Show Me You Know Me with Samantha McKenna

Is this thing still on? It's been a while. This show's been on hiatus for a couple of months. I told you that Doug and I were going to put something together, the likes of which you had not ever seen before. And I still plan to do that. But it's not going to happen in the immediate future because I've gotten bigger things on my plate right now. So what I wanted to do was, well, something. And Doug and I started talking and he said, "Hey, um, here, remember the deeper thought podcast you did a couple of years ago? Doug and I decided that we could go through some of those episodes over the next several weeks, several months. You're going to get access to what you previously weren't able to. Hopefully this little provocation will help you sell something that you haven't sold before. And stay tuned for these episodes as they drop week over week. I think you're going to take something away from them. I know you're going to be entertained by them. And I just, I can't wait to talk to you again real soon. My name's Jeff Pajorik. And my career in sales has been a hell of a ride. And I want to bring you along with me. And if you prefer to sell things at a premium, if you never want to win a deal on price, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. Rethink the way you sell. Welcome back to the show. I'm your host. I'm here to help you rethink the way you sell today. I need to rethink the way you personalize. And I've got Sam McKenna with me today. And one of her favorite things to train on and teach and talk about is this concept she calls Show Me You Know Me. And we're going to get into the conversation here in just a second. But what I want to encourage you to think about is, are you personalizing in the right way? Are you spending enough time going to do a little research on your clients and your prospects? But are you finding a way not to spend too much time? And this concept of how long it should take you is actually something that Sam and I get into. So I don't want to give away everything here. But think about what personalization means. Think about and be critical about what personalization doesn't mean. And I'll talk to you again on the other side of this interview. Sam McKenna, so good to be with you again. Our paths have crossed a couple of times here recently. And it's been a delight for me. I feel sorry for you. But it's been a delight for me. So thank you for being here. Thanks. Thanks for always giving me my begging to be on this show with you. I appreciate it. So when you were begging to get on this show, how did you show me that you knew me? This is a, I love it. Your hashtag and there's a bunch of alphabet soup there. And I always know what it is. But I never know how to like, if I stop to type it, it always takes me a little bit. But this is I think something that blesses and plagues sales reps because we've been told, has been beaten through us that you don't just want to spam people you want to give them some context for why you're someone worth talking to. And some of that is just doing your research and understanding a little bit about them. But when you say, show me, you know me every time I think I know what you mean, I'll say something. You're like, Jeff, that's I see where you're going there, but that's not it. Let me show you, you know, better. What does show me you know me mean to you, Sam? Oh man. So I think we take this in a hundred different ways. And I think one of the things you say is, you know, how it can play graphs. We talk to leaders all the time who are like, we got to show me a new man. I'm like, that's cool. 96% of reps don't like. We have to actually like pull this apart, pull these threads right and really explain what this means. At the most basic level, this means understanding something about our buyer, who they are as a person, what's going on in their space and their vertical or what's going on in their company. Right. So if I show up, let's say, and I'm trying to sell to top tier law firms, right. So lawyers who build 900 thousand dollars an hour and I say, I'd love to help you get your product out there and drive more leads. Those law firms are going to be like, never talk to us again, because I don't understand their space. I haven't taken the time to do my research on them. I don't know. I think about them as a human, their space, their firm, whatever. Same thing goes for everybody we're reaching out to. One of the pro tips I can give you, especially as a BDR AE, anybody that's doing outbound is think about focusing on two companies in the same vertical in one week. So if you're going after enterprise accounts and we know that there's a ton of contacts to go after, go after your two oil and gas accounts for one week, go after your semiconductors for the next week and all you have to do is the same stuff over and over again, right. Like, even the efficiency of not changing that muscle memory of like weight, right, is huge. But otherwise it's just doing a little bit of research. And it's amazing if I say, show me you know me and I will respond to your email, put something in your subject line that actually shows you've done some research on me. I will respond to your