In this episode, Jennifer Stanley and Candace Lun Plotkin from McKinsey & Company share insights on the future of B2B sales and assembling winning teams. Industrial sales are evolving, requiring companies to adapt their selling and marketing strategies. James Soto explores topics like hybrid, inside, and digital sales roles, customer intimacy, agility, and technology's role in driving growth.
Learn how manufacturing sellers and marketers can adapt to improve decision-making and drive growth in uncertain times.
Articles and resources reference in this episode:
- The Future of B2B Sales - Building the Right Team - McKinsey & Company
- Connect with Jennifer Stanley on LinkedIn
- Connect with Candace Lun Plotkin on LinkedIn
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About the Show:
The Industrial Strength Marketing Show is a top manufacturing podcast that explores the personalities, cutting-edge strategies, tools, and technologies transforming the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Each episode, hosted by James Soto, covers marketing, sales, business development, and integrating martech and AI into industrial B2B strategies. Tune in to gain actionable insights to help you stay ahead in the industry.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Candace Lun Plotkin (00:00):
You have to take some of your best talent
and be very clear about you know.
Are you 100% in this win room,are you 50% in this win room and
are you really able to deliveragainst that?
This needs to be a core part ofyour job.
It doesn't have to be your jobforever, but you really need to
have that focus and that claritythat this is what you're doing
(00:21):
now and not be distracted bymany of the other day-to-day
things that you might have onyour plate.
And then the other piece aroundbest talent, right?
I always say that the bestlitmus test for this is, if I
can't afford to take this personoff what they're already doing,
then that is the person I wantin the win room.
I don't want somebody who'sjust available.
(00:43):
I want the most high demandperson who has way too much to
do.
I want to free them up from theway too much to do and I want
them to focus here.
James Soto (00:59):
Welcome to Industrial Strength Marketing.
I'm your host, james Soto, andtoday we have a treat for you,
the Industrial strengthmarketing audience.
We are joined for an encorevisit by Jennifer Stanley and
our new good friend, candiceLund-Plotkin, from McKinsey and
Company.
They're here to share theirexpertise on the future of B2B
(01:19):
sales and we're going to diveinto how to assemble winning
teams for success.
There's a boatload of content.
There's a lot of studiesreferenced and you're going to
learn a lot.
So, jennifer and Candice, thankyou for being here with us
today.
Candace Lun Plotkin (01:34):
Thank you for having us.
James Soto (01:35):
Oh, it's so really nice to have you, so I thought
it would be great if you all canintroduce yourself.
And, candice, since it's yourfirst time here, would you mind
telling our audience a littlebit about yourself and where
you're focused?
Candace Lun Plotkin (01:46):
Of course.
So my name is CandiceLoon-Plotkin and I'm a partner
in McKinsey's marketing andsales practice and our Boston
office.
I've been with McKinsey gosh 25years or so and during that
course of time, have worked withfive or hundred sales forces.
I do most of my work really atthe intersection of go to market
(02:08):
models, omni channel, and Ialso do a lot of digital
business building, so e-commerce, customer engagement platforms
and the like.
James Soto (02:17):
So you're a busy person and you have a little
background in industrial andfocus there too Correct, so
that's, that's very good to hear.
Candace Lun Plotkin (02:27):
Yes, of course, Some of our I think our
most interesting problems andsolutions are actually presented
by industrial companies.
And industrial companies areparticularly interesting because
they tend to be very open tolearning from other industries
as well.
James Soto (02:43):
Yeah, and there's a lot of change happening there
too, so, jennifer, you're back.
Jennifer Stanley (02:48):
Yes, it's great to see you again, james,
thank you so much for having meand allowing me to bring my dear
friend, candice.
You'll hear a few things incommon.
I'm also a partner in themarketing and sales practice, as
you know, also based in Boston,although for not as many years
as Candice.
I actually started in Atlanta,which Candice used to work in as
well, and I basically justfollowed in her footsteps up to
(03:10):
Boston so 20-ish years as well,working in B2B sales, a lot in
industrial.
I find it pretty exciting.
I think I mentioned this to youbefore, james, but when I
started at McKinsey, I thought Iwanted to do consumer marketing
and sales, and I did that for ahot second and then realized,
right, the action was all inindustrial.
So it's good to be able to chatabout that today.
James Soto (03:31):
Well, you have a very sympathetic crowd.
We work with icons of industry,those aspiring to be, and we're
very focused on companies whoare manufacturing the future and
there's a lot happening and theacceleration of marketing and
selling.
It's amazing.
In our industry, I feel, it'slike the golden age.
So getting to these insights isso important and really thank
(03:53):
you so much for being here.
So last time we spoke a lotabout what was changing due to
COVID and how people are lookingat the changing buying dynamics
and expectations, and that wascoming from great content, from
your B2B Pulse content, and thenwe'll be diving in a lot more
(04:13):
to your B2B Sales content here.
And it started with omnichanneleverywhere every time and I
love that rule of thirds wherewe were talking about, you know,
we saw very clearly we'relooking at, you know, this
hybrid, this in-person and thisself-service model.
So if you want to go back tothe Industrial Stake Marketing
(04:34):
Show and see the first of theencore before the encore
interview, go there and fortoday, we really are going to
direct you to a lot of content.
So we're going to repeat this afew times.
So, the future of B2B salesthere's a great article that
came out last year, the BigReframe which led me to reading
the future of B2B sales, whichwe'll talk about today building
(04:57):
the right team and talent todrive growth in an uncertain
environment Sound familiar, andso there's so much going on and
there's just so much coming fromthis content, including the B2B
sales, a multiplier effect, andyou're going to hear a lot from
multiple studies.
So I don't want you to fear.
We're going to give you lots ofresources and links in the show
notes, so you're going to knowwhere to go, and Jennifer and
(05:18):
Candice have been very kind tobe offering to like point people
in the right direction.
So let's get into it.
Y'all ready?
Jennifer Stanley (05:26):
Absolutely.
James Soto (05:26):
Okay.
So my first question the B2Bsales landscape has seen a lot
of change and I know we get alot of content about it, but I
think we need to be more in aworld of what do we know that's
concrete.
So could you share any concreteexamples of how the hybrid
inside and digital sales roleshave evolved and what's kind of
(05:48):
the attribution to that?
What do we need?
What are those attributes thatare needed for success in each
position?
Jennifer Stanley (05:54):
Well, maybe I'll kick us off and then hand
to Candice, because I think inparticular, if you get into the
world of e-commerce and digitalbusiness builds, there really is
some unique opportunities andan exciting moment in time for
sales talent.
But maybe just start with a fewbroad brushes.
And I'll also reassure youraudience that a lot of the data
and the sources you justmentioned, james, they're all
(06:16):
interrelated.
Right?
We're all kind of coming fromthis perspective that the
selling world today and B2B, andin particular, for those of us
who are focused in industrialsales and marketing, I think
it's one of the most excitingplaces, frankly, to be in terms
of a function in a company,because so much is evolving,
there's so much innovationtaking place and, from a talent
(06:38):
perspective, when we look acrossthe rise of the hybrid roles or
the digital seller roles andthe impact that being successful
, selling remotely for a lot ofcompanies where the name of the
game was you were in the field,on the road, five days a week or
four days a week, four weeksout of the month, companies
proved that you didn'tnecessarily have to do that to
(07:00):
be successful.
And customers also stood up andsaid we don't need you or even
want you in many cases to behavethat way to be successful.
And customers also stood up andsaid we don't need you or even
want you in many cases to behavethat way to be successful.
So, from a hiring and adevelopment perspective, you
kind of step back and go well ifthe role has changed and
customers' expectations andpreferences are different.
Maybe profiles of whatsuccessful salespeople look like
(07:23):
have changed as well, and Ithink our answer to that and I
don't think I know our answer tothat is a resounding yes.
And so what that means quitepractically for companies is the
profile you think is the onethat is successful for you may
not actually, if that's workedfor you for the past five or 10
years, might not actually be thebest profile for you going
forward.
(07:43):
And, in particular, I wouldencourage companies to look at
intrinsics as opposed to pastexperience, because we're
finding over and over again thatindividuals who are curious,
quick learners, willing to adaptin different environments feel
just as ease on a digitalpodcast and on remote channels
as they do meeting customers inperson tend to have more success
(08:07):
in today's omni-channelenvironment than those who may
have a very kind of fixed notionof what it means to be a
successful seller.
So focusing a bit more onintrinsics than you know
background of experience wouldbe one thing I think is
important.
A second thing we're seeingcompanies do and for industrial
companies I think this isactually quite potentially an
(08:29):
exciting avenue to pursue andthat is going outside your
industry for great talent.
I was working with a medicaltechnology company recently and
they were saying that a lot oftheir salespeople just kind of
keep coming from the same firmsso competitors, trading places
and I said well, have you everthought about like going and
recruiting from a semiconductorcompany or from an advanced
(08:52):
manufacturer, like a lot of yourmembers are?
Because if I promise you, ifthey can sell those types of
complex pieces of equipment,they can sell complex medical
technology.
And that idea of oh, we can golook for salespeople out of our
industry hadn't really occurredor landed in a meaningful way,
and we're seeing a lot more ofthat right now.
James Soto (09:12):
Amazing these profiles, and we talk a lot
about DNA.
What's the DNA of the modernsales organization?
And I think a lot of thesequestions are being asked, and
thank you for offering up thatcontext, candice, as well.
I think this is, you know,what's your take on the overall
context of you know what you'vebeen seeing, along with Jennifer
(09:33):
.
Candace Lun Plotkin (09:34):
Yeah, I think there's, you know, really
a couple things that I wouldhighlight.
I think one is you know, it hasfirmly landed that you need to
go customer back and reallyunderstand their needs.
Know so that they can accessexpertise in a very quick way
(10:11):
and they can very transparentlymove from one channel to another
.
Right, so they can go onself-serve and there's good
content, it's clear what theyneed to do, but if they need to
talk to somebody, there is aquick way to do that and you
don't have to wait three days toschedule it and then you know.
The other piece is customerneed back.
There is all of that, but thereis also the what is the right
(10:33):
cost to serve so we can have themost profitable models?
And so at the intersection ofthose is really where the
industrial clients are sayinghow do I solve this problem?
How do I get the rightsalesperson to the customer at
the right time, with the rightcontent and in the right medium
or channel?
James Soto (10:53):
Right place, in the right context, in the right time
.
Candace Lun Plotkin (10:57):
Exactly and , you know, do they have the
right content, content includingexpertise, and so those pieces
are really important.
The other piece I would add,picking up on Jennifer's thread
when she was talking about whatskill sets am I recruiting for?
Collaboration and problemsolving are more and more
important Because, if you thinkabout my customers want to
(11:20):
access many different channels.
They're going to do that atdifferent points in time.
Every time, as a customer, Iaccess or interact with you, I
want whoever or however I'minteracting with to know what
happened before, so I don't haveto retell my story.
So they have to know content.
And then, anywhere you'reinteracting, you need to be able
(11:40):
to have a good transition or ahandoff, which means, as a
salesperson, I need to be ableto have a good transition or a
handoff, which means, as asalesperson, I need to be able
to collaborate with the digitalsales folks, with the inside
sales folks, with any sort ofdigital platform, and I need to
be able to, if I'm reallyknocking the ball out of the
park, if I am a high levelsalesperson, I need to be able
(12:01):
to be the orchestrator in themiddle of that moment across the
board, and then I need to cometo the customer at the time that
they need me Right.
