh, by the way. Okay. Because you're changing out not personalization tokens, you're changing out almost entire groupings of words or sections. And so you're not worrying about the email servers saying, ah, this template's been used like a thousand times. Yep. What's going on here? Yeah. Okay. So it's referencing something that they did. And then what it sounds like there, you just said, hey, cool. Relevance, and I'm guessing that second sentence there or that second section is almost like a transition to relevance, but not a hardcore like, ooh, like we should talk about that because I got something that can sell you that, right?

It's more, hey, saw this, thought it was interesting because of this, which kind of ties a little bit soft to the real reason I'm reaching out to you from a relevant standpoint and what our solution can do. And I'd love to set up some time to learn more about you and see if Interstellar could support, like, where is the, how is the connection between Interstellar and what you just said there? Could you dive into that a little bit more specifically? Yeah, that's the funny part. There's absolutely no relevancy in what he's compared to what we do. Okay. And that's the misconception here. I think, yes, are there going to be people who this does not work on? Duh, right? But we're consistently seeing 10% plus booked meeting rates off of this framework, 30% reply rates.

I mean, it's pretty high. How do those, what's the conversion ratio look like after those, right? Because my fear here is also of like the always debate and switch, right? Where you say something, they get somebody to call and then they get on the phone call and they're like, oh, what the fuck is this? I have no interest in this conversation. So how do you prevent that? Like, first of all, A, what are the flip rates from those? And B, how do you prevent that? Like, wait, what is this about? Like, why? Oh man. Like, oh great. You guys are pitching me on this. Like, how do you prevent that? And what are those looks, what do those look like? Yeah, normally those objections will come in the reply, you know, like, hey, like the email, but what do you, like, what do you do, right?

Gotcha. Let's just say something who doesn't research. Yep. But nine times out of 10, someone does the research and I can see the progression of them opening, then clicking, then replying. Gotcha. And it's really hard. I'll tell you what, John, it's really hard to get a fuck off. Yeah. You get insightful nose, if anything, you know? Well, I think that's based on because you did, you showed the homework, right? I mean, I think you get the fuck offs when you're lazy as shit and you're blasting out template emails or you're, you know, you're doing the basic personalization of, hey, John, I see your quote title is blank to blah. That's where it's the fuck off. But I think as long as you do put, if you show some effort, right, that this wasn't a mass blast to a whole shitload of people, I'm right there with you.

I almost never get the go fuck yourself, right, email when I put the effort in. It's when I'm lazy is when I get that. So I definitely get the polite nose, the insightful nose, right? That type of stuff. But you said that you then track person. Now, let me ask you this. They might not respond, but you track that they went to their homework. And then you said the goal is, and now this is where marketing comes into play. Is to drive an inbound, right? Is to potentially some cases, they might not respond to that, but they might come inbound for you. How do you track that? Well, and really, it doesn't even necessarily have to be that they come through the inbound like demo request form. By them doing their own research, connecting the dots and replying with that context.

That, to me, is pretty much turning them into, like, they're turning the conversation. They're controlling it then. But to your point about the transition, right? Like, that is something that I've given a lot of thought to. And we've really found a way to make that work here. So, you know, as soon as someone comes back and says, hey, Christina, looked up Interseller. Looks like this is kind of interesting. Happy to have a chat, right? Then we book that meeting. We send an agenda the day of. They know. They know why they're connecting with us. We loop in the AE. We do that nice handoff. So it's very clear from there why we're connecting. We're not trying to bait and switch, you know? And I think that's important for everybody listening here is, like, because we do the same thing, right?

Because a lot of times, and I just go through personal experience here. I mean, my calendar is bananas, right? I got all sorts of stuff going on on it. And what happens is, like, I'll take a cold call from a kid or whatever it is. And whatever they're saying sounds kind of interesting. But I'll be like, look, I have no time for this. You know, my calendar starts to open up at the end of March. You know, ping me an email there and just send me a meeting in registration for sometime on the 27th or something like that, right? But then the problem is, is by the time I get to that week on the 27th and I have 15 meetings on my calendar, I look at that one and I'm like, what the fuck? Like, I don't even know what this one's for, right?

