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ISEs3 Ep14: Todd Caponi - Sales History Nerd + Transparency Evangelist @ Sales Melon
Episode 14 • 20th April 2024 • Inside: Sales Enablement • Scott Santucci, Brian Lambert, Erich Starrett
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Welcome to OrchestrateSales.com‘s Inside Sales Enablement Season 3 Enablement History. Where we hop in the Enablement Time machine and explore the past, present, and future of the elevation of a profession.

Mark Twain - the PIONEER of Sales Enablement who empowered a LITERAL customer facing frontline of 10,000!?!!!

On ISEs3 Episode 14, Erich Starrett is out-history-nerded ENTIRELY when he is joined in the Orchestrate Sales studios by Sales Melon's Todd Caponi. Todd is not only an aficionado (and collector!) of SALES history, he is a man on a mission to further a movement towards sales TRANSPARENCY.  This includes authoring a 3x award-winning book (𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦) and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘚𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 that just won its second award recently.

Highlights from the episode include...

PAST:

💬 "If the truth won't sell it, don't sell it." 💬 Arthur Dunn, 1921

⌛️ Todd's first Sales Enablement experience at Exact Target (now Salesforce) began when COO @Andy Kofoid sent him to their NEST - New Employee Sales Training as part of his sales management onboarding. It was so ineffective, he left.  A few months later they asked him to rebuild enablement. He had to Google the word.

⌛️ His search led him to Scott Santucci who had a Forrester event coming up in San Francisco. He attended and sat next to Jill Rowley.

⌛️ He also came across (Dr. Ohio) and flew out to do a few day deep dive with him on adult learning. He brought the combined knowledge back and built a successful, scalable Enablement program for Exact Target.

⌛️ Post $3B acquisition by Salesforce his team used the sale e-learning modules, and recorded role plays (back in 2012!) they had built for their internal team to train all of Salesforce on Exact Target. He was given a shoutout by Mark Beinoff himself.

⌛️ Todd's three core Enablement responsibilities:

1️⃣ Amalgamate: identify and align top 5 CxO priorities

2️⃣ Orchestrate: optimize resources, identify the optimal path to enable the revenue organization to drive the five.

3️⃣ Evaluate: Provide feedback and close the loop.

   💬 "(As a CRO) I always felt my Enablement team had a closer eye into the successes, the failures, the struggles, the strengths, the weaknesses of my team before any of us did. 💬

⌛️ Todd's application of transparency enabled PowerReviews to became Chicago's fastest growing tech company from 2014 to 2017.

PRESENT:

💼 As the economy gets tight, as it gets harder to sell,  you need two things: better sales leadership and better sales enablement. However, the knee jerk reaction - which is happening now - is to train leaders less and downsize enablement because "it's overhead."

   💬 "As things get tougher, those investments need to go up, but ironically, they've gone down historically over and over again." 💬

💼 Today, the "as a service" economy means that closing the deal is no longer the peak. It's the beginning.  You need to create long term value for these customers. And that's that long game helps you win the short game too. Simliar approach to Jacco's Revenue Architecture Bowtie at Winning By Design.

💼 The shift from growth at all costs to long term recurring value is history repeating itself. 1914 to 1923. It was the forgotten depression of the early 1920s.

FUTURE:

🤖 The future of sales is two things.

1️⃣ Going back to a service oriented mindset. "Salesmanship is the science of service." - Arthur Sheldon (1911)

2️⃣ Providing better homework for the buyer. "Buyers know more nowadays" - Thomas Herbert Russell (1912)

🤖 History reveals the risk of "ruining" technology. From the phone, to email, to video, and now #AI.

🤖 Enablement will be needed in the future as long as we embrace a service / value oriented mindset.

   💬 Don't be worried about technology. Just keep doing the right things. Control what you can control. There's always going to be a place for you. And I think it's going to be highly valuable and maybe even more valuable into the future." 💬

Please click 👇🏻, subscribe 📲, listen 🎧 ...and 🎙️ join the conversation! 

ORCHESTRATE Sales!

Erich

#RevenueEngine #DigitalTransformation #ChangeManagement

#RevenueEnablement #Sales Enablement

#AiCuriousHumanEnthusiast

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Transcripts

Erich Starrett:

Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Sales Enablement Season

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Three Enablement History, and joining

Me in the Orchestrate Sales Studios.

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Today is someone who knows a lot

about history, a lot more than me

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sales specifically, but it's Mr.

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Todd Caponi and he is the founder,

speaker, not just speaker, but CSP.

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Certifiably speaker.

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He'll probably share a

little bit about that.

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Amazing to me.

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I didn't know such a thing existed, CSP.

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And he's a workshop leader for his own,

very successful company sales melon.

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In addition to, as I alluded to, he

is the sales history, nerd and host.

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Sounds familiar.

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Just got to add the enablement, right?

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For the sales history podcast.

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And man, Todd's great to meet you.

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We had a pretty fun pre show and we

were like, we got to start recording.

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This is gold.

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So Todd, anything I missed before we dive

into the questions, you've got such a

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broad, deep and wide history, my friend.

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Todd Caponi: Now it's funny.

