This week on The Digital Download, we are dismantling one of the most persistent myths in sales: that the way to influence a deal early is to pick up the phone and interrupt someone.

We all know the statistic: buyers complete a massive portion of their journey before ever speaking to a salesperson. So, how do you engage early? The traditional answer is "cold outreach". The modern answer is "don't".

I am joined by my co-hosts Tim Hughes and Adam Gray, along with our expert panelists Richard Jones and Tracy Borreson, to discuss why engaging early in the Digital Age is impossible if your approach is cold.

Richard Jones notes that "by the time sales teams show up, decisions are often 80% made" , proving that traditional pipeline building has "run its course". Tim Hughes backs this up with data showing cold calling and email marketing now see a "98% failure rate".

If you can't interrupt your way in, you have to be invited in. Adam Gray argues this requires a strategy built on "inevitability rather than luck" , where you cut through the noise not by shouting louder, but by forging "truly meaningful connections". Tracy Borreson adds that sales is broken because we treat people as targets rather than humans , and true engagement comes from "authenticity".

Join us as we discuss:

* Why does "cold" outreach actually force you into the end of the buying cycle, rather than the beginning?

* If decisions are 60% made before we arrive, how do we influence that 60% without cold calling?

* How do you build a digital presence that ensures you are the "inevitable" choice?

* What does "engaging early" look like when it is based on "authenticity" and "trust" rather than a script?

* How do you shift from hunting for leads to attracting a community?

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

This week's Host was -

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

Panelists included -

• Tim Hughes, Co-founder and CEO of DLA Ignite

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of DLA Ignite

Transcript of The Digital Download 2025-11-21

Bertrand Godillot [00:00:08]:

Good afternoon, good morning 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 tuning radio through IBGR, the world's number one business talk news and strategy radio network. Today on the Digital Download, we are dismantling one of the most persistent myths in sales that the way to influence a deal early is to pick up the phone and interrupt someone. For this very special edition, I'm joined by Tim Hughes and Adam Gray to discuss why engaging early in the digital age is impossible if your approach is cold. But before we get we kick off the discussion, let's go around the set and introduce you gentlemen. While we're doing this, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend, ping them, and of them join us. We strive to make the Digital Download an interactive experience and audience participation, as you all know, is very much appreciated.

Bertrand Godillot [00:01:22]:

Tim, do you want to kick us off, please?

Tim Hughes [00:01:24]:

Yes. Thank you very much. Welcome to our small little podcast that we've been running now since 2021. My name is Tim Hughes. I'm the CEO and co founder of the LA IG Ignite and I'm also famous for writing the book Social Techniques to Influence Buyers and Change Makers.

Bertrand Godillot [00:01:44]:

Excellent. Thank you, Tim.

Adam Gray [00:01:46]:

Adam. Hi everybody, I'm Adam Gray. I'm Tim's business partner and co founder of DLA Ignite. And I love the intro. Patron. The, the whole kind of the best way to influence the deal early is to interrupt somebody. And when you said it like that, it's like, okay, well we can just, we can just finish the show now because that, that is the reality of it, isn't it? You know, we, none of us like that.

Bertrand Godillot [00:02:09]:

Yeah. But indeed it is a reality. So what I'll do is I'll start with a financial question, as always. And so here we go. Why does cold outreach actually force you into the end of the buying cycle rather than at the beginning?

Tim Hughes [00:02:32]:

I think it's a great question, Bertram, and thank you for setting this up and organizing it. Well, if you look at the, the six Sense data that was released, it was Monday of this week, wasn't it? And if you're not aware of it, you need to check it out. Kerry Cunningham is the person that you need to look for on, on LinkedIn and the Six Sense report. It's a great reminder because it's actually quite similar to the report they produced last year of, of the way that people buy. And it shouldn't actually surprise us because we're all buyers ourselves and we all know that we hate being rung up, we all know that we hate having spam emails sent to us. But then we get into our work suits and seem to think it's okay to do it to other people. And I've seen all kinds of conversations about it on, on LinkedIn this week about how, you know, you need to lead with value, which is, which is a meaningless statement because value, the word value is, means different from what you think is value. And what I think is value is very different.

Tim Hughes [00:03:46]:

And the other thing is that what marketers think is value is actually buy my product because we're great. Which, which is again, you know, the only, the only reason that I'm going to listen to that message is if I'm in market. So we have this situation, if you look at the six sense report, which is that we have now what they call a two phase buying journey, which is the classic thing that we always have talked about forever is that we have 95% of people are outer market and 5% of people are in market. It's about 5, it could be 4.

Adam Gray [00:04:26]:

It could be 6.

Tim Hughes [00:04:28]:

And now what they have is this two phase buying journey which is that in fact people are going through a buying process where they are looking for a product or service but they don't see themselves as in market. So if you phone them up and say do you want to buy my product? Do you want a demo? They say no. And the reason for that is that they know the moment they say yes, they're a piece of meat in a CRM and you're going to phone them every week or every month saying are you going to buy? Are you going to buy? So you won't actually announce that you're in market as a buyer until you're probably in the process or close to of actually making a decision. Now there's other details about that which I don't want to go to because I could take up the whole show talking about the $0.06 report. But, but that, what it, what to answer your question, when you're cold calling, what that does is it forces you down towards the, the decision. Whereas the way that people buy now is that what people are doing is that they're making, they're making their decisions without salespeople. They're coming up with a short list and what's the. And, and so they're contacting sales, the salespeople in the, the, they're contacting salespeople about 60 70% of the way through the buying process.

