$2.3B in Sales Truths with Dave Govan

The goal isn't to get a sale from every person you talk to. The goal is to get a sale from the people you can actually help. At the end of the day, like, hey, you have a mission, but the ones that thrive are the ones that are very customer-focused and solve problems for customers and grow. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact onto the world around us. Now, today's episode is with Dave Govan. He's the founder and CEO of G2 Strategic Advisory Service and one of the most seasoned CROs in the game. They've helped drive over $2.3 billion in revenue and brings a rare combo of street-level sales DNA and boardroom business acumen.

This one, we dug into what's broke with the GTM strategy today and how AI is exposing very lazy sales executives and execution and why business acumen, not sales tactics, is the real unlock for the reps right now. He also shows the big mistakes co-founders and founders and CEOs make when they're trying to scale their businesses and how to fix it. And if you're in the CRO seat right now, building a sales org or trying to sell into one, this one's packed with clarity and truth and a lot of tips and tactics and everything in between. Also, Dave is a former customer of mine. So that $2.3 billion at the organization, I had a little bit to do with. I don't really take credit for it, but he gives me a little bit and I will take it.

So if you're interested in training, obviously, you can always give me a shout. I do make a difference. That's how I make my money here. But if nothing else, hopefully you'll get some value out of this and enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Dave Govan, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing today? Hey, John. I'm doing awesome, man. It's great to be here. I actually was really happy that we reconnected at the Pavilion thing because I remember we had done some work together in the past. Obviously, you brought me in a few times, which I genuinely appreciate. But then I haven't been on site in a while since COVID. I used to do that the whole circuit.

And so I got out and it was really cool to reconnect with you. So I'm glad we're having fun. Same here. I really love the work that you do. And I was a very satisfied client. We could talk about that in this call. I'm happy to share some experiences there. But yeah, it was great to see you again. Yeah, man. And there was a vibe at that Pavilion thing. I think that 800 people showing up to it. There's a lot going on right now. And especially just focused on from a CRO standpoint, which we're going to get into because that's kind of your specialty in helping businesses. The energy there, I agree, was amazing. So many great people, newcomers and veterans and such. And I carried that energy all the way through to the end, man.

I was in the pickleball tournament. I know. I saw you won the championship. Yeah, yeah. That was fun. My partner and I, this guy from Florida, who I didn't know, we teamed up. And that was great fun. It was a good time. I do think that's the way the world's going in this sense that, again, we're going to get into AI. We're going to get into kind of all this stuff. But the human experience, right? Getting people together and collaborating and doing the stuff that AI can't replace, I think is going to be a premium moving forward. So I think Pavilion's on to something right now with what they're putting together, what Sam has kind of restructured and refocused in the right way. Couldn't agree more.

I'm a big fan of Sam and a big fan of what Pavilion's doing. And happy to have been one of the first eight members ever, man. Yeah. I was at the table when Sam conceived it. So it's been a great, great experience. Funny. Sam's been a great, you know, just partner and colleague. And I remember we both like early, I think it was either, no, it was early 2023 when the shit was hitting the fan for both of us. And we both kind of had that conversation. Like, what did we get ourselves into here? Like, what the fuck? And, and like, we made some mistakes. We over spent, you know, did this and overdid that. And, and both of us questioning quite a bit of what we were doing. And so to see him come out on the other side and rebuild this in a way that is really just humming is, is really cool to see.

So I agree. Awesome, man. Well, let's talk about you. So, so as my audience always knows here, man, like, well, you know, there's the resume and their LinkedIn profile we can all dive into on our own time. And we'll get to some of that stuff, but I always love to hear the origin stories and you have some cool ones. You have some, you have a cool background and, and, you know, the context here is where'd you get the itch, right? Like where'd that entrepreneurial itch come from, where the sales itch come from, like from your parents, like growing up, you know, settings, family, all that fun stuff. So walk us through where you grew up, how you grew up and, and kind of what influenced you to be who you are today.

That's a great question. I think it's in my DNA. I actually believe that I had parents and grandparents are entrepreneurs and different industries. And I grew up in a 100 seat restaurant business that lasted for 40 years. Actually, I ran away from it to college because I started working there when I was 10 and, you know, nights, weekends, holidays, and eventually I was like, Hey man, I think I might want a family life someday. But the lessons I learned there were incredible. Just like really how to empathize with people, the whole EQ element and how to GSD, you know, how to work as teams, how to handle crises, GSD, define that for the audience, just to make sure. Get shite done. Thank you. No, you take the filter off, man.

Take whatever the filter off, right? Get shite done. So, uh, you know, it's just like you, you have a plan and all of a sudden something catches on fire or like someone doesn't show and like the plan goes out the window and everyone's like really like recon in reconnaissance, like, Oh man, what are we going to do? Like I learned that stuff when I was like in my teens, you know, like, so I carried that forward. I did run away to college. My, my, uh, my mother had my whole, uh, life figured out for me. She, she wanted me to take over the restaurant business. She had, she had a, a woman picked out for me to marry and you know, the whole thing, it was all settled. Right. And, uh, and I'm like, dude, I got to get out of Dodge.