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I when cool people are doing cool

things on the weekends, I'm digging

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into late 1800s, early 1900s books

on sales and sales management.

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I've got, I'm building

basically a museum for sales.

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I've got triggers set up and eBay and all

kinds of places, anything that comes up.

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I'm buying it and like my wife and

family are saints for putting up with,

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it smells like the deepest corner of

grandma's basement in here from all

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the musty books in here, but I love it.

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Erich Starrett: That's great.

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And for those of you who can't

see the visual we do in fact have

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an entire library of phenomenal

books, including two of his own.

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I don't think I mentioned

author among those.

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And he is the author of both the

transparency sale and looking to click

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up to the sometimes forgotten leader

of sales, the transparent sales leader.

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So I'm sure we'll get to a little

bit of more of that in a minute,

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but let's start off Todd with okay.

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Sales history.

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Where did sales enablement come in?

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Todd Caponi: It's funny.

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I'm going to share a quick story

for you because it's one of the most

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amazing stories I'd ever heard about.

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You call it sales training,

you call it sales enablement,

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call it whatever you want.

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We all have probably heard

of Mark Twain, right?

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Mark Twain, the author of the

adventures of Tom Sawyer, the

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adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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And then you may have heard of a U

S president Ulysses S Grant, right?

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So Ulysses S Grant, war hero, president.

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When you're the president back

then, you didn't get a pension.

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There was no 401k.

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He had made some good money.

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Him and his son connected up with

another guy and they created like

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a wall street investment firm.

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That other guy turned out to be a

crook, absolute crook of the worst kind.

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Ulysses S grant 1884 had

lost all of his money.

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None of it.

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He also smoked like 60 cigars a

day and ended up getting diagnosed

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with terminal throat cancer.

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Yeah.

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And so he's sitting there and he's

listen, I want to write my memoirs.

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I need to be able to leave

some money for my family.

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What am I going to do?

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He signs on with a publishing

firm that didn't give him

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the best terms in the world.

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Mark Twain considered Ulysses

X Grant to be an absolute hero.

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Jumps in and it's wait, I will

publish this book for you.

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I will do, I'll put together programs.

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I will do this.

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And Ulysses X Grant's I already signed.

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I'm like no.

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You can get out of that.

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Come with me.

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Mark Twain then helps him.

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So Ulysses S.

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Grant writes morning, noon,

night on his deathbed.

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There's pictures of him, curled

up in he's shaking doing this,

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he's dying, he gets the book done.

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In the meantime, Mark Twain

creates a publishing house.

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He finds 10, 000 people

to go sell this book.

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And most of them were

former pieces of Ulysses S.

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Grant's military.

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He taught

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Erich Starrett: a true

customer facing frontline.

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Todd Caponi: absolutely and enabled

them all to go door to door.

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He created something called

selling the memoirs of Ulysses S.

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Grant.

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These 10, 000 go door to door.

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They're taught exactly how to message

this, how to do it all in the end.

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The book comes out.

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He dies somewhere between

three and seven days later.

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All right, but within the next year, Mark

Twain was able to hand his widow a check

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that in today's terms would be 12 million.

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Erich Starrett: Holy sucker.

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Todd Caponi: is, and I consider it the

first true product launch enablement

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program that is done, and this is 1885.

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And some of those stories that

I see and I hear, I'm like, Man,

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people got to hear these stories.

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Who would ever have associated

Mark Twain with being a pioneer for

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sales enablement and product launch.

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But there we go.

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Ulysses S.

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Grant at the time was that book

was the second highest selling

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book of all time behind the Bible.

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Amazing.

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And there's more from a history

perspective, by the way, we

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can dig into people like I'm

a big fan of john Patterson.

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You may have heard of him, Patterson

was really his the way his brain worked.

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He created so much of the foundational

structures of what we use still today.

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First dedicated territories, first quotas.

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He did the first sales kickoff in 1887.

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And I've got some of

the details around that.

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His brother in law created a play,

a sales handbook for the team.

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It was called the NCR primer at the time.

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It was how I sell NCR cash registers.

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That was written in 1925 on

Patterson and it is fantastic.

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Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

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What great story already.

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So that's the first time in history,

arguably with sales enablement.

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How about the first time

you heard those two words?

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Todd Caponi: When I first got my

first sales leadership role in

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2008, My lens was always, Hey,

listen, everybody, we're peers.

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Like I'm nobody's boss.

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But we have different

responsibilities and you help me.

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I help you.

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This is what we're going to do.

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And one of the ways I'm going to help

you is I'm going to try to make you

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better at what you do when you walk out

of here than when you are right now.

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That was always my lens.

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I ended up going to a

company called Exact Target.

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That's an email marketing

unicorn at the time.

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If you want to call it that based

in Indianapolis, I was one of the

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four people running the country.

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So I had a big region, most like the

central region and then half of Canada.

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Erich Starrett: Wow.

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Todd Caponi: I got hired, my boss,

this guy, Andy was like, Todd.

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When you get here you're going to

attend something called nest, which

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is new employee sales training.

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And Todd, I know you, you're

going to hate it, right?

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Like you're going to, but you

got to go through it, take notes.