So these moments that matter inthe journey are even more
critical.
Your best salespeople can pickout those moments and execute on
them.
James Soto (12:19):
Yeah, and there's so much information out there and
we've, we've, we've, we've seeninsights about helping people
with the amount of informationthey need.
You know, it's funny that yousay this.
There's a.
The thing that we have to wereally think about is how do you
guide someone's experience?
And we're in, actually, assellers and marketers.
(12:40):
We're in the services business.
We are out here to be ofservice and you know, one of the
things we say is it's nothandoffs or it's introductions,
you know it's helping, you knowselling how someone wants to buy
.
And because these expectationshave changed, we have to all
(13:00):
come together and that reallyrequires something that you've
talked about, which is creatingthis one team that works
together.
And I think that's a really bigthing that we've seen in the
marketplace, because a lot ofmanufacturers are.
One of the things we've heard alot is hey, we're thinking
about getting BDRs, which youhaven't seen so much, because
(13:24):
you know a lot of them sellthrough channel, through
distribution, but they'rerealizing they're asking these
questions essentially at thesame time, because they're
really questioning the statusquo.
Have you seen that in yourexperience with you know,
manufacturers in terms of thatquestion, in terms of, like that
organizational construct andbringing in the you know, a
(13:45):
software based sales model, isthat?
Is that something that'spopping up?
Jennifer Stanley (13:50):
Every manufacturer I work with almost
inevitably wants to hear whatare the SaaS companies and the
hyperscalers doing?
Because they're assuming, andthey're making an assumption
which holds true, I would say, amajority of the time, but not
all of the time.
Right that the more excitinginnovations in sales and
marketing are happening in thatspace, and it is true there are
exciting innovations happening.
But you know there are plentyof industrial companies.
(14:12):
I would consider you all techfirms too, right If you think
about like on the backs of whatyou're doing with data, with
analytics, with the Internet ofThings and the service that goes
along with, particularly in theequipment world and you know
and after market and those aftermarket services.
So I actually think there canbe quite a bit gleaned within
industrial as well in terms ofsome best practices.
(14:34):
And there are two that I'llhighlight that I've seen
recently with industrialcompanies and James, you
mentioned one of them,interestingly enough which is
this notion of there is no suchthing as a handoff.
They call them what you'recalling introductions, they're
calling facilitations or they'recalling to Candice's earlier
description orchestration.
So they don't want to leaveanyone with the notion that you
(14:57):
abrogate responsibility for acustomer just because you are
bringing someone else into theirjourney to solve a problem.
Everyone remains responsible inthat kind of overall
collaboration, collaborationconstruct.
That would be number one.
Number two the other thing thatI'm seeing kind of this like
challenging of norms is theassumption that to have customer
(15:18):
intimacy, everything has to bein person.
I'm not arguing that there is athere is a world where we never
break bread with humans againand where the importance of the
face-to-face interaction goesaway.
But the notion that the onlyway you can create intimacy is
face-to-face, I think, is alsosomething that has been proven
to be not true.
There are plenty of ways thatyou can get to know customers as
(15:41):
people, as humans, theirpreferences, their latent needs,
and to find creative ways toconnect on digital mediums.
So I think, for those tworeasons, there are actually
quite a number of excitinginnovations that break the mold
of what we're used to inindustrial sales.
James Soto (16:00):
I agree.
It's funny we met I think youwere in your place in Tennessee
the last time.
Candace Lun Plotkin (16:06):
Okay, still .
James Soto (16:07):
Still at my place in Tennessee, but Morgan in Boston
.
You know, so, you know, I thinkyou know.
Manufacturers, you know,believe that, believe in that
customer intimacy.
They are dead set.
You know, for a largepercentage to the fact that if
you look at the topmanufacturing technology
companies it's capital equipmentthere's significant
(16:29):
interdependency for theapplication engineering of these
decisions they're making andmaintaining that intimacy.
You still see major shows likeIMTS we're actually in full
disclosure, a strategic partnerof theirs, in full disclosure, a
strategic partner of theirs andwhen what we have seen is just
when they had their event lastyear, it was amazing, the
(16:52):
interaction, engagement, it waslike a relief to everyone.
But there's still that intimacyquestion and so how do we
balance that?
You know, when we look at theintimacy of virtual settings,
you know becoming more prevalent, how are folks wrestling with
these new environments, engagingthere?
Settings, you know becomingmore prevalent, how are folks
wrestling with these newenvironments, engaging there?
And you know, what strategiesare you really seeing for folks
(17:12):
to kind of navigate that to?
You know, get to thosesuccessful interactions and
maintaining that intimacy.
I know you're saying we shoulddo it, but the how, as you look
at like the fear of, but the how, as you look at like the fear
of change, is that exceeding thebenefit of that opportunity?
Jennifer Stanley (17:36):
Let me give you one practical example I saw,
and then kick it over toCandice and I'll stay quiet for
a bit.
But you mentioned events, james, and for sure we've seen the
similar excitement.
You pick the subsector ifthey've had some kind of trade
experience in the last 18 months.
Folks have come out in droves.
Well, a couple of companieshave used the opportunity to
introduce virtual realityopportunities in person so that
(17:56):
when they go home for the other360-ish days of the year when
you're not in person at thetrade event, you actually have
already experienced their VRsituations and their equipment.
So some companies will actuallysend, like the Oculus headset
out to folks so that they canexperience equipment in a
(18:16):
digital platform.
But if you've already tried itout in person and you've had
that initial interaction, thentaking that interaction back
into the remote and the digitalspace becomes quite a natural
extension of that initial momentof intimacy in person that you
had while still using, you know,quite exciting technology
throughout that entire process.
James Soto (18:35):
And we're getting to hear wow that you all have been
talking about too.
They expect the wow moment,candice.
Candace Lun Plotkin (18:43):
You know, a couple thoughts here.
One is I'm seeing two ends ofthings right and it's all
focused on this personalizationand intimacy right.
One end is really working hardto make the in-person
experiences more extraordinary,more memorable and an
opportunity to both share whatyour company has to offer but
(19:05):
also to really get to knowpeople.
So that's one thing.
So, for example, we're seeingyou know as opposed to you know,
just interacting at a tradeshow, for example, but very
specific invitations toindividuals, right that
companies want to get to knowbetter and the experience might
be quite personalized.
(19:27):
It could be going together witha bunch of folks that really
enjoy golf to a top golf event.
Yeah it may be a very specialeating experience that is either
very local and unique itdoesn't have to be fancy but
very kind of locally oriented,something special that you can
get in that area and notsomewhere else.
(19:48):
And we're seeing a lot ofopportunities where you manage
the transitions Right.
So let's ride together to go tothis event.
It gives us time to chat in thecar and it's a wonderful way
just to get to know what is thisperson like, what makes them
tick, what are they inspired by.
So that's kind of one end ofthings that are very, you know,
(20:09):
kind of more unique experiencesin person.
I think we're also seeing a lotmore personalization and really
hyper personalization byindustrial companies and other
B2B companies in digitalinteractions.
So it's everything from basicthings like let me help you
customize a homepage so that itshows you exactly what you want
(20:30):
to see when you come to myportal, as well as making sure
that the email interactions arevery specific and refer to other
experiences or contact thatwe've had, right, and, you know,
putting a learning engine inplace so that you're not just
continuing to send out moregeneric emails, right.
(20:53):
So those are just a coupleexamples, but I want to
highlight, because we're seeingboth ends of it how do you make
more digital interactions morepersonal?
And then how do you actuallymake in-person interactions also
more personal and unique?
James Soto (21:06):
Yeah, there's this new profile of salesperson,
there's this experience we'relooking at, there's these
expectations of personalization,and then there's this how do I
describe what you said?
You're like Willy Wonka andyou're giving someone a tour of
the chocolate factory, right,and you want to have a, not just
(21:27):
see the factory, but you wantto have an experience and you
want to find it enjoyable and,you know, interesting,
educational, and you know webelieve in entertaining.
Those three words are soimportant now for B2B and sales
and marketing as well.
You know where do you see therole of?
(21:48):
You know the change of the golfgame.
You know, as, as there've beenmuch chatter about, you know
what is the new normal for, like, how we not make it weird, but
how do we like really connectwith people?
I know those are all theselittle, these little transition
moments, but someone's I'm justgeeking out.
(22:10):
What, what?
Okay, how do I do transitionmoments?
It's like in the golf cart.
Candace Lun Plotkin (22:14):
Well, you know, one thing to note is, I
think, as the workforce hasbecome much more diverse, amen.
James Soto (22:22):
Amen.
Candace Lun Plotkin (22:23):
Continue to have folks that love to play
golf, and that is still a veryrelevant activity.
You probably don't want to playgolf with me because the only
kind of golf I play is mini, butI think you know there is a
much higher bar on problemsolving what is the best way to
engage?
Not everyone is going to beexcited about playing golf or
(22:45):
going to a basketball game or afootball game.
All of those things are stillin the mix and many people will
enjoy them, but there's, I think, a higher bar on thoughtfulness
to say how do I create anexperience with great content?
And so when you were sayingentertaining, I would actually
say it's not so muchentertaining, it's engaging,
(23:07):
Because you're bringing content,you're bringing yourself and
you're sharing a bit aboutyourself as you do this and also
trying to understand what makesa good experience for the
people that you may beinteracting with, and so I think
what that also often means ismore smaller custom events
versus something big or the samething we did last year.
James Soto (23:32):
Yeah, there's a sense of empathy implied in that
and that you have to bepredictive, you know, in terms
of understanding how one it's adecision making unit or a
business or an individual howthey you know how they want to
interact with you and you've gotto be somewhat predictive.
And then you've got to beprescriptive with your approach
(23:53):
and then you really find how doyou like, personalize that?
That's a big ask for our nowintegrated organizations, our
salespeople and the marketersthat are enabling them and
collaborating with them.
So, as we look at your researchhere, switch a gear quickly and
(24:14):
anyone could take this question.
The agility and insights haveyou know research, agility and
insights have been identified aspillars for outperformance.
So we're doing all of thesethings and we're hinting at the
research, agility and insightshere.
Could you, as a kind of from apoint of what you're hearing
(24:34):
from sales leaders, like, how,from sales leaders, how are
sales leaders, how are theygoing to guide their teams in
this adaptation, to adapting tothese different deal stages
Because they're looking at itthat way as well and how they
can bring these insights thatthey need to do some of these
things and get that within thecustomer's reach?
Jennifer Stanley (24:58):
Maybe I'll start with the thought about
this is where marketers have areally important role to play,
because the way that theinsights are built and are
crafted and are delivered to thesales force, I think,
determines to a large degree howagile in turn they will be able
to be.
And so what I mean by that isthree things.
One are the insightsprescriptive?
(25:19):
When I get them, does it tellme, Jennifer, make this shift in
how you are approaching aproposal that you have and kind
of the early stage of responseto the customers?
Are they prescriptive in thesense of to a sales leader?
Here's where you need morecapacity, not today, but six
months from now.
You may want to beef up yourhybrid or your digital teams
(25:42):
because of customers in remotelocations and we're predicting
more demand from there.
But some notion of like theprescription with the insights.
Second, the hyperpersonalization that Candice
mentioned of the insights isimportant for sellers as well.