So I literally like ran away to college and, uh, and studied, uh, you know, I studied marketing and tech and, uh, because I knew that was just such a growth space and I always liked putting things together and taking them apart. So I was really interested in, in how all the pieces worked from a technology standpoint. So that was really the launch, but it's those, you know, that foundational DNA that I have around, uh, you know, empathizing and that whole front office part of, uh, of the business world and that, and also the business acumen, like for some reason, like I got, you know, straight A's in my, you know, uh, accounting classes and it just was all, I understood it. Like I literally understood.

So when I became a leader and then later an executive with a P and L, you know, large P and L, um, I understood what we were doing. And I always got along very well with finance because it's like, I'm, you know, I'm not like I've been a sales leader, but I'm a business leader. And, um, the chairman in, in the last company I worked at actually got a promotion there and he said, I want to be clear. I'm promoting you because you're a business leader, not because you're a sales leader. Yeah. You're a great sales leader, but you're a business leader and that's why you're getting promoted. Hey, I hope you're enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership.

It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, which are filling the funnel and driving a close that cover all aspects of the sales process. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific sales skills and different tech skills like chat GPT and how to leverage AI throughout the entire sales process. Finally, the membership gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to jbarrows.com, click on the individual membership link and use coupon code podcast at checkout, you'll get 25% off. Now let's get back to the conversation. And that to me, that's why I tell reps right now, like, you know, sales tips, techniques, whatever, fine.

If you want to learn those great, but if you want to improve your skills, if you want to improve your results, just improve your business acumen. Learn how to speak business and learn because, and that's why I heard some crazy stat a while ago that like something like, you know, 60, 70% of the global 2000 CEOs have a sales background. And the reason is, is because we as sales professionals have to learn a little bit about a lot and we have to get along with everybody, right? So I have to learn finance and accounting so I can get my commissions and get my deals through whatever. I need to learn marketing so I can align that, whatever. I need to learn operations so I can get, so I need, and I need to get along with all those people.

Because if I piss off my, the finance person, I'm not getting paid or I might not get that thing, right? So it kind of gives you a holistic view of how a business runs. And I'm curious, actually, we'll dive into some other stuff, but that just brings up a question for me. With where things are going right now, okay, I used to think that a sales rep didn't have to be the product expert, right? Because we could, we were just the quarterback, like you'd bring in the engineer, you'd bring in all this other stuff. But now with AI specifically and how much power is in the client's hands as far as their ability to rip through most shit that most sales reps bring to the table, I'm starting to shift to my opinion that sales reps need to be not like the technical guru here to configure the whatever, but they better be able to go pretty goddamn deep in the explanation of what that solution is, how it aligns.

So where are you on this continuum of like what a sales rep needs to bring to the table these days from a knowledge of their own product and service outside of all the other shit that we've had to do? It's a great question. You know, most meaningful sales are a consensus sale. There's, there's going to be four to six to eight to 12 to 20 people deciding. And so it's a team sport. So sales has to have the proficiency to understand the why behind the product. Like why would a customer care? How does it help their business? Why, why does it help their business? Right. And really understand it. It's, it's not just like, they're not just some MC where they make introductions and then put somebody on that.

They have to understand that because they are the direct interface. They're like the quarterback to everyone. And then they have the supporting team players who are more technical or more proficient or more executive level that contribute to gaining the consensus for their solution. So they have to know their stuff. They don't have to be super technical. They have to understand at a higher level, what it is, what it does, how it's different. And most importantly, why it all matters to the customer. Right. So, but, but there are technical experts because some of this tech goes so deep. There's no human being that could ever master all that communication. Well, so where do you know, the, I was taught early days, like if you don't know the answer, don't fake it.

Right. Like, you know, but, but the answer is, Hey, I'll find out for you. I have this, this, and I haven't experienced it overly at this point, but I just know from a buyer standpoint and what I now do and the value I expect from a sales rep or from anybody, quite frankly, after I do my due diligence, it's the, the whole, I don't know, let me get back to you on that. I think the tolerance for that is, is waning. Right. And, and maybe it's different in the end up because now, and just to be clear for people listening, you know, I am a mid-market specialist, right? Like, yeah, I, yes, SMB, but that's volume enterprise has never really been my thing. Right. So a lot of my questions come from that mid-market, like you need to be a little bit quicker, whereas enterprise, it's much longer sales cycle.

So you do have the, Hey, look, let me get into that. Let me get back to your scenario. But where do you think the tolerance is going right now from a value standpoint and how, how does a rep right now make sure that they're bringing value to every single fucking conversation with every person? Cause I have two sides of this. One is it's hard because now I got to figure out how to bring value in every conversation. The other is AI makes it so goddamn easy to bring value to almost every hour of a conversation. So where are you on that? Yeah. So there is a minimum number of questions, not number minimum, like type of questions that the rep has to be able to answer, right? Think of like an FAQ almost.

If they can't answer those questions, the buyer is going to shut down because they're, they're pretty straightforward questions. And it's, it's not. And then it's, it's, how can I say that? It's a process, right? So it's like, if, if you're on a call and the customer's like going all the way as deep as technically as they possibly could, uh, you have to reel that back and say, wait, you know, we'll definitely cover that. And I frankly have better people to cover that than me, as you can imagine, because I'm your account rep. The customer is going to accept that, but that, but there is, they have to have credibility to be able to answer like a core set of questions. Okay. They have to be trained and enabled to, to answer those.

