Our first guest is Kirsty Lewis. She is the founder of the School of Facilitation.
Known for her passion for designing and delivering brilliant workshops that create purpose, ownership, safety and engagement, she is a convener of freelance facilitators and trainers through the SOF collective whilst supporting corporate clients to evolve their learning game. On the side she is dishing up SOFest 2025, a festival for all facilitators and trainers.
www.schooloffacilitation.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsty-schooloffacilitation
Sarah Wood loves creating learning and development programs that really help people grow and do their best work. With a solid background in L&D, she brings that experience into high-velocity sales enablement teams where things move fast and impact matters. Sarah builds practical, engaging frameworks that support both individual growth and team success. She’s big on collaboration and enjoys working closely with stakeholders to make things happen. From early ideas to full rollout and review, she takes a hands-on, flexible approach—making sure every learning experience feels relevant, useful, and helps people thrive in fast-moving environments.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/woodsarah/
Episode Links:
Building Rapport in a Professional Setting (With Tips) | Indeed.com
How to build rapport: 6 tactics to build strong relationships
The 6 Stages of Sales Process: Sellers vs. Buyers
Do You Know What Your Company Is Actually Selling?
The ‘Reflective Elevator Pitch’ – 100 Ideas for Active Learning
The essential components of a successful L&D strategy
L&D Disruptors Toolkit Part 1: How to sell learning internally
Facing the Challenge: How to Sell eLearning Internally
Daring to Zlatan: How To Sell E-learning Internally
Selling consulting services into large organisations
Women in sales: It’s time to smash clichés (including real tips from female sales leaders)
What is the Difference Between Sales and Marketing?
Women in Sales: How Female Leaders Are Empowering the Sales Industry [2025 Data]
You can contact Women Talking About Learning through our website, womentalkingaboutlearning.com
You can buy us a coffee to support
a scary topic for lots of people in learning and development.
Are we salespeople, are we marketing
people? And um, why is sales a bit of a dirty
word? To work this through,
(00:32):
we just wanted to pull at some threads and are delighted to
welcome some guests who are going to do that for us.
Our first guest is Kirsty Lewis. Kirsty
is the founder of the School of Facilitation, known
for her passion for designing and delivering brilliant
workshops that create purpose, ownership,
safety and and engagement. She's a
(00:53):
convener of freelance facilitators and trainers through
the SOF Collective. While supporting
corporate clients to evolve their learning game.
On the side, she is dishing up SoFest
2025, a, uh, festival for all
facilitators and trainers. Our second guest
is Sarah Wood. Sarah loves creating learning
(01:13):
and development programmes that really help people grow
and do their best work. With a solid
background in learning and development, she brings that experience
into high velocity sales enablement teams
where things move fast and impact matters.
Sarah builds practical, engaging frameworks that support
both individual growth and team success.
(01:34):
I really do recommend listening to this episode.
I've heard it three times now and it's like an
onion. Each time I listen it
unpeels something new.
Recorded in April 2025. This is Women
talking about learning. This is Kirsty and
Sarah talking about sales.
>> Kirsty Lewis (01:54):
Hi Kirsty.
>> Sarah Wood (01:55):
Hey.
>> Kirsty Lewis (01:56):
Hi. Hi. How are you?
>> Sarah Wood (01:58):
I'm good, how are you?
>> Kirsty Lewis (02:00):
Yeah, I am really good, thank you.
And I am going to jump right in
and I'm going to ask you what attracted you to
this topic and why are you here to talk about it today?
>> Sarah Wood (02:11):
Uh, why talk about sales? So firstly, I come from
a commercial background, so when I was actually
in uh, an organisation I was
in uk, uh, sales team
selling one of the biggest
global beer brands in the world, which was just amazing.
Guinness, uh, and then I worked in their global sales team
(02:31):
and that's where I then discovered, um,
training, development and learning.
So I just love the sales conversation and I
realised, though I hated it at the time, let me be really clear,
but I really enjoy it now. How about you, what brought
you to this conversation?
>> Kirsty Lewis (02:48):
Well, it's interesting because I have a really strong
background in learning and development, um, all
the way back from When I was 17, I worked in a
Petsmart in America and I,
um, trained puppies. I was a
puppy trainer.
