Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from Ep. 160 – Influence Without Authority: How to Manage Your Channel Sales
In this episode, Tom and Tab are joined by a true SALES with ASLAN alumni: our former host and founding father, Mr. Scott Cassidy.
Scott joins the podcast (mainly to deliver his famous intro once again), but also to help Tom and Tab address a specific group of sellers: those in channel sales. Scott also brought along a guest of his own, Drew Henderson, an expert at selling to and through partners. Throughout their conversation, these four sales pros share a great deal of insight, but especially, how to “influence without authority.”
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the full transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome to another, one more episode, Tab, with SALES with ASLAN. It’s good to see you my friend, back in the studio.
00:22
Tab Norris
It’s always good to be here.
00:24
Tom Stanfill
I don’t know why I always say “SALES with ASLAN Tab.” It’s like I really only care about you. I don’t care about our audience. And that’s just not true.
00:34
Tab Norris
It’s not.
00:35
Tom Stanfill
I care about other people. I do care about all sellers, all leaders who help those who sell. As our former podcast host Scott Cassidy used to say… you know what? He might be in the studio right now….
00:52
Tab Norris
Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. I think I see him. The guy that launched podcasting at Aslan Training and Development.
01:00
Tom Stanfill
He is here. It’s all homecoming week. Is it homecoming week?
01:08
Tom Stanfill
He is back. We have an alumni in the building. As I started saying, “a therapy session for those who sell for a living and those who help those who sell for a living” was authored by the man in the studio right here, Scott Cassidy. Scott. Oh, give us that intro one more time. Yeah.
01:25
Scott Cassidy
Welcome back to another episode of SALES with ASLAN, your weekly therapy session for those who sell for a living and those who help those who sell for a living.
01:37
Tab Norris
Could not. Pull that off.
01:39
Tom Stanfill
Scott was such an amazing host, and we’re going to learn that he’s left us to be the VP of a global marketing channel and just back to the corporate world… He’s a very important person. Very important person. But I couldn’t follow that. Tab, we had to come up with our own intro.
But yes. Mr. Cassidy, welcome back, my friend. Good to see you.
02:06
Scott Cassidy
Thrilled to be here. Can’t believe the badge still works. It’s good to be in your building.
02:12
Tab Norris
We have, it is amazing.
02:16
Tom Stanfill
Seriously, Scott and I have been chatting over the last couple of weeks about the idea of we should serve the sellers who are managing a channel? I love that because for two reasons. One, I love to talk about influence without authority, because when you’re managing the channel, they don’t report to you. Your partners don’t report to you. You’ve got to really learn how to influence. You’ve got to learn the challenges of influence. There’s another reason I want to do that as well, because a lot of our listeners, I think, in the companies that we serve, have channel reps, channel partners or sell through channels. So we invited Mr. He brought somebody with him. Scott, so why don’t you introduce our other guest on the show?
03:15
Scott Cassidy
Well, I’ve been over here at Vertiv for about seven months, and I’ve been meeting a lot of great folks, and I met this gentleman, Drew Hollywood Henderson. You might remember him from the 70s.
03:30
Tom Stanfill
By the way, you were better than Calvin Hill. Yes, there was Calvin Hill, then Hollywood Henderson and then Dorsette, I think.
03:41
Drew Henderson
Yeah, Dorsett is behind me for sure.
03:43
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
03:47
Scott Cassidy
I brought Drew along because he actually lives what we’re going to talk about living, talking to both end users and channel partners alike, but has to, like you said, influence without authority. We brought him along to give you the street side view of what that looks like over here at advertising. So we’re excited to join you.
04:07
Drew Henderson
Good to be here, guys.
04:08
Tom Stanfill
Welcome, Drew. Thanks for joining us on this Friday. Tell us about your role, what success look like for you so we can understand some of the challenges you face and then talk about what are the biggest barriers and how are you overcoming those and how can you help our audience with what you’ve learned about selling through the channel?
04:34
Drew Henderson
Absolutely. I’ve got a four state region that I manage, and I’ve got top line responsibility for those four states. Like Scott said, I’ve got eight brick and mortar LVO offices. That’s one of our rep offices out in the field.
