Sales is a complex industry, so leaning on the wisdom of others is essential to avoid potholes and succeed more efficiently. Let's get started.

In this episode Luigi is joined by Nicholas Thickett, Managing Partner at Alignd, and Co-Host of the B2B Power Hour Podcast. First they explore the hazards of the industry (burnout, economic conditions) and the unexpected opportunities you can discover within them. Then they switch into tactical mode to cover taping into your buyer's vision using insight, why you should be multi-threading, how to determine what you should research, and using GIFs to help make you human.

🔗 LINKS

Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or listen to him on the B2B Power Hour podcast.

Connect with Luigi on LinkedIn.

Sell more with the Create Pipeline course here, or join the Sales IQ Community here.

Welcome back to another episode of the Sales IQ podcast, pumped that you have joined us this week. And I just wanna say I'm sorry that we haven't been as consistent with our podcast, I've been traveling. I've been out there, I've been in a couple of different continents, working with salespeople, attending some conferences, catching up with old friends because we haven't been able to travel for such a long time.

I thought I'd get back out there and it was in. And it's, it's allowed me to really come back with a strong sense of what's possible. And this last quarter is gonna be a banging quarter. And I hope you are also feeling that energy that this last quarter for the calendar year is gonna be a great quarter for you.

But you might be saying, Hang on, luigi, you're saying the last quarter's gonna be incredible. People losing their jobs. We we're seeing, you know, all these negative news, the market's getting a bit tighter. How can I be excited about the next quarter, about the last quarter of this calendar year? And you know what, I have asked myself that question.

I'm like, you know, how can I look at the positive when there are certain negatives happening? And what I loved about the trip that I went away is it really made me feel and made me recognize once again, There are so many things that we can control. If we focus on what we can't control, it will ultimately impact our performance.

And yes, in a world where things might be getting tougher, there is still an abundance of opportunity out there if you make a choice to go out there and chase it. And that's why I'm excited to share this week's episode because we are gonna talk about a few different tangents and talk a little bit about rethinking, rewiring.

Being more intentional about the way in which we go to market, and I'm gonna record a solo episode this weekend and put out next week. We might put out a couple of episodes just to catch up, just to make sure we're giving you the content that you need to be the best you can be. But I'm gonna talk a little bit about when times start to get tough.

You know, it can make things harder from you, from a sales perspective, but this is where, and this is why I wanna record an episode for you and, and put some content out there around this particular topic, you know, selling in tough times, for example, is because this is where your intentions are really, really important.

Doubling down on the fundamentals and getting the basics in in place is what's gonna help you. Work through any challenging environment. Right? So we won't go too much detail today, but I'm, I'm just letting you know we'll put this out there next week.

"So, my name's Ellis, I work at DocuSign as an ABR. And the reason I started Sales IQ was because I really needed that guidance and that training to make sure that the outreach that I was doing was hitting the nail on the head. So I was lucky enough to start the program early on in this role and since then I've been pretty successful and last quarter I finished on a 185%. So I've seen some huge results by adopting the principles."

Our next cohort is starting soon. So to learn more, go to www.salesiqglobal.com, or if you have a team of sellers, talk to us about our in-house offering. Control your pipeline, control your destiny, with Sales IQ.

So getting to this episode, take what you need, get your notes to remember. Any content with that application is simply entertainment. And as much as I would love to feel like I'm at a great entertainer, there are many people that can entertain better than me, but I do know that this content, When taken on board, when executed, can deliver a material impact on your sales performance and help you in your path of being the very best you can be.

Welcome to the show, Nick.

Nick, I know it. I don't even know what the topic is gonna be cuz I think we're gonna go down that many different paths. But before we get into today's conversation, could you just share with our listeners a bit more about who you. And how you started in the wacky world of selling.

Unlike some of the stories I hear, I was actually in a sporting good store and I had played sports my entire life. And funny enough, there is a gentleman that was picking out shoes and the seller had given some feedback and I said, Actually, you know, I, based on what you said, I'd probably go with this.

And I just made a suggestion and so they started picking my brain, but it's because I had tried them all on that. That I knew. Yeah. And I had actually wore them. And right on the spot, the gentleman offered me a job. It was the owner of the business that I was talking to. And that's how I broke into sales.

And it was just, everything was a new fun challenge. I know this is why me and you get along so well is we always have that challenge that drives us, that bigger mission. And so then I got into, I moved to a different city. I got offered a job selling PMO credit card. I don't know why I did. Well, I'll be, I'll be honest.

