❓ Are you struggling to find success in your B2B business despite following conventional wisdom?
🎙️ In this episode, we dive deep into the world of B2B marketing and sales with Oscar Torres, a renowned B2B expert, who shares his unique insights and strategies to revolutionize your B2B business.
🎯 Topics we discussed:
- 🔄 The critical mindset shift from B2C to B2B
- 📊 The importance of qualitative KPIs and the butterfly effect
- 💡 Creating a B2B culture to accelerate your organization
- 🚀 The three-step process to transform your B2B business: Realization, Organization, and Culture
- 🌟 The impact of embracing B2B-focused marketing and sales strategies
👤 About Oscar Torres:
Oscar is the B2B Management Program Founder & Director at ESADE Business & Law School, helping businesses to scale and achieve their full potential. With years of experience in management and consulting, Oscar has developed a unique approach to addressing the challenges faced by B2B companies. Connect with Oscar on LinkedIn to learn more and continue the conversation.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn from a true B2B expert and transform your business!
Hi, It's Isar the host of the Business Growth Accelerator Podcast
I am passionate about growing businesses and helping CEOs, business leaders, and entrepreneurs become more successful. I am also passionate about relationship building, community creation for businesses, and value creation through content.
I would love it if you connect with me on LinkedIn. Drop me a DM, and LMK you listened to the podcast, what you think and what topics you would like me to cover 🙏
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Isar Meitis (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Business Growth
Accelerator.
This is Isar Meitis, your host.
We have a very special topic anda very special guest today.
And I've done B2B and B2C in mylife, and I can tell you from my
personal experience that there'sdramatic differences between B2B
and b2c.
On one hand, B2C is almostalways more advanced when it
comes to sales and marketingtactics and strategies and
(00:23):
systems to do it.
But on the other hand, a lot ofB2B companies, use cases and
ideas and concepts from B2C as away to define their B2B way of
selling and growing a business.
And in many cases, that actuallyhurts their growth because
there's a misfit between how B2Cand a B2B B business works.
(00:43):
Our guest today is Oscar Torres,and Oscar is a global expert on
building successful B2B culturethat drives growth for B2B
businesses.
He helped more than 500companies in 25 countries
improve and grow their B2Bbusiness through his methods,
which we're gonna discuss today.
And he's also the professor andthe founder of the B2B
(01:04):
management program in the Esadeuniversity in Barcelona.
So since this is a reallyimportant topic, and it can
really help B2B businesses lookat their business through a
different lens they might belooking today, that can help
them grow faster, and reallyexcited to have him as a guest
of the show today.
(02:22):
Oscar, welcome to the BusinessGrowth Accelerator.
Oscar Torres (02:25):
Thank you.
Thank you very much for havingme.
Isar Meitis (02:29):
Oscar, before we dive into the method that you're
teaching and the frameworks thatyou're teaching, when did it hit
you?
You've done a lot of things inyour career.
When did it become obvious toyou that, oh my God, we got this
all wrong, and maybe we shoulddevelop a new system?
Oscar Torres (02:46):
Okay.
I think to give you a little bitof background, I'm an engineer.
I was, I was working indifferent companies for 10, 12
years.
I was two years expert in China.
when I came back from China, Imoved to the software business
to an scale up.
And it's funny because, wheneveran engineer moves to business,
we think about a businessschool, okay, I need to do
(03:09):
something in a business school.
And my surprise was that allconversations, they were about
Apple Heineken and Danon.
So there, at that time I was, Iwas quite young, right?
I was in my thirties and I wasthinking, it's me, right?
But then five, 10 years later, Iwas, I start thinking, no, it's
(03:29):
not me.
it's, yes, they are notaddressing the topic, right?
And, and then I start thinkingaround, I, I start thinking,
wherever they are teaching as ina business school, it's B2C
doesn't fit in b2b.
At that time, I was working foran scale up called, solid Words.
And, my responsibility was toscale the business in, for a
(03:52):
Spain and Portugal.
And, I remember that when Ijoined my executive education
program, I, they were talking tome about Cinzano.
Cinzano, the drink.
Yeah.
And I was think.
Where is the point how I connectZao in a shelf on of a retailer
to the software I have to sellto an engineering team, that
(04:13):
they don't trust me.
And this was the very beginning.
So everything started by, by thefact that I was not happy.
Yeah.
With what I was listening frommy, from from the, my professors
at that time.
In fact, 20 years later, if youtake a look back, between 50 and
70% of companies in the world,they are B2B and 90, 9 0% of the
(04:37):
cases studies that are used in abusiness school, they are b2c.
So something is wrong, right?
Isar Meitis (04:44):
Yeah.
Totally.
Okay, so let's really diveright.
What are the key things that yousee that are wrong?
And then what is, we'll startdiving into the right way to do
this.
Oscar Torres (04:55):
Yeah, I think there are like three things,
right?
But probably two are veryconnected.
The first thing is it's mindset.
We have a B2C mindset.
You and I, we are consumers.
We buy things on a daily basisfor ourself, for our families.
The problem is when it goes intoa business school and they teach
(05:16):
you as a consumer as well,because in my position, I wasn't
a consumer, I was a manager in aB2B company, right?
So there is a bunch of thingsthat, from a mindset point of
view, what a manager or a CEO isdoing.
It's just creating theconditions, building a company
that with people processing datato achieve a certain goal,
(05:38):
right?
If you are the one building thesystem, the company, and you do
it with a B2C mindset, you areprobably going to build the
wrong thing.
And I have a very good example,which is, Kotler's marketing
mix, right?
Who I think everybody haslistened this, the four Ps
right?
Product, price, place,promotion, right?
(05:59):
I was, when I was a kid, I waslistening that I was thinking it
doesn't work.
Who cares about the product?
For me, what is really importantis the.
solution That we are able tobring to a specific problem,
right?
Who cares about the price?
It's much more about the value.
It's something can be very cheapor very expensive, depending on
the value, right?
Who cares about the place b2b?
(06:21):
People we don't need a place?
we just knock the door and we goto visit you.
And who cares about thepromotion?
It's, nobody in b2b, no clientis going to take the risk to
work with you because you make adiscount.
They're going to work with youif they see a very crystal clear
value and they are happy, to, towork with you.
(06:41):
So I think that the first topic,it's, management mindset, which
is something I've been workingfor the last, 10 years.
And this is when I built thisprogram at the Saturday, which
is, we are running already theaddition, we just closed last
week, the addition 23rd.
Wow.
It was super, it was, it's crazyin six years, because some
(07:03):
colleagues, they have 23editions in 23 years.
But we have done 23, we havedone 23 editions in six years,
which is crazy.
And, 25 nationalities.
We have had, people from China,from the states, from from all
over Europe, from Latin America.
And at the end of the day, it'salways the same aha moment is,
it's I'm a manager with a B2Cmindset deal, managing a B2B
(07:26):
company, and this hurts.
It really has a penalty.
Can you imagine for an startup,can you imagine if you're a
startup guy, you put your moneyover the table, you invest your
time, and you are focused onproduct, price, place promotion,
but if you are b2b, you betterfocus on other things, right?
And you don't have time to makemany mistakes.
(07:49):
I probably need, yeah, probablyyou need to go fast to the
point.