And if there's no context in it, there's no agenda. There was no prep email that warned me of it. That's the first one I will delete without even thinking about it, right? And even if, and heaven forbid, I actually do get on the phone and I don't know what it's for and I'm immediately turned off by what it's about, then it goes negative fast, right? Then I actually, I'm like, ah, you wasted my fucking time. I'm off of this phone. But if you do the best practice of, like, this is usually we do. We don't, we do it day of and the day before. So if you and I got a meeting tomorrow, I'm going to send you an email today and say, hey, Christine, I'm looking forward to our meeting tomorrow. In order to get the most out of our time together, here's a few things I want to make sure that we cover.

What else do you want to make sure that we add, right? And I leave three bullet points to say, fill in the blanks. Then the morning of, I update the meeting invitation with the agenda. I don't put the agenda in the original meeting invitation because nobody looks at that. But when you put it, when you update the meeting agenda and nothing changes, like the time slot doesn't change, it's almost like this forcing function to have somebody go in there and be like, wait, what is this? And now it's like, oh shit. Okay. Now I know what this is. And oh, by the way, it seems like the rep has been preparing for this. So now I'm less likely to cancel that meeting, right? Absolutely. And we, I mean, listen, everyone has no shows.

Everyone has people who can cancel. But if you give them opportunity to be able to opt out, like that's why we do that email before we do ask, is there anything else you want to add to the agenda or anything else that you thought, you know, after doing some thinking. And these are things that we found after trying some things from the SDR, a handoff that did not, you know, so again, it's all try on air and not everybody figures everything out right away, but yeah, I mean, we've got a process that works for us. And just to like put this into perspective, this is just the first touch point. I mean, we have a seven to nine step cadence. It's not just this and there's intentionality there in between how things are spaced and what we're doing and it's multi-channel.

And, you know, I think that's the way to go too. Connect rates, SDRs, marketing, marketing and leadership, spam problems. This conversation is headed down a great path for us to all start thinking about and talking about more often. Interesting that Christina has a big focus on AEs doing cold outreach as well. She believes every sales rep at every stage should be more supported by other departments. And I think we can all agree with that. If we're not all working out here to earn more customers, then what are we doing here? Right? I also want to quickly call attention to a few things that we've got going on at JB Sales before we dive back into the episode. First things first, we want to hear from you.

You're the reason that we do what we do. We like hearing how you're taking the podcast and listening to the webinars and using our on-demand training to apply it to your success. If you've had a major win, send us your stories at james at jbarrows.com to be highlighted on next week's show. This week, we're giving a shout out to Brian Mulry, a BDR based in Dublin, Ireland. After signing up for JB Sales On Demand, he sent us an awesome note. Hey guys, I'm a total sales nerd. I can't get enough tips and tricks and I really love talking sales and sales strategy. I use the John Barrows sales training to go from zero meetings in month one to 110 plus of quota every single month since. If anyone wants to know how this training works or how to apply a structure to your SDR work and how to level up your reps, please give me a shout.

Yes, Brian, that's exactly what we're talking about. Selling better yourself and lending a hand to your sales community. Lastly, and I don't think this one quite gets talked about enough, we want to start changing that. The power of customer success has been recognized in the sales industry. Our very own customer success leader, Meg Hulsinger, now has her very own course at JB Sales On Demand, driving results for customer success. Available at JB Sales On Demand. If you are working in customer success or looking to learn how to uncover new opportunities in existing accounts, this course is the one to watch. So often we let revenue slip through the cracks and here's your opportunity to put an end to that.

