[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is Ted, your friend and host speaking. On today’s show, we have Chris Coppola Krishna, who is an investor, entrepreneur, speaker and author who started wind sites to enable software and technology SMEs scale and acquire both enterprise and listed customers. Now draw his career, Chris has always been part of tech startups and mid tier organizations. And he’s keenly aware of the problems that tech vendors face in today’s highly saturated market. With his wealth of knowledge, Chris shares about the problem of the disconnect between vendors and buyers, how vendors can align themselves with their buyers, and ultimately convert them into paying customers. Now, whether you’re in the tech space or not, Chris’s tips are relevant to you so long as you are thinking about making sales to your customers. Chris’s tips have helped me reshape the way I think about allocation of my resources in terms of the customer acquisition process. And I’m sure they’ll help you as well. So guys, if you’d like to support the show in the best we can do this is to subscribe, leave a review and to share it with somebody who find it useful as well. Now as a way to say thank you to you guys, if you actually do subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts by the end of September, you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. one lucky winner will be chosen at random. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Chris, thank you for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

01:18
Absolutely. Dan, thank you for having me here. I’m excited.

01:21
Now Chris, let’s start with a very simple icebreaker so we can all get to know you a bit better. Who is Chris Gopala Krishna, when he isn’t working?

01:29
If I’m not working, I am walking and talking, catching up with friends and folks, back in India and all over the world. I’m usually reading and writing or I’m watching specific documentaries, which is very, very different to the life that I lead for the these are some of the things that I do outside work.

01:52
So Chris, share with us your story, your journey came from India, how did you end up in Sydney, Australia,

01:57
I am always wanted to explore different countries live live there, you know, work there and B, B as a local in different parts of the world. So that caught me to different parts of India to begin with. Ever since I completed my education, and then I went to Dubai, UAE. And I spent a few years in Dubai, then I got back to India, then I went back to the US. And I lived in California for a few years. Got back to India. And then now I’m in Australia for again for few years. So my whole goal is to put myself in certain environments where I get to interact with people from multicultural backgrounds, to be able to broaden my horizon and to have that global perspective when global exposure.

02:56
So Chris, now I understand that you’re from a tech background your whole life. Could you share with us about your experience in this industry?

03:02
Absolutely. Right. So by choice, I have been part of tech startups scaleups and mid market vendors, because I believe that when you are part of such type of company, it accelerates your learning, you will fail fast you fail forward, you succeed a new scale. Yeah, you are directly responsible for making decisions. And invariably, when you make decisions, you make some good ones, and you make some bad ones. And the bad ones are the ones that you learn a lot from good ones don’t teach you anyway, because you’re good at it already. But bad ones really, really teach you something extremely valuable. So that is one reason why I chose to be part of startups scaleups in mid market, the other reasoning, your ability to impact at an organization level, as opposed to a specific being level or a specific function level. So your impact is felt all over the organization. So I felt that’s a pretty cool thing to impact an organization. And the third one is you have a direct exposure to the leadership, who are making decisions day in and day out. And that gives you a lot of learning experience to work with such leaders. So these are some of the reasons why I chose to be part of such type of companies.

04:33
So Chris, when you were working with these companies, could you describe the kind of work that you did? So

04:37
primarily, I’ve always been a consultative sales. So yes, I’ve done sales, but not in a traditional sense of sales, but more in terms of consultative sales, more business development, more relationship lead, more thought leadership lead kind of sales. Yeah. So but yeah, ultimately the the outcome of that in sales is just the approach that I take is are traditionally different to what you known as classic sales.

05:11
Now, Chris, you started with insights to help mid market tech software and software as a service companies scale up, was there a particular problem in mystery that you realized you could help solve that led you to start with insights? In fact, when we spoke previously, he spoke about the disconnect between vendors and buyers. And this was a particular problem that usually we’re very passionate about

05:30
the reason why I say that he the b2b buyers, journey and b2b buyers experience have gone through a fundamental shift. Yeah. So now buying is as difficult or as challenging as selling? Yeah. Don’t think that selling is only the one which is challenging, but equally buying is also challenging. The reason why I say is that the buyers have got many, many options in the market. So if that is the case, then how do buyers make right decisions when there are so many options available? Yeah. According to Gartner, 77% of b2b buyers, claimed that their most recent purchase has been either very difficult, or very challenging or very complex. So now that’s quite revealing and quite startling. And that’s the reality of today. Yeah. Now, if that is the experience and the journey that the buyers have, where are you as a seller? How are you solving the problems of your buyers journey and buyers experience, while they make decisions in making a purchase decision, hopefully in your favor. So it’s not just about selling your solution, it is also helping them ease that journey, either experience, and show them a right path to purchase, and position yourself to be the best vendor to help them navigate through the journey.

