This week on The Digital Download, we're addressing the challenging journey of transitioning from Founder to a sales-focused Leader with our special guest, Paul Lloyd. As the Director of Sellerly Limited, Paul brings over 30 years of experience in helping businesses strategically scale their sales operations.

Founders often face challenges when moving from personal network-based sales to a structured, proactive sales approach. Paul will provide practical insights on how to navigate this transition effectively.

Join us as we explore questions such as:

* What are the key steps in transitioning from a Founder to a sales-focused Leader?

* How can businesses develop a targeted sales story and process?

* What are the common pitfalls in building a sales structure?

* How can Founders balance their time between leading the business and focusing on sales?

With decades of hands-on experience and a track record of driving significant sales growth, Paul has guided numerous businesses through this transition. His approach combines practical advice with proven strategies to help you elevate your sales performance.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Bring your questions. Bring your insights. Audience participation is highly encouraged!

This week we were joined by our Special Guest -

• Paul Lloyd, Director of Sellerly

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Panelists included -

• Tim Hughes, CEO & Co-founder of a DLA Ignite,

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of a DLA Ignite,

• Alex Abbott, Founder of Supero, a DLA Ignite partner

• Tracy Borreson, Founder and CEO of TLB Coaching & Events, a proud DLA Ignite partner, and

• Bertrand Godillot, Managing Partner, Odysseus & Co, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Transcript of The Digital Download 2024-06-21

Rob Durant [00:00:03]:

Good morning, good afternoon, and good day wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of the digital download. The longest running weekly business talk show on LinkedIn Live, Now globally syndicated on TuneIn Radio.

Adam Gray [00:00:20]:

You see, I didn't even bother this time.

Rob Durant [00:00:22]:

Did I? I did notice that. I thought I gave you a pregnant pause to to jump in there. But

Adam Gray [00:00:29]:

It it just, I I always let the team down, I feel, when

Rob Durant [00:00:32]:

I try. Oh, no. Not at all. It's the effort that we're looking for, Adam.

Adam Gray [00:00:38]:

Just like life.

Rob Durant [00:00:40]:

Exactly. Success in life is about showing up. Today, we're talking about transitioning from founder to sales. We have a special guest, Paul Lloyd, to help us with the discussion. As the director of Sellerly, Paul brings over 30 years experience in helping businesses strategically scale their sales operations. But before we bring Paul on, let's go around the set and introduce everyone. While we're doing that, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend, ping them, and have them join us. We strive to make the digital download a highly interactive experience.

Rob Durant [00:01:23]:

So audience participation is encouraged. Alright. With that, Adam, would you kick us off, please?

Adam Gray [00:01:34]:

I would be delighted to. I'm Adam Gray. I'm cofounder of DLA Ignite, and, I'll steal Tim's saying here because, clearly, it gives you the opportunity to follow-up, Rob. I'm famous for writing the book, brilliant social media. I couldn't remember what the book was. It's so long ago that I wrote it. But it's brilliant social media. And I'm delighted, to be here, and I'm really looking forward to this session today.

Rob Durant [00:01:58]:

Excellent. Thank you so much. Bearded sales guy, Alex.

Alex Abbott [00:02:05]:

Hello. Glad to be here. So, yeah, Alex Abbot. I'm famous for being called the bearded sales guy. A fun fact about me, despite Adam advising me not to share or publicize this. I was I was born in Wales, and that came up in conversation before we went live because we were thinking about how diverse we weren't as a group. But then Rob, pointed out that we're from different parts of the world. So I'm I'm born in Wales.

Alex Abbott [00:02:35]:

I live in Portugal. I'd love to know where everyone else is dialing in from. Yucky Is that Welsh, Tim? What does it mean?

Tim Hughes [00:02:51]:

I can't

Rob Durant [00:02:55]:

remember. Well, thank you for that, Alex. Tracy, welcome.

Tracy Borreson [00:03:00]:

Hello, everyone. Sorry. I'm late. My computer did not wanna log in. I'm Tracy Morrison. I am in just outside of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. That's so diverse in that fact. And I am famous for wearing pink headphones.

Alex Abbott [00:03:15]:

Without the mic working properly.

Alex Abbott [00:03:18]:

Your mic's a bit funny.

Tracy Borreson [00:03:22]:

My technology is letting me down today. I'm gonna fix try and fix my audio, and we can move on to 2.

Rob Durant [00:03:29]:

There we go. Thank you so much and we're glad you did make it. Tim, welcome.

Tim Hughes [00:03:36]:

Thank you. Welcome everybody. My name's Tim Hughes. I'm the CEO and founder of of DLA Ignite. And I would just like to say if Chris Grimes, you are still watching, just wanna say hello to you. Maybe you could do a shout out or something. And I'm famous for writing the book, social selling techniques to influence buyers and change makers. Excellent.

Tim Hughes [00:03:59]:

Thank you very much.

Rob Durant [00:04:01]:

Bertrand.

Bertrand Godillot [00:04:03]:

Yeah. Thank you, Rob. So my name is Bertrand Codillot. I am the founder and managing partner of Odysseus and Co based in France, but I'm currently broadcasting from Casablanca, Morocco. So

Rob Durant [00:04:15]:

Ah, wow.

Bertrand Godillot [00:04:16]:

Pretty nice, sunshine today. A bit windy, but, really great weather.

Alex Abbott [00:04:21]:

You're on holiday, Bertrand?

Bertrand Godillot [00:04:23]:

No. I'm not. I'm I'm I'm

Tim Hughes [00:04:25]:

working. You're

Rob Durant [00:04:26]:

seeing this little brother?

Bertrand Godillot [00:04:27]:

Yes. Exactly. I'm, I'm, I'm so glad, you know, we can we can do that. So we can, work and at the same time, enjoy the family than though we we are in a very different country. So

Adam Gray [00:04:40]:

In all the LinkedIn lives in all the world, you have to walk into ours. There there should be some kind of Casablanca quote here, shouldn't I?