Build continuous value for your clients and increase revenue with upsells, turn objections into new opportunities by asking the right questions, and take true care of your customers with this customer success course. It's a win-win situation. Like I said before, you don't want to sleep on this. Get access now at ondemand.jbarrows.com. All right, now let's give it back to Christina and John because they're hitting a lot of high notes here. Well, we were talking about this before we got on. Like I'm nervous right now on the future of prospecting. I really am because deliverability rates are getting like harder. Like just to get the email through is getting harder and harder because Gmail to Gmail is starting to pay attention.

Microsoft to Microsoft is paying attention. You know, then you got all these edge devices that are getting more and more from a security standpoint. So now and then connect rates on phone, like, you know what I mean? Like over COVID, that shit went away. That went shit almost to zero for crying out loud. You're starting to see it creep back. But I guess my question for you is like, what do you... Well, let's tie these two things together. SDRs, you come from a marketing background, right? Growth marketing manager. The SDRs report to you. One question I have is, do you think that is the future? Instead of SDRs being sales, they actually transition, they actually are more in marketing and operations.

And two, what do you think this lack of, like this downtick in deliverability and like, what do you think that means for five years out from here, right? From an outbound prospecting standpoint. Let's start with the SDR and where you think it fits. And then let's talk about where you think things are going. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I am of the mindset that SDRs should sit where they are the most supported. That's a good point. And so, you know, in our org, it makes sense. I'm the only one, even when I was an AE here in the beginning, that really ran a true outbound process. I came up with this framework before I went into growth marketing. Like, it just was kind of natural that I would help build the team out here.

And quite frankly, I enable our AEs to do better outbound too. Like, that's part of what I love about what I do. With that said, I think that, you know, depending on the org and the size and, you know, I'm in a 12 person company right now, we're pretty small, but I almost think SDR should have their own department if they're in a more established org where you have marketing and SDR leadership and sales leadership all working collaboratively. Maybe that all falls under some, you know, CRO or CMO or whatever that case may be, but I just think it's where they're most supported is where they should be. And I think that's the answer I'll stick to. Definitely. Yeah, I get that. Yep. As far as deliverability, I'm very fortunate.

I mean, first of all, I work for a platform that deals in email automation. So, you know, and my CEO has very extensive background. He's a technical founder that I report directly into. And his background is mostly in, you know, spam filters and deliverability. And so this is a topic that he talks about a lot. I talk more about the art. He talks more about the science, but, you know, I think that's why it's really important to have certain things in place. Some of them are technologically things that you need to have in place, like DCHEM and SPF and DMARC. Like if you don't have those set up as an organization at the email level, like you're already doing yourself somewhat of a disservice. And then there's other misconceptions, too, that we could get into.

I mean, listen, if you find out that you're landing in spam more than you are the inbox, whether you do an online test, something that gives you at least a general sense of that, most people's inclination is let's get a new domain. No, that's not what you should do. In fact, you will have to spend effort, but it'll take about four to six weeks to get your deliverability back up to a good place. So I think there's a lot on the technological side that people still just haven't, they just don't know what they don't know. And they're being taught, unfortunately, practices that are more activity-based and not outcome-based. And so I think that's a whole different philosophy that we don't have to dive into now.

Yeah, I think we should, yeah. But I think the way of the future is obviously omni-channel, right? Making sure that you have the right data sources for mobile numbers, not for business numbers. Who cares about that shit right now? And emails, right? And we're seeing cold calling is still working. I don't do cold calling myself, but one of my SDRs does, and she's done really well. But again, I think it all depends on data, too. Well, I just think it's, let's put it this way, it's not getting better. You know what I mean? It's not like, it's like, oh, we're in this lull right now, and all of a sudden, you know, connect rates and all that stuff is going to be wonderful, you know, in a year or so.