So I've essentially always done
(03:09):
training of some description in my
career. But what I realised in
recent years is that a lot of it was
for salespeople. So even though I was in an
L and D function, it was
for salespeople, it was always for salespeople.
And then I thought, um, why not just
be like pure sales enablement? So then I
(03:31):
moved into sales enablement.
>> Sarah Wood (03:33):
Actually, just as you're talking, I'm like going,
I have been a salesperson, I then
train salespeople internally. I then train
salespeople from a freelance
perspective. And now that I run my own
business, I sell, I have
to sell in my role as a provider,
supplier back into corporates and also on
(03:55):
a B2C and a B2E basis. So,
yeah, always selling thread.
>> Kirsty Lewis (04:01):
There is a thread there, yeah.
>> Sarah Wood (04:02):
Wow.
>> Kirsty Lewis (04:03):
Yeah, yeah. But I think that it's
interesting because sales is um,
something that as L and D people we
need to like be skilled in in some way and
feels it. I, I, my body language,
you can't see it, but my body language like kind of scrunches up at
the thought of selling things.
>> Sarah Wood (04:25):
Oh, it's really interesting. Let me just decode some
language because I fell into the three letter acronym TRAP.
B2C is business to consumer and B to E is
business to entrepreneur. So, so selling,
it's not just, um, business to business. B2B.
>> Kirsty Lewis (04:39):
Yeah.
>> Sarah Wood (04:39):
And there, I think there are different types of sales
models that exist and therefore
different type of conversation that you have. And
I can app, you said like your body's like sort
of almost like shrinking in on itself. I'm like, yeah.
Honestly, when I was a graduate I had the choice, did I
want to go into the marketing programme or did I want to go into the sales
(05:01):
programme? And I chose the marketing programme because I thought it sounded
sexier. And the thought of being a salesperson,
uh, it reminded me. So in Britain we would call it being the
double glazing salesperson.
>> Kirsty Lewis (05:11):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
>> Sarah Wood (05:12):
Or the car salesperson. And it just, I just thought I
don't want to be that person, like pushing M to
me it was like a pushy role. And then I, I
become the accidental salesperson because
for various reasons in my career and then I
realised, oh, uh, it's not about
pushing, it's about relationships.
And as soon as that started to
(05:35):
become more apparent, it's about how you build relationships,
how you understand what the other person wants and needs.
It just helped me shift
my, my mentality that it, uh, selling
wasn't, isn't a dirty word, but it can feel like
it.
>> Kirsty Lewis (05:50):
Yeah, no, I Think that's such a, like,
almost profound sort of moment that you touched
upon. Because that relationship and that person
to person and that's. That that human
element is why I enjoy learning and development
is tapping into what sparks
the fire in someone to learn something, to change
behaviour, to. I like to use the phrase
(06:12):
elicit behaviour change. It's like kind of like
draw them towards you, like you would like. Gently,
gently. And. And that.
That understanding the other person's point of view
and that is sales that is creating
good training. It's the. It's. There's a similar thing that you're
tapping into. So this is where my body language has kind of become
(06:32):
more animated and I'm less kind of like
tight and worried and I'm more like, yes, this makes sense.
>> Sarah Wood (06:39):
And because when I think about selling, for
me, I'm selling in, into
an organisation and I don't even think of it like that, more from those.
Just have a really good conversation because someone's coming with a
need and then, um, you're there to help
solve the problem or help with the pain.
From your point of view, what kind of selling
(06:59):
do you do internally?
>> Kirsty Lewis (07:02):
So in the sales enablement, creating
training for salespeople, I have
to really understand, again, their pain.
Where, what. What is. What are they facing every
day? A lot of. A lot of the things that
they're facing into is. They're. The organisation that I
work for, for is selling a technological
(07:24):
software solution that is really, like,
complex and it's proffering
a solution to a very complicated
problem that lots and lots of people in the organisation
have touch points over and have different responsibilities over.
And so that salesperson is the spokesperson
for the company and has to have
gravitas and has to have like, um,
(07:46):
the ability to speak to lots of different
spokes, people in that organisation with
confidence and to. They don't want to feel stupid,
they don't want to, like, be asked a question that they can't
answer and then their credibility is through the
floor. They have, they have, um,
a really, like, almost
scary, I would say, um, facing
(08:08):
into these sorts of conversations and it's my
responsibility to help them have the tools
and the knowledge and the understanding that they
need to. To hold those
conversations. Um, most of the time
they're, uh, they're amazing, honestly. They are amazing
group of people, but they always are
like, asking for more, asking for more, asking for
(08:31):
more. And, um, there's a. There's a
lot of, um, very quick pivoting that we
have to do to create training for them, but it's good.