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If you can come back and coach us a

little bit on what we can be doing better.

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All right.

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And he did warn me.

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Erich Starrett: Don't

leave the nest, Todd.

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Todd Caponi: he is not only don't

leave the nest, but don't take it over.

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I didn't make it.

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By the first Thursday.

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This is not going where I went

back, I met with him, met with our

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guy that was running ops, and I was

like, guys, if we're scaling this

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company like I'm gonna be hiring reps.

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I can't have 'em go through this.

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This is just, it's broken.

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Fast forward a few months.

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I'm running the region.

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We're doing really well.

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They tap me on the shoulder

and they're like, Todd, we

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want you to rebuild enablement.

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It doesn't matter the cost.

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Just go.

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We've got to be prepared for this.

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We're taking these big rounds of funding.

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And so we want you to run

enablement and that sounds like fun.

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That's cool.

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And then I left and I was like, all

right, Google, what is enablement?

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What is this word?

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I literally never heard

the word enablement before.

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And the people that come came

up, people like Scott Santucci.

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And he had an event coming up in.

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California in San

Francisco Forrester event.

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I remember him walking out.

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He's got his like Superman shirt

on under a sport coat and sat

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next to Jill Rowley, who's another

classic enablement professional.

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Erich Starrett: Jill

shows up every episode.

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I love it.

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Of course you sat next to her.

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Todd Caponi: And I learned I soaked

in as much as I possibly could

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there about what enablement is.

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And then when I got back to the office, I

had a revelation through a friend of mine.

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Who had told me about a guy in Columbus,

Ohio, who had a doctorate in just

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adult learning and how people learn.

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I was like let's go spend a half a

day with this guy and just soak it up.

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We did.

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And then came back with kind of a

new chart for how enablement should

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be run to be of the scale at that

level, all adhering to how the brain

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takes in information, truly learns

and truly is able to apply it.

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And it turned out to be a raging success.

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We got acquired in 2013 and it was

one of the things that went really

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well post acquisition was making

sure that we were able to enable Mark

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Benioff and his 2000 salespeople.

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As quickly as possible to figure out

what they just spent 3 billion on.

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Erich Starrett: A little bird

told me, in fact, speaking of Mr.

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B himself, He had a nice word or

three to share with you on a kickoff

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call in the combined companies.

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Todd Caponi: Yeah, it was one of

those proud moments . We had these

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conference calls where all the

leaders were on Europe, like all the

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sales leaders, enablement leaders,

operations, they would talk about

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Hey, how's comp planning going?

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It's a disaster.

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How's operation?

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It's horrible.

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How's enablement planning going?

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Listen, we got to get these 2000 reps

speaking the exact target language

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in the next, you got 60 days.

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And I was like, I don't want to sound

arrogant, but I could do it in 15, right?

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Cause we had it all.

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We had created these on demand e

learning modules that we could just

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turn into their LMS and they could start

taking the classes right away and start

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getting familiar with the language.

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We were doing recorded role plays.

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Using your webcam back in, 2012.

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We found a company that was doing

it for recruiting and we're like,

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could you do it for enablement?

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During that call I took everybody

through that and one of the things

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like Benioff said was wow Like

enablements the one thing that seems

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like it's going really well thank you.

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Erich Starrett: That's the

exposure to sales enablement.

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What about the society itself?

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You shared that your first encounter

with Scott who ended up founding

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the society not too long thereafter.

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But the sales enablement society

now revenue enablement society.

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Have you been a part of that?

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What's your history there?

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Todd Caponi: Not a whole lot.

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I've been familiar with it.

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I remember back then, there was some.

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But there was some like

enablement heroes at that thing.

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I learned so much from those people

and I've always kept close with Scott

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over the years and I love what they're

building and these communities for

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sales enablers, they're so important.

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So one of my books back here from

like:

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idea that as the economy gets tight, as it

gets harder to sell, you need two things.

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You need better sales leadership

and better sales enablement.

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They didn't use the word enablement.

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You need both.

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Now, what tends to happen

when the economy tightens?

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For whatever reason, our subconscious

knee jerk reaction is, Hey,

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let's train our leaders less.

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Like they, they just got to get to work.

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We don't have money to

be training leaders.

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And number two is let's downsize our

enablement because that's overhead.

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That's insane to me.

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Like that to me is the

craziest thing that we know.

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That as things get tougher, those

investments need to go up, but

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ironically, they've gone down

historically over and over again.

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We've seen it again recently.

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And those sales enablement societies are

just such great opportunities for the

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people that are in those roles to find

each other, to find the roles to up level

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so that reputation goes away as it should.

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Erich Starrett: Those are great points.

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Todd and 1 of the things that I'm

hearing consistently, in fact, coming

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out of the digital now conference in

Chicago with corporate visions and

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Emblaze and the revenue enablement

society as a partner, by the way.

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The main theme for enablement was

having a seat at the CRO table,

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CXO table, being able to speak CRO.

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Todd Caponi: in my second book that

you mentioned, the transparent sales

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leader, I've got a section that I

talk about enablement for leaders

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because there's this always been this

misnomer of what the role is really.

