If You’re Charging Somebody 50 Grand You Better Have Taken Them Out for a Steak Dinner, with Steve Benson [Episode 764]

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If you have over a $100,000 CLV on a customer and you don’t get on plane to get in front of them, somebody like me will and they’re going to win that business. Or as my guest today so perfectly put it, “If you’re charging somebody 50 grand you better have taken them out for a steak dinner.”

Steve Benson is the Founder and CEO of Badger Maps, the #1 route planner for field salespeople. After receiving his MBA from Stanford, Steve joined Google, where he became Google Enterprise’s Top Sales Executive in 2009. In 2012 Steve founded Badger Maps to help field salespeople be more successful with multi-stop route planning. He also hosts the Outside Sales Talk podcast where he interviews industry experts on their top sales tips.

In today’s episode, Steve stops by to to talk about what fields sales teams and individual field sellers need to do, and are doing, to adapt to a radically changed sales environment.

Watch Teaser

Episode Transcript

Andy Paul: Steve Benson. Welcome back to the show.

Steve Benson: Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

Andy Paul: You have a very empty office, you’re working in today.

Steve Benson: Yeah. I’m the only person here. I, I come in once a week to gather up the checks out of the mailbox and bring them into the bank. And that’s so you caught me on that day, but yeah, Badger’s been working from home for a while now.

Andy Paul: Yeah, so, okay. if you’re listening to this, sometime later in 2020 or 2021, we’re recording this sort of and the teeth of the stay at home shelter and place orders that exist in the Bay Area in many big cities, including Manhattan, where I am as, as a broadcasting from the center of my empire here, and yeah, we’re not, we’re not going outside very often.

Steve Benson: That’s right.

Andy Paul: And If we are, we’ve now got our bandanas and our masks. So who knew it’d be such an adventure to go to the grocery store.

Steve Benson: Yup.

Andy Paul: So, so your business Badger Mapping, why don’t you explain what for people who maybe haven’t heard you on one of your previous appearances on the show briefly, tell us what you do, and then we’ll segue into why we’re chatting today.

Steve Benson: Sure. So Badger Mapping is a, so what we do, we’re a software company and we help field salespeople, we provide them with an application that is on their phone or Android or their iPhone, whatever, and also on their computer. What it basically does is takes their customer data and makes it really useful for them, when they’re in the field or when they’re planning to be in the field.

So we connect into their CRM or they upload their information and we make, the, we, we, either a bunch of tools that make their. Take the inefficiencies and challenges, field sales and make them a lot more efficient. So people end up driving less, seeing more customers, that sort of thing. And so why I’m here today is I, I have a fair amount of expertise in field sales and, and my background was in field sales.

And so, you know, that’s why we’re talking about how field sales teams can, can work on this transition to, to being inside salespeople, at least temporarily.

Andy Paul: Well, let’s start with that point is one of the things I hate from the things they’re seeing published these days, LinkedIn, you know, adnauseum, the New Normal, first of all, we have no. Freaking idea what the new normal is going to be. and I don’t think it’s this. So if you wanted to speculate and fight you to speculate, what do you think the future holds for field sales? It goes back to the way it was or-

Steve Benson: Yeah, I think that we’re, we’re looking at, we’re going to be, we’re going to be out of our houses eventually here. you know, I think once, once we’re, we’re kind of through this, you know, I don’t know, I I’m, I’m not, I don’t have the expertise to say if that will be in a month or three months or a year, but you know, if I were going to guess we’re going to, well, I would guess this summer people will be relatively out and about, and I’m just taking a different type of precaution than we use to. But, you know, I’m sure when people are listening to this in six months, they’ll, there’ll be like, no, you idiot, we’re still locked in here!

Andy Paul: Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Benson: Thanks for your thoughts. But, you know, I think that, there, there are many industries that field sales is the best way to sell to them, to sell it customers in that industry. And as soon as we’re allowed out of our houses, field sales will go right back to a, to occurring. You know, if it was. If it made more sense to just, you know, jump, you know, sell your wares online or with inside sales, a lot of companies would have already done it because it’s, it’s, well, at least certain things online, it’s usually cheaper.