So I think first topic, it's,it's, for sure, the mindset of
management, the mindset of Clevel people in B2B companies,
which connects with, with thesecond topic that for me it's,
the way they manage theircompanies, which is what I call
(08:09):
the B2B management model.
And for that, yeah, we probablywould need 40 hours to describe
that.
But if I give you a teaser,it's, for me it's five elements,
right?
And, and I super describe thatin several articles I have
published at Forbes usa.
And first topic is that B2C ismuch more about the product.
(08:32):
when you go to Anapolis store,an Apple store, and you buy,
your ne your next, gad.
You have 15 minutes of peopleand four years of gadget.
It's all about, it's all aboutthe product.
There is, so there is no peoplein B2C companies.
You don't buy people, right?
In b2b, so different in b2b.
(08:54):
if you are selling or buying aCapEx, if you are selling or
buying something, which is, itcan affect to your reputation.
You are not buying a product.
You are buying a solution andyou are double checking that
this will not affect yourrepetition.
So first concept for me at themanagement level is that, we are
(09:18):
in the people business in b2b,and this is super hard from a
management point of view becauseit makes life of manager's life
complicated.
But it's super powerful becausepeople has no competion.
If you, Isar works for me, and,people recognize the value of
Isar, how you can compete withIsar.
There is no, no more Isar in theworld, right?
(09:41):
That's a very important topic inb2b.
Second topic, which is, veryconnected to the fact that I'm
an engineer, I land in thebusiness world, like 12 years
after I start working, right?
I work for Vallejo, which is anautomotive company in Europe.
And then I work for Coca-Cola.
Then I work for a motorcycle,company based in Europe.
(10:03):
Then another one in China.
And then I moved to business inthe software business, right?
And one of the things that I wasabsolutely surprised is, Sellers
making, trying to make mebelieve that selling is an art
and whatever is artistic is notpredictable.
And it's not scalable.
So the second topic that, I'mreally trying to make those C
(10:26):
level people attending to ourprogram, is that you have to
treat the relationship as aprocess.
It's not about the salesprocess, it's about the relat.
Sales process is super short.
The relationship includes manyother people than sellers,
right?
So treating the relationship asa process is going to be a very
(10:46):
good, way.
to work towards this better,predictable and scalable
business thing, which is, forme, it was very important Third
element in this managementmodel.
Before
Isar Meitis (10:57):
you dive into that, yeah.
Before you dive into that, Iwanna add two things from my
personal experience and a lot ofit from my very recent personal
experience.
So I've been helping companiesgrow their businesses,
leveraging this like talk showsand podcasts and building
relationships.
Two things that connect verywell to what you said.
One is our first core value ofthe company or our second core
(11:21):
value of the company isrelationships over transactions.
And the idea behind it isexactly what you're saying at
the end of the day, what makesyou win both internally in your
company as well as external ishuman relationships and nothing
else.
And this is gonna become evenmore extreme when we're now
(11:43):
walking blindfolded into the airof AI generated stuff.
Absolutely.
The human connection, the humantrust, the human relationship.
Is gonna become an even strongercomponent of okay, that's the
only thing I can believe,because all the other stuff can
be made in seconds and representanything in the universe and
make it look very believable.
(12:04):
So relationships overtransaction is one thing that I
heard you say.
The other thing that is reallyimportant, and you said it and
you also touched it in severaldifferent places, is at the end
of the day, it's about providingcontinuous value that builds
trust.
Over time, not necessarilyrelated to the thing that you're
(12:26):
selling.
So if you are focusing only onproviding, oh, I can give you
this information because it willhelp you make a decision to buy
my thing.
I may have lost you as acustomer, but if I say, okay,
what problems do you currentlyhave?
Do I have expertise or can Ibring somebody else who has the
expertise?
But I'm the one that bringing itto help solve.
(12:48):
I think it's a problem.
I
Oscar Torres (12:49):
become person.
I think it's even worse.
I think that the product you areselling is a must.
So yeah.
Great.
you are a professor.
You cannot be proud that youknow how to teach.
It's mandatory, right?
Yes.
That's a, it's a is like astupid, right?
(13:10):
Yeah.
You are a professor or you are ajoker.
You don't have to be proud to bea joker.
I think that this, the productin b2.
It's like a checkpoint.
Yeah.
If you, if your solution doesn'tfix, and this is what it really,
it's funny because, when youlisten some very passionate
people, B2C marketing peoplethat they are, they wake up in
(13:31):
the morning and they have this,this incredible, thought around
Kotler, right?
Product, price, place,promotion.
I did my own B mix, right?
I create the B2B mix of Torreswhich is competing with the
Kotler's one, which is, for me,the mix that really works In
b2b, it's solution company andpeople.
(13:51):
Solution company and people.
It's really what really countsfor the buyer because for me,
decision makers are risk takersThey are, they do risk
management.
They don't buy a product.
The product is a must.
they buy a solution which shouldfix the problem.
They double check what is thecompany behind the solution.
(14:13):
And the last point, which is thelast mile, which is over 50% of
the decision making process,it's people.
And this brings, this is anightmare for management When
they listen that, itar, it's ohmy God.
So you mean that we have to havea great product that fix a great
problem and we have, and thisproblem has to be back up by a
(14:35):
great company, but what isreally going to make a
difference is our people.
Yes.
Yeah.
And, at the management manlevel, this is a hot potato.
Because then it's when we starttalking with B2B culture, how
your people behave.
because sellers, they areoutdoor.
(14:56):
If you have a quality managerthat behaves not good, you are
going to see this guy or thislady, right?
If you have operations not doingthe right thing, you go to the
shop floor and you see them notdoing the right thing.
But the problem with sellers, Isthat they are out there.
They are in teams and zoomsalone talking to through the
(15:18):
market.
And you don't have a secondchance for a good first
impression.
Yep.
So how many times our teams areburning the account for five
years and you even don't knowthat this happened as a.
Isar Meitis (15:34):
So I wanna mention something that just popped in my
head, and it's very relevant andit's like an opposite example of
this, but it amplifieseverything that you're saying.
I used to run a large travelcompany and I had a call center
and the people would call in tobuy travel.
And my best salesperson from are pure result perspective, made
more sales, more money thananybody else on the phone, was a
(15:55):
guy that.
As far as I thought in thebeginning, an amazing
salesperson, right?
He had more deals done everysingle month consistently more
than anybody else.
And then we, you get to a pointthat you plateau with your sales
and you have good traffic.
You're like, okay, how do I goto the next level?
Let's increase the conversion.
Let's start checking the calls.
And he would only take the easycalls, like people who are not
(16:15):
eager to buy, he would let go.
He had one of the worstconversions of anybody on the
team.
And then we are.
Oh my God.
I'm only rewarding people basedon how much money they bring.
He brings in more money.
I give him more money.
He's throwing away 70% of thecost that other people could
have converted to sales.
(16:37):
And he would go through 600calls a week when the average
person would go through 300, andthen he would sell a little
more, but not twice.
And I'm like, this is not, sothen we started changing the
mindset and rewarding them onconversion and rewarding them on
building long-term relationshipand rewarding them on having,
yeah.
Return clients that return tothem.
(16:57):
People would call and ask forLisa or John and then, okay,
this is a longer term model thatactually works better.