04:52
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
04:52
Drew Henderson
So I’ve got eight of those. And we’ve got our partner network. We’ve got national account teams that we work with, integrators engineers. It’s like Scott said, it’s just a host of different players involved in a single transaction. A lot of times we’re running point on that deal. A lot of times, like you said, we don’t have the authority, and we’re just working through our dedicated partners.
05:17
Tom Stanfill
Got it. Okay, so you’re selling through most of the time you’re working with your partners who are reselling your solution direct.
05:27
Drew Henderson
That’s right.
05:28
Tom Stanfill
You’re kind of there to support, coach, advise, educate.
05:35
Scott Cassidy
Sometimes you have to officiate. Right.
05:40
Tab Norris
Now, drew, do you actually join sales calls with them, or is it more behind the scenes?
05:46
Scott Cassidy
Do you do both?
05:47
Drew Henderson
Yeah, I do both. There’s times that I’m an individual contributor on.
05:51
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
05:53
Drew Henderson
Yeah, it really is a mixed bag, and each one is different. There’s times that we’re selling through a partner who was selling to a contractor, even. So, it’s interesting.
06:06
Tom Stanfill
Which I would imagine that developing your message or how you position your solution is really key, because if you’re going to help others deliver a message about your solution and make sure it has impact, you have to have that down pretty tight. You can’t change that too much. I mean, you need to communicate that very succinctly and make sure it can be duplicated. Absolutely correct.
06:32
Drew Henderson
That’s absolutely correct. Okay. Our ultimate goal is to just get to the table and to be that trusted partner to our partners so that they’ll put us in a situation where we can be successful, and that’s where we find successes when we can directly influence the end customer.
06:48
Tom Stanfill
Got it. Let’s talk about that trusted partner, because I think one of the challenges we’ve seen in working with Channel partners or channel reps is that they’re not seen as trusted partners. They’re seen as people who provide education. They come by, bring the donuts, bring food, check on people. Hey, did we have the latest blah, blah, blah. Here’s our price sheet. Oh, by the way, if you sell this much, we’ll give you this much, we’ll give you this. There’s a spiff, right? Or there’s a problem. Hey, we need to decrease this price because it’s too expensive. If you want to win this deal, you got to cut your price. It’s usually the role. How do you shift from being that guy or woman to being a trusted partner? And what does that look like?
07:38
Drew Henderson
Well, you just have to go through the process with your partners because, Tom, they feel pressure in different areas than an in customer would. Right. There’s different things that they’re trying to accomplish in their day to day that we may not know. We still have to experience that drop the rope moment where they actually kind of consider us in their inner circle and they’re giving us the facts that we need so that we can go out and drive business in their direction and they will put us in places where we can help them. And we’re not just a number. It’s a tough thing to do. It takes of time to get there.
08:17
Tom Stanfill
So how do you do that? Go ahead, Scott.
08:19
Scott Cassidy
I was just going to jump in just for a little color on our business because, Advertive, we are not the number one player. You guys know who the number one player is because, A, you’ve served them as well, and I’ve worked there for a long time. Being the hungry second is a very interesting spot for us. I think when we go in, as Drew is alluding to, we need to completely understand what’s in it for the partner to work with someone who’s not that number one player, who is the hungry second. I think understanding their corporate goals, their individual goals like Drew is talking about, we’re able to dig in and understand in the vernacular of aslam take the trip.
09:01
Tom Stanfill
Right.
09:01
Scott Cassidy
Get around that rep, what that owner of that reseller business really cares about. So sorry to interject there, but that’s.
09:07
Tom Stanfill
No, I think that makes a really good and I would imagine the key to that, the first key is that to get to the real decision makers.
09:14
Scott Cassidy
Exactly.
09:15
Tom Stanfill
I always like to say real, meaning the person who’s really ultimately driving what’s happening in that business is who you’ve got to gain access to versus just working with the reps who are reselling. Because if it’s not coming from the top, they’re probably not going to support it. If that’s true, how do you gain access and get to the people that are really driving the business and determining what’s going to happen?
09:43
Drew Henderson
Yeah, I mean, for me, I believe it’s that we have to take it upon ourselves to get to the end customer. There’s nothing more beautiful than you can sit down with a customer and really get to understand their needs, put a solution together, and drive that back through the channel. I mean, that’s the Holy Grail deal right there.
10:02
Tom Stanfill
In other words, you go win the business and then give it to the partner.
10:07
Tab Norris
So you’re just feeding them.