Tim Hughes [00:05:56]:

And the short list that they're creating, correct me if I'm wrong, Adam, they buy from 80% of it. They already know the people.

Adam Gray [00:06:05]:

Yeah. So 80. 80% of the time the buyer that they ultimately select is in the shortlist that they have compiled. Yeah, sorry, that's right. 80% of the time, the buyer they buy from is the person that's number one on the shortlist they've compiled. 95% of the time, the buyer they buy from is within the shortlist of four, average of 4.65 companies.

Tim Hughes [00:06:31]:

So the, so the only way that you can get on a buying list is to influence the sale early on. And to do that, you need to have. I'm just going to spell this out. To do this, you need to have a relationship with the buyer and the buyer would need to trust you. Now, I'm happy for someone to come on and say, I've bought a BMW from a salesperson I didn't trust, but that's only because BMW are a trusted brand and I trusted the brand rather than the salesperson. But in most cases, what you will do, what people are doing, is that they're buying from people that they know like and trust. And that's what the Six Sense Report says.

Bertrand Godillot [00:07:11]:

So let me pick this one up because you said so. There are basically two phases and I, to be honest, I, I behave this way as well. I mean, when I'm on, when I'm on market. When I'm on market, stage one, I will never confess that I'm actually on market.

Tim Hughes [00:07:26]:

Yeah.

Bertrand Godillot [00:07:27]:

For obvious reasons that you mentioned, I don't want to be submitting CRM. No, that's clear. And I don't want to get a call every week on this. That's, that's pretty obvious. But then how do you build a backline?

Adam Gray [00:07:44]:

Well, this is a really interesting thing. So one of the things that I thought was absolutely shocking from the Six Sense report was that the buyer makes a list of people that they want to put on their short list. Typically that's around 5, just less than 5 potential providers. However, they may well take presentations from significantly more than five. So just because you are, you are getting the opportunity to present to the client, that doesn't mean that you're in the 95% of people that are going to be chosen. But one of the things that Kerry said, which I thought was remarkable, is the first question you should ask always when you, you're getting a conversation with a client is have you Found anybody else already?

Bertrand Godillot [00:08:40]:

Yeah.

Tim Hughes [00:08:40]:

Who or who else are you talking to?

Adam Gray [00:08:42]:

Yeah, but, but have you found anyone else already? Because the people you know, who's number one, who, who's your first choice of companies that you want to do business with and those are the people that you inevitably phone first. So if you are not the first person they're phoning, there's only a 20% chance that you will win the deal even if you are on the short list. So I think that that's quite telling. But what he said, which I thought was remarkable, which actually means that the entire go to market of most organizations is wrong, is that if you get the opportunity to present, you might be on the short list next time if they have liked you. Now the challenge that most large organizations have is that they reshuffle. They go to market in their territories every single year. So if you've got an 18 month buy cycle for the product that you're selling, you go to market, you say to somebody, here's your territory. The person goes out, they start to develop, Tim's already said how important relationships are they going to develop relationships with their target market.

Adam Gray [00:09:50]:

They're getting within sight of the deal starting to happen and they get moved to a different territory. So the next person comes in and the next time it's Bertrand, he has to go and then start to build relationships. And so I think what this tells us is that smart go to market means that you put reps in a territory for a long period of time, give them the opportunity to build meaningful relationships with people over an extended period of time. And secondly, if you get the opportunity to present to an organization, it's absolutely crucial that you take that opportunity. Even if you think there's no chance of you winning the deal because you weren't first or even in the chosen suppliers because you may be next time. And for most people, you know, they, they stay within organizations. You were in Oracle for 10 years, you were in Oracle patron for, for 15 years. So at the end of the day, you know, there is a, the opportunity for you to set up the future for you, your territory and, and your organization.

Adam Gray [00:10:51]:

But it requires long term thinking. You said Tim, about how you need to be build meaningful relationships that doesn't happen overnight. Yeah, you can luck out and you can be in the right place at the right time. Of course you can. And the more stuff you do, particularly on social, you know, you connect to a diverse range of people in a diverse series of accounts within your, your territory. And the harder I practice the luckier I get, the more people you connect to, the more people you have the chance of being in the right place with. Unlike cold outreach, you also get the opportunity to fold them into your cold content so that you can build relationships over time with those people. So if they're not in market now, they might be in market in 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, at some point in the foreseeable future.

Adam Gray [00:11:33]:

And you've already got a relationship with them which is developing. But I think most importantly, it gives you the opportunity to, to, to start to plan a future. But, but this whole idea of cold outreach, you know, you said it yourself at the beginning, Bertrand, you know, how's, how's interrupting people attractive? You didn't phrase it quite like that, but that's the gist of it because we all know I, I got cold called just the other day by somebody from Vodafone, but from a Vodafone reseller, saying, we can offer you the best business tariff. And not only did I feel interrupted, they were really aggressive. I felt really awkward with the conversation. I was trying to get the phone down, you know, okay, thank you. Thank you. So that.