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Designed to be.

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This idea that, Oh,

enablement, that's training.

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All right.

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Maybe a little, but I tried to break

down the responsibilities in the

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book, also with my enablement teams.

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When I left exact target, I went to a

company called power reviews in Chicago.

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I was their CRO and, it was immediately a

fight with my CEO, a guy named Matt Vogue.

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Matt had an old school perspective of

enablement And so I had to go in and

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really fight for what needed to happen.

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I broke it down into three

core responsibilities.

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First of all, the first responsibility

the word I used amalgamate meant that

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I wanted my enablement leader to go and

constantly survey our leaders and figure

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out what our priorities needed to be right

and go amalgamate all of that, right?

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Because everybody's got different issues.

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Look for those consistencies, look for the

things and then we're going to prioritize

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them and then we're going to go.

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They're going to enablement leader is

going to sit down with me and a couple

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of my lieutenants and we are going to

create a priority of top five Right?

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Here's the five things that

we are going to accomplish.

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Now, as the random crap pops up.

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I needed to empower that enablement

leader to your point about sitting

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at the table with the CRO to be

able to say, Hey, you need that.

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All right, cool.

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Which one of these five is

going to come out then and to be

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able to have that conversation.

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Then the number two responsibility

was the word orchestrate.

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Which meant I didn't need my enablement

person to be the trainer, right?

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They're not always the

best person to do it.

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The classroom's not always the best way.

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And so orchestrate was based on

that priority, putting together

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plans to orchestrate what needs

to happen in the most optimal way.

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And that's, through people it's e

learning versus books versus classroom.

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Like we need to figure that out

for each one, put together a plan

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and find the best people for it.

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One of the guys that I

hired at exact target.

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His name was Steve.

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He was a super nerd and he

was not afraid to be a jerk.

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He's a self made dude.

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He didn't even need a job.

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He just liked doing this.

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And so little funny story.

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We'd have product come

in and teach a class.

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And so product would come

in with all their slides.

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And Steve would be like, we're

going to go through these first.

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We're going to optimize them.

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And the product is guys like they

need to learn all of this stuff.

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And Steve would be like

then you're not teaching.

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He wasn't afraid to tell

him this is garbage.

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These 40 slides.

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They only need these five.

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We're going to X those out.

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We're going to opt like he was

awesome and people hated them.

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And I think they still talk

about what Steve guy, dude,

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but it was fricking great.

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But that was orchestrated, optimizing

the path of getting those priorities

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into the brains, into the actions

of our revenue organization.

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And then number three was evaluate, right?

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I always felt my enablement team

had a closer eye into The successes,

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the failures, the struggles,

the strengths, the weaknesses

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of my team before any of us did.

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Even new managers hiring a new rep, my

enablement team could see that before

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the manager themselves could see that.

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And I needed to be able to create a

mechanism so that they had a seat at

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the table to say, Hey, She's awesome.

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That dude sucks, right?

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And be able to do that in a way so

that we could see those holes before

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they formed and became canyons.

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So amalgamate, orchestrate, evaluate.

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That was the role.

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And once we really got that nailed

down, things started to get controlled.

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We were hitting the priorities that

we needed to, and we were seeing

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those holes before they formed.

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:

So that's my rant on what

enablement is and how it always

329

:

worked in our organizations.

330

:

Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

331

:

And in the orchestrate piece , you

said across the revenue organization.

332

:

What does that mean?

333

:

Todd Caponi: Yeah.

334

:

When you see things on LinkedIn or

whatever about sales has changed so

335

:

much, the buyer knows so much more.

336

:

No, they don't.

337

:

Like most of what is said

about how sales has changed.

338

:

Trust me, it's incorrect, right?

339

:

Like buyers know more

nowadays, those four words.

340

:

1912 Thomas Herbert Russell's

book, Salesmanship, referring to

341

:

the fact that we had catalogs.

342

:

Nobody can see this, but this is a

:

343

:

is essentially Amazon, right?

344

:

Like you could buy, there's a department

of human hair if you need any human

345

:

hair, but it's got like tractor, you

could buy everything in here, right?

346

:

This is Amazon 1908.

347

:

Buyers have always had access to

more information than salespeople

348

:

felt comfortable with, right?

349

:

What do they need us for?

350

:

More information available to

buyers has not made it easier.

351

:

It's made it harder, always.

352

:

And salespeople doing right by customers

focused on a service oriented mindset

353

:

where we're helping them achieve optimal

outcomes, things maybe they thought

354

:

they couldn't even achieve, whether

it's with us or with somebody else.

355

:

As fast as possible that

is always the goal, right?

356

:

So that part of sales hasn't really

changed buyers doing more homework

357

:

before they talk to the rep.

358

:

I got a story of 1926 where they would

have basically interns call companies and

359

:

ask for catalogs so executives can read

the catalogs and not be bothered, right?

360

:

That's always been the same.

361

:

What has changed the as

a service economy, right?

362

:

That back when I started in sales, we

were, you get the deal and good luck.

363

:

See ya.

364

:

And then if they had a complaint,

what are they going to do?

365

:

Write a letter, call an 800

number, like talk to their four

366

:

friends that have, who cares?