10:10
Drew Henderson
Right. They still have to train and got a fish. Right. I mean, we have to still be able to go out there and consult with those partners, get to understand and how they get paid, what accounts do they have, and really what makes the business inside of that organization. But, man, that’s a great jump off point when you can bring a deal to the table.
10:32
Scott Cassidy
In my past, Tom, way back when, in the Kodak days that you and I’ve talked about, we had a broker network. I remember the best working partnership type relationships were when you’re bringing them deals and they’re bringing you deals, you’re both out working kind of together, but independently, if that makes sense.
10:51
Tom Stanfill
Right.
10:51
Scott Cassidy
If Drew is out finding end users that he’s gifting to the partner that starts to build that trust, that relationship, that then they’re coming with deals and they’re asking for his support on. If that’s working universally across all of the Drews, across Vertive, as well as the inside sales reps that support them. Now you’ve got a machine that serves doubling your salesforce. Exactly.
11:15
Drew Henderson
Right.
11:18
Tom Stanfill
The bottom line is you’ve got to bring value to the businesses that you serve. You’ve got to figure out which usually means it’s more than what you just offer. Like you offer you have solutions. You can hold them, you can see them, but there’s other solutions that you can bring to the table that you don’t get comped on, but your customers need. Every decision maker you serve has something on their whiteboard that’s most important or important to them. If you can somehow figure out how to help them, which in this case, you’re saying, I’m bringing them actual revenue.
11:52
Drew Henderson
Right.
11:53
Tom Stanfill
Handle that’s a way of serving your customers.
11:56
Drew Henderson
That’s right.
11:58
Tom Stanfill
What you’re saying is that’s one of the ways that you gain access to the power in the organization is by doing something for the organization.
12:07
Drew Henderson
Yeah, that’s right. Just to bring something to the table so we’re not the guy standing there with their handout every day. A lot of times in this recruitment and this onboarding, it’s great to be able to bring something to the table so that they can see you in action and really get to understand the capabilities that we bring to the customer. To your point, there’s a lot that they bring that we don’t get paid on. There’s a lot of peripherals, I would call it, that go around our equipment, where a deal that’s X for me, it could be a lot bigger for them.
12:44
Tom Stanfill
You’re part of it.
12:45
Drew Henderson
That’s right. They appreciate it and reciprocate it in a lot of cases.
12:49
Scott Cassidy
I’ll throw something on there. Tom, to your question that I think brings us closer to our partners and makes us part of a long term relationship. That’s the convenience aspect, the ease of doing business. Right. The easier as a vendor that you are to do business with, the more the deeper that relationship can go. And I’ll just give you an example. I mean, if you spiff a bunch of sales reps at a place or you really educate them and you train them, you give them all the great tools and templates that make them enable them to learn your products, but then you don’t have product in your warehouse when they start selling it. That would be a bad thing.
13:33
Tom Stanfill
Right. Right. That’s a bad thing.
13:37
Scott Cassidy
Exactly. To be able to do all those things that I just mentioned and be easy to do business on the finance, on the accounts payable, on the accounts receivable, on the delivery and the installation and even the services side. Now you’re talking about a complete package that makes a good partner. I think when Drew’s outselling, he’s selling that whole package. Right. The ability to have a company that’s kind of standing behind you and delivering and doing what they say they’re going to do, which I think is an aspect that can get lost in a channel business because, let’s face it, ups is kind of a commodity. A lot of people have them, a lot of people can sell them. If I’m a reseller, I want to do business with the company that has great technology but great company and convenience.
14:22
Tom Stanfill
Behind it, if that makes sense. I think that’s a really good point. That also helps you address the value gap. And it’s just about price. They’re looking at equipment and they’re like, your equipment costs this and their equipment cost this, and they’re like, okay, if you’re comparing equipment and it seems like it does the same thing, that’s a hard battle to win. That’s a difficult challenge to overcome. What separates you, what you were saying, Scott, it’s not only the what you offer, but it’s how and who. Right. So the who is Drew? I like the way that sounded. The who is Drew? What do as you work with all your partners and you leverage all the resources that you have inside of Verdict and all the people that all the thought leaders in your business inside your company, outside your company, you’re bringing that knowledge to the table and then also your process, what you’re saying, how you deliver it, what you do.