But it goes back exactly to whatyou said.
It's.
Do you look at the rightparameters to establish the
right behaviors and reward thosebehaviors in a way that will
build long-term growth versusimmediate reward that might
Oscar Torres (17:18):
look better?
I think this is another bigpotato when we come into the B2C
thing.
so when I was talking aboutmanagement model and I said,
okay, first is people, second isprocess.
Third is.
We are super infected by B2Cmindset, in terms of KPIs.
(17:41):
And that in the venture capitalworld finance people that they
never have seen a client andthey try to, they ask to
entrepreneurs the wrong data.
And for sure, if you are givingme 10 million euro.
And you are asking forsomething, probably I will try
(18:02):
to invest some time to answer toyou.
Yeah.
So at the end of the day, thedata that we are using, it has
to be B2B data.
It really has to measure thethings we wanna measure,
considering that there is a veryinteresting metric, so I dunno
if you ever think about, but acar is sold in 45 minutes in a
(18:23):
dealer.
Fleet, it's five months.
Yeah.
The data that really works for40 minutes has nothing to do
with the data that is needed tobuild, to do the governance of
five months of relationship.
Yeah.
and we are super, affected interms of mindset.
(18:43):
by that, the way we built ourprocesses, the way we measure
the things they are too.
lacking We measure things toolate, so then doing it, when we
have to do it.
Isar Meitis (18:56):
I love this point.
I'm a data freak and Idefinitely understand where
you're coming from.
So what do you measure and howdo you measure it in a B2B world
to have a better impact onlong-term outcome?
Oscar Torres (19:08):
I'm a fan of measuring the week.
I used to have a boss telling tome, how do you measure the
success of your week?
And, it really depends on your,depending on who is listening,
right?
Because if you are selling 5million Euro deal, perhaps the
week is too much.
But in average if I consider the500 companies, it's over, it's
more than 500 now.
(19:29):
But if you consider the, those500 companies that they were
exposed to, my theories, whichare quite pragmatic, the week
works, the measuring the week,the execution on a weekly basis
works because it has a firstcomponent of, communicating a
sense of urgency.
And, there is another, there isanother principle, which is, you
(19:53):
have many weeks in the year andyou only have 10 months if you
have an ugly month.
If you have an ugly month, youalready lost 10% of the year.
If you have an ugly week, youstill have time to recover.
yeah.
it's hard to, it's hard torecover.
I think.
I think great organizations,they have a, an incredible sense
(20:17):
of urgency and they are veryleading compared to lagging
mindsets.
Bad organizations, they are qbrR oriented, they always look to
the past instead.
okay, the Q1 is done, let'sfocus on q2.
Isar Meitis (20:33):
So again, I'll, I.
So I understand the timeframe,right?
This is the frame.
Okay?
Look at every week, what do youactually measure during the week
to have a leading indicator thatyou're doing the right thing to
move towards the business goals.
and I know it's will bedifferent for every business,
but I'm sure there's someguidelines
Oscar Torres (20:51):
Yeah.
But provide to companies.
Yeah.
But, let's take an example ofsocial presence, right?
everybody will tell you.
Yes, Oscar.
Yeah.
You know how you know what topublish because, you were, you
are an executive in a softwarecompany because you publish at
Forbes.
I don't know what to publishabout.
I dunno what I'm, what I have totalk about and then I'm saying,
(21:12):
yeah, but let's start for, let'sdo one pause per week at least,
and you will make 50 per.
And in three years you havebeen, you have done 150, right?
Yeah.
So people don't have any kindof, pressure to start executing
and, in some, in many cases,they apply this concept of,
(21:34):
analysis paralysis by analysis.
I dunno if it's a Spanish orit's, it fits in English as
well, but No, totally fits inEnglish.
Yeah.
It's paralysis by analysis is,yeah.
You will not do it.
Perfect.
But, so leading activities,actions that it doesn't, they
don't bring you to an incredibleresult.
But you know that if you don'tstart doing them today, you will
(21:58):
not make a difference in 6, 9,12 months, later.
How many connects per week?
How many new name accounts perweek?
How many, how many pauses perweek?
How activity level.
It's like forest game, right?
Star running, and, and let'sthink about, of course in with
something that makes sense.
(22:18):
But, being proud of the week Ithink is super important in
terms, and then being veryintentional for sure.
One of the things that I used toshare with my colleagues, for
me, the weeks start, the weekstarts on.
I remember we, we have a housein the north of Barcelona by the
(22:39):
Sea, and I remember it's 90minutes from Barcelona.
I preferably remember my, my, mywife telling to me, you are
already disconnected, When wewere driving back home and it
was because I was planning myweek.
Yeah.
So I cannot wait.
I cannot lose three hoursplanning my week on Monday,
right?
yeah.
I think it's this weeklyapproach, this sense of urgency.
(23:00):
And this, going far away fromperfect, but.
And, on a weekly basis.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I
Isar Meitis (23:07):
wanna touch on two things that I absolutely love
about what you said.
One is that mindset of weeklysprints.
So taking the concept of the waydevelopers work in agile all
around the world and applying itto everything in the business is
extremely powerful.
planning what you're gonnaaccomplish this week.
On the key things that you, inwhatever job has to do, and
(23:28):
planning the week on your actualschedule calendar, because
otherwise what happens is yougot all these meetings in the
way and you can't do the fourthings that you told yourself
you have to complete this weekbecause you're really busy doing
other stuff.
So I agree with you a hundredpercent, having weekly planning.
Spring style developer stylethat actually has blocks of time
on your calendar for thesethings is a very powerful
(23:52):
concept for actually achievingstuff that you want to achieve.
Yeah.
Oscar Torres (23:54):
and connected to that, think about the team, when
your life cycle, when your,sales cycle is like 10, 12
months, six months, five months,succeeding on leading activities
on the.
It's a way to be proud of theweek.
So we, we need reward.
and so the day that I commitwith my management a boss on a
(24:17):
weekly basis, I'm going toconnect with this amount of
people.
I'm going to ask for this amountof referrals.
I'm going to do this, and that.
And I'm going to publish twoposts and link again.
And this is the way you, per youdefine the success of the week.
You close your computer onFriday, 5:00 PM.
And you have a perception ofsuccess.
It's a leading success, but it'sa very good beginning for a
(24:39):
lagging great result.
Isar Meitis (24:42):
So I wanna joke on something.
people may think, that peoplemay think that Oscar actually
says what he does and he doesprobably on a other things.
But it's, we're recording thison a Friday.
It's 8:00 PM for him, and he isstill in the office, and he is
gonna be there for another hourand a half because he got
another thing coming up afterthis recording.
So I wish for you, you wouldleave the office at 5:00 PM on a
(25:02):
Friday.
Oscar Torres (25:03):
No, because this is fun.
it's, this part is just fun.
It's, yeah.
Yeah.
Isar Meitis (25:07):
but I wanna touch the, another thing that again,
is behind the scenes connected,and I wanna provide another
insight from my side.
A lot of people are not takingthese actions, like you said,
put posts on LinkedIn.
okay, how do I, going back to,how do I measure that?
How do I know it's actuallyhelping me in anything?
Because it doesn't move any ofthe, what you call B2C KPIs,
right?