And most of those are about the, the why, how it's used the, you know, the, the benefits, et cetera. But, um, on top of that, it's, it's, it's critical that they actually are like, um, uh, really listening, you know, asking the right questions and listening also, because there's been a huge mistake where a lot of, uh, founders who are really skilled at pitching their product to raise money, um, they then hire reps and they're like, okay, just pitch it like this. It's not the same conversation, right? Like, as you know, healthy talk to listener ratios, like, you know, 60, 40, uh, customer, uh, and a rep talking and customer talking like 60, 40. So there's a lot of listening that goes on. So, so they have to ask the right questions to get the right information, and then they have to be able to share back when they're both, uh, presenting and qualifying to accomplish what they're, they're looking to accomplish.

So that comes down to, you know, proper training and, and, uh, you know, sort of some of it's like trial by fire, right? Like they blow themselves up by not knowing, and then maybe the next call gets better. So, so this kind of leads to my cure. Like I'm very curious in your opinion on this, which is, and I'm jumping ahead where I want to take this conversation, but I want to take it here anyways, is, um, you know, the AI function here, like what it does. And I think for somebody like you and I, it's incredible. It's, it's a superpower because we have business acumen, we have context, we have experience. We know it's, we know it lies. We know it doesn't, right? So we use it to be curious. We use it to learn.

We use it to question, right? But also the reason that you and I are who we are is because in the early days of, of our careers, we didn't have any of this shit. And so we had to do the grunt work shit. Like we had to, like, I don't know about you. I had literally a pad of printout, like numbers and names on a sheet that I had to like write down what my conversation was. LMTC left message to call, you know, and then call back in three days. Right. Um, I had to take my Polaroid camera to offices and drive around Massachusetts and do this shit. I had to meet face to face and get my at like doors slammed in my fucking face every time I was doing it. Right. And all that grunt work, right, that allowed me to be in this conversation where I don't need a script.

I don't need to worry about it. Right. I can be real. All that intro level stuff though is now being done better with AI. And so where a, what are the fundamentals be more importantly, like, yeah, where do the kids get that grit and how can AI help expedite that? Because there's only a certain amount of things experience teaches you. Teach it. Like sometimes you just have to go through experience to learn it. But I do feel like AI can expedite business acumen if used the right way. But I also have a great fear right now that a vast majority of sales professionals are like the entry level version of them are going to get wiped out. So they'll never have the ability to get to the point where they can have the acumen and the understanding of a business to be able to apply it in a real world conversation.

So help me understand that younger generation. How do they, how do they get what you and I have? So the good news is they understand what it is. They all know gen, gen Z I'm talking about, right? Like they all know what gen AI is, for example, and they've had some experience with it. What they don't know is the extent to which they can collaborate with it in their job from a selling standpoint or a marketing standpoint. They just don't know that. So they need to be taught that or they need to be shown that they need to learn that, right? Maybe some folks put out some YouTube videos and they can see those or whatever it is, but they need to pick that up because it's only as good as the quality and sophistication of your prompting, right?

Now I use six of them every single day and almost every hour in my job. And I'm sure you do too. And we're writing prompts that are multi-dimensional, you know, four or five, six dimensions and getting results back that are incredibly valuable for our clients or our own businesses, et cetera. So they don't know what they don't know in order to ask that. So they need, they need to know that. But the good news is the tech is so far advanced and the amount of data that is now available to help it get better, that it's like night and day, just literally in like, I test it all the time. And in the last 18 months, it's gone from like crappy role-playing to amazing role-playing. Even where like, so I, I, I like once like said, Hey, I leaned back, the customer leaned back and crossed their arms.

Uh, what does that mean? What should I respond? It nailed it. It was like right on. It's that customer's showing some apprehension about something you said. Therefore, you need to slow down a little checkpoint and actually probe into it a bit. Right. Whereas this is exactly the right, right answer. And, um, and it's, it's like, but the, the amount you can like actually tune it, like, Hey, don't flatter me. Be, be super critical. Right. Like, it's my ass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Multiple times. Don't, don't make shite up, you know, like don't hallucinate and give me what you think I want to hear where that's not, you know, not true and stuff, but getting back to the point, uh, so there are some, uh, third party sales coaching applications that are all AI centric, uh, Dex2Go is one that I actually, uh, I think highly of, and there's, there's numerous other ones.

I met a founder. I spoke on a panel two days ago at digital Irish, Irish tech week, uh, the bank of Ireland in Manhattan. And I met a founder who's got a layer that basically takes, uh, call notes and translates that into real time sales coaching. So if you think about that, like I use granola as a note taker and, and, and that's awesome. Like my clients, uh, sometimes say, Hey, can you send me a, you know, re you know, summary of the meeting we just had. It's like, it's all there. Okay. Boom. Two seconds. Right. Um, but imagine if you have a capability where, you know, all the, you're on a zoom, you're presenting, everything's being noted and collected. And at the same time, there's this, this application, this AI applications, it's coaching the young rep who's selling, right?

I mean, there, there's some powerful tech out there. And then you just have the core gen AI platforms, which as I mentioned before, are, you know, whether it's Jen, Jen spark or chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or whatever you're using, they got really, really darn goods. But, but the users need to be taught. And this one, it services that, uh, my company is offering as well, kind of assessing the use of AI in sales and marketing and, and opportunities to enable that is one of the areas that we're working in. But there's definitely an opportunity for people to get better at it. And it just keeps getting better and better. So I love it. Um, I think it's a game changer for, for people and I don't see it.