Like, it's just going to get harder and harder and harder. So I think the omni-channel piece, which kind of gets me back to why I think that I personally think that SDRs should be under, I mean, yes, whoever they're most supported and whoever they're going to get the most guidance and support from. But if you were to genericize it, if you will, for me, I actually think they should be more marketing. Because I think with the tools and all the insights, if the tools are set up the right way, it's about that digital footprint of that person, and it's about surrounding that person with positive impressions that aren't necessarily all dedicated to a single, I'm calling you and I need to get a meeting type of stuff.

Right? Because that's what we're reinforcing right now is, to your point, the activity, not the outcome. Like, the outcome, I'd rather give a rep 10 accounts a week and say, get into these accounts. Like, figure out a way to get into these accounts and multi-channel and connect and do all this other stuff. And then next week, I'll give you another 10, as opposed to giving you 1,000 accounts and saying, go for it. Right? Like, hit your cadence, hit your numbers. Like, I really worry right now that we're talking out of both sides of our mouths in a lot of ways. Like, leadership is saying, oh, no, we understand quality. You know, we want to be more personalized and account-based marketing and all this other shit.

But then they turn to their team and say, make fucking $50 a day. You know, did you send out your 100 cadences this, you know, today? And it's like, these kids don't even have a chance to be personalized if they even wanted to. So how do you balance that? I mean, you're a small company, 12 people. I can kind of do the same thing with my squad. Like, Leslie joined on my team. And I told her, I go, no, no, no. Forget the cadences. Forget all the persona-based shit that we do. Forget all of that stuff. I want you to pick five accounts that you want to get into because they resonate with you. They're a company you admire. They're a company, obviously, that fits our ICP. But it's like, when you believe, like, when you're like, no, like, this company fits a profile and they're cool.

So now let me go do what I can to see if I can get in there. It takes on a whole different level of, then it's not about a technique, right? Now it's about that, hey, how do I really figure out a way to make an impression on these people? Because I genuinely believe that we can make that difference for them. So how do you balance that? How do you balance the quality and quantity, I guess, is the question I have. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. So we actually just adopted Atrium here. I actually really like it because it, I mean, you know how sales, Salesforce dashboards are, they're a pain in the ass. And sometimes reporting and getting what you need is a pain in the ass. But Atrium has been really great.

My SDRs know I'm not going to dig into activities if meetings are happening. So like that never really becomes a thing. The only time that I really think activity is important is really just identifying trends, identifying like, all right, where, you know, how many touches does it take typically to get to one booked meeting? Like what are those averages so that you can kind of somewhat compare, right? Rep over rep when you're, when they're ramping. But to that end, I think there's just the balance of, you know, being again, outcome-based, meetings-based. And so they know where I stand and I support them. They also know that I'm on the ground doing a lot of the same work as they are. So I think there's that element.

And to your point about marketing too, you know, in most organizations, marketing, I'm not saying marketing people don't work because there's never a list of marketing things. I was going to say, you're about to get lit up when this thing goes on. I'm a marketer. Let me just like, just over here. But like, we tend to have a little bit more of the like, hands in other parts of operations. So I think that's why it ends up making the most sense sometimes for SDRs to report in there because there is that like element of support and care and attention that can be given, especially when it comes to more of that top of funnel process. But yeah, they're working off of target accounts. So I have a target account list.

We know what accounts we're trying to break into probably for the next year and a half to two years, unless that shifts. Right. And so, yeah, I'm a big fan of like, hey, here are the accounts that you need to break into. Yeah. Go, go and do it. Well, let's talk. I mean, how do you, and I'm searching for this, you know, I had a really interesting conversation with David Cancel over at Drift about kind of expediting or facilitating the, what I call the give a shit factor, right? Like I do, you know, we do a lot of training on techniques and all these different things. And, and look, I think they're important just like scripts. I think scripts are okay to get somebody started, but then you got to make it your own.

