GrowthPulse - The B2B Sales Podcast

The B2B Sales Cheat Sheet - Downloaded over 10,000 times by Sales People worldwide! | GrowthPulse The B2B Sales Podcast Ep9 with Anton & Miro of Epicbrief

GrowthPulse Season 1 Episode 9

On this episode of GrowthPulse - The B2B Sales Podcast, we are talking to Miro & Anton from EpicBrief.

In June 2023, they shared with the global B2B Sales community, the B2B Sales Cheat Sheet. It went viral and over 10,400 people contacted them directly in a 24 hour period to get their own copy of the cheat sheet.

Anton & Miro share their story and take us through some of the most important part of the doc.

This a must see episode for all sales people. This episode is built for sales people by sales people, to make you a better sales person each and every day!

If you want your own copy of the cheat sheet, jump on our linkedin page, 
https://www.linkedin.com/company/growthpulse
Give us a follow and a quick inmail and we will send it right over in HD.

You can connect with Miro & Anton down below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/miroputkonen/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anton-dobrzhanskiy/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielbartels/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonpeterson/

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Welcome everybody to the latest edition of growth pulse, the B2B sales podcast.</font></b> I'm Dan Bartels and I'm joined as always by Simon Peterson. Simon, welcome</font></b> back to the show.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Thank you. G'day Dan, how are ya?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

made I'm really excited. We have got some superstar guests on the podcast today,</font></b> um, all the way from, uh, Finland, um, they've joined us with, uh, and look, you</font></b> know, we reached out on the back of what I've think is one of the most, uh,</font></b> amazingly viral pieces of content that I've seen, I've seen hit the market. Um,</font></b> they've reached over 10,000 sales people and execs in almost overnight. Um with</font></b> uh, the b2b sales cheat sheet and I want to welcome to the podcast Uh, anton</font></b> and miro boys. Thanks for joining</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Hello It sounds really good the mode one of the most viral</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Look, it's not an area that you normally look at, pieces of information or</font></b> posts that genuinely go viral in amongst salespeople, but I'll check up some</font></b> stats and I'll put them on the screen, but you guys reached, I think it was</font></b> 10 and a half thousand people almost overnight. Are those numbers about right?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah, I think the, I don't really. So it's funny because what you see</font></b> on the post is doubled with what we also see in the inbox.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

So</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

right.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Thank</font></b> you.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

an interesting experience is, is that the amount of people who sort of request</font></b> it to get access, um, to the cheat sheet or that we send it was pretty much</font></b> the same, that amount of people just decided to reach out, um, and.</font></b> Yeah, this was, it was a fun three weeks of no sleep and replying to everybody</font></b> on, on the, just on the emails and inbox. I think so far so good. We've actually</font></b> replied to everybody. Everybody got their cheat sheet in high definition and</font></b> PDF. And there's still coming people for requesting it. So every, every day</font></b> about, I think, 5-10, even after a month. So that's, that's exciting.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

and turn</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

absolutely.</font></b> And look, you know, I should sort of, you know, give you guys a bit of a</font></b> chance to do an introduction to the team. Look, you know, if you want to</font></b> give you sort of your backgrounds, you know, where you've come from, and obviously,</font></b> a little bit of a spiel on Epic brief, your new business, that'd be great for</font></b> you jump into looking at the cheat sheet itself.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah, so I can give a little bit background on mine on myself. I was born</font></b> and raised in Spain. So by the beach in the south of Spain, my parents</font></b> are actually Finnish. So it's been an interesting journey life journey for</font></b> me. I've lived in maybe seven countries in the last 10 years. I'm married</font></b> to an American, I got introduced to B2B sales in the US. So I was living in</font></b> Utah, which is really known for some of the best salespeople in the world.</font></b> So that was an interesting journey for me. Then I had a baby and the company</font></b> I was working for got acquired and my wife and I decided let's go back to</font></b> Europe. Have worked as a sales leader over the last five years, now in Finland.</font></b> And then Anton and I met during our MBA. And it's funny because A sales guy</font></b> knows another sales guy. So immediately on the first day when we were in</font></b> class, we, uh, we were both being very, let's say loud during the class</font></b> and, uh, Anton always tells a story that I, uh, when he, when he heard</font></b> me talk, he's like, ah, that's another sales guy. And then we, uh, we, we</font></b> became good friends and that's basically</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

that's the story. So from my end. Yeah, I'm currently the CEO of Epic Brief.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah, perfect. And Anton, a bit of your background, mate, we'd love to hear.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah, no, sure. It's my background comes I'm originally from Russia. I moved to</font></b> Finland. What is the 1516 years ago, so it's been a long time. And yeah, I</font></b> was a professional athlete. I was a I was a swimmer for most of my life.</font></b> I think I stopped competing when I was 25. And yeah, then I did some coaching</font></b> and at the time when I started coaching, I started working as well. So I was,</font></b> but I wasn't in sales. I was, I was an accountant. I was doing accounting.</font></b> I was studying accounting. Then I was doing accounting. Then I was a controller.</font></b> Then I was a CFO. And the way I was introduced to sales was...</font></b> I literally bought NetSuite. So I had a problem. I had the spreadsheets</font></b> and I wanted to replace it with the system and I bought NetSuite. And</font></b> then they reached out and said, hey, do you want to be the first person on</font></b> a team in the Nordics or in Finland? And I was like, I've known nothing</font></b> about sales. I don't, what am I supposed to do? They're like, don't worry.</font></b> We have enough resources, nine months ramp time. I was like, okay,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Easy.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

that sounds cool. So, yeah, obviously like, and then I learned sales there</font></b> from, from an Australian, the start, Andrew was my, I think one of the, one</font></b> of the, one of the people who really helped me understand sales from execution</font></b> standpoint. And then he also had a lot of knowledge about like, you know,</font></b> he's, he's also, he'd been in sales for a long time as an enterprise rep.</font></b> So you can learn a lot from a top performing rep. And. And then I'm at</font></b> Miro. at MBA, we joined a previous startup together. Um, and that's an experience</font></b> of working at that startup where, um, you know, what we realized is, is</font></b> as a salespeople. Like how to explain, so if you, if you, if you think</font></b> about like, when you're working as a salesperson, you don't really feel the,</font></b> the price of information or how important the formation is for the rest</font></b> of the organization, because you're working, you're working on deals. What's</font></b> important to you? you is getting that information, making notes, you know, so</font></b> that you can push the deal forward. But what we experienced at that company</font></b> is that is that price of information and the speed of getting it out to other people</font></b> and like getting to product getting it to other kind of orgs. And, and</font></b> I think that's where it's sort of connected to us two dots of like, there</font></b> is a problem of me as an individual of performing those tasks to myself but then</font></b> if I manage to help myself very efficiently that also helps organization</font></b> as the whole a lot and that's where like a mental note was created I think</font></b> at that point where we started thinking about Epic Rift.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