Rob Durant [00:04:50]:

That's right. A beautiful friendship.

Paul Lloyd [00:04:54]:

Glad to be here anyway.

Rob Durant [00:04:56]:

Excellent. And we're glad to have you here. Thank you so much. Myself, I am Rob Durant. I am the founder of Flywheel Results, and I'm famous for writing the book, The Social Enablement Blueprint. Stop pitching and start selling. Thank you all for your support. Thank you, everyone.

Tracy Borreson [00:05:18]:

Hey, can I just make mic check? What what sorry. Better?

Rob Durant [00:05:22]:

Yes. Much much better.

Tim Hughes [00:05:24]:

Where where can I get one of these from?

Rob Durant [00:05:25]:

You can get that at Amazon. You can also find us at SocialEnablement.Pro . Thank you for that cheap plug.

Adam Gray [00:05:38]:

That was an expensive plug. Just waiting really works well.

Rob Durant [00:05:43]:

As I said And and, well, the

Tim Hughes [00:05:45]:

people on, the people on radio don't even know that I was holding a book up.

Rob Durant [00:05:49]:

This is true, but now they do. We should have He made

Tracy Borreson [00:05:53]:

the little Tim and Adam hold up the

Rob Durant [00:05:56]:

book. Right.

Adam Gray [00:05:57]:

Right. Audio description. Yeah.

Tim Hughes [00:05:59]:

Maybe we need

Tim Hughes [00:05:59]:

to get a narrator.

Rob Durant [00:06:01]:

Yeah. Yes. Yes. We do. Oi. I have lost control already. This week on the digital download, we'll speak with Paul Lloyd. With decades of hands on experience and a track record of driving significant growth, Paul has guided numerous businesses through this transition.

Rob Durant [00:06:25]:

His approach combines practical advice with proven strategies to help you elevate your sales performance. Let's bring him on. Paul. Hey. Good morning and welcome.

Paul Lloyd [00:06:38]:

Good morning to you. Thank you for having me.

Rob Durant [00:06:42]:

Paul, let's start by oh, what

Paul Lloyd [00:06:44]:

say. I'm not famous for anything.

Tracy Borreson [00:06:48]:

Paul, if you're

Tracy Borreson [00:06:49]:

on this show for long enough, you figure out something that you're famous for.

Paul Lloyd [00:06:52]:

But but Paul Paul I do have a Welsh name.

Tim Hughes [00:06:55]:

But, Paul, the good thing is is that you're the person that bought all the books that we've written.

Paul Lloyd [00:07:00]:

Yeah. Nearly all. He's not one.

Tim Hughes [00:07:04]:

You you need to get another one in the set.

Paul Lloyd [00:07:06]:

Oh, is that what he is?

Tim Hughes [00:07:07]:

Tim is currently holding up Rob Durant's book.

Paul Lloyd [00:07:13]:

So Oh. So I'm speaking from the state of England, from the 15th century cottage. Real beams for those that Nice.

Rob Durant [00:07:24]:

And the

Paul Lloyd [00:07:24]:

sun Do you have

Tim Hughes [00:07:25]:

do you have a do you have a a grass roof

Adam Gray [00:07:27]:

or a

Paul Lloyd [00:07:28]:

I do have a grass roof. You have a grass roof? Well, I have a grass roof, actually, but yes. Grass roof. Well, it's it's root it's actually reed. It's not straw. So it's,

Adam Gray [00:07:38]:

is it not? So mine is mine is long straw. Yours is water reed, is it?

Paul Lloyd [00:07:42]:

Yeah. So mine's reed. And apparently, he burns very well. My son works in the insurance game. He's a he works with high net worth individuals, and they refer to thatched houses as tinderboxes. So and I can't get insurance through him.

Adam Gray [00:08:00]:

Yeah. Increasingly it's increasingly a struggle as time goes by, and there have been a number of house fires around us. So it's always a bit scary.

Paul Lloyd [00:08:09]:

There's about 60,000 in in the country. Wow. Not fires, but But Paul is also an aporist. He's also an apiarist. Yeah. I think you're

Rob Durant [00:08:22]:

gonna have to define that.

Paul Lloyd [00:08:23]:

It keeps bees. It keeps bees. Oh, okay. Although I I I recently moved, so at the moment, I don't have any bees because with the weather, we haven't sort of bothered investing this year as as of yet, but my plan is that I'll have probably 6 or 7 hives by the end of the year.

Adam Gray [00:08:40]:

I see. You're a fan of honey, I take it?

Paul Lloyd [00:08:42]:

We do like honey. Yes. I'm just a fan of bees. They they're just magic. You know? They're sort of fascinating, and they've been doing it for 1,000 upon 1,000 of years. Well Here we are.

Rob Durant [00:09:00]:

Let's kick this off by having you tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

Paul Lloyd [00:09:10]:

I started operating mainframes when I first left school. So I I worked in a time when you you put your loaded tapes like the James Bond films. James Bond films are the little tapes that do that and the tapes come down. So I worked around there then I became a swimming pool attendant. I spent a couple of years sorry?

Alex Abbott [00:09:36]:

A lifeguard?

Paul Lloyd [00:09:37]:

A lifeguard, yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of advantages to being a lifeguard when you're a young chap. So I did that and and I did a number of management qualifications. So essentially, I ended up running sort of leisure centers for local authorities. Anybody that knows me would know that working for local authorities and counselors and the like doesn't really fit well with me, so I didn't do that for a massive length of time. And then I moved into selling at the time PC. So I started in the channel probably just before there was one, and throughout, I guess, 30 odd years now, I've kind of I've worked in big companies, little companies.

Paul Lloyd [00:10:24]:

I've sold enterprise and SME. I've managed upwards of 70 salespeople and and 2 and and everything in between. So where I work these days tends to be within the MSP space because there are lots of technical people who have started businesses, who've grown, and they've done the recommendation and referral piece, and they've now got to the point where

Tim Hughes [00:10:47]:

He almost put his hand up.