15:23
Tom Stanfill
The more you understand what’s on the decisionmaker’s whiteboard and what they care about and what they’re trying to accomplish and how they’re trying to grow their business, the more you can package the total solution around what, how and who and how you personally can support them if you’re part of the team. Like, hey, yeah, we are more expensive. And here’s why. Because I’m worth a lot. I’m going to help you take if we switch the conversation from I’m going to sell you this product for X or X minus two, I want to help your business go from a $20 million business to a $30 million business. Well, that’s a totally different discussion.
16:01
Tab Norris
Yeah, it was funny. I worked with one of our clients, same world, same general idea, and was getting some pushback. Drew, you probably had this on pricing. There was just a little change in some pricing, right? And I love it. The guy goes, hey, I hear you. You know what? It’s so funny. We are raising the price by experiment. I don’t know if you remember this when we talked last about I guess it was six months ago and you were telling me that our relationship seems invaluable all the times I’ve helped you close deals that you would have never closed and helped you negotiate things and bring some knowledge to the table. He goes, do you think that’s worth the 2%?
16:41
Drew Henderson
Right?
16:41
Tab Norris
And it was just silence. It was silence. The guy’s like, all right, you got me. You’re exactly right. That’s the point. How quickly the guy forgot all the value that the Drew brings to the table.
16:56
Tom Stanfill
I think this is a really important topic because I know in a lot of industry, especially for people who are managing accounts, and essentially that’s kind of what you’re talking about. Drew, at some level, you’re managing accounts, right? You have a relationship with them, and you want to keep that account. You want to grow that account. You want to defend that account, and you do things for your account. Right. They’re happy to receive the benefit of the things that you do for them. When it comes time to talk about either giving you access to people or learning about your additional solution or paying more, there’s a lot of reps who have a hard time bringing that up.
17:39
Drew Henderson
That’s right.
17:40
Tom Stanfill
There any keys or secrets that you can share or pro tips, as people like to say, of how to bring up, like, tab the example you just gave? How do you bring up, here’s the way I’ve been serving you and the value that I bring and not feel like you need to take a bath?
17:59
Drew Henderson
Yeah, I guess it depends on the partner in question and the history. Like you said, when you’re a pricing vehicle, receptivity is in the basement. I mean, you don’t have any visibility to the customer, and there’s really no way to get to the table unless you can make the partner receptive. The first battle you got to fight is making the partner receptive. You can’t even get to the customer yet because you need the partner to be receptive to going in there when it’s some business with you guys, right? It’s a different conversation because things that are going to increase receptivity through a partner are obviously different conversations and you’re going to have within a customer. Prices, if it’s always price, then it’s always going to be zero. You’re never going to have any receptivity in that account until you can move the discussion past price and more about his business needs or the company’s business needs and goals.
18:59
Scott Cassidy
With some live ammo here because I don’t sell for this company, but I run a marketing group and some channel programs and one of the things I’m trying to do is help build a managed service provider program for the company. Managed service providers are when a small company decides they want to outsource their It, like Aslan may outsource your information technology network stuff to a partner called Managed Service Provider. Well, I was at a trade show, got talking to a managed service provider that doesn’t know us from Adam, they’ve never heard of verdict. I started using my Aslan training and asking them questions about their business and realized that one of their holes in their strategy was as much as they knew about security and call centers and telephony for their clients. They didn’t have a robust strategy for rolling out what sits in the top of the rack.
19:53
Scott Cassidy
What sits in the bottom of the rack. The it rack. Right. They would just piece together whoever they could get the cheapest Ups from or the cheapest there was no strategy behind them. I said let’s talk about this. For the last couple of months, that conversation, through me understanding their business, has led us to not only do our Ups and PDUs, which are these disturbed strips that are in there, the racks themselves, not only is that applicable, but a lot of our It solutions. A product group called Abyssant. Those products could be completely complementary to their security strategy, which they would have never found, never thought of, unless I was just asking them about their business and where they had holes in their strategy. That could be not only a partner for years to come, but could be immediate revenue in certain areas. Again, it goes back to just understanding their business, which is what Drew was just talking about.
20:51
Scott Cassidy
I think it’s an important thing that all sales marketers too, like we’ve all got a lead with understanding what is on that customer’s.