367

:

Today, the as a service economy means

that the deal is no longer the peak.

368

:

It's basically an early milestone to

having customers that stay, that buy,

369

:

stay, buy more and become advocates for

you and take you with them to their next

370

:

company, which again, there's a lot more

ent now than there was in the:

371

:

And so you need to create long

term value for these customers.

372

:

And that's that long game helps

you win the short game too.

373

:

And so my client success team needed to

be an extension of everything because

374

:

they were actually more important than

my new business team, not less important.

375

:

So I always looked at sales client

success Hey, we need to be all doing

376

:

this together and all in lockstep.

377

:

As a matter of fact, client success,

you're going to hate sitting next

378

:

to our sales team, but you're going

to do it because they're obnoxious.

379

:

But you're like, we need us

to all be like, like this.

380

:

When I think about enablement, it was

uplift everybody together and create those

381

:

connections and make sure that there's,

consistency in everything we're doing

382

:

because that long game wins the long

game, but it also wins the short game too.

383

:

Erich Starrett: Yeah.

384

:

And it sounds a lot like

revenue architecture.

385

:

I'm a big fan of Jacco -over

at Winning By Designs -bowtie.

386

:

Let's turn the funnel on its side.

387

:

You literally had that going on in real

life where that demarcation point, that's

388

:

the middle of the funnel turned on its

side, which is, Hey, we signed a deal now

389

:

goes over to the other side of the floor.

390

:

Literally the baton is passed

physically in the office.

391

:

I love that visual over to now

we need to get that first impact

392

:

and make sure that transparently

everything we shared comes true.

393

:

We show that impact and now it's

recurring impact and we keep turning

394

:

them through that right hand side

of the bow tie and customer success.

395

:

And maybe even it goes back across

the aisle and you bring sales back in.

396

:

Todd Caponi: Yeah, exactly.

397

:

For our deals maybe not with the smallest

deals, but some of our, mid to larger,

398

:

there was basically a requirement before

a contract could be signed that client

399

:

success was a part of the deal there,

at least for the last parts of it to

400

:

make sure that there's pure alignment.

401

:

Like my favorite sales quote of all time.

402

:

A guy named Arthur Dunn, his book,

Scientific Selling and Advertising,

403

:

the year is 1921, and his quote is

simply, and there's a whole page

404

:

dedicated to this one sentence.

405

:

So you're reading the book, there's a

page, it's blank, it's got one sentence

406

:

on it, and the sentence just says this,

if the truth won't sell it, don't sell it.

407

:

Right?

408

:

I like, it's a beautiful line,

:

409

:

had to drive in our organizations.

410

:

Again, in this as a service economy.

411

:

If you need to lie to get a

deal done, you probably should

412

:

go find another job, right?

413

:

That's the reputation that goes along,

like the blow horn by which people

414

:

can share negative experiences means

that maybe you get that one deal,

415

:

but it costs you four that you never

knew existed because they're hearing

416

:

in the back channels about how you

suck and they're not coming to you.

417

:

One other little semi rant that sales

leaders need to pay attention to.

418

:

When I was a revenue or sales leader,

one of the things that I would look to

419

:

my team for one of the metrics was, Hey,

listen, at all times, You need to have

420

:

four X, your quota and pipeline, right?

421

:

That old four X you got to have.

422

:

And so that's like the bow tie being

a big floppy one, like a clown.

423

:

And so what we ended up

doing is we'd measure to it.

424

:

And what would happen?

425

:

My reps would fill their pipelines with

four X, the quota filled with crap.

426

:

And we'd lose slowly.

427

:

We'd hang on to deals that

we shouldn't be working.

428

:

And our most valuable asset that we

can convert to revenue is our time.

429

:

What are we doing?

430

:

And so that's a lot of where this

transparency element comes into is we

431

:

need to reveal what we give up to be great

at our core early, like a pricing range.

432

:

If you're talking about a six figure

deal to a four figure buyer, One

433

:

of you is in the wrong room, like

you better figure that out, right?

434

:

And we need to clear that out so that

big clowny bowtie becomes more like a

435

:

cylinder and then spews out at the end.

436

:

That that's the ultimate.

437

:

And I think enablement plays

just such a key role in that.

438

:

And it starts with leadership.

439

:

A lot of our measures drive

the wrong behaviors and we

440

:

need to wind that back up.

441

:

Erich Starrett: Yeah.

442

:

And so that evolution that

you did naturally enabling

443

:

the customer service group.

444

:

We've seen chief sales officer

to chief revenue officer.

445

:

We've seen sales ops to rev ops.

446

:

And now we've seen sales enablement

to revenue enablement society.

447

:

Todd Caponi: That's a natural evolution

to the one big thing that has changed

448

:

in the world of sales, which is the

long game of everything as a service.

449

:

Product as a service.

450

:

Sales as service.

451

:

Services, as a service, like whatever.

452

:

If you're not focused on long

term value of your customer.

453

:

You're going to lose.

454

:

And my business today, I do keynotes.

455

:

I do workshops for lots of companies.