07:16
So Chris, why do you think there’s this fundamental disconnect between the buyers and the sellers in the first place?

07:22
I think one important update is or development, the buyers are much more informed and much more sophisticated now,

07:32
but they are bombarded with a lot of information overload at the same time. Right? Correct.

07:36
And also they’re very confused, and very, you know, very much bombarded by many, many opportunities. So how do they navigate these entire, you know, complexity and the options and confusing messages from different vendors, right, not an easy thing to do. So what I believe is, if you’re a seller, you specifically focus on a particular customer’s problem, and then tell them how best you can solve that problem. Now, it need not be that a customer has shared that problem with you, but you could actually look at the customer’s specific problems as an example, if you are going after ecommerce you know business, you know that specific ecommerce companies, whether you are a retailer getting on to e commerce or your ecommerce only company, you know, most of the challenges, right as a vendor, you may be solving a particular problem around supply chain as an example. So, you go and let the buyer know how you are solving specific supply chain problems in companies which are relatable to your target buyer, right, and, and then demonstrate the depth of how we have actually solved that problem, right. And then, and then show them the proof that these are the companies that you have solved the problem. So when you talk in the language that your buyer understands in the context of their business environment, then you’re having a different conversation with your buyer. But most of us want to just talk about the you know, your products, your offering your solutions, without necessarily understanding the customer’s challenges or the pain points.

09:29
So guys, as a seller, you must understand the respective pain points that your customers are facing. So remember to take the time to understand what their pain points are, and directly address this when you’re promoting your product to them. Now, Chris, could you now maybe take some time to share with the listeners how they can actually identify the pain points that their customers may be facing and maybe some extra tips on how they can convert these potential customers into paying clients?

09:52
Absolutely right. So there are three aspects to it very philosophical, fundamental level. One is the empathy Other is the authority. And the last one is the credibility. So the empathy is about really, really doing the homework in understanding your prospective buyer prospective customer. Right. So that is an empathy, Hey, I know who you are, I know which business environment you operate, I know what what challenges you might be going through, right. And then I understand where you want to head as an organization, right, next three years, five years, when you are able to empathize with your buyer, then a lot of things that you are, you know, able to relate, that’s one. So that is contextual lysing, your offering to the buyers environment, that’s empathy. Second one, I said is authority. authority comes by demonstrating the depth. Like I said, most of the sellers won’t be able to solve almost all problems the buyer may be having. So instead, you focus on let’s say, a particular problem as an example, problem related to supply chain. Yeah, this is an example. And you say, and you demonstrate a lot of depth in that supply chain specific use cases, and specific solution that you may have in solving supply chain specific problem. So that is demonstrating depth. And the third one, I said is credibility. credibility is about Okay, here’s where we have done. Here are our customer success stories, here is a company that is comparable to you either as a competition or as a peer, or as an industry leader. So that is credibility. When you do all these three things right, with each and every buyer, you will see that you are way ahead of your competition.

11:51
So guys, as Chris said, you will need empathy, authority and credibility. And when you bring these three factors together, you stand out from the competition. So Chris, could you share with us a little bit more about how you help your clients over the years? How do you help them scale up?

12:04
So first? It’s a great question, by the way, then thank you for asking. The first is, we ask our customers, tell me where have you had a maximum success? Yeah. Where you have been able to sell faster, sell bigger, sell easier. So you want to replicate that edge scale. Now, that is what we advocate to our customers, but most of the times customers are spread too thin, meaning they think they can sell it to any industry. Any customer in any market. That’s far from the truth. You cannot, what you can do is you be very deliberate about who your ideal customers are, who your ideal buyers are. Who do you need the most? Where will you have a greatest impact for your customers, identify those customers, those buyers, and then go after them very, very obsessively. That’s the clarity that we bring to our customers. Right. And once they agree on, yes, this is the way to go, then we actually put together a strategy, right. And then we do end to end execution of reaching out to those customers and those buyers through the power of our sales growth platform.

13:30
So guys, as Chris has just shared, it’s very important to be very aware how you’re allocating your resources, don’t spread yourself too thin, make sure you focus on where you can get the most impact. Now, Chris, could you share an example of how you help your client in this basis as well? How did you help them be very focused on where they should focus their resources to get the most results?

13:49
Absolutely. Right. So we work with typically scale ups, in some cases, startups and mid market windows. So one such example is a customer wanting to expand to North America region being successful locally here in Australia. Right. So we help them with the complete USB strategy on who they need to go after and why they need to go after them. What can be their value proposition? What are the industry, what buyers within those industries would would be better fit for them all the strategy clarity we brought in, and then we used our sales growth platform to open doors for them in those specific accounts by using the email outreach, LinkedIn outreach, retargeting, PPC ads as well as the sale chatbot. So we use the power of all these multi channel approach. And then we went after those specific customers and those specific buyers with specific value proposition And then that helped our customers open few doors. And right now they’re having active conversations with those buyers in their sales cycle. So that’s, that’s, that’s what we do. So

15:13
Chris, if I understand correctly, because the clients sometimes spread themselves too thin, what do you help them to do is to help them get really laser focused on who they should be targeting. And with your resources and network, you make this process really easy.