Right. I think techniques are good, but like once you get to that level of unconscious competence, right, where you've, you've reached the give a shit factor, you've reached the business acumen piece here where now it's almost like the matrix, right? When you look at an account, it's like, yeah, here's exactly like, yeah, no. And, and the, and the conversation and the messaging is, is genuine. You know what I mean? It's like, look, I don't know if we can help you, but man, like you fit a profile and we're doing some cool stuff here. And my value proposition is now a real one, not just a pitch that I memorize and I'm regurgitating here. So how are you and how do others try to expedite that growth path of a, of a, of a kid coming into sales to get to that point?

Cause I think probably you and I are, I don't know how old you are. I'm not going to ask. I'm 45. Right. And I think like kind of once I turned 40, I, um, it was weird. Right. I, it was, it was kind of like, you know, in your twenties, you're always looking up, right? You're always looking up cause you don't know what you don't know. And you're like, I don't know. I'm still a fucking kid here. I'm still going out getting bang up drunk, whatever. And then you kind of hit your thirties and you're like, uh, I think I know what I'm talking about, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. And I'm still kind of holding on. Cause I still think I'm kind of cool. Right. So I'm still holding on to my twenties and, but I'm still looking up, right?

I'm still looking up to the 40 and 50 year olds. Right. Because, oh, they're, they've experienced once you hit 40, it's like, you start having conversations with people in their twenties and they start being like, oh my God, what did you just say? That's brilliant. And you're like, wait a minute. What, what, like, like, what do you mean? I just, that that's common fucking sense, isn't it? But it's because the 10,000 hours it's because all that stuff. So how do you get a kid who's 22 right now to not have to take 25 years to get to a level of unconscious competence and some of the stuff that we're doing? Yeah. I mean, listen, first of all, I'm going to be 37 this year. I'm still having a hard time with that, but you're right.

I've historically worked in startups where most everyone, including founders are like under 30, including my current org, but they're also some of the brightest hardworking people I know. But to that end, I think there's a couple of things that I've done, particularly with onboarding and SDR in November that have really worked. And one is make sure that you're testing for that creative ability to think in the interview process. And so for me, you know, I have people prospect, I have people put together a sequence, you know, and, and really just kind of like one more so, cause I want to see like what they come up with, what kind of creative aptitude they have. If they have that creative gear of like coming up with, you know, personalized, interesting, creative ways to communicate with people, you can work with that, right?

Like that's what you need. The other piece is get them prospecting and reaching out to people the first week. I know that sounds crazy, but we were building, we were building the account list and prospecting people in on like day four. And the goal was to launch a sequence that Friday or Monday and start working through some of those pieces. I think a couple of things that are really important is like, for me, I've been running this for so long that you're right. It's almost like muscle memory. Like I just know what to do to get what I need to do what I need to do. And I think anyone can get there, but it takes time. It takes patience and practice makes perfect. Right. And so I think there's that element of the more you do it, the quicker it gets, the more you avoid the rabbit hole of, you know, listening to a 45 minute podcast just to do one personalized sentence, you know, why don't you just fast forward and like, listen to some of the nuggets and pull something like there's just ways to kind of, I don't want to say cheat the system because that sounds bad, but there are ways to consume content and find ways to personalize to people without having to sit there and listen to or watch or read, you know, a novel.

So I think, you know, enabling them and building confidence in them to do things quicker sooner rather than later, rip that bandaid off and then work extremely collaboratively with them as they run into specific scenarios. Cause you can prepare someone as much as you want, but until they actually get in the door and start experiencing like specific objections, specific, you know, just weird instances, you can't really prepare them for that. And so I think the more you can walk them through those actively as they're happening, the quicker they're going to get through those hurdles. Yeah. And I think that, that breaks the barrier of, of confidence and comfortable ability. I still search for the, the give a shit factor.