So how do you take the notionof very, very specific, often
persona-led insights about acustomer and then deliver them
(26:05):
to me if I'm like a key accountrepresentative as an example in
a way that I can consume it?
So the insight is not justhyper-personalized about the
customer, but it'shyper-personalized to me as well
.
So for me, Jennifer, it'seasier for me to consume it if
you just stick it in CRM andleave me to my own devices to
check in For another salesperson.
It might be that you need somekind of forced interaction in
(26:27):
order to deliver those insights.
So that would be the secondthing, and then the third piece
is I think we need to be willingto break a lot more orthodoxies
, and so the better the insightsare, the more you can do things
like dynamic territoryreassignment, and so I have a
client that I work with who nowreallocates territories every
(26:48):
quarter, sometimes every coupleof months, because they're in a
fast part of their businessanyway is in fast moving goods,
and the theory of the case isuse it or lose it.
We're not waiting until the endof the year to figure out if
you're engaging with thecustomer lists and the prospects
you're given.
If you're not, we're going tofree those up to somebody else,
and because we can work remotely, you're not tied to a specific
(27:09):
geography anymore.
So having insights about wherethat demand is flowing and who's
using the informationinternally or not, allows sales
leaders to really rethinkterritory management in a way
that I think many people mightstill find uncomfortable, but
actually it could prove prettybeneficial.
James Soto (27:26):
Wow, and so many organizations put an exorbitant
amount of resources in the folksthey're trying to get to
perform versus redirecting toyou know to where the market
conditions, maybe the demandmatches the best service or
delivery in terms of sales.
That is so you just scared alot of people with that.
Jennifer Stanley (27:49):
I'm hoping to inspire people, James, maybe not
scare you.
I'll let you know it's possible.
Come on, it's an uncertaintimes we're in, right.
James Soto (27:57):
Well, it's not a Monday, so we're at least not
here recording Monday.
So, on that note, we're talkinga lot about technology.
We're talking a lot about data,and obviously using them as
buzzwords is one thing, but youknow, technology and analytics
play a real pivotal role ingaining a competitive edge.
(28:19):
So how can sales organizationsmove beyond the basics and the
status quo and like maximize,you know, all the potential of
all of this acquired technologydata so they can drive growth
and improve decision making.
Candice, what's your take onthat?
Candace Lun Plotkin (28:35):
both and improve decision-making.
Candice, what's your take onthat?
Yeah, one of the mostinnovative things that we're
seeing is for companies tocreate these cross-functional
pods, and so it might beanywhere between six and 10
people.
It takes a page out of softwareand development and what we
often use when we're doingdigital business building, but
within this pod you'll havefolks that are great at
analytics, you'll have folks whoare great at sales, folks that
(28:57):
are great at marketing, folksfrom finance, folks from legal,
and you'll actually pulltogether these teams, and what
we're finding is if you givethat team a clear mandate that
says here's a set of customersor a sector or some defined set,
what I kind of call like aplayground to play in and some
(29:18):
direction around, for example,you're charged with going to
acquire some new customers inthis particular space, and then
you can unleash the analyticsthat then inform what they go do
.
This pod needs to have someclear direction, but they also
need space to go generate theinsights and then go and execute
(29:38):
, learn from it and go to thenext thing, and so we're seeing
a lot of that work really well.
You often see this in thedigital marketing space.
We're seeing it more and morewhere you marry that with sales.
So we're actually going to godo some sales calls with people
and there are very interestingthings that you learn.
They could be very tacticalthings like if Jennifer is the
(29:59):
salesperson and we actually armher and show her how to do this
live demo right remotely, and ifwe actually send her with an IT
person who can actually showher how to do this, she'll pick
it up really quickly, versus wejust send Jennifer an email
saying, hey, use this demo inyour next sales pitch.
Tactical things like that youcan learn from, and then you can
(30:21):
also learn from other, morestrategic insights.
So, for example, in thisparticular sector there's a lot
of M&A activity.
Right, in this context, hereare the types of things or the
types of conversations orquestions that your customers
might have.
So let's arm you with somethingvery specific to go and talk to
(30:42):
them about, in addition towhatever you were going to bring
.
James Soto (30:45):
Well, that's great for enablement.
So there's a feedback loop,exactly.
So you're talking about thispod structure.
Yeah, and this is across-functional pod where
multiple people from multiplefunctional business units are
there, correct?
Yes, and you know this getsinto that cross-functional win
rooms as the new standard thatyou all wrote about and the big
(31:09):
reframe.
So everybody check that out ifyou're watching or listening in,
and what it says is a win roombrings together a
cross-functional team comprisingpeople and sales from a
combination of marketing,product delivery, finance and
technology and any otherfunctions needed, all working
together at a structured cadenceto focus on closing deals.
That sounds understandable.
(31:31):
How do you think from astandpoint?
You know our audience are verymuch siloed.
That sounds great in principle,where you know what would be
the guidance that you would giveto someone really looking at
how to create that pod, thatwind room team.
(31:51):
Where have you seen it?
What's maybe an example thatcomes to mind?
Candace Lun Plotkin (31:59):
So there are so many examples and we get
very excited about this becausethis really works.
Let me talk first about whatmakes it work, and I can give
you an example.
What makes it work are thefollowing things and, jennifer,
you should jump in here also youneed to have a very senior
leader who is the sponsor andwho's going to break down any
barriers that might come in theway.
(32:20):
You can't run this in kind ofthe normal sales process,
because that can also be quiteslow, right?
Oh, you have to wait until youget this approval and you have
to do this, and by the timeyou've done that, everyone's
exhausted and they're not goingto follow up because they have
their day job.
So that's one thing.
Second thing is you have to takesome of your best talent and be
(32:41):
very clear about you know, areyou 100% in this win room, are
you 50% in this win room and areyou really able to deliver
against that?
This needs to be a core part ofyour job.
It doesn't have to be your jobforever, but you really need to
have that focus and that claritythat this is what you're doing
now and not be distracted bymany of the other day-to-day
(33:04):
things that you might have onyour plate and then the other
piece around best talent, right?
I always say that the bestlitmus test for this is, if I
can't afford to take this personoff what they're already doing,
then that is the person I wantin the win room.
I don't want somebody who'sjust available.
I want the most high demandperson who has way too much to
(33:27):
do.
I want to free them up from theway too much to do and I want
them to focus here.
And it's counterintuitivebecause you often will staff
these with somebody who's free.
James Soto (33:39):
I've taken so much heat on this, so I'm the senior
sponsor.
I've taken one of my besttalented person that's in very
high demand, and so we're anomni-channel market agency
focused on the manufacturingsector and the biggest challenge
organizations.
It's like the cobbler wearingthe worst pair of shoes, and I
(34:02):
know manufacturers can relate tothis as our own marketing and
our own sales, because you havethis mandate in a lot of these
organizations around beingbillable, unbillable.
So I said this is just notworking.
Like, how can like us asfantastic strategic marketers?
You know plan design, execute,measure.
You know how this can't be thatdifficult.
(34:23):
So I created a growth teamwhere they wake up every single
day.
This is what they're thinkingabout.
We've integrated salesmarketing.
We've got analysts andinfluencers.
We've got analysts andinfluencers and it's really this
team that says, hey, every dayyou're waking up thinking about
the full, from the first touchpoint all the way through the
introductions to the team and Idid all those things and people
(34:49):
thought I was crazy and we don'treally took a turn.
We took a lot of heat for itbecause we pull out high demand
people to kind of take a seniorrole in these things.
It's crazy.
So you've just validated mythesis, and a lot of pain to
this point now, no, but it'sworking fantastic Well you're
not alone, right I?
Jennifer Stanley (35:06):
mean a lot of executives that we see go
through this same journey.
Right, they take the heat fordoing exactly what you just
described, and often it has tobe a senior enough executive who
has that kind of strategicvision and also, frankly, the
authority within a company to beable to make it happen.
I would say, on a smaller scale, if you are someone in a silo
(35:28):
who is excited to do this,reaching out to a senior,
someone who could be, or youwould want to be, a senior
sponsor with your idea, here'swhat my growth team would do.
Here's what impact would looklike, here's what I need to make
it happen.
And kind of enrolling from thebottom up I've also seen be
quite successful.
And then, by the way,practically just folks may
wonder well, how do you actuallyget this to happen on an
(35:49):
everyday basis?
Rethinking the incentive schemeis also quite important.
The reason you get silos isbecause people are incentivized
to maximize their silos.
Well, what if, all of a sudden,you're not incentivized to
maximize your silos?
Or the surest way to a faster,promotable career track is to
work outside the silo?
So giving people incentivesaround things could be like
(36:12):
number of competitive takeaways,like you might spend six months
just focused on the number, sothat your growth team or your
win room is going after kind ofthat playground of competitive
takeaways without reallythinking about what's
commissionable in our oldstructure not commissionable.
But if you have the impactwe're asking you to go have,
then there's some other bonusthat's out there for you.
(36:33):
So I do think there is there'san opportunity here, and this is
where HR has a role to play, asHR and finance have a role to
play as well.
How can we get creative toforce people to come out of
their silos, because there'ssome other exciting set of
carrots that are out there.
James Soto (36:48):
The incentive, the reframing and the re rethinking
of incentives seems very, verymuch apropos for where we are at
this moment and it'sinteresting that you bring that
up.
I would expect you guys to beputting out something just on
(37:10):
this topic alone.
I think it's fascinating.
Jennifer Stanley (37:14):
Candice has.
She truly is one of our topcompensation and incentive
experts for sales.
Yeah, Candice.
James Soto (37:21):
On that note, talent is at the heart of every
successful sales organizationand so, as we look at this
innovation, whether it's hiringpractices, training approaches,
what can these leaders adopt tosupport this new way hybrid
inside digital sales reps, andwhat role does that not just the
(37:44):
practice, but this continuouslearning, because it's going to
need a lot going to play inreally nurturing this center of
excellence.
Candace Lun Plotkin (37:53):
So, james, I think there's two things to
add here, I think one, theaccountability for impact is a
really big one, and then theother one is transparency.
Because if you take your teamand, by the way, thank you for
sharing your example Now Ididn't have to share one of mine
(38:14):
the wonderful thing and thecritical thing is to make sure
there's transparency.
Because if you take your teamand you're hiding somewhere like
quote hiding somewhere and thenyou're going to share your
results all at the end you'reprobably going to cherry pick
your best results.
I think that's human nature.
(38:34):
But if you're very transparent,that says we're running in
sprints, we signed up to do this, here's how it worked, here's
the parts that really worked,these work less well, this
experiment, and so we're goingto tweak and we're going to
change and then go do this.
We hit our targets, we didn'thit our targets right.
So there has to be somepatience, I think, from the
leadership for the moments whereyou may not hit, but also the
(38:58):
guidance for how do you adjustand adapt and get there.
So that's kind of one thing,and I think you had asked kind
of a you start small, because itcan be a shock to the system.
If you want to say I'm going togo and redo all the competent
(39:19):
incentives so that peoplecollaborate, that's a hard thing
to say yes to it is an easierthing to say.
I take a ring fence set ofpeople with a very specific task
and an impact that they need toachieve.
I'm going to rejigger, for thissmall group of people, their
competent incentives.
I'm going to rejigger for thissmall group of people, their
confidence incentives.
