Geoff Coutts: Big Company Lessons for Small Business Growth

ChatGBT will never replace the sales process altogether. People want to buy from people and AI will absolutely help us get there in a much smarter way. But I'm very much of the ilk that this is going to help the sales world and it's going to expand our possibilities rather than replace it. 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 on the world around us. Now, today's conversation is with Jeff Coutts. He's the SVP of Sales and Customer Operations at Unbounce. Jeff has some experience working at some huge companies like HP, Verizon, and Samsung, and then he made the switch to the startup world to help multiple teams scale while managing through a few acquisitions along the way, including one recently where his company Unbounce acquired Insightly.

It's rare that someone sees success in large companies and then is able to make the transition to the startup world and see similar success. So this is where we started the conversation. We talked about the catalyst for him wanting to make the switch and how it was driven by wanting to make a bigger impact. And then what were some of the major differences he experienced between the two business environments, including hiring, scaling, and managing resources. Then we got into where we see the value of sales professionals moving forward and what they need to do to stay relevant, especially in this world of AI. And we finished with going through the details of what's involved with the merger and acquisition and how a sales rep needs to time their value proposition if they want to use that, for instance, as a trigger event to get a meeting.

It's all about business acumen these days and understanding the timing of certain things, right? Lazy sales reps, they just say, oh, you went through a merger and acquisition. Let's talk. The better ones understand what happens through a merger and acquisition and when to time their value proposition. This conversation was packed full of great insights, tips, and ideas that can help you level up immediately. So I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Jeff Coutts, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast, my friend. How are you doing? Hey, John. I'm doing great this morning. Thanks for having me on. I've been looking forward to this. Yeah, me too. And you've got a really interesting background here that doesn't follow a linear path.

So I'm really curious to dive into that. But before we do, like we always do here on the show, talk to us about Jeff and where you're coming from, my friend. Growing up, family, how'd you catch the entrepreneurial bug? Like what makes you you in today's world right now? Yeah, great. Great lead in. So I live in Toronto, Canada. I grew up in Toronto, went to school outside of the area, but then came back. It's a city that is near and dear to me and just love it. I love everything about it. Very multicultural, very diverse, got a lot to offer, all those good things. My, I guess you call it the origin story. Where did I, how did I grow up? My pretty traditional family, except my father was a serial entrepreneur, small business entrepreneur.

So he did a whole bunch of things. He actually went through engineering as a background, went to work for a large company that lasted about, I don't know, four or five months and decided that that wasn't for him. And he went into small business and never looked back. So, you know, real series of successes and failures, which, which shaped him as a successful entrepreneur. Um, and I just was a part of that on the periphery, my, my whole life growing up and thought, you know, the key to all of this is being able to sell. He was, um, what I would call a reserve salesman, really good at it, but not your traditional in your face car salesman, but thought about it a bit more cerebrally. And, and so that rubbed off on me.

And I really wanted to get into high tech sales when I left business school and just love it. Never looked back. Love it. What'd you say? I missed this. What'd you study in school? I studied business. So a Canadian business school in London, Ontario. And, uh, yeah, it, it really put me on the trajectory that I'm a, that I've been on ever since. Love that. Yeah. My, I keep telling my dog, like, so kids were going into school. I'm like, look, get your degree in whatever you think you want to get your degree. And you want to be a psychiatrist, be a psychiatrist, you want to be an artist, be an artist, you want to be a music, but please, I beg you take a business minor. So you learn how to make money doing whatever it is, because if you can't figure out money, sales, that type of stuff, it doesn't matter what your major is.

You're not going to be able to survive, or you're going to be stuck in some job for the rest of your life, probably just going through the motions. And, uh, but if you learn business and sales, man, the world opens up quite a bit. I think it's the best advice ever. I really love it. Awesome. Well, let's talk. So you've had, um, I mean, throughout your career, you've worked at some pretty big organizations and Hewlett Packard. Actually, uh, I saw that for Hewlett Packard, any chance, I know this is a crap shoot, but you were, you were at the level that he was, um, Jim Hoppe. Does that name ring about? I don't know Jim. No. He was there during your tenure. He was one of the SVPs of, I think the enterprise sales for a while there.

And actually one of my favorite, uh, sales stories is getting into HP. I actually sent one of my emails when I was a kid, you know, 24, 20, probably 27, 28, uh, to Mark Hurd. Oh, really? Literally sent an email to Mark Hurd, got referred down and, you know, got into HP for a huge contract. And it was like one of those eyeopening moments where, you know, you believe in, cause I worked at the training company and, and you believe in the training. Cause I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe it, but you know, okay, I'm getting emails back from kind of mid-level CEOs. That's cool. But when I got an email back from Mark Hurd, I was like, wait a minute, uh, there's something to this. Yeah. That's great to hear.

Mark was there right at the, uh, kind of end of my, my 10 year. I left in, in 2010 after a great run there of, of many, many years. And, uh, yeah, he moved on to, uh, another pasture at Oracle and did a fantastic job there for a long time for Larry Ellison. But yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was a fun one. All right. Now. So what made you, first of all, what made you make the switch from, from the enterprise? Cause I mean, usually you go SMB mid-market to enterprise and then you kind of stick in that enterprise world because that's kind of the quote unquote, you know, highest end of sales, whatever you want to talk about. You know, I disagree in a lot of ways, but that's the perception. And it's rare that somebody kind of goes through that progression and then comes back down and does pure entrepreneurial work or pure startup work.