>> Sarah Wood (08:39):
That they're asking for it and there's a pull rather than you feel like
you've got to go out and push. Push training down onto them.
>> Kirsty Lewis (08:45):
Yeah, yeah.
>> Sarah Wood (08:46):
I was curious, like, though, from your point of view, though,
do you have to do any. Selling inverted
commas, she says with her fingers.
>> Kirsty Lewis (08:56):
Well, I probably didn't answer your question earlier,
did I? So I'll. I'll try again.
I, um, think that I, I
don't like to sell to
them because if they're not
needing it, if I'm not,
um, try. If I have to convince them that they need a thing,
(09:19):
then they probably don't need that thing.
Um, it's.
>> Sarah Wood (09:25):
Or do you have to like. And not necessarily. It doesn't sound
like you need to sell to your, your salespeople, but it's like
influencing and working with senior leadership. There's always.
I sometimes just flip the language. It's not
internally. It can be about influencing and persuading
it. It's still the same set of skills, in my opinion,
as it is when you're often selling. And I was just
(09:45):
curious, like, what.
>> Kirsty Lewis (09:46):
Yeah, no, let me, let me restart then,
if I could, because,
um, I, I do have an example to share
and it's a very recent one we are delivering.
I am running a programme. It's a weekly programme where
we're delivering a, um, a series of
live trainings that is, uh,
(10:07):
once a week, half an hour with Q and
A on topics that are top of mind in
terms of like, it's end of quarter, you need to
close on this deal. Or this is a new
product that your customers are going to be asking you about
because we just advertised it, um, these
sorts of, like, very, um, in the moment
topics. And, um,
(10:30):
I am not the subject matter expert, so
my responsibility is to run the show. I
have developed the programme and I am keeping the
wheels on the bus turning. But I'm not the one
delivering the training, I'm not the one who
is the subject matter expert, but I am
weekly, throughout the week, in advance of the
(10:51):
session, I am, um, coaching
the subject matter experts to deliver
content that is appropriate for the audience.
So there's a challenge, there's some tension there because subject matter
expert, they know everything there is to know
and I have to sit down with them and say,
that's great, but
(11:11):
what's one thing that they, they can do better after.
After 30 minutes? 30 minutes isn't very long. So what's one
thing that they can do better and how can you kind of distil
all of your amazing knowledge into a
30 minute session? And they're like I can't, I can't. So
I have a lot of coaching and a lot of guidance that I offer
as we move through that process of developing a
(11:31):
session that they can deliver that will meet the needs
of the salespeople in that moment.
Um, does that.
>> Sarah Wood (11:40):
No. I'm
curious what and I just think it's something
that L and D people probably need
to know how to do is how
to sell L and D
internally. How to sell or
position. The benefits of L and D
uses sales skills as far as I'm concerned. So
(12:03):
it's understand the benefits of L and D,
understand um, what
is the needs of the business and therefore how do you match benefits
and needs and then use your features? Um, so
that's where I was coming from in my head is serious
because I know when I was
in the global role at Diageo and
(12:25):
we were lucky, we owned our own learning
as the sales function so we didn't have to position it. But
I know my leaders were always positioning
back into the board, into
their peer group of the sl, the senior leadership
team. Um, the
benefits of why we were doing something called the
Diageo way of selling. So I think,
(12:48):
and we could do it because we were salespeople but
it's something we've talked about before is like not everybody knows how
to sell or knows how the techniques.
>> Kirsty Lewis (12:57):
I think there's a lot of challenges with
L and Z as a function
in that space in terms of selling its ability
because the, there's, there's um,
in my experience and so I don't want to generalise
across an entire profession but there is difficulty in
measuring impact. So how do you measure
(13:18):
impact and how do you
define what the need is? A lot of times
people say oh, we need training, we need training. Just uh,
create us some training, it'll fix the problem. And then when you
drill down into it, actually training may not be the
right, the appropriate solution. And so then
you're spending company resource on something that isn't going to
(13:39):
actually solve anything.