20:58
Tom Stanfill
Whiteboard before we start selling, I think you guys are really hitting on something so important, true to so many people in sales. I used to do this when I first was in business. I mean, I kind of sold through the channel. I would call on real estate agents. I was a loan officer, and I would stop by and I would tell them about my rates and what we had and if they could refer business to our company. And I got commission off that. Right. I never had the as a young seller, I never had the conversation, the real conversation. I would have the, hey, let’s do this, or let’s go play golf, or hey, I’ll take you to a movie. I took people to. I never had the conversation. You mentioned, Drew, of taking the trip, where you’re really taking the trip. You’re seeing their point of view.
21:41
Tom Stanfill
You’re understanding their business. And it starts with receptivity. I think receptivity comes when you’re willing to say things like, my goal is to help you grow your business. I can’t do that without understanding your business. Right. That’s what I want to do. If we’re going to partner together, I got to get to know, do you want to do that? You do that and you take the trip and you can feed it back to them and you have that AHA moment, Scott, where you’re like, okay, you don’t have a strategy, and here’s why it matters, and here’s how it connects your overall plan. Now that’s when you need to sell them on the partnership. You say, here’s the thing that I’m going to do for you. This is what it’s a fork in the road conversation. We can do this. We can work together, and I’m going to do all these things for you, and then I’m going to help you do your business, and this is how it’s going to work.
22:28
Tom Stanfill
Are you in? It might be a little early, and you might have to work your way through that. I think the reason people do the work, the free work, and they never get any benefits because they never have that conversation.
22:39
Scott Cassidy
It’s a good point, Tom. When you really listen to some of these partners, they all get what’s called MDF Marketing Development funds. It comes out of what’s called contra revenue. There’s revenue that they bring to you. You give back in the form of almost like a rebate that they can spend on marketing. Well, guess what? Some of these small partners are challenged with? They have no idea what to do with their marketing budgets that we give them. They just don’t have that expertise.
23:04
Tom Stanfill
You want any money, they’ll take the money.
23:07
Scott Cassidy
If they can’t spend it on marketing, we don’t let them spend it. Right me up on this. If they’ve got a dearth of talent, they don’t have the talent to do that. What if companies like us were to offer marketing as a service, as an addition to the partnership effort, where we can say, let us help you figure out by understanding your business what’s the best use of those dollars? It might be more events. It might be having a golf tournament with your clients. It might be running a social media campaign, but whatever that is, let us help you, because we do have that expertise as a bigger company. It’s just, again, understanding is that a challenge area for them? This an offer that has really nothing to do with our technology? It has to do with the type of people we hire and the programs we put together.
23:52
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. If what’s on what they’re trying to accomplish and you can bring value, then you can have tough conversations. I think it’s really important for account managers. I’m just going to use that title as a catch, all that if you don’t have the conversations with them about that and what you’re going to do together and what you expect them to do and get clarity on. We’re going to do this. You’re going to do this. Here’s how we’re going to work together. They don’t respect you. You now don’t belong on the carpet. You’re back on the concrete. You need to go back into the It room. It’s like you don’t need to feel it needs to because you need to choose. You’re good, right? I choose who I can serve, and if I can’t serve you, like, I remember meeting when were working with Sharp, and we’d walk to into a reseller and, and we’d like, what do you be with them?
24:44
Tom Stanfill
I start asking those questions, I take the trip. What do you want to do with your business? Like, we’re retiring. Are you hiring more sales reps? No, basically, I’m going to keep selling and I’m going to ride this thing. And we’re not growing at all. We’re just going to maintain. I don’t want the hassle like, fire them.
25:01
Tab Norris
They don’t need you.
25:03
Tom Stanfill
There’s nothing wrong with that reseller. It’s like this isn’t some place you need to spend their time. If you don’t have that conversation, but if they do have to say no, we’re trying to build, here’s how I’m going to help you do that. If I do that, what’s the relationship going to look like? Again, you’re not trying to force anybody, but you’re just being clear.
25:20
Scott Cassidy
Yeah, it’s interesting. I remember and Tom, I may have told you this story years ago, I was a first year sales rep selling copiers in the Bronx and Harlem. Had this one easy customer that I went to a couple of Yankee games with, and I had the guy that sat in the cube next to me go, is that guy ever going to buy anything from you? And I’m like, yeah, I think so. And he goes, you think so? Because you’re, like, wasting a lot of time and money on him and Think So is not paying any bills.
