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I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

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Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#11

Post by asyncscrum »

mannyv wrote: post #3

Having been an Enterprise SE in the past, I love any data about sales and the process. Do you have data that shows whether 'letting the customer talk' produces more wins? Or faster wins? The consensus seems to be 'customer talking' is better, probably because that shows the customer is more engaged. This and support calls should be inputs into product, but I'd guess both inputs are ignored.

This is a good question. Regarding letting customers talk, the teams that were most successful had great salesforce hygiene, and teams with great salesforce hygiene were required to fill in certain data points. This means that there are commonly asking questions and listening more than talking. Likely they were evaluated as sales representatives based on the quality of the data that they provided in salesforce as well as quota attainment. Overall I think the act of listening and asking questions versus delivering a script means you're qualifying your leads more appropriately and they're just better candidates for purchase.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#12

Post by zippergz »

seanherron wrote: post #6

I didn't expect to learn much from this article - but it actually really resonated with me. I often am responsible for purchasing decisions and found much of the advice to sales reps really insightful. (1) The number one thing that bothers me is when I reach out to a company to explore their product and I get scheduled with a BDR who's sole job is to "qualify" me as a lead. I know BDRs are in a tough spot - but if yo…

A while back I wanted to become a customer of a company I had formerly worked at. I reached out via an executive-level friend and former co-worker who made a warm intro to sales. And STILL they first scheduled a call with a brand new to the job BDR who knew less about the product than I did. Not that person's fault, and I felt bad for them, but it was a complete waste of everyone's time.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#13

Post by s1k3 »

mtmail wrote: post #10

> In most sales orgs, calls are being recorded by Zoom, > Gong or Chorus. To my surprise these calls are littered > with countless discussions of health. IMHO that sales calls are recorded is the bigger issue. People talk about their health in video chat because they feel it's a private conversation. I wouldn't shame people for talking about private matters but rather question why 1000 sales calls were (long-term?) r…

Sales calls are recorded for a number of reasons. Most of them good for the customer. You should be happy people want them recorded it means they care

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#14

Post by ipaddr »

s1k3 wrote: post #13
mtmail wrote: post #10

> In most sales orgs, calls are being recorded by Zoom, > Gong or Chorus. To my surprise these calls are littered > with countless discussions of health. IMHO that sales calls are recorded is the bigger issue. People talk about their health in video chat because they feel it's a private conversation. I wouldn't shame people for talking about private matters but rather question why 1000 sales calls were (long-term?) r…

Sales calls are recorded for a number of reasons. Most of them good for the customer. You should be happy people want them recorded it means they care

Please explain how I as a customer benefit when sales records a meeting. Usually it is rarely shared to me.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#15

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

Just thought the call out for "Protected Health Information" was weird, and it's wrong. If you're just having small talk with someone on a zoom call and you say "Yeah, that last COVID booster really wiped me out, I was in bed for 2 days", that doesn't mean the call contains "PHI".

First of all, you shared it. The whole reason for protecting PHI in the first place is limiting what others can do with your information, not what you can do with it. And if you share it willingly, and not for medical purposes, it doesn't mean that the person you shared it with suddenly has a higher burden of security/privacy with that info.

Just calling this out because so often see people that fundamentally misunderstand what "PHI" means in a legal sense, and specifically what the HIPAA regulations require.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#16

Post by bagels »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

Just thought the call out for "Protected Health Information" was weird, and it's wrong . If you're just having small talk with someone on a zoom call and you say "Yeah, that last COVID booster really wiped me out, I was in bed for 2 days", that doesn't mean the call contains "PHI". First of all, you shared it. The whole reason for protecting PHI in the first place is limiting what others can do with your information,…

Is anyone who is not a health care provider even bound by any PHI rules?

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#17

Post by spaniard89277 »

wpietri wrote: post #7
mannyv wrote: post #3

Having been an Enterprise SE in the past, I love any data about sales and the process. Do you have data that shows whether 'letting the customer talk' produces more wins? Or faster wins? The consensus seems to be 'customer talking' is better, probably because that shows the customer is more engaged. This and support calls should be inputs into product, but I'd guess both inputs are ignored.

> This and support calls should be inputs into product, but I'd guess both inputs are ignored. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Parts of the organization are in direct contact with customers, and are in a position to learn a lot. And those parts are often only connected to the decide-what-to-make parts either informally or via going all the way up to the C-level and then back down. It's maddening. At one client, I g…

I one of those tech support guys who always wonder why our company make such bad decisions, if they only listened to us...

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#18

Post by rish1_2 »

bagels wrote: post #16
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

Just thought the call out for "Protected Health Information" was weird, and it's wrong . If you're just having small talk with someone on a zoom call and you say "Yeah, that last COVID booster really wiped me out, I was in bed for 2 days", that doesn't mean the call contains "PHI". First of all, you shared it. The whole reason for protecting PHI in the first place is limiting what others can do with your information,…

Is anyone who is not a health care provider even bound by any PHI rules?

Any working professional that is handles PHI is bound by it and not just health care professionals. This could also be managers in a hospital. An individual is not.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#19

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

bagels wrote: post #16
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #15

Just thought the call out for "Protected Health Information" was weird, and it's wrong . If you're just having small talk with someone on a zoom call and you say "Yeah, that last COVID booster really wiped me out, I was in bed for 2 days", that doesn't mean the call contains "PHI". First of all, you shared it. The whole reason for protecting PHI in the first place is limiting what others can do with your information,…

Is anyone who is not a health care provider even bound by any PHI rules?

Yes, lots of data storage companies are - that's why these companies sign BAAs (Google HIPAA BAA for info).

There are some carve outs. For example, financial services companies don't have any additional privacy requirements if you buy a prescription with your Visa instead of cereal. That carve out was specifically added to the HIPAA legislation.

Re: I Listened to 1000 B2B SaaS Sales Calls

#20

Post by rcoc »

notaclevername wrote: post #2

The advice for sales reps to stop talking and listen certainly rings true in my experience. I see a lot of sales materials that are geared towards a scripted pitch: generic powerpoint decks, exhaustive demos, and boilerplate feature description flyers. There's probably a lot of value in sales teams having access to that kind of collateral, but I would wager that there's even more value in knowing how to step away fro…

I am working on a project to try to quantify exactly this. Where are our standard assets and demos creating obstacles rather than opening doors? Are there opportunities to deliver something to the customer that will accelerate processes, based on all other deals that have been worked on.
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