So what was the driver for you to make that transition? It's a great point. I think about this from time to time. You asked me about the education I got and it's, it's kind of a, uh, it's a quick story. I'll tell it, but on the day that my business class graduated, the Dean of business school walked into our class and he said, first of all, congratulations, everybody. Uh, you're, you passed, you're off out into the big bad world. Um, now here's a stat for you is the average graduate, um, last in their job about 18 months. And I thought, Oh, that sounds about right. I've got, I've landed this job here and it's an entry-level job in sales. I really want to learn about selling high tech and this company I'm going to has a great training program.

And I'm going to take that and learn as much as I can from it and then probably see what I want to do in more of an entrepreneurial spirit. Over 20 years later, I looked at myself and I said, what just happened? And the truth, the truth is that, uh, every 18 to 24 months I got a new job within the company and I kept getting these challenges lumped onto my, my, uh, my job here. And I learned so much from different leaders along the way that it just turned out to be for, I was really lucky, a really rich experience with great mentors, great exposure to leadership. And I just kept learning different parts of the business. Um, it was, I would say 80% sales, sales management focused. I had, uh, P and L responsibilities in there.

And at the time, you know, HP was a very diverse company with a lot of good things going on. So that, that really is where I was. Uh, I didn't plan on, on being there that long. So a lot of enterprise, uh, experience, as you say, then I, I kind of decided it finally hit me. It's kind of like the frog in the pot. When you turn the water on slowly, I said, it's been a long time here. And if I, if I stayed here another 20 or 30 years, I would really regret not looking around. And so I, I made a very conscious decision to say, I want to try something different. Um, but I figured there might be a couple little transitions to get there. And this was a conscious decision. I went to work for two other large brands.

I was the country lead for Verizon in Canada. And then I was the head of sales at Samsung. And those were good experiences because they were outside of what I was used to doing at HP. Uh, but then I, I, I, I said, okay, now is the time. And I, I went looking for specifically a software startup. And I, I was talking to different recruiters and I really wanted to, I really wanted to look for a solution that was very rich in value, but just starting because I thought the fun and the excitement might be getting this thing off the ground, growing a team from nothing. So I joined a company that had a roughly 40 people, uh, zero revenue. It had a legacy business, which was tiny that they were selling off, but the new product was just about to be available.

And I thought, wow, what an exciting time to, to get in on the ground floor and really make it happen. Ended up hitting it off with the CEO and, uh, and, and spent six years there building it from nothing, which was super fun. 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. Very cool. So pause there for a second. What was kind of the biggest, like, Ooh, uh, like from a startup work? Cause, cause a lot of people in the context for this question is I've had a lot of kind of big baller executives from big companies who have tons of resources and a brand and everything dip their toe in, in startup worlds. And they come with a lot of baggage of like, Oh, well, where's my assistant?

Who's going to do that for me? It's like, uh, no, you don't get assistance here, pal. Like you are the assistant. Like you need to, so what was kind of the biggest, like, Holy shit, this is different. Um, that either excited you or it was like, wait a minute, I got, I got to shift my mentality here that, that struck you when you started with this company. Well, it's, it's funny you referenced that example because I, during the interview process with the CEO, I had that very same example. I said, listen, I've had a dedicated EA for 15 years and, and I, and it turns out they had a part-time one for the company, right? For the whole company. And, and by the way, he said, hands off, you're not allowed to work with that person.

Um, and so, you know, for me, it was all about, it sounds a little bit hokey, but how can you make a bigger impact faster? And so I wanted to move at a higher velocity than the previous experiences I had had were all about. So the biggest aha for me was, you know what, if I, if I do a good job hiring the right people or creating a value prop or selling the first five customers, that has a massive impact on the trajectory of the company, the P and L, the ability to raise money. And, and that, that was really the energizing moment, John, where, where I realized that, you know, I'm not part of $120 billion organization. If we can go from zero to one, it is a home run. And I would be front and center helping to do that.

And you're going to, you're going to have a very similar path, my friend. So, I mean, not the companies, but I, you know, my first sales job was DeWalt, you know, huge company black and dagger second one was Xerox. And I just remember being like, you know what, no matter, you know, I was one of the best reps at Xerox, blah, blah, blah. And I, but I just remember being like, man, no matter how hard I work here, like I'm not going to change the stock, you know, one penny and I'm replaceable. You know, they're, they might not find somebody who's better than me, but they'll find somebody who's good enough to sit in this seat and they'll just keep moving. So if I go away, nobody cares. And that like, I don't, I think at a very early age, that, that kind of struck me as like, to your point, like, I want to make a difference, you know?

And I, funny because I, I, my mom right now is she's 82 and I think I, I know where I got this from because she's struggling with purpose, right? Like she can't, she can't retire. She's, that's just not her. She always feels like she has to be having an impact on the greater population in some way, shape or form. And I, and I, that bug is in me too. Cause I'm like, yeah, if I don't feel like I'm actually truly making a difference and having an impact with what I do, I get bored because then it becomes a very selfish thing. It's like, okay, I can make as much money as I want for me and myself and that's right. And that's great for some people, but it sounds like you had that bug of like, it just, I just don't feel like I'm making a big enough difference here.

