GTM Unfiltered

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Craig Rosenberg: Let's keep it real here. Look at, I mean, first of all, got definitely a, the wood background, I don't know, I've always liked Judd's, but I, I'm going to say Matt's

Judd Borakove: I, I feel like I'm talking to a professor when I look at it.

Right. Well, you kind of are. I know

Craig Rosenberg: elbow.

Matt Dixon: I didn't wear my elbow patch blazer. I got it in the closet though. So .

Craig Rosenberg: I told Judd to go read the book because I think, uh, it's hard to find it, uh, great B2B Revenue go to market anything, frankly, like Judd and I are, you know, putting together guests and we're like, man, and like the best, in my opinion, the [00:01:00] best book over the last couple of years is the Jolt Effect.

And we're going to talk about that in a little bit. But, you know, you, look, you've written a bunch of books, but like when Jed said, I've written, I've read both because The Challenger is, is iconic, right? And, um, you, you, you were an author on that as well. You also wrote Effortless Experience, which by the way is also a really good book.

Um, and pre, it was, it was way ahead of its time in many ways, if you think about that. Yeah. And, uh, challenge your customer and you write a lot in HBR. There's some really good, uh, articles that, uh, you've written that I love dismantling the sales machine kind of hurt me a little bit, but like, I, I liked it a lot.

And so, um, but in my opinion, you know, it's always been interesting with you. So I remember, I, I think I sent you the YouTube video we did in like 2000 and. And it [00:02:00] was the, I remember I had the word I was doing the, it was back before I was doing it out of my house. I was in my room and I had terrible internet.

You guys are like, God, you know, you're like, it's you, Craig.

And I just remember, you know, you guys, the one thing that you kept saying, which I think is really interesting was no, we're researchers. We're not salespeople. Yeah, we're taking the data and And, and, and we're reading it and we're spitting it back to you and like you guys were, it was always amazing watching you guys interact with the crowd because you're writing books for sales leaders.

And as Jed and I can attest, they're going to bring up either really small things or they're always going to have this thing, which is like, that's

Judd Borakove: great. You always listen. That's what they do best, Craig. Come on. Yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: And you always listen. You know, you had this thing that you built, but like, you were a researcher, and I remember just watching you interact, and someone would confront you on the Challenger sale and whatever.

My favorite example is when the Challenger came out, Jed, like, [00:03:00] the old school consultants just went after these guys. I saw it on In on Twitter, Dave. It was brutal. Dave Brock was one of 'em. Now he's like one of your good buddies. 'cause you guys I know listen. And then you guys realized you had common ground and now da you know, he's one of my really good friends too.

Matt Dixon: He was, it was awesome. Actually. It was funny 'cause we, we had some dust ups on like LinkedIn or whatever and then he, he, we were at, I think Brent and I were at Dreamforce and he was like, I'm in San Francisco, how about we go grab a beer? And we did. And we had turned into a few beers and we had a great time.

And we're like, why didn't we like, you know, and it's just. You know how it is, I'm like social and whatever, and I was like, and he's now one of my good friends too, so, um, yeah, you're right.

Craig Rosenberg: That's great.

Judd Borakove: So, hold on, I'm going to jump in because I got a question, because, and it's very appropriate to the Jolt Effect.

So, and I've been wanting to ask you, so I'm glad you're here.

Uh, apropos, you know, We're seeing, obviously, slowdown in sales cycles across the board. Now, [00:04:00] we can say some of it may be due to economy, fear, whatever it is. I remember still, and having read the book, you know, the biggest point out is that most deals are lost to indecision.

And one of the best ways to get over that is giving them outs, giving them, like, a feeling, a sense of security, whether it's like a, hey, you got three months out, or whatever it may be. Are we still seeing the same thing, even as the ec the economy shifts, or has something changed in a fundamental way that it's not just indecision anymore, or there is no overcoming it anymore through these, these methodologies that you guys put together?

Like, what, what have you seen? What's

Craig Rosenberg: changing?

Yeah, that's a really good question. Before you answer that, my question was, my, my statement that Jed preempted me on was way better than that, but this is a good one. Uh, but uh, Jed, 40 to 60 percent of all deals are lost in no decision, [00:05:00] right? Exactly what you're saying.

Anyway, sorry, go ahead, Matt.

Matt Dixon: Well, I think this is like a big, I don't know if metaphysical is the right word, but it is a really big question you're asking. It's similar to, you know, one of the things I was, I've been asked a lot is, like, you guys know, I'm going to go a little bit of an eddy here, but you know, the, um, I can't, I don't know what it's called, but the telescope that shot like a million miles past the moon and it's sending back these amazing pictures of like the deep, deep galaxy and whatever.

That stuff has been there for like trillions of years, but we never had the ability to look at, look, look at it before, right, and see it. Um, and so people have asked, like, is indecision, um, fear of failure, FOMU, all that stuff we talked about in the book. Has it always been there, and we just never had the ability to find it?

Or is this a new thing? And I, that's not exactly what you're asking, Jim, but it's kind of a, like, one Kevin Bacon degree of separation from what you're asking. You know, what I, what I've said is, um, which I think kind of comes around to your question, um, which is what I would say is, um, I think it's here to stay, and [00:06:00] here's why.

On the one hand, I think indecision and fear of failure has been out there, and we just, We, it's partly because I think, uh, Craig, a little bit of what you said before, um, there hasn't unfortunately been a lot of research done in sales. I mean, if we're honest with ourselves, like there's a lot of research done in finance.

There's a lot of research done in marketing. There's very little research done in sales. It's the land of like passed down conventional wisdom. Um, and, uh, and that's fine. Like some of that is really valuable, but there's so much data sales and it just always. baffled me as to why people did not look at that data to really answer some of the big questions that, that there are about sales, like why customers buy, why they don't buy, why some people sell more effectively than others, why some messages resonate and others don't.

And so I think on the one hand, like we never really had the technology. So you remember how we did the research in the jolt effect. Took advantage of the pandemic. All sales went virtual. We harvested two and a half million recorded sales calls, and we use a conversation intelligence platform and a lot of like big data, [00:07:00] heavy duty, um, uh, machine learning to actually study it at scale.