email. But yet nobody does. The canned emails that we get every single day, the canned emails are executives are getting. Even though they're saying, please show me you know me. It's crazy. One more thing. I will say I did get a show me you know me email today and I'm going to shout out for somebody just so you guys know. And Spencer from Receivable Solutions, I'm going to give him a shout out and I'll tell him I did it. He sent me on the subject line. He said, is Jeffrey real? Doc, Doc, Doc. Or is he just a figment of I know his imagination? Well, if you look at my LinkedIn profile, you know that I'm a huge Berifer, Contessa, Contessa fan. And that's Ina and she is married to Jeffrey. They have roast chicken every Friday night. He took the second to show me you know me and all he's doing is asking for help. He wants to my perspective on something. But he took two seconds to do it and I'm going to take two seconds right about and give him a shout out. It's you suffer from the same disease that I do and it's this bleeding heart for salespeople who do it the right way. I have bought more magazine subscriptions that I will not read from more college kids who are willing to stand on my front porch and tell me. You are the reason I'm getting people these days. Yes. I was wondering who that was. And I sent them all. They asked for referrals and I give them your number. Great. Look, you know how to prospect. I know you know how to prospect, but something still gets in your way. As a matter of fact, I've identified eight reasons that you and your team are not creating more sales opportunities. I put them together as a white paper to serve as a companion of this season of the rethink the way you sell podcast. Go to JeffBajorik.com/8reasons to download your copy and the self assessment that is included in that white paper. So you know where you can make maximal impact right away to improve your prospecting results. Now back to the show. How long should people spend doing this? It's not if you're in the digital space and everybody's on LinkedIn and now more and more people are sharing more personal things on LinkedIn. I mean, it's easier to find than it ever was and you got to be careful. You know, become stalkery. You know, I mean, like people say, how do I not be creepy? I said, well, just don't be creepy. Like you know where your own line is. But how long does it take? Because I hear people saying who people who think they get it because they don't think they need to spend so much time. Now I hear them, you know, hear you saying what you're saying and they're thinking, wow, I could get lost. My reps can get lost five, 10 minutes per prospect. Is that a good use of time? Yeah. I really, I don't, it's going to differ for more people. I think if you spend more than five minutes before you reach out to someone, you're probably wasting your time. What say you, Ms. Expert? Here's this group, right? All of this stuff takes experience and takes time to develop. So if you listen to me on a sales call, the way that I can drive a sales cycle, the way I can close it quickly, the way that I can get to the heart of BAMP, you know, and like 18 minutes and everyone's like, well, it takes me not in cost to get that cool. Probably because you're early in your career. Same exact thing was shown me. You know me, cut yourself some slack. I would tell you set a goal. If you can send 10 show me you know me, emails in a day, meaningfully look up a prospect's information, meaningfully connect with them and then just say, okay, it's going to take me, let's say, 10, let's say it's going to take me 30, 30 minutes per email, which seems insane, right? But just give yourself that slack, see what happens and then start to narrow this down. It's like running a marathon. Yes, you want to run it in four hours. Can you run it in six today? Sure. And four after six months of training, probably you've got to cut yourself some slack and then back up. But here's what I would tell you, even if you say, all right, it's going to take me 15 minutes per email. I mean, I think about how to do this and I'm only going to send 20. Your response rate number one, what your open rate through the roof, your response rate will drastically change. And even if somebody says no, thanks, not a right fit for us, it gives us a yes or no instead of just a maybe and continuing to span them. And it gives us a chance to understand why not them is it the wrong time? Is it the wrong buyer? Should I go elsewhere? Not quality will pay off instead of spending all of that time spamming and spamming and tarnishing your brand. Then let's say you've spent 15 minutes or you've nerd it now and now to 10, then take all that extra time and start to social sell, right? Like that's where we start to really move the needle on modern day prospecting and modern day selling. It is not about a hundred cool calls an hour or a day and I know I know you feel about the stuff. It's not just about that. It's about using all the channels that you have in front of us to be smart. We're in 100% agreement on that. And there's more than one way to get it done. I think the problem that reps have is when they immediately disclude or discard a viable method. I call