15:25
Absolutely. So because any organization has limited resources, right? So how do you maximize? Or how do you optimize those resources for better outcomes. So in, you can only do that by being very, very deliberate and very, very focused on who you want to go after. That’s the clarity, strategy and execution that we bring to the table for our customers.

15:51
So Chris, let’s drill down a little bit more about how customers should be allocating resources when they’re pursuing their clients. You previously spoke to me about the three buckets of customers that exist, could you share this a little bit more of the listeners as well, so we can all understand this.

16:04
So if you’re going down the path of account based marketing, ABM, but ABM, as a name, appears to emphasize a lot in marketing. So I choose to call it account based engagement, you know, where everybody from the vendor side or the seller side has a stake in the approach. So the account based engagement, it can be in three buckets. One is I say, your strategic accounts, which requires one to one focus. Yeah. So by very definition, one to one focus strategic accounts require a lot more resources. Yeah. So that that is the reason why you could have maybe 10, or maybe 20, in a one year maximum. Yeah. So the second bucket is about your key accounts. So key accounts is where it may, let’s say it may 100 accounts as an example. And this is a one to few strategy. Yeah. So what it means is that, you know, that certain industries, and certain buyers in those industries have a very comparable problems, these are the patterns, right? These are the trends, these are the challenges that we have seen consistently, that can be relatable to those key accounts and those key buyers, right. So there is a there is a certain template, or an approach that you are following, to target those key accounts. Now, the third bucket is one to many, which is target accounts. Right. So that could be let’s say, as an example 1000. So where you’re significantly using a generic approach, but identifying some level of granularity in terms of the problem that they may exist, right, based on your experience, based on the industry analysts reports, you identify certain trends and certain patterns and certain pain points. And then you broad brush that with your solution value proposition and you go after them at scale. So that’s one too many. So one to one, a few 10, or at the best 20, very recent resource intensive strategic accounts, one to few is your key accounts. They could be 100 example. And then you approach a very templatized strategy to outreach for your outreach. Third one is one to many, which is probably you could have 1000 target accounts that you would use mostly a repeatable, replicable approach to reach out to those 1000 accounts. I would say these are the three buckets of accounts and strategy varies from one bucket to the other.

19:14
And the idea is that the strategic accounts are the most profitable and most valuable accounts at any point in time, correct?

19:20
Yes, they are. They’re strategic, because in a long term, they give you better customer lifetime value. Yeah. So, that is why it why it becomes strategic is determined by the either the leaders within the organization it could wonder such reason I could see the lifetime value of such customers is significantly higher compared to anyone. And having those logos as part of your roster of clients will significantly improve your market perception or a brand perception as an example. Yeah, so there could be many such reasons why leaders determined strategic accounts, but then it is also resource intensive. So that’s why it has to be very, very specific.

20:12
So Chris, let’s say I’m a business owner, and I really want to get in touch with my strategic accounts, I want to have that contextual knowledge and the ability to connect together needs, how can I actually go about finding out what their pain points are? So

20:25
be the knowledge in are twofold. One, as an organization, there is certain amount of knowledge that exists within because you have been selling it to client, let’s say, if I’m working with a mid market, customer, they’ve already been selling it to 1020 3040 customers, right? So what does? What have you learned? selling it to those 40 to 80? customers? Right? What patterns? What trends? Have you noticed? In, in what industries? And in in what how did you go about solving those problems? And for Who did you solve those problem. So there’s a lot of knowledge that already exists with the within the organization, they just have to be very deliberate about where they store that knowledge, whether it’s knowledge resides in the minds of people, then that’s a very risky thing, because that person leaves, the organization is gone. So there has to be a knowledge management mechanism to capture all that knowledge base that you have gained through the people through the customers through millions of conversations, emails that you have had with your customers. That is one. The other is you can tap into somebody like winsize to find more look alike customers, hey, these are the 50 customers where we have had more success. Can we identify the look alikes, to these 50 customers? Maybe another 500 update? Yeah. Because then we want to go after these 500 accounts, where we are likely to have a better success, because we are very compelling story. We are able to relate to those 500 customers better than others. We help them identify those five 500 accounts, which are look alike to the existing 50 customer accounts. Yeah. And then we put together the strategy, the campaign’s execution, multi channel approach, and data analytics, and then we do the execution. That’s how we help our customers.