Adam Gray [00:12:22]:

Because it was just, it was just a horrible, horrible experience. If you're trying to build a relationship, that is no way to start the relationship, is it?

Bertrand Godillot [00:12:31]:

Well, back in the 80s, I'm always very cautious with the people I have on the phone because back in the 80s, I was doing that myself as a student to, to, to, to. To. To get a bit of, A bit of cash. So I know what it feels to be on the phone.

Tim Hughes [00:12:50]:

When I started my sales career, but in the 80s, I was cold calling, but the market was different because actually people took your call because they were interested in, in, in. There was, you could, There wasn't an infinite amount of information. You know, if, if I want to find out, I was, you know, my first sales job was selling payroll and hr, as it's called systems now. But, and so you now, if you wanted to go and find out what's the latest thing in payroll and hr, you just go onto the Internet and find it.

Adam Gray [00:13:20]:

Yeah, in those days, there was no way.

Tim Hughes [00:13:22]:

Well, there was no way. So I bring people up and say, you know, did you know we can now do this? Oh, wow. I didn't know you can do that. Explain to me how it works. You could have, you could have long conversations with people because they were generally interested. But I mean, I saw something recently where someone was being really pleased because they spammed out our load of stuff and had so much reaction because of an event. And I pointed out the only people people go to events generally are people that are in markets. So the fact that you've got conversations with them means you've got a problem with your salesforce because they're not having.

Tim Hughes [00:14:01]:

Because the, if, if they're in market, your salesforce should be talking to them.

Adam Gray [00:14:07]:

Yeah, but by the time you hope to discover them, it's too late, isn't it? They've made it.

Tim Hughes [00:14:10]:

Yeah, but, but, but, but I would, I also would point out that when I was, when I started selling in the 80s, everybody said you need to engage really early.

Adam Gray [00:14:23]:

So nothing's changed, really, has it?

Tim Hughes [00:14:24]:

So actually nothing has changed.

Bertrand Godillot [00:14:28]:

The way we engage early has changed. Or is there a way that we can engage early without being, you know.

Tim Hughes [00:14:35]:

Well, I, I had a, I had a discussion with somebody because, on, on, on LinkedIn, because they had, they said that their conclusion from the Six Sense report was the fact that what we now find is that, that buyers are contacting salespeople when they're. So last year was 70%. Now it's actually 60% of the way through the buying process. So his reaction to that was what you need to do is you need to spend a whole load of money on brand marketing. Well, but what.

Adam Gray [00:15:12]:

Profoundly wrong. But it is.

Tim Hughes [00:15:13]:

I mean, I mean, if, if you want a strategy based on luck that someone's gonna possibly see you, then. Yes, but I'm, I'm not sure that CEOs want strategies based on luck. I think they want strategies based on known process and, and, and known outcome. So it was like, you know, you know, you know, so, so I asked him. So, so these, these buyers. So say somebody is, it's a, the company has 10,000 employees. They're going to change their payroll system. That is a massive change program that's going to require millions of pounds.

Tim Hughes [00:15:53]:

A buyer is not. While a buyer may sit in a room and say, do you know our payroll systems? It's creaking at the seams. We've, we've done a whole bunch of mergers and acquisitions and we need to probably drop some of those payroll systems. And we've now got a, a plant in, in Argentina. And, and, and so we need to have somehow have some sort of, you know, global view on this. There will be somebody somewhere that is, will have advised them. Now, that may have come from a Boston Consulting McKinsey, PwC, Accenture, but also it could come from a salesperson, a salesman, because, because when I talk about Boston McKinsey Essentia, Tata Consulting, they are all in the realms of being trusted advisors. And there's nothing to say that a salesperson who is selling payroll systems, who understand the, the payroll market hasn't actually said, look, I've been looking at your company, I've done some research.

Tim Hughes [00:16:59]:

I know you've done a whole load of M and A. You must be. Your, your payroll systems must be creaking, it seems. Have you thought about it?

Adam Gray [00:17:06]:

Oh, no, we haven't.

Tim Hughes [00:17:07]:

What would that mean? And, and so from day one, from a sales perspective. So, so for example, one of the, one of the sales people at Salesforce that we've trained, this is so here in the UK nowadays, if, when you, when you get a passport, it's really, really easy. All you have to do is actually take a photo with your iPhone or you can actually use the photo that's on your driving license, which is a completely different government department. Or you can go to Tesco's, one of the supermarkets here, and you can go and sit in a booth and have your photo taken and there's a QR code that will automatically upload your, your photo. Where did that come from? That all comes from the fact that that salesperson from Salesforce went to those departments and said, you know, it's really at the moment trying to get a passport. And he went to the passport office and they said, what could we do about it? He said, well, if you buy Mulesoft from Salesforce, you're already a Salesforce customer, then what you're able to do is you're able to connect all these bits of piece. Bits of piece. And they said, that's amazing.

Tim Hughes [00:18:24]:

How do we buy it?

Adam Gray [00:18:25]:

So it's easy.

Tim Hughes [00:18:25]:

Just, just sign this form.

Adam Gray [00:18:26]:

Okay, let's do that.