Right. And, and right. And, you know, But there’s many industries where if you do that, you’ll lose market share and not win the same deals or you’ll lose margins on those deals to a degree where it made more sense to have someone, for variety of reasons, go out and get in front of your customers. And so we’ll, we’ll be back to doing that as soon as this is all over.

Andy Paul: Yeah. And I would even venture to say that some companies that have embraced inside sales as some Saas companies, you know, some, similar to you, except maybe depending on size of accounts they’re dealing with, they’re finding that for some of these enterprise opportunities that actually, yeah. They need to start traveling some more. They need to start being in the field more to a dollar close the deals, but also service the customers.

Steve Benson: And shorten sales cycles and just, you know, be more competitive. I think they’re, you know, we’ve, I think, especially in technology we’ve, we’ve, we’ve moved, there’s been this, this movement towards inside sales, but, but like you say, I think, a lot of people are, are overusing it and would do better as their, as their, price point for example has gone up. Or whereas they’ve gone as they’ve started to work with larger customers, they, they would do better if they got in front of their customers. If you’re gonna, if you’re charging somebody more than 50 grand, you better have taken them out to a steak dinner and done some outside sales work. You just got to build that trust.

You’ve gotta be face to face.

Andy Paul: Yeah, I use the example typically when I’m presenting a hundred grand does let you know if you’ve got a hundred thousand dollars CLV on a customer. If you don’t get on a plane, someone like me would, and they’re going to go win that business.

Steve Benson: Absolutely. And, you know, it’s just, you, you, you it’s worth it at, and I’d say at a price point lower than 50 grand, it’s worth it because it’s shortened sales cycles. You’ll, you’ll be competitors more often it’s, you know, and, and a lot of people that were, that were already in business for a while. This is obvious news to them. Like, go, try to go, try to explain to a med device guy, why, why he, why he should move to inside sales. And he’d tell you that you’re you’re nuts, but for, for the software industry, I think we, because a lot of it started inside, with, you know, what was kind of the explosion of ISV and apps, et cetera, they started it inside. And so now they’re kind of bumping their heads on, on. it, we be on the time when they really should be moving to outside sales,

Andy Paul: Or at least integrating more outside sales into the process, right? Cause I mean, I mean, technically yeah. I mean, technically for most of my career, even when I was building teams as a VP at startups, you know, oftentimes individual contributor, to start it, if the first person in the door. Yeah. Yeah. I spent 75% of my time in the office and 25% in the field. So

Steve Benson: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that that was the, the history of, of software sales. I mean, I was, when I was a field sales person for outside sales, I was in the office probably two to three days a week and on the road two to three days a week. And that was just the balance, you know, and that was 15 years ago.

But, today I think there’s, you know, a lot of software companies decided to realized it was cheaper to have people not have to travel around and they could get more phone calls out. And they were measuring by the, by the, by the metrics of, of, like activity. And they, they, they moved away from field sales.

And what really focused in, on, on inside sales, which can make sense at a, at a high velocity, low price point. But especially if you’re moving up market and so on bigger deals, it makes a lot of sense to get your guys out in the field.

Andy Paul: All right. I agree. So let’s look at it in this environment here, where we’ve had yeah. Nationwide and certainly in all the major metropolitan area, shut down orders, people working from home. What’s the single biggest challenge for sale field sales teams. Right now?

Steve Benson: Well, I mean, the biggest challenge is, and obviously from, from my perspective, running a company, the biggest challenge is making payroll right now. I mean, just, you know, the, the world has pressed pause on revenue to a large degree and, you know, a hundred percent revenue gone in a lot of industries. but, or some large percentage gone.

And so the challenge, the immediate challenge for a management team, a sales manager or, or management team in general is deciding how they’re going to, keep making paychecks. And, so that does that mean. And so, you know, I guess you kind of have to approach that problem. well, I’ve got to save money. Where am I going to save it? or I’ve got to get money. So there’s obviously loan opportunities like the PPP that the government’s putting together. And, you know, right now we don’t know no money has been issued, but applications, a lot of applications are in. So we’ll see where that goes, but hopefully that’ll kind of start hitting the market and everyone will keep their salaries here.