456

:

I had been almost solely tech companies

and now my business is about 50, 50

457

:

tech and then outside of tech, the

tech world seems to get it right.

458

:

The outside of tech world

seems to be a little behind.

459

:

We're getting them across

that chasm that it's not.

460

:

Hey, sell the deal and deal

with the consequences later.

461

:

It's we need to think about revenue,

the revenue names in all the things that

462

:

we're doing and look across all elements.

463

:

And make sure that we're creating

these long term value customers because

464

:

that's where the profitability comes in.

465

:

And otherwise, it's just not sustainable.

466

:

I'd love your opinion on that.

467

:

Erich Starrett: Yeah, to me, it's

been fascinating that I've really only

468

:

delved into the SAS space and startup

space over the last four or five years.

469

:

I've spent a lot of my career

knocking down silos in businesses

470

:

that have already been built, a

lot of which have stood for years.

471

:

You have the opposite effect when

you have these greenfield companies

472

:

where there's are there's a natural

no walls, but they start to build up.

473

:

So there's still that opportunity

to orchestrate cross functionally

474

:

and to build that design.

475

:

But exactly to your point of what I've

been seeing the last few years have been

476

:

a trend towards growth at all costs.

477

:

Without really thinking about how do we

keep that recurring impact that recurring

478

:

revenue and that has changed seemingly

to me overnight and especially in the

479

:

sass space they're like the lightning rod

for that because of how dependent they

480

:

are on that recurring revenue there are

huge changes in the go to market motions

481

:

down to hiring individual positions.

482

:

Todd Caponi: Yeah, it's history

repeating itself, literally.

483

:

If you look at this is nerdy, but

if you look at the period of:

484

:

1923, we are in 1923 right now, because

:

485

:

1914 to 1917, you had slow and

steady, like regular growth, right?

486

:

It was good.

487

:

It was a strong economy.

488

:

We lived that basically 2017 to

:

489

:

The economy shut off in 1918

when we went into world war one.

490

:

Like just shut the, like off

manufacturing, stop, take everybody,

491

:

throw them to the war effort.

492

:

But we didn't stay in world war one

long and the economy opened back

493

:

up pretty quickly and then took off

exactly like mid:

494

:

where you had high turnover, voluntary

turnover among sales reps, literally

495

:

in 1919, salesperson turnover was 65

percent and it was largely voluntary.

496

:

As reps went chasing money, like they'd

go to a job and then go to another

497

:

job, go to another job because there

were so many jobs and not enough people

498

:

and money was pouring into sales.

499

:

Then what happened?

500

:

Inflation spike, inflation

went up and I saw this in:

501

:

I wrote an article February 2nd, 2022

saying, Here ye, hear ye, the end is near!

502

:

And people were like, shut up, Todd.

503

:

You don't know what you're talking about.

504

:

There's too much private equity.

505

:

Okay, Inflation spiked.

506

:

And sure enough, in March

of:

507

:

And then what happened?

508

:

The bottom dropped out.

509

:

1921.

510

:

You had 77 percent salesperson turnover.

511

:

Almost all involuntary 1922, 85 percent

salesperson turnover in companies

512

:

were purging their sales organizations

because the economy had dropped out.

513

:

It was the forgotten

depression of the early:

514

:

Now that's exactly what

happened in:

515

:

Where we suddenly, we had this dip

and all of a sudden you'd saw across

516

:

SAS and tech, like salespeople

getting purged everywhere, and

517

:

then it slowly starts to come out.

518

:

When we go from revenue at all costs.

519

:

1919 early 1920 to depressionary

recessionary to Profitable growth.

520

:

Guess what though?

521

:

We're going to do it again, dude.

522

:

Like we're gonna we're gonna start

going back to revenue at all costs.

523

:

It's going to happen What I hope

t happen is that we don't hit:

524

:

here which was the start of the Great

Depression that lasted almost 10 years.

525

:

We got to make sure that we learn

these lessons But right now we're

526

:

in this profitable growth stage

hat we experienced exactly In:

527

:

it lasted for a couple of years.

528

:

And then we started to

get a little shady again.

529

:

And we had the roaring twenties later

on the:

530

:

Erich Starrett: I don't know

that a whole lot of us can

531

:

wait 15 years for that, Todd.

532

:

So

533

:

Todd Caponi: Exactly.

534

:

Erich Starrett: I'm cheering for the

light at the end of the tunnel is the

535

:

actual end of the tunnel coming up here.

536

:

Todd Caponi: Yeah.

537

:

Let's hope that we just continue

to be smart about profitable

538

:

growth and get back into.

539

:

A sustained period of

time where that matters.

540

:

But man, when you shut off an economy,

it's like you took a pendulum and you

541

:

pulled it and then you released it, right?

542

:

So it's off and then it swings and then

swings and it takes a while to get back.

543

:

And then we're here.

544

:

But if somebody shuts it off

again, we're bound to have the

545

:

same situation happen again.

546

:

God willing, let's hope

that doesn't happen.

547

:

Erich Starrett: Yeah, perfect timing.

548

:

Cause we're rounding the corner here

and shifting from past to present.

549

:

Anything else specific to transparency,

the title of both your books, right?