Paul Lloyd [00:10:51]:

They, they get to the point where they can't go any further. Paul, what's an MSP? I was I do apologize. A managed service provider. Okay. You would understand

Tim Hughes [00:11:01]:

What what's an an MSC? Is that medium, small enterprise or

Paul Lloyd [00:11:08]:

obviously my dodgy accent or a or a dodgy microphone. So, yeah, so I tend to work with smaller businesses or it may be that they've got, you know, they've got a small sales team, but they don't know how to manage it or they don't know how to direct it. And so I I offer a sort of a virtual sales director type role. So sort of help and coach from the outside, some mentoring, some coaching, sometimes doing the job. So but all from a, you know, sort of a top down type of approach. I tend not to get involved in the kind of sharp end sales training because it bores

Adam Gray [00:11:52]:

me to

Paul Lloyd [00:11:52]:

some extent, I guess. But, I mean, it's it's fascinating. So I've got, you know, I've got some big clients, but generally speaking, they're quite small. So you'd understand MSP services as outsourcing. That's old people know it as outsourcing.

Rob Durant [00:12:15]:

Let's kick off today's discussion with a a foundational question. For the founder transitioning into sales, what are the key steps in transitioning from a founder to a sales focused leader?

Paul Lloyd [00:12:33]:

Mindset. Mindset. I think the the hardest part in many respects, the hardest part of what I do is to get them to start to think about achieving a number than perhaps just getting there. So, you know, when they've run they run their businesses as it is at the moment and they get recommendation referrals and if they don't get any, they're reasonably happy with it because it just grows over time. So many of them have been in business for 10 years, and they've added 3 or 4 clients a year, and now they're doing a 1,000,000 and a half or whatever it happens to be. When you start talking to them about they wanna grow and you say, well, you're gonna have a plan, and then we've got numbers and we've got to go from here and we've got to reach those numbers, which means we have to do something. And that's a concept that they don't necessarily grasp the first time.

Tracy Borreson [00:13:26]:

So, Paul, I have a question, and I might be jumping ahead because I tend to do that. But from a mindset perspective versus, like, sales skills perspective because I think a lot of people who create businesses to fill a gap in an industry may not identify as a salesperson. So in your experience, would you say it is more about the mindset and or a specific mindset or sales skills?

Paul Lloyd [00:13:54]:

I think initially, it's more of a mindset because what they've done is they've grown their business. They've and a lot of them, they've been made redundant. They've got some technical skills. They know somebody who needs some help, who's knows somebody who needs some help, and they put that together and then they go and they the first recruit tends to be an engineer, which really shouldn't be. It should be somebody in admin to do all the all the bits of work, but they take on an engineer and and they grow through recommendation referral. And then when when they then want to to grow what I would class as deliberately, so I have a tendency to sort of start looking at selling deliberately rather than waiting for it to happen to you. And and when you start that, there is there is sales process involved, but I I don't I genuinely don't think at that stage, it's a clever you know, this sort of clever sales. It's just it's a process to get them used to the idea of moving things through a pipeline, winning business, then they add their 1st salesperson and then, you know, once you get into 1 or 2 of those, then that the salespeople will need obviously need some training.

Paul Lloyd [00:15:10]:

But in terms of getting the structure right to be able to do that, it's the bit that they all miss. They just think give them a desk, give them a chair, or give them access to Google, and they'll go and bring us some business because I don't like that. So

Tim Hughes [00:15:26]:

Yeah. Is is it that many of these, leaders have probably not been in sales themselves?

Paul Lloyd [00:15:31]:

Well, that's that's the yeah. That's fundamentally the issue is that I mean, I was saying to Rob before we started, you know, certainly in the UK, sales is the job you do when you can't get a proper job. So, you know, look, a lot of these people, they're they're technical, and but and everybody can sell, Connor. You know? Everybody can sell when it's recommendation referral. And but when it comes to actually having to do it to achieve a number or, you know, whatever that is, I mean, whatever those targets are, then it's a different a different game. And and none of they haven't done it. They've they've started as techies. They've grown up through techies.

Paul Lloyd [00:16:10]:

They've probably done some presales technical support, and anybody who's been out with presales technical support people will know that they think they're doing all the job anyway.

Bertrand Godillot [00:16:21]:

Which is true.

Paul Lloyd [00:16:26]:

They all wanna be salespeople when somebody else is doing all the hard graft for them. But, you know, to actually do that themselves is a lot of them don't want to, you know, because they don't like sales. When I I spoke to a group of of, you know, these sort of small technical businesses a while ago, and they all start talking about sales recruitment. And he said, well, your biggest problem is you don't like salespeople. You don't answer the phone to salespeople. You don't do anything that you want your salespeople to be doing with other people. So you gotta get over that hurdle to start and then, you know, build a structure and a framework such that you can get salespeople to be successful with it.

Adam Gray [00:17:09]:

So when when you say they've gotta get over that hurdle, do you mean you've gotta get your salespeople to do something else that they might like that that the customer might like, or they have to just keep on ploughing on regardless, irrespective of whether the customer likes it or not?

Paul Lloyd [00:17:23]:

I think I think that you you need to be in control of the sales process. And, you know, I mean, there's lots of inevitably, there's lots of people selling lots of books with all sorts of fluffy stuff in, but fundamentally, what we need is we need people to have a constructive conversation with people with a problem. And I think, in this day and age, then we can we can do everything that we used to do in sort of 10 or 15 minutes and with the advent of social and the various softer approaches to people to find prospects, it's I don't think it's any easier. But, you know, the the tools that we're using are far more efficient. But it's consistency is the bit that they don't understand. It's the, I mean, I sat with a in a room full of these people the other evening, and and they're talking. They've all got the same problem. They they can't sell things, and they unless somebody goes and asks for it fundamentally.