For people that have had a more severe downturn, that’ll only last them two, two and a half months, right. Of being able to make paychecks. So if, if, if you were selling beer to bars. You know, you were selling a bunch of beer. Maybe you were selling a million bucks of beer a month, two months ago, and now you’re selling $0 of beer per month, this month.

So, you know, you have, you, you need those loans to keep making payroll. For a lot of companies it’s it’s, for only a few companies it’s gone up for some companies, things have just been, become flat, maybe because they are on more of a recurring revenue model. Like no one quits there email right now for the, for example, I mean, you’re going to keep paying for your monthly services there, but, most businesses are somewhere in the middle where they’ve, they have less revenue than they did, but they still have meaningful money.

And so they’re, they’re looking to tighten the belt a few notches and, and, and they’re hoping the money is gonna come in as, from a loan perspective. If I were in that position, Well, I am in that position, the way, the way I approached that problem, and I haven’t taken any, any furlough actions yet, or I haven’t laid anyone off.

But I would, I would approach, I would approach that as a sales manager.I if I was approaching him, if I’ve made the decision that, Hey, okay. My sales team is where I have to tighten the belt, as opposed to my engineering team or my marketing team, et cetera. If I were, as you know, since it’s salespeople, don’t listen to this, if I were the sales manager, I would, and I had been told by my CEO, Hey, we’ve got to, we’ve got to tighten the belt, a couple of notches, you know, drop 20% of the costs. I would, I would, I would look at the team and I would think, okay, well, is it better for me to let go of the bottom 10% or 20% of the sales team? Or is it better to lower everyone’s salary by, by 20% maybe. And, you know, consider giving them a day off a week, for example, like, okay, don’t work Fridays, everyone, but, but also I’m lowering, lowering your salary by 20%.

And I think that kind of just depends on the team. If there’s, if there’s some people that maybe you were thinking about laying, letting go of eventually anyway, because it wasn’t working out that well, if you have brand new reps that haven’t scaled up, that you’re not.

But then that might be a good place, but that’s kinda, I think depends on the team, which direction you want to go there to, whether you want to tighten the

Andy Paul: In your own business, selling to field sales organizations, have you just seen demand dry up or people still saying, look, you know, we still have, we still have to sell, but I’ve brought these people inside. They need maybe tools to be equipped with tools they weren’t equipped with before. I mean, what, what are you seeing in

Steve Benson: I mean, I knew said, I would say that people are in a wait and see mode and not so new sales have really frozen up. We, we do have, we do have some people there that they know that they they’ve known for a while they needed this. And they’re just because they have extra time to look at it now they’re actually getting around to buying it and getting it set up. So that’s actually floating us a bit but most of the it’s, we’re not like reaching out to new people and finding, and, you know, letting them know for the first time that we exist and then they’re, they’re buying it right now. I don’t think, I think they’re-

Andy Paul: Are your our SDRs still making calls or-

Steve Benson: The SDRs are making calls, but to people that were already involved in the system somehow. So they had, you know, looked at us before and just, it wasn’t the right time because they had too many other initiatives going on or whatever. So we’re trying to re more re-engaged with people that already were interested in, knew about it.

The, so that’s kind of in the strategy there, but we’re rather than cold calling and reaching out to brand new people. We are, we’re kind of looking, looking back through our, look and looking at the couch, turn it over to the couch cushions and looking for the, looking for the quarters.

Andy Paul: Well, the quarters, .

Steve Benson: Well, and they, and they can be, they can. Exactly though. They can be meaningful deals too. I mean, it’s just, it’s, you know, a lot of times, you know, when your people are looking at a new piece of technology there, or when people look at anything, they may just have more important priorities at the time.

And so they can know, Oh, I would really like to have this. This would really be a positive investment for us. You know, we’d, we’d make money if we, if we did this, but you know, I also, this thing over here is on fire. So I’ve got to put out that fire first or, Hey, I’ve got to deal with it. So this is the important initiative for the year. So I’ve got to deal with this first, but I’ll circle back to this.