550

:

Todd Caponi: The concept of transparency?

551

:

Like I said, Arthur done 1921

talking about honesty, right?

552

:

Transparency is an overused word.

553

:

Here was the trigger for me.

554

:

I was the chief revenue officer

of PowerReviews here in Chicago.

555

:

We're a reviews company, right?

556

:

So You've probably experienced it before.

557

:

Retailers, brands, you go to crocs.

558

:

com.

559

:

You're looking at a product,

scroll down, there's reviews.

560

:

There's us doing the collect and

display for them and a thousand

561

:

other retailers and brands.

562

:

A few years ago, we partnered with

Northwestern University here in Chicago.

563

:

When a website's acting as a

salesperson, what do people do?

564

:

That was the study, right?

565

:

Had nothing to do with outside

sales, or so I thought.

566

:

It came back with three data points.

567

:

Thanks.

568

:

Two of which changed my life

like it only happened to a nerd.

569

:

The one data point that didn't

change my life was that we

570

:

all read reviews today, right?

571

:

The number now is there's 99

percent of us when we're buying

572

:

something we haven't bought before.

573

:

We're going to do our homework, right?

574

:

But here's the two that changed my life.

575

:

And again, this is what a

website's acting as a salesperson.

576

:

Number one, we're up over 85 percent

of us read the negative reviews first.

577

:

We skip the fives, we read the

fours, threes, twos, and ones first.

578

:

Most of us, when we're reading reviews,

we'll go read the negatives before

579

:

we go read the glowing positives.

580

:

And the last data point, and this

number is skewed a little bit since

581

:

the original research, but the original

research said that a product with

582

:

an average review score between a 4.

583

:

2 and a 4.

584

:

5 on a five point scale That's optimal

for purchase conversion, meaning that

585

:

a product that is negative reviews

right under it sells at a higher

586

:

conversion rate than a product that is

nothing but perfect five star reviews.

587

:

Products with perfect five star reviews

sell at about the same conversion

588

:

rate as a product that's got a 3.

589

:

25, which sucks.

590

:

And so I looked at that and I was like,

wow, that's, why does that happen?

591

:

And then I looked at my sales team.

592

:

It was about 60 strong at the time.

593

:

And I'm like, we've been

teaching these reps to basically

594

:

present our solutions as 5.

595

:

0.

596

:

And hope the customer doesn't find out.

597

:

And maybe should we be the

ones doing that homework?

598

:

Should we lead with what we

give up to be great at our core?

599

:

Our biggest competitor is bigger,

stronger, publicly held, better logos.

600

:

Why would we wait?

601

:

Let's share.

602

:

Where we are.

603

:

And if they're not cool with that,

let's take that most important

604

:

asset we have to convert to revenue,

which is our time and optimize it.

605

:

And so we started leading with what

we gave up to be great at our core,

606

:

whether it's technology, whether it's

something like our pricing model.

607

:

Like I said, if you're talking about

a six figure deal to a four figure

608

:

buyer, one of you is in the wrong

conversation, figure that out now.

609

:

And suddenly magic happened.

610

:

Win rates went up.

611

:

Cycle lengths shrunk considerably.

612

:

Our qualification in was better.

613

:

Our qualification out was faster.

614

:

And we disarmed our competitors.

615

:

They couldn't message against us

because we already did it, right?

616

:

And we became Chicago's fastest

growing tech company from:

617

:

Now, sure it feels good

to be transparent, right?

618

:

But my argument is you got

to do it anyway today, right?

619

:

The blow horn by which people can share

their experiences, they can do their

620

:

own homework when you're coming in five

Oh speak and hope they don't find out.

621

:

And they do trust erodes when

rates go down, that status

622

:

quo loss number goes way up.

623

:

I believe that the future

of sales is two things.

624

:

Number one is going back to that

service oriented mindset that we're

625

:

providing a service to our customers.

626

:

Arthur Sheldon in his 1911

book, which is right here.

627

:

This is a fricking beauty.

628

:

His, my favorite quote

in this book is true.

629

:

Salesmanship is the science of service.

630

:

Grasp that thought firmly

and never let go, right?

631

:

We need to get back to that.

632

:

And then number two is we've got to

have this long game thinking about

633

:

doing the homework for the buyer.

634

:

Remember, as Thomas Herbert Russell

said, buyers know more nowadays in

635

:

1912, while they know it more now,

and that hasn't been good for buyers.

636

:

It's been bad.

637

:

Do the homework for the

buyer, lead with it.

638

:

And you'll find that all that

magic starts to happen and

639

:

you'll have customers for life.

640

:

Erich Starrett: Love it.

641

:

Let's go future.

642

:

What's next.

643

:

In the enablement evolution?

644

:

Where do you see this thing going?

645

:

Todd Caponi: Throughout history,

we've taken every piece of technology

646

:

and we've ruined it as salespeople.

647

:

Right behind me, there

is a phone from:

648

:

It is a old cathedral phone from

the Swedish American company.

649

:

The telephone, when we talk about

like sales technology and we're

650

:

in a sales technology revolution.

651

:

Okay, cool.