Bertrand Godillot [00:18:29]:

But that, that, that comes, that, that is leading with value. Right, but that comes with the conversation.

Tim Hughes [00:18:35]:

It is, but he, but yeah, it is, but he basically, he came up with that idea and, and he went to those people and, and suggested it. Now he keeps being told. So he keep what? He keeps being asked, how, how do you, how did you, how. When did the people ring you?

Adam Gray [00:18:53]:

He said, no, they didn't ring me.

Tim Hughes [00:18:54]:

I created it myself. And, and so, so, so my, my, you know when people are saying we need to spend a whole load of money on, on marketing. Yeah, but you could actually spend a whole bunch of money on a Salesforce that will go out and create this for you.

Adam Gray [00:19:09]:

But I think that's the key point, isn't it, that, that when, when you look at marketing material Brand marketing material. What you see is, is a whole bunch of stuff which is saying the same thing. You know, in fact, I was recently looking at an Instagram feed from a, a funny company that, that do presentations to demonstrate the, the, the sort of stupidity of this. And one of them said if, if you write a mission statement, you need to say the customer is at the very heart of what we do. And that was ba said that they said the customer is the center of what we do is what HSBC says. And the customer is at the very heart of everything we do is what RBS says. And O2 business says the customer is the heart of everything we do. And it's like all of these people are saying exactly the same things using exactly the same words because they sound nice.

Adam Gray [00:20:10]:

And it's like this commoditized thing that everybody goes, oh, I want to be at the center of this. And the reality is that very rarely do people choose things from reading a brochure, particularly more complex things. And you said, Tim, about the fact that the point at which the buyer engages with the seller has moved from 70% to like 61% or whatever it is this year. Well, the reason for that is because, well, you need to spend more on brand marketing. Well, you could draw that conclusion, but that would be profoundly wrong because the reason is that the customer's already made their list. They've spoken to salespeople, they've been out into all, they've used AI to say what are the top five CRM systems or whatever I should use? They've made the list. The reality of this is it doesn't matter whether it's 60% or 70% or 80% or 50%. By the time you know that there is a deal, it is probably too late for you to be able to influence that deal.

Adam Gray [00:21:12]:

And, and that's why my last comment about GTMs being fundamentally broken, this idea that, that I need to qualify you in or out is, is a very, very dangerous and short sighted thing to do because Tim is not in market to buy one of these today, but he might be in market tomorrow. So if I ask him today, are you in market? And he says no, that's it. Okay, well, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. Whereas what we should be trying to do is to get as many people that fit our ICP within the orbit of what we say in order that we, we know that if they are our icp, we need some of those people to have a conversation with us. So we want that number to Be as big as it can possibly be. It's not rocket science really, but what people do need is a vehicle to do that, don't they?

Bertrand Godillot [00:22:02]:

And you know, that's a little bit of the question mark, to be honest. So how do you make that happen? So how do you make the shift from hunting the ones that are in market today to be really, as you say, customer centric and then create more of a community somehow?

Adam Gray [00:22:27]:

Well, I personally think that that's partly to do with the a how organizations view their sales structure. You know, they, they're going to market in a way which is very, very outdated and very transactional rather than relationship based. And rather than focusing on measuring the thing because we know what gets measured, gets done, rather than measuring the things that actually make a difference, they measure things that seem like they're a really good idea. So just last week I was speaking to somebody that is in sales support in a large tech organization and some years ago they had worked at another tech organization and the other tech organization used to have six monthly reviews. So, you know, the big cheese from the US would fly into the UK and sit down with all of the sales leaders and say, so Bertrand, what are you going to sell in the next six months? And you would say, I'm going to sell one of these, I'm going to sell one of these and this is how much it's going to be, or in the next year this one's going to sell. And then six months later they'd come back and say, how are you getting on with that? You still going to sell 300k of this? And you'd say, no, actually this is only going to be 280k. And and then there would be the opportunity to say, okay, well that value is that that contract is devalued by 10%. What are you doing? What are you doing to make up that 10%? Because that was a big number.

Adam Gray [00:23:53]:

Whereas now everything is on dashboards, everything is delivered in real time. So the fact that you've revalued your 300k to 298k today and 295k tomorrow and 215k a day, none of these are big shifts, are they?

Tim Hughes [00:24:13]:

So I think to answer your question, Bertrand, one of the things that we need, we need to do is we need to find a mechanism in which the buyers are actually going to see our sellers as trustworthy people. And research, if you look at, I would recommend Matt Dixon's book, the Jolt Effect, there's also research from the Institute of Sales professionals around personal brand. And while personal brand quite, quite often seen as a, is a fluffy thing, because quite often people have said what we need to do is have flowers on our profile or something like that. But to use that to, to, to use that term, what we need to do is first and foremost is that we as, as, as sellers, we need to look interesting and, and trustworthy to our buyers when we're on social media, which is where they are. So that's, that's not having a banner of who the company is and a list of the products and services. And that because you, just, because you look a threat and you know the moment you contact a person like that, you become a piece of meat in a CRM. And what we're trying to do is, we've already agreed is we're not trying to be pieces of meat in, in CRMs. So we need to make things as easy as we can for the buyer.