For sure. You want that purpose. You all like it relate to what you're talking about with your mom. You want to have that purpose. Even when one day we quote retire, we're not really going to retire, right? We, no way we want to be not a chance. I think that's the entrepreneurial bug. It's like, once you catch that, you just you're, you're never technically going to retire. Like just put that out of your head because you're like, otherwise, you know, you, you tend to get very bored very fast and probably go away very fast too. Right. Right. Yeah. So, so, okay. So you have the yaha of this. Now you talked briefly about, you know, if you hire the right people, right? Obviously people, um, are everything, right?

You get the right people on the bus, the bus, I don't want to say tends to run itself, but it does. You just get out of their way to a certain degree. So how do you, and I think it's obviously changed quite a bit now with, with, you know, kids coming into, out of school and those, what do you look for when it comes to that employee that, that is going to be the, like, what did you look for and what did you find in the startup world of the characteristics that people made that created the team that you wanted? And what were some of the mistakes you made as far as hiring was concerned? Yeah, that's the, I think that's a, the million dollar question, especially in a role where, well, I'm selfish because I think sales drives the organization's success forward once you have a good product.

So I'm biased that way, but you know, I think if I just hearken back to that transition, again, selling, selling skills and, and good people are, are good people, whether they're a big company or a small company, but I think there's a difference when you're, you move into a small company in terms of the impact each hire makes. So you can afford less mistakes, I'll say. What, what I look for is in a, in a sales professional, I like to call them a sales professional because I think people have purposely chosen sales as a very deep profession that they want to get good at. Three, three different themes, I guess. Uh, the themes are the skills they have, their inherent qualities, and then the habits they form.

And so I'll just touch on each of them for a second individually. So from a skills standpoint, you know, I think about the, the need that people have for learning. If, if a person wants to be in sales and they want, you hear a lot about, you know, are our salespeople lazy? If they're lazy in the sense that they don't want to learn, they just want it to fall in their lap, you know, it's, it's going to be a struggle their whole career. But when you think about learning, it has so many different aspects to it. It's the product, it's the industry, it's the trends, it's help. How do you help customers? How does somebody else do it? How can I learn from my past? How can I learn from my leaders? It's just a brilliant thing that, uh, it comes shining through.

And if you're good at that, you're going to be really off to the races. Um, other skill is just that you, you embrace experimenting. You, you don't think it's just a rinse and repeat. There's so many big companies that have a playbook and the playbook is just very strict. I think a good sales professional is, is really flexible that way. And then the last skill that I think is critically important is, is they know how to set context. So instead of, you know, expression and show up and throw up, they, they will, they will listen, they will learn, but they will set the context before they say anything of impact. And if, if you can spot that, I think it's, it's, it's brilliant. So those are the skills.

Some of the qualities I think that they just have inside them that is a little bit harder to teach is one of them is there being a natural qualifier and, you know, being a good question asker and finding out, you know, their job is to ask questions, but to balance asking questions to get information with watching their prospective customers, anxiety go up and down. If the anxiety goes up, you stop asking questions and offer value. If it goes down, then you get the right to ask more qualifying questions. So that, that's an inherent quality. Um, valuing their, their own time, you know, not in an arrogant way, but to say you're busy, Mr. and Mrs. Prospect, I'm busy. Let's, let's really manage this.

And that, that earns them some respect. So a bunch of inherent qualities. Um, one of the things I've heard you say on your show a couple of times is talking about the, the transfer of enthusiasm, you know, from, from me or my product to you as a, as a, as a perspective. I love that theme because I think that's an inherent quality. So that's the, the whole aura of being excited about what you do and being positive about it. And, and that is infectious. So I love the way that I've heard you describe that. Um, and I'll just finish with quickly that some of the habits they have, the habits are around. Um, it comes from an inherent belief that leads won't be handed to me. It's going to be a balance.

When I get some, they're a gift. That's great, but I've got to develop my own. And a lot of people don't want to go there, right? It's just not, it's beneath them. It's not part of the job, but I think true sales professionals for their whole lives think this is on me and I've got to create my own destiny and I am continually going to be doing my own BD work and just becomes part of their rhythm, their life. Uh, it may, may sound obvious to some people, but it's not. And it's, it's, it's gotta be in your DNA. So that, that's a really important habit. Um, and then just lastly is, is the way you negotiate and establish value with customers in every discussion. Cause you're always going to kind of come back to anchoring that value and where do you take it from there?

So lots in there, but I really boil it down to skills, some inherent qualities and just great habits. I love it. And I want to go back to your point on like the, the habit of, you know, this is on me and how, you know, the expectation of leads falling in my lap. I've been saying this for years. I, you know, I think the predictable revenue model, um, did a lot of people, a lot of disservice, right? Because it kind of put the SDR role in at the bottom of the list and it was something to get through. So you could eventually get to an AE and then you wouldn't have to do that anymore because your SDR would do it. And I, and I tell reps all this all the time. If I was a manager these days, I can't be a manager at this point because I think I would fire pretty much everybody on my team almost immediately because my tolerance level is very low.