Like I think the biggest thing I did is I showed up consistently and ready to work and I ended up managing about 400 reps and being the area manager within a couple months, and then they kept my income and it was time for me to leave. Worst thing you can ever do to a seller. Right. Promise them

And then I earned myself a all-inclusive hospital stay that rocked my entire world. I had a weird feeling. Yeah. And I. Mm, I don't, I can't even tell you what it was. I had slept at the office to close a deal. I had a weird gut feeling and I decided to quit. And within a week I was in the hospital. The first three days I didn't know if I was gonna live or die. Cause I had major organ failure and sleep deprivation.

And so it wasn't uncommon for me to work 16 plus hour days. Mm. And there was a lot of the time with the stress that was on us, and we didn't really make that much money unless we closed deals and we wouldn't. They're like, they're a typical enterprise deal. They were six months to 24 months, depending on the size of the deal and the complexity and how much legal one to screw with us, and we would go and work through these deals.

But it started to wear at me and I started to work harder and I took it as a challenge. Like, I'm tired, but who's not tired? I'm hungry, but who's not hungry? I'll just have more coffee. I'll just, and I, You don't realize. You're wearing down, you don't realize you're not as sharp as you were. Yeah. You're like, you can't go and pull a conversation together as well.

And it eats at you really, really slowly. And the problem was when I, even when I got outta the hospital, like that was a traumatic experience. Them telling me if they didn't know if I was gonna live or die because the rate of my organ failure, but when I got out, I wasn't better. and there was the physical aspect and there was also the mental aspect of it too.

Right. Because I don't think people realize when you wear yourself down, you don't bounce right back.

And look, I'm very similar to you, man. I'm, I'm, I'm not afraid to work hard. I've done, I've done the sleeping at the office, my pe my ea used to bring me dinner because I would skip dinner and stuff. And yeah, I always had that mentality of I've gotta do what needs to be done to get the job done right.

And I've gotta, what the others aren't prepared to do, but like, I think. The, the, there's a time to work hard, but there's also a time to recognize that, hey, you know what, I've actually gotta pull back for a moment. And you know what I've realized, because this has been an ongoing battle for me for 20 years, is that it's actually better when you pull back.

And, and this, I think this is gonna relate, we can relate this to our conversation today around less technology. You know, from a, from a prospecting perspective, less is more. Because when you do pull back, even, even a sale, right? And I think this, this, this actually can be applied to so many things. When you pull back, when you're working incredible long hours and I've got a, I've got a period over the next four weeks, I've got that period, right?

I've got late nights and I've got early starts. Cuz I'm doing some stuff in multi time zones. I've gotta recognize that, right? And I've gotta balance it up because at the end of this period, , I could be suffering for a while, right? But, Yeah, I think it's important to know what you just said, that sometimes when you do work that extra and you do pushing yourself beyond your limit, you actually become less productive.

You're actually, the conversations that you have aren't as clear your pipeline. If instead sales, it can affect big deals that you might have been working, you're on it, and then you're, and then all of a sudden the deal that you knew that was gonna close is gone. Right? And this is why I think sometimes less is more.

Because when we do less, from a work ethic perspective, we can actually produce more, right? So, so prospecting, When I prospect to a smaller group, I spend more time researching. I give myself more of a chance by multi-threading. All of a sudden the results I generate are far more than if I'm trying to just go.

You know, manic. Right. So I, I, I do appreciate you sharing that with me and sharing it with us today. I'd just love to understand, cause you, you, you actually worked in a really interesting environment where you weren't just selling a business, you had two sales. You first had to get them to give you the remit to sell their business.

Then you had to find a buyer, and then you had to convince the current buyer to sell their business based on whatever things. Talk to us a bit about what you learned through. Proactively going out to get somebody to sell their baby and then trying to sell their baby to somebody else that might not have had that emotional connection to that business.

Okay. And all the companies that were sitting on our shelf, they dropped in value from anywhere from 60 to 90% in less than three months. Wow. And so it's, it goes back to sales as just conversations and creativity. Mm. And so I started looking at ways I could repackage things that I could reframe things.

And strategic buyers don't care necessarily if things are perfect, if the future you're selling aligns with what they're looking for. And so it taught me a lot about gap selling. Yeah. And making sure I understood the. The biggest thing that I never considered in any of the other sales I did is how hard is it to get there?