652

:

But yeah, The greatest one happened

th of,:

653

:

notorious AGB, Alexander Graham Bell,

made the first telephone call, right?

654

:

By the 1910s, it was becoming pervasive,

and it truly changed everything in sales.

655

:

And by the mid 1920s, we had ruined it.

656

:

Like we had created, we've gotten

blinded by scale and we use the

657

:

technology for evil instead of good.

658

:

We needed technologies

created to prevent its usage.

659

:

And then, AGB would be rolling over

in his grave if he knew that the Do

660

:

Not Call registry as of two years ago

had 221 million phone numbers in it.

661

:

We screwed that up, right?

662

:

The government had to get involved.

663

:

We did the same with email, my LinkedIn

connection requests, dude, they make

664

:

you want to like, it's they're terrible.

665

:

Like we started ruining video.

666

:

I'd get these video outreaches from

people that are like, hello, you.

667

:

Your background's really impressive.

668

:

And they'd have in the background, like

my LinkedIn pro gosh, stop ruining it,.

669

:

AI, like AI is now all the rage.

670

:

Oh my gosh, it's going

to change everything.

671

:

We're going to ruin it.

672

:

Like we're going to figure out ways to

use it best, but there's going to be

673

:

a percentage of people that ruin it.

674

:

But my future lens is this.

675

:

We are all going to be

needed in the future.

676

:

If we continue to embrace

that service oriented mindset.

677

:

Enablement professionals, if you're

creating that and optimizing that

678

:

service oriented mindset throughout

your revenue organizations that you

679

:

help and that you aid and you help

achieve optimal outcomes with, there

680

:

will always be a place for you.

681

:

You will always be valuable.

682

:

You're in a great profession.

683

:

And when we're doing things right,

it should feel really good too.

684

:

And my perspective is don't

be worried about technology.

685

:

Just keep doing the right things.

686

:

Control what you can control.

687

:

There's always going

to be a place for you.

688

:

And I think it's going to be

highly valuable and maybe even

689

:

more valuable into the future.

690

:

Erich Starrett: love that.

691

:

What a great note to end on and i'll

double down on it through a Hashtag

692

:

I threw together at some point which

is AI curious human enthusiast And

693

:

through the lens of what an awesome

opportunity for enablement to both

694

:

in their own role, get rid of the

administrivia with the robots, right?

695

:

Lean into that, help sales do

the same so they can focus on

696

:

that relationship building.

697

:

And the additional bonus to

me is to lean into back to the

698

:

Santucci and the S on his chest.

699

:

What your superpower, what is your

unique human being superpower?

700

:

If you can take the administrivia off

their table and focus on what makes you

701

:

special and unique, it's empowering!

702

:

Todd Caponi: For me personally,

like before I do a discovery.

703

:

I used to go read review

sites for whatever the company

704

:

is that I'm gonna go talk to.

705

:

I look at the reviews.

706

:

I'd read them all.

707

:

I'd try to create an impression of my mind

that you know what the pros and cons are.

708

:

Now I just go to AI and go under

what circumstances is company name

709

:

a good fit under what circumstances

is company name not a good fit.

710

:

And then it would give me 200

words on both and I'd be prepped.

711

:

That's fantastic.

712

:

There was one of my customers, they

compete with another company all the time.

713

:

I went into chat GPT and I wrote,

if I worked for competitor name, how

714

:

would I message against my client.

715

:

It came up with a whole playbook, right?

716

:

That's amazing.

717

:

That's so valuable that can be used

for good, not evil, good, not evil.

718

:

Not scale.

719

:

I think the word scale is a dirty

word when it's thought about in

720

:

terms of, hey, let's just more

monkeys and more typewriters.

721

:

Think about, optimizing everything

you do again, to your point about

722

:

superpowers, like what's our role?

723

:

Our role is to help customers achieve

optimal outcomes as quickly as

724

:

possible with us or with somebody else.

725

:

That's our job to help be their Sherpa.

726

:

Use AI to help make sure that

you're able to provide that kind

727

:

of consulting and advisory to those

customers as quickly as possible.

728

:

It's all there for the taking.

729

:

I think that's a great opportunity.

730

:

Don't ruin it.

731

:

Do all of the above transparently

732

:

Exactly,

733

:

Erich Starrett: Awesome, Todd.

734

:

Thanks so much for your time.

735

:

We'd love to have you back

at some point in the future.

736

:

. Todd Caponi: You've only touched the

surface of my nerdery, my brother.

737

:

Erich Starrett: And that's a

great reminder to the audience.

738

:

Be sure to not only follow Todd,

click into his YouTube channel.

739

:

He's got a lot of entertaining

stuff out there and of course

740

:

his podcast and get both books.

741

:

I'm only halfway through the

first one and it is a mother load

742

:

of thoughtfulness, not only on

transparency, but on sales mastery.

743

:

So again, Todd, thanks

so much for your time.

744

:

Any parting words?

745

:

Todd Caponi: It's been a pleasure.

746

:

This has been a blast

face hurts from smiling.

747

:

Thanks for having me on.

748

:

Erich Starrett: Back at you, Todd.

749

:

Appreciate you, man.

750

:

Talk soon.

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