In this episode, David interviews Steve Richard, founder and CRO of ExecVision, a SaaS platform for AI assisted call coaching & conversation intelligence. He’s built a sterling industry reputation as an inside-sales operator and innovator. His insights on sales and business have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Washington Business Journal, Washington Posts,CNN Money, and NBC. Listen as Steve drops tons of value in today’s show as he discusses the importance of indexing your calls, the 2 most important ratios for sales development, the 4 forms of feedback, and the DEPTT model in sales development.
3 Key Points:
1.USE what you learn; otherwise, there’s no purpose in learning.
2.Know your parameters, conversion rates, and metrics—this will inform your target goals and baselines.
3.Have a definition and description of what makes a GREAT CALL and communicate this to your team.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:46 – Introducing Steve Richard
- 01:46 – Steve is named as one of the top 25 most influential people in inside-sales
- 02:20 – A year ago, Steve reached out to David and they talked about entrepreneurship
- 02:34 – That call meant a lot to David and it inspired him to help others
- 02:50 – David thanks Steve for the help
- 03:28 – Steve’s support in that tough time in David’s life was greatly appreciated
- 04:01 – Steve shares about his experience in Washington, DC where they cold-called C-level executives
- 04:49 – Steve learned from failure
- 05:12 – “I just observed. I observed what they did”
- 05:24 – Observation was the origin of his outsourcing business
- 05:42 – They were not good at selling, but they were good at getting the meeting to happen
- 06:02 – They started an outsource company for sales development called Vorsight
- 06:27 – This was the origin of their training business
- 07:24 – All training that is out in the market presumes you have an opportunity
- 07:35 – Steve has trained 100 sales development teams
- 07:46 – Unfortunately, after training, these people didn’t do anything differently
- 08:31 – Steve had an identity crisis
- 08:33 – Foresight acquired a tech company called ExecVision
- 08:49 – Game Film vs Game Tape
- 09:45 – The magic is indexing by keywords
- 10:02 – People don’t want roleplays – they want what happens in the real world
- 10:53 – There are a lot of people who claim to be entrepreneurs
- 11:21 – Steve has never written a business plan
- 11:34 – Learn by doing vs planning to death
- 13:14 – Indexing your calls automatically helps the process so the SDR doesn’t have to think
- 13:40 – Use your index to find the calls that you need to address:
- 13:52 – Place a #1 on all calls that result in a “NO”, where they asked for coaching
- 14:31 – Watch out for the signal from all the noise
- 14:56 – Help your SDR change their behavior
- 15:10 – Have the rep listen and comment on the call
- 16:23 – Use your observations to point out errors
- 17:32 – Aggregating using software can be the missing link for missed conversions
- 17:44 – Foresight’s Call of the Month Contest
- 17:51 – Every rep, every month sends their best call to their managers
- 18:10 – They play the winning calls with video pop ups that serve as lessons
- 18:27 – Today, Steve and his team talked about making the numbers
- 18:33 – An SDR needs to know 2 ratios in sales development: dials to conversations & conversations to appointments
- 19:02 – These 2 conversions are the 2 most important gauges in SD
- 20:00 – These 2 conversion metrics are EVERYTHING
- 20:38 – 38 US States have 1 part consent – as long as the calls are being recorded, it’s fine
- 21:03 – A telephone recording consent form serves as evidence
- 21:20 – 12 US States need to a recording consent
- 21:37 – In-bound is easy if acquiring this consent
- 21:41 – There are technologies available for out-bound like InsideSales, SalesLoft, and Outreach where it only records the seller side of the conversation
- 22:33 – For out-bound, you can’t cold call and inform people it’s getting recorded
- 24:02 – In working with companies who use this approach, these one-party recorded calls represent 20% of all calls
- 24:12 – 80% of calls are still being recorded in 2-way
- 24:43 – David recommends sales managers read the book, New Sales Simplified
- 25:44 – There’s a big analytic component in sales calls
- 26:21 – 4 forms of feedback – voice notes, comments, highlights, and scorecards (call review sheets)
- 26:49 – The biggest miss is having no particular definition of a great call
- 27:37 – At Foresight, it’s 30 dials to 1 conversation
- 28:24 – “You can’t hit a target that you don’t see”
- 29:13 – Your metrics depend who you’re selling to and what you’re selling
- 30:16 – Establish a baseline
- 31:03 – Sales development is expensive
- 31:22 – Seek out other people in sales development and check their benchmarks
- 32:30 – Ultimately, SDRs need to understand expectations and baselines
- 32:39 – DEPTT Model – DNA, Environment, Performance, Training, and Technology
- 34:14 – Buying technology can be fun, but it’s not the only thing to consider in your sales development model
- 34:53 – Sales development com-plans are an absolute mess
- 36:27 – How do you keep yourself from CEO/CRO isolation and surround yourself with people that understand what you’re going through? – “You have to interact with other business owners, other CEOs and other founders”
- 37:30 – “If you want to be an entrepreneur, JUST DO IT”
- 37:51 – Figuring it out is a critical factor in the equation that a lot of people are missing
- 38:31 – The tools to become an entrepreneur are available
- 39:58 – There’s nothing wrong with being a sole proprietor
- 40:12 – Join ExecVision’s call camps on their website
- 40:30 – Steve’s cell phone number is on his LinkedIn profile
- 41:08 – End of podcast
Resources Mentioned:
- ExecVision and Vorsight– Steve’s companies
- New Sales Simplified – Book David recommends for sales managers
Sponsored By:
Credits
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives
