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No one has it all figured out. And anyone who says they do? Well, they’re lying.
This is for the women who are trying. Trying to juggle all the things. Trying to make sense of what they actually want. Trying to keep their heads above water without losing themselves in the process.
Career. Money. Relationships. The pressure to do it all. The pressure to want it all. And the moments you secretly wonder, is it just me?
Here we speak openly, laugh through chaos, and ask questions instead of pretending to have all the answers.
Because we’re all a work in progress.
Andre Lachlan (00:00):
You should be asking our sales leader, what do you want to see from marketing? What is it that you would see as being most impactful within your region? Having that direct dialogue creates a much more impactful campaign when you're able to connect the two.
Gayle Kalvert (00:15):
Hi, I'm Gayle Kalvert and this is Marketing In Progress, a spinoff of Work in Progress. This is for anyone juggling the world of B2B marketing, figuring out what matters, what you can skip, and what actually grows revenue. You'll hear from marketing leaders, sales leaders and agency owners. Every angle with no filter, you won't hear any jargon and no fluff, just real talk, smart ideas and some laughs along the way. Today's guest is Andre Lachlan, sales director at Splunk. Andre leads a commercial sales team and has years of experience navigating the relationship between sales and marketing. What makes Andre especially valuable to this conversation? He's not just a sales leader, he is someone who believes in marketing and has built strong partnerships with marketing teams throughout his career. In fact, Andre and I met years ago when we were both new employees at a company called Qlik and spent a week in Sweden for our new hire orientation.
(01:18):
Here's what we're digging into in this episode, why sales and marketing often feel misaligned and how to fix it, what salespeople actually care about. Hint, it is not your MQL count, how to build better collaboration even if you're not structurally aligned and reporting to the same leader. What marketers get wrong about events, pipeline creation and sales pressure. Plus three questions you can take back to your sales team this week to get closer alignment. And yes, we even tackle the AI personalization problem and why more tech isn't always the answer. Andre, welcome. Thank you so much for being on Marketing and Progress. We're a pretty new show, so I appreciate your faith in me.
Andre Lachlan (02:04):
Thank you, kale. It's a pleasure to be here. Sounds like a exciting, fantastic topic and after a week together in Sweden, I will spend any amount of time with you.
Gayle Kalvert (02:14):
That's a good sign. That's a good testament. I didn't drive you away. That's great.
Andre Lachlan (02:19):
Been 10 years since then. So absence does make the heart grow fonder, but I'm here happily.
Gayle Kalvert (02:24):
So what we're going to talk about now is what marketers can do even if they're not structurally aligned, right? Because in some organizations marketing and sales all report up to the same leader. That kind of forces alignment, but that's not always the case. So let's say a marketing leader who's listening agrees that they want to have closer alignment with their sales team, but their organization isn't structured that way. You've dealt with that. So what can he or she do if they're not structurally aligned and forced to engage with the sales team?
Andre Lachlan (02:59):
Yeah, fantastic question. Kind of complex and tough. It's obviously much easier if it's a top down. Everyone reports to say the chief revenue officer for example, and there's direct alignment in terms of how to go to market together. Where it becomes more challenging is if you have different reporting hierarchies and where I ultimately see success and where we've kind of broken down barriers between those two is where you're able to have an actual cadence with your peer on the marketing and sales side. So we always talk about selling being a team sport and we talk about the village, everyone that supports us, whether that's engineers, whether that be marketing, finance, legal. If you have direct correspondence and you're able to have one-off weekly meetings in some cases biweekly. We like to do weekly with marketing to make sure that our priorities are staying aligned because sometimes we're measured on different things, but like a Venn diagram, there's of course overlap in the middle and having some type of sink where you're able to talk about this is what we need within our specific region, for example, is going to go a lot further than staying siloed.