So you can never listen to a two and a half million sales calls or, you know, I don't know, like bad things would happen if you did do that. You subjected yourself to that. Um, I did listen to some of them, but, um, but we had a machine do it. And so that, that allowed us to see that there was something else going on here.

Just, it was like that telescope past the moon. So that had always been there. And I think we just couldn't find it before. But on the other hand, if you think about in the book, we talk about the things that are driving. Indecision, and it's too many choices, too much information, uh, and a perception of too much risk, if you will.

And I think those three things are actually getting worse, and I think they're secular trends that actually have nothing to do with the economy. Um, yeah, I think, Jed, you're 100 percent right. I think the economy... Budgetary scrutiny, like budget scrutiny, when there are a lot of eyes on these decisions, budgets are tight, companies are hesitant, it [00:08:00] amplifies what is already there as indecision, right?

So it might take somebody who's normally... Somewhat indecisive, and now they're highly indecisive because all the eyes in the company are on this decision. This is the big bet the company is making, and it cannot go wrong. Five years ago, it was one of many bets the company was making, and they were prepared that some of them would work out, some of them wouldn't, and that's okay.

But now is a different time, so it amplifies latent indecision. But I do think if you look at those secular trends, like most of the suppliers out there are on a journey to go from offering a product to offering a product with a partner ecosystem and lots of different use cases and they're acquiring companies and different capabilities and they've got all their roadmap items coming off the assembly line.

And so there's more and more and more from a choice standpoint. Think about information, you know, take any, any number of spaces. It could be MarTech, it could be CRM, it could be even conversation intelligence. There, you could fill a football stadium with the amount of content out there that one would need to consume.

Take generative AI, just as an example. In a thousand lifetimes, your average [00:09:00] CRO, head of RevOps, head of benevolent, could never get, you know, consume all that content to become smart enough on a technology like generative AI. They will always feel like they're in the dark, yet they feel like they need to be an expert.

Because again, All eyes are on this, can't go sideways. I put my badge on the table, so it's on me to do the due diligence. But how can I do that in a world where as soon as I feel like I've made progress, there's a thousand more analyst reports and videos and, you know, factoids and whatever they got to consume.

Then take the last piece, the risk. I think this is a trend that has been going on for probably 30 years now in B2B sales, which is every B2B sales organization, every B2B supplier worth their salt has been trying to move from product selling to solution selling. So, you know, moving from like, I sell this little product, um, which is fine, easy to sell, simple, you know, go to market motion, uh, fairly transactional to a solution, which is Solution's great.

It's great. It's sticky. It's multi year. It touches all parts of the organization. It embeds in the customer organization in a way that's [00:10:00] very hard to dislodge. That brings with it higher cost, a lot more risk for the customer that they've got to really be careful before you... You go in bed with this supplier because it's going to be very hard to undo this decision.

And so I think those are secular trends that have, again, nothing to do with the economy. Now, I think the economy doesn't only amplify latent indecision, but I think there's something else going on here specifically in, I would say, in the SaaS market, um, where I think this no decision problem is most acute right now.

Um, you know, not, not a big newsflash for any of the listeners. So I think that is where you hear this like in spades today. And I think a big part of the, the the reason is that they've got the hangover of many years of free flowing capital and a lot of shelf ware that was purchased. I mean, you talk to a head of sales enablement or RevOps about the sales tech stack, and And how much of the, how many licenses actually get used and how many of them actually deliver value?

Again, where money was flowing freely, not a big deal. But [00:11:00] when, now that things have slowed down, deals are hard to get, those companies are slowing down in their growth and the CFO gets in there and it's like, you bought what? And you spent how much? And unlike, 10 percent of the seat licenses are actually being used and we never saw the value, we never even got the product delivered on this thing we spent a million bucks on, like, how can we be so foolish?

And then I think that, like, that reset of behavior I think is here to stay.

Um, I think the, the personal opinion, I could be wrong, but I think that, um, now that procurement and finance have kind of gotten wise to this, I think that the hammer is going to fall pretty hard on SaaS vendors. around, you know, uh, really being forced to demonstrate value, structuring contracts in a way that provide lots of outs and flexibility for the buyer.

And SaaS providers right now, I think are very desperate for the business. So they're going to agree to these things, but I don't think we're going back to the the heady days of just free flowing money and companies signing up for every single piece of like sales tech, for instance, under the sun.

Judd Borakove: So Matt, what you're saying is the next book is [00:12:00] going to be selling to the CFO.

I

Matt Dixon: mean,

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, I know. So, but Jed, do you agree? Like, are you, you've been selling for a long time, like just qualitatively, I mean, is it, is there more than before in terms of losing a no decision, um, in what you're thinking out there?

Judd Borakove: So, so I would say yes and no, at least my experience right now. Yes, in that people are deathly afraid to make a mistake.

We're seeing so much turnover in companies. People are getting fired left and right, layoff, big layoffs happening and people are deathly afraid, but at the same time. Indecision means no decision, and ultimately when these products become more important to the growth of the org, there's no, no room for no decision.

So they're being forced into one, whether it be right or wrong, and betting their careers on things that they're not sure of. And this is where I think... Some of it is and why I love the book. I mean, I think it's brilliant, honestly. [00:13:00] Um, but, but I still think we're also in a place of salespeople also need to be thinking about like methodologies and how they're selling and how they're answering questions and how they're being a trusted advisor and really helping people solve problems.

And I think that's a challenge right now because People are getting in and they're like, I got to hit a quota. I have no option, right? And I have to find a way to stick a round peg in a square hole or I miss quota and I got problems. Yeah. And that's where I think we're, we're making this harder because those reps make the really good reps not as good.

It, it, it muddies

Matt Dixon: that water. You're right. You know, I just, uh, there's a lot in there, Jed, but just pick up

on

one thing you said. Um, you know, you use that term, which I think is, It's one of these terms that sort of like means everything, but, you know, means nothing, which is to be a trusted advisor in sales.

