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On this episode of Sales Made Easy, our host Harry Spaight welcomes Collin Mitchell, a seasoned sales leader, to discuss the challenges faced by sales leaders in obtaining and identifying the right sales opportunities.
Collin highlights that outbound sales has become increasingly difficult due to fierce competition and advancements in technology and automation.
Furthermore, Collin discusses how his success led to trying too many things and the importance of going back to one's roots and focusing on what works best. He also shares his experiences of starting multiple other companies since then. In addition, Collin delves into the frustrations of losing a deal in sales, highlighting the difference between losing to competition and deals that don't even materialize.
He questions whether the prospects were genuinely interested in the product and emphasizes that salespeople shouldn't waste time chasing leads without genuine interest.
Collin advises sellers to help prospects realize if solving their problem should be their top priority and to respect their own time by not pursuing deals that lack potential. Throughout the podcast episode, Collin provides valuable insights and strategies for optimizing outbound campaigns and staying disciplined in the sales process. Thank you for checking out the Sales Made Easy podcast brought to you by Selling With Dignity.
I'm your host Harry Spaight and bring to you some 25+ years of sales and sales leadership experience in the hyper-competitive arena of office technology sales. I will be chatting with business owners and sales leaders that share their insights about growing their businesses and topics that will be of value. I will sprinkle in a little humor where we can fit it in because life is too short not to have a few laughs along the way.
We appreciate your reviews and 5 Star ratings! They are always welcome!!
Are you looking to improve your sales skills without compromising your
Speaker:values? Welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast for
Speaker:business and personal growth. Join Harry Spate,
Speaker:author of Selling with Dignity your Formula for Life Changing Sales
Speaker:Results as he hosts sales experts and business owners who share
Speaker:their journeys of personal growth and business success without
Speaker:resorting to pushy sales tech. Now here's your host.
Speaker:Harry, what is the good word? Ladies and gentlemen, today
Speaker:with me we have a great young man by the name
Speaker:of Colin Mitchell. Colin is a dad of four
Speaker:and a go to market leader with three exits under his
Speaker:belt. And he's the host of the top podcast,
Speaker:Sales Transformation. Holland is currently serving
Speaker:as the VP of Sales at Leadium, where they're helping sales
Speaker:organizations solve their top of funnel
Speaker:challenges, which, for those who don't know, is finding people
Speaker:to get into funnel before you try to sell to them.
Speaker:So Colin, what is the good word today?
Speaker:Oh, man, I'm super excited to have this conversation. It's
Speaker:always good to catch up with you, but always even more fun
Speaker:to do it on a podcast and talk about things that we're both
Speaker:passionate about. Yeah, I love it. Colin, I was looking at your
Speaker:history and way back in 2010, I
Speaker:didn't think you were old enough to be doing something in 2010. For
Speaker:those who are just listening to the audio, colin looks like he's about 25.
Speaker:So in 2010, you were
Speaker:selling digital technology. What did that consist
Speaker:of? Yeah, so in
Speaker:2010, that was when I got my first
Speaker:sales job. So we sold office equipment
Speaker:and aftermarket supplies, mostly aftermarket supplies
Speaker:and we had
Speaker:sales floor and it was
Speaker:my first job in sales
Speaker:and so I didn't really know what to do other
Speaker:than just work my butt off. So I was the first one in the office
Speaker:every day, last one to leave came in on Saturday, send out
Speaker:quotes, get my leads ready. The training was
Speaker:like, hey, here's who you should call
Speaker:and here's the script and there's the phone
Speaker:and the CRM is horrible, so don't use it.