(04:13):
So my advice and where we've seen success is when you have silos, break them down, reach across the fence, schedule a cadence with your peer, so what's important to them, and then it becomes much more of a win-win type scenario. And we're working collaboratively as a team for this specific region rather than I'm working for sales and you are working for marketing.
Gayle Kalvert (04:38):
It's a really good point. I like that you're creating the structure that might not be there already. What if you're not getting that cooperation from sales leadership or they really want to have those meetings and do that alignment, but sales is, we're busy, it's quarter end, it's month end, right? Is there anything you can mention that would incentivize a salesperson to make a little time?
Andre Lachlan (05:03):
We often talk to sales or talk about sales reps kind of being like a CEO of their territory. They run it and we have a plethora of resources similar to that village that I was mentioning. If you can position yourself as a value add to that salesperson, Hey, I want to help you guys find more sales qualified pipeline, I want to help you find more real opportunities. It's really important that we stay in sync. So it's almost saying, I'm here to help you in order for me to do that, I need to have some of your time. 15, 30 minutes a week is all that we're asking. And then this kind of ties into in-person events. In order for me to be able to serve your team, our team collectively better, I need to understand what's top of mind. Any upcoming events that maybe aren't on our radar, for example, that becomes really important.
(05:53):
Sell yourself to the seller. What is it that you can add in terms of assisting them or helping them of revenue or pipeline? Those are the two biggest things that are going to perk up the years of a seller. So if you say, I can help you in these areas, we need to have a conversation to make sure we stay aligned. I'd be shocked if there was a seller that said, sorry, I don't have time for that conversation. If they are not willing to collaborate with a marketing individual who wants to work with them, that would be a big red flag.
Gayle Kalvert (06:24):
Yeah, that's really great. So to sum it up, say the words pipeline and revenue and you should get that seller's attention. And to your point, if that doesn't work, this is probably not a seller that you need to be investing time to align with.
Andre Lachlan (06:38):
Right, exactly. And kind of the same way when we sell, if we're working with say a champion or someone who's not really giving us the time of day, we are not afraid to go hire. Either you or your manager can escalate it and say, look, I'm trying to assist. We're not really getting the kind of engagement that we need to be effective. I don't think many sales leaders would like to hear that their team is not proactively working with marketing. So that would be a huge miss.
Gayle Kalvert (07:03):
Okay, that's really good advice. Yeah. What does that 15 or 30 minute meeting look like? I thought 15 minutes. That's amazing. Yes. What are you accomplishing in 15 minutes and how are you doing it in 15 minutes?
Andre Lachlan (07:15):
We basically do a very quick overview in terms of what new corporate marketing events are coming up on the horizon. Are there road shows? What kind of trade events that I should be making sure that my team is aware of to drive attendance? So that only really takes five minutes. The other 10 minutes is looking at what kind of opportunities or funnel were created by the team that we're marketing sourced and then directionally, is that working or is it not working, for example. And then we probably save about five minutes to talk about more creative ideas. What can we be doing that will break through the noise that everyone has in their inbox or voicemail and create something either in person or some type of giveaway that is going to create actual new pipeline. So that would be a very short 15 minutes. To be clear, mine are usually 30 minutes a week, but in terms of if you want to kind of bang this out and make an easy ass for someone, you could absolutely accomplish it in 15 minutes.
Gayle Kalvert (08:19):
Yeah, no small talk. I'm not good at that, Andre, I'm just not.
Andre Lachlan (08:24):
Good point.
Gayle Kalvert (08:25):
Yeah, no, but I'm with you. I find too like look, 30 minutes people can give 30 minutes once you go over 30, it starts to get a little like are we really being productive? But that makes a lot of sense. So what is one thing that you wish more marketers knew about the job of sales?