Yeah. Because what happens with a lot of mergers and acquisitions, the company buys or they merge and then they never see the benefit because they communicate differently. Yeah. They have different styles of leadership and making decision. And so what I actually had to do is I actually had to go in, kind of go like covertly, like what Boston Consulting Group used to do, and I had to go and actually go on the floor and live and breathe with this company to really understand how they worked.

Yeah. So when I was vetting vetting buyers that it felt natural and it was the hardest thing I did. But what I learned in that process that you had talked about not just a moment ago, is you can't be too busy when you're doing that. Yeah. Or you miss things. So any of the deals that went wrong is cuz I rushed that part and I was too eager to go and put buyers in front of them instead of looking for the perfect fit.

So you are not just contending with, or you just, you, you weren't just contending with the fact that I know, but there's also that emotional. issue, or not the emotional issue, but there's the emotion that's driving their behavior and potentially their reluctance. Or, you know, as soon as emotion gets involved in the sales process, we know that there's a lot of things that you just simply can't control.

How did you work through that?

Yeah, they're trying to get out before it's too late. Yeah. And so that was what was happening at this times. All the companies that were selling were worthless and so I actually had to find companies that didn't want to sell because they were doing well and I had to find hidden. Synergies with other companies that nobody else saw.

Yeah. So it's like when you're doing like challenger and like critical insights, I had to find critical insights for these companies that they didn't see these, how things would bolt on and they could just hit the ground running and they'd be so much stronger. So one plus one wasn't two. Yeah, it was three or four or more.

And I think this is where a lot of sales opportunities really get stuck in a pipeline because we as a salesperson, haven't really helped them see. That future state in such a clear way with such incredible benefit that they're like, You know what? This is an absolute compelling reason for me to make a change.

If you, you know, the fact that you've mentioned you were going to people that weren't essentially looking to sell their company and then you helped them sell their company. How did you help them see what tomorrow could look like?

The fastest way to get to where they wanted to go. And sometimes it wasn't an acquisition. Sometimes it was them just seeking funding and growing naturally. Yeah. And so it was through conversations with different, I actually talking back, we're backstage, a lot of these conversations weren't with the business owner.

They were with sellers on the floor. Yeah, they were with the marketing team. A lot of the times I talked to their banks and I'd ask what they originally sold them on for financing. How did they get that credit line? What was that revolving door? What did they sell you on? What did you, what made you believe in them?

Hmm. Okay. Where, where do you think they can be in three years? And so I would actually take that three year vision and I would like, Where do you think you're gonna be in 10 years? What if I can make that happen in. Yeah, and so it was a lot of digging a lot. One of the things I noticed with a lot of sellers is they, they ask people where they want to go.

People love to correct you when you're wrong. They don't like to tell you if they don't have to, but if you make a step, an educated stab at where you think they're, where they're going, Hey, I saw this, this, and this. I'm guessing that you're probably gonna want to go here. No, actually Luigi, I didn't, I didn't actually wanna go anywhere near there and they'll op and I, I've even seen, I think it was Chris Vat even talked about this.

Yeah. People love to correct and they'll open up and tell you things that they should have never told you.

Because for. That was my biggest takeaway. The fact that you're leveraging an insight because that kind of starts a conversation. You're either, you know, is this happening for you or how does this impact you right now? Well, it's not great. Do you mind sharing what is impacting you? Or where is it going for you?

Or whatever it might be. Right? And it can kind of start the conversation. So I love that. So, So it's really interesting to hear the fact that you were selling to people. that weren't necessarily in the market to sell, which when we look at today, if we look at it from a prospecting perspective, that's what we're doing, right?

There's only 3% of the market that are actively looking, 40% that might be open to change. And then there's a big bunch, bunch of people that aren't looking at all, right? And that's what prospecting is about. We're going out there, we're trying to engage with an audience and saying, Hey, This is why we believe you should talk to us because of B and C.

Right? So I love the fact that you can connect what you've been doing to today. What were some of the other big learnings for you? I know that you are really big on multi-threading, and you've referenced it a little bit and in your current practice and what you do, you really help sellers understand the power of multi-threading through social.

Can you talk a little bit about why multi-threading and. Engaging with people across the different platforms allows you to be known before they get to that point of decision.

what happens as you're talking to all these people is you are the one that hears the commonalities, even though they're not saying the same thing, they're saying the same thing. Mm. You get to be the glue. That naturally connects those things when they can't see it. Yeah. So when I was running synergies and looking for how these companies would bolt together, one of the things that they always asked me was, Well, are they gonna lay off my team?

