Hello and welcome to the Rebecca Saunders show your place to discover how to build resilience, craft confidence and have a huge impact on the world. Today's guest is Abby white CEO of sales redefined. Now Abby's superpower is being the marriage counsellor for sales and marketing in order to deliver astronomical return on investment. She leverages this superpower to the excess of 2,000% ROI on lead generation campaigns for leading tier one global corporations. It's pretty massive. Prior to this, she was the National Sales Manager at IBM and successfully catapulted the ANZ region from the lowest to the highest performing globally. She definitely knows her stuff about sales, and I recently had her as a guest on my virtual micro conference, nailing virtual talking about how to leverage virtual events for lead generation in order to keep your business thriving. And so I've asked her on the show today to deep dive into all of that, how we can drive sales through video for any organisation no matter where you are in the world.

Welcome to the show Abbie!

Thank you that music is epic it's like a massive like pump up before you come on!

One of the things I talk about getting energy is having the music to dance to and so I'm always behind that 10 seconds just to get the energy up.
Fantastic!
Thank you so much for coming on the show today, I'm glad we've kicked off with some energy and some smiles. For those people that don't know you - Who are you? What is sales redefined?

Who am I and what is sales redefined - such a big question and so yeah I have I guess from the career front I have spent over 15 years specialising in sales I fell into it by accident no one when they are younger thinks I'm gonna go be a salesperson it's not really a defined career like that. So I was fortunate to start my career in IBM get some amazing training there. And then after nearly 10 years in corporate went to start sales redefined. So who are sales redefined? We focus on high performance sales and how do you help people to drive that amazing and epic growth and what we found when we were building that out was a lot of the time the gap that missing piece of the jigsaw was this disconnect between sales and marketing. And so for us we then had to sort of really start thinking marketing so as a business as sales redefined We now come to the table sort of really with sales marketing in order to drive high performance sales. Me personally probably falling into similar camp of you as crazy Britt - mum I have a little hyperactive three year old boy and and that's me.

I love that I love it and I love marketing. I think that's just such an all encompassing word for what you do. Where did that come from? And really, you know, through building sales redefined what did you see in your corporate career that made you go - I can do this differently and have a big impact. 

Um, so in terms of what through my corporate career, what did I think could make you have a bigger impact? I think mine was probably an accident on the part of IBM that I was working for got sold off in a divestiture when I went across sort of thought this isn't for me. I think I also being honest I had a certain level of all these goals of what I wanted to do by the time I was 30, as you do, you know,

Those lists, yeah, it's like that.

You back at it, and you're like, ah, because none of it really matters. Like, you know, you want the fancy sports car, and you want the big job, and I had the National Sales Manager gig and all that sort of vanity stuff that actually now you don't give a monkey's about. So I sort of tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and then realise ah, you know, still not really what I'm looking for and wanted something more. So it was probably a combination of that realisation in me, the combination of the timing around a divestiture and then I had a very close friend of mine who had business and approached me, this is pre Sales Refined, approach me about joining him as a business partner and starting that business. So that was how I exited corporate. And in a way, it was a really safe in some regards way to do it, because I had that business partner who'd already had his own business for many, many, many years. And it gave me that startup University before starting Sales Redefined. Um, in terms of the second part of your question, you know, how we came to be with some of this marketing stuff. It's a really cheesy answer, but an almost an annoying answer, but almost listening to our customers. Because everyone came to us and said, we're not getting a result in our marketing campaigns, our marketing is just not working, our marketing agencies rubbish, we can't get an ROI. And when we were like, why, like, we're just hearing this every single day. So like, what you hearing repeatedly. And when we looked behind the scenes, it was the disconnect between sales and marketing. So in our recent white paper, which happy to share, you know, we talked about the fact that the latest research shows 50% of sales reps don't follow up on Marketing Leads 70% of marketing materials never get used. So I think that some of how it eventuated was, what was slapping us in the face every single day and listening to it.

Yeah. And was that conversation happening with medium tiers? Have you always worked with tier one? Or have you worked sort of back up to that as a backup to a given, you know, size of IBM as an organisation? Have you always had that throughout the ranks of the size of clients that you've had? Is that always been the issue?

No, so pre COVID, we had a lot of small business clients. And I actually really enjoyed that. Because I've done corporate for so long that I think I needed a breather. And I think you also, you know, if I'm being really honest, that's when you learn how to sell, because you don't suddenly have this massive brand name behind your opening doors. So that's where you learn the real stuff. Yeah. And then when COVID hit, we lost most of our small business clients, because budget became a constraint. And the corporate clients were the ones that, you know, still wanted to engage with us and so on. And so COVID is what changed us from having a lot of small business clients to now the vast majority are in corporate.

