[00:00:00] Luigi Prestinenzi: Welcome. This is the Sales IQ Podcast. My name is Luigi Prestinenzi, and I'm on a mission to help salespeople be the best sales professionals they can be. Each week we will bring you a different message from thought leaders around the globe, so we can help you master the art of selling.

Digital first, not digital only. The world of selling has changed. And last year, that change was accelerated. Literally overnight. We all went from selling in a face-to-face environment to literally selling in a virtual world. Now, as we come out of the back of what's been an incredibly difficult 18 months, things are starting to get back to somewhat normal.

Face-to-face events are coming back. Face-to-face interactions with customers are starting to come back. However, the world of virtual, easy to see. And the hybrid work model has changed the way in which we'll engage with our customers. What's incredible about today's episode. We get to talk with the absolute, incredible Tiffani Bova who's the global growth and innovation evangelist from Salesforce and also a wall street journal bestselling author. There's also growth IQ. And Tiffany is going to talk about how that digital first aspect of selling can make us more efficient.

And yes, we will have those face-to-face interactions because let's face it, people need that face-to-face interaction. There are things that you see it's simply easier to do in a face-to-face environment. However, if you were, or if you are that coffee and donut sales guy, sales woman sales person. That has been servicing your customers, just focusing on relationships, just focusing on that professional visit.

Well, I hate to say it, but that is a big risk moving forward because what we do know now more than ever before, customers require more business justification than ever to buy from you. They're looking for value added insight. They're looking for, for insight that will help them mitigate certain risks.

And help them identify an unrecognized problem. And if you're not bringing that value to the table, then unfortunately your customers won't make time for you anymore. And that's the reality facing our proficient today. And that's what we're going to talk about with Tiffany around some of the skills required to be successful.

And what are the top we are, what do those top 1%, what are the characteristics and behaviors they exist? To be so successful in their role revenue operations is much more than words in a job title. It's a movement that is transforming sales, marketing, and customer success teams into high-performing revenue drivers.

Ring DNA is a recognized Gartner cool vendor that makes rev ops possible by driving improved operational efficiency and revenue capture from sales, marketing, and customer success. Trusted by the top companies across the globe RingDNA offers a complete sales engagement, conversational intelligence and revenue intelligence platform for Salesforce customers. Learn how we can transform your results at ringdna.com. That's ring dna.com.

So this is a great episode one, which will really challenge the way in which we think about. The world of digital and what we need to do moving forward. How we must embrace it, not fear it because it's an enabler. It can enable us to be more successful, leveraging the digital world and leveraging the fact that yes, relationships are key, but in order to build that relationship, we've got to be bringing a point of value. We've got to be bringing value to the table. Welcome to the show, Tiffany.

[00:03:52] Tiffani Bova: Oh, thank you for having me.

[00:03:53] Luigi Prestinenzi: I'm pretty excited, not only you know, having an author, a fellow podcast host, but somebody that he's a global evangelizer who is out there really spruiking and advocating for the world of, you know, creating better customer experiences and working with such a, a juggernaut of a platform called Salesforce. So I want to say thank you for coming on our podcast.

[00:04:13] Tiffani Bova: Of course, I'm always game to talk about sales.

[00:04:17] Luigi Prestinenzi: Well, before we get into the, you know, the conversation around customer experience and how sellers can differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace. We'd love to learn a bit about how you started in the world of selling and what you currently do in your role as sales.

[00:04:31] Tiffani Bova: Sure. You know, this is a great question because I think, you know, when you're a little kid, you don't say, when I grow up, I want to be in sales. Nor when you go to college, do you go by, want to be in sales? Right? Because there's not necessarily paths to do, you know, the college route or the uni route, as you would say, in, in Aussie.

Right? That, that there isn't really that path. And then from a, just a pure, you're a kid I want to grow up and be a salesperson. Mom was probably like, what, what are you talking about? But I, you know, I, I fell in love with it accidentally. I think you've just naturally either find your way to sales or you make a conscious decision to get into sales.

And I think I naturally found my way in I was born and raised in Hawaii actually depending on when this goes live it, today was actually the day that the Sydney opera house opened way back in 1974. And I w w that was the first time I went into Australia. It was a week after the opera house had open.