22:36
So Chris, can you share a little bit more about the different solutions that you provide for your clients with insights? Absolutely.

22:40
So one, we have you the sales growth platform where you want to reach out to customers at scale? Yeah. So we have the power of the platform, the platform includes data, intent data, best of breed, templates, campaign designs, and campaign strategy. And then data analytics, Ai, natural language processing NLP, and the execution the platform is end to end done for you. model. Yeah, that’s one. Second one is the what we call it is a winbook. Because we believe you play to win, you just don’t play for the sake of play, you play to win. That’s why we call it when books while the rest of the world calls it playbooks. Yeah. So the wind book is essentially an account intelligence that is a customized for you as a vendor, with the strategic account that you want to go after, for example, a mid market company want to go after Coca Cola, just as an example. That’s a strategic account. So we bring you specific actionable intelligence for our mid market customer to go after Coca Cola at an organization level, at a bu level, at a functional level, investment level, at the initiative level, at individual level, we get yourself aligned to Coca Cola as an example through the power of actionable intelligence.

24:20
And this is a customized solution, right?

24:22
It’s very, very customized, very bespoke to a specific customer and specific target strategic account that the customer want to go after. Yeah, that’s that’s the offering too. We have we have got offering three data solutions. We have seen without exception, all the organizations have some or the other data specific challenge, right? You may subscribe to a dozen tools. You may get a bunch of data, but you are constrained by what pool can and cannot provide to you. Right? And you still have to pay the subscription with us. We say this to our customers. Tell me what is your data related challenge? Throw the challenge at us. Okay, we look at the challenge, come back to you with a solution as a sample data output. you like what you see, then you give us that project. Yeah. And you are what that project become, we deliver the results, you pay only for the results that we deliver to you. And off we go. Because it’s a project to project based, you know, investment that you’re making, we don’t charge you subscription. We don’t lock you in for one year. None of that it’s case to case, project project, project based data solutions. That’s a third third offering we

25:51
have got. So Chris, when a new client comes to you, what kind of returns of investment in connectivity See, today worked with view,

25:56
we have consistently seen that if our customers stay with for a year, we have seen that they got three to 5x ROI, three to five times three to five times ROI. Most of the customers unfortunately, have a very, very short sighted view of the results. The expectations are the biggest enemy right now, because everybody wants McDonald’s approach to sales, that is not going to happen. There is no quick service restaurant approach to sales. Yeah. So it takes time. In a b2b context. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes resources. Yeah, it takes some amount of brains as well. So stay with us, be patient, and be consistent, you will get results over a period of time. So we have seen anywhere between six to 12 months, our customers have got three to 5x ROI on the investment that they made

27:06
with us. Now Chris, do you have any resources that you would like to share with the listeners on how they can actually get in touch with their customers and connecting with them on a deeper level? Yes.

27:14
So I have, you know, written an E book, I have presented in different forums, it’s called b2b buyers journey and experience, and how sellers can align to b2b buyers, right. So that really gives you an idea as to how the entire b2b buyers landscape has transformed, irrespective of COVID COVID only accelerated the transformation. And how you as a seller can embed yourself into that buyer journey, and drive that experience and narrative in your favor. So that is a resource that I’m happy to leave behind. For your listeners.

27:58
Cool, thank Chris, we’ll definitely leave the link in the websites episode page when it goes live. So Chris, if the listeners only remember one thing from today’s conversation, well, we would like it to be

28:07
it is extremely important for you to demonstrate empathy, authority and credibility with your customers. And when you do that consistently, you’re bound to get results. So Chris,

28:22
how can our listeners get in touch with you if they need your help? Very, very

28:24
simple. It is Chris, as in Kr s@winsize.co. drop me an email, you know, you’re sure to expect a response from me.

28:36
Now, Chris, thank you for sharing all your words of wisdom. It’s definitely been very insightful for me.

28:40
Absolutely. Ted, thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, hopefully, your listeners as well.

28:46
Guys, thank you for joining Chris and I on today’s show, I hope you have learned a bit about the disconnect between vendors and buyers and how you can realign them to secure paying customers. So why not have a think about whether your current use of resources is the most efficient way you could do it. Now you should be spending the most effort on your strategic accounts, because these are the ones who will give you not only the highest profit margins, but will have a strategic value in your long term business growth as well. So guys, if you enjoyed today’s episode, and you’d like to show your support, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this with somebody who will find it useful as well. And as a way to say thank you to you guys. you subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts but it ended September, then you may stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. one lucky winner will be chosen Eddie Enderman. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you next time.

[This transcript has been automatically generated by a digital software and will therefore  contain errors and typos. Please kindly take note of this and only rely on the digital transcript for reference.]