And from that then, what are the biggest lessons I'm gonna deep dive just quickly into the lessons for sales for small business owners? What were your biggest learning points as an entrepreneur pumping the hustle path? Like what what was your biggest lesson and aha moment?

I think, never take your foot off the gas. I have had probably the biggest mistakes I've made in my career. I've made a lot, but it's one of the biggest lessons is probably when you have that feeling of, Oh, my God, if all of this comes off, how am I going to deliver it? How are we going to do it, and you just feel yourself backing off. And then what happens is some of those clients move forward. Some of them the dog ate the homework, some of them change their mind, some of them get stalled and delayed, some of them have budget constraints. And so you know, for me, and I would say this, but sales is the lifeline of your business, it's like petrol in a car, you can't decide whether you do or don't want to put it in. And I think that, you know, people have waves in their business of, we've got loads of sales, we've got no sales, we've got loads of sales, we've got no sales, and that's because you've taken your foot off the gas. So for me, it's like going to a gym, you know, you can't suddenly go, I'm gonna go this week, but not next week. If you want the consistent results, you've got to consistently show up and you've got to consistently do it even when you don't feel like it. So I think trying to get consistency in small bite sized chunks by building a habit. So even just 15 minutes per active sales a day so that it's realistic, and that you're going to do it and just never take your foot off the gas.

Yeah, yeah. 100%. And what does that 15 minutes look like is that, you know, five phone calls, three phone calls, a social media post, was it looking like,

I always encourage everyone to build a cheat sheet for your business of what can be your productive sales activities, because for me, I want to remove the barriers to sales. So I know that you're gonna have some days and I have those days. Where you get to your desk and you go, what am I gonna do for my productive 15 minutes? And so having a cheat sheet to go - Can I reconnect with a dormant client who hasn't worked with us in x period of time? Can I follow up and reconnect with a prospect? Can I do a great post on LinkedIn? Can I record a video and you know, what can I do that is going to be proactive and move the needle for my sales. So if you know I can share a cheat sheet with the audience, but it's also just built tweaking that to be your own to go in your business, what would be the proactive things and that could be the five phone calls, it could be the LinkedIn post, it could be the reconnecting, I gave a challenge to one of our clients during COVID where I said phone 25 people and just say hey, checking in with you seeing how you doing you know what's going on for you. And out of that 25 calls the amount of conversations that were - so funny you should call I was just thinking about you we should do this - you know things come from it and so I think it's more building the habit and setting yourself up for success if you say I'm going to do two hours it's not going to happen you'll get dragged into something so 15 minutes is sort of something realistic that you can build upon.

It's definitely a theme coming through in in all the conversations that I'm having on the show is very much that consistency piece not biting off something more than you can chew and something you can commit to and then over time seeing the results on that so it's good to know that happens in sales as well and not just the fun creative content creation side of things. So Abbie I read your bio that you get 2,000% ROI or you know for your clients that's massive. I want to know where video plays a part in your sales lead generation campaigns. Where does that fit? A lot of it there's so many moving parts to video from a sales marketing perspective. Where does video fit in the mix?

I guess if I answer in two ways if I look at it from a personal perspective of sales redefined and then I looked at it from a client perspective so right personal perspective. I think for me, I'm a talker clearly and so I find video is an easier way to get across what I'm trying to say it's an easier way for me personally to get across my personality and every brand expert personal branding expert you name it who I've ever spoken to is gone - You just have to get this across on video like to describe the fact that you're trying to approach sales differently that your message is different and not sound the same as everyone you just need to be able to capture that magic on video. So in a way that's a way for me to get across some of my message, my personality it's a way that I can convey myself much easier asked me to record a video I'll do it in three seconds flat, asked me to write a blog I'll be that five weeks later still trying to string a sentence together so for me, I think it probably yes of course I felt like an idiot when you're first doing it and you have all the same nerves as everyone else when you go to post it and you feel like a total Muppet, but it's probably been an easier path for me than say the writing. From a client perspective you know we look at the research of what is the most high performing things that you can do and you know you'd know the stats probably way better than me around the engagement with video and that that is the future and so you know for me that's where I think we do have to respect that, and look at okay if we're going to get a really strong ROI we have to put our best foot forward with what is going to get us the best results and the best performance. So video plays a part in lots of stepping stones be a case study so that you can bring to life a customer that you've worked with - be a video of your team to bring to life the culture and the people and people want to see human and the human side of it - you know in in webinars and virtual events that we've all had to learn over the past 18 months plus so for me we're using it multiple stepping stones along the journey.

And is there a starting point - obviously there's multiple it's different for everyone - is there one go to video for you that everyone should have. I mean, I know what my answer definitely is when it comes to that. But what is yours?