So the first time I sort of stepped foot in Australia, I was very, very young. But I got to sort of travel the world and the. Had the opportunity to be exposed to sales at a really young age, not really realizing it was sort of sales or a career. Right. I was just doing things that were trying to sell a product or sell a service or promote a, a nightclub or promote a It's a, an event to raise money after a hurricane or whatever it was.

And then all of a sudden I was like, well, you know, I'm kinda good at this sales and marketing and promoting kind of, how can I make money maybe doing this, you know, more than I'm making now. And then. Accidentally found my way into technology and the rest is sort of history, you know? I mean, I think I was really blessed to get in, on selling tech all the way back in 1995.

So I've been selling technology for a minute or two. But but I would say this. I think that it is a noble profession. I think companies do two things. They make stuff and they sell stuff and it doesn't matter how great the product is that they make. If you can't sell it doesn't matter. So I'm, I'm really hopeful that this becomes a career that has the same level of interest and rigor put into it from a pure career and education standpoint, but also from a pure operational standpoint as well.

[00:06:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, but what an amazing journey and, you know, for a minute or two, I mean, you've been selling technology for a long time. I think you've probably seen a huge shift in the way that people view technology from a business perspective. But I'd love to ask you, I mean, I've, I've, I've got a daughter, you know, she's 19 years old and she's embarking herself in a real estate career and, and always asking me kind of tips around selling.

But and I think, you know, if people like yourself have really enabled. You know, the likes of my daughter to, to, to, to move into a profession now, not worrying or as much as being a female, but I would love to understand, as you know, when you first started, what were some of the challenges that you had to overcome being a female in a, in a male dominant sales world?

[00:07:32] Tiffani Bova: Yeah, not only was it just male dominated in sales, but it's tech, which just amplified it even more. But I'll be really honest here. Like I'm not a technologist in that way. Like, I, I ultimately, I don't believe that I have sold technology. I believe that I sell chain. And change in the way a company would do something by leveraging this thing called technology, right.

It might've been servers and networking and email early on. And then ultimately, you know, and eventually I was the beta client for a Loquat and constant contact all the way back in 2000. So I was very early in the web as well. And I felt like those conversations suited me. Well, I. Ask her of questions.

I've become a much better listener, you know, over time. I'm absolutely able to sort of create this aggregation of people and pulling people in when I need them. And ultimately I'm really good networker and building relationships. And I think that those things served me really well. Am I the best technologists?

Absolutely not. Am I the best sales person? You know, I definitely am not one that goes, okay. You know, here's solution selling or spin selling or challenger selling. Like I'm not that kind of seller, unfortunately, cause I might even be better, but I hit quota. I hit quota regardless. So, you know, I really seem to have found a place.

But you know, there's many many a story early in my tech selling career where I'd be absolutely the only woman in the room for sure. In a room full of men who are making the decisions. And I never felt like I got the deal because I was a woman or I didn't get the deal because I was a woman.

Maybe I'm naive to that, but I never, I never experienced that feeling of not being welcomed because I was a woman or I was welcomed because I was a woman. You know what I mean? I just, that, that wasn't something I experienced doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Doesn't mean there are many people who have experienced it. I just have not.

[00:09:34] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. And I appreciate you sharing that. And I think one of the things that you mentioned, you know, like you're right, the change element, right? People don't buy what you sell. They buy the outcome, you, you enable them to achieve. And ultimately technology is about change. It's about helping people arrive, create a better, better experience for a whole variety of things, but I'd love to sort of touch on that.

And then you mentioned that, you know, you went to getting follow up. A specific sales process, but you hit quota. And you were focused on the change. You weren't a technologist. How did you develop that mindset that allowed you to kind of, you know, go to market and talk about change in an era where technology wasn't adopted as much as it is today?

[00:10:15] Tiffani Bova: Yeah, there was I'll tell you there's one statement become a student of your profession. So, you know, yes, I followed, you know, whatever training from a selling perspective, solution selling, spin, selling, you know, back then, whatever it was, of course, cause we kind of had to right, but that's not what made me a better seller.

That was just a mechanism to track what I was doing and to understand where I might be able to make improvement. But on the, become a student of your profession, I was selling originally into the legal industry. And I had a, at some crazy point in my college career thought I wanted to be an attorney. So I was a paralegal during the summer.

Which meant that, you know, I had some experience of understanding that literally I had to hand bate stamp thousands of documents and then hand data, enter it into Microsoft. Ms. Dos. On a green screen and then look stuff up on dial-up to Lexus nexus, like it was painful at best. And this is, you know, this is in the early nineties.