But if an AE ever sat in front of me and said to me, well, John, the reason I didn't hit my quarter, quarter this quarter, this month or whatever, is because I didn't get enough leads from my marketing, from whatever. I, I honestly think before that came out of that, like before they finished that sentence, I think I'd fire him because I just fundamentally don't understand why you would want to put your success in somebody else's hands, right? Like I talk about baking a cake. Like I want to bake my own cake here. Okay. Now what you give me the leads, that that's the icing on the cake. Those are the cherries on top and all that other stuff, maybe the accelerators and whatever else, but I got to be able to own my cake.

And if you don't have that mentality, I think you're going to be in a lot of trouble moving forward here. I think that's well stated, John. I'll maybe just add, as I hear you describe that, you know, think about being a chess player, like a, a really, a really strong sales professional likes to think a few steps down the road to say, um, you know, if I win this customer, what could I do with that? And could I establish two or three beachheads in a small industry and turn that into a theme that I go to others? Uh, it's, you know, at a company level, that's what your, every company, every startup is trying to do. But at a, at a sales professional level, it's my franchise. That's how I want to create a strategy to grow my franchise.

It's a beautiful thing when it happens. And, you know, y'all hear the, like act as a CEO of your own territory, right? Like you need to be the owner of your territory and act like a CEO. And sometimes a CEO has to go out and find some business. That's right. They're going to do their own work, right? You got it. The, um, the, the inherent qualities piece, I've always been challenged in a lot of ways of, of uncovering these things in a, in an interview, in a conversation, right? I mean, I think, you know, the easiest one for me is always, you know, I'll, I'll ask my questions and see how they answer them. But a lot of people are professional interviewers these days. They know what types of questions, whatever.

And then I always flip around, okay, what questions do you have for me? Right. And if they don't come with any questions like that, the interview's over, I don't care how good they are. And, and by the way, I don't care if they've gone through five different layers to get to me and they've answered all their questions previously, you got to come to questions about me, my background, whatever it is. So that, that's a telltale sign there on that one. But with these, you know, inherent qualities, like natural qualifier, like they ask really good questions, they value their time, you know, and they're establishing value. How do you identify that in a conversation with somebody? Because, because there's such a hard, like, especially in sales, right?

This is their best sales job. If they're interviewing, this better be the best sales job they've ever done, because they know themselves better than anybody else. And they're, and they're selling themselves. How do you, how can you tell if that is going to translate into what you are asking them to sell? And how do you uncover some of those things really, without guessing? That's, I love the topic, because when you talk about the interview process, and I would say the same, if you don't need questions for me, then it's an automatic no. I also think, what are those questions? Are they, are they like out of a textbook, and they're really hokey? Or are they a bit more genuine? I take it actually a little step further to say, if we get to the end, and I have to ask you, if you have any questions, it's already too late.

I want to have a conversation with you. And I want you to force me to have a conversation with you. So if I've got 10 questions lined up that are my questions for you, as an interviewer, you need to interrupt the flow. You need to prove to me that you can stop my line of questioning and take a little bit of control of the process here to say, that's great. Let me, let me ask, why did you ask that? Or why is that important? Or can I ask you something, how that relates to the successful trajectory that you're heading on? And so that's what I look for, because I think that does a few things. And what I like to do is react in a couple different ways when people do that. One way, let them go with it, answer their questions and see where they go with it.

And the other way is, if they ask layer two and three, show some anxiety. I was talking about, I think the skill is to look at your prospect and say, are they going with the flow? Are they giving me more information or are they getting upset that I'm going down this path? So I'll let them go for a while and then I'll get upset and see if they back off and offer me more value to let me ask more questions. So that's, you get to actually see that in a demonstrable way in an interview, which I definitely look for. And then, you know, valuing time, I'll go back to seeing if they can take a little bit of control over the rest of the process here. Say, just do a time check. You know, we've got an hour booked.

We're about 20 minutes in, Jeff. Are we getting through everything you need to? Is there some areas we want to take? Because at the end of this, I got a few questions for you. Like, I'd like to see them just do a little bit of that. It shows a little bit of confidence about taking this. We're going to get the job done and we're going to get the best outcome we can together today. So I look for those two things very specifically. I like it. And I, and also, you know, obviously layering on the, the, the preparation for it, like how much Intel are they coming with to, because almost, and this goes to discovery these days. I mean, there's so much information out there about people that you can find out now at the eye at a drop of a dime, but so that you don't have to ask these stupid questions about like, tell me about your business.

What keeps you up at night? You know, those types of shit. Like if I ever hear that from a sales rep that like I literally hang up the phone almost immediately or end the zoom call immediately. And I did this actually, I went down to Bryant university and kind of tested the theory out because so many kids, you know, as you know, probably like when they're in school, right, there's a sales school. Yeah. And when they're in school, when they graduate, they always want to pick somebody's brain, right? I'm sure you get them on like, Hey, I'd love to, you know, I'm new in this. I'd love to pick your brain. It's like, dude, pick AI's brain because my, the amount of content that's out there for me specifically about who I am, what I do and all that other stuff.

One little, whatever question you're going to ask me, ask that. So in this whole group of kids to prove this point, I go here, you guys have five minutes to use chat TPT to find out information about me and ask a better question than the original one. Whoever gets the best question, I'm going to give a hundred bucks to, right? And so all these kids, they want to, and the questions that they got were like really thoughtful and nuanced. And I was like, okay, these are better questions. But I did, if I didn't set that stage for you, you would ask, well, John, what's the number one success criteria in sales? And what do you need to be, you know, those types of dumb ass questions that I've answered a thousand times over.