So tell us before we jump in, tell us a bit about Epic Brief. You know, we'd</font></b> be remiss not to sort of, you know, give you guys a bit of a spook, but look,</font></b> what's the problem that Epic Brief helps solve? Cause it's targeted at salespeople,</font></b> is that correct?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah, I think</font></b> there's a study that we reference a lot that Salesforce came out with this year</font></b> that found that 72% of a sales rep's time is spent on non-selling activities.</font></b> So That's both a problem for the sales rep and for the organization that</font></b> they're working in. Right.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Massively,</font></b> yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

salespeople want to want to be having conversations with customers, solving</font></b> problems, strategizing, closing deals. And if they're spending 72% of their</font></b> time, like doing admin, doing all these things that we as sales people, we</font></b> know we, we either not very good at. Um, or we don't really love doing,</font></b> um, yeah, that ends up, you know, you end up spending all your time where</font></b> you're not supposed to be, or you don't want to be spending. And so our</font></b> mission as a company is to, um, make human work in sales more meaningful</font></b> and valuable. And how we're doing that is using AI to basically eliminate</font></b> those parts of the job that. that we don't want to be doing or we're not</font></b> very good at. From an organizational perspective, if you start top down, there's</font></b> a lot of issues that you as a sales leader see, you know, are there sales</font></b> reps delivering the pitch the way you think it should be delivered? Are the</font></b> sales reps just, do they have a structure? Like you often see sales reps</font></b> operating a little bit like headless chickens. You know, they're going</font></b> from</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

one thing to another, trying to manage things, but they have absolutely</font></b> no project management skills whatsoever. So, you know, we're providing an</font></b> AI system that allows organizations and the reps to structure the way they do things.</font></b> One of the cool features that we have is let's say you have a methodology</font></b> like medic and you want sales reps to fill the CRM with medic you want them</font></b> to keep notes about medic we allow you to build like templates in our system</font></b> and then after the call you get a an AI generated summary of medic fields</font></b> that you. basically had in the conversation and we will automatically</font></b> update your CRM fields for you, provide you that with that report which</font></b> is just your notes in summary. Personally, Epic Brief has been a bit of a</font></b> personal mission for me. I have ADHD, so for me like the idea of taking</font></b> notes on a call is really difficult. because and it has to do with what happens</font></b> after the call or going into a follow-up call. I often can't remember things</font></b> so I'll jump over call and I just can't remember I can't remember the</font></b> exact details so when I'm getting ready for another call I start to panic because</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

I just can't I can't remember and so Because of that, I have a choice I have</font></b> to make. Either I focus really intensely on a conversation and try to take</font></b> really good notes, but then if I'm trying to take good notes, I'm not focusing</font></b> on the conversation with the client.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yep.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

So we just want to eliminate these kinds of trade-offs that are happening</font></b> in the organization and just make the lives of sales reps easier so they</font></b> can just do what they love. So long</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

So</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

story</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

I</font></b> mean, that's, yeah, that's something we've talked about so many times in our working</font></b> careers, you know, like the cardinal sin of a rep is going by yourself because you</font></b> can't write notes and think and talk to someone at the same time. And, or even</font></b> worse than that, you're in that scenario where I'm waiting for you to finish</font></b> so I can talk and tell you what I remembered from three minutes ago. But in</font></b> the meantime, I've not captured anything of what you just said. Right. So I</font></b> think what you're trying to solve is amazing.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

And by the time you write it down in the CRM system, you know, some of</font></b> the content you've completely forgotten and</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

you end up making it up and then that becomes gospel.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah, yeah, I think one of the use case I know, I know Dan and Simon,</font></b> you worked in enterprise B2B SaaS companies. I think one of the most stressful</font></b> situations for reps in the larger companies where you have a resource</font></b> pool of pre-sales, that conversation of trying to get a resource from pre-sales</font></b> with the fact that you've made bad notes. That is an extremely stressful situation</font></b> because you're going to be given a question here and say, is this filled</font></b> in? No, go back to discovery and you go,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

You</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

oh</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

don't</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

my</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

get</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

God,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

the engineer.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

I cannot go to discovery, I already done it, I just do not remember.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yeah, and there's something, you know, pre-sales managers love not giving</font></b> resources to AEs that can't get their</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Hahaha</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

details right. That makes them happy.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yep. And then even worse, you have the other side of the equation where you've</font></b> got reps who'll say, because I can't, the, the essays won't trust me in</font></b> my notes. You've got to come in on meeting one. Well, we know we'd have,</font></b> we don't have enough resources for them to come in on meeting one. So how</font></b> do we, how do we balance this out? Right. So it's, it's a real problem.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Absolutely.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

And it's, it's a, there's a crazy amount of meetings that you</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yes.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

do. SDR to AE handoff. It's a meeting. Sure.</font></b> The SDR, you know, manager will say, just send a note and then the AE</font></b> will be like, yeah, can we have a meeting? Like, I want to know what's</font></b> really, what was this? What happened? Right.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