What we’re seeing people circle back. Now, that being said, there’s also and there’s also a lot of people pausing their accounts, and I think that’s important to let people, let people, if they’re paying you on a stream, like software, it usually is. But a lot of companies too, I think it’s, you know, a lot of things.

If, if people need a pause, there’s a pause, your service it’s very important. I think to let them. I think a lot of people you’re going to find, it’s not really a negotiable, you know, a lot of people’s business just went to zero and you, hopefully this doesn’t last long and you want them to be able to scale back up and come back on when they’re able to, and so it’s important that I think work with people.

Just like if you were a landlord and you had a bar as a co yeah. You had a bar as a customer, you don’t want to kick that kick the kick that bar out on the street and not, not, you know, not rent to them anymore because they’ll, they’ll be back in a few months. We will drink beer once again.

Andy Paul: we will. In fact, I think when we come back, we’ll probably drink a lot of beer.

Steve Benson: I’m still drinking a lot of beer. It’s.

Andy Paul: My S my wife told me that joke the other day about, you know, we all hear about the freshmen 15. We gained as a first year in college. I eat a lot of food. Well, now it’s now it’s the COVID-19, which is,

Steve Benson: Yeah.

Andy Paul: verybody locked at home with stress eating, as I know we are. And. Yeah, we’re trying to exercise, but you know, we’ve very fortunate. We have a Peloton in our house, so we ride that every day, but we’re not out running, taking long walks like we did before. So

Steve Benson: Yeah. I’ve got, I’ve got the knockoff Peloton and it’s been a real lifesaver. I think that’s, that’s been huge.

Andy Paul: Yeah. Okay. So for the let’s focus on the field sales reps themselves, though. So is your feeling that for a lot of your customers, that field reps. Yeah. More so than maybe yeah a Sas rep selling inside sales onto a, you know, an application to a variety of customers that if it’s a type of product that needs to be sold outside, that economic activity has dropped more precipitously there.

Steve Benson: it depends. I think that some in some industry it’s just industry by industry. So like, you know, if you’re selling beer to bars, your sales just went to zero. If you’re selling-

Andy Paul: I mean, my, my impression is that the guys that are driving the trucks are really in a quasi sales roles. Right. And a lot

Steve Benson: Oh, yeah. If you’re a, yeah, a lot of the times they’re taking orders, they’re in a sales role and they’re delivering the beer. all, all three other at other beer companies, it would be, you know, they’ve got a delivery team and they’ve got a sales team. And so the people that actually come show up and do the deal, they, and, and manage the relationship there.

They’re not they don’t also have a truck full of beer. but, so it just depends company by company and, you know, and you know, and we service single seat companies, right? So meaning there’s one sales guy. you know, and that could be a guy making beer out of his garage and he’s keeping track of a hundred bars he’s delivering his beer to, or we also service fortune 500 companies that have, you know, 500 salespeople. And so, we, we have, we have, there’s a wide variety that we’re seeing and people are reacting differently. I think industry is the most important thing. Like if you’re selling beer to bars, you’re massively impacted a hundred percent.

In fact, if you are selling. You know, heart stints to hospitals, you are likely selling the exact demand for heart. Stents has not changed. So you’re, you’re still interacting the same way. And if the doctors have a question about the heart stents or the, you know, the relationship, they, they need to interact with their same rep. And, and so now you’ve just, you’ve moved from a face to face sales situation to a temporary inside sales situation.

Andy Paul: Yeah. Yeah. When I was, I was also thinking serve, you know, large industrial supplies or things like that, that sort of what we think about manufactured goods that are sort of the province of outside sales teams. That it’s for some that have really depended on that human touch, the personal touch to stay connected.

That is gotta to be a little bit of a jarring, adjustment for them to suddenly start trying to do that over zoom as we’re doing here. just cause it’s, it’s good, but not quite the same.