Paul Lloyd [00:18:30]:

And you say, well, you need to be doing your social work. You need to be doing some emails. You need to. You need all these things to be touching people regularly. They said, well, we've done that. We've tried that, and it didn't work. How long did you try it? Well, we've done it once. We've had a LinkedIn newsletter 3 times, and nobody's phoned me and ordered anything, so that doesn't work.

Paul Lloyd [00:18:52]:

It's it's time. Your enemy is time, isn't it? I mean, you know, in the in the sales environment, your enemy is is time. So, but they don't get it because technically and they I think if you're a, you know, if you're a technically biased person and you have something that you've got doesn't work, you try and fix it. If the first thing that you do to fix it doesn't work, you don't do that same thing again, you'll try something else. If that doesn't work, you try something else. And I say to them, look. I can send an email or it could be a post on LinkedIn. I can do the same post every day and get a completely different response every single day.

Paul Lloyd [00:19:34]:

And it might not it might fall flat the first 4 days if somebody give me an order on the 5th. But it's exactly the same and that that whole concept, they don't grasp because they don't think that way. But we're psychologically at either end of the of the continuum moment.

Tracy Borreson [00:19:50]:

Well, and I think get so, Paul, I didn't cover this in my intro, but my background is marketing. So I see, like, what you're talking about with email and stuff all the time. And I think there is this is why I appreciate that you started with mindset because there's the mindset that people don't know how to do marketing or they don't know how to do sales. And so if you're going into these types of activities, then you're like, well, I'm just no good at marketing. Do I mean, it it's not gonna work. Right? The the results are going to match the mindset that you bring to that. And so I'd love to explore because I'm sure you you've had, like, different clients who've been successful with different things. So what type of things can people try, as they're going through this exercise to figure out, like, what does work for me as a founder from a sales perspective, which might be different than what works for a different founder from there.

Paul Lloyd [00:20:47]:

I think I'm not sure that it is. I think the context is different. And, you know, and and I'm I mean, I'm old and therefore fortunate that I've worked in lots of different aspects of the industry and as a consequence, then I can generally contextualize things.

Tim Hughes [00:21:05]:

And I

Paul Lloyd [00:21:05]:

think one of the problems with all the experts in the world is that there tends to be no context. So, you know, I think when you're actually going through it, there's a set of things. If you wanna build a sales team, you wanna build a sales structure, there's a few things that you need to get in place before you put salespeople in it. So, you know, some of it is marketing. I mean, I I tend to look at marketing with a small m rather than, you know, the coloring in book. So the end of it. But, so getting your sales story right and understanding where you're going to sell and and what your target market is and talking in their language and all those sorts of things have to be done. And then you plug in, you know, you plug in in the salespeople into that to give them half a chance of of being successful.

Paul Lloyd [00:21:54]:

Now there's nuances around that because if you're selling complex solutions, I mean, most of the people I deal with are selling ancillary services or managed services, which for intents and purposes, a complex solution. So, there's a little bit more involved in that rather than 50 laptops or 50 desktops or whatever it happens to be.

Rob Durant [00:22:15]:

So you mentioned a sales story. Can I ask you to tell us more what you mean about that? How can a business develop a targeted sales story and a sales process?

Paul Lloyd [00:22:27]:

The way that that I do it and is built around the sales story itself is is built around what is it, why do your clients deal with you? So, you know, if somebody says to you what do you do, you're not telling them what you do, you're telling them why people deal with you. And then looking at the pains and issues that you solve for that client. So and I've I've got a template which I want to say I stop later the big one like Weinberg, but, essentially

Tim Hughes [00:23:00]:

He doesn't watch the show, Paul.

Paul Lloyd [00:23:02]:

But he might do. He's fine on it.

Rob Durant [00:23:06]:

Touche.

Paul Lloyd [00:23:07]:

But, so so we've got I've got this structure, which is, you know, simple intro. People deal with me because so in my case, you know, IT companies deal with me when they become an accidental sales manager, and what do I offer? And series of, and then I can then from that structure, I can do an introductory email, but and it's an internal document. So if I've got people join me, I can give it to them and they can do an introductory email because they know the 4 or 5 main hang on. I don't like pain points, but, you know, the sort of issues that people have. And they know the 4 or 5, unique selling points of of your organization, but it's in the language of the client. So if you're talking to accountants, it's in the language that accountants use. If you're talking to lawyers, then it's in the language of lawyers or or whatever it happens to be so that they, you know, they resonate with you. And then everything you do across various platforms today just reflect that story.

Paul Lloyd [00:24:14]:

So if if that's tight and neat, then you're in a much better position that people are gonna be able to deliver for you because they hesitate to say they don't have to think, but they've got they've got the weapons to be able to go out and deliver on your behalf.

Tracy Borreson [00:24:30]:

Which also enables marketing to tell the same story, Alex.

Tim Hughes [00:24:34]:

Indeed. And and when you say target market, Paul, what do you what do you mean by that?

Paul Lloyd [00:24:41]:

If I was American, I'd call it a niche. And If

Tracy Borreson [00:24:46]:

you were American, you'd call it

Paul Lloyd [00:24:47]:

a niche? Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Tracy Borreson [00:24:49]:

If you're Canadian American, you'll call it a niche.

Paul Lloyd [00:24:52]:

If If I was an American, I'd call it a niche. If lots of people refer to it as a niche, I tend to look at it as a target market just simply because I can then explain it more and they haven't got a preconceived idea. But, fundamentally, it's just it's a focus, isn't it? Just having a focus on a particular area of the market. So it could be as simple as accountants. So we deal with accountants. It could be a particular, technology. So, you know, as a client at one point whose specialism was dealing with large data files, so what we then did was we we found companies that needed large data files. We built a list of 4, 500 companies that we could identify with the right size, in the right place, had the right issues, and then we just simply go to those 500 over and over again rather than than sort of spraying thousands upon thousands of people once, we've got 500 people that we'll deliver to rec on a regular basis, but actually focusing on it.