And so I kind of had an understanding of how technology could help that role, right? If we could automate that bate stamping, if we could scan and code it. And if we could use you know, that scanning and then using bullion and searching and all that kind of intelligence to spit out documents and millions of documents for trial, and we could.

Absolutely improve the day in life of an attorney. If it's something as like writing down, how much time you spent talking to a client, having that now, you know, enter it into your phone. When the phone rings, enter the customer code, you know, client code, hang up the phone that would log so that the attorney would no longer have to do that because I had a basic understanding of that role, having the conversation aligned me.

And immediately I realized that if I could show up understanding the value equation, I would do such a great job. So. Because that was the industry that I was focused on selling to. And I had an understanding, I really knocked it out of the park, but I then learned very quickly that if I was talking to a CFO or someone in finance, that they were going to talk to me about how is this going to be paid for as a Contra revenue?

And now all of a sudden I was out of my comfort zone. Right. I didn't understand P and L's if you will. So I went and took a class at the I'm in Southern California. So I took a class at UCLA. It was just a day-long accounting class, the basics 1 0 1, not so I could talk to a finance person, you know, intelligently.

It was only so I could understand the question so I could go find out the answer. And so becoming a student in the profession was I would read and consume lot technology, product news. I'd go to the trade shows. Right. I ask questions. I took those classes that gave me the leg up. And so you combine that with my.

Curiosity and my relationship building skills and my networking skills, that was a very powerful combination to help me hit quota. And then, you know, move up, move up, move up, move up, move up. Right until I was, you know, ultimately running a division of a fortune 500 company in tech here in the U S. And that was really my last operational sales, leadership, marketing, and service role.

But over the course of a decade, that's how quickly. I moved to those ranks because I found my secret superpower.

[00:13:29] Luigi Prestinenzi: That's an amazing, and look, I resonate with that so much because you're right. Look, we're talking to C level executives. We're talking to people about embarking on a change. And if we don't understand or have a basic premise of what's going on in their world and what are the challenges that they're experiencing and how has that preventing them from achieving their outcomes?

We're not really earning the right to have a conversation with them. And I love the fact that you've said that, that the student of the profession, and really trying to understand and empathize and go that level deeper instead of. You know, taking your company's training of, Hey, this is what we do.

These are the benefits. And and I think for me, what I'm seeing in the market right now is there's a clear separation of salespeople and sales professionals and the professionals who are out there building their skills, learning more about their customers, learning how they can use your talk. You know, that value equation are the ones that are seeing real success.

I want to sort of talk about your book because you booked books about so many key things that I think salespeople today need more than ever before. Like it's a world of when we think of content there's content, there's products customers, and now they don't have limited choice anymore.

There is so much choice. What can sellers do to kind of differentiate themselves in a saturated market?

[00:14:48] Tiffani Bova: I'd go back to what we were just talking about. Look, you know, when I was selling, it was a single user version of act and goldmine, a little bit in Excel, bubblegum, and supposed to notes. And I would spin my desk Rolodex and say, that's who I'm going to call today.

Like, it was, it was ugly at best. Right. But fast forward sellers don't have to do that anyway. And for sales managers that are listening to this, like, is it really still 25 years later, or call a hundred people 10 call you back three we'll schedule a meeting one. We'll buy something really today or is it, why don't you let the CRM system actually tell you?

Here are the 10 you should call today. Here's the messaging here is why here's the next best action. Here's the offer. Here's the story to tell them, you know what you are, this kind of customer, you know, we know we normally see in 90 days a customer like you that's already bought this from us really starts to see value.

If you do these three things. Oh, really tell me more. And it's hard for a seller to know that kind of information at scale, without technology. Yet the relationship between a seller and tech has not been one of love. And what I mean by that is it tends to be the, the metric, the productivity, the pipeline, the forecast.

Right. And it's all about those mechanics. It's about the input that the seller can do. Versus the value of the output. And if the seller can start to see and feel and understand the output value like that call these 10, here's the offer. Here's why here's the script. Here's Justin time coaching. Oh, we listened to your conversation.

Here's some feedback or you talk 28 minutes out of the 30 minutes. Like, you know, whatever it is. And they start to really see the value out. They'd have. A different relationship with tech instead of like, it's a way for my manager to manage me, it's a way to see what I'm doing every minute. It's a way to get pipeline and forecast.