Tim Hughes [00:25:39]:

The other thing is that we know from research is that the, the buyer is looking for social proof that you know what you, that you know what you're talking about. So have you, have you shared articles about their industry? Have you shared an article about what it takes to, to run a, an Argentinian or payroll or a global payroll? Do you understand the, the transformation that, that that takes when I'm, I don't mean sharing Adam's article. I'm talking about you sharing your articles. If, if I take Adam's article and share it, it's meaningless because it's Adam's article. It's nothing to do with me. And in fact, if there's a lot of people on LinkedIn that share other people's articles and they just look like idiots because they clearly don't know anything, that's, that's the only conclusion that you can jump to. Here I am and I'm putting myself out there and I don't know anything because I've shared lots of other people's articles. So, so, so this is about, this is about having that social proof that you are trustworthy, that you understand that you understand the market, you understand them as an organization.

Tim Hughes [00:26:51]:

And thirdly, the fact that you are a human being and this is about sharing things about yourself. And you know that here I am standing out in the rain watching my kids play soccer or football or, or here I am, this is a picture of me windsurfing or whatever. Because what we do is that we know that whenever people talk about those things, if you sit in a room with people and you say, do you know, I'm. This weekend I'm going windsurfing. Everyone will move forward. You'll see the, you'll see the movement. And that movement is because the people are interested.

Adam Gray [00:27:27]:

Oh yeah.

Tim Hughes [00:27:28]:

So where'd you go? Oh, we go to Westwood Ring and.

Adam Gray [00:27:31]:

Oh, is it when you say that you're going to do a proposal for your new HCM system that you're selling into a large supplier this weekend, do people not lean forward and have a conversation with you about that?

Tim Hughes [00:27:45]:

No, because nobody's interested. They're interested in you and who you are. So there's this rounded thing that we're, you know, in terms of what we're, and this is what we're looking for as, as buyers. Now it's not beyond the wit of men, man, to actually, to, to actually put that together, especially if you get people in, to actually help you to, to actually build this as a, as a, as a methodology. Now what I'm saying is not, this is not Tim Hughes's opinion. This is all backed up by data. So if you're a data driven company, you, you will be doing this. So, and this is so, so this will enable you.

Tim Hughes [00:28:28]:

So when we know that the buyers are basically thinking about going in market, they will come on social media and they will be looking for people that can help them. And I know this because we have clients that are doing multi million dollar deals through this. You know, we're thinking of buying a new accounting system. You look like you know what you're talking about. Can you come and help us? So, so, so, so, so, so that's one of the, you asked the question. So that's one of the things, that's one of the things that people can be doing right now.

Bertrand Godillot [00:29:01]:

So okay, so you've got me and I buy into this, that's fine. Now as a sales director or as a VP of sales, how can I, you know, clearly my KPIs are not focused on measuring early engagement the way you are thinking.

Tim Hughes [00:29:27]:

I mean in terms of, we get asked this a lot and of course what you do is you do all your other things and you do this as well. So if it as and as part of any change that's coming, obviously you need to have senior leadership in terms of supporting this and saying this is right. But what you'll find over time is, is that you'll get people going. I'm making load of calls and I'm not getting anywhere. Whereas I'm. If I'm actually doing this, I'm actually, I'M getting somewhere. So pj, for example, in, in Singapore, used to be making loads of, loads of cold calls. And he came to us because he wasn't getting anywhere.

Tim Hughes [00:30:10]:

Now because of what he's been doing in terms of his social profile, his, he's got so many meetings, he doesn't know what to do. And, and, and he wouldn't go back to making cold calls. So what you have to do is, is it's not about cutting it, cutting it and then stopping. Basically what you will do is that there will be a natural point, there always is where people are going, why are we still making co? Course, because we doesn't, it doesn't, doesn't get us anything.

Adam Gray [00:30:37]:

But, but I think that's part of, part of this is about getting the organization and the leadership to focus on things that drive the outcomes that they want rather than activities that, that play to old ways of doing things. So, you know, the number of dials that you make is irrelevant. The number of people you speak to where there is a next action. So you've had a conversation and they listen, that's relevant. So if the two of those things are tied together, that's great. But these days they're not. Because even if you, if you make a dial, most people don't answer the phone. And if you do get through to somebody, they don't want to listen to you because they're not expecting your call.

Adam Gray [00:31:16]:

They haven't prepped for the call, they're not in market, they've more important things to do or whatever the variables are. This is nothing about being anti telephone, but it's absolutely about being anti call cold. Because the issue is the same whether it's email or whether it's knocking on somebody's door or whether it's phoning somebody. People want to have context for the conversation that they're about to have. Particularly in, in, in a world full of scammers, you know, if you get on the phone to somebody, you're a scammer. If you email somebody, you're a scammer until proven otherwise. And I think that that's, that's the key thing, isn't it? That, you know, we need to be as, as we know, because we, we work with people for whom this has happened where they're able to say, okay, I've got a methodology, I've got into the swing of doing things and now I do one of these every single day and I get one call every single day. So for a salesperson that is prospecting their own territory and they're able to get one ICP enterprise level meeting every single day.

