Getting a promotion using quality discovery tactics (Sarah Brazier, AE @ Gong)

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1. 2:21

   you can actually try to see what levers you can pull to make this work because they're invested. If it's a question of value, then you need to say, hey, we can't continue this conversation. We've done a bad job of selling. Let's talk about why you're not seeing value and where you're not seeing value. Beautiful. What's number two, Sarah? Yeah. “Number two is when you multithread, you need to position toward that persona.” So at Gong, we do a lot of proof of concepts. And that means that I am talking to end users, middle managers, CROs, VPs of sales, everybody in between. And a lot of times I'm talking to operations, all these different people who all get different value out of what I'm selling.

   In Persona-based personalization

2. 2:21

   you can actually try to see what levers you can pull to make this work because they're invested. If it's a question of value, then you need to say, hey, we can't continue this conversation. We've done a bad job of selling. Let's talk about why you're not seeing value and where you're not seeing value. Beautiful. What's number two, Sarah? Yeah. “Number two is when you multithread, you need to position toward that persona.” So at Gong, we do a lot of proof of concepts. And that means that I am talking to end users, middle managers, CROs, VPs of sales, everybody in between. And a lot of times I'm talking to operations, all these different people who all get different value out of what I'm selling.

   In Role-based messaging

3. 2:40

   Yeah. Number two is when you multithread, you need to position toward that persona. So at Gong, we do a lot of proof of concepts. And that means that I am talking to end users, middle managers, CROs, VPs of sales, everybody in between. And a lot of times I'm talking to operations, all these different people who all get different value out of what I'm selling. “So when I multithread, I need to run really good discovery and understand why would an” end user benefit from using my solution versus why would sales operations benefit from my solution and then position accordingly. All right. Round us out. What's number three? Uncover the unstated objection. So a lot of times when you initially run your discovery call, we're commercial sales, so our deals are pretty fast moving.

   In Stakeholder and champion discovery

4. 3:10

   solution and then position accordingly. All right. Round us out. What's number three? Uncover the unstated objection. So a lot of times when you initially run your discovery call, we're commercial sales, so our deals are pretty fast moving. We're closing a deal in like 30 to 60 days. “And in my initial discovery call, I always want to ask how people buy software.” And then have you ever had a failed software project? If you just incorporate that line in your upfront contract, hey, at the end of this call, I also want to understand how you've made software purchases in the past. When you get to that point, you can ask the question, have you ever had a failed software project and why? Then you can make sure that you're uncovering any kind of objections so that they don't

   In Buying process discovery

5. 7:18

   street and we like them too. And they're 8% cheaper. Can you beat that quote? How do you respond to something like that? This is also a talk track that we have, but Gong is the premium solution. It's the most expensive thing in the space. Yeah, sure. That competitor is 8% cheaper. “It's slightly cheaper, but let's go back to the value again. Where do we differentiate?” Where have customers switched over with the exact same problem that you have today? Who used a competitor because it was cheaper? Let me introduce you to some people who made that choice and six months into their contract had to leave. Do you want the risk of 8% off on this quote to have this

   In Competitive differentiation

6. 15:13

   customer success, sales development, and the account executive team. And those people, you know, those conversations touch revenue operations, sales operations, marketing, product, etc. Depending on what happened in with my, you know, “my first discovery call, what problems are we trying to solve? Who should be involved? Typically,” you can get pretty wide and involve lots of people. And I think you want to be, you want to kind of be like wildfire, where you're just spreading everywhere. And everybody's talking about this solution, even if they're not actually actively participating in the proof of concept.

   In Discovery and qualification

7. 15:52

   So part of that looks like, you know, number one, I've got my stakeholders, and I've figured out who my champion is. And I'm like talking to the champion and trying to understand all of the different personalities that I'm talking to and what they like and what they don't like. “And then that champion is bringing in other stakeholders into the evaluation.” So before that initial call, where I have like, say, 6 stakeholders on a deal, and I'm literally like thinking about a deal I'm working right now. So I talked to my champion, and he's like, oh, I'm bringing these 6 stakeholders to this conversation. Well, I need to A, make sure

   In Multi-threaded prospecting

8. 18:05

   really solid, but this group over here is like, it might block my deal. How do you manage that without just trying to circumvent them and make sure that that one group doesn't blow up your deal? Yeah. So part of that is like, when you're having that first conversation, you say like, how do you guys evaluate software? Who's involved in the decision-making process? “Like you need to know how that company evaluates and buys.” they actually didn't care what the reps thought. They just didn't care. And I've run proof of concepts where if not every rep is a green, they're not going to buy. So you need to figure out what that looks like. And then my director of commercial,

   In Buying process discovery

9. 18:39

   So you need to figure out what that looks like. And then my director of commercial, he talks about like, you need to turn the red lights to yellow lights and the yellow lights to green. And you just got to keep the green glowing green. And so it's like identifying “who's not bought in, why they're not bought in and having a conversation with them.” And like, it's fine if they don't love the product, but if you can just get them to not verbally be like, we can't buy this and here's why. Or if you just get enough green lights, green and yellow lights to move forward based off of how that company makes purchasing decisions.

   In Blocker and detractor mapping

10. 18:49

    to green. And you just got to keep the green glowing green. And so it's like identifying who's not bought in, why they're not bought in and having a conversation with them. And like, it's fine if they don't love the product, but if you can just get them to not “verbally be like, we can't buy this and here's why. Or if you just get enough green lights,” green and yellow lights to move forward based off of how that company makes purchasing decisions. That's how I think about it. So Sarah, this has been a very insightful conversation about discovery. One of the things you put in the prep doc was some details about how

    In Blocker and detractor mapping

11. 19:40

    and some tactical things you did to secure that promotion. And I'm wondering if you'd be generous enough to share those with the audience. Yeah, definitely. I think the first thing that if you're an SDR and you haven't closed, but you want to move into a closing role, “the first thing that I would do is understand what the hiring process is like internally,” because it is never just you crushed your number, therefore you get to be an AE now. There's a bunch of other, maybe political factors, business factors. Sometimes people need you to be an SDR longer. because you're the top producer, so why would they promote you, right? Or, you know, there isn't a

    In SDR career paths

12. 20:45

    promotions. So I built out around that business case, I built out a slide deck that I presented to my CRO about why it was in his best interest to move me into an account executive role. “I also did things like ran the numbers on my conversion rates of sourced opportunity to close” one and compared that to the rest of the team. And I had really good numbers in that direction. So I knew how to source leads that closed, not just source leads that led to meetings. And based off of previous promotions, I would be bringing in a significant amount more revenue

    In Win rates