Paul Lloyd [00:26:02]:

So, you know, fortunate I I I actually won one of the first national supply agreements in the UK for the NHS. So we actually built a team selling to the NHS, and I created a I mean, I actually called it NHS Direct before there was an NHS Direct, which doesn't mean anything to anybody who's not in the UK. But we have a we have a service now in the UK called NHS Direct, and I used to have a phone number 30 years ago that was NHS Direct, and we used to do, you know, a regular email, but we could talk to them in their own language. We could talk about people that they knew, who they were within that community, And then I built a team selling to building societies, and we didn't have a building society specialism, but we had a case study and we wrote a list of all the building societies and we went and talked to them in their own language about the things that they were interested in. And it's that focus that makes it successful, takes a little bit more time.

Adam Gray [00:27:04]:

Is isn't the challenge, though, that you go to talk to somebody in their own language, but they're not listening. And the reason they're not listening is that there's a thousand other companies that want to talk to them in their own language that claim to be top quartile in performance or customer focused or absolutely put in the customer or having these unique attributes or being market leading and having case studies that look just like their company. And you're just, a, another person that's banging on the door, and they're not listening. And the challenge is getting them to listen, isn't it?

Paul Lloyd [00:27:37]:

I think so, but I don't think there are all those people that focus and do that piece of it. And lots of people talk about it, but and too many people have too broader too broader market to go to or they're doing it in a, you know, it's not home would be a good word.

Adam Gray [00:27:55]:

That that's that's certainly true. But the the challenge is that you write something which absolutely is designed to resonate with me as a insert niche niche that I'm in there. You know? So that's the person. So you write something that that that absolutely is designed to resonate with people like me. And there are loads of people in that group. You know, there's there's 6 of them on the call. So, that that's that's your target market. But the challenge is that I only know that your communication resonates with me when I've read it.

Adam Gray [00:28:27]:

And I'm not gonna read it because I'm too busy. Why the hell would I read your your thing? Because I don't, I don't know who you are. You're just another person saying words to me. You know? It's like when you go on to LinkedIn or you open your email or you go to any kind of, website that has banner advertising on it, everybody claims to have the solution to to solve your problem. And the challenge invariably is, I I like that, Rob, with you being the large image. The the the person

Tracy Borreson [00:28:56]:

who's talking, not on the screen at all.

Adam Gray [00:28:58]:

Yeah. That's a win win. It's me speaking. I know. But but the the challenge is breaking through the noise and the barriers that people have. Because, you know, Tim tried to sell me something, and he said, I am absolutely the person that can help solve this problem. And then 10 minutes later, I had Alex phoning me up. And Alex said, I'm the person that can solve your problem, and I'm better than all of my competitors.

Adam Gray [00:29:18]:

And then I had a call from Bertrand, and Bertrand said, I can solve your and, actually, everyone's saying the same thing and this this this commoditized value. No salesperson ever reaches out and says, we're 2nd best. We're a little bit slow. We're not always dependable, and we're a bit expensive. Every salesperson says they're market leading and best, and they can dress it in the words that resonate with me. But isn't the challenge today to be in in an environment where there's a 1000 people selling what appears to be the same service. And it may be that it's a different service, but I'm not sophisticated enough to know whether your product is better than Alex's. Isn't the challenge to get me to consume your content these days?

Paul Lloyd [00:29:58]:

I I mean, I guess so. But I think if you're if you're building your profile and you're getting the right things in the right place, then, you know, if you're lucky, they're coming to you. But when it comes down to it, I'm not gonna approach you and say I'm the best. I'm gonna approach you and say that my understanding from the research I've done around you is you have these following issues. We've got things that fix that, so let's have a sensible conversation. But that's not gonna be the first time I call, And that's gonna be built up over over a period of time by using all of the various tools and approaches that I've got available to me. Now, you know, when I started then when I started in enterprise sales, so my niche was 12 accounts. I had a target list of 12 accounts, and my job was to sell to them.

Paul Lloyd [00:30:53]:

Not 13, 12. And, you know, most of those have got suppliers, and you you built a reputation. So you would speak to them. You'd go to events where they were at. You would you'd you'd be in a position where you had to do research around them. You'd speak to their vendors. You'd and from time to time, I'd clip things out of the Sunday Times business page and stick it on a compliment slip and print an envelope. So all those sorts of things, I would be doing all the time and that would take me days.

Paul Lloyd [00:31:25]:

I can do all that now in 15 minutes, but when I talk to you, I'd know so much about you that if I've done that work, then you are gonna relate to me because I'm saying the right things, and people wanna buy from people who like them, don't they? You know?

Tim Hughes [00:31:42]:

Oh, I

Adam Gray [00:31:43]:

that that's that's the point that I'm driving at. The point is that

Paul Lloyd [00:31:46]:

Oh, totally right. You know?

Tim Hughes [00:31:49]:

No. But but but the

Adam Gray [00:31:50]:

point is that in a in a world where everything is commoditized So, you know, we work with some very large tech vendors, and they would be the first to admit that their product is not differentiated from their competitor's product in the marketplace. So, you know, some of them have got a blue button. Some have got a red button. Some have got a green button, but they've all got a button, and it does ostensibly the same thing. And the challenge that they have is that they they add bolt ons. They add new functionality. They add new connectors, as does everybody else. And it's a race to know why, particularly because in most cases, the customer is relatively unsophisticated in terms of what it is that they're buying.

Adam Gray [00:32:29]:

That's why they're buying from you rather than rather than building it themselves. Certainly, they don't understand the minutiae. You know, the mistake that everybody that's a specialist in something thinks is that the thing that people are buying is the little veneer of brilliance that they have over and above everyone else. And, actually, it's often not the case. And the only differentiator is you.