25:54
Tom Stanfill
I literally took a guy golfing, I bet 20 times. I don’t know, maybe that’s strong ten times. He never once referred anything to him. Just kept playing golf. We never had any conversation. We just kept playing golf. I mean, I did like playing golf. I do appreciate the company paying for him to play golf and me, but he was now like, well, I hope is not a strategy.
26:15
Scott Cassidy
No. You’ve got to have those tough conversations, and they don’t have to be tough. Right. It’s more curiosity. Like you said, the beginning of this tab, you’re just curious. Sales reps can do very well just in terms of asking questions about the business. I think, Drew, you guys took the training from Aslan. I mean, obviously, Berto is a good client of Aslan, and you’ve been applying it for the better part of this year, and it seems like it’s paying off.
26:42
Drew Henderson
Oh, it’s paying off. I’ll say this about the training, is you sit through some of these courses, and we’ve all sat through a bunch of them, right. It’s always about the quid pro quo. Tell me more, tell me more, and you finally get to where you need to be, and it’s okay. Okay. If you give me this, which is money, I’ll do this for you in return. What I love about this is it’s 100% about serving the customer. Sometimes you lose the business. I mean, that’s just the way it is. It’s just also a good life practice. Right. It’s just serving other people, serving your customers, and you’re going to win deals, you’re going to lose some. That’s the big difference between most of the ones I’ve sat in and this one is just that element that you’re not really you want something in return, but you’re willing to live without it.
27:32
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that’s good. We always say this at Aslan. You’re more successful and you’re more fulfilled when you truly want to serve. It’s genuine. I want to add something to what you said, because you probably didn’t mean that you serve everybody. You do have to choose who you serve because there are customers you don’t need to be serving.
27:52
Drew Henderson
That’s right.
27:57
Tom Stanfill
You first have to choose because you can’t serve everybody because you just don’t have the time. Right.
28:03
Tab Norris
All the other people don’t get really served well. That need to be served well. Yeah.
28:07
Tom Stanfill
There are certain people you can’t choice. Talk Drew, about winning the value game or differentiating your solution. What has worked for you in the market as you work with your partners? I think a lot of people struggle with that when, again, it seems like it’s a commodity, and it’s hard to differentiate. So you just said you can’t differentiate. You go with cheaper.
28:32
Drew Henderson
That’s right.
28:33
Tom Stanfill
We talked about your process and that but is anything that you’ve seen, any specific strategies or skills or tools that you’ve been able to leverage to help you win the price war? And establish value.
28:50
Drew Henderson
Yeah, 100%. When you do have value and you can put that on the table, the price becomes a moot point. I got of, I guess, a quick story. There was a project we worked on, K Twelve, and I didn’t know the partner, I didn’t know the customer. We weren’t the incumbent. It’s just, long story short, were able to get the partner to work with us to the point where we could meet with the customer. Listen, he had a business case that was very simple. He had a pain point when it came to disposing of existing Ups systems. Right? There’s a battery in there, Tom, and you got to dispose of it in an environmentally friendly way. And there’s some red tape there. Were just able to, by working through the partner and getting to the table, were able to understand that pain point for him and just fanatically focus on just that.
29:48
Drew Henderson
We didn’t talk price, we didn’t talk anything else. Look, he knows where to buy our equipment. He knows where to buy our competitors equipment. It was just conversations that did not happen. It was just trusting that process and just every day just getting back in there and keep stay fanatically focused on his needs. Long story short, just getting to the table, working through his needs, we’re able to secure the business. It’s longterm rollout type things. I guess the point I’m trying to make is you win the partner and you get the partner to trust you, and you get the way you can serve that partner in a way that he wants you to be there with him. He wants you to be in his pocket. When you can do that and you can get to the table with some of these in customer, special things can happen.
30:38
Drew Henderson
At that point, we can deliver our capabilities and go out there and compete.
30:44
Scott Cassidy
You know what I love about this? I love that when I think about as a marketing guy, you’ve got some core competencies that you talk about. You’ve got your bullet points that you talk about in the market. I would never think to talk about our battery disposal capabilities.
31:03
Tab Norris
It sounds very sexy.