Speaker:Nice. That is so funny because
Speaker:is this you in the sales bullpen? Were you the sales bullpen? Essentially
Speaker:no. We had
Speaker:about 25 sellers
Speaker:and I worked my way up to the top pretty quickly and
Speaker:my managers said, hey, you're going to have your own
Speaker:team. You should manage a team. And I'm like, yeah, that seems
Speaker:like crushing it. That seems like the next logical step
Speaker:here. And then of course,
Speaker:I'm very impatient. So I'm like, hey, where's my team? When am I going to
Speaker:get a team? I was not ready to manage a team, to be
Speaker:honest, but for whatever reason, maybe
Speaker:they knew that and just didn't want to tell me that. So
Speaker:ultimately, I left and then took a VP of Sales position where I managed a
Speaker:team and, frankly, made a lot of mistakes, but also learned a lot
Speaker:of business acumen and how to manage people and how to recruit, how to train
Speaker:and how to ramp reps and how to bring in new product lines
Speaker:and develop partnerships and relationships with vendors and all these other
Speaker:things besides. Just like, hey, I have a number. I need to have a product
Speaker:and I need to sell it. And so ultimately, it was a good experience,
Speaker:drove quite a lot of revenue there. And then shortly after that, my wife and
Speaker:I started our own business together doing very
Speaker:similar, except for we got more into services as well,
Speaker:and we grew that business from zero to 5 million in 26
Speaker:months. Wow. Yeah, you really have the
Speaker:entrepreneurial spirit. So the sales helped
Speaker:kick that off the sales job, but then you just went and
Speaker:decided to do your own thing after you had all of this
Speaker:experience. What was that? Was there any big surprise there
Speaker:along the way? I mean, it sounds like you're pretty much an overnight success,
Speaker:but were you really an overnight success, would you
Speaker:say, or was there trials going through that period?
Speaker:So I was pretty fortunate. We
Speaker:didn't do anything fancy. I mean, we
Speaker:didn't have the CRM that didn't work. We had proper
Speaker:technology set up. I invested a lot in the tools
Speaker:that my sales team would use, and we just got really
Speaker:good at recruiting. My wife had a
Speaker:recruitment background, so we had a good
Speaker:knack for just recruiting really good sales talent,
Speaker:some from our industry, some from not from our industry,
Speaker:and then just having a really good process that was simple and
Speaker:easy to follow. And we worked in
Speaker:just about three different niches that we did really well in.
Speaker:We didn't spend any money on advertising. We didn't do any
Speaker:fancy marketing, just really sales driven
Speaker:organization, keeping it fairly simple. Now, was there
Speaker:challenges? Was it easy all the time? Yeah, definitely. Like,
Speaker:I made a lot of mistakes because once we started to have some success,
Speaker:then maybe my ego got a little bit too big and I was like, hey,
Speaker:let's try all these things. And then we kind of became this company that was
Speaker:like, we do a lot of things, but do we do any of them
Speaker:well? And essentially
Speaker:we had to kind of go back to our roots and get back to the
Speaker:things that we did well. And then from there, I've started multiple other
Speaker:companies. And so today
Speaker:you're in this role as a VP of
Speaker:sales at Lydium, and this is a real
Speaker:challenge, is helping businesses to find people to
Speaker:speak with. Everyone
Speaker:has salespeople is saying the same thing. It's like we're not in enough
Speaker:opportunities.
Speaker:Tell me a little bit about what your role is and what the company is
Speaker:doing and maybe some things that we could glean the rest of us
Speaker:who are out there making calls
Speaker:periodically. Yeah, so, I mean, if you ask most sales leaders
Speaker:what their biggest problem is, most of them will tell you it's
Speaker:one of two things. We're not getting enough at bats,
Speaker:or, hey, the at bats we're getting aren't the
Speaker:right ones, which ultimately means we're having a lot of
Speaker:first meetings, but not a lot of second meetings. So if you talk
Speaker:to a lot of sales leaders, they typically have one, sometimes
Speaker:both. I mean, if they have both those problems, maybe they shouldn't be a
Speaker:sales leader. But that's a whole nother topic.
Speaker:The challenge is outbound has become
Speaker:difficult, and it's mainly because
Speaker:with the rise of a lot of technology and
Speaker:automation and even now AI,
Speaker:there's a lot of people trying to get the attention of your prospects.
Speaker:And couple that with the fact that I don't
Speaker:care what you sell, but you have more
Speaker:competition than you've ever had in today's selling
Speaker:environment. And let me explain that. What I mean is
Speaker:we're all fighting for the same budget. Everybody's got to sell to the
Speaker:CFO. I talked to a sales leader a few months ago
Speaker:who sells a sales technology selling into
Speaker:sales organizations. Obviously, we know the CFO's got to sign off.
Speaker:They've got the purse strengths. But the facilities
Speaker:manager, something that has nothing to do
Speaker:with what that company does, won the
Speaker:budget and ultimately they lost their deal. So typically when you go
Speaker:into a deal, you're like, okay, I know if I'm in this deal, maybe two,
Speaker:three of my competitors are in this deal, then we all know we're going up
Speaker:against the status quo, which wins more often than
Speaker:not. But now you're dealing with who's
Speaker:got a better business case to the CFO to get budget approved for the initiative.