It's just like thrown around there. But I think that if you get down to it, you literally break it down. This is actually part of the problem, I think, and why [00:14:00] I wholeheartedly agree that you get a lot of salespeople out there making the really good ones, you know, look bad because there's too many of the bad ones, you know, that outweigh the good ones.

But the, um, uh, you think about that concept. So in the book, you know, we talk about this, this problem of information overload. Um, and, um, we talk about, um, uh, we talk about the, the idea that, you know, customers are trying to become experts, right? Uh, they don't trust you as their expert. They want to be an expert.

Um, and they, and there's like, you got to ask yourself, like, why are, why do customers try to do that? Why don't they just say, Hey, you know what? Uh, Craig, you're an expert in this technology. I don't, I don't, I don't, I could say Craig's trying to sell me some. Generative AI from my sales organization that boosts productivity and so on and so forth to free up customer facing selling time and all these great use cases.

And I say, I, why don't I just say, Craig, I trust you. Just tell me what we should buy here. Like, I'm not an expert in this stuff. I could never be an expert. Just tell me what to do. And I think the problem is that, um, they, uh, [00:15:00] customers, every customer out there has been, um, burned before, like, let me back up.

The problem is that they don't see you as a trust advisor because they don't trust you and they don't think you're an advisor. So I think, I think those are the two fundamental problems. That's why the customer won't say, Craig, uh, I'm putting myself in your good hands. Just don't make me look like a fool.

Like, tell me what to do. What should I buy? How should we do this? They won't do that because every customer out there has been burned in the past by a salesperson. And this is rampant in, in SaaS, is rampant in tech generally, but you also find it in professional services and other places like that.

They've all been burned by salespeople who have over promised and over delivered, who oversold them, who confused the present tense with the future tense when they describe what their product is capable of. They sent surprise invoices that hid the total cost of ownership, and then you realize you're, you know, you thought you were in this thing for a dime, you're in for a dollar.

And so customers all have that kind of negative perception of salespeople They, they believe it is a cat and mouse game. You are being paid to oversell me, to hide the [00:16:00] dirty laundry, and just say yes to everything I ask.

Can you integrate with this? Yes. Can you do this? Yes. Can you address that use case?

Yes. You know, and so it's my job in a world where you're not going to be truth, it's just the agency dilemma, right? It's my job to, to find out what you're hiding from me. So that is what drives the endless consumption of information for the customer's part, because they don't believe what they're being told.

So if you really get down to brass tacks, like what the best sales people do is they create a, a um, basis of trust by quite, and that sounds generic, but the way they do it is usually very early in the first couple calls is they tell the customer, you know, I know you're looking at the premium version of our solution.

I think it's a little bit too much club for you guys. I would go with the standard, save your money, preserve your capital, budgets are tight, spend those dollars elsewhere. We can always expand later. Well, I know you're looking at these integrations, but to be honest with you, I don't actually know that you guys are ready for this one, this one, this one, let's start small and go from there.

Or even, we found examples of salespeople saying, Hey, I'd love to do that for you. We'd love to be your vendor of choice and list you as a customer. But actually we're not the [00:17:00] best in the market at that. You should go talk to these guys instead. And I put you in touch with them because I used to work with some of those people.

Those moments tell the customer that your job as a salesperson is not to put one over on them, it's to get them to a great decision and solve problems, like you said, and it's only in those moments where you earn, you start to make forward progress. Then the second thing is. And this is, this is even worse than SaaS is that, okay, I built the trust, but you got to be in a position to advise the customer.

You've got to give good advice. You have to provide guidance, but if you don't know a heck of a lot about what you're selling and you show up with the clown car of experts on every single call, like the SMEs, the CS people, the engineers, the product people, you know. The executive sponsors, and you're just like a glorified MC where you're like, take it away, you know, and you feel like this is great.

Customers love this conversation. What you don't realize is happening to you is that you're getting delegated down to the person you sound like. And if you sound like somebody who's not very senior is in a position to advise, That's how the customer perceives you. So then they're going to continue to do their research because the salesperson they're working with is in no position to offer them any good guidance or advice [00:18:00] whatsoever.

So the, the, I say the unfortunate answer, but the truth is for sales people, you got to invest in knowing your product and you got it. And I'm not saying you're going to know it as deeply as the engineers, but you got to know it better than your customer does, you know, and if you don't. It's like me trying to plan a trip to Italy with a travel advisor who's never been to Italy, nor have they ever planned a trip for anybody else to Italy.

Like, I'm going to get some guidebook. Actually, I'm just going to find another travel advisor. But, you know, like, you got to know yourself, I think is the answer. And once you do those things, it creates a totally different dynamic, and it earns you the right. To tell your customer at some point, I don't think a third reference call is going to show you anything more than you already seen from the other two.

Guess what? The third person loves us too. And they're going to say great things about us. I don't think we need another demo with the same buying committee. They've seen two other demos. Like, I don't think we need to do a POC in another part of the business. Like, what are we trying to solve for here?

Cause there might, I want to make good use of your time. There might be a better way to solve for it, but you can't do that stuff unless they trust you and they see you as an expert.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, you know, one data point, just talking to, um, [00:19:00] RevOps, sales ops folks out there in the market, like, I just, I'll give you this great quote.

One of the guys who I respect, like. Uh, to death. I said, well, what's, you know, what, what's your biggest, some of your biggest challenges? He's like, you know what? I just wish people would say no. He's like, our, my forecasting has, is broken because they're kicking the can every quarter. So it's like, you know, Jenna, you're talking about sales cycles.

We don't even actually know if they're sales cycles because they're

Matt Dixon: just, these are like... They're something cycles.

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah, they're tight organizations, like that run, I'm not talking about somebody who doesn't run their ship correctly, uh, but you basically have, um, you can see indecision in how, you know, like, uh, these sales organizations are actually just trying to track what they're going to close.