Steve Benson: Yeah, you need some different and skill sets I think. And, you know, presenting for example, or is just a completely different animal. If you’re presenting a new, a new, a new product or trying to do a new sale, over zoom, it’s totally different than being in the room. I didn’t mean for that to rhyme, but,

but, and, and you need to, you need to leverage different skills to, like you treat your, your sponsor. In an organization becomes way more important. You know, you always need a sponsor to get a complex sale done and probably more than one, but you know, to do your selling on the inside of the organization, someone who believes in the product has already looked into it, usually knows, knows the value, understands the value and is, is there to kind of help you navigate the choppy waters of their organization and get the decision makers on board.

And, when you’re. That’s easier to do when you’re in a field role to kind of have those relationships with that sponsor and to communicate can kind of, you know, have the casual conversations with them and get them to do stuff for you to push the deal down the line. Yeah. I need them more than ever when, when you’re remote, because when you’re talking to, when you’re talking to there, Does it, when you’re talking to the decision makers and you’re in a zoom meeting with five people or 20 people or whatever it is, it’s very hard for you to read the room.

It’s very hard for you to take people’s temperature the same way, and you need your sponsor kind of follow up and, and, you know, have, have calls with them beforehand to figure out what their objections are going to be. So you’re sure to address them. You need them to follow up afterwards with, with the key people, to get their actual genuine take, as opposed to just.

You know what you’re able to glean in the moment.

Andy Paul: a critical point. I mean, I really, this is, this is, I think for people who are making this transition is. Yeah, there is the temptation. When you move to virtuals, to your point is let’s get all the stakeholders in there, the room, right on zoom, Sara bacon. Hear it. Whereas you’re selling in person.

Yeah. You’re going to most likely grab those people individually. One-on-one. And yeah, the dynamic is completely different. I mean, people will, people will say things one-on-one, they’re not going to say in a group setting and for if you’re selling anything with any sort of complexity use or rely on those individual conversations to really understand the truth of what’s happening.

Steve Benson: Yeah, this moving. If you, if you’re an outside sales person, there is very likely a reason that your company has always been going, has been selling with outside sales. And it’s probably, you know, these are often more complex sales and you’re kind of neutered by being asked to go inside. And so you need to kind of compensate for the, for what you’ve lost with, you know, by, by, by skills, like, you know, really having your sponsor work for you and really do stuff for you, you know, there’s, there’s way to ways to compensate for that damage.

Andy Paul: Well, I think part of it too is to not just fall prey to the easy, which is, yeah, let’s get four people in a room, but say, look, it’s going to take a little more work, but I have to set up for individual meetings. I don’t want to, I don’t want to give up this individual connection I had with this person. So they make it a group connection with these group of four stakeholders, because then you’re suddenly in a much, a much, much weaker position.

Steve Benson: Yeah. And I think, a lot of times field sales people, like they’re subconsciously doing things in these sales situations, they may not even be aware of that are, you know, are things that are making them successful and you have to do them like with like, you know, working with a sponsor or just, you know, in intuiting that there’s an objection from that person in the corner by their body language.

And so you’re, you’re able to respond and, you know, elicit the objection and then overcome the objection. And now over Zoom you’re kind of just like pointing to your slides and being, and hoping that people are looking at them and not on their email or something, you know, it’s, it becomes a very different interaction and, and things that have come very naturally, and that you’ve always just been doing for the last 20 years as a field sales person, maybe don’t don’t work inside. And really this is not the optimal way to sell for your industry in the first place for a good reason, which is why you were an outside salesperson in this industry.

Andy Paul: Well, I think to that point though, is it’s a fantastic point because I had that in my notes as well to bring up is that yeah, when you’re selling in person, you, you use all of your senses basically to be alert, right? The body language, nuance, the unspoken questions, as you can read on someone’s face. Is that I think there’s a tendency in inside to speed up.

And when you make that transition from being in the field and suddenly you’re forced to sort of deal remotely with these, these customers, you’ve had this personal connection with us. You need to slow down.

Steve Benson: Yeah, you need to communicate differently. It’s harder to communicate over Xoom, it’s harder for people. People don’t listen as well. It’s not as engaging. It’s not as interactive. It’s not as much of a conversation. Wou can’t read the body language. I think you need to, you need to present differently if you’re over Zoom than if you and I keep using Zoom, whatever presentation mode you’re using, if you’re, if you’re, if you’re on Zoom, you just need to, you need to present differently. And, and you’re not as funny over the phone and you’re not, you’re not as charismatic over the phone and- .