calling and they're still not getting their job done. Look, if you're Sam, you don't pick up the phone and call anybody. It's not that you don't use the phone, but here's the thing. This is what I know because you are so proficient in the things that you already do. You don't need to. Okay. the problem is most people aren't you, Sam. And they think that they can do it, and I love that this is what I love about the perspective that you just gave me. I say five minutes, you're like, "Jeff, even if it takes you 20, "you can't get to five unless you start at 20." And that is really, really valuable insight there. And I think perspective, you know, to give people. And by the same token, and to get off my co-calling soapbox, the. You have to get to where you. It took you years to arrive at the level of expertise and proficiency that you have. Took years to arrive where I am. There's. You can't just say, "Oh, Jeff and Sam said this, "so that's the way it has to be due." And you know, that way it has to be done. Can't believe how tongue-tied I just got there. I can't believe. Well, I had a stroke for a second. So people are exceptional at this top, right? Like, one of the most successful rep I've ever hired, I'll shout out for her Katie O'Rourke, who's now at Salesforce. But she had three years of selling experience. When I hired her first super senior enterprise role, because she just got it, right? It was just the personality and mentality and skill that she had. I will say, too, like, think about how show me, you know me, bleeds through every part of your sales cycle. Like, this is not just for what you're doing in the very first email. This is for what you do with clients that you've had for 10 years. Now do you show up for them? How do you meaningfully think about them? What do you even do for some of the you've just met that you know is going through a hard time? Just talked about this with an arch client. They had a meeting book, the woman no showed. And then when they've gotten contact with the woman, she's like, I'm so sorry, I no showed my husband died. Oh my God. Right? So maybe just send like all the door dash gift card. 15 bucks and just say, I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what you're going through. Food's the last thing on your mind. Here's a little something that from us to just send our condolences, even though we don't know you. Right. Or that person that you've worked with for a decade, right? We, one of our clients, she is going to hopefully, she doesn't hear this before we do it. But she's running the Sacramento. Iron man. And she's going to try to qualify for, I think it's Kona, the Kona marathon, right? You have to be in the top three percent. So we're going to send her her favorite like marathon bars and say in the last two weeks of training, we're thinking about you. Right. Man, that can go a long way. Right. It's funny too. I talk a lot about follow up and how I think most reps actually ghost their prospects. It's not the other way around. Because when they just, like when they just stop returning calls, it's probably not you, dude. You are probably not there. You didn't offend them. They, something happened and in every time, and it's funny, I say like, I've been ghosted one time. I've only been ghosted one time because that was, everybody else that just continued to persist with. And you always bring it back to the conversation you last had. You bring it back to the problem you know they're trying to solve. You bring it back to those things and eventually they get back to you and they're like, I'm sorry. My dog died. The industry changed. The, you know, whatever. It's almost always something that isn't you. But if, what I like about, and you're big on manners and making people's day and things along those lines, there's always an opportunity in the sales process to do that. And so just this example that you just laid out like, oh, wow. I apologize for my persistence when you're going through that personal issue. That's not what you want to hear. But look, maybe this will help. Right. It just, we're always trying to leave on a high note, so to speak. So we got just a couple minutes left here, but I'm for clarity. I'm curious what most people think show me you know me is that isn't. So what, what do people do where they think they're nailing it? And they're really missing the mark. Show me you know me is not personalization at scale. So it's not Jeff plus Sam in a show meeting. Nope. It's also not like I see you wear red shirts. I do too sometimes. Want a chat? It's also not thinking of just random things that like have no relation back to that person. For example, somebody sent out a show me, you know, me email to somebody who lives in Miami and said, for opening day of baseball, who are you rooting for? You know, knowing you're in Miami, you've got to be a big fan. And I'm like, what does this guy say about baseball, who we root for anything? What does Miami have to do with opening day baseball? He's like, nothing. I just the only thing I could think of. And I'm like, sweet Jesus. So show me you know me again, like if you have some kind of authentic connection, right, to whatever that person has gone through, has done worked