Speaker:And it could be something that has nothing to do with what you do. And
Speaker:so the challenge that
Speaker:a lot of people are facing is, hey, we got to get more at
Speaker:bats because close rates are going down, sales
Speaker:cycles are longer, less and less of our team is actually
Speaker:hitting quota. And so it's not necessarily, hey, we need more at
Speaker:bats, but we do need more at bats of the right
Speaker:quality at bats. And so that's the problem that a lot
Speaker:of people are looking to solve for. And ultimately, if what
Speaker:they've been doing in house isn't working or maybe they don't have an outbound motion,
Speaker:it's just a lot more effective to hire a
Speaker:company like Leadium to do that. Because we can typically tee up. Opportunities at,
Speaker:like, a third or half of the cost of building it in house and
Speaker:in a new sales environment or a new market or a new product
Speaker:offering. It's just better to have that built out before building an in house
Speaker:team. And then a lot of times we can run in parallel with an in
Speaker:house team as well. Yeah, nice. Yeah. So
Speaker:the challenges that you're speaking about. So I'm
Speaker:really thinking about when people feel that they're
Speaker:losing a deal, it's not like they lost the deal, it's
Speaker:just like the deal never happened. So it's one thing to lose
Speaker:to competition and then you can kind of measure it's like, well, what do we
Speaker:need to do differently? But when the deal doesn't even happen, you're second
Speaker:guessing it's like, were we even talking to people
Speaker:that were even halfway serious about this?
Speaker:Because they may be curious,
Speaker:but if they're not really putting in the effort and the energy,
Speaker:and then you have salespeople that are chasing this, thinking that the person showed
Speaker:us enough interest that we should keep going, and
Speaker:that becomes a massive waste of time. So
Speaker:this is a challenge in sales. We all want the numbers, but
Speaker:the reality is there's a lot of distractions and there's a lot of
Speaker:other needs, other shiny objects, if you will.
Speaker:If your product is a nice to have versus must
Speaker:have. Any thoughts on that?
Speaker:I think that it's something that sellers have to address
Speaker:earlier in the process of like, hey,
Speaker:look, where does this fall in the priority?
Speaker:And twelve months ago, if you were in
Speaker:the top three of solving that problem, and I'm not saying like,
Speaker:implementing your solution, that's never their top priority. It's
Speaker:solving whatever problem it is that your solution or product solves
Speaker:for. You need to identify how important is it to solve this? And
Speaker:it's like, solve it now versus later, or do nothing.
Speaker:It used to be twelve months ago, if you were in
Speaker:the top three, like, hey, that's a good deal. It's got some legs,
Speaker:worth putting the effort in, worth spending some time together, doing all
Speaker:those things, doing the whole dance of what we call sales
Speaker:process. But now it's like, if you're not the number one
Speaker:thing, if you're not at the top of that list, there's a really good chance
Speaker:it doesn't get done. And so how do you position
Speaker:what it is that you do to be that top priority?
Speaker:Or how do you align with the top priority?
Speaker:Or if you're not the top priority,
Speaker:how do you quantify doing nothing or going a different
Speaker:direction to making it now become the top
Speaker:priority? So being willing to
Speaker:address that early on and then knowing how to navigate,
Speaker:like, hey, can this get to the top priority? Or is
Speaker:what it is that they're doing actually the top priority? And I'm not talking about
Speaker:being some slick, sly sales person that can be
Speaker:like doing some voodoo magic to get to the top of the priority list, but
Speaker:it's like, hey, is legitimately solving this, should
Speaker:it be their top priority? And if it is, it's your job to help them
Speaker:realize and understand that, and help them make a good business case to get
Speaker:budget approval to get the deal done. But if
Speaker:this other thing that they're focused on is their top priority, then it's like, hey,
Speaker:maybe it's just now is not a good time. And it helps you,
Speaker:the seller and the prospect, because sellers
Speaker:don't respect their own time enough and you can't be spending time
Speaker:on deals that don't have legs. Yeah, I mean, it's a
Speaker:massive waste of time. Unfortunately, they feel like they're
Speaker:being very productive, but ownership, when they find out
Speaker:that somebody was not really in the market and the sales thought
Speaker:it was, it's just like the potentially lost
Speaker:revenue, not just getting that deal, but the time
Speaker:emotionally invested in it is a whole nother thing too. It's a whole nother
Speaker:loss. Well, people don't
Speaker:doing busy work doesn't mean you're doing a good job. Like, hey, I'm
Speaker:on disco calls, I'm on demo calls, I'm sending proposals,
Speaker:I got X amount of revenue in the pipe. And it's
Speaker:like most deals, I mean, that's why
Speaker:not very many salespeople are hitting quota. It's because there's
Speaker:so many deals that shouldn't be
Speaker:in the pipeline which contributes to inaccurate
Speaker:forecasting and which contributes to
Speaker:low percentage of closing. And it just creates this vicious
Speaker:cycle. Like you're getting your goals based on
Speaker:yeah, they're coming from the top, but they're also coming from forecasting.