And so I think that's the, that's the thing I look for is like, do you realize that especially now with AI, there is whatever question you have for me, ask that first, because it'll give you the layer of why you should be asking that question. And you can skip that line and show the value to the interviewee, to the client, you're discover, you know, that type of stuff. It's just a different game right now that it never has been, but it's so much easier now, which is why I get so much more annoyed when sales reps are so lazy with it. I love that challenge. You just said, I'm writing that down to test my team on it to see if they go through the same. It's a good, it's a good live demonstration to go through together, isn't it?

Well, and think about it, right? Like for, for reps, like for you personally, right? Be like, hey, hey team, like say you're selling to me, right? In our business, right? Like you get 10 minutes, go out there now, come ask some real questions and you'll see them think about it for, for a minute. And then also realize the power of the AI tool of it can answer pretty much anything that I would give you an answer for. And if you think about, uh, this is where my head goes with it. We we've defined, of course, our ICP, like everybody does. And if I put together a mock company with an ICP of these challenges, take it to chat, chat GPT and say, well, you know, what's the best place to start? Or where, what are the key drivers here?

And I can see that being a really, really fruitful exercise for sales professionals. And that's why I'm like, I'm, I'm really encouraged, um, with where things are going right now, but I'm also very scared for the average sales rep who goes through the motions, right? Because I, I honestly think average isn't even an option anymore. Um, where are you seeing with what you're with, you know, with now what you're exposed to, right? With Insightly and the other things that groups that you're working on. Talk to me about kind of your, uh, blessing and curse of AI right now in the sales industry. Uh, are you kind of on the side of, holy shit, it's going to replace all of us that, or are you on the side of, wow, this is going to be such a powerful tool that's going to make us so much better?

Uh, I'm, I'm definitely on the ladder side. And I think, you know, well, maybe I'll start this way, which is I chat GBT will never replace, um, the, the sales process altogether. People, it sounds ridiculous. People want to buy from people. And, you know, the more I think about it, uh, I was actually in a situation yesterday when I, it reminded me that, um, CEOs want to be sold to, and it sounds like a silly thing to say, but, uh, you know, I think about the, the fear of selling is that somebody doesn't want to be sold to, they don't want to be sold a bill of goods and, and, and they've got, they're, they're busy. They don't have time for this. I reminded myself again yesterday that what I've seen over and over again is that CEOs want to be sold to.

What I mean by that is they want to be inspired. They want to learn something new. You think of the challenger model, but they want, they want to be taught something and they want to be inspired by it. And then they want to be led down that, that garden path. And, and that's just inherent within founders and CEOs who are trying in a very positive way to move the ball forward. And they're looking for every creative angle they can get to make that happen. We sell, for example, to medium sized businesses, mainly the mid market and NSMB. And those are, that's who we're dealing with. We're dealing with founders. We're dealing with executives that are trying to move the ball forward. So, um, they need, they need human interaction to make that happen.

Now, now AI will absolutely help us get there in a much smarter way, but I I'm very much of the ilk that this is going to help the sales world and it's going to expand our possibilities rather than replace it. Yeah. Yeah. I think, would you agree with that? Um, so yes. And I think on this one, I think, and I think we can argue over the percentages here, but I think for the reps who are paying attention, the reps who are, who are leveraging these tools, right? A hundred percent, I think it's going to make it like for me personally, it's, it's put my business acumen on, on superpower, like on supercharged. It's my meeting prep these days is, is minutes versus hours, right? Cause I can understand your industry, your business, your, you know, I can take your 10 K uploaded into a Pete, you know, and, and GPT, and it can tell me exactly how I can help you and come with a hypothesis.

And, you know, so for me, and then I can use these tools to, you know, record the whole conversation, update CRM and be super efficient. Um, unfortunately my belief is, and I'm going to be extremely generous and stay here with the Pareto's principle of the 80, 20 rule. Um, I think that's less than 20% of our population. I think there's a vast majority of our population that, and, and I don't think it's their fault quite frankly, cause I think what was happened, what has happened over the past 10 years to sales as leadership, we have way over engineered the sales process. We have given these reps tools and, and processes as opposed to skills. And, and now that money isn't free anymore and AI is here, we have a whole generation of sales reps who quite, quite realistically, like just don't know how to sell, don't know how to engage with people.

Don't know how to have a real conversation with people. Don't know how to have empathy because we're living in a social, in this virtual world. So it's hard for me to have empathy for somebody. I don't actually meet in person and understand body language. So I guess I'm, I'm, I'm a yes for the, for the reps who care, right? I'm a no for the vast majority of reps. I think who are just going through the motions. I think that's well stated. Let me add one more layer onto it because what's kind of fun about the business that I'm in is we, we brought several solutions together and we sell two different ways. We have a PLG motion. So we have a lot of, um, customers that come on that they've heard of us, or they've done a search organic or paid or what have you, they found out about us and they come to learn.