Um, so there's, there's a need for
um, as you touched on leadership,
being able to position L and D in a way
where it can be a strategic partner in the business and
can have access. There's
um, that partnership um, element of it
(13:59):
where we as a function need to be able to
speak, speak to other people and other teams and have
um, that level of um,
conversation where we can say, well, what are your
problems? Tell me what's going on.
And there's um, you know, I faced
into like a lot of siloing or a lot of
(14:20):
um, like fear, like, oh, you're,
I, I can't tell you what's wrong. I don't want to get in trouble or I
don't want any, any, anything to blow back onto
me. So there's lots of culture issues that you face into
as well. I
think that sales enablement where I sit
now in my current role is uh, better
(14:40):
positioned to be able to measure the impact
of training because you have
pipeline length or qualifications
and all these sorts of metrics that are already being measured
that you can hang your hat on. But in L and D
it's a little bit more loosey goosey and you end up in
a position where you could almost be saying,
(15:02):
oh, well, we think that this will
solve a problem, but we aren't in any position to
be able to investigate all of the other factors.
And so we don't actually know, but we're going to do it anyway.
And then, uh, and then you're just kind of
like shooting.
>> Sarah Wood (15:20):
I do wonder as well though. The question is, um, like, why do we
struggle to think of L and D as a sales
process? You know, how do we, how do we sell? I wonder
if it comes to stand to real simple capability. Like,
people in L and D didn't go into L and D to be salespeople. They
probably went into L and D because they have a passion for the subject,
they have a passion for learning.
(15:41):
Um, and just like me running a business and many other,
um, solopreneurs who run their own training
agencies, a lot of people didn't go into
this to run a business that they
did it because they wanted to be really like, I don't know, leadership
or finance or supply chain. So therefore
I hypothesise that not
(16:01):
everybody has the, uh, capability to sell
and nor have they been shown what a simple process
it can be and what the steps are. And the fact
that they probably do have a lot of the skills needed
to sell internally or in
how, or back into, in house. They just
have never put it into, They've just
(16:21):
never put it into that context. And therefore I
feel sometimes now when I'm working with my
own clients, I feel like a, uh, real
advantage that I was taught how to sell and
I know how to have account. M account, we'd
call that account management. Key account management. I'm sure you do too,
internally. But how do account managers work
like how do you structure a conversation that
(16:44):
you go into. Right. With a new client?
And uh, the number of times I've observed people
have a conversation and it doesn't go
anywhere and because it's not my conversation to own and
it frustrates the hell out of me because everyone's just like chatting
and talking and I'm like what, where are we going in
this conversation? What's the outcome you want to achieve?
(17:05):
Where are the questions like please would someone ask
a bloody decent open question to start to
get the client to talk and tell us what it is that's
really truly going on for them and would everyone
who's not a client shut up? Because
it's not about us. Uh, I want to hear what the client's got
to say. I want to hear what their pain is. I want to hear what
(17:25):
their needs are. Uh, what they think the benefits of doing
this piece of work is. Like how does this,
how does this potential solution
fit with their business strategy three, five
years down the line, like, like let's go future.
So that's what I mean by having those
conversations. I think I
(17:46):
do that naturally. But it's not everybody's
start point.
>> Kirsty Lewis (17:50):
No. And I think that there, there aren't. There,
there are uh, role roles within an L
and D function aren't really suited for that
level of discovery. Right. You, you get
given like I, I've been in roles where
I've just been given the specific and I
m, and I build to that spec.
Um, but in,
(18:13):
in other, in other roles I've, I've had
that um, autonomy as it were
where I can have those discovery
conversations and, and drill down and dig
into people and ask those open ended questions.
So yeah, I get, I suppose that is a, an opportunity
that is a sales adjacent sort of
behaviour isn't it? Where you're owning that conversation
(18:35):
and you're looking for specific, specific outcomes and you're asking
those open ended questions and pulling at
threads to try to get more info out of
people. So that is a sales behaviour, isn't it?
>> Sarah Wood (18:46):
It is for sure.
I was just wondering as well, um, from your
um, experience of um,
having external suppliers coming in and
like you've asked them to come maybe pitch for a piece
of work. Have you had a different
experience when it's a, ah, female founded business
versus a male founded business
(19:09):
in terms of the type of conversation that
shows up?