Speaker:And you keep shoving junk in the pipeline
Speaker:that's getting forecasted to potentially close
Speaker:that. If you're being real with yourself, you probably know it's
Speaker:like got not as good of a chance or shouldn't be there in the
Speaker:first place. And it's like people just keep putting junk in
Speaker:there to appease their managers. Exactly. Yeah. It seems like,
Speaker:unfortunately, it's been a sad game of the
Speaker:numbers that really don't matter versus the results.
Speaker:So it's the results that go to the bank. It's the numbers
Speaker:in the forecast and the KPIs
Speaker:that are always getting measured. And then people are saying, well, this is
Speaker:good because we've got this many proposals out, we're talking to this many
Speaker:people, we've done this many demos. But if it's with the
Speaker:wrong people, folks, people who are not really in
Speaker:a position to make a decision in 2023,
Speaker:then what you're doing is you're laying the
Speaker:groundwork for future opportunities at best.
Speaker:I'm sorry, your thought? Yeah. And sometimes the answer is spending more
Speaker:time with less people. Yeah, that's a
Speaker:great point. So I love it. Share with me what you're thinking
Speaker:on that. I'm saying be disciplined enough to say
Speaker:no. And it's something that we do at Ladium. Like, we turn away
Speaker:60% of the people that want to work with us because
Speaker:we have specific things that we need as a client
Speaker:profile in order to be successful for what it is that we
Speaker:do. And not a lot of companies actually look at that. Like,
Speaker:here's a good customer, what's a bad customer. And let's make
Speaker:sure that we're not getting deals in the door or spending time
Speaker:on deals that make up this bad customer
Speaker:profile. Oh my goodness, such a great topic.
Speaker:So not all prospects are good
Speaker:prospects. Yeah. And you can
Speaker:control this to some extent when you're doing
Speaker:outbound, because you're choosing who you want to reach out
Speaker:to. But when you're working inbounds,
Speaker:you get what you get. And a lot of times
Speaker:a large majority of what you get is not even
Speaker:worth working at all. And you don't have to be rude about it, but
Speaker:you just say, hey, it's not a good fit for these reasons,
Speaker:we don't feel we can be successful for these reasons, we're not the
Speaker:best options because of these reasons. Maybe try to lead them in a
Speaker:path where they could get some help, but they'll
Speaker:respect you for doing that. And ultimately your
Speaker:reputation matters as a seller. So if you turn them away and you
Speaker:give them a good reason, then they know that you're somebody of
Speaker:integrity and of your word and of honesty.
Speaker:And a lot of these words that people would
Speaker:normally not use to describe a salesperson. So if
Speaker:they have the chance to refer somebody to you, or if they end up somewhere
Speaker:else where it is a good fit and they need that, who do you think
Speaker:they're going to reach out to? Exactly. Yeah, this
Speaker:whole concept, like you mentioned, the inbound versus the outbound one
Speaker:has a strategy. The strategy for
Speaker:inbound is, yes, you're going to hit the market so that people are getting
Speaker:notified and they know who to call. But what you get calling
Speaker:or emailing or going to your website and filling out
Speaker:forms may be people who are nowhere near your
Speaker:ideal candidate. And what happens with
Speaker:salespeople? What's the last thing salespeople want to do
Speaker:is go out and look for new candidates to look for new prospects.
Speaker:So they'll spend the time with people who are not
Speaker:strategic for your business. So they might be nice people
Speaker:and all, but they could be a massive time suck as well
Speaker:and draw on your resources.