Honestly, a lot of people like, yes, many jobs are getting replaced by AI. I've never been fortunate enough to have some job where, you know, it's like, it's, you know, a pure, just a grunt work, like, like, you know, the critical thinking that human beings bring, like, for example, I do not use AI for my writing. If I need a document created or something that's internal, you know, I'll use it, but it cannot, I'm, I'm done trying to get AI to write the way with texture and soul and sensitivity and word choice. I'm done with that. Like it's too much. You have the same experience. Same exact. I, I, I, I gave up like this is, I'm not going to name the product, but there was one that kind of analyzes your LinkedIn things, optimizing, gives you recommendations.

You click a button, it writes the whole thing for you. And I got people raving about it, who I work with like, Oh, this is so incredible. And I'm like, that's just not me. I'm like, that's just not me. I'm like, I don't know how to. So I will tell you the way I do use it to write is because I suck at typing. I actually like the microphone up and I'm like, okay, here's what I want to write. Like, here's the topic. Here's the point. And I dictate. And I just, I just kind of word vomit into the entire thing. And I'm all over the place too. I'm like, no, no, not that do this instead. And yeah, maybe, I don't know. Could you help me rephrase this? And I just throw up all, and then it creates this really nice flow.

Then I go back into it and I edit it the way I want it to. So that's how I've been able to optimize mine. But I, I'm done saying, write me a newsletter post, write me a blog post about this topic. It's a great use case. I I'll pick another one, the like role, uh, not role playing, of course, but call prep. Yeah, I'll call that's all off the chart. Like, you know, I was a rep for, for 10 solid years and I remember it like it was yesterday. And I was always rushed to prepare for my calls because I was busy. I was a very active rep. I had lots of meetings and stuff. Call prep game changer. Literally, it's like, I take the person's LinkedIn URL. So if they have public facing, boom, I got that. I take the company's, uh, you know, URL, feed it to, to Gen AI.

And take my company's URL, take what I do. Actually, truth is I've taught it about me. So it knows a lot about me and what I sell. And then I'm like, okay, I'm meeting with John, uh, and we're going to, my meeting, my call objective is X. And, uh, and then here's all the background. I want you to scan, go through everything and then give me some guidance on the structure of the call, the call tips, et cetera. What, what probably will go right? What could go wrong? Sometimes I ask it to rate the fit, like on a scale of, you know, one to 10, how good a fit does this look like from that perspective? And of course it's probabilistic. It's not deterministic. So you have to like, you know, be careful and watch what it's telling you.

But in, for the most part, it's unbelievable. I mean, it's like what it can do in, in seconds, literally compared to hours and hours is, is crazy. And they can use that. Yeah, exactly. So, so let's talk, let's talk. I mean, you've had a, a pretty impressive career as far as who you've sold for, you know, like as a, as a rep, then as a CRO, you know, and, and billions, millions of dollars. Right. And now, now talk to me about who you're working with. Cause I want to, I want to kind of hone in on this group here. Cause you're now you're off on your own. You're doing your thing. You've done the corporate, right? We've talked about that before we got on here, uh, and all the wonderful things about that.

But, um, who, who are you, who are you passionate about serving right now? Cause I want to dig into that group. Yeah. So it's B2B exclusively, not product led growth. That's, I've never had the, you know, luck or good fortune, you know, um, but they actually max out typically in the, you know, there's a unicorn occasional, but usually around a hundred million. They're kind of like, Hey, now we need a direct motion or channel motion or whatever. On that note. And you know, like, so I, it always cracked me up back in the day, like, you know, Dropbox box, Tableau, uh, Slack, they would all be like, Oh, we don't hire. Sales reps. And I, and they're like proudly, like the CEO would stand up and guess what?

I've trained Tableau, Slack, Dropbox, box, like every single one of them eventually gets to that point. Like, shit, we got to sell. That's it. That's funny. It's funny. Um, yeah. So who I help B2B, um, various stage companies cause I have full life cycle experience. So I've seed all the way through to public and PE and, uh, and it's mostly companies that are looking to optimize some part of their front office. There's something going on. Uh, maybe they want to get to the next level they want, or they want to accelerate revenue faster. Uh, in some cases break into new markets. I have several international clients, so they're interested in expanding internationally to, uh, the Americas, for example.

Uh, some of them are looking to scale up. Some of them are looking to scale out. So it's, it's a variety. Yeah. I've met some advisors and they're like, yeah, I work with series B period. Okay. Good for you. Uh, I don't need to, you know, focus that much because I, I have this breath of experience and, and, um, you know, there's another very famous, uh, company that does research and they have like an go-to-market architecture. I won't mention the name. I went back, not to sound, you know, uh, self-serving, but I went back and checked like this presentation I gave a while ago at a sales hacker conference. Remember those guys? Oh, I don't remember. And, and I looked at what I was talking about.