Andy Paul: Or even on Zoom. You’re not as charismatic. Yeah.

Steve Benson: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I mean. Yeah. Like Zoom or over the phone or in person, a lot of, a lot of field salespeople are, you know, they’re really good in person and now you’ve put them in, you know, lock them in a room and things. Aren’t going to go as well. And so you do need to be mentally flexible and ready to make a shift.

You need to communicate differently. You need to. Really short in what you’re saying. People’s attention spans age. People are stressed out right now, but be, I mean, just over a zoom people’s attention spans are a lot shorter and they don’t listen as well. They get, they understand and hear less of it and retain less of it.

So, you know, maybe your 30 minute presentation really needs to become a 10 minute presentation or you’re just going to lose people. So, and you have to do it differently. You need to, you know, Engage them take a poll of how, you know, like ask people, questions, give little quizzes, you know, get, get their opinions, have, have, you know, have the, you know, keep people engaged.

It’s different to engage people over, over a zoom meeting than it is it, you know, when you’re actually standing in front of them and, and in a room,

Andy Paul: Right. And I think whether you’re, whether you’re presenting or doing a discovery call or qualification, call your idea, your point about questions. So it’s just so spot on, right. Is that, and it’s not asking people well, there are any questions. If you’re asked to be all, Hey and bake our questions, they’re gonna say no.

Steve Benson: right. Absolutely.

Andy Paul: so you either have to have a.

Steve Benson: Go ahead. Sorry.

Andy Paul: Well, as I say, either have to ask a question, sort of like, you know, you summarize a point you just made, right. You know, we can do X the value to your organization will be Y, you know, the value be in your perspective for that, or, you know, just something that clarifies and confirms or doesn’t confirm, highlights a difference of opinion, but not a generic, hey, do you have any questions?

Steve Benson: Yeah, the eliciting good conversation is more challenging and you have to keep it shorter. You have to keep it simpler. Like the slides have to be simpler. The point has to be cleaner. you just, you gotta trim away the fat and tighten everything up. You have to transition better when you’re. When you’re speaking and over zoom or over the phone, then you have to, and when you’re in the room with someone, when you’re in the room, they’re reading your body language too.

They can tell you’re moving on to the next point. They can. They, they, they can, it’s easier to connect the dots when you’re face to face. we, we have all these innate human communication skills and listening skills and speaking skills that we use when we’re in a room with someone trust building and All those things.

A lot of those things are lost over zoom or over the phone. And, you know, if you’re connecting the dots between one point to another point, you’ve got to do, you’ve got to, you know, kind of when you’re speaking, prepare them, that you’re, that you’re making this change, that you’re in, make sure they’re with you and make sure they get the jump from one thing to another.

And it’s just a lot easier to lose people and have people not be able to pick up the thread of what you’re saying, or really understand the. You know, the, the why it’s so important that they act. And why is it so important that they act now? And why is it so important that they, that they do it with you, that you, that you can get these things and see that people are gently not in their heads, that you’re in the room with them. And, and you lose all that here.

Andy Paul: Yeah. Well, unless you, again, on zoom it, unless you summarize every, so, you know, pause every five, 10 minutes, summarize what you just talked about, maybe transition slide to slide. Okay. Ask a confirming question. Whether people understand right. Confirm their understanding of it before you move on, because to your point, otherwise there’ll be, there’ll be lost. Yeah, I think the other thing too, is, is in every iteration or interaction, excuse me, that you have with somebody, if you’ve been accustomed to being in front of them and suddenly you’re not is I think you also want to start thinking more graphically and you know, an image can speak louder than having five bullet points on a, on a slide.

And you really want people to take one thought away per per slide or per, you know, five or 10 minute interval of your conversation or whatever is you just got to keep it really chunked, make sure people understand it before he moved to the next. Minimize the number that you’re trying to transmit at any one time.

Steve Benson: Yeah, I agree. It’s just all these points. Like people’s understanding goes down when you’re not in person. They just, people don’t hear you as well. Yeah.