I don't see any outcome becauseI posted five weeks in a row and
(25:31):
I didn't get any more sales.
I'm like, okay, there are.
Two difference of data pointsthat are out there.
Some are quantitative data thatyou can measure very easily, and
some are qualitative data thatin many cases these are the
leading indicators that you'retalking about.
If I can build a goodrelationship with a person and I
was able to have two dinnerswith him and he had a great time
(25:53):
and he's a potential client, andthere was no conversation about
sales, but I built a greatrelationship, it moves zero.
Qual quantitative KPIs.
Yeah.
But it's a great qualitative KPIor That's great what you're
saying.
Point, point of data to tell mewhat's happening in the future.
Same thing with post LinkedIn.
If you're putting post onLinkedIn and people are
(26:14):
responding, people areconnecting with it, people are
sharing it with people from theindustry.
It means the value that you'reproviding or the information
that you're providing isactually providing value to
people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And which Amazing.
Oscar Torres (26:27):
Which people leading indicator.
Yeah.
what kind, I remember havingthis joke with one of these guys
talking about social, socialselling, say, yeah.
And I put this past, and I had7,000 views.
I say, okay.
Yeah.
I put, I, I published this pastand I just have 70, but 35 our
CEOs.
(26:48):
yeah.
I love quantitative data.
Yeah.
Albert Einstein used to say noteverything that counts can be
counted.
yeah.
Absolutely.
Isar Meitis (26:56):
and you also said the other way around.
yeah.
Absolutely.
And not everything that countedcounts, right?
It's both sides of that equationis
Oscar Torres (27:01):
true.
Absolutely right.
Isar Meitis (27:05):
Okay, so let's go back to the framework.
we had a great conversation hereabout, so if.
You know what, let me ask you areally important question here,
because I think what you'resaying is very powerful and it's
very eye-opening to probably alot of people who are CEOs or in
leadership positions in B2Bcompanies.
How do I make the transition?
I think it's Super simple intoour dna.
(27:25):
What are the steps that you tellcompanies to do to move from
this mindset, to this mindset,from this execution?
Oscar Torres (27:30):
I remember one attendee to the program that the
guy was from Phoenix.
And after the program that we doin the study is very short.
It's for top executives, right?
Is Yes, 40 hours, five days.
And lastly we introduced adebrief after the prayer, right?
And I asked to the.
Okay, what is your maintakeaway?
(27:51):
And the guy said that we areb2b.
I never thought about that.
No, but come on.
It's true.
So some companies, they neverthought out of the product prize
place promotion, and, I thinkthat this is the first step.
The first step is that topmanagement realize that some of
the process, the people, thedata that they are managing,
(28:13):
it's super perfect to sell aniPhone, but it doesn't work to
sell professional services,software or, biotech.
That's the first step.
Second step is the organization.
I was hired in this scale, up toscale the business.
My natural reaction was how I'mgoing to scale something which
(28:34):
is not predictable.
So I start working onpredictability and to really be
predictable.
My previous step was, okay, Ineed to improve the way we do
business because the way we dobusiness is impossible to be
predictable.
I need to do better business.
So when you think about what Icall BPS better, predictable,
and scalable.
(28:54):
You have to take a look to yourorganization.
You make the business youdeserve.
Awesome as you have the peopleyou deserve, as you have the
sellers you deserve.
If you don't like your business,your people, your sellers look
to the mirror, right?
It's probably you are theproblem, right?
So sec first concept isrealizing.
(29:17):
Oh, yes.
I'm leading a B2B company andperhaps some of the e concepts I
had in my mind are killing mylife and I work too much too
hard for the results I'mgetting.
Second point is it's my companyperfectly organized to deliver a
(29:37):
better predict and scalablebusiness or not, and the answer
is normally, We don't hirepeople thinking that we are b2b.
We don't do marketing thinkingthat we are b2b.
We are super proud about ourproduct, which it makes us very
arrogant.
So I would say that the secondtopic is related to
(29:58):
organization.
It's super techy, right?
Yeah.
it's quite technic.
which kind of processes are key?
Like sales, like marketing, likepeople, a bunch of things,
right?
And then the second topic, withthe first topic you will
address, you will organize yourcompany with the first, the
third topic.
I think it's the glue for theorganization, which is something
(30:22):
I call an year ago in an articlein at Forbes, B2B culture.
So is your company producing aculture that accelerates the
organization or not?
You have a wonderful crm.
Who cares if your sellers are abunch of idiots?
(30:45):
Who cares about the crm?
It start by this.
Start by the culture.
If they don't behave properly,To bring value and to inspire
your clients to think out of thebox.
you can manage your data in anExcel, right?
Once you are very sure howpeople behaves in the field,
it's when you invest, when ifyou invest in technology, you
(31:08):
will be able to accelerate.
and then, Reflection was, I havea quote in this, in this,
article, which is somethinglike, strategy defines a why
culture enable it.
So we can define a veryincredible why strategy.
But if we don't, if we don't asa leaders, if we don't.
(31:32):
Enable that with the rightbehavior and mindset.
Who cares?
it's paper, right?
It's just written in the paper.
And this is the, and this issuper hard.
It's it sounds like supercomplex, but it's super easy at
the end of the day, if you talkto the c e O, and this is why I
was focusing so much on the sealevel community, and it's funny.
(31:57):
I think, last week, CEO from a1.27 billion, applied to my
program and I was interviewingher and say, Hey, come on you do
1.7 billion and say, sure, yeah,I think we can do much more and
we can work much less.
Yeah.
So that's about, that's it'sabout that.
(32:18):
Yeah.
And.
And there is another concept,which is what I call the
butterfly effect.
If you are the last monkey inthe company and you take this
and you take the decision tobehave in a different way, who
cares.
But if you are the CEO of thecompany and tomorrow morning you
start doing different questions,It's a butterfly effect.
the butterfly effect.
(32:39):
yeah.
Yeah.
It's going to go down and mymindset as a leader becomes my
behavior, which becomes themindset of my team, which
becomes their behavior, and soon.
So it's super simple.
I'm not saying it's not the, I,I'm teaching in Shanghai.
I was teaching in Shanghaibefore Covid, and one is still
in China.
(33:00):
funny thing of teaching wherethey don't speak English like
myself, I speak something inbetween.
it's they, when they expresssomething with short number of
words in their mind, they'regoing to be super lean.
And I remember doing this coursethere in Shanghai, and one of
the students came to me and say,Hey, professor Torres, simple
(33:21):
but difficult.
Yeah.
And I say yes, simple, but it'ssimple.
Yeah.
Because it's not rocket science.
yeah.
it's a, so it's solution companyand people, Not rocket science,
but difficult because we havethe B2C in our dna, n as
professionals, we have beendouble on the, all the, those
(33:42):
ideas.
75 subjects in a, in an MBAabout marketing, b2c, nothing
about b.
And this has an impact.
If at the end of the day you aremanaging a company, Oscar, this
Isar Meitis (33:56):
is.
Really good stuff.
It's very deep.
It's a lot of stuff to thinkabout, especially again, if
you're an leadership position ina B2B company, you and I can go
back and forth to this probablyfor a few more hours.
but it's getting late inBarcelona.
I know.
Know, we have other stuff to do.
if people wanna follow you, workwith you, take your course, find
you, what's, what are the bestways to.