And then I looked at this, you know, modern architecture. It was pretty much the same, the same thing. Why? Because it's actually common sense. So like my biggest value add is helping companies be more precise on their targeting, more, uh, uh, differentiated on their messaging, making sure the value and why is there and then better execution in the front office. It's really like those three legs of the stool are where we focus because that's what moves the needle. Everything else is like vanity metrics or kind of, you know, like everyone's running around. You probably heard this. I need more leads. I need more leads. I need more leads. And there's a hundred thousand, uh, I get emails myself or, you know, we can bring you leads and we'll, you know, we'll just take a cut of your business or whatever.

It's like, you don't get it. Companies don't need more leads. They need more clients and they need clients with high lifetime value and they need the right clients. Right. So, but I'll pause there. So, so B2B, um, uh, tech, I tend to focus in tech, either product or services. Is there a common thread? I mean, I know you have those three legs to that stool that you focus on, but with all of those, right, uh, seed all the way through to enterprise. Are there common challenges regardless, or do you find that there are distinct, I mean, there's obviously distinct differences across the board, but like, are there commonalities that you can kind of hone in on and say, regardless of what you sell, who you sell to any of that, you need this shit in order to be successful.

Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. They, they, so when it's like, it starts, so there's a decades ago, I'm not even know who created, there's a market map and it starts with the voice of the customer goes through to the actual targeting solution design and through to, uh, execution. Okay. So it's like a linear map. And so I follow that and a best practice and that's common across companies, but it starts with, as I mentioned, targeting, uh, it's, you'd be surprised in small, medium and large, uh, companies, vendors, how, uh, much, uh, uh, sort of, uh, how can I say they're, they're kind of like, they're targeting suboptimal there. There's some assumption that they made, uh, around their targeting that is just either too generalized.

I was going to say it's probably too generalized. It's like, yeah, like I have criteria, like industry size, number of employees. Great. There's our, there's our TAM. It's like, whoa, whoa. I'm working, I'm working with a client right now. I can't, I won't mention a name, um, really great new tech and something really, really valuable for managing opportunities, like incredibly valuable. And there's not many players in it because it basically removes blind spots, provides account and buyer intelligence. Okay. Their initial, uh, go to market messaging and, and focus is taking them against zoom info and Apollo and all these other places. And I'm like, dude, you're smart. You got great tech. Why?

Well, that's where money's being spent. No, yes, it's being spent there, but it's being spent by people who aren't going to succeed. The people that already know, you know, who they're focused on a lot of, as you know, a lot of sales organizations, they have named accounts and they have named accounts for a good reason. They've already figured out who they have to go after. Now, what they have to do is compete well, manage opportunities better than their competitor and win them. And that's what value provides. So fortunately he's very coachable founder and, you know, he's mature guys had other startups before, but he's, he's taking my advice and, and we're evolving that. And so that's like, it's, you know, it's often too broad.

The targeting is too broad. Sometimes it's based on an internal assumption. That's actually not valid. So one of the other things I do is I bring, like, I just got off a call before where I brought C-level people on the call with my client. So my client could present their story and what they're doing and the C-level people are giving him direct feedback. Okay. And, and yeah, that voice of the customer, that's why the market map starts with the voice of the customer. And it's, it has to be like the right voice you're listening to, right? You know, like in this case, these people are exactly their ICP, you know, they're, they're exactly the ICP. So there was, the, the founders are psyched for that call, right?

It went, went really well. But, um, so I have my own knowledge and experience, which I share, but I actually often broker other very relevant, uh, titles and people together so they can hear the voice of the customer directly from their, their target audience. Um, so that feeds the targeting, right? And then it's like, okay, what happens, John? You know, what happens, uh, if I called on you and you didn't know me, what's like the first thing you're going to, we didn't speak yet, but like I reached out to you. What's the first or second thing you're going to do after I do, after your LinkedIn profile, take a look at your website, make sure. Exactly. Two seconds, exactly. I can figure out if it's relevant to me.

That's it. Exactly. So that first landing on the webpage, that messaging has to be very, uh, specific to the value in the differentiation. And I can't tell you, like, I partner with all sorts of marketing folks and, and staff some, you know, my business, the great marketers, but they are, they, they've never sold. So they're basically like, they sat, like the text that comes out and the content sounds like a thousand other companies. Like, no, there is something very unique. So I'm almost like a therapist in a way where I'm helping like CEOs and marketing, like, so what is it that you're really good at? Yeah, exactly. What, why are you different than all these other thousand? And so I. And don't tell me your people, right?

Right, right. So, yeah. So I extract that and then help like help marketing actually just message it appropriately. So now when you get the website, you're like, ah, I get that. And either you're interested or you're not, which is also very helpful because like false positive sales calls suck, right? They waste everyone's time. You come in, if you, if like half your discovery calls results, I thought you did something else. What does that tell you? Something's off. So, so it's that messaging on the website, messaging and LinkedIn, you know, all of that is key. And then the rest of it is, you know, the high caliber execution. So that we talked about it earlier. Sales is delivering value at every single touch point.

Every point of outreach, there's value for the customer, the prospect that's being experienced. And then it gets into all sorts of, sometimes there's strategic issues and pitfalls. And sometimes there is a very tactical, like, you know, I found with one client that the reps were always emailing pricing. They're always sending price emails. And I'm like, do you know what email was designed for actually? And they're like, what? One to many communication. It's the least effective form of influence. So do you think when someone asks you for a price, that's an opportunity to influence someone? Yeah. Okay, great. Well, do you think maybe it might be better if you're in a conversation with them when you're influencing them?