And we have like a lot of software companies, we have a trial system. And if you're of a certain size and you've got a little bit of self-education, we have a large volume of, of prospects coming out over the website. For example, we've got a marketing landing page business. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of people coming to try that out. We are really, really granular in terms of the experience that we give to those prospects. And if we can move the needle on one little piece of it, it has a big impact on the business. That is a good example. I think of where AI is going to help us. We're just going to teach us more to make that much better. And we don't need a ton of humans interacting with customers doing that.

It's, it's very PLG led. As you move into a couple different solutions that are more sophisticated and we're selling to a larger customer that maybe needs to have more questions answered than they're going to get from an automated process, then we need to be smarter about it. And we, we do, we hire really smart people to go have those conversations. So there's a little bit of a difference between selling to SMB in a PLG way and selling to an enterprise in a more consultative way. So there's a, there's a delineation there as well, I think. Yeah. Yeah. There's no question. I think a lot of, you know, the inbound stuff, I think it should be automated almost 95% of the inbound stuff should be automated just because it is so much better at understanding pulling in, especially if you have your own LLM that pulls from your data set from your company, right?

Where it's like, Oh yeah, yeah. Here's your pitch. Here's this, here's how it works. And you know, how to, you know, here's how it might fit into your business model. But I think your point, like the, the complex sale, the, the one that, that requires, you know, the, however many people are involved in a decision-making process these days, you know, 10, 11, 12 at whatever point, you know, that there, there's a little bit of art to that, you know? And I think the more science it can be, the more it can be automated, the more art it is. And it relates to the person that person. I think the more the person has to be involved. Yeah. I would say as well, you know, technology helps a little bit with this is some of our solutions.

We've got module A, B, and C that you can buy independently and they work together. So if you're ready for all of them, that's great. And then module D is really an integration module that allows you to connect to a bunch of other stuff. And that's where there's a layer of complexity. That's not the same with every customer. And so having that conversation and having, you know, the SEs really get into the depths of what it means and what the value is, that kind of thing will always have, you know, a human interaction that needs to be really rich, I think. Yeah. Well, so you brought that up. I'm going to pull on that thread a little bit, which is, which is the SE, right? So you didn't say the AE, you said the SE.

I did. Right. So, so that, and so that's the squeeze of the, of the sales rep right now is that marketing is getting so good with automation and AI and personalization that it is creeping really close, far down the funnel, if you will. Right. I mean, that's why outbound to me, I look at outbound as more of a marketing function than it is a sales function because it's an impression point. Right. Um, and so, but my, and marketing is getting real good at true personal. I used to give like the cadence tools, like sales lofts and outreach. I used to give them shit, but I'm like, please stop this personalization at scale. Just because you changed the name and the title in industry of a email does not mean it's personalized, but, but AI is getting real, actually pretty damn personalized.

And then you have the tolerance for, for the client. They, they typically want to talk to customer success or a solutions engineer who's going to add value and bring, walk them through some stuff. So I guess what is the role of the sales rep in that equation right there? I mean, let's take SMB out of the other part. Let's move more towards the mid market, the enterprise side of the house, where if I'm a client, I don't want to be qualified. I don't want to have to answer your 75 questions as a sales rep. I want to talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about and can show me what I need and help me make this decision. So why can't I just go talk to your customer success person or your engineer?

Why do I have to talk to a sales rep who's now I have to put in the middle of this and, and, and slow down the sales process to, and again, I'm talking perception versus reality here. So where do you see the true value of the sales rep being in that equation? Well, I think everything you just said is valid. What I'll add to that is that if you look internally from the vendor side of the equation, there's a complexity of the sales cycle to bring all those different pieces together. Like it or not, it's just, they're, they're different roles. And I really value the differences in those roles. Like this, the CSM or the delivery person has got the experience of doing it before they've actually delivered it.

I'm sure I want to talk to them all day long. If I'm a customer, um, the SE is really, you know, the hokey term, they're my trusted advisor from a technical standpoint to say what's really going to work. What's not, am I a good fit? And on the vendor side, I want to work with the SE all day long to say, Hey, we just had a great call. Let's stop now and triangulate around that call. I want you to go talk to Joe and Sally about what they thought of this. Cause I'm going to go talk to Bob and Harry about where they're at. And, and being able to compare notes is immensely valuable for the vendor for the customer. You're right. They would probably look at it and say, what is the value? But the truth is that somebody has got to take control of the process and an SE and a CSM are incredibly valuable in what they do, but they didn't sign up to take on that coordination role to drive it and then ask for the order and find out what that mutual action plan looks like.

And it's just not what they want to do. So at the end of the day, I actually think it helps the customer in their buying process because somebody is leading the charge. And if you're doing it well, then it just, it's seamless and it's natural and you're going to have success. If it's done poorly, then you get the questions like you just asked, which is, wait a minute, what's your value again? All these other folks are the ones that are- What exactly do you do here? Do you do? Do you do? Yeah. I'm with you. I think that's true. And the quarterback has always been, you know, and the debate is how much does the sales rep need to know these days as far as the product itself? Cause I, that's the other part of this is I've never felt like the sales rep has to be the experts, right?

But I think the days of, um, I don't know, let me get back to you are, are dwindling fast, right? Cause that used to be the, Hey, be honest with the client. Don't fake it till you make it. If you can't answer their question, tell them you'll get an answer for them. I think the, the, the tolerance for that from a client perspective is, is, is, is really getting because it's like, I need value right now. And if you can't answer these questions for me right now, which is why I think almost every company should have a copilot of their own GPT for their own. So the sales rep in the meeting can literally ask the question and have it serve up the information from the client as opposed and not pretend like they're not.