I'm going to work out and buildthe process by which they work
(39:41):
together across their differentroles, and then I'm going to
make sure that I invest enoughto learn as we go and to change
course when I need to, and I'mgoing to be really clear about
communicating what's happeningto people and to the leadership.
And so that is an easier ask.
And then I think you can provethe model as you go.
(40:04):
People will then be raisingtheir hand saying wait, I want
to do that because they see theexample of the impact and they
see the relative speed, combinedwith patience, from management
and leadership, with running themodel.
James Soto (40:20):
Yeah, there's gosh.
We could just talk on this onesubject for a very, very long
time.
This reminds me of an interviewthat I had with I don't know if
you've heard of John Miller.
He's the chief marketingofficer of Demandbase, an
account-based marketing platform.
He's the chief marketingofficer of Demandbase, an
account-based marketing platform, and we just recorded with him
last week and he said some very,very interesting things.
He really sees and I think hemay have been inspired actually
(40:44):
by some of the reading he mayhave done on you, but what he
looked at is they're rethinkingaccount-based marketing model
and they're saying we reallyneed to look at this
decision-making unit and reallylook at the predictive data and
their predictive AI that they'rereally starting to pioneer
there.
And you know, one of the thingsthat he said is that he really
sees that you just can't have.
(41:05):
You can't have along theselines.
You have to be playing on thesame team.
You can't be keeping twodifferent scorecards and
traditionally, marketing andsales have kept two different
scorecards and how ridiculous isthat?
We're all going for the samegoal.
Literally, we want to defendour goal, but we also want to
(41:25):
score goals and it's to win thegame and this is going to be a
pretty you know.
What do you think you know aswe.
You know, what do you think,jennifer, what do you think the
future has been hinting at?
What does it look like to younow as you look through?
You know, building these great.
(41:45):
You know getting this greattalent, developing this great
talent, meeting the customer ontheir terms.
And as we look at that like,what do you see as the future of
what these organizations willlook like?
Jennifer Stanley (41:58):
Yeah sure.
I'm going to share two words inresponse to what you were just
describing.
That came out of yourconversation with John Data
democratization.
And the reason I say that Ithink this is super important to
the future of where we'reheaded is because how much
energy is put into in companieskeeping data siloed or secret
(42:19):
from different parts of theorganization.
If you're all working toward thesame goal of having success
with your customers, retainingthe target customers and being
as profitable as you can be,helping your customers be as
profitable as they can be thatif that truly is the objective
goal, then marketing, sales,product engineering, finance
(42:41):
right, all of those functionsshould be able to see the same
data about what we are achievingwith the customer or not
achieving with the customer, andyet systems are set up to keep
people from seeing that.
So one of the biggestinnovations I'm seeing and this
is where I feel like someone hasto say the phrase generative AI
, where the promise ofgenerative AI, I think, relies
(43:01):
to a large degree on howdemocratized you're willing to
make your data in anorganization, because otherwise,
how can you generate newinsights about the decision
makers or influencers at acustomer that give you better
content to have conversationswith them, if those sets of
algorithms can't see all of thedata and you can't receive all
(43:22):
of the insights that are beinggenerated from a more
democratized set of data?
So I think one of the big youknow, another big orthodoxy that
we will likely see upended,probably pretty quickly, I mean,
I hate to put the crystal ballout there, but I'm seeing it
enough, or at least thediscussion enough in many
companies about sharing moredata more transparently in the
(43:44):
service of the customer.
I think we might see somethingbreak open there, and that's
also an element of agility.
Right, how quickly can you getinformation, share information,
see information and then dosomething exciting with it?
It sounds super basic, but it'sactually not that easy, given
the way the systems are set up.
James Soto (44:03):
It's really intuitive.
The intent has always been tohave the center of business on
your customer and their needsand wants, and profit shall be
that reward for that satisfiedcustomer and to do that at every
phase of their journey as youare serviced and delivering on
your products and solutions.
You should be doing that.
We had a very interestinginterview with the VP of product
(44:23):
at HubSpot, the marketing hub,nicholas Holland, and he said it
related to CRM.
He's like if marketing andsales are not at the CRM table,
you're doing it wrong.
Oh, absolutely so.
I think ultimately, you have tolook at this entire enterprise,
because marketing as a corefunction serves so many other
(44:45):
areas.
At the executive level, at thebusiness unit level, you support
HR, you support recruitment,r&d, the product development
lifecycle, and in so manymanufacturing businesses I'm
talking billion-dollarbusinesses there's not even a
CMO and so it's not a core,distinguished function of the
(45:06):
business.
And that's actually one of thereasons why I created Industrial
, because it was a pain point inthe market, and so they've been
transitioning from the state ofthe tradition, which is still
there, to to to, you know,trending digital and meeting
that digital buyer on buyinggroup, you know to being these
digital pacesetters and and soit's, it's, it's an interesting
(45:29):
how we all have to get together,navigate where these folks are
on these journeys.
So you know, as you, as youlook at the uncertain future in
your mind, candice, and whatwe're seeing in terms of trends,
you know how do we kind of getthe talent, get the roles.
You know, like, how do we kindof wrap this up in your mind?
Candace Lun Plotkin (45:50):
Well, so, james, a couple of things and
really picking up on the lastpieces of the discussion.
I think, Jennifer, if youremember, this was like 2012,
where we would march around theoffice saying marketing and
sales need to be best friends.
Jennifer Stanley (46:05):
We wrote an article on that too, candice, we
did.
Those were the days, she's notwrong.
Candace Lun Plotkin (46:15):
We did actually march around the office
and say that the good thingabout this, though, is, you know
, I think what we're going tosee over time is a breaking open
of the front end of the funneland the back end of the funnel,
right?
So now, we still very muchoperate in this.
There's a marketing funnel andthere's a sales funnel, and
wouldn't it be nice if you couldshare the data across and if
(46:36):
people work together?
Right, james?
You earlier said I don't likethe idea of a handoff.
Right, I don't like somethingthrown over the wall.
This is exactly what we'retalking about, and I think, in
this new world, you're going tobe thinking about talent across
the entire marketing and salesfunnel.
I think you're going to belooking at capabilities that
(46:59):
actually blur and blend acrosskind of traditional marketing
duties to traditional salesduties.
You mentioned yourself the riseof the BDR, right?
If you're seeing more companiesin the industrial space
recruiting this role, that rolesits in between marketing and
sales, and so I think, as youlook at your talent, you're
(47:21):
looking for talent that's morefluid across the two funnels, so
it's really one funnel.
And then I think you're alsolooking, when you talk about
this thread of personalizationand omni-channel the greater
need to be helping orchestrateacross the channel, helping to
guide the customers where youwould like them to go, based on
(47:43):
what you think they need, andthen continuing to learn and get
sharper and sharper at that.
James Soto (47:48):
Yeah, it's almost as if we need to stop the thinking
in this binary way about thesales funnel and understand that
we're now overlapping thetalent, the capabilities, the
orchestration, these fluid,flexible, elastic, you know
talent, you know roles that wehave, at the same time
(48:12):
overlapping the customer and thecustomer's experience.
Because it's only logical thatthis all comes together, because
all the core ingredients arethere and they're now as a
matter of how do we start tobreak open?
If we're going to break openthe front and end of the funnel,
(48:32):
I just want to talk to a lot offolks like well then, let's get
the closed loop analytics.
You know a closed looporganization, but you know, but
no one can be closed off in it,so you know.
Jennifer Stanley (48:44):
On, that continuous loop or a completed
loop.
James Soto (48:48):
Oh, my goodness, so exciting times, right, we will
never get bored in this sense.
So on that note, I wanted toyou know thank you, jennifer and
Candice, for sharing youramazing insights.
There's so much more we can gointo into the future of B2B
(49:08):
sales.
But before we wrap up, becausethere's so much great content,
where and what you know can ouraudience point themselves to and
find your current research, allthese exciting things we
discussed, things that are onthe horizon and everything
they'd want to know about theservices McKinsey offers.
Jennifer Stanley (49:28):
One easy way you can find both me and Candice
on almost every social mediaplatform and we have links to a
lot of these articles.
So, for example, james, the oneon the future of B2B sales
building the right team andtalent to drive growth in an
uncertain environment If youjust typed in, or you could go
look at me on LinkedIn, youwould see the link to that.
(49:50):
Or you just type in likeMcKinsey B2B sales talent it's
our latest article from June.
It pops up.
That might be the easiest wayto think about it.
You can also go to our McKinseyCompany website.
Under our Growth, marketing andSales Practice, we have a whole
section our insights.
Everything is there.
It's usually tracked by dateand you will see a split between
(50:12):
B2B and B2C, so you can go tothe B2B area as well.
James Soto (50:15):
Fantastic.
Jennifer Stanley (50:16):
Multiple paths to the same content and, of
course, you can always feel freeto reach out to me or Candice
directly.
James Soto (50:22):
Yeah, and Candice, what's your favorite piece that
you'd want to direct?
You know your favorite thingyou've worked on you'd like to
direct someone to.
Candace Lun Plotkin (50:30):
I think it's probably our most recent
article on B2B Pulse right,which is, you know, it's called
the multiplier effect and itreally shows how winning B2B
companies, what levers they'repulling to drive, you know, I
would say, outsized growthversus their peers.
That would be, I think, themost relevant and the one that
(50:53):
summarizes a lot of thisconversation that we're having
today.
James Soto (50:56):
OK, april of this year.
So if you were working with asmall cap $1 billion
manufacturing company, they'rekind of on the trending digital
phase of their evolution.
Final question what's the onething that you would, of all the
things they have to do relatedto sales, what's the one thing
(51:17):
you would suggest they do?
Candice, put you up on the spot.
Candace Lun Plotkin (51:21):
I would talk to customers and I would
map their journeys andunderstand where the bottlenecks
are and then I would choose thehighest priority, highest value
ones to go and solve.
James Soto (51:34):
Good one, Jennifer.
That's a tough one.
Jennifer Stanley (51:38):
It is tough.
I'm going to go in a little bitof a different direction, but
maybe it builds actually,because you have that insight.
Then what Hybrid capacity?
I would be putting my dollarsbehind hybrid sales capacity
bias toward remote digital sales, because you get a lot more
(51:58):
leverage out of them.
So, assuming that this smallcap, a billion dollar-esque
company, is on a rapid growth orwants to be on a rapid growth
trajectory, you'll get therefaster with more capacity.
That looks like that type oftalent that we've been
discussing today.
James Soto (52:13):
So talk to your customers and ramp up that
hybrid capacity.
Well, thank you again, Jenniferand Candice, for being on the
show.
It has been wonderful havingyou.
Jennifer Stanley (52:26):
Thank you, James.
We were delighted to be here.
James Soto (52:28):
Okay.
So, on that note, it's justbeen such an enlightening
discussion.
I know our audience will findyour expertise and immensely
valuable, and to our audiencewill find your expertise
immensely valuable and to ourlisteners.
I just hope that you heard justone thing, one golden nugget
that inspires you to take thatfirst step to move your business
forward.
We talked a lot about this newprofile of the salesperson, the
(52:51):
experience.
We need to look at thepersonalization.
How do we break through, how dowe manage through these
transitions that happen in thispersonalization?
How do we break through, how dowe manage through these
transitions that happen in thisbuying journey?
How do we democratize this dataso we can use insights, and how
can we really look to thefuture for how these new tools
are going to come up and help usalong the way?