Oh, well, they just said, send me the pricing. I know they said, send you the pricing, but you, they need something from you. Now you have a leverage point. So you ask them for a 15 minute zoom call. Yep. And if they, if they don't agree to a 15 minute zoom call, guess what? You don't have a qualified prospect. So you could throw the pricing out the window. It doesn't matter. But once they're on the call, now you can have a, in a two way interactive conversation and you can watch their, you know, hopefully they come on camera and watch their language. Yeah. You teach this all, all day long. Well, this is like, this is the, you know, I think it's Dr. Albert Munchen's in communication model, right?

8, 35, 57, 8% of the way they re-communicate is the words, which is email. 35% is tonality, which is phone. And 57% is body language, which is face-to-face or zoom, which is why face-to-face is so much easier than, than email or phone sales. There's all sorts of like, I mean, literally when it comes to operational execution of the front office, I mean, sales, marketing, customer success, right? I even support some of those. There are scores of, of opportunities to tune and optimize that, those functions. If, if you're like, if the data shows you, I have some kind of issues, like I ran into an issue where really high customer NPS scores, really, really high, like in the mid nineties. So that's amazing.

I, I, uh, churn rate. Hmm. Wait a minute. Those are opposites. How could you have high NPS and high churn rate? So I dug into it. Guess what? I found out the people that were filling out the surveys for customer, uh, for satisfaction weren't the economic buyer. They weren't the users. They weren't the director or manager of the users. They were the it support people that the vendors support people work with. So it's like, if you and I met once a week and we're both in a support role and we make nice and I fly into town every once a quarter and buy you lunch and we have a good time, you're going to give me an A plus every time I send you a survey has no correlation to, but let me ask you how many people, how many, uh, companies who might hear this podcast actually, uh, inspect what, whom, what's the title that's completing the NPS score?

How many do it? I'd venture to guess a very low percentage, sub 20%, I would say. Right. Now this might sound like, oh, Dave's deep in the tactics, deep in the weeds. Guess what, man? How much do you think a churn customer costs a business? Oh my God. All that CAC that you expended to acquire the customer, all the LTV you plan for to realize the full lifetime value. Oh, it goes out the window because you churned. And why? Because you're asking the wrong person how they're doing. So I, as you can tell, I, I, I enjoy what I do because these are like, you know, they're, they're things I've learned over time from experience that I love sharing with clients that I, whom I can guide and support to make their lives better.

Yeah. I think that's, you know, kind of, again, once you get to this stage of your career, you know, it's transferring that knowledge of all the, I keep saying, you know, all the mistakes I've made in my career, I've made a ton of them. And if I can translate just some of those to people, so they don't have to make as many, right. They're still going to have to make some, you got to learn, you got to, you got to fuck up yourself sometimes, but just so they don't have to make as many mistakes as I did. It's a, I was actually right up right before this call. There was, you know, a woman who's going off on her own. She's doing sales training and I kind of coached her on how to do the first session.

And she was like, it went so well. And I was like, okay, before you get all too excited, make sure this, this, this, this, and this, because I didn't do this, this, this, and this. And it took me five years to figure that out. And I fell flat on my face, so please make sure that she's like, oh my God, thank you so much. That's gold, man. That is gold for them. Exactly. And so we'll, let's talk about those mistakes here for a second. What do you see kind of founders? What are the common? Cause, and there's two types of founders I want to segment here. There's kind of the business founder where like the more, a little bit more sales oriented. And then there's the technical founder. I want to hone in on the technical founder because I think the technical founders is a, is a, is a blessing and a curse.

And I actually tell reps when they're looking for business, for companies to work for, I actually tell them to probably stay away from technical founded companies because inevitably engineers specifically, they, they kind of look at sales as a second class citizen. They look at it as a necessary evil and they think the product is the best, right? That's why those PLG it's like, oh, everybody needs this. We don't need sales, whatever. And then they all slam into it. So where, where are you seeing like technical founder leads make some mistakes early that, that they can adjust, right? Cause the last piece of context here is because I always say that sales is a transfer of enthusiasm, right? And so when a, when a founder, when a technical person creates something that is theirs, then they go talk to friends, families, and fools and those friends.

And because they're passionate about what they're saying and they're saying it to a friendly audience, that friendly audience gives them really good feedback, might even, you know, pay for a few things. And then the perception is, oh man, sales is fucking easy, man. Like I just need to hire a VP of sales and let's go. And then that VP of sales doesn't have the passion, doesn't have the Rolodex, doesn't have any of that stuff. And it fails miserably. And they're like, see, I told you fucking sales sucks. You know what I mean? Like now let's try marketing, right? So how do you coach those type of founders to not make that perception and break the perception of shitty sales, which is rightfully so in so many ways, like we have earned a shitty reputation.

I'm not saying that we don't deserve one, but how do you coach that founder to not fuck up so hard and think that the product is what's going to be the difference? Because I am a hundred percent belief that it's not. I couldn't agree more. Like here's the reality. There's only so much I can do to help someone. If the person has a growth mindset and they realize it's a team sport and they have, it doesn't matter what age they are. If they have professional maturity, that's, that's the key thing, right? Like, like, like I'm sure you and I had professional maturity in our twenties. That was, you know, high. Some people don't have it in their fifties, you know, like, so, so if they have a certain set of attributes, then I can help them.