somewhere, whatever. Make sure you've got that. Make sure you actually describe it. So if you reach out to me and say, I see you went to FSU, I'd love for you to buy your product. I'm like, good job. You can read. What about FSU? Like, is it near and dear to your heart? Tell me something about that. So it's not just that surface level in authentic stuff. And again, it doesn't have to be about the person. It can just be, I know your space really well. I've, you know, I've been in the healthcare space forever. I know it's inside and out. I bet that I can offer you some great strategies that you guys haven't thought of. Let's chat a little bit more about how to regulate that. But that's, that's what it's not and maybe what it is. Right. No, love it. We're in complete alignment there. No surprise. No surprise. You and I say it differently. And we almost always, I, well, I say almost because I don't like to speak in absolutes. But we have always to this point anyway, I found a common ground, even when we've talked about cold calling or not, even when we talked about it. It's, and it's amazing to me. And I think that, I think that's very important to illustrate because there are a lot of ways to get home. And there are, and regardless of who you're paying attention to, everything is rooted in common themes, principles, fundamentals. And you got to sell like you, you got to do it your way. You've got to understand what you're trying to accomplish here and then build your best way, your most successful, your most effective, your most fulfilling way to go about doing that. That's what I love about the way you teach it is you're prescriptive enough to give people context, but you're always rooted in, yeah, but don't forget about what we're trying to do here, guys. Right. And it's, it's fun watching you do what you do. Thanks. I'll close out by saying, you know, I think that there are very few absolutes in sales. So there are other things we know not to do, not to insult our clients, not to show up on the doorstep of the contract. There are some very black and white absolutes in sales, but very few of them, everything else is just style. If you love to call call and you don't want to personalize, you do you. I hate to call call and I'm all about personalization. And that's just my style. But I think what's interesting is you start to look at those common themes, those threads in your top performers, you know, whether they're social sellers, whether they just give a sh-sh-sh-knuckle about their clients, whatever it is. And you start to see, okay, this is what keeps happening and well respected sales reps and top performers. Those are the things that I need to replicate. But still, make them your own authentic style the end of the day. Awesome. Very, very well said. Thanks for being here. Really appreciate what you're doing for everybody. And yeah, this has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. Well, what'd you learn? As you listen to that conversation, where there are things that you notice that you're doing that you shouldn't do anymore, are there things that you hurt us talk about that you should start doing? And I want to bring particular notice or attention to the idea of, you know, not just being able to implement this stuff right away. Sam made a great point. What might take you five minutes if you've been doing it for a while? It might take you 20 to get started. Just because it's going to take it, or take you longer than you wanted to at first, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. If it's important enough to do, it's important enough to work through to get there to the point where you can make it successful for you. So really keep that in mind as we're looking forward. And I really appreciate Sam for bringing that up because that perspective is pretty vital. I want to thank Sam for joining us. Sam's been a great friend. She's been an inspiration. She's a great hang. I mean, we've gotten a chance to spend some time together. She's an absolute ball of energy in its infectious. And the work that she's doing with her firm, Sam's sales, to help people understand how to social sell better, how to do outreach better, how to just be better human beings in the process is really, really inspiring. She's been fun to watch and even more fun to know. So I encourage you to follow her and her, not only she a great follow on LinkedIn, but there's a newsletter that Sam sends out every Friday morning. I get it. It informs me. It makes me laugh. And it just makes me feel better about being in sales. I think you should check it out. I'll leave the links to that as well as her LinkedIn profile in the show notes. As always, I know you have a ton of options out there in podcast land. Thank you for spending the last 20 minutes or so with me. And I look forward to speaking to you again in just a couple of days. If this was important or valuable or pertinent or fun for you, share it with a friend. I really appreciate that. I'll be back in a couple of days. Talk to you then. We think the way you sell is a pot about it production. It's mixed and edited by Doug Branson with music by Blue Dot Sessions and Doug Branson. This podcast is Masterminded by Jeff Bajorik.