>> Kirsty Lewis (19:12):
Do you know what? I don't think that I have. I think that I've
been really lucky in my professional career where
um, that has been something that, if
it, if there has been any bias, that's been smoothed out
before I came along. But I'd be interested
in your experience if you've got something.
>> Sarah Wood (19:31):
I'm, well, I'm a woman, so I just do it my way,
which is conversational. And it's very much.
I don't go in with a pitch deck. Like, I wouldn't. I've
never done a pitch, uh, like with a load of slides.
Just doesn't even occur to me. So it's.
>> Kirsty Lewis (19:45):
Do you think that's a man thing?
>> Sarah Wood (19:47):
I don't know if it's a man thing, but I, I've spoken to some of
my. I've got some really good male friends who run their own
businesses and they're like, no, no, here's the deck. And I'm like,
yeah, I just don't do that,
um, because it just, I want to have
the conversation. And that leads to then often
me being asked to write a proposal, which then leads to the
opportunity to share, you know, the thinking.
(20:09):
I just wondered if, um, people in house is,
is there a difference between how, ah,
a female led business supplier,
like, works in and with a male led.
I'm just, I was just curious.
>> Kirsty Lewis (20:24):
No, I, I'm afraid I don't have any insight on
that. Um, but I do wonder if there's also a
level of confidence, conversational confidence,
that comes into play with that,
um, this idea of women
liking empathy. Men like telling.
Is that a thing or is that, is that a
(20:44):
stereotype?
>> Sarah Wood (20:45):
I don't know. We'll have to ask the listeners who are here right now
to send Andrew a message or two and like, see how many people
come back and give him a hard time that, yeah, us men
have empathy. You know, men do have empathy, but it's just
how it shows up and how we have those types of
conversations.
Do you think, um, from an L and D perspective,
what benefit there would be to have to learn how to
(21:07):
sell?
>> Kirsty Lewis (21:08):
Oh, I think there's a massive, massive
benefit. And I think that one of the reasons why I was
attracted to like, um, joining this podcast
today was that the overlap is huge.
I did, um, I did a professional qualification,
uh, CIPD Level 5. And as part of that
qualification I did like a mini dissertation
style research project. And it was about storytelling.
(21:31):
That was my topic decided and, and, and
how storytelling is linked to learning.
And salespeople at heart are really great
storytellers. And that is, that is
how people connect. It's how people learn.
It's how you Remember things. It's how you touch on
emotion which then changes behaviour. It's all
(21:52):
there, all the pieces are there. It's just
presented in a slightly different way with slightly different language.
But I think that, um, L and D
professionals would, would be silly to not
realise that they should be looking at sales
for tips, tricks and ways of doing
things.
>> Sarah Wood (22:09):
But then it goes back. But then it comes back down to
the old question of when, when do
L and D eat? Because as far as I'm aware,
um, they eat lost. They're very good at, ah,
helping everybody else or getting involved in
other people's learning and development. And whenever I speak
to L and D leaders, I often hear, because I'm,
(22:30):
I'm, I'm there to help them upskill in terms of
their training or their, their design. And
they're like, oh, yeah, we haven't got time for that. Or
we're just, we're just way too busy. And it's like, oh, but
you've got to look after yourselves. Put your own oxygen mask on.
>> Kirsty Lewis (22:45):
Oh, yeah, 100%, I think, um, there,
that's always been the case in my experience as well. But I
have decided personally, from my own professional development,
um, to prioritise
ongoing, um, professional training.
So if I work for an organisation that allows like
a budget for training, I tap into that from
(23:08):
January, I'm like, right, what can I do this year? What am I
doing?
>> Sarah Wood (23:12):
But not everybody's like that, Sarah. Are they? Yeah,
let's be honest, not everyone's as proud, proactive.
Um, imagine, um, someone listening to this
conversation and they go, actually,
I would like to improve my, my
selling skills, my, my influencing
skills. How, how would,
(23:33):
what do we think someone would do to start?
Or where could they go?
>> Kirsty Lewis (23:39):
Well, there are so, so, so
many resources out there for, for salespeople,
like a bajillion. Um,
so I can understand why that might be a little bit daunting.