What did you not</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Or there's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

write down?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

the, yeah, AE to pre-sales or worse yet, like. AE to customer success</font></b> manager handoff. And, and, and there's all of these like touch points</font></b> in the sales process, just that are the breakdown and they're also inconsistent,</font></b> like there's just lack of consistency. There's some reps that we know, uh, just to</font></b> tell you that there are reps in this world that we have met, and I think</font></b> it's maybe 12 to 15% that are excellent at filling the CRM. uh, taking notes,</font></b> uh, being that quarterback who's just a great project manager, but that's</font></b> maybe 15% or less than 15% of, of sales reps. So</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yep.</font></b> You can call</font></b> it that.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

you said</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

you said you made the comment earlier, right? That it's, you know, reps are</font></b> not doing it well. I think the, like the piece that jumped out for me, looking</font></b> at the number of reps or people in sales that, that grabbed your B2B cheat</font></b> sheet is it's not that they don't want to do it. They don't know what to do.</font></b> It's not that they've actually been shown a good method. Maybe they've been</font></b> shown two or three parts of this whole system before, but they don't have an</font></b> overall picture of all the different aspects. And okay, if I'm to do this holistically</font></b> and properly, what are those pieces? So it's probably a good segue for us</font></b> to jump in and start talking about the cheat sheet, right? And let me just</font></b> chuck it up on the screen for everybody. But it's...</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Well, before we jump into that, I think</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

you guys want to hear, do you want to hear what it's like to go viral?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Please, that would be amazing.</font></b> Tell</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

we'd</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

us.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

love to.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Well, I'll just share parts. It's a shared story, mainly Anton's story,</font></b> but, um, you know, it was a Tuesday, just a regular, regular Tuesday, right?</font></b> Yeah. And Anton's actually been posting quite religiously, like every</font></b> day, every day consistently, just like, just a grind, like every, every</font></b> day, every day. And he can talk about like, like secrets to, you know,</font></b> to success on LinkedIn. because he's really an expert.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I see you shaking your head back there.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

But it was a regular Tuesday. He's like, I was thinking of posting this and</font></b> I was like, yeah. Like every day we talk about what are we doing? It's like</font></b> our content strategy because sales reps are on LinkedIn. So that's where</font></b> we want to have the conversation. So he makes his post and it was like 11 a.m.</font></b> in Helsinki. And you know... pretty good. Like it got some good engagement.</font></b> Three hours into three hours into the into the post. We were just like,</font></b> this is so bizarre. Like what is going like what is going on? Like I don't</font></b> know, it had like every five or three to five seconds you hear, ting,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Ding ding ding.</font></b> Wow.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

because LinkedIn just turned off the notifications on comments, likes, it</font></b> just turned it off because it's, it's constant. So all you hear is just</font></b> like, ting, ting. And I was like, I can't take it. It turned off the turn</font></b> off the sound and how not to make them pop up, you know, like when they</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

get new messages that they don't pop up, they just stay there. And then</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

it was about around four o'clock, I have two little kids. So the reason why I</font></b> remember this is because, you know, as a startup founder, we unfortunately,</font></b> if my wife is listening, like I'm sorry, honey, for all the time I'm away</font></b> from my family, but You know, that was the day where I had promised my wife.</font></b> I had promised her that I would go and have ice cream with the kids. I would</font></b> spend the evening with my children. So I'm out at four, typically my day ends at</font></b> six or later. And I'm out there with my kids. And I just I'm looking at Anton's</font></b> post and I'm like, it was going like it was going nuts. And I remember calling</font></b> Anton. like, yeah, we need to get back in the office. Like, like, you</font></b> know, there's this whole idea in life of power laws too. So like, you know,</font></b> one hour of your life could have more impact on your life than like all</font></b> the preceding hours in your entire</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I'm going</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

life.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

to take a few</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

And I started</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

minutes</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

thinking like, could</font></b> this</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

get</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

be</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

this</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

like a</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

done. So,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

power</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I'm going</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

law moment?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

to go</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Like,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

ahead and</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

what</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

get</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

if</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

this</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

we're</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

done.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

actually, like, could this be one of those moments where we can't really</font></b> Every other day would have been fine for me to go home at four, but like</font></b> that day, that day is like maybe the day where I would regret like going</font></b> home early. So yeah, that was a moment where we went back in the office.</font></b> And, uh, I think we were, I think it was like a two week. It ended up being,</font></b> I think. You know, Anton and I were basically working around the clock every</font></b> day until four in the morning, every day. We wanted to because the way the</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

algorithm works is you have to keep answering, you have to keep</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

the</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

doing that. And our strategy was until four or like three, four, so that</font></b> you guys in Australia actually wake up.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yep.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

and kick in</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

And</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

the</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

it</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

algorithm.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

keeps pushing, yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

So then it goes to India and then we can sleep while it's in India and we</font></b> have to wake up and give it a push to Europe and then the US wakes up and</font></b> it's sort of like going this way. Yeah and a lot of people asked us, there</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

was maybe a few people who said why don't you just share a link? Why don't</font></b> you just share a link? Why are you engaging with all these people? And</font></b> we thought to ourselves like yeah it makes sense but we wanted to build</font></b> like an actual relationship with everybody. And our engineering team, very</font></b> logical, was like, this doesn't make any sense, guys. Like, just post a link,</font></b> let people download. But like, for us, we're like, do you know how many cold</font></b> calls it would take to have this kind of a relationship with all of these</font></b> amazing people</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

and like, have conversations, you know, we're on the, on, on Anton's LinkedIn</font></b> and just having conversations with people and, and that, you can't put a</font></b> price on that. Like you cannot put a price on, you know, we could always do</font></b> a, a post and people download it, but like having actual conversations with</font></b> our, you know, who we've been building Epic Brief for, you, you just can't.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Priceless.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

So it was, it was, it was painful for two. Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Absolutely. It's interesting. It kind of begs the question because I think</font></b> naturally you two are sales people and I can tell by the fact that you</font></b> just didn't put a link you wanted to engage. I mean, that tells me that</font></b> you sales 101 engage. But what is it about? the post that or what does</font></b> it say about sales people in general? Do we just not know what we're</font></b> doing</font></b> and we see a diagram that simplifies b2b</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

sales and we jump all over it? Does it mean that nobody in sales knows</font></b> what they're doing and it took a very simple link here to define it for</font></b> people? What is it that resonated do you think?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