Andy Paul: It just gets worse.

Steve Benson: Right. Yeah. So you’re absolutely right. Simpler, you know, images, all that is is, is better. also I think in this environment, you have to maybe step up your, step up how, I want to say like flamboyant or like outgoing or how engaging you are, you know, you gotta channel your inner newscaster, you know, if you’re, if you’re in a situation.

Where you’re presenting over zoom. I think it’s you, you want to turn, you want to turn the dial up 20% compared to the way you would would have, if you were in person, you gotta, you know, you got to, you know, if you’re, when you’re. If you think about like how people are on TV, like, you know, everyone everyone’s just bigger, right?

Like, so to connect you, you want to, if you want to connect with an audience through a television, you know, to on television, everybody, they’ve got too much makeup on. You know, everybody’s wearing a bunch of makeup. The men are wearing makeup, you know, the women are wearing makeup and they’re wearing it and they’re wearing a ton of it.

Right. And, and you know, they’re very animated, much more animated than you would be in person. and, or else, cause it’s very easy to come off as very robotic, I think. And just to. It things are more boring over a zoom or over the phone than it is when you’re in person. And so you want to, you want to turn things up a little bit. You keep people excited and engaged.

Andy Paul: I agree. I agree. I think to that point, that’s a great point. We don’t talk about enough is, you know, we’ve switched to zoom and yeah. If we look at the people that attract our attention on TV, Yeah, they are slightly amplified, you know, that’s, that’s part of the job of being on. Right. And so you can still be on and be authentic to who you are personally.

It’s not like you’re assuming a new personality just being 5%, five to 10% more than you were normally.

Steve Benson: Yeah. And, and, you know, I think you do that naturally when you’re presenting, like, I remember taking like presentation classes in business school and them telling me to turn it up a notch. You know, like if you’re giving a presentation, you want a little more energy, a little more inflection in the voice, be a little more engaging and it feels weird.

Cause it’s not totally you, it’s a little bit of an amplified version of you. And I think. Here, you may want to take that one step further, you know, be a, be even a little. So if, if normally, if you were sitting around with your buddies, you’d be way more low key than you are when you’re giving a presentation and you want to kind of move it up one more notch to if you’re going to get me, if you’re giving that presentation over as over Zoom.

Andy Paul: Yeah. Well, I tell people is, just use the adrenaline, right? I mean, a lot of times people, they feel nervous and they’re saying, well, I’ve got to calm down right then I don’t want to. It’s like, none. I want you to go the other way. Why don’t you ride this adrenaline? Right? This is excitement. This thing is powering you forward. If you know your material, take it for a ride. Take that adrenaline for a ride.

Steve Benson: Yeah. Well, and, and, you know, in that vein stand up when you’re giving your presentation, normally, if normally you’re standing giving a presentation, don’t sit down, just cause you’re doing a zoom, like, you know, move the camera up and stand there. And your cause your voice sounds different if you’re standing you’re, you know, you’re, you’re speaking more with your diaphragm and you’re able to move and be more energetic and wave your arms around. In a different way than if you’re just sitting on the telephone, like laid back in a chair.

Andy Paul: And to that extent is stand up and use a whiteboard. If you have one.

Steve Benson: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and, you know, still dress professionally, right? Like the same, if you were going to pitch in a suit. No. And normally you can still, you can still put on a suit and, you know, that’s, I guess that’s kind of, you want to be appropriate I guess, but you know, like, I, I do see people in situations where they basically look like they’re in their pajamas and you’re like, Hey, we’re still, we’re still doing business here. Like shut up, shut dress, dress to impress.

Andy Paul: Yeah. Well, I think there’s a lot to that as is that it’s a matter of consistency. I think mental consistency, right? If, if you perform at your best, when you’re dressed and as you said in a suit and you’re presenting, you know, you’re selling financial service products, then yeah. Don’t wear anything. But when you’ve got an important meeting, because that mental consistency is say, yeah, this is I perform my best when I’m dressed like this,

Steve Benson: Yeah. And, and, and they expect you to dress the way that you are normally dressing, I think. And you know, and, and there’s other things that there’s other, there’s other ways you want to be professional when you’re in kind of a zoom environment, you want to. Yeah, you want to make sure you’re still making eye contact, but you’re not making it with a camera.