Oh, I mean, so intrigued what yours is. And I think for me, in a way sometimes you can't capture the magic in work in writing. Sometimes I think you need to capture the magic of you know, why Rebecca Saunders, why Sales Redefined - you need to be able to capture the magic and you need to be able to translate it for your audience and make it simple. So it's that level of - I get you, you get my problem. Yep. - And you've translated it for your audience. So it becomes a no brainer. So I think you've got to be really clear on your message. Because if you're not clear on your message, How the hell do you expect your audience to be clear on the message. So I think that's definitely something that needs to be captured. What's yours, I'm now curious.

So okay, so definitely from a large organisation perspective, my go to always is a client case study. There is no better way to sell your product than through the voice of a customer or client that's already using your product or service. And just from the production side of things, I love seeing that I love recording it and understanding really what my client does for other people. Because you know, I don't get to see their product firsthand per se, because I'm not always a user of it. So that for me is fantastic, and just to see the ripple effect of the impact that the solution, the product, the service, the hospitality, whatever it is, is having I think is pretty phenomenal. 

We have a checklist for all of our content that goes out for clients, and on every single thing on our checklist it says social proof and credibility. So if you're doing a PDF, do you have a testimonial? If you're doing a webinar, can you have a customer come and turn up and share the story like you did on nailing virtual? Can you record a case study? You know, we've got you recording some client case studies for us? I think it's next week.

Yeah, yeah. Out and about in rural New South Wales. Fantastic.

Absolutely. You know, when you're the company, of course, I'm gonna say Sales Redefined is wonderful. Of course, I'm going to say that we're great, and we can get these great results. But yeah, if a client says it, it's social proof and credibility. So for us, we don't let anything go out the door without social proof or credibility.

Yeah, total game changer, total game changer. And then it's different for small businesses, though. I think you can get the testimonials, and it's still as important. But I think for them, you need more of a - who we are or who I am - for that personal connection, because it is that human to human function, and communication piece that I think is so important. And a lot of people struggle to get their message across as to why they're doing what they do. And I think if you're a smaller scale, that one to one is just just as impactful as the big organisations having that social proof from a customer source. 

Yeah, two different two different types. 

So from a sales and leveraging perspective, I want to understand what people can be doing coming out of a pandemic now and being in the headspace of - Ah, now back into like, the real world. What does that look like? What can people be doing? What can people be looking out for? It's also coming up to Christmas, my favourite time of year. What can people be doing or thinking about further planning perspective into next year?

I think, in a way, it's been so hard to plan for next year, because it's so unknown, we're all getting excited, at the time of recording that we're all about to get a bit of freedom, but you don't know whether next year there's going to be a third wave, and it all comes back again, sorry to be depressing. So I think in a way, we kind of have to plan for this hybrid world of going well, virtual sales is here to stay. from one perspective, and actually what I'm interested in is not so much us and the COVID store in the restrictions, I'm more interested in buyers -  if you look at the latest research, most people are showing that buyers want to engage in virtual formats and digital formats, rather than traditional sales formats. I even read an article this morning showing that car sales people were now looking at Digital, because people didn't want to go into showrooms and haggle with a car salesman, which totally understand that - so I'm more interested in going you know, what is it that is burning for our customers right now like the only thing we are seeing working in sales right now is speaking to people about the biggest burning problem that they have. Anything right now that is on the nice to have list no one's gonna do it. Like I have lists coming out of my ears at the moment. And you end up functioning in this world that we're in on the burning list. So if a customer is gonna say no, not a priority for me right now, we can still that until next quarter, they will. So focus on what you’re hearing from your customers time and time and time again, that is absolutely burning for them. And I think too much we get into our own heads, we need to get into our customers heads and I'll give you a really good example. Yeah, we did a survey of Sales Redefined and this is a while ago now. The first one that I'm referring to all around, how would you describe Sales Redefined in three words? What are your priorities for the next 12 months? You know, all going through those sorts of good old questions. What was so interesting was what came back. And this is before we started doing this marketing piece was - love what you guys are doing, but can you just help us do the doing? Like love it? Just help us with the execution?

Yeah, implementation.

So the change in business direction came from, like I said, being slapped in the face by that same message time and time again. And whenever we do a customer survey for people, it doesn't have to be massive, it can be Survey Monkey to 20 people. You always get insights that you weren't expecting a classic one is - I didn't know you guys did that. So when we talked about reference, the fact that Becca does virtual events to or hybrid events to that. And from your perspective, you're like I've told you 5000 times. And so I think if you want to plan -  to come back to your question, if you want to plan for 2022 for the unplannable, it is firstly looking at what is burning on fire, the biggest problems right now for your target market that they cannot store. And then looking at how you bring that to life. But being aware of the fact it's going to have to be in multiple formats, because it could be face to face, it could be virtual, and don't just think, right, we've got our freedom, let's go back to face to face, because digital is actually what most buyers are preferring. So have your digital sales strategy.