I think it's very fundamental to go. So we talk with Mir a lot and that's</font></b> the reason we connected on this whole topic when we met is unfortunately,</font></b> sales is not seen as a profession in many, many circles. And when something is</font></b> not seen as a profession, you are not expected to study it, to learn it.</font></b> If you're an accountant, even if you're not doing debit credit at your job,</font></b> you're expected to know what is a debit and what is a credit, right? But</font></b> if you're a salesperson and you are going into, and you're getting your</font></b> first job or you're getting ready for the job, nobody educates you what</font></b> is pain and value, you know, which is debit and credit in many ways, right?</font></b> So... I think that is the fundamental kind of issue of why there are a lot of salespeople</font></b> and there are a lot of sales leaders as well who are just kind of they're</font></b> yearning for information, they're yearning for some structure, they're yearning</font></b> for something which will help them. kind of put the complexity of b2b sales</font></b> in something consumable, even if it's not, you know, some of the things might</font></b> not be actionable, but it just helps you understand or helps you map things</font></b> out. And I think that is maybe the reason why it was, people were kind of,</font></b> they were responsive to that type of content.</font></b> It just fundamentally... It's not that they are not willing to study the</font></b> profession, it's just that they're never expected to study it because</font></b> it's not really seen as a profession.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah, I think you're right. That's a really accurate assessment of it. Simon and</font></b> I have talked in the past about one of the challenges for salespeople is that</font></b> there's no degree, there's no certification you can have to prove to someone</font></b> other than your previous roles. So, you know, you can, you can, everyone talks</font></b> about, oh, is it the gift of the gab that someone has? No, there's so much</font></b> more to sales than just being able to talk. In fact, you know, the first</font></b> lesson you learn as a salesperson is you've got two ears and</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Mm-hmm.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

one mouth and use them in that proportion, right? Like it's about listening</font></b> to your customer. It's about listening to their problems and their challenges.</font></b> So look, you know, I think what you guys have built really shows a... an understanding</font></b> of the challenge of sales and salespeople. And maybe we should jump into</font></b> the tool, the sheet itself and have a look at kind of, what it uncovers and</font></b> let me just share it on the screen and we'll kind of talk through some bits and</font></b> pieces. But the, there we go, should be up. So there you go, 10,000, as of</font></b> a few minutes ago, there's 10,000 comments on a post from salespeople talking</font></b> about... Hey, can I get a copy of this to understand more about my profession?</font></b> Can I understand? And even if I, and when I looked at this and, you know,</font></b> thanks so much for sharing the content with me and Simon, but there wasn't</font></b> anything in here that I didn't know, but so many of the graphs that you put</font></b> together gave me a way to look at what I already knew in a framework. And</font></b> to your point, Anton, around understanding debits and credits, I understood</font></b> those, but I hadn't thought about some of them. Some of them I knew and had a</font></b> much better understanding of, but others I knew instinctually, but I didn't</font></b> have a model for. And that's what really helped me. But I mean, look guys,</font></b> for any piece of B2B salesperson content firstly, 416 reposts, that's out of</font></b> control. It</font></b> just,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

you.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

it shows how influential this content is already. So, Let's jump in and talk</font></b> about some of these pieces. And I think, you know, even just discussing these,</font></b> the four of us, I'm sure we're all gonna walk away with a whole bunch of knowledge</font></b> from it. So let's have a look. So B2B selling types. You know, you guys, you</font></b> know, pull this together. Where do you think people get this type, understanding</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

I think the first thing that like, one of the hardest things that salespeople</font></b> have is understanding just the type of selling that they're doing and</font></b> recognizing like, like is applying the right type of approach. to the type of</font></b> selling that they</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yes.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

are doing. And that conflict is manifests itself in strategic issues. For</font></b> for example, for me, I'm a big fan of spin selling. Super simple, foundational,</font></b> Neo Rachman's work on spin foundational work that a lot of other sales,</font></b> methodologists, or books based their, their thinking on. And, and, and what</font></b> one of the things that I experienced, when I was working at Qualtrics, was that the</font></b> first book that people gave me was the Challenger sale. And it's a little</font></b> bit like giving someone the like, like an advanced book on sales and say</font></b> start here. Like, like, do challenger when you don't know anything about</font></b> spin, you don't even know how to ask the right questions. And you're supposed</font></b> to show up with this level of confidence that the challenger you know,</font></b> be a challenger that in itself is a challenge. When you give a new rep this</font></b> book and you read it and you're like, how am I ever going to do this? And the</font></b> problem isn't challenging, is the fact that there are just fundamentals,</font></b> like spin, that would be maybe better to first understand how to ask people</font></b> really good questions before you teach people how to approach calls. And</font></b> for me, I see it more like uh, like spin and then like, uh, provocative</font></b> selling or, or challenge or sells on top of it. Once you understand spin,</font></b> then you can add the, you know, uh, the world is shifting, you know, the,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

you know, there's a big change in the world. Uh, it's shifted. There's a problem.</font></b> You know, you, you create like the provocative sale on top of just spin. Um,</font></b> But if you, when I talk about strategic issues, if you just go into challenger</font></b> sale mode without teaching spin, deals, what I've noticed is that deals</font></b> don't have just like fundamental, they don't have the fundamental like gasoline</font></b> or energy to get closed because you're not able to. actually, you're talking</font></b> really high level. I see this in organizations that are able to book a lot</font></b> of meetings, you know, we're building a new category, so forth, and they</font></b> book a ton of meetings on the on the top of the funnel, with really like</font></b> new category type of messaging. But then sales, the sales cycle stall, they</font></b> don't move forward. And it's because sales reps are not able to tie the</font></b> situation to problems, are not able to quantify those problems. They just,</font></b> these deals just don't have any fuel. And then the sales operations or</font></b> sales enablement leadership team is like, what's going on? Like, like we</font></b> have this cool message, but then, and then it's booking us a bunch of meetings,</font></b> but then, you know, the middle or lower end of the funnel, it's just, there's</font></b> nothing, nothing is moving, moving forward.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah. It's got a flat end. It doesn't</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