If they don't, I can't. And I usually, that usually sorts itself out, like even before an engagement, sometimes like early into an engagement, but, um, let's, let's assume that they do have those abilities. And now I just have to kind of like keep them honest to on their mission that way. So, you know, people pay me for, uh, objective and, uh, candid advice and I, I express it diplomatically. Um, it's very important when, when I work with a client that there's no disruption, like there's no friction created and ego games or anything. It's like, or, or anyone on my team for that matter. It's like, you know, we're here to, we're here for the client, not the other way around. And I learned that again in my early days.

So, um, yeah, so, but, uh, so part of it is an education, which is like, Hey, let's really understand what's going on in sales. So if they're open to understanding it and then they can learn. And what do I mean by that? Like who really is your customer and why do they buy and how do they buy and what's the process like? So, you know, we, we all know force management. I was a customer at one point, they've done a good job on the sort of explaining the customer buying process. And the key is to kind of match your sales process to that. Um, I like, you know, back in the day, Alexander group on the, you know, sort of, why would they buy anything? Why would they buy from us? And why would they buy now?

So I kind of like take all these little challenger in there. I take all this stuff together and help them understand a process. Like if they have a sales process in place, great. If not, I help them build one, but I help them understand really what's going on. What, what are the kind of like the 12 major deliverables their sales organization has to do and why, and what's the customer all about? Now I've had situations where clients and founders have responded positively to that. And I've had other ones that just want to argue with customers that they're right and their opinions, right. And that this sells itself. So usually those go out of business fairly quickly and, you know, organically it all, it all resolves itself.

But I think it's really the end of the day, like, Hey, you have a mission, right? You built some great technology. Awesome. A lot of companies built great technologies, but the ones that thrive are the ones that are very customer focused and solve problems for customers and grow. So that's, that's where you want to be. What's your opinion on the customer's always right? It's, it's, well, it's controversial. I mean, like it's the, the customer is always, I'll rephrase it. Okay. The customer is always the customer, meaning we should give professional deference to the customer and respect their role. The reason they're not always right is because they don't know what they don't know in terms of capabilities, right?

Like none of us were, Steve Jobs was thinking about an iPhone, but all of us were carrying a calculator and a camera and like, you know, all this stuff, right? You know, a blackberry or whatever. So, um, so it's not a question of like, I mean, my guidance is don't put yourself in that situation, right? It's sort of like defer to the customer and then it's really a qualification process. It's like, okay, so let's say the customer has a certain it architecture. I'll give a simple saying all Microsoft shop there. They're, they're, they're going to just like, everything's Microsoft. And let's say that your architecture is, uh, once, once a high, you know, you know, once a, once a more mixed environment, right?

It doesn't want just customers on Microsoft. You got to qualify out of that account. It's like, you're not going to win, you win that discussion. Right. Um, that's an overly simple example. Yeah, I get it. But yeah, so it's customer is always a customer. Well, then how do you, what's your philosophy on challenger sale? Right. So the challenger sale. And again, like one of the, the one side of challenger of lead with insights. I love, right? Hey, Hey, here's where the industry's going, whether you like it or not, whatever. We got to help you get there. The other side of challenging, um, I'm curious, your tact on challenging because you and I have been in the industry for years. I've guaranteed just like me, you could go toe to toe with any CRO.

You could go toe to toe with any VP of sales and call their bullshit and say, you're wrong. You know, this is how you look at it, but there's a very specific tact that I think challenger had a very challenge had challenging with translating how to do that in a way that isn't offensive. And so how do you challenge people where you're looking at them as you're listening to them? You're like, you're not this, you're making a mistake. How do you do that in a tactful way? So you act as a consultative seller and you basically say, you know, there could be another way. So where I've seen reps go south on challenger is they're too rigid. It's like, you know, they like memorize every single aspect of challenger and it's, it's like a, a theater performance.

Like they show up and they're like, you know, I'm going to like that. And I've worked with some that were pretty good at it, but still like it won't work in many other, with many other buyers. Cause they're not that way, you know? So my advice is always like one of the things I mentioned in the panel on Tuesday was act like, let's say you have a new, uh, next generation technology you're trying to sell, act like an advanced technology consultant. Don't go in there like, you know, here's my features. You're an idiot. If you don't buy it, I'm going to chunk slam a deal. That's you're not going to get any. Go in there like, Hey, I'm here to make you aware, John, that there's been some advancements in it that have allowed us to offer this new capability.

And a lot of companies like yours are actually embracing it. And we've done some research and there's these pockets within your company or these sort of use areas that I think could be pretty compelling. Then the response is, well, you know, Dave, we were highly regulated business and we, you know, we, we, we have to keep things status quo and like, yeah, but you ever think there might be another way, right? Like, so do you have, we heard from other companies that there's a cute, cute pain in this one area. Is that, does that happen here? The guy's like, no, he's probably lying. Okay. Then I'm out or they figured out something else I want to learn then. So I'm going to ask you, can you share with me how you did that?