Adam Gray [00:32:25]:

That's a, an order of magnitude different from what you have previously got through the other means. But I think, unfortunately people and I, I often tell this joke, it's like, you know, doctor, doctor, my wife thinks she's a chicken. Well, we need to put her in a home. Well, we would do, but we need the eggs, you know, and, and it's like we're doing all of this stuff, it's not leading anywhere but well, we need to do it because it's the basics. And in fact, you, you, you knew somebody that, that was in marketing at a large enterprise, didn't you Tim? Where they said exactly that. You said, does emailing work? And they said no. And you said, so why'd you do it? And they said, well, you've got to do the basics. But it's like knocking on doors and then punching the person that opens the door in the face and wondering why you don't sell anything.

Adam Gray [00:33:15]:

It's because it's not the way to begin a dialogue, is it?

Tim Hughes [00:33:20]:

I mean, I mean the data shows now that cold calling is an act of self harm because if you're cold calling that because you can get better, more and better results from other mechanisms. If you're cold calling, your company is falling behind, period. So, you know, and you know, still out doing analog activities in 2025. I mean, it's like really, I mean, you know, it's prehistoric.

Adam Gray [00:33:51]:

Yeah, it is exactly the way that we approach targets before the Internet and digital age. And to assume that. Yeah, and, and you said, Tim, about when you were first in sales and you would, you would phone people up and they would want to have a conversation with you. That's because if I, to pick a thing at random, if I were to buy a new CRM system in those days, I would have had to have gone to the library, either bought industry press and looked at all the adverts or gone to the library, gone to whichever directory it was that contained tech companies, looked through them, those that are CRM vendors, written down the thing and then phoned them up. That's what I would have had to have done. So when you phoned up and said we've got this new thing, there's nobody else in the industry that's got this. A, it would be a revelation to me and B, I would have no way of validating what you said is whether it's true or not. It's easy.

Tim Hughes [00:34:45]:

So, so let me, let me Let me pose a question. So if we could sit, so if, if we could sit here and say. And the audience could. If we said, okay, give me, give me the name of a CRM. So we could come up and say, there's Salesforce, there's Dynamics, there's Nimble. Yeah, we could come up with a list. The same with HR systems, the same with accounting systems. So on the, the Sixth Sense buying report, the average person that makes a decision Is, is over 40 and they've done eight decisions before.

Tim Hughes [00:35:25]:

And then we'll get the question, so what about Millennials? Well, actually, in the report, they show that the, the average person who's about 30 has done six purchases before. So they're not that different in terms of the, the, the, the, the age and, and, well, in terms of the experience they have. So the question is, is if I'm not working for Salesforce, Microsoft, et cetera, et cetera, how do I punch above my weight and get onto a short list when we know the ringing people up pisses them off?

Bertrand Godillot [00:36:06]:

Yeah, because it's. Everything we see is that it very much looks like the barrier of entry is, is extremely high.

Tim Hughes [00:36:12]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because, because we know that if we know that these shortlists are being created by people that, that already have these, know the products and know the relationships, how do we actually get on the. If we, if we're, if we're, if we just started a new CRM system, how do we get onto to shortlists?

Adam Gray [00:36:35]:

Well, the only way that you can do it is by setting yourself up as an innovative challenger and sharing your brilliant new ideas with your customers. So exactly what we said at the very beginning, building the relationship and winning the trust of those people by talking about things they've not heard before. Now, clearly the obvious way of doing that is through social. But getting, getting in front of these people is the only way you stand any chance of being on that short list of organizations. Because you know you're going to choose Salesforce because you've implemented it before. I'm going to use Dynamics because I've implemented it before. Patron's going to choose Nimble because he's implemented before. So, you know, those are the outstanding likely winners, unless somebody can go in and disrupt that process.

Adam Gray [00:37:23]:

And we talk about disruption as if it's kind of commonplace and your product may be disruptive, but if you're thinking, and the way you take your product to market is not disruptive, you're not a disruptor.

Tim Hughes [00:37:37]:

The second point that I always make was that during the presentation that Kerry did on Monday, he talked about buying teams and the fact that we often think about buying as a buyer in isolation, whereas in fact it's a buyer team and the buyer's team. And those figures can be anything between four to 12 people. If you're spending a million dollars, there will be a bar team. And, and what happens in organizations is that you will work within a team because it spreads the risk. Because you know, if, if you buy.

Adam Gray [00:38:14]:

Crowds and all that.

Tim Hughes [00:38:15]:

Yeah, yeah. Because if you buy a payroll system and the whole thing goes wrong, I can say, well, it was Adam's idea. And, and, but what, what he said was that there will be a buyer team. So let's say there's a buyer team. Let's keep it round. Because 10 people, from a selling perspective, if you think about, so there's 10 people in, in a room that are going to basically, okay, so which system are we going to go for? And they're going to vote on it. Now you could have spent two years building a relationship with somebody who, who is going to go into their, that meeting supporting your solution, whereas the other nine people are all going to support you at the competition. How is it that you make sure that when you go into that it, when there is a meeting and they vote that the majority of people are going to vote for you vote for your solution.

Adam Gray [00:39:12]:

And even if, even if they can't, even if, even if there are 10 people and there are 10 solutions and everybody's first vote is their own pet company and everybody's second vote is you, you've won. Because it's a deadlock. And, and it's about consensus is not about everybody agreeing. Consensus is about everybody agreeing not to block something.