have</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

it</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

a</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

flatlines.</font></b> And,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

and, and I am serious. I have talked to hundreds of sales leaders and, and</font></b> many of them have the same situation. They're implementing something like</font></b> challenger and, and they're, they're wondering what's going on. And it's</font></b> fundamentally from this problem of just not understanding spin. And the reason</font></b> why no one understands spin is because no one reads</font></b> It is one of those books that is just exhausting to read.</font></b> It's a bit old school, you know,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yes, it is. Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

but it's one of those books once you get it, you know, like what is the</font></b> difference between implicit and explicit needs</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yes.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

and understanding differences? And that's a lot of the really exciting posts</font></b> that I see from like sales influencers on LinkedIn. They're just basically</font></b> saying what is in spin, right? They're saying, hey, just because someone says</font></b> there's a problem doesn't mean they're gonna buy. There's different types</font></b> of problems. And that's</font></b> all that Neil talks about in his book. What are the differences between</font></b> these things, right? So, you know, I maybe went a little bit off tangent</font></b> here,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

No, I get it.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

but the whole point is like. This to me is also a strategic document. So</font></b> it's understanding, you have to understand what type of selling you're doing.</font></b> Are you doing the type of selling that's appropriate for the type of products</font></b> that you're selling the price points that you're selling. And so like, not</font></b> only strategically, but also, I'm trying to express the, you know, the issue</font></b> that you as a sales rep have. when maybe you as a leadership team haven't</font></b> aligned your price point with the sales approach because from a sales risk</font></b> perspective, you're actually kind of doing the wrong, you're applying, you're</font></b> putting the wrong medicine on the problem, right? You're prescribing,</font></b> what is it? Prescribe without prescripts? Yeah, we say this right prescription</font></b> without diagnosis is malpractice</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

We tell our reps to think that but</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yes.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

then on our own sales organizations We're just like let's do challenger.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

That's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Let's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

a challenge.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

do like</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

It's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

whatever</font></b> and we're not prescribing</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

I saw a post the other day from a girl who's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Heh.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

a couple of years into running her own software company. They've been trying</font></b> to build a PLG, a product-led growth company, and completely misunderstanding.</font></b> Great. You can... run product-led growth just be prepared for and one of the</font></b> columns you possibly left out of here is that the quantity of pipeline that</font></b> you need to get to the deals that you'll close out of that. So some interesting</font></b> stats that Winning by Design have pulled together is if you're running PLG,</font></b> which in this graph is the self-service line, you typically require up to 8x pipeline.</font></b> Whereas if you're looking at that challenger, provocative, almost account-based</font></b> marketing strategic engagement, You might only require two and a half to three</font></b> X pipeline to get to those numbers. And your deals are much larger, but your sales</font></b> cycles longer. Now, if you've got to build eight X pipeline, that's hard.</font></b> That's a lot of emails. That's a lot of understanding different customer bases.</font></b> There's a lot of people downloading trials and engaging in and spending money that</font></b> you haven't possibly got. And that's the same if you're a salesperson, if</font></b> your business is driving and saying, Hey, listen, let's push a whole bunch</font></b> of your customer basing to self-serve. Well, okay. Are we expecting that a hundred</font></b> percent of these self-serve deals are going to close because that actually isn't</font></b> what the data tells us. If you go back and do the research, do the reading,</font></b> understand what's going to happen, you want to give all of our license upsells</font></b> to a customer to do themselves rather than us when they come and say, I might</font></b> want some more licenses. Actually go and sell them that. So like there's all</font></b> these pieces back within that cell type, even once you've understood where</font></b> you are. that salespeople don't necessarily do the research or the study to</font></b> understand what is it you're actually trying to do. You know, if you're</font></b> a B2B sales, but you're not selling software, you're selling services, then you're</font></b> absolutely gonna be in solution or consultative. Because even though if you've</font></b> packaged it up, the service delivery is different for each client and their needs.</font></b> So, you know, it's not a transactional engagement unless potentially what you are</font></b> selling is, you know, there are lots of... Um, so the security companies that</font></b> are just selling the hours of people, well, that's, it's not consultative.</font></b> It's I'm just selling the, I'm a body shop and I'm selling the transactional</font></b> hours. So it's actually understanding the different models. And as a result of that,</font></b> what should I roll out to my team? So I think</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I look</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

like, this</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

like</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

is an amazing</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I agree.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

overview of it. Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yeah. I think it's, it's an interesting one down because I look at this</font></b> and I think that I would give this to the sales enablement team before I</font></b> showed that the salesperson, cause I think, you know, I've spent years rolling</font></b> out sales methods. Um, way back in the day when I was at SEP and the,</font></b> the enablement function often looks at the shiny new object, not the problem</font></b> they're trying to solve. And I love. the comment there around spin as being</font></b> a foundation. I mean, that was probably the first methodology I learned.</font></b> But it was interesting because I went from spin to solution selling, to consultative</font></b> selling, to challenger sale, but it was never put succinctly. It was almost</font></b> like the new methodology replaced the old methodology rather than building upon</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yes.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

it. And I think if I'm a 22 year old, I'm a BDR, I'm just getting my sales,</font></b> you know, motions going, it put me in front of an executive and asked me</font></b> to do challenger sales. A, I don't have the background and experience.</font></b> I'm just not gonna be credible at it. So I love the idea of, it's almost like</font></b> you guys are defining the university course for sales that doesn't exist.</font></b> I mean, sales 101 might be some spin selling. By the time you're doing</font></b> your PhD, that's when you're starting to do challenger sale.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah, it's a lot about like I used to be coaching swimming, I was coaching</font></b> teenagers who were going into like teenage or sort of like youth national</font></b> finish team. And one of the things I found in and it's especially true</font></b> in countries where some sort of sports are not sort of very strong historically,</font></b> like you know, in us like, you know, his historical sports where the country</font></b> is just very strong in and they have very good base of coach coaches and</font></b> the culture of coaching. But in Finland for us, I'm assuming is not one</font></b> of those sports. And you can see how I always was saying like why people</font></b> are watching at how Michael Phelps is training and then applying the same</font></b> training methodology or training pro programs to a 12 year old. There's a certain</font></b> path how you get to some level and from, if you get to the level of Michael</font></b> Phelps, how he got there, right, then you apply the same things what he is doing</font></b> today. You're not taking stuff from there and saying, you know what, this</font></b> is a new thing. I'm going to teach my 12 year old or 16 year old or 18 year</font></b> old to do that.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yep.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