And so because of that, Sales reps might do something like sandbagging. Like, no, I'm not going to enter a deal because if I do that, my manager's going to call me and bug me about the deal. So I'm going to hold the deal in stage two until I know I'm going to win the deal. And then miraculously, I'm such a brilliant, amazing seller.

I went right from stage two to close aren't I great. But in reality, I just sand. Right. But the reason seller's sandbag is because of the way in which they're managed and the way in which managers use the CRM tool and the pipeline tools and all the things that are used is a way to be much more productivity focused than value focused.

And that is. Big cultural shift. Very easy for me to say. Sounds really great. You're going to listen to this and go my God. Yes. My sales manager does these things. I wish they didn't and I wish they did these things, but you know, I can say that the only thing a seller can control can't control your comp plan.

Can't control what you sell. Can't control your territory. Can't control what tools you use pretty much, but what you can control is how you show. At that moment of truth in front of a customer. And that's where the student and the profession, the value of the understanding of those subtleties really separates you from the rest.

Because if the rest are just ticking off the boxes they're not going to be as successful as you. I think the seller of the future, the winner, the winning seller of the future is going to be the one that uses technology better than you.

[00:18:16] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, I love that I'm in, I love the fact that you're talking about leveraging the tech, embracing it, and I think, you know, we've all been guilt. I'm going to not about you, but I know that I've been guilty of sandbagging deals in the past. Right. And recklessly, the next quarter starts and I'm already in front. Right, so.

[00:18:31] Tiffani Bova: I've sandbagged up, forget being an individual. Okay. Now we have a hundred reps working for me. I'm still sandbagging, right? Because they're sandbagging. So I'm sandbagging. Like it's just, so when executives feel like they have visibility into the forecast and pipeline, I'm always like, Hmm. It depends how much your team sandbags. Right. And so I think that, look, it's not lost on me. I work at Salesforce obviously, but prior to Salesforce, I was a research fellow at Gartner advising some of the largest tech companies in the world, you know, could be you know, Singtel.

Telstra could be right. Who whomever it might be in region. And also some of the US-based companies that we're going to in, you know, enter into the a and Zed APAC market. So I can tell you that I would say the exact same thing. It's not just because I work here. We just happen to have amazing technology, but I just want sellers to use technology.

I hope it's us, but it needs to be something right. It needs to be something because it's just almost impossible to keep up. If you, if you're not using technology, at this point.

[00:19:30] Luigi Prestinenzi: But I think, and, and look, I think for many that, you know, the last 18 months has been an incredibly turbulent experience for a lot of people, regardless of how your business has performed, because some businesses have gone, you know, incredibly well.

During the last 18 months, I think. So many people, the psychological challenges that we've had to go through have been difficult. Right. And now, you know, change has kind of been brought forward. And I think, and, and again, I'd love to get your opinion on this, but you talk about that data literacy, that embracing tech versus kind of being scared of it and sort of tell a story, you know, there's a, there's a, an Australian business. There sales force is fundamentally been the coffee and donuts model. I'm still old school territory walking into clients with coffee and donuts and having a bit of a chat and ultimately getting an order. And what the business has realized is that since the pandemic kicked, they haven't been able to go and visit the customers.

And they're inexpensive sales force cars, phones, you know pubs for years the works sales results have actually not dipped. They've gotten better. And it's now making the business ask questions of is the same structure, go to market structure that we've had. Can we achieve the outcome we need moving forward without such a sort of model that we've been always used to.

It also asked some other questions. Have we got a sales team? That can now embrace the new hybrid work model. A lot of them have been you know, really resistant to virtual selling resistant to updating the CRM, et cetera. And it's creating some concerns, not just for the business, but for the individuals.

And again, this is where as a sales professional, isn't, we're coming to a point in our careers where if we don't embrace technology and we don't allow it to enable us to be the best we can be, it could ultimately lead us to a point. Redundancy. If you are that seller listening to this going, I've been a bit resistant to change.

I've been a bit resistant to technology, but I'm hearing, you know, Tiffany talk growth IQ, the importance of leveraging becoming data literate, you know, finding ways to allow me to allow technology to enable me to be the best I can be. Where can they start to make that change?