Andre Lachlan (08:42):
For me, it would be that, and it probably comes back to how do we find synergy between the two. I yet measured on the amount of pipeline that I have, but it's ultimately the measure of most sellers is how much revenue are we closing? So that goes back to the old kind of quantity versus quality conversation. I want opportunities, I want pipeline that I know has a higher likelihood of actually converting. So sometimes where I see a disconnect as marketing is saying, look how much pipeline we've created. We don't understand why sales is struggling or we don't understand why sales isn't happy, that's fantastic, but none of that pipeline is progressing past the first call for example. So where I would like to see a higher level of synergy between the two, and this is no fault of a marketer, is how do we tie both compensation, both metrics to a similar goal, which is ultimately closed one revenue. I don't care where that closed one revenue comes from, whether it's from marketing, whether it's from my sales rep. All I care about is that we're closing revenue. So I'd like to make sure that marketing is similar, that when they're creating pipeline, their highest goal is not the amount of pipeline they create, but rather how much of that actually converts to closed one.
Gayle Kalvert (09:57):
And so if someone's listening now and they're in an organization where they're not structurally aligned, they want to create pipeline, but like you said, quality pipeline, are there any questions they should ask sales to get that answer?
Andre Lachlan (10:13):
Absolutely. So when you have your weekly or biweekly sync, you're talking for 15, 30 minutes, you should be asking your sales leader, what do you want to see from marketing? Or is there something regionally specific that is really top of mind for you that we're not seeing? So what I would say is what is it that you would see as being most impactful within your region? I don't love when we hear about events that have nothing to do with what we care about. Instead, I like where we get to involve and say, Hey, we've got a budget. What kind of event would you like to create in person? Virtual? Is it a webinar? Having that direct dialogue creates a much more impactful campaign when you're able to connect the two. So that's my kind of biggest takeaway is if you're meeting consistently make that ask of your sales team, what would you like to see in terms of pipeline that we're creating? Where is it that you're seeing quality? For example?
Gayle Kalvert (11:11):
Okay, now I'm going to play devil's advocate, Andre, I've been in these scenarios as well where you've got the salespeople who always come, it's always the same people that come to marketing and they want money, they want budget, they want some sort of event, and there may not be that RO. I mean, have you ever met a seller who really wanted to go to a conference, maybe they wanted a week in Vegas. I know that's not you. I know that you are strategic, but not every seller is strategic, just like not every marketer is strategic. And so any advice for marketers on how they can educate sales and maybe try to avoid those situations?
Andre Lachlan (11:53):
Absolutely. So this goes to the scarcity versus abundance mindset. We have a lot of resources. The one finite resource is time. So it's saying, do you want to be investing not just money, but your time into an event that doesn't yield results and you can kind of share some data with them. Back to our Qlik days, everything's a data powered conversation. Have a conversation around, hey, the reason we don't typically sponsor these events is because we don't see anything in terms of X, Y or Z. Can you help me understand why you feel that this conference would be different from what we have historically seen? So it's fair to respectfully challenge and say, what's different about this one versus the ones that we've seen in the past that have not yielded results? And remind them that in terms of marketing, it's not just a one-to-one mapping. It's not just we're going to do something specifically for you. It has to be how do we tie this to a whole region? So quite often someone on my team will have an ask, there's an event happening, we will then turn it into a broader conversation. How can the whole team leverage this, for example? So my thought is how do you scale one ask to, is this something that would benefit the team or the region? So get that seller to think bigger.
Gayle Kalvert (13:09):
Okay. Awesome. And we've spoken in the past. You've mentioned some marketing events or just strategies that are really helpful to you and your sellers. Can you mention a few?
Andre Lachlan (13:22):
Yeah, so there's a lot of kind of zoom, WebEx fatigue over the years, getting people to join webinars, extremely challenging. I'd say we've actually seen a return to in-person events. The challenge companies have had diaspora, everyone's moved away. So a lot of the individuals that we sell to might not be geographically close. So it's instead meeting customers where they're at, doing more boutique scale events and a return to in-person events is where we have seen a lot more traction. And this isn't true for all organizations, but I will say working for Cisco, they do fantastic nationwide events. Roadshows, tech days for example, those are like marquee destination events. So if you are able to meet your customers there, that's the biggest thing. But thinking smaller scale, hey, we don't have nationwide user groups. For example, I would be thinking about how do I do something that's really small scale, curated for 15 or 20 individuals versus a webinar for 200? We tend to see a lot more when we do a targeted smaller campaign. That's where we've seen the most success.