Tim Hughes [00:39:33]:

So that means when we're in that situation, a one to one relationship, which is what a cold call gives us, is basically not fit for purpose because what we need is that we actually need to have a one to many in that organization and it's no point actually ringing people up. I mean you can ring 10 people and piss 10 people off if you want to, but you're not likely to get very far. So how is it that we get into it? We can get into an organization where we can have a one to many. So LinkedIn would call it multi threading where we have a one to many relationship with people, where we can actually build trust with all those people, have conversations and then make sure that the relation that through those relationships that the, the vote is going to be for, for us.

Bertrand Godillot [00:40:30]:

That sounds really, really sorry.

Adam Gray [00:40:36]:

It was a question, really. I mean, it, the, the answer is obvious, isn't it? That you know, you, you connect to these people on social and you publish content that demonstrates you're the person you should be listening to. So you demonstrate through your content that you know what you're talking about, you understand what their challenges are, and you demonstrate that you're a nice person, that is a human being as well. And every time somebody says, yeah, but LinkedIn is not for business, you know, it's a business. It's not for, for pleasure, you know, not for social stuff. Utter nonsense. Because every salesperson in the world, given the choice between pitching in a boardroom or taking someone to a sporting event, would take them to the sporting event because it's all about relationship and they know that. So if you, if you treat your content in the same way, some of it's about them, some of it's about what you do, some of it's about you, then you're covering all of those bases.

Adam Gray [00:41:33]:

And the beauty of this is that it's non invasive. If I send you an email every single day, pretty quickly you block me. If I post something every day, you don't block me. Some of it you read. Some of it you don't. On a day when you haven't got time to read my content, you won't read it. On a day when you have, maybe you will. So I can continue to publish content at a really high rate so that I'm maximizing the chance that you can see my content.

Adam Gray [00:41:59]:

And then that is my vehicle to convince you over an extended period of time that I'm the person you should be doing business with.

Bertrand Godillot [00:42:07]:

It's clearly traditionally what we've done, what we've always done. So number one, I don't think there is anything new in this. We've always wanted to engage early. It's not how you make that happen, which is very different, I think. But then one of the ways that one of the avenues to engage early was to go through partners, basically people who can engage influence your end customer. So are we saying that we're already going through, we're going direct to our target customers, or are we also going through, I mean, are we also networking or you could say influencing their own influencers?

Adam Gray [00:42:55]:

Yeah, I mean, partner networks are absolutely fantastic. But the fundamental problem with a partner is that they're not you. So you have no control over the deal. And if you are dealing with a partner. So Tim mentioned PwC and McKinsey earlier. You know, they have relationships with every tech vendor. So if you're selling tech, so they're going to go to the company and they're going to. Maybe it will be the most appropriate product that they will recommend, maybe it will be prudent for them to do it because they haven't sold enough of Vendor B's product at the moment.

Adam Gray [00:43:28]:

Or maybe the people that they're selling to have a particular interest in a particular product. So you, you don't have any control or sight of that, whereas if you're doing it yourself, you do. So, yeah, let the partners keep doing their work. But it shouldn't stop you from developing these things yourself, should it? To go direct.

Bertrand Godillot [00:43:46]:

Yeah, it was already the case, by the way.

Tim Hughes [00:43:49]:

So can I. Can I raise something.

Bertrand Godillot [00:43:53]:

Another question.

Adam Gray [00:43:54]:

It.

Tim Hughes [00:43:54]:

Raise something in the, in the, in the next. So we've got five minutes left, which is the something. Something I read from Scott Brinker, who, if you don't know, he is the. He works for HubSpot, isn't he? But he's, he produces a newsletter called the Chief Martech and he's the person that's always come up with these. The Martech 1000 and then 2000 and then 20,000 or whatever it is. And he produced a. An interesting blog off the basis. He's got a report coming out in, in the next few weeks.

Tim Hughes [00:44:39]:

There's a webinar as well for it. There's a.

Adam Gray [00:44:41]:

It's.

Tim Hughes [00:44:42]:

It's coming out on December 2nd. The martech for 2026 is coming out and what he's talking about is AI agents. Now classically what we think of is AI agents as we'll get a bot and it will phone people and say, will you buy something which. Which clearly is very efficient for salespeople, but an annoyance for. For buyers. And a lot of what he says in the document is, is actually a lot of the AI agents that are being built are replicating the processes that we've had since the 1980s and 1990s for marketing. And I always find it amazing that what we're not doing is actually seeing AI as an opportunity to redefine the way that we do things. Bit like the way that we found we could use spreadsheets for finance.

Tim Hughes [00:45:38]:

Finance rather than an abacus. And. But what he is, is also doing is talking about, is people probably aware that you can, you can now go to open AI and buy stuff. I've not actually tried it myself, but a good friend of ours, Peter Springett, has done a number of posts about where he's bought trainers through OpenAI partly. I think he's, he's experimenting but the fact of the matter is, is that you're able to use OpenAI and Claude and all of these things to in effect ring a salesperson up. So what we're seeing now is this, is this is these new buyer side AI agents where the A. So, so whereas before we would have gone to an LLM as a buyer and God, give me the top, give me the top five payroll vendors. Compare them in terms of their products and, and tell me also what I'm, I'm missing as a, as a prompt.