00:00
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. This is Ted, your friend and host speaking. On today’s show, we have Chris Coppola Krishna, who is an investor, entrepreneur, speaker and author who started wind sites to enable software and technology SMEs scale and acquire both enterprise and listed customers. Now draw his career, Chris has always been part of tech startups and mid tier organizations. And he’s keenly aware of the problems that tech vendors face in today’s highly saturated market. With his wealth of knowledge, Chris shares about the problem of the disconnect between vendors and buyers, how vendors can align themselves with their buyers, and ultimately convert them into paying customers. Now, whether you’re in the tech space or not, Chris’s tips are relevant to you so long as you are thinking about making sales to your customers. Chris’s tips have helped me reshape the way I think about allocation of my resources in terms of the customer acquisition process. And I’m sure they’ll help you as well. So guys, if you’d like to support the show in the best we can do this is to subscribe, leave a review and to share it with somebody who find it useful as well. Now as a way to say thank you to you guys, if you actually do subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts by the end of September, you stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. one lucky winner will be chosen at random. And now let’s dive right in. Hey, Chris, thank you for joining us today. It’s so nice to have you here.

01:18
Absolutely. Dan, thank you for having me here. I’m excited.

01:21
Now Chris, let’s start with a very simple icebreaker so we can all get to know you a bit better. Who is Chris Gopala Krishna, when he isn’t working?

01:29
If I’m not working, I am walking and talking, catching up with friends and folks, back in India and all over the world. I’m usually reading and writing or I’m watching specific documentaries, which is very, very different to the life that I lead for the these are some of the things that I do outside work.

01:52
So Chris, share with us your story, your journey came from India, how did you end up in Sydney, Australia,

01:57
I am always wanted to explore different countries live live there, you know, work there and B, B as a local in different parts of the world. So that caught me to different parts of India to begin with. Ever since I completed my education, and then I went to Dubai, UAE. And I spent a few years in Dubai, then I got back to India, then I went back to the US. And I lived in California for a few years. Got back to India. And then now I’m in Australia for again for few years. So my whole goal is to put myself in certain environments where I get to interact with people from multicultural backgrounds, to be able to broaden my horizon and to have that global perspective when global exposure.

02:56
So Chris, now I understand that you’re from a tech background your whole life. Could you share with us about your experience in this industry?

03:02
Absolutely. Right. So by choice, I have been part of tech startups scaleups and mid market vendors, because I believe that when you are part of such type of company, it accelerates your learning, you will fail fast you fail forward, you succeed a new scale. Yeah, you are directly responsible for making decisions. And invariably, when you make decisions, you make some good ones, and you make some bad ones. And the bad ones are the ones that you learn a lot from good ones don’t teach you anyway, because you’re good at it already. But bad ones really, really teach you something extremely valuable. So that is one reason why I chose to be part of startups scaleups in mid market, the other reasoning, your ability to impact at an organization level, as opposed to a specific being level or a specific function level. So your impact is felt all over the organization. So I felt that’s a pretty cool thing to impact an organization. And the third one is you have a direct exposure to the leadership, who are making decisions day in and day out. And that gives you a lot of learning experience to work with such leaders. So these are some of the reasons why I chose to be part of such type of companies.

04:33
So Chris, when you were working with these companies, could you describe the kind of work that you did? So

04:37
primarily, I’ve always been a consultative sales. So yes, I’ve done sales, but not in a traditional sense of sales, but more in terms of consultative sales, more business development, more relationship lead, more thought leadership lead kind of sales. Yeah. So but yeah, ultimately the the outcome of that in sales is just the approach that I take is are traditionally different to what you known as classic sales.

05:11
Now, Chris, you started with insights to help mid market tech software and software as a service companies scale up, was there a particular problem in mystery that you realized you could help solve that led you to start with insights? In fact, when we spoke previously, he spoke about the disconnect between vendors and buyers. And this was a particular problem that usually we’re very passionate about

05:30
the reason why I say that he the b2b buyers, journey and b2b buyers experience have gone through a fundamental shift. Yeah. So now buying is as difficult or as challenging as selling? Yeah. Don’t think that selling is only the one which is challenging, but equally buying is also challenging. The reason why I say is that the buyers have got many, many options in the market. So if that is the case, then how do buyers make right decisions when there are so many options available? Yeah. According to Gartner, 77% of b2b buyers, claimed that their most recent purchase has been either very difficult, or very challenging or very complex. So now that’s quite revealing and quite startling. And that’s the reality of today. Yeah. Now, if that is the experience and the journey that the buyers have, where are you as a seller? How are you solving the problems of your buyers journey and buyers experience, while they make decisions in making a purchase decision, hopefully in your favor. So it’s not just about selling your solution, it is also helping them ease that journey, either experience, and show them a right path to purchase, and position yourself to be the best vendor to help them navigate through the journey.