31:05
Tom Stanfill
Although that is my favorite that’s my favorite aspect of your solution, the disposal of old batteries. Always, every time I think about Ups and by the way, we had to buy a huge system from Burdock recently, and that was the first question I asked, was battery disposal. I’m sure I look I’m right in the eye and I said, you tell me what your battery disposal is. Are you leaving?
31:26
Scott Cassidy
I thought were just going to put them in Tom’s pool somewhere. The point is, when you are curious and ask good questions and get to the table like you said, Drew, you find out things that you don’t even know as a business if you can do. When you’re creative and that’s what the customer needs, you might come back into the vertical management team and go, hey, if we did this, we could win this deal. Good companies will be flexible and change some things. It could be anything non product related. That could be the difference between partnership and not partnership.
31:59
Drew Henderson
Right.
32:00
Scott Cassidy
If it makes sense for both businesses, it makes sense to do it’s. Such a great story.
32:04
Tom Stanfill
That’s a great point, Scott, that you’re bringing up that I want to highlight is, like, a lot of times we talk about influence, that authority. A lot of times we have to influence internally, which we certainly don’t have a we have to influence up. When you go walking in the door and you can say, here is the pain, right, or here’s what’s happening in this business. Here’s the opportunity in this business, and they can tell you’re working with the right people, what you’re talking about, and then you tell them what you need. Who wouldn’t give it to you? It’s the rep that comes in and says, hey, I need a discount. Why? Because we’re going to lose the business. Who do you know? Well, I know this person. What’s their title? I know their title. What’s their role in the decision making, the process? I don’t know.
32:50
Tom Stanfill
Have you done an assessment of the organization? No, they just told me they just.
32:55
Tab Norris
Want a better price.
32:56
Tom Stanfill
They just want a better price.
32:57
Tab Norris
They don’t care about anything else.
32:59
Tom Stanfill
That’s exactly what I did when I was early. My career, we got a lower rate. Okay, sounds good. Yeah. I think that you’re highlighting it. Also, I want to get your response to this thought. I think the number one reason people have struggled differentiating and building value and they lose the price game is because they come in late and it’s late and low. They come in late and they’re working too low in the organization. And sometimes you can’t help that. Sometimes you can’t help that. What do you tell your partners about, hey, you’re late and you’re low. You’re coming in with the people who have no authority. They’re looking for you to fit this criteria, and they’re looking for a price. You don’t have any influence with these people because they don’t really care. They’re getting judged on buying something that fits that criteria. They don’t care about outcomes.
33:51
Tom Stanfill
How do you coach your partners to move upstream and back the deal up? Kind of say, Look, I’m late and low, but I want to change that.
34:04
Drew Henderson
Yeah, well, I mean, the thing that you got to coach them on is in our world, when a bid comes out, it’s too late. I mean, a lot of times that’s just a formality for those guys to have a competitive procurement. I mean, they already know what they want, and they’re going to go with whatever they want at the end of the day.
34:22
Tom Stanfill
Right.
34:23
Drew Henderson
There’s some coaching there where you need to get ahead of that bid and actually drive the spec. That takes a little bit of trust. It takes we’re working with partners who are actually close to the customer as well. We have a lot of different types of partners, Tom. There’s distribution partners, there’s contractors, there’s integrators, and these guys are in different places in the procurement chain. Ideally, you want to work with those partners that are the closest to the wallet so that you have a better chance to get to the table.
34:56
Tom Stanfill
Right. That helps you close your partners.
34:58
Drew Henderson
Yeah, absolutely. To your point, when you don’t have that, then there’s just like this massive push internally to just have a deviation of price so that you can go out there and hope you get lucky. You can’t forecast it because you don’t know if you’re going to win it or not. It’s just a mess. Yeah.
35:16
Scott Cassidy
Scott it’s of the Jerry Maguire principle. We could put up and say we have 10,000 partners and that might be great because 9000 of them bought one thing once and we count them. It’s much better to have a deep working symbiotic relationship with a smaller number of partners. Right. I think that’s in our phase of development, where we’re really focused now at Vertex, it’s really to build the right amount of partners that care as much about solving their customer problems as we do and vice versa. I think when you think of it that way right. You can have metrics at big companies that say we’re going to incentivize to just go out and get as many partners as we can. That might work for a while, but at the end of the day, what do you really care about? You care about serving the customer and you care about revenue for both companies.