There is just so much happening.
(53:12):
So, on that note, I just wantto thank you for showing up here
and joining us yet again forthis encore.
Please subscribe to IndustrialStrength Marketing on your
preferred podcast platform andmake sure to follow us on
LinkedIn.
You can always check us out onYouTube and for more insights,
content and highlights, visit usat
industrialstrengthmarketingcom.
So next time I'm James Sotoreminding you to make marketing
(53:36):
the strength of your business.
So take care, here we go.
You have to take some of your best talent
and be very clear about you know.
Are you 100% in this win room,are you 50% in this win room and
are you really able to deliveragainst that?
This needs to be a core part ofyour job.
It doesn't have to be your jobforever, but you really need to
have that focus and that claritythat this is what you're doing
(00:21):
now and not be distracted bymany of the other day-to-day
things that you might have onyour plate.
And then the other piece aroundbest talent, right?
I always say that the bestlitmus test for this is, if I
can't afford to take this personoff what they're already doing,
then that is the person I wantin the win room.
I don't want somebody who'sjust available.
(00:43):
I want the most high demandperson who has way too much to
do.
I want to free them up from theway too much to do and I want
them to focus here.
James Soto (00:59):
Welcome to Industrial Strength Marketing.
I'm your host, james Soto, andtoday we have a treat for you,
the Industrial strengthmarketing audience.
We are joined for an encorevisit by Jennifer Stanley and
our new good friend, candiceLund-Plotkin, from McKinsey and
Company.
They're here to share theirexpertise on the future of B2B
(01:19):
sales and we're going to diveinto how to assemble winning
teams for success.
There's a boatload of content.
There's a lot of studiesreferenced and you're going to
learn a lot.
So, jennifer and Candice, thankyou for being here with us
today.
Candace Lun Plotkin (01:34):
Thank you for having us.
James Soto (01:35):
Oh, it's so really nice to have you, so I thought
it would be great if you all canintroduce yourself.
And, candice, since it's yourfirst time here, would you mind
telling our audience a littlebit about yourself and where
you're focused?
Candace Lun Plotkin (01:46):
Of course.
So my name is CandiceLoon-Plotkin and I'm a partner
in McKinsey's marketing andsales practice and our Boston
office.
I've been with McKinsey gosh 25years or so and during that
course of time, have worked withfive or hundred sales forces.
I do most of my work really atthe intersection of go to market
(02:08):
models, omni channel, and Ialso do a lot of digital
business building, so e-commerce, customer engagement platforms
and the like.
James Soto (02:17):
So you're a busy person and you have a little
background in industrial andfocus there too Correct, so
that's, that's very good to hear.
Candace Lun Plotkin (02:27):
Yes, of course, Some of our I think our
most interesting problems andsolutions are actually presented
by industrial companies.
And industrial companies areparticularly interesting because
they tend to be very open tolearning from other industries
as well.
James Soto (02:43):
Yeah, and there's a lot of change happening there
too, so, jennifer, you're back.
Jennifer Stanley (02:48):
Yes, it's great to see you again, james,
thank you so much for having meand allowing me to bring my dear
friend, candice.
You'll hear a few things incommon.
I'm also a partner in themarketing and sales practice, as
you know, also based in Boston,although for not as many years
as Candice.
I actually started in Atlanta,which Candice used to work in as
well, and I basically justfollowed in her footsteps up to
(03:10):
Boston so 20-ish years as well,working in B2B sales, a lot in
industrial.
I find it pretty exciting.
I think I mentioned this to youbefore, james, but when I
started at McKinsey, I thought Iwanted to do consumer marketing
and sales, and I did that for ahot second and then realized,
right, the action was all inindustrial.
So it's good to be able to chatabout that today.
James Soto (03:31):
Well, you have a very sympathetic crowd.
We work with icons of industry,those aspiring to be, and we're
very focused on companies whoare manufacturing the future and
there's a lot happening and theacceleration of marketing and
selling.
It's amazing.
In our industry, I feel, it'slike the golden age.
So getting to these insights isso important and really thank
(03:53):
you so much for being here.
So last time we spoke a lotabout what was changing due to
COVID and how people are lookingat the changing buying dynamics
and expectations, and that wascoming from great content, from
your B2B Pulse content, and thenwe'll be diving in a lot more
(04:13):
to your B2B Sales content here.
And it started with omnichanneleverywhere every time and I
love that rule of thirds wherewe were talking about, you know,
we saw very clearly we'relooking at, you know, this
hybrid, this in-person and thisself-service model.
So if you want to go back tothe Industrial Stake Marketing
(04:34):
Show and see the first of theencore before the encore
interview, go there and fortoday, we really are going to
direct you to a lot of content.
So we're going to repeat this afew times.
So, the future of B2B salesthere's a great article that
came out last year, the BigReframe which led me to reading
the future of B2B sales, whichwe'll talk about today building
(04:57):
the right team and talent todrive growth in an uncertain
environment Sound familiar, andso there's so much going on and
there's just so much coming fromthis content, including the B2B
sales, a multiplier effect, andyou're going to hear a lot from
multiple studies.
So I don't want you to fear.
We're going to give you lots ofresources and links in the show
notes, so you're going to knowwhere to go, and Jennifer and
(05:18):
Candice have been very kind tobe offering to like point people
in the right direction.
So let's get into it.
Y'all ready?
Jennifer Stanley (05:26):
Absolutely.
James Soto (05:26):
Okay.
So my first question the B2Bsales landscape has seen a lot
of change and I know we get alot of content about it, but I
think we need to be more in aworld of what do we know that's
concrete.
So could you share any concreteexamples of how the hybrid
inside and digital sales roleshave evolved and what's kind of
(05:48):
the attribution to that?
What do we need?
What are those attributes thatare needed for success in each
position?
Jennifer Stanley (05:54):
Well, maybe I'll kick us off and then hand
to Candice, because I think inparticular, if you get into the
world of e-commerce and digitalbusiness builds, there really is
some unique opportunities andan exciting moment in time for
sales talent.
But maybe just start with a fewbroad brushes.
And I'll also reassure youraudience that a lot of the data
and the sources you justmentioned, james, they're all
(06:16):
interrelated.
Right?
We're all kind of coming fromthis perspective that the
selling world today and B2B, andin particular, for those of us
who are focused in industrialsales and marketing, I think
it's one of the most excitingplaces, frankly, to be in terms
of a function in a company,because so much is evolving,
there's so much innovationtaking place and, from a talent
(06:38):
perspective, when we look acrossthe rise of the hybrid roles or
the digital seller roles andthe impact that being successful
, selling remotely for a lot ofcompanies where the name of the
game was you were in the field,on the road, five days a week or
four days a week, four weeksout of the month, companies
proved that you didn'tnecessarily have to do that to
(07:00):
be successful.
And customers also stood up andsaid we don't need you or even
want you in many cases to behavethat way to be successful.
And customers also stood up andsaid we don't need you or even
want you in many cases to behavethat way to be successful.
So, from a hiring and adevelopment perspective, you
kind of step back and go well ifthe role has changed and
customers' expectations andpreferences are different.
Maybe profiles of whatsuccessful salespeople look like
(07:23):
have changed as well, and Ithink our answer to that and I
don't think I know our answer tothat is a resounding yes.
And so what that means quitepractically for companies is the
profile you think is the onethat is successful for you may
not actually, if that's workedfor you for the past five or 10
years, might not actually be thebest profile for you going
forward.
(07:43):
And, in particular, I wouldencourage companies to look at
intrinsics as opposed to pastexperience, because we're
finding over and over again thatindividuals who are curious,
quick learners, willing to adaptin different environments feel
just as ease on a digitalpodcast and on remote channels
as they do meeting customers inperson tend to have more success
(08:07):
in today's omni-channelenvironment than those who may
have a very kind of fixed notionof what it means to be a
successful seller.
So focusing a bit more onintrinsics than you know
background of experience wouldbe one thing I think is
important.
A second thing we're seeingcompanies do and for industrial
companies I think this isactually quite potentially an
(08:29):
exciting avenue to pursue andthat is going outside your
industry for great talent.
I was working with a medicaltechnology company recently and
they were saying that a lot oftheir salespeople just kind of
keep coming from the same firmsso competitors, trading places
and I said well, have you everthought about like going and
recruiting from a semiconductorcompany or from an advanced
(08:52):
manufacturer, like a lot of yourmembers are?
Because if I promise you, ifthey can sell those types of
complex pieces of equipment,they can sell complex medical
technology.
And that idea of oh, we can golook for salespeople out of our
industry hadn't really occurredor landed in a meaningful way,
and we're seeing a lot more ofthat right now.
James Soto (09:12):
Amazing these profiles, and we talk a lot
about DNA.
What's the DNA of the modernsales organization?
And I think a lot of thesequestions are being asked, and
thank you for offering up thatcontext, candice, as well.
I think this is, you know,what's your take on the overall
context of you know what you'vebeen seeing, along with Jennifer
(09:33):
.
Candace Lun Plotkin (09:34):
Yeah, I think there's, you know, really
a couple things that I wouldhighlight.
I think one is you know, it hasfirmly landed that you need to
go customer back and reallyunderstand their needs.
Know so that they can accessexpertise in a very quick way
(10:11):
and they can very transparentlymove from one channel to another
.
Right, so they can go onself-serve and there's good
content, it's clear what theyneed to do, but if they need to
talk to somebody, there is aquick way to do that and you
don't have to wait three days toschedule it and then you know.
The other piece is customerneed back.
There is all of that, but thereis also the what is the right
(10:33):
cost to serve so we can have themost profitable models?
And so at the intersection ofthose is really where the
industrial clients are sayinghow do I solve this problem?
How do I get the rightsalesperson to the customer at
the right time, with the rightcontent and in the right medium
or channel?
James Soto (10:53):
Right place, in the right context, in the right time
.
Candace Lun Plotkin (10:57):
Exactly and , you know, do they have the
right content, content includingexpertise, and so those pieces
are really important.
The other piece I would add,picking up on Jennifer's thread
when she was talking about whatskill sets am I recruiting for?
Collaboration and problemsolving are more and more
important Because, if you thinkabout my customers want to
(11:20):
access many different channels.
They're going to do that atdifferent points in time.
Every time, as a customer, Iaccess or interact with you, I
want whoever or however I'minteracting with to know what
happened before, so I don't haveto retell my story.
So they have to know content.
And then, anywhere you'reinteracting, you need to be able
(11:40):
to have a good transition or ahandoff, which means, as a
salesperson, I need to be ableto have a good transition or a
handoff, which means, as asalesperson, I need to be able
to collaborate with the digitalsales folks, with the inside
sales folks, with any sort ofdigital platform, and I need to
be able to, if I'm reallyknocking the ball out of the
park, if I am a high levelsalesperson, I need to be able
(12:01):
to be the orchestrator in themiddle of that moment across the
board, and then I need to cometo the customer at the time that
they need me Right.
So these moments that matter inthe journey are even more
critical.
Your best salespeople can pickout those moments and execute on
them.
James Soto (12:19):
Yeah, and there's so much information out there and
we've, we've, we've, we've seeninsights about helping people
with the amount of informationthey need.
You know, it's funny that yousay this.
There's a.
The thing that we have to wereally think about is how do you
guide someone's experience?