Oscar Torres (34:19):
Ah, Lincoln in just connect me and you make a
comment.
Hey, I was, listening to you inpodcast and, happy to connect
with them, right?
You can take a look as well tothe, edu slash b2b.
We have a bunch of spicy videosthere.
I don't think that the, okay,they are spicy, let's say.
Yeah.
yeah.
(34:39):
Awesome.
Isar Meitis (34:41):
Very good.
Thank you for doing this, such alate hour on a Friday evening
and for taking your time andsharing your knowledge with me
and the audience.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oscar Torres (34:50):
Thanks, Sue, you Thank you very much, ISAR.
I hope it was valuable.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the Business Growth
Accelerator.
This is Isar Meitis, your host.
We have a very special topic anda very special guest today.
And I've done B2B and B2C in mylife, and I can tell you from my
personal experience that there'sdramatic differences between B2B
and b2c.
On one hand, B2C is almostalways more advanced when it
comes to sales and marketingtactics and strategies and
(00:23):
systems to do it.
But on the other hand, a lot ofB2B companies, use cases and
ideas and concepts from B2C as away to define their B2B way of
selling and growing a business.
And in many cases, that actuallyhurts their growth because
there's a misfit between how B2Cand a B2B B business works.
(00:43):
Our guest today is Oscar Torres,and Oscar is a global expert on
building successful B2B culturethat drives growth for B2B
businesses.
He helped more than 500companies in 25 countries
improve and grow their B2Bbusiness through his methods,
which we're gonna discuss today.
And he's also the professor andthe founder of the B2B
(01:04):
management program in the Esadeuniversity in Barcelona.
So since this is a reallyimportant topic, and it can
really help B2B businesses lookat their business through a
different lens they might belooking today, that can help
them grow faster, and reallyexcited to have him as a guest
of the show today.
(02:22):
Oscar, welcome to the BusinessGrowth Accelerator.
Oscar Torres (02:25):
Thank you.
Thank you very much for havingme.
Isar Meitis (02:29):
Oscar, before we dive into the method that you're
teaching and the frameworks thatyou're teaching, when did it hit
you?
You've done a lot of things inyour career.
When did it become obvious toyou that, oh my God, we got this
all wrong, and maybe we shoulddevelop a new system?
Oscar Torres (02:46):
Okay.
I think to give you a little bitof background, I'm an engineer.
I was, I was working indifferent companies for 10, 12
years.
I was two years expert in China.
when I came back from China, Imoved to the software business
to an scale up.
And it's funny because, wheneveran engineer moves to business,
we think about a businessschool, okay, I need to do
(03:09):
something in a business school.
And my surprise was that allconversations, they were about
Apple Heineken and Danon.
So there, at that time I was, Iwas quite young, right?
I was in my thirties and I wasthinking, it's me, right?
But then five, 10 years later, Iwas, I start thinking, no, it's
(03:29):
not me.
it's, yes, they are notaddressing the topic, right?
And, and then I start thinkingaround, I, I start thinking,
wherever they are teaching as ina business school, it's B2C
doesn't fit in b2b.
At that time, I was working foran scale up called, solid Words.
And, my responsibility was toscale the business in, for a
(03:52):
Spain and Portugal.
And, I remember that when Ijoined my executive education
program, I, they were talking tome about Cinzano.
Cinzano, the drink.
Yeah.
And I was think.
Where is the point how I connectZao in a shelf on of a retailer
to the software I have to sellto an engineering team, that
(04:13):
they don't trust me.
And this was the very beginning.
So everything started by, by thefact that I was not happy.
Yeah.
With what I was listening frommy, from from the, my professors
at that time.
In fact, 20 years later, if youtake a look back, between 50 and
70% of companies in the world,they are B2B and 90, 9 0% of the
(04:37):
cases studies that are used in abusiness school, they are b2c.
So something is wrong, right?
Isar Meitis (04:44):
Yeah.
Totally.
Okay, so let's really diveright.
What are the key things that yousee that are wrong?
And then what is, we'll startdiving into the right way to do
this.
Oscar Torres (04:55):
Yeah, I think there are like three things,
right?
But probably two are veryconnected.
The first thing is it's mindset.
We have a B2C mindset.
You and I, we are consumers.
We buy things on a daily basisfor ourself, for our families.
The problem is when it goes intoa business school and they teach
(05:16):
you as a consumer as well,because in my position, I wasn't
a consumer, I was a manager in aB2B company, right?
So there is a bunch of thingsthat, from a mindset point of
view, what a manager or a CEO isdoing.
It's just creating theconditions, building a company
that with people processing datato achieve a certain goal,
(05:38):
right?
If you are the one building thesystem, the company, and you do
it with a B2C mindset, you areprobably going to build the
wrong thing.
And I have a very good example,which is, Kotler's marketing
mix, right?
Who I think everybody haslistened this, the four Ps
right?
Product, price, place,promotion, right?
(05:59):
I was, when I was a kid, I waslistening that I was thinking it
doesn't work.
Who cares about the product?
For me, what is really importantis the.
solution That we are able tobring to a specific problem,
right?
Who cares about the price?
It's much more about the value.
It's something can be very cheapor very expensive, depending on
the value, right?
Who cares about the place b2b?
(06:21):
People we don't need a place?
we just knock the door and we goto visit you.
And who cares about thepromotion?
It's, nobody in b2b, no clientis going to take the risk to
work with you because you make adiscount.
They're going to work with youif they see a very crystal clear
value and they are happy, to, towork with you.
(06:41):
So I think that the first topic,it's, management mindset, which
is something I've been workingfor the last, 10 years.
And this is when I built thisprogram at the Saturday, which
is, we are running already theaddition, we just closed last
week, the addition 23rd.
Wow.
It was super, it was, it's crazyin six years, because some
(07:03):
colleagues, they have 23editions in 23 years.
But we have done 23, we havedone 23 editions in six years,
which is crazy.
And, 25 nationalities.
We have had, people from China,from the states, from from all
over Europe, from Latin America.
And at the end of the day, it'salways the same aha moment is,
it's I'm a manager with a B2Cmindset deal, managing a B2B
(07:26):
company, and this hurts.
It really has a penalty.
Can you imagine for an startup,can you imagine if you're a
startup guy, you put your moneyover the table, you invest your
time, and you are focused onproduct, price, place promotion,
but if you are b2b, you betterfocus on other things, right?
And you don't have time to makemany mistakes.
(07:49):
I probably need, yeah, probablyyou need to go fast to the
point.
So I think first topic, it's,it's, for sure, the mindset of
management, the mindset of Clevel people in B2B companies,
which connects with, with thesecond topic that for me it's,
the way they manage theircompanies, which is what I call
(08:09):
the B2B management model.
And for that, yeah, we probablywould need 40 hours to describe
that.
But if I give you a teaser,it's, for me it's five elements,
right?
And, and I super describe thatin several articles I have
published at Forbes usa.
And first topic is that B2C ismuch more about the product.
(08:32):
when you go to Anapolis store,an Apple store, and you buy,
your ne your next, gad.
You have 15 minutes of peopleand four years of gadget.
It's all about, it's all aboutthe product.
There is, so there is no peoplein B2C companies.