I still search for the, the, the, the light bulb, right. Of, Oh, and, and that's, and I'll say it right now, you know, from a training standpoint, I gave up a long time ago when I first got into training. Um, this training worked for me, which is why I took it and why I joined it. Right. Originally a basho. And when I started training it, you know, I was trying to reach everybody in the room, right. If there was 30 people in the room, I like, if you were in the back on your cell phone, I was like, no, no, no, Christine, you got to pay attention here. Like this stuff is legit. Right. And, and whatever. And I would get so disappointed that there were certain people that just didn't seem to give a shit.

Right. Um, now I don't give a shit about those people to be quite honest with you. Like the people that are on a zoom training. And I'm going to tell everybody right now, listening to my podcast, if you've ever gone through a training, if you're on zoom, if you show me, if you put your video camera up there, you're the one I'm training. If you're not on zoom, I could give a shit about you. Right. Because you're telling me that you don't really care and you might be paying attention and whatever. I don't give a fuck. It's the same person in the back of the room that's on their cell phone the entire time and lifting their head up. What I look for is the light bulbs. I look for the kids who, who, you know, as I'm talking, it's like, bing, they like, they get it.

Right. And those are the ones. And I, unfortunately, I think those are only about 10 to 20% of the population that care enough to want to get better and actually have the ability to take something and try it and make it their own. And I'm just trying to figure out. So those 10 to 20%, they're always going to be the ones that, that shine. Right. They're going to be the ones that we hold on to as long as we possibly can, but we let them fly. Right. But it's that like middle 50, 60% that are in that zone. I don't give a shit about the 30% that doesn't give a shit. Like, again, go away. But those 50, 60% in the middle that are kind of just ebbing and flowing and kind of going through the motions, but might have some initiative in them, but are looking for some guidance that I'm trying to crack through that ceiling of the give a shit factor.

And I just don't, you know, I'm going to, I'm constantly going to be hunting for it, but I don't know if there's anything to expedite it. Yeah. I mean, I think that's hard. You know, I have really open conversations around career pathing and drivers and like, Hey, you know, uh, I'm not trying to hire people with commission breath. Right. But at the same time, like you want people to want something for themselves more than you want it for them. And sometimes you're right. It's hard to like inspire someone to figure that out. Um, I've been kind of fortunate that I just, the people on my team are not, I mean, they're all, in fact, I'd almost argue that they may. Even being like the, the 10% of people out there that, you know, I'm, I'm kind of nervous about trying to replicate.

Right. So, I mean, I think you have a point, I think looking for what's driving those people and helping them to understand that. But yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't think I have a good answer for you when you figure it out. I think there's a lot of psychology around it too. Right. I think, so like I take a slightly different approach from an onboarding standpoint. I try to, I, I hold off on the, um, go immediately because what I want them to do is I want them to understand. I don't give a shit about the product and you know, what we're selling. Like that, that's easy. It's more of the belief, right? And so for instance, I think a lot of companies, what they'll do is when a new rep comes on board, here's your territory, right?

And here's our ICP. And here's your list of a thousand counts that fit our ICP go. And oh, by the way, here's our persona cards and Sally, she's in marketing and she likes fucking creativity. So make sure you say creativity when you talk to Sally, right? And, and you get these kids who are taught to the test. They're, they're given structure their entire lives. You give them an ICP and you give them a persona and they just start regurgitating and they, there's no thought behind it. So what I'd say is here's my top 10 customers. I want you to go figure out why these are my top 10 customers. I want you to go look at them online. I want you to figure out what they're, who they sell to and all that other shit and come back to me and tell me what are the similarities of these clients, right?

So then when they do that and they come back now, when they're looking at their database and they're looking at their client list, they're saying, oh, okay, now these clients fit that profile compared to these clients. So now I can have better conversations. Same thing with personas. I'm not like, hey, here's Sally. She's a chief marketing officer. She likes innovation. I go, no, no, no. Our personas are VPs of sales, CROs, and VPs of enablement. Go out there and interview VPs of sales, CROs, and VPs of enablement and ask them, what do they give a shit about? Research, Google, what is, you know, VP of sales and enablement? What do those things look like? Pull out their priorities, have conversations with them.