I think that, uh, if they work for an organisation,
probably a really, really solid piece of advice would be, if
you work for an organisation that has a sales function,
(24:00):
what sales methodology does your organisation
apply? What do they do?
Learn that so that you can speak the same language
as all the other people in your organisation who sell,
that would, I mean, I think that that would be an amazing thing to
do, um, and build relationships with
people that are in your organisation that are sellers,
(24:21):
for sure.
>> Sarah Wood (24:22):
I think, um, from my point of
view, like from the outside
in, for freelancers and it's often
a conversation that I have in the,
in the SOF community people are really
nervous about selling. So we, we talk about it
quite a lot. Um, but there is, I've never
(24:42):
found one organisation or one place to go
and get that information. Um, I often
find people come almost to the, the kitchen table to
me to ask for advice on like how, how do I have the
conversations with my, my customers,
my clients, um, and I just
share with them to your point, the
process, a six step process that I use to
(25:05):
manage every single client interaction.
It's like a face to face meeting, whether that's
virtual or in person. Um, but
it does boil down to I think some just core factors
of like know where you want that meeting to go, that is your
outcome. What are the questions you want to ask?
And write them down please because it gives
(25:25):
you bandwidth. Like you don't have to try and think
of questions on the fly.
Um, be prepared. Like you are,
you are learning professionals. You know how to build
rapport with someone. You know how to flex your body
language, your tone of voice, use all of that
amazing skill that you have and then just ask
the questions and listen and probe. Please keep
(25:48):
probing. Don't take the answer that the
client or the customer gives you at face value.
Mhm. Go deeper like to your point,
like understand what it is they truly need. And then the
language technique of summaries is brilliant when you're
selling. So can I just summarise what I've heard you say?
And what you get back is what you're doing to me now is like the
(26:08):
nodding and you see the customer or the client
going uh-huh, uh-huh. And then you go, okay, let's move into a
different topic. But then more often than
not you sort of gather up all this information
and in a sense checking like what's most important to
you. What top three things do you want to change in the world
that you work in? So um, it's that
(26:29):
that understanding phase is just, I think it's
so, so important versus
going to a meeting with a potential client and opening up
your pitch deck and just presenting at.
>> Kirsty Lewis (26:41):
Yeah, no, that would turn me off completely as a,
as a potential client because I'd be like, well why am I here?
You already have this figured out.
>> Sarah Wood (26:49):
Exactly. And like you're just talking
at me.
>> Kirsty Lewis (26:53):
Yeah.
>> Sarah Wood (26:54):
I do remember once I was doing some sales training
and uh, with a um, rather infamous company
that sprinkle magic fairy dust
and I said look, I'm. No disrespect. I said I
don't think Tesco care two hoots about the magic fairy
dust. They want to know what you can do for them. So
come start with the questions. Start with a true
(27:15):
understanding and then you can sprinkle your magic fairy
dust. Uh, so that's
always one for me. Yeah.
>> Kirsty Lewis (27:23):
And I, it's the asking why, like what is it
five times or something. Why? Why? Keep going, keep
going, keep going.
>> Sarah Wood (27:30):
Exactly. Uh, and Bill only asking why
questions once you've really built the rapport. Otherwise you
just see that get turned off.
Angie's just asked us a question. I'm going to put this out there. It
says, he says, I love talking at as a
concept. How do women avoid this?
Well I don't know. That's assuming that women avoid it. I've
(27:50):
met some women who still talk at.
>> Kirsty Lewis (27:53):
I think that um, the,
so the, the most fruitful conversations that I've had
with my internal customers when I'm trying to
uncover is when I've been in
like first of all I built a rapport as you've already said.
So, so there's two, two different scenarios that could play
out. Either I'm in there on my own and I've already built a rapport with
(28:13):
people, people in the room and so I'm not
able to like I, I,
I won't, I won't fill um, the
air. I'll listen. So I'm asking those
questions but they're comfortable with me to be honest and
to, and to keep going or I've got
a uh, really like strong relationship with a
colleague and we're in there as a team and we're bouncing off of
(28:36):
each other and there's again it's the open
ended questions, it's the listing, it's the picking
up on tiny little things that they say
or how they react and building
on that and going oh Kirsty, I noticed you
nodded when I said such and such. Could you like
what do you think? Tell me more. Um,
(28:57):
all of those things are really, really powerful tools. And, and,
and it's the, you know, we have two ears and only one mouth
kind of concept. Right. Let's listen more than we're
talking being talked about at. I'm not sure
if Andrew was asking about that element of it where
we're the ones being talked at as women in meetings.