Paul Lloyd [00:32:52]:

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's right. But vendors aren't very good at selling things. I mean, the the problem with vendors, and and obviously some vendors deal directly with their end users, but in my experience of vendors through largely indirect sales is that they've got to sell product and clients buy outcomes. Somebody in the middle has to translate has to translate the product into an outcome and, you know, the vendors have to sell more and more and more products. They're not really interested in what the end user's using them for and why is they're buying them.

Adam Gray [00:33:29]:

That's that's true.

Paul Lloyd [00:33:31]:

So What

Tracy Borreson [00:33:32]:

one of the things I always think about I'm a big fan of farmers markets, and so I think about, like, going to a farmers market, and there's tons of vendors. And there's vendors selling lots of different things, but there's also lots of vendors selling the same things. Right? So if you go to a farmer's market, there's probably multiple people selling fruit or multiple people selling honey or multiple people selling what you sell. Sometimes you get the artisans that can craft something that's pretty unique, but, generally, there's someone who's selling pretty much the same jewelry as the person right across the way. But there's, like, something else. There's, like, something that draws you to a specific booth. And, Paul, you like Honey. And so maybe you are drawn to, like, the Honey Booze, maybe to buy Vogue, maybe even just to, like, assess, like, well, like, what are they doing that I'm not doing? Or, like, how are we competitive? But, like, we all as individual consumers have that experience that we are going to resonate with specific people selling specific things, and we are not going to resonate with other people.

Tracy Borreson [00:34:33]:

So one of the things because we're kind of talking around this point a bit, but I would I'd love to just talk briefly about the concept of almost like if you are Farmers Market booth, like, inviting people in versus, like, persuading people to buy. Right? Because I think, like, if I don't like honey, doesn't matter how hard you push away me to buy honey. I'm not gonna buy honey. I don't want honey. I actually really like honey. It's a bad example. But, like, you can't convince me. You can't convince me to come and taste your jerky if I'm a vegetarian.

Paul Lloyd [00:35:10]:

But what you have to do then is you've got to present it in a way that resonates with you, which is essentially, you know, I I guess is what I'm saying here, isn't it? Is that your language has to address your target market. So if your target market is, again, you know, use accounts as an example, then you've got if you're using an accountant language, then you're putting out things there that are benefits. So, I mean, I'm not sure he's a good example necessarily, but I'm doing something with the clients at the moment where, you know, everybody's talking about AI and everybody's talking about copilot and all these things, but nobody's talking about what he does. But then if it is, it's all AI, AI, AI. Everybody's got something now, and so we've recently done a video with you do these jobs. There's a list of long and hard sort of boring jobs that accountants do. So you're doing this. You can't be happy doing that.

Paul Lloyd [00:36:06]:

So why, you know, we can use Copilot to make it look like this and make those jobs go away. That's an outcome. Now if you see that, then you're more likely to come across, you know, to us rather than the kind of Microsoft by Copilot go by Copilot. And and, you know, if if you're selling Honey, it attracts a certain demographic or ladies rather than gentlemen or, you know, whatever it happens to be, but it's having the words to attract the market that you want to be rather than trying to be all things to all people. Can I pick up on some

Tim Hughes [00:36:43]:

of the, some of the comments, please? Please do. Yeah. So, Nikki Russell says, for me, sales was about overcoming objections. Samira says, hi, everyone. I hope I got the message correctly. I just joined to your event. I was sales manager for 10 years. And in my opinion, the crucial factor in sales is trust and believing on what you sell.

Tim Hughes [00:37:08]:

And she goes on to say, if they don't even listen means they don't trust us. And she also says and also information and knowledge in the area we are active on is crucial. We have to know the products in our field so they listen to us. After all, they noticed we are knowledgeable. And Nikki comes back and says, it's it's more about building a trusting relationship. You are partnering with them not being transactional. If you know that they are going to be by your side, grinding with them until they reach success, they are more open to connecting further for business purposes. That's why with sales, it's a process with multiple outreach messages or referral and recommend recommendations.

Tracy Borreson [00:37:52]:

Thank you. There's, like, a theme in almost all of those that I'd like to pick up that I'd love to hear your thoughts on, Paul, is this creation of trust before the creation of, like, a trusted adviser. Right? So I think a lot of times salespeople are like, yeah, I know this and I know it more than you. Right? You should trust me because I know it more than you. And we show up, and from a marketing perspective, a lot of this is about educating. I'm using air quotes for those people who are listening on the radio. Educating people on, like, what we do and how they need to fix their problem. But I I think this trust component comes first.

Tracy Borreson [00:38:29]:

So and at the beginning, we were gonna talk about, like, referrals and things like that, and all of that's trust based relationships. So what are some things people can do to create this trust so that people listen to them so that they know they are knowledgeable and can help them fix the problem.

Paul Lloyd [00:38:45]:

There's a lot of that. I mean, in this day and age, a lot of that comes from your, you know, your social proof and you and you show some social media presence and and people being able to learn so much about you as a company or as an individual before you get to that stage, and listen. Just listen. The the I think I guess from a sales perspective, often there's an arrogance in terms of I'm gonna tell you rather than I'm gonna listen. But I think in this day and age, you know, the world I think the world's turned a bit and people have problems. They can do lots of research for themselves. You listen to what they've got to say, and and if they're right, they're right. You know, if they need some help, they need some help.

Paul Lloyd [00:39:31]:

But I think it it it becomes a it's a two way street, isn't it? No. In the fifties, we would have wanted a bang, you know, sort of bang things out and close it off today. We want an ongoing relationship with people. So we've got to do it properly, and we've got to be honest and upfront and and look for social proof. The recommendation the process of a recommendation is somebody comes to me and says, who do you use to do your IT support? So the first thing they would do is they make a judgment on my ability to actually make a referral. So if I've referred somebody who's naffed in the past, then they're not gonna wanna do that. But then they've all they have a requirement because otherwise they wouldn't be asking for a referral. So when he gets as far as the as the client or the the company that I'd refer them to, they've got some social proof because I recommended them.