Or is everybody going to stay on? Because a lot of these companies, they were the main driver of a town. And so if I sold this company, I could kill a town. Yeah. Because this is before the day of remote work. Yeah. Yeah. And so you actually had to go and have that conversation, line them up, set 'em up an.

And basically get the people that weren't talking to have the same conversation and be like, Hey, you said this, you said this. You're basically, you're actually saying the same thing. Mm-hmm. . So why don't we come together and have a bigger conversation and take this to the next step?

So you're using, you're using the multi thread, you're using the different relationships that you're engaging with to find the alignment and then use that alignment to then bring consensus. Right. Or bring the conversation forward.

Yeah. You just can't get them. Yeah. Right. And this is where social works so beautifully in this process and back in the day and make myself sound old. , I had to do this old school. Yeah. And so social back in the day was gossip. And so what I had to do is I had to talk to the secretaries. I had to go and talk to the male boy.

I had to talk to the people, and I had to start a rumor. And I'm not talking lies. I'm talking insight. Hey, did you know? Hey, did you know? And then it would spread. Yeah. With social, we don't have to go to those levels of, you know, getting our way into the company. We can put the message out there, connect with the right people, network in and swarm an account.

So everybody is starting to say the same thing. And what is more impressive that when you get a hold of the person that's untouchable or when you get referred in. Yeah. And so it's just being really meaningful with every action and doing less, but making everyone better. Yeah.

The first thing is, and, and I'm not that old, maybe I'm am old now cause I just turned 40, right. But I did, I started selling in a time where we didn't have social. If I ever asked my boss for leads back in the day, he would've told me, Go get another job, because that's what I pay you to do. I did the door knocking both in B2C and b2b.

I remember going to networking events. I remember calling people I know, Hey, do you know somebody in that company and, you know, what could I like? You know, all that stuff that we did. The research component, the reading reports, the man, I just think for me, that has what's allowed me. To become the cellar AM today.

Because I had to go through those moments of research. I had to go and look in places and find fucking nothing and go, Man, what a waste of time this has been. But it hasn't been a waste of time because I've learned, But you know what I mean? Like there was that, I used to call it like, you kind of pick up a rock, look underneath of nothing there, pick up, and then all of a sudden you're like, Hey, I've just found something.

You know, I, you know, we can, now we know where it's called prospecting, right. But for me, I go, that's, that's helped me become the resilient seller. Am. And I think one of the challenges in modern selling is that a lot of new reps especially haven't gone through that exercise. And you know, if you think today, click a button, I've got their mobile number, click a button, it's in my crm, click a button, I'm in LinkedIn.

I've got, now I've got all the insight and crunch base and funding and it, my God mate, within five minutes I've got all this information would've taken me hours to do. Right. But I think the fact that it's become so easy, We've become to potentially sometimes a bit lazy in what you've just said, right?

Instead of going, Hang on, before I actually pick up the phone, let me think about the entire audience that needs to know me. Let me think about why they need to know me. Let me think about what would be the compelling reason that they would wanna reach out to me or refer me in. And now that I've done that, I'm gonna start the process of engaging with.

And that for me, that's strategic thinking from a sales perspective versus transactional. I just need to hit my number. I just need to make the call. I just need to book a meeting. Like, because my pipeline, my boss is on my case. I need to hit my, like, do you know what I mean? There's absolutely two different thinking to that.

Right. So, you know, again, I think there's, there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that we can take away from the conversation that we're having right now. Do you mind also sharing with me and sharing with our listeners a little bit? You know the way in which you start to create the engagement with people, like if you've got an account you've got, right, there's seven or eight people, I need to start building a relationship.

Share the tactic that goes behind you, starting to reach out to them and actually getting them into the relationship funnel.

But when you don't do the work and you're just seeing it, you're a, it's, it's an object. Yeah. We're objectifying our prospects. They're just an object we're calling. And the problem is when you do that, they leave them asking, So what? Mm. Hey, we're the best. We're amazing. You should wanna buy for us. So what

But when we did the research, you're like, Hey, I saw this. Yeah. And you know, it led me to thinking this. Interested in talking more. Yeah, you're right. No, actually we were just talk because what you've done is you've done the hard work of thinking with them. Yeah. Thinking for them. And I think that's what got lost is that we had a hypothesis in our head.

And so all our questions were very quickly right or wrong. And how, how I used to go about this is I used to actually start with workflows. And so I would really focus on like knowing the industry, knowing the account, and then knowing the personas and knowing whose workflow is the one that was, had the most pain today.