Gayle Kalvert (14:40):
Okay. Well, we've talked a lot about events. Is there anything else that marketing is doing that is helping sales right now?
Andre Lachlan (14:50):
Yeah, we've seen a real uptick in terms of creating a draw, something to pull people in. So getting leads via things like handing out sunglasses. For example, if you join this webinar, you're going to get a pair of Ray-Bans at the end or Nike shoes, doing things that have a tangible physical kind of gift component to it gets a lot of people to have conversations. And currently my pipeline, we've got two or three opportunities that came from marketing, which we have not historically seen in the past. So I will say, I'm not sure if this dichotomy, I'm not sure what it is, but there seems to be a real interest as it relates to people getting some sort of swag, meaningful swag, not $5, not $10 Uber gift card, but meaningful a hundred, $200 type gifts. Those are going a long way in terms of creating actual conversations for us. And then it's incumbent upon the sales team and our engineers and the rest of the village to take the opportunity from there. But I have to give a strong shout out to our marketing team leaning into this area of kind of gift-giving to get opportunities. It's been a game-changer.
Gayle Kalvert (16:02):
So is this a raffle or if you attend, everybody gets a pair of Nikes?
Andre Lachlan (16:07):
If you attend and you attend the entire thing and then come to a follow-up meeting, then you get two 50 pair of Nikes, which is obviously, yeah, it's impactful.
Gayle Kalvert (16:19):
I mean, I'll know when do you want to meet with me, Andre?
Andre Lachlan (16:22):
Exactly, exactly. So the only caveat is it's limited at either a hundred people or 200 people. So it doesn't totally blow out, but it's been really impactful and kind of back to the whole finite time, everyone is scarce as it relates to time. There's got to be something in it valuable that an individual says yes, it's worth it, and a gift of that dollar value tends to perk people's ears. Everyone that we're selling to. I'm sure everyone that you're selling to making a fair bit of money, dangling a $20 gift card for a lunch, probably not going to move the needle in terms of someone who wants to actually talk to you, give something that's interesting that is going to get you a stronger response.
Gayle Kalvert (17:07):
So gifts, gifts, gifts.
Andre Lachlan (17:10):
It is, and I feel horrible saying that, but it is where we've seen where we've been having internal conversations and it's very compelling the response rate that we're getting versus what we've seen in other areas.
Gayle Kalvert (17:22):
Right. No, I love that. I'm sitting here, I'm a business owner thinking I got to get some budget together to get some Nikes out there for my own sales efforts.
Andre Lachlan (17:32):
What are you seeing as really impactful campaigns that are generating both quality opportunities? As we've described?
Gayle Kalvert (17:42):
This might sound cliche, but we work with a lot of companies that are not as large as Cisco Splunk. So getting to the root of the messaging that actually resonates with your buyer is actually where we see the most improvement ratio. So the more you invest in ensuring that your messaging is actually right for your buyer, the better return you have on your marketing efforts to build pipeline. So I'll get to that in a second. It's actually unbelievable. It does really surprise me how many companies are going out with messaging that they've never tested or they tested years ago, and everything is changing so quickly right now, not just in the way that we work, but in the way that people buy and how they're incentivized to buy. We're all buyers, even if it's B2B or B2C, everything is changing so quickly. And so your messaging and how you are presenting the problem that you solve is so critical.