Speaker:Depends on how many people are involved in the sales process. Now
Speaker:you've got sales support, helping out and so forth, loss
Speaker:of time and loss of the potential business
Speaker:if it was used elsewhere. Just a couple of
Speaker:thoughts. Thoughts? Yeah, I mean, we're talking about opportunity
Speaker:costs. There's a cost to everything.
Speaker:And if you're wasting time, that time
Speaker:is costing you because it could be better spent on
Speaker:the right people. So you're doing yourself a
Speaker:disservice, you're doing your company a disservice. And
Speaker:if that you're also not the best fit for that prospect, you're doing them a
Speaker:disservice. So you have to really be
Speaker:disciplined as a seller to know who's a great fit, who's
Speaker:not, and stick to it. And it's really hard, especially if you're
Speaker:like, hey, the pipeline is looking a little
Speaker:not like I would like it to. Maybe this one's a
Speaker:good fit and you haven't met the deal criteria
Speaker:or that there's a reason that you shouldn't move forward.
Speaker:And that's something that's really hard for a lot of sellers. And
Speaker:I think that it also comes down to
Speaker:I get it, feeling pressure, feeling stressed, got to hit your numbers,
Speaker:got to hit your activities. A lot of sellers
Speaker:end up padding the numbers just to feel like, hey, I'm doing a good job,
Speaker:I'm meeting all these metrics. But the only thing that matters is the
Speaker:outcomes. Exactly. And
Speaker:the funny thing is, if you actually did less of those things,
Speaker:you would get more of the outcomes. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker:Yeah. The example that comes to mind
Speaker:is someone measuring the number of proposals that are being
Speaker:done. Yeah. Are you familiar with this at
Speaker:all? Yeah. Number of proposals,
Speaker:it's everywhere. And it
Speaker:comes from sales leadership that
Speaker:thinks sales is just a numbers game. There
Speaker:you go. And I'm not mad
Speaker:at them because somebody before them taught them that.
Speaker:But at some point as a sales leader, you got to wake
Speaker:up and realize sales is not just a numbers game. And
Speaker:there's a lot of people that will disagree with this and I'm fine with that
Speaker:because they can the same. Tree with me, though you and I think
Speaker:alike here. I'm curious as to how you
Speaker:saying. We'Re not saying that the numbers aren't important,
Speaker:Terry. I mean, we're just saying it's not only a numbers
Speaker:game. And I came from a school of thought that sales was a
Speaker:numbers game. It was like throw everything at the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker:That was the strategy. If you make enough calls, if you talk to enough
Speaker:people, if you send enough quotes, you'll get to your goal
Speaker:and there's just more to it. And a lot of people like to still
Speaker:sort of pound on their chest of like, hey, no, it's actually just really
Speaker:simple. It's just play the numbers. And the problem
Speaker:with that is then you're like every other
Speaker:salesperson that they're engaged with and then you become
Speaker:this transactional commission, breath salesperson that only cares
Speaker:about hitting the numbers. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker:So true. So dead on with what my thinking is.
Speaker:And this carries out into even small business owners
Speaker:who have heard this as well. And One recently
Speaker:said to me, I love the line because he didn't
Speaker:want to get to know me. He just said, let's cut to the chase. Yeah,
Speaker:he just let it out. This is really all about me,
Speaker:so I don't want any small talk, so I'm just going to throw this out.
Speaker:Are you or are you not interested in this?
Speaker:Are you kidding me? Yeah. You don't know anything about my business,
Speaker:where I'm going. And this is unfortunately a product
Speaker:of the sales is the numbers game. And
Speaker:they may find the numbers, but their numbers are so skewed
Speaker:in the sense that they have to find all kinds of people and they are
Speaker:blowing through opportunities right in front
Speaker:of them because they're saying the wrong things and they're patting themselves on
Speaker:the back saying, I'm getting through the numbers. But you
Speaker:also didn't spend 30 seconds to ask a question
Speaker:that you could have found interest that could at least give you
Speaker:something that may be a little bit different than just a pure null.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Here's the good news for anybody who's listening
Speaker:is there is a lot of
Speaker:sellers, whether it's a founder that sells individual
Speaker:contributors that operate this way off this
Speaker:antiquated sales playbook or strategy, if we even
Speaker:want to be nice and call it that. So the good news
Speaker:is that makes it really easy to stand out and be
Speaker:different. It's not as hard as you think.