It's a completely different path. There's a certain way how to get there,</font></b> but somehow people always search for shortcuts and I don't understand why. this</font></b> is in every profession everywhere there is a talent can get you to the result</font></b> right like you can bypass it you can shortcut without knowing things but</font></b> at the end of the day if you want to consistently produce Michael Phelps's</font></b> right like you're not training them on what your current Michael Phelps your</font></b> current top rep how they are training you're not gonna you should not be</font></b> training your junior or low performing reps on the way they're doing like</font></b> it's it's just</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

You've got</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

not</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

to take</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

gonna</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

them on</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

work</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

the journey.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

in many ways.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

I want to jump forward in our conversation here a couple of the slides and</font></b> we'll put this up in a link for everyone to download and have a look at. But</font></b> I thought this was a really interesting addition to the overview of the cheat sheet,</font></b> which is the first 19 months of a failing VP of sales. And the reason I</font></b> think this is super interesting, right. In my recruitment process, when I've</font></b> looked at reps and again, Simon and I have worked together for a long time.</font></b> I've been a huge proponent of actually looking at people who've failed. And</font></b> like, have you been managed out of a role? Have you taken a job where it was</font></b> beyond your capacity? And I'm just going to, I'm going to share this for</font></b> everybody here. Cause I was cleaning up, I moved house recently, right. And I, um,</font></b> I, I found my first performance improvement plan. That's, that's it there.</font></b> Um, from when I was about 20 and I looked back on that plan and I was horrendous.</font></b> I, and to your point before Anton, I didn't know how to sell and I hadn't been</font></b> through, you know, 10, 15 years of, of knowing how to sell. So I'm not surprised</font></b> when I read through all the things that I couldn't do. I'm like, yeah, I had no</font></b> idea what those things were. And when I look here at the, you know, the</font></b> first 19 months of, of failing as a VP of sales, you know, I've been through.</font></b> so many of the aspects of what you've called out here in, in like the first</font></b> 12 months that I had as a VP of sales. Simon was actually my boss at the</font></b> time. I was pretty awful. And some of my reps or former reps who are listening</font></b> to this will laugh, but it is absolutely this journey that you go on and</font></b> expecting that anybody stepping in to be a VP of sales is going to be successful</font></b> in the first, when they land in the ground, it's just not, it's just not</font></b> how it happens. So I'd love to hear a bit of kind of your background, thinking</font></b> around sort of the detail in here. And we're not gonna read through all</font></b> the bits and pieces, but like, what was your experience to getting kind of</font></b> to this map?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah, I think. I think the thinking was we talked with Mirro when we were</font></b> working together at the previous company is this idea of benchmarking. You're</font></b> so like, you know, as a salesperson, you typically benchmark yourself to something</font></b> or you know, you can benchmark yourself to other people. And this is all says</font></b> like sales professionals, salespeople are highly competitive. Like you just want</font></b> to know how you benchmark to others. And at some point, I think Mir and</font></b> I were on like on a on just on a rampage of trying to find how to benchmark</font></b> what are we doing? You know, like at the previous company versus what are</font></b> the best in class? Like, what are they doing? Like, what is what does it</font></b> mean to be the best to be the worst? Like how to identify that? Because nobody</font></b> really. It's like we didn't see, we didn't know how to define a great sales</font></b> leader, you know, or how to define a failing sales leader. So we went on</font></b> a search of, is there, is there any content which can help us and just combining,</font></b> you know, all that is basically, I think there's another post which, which we</font></b> put together, which is about what are the best sales leaders are doing.</font></b> And this, and that post was. asked like well what is great like I understand</font></b> I can benchmark myself if I'm failing I can diagnose but where should I kind</font></b> of try and strive for and this is this is just from our personal sort of like</font></b> insecurities or just willing no wanting to understand are we doing good</font></b> or are we doing bad you know and that's one of the Yeah, that's the, those</font></b> are just one of the things where you went on a, on a, on a research path</font></b> for a couple, probably a couple months or a couple years, you know, and then,</font></b> uh, and then that's, yeah, you found something which works</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

That's</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

or at</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

amazing.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

least which kind of works for you to, to diagnose yourself. Yeah, I- Ahem.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

It's a look, I should probably put a big, big picture of this up in my home</font></b> office and just every day, just have another look at it. And am I falling</font></b> for any of those traps? Am I seeing myself in any of those? And I think</font></b> that's, that's all part of it as well. Cause no sales leader is ever perfect.</font></b> Right. I've met lots of sales leaders in my life and I've never met perfect</font></b> ones. So I think constantly looking at something like this is really very</font></b> reassuring.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah, I think the fundamental question to me around failure is it's a how</font></b> we think about failure is a diagnosis around the type of company or working</font></b> in. So as a VP of sales, if you're failing, the real question is trying</font></b> to understand, like, Failure is only failure if you're in a company that</font></b> doesn't support failure. You know? So the question really is about like,</font></b> are you in an organization where are you playing to lose? You know, is</font></b> it really is it about are you playing to win? Do people do you work in a</font></b> company where people hedge? And make bets in that way where they hedge</font></b> their risk or are people playing to win?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yep.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