Yeah, it's definitely not going anywhere and it's not necessarily going to go back to how it was a couple of years ago. So making sure we bridge that gap. Now, I mean, this pandemic, in the virtual side of things, has meant that we can reach customers on a global scale. What impact does this have, if any - and I'm sure it will - but if any, on sales strategies when you're reaching global audiences, how do we need to change things? Do we need to be doing multiple different campaigns to different audiences in different countries? What does that spectrum look like? 

Yeah, I love that and it's so true. We've had the same so through COVID, we started working with the client in the UK, and we had an honest conversation around - how's this gonna work? - and it was like, well, no different to if I was one mile down the road to you. And we've now started working across ASEAN. And we're in eight different countries across ASEAN through the pandemic, because no one cares where you're based anymore. Some of my team are now moving to Brisbane, which I'm super upset about. But they're moving, and it doesn't matter, because you can be based anywhere. So I think that the opportunity is global for many businesses, and even some that you wouldn't even expect, you know, you look at some of the fitness gurus who have suddenly gone global because they've adopted a virtual approach, and you don't need to just be in a gym.
 

Isn't it crazy? 

Yeah, it’s nuts. But I think the challenge with it, the risk with it is, I'm a massive fan of the four Disciplines of Execution - and if you look at the four Disciplines of Execution, the first discipline is around focus - and it's something I find hard because I have shiny toy syndrome, and I want to do everything and I want to do everything now. And so the problem with the global is, I'm going to target US and I'm going to target this and I'm going to target that and you end up speaking to no one. So for me, I still look at it as at this point in time. If I look at it, from Sales Redefine’s perspective, Australia is still my core target market. But absolutely, then if it filters out to more, that's great. But I still have a degree of focus of where I want to be, because otherwise it's that whole, you know, “you're speaking to everybody speaking to nobody” conundrum. So I think, yes, look at that opportunity, but then pull back into alignment, the focus of where is their highest potential? Where's there highest propensity for my product or service. So you can have a really, really, really targeted and focused sales strategy that is going to be a million times better any day of the week than just splatter gun and hoping it sticks with someone. 

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And in terms of, I guess picking that one method. If we had to pick one method today, that we were going to go and run with that - Where would your focus be? If you had to leave someone with one thing to take away today that it could an action right now, regardless of whether they're big or small, what would be the one thing that you want to see people doing right now?

I want to do two!

Okay, you can do two.

See, like I said, shiny toy syndrome. So the number one thing is put the 15 minutes in your diary, proactive sales 15 minutes a day, write yourself a little cheat sheet now with 5-10 things that you could be doing in that time, because that is building the habit and moving from ‘reactive’ to ‘responding’ to that email, responding to that call, responding to what's going on. That's what's going to fundamentally change your business is by having that small daily bite sized chunk. So my number one would be go schedule that in your diary.

My number two would be, on that list have one of the things as the survey because I think that if you're at a point now of planning for 2022 or you're at the next phase of “What are we going to do”, it is that moment of “This is what we want”, and “This is what we want to go”, and “This is what we're seeing” - and just have that checkpoint with what the customer is seeing. Like I said, that entirely changed our business. We do it with every single client, and typically we see it change as well. And you can do that on Survey Monkey 10 questions really, really easily.

Yeah, I love that. In fact, I think I might go and instigate both of those myself. I'm loving the tangible tasks. Thank you so much for joining me on the show today. We talked about white papers, and we're going to put their resource in our show notes today. Is there anything else that we need to be pointing people in the direction of? What goodies have you got for us?

I will share with you the link to the sales and marketing white paper, which might be quite an interesting one. And I'll also share the checklist. So the Cheat Sheet for your “Practice 15 minutes a day”.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. And where can people find you?

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram. Those are typically the places that I hang out or our website salesredefined.com.au.

Wonderful!

Thank you for having me!

Thank you Abbie that’s a wrap on another episode of the Rebecca Saunders show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Abbie thank you for giving up your valuable time for being here with us today. As an audience I really hope you've taken some golden nuggets away from today's show and one step closer to having a huge impact on the world. If you've loved this episode, please share it on Instagram and Facebook with your friends or on LinkedIn with your colleagues and business network. And if you've really liked to make my day you can pop a review on iTunes. If you have any questions about today's episode, come on over to Instagram for a chat. You can find me at the handle at the Rebecca Saunders. And if you'd like to know more about what I can do for you check me out at Rebecca Saunders calm. I'll see you next time on the Rebecca Saunders show.