[00:21:49] Tiffani Bova: Yeah, there's so much that you just said. So there's been hundreds of selling organizations around the world that were very resistant to trying to be more of a hybrid selling organization, pre pandemic, meaning their field sellers. Do they always need to spend time behind the windshield or on an airplane? I'm going to see a client, right. Or to pubs or to, you know, whatever it might be.

And they were resistant because they felt that the value was in that relationship, that shaking of the hand that seen each other face to face that that was their competitive advantage. If I'm in front of my customer, no one else's in front of my customer. And if I'm in front of my customer, I'm always sort of reminding them that I'm the person that can.

Whatever sort of issue or business or product or service they needed to, to buy from you, the pandemic hits and then overnight, everyone was forced to face the fact that they weren't willing to make those transitions over the last decade or decade and a half when digital started to really take over.

But what we've now seen is an I think an overcorrection do I think it's going to stay completely hybrid. I think it's going to be digital first, but not digital only. So if I can have a quick 15 minute conversation with you, right. First question, answer a couple of things or ask you questions, get clarification.

I could see you on a video call. It's better than a phone call, kind of a thing, right? Did I need to drive an hour to do that? Take 45 minutes out of your day and then drive an hour back. I think the customers value that 15 minutes. Like they, they value that it's it's shorter time. They're able to get more done on their side.

And so sales is seeing the benefit of that. But I think that that's going to go back to sort of somewhere in the middle of those two things. When, so as a sales leader or even an individual seller, when is it appropriate for me to see someone face-to-face and why, what would be the trigger that would say, Hmm, this is something I don't want to do virtually.

And then what are the things that you can do virtually? You know, that you're like, Nope, I don't need to come see you. I can do this better virtually. That is going to either have to come from your own personal learnings or your, your company is going to say, this is when we go face to face. And this is when we go, you know, virtual.

But I think that there is a decision. I think if you make the mistake of saying it's always going to be virtual or digital, or it's always going to go back to face-to-face, you will have missed the lesson to your point. Look, Salesforce last 18 months, we've had five amazing quarters. No, one's traveling.

So right there, like it's digital first. We can continue to do this. Look, we can hire all these people. They don't have to be. And I'm like, oh wait, wait, wait. Like I want to travel. Right. But I'm not in the selling organization any, any longer, I haven't been for a long time. So, so I would say that don't make the mistake to just stay where you are and think that's the way it's going to be.

Understand what would be the reason to go face to face or stay versus. I understand the pros and cons of that. It's not just about TNE. If you're doing it for a cost basis, that's the wrong reason that it's the wrong reason, because you might miss those subtle things that your customers want from you that they might get somewhere else.

If you're not willing to do it anymore, because you're like, oh, we've, we've improved our bottom line. Our profitability is up because no one's traveling. Yeah. Let's keep doing that. And that's not the right, right. Answer either.

[00:25:07] Luigi Prestinenzi: And that's a love that cause you know, What you're saying, it's not just digital, like digital only it's digital first.

And it allows you to kind of understand how can we work through this. And again, I love the whole premise of your book, and I want to talk about that next, but you know, if it's, it's not about saving costs, it's about the customer experience. What does that customer experience need to be in order for us to deepen that connection and relationship with our clients?

And that's something that you talk about in your book, right? And we'll put, we'll make sure in the show notes, we have a link for where our listeners can grab growth IQ because there's a number of key takeaways that I really, really resonated for me. But I do want to talk about that differentiation, that, that experience pace.

And, and that's some of the things that I love about your content and what you share about why experience matters. If you're a seller, not necessarily in the customer success. Area of the business. Why is that customer experience so important now?

[00:26:04] Tiffani Bova: This has been a journey for me. When I was a research fellow at Gartner. Now it has to be almost 10 years ago, if not 11. We made the prediction that. The chief marketing officer would spend more than the chief information officer on technology. And it was like blasphemy. Right? We had said something that was, oh my gosh. So controversial. But what ended up happening was Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Salesforce all went out and bought marketing technology to satisfy the fact that if CMS is going to start to spend money on.

What experience type technologies, right. To improve the buying journey, right? Content distribution, website, commerce, like all the things that marketers are responsible for. We knew that experience was going to become the next battleground that it wasn't just going to be about the products that you sold or the services that you sold.

But what was the experience that your customers, patients, you know would feel. So it's not about kind of what you sell, which is a little interesting. And it's not about how you sell, which is a little more interesting. It's how your customers feel when they engage with you. That to me is really interesting.