And if you're playing to win, it's OK to fail because in order that there's</font></b> a book by strategizer. where they talk about two types of companies. One</font></b> is where two types of strategies in a business, one on one end, their companies</font></b> where they want gradual growth. Gradual growth is in numbers, it's like 10%</font></b> improvement. Right? I hear from my friends that are, you know, McKinsey</font></b> consultants, and they tell me like the deep dark secret about consulting</font></b> and they tell me you know what as long as we can get 10 growth we'll renew</font></b> the contract we're not here to give you 50 growth we don't go there to</font></b> give it if we can get 10 we're good whatever we do we wash our hands we go</font></b> to the next project but it has to be 10 and that's just gradual improvement</font></b> If you want disruptive growth, like disruption, that's measured in 50% growth.</font></b> That's where disruption, the number is 50%. And so if you want 50% growth</font></b> versus 10% growth, you better fail. You better understand. You better, you</font></b> better teach your company not to hedge their bets, to play politics, to do</font></b> all this. Um, and so that is the failure question. Like, tell, if you ask</font></b> somebody, tell me about one of your most recent failures that you've had</font></b> in your role. What happened? And if they say, if they say, if they're comfortable</font></b> saying, you know, I made a mistake, I failed because of these reasons.</font></b> It's a good sign that you're in a company where people are trying to get</font></b> disruptive growth. But if they say, well, I didn't hire the right team, I</font></b> didn't, and it's externalizing everything. The team wasn't right, the product</font></b> market fit wasn't there, the product wasn't good, whatever you're externalizing,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Marketing didn't give</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

you're</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

me enough</font></b> leads.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

a company, yeah, you're in a company, it's not your fault. I'm telling</font></b> you, it's a systemic issue. You're in a company where you're being taught</font></b> to hedge your bets.</font></b> You're not in a company that is... And that's where there's this weird discrepancy,</font></b> especially in startups, where you're being told, we are in a company where</font></b> we're trying to find, you know, 3X, 2X growth. But the culture, if you assess</font></b> your culture on failure and you ask them, to talk about failure and they're</font></b> not being self-critical about failure. You know you've created a company</font></b> where failure is not a… and you're never going to… trust me, you're not</font></b> going to get disruptive growth that way. It's not happening.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

It's a thing as salespeople, right? And great salespeople get really comfortable</font></b> with the fact that they will lose more deals and they'll win. And they learn</font></b> from failure and failure becomes a badge of honor rather than it becoming a</font></b> problem with their identity or the way that they operate. And it's not about</font></b> you being one step closer to the next winner, any of those things. It's</font></b> about, I know I have to go through this process. You know, you gave the example</font></b> before Anton of Michael Phelps, like Michael's lost plenty of races. He lost</font></b> races at the Olympics before he won any, right? And along the way, he learned</font></b> how to swim. He learned how to race. He learned how to train. You know, he</font></b> went through that journey and people put those efforts in and got the out.</font></b> You know, he stood on the shoulders of others, but he had to do the work and he</font></b> understood how to learn from failure. And I do want to jump to the next</font></b> part of this. We won't go through all the slides here, but I, this is a piece</font></b> that, that everybody looks for when you join sales. And I think you guys have</font></b> done an amazing job here at showing the, the optionality around like what a sales</font></b> career looks like. And. The one bit that jumps out of this diagram to me is</font></b> there's no straight lines. And I don't know whether you do that intentionally</font></b> or it was just your software, but there is no straight lines in a sales career.</font></b> Both Simon and I talk about this on a regular basis around our careers and I'm</font></b> sure you guys gave descriptions of how you got to doing what you're doing today.</font></b> Anyone who is looking for that. you know, step between I've joined sales and</font></b> how do I go from here to being an enterprise AI and earning millions of bucks?</font></b> There isn't a straight line. How do you wanna go about it? How do you wanna</font></b> find the outcome? So again, is this diagram here based on kind of your experiences,</font></b> you know, any additions or changes now that you've seen this for a little while</font></b> that you put in there? Simon, love to get your thoughts on this model as</font></b> well.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yeah. Look, it's an interesting thing. Obviously, SAS sales career, any sales</font></b> career in B2B sales is a winding, tripping up journey. You join the wrong company.</font></b> It's got bad culture. You take two steps backwards before you go forwards.</font></b> It's trial and error. And I think to the conversation we were just having</font></b> before, making mistakes, oh my god, it's painful at the time, but boy,</font></b> that's when you learn. And I think that the last sort of 10 years or so</font></b> for me in SaaS, that career ladder at some of the biggest SaaS companies</font></b> has become overly prescriptive. And I think that's a shame. I think that...</font></b> It's always nice to hire people into roles because you know they can do the</font></b> job and you see a spark, but they don't necessarily have to have followed</font></b> the exact career path. I've hired people that are new to sales, but based</font></b> on their curiosity, based on their life experience, you know they're</font></b> going to be great salespeople. But the traditional inbound to outbound, SDR,</font></b> BDR, inter-junior sales rep, SMB, mid-market commercial enterprise sales</font></b> leader, I don't think that's necessarily the only way you can go. I do think</font></b> it's a varied and interesting way to do things. And I mean, look, me personally,</font></b> my sales career didn't follow that path. I've never been in a BDR and SDR,</font></b> but other people will swear by that path. And I think everybody's different.</font></b> So there is no standard career path. If I drew this diagram for me, it'd surprise</font></b> the hell out of you some of the things that I've done. I've worked for</font></b> software companies for 30 years. I started as a coder, ABAP coder, and</font></b> did that for six months. I hated coding, but it gave me a taste for getting</font></b> in front of a client and solving their problems. Then I spent 10 years in consulting.</font></b> I moved into sales leadership before I moved into any direct bag carrying</font></b> sales role. So I'm certainly not the typical, but I think we're all different.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah, I wish I wish we could take credit for this view this is a found in</font></b> a in a book by I think it was like a sales enablement playbook book I can't</font></b> remember. I've, I've even connected to this guy Hillman sorry Corey Bray these</font></b> guys, they write a lot of good content. And I found this because I was hiring</font></b> SDRs. And the guys were, and I remember this stuck in my head because I</font></b> had an SDR, really good friend, Matt, and he, he was just asking me career</font></b> advice. And I was like, I have this, I found, remember this content and I</font></b> sent it to him. And just having it might, you're right, Simon, it's not, it's</font></b> not a linear path. Um, I think most people, most salespeople that you talk</font></b> to. They didn't like plan to be in sales. I'm one of the rare ones that</font></b> did plan to be in sales. I can tell that story. But like, most, it's not</font></b> a linear. It's, actually Anton is a good example of that because he was a</font></b> CFO, he was a financial controller. And then he's in sales. So, swimmer.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