You don't buy people, right?
In b2b, so different in b2b.
(08:54):
if you are selling or buying aCapEx, if you are selling or
buying something, which is, itcan affect to your reputation.
You are not buying a product.
You are buying a solution andyou are double checking that
this will not affect yourrepetition.
So first concept for me at themanagement level is that, we are
(09:18):
in the people business in b2b,and this is super hard from a
management point of view becauseit makes life of manager's life
complicated.
But it's super powerful becausepeople has no competion.
If you, Isar works for me, and,people recognize the value of
Isar, how you can compete withIsar.
There is no, no more Isar in theworld, right?
(09:41):
That's a very important topic inb2b.
Second topic, which is, veryconnected to the fact that I'm
an engineer, I land in thebusiness world, like 12 years
after I start working, right?
I work for Vallejo, which is anautomotive company in Europe.
And then I work for Coca-Cola.
Then I work for a motorcycle,company based in Europe.
(10:03):
Then another one in China.
And then I moved to business inthe software business, right?
And one of the things that I wasabsolutely surprised is, Sellers
making, trying to make mebelieve that selling is an art
and whatever is artistic is notpredictable.
And it's not scalable.
So the second topic that, I'mreally trying to make those C
(10:26):
level people attending to ourprogram, is that you have to
treat the relationship as aprocess.
It's not about the salesprocess, it's about the relat.
Sales process is super short.
The relationship includes manyother people than sellers,
right?
So treating the relationship asa process is going to be a very
(10:46):
good, way.
to work towards this better,predictable and scalable
business thing, which is, forme, it was very important Third
element in this managementmodel.
Before
Isar Meitis (10:57):
you dive into that, yeah.
Before you dive into that, Iwanna add two things from my
personal experience and a lot ofit from my very recent personal
experience.
So I've been helping companiesgrow their businesses,
leveraging this like talk showsand podcasts and building
relationships.
Two things that connect verywell to what you said.
One is our first core value ofthe company or our second core
(11:21):
value of the company isrelationships over transactions.
And the idea behind it isexactly what you're saying at
the end of the day, what makesyou win both internally in your
company as well as external ishuman relationships and nothing
else.
And this is gonna become evenmore extreme when we're now
(11:43):
walking blindfolded into the airof AI generated stuff.
Absolutely.
The human connection, the humantrust, the human relationship.
Is gonna become an even strongercomponent of okay, that's the
only thing I can believe,because all the other stuff can
be made in seconds and representanything in the universe and
make it look very believable.
(12:04):
So relationships overtransaction is one thing that I
heard you say.
The other thing that is reallyimportant, and you said it and
you also touched it in severaldifferent places, is at the end
of the day, it's about providingcontinuous value that builds
trust.
Over time, not necessarilyrelated to the thing that you're
(12:26):
selling.
So if you are focusing only onproviding, oh, I can give you
this information because it willhelp you make a decision to buy
my thing.
I may have lost you as acustomer, but if I say, okay,
what problems do you currentlyhave?
Do I have expertise or can Ibring somebody else who has the
expertise?
But I'm the one that bringing itto help solve.
(12:48):
I think it's a problem.
I
Oscar Torres (12:49):
become person.
I think it's even worse.
I think that the product you areselling is a must.
So yeah.
Great.
you are a professor.
You cannot be proud that youknow how to teach.
It's mandatory, right?
Yes.
That's a, it's a is like astupid, right?
(13:10):
Yeah.
You are a professor or you are ajoker.
You don't have to be proud to bea joker.
I think that this, the productin b2.
It's like a checkpoint.
Yeah.
If you, if your solution doesn'tfix, and this is what it really,
it's funny because, when youlisten some very passionate
people, B2C marketing peoplethat they are, they wake up in
(13:31):
the morning and they have this,this incredible, thought around
Kotler, right?
Product, price, place,promotion.
I did my own B mix, right?
I create the B2B mix of Torreswhich is competing with the
Kotler's one, which is, for me,the mix that really works In
b2b, it's solution company andpeople.
(13:51):
Solution company and people.
It's really what really countsfor the buyer because for me,
decision makers are risk takersThey are, they do risk
management.
They don't buy a product.
The product is a must.
they buy a solution which shouldfix the problem.
They double check what is thecompany behind the solution.
(14:13):
And the last point, which is thelast mile, which is over 50% of
the decision making process,it's people.
And this brings, this is anightmare for management When
they listen that, itar, it's ohmy God.
So you mean that we have to havea great product that fix a great
problem and we have, and thisproblem has to be back up by a
(14:35):
great company, but what isreally going to make a
difference is our people.
Yes.
Yeah.
And, at the management manlevel, this is a hot potato.
Because then it's when we starttalking with B2B culture, how
your people behave.
because sellers, they areoutdoor.
(14:56):
If you have a quality managerthat behaves not good, you are
going to see this guy or thislady, right?
If you have operations not doingthe right thing, you go to the
shop floor and you see them notdoing the right thing.
But the problem with sellers, Isthat they are out there.
They are in teams and zoomsalone talking to through the
(15:18):
market.
And you don't have a secondchance for a good first
impression.
Yep.
So how many times our teams areburning the account for five
years and you even don't knowthat this happened as a.
Isar Meitis (15:34):
So I wanna mention something that just popped in my
head, and it's very relevant andit's like an opposite example of
this, but it amplifieseverything that you're saying.
I used to run a large travelcompany and I had a call center
and the people would call in tobuy travel.
And my best salesperson from are pure result perspective, made
more sales, more money thananybody else on the phone, was a
(15:55):
guy that.
As far as I thought in thebeginning, an amazing
salesperson, right?
He had more deals done everysingle month consistently more
than anybody else.
And then we, you get to a pointthat you plateau with your sales
and you have good traffic.
You're like, okay, how do I goto the next level?
Let's increase the conversion.
Let's start checking the calls.
And he would only take the easycalls, like people who are not
(16:15):
eager to buy, he would let go.
He had one of the worstconversions of anybody on the
team.
And then we are.
Oh my God.
I'm only rewarding people basedon how much money they bring.
He brings in more money.
I give him more money.
He's throwing away 70% of thecost that other people could
have converted to sales.
(16:37):
And he would go through 600calls a week when the average
person would go through 300, andthen he would sell a little
more, but not twice.
And I'm like, this is not, sothen we started changing the
mindset and rewarding them onconversion and rewarding them on
building long-term relationshipand rewarding them on having,
yeah.
Return clients that return tothem.
(16:57):
People would call and ask forLisa or John and then, okay,
this is a longer term model thatactually works better.
But it goes back exactly to whatyou said.
It's.
Do you look at the rightparameters to establish the
right behaviors and reward thosebehaviors in a way that will
build long-term growth versusimmediate reward that might
Oscar Torres (17:18):
look better?
I think this is another bigpotato when we come into the B2C
thing.
so when I was talking aboutmanagement model and I said,
okay, first is people, second isprocess.
Third is.
We are super infected by B2Cmindset, in terms of KPIs.
(17:41):
And that in the venture capitalworld finance people that they
never have seen a client andthey try to, they ask to
entrepreneurs the wrong data.
And for sure, if you are givingme 10 million euro.
And you are asking forsomething, probably I will try
(18:02):
to invest some time to answer toyou.