Um, and those, you know, those things are getting canned, the can's being kicked The [00:20:00] buyer or not the buyer, you know, the person, the people, person or people they're working with are like still holding on. Um, and so the sales rep is going to hold on. Cause it's hard to hit your number right now. Um, and then it, it keeps going and what you're essentially saying, we're in an indecision loop there that, uh, that's, I think that's different.

at least in SaaS At least for the last six years, the action was fierce enough that those things might have been there, but someone would be more likely maybe to punt it, but like now you just see the, the, the latency in the pipeline is just incredible, right? So,

Judd Borakove: this leads to something I'm going to pose this to both of you, but I actually want Craig to answer first, because I think I don't want him influenced.

Um, but... Does this mean then that marketing is actually more important than they're being given credit for? Because we're all saying, right, everybody's doing research, you're going to see marketing material, you're going to get messaging, you're going to hear their POV and differentiators, they're going to be [00:21:00] along for the ride the entire time.

And if we believe that, what, 70 80 percent of the buying decision is done before they talk to a salesperson, does that mean that marketing really is elevated at this point even more than they were in the past? Go Craig!

Craig Rosenberg: Well, first of all, if you take what Matt was saying, that at whatever period in the buy in cycle quote you're going to use, right, like you went 70, 80, I think there's, someone has 60.

I don't know what we used to have back in the days, Matt,

Matt Dixon: with you guys. We were 57 percent and then, uh, then, uh, I think like Forrester came out and Sirius Citizen came out like, no, no, it's like 65, it's 75. Like, let's just agree. That's why Jared had to give a raid. He

Judd Borakove: beat them all. It's somewhere in

Craig Rosenberg: there.

Matt Dixon: Somewhere in the you're screwed zone of like, you know.

Judd Borakove: Once we cross 50, we're in trouble.

Craig Rosenberg: But remember, remember though that, um, they're, they're not coming in more educated. That's part of the problem is that the information overload has made it, you know what I mean, like they sure [00:22:00] they're, they might, they're, they're like what we might want to study next, Matt, here was coming, let's just help Matt here today, I'm just kidding, is when they do come

Matt Dixon: in.

I need a lot of help. I don't know if it's stuff that you guys can help me with.

Craig Rosenberg: When they do come in truly 60 percent down the buying cycle, like how did they get there? Especially now because, you know, so, um, so I think we would all agree though. They are. And that's what Matt was saying, Judd, like they're all trying to educate themselves and we have an incredible issue.

Like in SAS, if you look at it, there's a me too issue. So all the content looks the same. Oh my God. Yeah. Right. Um, everyone's trying to game the customer rating portals. Um, I think that's good that they do that though, but that's a marketing thing. Um, and so, uh, so actually. Like number one from a marketing, we have two things.

One is from an [00:23:00] organizational perspective, taking a step back and on the life cycle of the buyer and understanding it across both. I know that's like totally ivory tower, but it is really important here because, um, part of the issue is like, we can't just say, well, like So yes, marketing is more important than ever, Judd.

I'm sorry, I'll answer your question, then I'll talk about it. So like, what Matt gave was a perfect example is, what he saw in the data was the first call was a trust building exercise. And by the way, Matt, Judd is really good at that. Like, if I had to say like, like what Judd's good at is he immediately attacks, works on the relationship and what they're trying to do.

Um, and that, that helps him. So I think he's a good case study for you. But like Matt was saying, like that first call, Judd, is like, those tidbits are actually big things, right? Which is like, well, look, like, can you get on and understand, um, what's going on with this buyer and, and be a valuable resource and get that [00:24:00] across in the 30 minutes?

Because part of the issue we're trying to address here is actually the distrust of sales in In the, uh, hesitancy in their buying process. Uh, so, so that's, that's one thing, right? Like, and then that's step one. So what happens next and what happens next? If we can break that all down and figure out what sales and marketing can do together.

Um, that actually, that's where we become truly aligned because we have to. So part of the issue is Judd knows is like we incented marketing for years to just get them in the door. And then we said, oh, well, they got to do enablement, but then they, with sales isn't on board with what Matt's trying to say, then we're just creating data sheets and more information for them that they don't believe.

And confusion. Yeah. Yeah. So like, um, I'll give you some, uh, and if you guys don't mind, I got through the, I've been dying to throw these by Matt, Jed. So like we've been, you know, like, as you know, Robert Kaler works with me, he's a [00:25:00] huge fan too. Um, and like, so, um, you know, we've been, you know, Trust building exercise.

Here's one with marketing. So we call it the magic meeting. It's this meeting where you don't, it's a hundred percent in favor of the buyer and zero percent in favor of you. And as we all are talking about here, that actually advances the sales cycle. It's hard for organizations to do. Yeah. Example I learned, I learned this years ago.

I, when at Topo, we were trying to help people get in the enterprise and the, I mean, we could argue the best tech enterprise sales organizations in the world, but you know, like if you, if you really look at it, you know, you know, we can make fun of SAP and Oracle, but they are really good at enterprise sales.

Uh, and then, so like ERP is a really good market to go talk. How the hell do you sell ERP right now? And so I met with someone who's like down the. Not in the top two that competes heavily. And I, and, um, he was an ex Gartner analyst. He was on this team that basically what they would do is they would say, well, look, we're not going to sell you anything because not [00:26:00] yet, because like in the ERP market, there's a, maybe a 0.

5 percent differential between features. And so they would study what was happening in the supply chain world and create four storylines. And they would do this magic meeting where they go and bring everyone in and say, look, here are the four things we're seeing in the market. Right. And, um, it was experts.

Sales guy to sit on the side. And so we've been trying to recreate this because, uh, it's just, you know, that is a way to build trust. It's not something salespeople can do. Honestly, that's the issue. So the, the, uh, ACV has to be high. So, so that, that's really important, right? Obviously we've been, uh, number two is like, we've been focused on champion content, so we get our person who comes in really wants to work with us.

There's call it 12 stakeholders. We'll just make up a number for now. Another one where we can have some fun with the different numbers. Um, four of them, you don't know [00:27:00] their shadow. I'm just giving, making this up. They are good. They will nix your deal and you don't even know it. Like, so I, you know, I was working with a company and they were the, the people that use it could not, they needed it.