And so if experience is going to play a big part, of a buyer's decision. And we've found from Salesforce research that we think it's about 80% of a decision is made now on the experience you know, and product being like, you know, you're going to have a hundred percent of his decision on products and now 80% is being impacted by the experience they have with you.

Now that experience, maybe how easy was it to buy? How easy was it to return the user interface of your app? Like it isn't just experience like you and me having a conversation. You know, it's experience all up, they walk into your lobby. Was it clean? Was the receptionist kind, you know, she helpful like, or he, right.

It's it's experience all up, everyone plays a role. So that is why it was the first path, the growth or 10 paths and in growth IQ. And I wanted it to be really. Leveled on customer centricity, that the decisions that you make about how do you organize your Salesforce? What kind of sellers do you hire?

Do you have sales engineers? Do you, you know, do you do inside sales, outside sales, account-based marketers, sales development reps, you know, there are all kinds of ways to split that hair of quote unquote selling what's that. What do your customers want? So even back to your previous question, is it hybrid?

Do I do it virtually? Do I do it in person? What are your customers want? It almost doesn't matter what you want. If your customers demand to see you in person, you go. Nope. Nope. We only sell virtually now because we proved over the last 18 months we can do it right. Yeah, don't care. I need you to come by.

Right? So, you know, being customer centric should direct those kinds of go to market models. So that's why that, that path was the first one for me in the book.

[00:28:49] Luigi Prestinenzi: This is amazing. Everything you're talking about. Sounds so simple, but we're saying, Hey, don't let you go to market structure. You shouldn't dictate it.

It's your customer, the experience that's important to them. And again, I love the fact that, you know, This experience matters how you bought, but if the buying experience is fantastic, but then the delivery doesn't, isn't aligned to that, then the customer's expectation completely drops and therefore you know, churn occurs and we often see that.

And especially selling tech and SAAS they're not buying new once they're buying you over and over again. Right?

[00:29:23] Tiffani Bova: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, ultimately it. It's also something that we're, that concerns managers, because it's, it's hard to measure that feeling. You know what I mean? Like what does that mean?

So I, I use restaurant is a basic example. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna, you know, go to a really expensive restaurant and the key and the food was good, but the service was excellent. Would you go back if the food was excellent and the service was terrible, would you go back.

[00:29:58] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah, probably not.

[00:29:59] Tiffani Bova: Right. So even though the food was good, even though the product was good, the service was terrible. Right. And then you might say to someone, oh, the food was great, but the service was terrible. Show the experience. If you just said it's all about the food. It's about the presentation. It's about the plating. It's about.

Tablecloths it's about the, this and the, that all very important. Right. But it's all very important. But if the service, if the hostess at the front was rude and you waited and it was crowded at the front, and then they kind of like, just sat you down, toss the menus down. And then they were like, okay, it's been 90 minutes.

You need to go, you know, that's not a great experience. So always think about that balance between what it is you're selling and then how the customer feels during that engagement. And now, how do you measure that? Is it net promoter score on the experience? Is it customer satisfaction? Is it churn rates?

If you're in a recurring revenue business, is it average sale price is. You know, customer lifetime value. Like there's a lot of ways you can measure that particular part of it. But look, sales tends to be the tip of the spear of that experience. So enabling them to be successful is really important, but don't forget about the post.

You have to enable them equally because they play such a huge role in keeping the customer, you know, upselling cross-selling the customer, depending on how you're organized. So there's, you know, everybody in the company has, has a role to play in delivering those experiences.

[00:31:27] Luigi Prestinenzi: And that's where this chief revenue officer roles really been. Ben come from, right? Because that's, that alignment piece is so important. It's not, it's not that traditional, you know, customer, and then we've got our separate divisions or operating. It's putting that customer, like you say, at the center of everything that we do and making sure each area of the business that supports that customer is aligned.

And I love the fact cause you're right. People buy with feeling they buy with the moment. Right. And then they'll justify their decision later. So I think there's so much for sellers to take away. If you know, again, we're going to put the show notes so that people can access and go and buy or purchase your book.

But what's another one of the, the kind of the growth IQ. One of the key principles. Sure key for people to take away.