07:16
So Chris, why do you think there’s this fundamental disconnect between the buyers and the sellers in the first place?

07:22
I think one important update is or development, the buyers are much more informed and much more sophisticated now,

07:32
but they are bombarded with a lot of information overload at the same time. Right? Correct.

07:36
And also they’re very confused, and very, you know, very much bombarded by many, many opportunities. So how do they navigate these entire, you know, complexity and the options and confusing messages from different vendors, right, not an easy thing to do. So what I believe is, if you’re a seller, you specifically focus on a particular customer’s problem, and then tell them how best you can solve that problem. Now, it need not be that a customer has shared that problem with you, but you could actually look at the customer’s specific problems as an example, if you are going after ecommerce you know business, you know that specific ecommerce companies, whether you are a retailer getting on to e commerce or your ecommerce only company, you know, most of the challenges, right as a vendor, you may be solving a particular problem around supply chain as an example. So, you go and let the buyer know how you are solving specific supply chain problems in companies which are relatable to your target buyer, right, and, and then demonstrate the depth of how we have actually solved that problem, right. And then, and then show them the proof that these are the companies that you have solved the problem. So when you talk in the language that your buyer understands in the context of their business environment, then you’re having a different conversation with your buyer. But most of us want to just talk about the you know, your products, your offering your solutions, without necessarily understanding the customer’s challenges or the pain points.

09:29
So guys, as a seller, you must understand the respective pain points that your customers are facing. So remember to take the time to understand what their pain points are, and directly address this when you’re promoting your product to them. Now, Chris, could you now maybe take some time to share with the listeners how they can actually identify the pain points that their customers may be facing and maybe some extra tips on how they can convert these potential customers into paying clients?

09:52
Absolutely right. So there are three aspects to it very philosophical, fundamental level. One is the empathy Other is the authority. And the last one is the credibility. So the empathy is about really, really doing the homework in understanding your prospective buyer prospective customer. Right. So that is an empathy, Hey, I know who you are, I know which business environment you operate, I know what what challenges you might be going through, right. And then I understand where you want to head as an organization, right, next three years, five years, when you are able to empathize with your buyer, then a lot of things that you are, you know, able to relate, that’s one. So that is contextual lysing, your offering to the buyers environment, that’s empathy. Second one, I said is authority. authority comes by demonstrating the depth. Like I said, most of the sellers won’t be able to solve almost all problems the buyer may be having. So instead, you focus on let’s say, a particular problem as an example, problem related to supply chain. Yeah, this is an example. And you say, and you demonstrate a lot of depth in that supply chain specific use cases, and specific solution that you may have in solving supply chain specific problem. So that is demonstrating depth. And the third one, I said is credibility. credibility is about Okay, here’s where we have done. Here are our customer success stories, here is a company that is comparable to you either as a competition or as a peer, or as an industry leader. So that is credibility. When you do all these three things right, with each and every buyer, you will see that you are way ahead of your competition.

11:51
So guys, as Chris said, you will need empathy, authority and credibility. And when you bring these three factors together, you stand out from the competition. So Chris, could you share with us a little bit more about how you help your clients over the years? How do you help them scale up?

12:04
So first? It’s a great question, by the way, then thank you for asking. The first is, we ask our customers, tell me where have you had a maximum success? Yeah. Where you have been able to sell faster, sell bigger, sell easier. So you want to replicate that edge scale. Now, that is what we advocate to our customers, but most of the times customers are spread too thin, meaning they think they can sell it to any industry. Any customer in any market. That’s far from the truth. You cannot, what you can do is you be very deliberate about who your ideal customers are, who your ideal buyers are. Who do you need the most? Where will you have a greatest impact for your customers, identify those customers, those buyers, and then go after them very, very obsessively. That’s the clarity that we bring to our customers. Right. And once they agree on, yes, this is the way to go, then we actually put together a strategy, right. And then we do end to end execution of reaching out to those customers and those buyers through the power of our sales growth platform.

13:30
So guys, as Chris has just shared, it’s very important to be very aware how you’re allocating your resources, don’t spread yourself too thin, make sure you focus on where you can get the most impact. Now, Chris, could you share an example of how you help your client in this basis as well? How did you help them be very focused on where they should focus their resources to get the most results?