Speaker:And so what does that mean? It means
Speaker:actually just actually caring about your
Speaker:prospect, actually taking the time to do the
Speaker:things that are required to identify. Is this a good fit? Does it make sense
Speaker:for us to spend more time together, not just
Speaker:loading up a bunch of people in the cannons and hitting Go and saying, hey,
Speaker:let's see who raises their hand? Being a little bit more strategic
Speaker:about, hey, who are we going to reach out to? Why are we going to
Speaker:reach out to them? Why would they even care about talking
Speaker:to us? And being a little bit more
Speaker:about like, hey, let's get a conversation started
Speaker:to see if it even makes sense to do this, where a lot of people
Speaker:are being too assumptive and too pitchy in, assuming that
Speaker:everybody needs what it is that they do. And sometimes that can come
Speaker:from really passionate founders that think whatever it is they do is the
Speaker:best. Which I get it. It's hard. That's their
Speaker:baby. But you got to have more of
Speaker:a strategic consultive type of
Speaker:approach to be different and stand out,
Speaker:challenge your prospects thinking they should leave.
Speaker:Here's something that I like to people that I work
Speaker:with and that work under me
Speaker:on my team or anybody that I cross paths with that I have an opportunity
Speaker:to mentor in some capacity. It's just this
Speaker:one simple thing, if you think about it, is
Speaker:people remember a little bit about what it
Speaker:is that you do. They remember some
Speaker:of what you say, but they never forget how you make
Speaker:them feel. And so that could
Speaker:be, hey, if we decide that it makes sense to do business together,
Speaker:maybe we decide it doesn't make sense. Maybe we do business and at some
Speaker:point stop doing business together for whatever reason,
Speaker:the goal should be to make sure that you gave a good experience
Speaker:and they remember how you made them feel. And if you can
Speaker:do that in all of those scenarios, you're winning. Yeah, so
Speaker:true. So let's talk about what you're doing today
Speaker:with Lydium and the role of you're
Speaker:using SDRs to help get
Speaker:mind share with businesses, correct? Yeah.
Speaker:So we have two core services that we provide at Lydium, helping
Speaker:people both in line with helping sales organizations
Speaker:solve their top of funnel challenges. The one that
Speaker:is actually so the first service is helping people
Speaker:with inbound lead management. So companies that just get a
Speaker:tremendous amount of inbound, they want somebody to respond within five
Speaker:minutes and capture that speed to lead. Because
Speaker:there was an experiment somebody did recently where I think they reached out to a
Speaker:couple hundred SaaS companies and filled out a request, a demo
Speaker:form on their website. A lot of these SaaS companies, they're great at
Speaker:marketing, so they might do
Speaker:webinars, they might have lead magnets, they might have a requested demo
Speaker:form. Whatever the case is, they get a lot of leads.
Speaker:And the chances of closing that deal
Speaker:go up drastically if you can reach out in five minutes or less.
Speaker:And I don't remember the exact numbers on this experiment,
Speaker:but I know that it was
Speaker:low double digits of how many reached out in five minutes. It
Speaker:was, let's just say, roughly ballpark 20, 30%. That
Speaker:reached out in like 48 hours. The thing that
Speaker:shocked me the most was that
Speaker:30 ish percent never
Speaker:reached out. Mind blowing. Never reached out. Yeah,
Speaker:that's what shocked me. So that's one thing we do is help them with
Speaker:their inbound lead management, and then the other is we launch outbound
Speaker:sales programs. So we'll build their entire outbound
Speaker:sales program, whether it's new product, new market, maybe they
Speaker:have an outbound team that's not performing, and we help fill that gap,
Speaker:and we do it differently than a lot of other people in our space.
Speaker:I'm a partner at Leadium, and the co founders, Kevin and Sergey, have been in
Speaker:the business for over ten years. So
Speaker:they've managed over
Speaker:750 outbound
Speaker:programs. 76 of their clients have been acquired after working with
Speaker:Lidium. Helped clients raise over 6.7 billion in
Speaker:funding. Five clients after
Speaker:working either while working or directly after working with
Speaker:Lidium. Five IPOs. So just crazy, crazy results
Speaker:with driving really successful outbound programs for
Speaker:companies. Great stuff. So
Speaker:the role here of people who are making the
Speaker:calls, commonly referred to as
Speaker:SDRs, what would you say is different about the
Speaker:folks that you're working with compared to
Speaker:maybe other businesses that do similar stuff?