You’re you’re you are making it with the camera, not a person. one thing I’ve seen people do, to help with that as they put like a mirror or a, I’m not doing this right now, but it’d be a good idea. If you put a mirror or a picture of someone behind the camera, so you can still make eye contact with a person in that that makes you a.

It helps you connect with the audience. If you’re naturally able to be looking at a human while you’re talking. I think sometimes we can feel disconnected if we’re just looking at the wall.

Andy Paul: As long as it’s not yourself. I mean, I think that’s distracting. I mean, I was always taught when I was, was being taught public speaking is you never practice looking in a mirror. Right. But so, but yeah, I think, I think having, having a target above the, camera’s not a bad idea right behind the camera.

Steve Benson: Yeah. Having something I think is, is helpful. and, The, and you want good lighting. You want to think about your lighting and there’s, you know, there’s, you see a lot of little advertisements on, around the web right now on social media, et cetera, for a little, little, like, well, like with lit things that sit on top of your computer and then make, you know, make you look better for salespeople. I think that’s a key thing. And then I don’t think they’re expensive. but

Andy Paul: Got, actually panel led panel lights here and a hundred bucks. I mean, you’re-

Steve Benson: And you look great.

Andy Paul: It’s, it’s the makeup that I’m wearing, but that’s really made all-

Steve Benson: okay. Yeah. Your forehead doesn’t look shiny at all. Looks like you really got really powdered up there.

Andy Paul: My makeup, my makeup is I haven’t shaved in five days, so that

Steve Benson: Either. Well, I, I went, I was, I was doing this, I was, I went to LinkedIn, they’ve got these training courses and, you know, so they, that was sales training courses that I was doing for them. And, and they make up to me all up and did my hair. so I was definitely looking my best then I’m definitely looking at my worst now. I even gave myself my own haircut, which didn’t go that well,

Andy Paul: You know, you really can’t tell, I think that’s the beauty of zoom that we really don’t know. So, yeah,

Steve Benson: Well, that’s, that’s, that’s important too.

Andy Paul: But by the time we get out of here, my hair could be down on my shoulders again, who knows? Just like-

Steve Benson: you go.

Andy Paul: like college days.

Steve Benson: Okay. Well, I just, I just cut mine the other day with my little, little dog little dog groomer that I used. It was, it was great.

Andy Paul: You clear, you clearly care more than I, if you feel like you have to cut your hair during the shutdown, now we’re still, we’re still sending checks or our haircutter, but, even though we’re not going, which I think people should be doing, but, if they can afford it, but, yeah, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna tough it out. We’ll see how it goes in a couple of months. So.

Steve Benson: You know, we’ll be fine.

Andy Paul: All right. Well, Steve, anything else before we go?

Steve Benson: I mean, I think, I think we’ve covered up every, all the important stuff here. I mean, I think, you know, in the end field sales is a, there’s a reason that people sell certain products in the field and it is the best way to sell them. But, you know, w the goal right now, I think is just tee things up to make the year, you know, to, people should concentrate on.

On having a successful year. If, if not, it’s not a successful next, next quarter, you may suck, but focusing the year and focus on me, your sales goals for the year. And then I think a key while we’re, while we’re locked inside here, just sales people should focus on keeping moving sales cycles forward to the best of their, and that way, when we get back out, we can hit the ground running.

Andy Paul: Perfect. All right, Steve. Thanks very much. So if people want to find out more about Badger mapping, where can they go?

Steve Benson: so Badgermapping.com is the best spot. you know, you can always search for me on LinkedIn, Steve Benson, and, I think I’m Stephen Benson on there. And then just look up Badger maps, Steve Benson. I’m easy to find, They if, if, just for enduring my, all my blathering here, and if they do need fields, field sales software, you know, listeners are what I just mentioned this podcast. And my team will give, give you two months free to have the software to try out and kick the tires. So

Andy Paul: All right. Sounds like a good deal, Steve, as always pleasure to talk to you,