13:49
Absolutely. Right. So we work with typically scale ups, in some cases, startups and mid market windows. So one such example is a customer wanting to expand to North America region being successful locally here in Australia. Right. So we help them with the complete USB strategy on who they need to go after and why they need to go after them. What can be their value proposition? What are the industry, what buyers within those industries would would be better fit for them all the strategy clarity we brought in, and then we used our sales growth platform to open doors for them in those specific accounts by using the email outreach, LinkedIn outreach, retargeting, PPC ads as well as the sale chatbot. So we use the power of all these multi channel approach. And then we went after those specific customers and those specific buyers with specific value proposition And then that helped our customers open few doors. And right now they’re having active conversations with those buyers in their sales cycle. So that’s, that’s, that’s what we do. So

15:13
Chris, if I understand correctly, because the clients sometimes spread themselves too thin, what do you help them to do is to help them get really laser focused on who they should be targeting. And with your resources and network, you make this process really easy.

15:25
Absolutely. So because any organization has limited resources, right? So how do you maximize? Or how do you optimize those resources for better outcomes. So in, you can only do that by being very, very deliberate and very, very focused on who you want to go after. That’s the clarity, strategy and execution that we bring to the table for our customers.

15:51
So Chris, let’s drill down a little bit more about how customers should be allocating resources when they’re pursuing their clients. You previously spoke to me about the three buckets of customers that exist, could you share this a little bit more of the listeners as well, so we can all understand this.

16:04
So if you’re going down the path of account based marketing, ABM, but ABM, as a name, appears to emphasize a lot in marketing. So I choose to call it account based engagement, you know, where everybody from the vendor side or the seller side has a stake in the approach. So the account based engagement, it can be in three buckets. One is I say, your strategic accounts, which requires one to one focus. Yeah. So by very definition, one to one focus strategic accounts require a lot more resources. Yeah. So that that is the reason why you could have maybe 10, or maybe 20, in a one year maximum. Yeah. So the second bucket is about your key accounts. So key accounts is where it may, let’s say it may 100 accounts as an example. And this is a one to few strategy. Yeah. So what it means is that, you know, that certain industries, and certain buyers in those industries have a very comparable problems, these are the patterns, right? These are the trends, these are the challenges that we have seen consistently, that can be relatable to those key accounts and those key buyers, right. So there is a there is a certain template, or an approach that you are following, to target those key accounts. Now, the third bucket is one to many, which is target accounts. Right. So that could be let’s say, as an example 1000. So where you’re significantly using a generic approach, but identifying some level of granularity in terms of the problem that they may exist, right, based on your experience, based on the industry analysts reports, you identify certain trends and certain patterns and certain pain points. And then you broad brush that with your solution value proposition and you go after them at scale. So that’s one too many. So one to one, a few 10, or at the best 20, very recent resource intensive strategic accounts, one to few is your key accounts. They could be 100 example. And then you approach a very templatized strategy to outreach for your outreach. Third one is one to many, which is probably you could have 1000 target accounts that you would use mostly a repeatable, replicable approach to reach out to those 1000 accounts. I would say these are the three buckets of accounts and strategy varies from one bucket to the other.

19:14
And the idea is that the strategic accounts are the most profitable and most valuable accounts at any point in time, correct?

19:20
Yes, they are. They’re strategic, because in a long term, they give you better customer lifetime value. Yeah. So, that is why it why it becomes strategic is determined by the either the leaders within the organization it could wonder such reason I could see the lifetime value of such customers is significantly higher compared to anyone. And having those logos as part of your roster of clients will significantly improve your market perception or a brand perception as an example. Yeah, so there could be many such reasons why leaders determined strategic accounts, but then it is also resource intensive. So that’s why it has to be very, very specific.

20:12
So Chris, let’s say I’m a business owner, and I really want to get in touch with my strategic accounts, I want to have that contextual knowledge and the ability to connect together needs, how can I actually go about finding out what their pain points are? So

20:25
be the knowledge in are twofold. One, as an organization, there is certain amount of knowledge that exists within because you have been selling it to client, let’s say, if I’m working with a mid market, customer, they’ve already been selling it to 1020 3040 customers, right? So what does? What have you learned? selling it to those 40 to 80? customers? Right? What patterns? What trends? Have you noticed? In, in what industries? And in in what how did you go about solving those problems? And for Who did you solve those problem. So there’s a lot of knowledge that already exists with the within the organization, they just have to be very deliberate about where they store that knowledge, whether it’s knowledge resides in the minds of people, then that’s a very risky thing, because that person leaves, the organization is gone. So there has to be a knowledge management mechanism to capture all that knowledge base that you have gained through the people through the customers through millions of conversations, emails that you have had with your customers. That is one. The other is you can tap into somebody like winsize to find more look alike customers, hey, these are the 50 customers where we have had more success. Can we identify the look alikes, to these 50 customers? Maybe another 500 update? Yeah. Because then we want to go after these 500 accounts, where we are likely to have a better success, because we are very compelling story. We are able to relate to those 500 customers better than others. We help them identify those five 500 accounts, which are look alike to the existing 50 customer accounts. Yeah. And then we put together the strategy, the campaign’s execution, multi channel approach, and data analytics, and then we do the execution. That’s how we help our customers.