And so then when you start calling them, you have context. You have actual real thought and you can be genuinely curious because you heard something before and you can maybe ask them the question. So I give them that, A, believe in the company, right? So why do people work here? And that type of stuff. B, who's our clients? And really what, why are they good clients for us? And C, who's the personas and why do we matter to them? And then I go ahead and say, get after it, right? Because it's just that belief system. I firmly believe if you do not believe in what you sell, you're never going to really be successful selling it, right? 1,000%. Those are exceptional tips too, because I think there's also something to be said about, you know, just like the desire to listen to sales calls, you know, like we have Chorus here.

I have a Chorus library that I have people listen to in the beginning. Like that way you can hear, like here are all of the deal, the calls from the deals we closed won, closed lost, right? Um, we have competitive analysis, like all of these things for you to kind of digest along the way, but there's nothing more powerful. And this is even for any marketers that might listen to your podcast and not saying you have to do a year long stint in sales like I did, but listen to sales calls, listen to them and use that language that customers are using in online reviews and the way that they're talking about their problems to, you know, your, your sales reps, whoever use that language so that it's familiar for them, you know?

Absolutely. I don't know. I actually do believe that, that marketers should get a list of companies that they have to prospect into and qualify and sell like for, and it doesn't have to be a year, but give them, give them a month and say, here's a list of 50 accounts, or here's a list of 25 accounts. And your job is to get meetings with, you know, 10 of them and have call calls and see how that goes. Just to basically feel the day in the life of what it's like to get kicked in the teeth 99 out of a hundred times and have to have the motivation to still get up and make that next phone call. Right? Because then maybe there's some empathy. Now on the flip side, I think that market sales reps should sit in marketing and understand the algorithms, understand the split testing, understand how to test so that they, they can take that and, and apply that to what they do.

Right? So, which is why I just think that, I don't know. I think the whole predictable revenue model is going to, is going to shatter here. I think, I think it is shattering right now. And I don't think it's relevant very much anymore because I think we are moving back to full cycle sales with SDRs being part of marketing and operations, sales reps being supported by that in account-based marketing and sales being more like customer success. So, yes, I mark your words on that one. I agree with that. And I, I'm seeing that also unfold just in the way that our org is operating and the, the, the natural inclination of what people are doing in their roles. So I totally agree with you and yeah, marketers, I mean, listen, we're good at testing things, but Hey, listen, I have done outbound to 750 target prospects this quarter.

So far, I've developed pricing strategy. I do new market testing. Like if you don't know what that experience is like, how can you enable your sales team to do it better? That's just kind of how I feel about it. And it's just like management, like lead by example, like you said, right? Getting the trenches there. Like if you, if marketing is having a hard time with, for instance, being respected, like say they think all sales reps don't fucking respect us. They, they treat us like shit. Well, why don't you go down and show some empathy? Like, why don't you go down and sit in their shoes for a little bit? And when a, when a sales rep sees you down there trying to learn, you'll get a lot more flexibility as far as feedback and insights and those types of things.

Same thing with a manager. Like if you're just barking at people to go make your calls and you're not in there making calls with them, you're going to have a resentful team. That's going to be like, Oh, fuck yourself. I'm going to make my calls whenever I want to make my calls. You don't tell, you know what I mean? But if you show them, Hey, I'm here making calls with you and I'm getting my teeth kicked in just like you, you don't have to do it all day, every day. But if you're not, if you're not in it with them, the respect level drops drastically. Right. It's like training. I always tell my, my, I don't hire trainers period because trainers are usually people that can't sell. Right. If you can't do it, teach it.