[00:32:10] Tiffani Bova: So there, the foundation was the one thing about growth is it's never one thing. So that was my way of getting out of saying one thing. But after having some five or 6,000 conversations over a decade with sales leaders of all sizes from all over the world from, you know, one you know, a startup that's hiring their first sales person to the very largest selling organizations in the world I can tell you that what I heard pretty consistently was, wow, it's getting, you know, it's getting a little bit hard to sort of close that pipeline.

So what should we do, Tiffany? Should we hire more salespeople? Spend more marketing dollars cut costs. And those were kind of the three levers. And I said, it can't just be those three. So that's how I kind of came up with the 10. But wait, if you're talking about sales specifically, there's three that always are, are in place.

And so the, the whole concept of growth IQ is it's a combination of multiple growth paths depending on where you are. And the three I talk about fairly consistency consistently, especially with this audience, as I said, Customer experience, which we just talked about. The next one is optimized sales should be no shock, right?

If 66% of a seller's time is spent on non-selling activities. And the average selling organization is going to have 54% of their sellers missing quota day one, we have a problem. That's like, if this doesn't translate, I guess regionally, but Houston, we have a problem. Right. We, I mean, we have a problem. So you know but there's a great white, we have a problem that kind of problem.

Right. So, yeah. And so I'm surfing at Bondi beach, see a great white, we got a problem. Yeah. All right. So I got it. All right. Okay. So we have a problem. And so how can you optimize the way that you sell. Gosh, I have to log into five things to get an answer. It takes me 24 hours to get a pricing concession.

It takes, you know, those kinds of things. Right? So optimize sales with what you already have, how do you make that more productive? And then the third one would be customer based penetrate. That's so many selling organizations are overly focused on net new logo acquisition, and they spend a lot of money.

If you're in a SAS business, that CAC is, can be high, right. That customer acquisition costs can be high. So why, once you find that gold, do you. I believe it alone. Yeah. So, you know, I'm going to go to a mountain. I find oil, precious gems, whatever it is. And I go, that's fantastic. Let's go find another mountain.

But that's not what you do. What you do is you say having a mind that mountain, or you know, that you know, oil well, as much as I can while someone else is out looking for another mountain when this one becomes dry. And so the other one is customer-based penetration, which I think there's not enough emphasis put on that customer base.

You already have. Are they successful using your product and service? So the customer success organization, you know, are they only using one of your products when you have five in your portfolio, how do you get them to buy their second, their third, their fourth? How do you get them to sign up for a longer contract?

Like what are you doing to make sure the experience of your existing customers is still really strong? So those are the three that I think. More than anything, especially over the last 18 months have been those that I just talk about the most.

[00:35:23] Luigi Prestinenzi: That's incredible data, right? For anyone listening to this going, you know, 66% of the time, 54% don't hit target. I mean, and these are the, these are the challenges facing our profession. But again, that was one of the key things that I took away from yours was that customer penetration, because we do I say this a lot. Right. And And that's that's because the traditional south structure is you hunt. You find new business, somebody else owns it.

And then their priorities and their responsibilities are different because they're looking at it from a different lens. But I've always found, you know, that the quickest path to growth is looking at my existing database and also the ones that have great experience will often then help me find other people just like.

Right. And that referral base can be quite strong. So just, I know that we've sort of come into a point of oh, I'm loving this chat. I could, I could chat to you about this all day. But for anyone listening to this that might have gone through a moment of, you know, what, I've had a really tough time.

And we know the data is very evident right now. There's a lot of sellers. That kept missing target. You know, what's, what's, what's one piece of advice you could give them that would help them finish the calendar year with a bit of a, you know, with a bit of a push and start the new new calendar year, fresh revived, and ready to achieve success.

[00:36:38] Tiffani Bova: So I'm gonna answer that two sides to the same coin. The first one, let me start with. Yeah, look, we have been pushing sellers really hard over the last 18 months. Right. If companies sell stuff or make stuff and sell stuff, and if you're not selling stuff, the doors don't stay open. People don't have jobs.

There's a lot of pressure and oh, you know, I don't care. So, you know, you're unlocked down and you're still on lockdown and geez, you know, Melbourne has just opened back up. I think the longest in the world that's been still continued to be locked down. But you've made a lot of progress in the last eight months.

So that's awesome. But if you, if you think about that we want to make sure we're taking care of our people. So as a leader, if you start to see behaviors change from your top performers or, or others in your selling organization, that's out of character, reach out, make sure they're not feeling sort of anxiety and burnout because we've seen it across the board in selling from all corners of the globe.