They loved it. They were losing deals. Down the line, just like you were saying, the indecision was driven by shadow stakeholders. So we said, well, how are you presenting it? Well, the buyer is actually feature centric. They're going in and explaining to the CFO the features to try to buy. The same concepts that we're trying to teach the seller, we have to actually teach our buyers.

And, uh, you know, I love everyone. Well, you know, I like you know, we'll go meet with them. And it's like, they, they don't know. They sell, right now, so many of them don't even know who's going to nix their deal. And so we have to build, like, for them to be able, for them to sell internally, that includes the proposal.

It can't be a quote. It has to tell the right story. Um, that, that's like use case and impact, right? The CFO is going to get involved. [00:28:00] So we're trying to help them with what we're, you know, champion content, which by the way, I didn't make up that name. A guy named Steve Hayes made up that, that idea.

Champion content. And then I mentioned like the down funnel stuff that we traditionally take for granted. Like a proposal, you have to have a value driven proposal. Like you, that thing's going to go through the process and everyone's just going to see the price. They need to see the storyline. So anyway, just some things that we've built reaction to what you're doing.

But like, those are some of the things we've been helping people with your thoughts. But Matt,

Judd Borakove: real quick, I just want to kill him on one thing. So is that basically saying then that marketing has a new role? Just, just a thought. You don't have to answer. Go on. Matt, you you go Judd's

Craig Rosenberg: onto something

Matt Dixon: here.

Judd's question. No, I, I'll go back to your question. Does it matter? Judd's question about does it matter more or less? Right? Um, I, I would say more. Um, and I, I think, um, I think we're on the, I'm on the same page as you, uh, Craig there. So. But I would say, um, maybe, but maybe different, I think, also to your, the point you just made, Craig.

[00:29:00] So I think the, um, you know, obviously. Marketing, even back when we were talking about Challenger, right? We always talked about like, look, Challenger is about individual skill, but it's as much about organizational capability. And if marketing doesn't give salespeople anything to challenge with, then they're not challengers, they're just annoying.

And that's a different profile. Like that's not what we want to be doing. But we're trying to engage people with content that teaches them into the sales funnel. Now, but the interesting thing about that is it also... done well, it also, um, uh, eliminates those future no decision losses by teaching only the right prospects and customers into the funnel, right?

So it's, it also signals not just Like, come everyone, talk to us, but rather like, if this is what you're looking for, we're not the right match for you, you know, uh, doing so subtly, right? But you want to give people a pretty clear sense of like, here's, here's who's a good fit and here's who's not. So that when it does get to the salesperson, their job is...

easier in terms of like, I, [00:30:00] I know there's good opt in here and I know that, um, this is not going to be just a big, you know, dog and pony show. We're going to have a nice conversation, but it turns out he wasn't ever a good fit for us. Um, if I think about marketing, um, so kind of new roles, if you will, um, I would also say we get asked this a lot around the jolt effect.

We didn't, we never, Wrote about this in the book, mainly because we had to finish it and get to the publisher. But had we, if we had a little bit more time, what we would have written similarly, like the role of marketing and joke, because if you think about things like, uh, offering recommendations and, and how do I go from like marketing is really, really good at offering choices, um, not as good typically at offering recommendations or guidance.

And so they. Love like plastering the website with all kinds of use cases, success stories, and, you know, um, uh, different feeds and speeds and value propositions, you name it, it's just like more and more and more. And there, there is a time and a place for that. Like, that's awesome when people are just window shopping, it's great at the trade show booth.[00:31:00]

It's even okay early on in the sales conversation, but at some point, if you want somebody to pick something, you've got to get from like everything to like a thousand flowers blooming to like get the weed whacker out and like. What's the thing you're going to buy? Like that was cool for a conversation, but a proposal is something you pay for and it has actual things in it.

It also has things that are not in it. And that's a really, really hard thing for a customer, especially when everything they've been shown up to that point looks awesome. Like it's like going to the Vegas buffet and you're just like, I can't eat all this, but I want all this because everything I see looks amazing and you don't want to make it the wrong choice.

Um, so, you know, if we think about, As we talk about in the book, you know, the role of the salesperson is to chalk the field, advocate for a specific path of action, stop diagnosing needs, stop asking questions, start telling the customer what they should buy. Um, and if you think about marketing's role there, like best salespeople will do that, they're comfortable doing that.

They're comfortable telling the customer like. You know what? Forget these integrations. Forget this version of the product. Like, I'm gonna, let's get narrowed in. Um, even if this means a smaller [00:32:00] deal for me right now, like, here's what I recommend. It's configuration A, B, or C. And I like B, and here's why.

Companies like you get value out of this. They never look back. Blah, blah, blah. Great salespeople do that naturally, because they're comfortable doing it. Um, cause they're, they're experts and they're trusted and they, the customer looks to them for that guidance, but most salespeople won't, but marketing can really help by creating these pre-configured kind of solution, you know, solutions for different use cases.

And then working with sales enablement to get salespeople comfortable to like, when you start the conversation, we're trying to drive them here. Like that is the end objective, but it's, you know, the new salesperson or, you know, an average salesperson is not going to come up with that stuff on their own.

So like marketing should be building that. And they have all the data to know, like. Customers like these like solutions like those, and so we can create those happy meals. Or think about like limiting the exploration, you know, Brent, uh, in his, uh, Sensemaking article in HBR talks about a specific case, which I really like.

I don't remember the company offhand, but it was, um, you know, in this world where [00:33:00] customers are swimming in information and they don't know where to start and they're just overwhelmed. Um, one of the roles marketing can play is create kind of structured learning paths. So think about like generative AI, which like no, everyone talks about, nobody understands.

Um, this idea of like, when you come and you're looking for a technology like this, for this specific use case in sales. Um, you should look at these two articles, this blog post, listen to this podcast, and go read this user guide. By the way, here's the hard part of all those things. Make sure some of that content is from your competitors or from third party sources or analysts.

It's not all your stuff, right? So don't take it, don't listen to just us. These are the, here is a curated reading list for people who need to get smart fast on this technology. Go consume this. You'll be in a way, you'll feel way more confident in your ability to navigate this decision. Um, and so that, you know, I think there, there are a lot of roles for, for marketing in the organization to actually put in, you know, codify some of these tools and these resources beyond just the above the funnel stuff, but, but [00:34:00] resources and tools that could help, you know, even have more than halfway through the sale, right?