And we're in, actually, assellers and marketers.
(12:40):
We're in the services business.
We are out here to be ofservice and you know, one of the
things we say is it's nothandoffs or it's introductions,
you know it's helping, you knowselling how someone wants to buy
.
And because these expectationshave changed, we have to all
(13:00):
come together and that reallyrequires something that you've
talked about, which is creatingthis one team that works
together.
And I think that's a really bigthing that we've seen in the
marketplace, because a lot ofmanufacturers are.
One of the things we've heard alot is hey, we're thinking
about getting BDRs, which youhaven't seen so much, because
(13:24):
you know a lot of them sellthrough channel, through
distribution, but they'rerealizing they're asking these
questions essentially at thesame time, because they're
really questioning the statusquo.
Have you seen that in yourexperience with you know,
manufacturers in terms of thatquestion, in terms of, like that
organizational construct andbringing in the you know, a
(13:45):
software based sales model, isthat?
Is that something that'spopping up?
Jennifer Stanley (13:50):
Every manufacturer I work with almost
inevitably wants to hear whatare the SaaS companies and the
hyperscalers doing?
Because they're assuming, andthey're making an assumption
which holds true, I would say, amajority of the time, but not
all of the time.
Right that the more excitinginnovations in sales and
marketing are happening in thatspace, and it is true there are
exciting innovations happening.
But you know there are plentyof industrial companies.
(14:12):
I would consider you all techfirms too, right If you think
about like on the backs of whatyou're doing with data, with
analytics, with the Internet ofThings and the service that goes
along with, particularly in theequipment world and you know
and after market and those aftermarket services.
So I actually think there canbe quite a bit gleaned within
industrial as well in terms ofsome best practices.
(14:34):
And there are two that I'llhighlight that I've seen
recently with industrialcompanies and James, you
mentioned one of them,interestingly enough which is
this notion of there is no suchthing as a handoff.
They call them what you'recalling introductions, they're
calling facilitations or they'recalling to Candice's earlier
description orchestration.
So they don't want to leaveanyone with the notion that you
(14:57):
abrogate responsibility for acustomer just because you are
bringing someone else into theirjourney to solve a problem.
Everyone remains responsible inthat kind of overall
collaboration, collaborationconstruct.
That would be number one.
Number two the other thing thatI'm seeing kind of this like
challenging of norms is theassumption that to have customer
(15:18):
intimacy, everything has to bein person.
I'm not arguing that there is athere is a world where we never
break bread with humans againand where the importance of the
face-to-face interaction goesaway.
But the notion that the onlyway you can create intimacy is
face-to-face, I think, is alsosomething that has been proven
to be not true.
There are plenty of ways thatyou can get to know customers as
(15:41):
people, as humans, theirpreferences, their latent needs,
and to find creative ways toconnect on digital mediums.
So I think, for those tworeasons, there are actually
quite a number of excitinginnovations that break the mold
of what we're used to inindustrial sales.
James Soto (16:00):
I agree.
It's funny we met I think youwere in your place in Tennessee
the last time.
Candace Lun Plotkin (16:06):
Okay, still .
James Soto (16:07):
Still at my place in Tennessee, but Morgan in Boston
.
You know, so, you know, I thinkyou know.
Manufacturers, you know,believe that, believe in that
customer intimacy.
They are dead set.
You know, for a largepercentage to the fact that if
you look at the topmanufacturing technology
companies it's capital equipmentthere's significant
(16:29):
interdependency for theapplication engineering of these
decisions they're making andmaintaining that intimacy.
You still see major shows likeIMTS we're actually in full
disclosure, a strategic partnerof theirs, in full disclosure, a
strategic partner of theirs andwhen what we have seen is just
when they had their event lastyear, it was amazing, the
(16:52):
interaction, engagement, it waslike a relief to everyone.
But there's still that intimacyquestion and so how do we
balance that?
You know, when we look at theintimacy of virtual settings,
you know becoming more prevalent, how are folks wrestling with
these new environments, engagingthere?
Settings, you know becomingmore prevalent, how are folks
wrestling with these newenvironments, engaging there?
And you know, what strategiesare you really seeing for folks
(17:12):
to kind of navigate that to?
You know, get to thosesuccessful interactions and
maintaining that intimacy.
I know you're saying we shoulddo it, but the how, as you look
at like the fear of, but the how, as you look at like the fear
of change, is that exceeding thebenefit of that opportunity?
Jennifer Stanley (17:36):
Let me give you one practical example I saw,
and then kick it over toCandice and I'll stay quiet for
a bit.
But you mentioned events, james, and for sure we've seen the
similar excitement.
You pick the subsector ifthey've had some kind of trade
experience in the last 18 months.
Folks have come out in droves.
Well, a couple of companieshave used the opportunity to
introduce virtual realityopportunities in person so that
(17:56):
when they go home for the other360-ish days of the year when
you're not in person at thetrade event, you actually have
already experienced their VRsituations and their equipment.
So some companies will actuallysend, like the Oculus headset
out to folks so that they canexperience equipment in a
(18:16):
digital platform.
But if you've already tried itout in person and you've had
that initial interaction, thentaking that interaction back
into the remote and the digitalspace becomes quite a natural
extension of that initial momentof intimacy in person that you
had while still using, you know,quite exciting technology
throughout that entire process.
James Soto (18:35):
And we're getting to hear wow that you all have been
talking about too.
They expect the wow moment,candice.
Candace Lun Plotkin (18:43):
You know, a couple thoughts here.
One is I'm seeing two ends ofthings right and it's all
focused on this personalizationand intimacy right.
One end is really working hardto make the in-person
experiences more extraordinary,more memorable and an
opportunity to both share whatyour company has to offer but
(19:05):
also to really get to knowpeople.
So that's one thing.
So, for example, we're seeingyou know as opposed to you know,
just interacting at a tradeshow, for example, but very
specific invitations toindividuals, right that
companies want to get to knowbetter and the experience might
be quite personalized.
(19:27):
It could be going together witha bunch of folks that really
enjoy golf to a top golf event.
Yeah it may be a very specialeating experience that is either
very local and unique itdoesn't have to be fancy but
very kind of locally oriented,something special that you can
get in that area and notsomewhere else.
(19:48):
And we're seeing a lot ofopportunities where you manage
the transitions Right.
So let's ride together to go tothis event.
It gives us time to chat in thecar and it's a wonderful way
just to get to know what is thisperson like, what makes them
tick, what are they inspired by.
So that's kind of one end ofthings that are very, you know,
(20:09):
kind of more unique experiencesin person.
I think we're also seeing a lotmore personalization and really
hyper personalization byindustrial companies and other
B2B companies in digitalinteractions.
So it's everything from basicthings like let me help you
customize a homepage so that itshows you exactly what you want
(20:30):
to see when you come to myportal, as well as making sure
that the email interactions arevery specific and refer to other
experiences or contact thatwe've had, right, and, you know,
putting a learning engine inplace so that you're not just
continuing to send out moregeneric emails, right.
(20:53):
So those are just a coupleexamples, but I want to
highlight, because we're seeingboth ends of it how do you make
more digital interactions morepersonal?
And then how do you actuallymake in-person interactions also
more personal and unique?
James Soto (21:06):
Yeah, there's this new profile of salesperson,
there's this experience we'relooking at, there's these
expectations of personalization,and then there's this how do I
describe what you said?
You're like Willy Wonka andyou're giving someone a tour of
the chocolate factory, right,and you want to have a, not just
(21:27):
see the factory, but you wantto have an experience and you
want to find it enjoyable and,you know, interesting,
educational, and you know webelieve in entertaining.
Those three words are soimportant now for B2B and sales
and marketing as well.
You know where do you see therole of?
(21:48):
You know the change of the golfgame.
You know, as, as there've beenmuch chatter about, you know
what is the new normal for, like, how we not make it weird, but
how do we like really connectwith people?
I know those are all theselittle, these little transition
moments, but someone's I'm justgeeking out.
(22:10):
What, what?
Okay, how do I do transitionmoments?
It's like in the golf cart.
Candace Lun Plotkin (22:14):
Well, you know, one thing to note is, I
think, as the workforce hasbecome much more diverse, amen.
James Soto (22:22):
Amen.
Candace Lun Plotkin (22:23):
Continue to have folks that love to play
golf, and that is still a veryrelevant activity.
You probably don't want to playgolf with me because the only
kind of golf I play is mini, butI think you know there is a
much higher bar on problemsolving what is the best way to
engage?
Not everyone is going to beexcited about playing golf or
(22:45):
going to a basketball game or afootball game.
All of those things are stillin the mix and many people will
enjoy them, but there's, I think, a higher bar on thoughtfulness
to say how do I create anexperience with great content?
And so when you were sayingentertaining, I would actually
say it's not so muchentertaining, it's engaging,
(23:07):
Because you're bringing content,you're bringing yourself and
you're sharing a bit aboutyourself as you do this and also
trying to understand what makesa good experience for the
people that you may beinteracting with, and so I think
what that also often means ismore smaller custom events
versus something big or the samething we did last year.
James Soto (23:32):
Yeah, there's a sense of empathy implied in that
and that you have to bepredictive, you know, in terms
of understanding how one it's adecision making unit or a
business or an individual howthey you know how they want to
interact with you and you've gotto be somewhat predictive.
And then you've got to beprescriptive with your approach
(23:53):
and then you really find how doyou like, personalize that?
That's a big ask for our nowintegrated organizations, our
salespeople and the marketersthat are enabling them and
collaborating with them.
So, as we look at your researchhere, switch a gear quickly and
(24:14):
anyone could take this question.
The agility and insights haveyou know research, agility and
insights have been identified aspillars for outperformance.
So we're doing all of thesethings and we're hinting at the
research, agility and insightshere.
Could you, as a kind of from apoint of what you're hearing
(24:34):
from sales leaders, like, how,from sales leaders, how are
sales leaders, how are theygoing to guide their teams in
this adaptation, to adapting tothese different deal stages
Because they're looking at itthat way as well and how they
can bring these insights thatthey need to do some of these
things and get that within thecustomer's reach?
Jennifer Stanley (24:58):
Maybe I'll start with the thought about
this is where marketers have areally important role to play,
because the way that theinsights are built and are
crafted and are delivered to thesales force, I think,
determines to a large degree howagile in turn they will be able
to be.
And so what I mean by that isthree things.
One are the insightsprescriptive?
(25:19):
When I get them, does it tellme, Jennifer, make this shift in
how you are approaching aproposal that you have and kind
of the early stage of responseto the customers?
Are they prescriptive in thesense of to a sales leader?
Here's where you need morecapacity, not today, but six
months from now.
You may want to beef up yourhybrid or your digital teams
(25:42):
because of customers in remotelocations and we're predicting
more demand from there.
But some notion of like theprescription with the insights.
Second, the hyperpersonalization that Candice
mentioned of the insights isimportant for sellers as well.
So how do you take the notionof very, very specific, often
persona-led insights about acustomer and then deliver them
(26:05):
to me if I'm like a key accountrepresentative as an example in
a way that I can consume it?
So the insight is not justhyper-personalized about the
customer, but it'shyper-personalized to me as well
.
So for me, Jennifer, it'seasier for me to consume it if
you just stick it in CRM andleave me to my own devices to
check in For another salesperson.
It might be that you need somekind of forced interaction in
(26:27):
order to deliver those insights.