So as the manager makes sure that you are giving whatever mental health and wellbeing and support they may need. Just to get themselves sort of, you know, stabilized right in. Okay. This has been a really rough 18 months. How do I, you know, kind of reset and that's really management's responsibility to make sure that you're giving people the safety and the space to.

Talk about the things that, that may be really challenging for them. So that's one piece of it on the actual seller side, I'd say, look, I don't need you to do everything. I just described, become a student of your profession. Invest in technology. Like all the things I rattled off overnight. But what I do need you to do, even listening to this podcast is part of becoming a student of your profession.

So how do you do more of that? You know, do you go to Salesforce? Is Trailhead. Do you take trails it's free, it's free training on how to be a better storyteller or how to use technology better? Or what does it mean to write a better email or there's all kinds of things in there that are free. So. Using those resources is one way to remain being a student of the profession.

But also, you know, is it in the look I'm not really relying on technology the way I could maybe I'll try doing this one little thing. One little thing every day. Well, one little thing. I'm going to take a half-hour break every three hours. I'm going to go take a walk around the block, you know, whatever it is.

If you make, oh, a little 1% change every day between now and 12 months from now, it'll look very different. If you try to do it all overnight, it's, especially in this state, we're kind of all in. It's going to be too much. And then you're going to feel like you failed and why am I doing this? And maybe sales isn't for me.

And that's. That, that would be unfortunate, right? That would be unfortunate. So I'd say those would be two sides to the same point managers, make sure you're taking care of your people. They're experiencing high levels of burnout and anxiety and stress on an individual level. Do not, you know, do not feel you have to do everything you're learning and hearing day one that these small little efforts.

But if you have a beginner's mind, if you're open to trying new things each day, even if they don't work. You will be better off for it. 12 months from now.

[00:39:45] Luigi Prestinenzi: You know, this content is amazing content. Because I often talk about Dr. Carol Dweck's book, you know, mindset, the fixed and growth mindset. And I think everything that you've spoken about is about saying, Hey, there's a lot that we can't control, but there's a whole lot I can control.

I can control that commitment just to do that one thing. And that one thing will help me improve every single day, regardless of whether I achieved the outcome I want. Yeah. It's allowing me to achieve that growth. And I think that kind of completely familiar, you know, the things that were in your book, there was so many aha moments that I had thinking to myself, you know what?

I've got to do more of that. And I'm going to add that to my list and I'm going to add something new. So I just want to say, Tiffany, thank you very much for coming on the sales IQ podcast or really appreciate the, the impact that you've had. We have on thousands of sales professionals and businesses.

Your book's amazing. And we're going to put where people can grab your book in the show notes. And just for anyone that does want to reach out and connect you to you, where's the best place for them to find you?

[00:40:43] Tiffani Bova: So I'm really active on social. So follow me on LinkedIn. Follow me on Twitter. You know, I, I tend to balance my content a while.

I'm really known in the sales world, which I'm grateful for. And, and I love being a part of trust me. I, I miss selling every single day, but I get to vicariously sell through all of you. So, you know, if you're successful, I feel like I'm successful. So when you hit quota, I hit quota. It's a win-win for everybody.

But I also talk about these kinds of conversations, right? Growth. Yep. Personal disruption, innovation thinking differently about how you approach problems, you know, how to become a, that sort of better storyteller. What are the ways in which you could separate yourself? Like the conversation is much broader because sales is an art as much as it is a science.

And so. You know, you have to really approach it from both ways, but that's why I wrote Growth IQ and I didn't make it sales IQ. You know, I did because it's, it's not just about sales. Growth is like the backbone of corporate growth is personal growth, personal growth as an individual thing. How do you inspire tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people to change?

Yeah, it's really hard. And so you just have to find a tight network of people, even if it's customers and clients that you can test things with. That'll give you real time feedback. That's where to go to try things out. Don't try it, you know, across everybody, you know, try little things and see what works and doesn't work and make sure it always stays true to you and who you are.

And you'll be successful if you just keep trying. And feeling psychologically safe around having a team that will tell you the truth when they need.

[00:42:16] Luigi Prestinenzi: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, look again. Thanks for coming on the Sales IQ Podcast. And this has been insightful for myself and I know our listeners globally. We'll get a lot out of this, so thank you very much.

[00:42:25] Tiffani Bova: Thank you for having me.