Yeah. Who had the most frequent pain, who had the biggest pain and didn't realize how much it was costing them or the company. And I would start low. Yeah, sometimes I would start in the middle and I would go and expand out and not usually, usually start low. And what you're doing is I would do all my fact gathering with these people that were boots on the ground doing the hard work.

And figure out where things were going wrong, what was on their wishlist? Yeah. What, what are they being judged on? And then what I would do is I would look at those KPIs and be like, Okay. And I'd make a guess knowing, you know, by talking to however many VP of sales or sales managers, you're probably judged on this.

And I would follow, who would get the call in the middle of night when something went wrong. And so all sales is, is pain and gain, right? Yeah. And b2b, the biggest driver is loss. Yeah. What are they losing? But they don't realize, But it all comes from workflow. Yeah. The other thing is regulation, but they know that, so you have to connect those dots on the workflow.

And bring up those conversations. And so sometimes it was sales. Sales is always a great place to start. Even now, every salesperson's on social and they love to talk. Network with your fellow sellers. Work your way in. Yeah. But from sellers, What department will your work, will your product disrupt the most?

Why? How much? And like it goes down to why change? Why now? How much? How much do you actually have to change to see that result? , Is it realistic? How long is it gonna take?

Me changing, it's actually gonna be more painful than the problem, so I'll just stay with same, right? We see these all the time, is there saying, You know what? Yep, the fire's burning, but I can manage the fire burning and I'm happy with what we're losing because if I've gotta change, it's gonna. , You know what?

I got this, I got that. I got John. He's gonna be a pain in the ass. I got . You know, there's all these things gonna happen and we see this a lot. Right? And this is why I love Jen Ellen and, and what Jen Ellen talks about around the status quo. You know, Yeah. So I think this has been an awesome episode, Nick.

And, and you know what? Me, and you could talk about this for ages, but there is one thing, I know we've only got a couple of minutes left, but there's one thing I need to make sure we talk about, right? Because the power of the gif. Yeah. And I think, oh yes. In, in a world where it can, the sea of sameness I think can often happen, right?

People are getting emails, they're getting, you know, a good video video. But for me, My, and you know what? Salespeople are great at breaking shit, right? So I hope the wilderness doesn't take the gifts, but I love gifts, man. I send gifts to my kids. I send gifts to my girlfriend. I send gifts to kind of send gifts to everyone.

Man, I'm, I'm a gift guy. And sales, I'm big on sending gifts in my outreach process. Even when I've engaged with them and they've booked a meeting, I'm like, I send them a, you know, a hell year gift. Yeah, like, are you using gifts in your process, man? And how is it helping you?

Words are actually really foreign for our brains to, to actually pick up. And so it take, That's why sometimes when you send a written document, it's so painful that people won't read it, or those like old marketing emails, you would just ignore. The thing that gets captured in a visual is emotion. Hmm. And so a lot of the time when we talk about empathy, it's not a matter of just feeling what's going on, but it's be able to go and carry that emotion and move the conversation.

Yeah. The thing I love about gifts is you can set the tone and so I can say, Hey, and I can make it like. Hey. And like have that dark tone and like tell them something that's like, I actually just went and found that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Cause it's like a buffer, but because it, it's not what people normally do and they can't hear my voice in a dm, I can set the tone and so they know how I'm talking.

So it adds that additional element to text. Yeah. And or like, hey, and like you're really excited and then I'll crack a joke or, but you know, it makes you stand out because they don't expect. And unlike most written communication, there's an actual emotion and a tone tied to it. Same reason why when you send video me or voice messages, they work so well.

Yeah. They hear your voice.

In a world where sales engagement platforms, technology, MarTech, everybody's being overwhelmed. The human adding the human and the emotion to the process because we know that people buy you before they buy your company. So, mate, I, I think this has been, there's been so many tactical and strategic takeaways for our audience today.

Nick, I just wanna say thanks so much mate. But before we let you go and we'll make sure we put into the show notes, where is the best place for people to find and engage with you?

We've had the poll going, so that's gonna be awesome. But Nick, man, I just wanna say, mate, you know, I've been, I've loved since we got connected for a mutual friend. I've really enjoyed your content, your podcast, the contribution you make to our community. I love it, man. So thank you very much for doing what you.

It's not easy putting a podcast. It's not easy creating content to try to help our sales profession elevate to be the best sellers can be, man. So we just wanna say thanks for the contribution you make and thanks for coming onto the podcast.

This episode was digitally transcribed.