So that would be the secondthing, and then the third piece
is I think we need to be willingto break a lot more orthodoxies
, and so the better the insightsare, the more you can do things
like dynamic territoryreassignment, and so I have a
client that I work with who nowreallocates territories every
(26:48):
quarter, sometimes every coupleof months, because they're in a
fast part of their businessanyway is in fast moving goods,
and the theory of the case isuse it or lose it.
We're not waiting until the endof the year to figure out if
you're engaging with thecustomer lists and the prospects
you're given.
If you're not, we're going tofree those up to somebody else,
and because we can work remotely, you're not tied to a specific
(27:09):
geography anymore.
So having insights about wherethat demand is flowing and who's
using the informationinternally or not, allows sales
leaders to really rethinkterritory management in a way
that I think many people mightstill find uncomfortable, but
actually it could prove prettybeneficial.
James Soto (27:26):
Wow, and so many organizations put an exorbitant
amount of resources in the folksthey're trying to get to
perform versus redirecting toyou know to where the market
conditions, maybe the demandmatches the best service or
delivery in terms of sales.
That is so you just scared alot of people with that.
Jennifer Stanley (27:49):
I'm hoping to inspire people, James, maybe not
scare you.
I'll let you know it's possible.
Come on, it's an uncertaintimes we're in, right.
James Soto (27:57):
Well, it's not a Monday, so we're at least not
here recording Monday.
So, on that note, we're talkinga lot about technology.
We're talking a lot about data,and obviously using them as
buzzwords is one thing, but youknow, technology and analytics
play a real pivotal role ingaining a competitive edge.
(28:19):
So how can sales organizationsmove beyond the basics and the
status quo and like maximize,you know, all the potential of
all of this acquired technologydata so they can drive growth
and improve decision making.
Candice, what's your take onthat?
Candace Lun Plotkin (28:35):
both and improve decision-making.
Candice, what's your take onthat?
Yeah, one of the mostinnovative things that we're
seeing is for companies tocreate these cross-functional
pods, and so it might beanywhere between six and 10
people.
It takes a page out of softwareand development and what we
often use when we're doingdigital business building, but
within this pod you'll havefolks that are great at
analytics, you'll have folks whoare great at sales, folks that
(28:57):
are great at marketing, folksfrom finance, folks from legal,
and you'll actually pulltogether these teams, and what
we're finding is if you givethat team a clear mandate that
says here's a set of customersor a sector or some defined set,
what I kind of call like aplayground to play in and some
(29:18):
direction around, for example,you're charged with going to
acquire some new customers inthis particular space, and then
you can unleash the analyticsthat then inform what they go do
.
This pod needs to have someclear direction, but they also
need space to go generate theinsights and then go and execute
(29:38):
, learn from it and go to thenext thing, and so we're seeing
a lot of that work really well.
You often see this in thedigital marketing space.
We're seeing it more and morewhere you marry that with sales.
So we're actually going to godo some sales calls with people
and there are very interestingthings that you learn.
They could be very tacticalthings like if Jennifer is the
(29:59):
salesperson and we actually armher and show her how to do this
live demo right remotely, and ifwe actually send her with an IT
person who can actually showher how to do this, she'll pick
it up really quickly, versus wejust send Jennifer an email
saying, hey, use this demo inyour next sales pitch.
Tactical things like that youcan learn from, and then you can
(30:21):
also learn from other, morestrategic insights.
So, for example, in thisparticular sector there's a lot
of M&A activity.
Right, in this context, hereare the types of things or the
types of conversations orquestions that your customers
might have.
So let's arm you with somethingvery specific to go and talk to
(30:42):
them about, in addition towhatever you were going to bring
.
James Soto (30:45):
Well, that's great for enablement.
So there's a feedback loop,exactly.
So you're talking about thispod structure.
Yeah, and this is across-functional pod where
multiple people from multiplefunctional business units are
there, correct?
Yes, and you know this getsinto that cross-functional win
rooms as the new standard thatyou all wrote about and the big
(31:09):
reframe.
So everybody check that out ifyou're watching or listening in,
and what it says is a win roombrings together a
cross-functional team comprisingpeople and sales from a
combination of marketing,product delivery, finance and
technology and any otherfunctions needed, all working
together at a structured cadenceto focus on closing deals.
That sounds understandable.
(31:31):
How do you think from astandpoint?
You know our audience are verymuch siloed.
That sounds great in principle,where you know what would be
the guidance that you would giveto someone really looking at
how to create that pod, thatwind room team.
(31:51):
Where have you seen it?
What's maybe an example thatcomes to mind?
Candace Lun Plotkin (31:59):
So there are so many examples and we get
very excited about this becausethis really works.
Let me talk first about whatmakes it work, and I can give
you an example.
What makes it work are thefollowing things and, jennifer,
you should jump in here also youneed to have a very senior
leader who is the sponsor andwho's going to break down any
barriers that might come in theway.
(32:20):
You can't run this in kind ofthe normal sales process,
because that can also be quiteslow, right?
Oh, you have to wait until youget this approval and you have
to do this, and by the timeyou've done that, everyone's
exhausted and they're not goingto follow up because they have
their day job.
So that's one thing.
Second thing is you have to takesome of your best talent and be
(32:41):
very clear about you know, areyou 100% in this win room, are
you 50% in this win room and areyou really able to deliver
against that?
This needs to be a core part ofyour job.
It doesn't have to be your jobforever, but you really need to
have that focus and that claritythat this is what you're doing
now and not be distracted bymany of the other day-to-day
(33:04):
things that you might have onyour plate and then the other
piece around best talent, right?
I always say that the bestlitmus test for this is, if I
can't afford to take this personoff what they're already doing,
then that is the person I wantin the win room.
I don't want somebody who'sjust available.
I want the most high demandperson who has way too much to
(33:27):
do.
I want to free them up from theway too much to do and I want
them to focus here.
And it's counterintuitivebecause you often will staff
these with somebody who's free.
James Soto (33:39):
I've taken so much heat on this, so I'm the senior
sponsor.
I've taken one of my besttalented person that's in very
high demand, and so we're anomni-channel market agency
focused on the manufacturingsector and the biggest challenge
organizations.
It's like the cobbler wearingthe worst pair of shoes, and I
(34:02):
know manufacturers can relate tothis as our own marketing and
our own sales, because you havethis mandate in a lot of these
organizations around beingbillable, unbillable.
So I said this is just notworking.
Like, how can like us asfantastic strategic marketers?
You know plan design, execute,measure.
You know how this can't be thatdifficult.
(34:23):
So I created a growth teamwhere they wake up every single
day.
This is what they're thinkingabout.
We've integrated salesmarketing.
We've got analysts andinfluencers.
We've got analysts andinfluencers and it's really this
team that says, hey, every dayyou're waking up thinking about
the full, from the first touchpoint all the way through the
introductions to the team and Idid all those things and people
(34:49):
thought I was crazy and we don'treally took a turn.
We took a lot of heat for itbecause we pull out high demand
people to kind of take a seniorrole in these things.
It's crazy.
So you've just validated mythesis, and a lot of pain to
this point now, no, but it'sworking fantastic Well you're
not alone, right I?
Jennifer Stanley (35:06):
mean a lot of executives that we see go
through this same journey.
Right, they take the heat fordoing exactly what you just
described, and often it has tobe a senior enough executive who
has that kind of strategicvision and also, frankly, the
authority within a company to beable to make it happen.
I would say, on a smaller scale, if you are someone in a silo
(35:28):
who is excited to do this,reaching out to a senior,
someone who could be, or youwould want to be, a senior
sponsor with your idea, here'swhat my growth team would do.
Here's what impact would looklike, here's what I need to make
it happen.
And kind of enrolling from thebottom up I've also seen be
quite successful.
And then, by the way,practically just folks may
wonder well, how do you actuallyget this to happen on an
(35:49):
everyday basis?
Rethinking the incentive schemeis also quite important.
The reason you get silos isbecause people are incentivized
to maximize their silos.
Well, what if, all of a sudden,you're not incentivized to
maximize your silos?
Or the surest way to a faster,promotable career track is to
work outside the silo?
So giving people incentivesaround things could be like
(36:12):
number of competitive takeaways,like you might spend six months
just focused on the number, sothat your growth team or your
win room is going after kind ofthat playground of competitive
takeaways without reallythinking about what's
commissionable in our oldstructure not commissionable.
But if you have the impactwe're asking you to go have,
then there's some other bonusthat's out there for you.
(36:33):
So I do think there is there'san opportunity here, and this is
where HR has a role to play, asHR and finance have a role to
play as well.
How can we get creative toforce people to come out of
their silos, because there'ssome other exciting set of
carrots that are out there.
James Soto (36:48):
The incentive, the reframing and the re rethinking
of incentives seems very, verymuch apropos for where we are at
this moment and it'sinteresting that you bring that
up.
I would expect you guys to beputting out something just on
(37:10):
this topic alone.
I think it's fascinating.
Jennifer Stanley (37:14):
Candice has.
She truly is one of our topcompensation and incentive
experts for sales.
Yeah, Candice.
James Soto (37:21):
On that note, talent is at the heart of every
successful sales organizationand so, as we look at this
innovation, whether it's hiringpractices, training approaches,
what can these leaders adopt tosupport this new way hybrid
inside digital sales reps, andwhat role does that not just the
(37:44):
practice, but this continuouslearning, because it's going to
need a lot going to play inreally nurturing this center of
excellence.
Candace Lun Plotkin (37:53):
So, james, I think there's two things to
add here, I think one, theaccountability for impact is a
really big one, and then theother one is transparency.
Because if you take your teamand, by the way, thank you for
sharing your example Now Ididn't have to share one of mine
(38:14):
the wonderful thing and thecritical thing is to make sure
there's transparency.
Because if you take your teamand you're hiding somewhere like
quote hiding somewhere and thenyou're going to share your
results all at the end you'reprobably going to cherry pick
your best results.
I think that's human nature.
(38:34):
But if you're very transparent,that says we're running in
sprints, we signed up to do this, here's how it worked, here's
the parts that really worked,these work less well, this
experiment, and so we're goingto tweak and we're going to
change and then go do this.
We hit our targets, we didn'thit our targets right.
So there has to be somepatience, I think, from the
leadership for the moments whereyou may not hit, but also the
(38:58):
guidance for how do you adjustand adapt and get there.
So that's kind of one thing,and I think you had asked kind
of a you start small, because itcan be a shock to the system.
If you want to say I'm going togo and redo all the competent
(39:19):
incentives so that peoplecollaborate, that's a hard thing
to say yes to it is an easierthing to say.
I take a ring fence set ofpeople with a very specific task
and an impact that they need toachieve.
I'm going to rejigger, for thissmall group of people, their
competent incentives.
I'm going to rejigger for thissmall group of people, their
confidence incentives.
I'm going to work out and buildthe process by which they work
(39:41):
together across their differentroles, and then I'm going to
make sure that I invest enoughto learn as we go and to change
course when I need to, and I'mgoing to be really clear about
communicating what's happeningto people and to the leadership.
And so that is an easier ask.
And then I think you can provethe model as you go.
(40:04):
People will then be raisingtheir hand saying wait, I want
to do that because they see theexample of the impact and they
see the relative speed, combinedwith patience, from management
and leadership, with running themodel.
James Soto (40:20):
Yeah, there's gosh.