I'd</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

Yeah,</font></b> I think it's...</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

some of the best sales guys I've ever worked with came up through consulting,</font></b> came up through accounting because by definition they've got empathy for</font></b> the other side of their sales equation. They've been in roles that you're</font></b> now selling to. So they really genuinely understand what it feels like to</font></b> go through the pain of a massive software-induced change effort within an organization.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

Yeah, yeah, I think when you mentioned Simon, you mentioned consulting,</font></b> I think. or one of the things I, for example, didn't know about three years</font></b> ago, I was always thinking about consultants that, and I was always wondering</font></b> why don't they have any sales people, you know? And then there was this realization</font></b> when we were working for a company who was in transfer pricing technology</font></b> and you start researching consultants and you just have to research how it works.</font></b> And then we figured that, you know, actually partners are salespeople,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Close there.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

you know,</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

Yep.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Anton Dobrzhanskiy]:

and that's the, and that was the craziest part of me. I was like, I was</font></b> like, wow, actually it makes sense. The highest paid person is the one who</font></b> lands the deal, you know, and assembles the team and quarterbacks the team.</font></b> And it's, it made sense because I never really understood before that, that</font></b> is like why in so extremely highly paid. You know, and the reason why is</font></b> because they're sales people.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

That's it. Absolutely. Well, boys, if we're getting to the top of the hour,</font></b> so we'll, you know, pull a halt there. We are genuinely thankful for you joining.</font></b> I know the time zone has been a bit challenging. So I really appreciate you</font></b> guys. jumping on early in your day. But look, we do ask everyone as a parting</font></b> thought for our listeners, look, what's something you give people other than</font></b> this amazing cheat sheet, as I press stop there, what's a parting thought</font></b> you give to listeners? You've got this amazing product coming out that I</font></b> think is gonna solve a whole heap for people. So, I mean, we'll drop a link</font></b> in there if they can join, in the description see if to join the... the waiting</font></b> list, et cetera. But what would you guys lead listeners with?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

We're both waiting for each other to speak now. Who comes up with it? Who</font></b> comes up with</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Simon Peterson]:

That's a wise lesson</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

something</font></b> good? Yeah. No, I think my hope is that... The thing that's been driving</font></b> me for many years now is that I actually, I do believe, and you mentioned</font></b> like winning by design, like Jaco. Um, a lot of these people who are really</font></b> investing a lot of time, I do believe there is, um, a science behind sales.</font></b> I do genuinely believe that there is a way there, there are parts to sales</font></b> which never can be automated. Um, you know, we talk about at Epic Brief that</font></b> what we want to solve is, let's say there's like a ladder of things that we</font></b> can solve. We want to solve the art, we want to solve the manual work.</font></b> So we want to offer automation. We want to augment salespeople in terms of</font></b> their needs analysis, problem solving, strategic thinking with AI. The stuff</font></b> that that the X factor, the thing that makes us conscious humans is our</font></b> emotions, our understanding of one another. I have a hope that</font></b> never gets underestimated, the importance of the human, the emotions in</font></b> sales, because it's a game of trust. I hope that is like AI becomes more</font></b> mainstream, that sales leaders and organizations who are already making the</font></b> mistake of underestimating sales as a profession, that they don't think</font></b> that they can automate sales because you cannot automate human, the emotions.</font></b> You should think of augmenting salespeople, helping them. But I think we have</font></b> a bit of a problem in our hands because people don't understand what salespeople</font></b> do and they don't understand that sales is complex. But if they did understand</font></b> it, then they could actually solve a lot of issues. I have a belief that</font></b> if you understand sales, you actually can solve product market fit issues</font></b> because the key to innovation is actually understanding sales.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Okay.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

So there's a lot of things that I hope that people actually spend time</font></b> understanding sales, that this notion of this perception about sales will</font></b> go away, and that then the people understand that the complexity and the</font></b> value of salespeople is ultimately in how a lot of salespeople are very in tune</font></b> with their. with understanding humans and psychology. And I mean, there's</font></b> a whole field of economics called behavioral economics for a reason. Right.</font></b> So I really hope that that's my hope in the for the for the future. And,</font></b> and given that hope and that vision for the future that people can reach</font></b> out to us, we can continue like in a conversation. We obviously hope people</font></b> join our waitlist because it will help with those for first four steps in</font></b> the ladder. But the people have an open conversation with us and like</font></b> we were doing today. That's my hope. Now Anton's had a second to think</font></b> so. Oh, we're done.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

Any parting thoughts, my friend?</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Miro Putkonen]:

No, I'm not going to try and beat that.</font></b>

<b><font color='#000000'>[Dan Bartels]:

That was, that was, that was, I think that's the best party thoughts you've</font></b> had. So I appreciate that. Well, Anton, Miro, thank you so much for joining</font></b> us. Simon, as always, mate, thank you for joining, joining us as well. Um, I,</font></b> that was just an amazing conversation. You guys have got a wealth of knowledge around</font></b> sales. You know, what you're doing with Epic brief is, is I think is setting</font></b> salespeople up to take the next step. Um, so for all of our listeners, thank</font></b> you so much for joining us. If you've. listening, if you're watching us on</font></b> YouTube, please click down below, subscribe and like, uh, share the video if</font></b> you can. If you're listening to us on Spotify or Apple, uh, please give</font></b> us five stars and put some comments in until your friends are at the podcast. Uh,</font></b> mate, give us a comment. Let us know that you're listening. Is there any</font></b> feedback? Um, we'll give some links through to, uh, the guys at Epic brief,</font></b> uh, so you can connect with them and get a copy of this. Um, we really do appreciate</font></b> everyone for your time. Thank you so much for joining us.</font></b>

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