Right. So I hire sales reps to train and you have to find your own business. You have to prospect into your own accounts because the last thing in the world I want is to be that guy that's sitting there chirping about shit that I did 10 years ago, but haven't done in the past, you know what I mean? And in the past 10 years, and now you're looking at me like, you don't have a lot of credibility to have this conversation with me right now. No, I mean, there's a fine line between marketing sales and enablement. I mean, I can tell you, you know, I deal with a team of AEs that all have nuances and preferences. You know, you damn well sure we are respecting those and figuring out ways to make them feel comfortable with, with the process, keeping it high level process the same, but feeding into nuances, I sit on every demo I book and I am there when a prospect says something about a specific integration, guess who's pulling up the demo environment and just making sure that my sales rep is like feeling confident about being able to answer those questions.

I mean, that's just part of it. Right. We're all a team. We either lose together or win together. Well, I wish more people had that mentality. You know, I do, I do believe that a lot of this is us versus them and our MQLs versus SQLs. And, you know, if everybody would just focus on the outcome of what we're trying to accomplish here, which is positive impressions, positive brands that drives quality accounts and good service. Right. If that's kind of the mantra there, then we should all be able to rally around that stuff and stop bickering about how many dials did you make and any of that shit that all the marketing material that you send is crap and everything else. So hopefully, hopefully there's some organizations and leadership out there listening to this outside of reps, because I don't think reps are in a position in a lot of ways to do a lot of change.

The management is the ones that I think needs to pick their head out of their ass and start actually helping these teams work together far more effectively. So take action. Exactly. Well, Christina, we're wrapping up here. Anything else you want to share with the, with the, with the crew here, as far as what your thoughts are or, you know, and also, you know, where they can get in touch with you type of stuff. Yeah, no, I just appreciate you having me on. And as always, it's just nice to be a part of this and just have a really honest conversation about what's going on in SDR, sales, marketing land. As far as getting in contact with me, I'm an open book. You can just link with me on LinkedIn, Christina Finseth.

I'm the only Christina Finseth out there. So it's easy. And if you find avocados in my signature or my profile, you've got the right person, but yeah, you can jam on outbound anytime. Very cool. I appreciate your time here, Christina. I really do enjoy the conversation. And for everybody else, hopefully you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. You got a few nuggets out of here that you can use to make a little bit of improvement moving forward. Hopefully be part of that 10%. I'm going to ask you, just give a shit, right? Don't be the part of the 30% that sits in the back of the room and goes through the motions because life's too short to go through the motions, at least in my opinion. And as I say at the end of all my podcasts, ladies and gentlemen, go out there and make somebody smile today.

Because even if you had a shitty day, if you made somebody smile, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you, Christina. Thanks everybody for listening. I'll see y'all soon. Cheers. It's getting harder and harder to gain the attention we need to get someone into the top of our sales funnel legitimately. Decision makers are guarding their time more and more so they don't want to waste what little time they do have to focus on growth in demos and conversations that lead nowhere. There's so many ways to enable sellers to be more impactful. We just have to think differently. Confidence and comfort level play a huge role in development. And this episode has been super enlightening in that regard as well.

We know that we've all learned something. So thanks so much for tuning in. A couple of quick closing notes here. As always, for daily tips, techniques, sales content, and perspective, follow JBSales on the gram at JBSalesTraining, all one word, and engage with us there. We've had a blast connecting one-on-one with everybody there. Please share this message with your sales friends and leave a review letting us know what you thought. It helps us to grow the podcast and keep inviting the best guests in the business. Lastly, my guy and fellow trainer at JBSales, Morgan J. Ingram, has a new podcast called The One-Up Formula. Each week, Morgan's going to hop on and talk with industry leaders about their behind-the-scene routines that set them up for success.

We're talking about things like mindset and mastery and optimizing your health and fitness routines and finding your true purpose. The real stuff that no one really talks about in our space. Super insightful. Love, Morgan. Again, it's called The One-Up Formula and available on iTunes and Spotify. We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better. We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better. We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better. We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better.

We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better. We'll see you next week, everyone, for another stellar conversation that's sure to help you sell better.