That's a little bit more of a generic sort of experience
(29:17):
that can happen no matter what role you are in an organisation.
>> Sarah Wood (29:22):
I can't talk to it because I, I know I normally make
sure I own the conversation and I
lead it and I'm quite Comfortable
saying let's, let's just pause. Because sometimes people dive into
a conversation and, and I'm like, can we just, can we just take a
couple of steps backwards? What, what do you want to achieve today?
Like, let's just get very clear what we're here to
(29:44):
do and um, what, where we're going to go in this. We've only got an hour,
so where are we going? Yeah, and let's get super
clear on that. And then I'm like, they
often go, oh, do you want to share your thinking? I'm like, no, I'd like to ask you
some questions. And they're like, oh,
but then you build that rapport and then by the end of it
like, and you say what, what's the logical next
(30:04):
step? They um, people time and
again are more likely because they, they feel
seen, they feel heard, they've had an
opportunity to express themselves that when
you say what, what do you want to do is the next step? They're, they're
more often than not in my world say can you
come back to us with a proposal or can we have another meeting to
(30:25):
go deeper? And that's all, that's all I want to
achieve in meeting number one. And the same would be true
internally. It's like you can't,
it's really rare. And I'm sure this is true internally to
get an agreement in meeting number one on a new
subject, but we forget that. I swear, people forget
they think they can go into a meeting and get agreement
straight away.
>> Kirsty Lewis (30:46):
When I work with a new stakeholder, I have
an intro call. This is only about shaking
hands. Like we are here to meet each other, to
get to know each other and, and then we'll talk more
in a few days. That is, that
is, uh, that sales. Right? That is the way you do it.
And, and you keep saying the word feel, which I think is so
(31:06):
important. We're here to build relationships with people and
help them to feel something. Whether it's
to uncover that pain and feel like that
you're the person who's going to fix it for me. I
feel a connection with you or you know, however
they, they need to. They, the only way they're going to change their
behaviour or do a thing that you want them to do
(31:27):
or progress to the next meeting or whatever is if
they feel something. Right.
>> Sarah Wood (31:31):
Yeah. Okay.
I've got another question, a different angle. So I, I'm
external, you're internal. Um, and it's a
conversation I had this morning with ah, another fellow
business owner. Faris Arenki. And we were talking about
pipeline. So for us as externals, we
need to keep feeding a pipeline. And,
um, he talks about doing 20 to 30
(31:52):
voice notes a day just to say hi to people.
How do internal people feel
about the external suppliers dropping into
their inboxes? People they know? So this isn't cold calling or
anything, but like the. Hey, how are you?
Fancier coffee. We haven't spoken for so long. Like,
I'm curious how. What's that like, from your point of view?
>> Kirsty Lewis (32:12):
Well, I mean, unless. Unless I'm in a position
to have any sort of influence, um,
over the buying process, I feel like I'm
wasting that other person's time as, as
an internal person because I,
um, I can make recommendations,
but if I can't influence the outcome of that,
(32:33):
I feel like I don't know why I'm
doing this or taking up your valuable day.
So it's. I feel,
um, unsure about how to.
How to proceed with a. With it.
>> Sarah Wood (32:47):
That's interesting because the reason people would. We
reach out to people we know, so we always talk to people we know.
It's more a case of just, hey, what's going on? And get a felt
sense of what's happening in the business because someone's just hearing.
There's that, um. Sometimes we know
you're not the right person because we know what
you do, but we. But you. I don't
(33:08):
know if you realise this. You probably influence
the decision makers sometimes as well, without
realising that, you influence the decision makers.
So it's. From a supplier perspective,
staying in touch with people through the business
works in a. In a great way.
>> Kirsty Lewis (33:26):
But how. What is it from your perspective? If. If that
doesn't go anywhere, like, if you.
>> Sarah Wood (33:30):
If I'm ignoring you, fine, genuinely,
um, I've now grown some thick
skin. So you. The reason
we put out multiple messages or
you make multiple connections is exactly for that reason,
but also just not taking it personally, because what.