Speaker:So a couple of things are different,
Speaker:and I wouldn't even say this is necessarily like, hey, leadium as an
Speaker:agency versus like, other agencies. Let's just say leadium
Speaker:in comparison to how a lot of people are doing outbound today.
Speaker:Way a lot of people do outbound today. Build a list,
Speaker:reach out to that list, maybe on one channel, the phone, maybe
Speaker:on two channels, phone and email, maybe
Speaker:multichannel. Not a lot of personalization let's
Speaker:play the numbers game. Don't
Speaker:optimize for performance very often. So even
Speaker:large sales organizations with companies that you would think,
Speaker:like, they probably got their stuff together, they
Speaker:rarely optimize their outbound campaigns and the interesting thing
Speaker:is there's been this whole debacle of does outbound
Speaker:SDRs and BDRs. Should they report to sales? Is it a
Speaker:sales activity, is it a marketing activity? And the
Speaker:interesting thing is, if Outbound as an acquisition
Speaker:channel was ran more like a marketing campaign,
Speaker:it would be much more successful. And what I mean by that is
Speaker:companies don't just say, hey, let's throw a bunch of money on these ads,
Speaker:sit back for a quarter, hire a bunch of people,
Speaker:see what happens. But that's how a lot of Outbound
Speaker:programs are being ran today. They're rarely measured for
Speaker:the right things, they're rarely optimized for performance.
Speaker:And that's the biggest problem, I would say.
Speaker:So what Lidium is able to do is really take a very
Speaker:data centric approach. We're very thorough in the data
Speaker:process as far as sourcing data and enriching it with personality
Speaker:data channel optimized identifying what channel is best
Speaker:for a prospect to reach out to identifying what
Speaker:email provider they're using so that we can have better deliverability
Speaker:using custom videos, using phone, social or email
Speaker:where it makes sense with prospects and then making decisions based on how
Speaker:the campaigns are performing. And then a B testing a lot of things to see
Speaker:what actually resonates with those people. So just kind
Speaker:of briefly, I would say that's in a comparison of
Speaker:how a lot of people are doing outbound and how we see doing outbound
Speaker:differently. Okay, so as far as an SDR is
Speaker:concerned, making getting on social, say
Speaker:I believe that everyone is their own brand
Speaker:and that an
Speaker:SDR, they have their brand as well. Some
Speaker:businesses may be apprehensive about putting an SDR out on
Speaker:social media with the name of someone like Lidium versus
Speaker:their own business name. What's your thought on that? Is
Speaker:there a way to compromise there? Is there any value that the SDR is
Speaker:out on social, brand, doing their own content and so
Speaker:forth? So I think
Speaker:it's kind of a mix of both. And I don't think that that's what you
Speaker:were maybe expecting me to say. No, I don't know the answer, so
Speaker:I'm good either way. I'm curious. I agree with the
Speaker:fact that sellers should have their own brand and your company doesn't
Speaker:own your LinkedIn and all of that stuff. What I
Speaker:don't agree with is sellers
Speaker:spending more time building their brand and not
Speaker:being good at their job. Because I've seen this
Speaker:backfire where let's call
Speaker:them LinkedIn influencers or whatever you want to call them,
Speaker:have gotten jobs that they are vastly
Speaker:underqualified for based on their social presence.
Speaker:Being good on LinkedIn does not mean you're good at your sales job.
Speaker:Okay? So if you are not hitting
Speaker:quota and being a schmuck at work,
Speaker:but you've got lots of followers and engagement,
Speaker:that's a problem. Yeah, big time. Your priorities are messed
Speaker:up. I think you can kind of like social is
Speaker:necessary. Specifically in B. Two b sales. It can be very
Speaker:powerful. Now, sometimes you
Speaker:see people spending time on their
Speaker:side hustle and whatever, and there's companies that have difference
Speaker:opinions, I believe. Company does not own you as a person. So if
Speaker:you have a side hustle and as long as it's not affecting your
Speaker:job, that's fine, that's totally fine.
Speaker:But I think first priority is how do I'm getting paid for a
Speaker:job, how do I make sure that I am doing the best job,
Speaker:doing my best work in that job and that should be priority
Speaker:one. And so a lot of people have that mixed up and I
Speaker:think that's why some companies may
Speaker:be reluctant to invest in this area for
Speaker:their team or advocate for
Speaker:it or support it. Yeah, good point.