36:13
Scott Cassidy
Revenue and whatever metrics they consider, profitability metrics that they consider. You’ve got to be open to changing your strategy as you develop on both sides, both as a partner and as a corporation that serves them.
36:25
Tom Stanfill
I like that idea because what I’m hearing you say as I’m applying this is that you can look at a partner opportunity, whoever we’re applying this to, and looking to go, look, this is who we are and this is the type of people we serve and this is how my solution fits and this is the impact. If you don’t want to adopt the right process for evaluating the solution and you don’t care about these things. I’ve told potential customers I’m not interested. In other words, I look at them and say, either you’re going to back this process up and we’re going to do it the right way as you evaluate the solution. I need to learn from the people and what they’re trying to do because we need to put together a solution based on solving a problem, not just specking. If they’re not willing and I’m not saying this applies to everybody on every deal, but if they’re not willing to do that, then I’ve said, then I’m not interested in participating.
37:32
Tom Stanfill
You won’t believe the number of times people say, okay, well, we’ll change them. Yeah. When you back it up and you understand all that, and then they come to you and then they say, all right, now we want to negotiate. And I go? Why?
37:45
Scott Cassidy
Yes.
37:47
Tom Stanfill
I had purchasing the other day on an opportunity. Like we’d already sold it, basically. They’re like, we would like a discount. I’m like, why? They don’t know what to say.
37:57
Tab Norris
Because I’ve been trained to say just gas.
38:00
Tom Stanfill
Well, I’m not negotiating.
38:02
Scott Cassidy
It’s in some handbook somewhere that you’re supposed to get.
38:06
Drew Henderson
Exactly.
38:08
Tom Stanfill
What do you say to that?
38:09
Tab Norris
No, I was going to say I think we are I know. We’re heading towards the end of our time together. I know, I see it a tier.
38:16
Tom Stanfill
You’re always such a stickler as a cohost.
38:25
Tab Norris
The pressure it is to be a cohost. You have no power, you have no real reason to exist. I get to be sure we take care of our listeners and we don’t drone on and on. I got to do something.
38:37
Scott Cassidy
I really don’t feel like a droning.
38:39
Tab Norris
No, I’m stopping us before there’s any droning.
38:43
Tom Stanfill
We have a drone at this point. Thanks, Tabby. I do agree. I think it’s been a great oh, Scott’s holding up the book. Thank you.
38:52
Scott Cassidy
It’s not just the book, Tom, it’s autographed by someone named Tom Stalfield. I think he’s Frenchfeel.
38:58
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, Scott’s holding up my book for those who are seeing this video, saved.
39:08
Scott Cassidy
My marriage, changed my life, got me a new career.
39:11
Tom Stanfill
By the way, I signed like that, Scott, because I saw some place when I was younger that if you’re famous and you sign, you’re not supposed to able to read your signature.
39:20
Scott Cassidy
Oh, you know what?
39:24
Tom Stanfill
You can’t read it.
39:26
Scott Cassidy
Can’t read the book either, but no, I’m kidding.
39:28
Tom Stanfill
We can’t read the book. And I’m certainly not famous. But it’s a goal. It’s a goal. Thanks for being with us, my friend. I know you’re out. We’re keeping you from your customers. We really appreciate it. This has been super valuable. Any last thoughts you want to leave us with? Or tips or strategies? Recommendations? Baking tips? Travel recommendations?
39:55
Tab Norris
Now we’re opening up a whole passion.
39:57
Tom Stanfill
Advice. Anything you want to say before we say goodbye?
40:04
Drew Henderson
Well, I will say that we need a home addition to the training. Maybe that’s a book you can write. I think it’d be good to have I’m going to put that out there, my friend.
40:17
Tom Stanfill
I would love to do that. Apply the principals at home.
40:20
Drew Henderson
Yeah, I guess the big thing for me is just trust, get into the training, trust the process and see what happens with it. You got to pull what’s going to apply to your day to day and just trust and apply it. And good luck with selling.
40:37
Tom Stanfill
Thanks to both of you for joining. I appreciate it. Thank you, Scott. Good to see you, my friend. Hope you can come back soon.
40:43
Scott Cassidy
Always happy to.
40:44
Tom Stanfill
To our listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of Sales with Aslan. If you dig the show, let us know. The comments help us produce a better show. It also helps other people find us. I appreciate your comments and again, thank you for joining us for another episode of Sales with Aslan.