(18:49):
And there are still so many software companies pushing features and functions and not that value and solving a problem from a campaign, from a pipeline perspective, definitely seeing events being much more critical. Again, I agree, people are lonely. People want to get out there and meet people and do things. Again, challenging of course to have the budget to be able to do all of those things. So what we see, I'm curious how this works in your experience with the marketers you work with, is that when you do an event, it's everything you actually do before and after that matter almost more than what you're doing at the event itself. And it's astounding how much money companies spend on events without ensuring that they've got marketing wrapped around that event. They're like, well, we paid for the passes and we sponsored and our logo is out there, so we should be getting a ton of pipeline. Are you seeing anything there? What's best practice for marketers that are focusing on events like you talked about?
Andre Lachlan (19:54):
Of the events that we do, 50% of the opportunities we get are from people who didn't even go. It was the pre and post follow-up that engaged them. So it's making sure that you've got enough of a runway for in-person events for teams to actually have the ability to go get TE budget to attend. So first of all, you need to be announcing these three, six months in advance before you do it in a drip campaign in terms of making sure that people are attending and not blasting out just actual copy that doesn't resonate. And this is where you can work with sales, take an invite and tailor it to the use case of that person's customer. So rather than just sending it to the customer, ask the sales rep who covers that account, Hey, do you want to send these invites? Because we'd like to rewrite it in a way that we know is impactful for the customer, their use case.
(20:48):
Just saying, Hey, we've got an event on security, doesn't really matter if that's not the use case of the customer that you're talking to. So tailoring it and that's where you can partner with sales. Have the sales rep send the note, for example, ample runway beforehand and then follow up afterwards continuing. We know you need to follow up 5, 10, 15 times to actually get a conversion. Quite often in terms of a conversation. So working with either the B-D-R-S-D-R or the sales rep, you have to view it as a marathon. It's not a one-time event and it's over. It's kind of like the tip of the iceberg. The event itself is probably 10%. It's the 90% before and after where it is impactful of whether or not someone is even aware of the event. And if they don't attend, they still want to talk to you because the content was like, this is something that I'm sad to have missed. I need to be talking to you to learn more.
Gayle Kalvert (21:47):
I want you to say something you just said one more time. It's so important. You mentioned the number of touches it typically takes before somebody takes an action. What's that number?
Andre Lachlan (21:57):
We see like 15, I said five or 10, but really it's like 15 plus. We have some of our BDRs reach out, 17 touch sequences and it's on the 15th, 19th touch that someone gets back. There are tools to help automate that, but you still have to be personal in terms of how you do it as well. So staying top of mind, making sure you use voicemail for example, but you're almost building a relationship or having a conversation with someone over voicemail or email. You are chatting with someone who is not responding, but you are continuing to nurture that relationship. And we do see that it becomes, hey, it wasn't relevant two months ago, but I do have the time and now I'm feeling the pain of that particular issue. Let me follow up. So you kind of become someone that they know you are a domain expert in that area.
Gayle Kalvert (22:47):
I just love this because you just said pretend you're having a conversation even if they're not responding. I'm seeing it for myself. I'm sold to all the time as a founder, CEO of a company, and there are people's names. I've never met them. I haven't even opened their emails, but I know their name because they are regularly having a conversation with me even though I'm not answering. But you're correct, because at some point when I need that thing, I'm like, oh, that guy's been emailing me for two years and then all of a sudden I buy. I have done that. So I'm so glad you said that. Even me, I say five to seven touches and we do a lot of email nurture campaigns for clients and for ourselves that are five to seven touches. So I'm excited to now be like, guys, it's 17 to 19 touches.
Andre Lachlan (23:34):
There's many kind of reports or studies in terms of the number of touches, and it is mind blowing in terms of how many, not everyone is a voicemail or an email, for example. There's multi-pronged approach about it, but suffice it to say, sending a couple of emails and one voicemail saying, Hey, I never heard from them, is not going to be an effective strategy to actually break through to individuals.
Gayle Kalvert (23:58):
I have so many questions and we're going to run out of time, but before we get into ai, I have more of questions. Okay. So you're actually voice mailing people. Are you using, not just you specifically, but sellers? Are you using an automated system where you're literally sending a voicemail or are you cold-calling still and then getting voicemail?