We've already won the battle for overcoming the marketing is very good at that. Um, use cases, success stories, ROI calculators, blah, blah, blah. But what about the back half where it's mostly about instilling confidence? Customers sold. What we're doing today is not good enough. Like, we're ready to move forward, but they're now stuck in this wasteland.

They want to buy, but they can't because they're afraid of something going wrong. Marketing has a big role to play in terms of helping salespeople with the tools and resources and content to instill that confidence to get that customer to say, you know what? I feel pretty good about this decision. I think I'm going to look like a hero, not like a fool.

If anything, we're going to overperform here. Like, let's go. Great salespeople come up with that stuff on their own, but most won't. And so, um, marketing I think plays a key role there.

Craig Rosenberg: Boom. There... But, by the way, I, I want to go... We have to ask Judd, because he wouldn't let up what he thinks. But hold that, Judd.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's got...

Judd Borakove: He's also... Yeah, he... When he's

Craig Rosenberg: locked in, I know he's got something in his head. So,

Judd Borakove: uh,

Craig Rosenberg: but I would say this, [00:35:00] Matt, like if you think about the life cycle of your, um, you know, your, your, your hits in the B2B world, it felt like the challenger, uh, like in my opinion, like became truly streamlined mainstream when marketing picked it up.

Because like I was working with CMO, you know, these guys read it. And like they were facility, they were coming in and seeing what sales was doing and they were pushing it on them. Uh, and, uh, you know, you saw a lot of them who took the concepts of what you were talking about and incorporate it in how they created content and other things.

Um, I feel like on jolt effect, so first of all, a new recommendation. Put a marketing, like, like let's talk about in terms of the marketing interpretation there. I've sent Jolt Effect to marketers in that, you know, I know who asked for a book recommended and they love it. And so, uh, and so anyway, I just. I think what we'll see, here's my, I don't do [00:36:00] predictions, but I do think in terms of jolt effect, like the marketing adoption of that is going to be really important, um, and will happen and will also start to, it will actually, talk about innovation, Judd.

They read that book. Now they're going to start to think about different things that they could deliver that actually deliver value into the organization. Now I'm just, now, Judd. Judd, you gotta tell us we're

Matt Dixon: going wrong. Did you say, hey, hold

Judd Borakove: on. Were you asking because Well, what was your answer to that?

Your own question? Well, so, uh, and I'll start with, if I look at Challenger and Joel, the one thing that isn't called out specifically, but becomes apparent is that marketing has now become more important and the books say so, like Challenger cannot be done without the supporting information, which, and who goes and does it.

It's marketing. Marketing is not just a lead machine anymore, and we have abilities to track everything. And they're actually doing a much better job of tracking than sales is. So to some extent, I feel [00:37:00] marketing and sales, it's not one is more important than the other. There needs to be a better alignment between the two, better communication paths, better metrics and KPIs that they share that allow them to work.

Together, in unison, to drive a better outcome. And I just think that the only myths I see in the book, and I think that, like I said before, I love them. And I, I run a marketing community, I've sat in the marketing role, I work with CMOs all the time. I think that this, this, both are actually more important for the marketing side than the sales side here.

Right, to understand so that they can develop the support necessary to allow salespeople to do their job more efficiently and effectively. So for me, that's why I think it's, it's, it's not that they've become, let's say more important or not, but I think the understanding of what marketing's role is needs to be more apparent to the executive leadership so that they don't go.

We don't really need sales or we don't really need marketing, right? Sales got this or, you know, and, and people [00:38:00] think like, if you're running a sales led motion, that marketing has less importance, absolutely the opposite. I think it's actually more important. Um, so to some extent, I think that, you know, it's kind of obvious when you read the book, if you come from a certain mental set, right, if I'm a marketer reading that book, it's like, Oh, right.

Light bulb moment. I don't know if salespeople connect the two because I, not because they're not smart. But they're not educated in what marketing is really doing for them and how they're helping them. I tell you,

Craig Rosenberg: this is your marketing version. We want a 15 percent cut of all sales, that's what you're working recently, but it's a

Matt Dixon: great point. You know, I just tell you guys a quick story. So, you know, we've been out there since, uh, the book came out in September and we've been out there. We do this ourselves, but we also do it through some partners like, uh, Winning by Design Challenge are partners of ours. They're delivering, [00:39:00] um, uh, uh, Jolt training, uh, using our content, but with their customers.

And we're doing it directly as well. And we had a conversation the other day. I think all of us were talking to the same client and it was very interesting. It was a SaaS company. And, um, they're, you know, got a lot of salespeople and they said, look, We do like the idea of teaching our salespeople to do this stuff, the J O L T, like they need to be able to do that.

But it seems like rather than trying to solve for this foxhole by foxhole, the better way to do it might be in a scaled effort, led by marketing and sales, where we actually build the tools to go, you know, diagnose indecision, offer recommendations, uh, the structured learning journeys to limit the exploration and...

De risking options, and then we teach the scale people how to use those things. When to use them, when, you know, and how to use them. Wouldn't that be easier than just trying to like, kind of change everybody's mindset and get them to think about, and you know, it's, I think it's a little bit, this company even said it's, it's a [00:40:00] do both, but we want to start with the, the scaled stuff and see how far we can get.

And I, I think you're, you guys, your point on Challengers, um, spot on. And I think marketing organizations have gotten a lot better at that. It's one of the things Brent talks about a lot, actually, is that we're now in the smartness arms race. Like if we go back to 2011, we wrote the challenger sale. I mean, it was like a wasteland of like vacuous content and you look now and B2B suppliers put out a lot of really good content and.

They put out a lot of bad content too, but they put out a lot of stuff that would qualify as frame breaking insight. And now that becomes pretty overwhelming for customers where it's like, boy, everything I'm reading is smart. It's changing the way I'm thinking. And like, now I feel even less well informed and even more lost.