Paul Lloyd [00:40:33]:

They've, they know that the the prospect has a requirement because, otherwise, they wouldn't have been asking, and they're halfway there. So our job, from a our our telling point of view, is to get is to get to that stage. So that's its information, its relevant information that it's delivering and and being that for my from to my mind, it's going the extra mile and and getting people to rely on trust people will trust, you know, if you earn it, don't they? I mean, that's

Alex Abbott [00:41:10]:

the impression founders, are really good at building trust because they've got deep knowledge and, you know, they they have something of value to say. And when they open their mouth, especially if they've been been doing the thing that they do for for many years. You know, they're they're talking to their target audience and their target audience is kind of, you know, interested in in what they have to say, but then that challenge is scaling the business from

Paul Lloyd [00:41:43]:

They're also very passionate about it. Now if you can't sell your own business and and it's passion and it's excitement and it's you know, every client that you've got, you know, everything you've done for them, you know, all the reasons that they deal with you. You've got your 4 AM story. You know, it's what is it? It's quarter 3 on a Friday afternoon, and my major client phoned me because everything had gone down. We were all looking forward to go to the pub at 5 o'clock. The sun was shining, but everybody took their jackets off. And we worked all weekend, and we got it all up and running, and everybody was happy. And all those all those sorts of things that are what I try and get them then to kind of bottle and be able to pass on to people that join them because nobody's gonna sell with the same level of passion in your business as you do.

Alex Abbott [00:42:31]:

No. And then the the challenge, that chasm that they have to cross, I think listening to some of the conversation about messaging and then arming other people, let's say salespeople with that message, they don't have the same level of passion as the founder. And so if you think about how things have changed over the years and to to Adam's point, is tapping into an individual's personality and their authenticity that is gonna open the door. And I think listening to some of the comments or reading some of the comments here from Nikki and Samira, it's it's that trust, isn't it? And

Tracy Borreson [00:43:15]:

and But I think this is also interesting, Alex, because if a founder can speak very passionately about the business and why it exists, and I think that also while a salesperson is, like, now an arms reach, right, they're not the creator of that. But I think when we have the opportunity to share that kind of story, it allows us to attract salespeople who are more aligned. And therefore, those, like, differences in the personal brands are act end up not being as scary because you're like, okay. Well, this person is equally bought into what we're doing here. They're gonna go out and sell it. They're gonna go out and sell it their way. I, as the founder, I'm gonna go out and sell it my way. But these two ways are compatible and they build a funnel together.

Tracy Borreson [00:44:03]:

And I think that's one of the greatest opportunities, about this sales story is that we we're aligned on it. Doesn't sound identical, but we can attract the right sales resources as well.

Alex Abbott [00:44:19]:

Mhmm. Yeah. Same level meaning, I think. It's gonna mean something to that individual. Right. Yeah.

Tracy Borreson [00:44:24]:

Yeah. And I I can't remember which of the comments had mentioned it, but, like, I think it was Samira saying you have to believe in what you're selling. And I and I've I've seen that happen from a, like, sales hiring perspective is you get somebody who has 20 years of experience in sales, but they are used to selling heavy equipment. And now they're selling software as a service, and they're not passionate about the solution. So can they sell? Absolutely. They can sell. They have a huge great track record of selling. But selling something you care about or you have deep knowledge in is different than selling something to sell something.

Rob Durant [00:45:00]:

Tracy, you said something profound there, and I don't know that you realized it. They have to be passionate about the their solution. They don't have to be passionate about their construction services or their IT services or their waste management services. I mean, really, when you think about it, I would have a hard time being passionate about waste management. But I could absolutely be passionate about the desired end state that I can deliver to my customers through whatever solution it is I'm presenting. And I think that's what gets lost with salespeople in general, and I would dare venture to say founders in particular. Paul, what is your experience with technical founders in that regard?

Paul Lloyd [00:45:56]:

I think I mean, I agree with you. When it comes down to it, it's all about an outcome. People are buying outcomes, and the the the difficulty with the sort of the more technical founder is they're selling technology because that's what they know. So they'll, you know, they'll spurt out language. I mean, I've done this for 30 years, and I sat down with the, in a workshop a couple of weeks ago with somebody. We looked at the sales story, and I said, so now what do you do? And this bloke talked at me for about 4 minutes, and I didn't understand a word he said. And now when I'm saying, well, if I don't understand it, you can bet your life, you know, your your end users don't understand it. So it's using that language.

Paul Lloyd [00:46:37]:

But and because they think they know it, then in memory cases, they're not prepared to listen. They're telling because this is what I've done and this is my, you know, this is my service, my product, and this is what you're gonna have. So, you know, there's an education piece in that in terms of just getting them to understand that people are buying outcomes. The old adage of people buy from people, but, fundamentally, they're buying outcomes and listen to what people are saying because they may or may not be wrong. But listen and then then explain and take a little time and trouble, to explain because the more you do that, the more you become a trusted adviser. Now the more that you listen and the more sort of effort you put into it. But it, you know, again, it it comes down to that mindset, doesn't it? I mean, to some extent, it's you know, we all buy outcome. When I started in it, people would buy new kit if there was a new processor because they wanted it to be a bit quicker.

Paul Lloyd [00:47:40]:

They want they wanted something. But today, it's not like that. We all have issues, and we've all got problems, pains within the businesses. How do we make those go away is is the outcome, and every one of those is slightly different.

Rob Durant [00:47:57]:

The word that comes to mind as you were describing that is empathy. Mhmm. Is, technical prowess compatible with empathy?