Andre Lachlan (24:15):
A bit of both. So our marketing discretionary, BDRs, ISRs, SDRs, they use more of a system in terms of doing it. The team that I lead six sellers, they have roughly 20, 25 accounts each. They have the ability to actually research the individual that they want and spend the time to make an actual phone call with a cell phone. So it's a more targeted approach. So it really depends on the nature of what is your target audience? Is it really small and niche? I'd be going hyper-personalized in terms of picking up your phone, actually calling them. If you have to go wider than that, then you probably want to invest in some sort of a platform to assist with that. And there are a million on the market today to help scale in terms of the outreach that you do.
Gayle Kalvert (25:07):
Okay, we got to talk about AI because it's 2025. So how has AI impacted your team's work? If it has?
Andre Lachlan (25:15):
I'd say it's impacted it from a productivity perspective. It doesn't change the nature or how we do things. It has improved our ability to follow up. So when we have conversations with customers, we will have a notes summary based on that conversation. So it allows you to be a lot more present in that conversation because you're not worrying about jotting down notes. Instead you can be present. You can ask really insightful questions based on what the person actually said, not like a canned script of, okay, once I ask this question, I ask this question. You're able to be thoughtful in terms of the response that someone gives you and asking a question that earns the right to have another conversation with them. And then more importantly, at the end, you've got a great summary of notes and it can help you in terms of capturing action items and sharing that back via an email to make sure that everyone stays on the same page.
(26:13):
It's been a game changer and it's really good if I can't join a call, someone on my team, I can see the notes after so I can understand what happened. Are there any action items for me to reach out to an executive at the customer or an executive internally if we need a resource, for example. So it does a really effective job of keeping everyone on the same page. Back to that earlier point of selling as a team sport, you need the entire ecosystem that supports you to understand the opportunity. AI is fantastic from a note-capturing perspective,
Gayle Kalvert (26:43):
I 100% agree, then you can share that with your manager. Or if you need coaching, it's always good. I do this with my team as well. I'll listen to a call with a client that they might be having a challenge with and say, well, maybe we could think about it this way or that way. And if you're just getting somebody's notes, that's hard to do. I remember being junior and you're taking notes and there's acronyms and you're like, what does that mean? And you're trying to remember everything and look up things all at the same time. And I don't do anything without my AI transcription friend in meetings because of exactly that. You want to be asking thoughtful questions, not worrying about the latest acronym.
Andre Lachlan (27:27):
Exactly. And to the point we were saying in terms of people are tired of email, they're tired of virtual events, they want real life human connections. You need to be present and if you're scribbling things down, you look distracted. That's probably not going to resonate with the individual.
Gayle Kalvert (27:46):
What about AI-powered personalization? I know my inbox has only gotten more full since the dawn of ai. How are you finding success like cutting through now that there is so much personalization available via ai, even though like you and I talked about, that's not really actually personalization, it's just sort of AI scraping or name personalization.
Andre Lachlan (28:12):
My team has not seen success in that. We've done the opposite, which is you have 20, 25 accounts, take the time to do research. You can use AI to do that research, but you should really be crafting your own emails. You should be coming up with something that would you read this back and say, yes, there's a call to action that is relevant. We're not using AI to write those messages for us. I'd rather the team take the time to curate the correct information with the right value prop to the pain point that that individual is likely experiencing much more of a targeted approach versus a how do I scale this to everybody? Because we haven't seen success in that. Call me old school, but I'm just not there yet.
Gayle Kalvert (28:57):
Well, I think there's a reason that the old school thing works because some of this stuff you can't revolutionize with technology. I mean, I can tell you just again, from my own personal experience doing our own sales for myself, we actually research the person, go online and find out as much as you can about the person ourselves with our brains and craft messages. Because if you're having AI do that work for you, it's typically a little off. It's never sort of exactly correct. And you're also just not learning. Our brains need to process this information and learn if you're going to be a good seller, but at the end of the day, what is a good seller that is a problem solver. So the more and understand what problems you are solving, the better you can do in the sales arena. I just think we're all challenged with, like we said, getting the time and getting the attention.
