Optimizing the Value of Your Sales Intelligence. With Henry Schuck [Episode 599]

Henry Schuck, Co-Founder and CEO at DiscoverOrg, joins me on this episode.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Henry says the single biggest challenge facing sales reps today is to have the ability connect with their buyer in a meaningful way. Henry talks about the problems of hiring people just out of college with little business knowledge.
• Sales comes from connection through a trust-based relationship. Authenticity builds trust. Henry says reps need intellectual curiosity to sell. Rapport comes from asking about business issues and needs.
• Andy finds that authentic small talk works to warm up the conversation. Use LinkedIn profiles and tie them to work issues. Andy tells a Seinfeld sales story.
• DiscoverOrg reps are encouraged to use a webcam so they don’t multitask while on a call. Henry blocked Facebook at DiscoverOrg. Multitasking fails.
• Leave the smartphone in the drawer when talking on the phone, or in the car on a sales visit. It is powerful to give your full attention and focus to your customer.
• DiscoverOrg provides accurate data on companies’ contacts, technographics, the intent data on company initiatives, and when they will pull the trigger. Data includes direct-dial phones, emails, and org charts.
• Henry talks about fixing the 2016 budget for DiscoverOrg, having to make up a shortfall and to solve their own data issues. Henry tells how they worked out their research needs, added staff, and met budget, with more income.
• Henry spent $1,000,000 on the research team, and made $10,000,000 from the research. Companies that don’t want to use DiscoverOrg are making the decision to turn their own sales teams into a bad version of DiscoverOrg.
• The availability of data, if you use it, democratizes growth. Henry sees a sophistication problem. A CRM with DiscoverOrg is the first step towards success. The power is in building a go-to-market process around the data.
• Companies with 75 to 1,000 employees use the highest levels of sophistication of process. They tend to get every dime out of their investment in data. Henry sees less sophistication in companies over 1,000 or under 75.
• Andy and Henry discuss improving the inside sales close rate. Activity is the core of sales, but brute force multiplication is not efficient. Look at the set of people you call. Filter out the bad fits before calling. Use ICPs.
• We have to get better at closing the qualified leads we already have, and making sure the decisionmakers are involved early on.