We could just talk on this onesubject for a very, very long
time.
This reminds me of an interviewthat I had with I don't know if
you've heard of John Miller.
He's the chief marketingofficer of Demandbase, an
account-based marketing platform.
He's the chief marketingofficer of Demandbase, an
account-based marketing platform, and we just recorded with him
last week and he said some very,very interesting things.
He really sees and I think hemay have been inspired actually
(40:44):
by some of the reading he mayhave done on you, but what he
looked at is they're rethinkingaccount-based marketing model
and they're saying we reallyneed to look at this
decision-making unit and reallylook at the predictive data and
their predictive AI that they'rereally starting to pioneer
there.
And you know, one of the thingsthat he said is that he really
sees that you just can't have.
(41:05):
You can't have along theselines.
You have to be playing on thesame team.
You can't be keeping twodifferent scorecards and
traditionally, marketing andsales have kept two different
scorecards and how ridiculous isthat?
We're all going for the samegoal.
Literally, we want to defendour goal, but we also want to
(41:25):
score goals and it's to win thegame and this is going to be a
pretty you know.
What do you think you know aswe.
You know, what do you think,jennifer, what do you think the
future has been hinting at?
What does it look like to younow as you look through?
You know, building these great.
(41:45):
You know getting this greattalent, developing this great
talent, meeting the customer ontheir terms.
And as we look at that like,what do you see as the future of
what these organizations willlook like?
Jennifer Stanley (41:58):
Yeah sure.
I'm going to share two words inresponse to what you were just
describing.
That came out of yourconversation with John Data
democratization.
And the reason I say that Ithink this is super important to
the future of where we'reheaded is because how much
energy is put into in companieskeeping data siloed or secret
(42:19):
from different parts of theorganization.
If you're all working toward thesame goal of having success
with your customers, retainingthe target customers and being
as profitable as you can be,helping your customers be as
profitable as they can be thatif that truly is the objective
goal, then marketing, sales,product engineering, finance
(42:41):
right, all of those functionsshould be able to see the same
data about what we are achievingwith the customer or not
achieving with the customer, andyet systems are set up to keep
people from seeing that.
So one of the biggestinnovations I'm seeing and this
is where I feel like someone hasto say the phrase generative AI
, where the promise ofgenerative AI, I think, relies
(43:01):
to a large degree on howdemocratized you're willing to
make your data in anorganization, because otherwise,
how can you generate newinsights about the decision
makers or influencers at acustomer that give you better
content to have conversationswith them, if those sets of
algorithms can't see all of thedata and you can't receive all
(43:22):
of the insights that are beinggenerated from a more
democratized set of data?
So I think one of the big youknow, another big orthodoxy that
we will likely see upended,probably pretty quickly, I mean,
I hate to put the crystal ballout there, but I'm seeing it
enough, or at least thediscussion enough in many
companies about sharing moredata more transparently in the
(43:44):
service of the customer.
I think we might see somethingbreak open there, and that's
also an element of agility.
Right, how quickly can you getinformation, share information,
see information and then dosomething exciting with it?
It sounds super basic, but it'sactually not that easy, given
the way the systems are set up.
James Soto (44:03):
It's really intuitive.
The intent has always been tohave the center of business on
your customer and their needsand wants, and profit shall be
that reward for that satisfiedcustomer and to do that at every
phase of their journey as youare serviced and delivering on
your products and solutions.
You should be doing that.
We had a very interestinginterview with the VP of product
(44:23):
at HubSpot, the marketing hub,nicholas Holland, and he said it
related to CRM.
He's like if marketing andsales are not at the CRM table,
you're doing it wrong.
Oh, absolutely so.
I think ultimately, you have tolook at this entire enterprise,
because marketing as a corefunction serves so many other
(44:45):
areas.
At the executive level, at thebusiness unit level, you support
HR, you support recruitment,r&d, the product development
lifecycle, and in so manymanufacturing businesses I'm
talking billion-dollarbusinesses there's not even a
CMO and so it's not a core,distinguished function of the
(45:06):
business.
And that's actually one of thereasons why I created Industrial
, because it was a pain point inthe market, and so they've been
transitioning from the state ofthe tradition, which is still
there, to to to, you know,trending digital and meeting
that digital buyer on buyinggroup, you know to being these
digital pacesetters and and soit's, it's, it's an interesting
(45:29):
how we all have to get together,navigate where these folks are
on these journeys.
So you know, as you, as youlook at the uncertain future in
your mind, candice, and whatwe're seeing in terms of trends,
you know how do we kind of getthe talent, get the roles.
You know, like, how do we kindof wrap this up in your mind?
Candace Lun Plotkin (45:50):
Well, so, james, a couple of things and
really picking up on the lastpieces of the discussion.
I think, Jennifer, if youremember, this was like 2012,
where we would march around theoffice saying marketing and
sales need to be best friends.
Jennifer Stanley (46:05):
We wrote an article on that too, candice, we
did.
Those were the days, she's notwrong.
Candace Lun Plotkin (46:15):
We did actually march around the office
and say that the good thingabout this, though, is, you know
, I think what we're going tosee over time is a breaking open
of the front end of the funneland the back end of the funnel,
right?
So now, we still very muchoperate in this.
There's a marketing funnel andthere's a sales funnel, and
wouldn't it be nice if you couldshare the data across and if
(46:36):
people work together?
Right, james?
You earlier said I don't likethe idea of a handoff.
Right, I don't like somethingthrown over the wall.
This is exactly what we'retalking about, and I think, in
this new world, you're going tobe thinking about talent across
the entire marketing and salesfunnel.
I think you're going to belooking at capabilities that
(46:59):
actually blur and blend acrosskind of traditional marketing
duties to traditional salesduties.
You mentioned yourself the riseof the BDR, right?
If you're seeing more companiesin the industrial space
recruiting this role, that rolesits in between marketing and
sales, and so I think, as youlook at your talent, you're
(47:21):
looking for talent that's morefluid across the two funnels, so
it's really one funnel.
And then I think you're alsolooking, when you talk about
this thread of personalizationand omni-channel the greater
need to be helping orchestrateacross the channel, helping to
guide the customers where youwould like them to go, based on
(47:43):
what you think they need, andthen continuing to learn and get
sharper and sharper at that.
James Soto (47:48):
Yeah, it's almost as if we need to stop the thinking
in this binary way about thesales funnel and understand that
we're now overlapping thetalent, the capabilities, the
orchestration, these fluid,flexible, elastic, you know
talent, you know roles that wehave, at the same time
(48:12):
overlapping the customer and thecustomer's experience.
Because it's only logical thatthis all comes together, because
all the core ingredients arethere and they're now as a
matter of how do we start tobreak open?
If we're going to break openthe front and end of the funnel,
(48:32):
I just want to talk to a lot offolks like well then, let's get
the closed loop analytics.
You know a closed looporganization, but you know, but
no one can be closed off in it,so you know.
Jennifer Stanley (48:44):
On, that continuous loop or a completed
loop.
James Soto (48:48):
Oh, my goodness, so exciting times, right, we will
never get bored in this sense.
So on that note, I wanted toyou know thank you, jennifer and
Candice, for sharing youramazing insights.
There's so much more we can gointo into the future of B2B
(49:08):
sales.
But before we wrap up, becausethere's so much great content,
where and what you know can ouraudience point themselves to and
find your current research, allthese exciting things we
discussed, things that are onthe horizon and everything
they'd want to know about theservices McKinsey offers.
Jennifer Stanley (49:28):
One easy way you can find both me and Candice
on almost every social mediaplatform and we have links to a
lot of these articles.
So, for example, james, the oneon the future of B2B sales
building the right team andtalent to drive growth in an
uncertain environment If youjust typed in, or you could go
look at me on LinkedIn, youwould see the link to that.
(49:50):
Or you just type in likeMcKinsey B2B sales talent it's
our latest article from June.
It pops up.
That might be the easiest wayto think about it.
You can also go to our McKinseyCompany website.
Under our Growth, marketing andSales Practice, we have a whole
section our insights.
Everything is there.
It's usually tracked by dateand you will see a split between
(50:12):
B2B and B2C, so you can go tothe B2B area as well.
James Soto (50:15):
Fantastic.
Jennifer Stanley (50:16):
Multiple paths to the same content and, of
course, you can always feel freeto reach out to me or Candice
directly.
James Soto (50:22):
Yeah, and Candice, what's your favorite piece that
you'd want to direct?
You know your favorite thingyou've worked on you'd like to
direct someone to.
Candace Lun Plotkin (50:30):
I think it's probably our most recent
article on B2B Pulse right,which is, you know, it's called
the multiplier effect and itreally shows how winning B2B
companies, what levers they'repulling to drive, you know, I
would say, outsized growthversus their peers.
That would be, I think, themost relevant and the one that
(50:53):
summarizes a lot of thisconversation that we're having
today.
James Soto (50:56):
OK, april of this year.
So if you were working with asmall cap $1 billion
manufacturing company, they'rekind of on the trending digital
phase of their evolution.
Final question what's the onething that you would, of all the
things they have to do relatedto sales, what's the one thing
(51:17):
you would suggest they do?
Candice, put you up on the spot.
Candace Lun Plotkin (51:21):
I would talk to customers and I would
map their journeys andunderstand where the bottlenecks
are and then I would choose thehighest priority, highest value
ones to go and solve.
James Soto (51:34):
Good one, Jennifer.
That's a tough one.
Jennifer Stanley (51:38):
It is tough.
I'm going to go in a little bitof a different direction, but
maybe it builds actually,because you have that insight.
Then what Hybrid capacity?
I would be putting my dollarsbehind hybrid sales capacity
bias toward remote digital sales, because you get a lot more
(51:58):
leverage out of them.
So, assuming that this smallcap, a billion dollar-esque
company, is on a rapid growth orwants to be on a rapid growth
trajectory, you'll get therefaster with more capacity.
That looks like that type oftalent that we've been
discussing today.
James Soto (52:13):
So talk to your customers and ramp up that
hybrid capacity.
Well, thank you again, Jenniferand Candice, for being on the
show.
It has been wonderful havingyou.
Jennifer Stanley (52:26):
Thank you, James.
We were delighted to be here.
James Soto (52:28):
Okay.
So, on that note, it's justbeen such an enlightening
discussion.
I know our audience will findyour expertise and immensely
valuable, and to our audiencewill find your expertise
immensely valuable and to ourlisteners.
I just hope that you heard justone thing, one golden nugget
that inspires you to take thatfirst step to move your business
forward.
We talked a lot about this newprofile of the salesperson, the
(52:51):
experience.
We need to look at thepersonalization.
How do we break through, how dowe manage through these
transitions that happen in thispersonalization?
How do we break through, how dowe manage through these
transitions that happen in thisbuying journey?
How do we democratize this dataso we can use insights, and how
can we really look to thefuture for how these new tools
are going to come up and help usalong the way?
There is just so much happening.
(53:12):
So, on that note, I just wantto thank you for showing up here
and joining us yet again forthis encore.
Please subscribe to IndustrialStrength Marketing on your
preferred podcast platform andmake sure to follow us on
LinkedIn.
You can always check us out onYouTube and for more insights,
content and highlights, visit usat
industrialstrengthmarketingcom.
So next time I'm James Sotoreminding you to make marketing
(53:36):
the strength of your business.
So take care, here we go.
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