Paul Lloyd [00:48:10]:

I think it depends who you're selling to. If, you know, if you're selling to IT directors or heavily technical people, then obviously you can have empathy. With normal people, it it's more difficult. It has to be I suppose it has to be learned in some respects. One of one of

Bertrand Godillot [00:48:32]:

the things that, I think was really good, at least, you know, strikes me is is, obviously, we buy outcome. I agree with that. But at the same time, it seems this is more and more customers are looking for a sales rep free process. So I think, you know, before you you get the opportunity to actually serve the outcome, you first need to be allowed to. Yeah. I I think,

Tracy Borreson [00:49:06]:

also, like, something there. I've been thinking about this for a long time, is that why? So people are being pulled. Lots of people are saying they don't wanna talk to a sales rep until 70, whatever, wade through the process. But, like, why is that? And, like, because there's things that I buy. Like, I will not buy a car without talking to a salesman. Right? Like, I wanna talk to a person who knows more about the car than I do, then I'm gonna test drive it, then there's a further process. But there's things we always buy with reps. And there are people who are even in the digital space who use a trusted adviser And they may not know that they're like, they may not identify them as a salesperson at that point, but we use trusted advisers to build our knowledge and to make decisions.

Tracy Borreson [00:49:54]:

And so I think this is it's just an interesting phenomenon, and then I would love to hear Paul answer Bertrand's question. But I I think partially that's because we've had salespeople doing really sketchy activities that aren't adding value for people. So if we have salespeople who are not doing those things but instead are doing meaningful things that are helping people, then I don't think people mind dealing with

Adam Gray [00:50:21]:

And and

Bertrand Godillot [00:50:21]:

to be honest, that way, the second part of the question is, you know, what's the role of artificial intelligence, which seems to be, you know, spreading all over the the sales process. So, Paul, what's what's your take?

Rob Durant [00:50:35]:

I think

Paul Lloyd [00:50:37]:

I think Tracy's hit you on the head there with adding value. People will meet you. People will talk to you if you're adding value. If all you're doing is going in and asking them questions about themselves and hunting products, then that has no real value. So, you know, they're avoiding conversations with with the sales team because it's not adding any value. If we're very busy, you know, if you've got when I was important, you know, I had I had quite a large job with lots of people. I haven't got time to talk to idiot salespeople that wanted to spend 20 minutes having me tell them about my business because I wanted them to come in and tell me about my business and how they could help me. And so, you know, if if you're not adding value, you're at cost.

Paul Lloyd [00:51:22]:

And I think in a lot of cases, people are looking at driving those costs there. Now, you know, in terms of artificial intelligence, some of the some of the processes will go. But, you know, we have to adapt what we're doing to add that value in that process and hope that that's it's content, it's advice, it's webinars with education. It's it's a whole raft of things to be able to help them make that decision. And if you can't help them so if, you know, let's be fair, if you wanted to buy 15 laptops this afternoon, you'd go on the Internet and you'd find the cheapest price of 50 laptops. Nobody could a salesperson's not gonna add any value to that if you know what you want. But if you wanted them connected to a network in 50 different places around the world, that becomes a different a different proposition. And so it's really structured in the whole thing to address your market and the people that people that you would like to buy your buy your stuff.

Paul Lloyd [00:52:29]:

But it's I don't I genuinely don't think it's like it was 20 years ago when you had to drive constantly driving it out because we are in a world where people are looking. And just because they think they know what they want doesn't actually mean that they do know what they want when they get as far as you. So if you, you know, if you know your market, if you know the the problems and the issues that you solve and you can have a sensible conversation, then you're more of the way there, aren't you?

Tracy Borreson [00:53:01]:

Paul, I have a kind of a a little bit different question just to sneak in at the end here

Rob Durant [00:53:05]:

because Sorry, Tracy. I I we're running out of time.

Tracy Borreson [00:53:09]:

I know. Well, it's I think it will be quick. I think it will be quick because I think it's gonna be a one word answer. That's why I'm sneaking in. So for people who have been in a sales role and have created their own business and now have to go back into a sales role, but maybe they have different sales structures or different sales strategies because they were doing what someone else told them to before, and now they can do their own thing. Do you have any quick advice for those people in terms of refraining sales for themselves?

Paul Lloyd [00:53:39]:

I think it's quite difficult for anybody that has worked in a in a company with structures to go out and start by themselves. But I think, you know, it would always for me, it would always be build build your framework, build your process, get all of your sort of collateral in terms of standard emails and content and everything ready and case studies and all that stuff ready so that you've got all the answers when you're when you're out in the field talking. And obviously, get we're all doing an element of marketing, aren't we, these things? So that that's important, and and it is different to it was 10 years ago. So if you're doing exactly the same as you were 10 years ago, then you're likely is not not gonna be moving forward.

Rob Durant [00:54:30]:

Rob, well, this has been great. Thank you so much. How can people learn more? How can they get in touch with you?

Paul Lloyd [00:54:36]:

They can find me on LinkedIn. So Lloyd. My website is sellerly.co.uk, and, like, you know, people wanna email me, it's just paul@celerley.co.uk. So I make it as easy as I possibly can. In the UK, I would be disappointed if I didn't come up. If you put Paul Lloyd into LinkedIn and I wasn't the first one, if you're in the IT world, I would be very disappointed.

Rob Durant [00:55:05]:

But Got it.

Paul Lloyd [00:55:07]:

I do put a lot of effort into that.

Rob Durant [00:55:11]:

We now have a newsletter. Don't miss an episode. Get show highlights beyond the show insights and reminders of upcoming episodes. Scan the QR code on screen or visit us at digital download dot live and click on newsletter. On behalf of pardon?

Alex Abbott [00:55:33]:

Sorry. Just to confirm, you were the first one. I just typed your name into LinkedIn.

Adam Gray [00:55:38]:

I'm sorry to die. Andy was. Yes.

Rob Durant [00:55:41]:

There we go. On behalf of the panelists, to our guests, to our audience, thank you all, and we'll see you next time on the digital download.

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