Cause I haven't heard that anywhere. And well, I can only share so much. Well, share what you can. Right. But in most cases it's like they're, they're testing you or they're kind of dodging it, but it's like, I do like that challenger, which is like the better way. So you have, you do accentuate the pain a bit or the gain and then bring through the better way, but you have to do it in a consultative way. And I don't think the challenger designers ever intended for like, you know, obnoxiousness in selling. And I think I've seen some reps, like I gotta be a challenger. It's like, dude, no, you don't, you don't, the energy, like, you know, we're energetic beings. We have got to vibrate like a high, high, you know, joyous and enthusiastic and supportive energy.

If you're coming at me with, you know, any, any sense of aggro or anger, dude, the buyer's going to shut down. I'm sorry. So I totally get where you're coming from. I think there are some helpful aspects to it, but it's really the best sellers I've ever seen. And this was my stuff. We're, yeah, we're driven individuals working our butts off, but we're consultative. It's like, well, having a conversation, I want to help if I can help, if I can't help you, I actually don't want the sale. Nope. Not at all. That's, that's like a key point too. Like the goal isn't to get every sale from every person you talk to. The goal is to get a sale from the people you can actually help because then they're going to renew and they're going to have high LTV.

I always say my version of challenger is asking questions. That's it. Yes. It's, I use the analogy of like Inception, the movie, right? It's where you like, you go deep in the sub layer and so you make it their idea. And so I just ask them, well, how does that work? Like, tell me about it. And then like, it gets them to go, shit, you know what? I hadn't thought of it that way. It's like, oh, cool, cool. Let's talk, let's unpack that. And that's my way of challenging as opposed to telling you that you're wrong. Questions and listening are a primary success. I mentioned one really quick example, right? Like, you know, we were all training, like ask about the budget, right? So as I was in the field and I got lied to like so many times, everyone said, yes, they have the budget.

I changed my question and I didn't learn this anywhere. I figured it out. I was, I asked the open probe question, John, where would an investment in this area rank in the economic priority or fiscal priority for your department and your company? So I just asked you an open probe question. You have to think about how important that is. And then you're going to tell me, and I've never had, I've never not had an answer. That was informative up from that question. Sometimes it's like, well, actually it's kind of low on the totem pole from a priority standpoint. Or sometimes it's like, oh, this is a top priority board. Told the CEO, we need to get this fixed. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We're good.

Exactly. Right. Not yes or no. Close pro, right? Yeah. Do you have budget, John? Yes. Of course. Half the time they don't. But if you ask an open probe there, it's something. Love it, man. Look, I think I can learn a lot here, continuing to ask these questions. But I do, unfortunately, I have a hard stop there. So we're going to have to have part two on this one, my friend, because I have a whole host of other questions for you. Oh, I'd love to do a part two. Yeah. So let's, but let's wrap it up with telling people where you can find out more information about what you're working on and who you're servicing these days and where they can find more about what you're doing. Because I think you're bringing a lot of knowledge and experience to the table that I think a lot of people need right now.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. So feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. It's Dave Govan, G-O-V-A-N. And also my website. So G2 Strategic Advisory Services. It's a mouthful, but it's what it is. The website is quite informative and you can also reach the website through LinkedIn. So definitely can reach out there and if you have any issues or problems that you think that I can help you with or my company can help, reach out and be happy to chat. Love it. And like I said, I think, you know, the breadth of experience and knowledge you bring to the table is. I want to also put a plug in for you. You didn't ask me to do this, but I'm going to do it. I was a very, you know, we had a decent sized project together.

Like 250 person sales force needed to get better at prospecting and cross selling in particularly. And you did a great job of coming up with a very creative idea on how to provide better enablement through like a spreadsheet, a very comprehensive, one of the most comprehensive spreadsheets I've seen. But, you know, having that, we put a SWAT team together and we got all the right knowledge people on my side and you got the salient points out from them. And what are the right questions to ask and what are the right value statements to make and benefit statements, etc. And that was very useful in helping me actually grow the pipeline significantly. I actually know it was 2.8x and we grew it to 3.4x, but we're talking about a billion dollar pipeline.

So that was one of the key, that project was one of the key purposes or reasons rather for achieving the goal, right? On a decent sized number and pretty solid growth. So I want to thank you for that. I'm a very satisfied client. Thanks for that. Put a plug in for your training and enablement there. I appreciate that. And it's always, it's always far more enjoyable working with people like you who I know are actually going to do it, right? Cause the biggest thing I can't stand about doing corporate training is, you know, you lead the fish to water or, you know, lead the horse to water scenario and they just don't drink it. And, you know, when you have people like you who take the training and implement it and do those SWAT teams and like, you just, and you see the difference.

It's that that's the rewarding part of what this is all about. So I appreciate you for being one of those customers that actually gives a shit. Glad to hear it, man. Glad to hear. Awesome. Well, thank you for this opportunity. It's been really great to, to chat with you. Likewise, my friend. So, uh, like I said, um, you know, go check out Dave's stuff, go check out his website, spread the word here. And thanks for coming on Dave. I appreciate it. We'll, we'll talk again soon. Have a great rest of your day. Take care. And everybody hopefully enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I say it on the, you know, at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today.

Cause no matter how bad your day's going or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I will see you on the other side. Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now. And I can't thank you enough now to keep the momentum going. It would mean the world to me. If you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, I am super excited to be launching my new newsletter where I'll be sharing everything I know and everything I'm learning along the way while I'm out there selling every day, just like you go to jbarrows.com slash newsletter to sign up today.

Let's all level up and make this happen together.