Yeah.
So at the end of the day, thedata that we are using, it has
to be B2B data.
It really has to measure thethings we wanna measure,
considering that there is a veryinteresting metric, so I dunno
if you ever think about, but acar is sold in 45 minutes in a
(18:23):
dealer.
Fleet, it's five months.
Yeah.
The data that really works for40 minutes has nothing to do
with the data that is needed tobuild, to do the governance of
five months of relationship.
Yeah.
and we are super, affected interms of mindset.
(18:43):
by that, the way we built ourprocesses, the way we measure
the things they are too.
lacking We measure things toolate, so then doing it, when we
have to do it.
Isar Meitis (18:56):
I love this point.
I'm a data freak and Idefinitely understand where
you're coming from.
So what do you measure and howdo you measure it in a B2B world
to have a better impact onlong-term outcome?
Oscar Torres (19:08):
I'm a fan of measuring the week.
I used to have a boss telling tome, how do you measure the
success of your week?
And, it really depends on your,depending on who is listening,
right?
Because if you are selling 5million Euro deal, perhaps the
week is too much.
But in average if I consider the500 companies, it's over, it's
more than 500 now.
(19:29):
But if you consider the, those500 companies that they were
exposed to, my theories, whichare quite pragmatic, the week
works, the measuring the week,the execution on a weekly basis
works because it has a firstcomponent of, communicating a
sense of urgency.
And, there is another, there isanother principle, which is, you
(19:53):
have many weeks in the year andyou only have 10 months if you
have an ugly month.
If you have an ugly month, youalready lost 10% of the year.
If you have an ugly week, youstill have time to recover.
yeah.
it's hard to, it's hard torecover.
I think.
I think great organizations,they have a, an incredible sense
(20:17):
of urgency and they are veryleading compared to lagging
mindsets.
Bad organizations, they are qbrR oriented, they always look to
the past instead.
okay, the Q1 is done, let'sfocus on q2.
Isar Meitis (20:33):
So again, I'll, I.
So I understand the timeframe,right?
This is the frame.
Okay?
Look at every week, what do youactually measure during the week
to have a leading indicator thatyou're doing the right thing to
move towards the business goals.
and I know it's will bedifferent for every business,
but I'm sure there's someguidelines
Oscar Torres (20:51):
Yeah.
But provide to companies.
Yeah.
But, let's take an example ofsocial presence, right?
everybody will tell you.
Yes, Oscar.
Yeah.
You know how you know what topublish because, you were, you
are an executive in a softwarecompany because you publish at
Forbes.
I don't know what to publishabout.
I dunno what I'm, what I have totalk about and then I'm saying,
(21:12):
yeah, but let's start for, let'sdo one pause per week at least,
and you will make 50 per.
And in three years you havebeen, you have done 150, right?
Yeah.
So people don't have any kindof, pressure to start executing
and, in some, in many cases,they apply this concept of,
(21:34):
analysis paralysis by analysis.
I dunno if it's a Spanish orit's, it fits in English as
well, but No, totally fits inEnglish.
Yeah.
It's paralysis by analysis is,yeah.
You will not do it.
Perfect.
But, so leading activities,actions that it doesn't, they
don't bring you to an incredibleresult.
But you know that if you don'tstart doing them today, you will
(21:58):
not make a difference in 6, 9,12 months, later.
How many connects per week?
How many new name accounts perweek?
How many, how many pauses perweek?
How activity level.
It's like forest game, right?
Star running, and, and let'sthink about, of course in with
something that makes sense.
(22:18):
But, being proud of the week Ithink is super important in
terms, and then being veryintentional for sure.
One of the things that I used toshare with my colleagues, for
me, the weeks start, the weekstarts on.
I remember we, we have a housein the north of Barcelona by the
(22:39):
Sea, and I remember it's 90minutes from Barcelona.
I preferably remember my, my, mywife telling to me, you are
already disconnected, When wewere driving back home and it
was because I was planning myweek.
Yeah.
So I cannot wait.
I cannot lose three hoursplanning my week on Monday,
right?
yeah.
I think it's this weeklyapproach, this sense of urgency.
(23:00):
And this, going far away fromperfect, but.
And, on a weekly basis.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I
Isar Meitis (23:07):
wanna touch on two things that I absolutely love
about what you said.
One is that mindset of weeklysprints.
So taking the concept of the waydevelopers work in agile all
around the world and applying itto everything in the business is
extremely powerful.
planning what you're gonnaaccomplish this week.
On the key things that you, inwhatever job has to do, and
(23:28):
planning the week on your actualschedule calendar, because
otherwise what happens is yougot all these meetings in the
way and you can't do the fourthings that you told yourself
you have to complete this weekbecause you're really busy doing
other stuff.
So I agree with you a hundredpercent, having weekly planning.
Spring style developer stylethat actually has blocks of time
on your calendar for thesethings is a very powerful
(23:52):
concept for actually achievingstuff that you want to achieve.
Yeah.
Oscar Torres (23:54):
and connected to that, think about the team, when
your life cycle, when your,sales cycle is like 10, 12
months, six months, five months,succeeding on leading activities
on the.
It's a way to be proud of theweek.
So we, we need reward.
and so the day that I commitwith my management a boss on a
(24:17):
weekly basis, I'm going toconnect with this amount of
people.
I'm going to ask for this amountof referrals.
I'm going to do this, and that.
And I'm going to publish twoposts and link again.
And this is the way you, per youdefine the success of the week.
You close your computer onFriday, 5:00 PM.
And you have a perception ofsuccess.
It's a leading success, but it'sa very good beginning for a
(24:39):
lagging great result.
Isar Meitis (24:42):
So I wanna joke on something.
people may think, that peoplemay think that Oscar actually
says what he does and he doesprobably on a other things.
But it's, we're recording thison a Friday.
It's 8:00 PM for him, and he isstill in the office, and he is
gonna be there for another hourand a half because he got
another thing coming up afterthis recording.
So I wish for you, you wouldleave the office at 5:00 PM on a
(25:02):
Friday.
Oscar Torres (25:03):
No, because this is fun.
it's, this part is just fun.
It's, yeah.
Yeah.
Isar Meitis (25:07):
but I wanna touch the, another thing that again,
is behind the scenes connected,and I wanna provide another
insight from my side.
A lot of people are not takingthese actions, like you said,
put posts on LinkedIn.
okay, how do I, going back to,how do I measure that?
How do I know it's actuallyhelping me in anything?
Because it doesn't move any ofthe, what you call B2C KPIs,
right?
I don't see any outcome becauseI posted five weeks in a row and
(25:31):
I didn't get any more sales.
I'm like, okay, there are.
Two difference of data pointsthat are out there.
Some are quantitative data thatyou can measure very easily, and
some are qualitative data thatin many cases these are the
leading indicators that you'retalking about.
If I can build a goodrelationship with a person and I
was able to have two dinnerswith him and he had a great time
(25:53):
and he's a potential client, andthere was no conversation about
sales, but I built a greatrelationship, it moves zero.
Qual quantitative KPIs.
Yeah.
But it's a great qualitative KPIor That's great what you're
saying.
Point, point of data to tell mewhat's happening in the future.
Same thing with post LinkedIn.