There's two things that comes out of that for me is one,
(33:50):
I might say to myself, well, the time isn't right right
now, uh, for Sarah to have this conversation.
That's fine. And then secondly,
just. Even my message or my voice note to you
can be just a reminder just to put
me back up your. I don't know what you would call it,
even, like moving my hand up and down here, like
(34:12):
back up into your mind that should the time come
and you go, ooh, actually,
yes, I have a need and I know who to go and talk to about
it. You might think of Kirsty
first or School of Facilitation first.
But um, growing the thick skin has
taken some time for sure. Um, and
it's just getting used to making the ask and getting the.
(34:35):
No, but that and realising it's got
absolutely nothing to do with me.
Absolutely nothing. And when you can
reframe it versus oh, I've put a
message to Sarah and she's not replied. Oh my God. Sarah doesn't like me
anymore to. I've put a message
to Sarah, she's given me a thumbs up but that's it.
(34:56):
Oh, reframe. Sarah's
probably really busy. It's the end of Q2
or it's the end of H2.
Um, she knows I'm here. That's
cool.
>> Kirsty Lewis (35:08):
Yeah.
I wonder how um, uh,
internal people can
adopt a similar sort of feeling because
I think with an
internal customer audience, that is,
um, the strong relationships with
people is pretty vital.
>> Sarah Wood (35:28):
Um, absolutely. And I think it goes back to doing some
really simple prep every year which
is like, what is our strategy within L and D?
Like what do we, what do we want to be achieving this year? 18
months, 2 years have we looked at
our stakeholder mapping recently?
Um, and therefore
who are the right stakeholders to be connecting with? So you're
(35:50):
not spending your time talking to people
that you shouldn't be speaking with because you're not going to get anywhere.
I think that's okay.
>> Kirsty Lewis (35:58):
That is, we've, we've touched on quite a few
really strong discovery, um, actions
that salespeople can take in order to build
strong relationships and have a really good first
or second touch point with the prospect. But I think
the L and D people can really, um,
mine that uh, and use similar things where we know
(36:18):
who our key stakeholders are and we
understand their role in business, whether it's internal
or external. External. We know who
to contact to build strong relationships
and how we interact with them. Um,
that's, that's for anybody really, isn't it?
An internal or external. And then this
idea of discovery calls and having a
(36:41):
goal for a conversation in, in
terms of like, how does what I
like what you said, it was like what do I want at the end of this
call? How am I going to get there? What questions am I going to
ask and then how am I going to guide that
conversation to move to the
next phase?
>> Sarah Wood (37:01):
So something I would offer up for L and D
people, uh, is a bit of a reframe that it's not
selling, it's a relationship building. And you all
know how to build relationships. So
I would offer up um, a mindset,
reframe. It's about the relationship. Um, and secondly,
like you said, go and talk to your sales
(37:21):
teams and ask someone from that team to
come and run a session for you and do a
one day session and build in role plays
and learn how to
sell an L and D solution using
the five steps, the six steps, whatever it is,
and have a practise. It's the
(37:42):
only, you know this L and D people. It might make you
feel queasy. But do do the
purposeful practise and you'll get some real
insights and learning into yourself about
a sales conversation. That was awesome, Sarah. I
really enjoyed that conversation. Thanks uh, for the
convers, thanks for the chat and the insights that you
(38:02):
shared.
>> Kirsty Lewis (38:03):
No, thank you Kirsty. I really enjoyed um, understanding
your point of view as well. It's been great to have internal
versus external or no.
>> Andrew Jacobs (38:11):
As with all the episodes, we're never sure
where they might go and with this one
we really weren't sure what it might be like and
it wasn't anything like we even could have expected.
The essence of sales as a thing took some time to
work out and a massive thank you to Kirsty and Sarah
for sticking at it and giving us some real food for
(38:32):
thought. It really does warrant coming back
too, so please make sure to listen. Again,
a huge thank you to both Kirsty and Sarah for their time
and a great conversation. Their contact details
are in the show notes along with links to our website, future
episodes and to our donation page.
We'll be back in a couple of weeks time and next time
(38:53):
it's the L&D community 1.
As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you again
soon.
>> Sarah Wood (39:07):
Sam.