So, yeah, I, you know, I'm going to, on the first part of what you said, I'm just going to push back a little bit because, uh, just the experience I've seen is around the most successful sales professionals I've seen in my entire career are the ones that say, I'm really good to embrace this product. Cause if I can learn more about it and answer questions on the spot, I've got credibility. Now they also realize there's a time and a place where I want to bring my expert in so that that person can add more value to the equations. Because when people have a sales title, um, they're looked at differently. They just are right. So I think to be 80% as deep as the SE is an immense advantage for a salesperson and then let the SE take over.

Um, because it helps you pivot to, well, here's what I did with these other customers and here's, was their deep need. And here's how they had a work around for something that you're asking about. That's not natural in the product, whatever the example is they can move the ball faster and, and just establish that credibility. The ones that shy away from that and they're only the quarterback, it's just not enough. It is, it's just not going to cut it anymore. Yeah. And I think I probably should have put that caveat. It's like, I used to think that you, you just didn't, you needed to know enough about enough to be able to pull the right pieces. And to my point, like what I'm saying is I, that answer of, let me get back to you is not validating.

So they do have to go deeper in product knowledge. They absolutely go to product knowledge. So it's not, you know, it, the, the, the, just the quarterback function is not good enough. You, you have to bring value to the conversation, every conversation. Um, and, and if you don't, you're not, you're going to be seen as, as irrelevant throughout the process. Yeah. Totally with you. Totally with you. Let's pivot to, um, uh, the, we had talked about this in the pre, uh, you know, before we started recording here about understanding the, the different things that happen in business from a sales. So going to business acumen, you know, I think that's one of the biggest things that any sales rep should be focused on right now is how do you improve your business acumen?

How do you know how to kind of just how business works, what happens in business? And I'm going to use the one that, that you've been through more than a few times, but so many reps use to try to connect with clients, which is mergers and acquisitions, right? You know, there's a trigger event. Oh, you just went through a merger and acquisition. Like I was saying earlier, you know, the, the, the lazy rep just sends out template at emails. Who cares? The, the slightly less lazy rep, you know, might do a little bit of homework or get a, an alert from their system that this company that they're trying to go after is just went through a merger and acquisition. And then they send a, Hey, I saw you went through a merger and acquisition.

We can help you with that. But the advanced rep understands the stages of a merger and acquisition and, and, you know, everything that comes up to it, the announcement, and then the three, six, 12 months after that, and, and figures out where to kind of insert themselves on from a timing standpoint. So could you walk, um, me and the audience through your experience of mergers and when it is and isn't appropriate for a sales rep to potentially reach out that would add value or annoy, right? Cause I think a lot of times we do ourselves a disservice by jumping in at the wrong time and trying to hammer something home. And it's like, dude, this is like literally not the time I have a million other things going on right now.

So you're actually doing yourself a disservice by reaching out to me. So could you walk us through that from the inside? Yeah, sure. And, and, uh, you know, it's, it's highly relevant for a number of reasons. I I've been fortunate, I will call it to be part of, of, of several mergers, uh, some really big ones, some minor ones. Uh, we, we've actually, in our company just gone through one, uh, you know, we're, we're four months into a merger of, of equals of different solutions that are complimentary. So it's fresh in my mind as a recipient of hat or going through it as a, as an individual, as part of the senior leadership team. Yeah. When I think about our, our, our sales folks going outbound, um, to have this conversation, I think it's, I think, first of all, I think it's always appropriate.

I wouldn't say that there's a time where you shouldn't reach out because you're doing a pulse check on this journey. And it is a journey. Where are you? Are you just past announcement and you're freaked out because you don't know what it means? Or are you in stage one where you're trying to figure out why did we do this and what's the potential benefit? I think from a business acumen standpoint, that the most important thing is to understand what is the merger designed to accomplish? Is it top line growth? Is it taking cost out of the equation? Is it being able to reach more customers with a broader message? And I think if you can try and understand that, then you're going to have a connection with the customer that says, okay, now I got a baseline of what this is all about.

Let's think about how I can help you. Does my solution help you grow? Does it take money out? Are you just trying to consolidate your tech stack? Because now you've got two of everything and you've got to choose which one you want to go forward with. And to have what I would call more of an adult conversation about the where's and why for's. But you have to be having that conversation with somebody senior enough who's in the mix to understand that. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people in customer organizations, they get told about what just happened without maybe all of that same context. So you've got to be calling high enough to have that context. And once you're there, for example, if somebody called me and said, Jeff, Unbounce and Insightly just merged.

As the SVP of sales and customer operations, what do you want to try and get out of this? And what stage are you at? Are you trying to grow the team, reduce the tech stack? I would appreciate that call more than, hey, my solution fits great for what people in your stage because you don't know what my stage is. Right. So there's a lot of different steps that people need to go through to have a successful merger. And communication is the key. It's the key internally when you're going through it. It's the key to communicate to somebody that's going through it. And I think more than anything, that's the best starting point is just take a step back and think about this as an investor. Whether it's private equity, it's a strategic acquisition of some sort.