Tim Hughes [00:46:43]:

You, you'd write that prompt and you'd come up with it and put it in a nice table for you. What it's also doing is actually allowing is the, is these buyer things where they can actually bring salespeople. Of course, as a salesperson, when you're rung by a bot saying here's Bertrand and he's looking to buy a pair of your trainers, what are you going to do? You're going to put the phone down. So, so there's this situation now where salespeople can be in is salespeople are could actually being cold called by bots which is, which is a complete role reversal of where we probably started this, this conversation which is about salespeople ringing buyers.

Adam Gray [00:47:27]:

Any comment?

Bertrand Godillot [00:47:29]:

Yeah, quite, quite fascinating. And I, I've seen examples of this of course and, and I have to confess that I, I am, you know, I clearly when it comes to for instance either platforms, the market analysis has been done by my, by my, my AI assistant. So that.

Tim Hughes [00:47:50]:

Your AI assistant.

Bertrand Godillot [00:47:52]:

Yes. So that is clearly I think just a, an absolute no brainer. That's the way things happen right now.

Adam Gray [00:48:03]:

But I think there's a lesson to be learned here. So I think it was sixth sense last year that said, was it 80 of people or 60 of people wanted a completely rep free buying experience.

Tim Hughes [00:48:18]:

Yeah, that was a, it's a, it's a CB Gartner.

Adam Gray [00:48:21]:

Sorry. Yeah, so, so people want a rep free buying experience. What was really interesting is that the people that had had a rep free buying experience when asked whether or not they would do that again, they all said no. All of them said they, they were, it was a mistake to have a rep free buying experience. And I think that this is, this is the issue. Like we've seen this, you know Scott brinker doing his martech 500 market tech 5000, martech 25,000 thing that's grown over time. There's a sprint towards efficiency at the cost of effectiveness. And I think we're going to see a similar thing with AI.

Adam Gray [00:48:56]:

AI has its place. Of course it does. It's an incredible labor saving device that can help do things such as basic research and analysis and comparison really well, far more accurately and faster than we can do it. However, there are big gaps in what it can actually do. And I think that in, in the, this lust to remove people and speed the process, we're throwing away the very thing that is the thing that I think that's very dangerous.

Bertrand Godillot [00:49:27]:

And the reality is that if I take back that example on my learning platform, what I did at the back end of this is obviously place a few calls to people who do have platform. So the whole idea of, so I don't know which part in the buying cycles was taken care of by my assistant, but it's probably basic research. And then when it comes to, to.

Tim Hughes [00:49:51]:

Validation, I, I would say that.

Bertrand Godillot [00:49:56]:

Channeled.

Tim Hughes [00:49:56]:

Yeah, I would say that. I mean, Scott in that article basically talks about there being a step until ultimately what we have is buyer and seller agents talking to each other. I, I think in commodities that, that situations that may be the case.

Adam Gray [00:50:11]:

Yeah.

Tim Hughes [00:50:12]:

I think if you went to a board of a big company and said, I'm going to spend $10 million on a payroll and they say, so what, what, you know, can you get the salesperson to come and talk to us? You say, well, no, because I've done it all through AI. I think you'll be laughed out the board meeting.

Adam Gray [00:50:28]:

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I guess the question is how, how do salespeople. Because, because, you know, part, part of the challenge for, for salespeople and indeed entire sales functions within organizations is that if that is the inevitable singularity of going down this road, then all of these people are doing themselves out of a role. And in some cases that's not a bad thing because, you know, these are people that annoy you and keep repeatedly phoning you up and emailing you when you don't want to be. But for some people, they really do add value and they do guide you and shepherd you through the buying process. And if we're not very careful, we're going to lose that. And I think as one of the interesting things that Kerry said is in the webinar was if you are a buyer of a product, you might have done this before. And you know, the research shows that if you're relatively young, you might have done it six times.

Adam Gray [00:51:24]:

If you're experienced, you might have done it eight times. If you are a seller of this, you do it all the time, so you know exactly what the pitfalls are. And actually, when you throw that away, then you are expecting the buyer to know every bit as much about the process of the vendor, which is a ludicrous assumption to make, isn't it? It's like. It's like me saying I don't feel very well. I think my. My diagnosis of myself is this. Well, that's why you need a doctor to actually be able to diagnose what the real problem is.

Tim Hughes [00:51:55]:

Yeah.

Bertrand Godillot [00:51:59]:

All right, gentlemen, this has been really great. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today. And let me just. Oh, sorry, Adam, because that's going to go back again on you, and I feel so sorry. But we now have a newsletter, as you know, so you may scan the QR code on screen or visit us at digitaldownload.live/newsletter next week.

Tim Hughes [00:52:27]:

Adam, we're. You need to do is you need to get the QR code and cut it out and stick it on your forehead. And then. And then. And then when Bertrand does this bit stick, scan Adam's forehead.

Bertrand Godillot [00:52:41]:

Yes, I will do that next week. Okay, thank you very much, gentlemen, and see you next time. Thank you.

Tim Hughes [00:52:47]:

Bye, everybody. Thanks for tuning in.

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