22:36
So Chris, can you share a little bit more about the different solutions that you provide for your clients with insights? Absolutely.

22:40
So one, we have you the sales growth platform where you want to reach out to customers at scale? Yeah. So we have the power of the platform, the platform includes data, intent data, best of breed, templates, campaign designs, and campaign strategy. And then data analytics, Ai, natural language processing NLP, and the execution the platform is end to end done for you. model. Yeah, that’s one. Second one is the what we call it is a winbook. Because we believe you play to win, you just don’t play for the sake of play, you play to win. That’s why we call it when books while the rest of the world calls it playbooks. Yeah. So the wind book is essentially an account intelligence that is a customized for you as a vendor, with the strategic account that you want to go after, for example, a mid market company want to go after Coca Cola, just as an example. That’s a strategic account. So we bring you specific actionable intelligence for our mid market customer to go after Coca Cola at an organization level, at a bu level, at a functional level, investment level, at the initiative level, at individual level, we get yourself aligned to Coca Cola as an example through the power of actionable intelligence.

24:20
And this is a customized solution, right?

24:22
It’s very, very customized, very bespoke to a specific customer and specific target strategic account that the customer want to go after. Yeah, that’s that’s the offering too. We have we have got offering three data solutions. We have seen without exception, all the organizations have some or the other data specific challenge, right? You may subscribe to a dozen tools. You may get a bunch of data, but you are constrained by what pool can and cannot provide to you. Right? And you still have to pay the subscription with us. We say this to our customers. Tell me what is your data related challenge? Throw the challenge at us. Okay, we look at the challenge, come back to you with a solution as a sample data output. you like what you see, then you give us that project. Yeah. And you are what that project become, we deliver the results, you pay only for the results that we deliver to you. And off we go. Because it’s a project to project based, you know, investment that you’re making, we don’t charge you subscription. We don’t lock you in for one year. None of that it’s case to case, project project, project based data solutions. That’s a third third offering we

25:51
have got. So Chris, when a new client comes to you, what kind of returns of investment in connectivity See, today worked with view,

25:56
we have consistently seen that if our customers stay with for a year, we have seen that they got three to 5x ROI, three to five times three to five times ROI. Most of the customers unfortunately, have a very, very short sighted view of the results. The expectations are the biggest enemy right now, because everybody wants McDonald’s approach to sales, that is not going to happen. There is no quick service restaurant approach to sales. Yeah. So it takes time. In a b2b context. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes resources. Yeah, it takes some amount of brains as well. So stay with us, be patient, and be consistent, you will get results over a period of time. So we have seen anywhere between six to 12 months, our customers have got three to 5x ROI on the investment that they made

27:06
with us. Now Chris, do you have any resources that you would like to share with the listeners on how they can actually get in touch with their customers and connecting with them on a deeper level? Yes.

27:14
So I have, you know, written an E book, I have presented in different forums, it’s called b2b buyers journey and experience, and how sellers can align to b2b buyers, right. So that really gives you an idea as to how the entire b2b buyers landscape has transformed, irrespective of COVID COVID only accelerated the transformation. And how you as a seller can embed yourself into that buyer journey, and drive that experience and narrative in your favor. So that is a resource that I’m happy to leave behind. For your listeners.

27:58
Cool, thank Chris, we’ll definitely leave the link in the websites episode page when it goes live. So Chris, if the listeners only remember one thing from today’s conversation, well, we would like it to be

28:07
it is extremely important for you to demonstrate empathy, authority and credibility with your customers. And when you do that consistently, you’re bound to get results. So Chris,

28:22
how can our listeners get in touch with you if they need your help? Very, very

28:24
simple. It is Chris, as in Kr s@winsize.co. drop me an email, you know, you’re sure to expect a response from me.

28:36
Now, Chris, thank you for sharing all your words of wisdom. It’s definitely been very insightful for me.

28:40
Absolutely. Ted, thoroughly enjoyed our conversation, hopefully, your listeners as well.

28:46
Guys, thank you for joining Chris and I on today’s show, I hope you have learned a bit about the disconnect between vendors and buyers and how you can realign them to secure paying customers. So why not have a think about whether your current use of resources is the most efficient way you could do it. Now you should be spending the most effort on your strategic accounts, because these are the ones who will give you not only the highest profit margins, but will have a strategic value in your long term business growth as well. So guys, if you enjoyed today’s episode, and you’d like to show your support, and don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this with somebody who will find it useful as well. And as a way to say thank you to you guys. you subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts but it ended September, then you may stand a chance to win $50 worth of gift vouchers from Amazon. one lucky winner will be chosen Eddie Enderman. That’s all for me today. I’ll see you next time.