And so, um, so that is a, it is a knock on, um, you know, Uh, I guess, uh, downside of, uh, marketers haven't gotten really good at this. There is still a lot of, like, as I said before, there's still a lot of marketers doing it badly. We've, uh, [00:41:00] worked recently with a couple of companies on, um, just trying to, to rethink some of their sales messaging.

And it is... This interesting, um, uh, interesting motion where you come in and you, you redefine the sales message and then people go away and work on it and it comes back. And it's all, all this stuff, it goes from like a lead to story that you left them with right back to a lead with story where all the speeds and speeds are front and center, like, you know, how many times can we say AI, how often in the first like five slides and like.

And it's just, you know, and there's, and you've just lost the edge and then, you know, you push back a little and then go back and work on it some more and they come back and it's like, it's a little bit better. But a lot of the stuff that should be in the back snuck back into the front. And, you know, so it's still like we got to fight our, you know, fight some of our instincts there.

I think I'm arguing, but I will say in general terms, I think you guys are right. B2B marketers have gotten a lot better. And I think you're right, Craig, Challenger kind of grabbed hold when marketing embraced it and said, this is a way we can [00:42:00] deliver content that changes the game for our sellers in a really powerful way, and they ran with it.

And the companies that have the most success with Challenger are ones where marketing is like. If not running point on the initiative is like, you know, right there at the table, playing a critical role.

Craig Rosenberg: But by the way, this one on the jolt is interesting because for marketing to be able to align with sales and do this together, actually the first step for sure is for sales to buy in on the jolt.

Most sales leaders reactions is. I already, I knew that, but I didn't put it into word. And it's a classic. So you're, I think generally speaking, you win sales leaders over. Because it, you know what I mean? You're just helping them think through what they were seeing, feeling, and knowing. Actually, many of them would react the same way.

That's a long time. I actually, this is great because it's helped me think about the, because look to sales leaders, just run it. I mean, they didn't, [00:43:00] I'm going to do all these plans. It's like, well, where's your Q1 number? Damn it. Let's go. And so like helping them sort of think about it, we get, you get them in the mindset, then it's like, well, you know, how are you going to go do it?

And marketing comes up. But if, you know, in this case, if I guess it was the same with the challenger, like marketing can't create challenger messaging, if the sales leader just wants.

Judd Borakove: It's like ABM. How do you run ABM if sales isn't on board? Marketing gets excited. Sales is like, we're not touching it. And then it blows up in your face.

Hey, I want, I want to take a little bit of a right turn. Cause I know we can talk. Okay. You Craig, then I'm going to do it, but go ahead. We

Craig Rosenberg: have to help our boy out here. That means takeaway

Judd Borakove: purchase.

Craig Rosenberg: And then you go, everyone in marketing, the exact. Staff needs to read this marketing and sales and CEO. Like for us, a lot of the founders have read it and really loved it.

Right. And, uh, it just helped, you know, cause, and these are folks on my side, founders are just taking in information and learning every part of their business. It's, it's really, it's really powerful. [00:44:00] Okay. Plug. Go.

Judd Borakove: And I'll do the plug. I've read the book. It's a rockstar book. If you haven't read it, read it.

Uh, so there you go. Um, so a little

Matt Dixon: different. Check is in the mail. Just

Judd Borakove: making money every minute. Um, so, so a little different, just along the same lines though. Like I'm curious, cause I'm watching lots of things that are going on in the business world right now. And I'm curious what you guys think right now is the most interesting business trend.

That's something you're watching. And maybe have a prediction and you're kind of watching because you think it's going that way. Like, what are you paying attention to in business right now? Doesn't even have to be sales, but in general, that you're kind of like, we've got to pay attention to this.

Matt Dixon: I, I can think of a, I'm going to throw, uh, three things out there.

Um, cause I can't, I can't pick one, but three things that fascinate me right now. So I think one is what's going to happen with commercial real estate when all these leases come down, come up [00:45:00] for renewal. Like, and I think there is this like. You know, um, uh, big short esque, like, tidal wave that is just starting to brew in the middle of the ocean and it's going to crash on our shores when, like, suddenly in three, the next three to five, I read something recently about the number of big office space leases that are up for renewal in the next, like, three to five years, and there is going to be a big change.

like, cataclysm, I think, in that, and, you know, what's happening with, like, urban centers, and some have rebounded, but others are just really struggling right now, um, as people are, you know, working from home. So I think that's thing one. Um, I think the second thing is, uh, AI, which I kind of, I kind of have this, like, love hate relationship with, because it's, everyone just tosses around, like, every product.

I mean, you can't, you, like, can't swing a stick without, like, hitting a vendor that's, like, now with AI, you know? It's like, um, so I I think what's interesting is, um, you talked to some of the leaders in that space, uh, [00:46:00] was talking to a company, um, uh, big cloud provider, who's like definitely at the forefront here.

And they said, they're seeing a lot of hesitancy from their customers there. Like everyone wants to talk about it. And very few people want to buy it. And I think that's, um, uh, in part because they, a big, large part because they don't understand it. And I think that is perpetuated by the fact that it's brand new.

It's very confusing. It seems really scary. And, and we're in an environment, John, as you said before, there's a lot of scrutiny. There are a lot of eyes on big decisions like this. And people are like, I'm not putting my badge on the table for that. Because I barely, I can barely spell it. I don't really understand what it does.

And like, it could blow up in our face. Um, so I'm, I'm just curious what's going to happen and what's going to be the shakeout here. Um, certainly a lot of money being made on AI, maybe from like traders and investors. I don't know how many companies are actually really making money on it yet, either using it or selling it, but I'm really curious to see what happens.

And then my, my personal interest in that one, and then I'll get to my third one in a moment. My personal [00:47:00] interest in that one, I think is in my bet, in there's obviously a lot of like, Um, this, you know, what happens to salespeople in this world? Like, what happens to like, SDRs? Like, do they just go away because you have machines like doing that?

Are we going to work for the machines? Like, I don't know. I am of the opinion, especially if you, if you subscribe to what's in the Jolt Effect about... The need to instill confidence in these things, which a lot of them are like decidedly human elements of the sale. I think what AI does is it really is going to free up people from having to like enter like post call notes into the CRM system, which people don't like doing and when they do it, they're really crappy and they're useless.