Presumably, there's some cost that has to come out of the equation. That's 99% of the time part of it. But then it's how do we get on a trajectory to do X? We're going into a new geography. We're broadening the solution. We're now cross-selling between sales and marketing, like we're doing in our case. Or we're doing something that you might not even think of, but ask the question. So that's where I would say you should start. So what was the driver for Insightly? So when Unbounce was looking at this, walk us through your mentality. When you started to look at your business as Unbounce and then say, okay, well, what was the trigger for you to say, we need to do something. We need to find a partner.

We need to acquire somebody that does this. What was that kind of decision process for you? Yeah, that's a great context. So just maybe for listeners that aren't familiar with us, just because it'll help with the context is Unbounce sells to marketing professionals. We have a landing page solution we sell to marketers to help them convert site traffic into leads by catching them. We help them experiment what works and what doesn't. And how do we grow that conversion rate, which is a good return on your advertising spend? That is a niche market. It's a really good one. We are probably by far the brand leader in that category. The challenge is that the category doesn't have unlimited growth. And as customers grow into the enterprise, they get pressured to look at systems that are a bit more all in one and all encompassing.

Okay, so there's a good challenge, right? Business acumen. Jeff, what's causing your business to question what the best path is in the future? Inter Insightly when we say, you know, what they do for a living before we merged is they provide a CRM solution along with marketing automation, along with a customer service module that is an all-in-one solution that's CRM and very sales focused in an organization. That's the persona that we're selling to. It's an ICP for a sales organization. Put the two together and all of a sudden, we have a discussion to have with a prospect about their customer's entire journey from, you know, starting with a lead, starting with a marketing campaign, experimenting with what works and what doesn't, being able to attribute, because there's a third solution here about attribution, being able to attribute that lead into where did that marketing spend originate, and then transferring it into a sales cycle, winning the customer, managing the success.

So really, it's the lifetime value of that entire prospect in your eyeballs. So, you know, the value proposition for us is we've got a broader solution, we can move up market and compete with the bigger players in this space, and we've got data to say to our customer, we can help you all the way through this. It's a brilliant way to look at a return on investment for ad spend and your marketing spend overall. So, we can now, this is kind of a classic conundrum, is the sales and marketing leaders in a company, do they get along? Are they on the same page? Who's blaming who for what? We can now bring them together to say you've got a journey that makes sense for both of you. So, that's the business acumen behind our merger, and that's what we're really excited about.

Super specific. Like, what was the trigger? And the reason I say this is, you know, acquisitions always, sometimes there's a defined, we had a board meeting, we know we have this gap, and we're going to specifically look for another company to do this. Other times, like mine, when my little IT services company got bought by Staples, my director of business development was at a networking event one night, met some executive at Staples, they started having a few drinks, and he slipped it in there. He's like, you know what, you guys should just buy us at the end of the day instead of, you know what I mean? And one thing leads to another, we get acquired. It was like, holy shit, like we weren't planning on it, we weren't thinking about it, we just, it just kind of, you know, organically happened.

So, where were you on that journey? Was it just like, oh, holy shit, there's an opportunity here? Or, no, no, no, we know we need to do this, and therefore we're going to very specifically go out and look for a company that does this? Yeah, it's the latter. We knew we wanted to do this, and the this was, we wanted to grow our TAM. We wanted to grow into a category that was bigger, and that had more growth opportunity for us, frankly. The CRM space is very complementary. When you look at the automation from marketing attached to it, it's a massive, it's probably the biggest category in software that there is, and there's a lot of room for improvement. And there's a lot of different segments. You know, if you think about Salesforce as the gorilla, that's fine, but they are really focused on the enterprise.

That's where their bread and butter is. Most of the world is not there. So, there's an opportunity. We wanted a place where we could have higher growth rates in the future and a bigger TAM to go after. And that was the starting point, and we started to look for solutions that made sense in that area. Love it. Yeah. Awesome, man. I think, you know, from a business acumen standpoint, we could keep talking about this and educate everybody on this, but we do have to tie it up here in a little bit of the time zone here. So, let's talk a little bit about where can people find out more information about Unbounce and Insightly and what you're up to these days? Where do you want to push people? Yeah, thank you.

So, a part of a merger is a brand challenge. What do you do with the brand? There's value behind multiple brands. So, we are right smack middle in going through a brand merger. But the place to find us is at Unbounce.com. We still have Insightly as well as a separate site that we're going to be merging together in the, as we get into 2025. But either of those two work for us today. We would love, you know, have a look at our website, of course, or talk to us about marketing and sales needs. And so, that's where we're going to find us. We really sell globally. We're about 50-50 in terms of the people we have across the U.S. and Canada. But we have global markets and we have, you know, somewhere in the order of 20,000 business customers today that take advantage of our products.

So, lots of references, lots of success stories. And yeah, we'd love to chat more. Thank you. Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you coming on. This was a fun conversation, man. I appreciate it. John, great to chat with you. Thanks for the opportunity. I hope you have a great day. Yeah, you too. And then we're coming up on the end of the year, which is probably going to go out in the beginning of the new year. So, I think we'll get people kicked off on the right foot here. But yeah, everybody, hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And like I always say at the Unbounce podcast, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day went or how bad you think it's going, you make somebody smile today and 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.

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