Speaker:So it's a tricky it's not so black and white.
Speaker:Yeah, I was thinking more along the outbound side of things
Speaker:that you're trying to reach a person or for a
Speaker:company and so forth. So just visualizing that
Speaker:the person you're trying to reach is engaged on social media.
Speaker:Does it make sense for the SDR or somebody
Speaker:who's doing outbound to periodically comment on that
Speaker:person's posts and show that they're there
Speaker:supporting them as well and not just asking? I
Speaker:mean, it's a way to break into the account, so to speak, by
Speaker:befriending somebody and eventually they say, are you up for a
Speaker:conversation? That would be my thought, yeah. I mean,
Speaker:social engagement in the comments and then
Speaker:connecting is
Speaker:a great effective way. The problem I think
Speaker:a lot of people do is they treat LinkedIn too much
Speaker:as an outbound channel. Connect pitch. Connect
Speaker:pitch. We've all seen this. Those are the folks that have ruined
Speaker:LinkedIn and if it's done
Speaker:well, LinkedIn can actually become an inbound channel
Speaker:for sellers. That means connecting and building relationships with the right people
Speaker:and consistently putting out content that's
Speaker:relevant, educational and has value for the people
Speaker:that you want to do business with. And LinkedIn then can become an
Speaker:inbound channel for you. Yeah, so
Speaker:true. I like what you're saying and I think I'm
Speaker:making the assumptions that people are going to be balanced in the
Speaker:approach and that rarely is the case. We
Speaker:frequently go all or nothing. And like you mentioned, if an
Speaker:SDR is 100% on
Speaker:social media or 80% of their time is allocated to social
Speaker:media, wrongly, they're not going to get results because
Speaker:that's definitely the long game and it's part of what's in the tool
Speaker:bag, but it's not the only tool. So you definitely shared some thoughts
Speaker:there as far as how people view it as the only tool
Speaker:in the tool bag and that's not so. Yeah,
Speaker:good point. All right, so Colin, appreciate you
Speaker:spending some time with me. Where can people find more of you and maybe
Speaker:you tell us who you're really looking to work with
Speaker:as far as Lidium is concerned, who fits your ideal
Speaker:candidate and maybe those who are listening might know somebody. Yeah,
Speaker:I mean, it's a hard to answer. We've worked in lots of
Speaker:different industries, but a lot of times it has more to do with
Speaker:the internal sales process and it has to do with
Speaker:the unique value proposition and things like that.
Speaker:So anybody can go to Leadium.com to get in
Speaker:touch there. The best place to get into my world is to just
Speaker:number one. It takes a lot of work to put on a good
Speaker:podcast like this. So the best way you can show your gratitude to Harry here
Speaker:is to write a review for the show, subscribe to the show,
Speaker:share the show with your friends. It's a lot of work to put on a
Speaker:good quality podcast and show up consistently to have
Speaker:good quality content for the listeners. That's the first thing you
Speaker:should do. And then if you just are like a podcast junkie,
Speaker:kind of like me, you can check out Sales Transformation on any
Speaker:podcast platform that you're on. We do drop daily seven
Speaker:day a week sales content there. Wow, that's a
Speaker:lot. Good for you. How long are your podcasts that you're dropping
Speaker:there? Daily. So they typically
Speaker:have been around ten minutes. We're going to increase it to about 15
Speaker:just based on some feedback that we're getting. So you
Speaker:can ten to 15 minutes every day.
Speaker:There's valuable content there from a variety of
Speaker:different guests. Awesome. Love it. Colin Mitchell, ladies
Speaker:and gentlemen. Thank you so much, Colin. It's been awesome to have you here in
Speaker:the conversation. Bring tons of value and wishing you the best
Speaker:as you continue your role here as VP of
Speaker:Sales at Leadium. Great stuff. Thank you for
Speaker:listening to Sales Made Easy. If you've found value in our
Speaker:conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal
Speaker:is to provide practical strategies for growing your business while
Speaker:staying true to your values. Remember, success in
Speaker:sales is about serving your clients. Serve first and
Speaker:the selling will fall below. We'll be back soon with more insights and
Speaker:inspiration. Until then, keep serving and providing value