Um, and so it's going to free us up so that we can do the things that people were designed to do that machines really can't do. And so I, I have a hopeful view on that one. Then the last thing I'm interested in, which I am positive that is going to be out of the left field here, is um, a business trend. So we just actually finished a new study, um, and it's going to be in HBR in the November December [00:48:00] issue.

And it is a global study of professional services partners. So I, I always, um, I'll tell you guys a really quick story and then, um, then I'll get on to, uh, Craig, get on to your, your, your things that fascinate you about business

Craig Rosenberg: right now. I'm fascinated with what you're saying, so

Matt Dixon: keep going. Okay, so... So I have this, I'll go back a long time.

So I've, I've been hired to present Challenger and other stuff, um, to organizations around the world. And the ones that always make me cringe are when I'm hired by. Like investment banks, consulting firms, law firms, uh, accounting firms, where they just want to get better at selling, or as they call it, business development, right?

And, um, it always made me uneasy because I had, uh, the story, Neil Rackham told me this story, um, uh, years ago. It's happened to him, it's also happened to me. Um, where, uh, he was, um, he's told these stories about how, like, he's gotten, like, booed out of the room because he gets up and talks about sales and they're like, well, we don't sell.

And I had experience, too, where I was presenting to a big consulting firm and the managing partners, like, stood up in the middle of presentations, like, you [00:49:00] gotta understand, like, We don't do sales here. Uh, you know, and I've been talking about sales for the past 45 minutes. I'm like, you could have told me that earlier.

That'd be great. And I was kind of like, uh, let's just stipulate to the fact that there's a, um, a mysterious process by which the customer, the client's money ends up in your bank account. Let's just call it sales. And everyone laughed, but it's like, it's true. But it did make, it did stick with me because I'm thinking, you know, everything we've written about has been about selling a thing.

But what if you're selling yourself? And that's actually what professional services is. You're literally selling, like, what do you lead to in a challenger world when you're leading to yourself? You're leading to your own advisory skills, basically your own intelligence to help this client navigate through this legal matter, or this executive search, or this deal if you're an M& A advisor, or this audit if you're an accountant.

Like, that's a very, very different kind of sale. So I've always been fascinated by this. And so we finally, um, uh, got some funding to go do a study. We did a two year study. We're actually in year two right now, um, where we actually went out, [00:50:00] studied, we got data on 1800 professional services partners across law, accounting, investment banking, executive search, PR, management consulting, and we re ran kind of a challenger analysis.

We found there are five profiles. And so we of partners out there when it comes to business development. Totally five, totally different partners from what you see in the Challenger sale. But I will tell you, there was one that was kind of similar to Challenger. If you guys looked at it, you'd say this sounds like a Challenger.

Turns out they do really badly in professional services. And here's what I realized is If you're selling software, it's cool to come in and tell the customer you're doing it wrong and reframe their thinking and grab them by the lapels and shake them out of their comfort zone. But if you're selling yourself and your client is going to like, you are the product, it's just exhausting.

And so we interviewed clients and I said, you know, make no mistakes. I do want my partner, the partners I work with, the firms I work with, to challenge my thinking. I expect that of them. But if every time I sit down with them, which over the course of an engagement could be like every other day, and they tell me I'm doing it wrong, like, I don't have time for that.

Like, it's just exhausting. And so to [00:51:00] me, it helped confirm what I suspected for a very long time, which is the doer seller world is actually very different from the sales world. And so we, again, that research is coming out, um, in, uh, it'll be out mid October. is when it hits newsstands. Um, it's, I think the article is called, What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently, which is a study of professional services selling.

So that's where we're going. And I'll tell you the thing that And

Judd Borakove: you're going to send it to us early,

Matt Dixon: right? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. But I'll tell you, the thing that fascinates me about this is that this, this area of business has been shielded from the things that have been hammering B2B salespeople for years, finance, like, you know, procurement, legal, like this is stuff that like the CEO, if he or she puts their thumb on the scale for like, the lawyer from this big law firm, like, procurement doesn't get involved in that or didn't historically.

But that's really changing rapidly, like procurement is getting into soft spend in a way they never had before because they've squeezed all of this cost savings out of everything else. So now they're looking at, you know, the [00:52:00] investment, the M& A advisors you use, your law firms you use, they're looking at alternative service providers.

Different ways of cutting costs, using AI to do, to automate things. And that is causing a reckoning in like, especially the large, you know, big name firms out there in professional

Craig Rosenberg: services. So,

Judd Borakove: Craig, you want to, you want to,

Craig Rosenberg: man, that was, well,

Judd Borakove: so I'm going to say one thing, it sounds like AI is the new crypto we'll see,

Craig Rosenberg: stop it.

I will just say the one thing for everyone to watch. I mean, look, you know, we just talked a lot about the changes in the SAS buying environment. Is actually going to meet the fact that there is extraordinary innovation coming from the bottom up. Like, if you look at the things happening in Seed and A right now, There's a lot, and it's not just a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of really good.

And AI is driving it, so we're going to see that these things are going to meet, heads up. And that's going to be really interesting, which is new way of buying, And it, you know, it's, by the way guys, it's not [00:53:00] just product led, It is a, we heard it here, like there's, This fear driven buying environment against.

Like extraordinary innovation coming. Uh, that's going to be really interesting for us to watch. The other thing, by the way, I'd say I wasn't smart enough to realize that interest rates are everything. Like I had no idea. Oh yeah.

Judd Borakove: When money gets expensive,

Craig Rosenberg: money gets expensive. It's amazing. Anyway. All right, man.

This

Judd Borakove: is so good, Matt. Thank you, man. You're all, you're a rock star. Thank you for being a part of this.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was all Craig. I didn't do it. Um, thank you guys always for being here. You know, let us know what else you want to hear, who you want us to bring on, what topics are hot for you. Uh, we're just going to keep it going. So as always, thank you.

Craig Rosenberg: Thanks everyone. Take care guys.

[00:54:00]