If you're putting post onLinkedIn and people are
(26:14):
responding, people areconnecting with it, people are
sharing it with people from theindustry.
It means the value that you'reproviding or the information
that you're providing isactually providing value to
people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And which Amazing.
Oscar Torres (26:27):
Which people leading indicator.
Yeah.
what kind, I remember havingthis joke with one of these guys
talking about social, socialselling, say, yeah.
And I put this past, and I had7,000 views.
I say, okay.
Yeah.
I put, I, I published this pastand I just have 70, but 35 our
CEOs.
(26:48):
yeah.
I love quantitative data.
Yeah.
Albert Einstein used to say noteverything that counts can be
counted.
yeah.
Absolutely.
Isar Meitis (26:56):
and you also said the other way around.
yeah.
Absolutely.
And not everything that countedcounts, right?
It's both sides of that equationis
Oscar Torres (27:01):
true.
Absolutely right.
Isar Meitis (27:05):
Okay, so let's go back to the framework.
we had a great conversation hereabout, so if.
You know what, let me ask you areally important question here,
because I think what you'resaying is very powerful and it's
very eye-opening to probably alot of people who are CEOs or in
leadership positions in B2Bcompanies.
How do I make the transition?
I think it's Super simple intoour dna.
(27:25):
What are the steps that you tellcompanies to do to move from
this mindset, to this mindset,from this execution?
Oscar Torres (27:30):
I remember one attendee to the program that the
guy was from Phoenix.
And after the program that we doin the study is very short.
It's for top executives, right?
Is Yes, 40 hours, five days.
And lastly we introduced adebrief after the prayer, right?
And I asked to the.
Okay, what is your maintakeaway?
(27:51):
And the guy said that we areb2b.
I never thought about that.
No, but come on.
It's true.
So some companies, they neverthought out of the product prize
place promotion, and, I thinkthat this is the first step.
The first step is that topmanagement realize that some of
the process, the people, thedata that they are managing,
(28:13):
it's super perfect to sell aniPhone, but it doesn't work to
sell professional services,software or, biotech.
That's the first step.
Second step is the organization.
I was hired in this scale, up toscale the business.
My natural reaction was how I'mgoing to scale something which
(28:34):
is not predictable.
So I start working onpredictability and to really be
predictable.
My previous step was, okay, Ineed to improve the way we do
business because the way we dobusiness is impossible to be
predictable.
I need to do better business.
So when you think about what Icall BPS better, predictable,
and scalable.
(28:54):
You have to take a look to yourorganization.
You make the business youdeserve.
Awesome as you have the peopleyou deserve, as you have the
sellers you deserve.
If you don't like your business,your people, your sellers look
to the mirror, right?
It's probably you are theproblem, right?
So sec first concept isrealizing.
(29:17):
Oh, yes.
I'm leading a B2B company andperhaps some of the e concepts I
had in my mind are killing mylife and I work too much too
hard for the results I'mgetting.
Second point is it's my companyperfectly organized to deliver a
(29:37):
better predict and scalablebusiness or not, and the answer
is normally, We don't hirepeople thinking that we are b2b.
We don't do marketing thinkingthat we are b2b.
We are super proud about ourproduct, which it makes us very
arrogant.
So I would say that the secondtopic is related to
(29:58):
organization.
It's super techy, right?
Yeah.
it's quite technic.
which kind of processes are key?
Like sales, like marketing, likepeople, a bunch of things,
right?
And then the second topic, withthe first topic you will
address, you will organize yourcompany with the first, the
third topic.
I think it's the glue for theorganization, which is something
(30:22):
I call an year ago in an articlein at Forbes, B2B culture.
So is your company producing aculture that accelerates the
organization or not?
You have a wonderful crm.
Who cares if your sellers are abunch of idiots?
(30:45):
Who cares about the crm?
It start by this.
Start by the culture.
If they don't behave properly,To bring value and to inspire
your clients to think out of thebox.
you can manage your data in anExcel, right?
Once you are very sure howpeople behaves in the field,
it's when you invest, when ifyou invest in technology, you
(31:08):
will be able to accelerate.
and then, Reflection was, I havea quote in this, in this,
article, which is somethinglike, strategy defines a why
culture enable it.
So we can define a veryincredible why strategy.
But if we don't, if we don't asa leaders, if we don't.
(31:32):
Enable that with the rightbehavior and mindset.
Who cares?
it's paper, right?
It's just written in the paper.
And this is the, and this issuper hard.
It's it sounds like supercomplex, but it's super easy at
the end of the day, if you talkto the c e O, and this is why I
was focusing so much on the sealevel community, and it's funny.
(31:57):
I think, last week, CEO from a1.27 billion, applied to my
program and I was interviewingher and say, Hey, come on you do
1.7 billion and say, sure, yeah,I think we can do much more and
we can work much less.
Yeah.
So that's about, that's it'sabout that.
(32:18):
Yeah.
And.
And there is another concept,which is what I call the
butterfly effect.
If you are the last monkey inthe company and you take this
and you take the decision tobehave in a different way, who
cares.
But if you are the CEO of thecompany and tomorrow morning you
start doing different questions,It's a butterfly effect.
the butterfly effect.
(32:39):
yeah.
Yeah.
It's going to go down and mymindset as a leader becomes my
behavior, which becomes themindset of my team, which
becomes their behavior, and soon.
So it's super simple.
I'm not saying it's not the, I,I'm teaching in Shanghai.
I was teaching in Shanghaibefore Covid, and one is still
in China.
(33:00):
funny thing of teaching wherethey don't speak English like
myself, I speak something inbetween.
it's they, when they expresssomething with short number of
words in their mind, they'regoing to be super lean.
And I remember doing this coursethere in Shanghai, and one of
the students came to me and say,Hey, professor Torres, simple
(33:21):
but difficult.
Yeah.
And I say yes, simple, but it'ssimple.
Yeah.
Because it's not rocket science.
yeah.
it's a, so it's solution companyand people, Not rocket science,
but difficult because we havethe B2C in our dna, n as
professionals, we have beendouble on the, all the, those
(33:42):
ideas.
75 subjects in a, in an MBAabout marketing, b2c, nothing
about b.
And this has an impact.
If at the end of the day you aremanaging a company, Oscar, this
Isar Meitis (33:56):
is.
Really good stuff.
It's very deep.
It's a lot of stuff to thinkabout, especially again, if
you're an leadership position ina B2B company, you and I can go
back and forth to this probablyfor a few more hours.
but it's getting late inBarcelona.
I know.
Know, we have other stuff to do.
if people wanna follow you, workwith you, take your course, find
you, what's, what are the bestways to.
Oscar Torres (34:19):
Ah, Lincoln in just connect me and you make a
comment.
Hey, I was, listening to you inpodcast and, happy to connect
with them, right?
You can take a look as well tothe, edu slash b2b.
We have a bunch of spicy videosthere.
I don't think that the, okay,they are spicy, let's say.
Yeah.
yeah.
(34:39):
Awesome.
Isar Meitis (34:41):
Very good.
Thank you for doing this, such alate hour on a Friday evening
and for taking your time andsharing your knowledge with me
and the audience.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Oscar Torres (34:50):
Thanks, Sue, you Thank you very much, ISAR.
I hope it was valuable.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.