Andre Lachlan (29:57):
Exactly. And we're still at the point where people buy from people. They don't buy from AI bots. So making sure that you're authentic to yourself and the messaging you send when that person eventually meets with you that they're congruent is extremely important. And I think there is still a market for authenticity.
Gayle Kalvert (30:16):
Okay, amazing. Now I'm going to put you on the spot.
Andre Lachlan (30:18):
Oh, fun.
Gayle Kalvert (30:19):
What is the most unhinged thing you have done to get a meeting?
Andre Lachlan (30:23):
I can't take credit for this, but when I started at my previous company, Qlik, someone used to send pineapples to executives to get their attention. And it worked like the CEO of Ford or the CIO of Ford. I can't remember the rationale for pineapples, but again, gifts get through. I don't know if security wise sending fruit these days would be kosher, but it worked and she got the largest number of opportunities.
Gayle Kalvert (30:53):
No, that's what I mean. And I love that you said that because I use that example Andre with my team. I'm always like, guys, let's think out of the box. We could send a pineapple because I remember that story from when we were both at Qlik. I'm like, genius, you just need to cut through. So I'll share the almost unhinged thing that I have done to get a meeting is pretending I was in a city already so that I could have a meeting when I was only flying out there to meet with that person. So it's like, oh, hey, I'm going to actually going to be in San Francisco next week. Would you have time for lunch? And then I flew out just to have lunch and had that meeting.
Andre Lachlan (31:35):
Was it the successful meeting? Was it worth the flight? Hopefully.
Gayle Kalvert (31:39):
Yes, because you need the meeting. You need the meeting.
Andre Lachlan (31:42):
I describe this to my team often. I'm like, build it and they will come. We talk about wanting to do on sites. We sell remotely. So we say, Hey, we want you to spend time with our customers. It's like it's really hard to get all of these customers together, just tell 'em, Hey, I'm going to be in town this week. When are you free? So to your point, you just create a trip and then people are like, oh, shoot, I should meet with you that someone took the time to come. The lease I can do is have them to my office for half an hour or let them take me for lunch or dinner. So I love that story. But yes, we still employ it. It's like build the trip and they will come.
Gayle Kalvert (32:19):
Exactly. All right, I'm going to plan my next trip. Let's see, what meeting do I want next week, Andre? I plan a trip. Do you have any stories? Have you been in any meetings that either it went so sideways or it was scary or something embarrassing happened? Let's give some real behind the scenes here to what it's like to be a salesperson.
Andre Lachlan (32:39):
I think of demos gone sideways. So this was at Qlik actually. We were working on a large six figure transaction and it was all but done at that point. We had to just do a CTO level presentation to show them the solution and the results of a proof of concept to show them, Hey, this is what we did in your environment and this is how it's going to work. So now we need you to approve that purchase order on that call. A day before the engineer we were supposed to use got sick, so we had to swap 'em out. So we got on the call already, not quite as smooth as we want. The demo environment that we went to show based on all of their data wasn't working. So we were given one shot to meet this individual and it didn't work. And we're talking.
(33:26):
My boss was on that call. We looked really amateur when we were asking for a six figure transaction, and that one still haunts me to this day. We were able to pivot and recover. We recorded a video of it, we sent it to them later. There is nothing kind of falling flat when the moment is yours and that one. So now we do so much like that one. It's like you touch a stove and you burn yourself. You never want to do that again. We do so much prep when me or my team is presenting to a C level and really any customer contact, we need to make sure that we are polished and ready. So preparation is so important.
Gayle Kalvert (34:06):
We've all been in situations or just sweating what to do and how to get out of it. And then like you said, yeah, you never forget those moments and you learn from them and nobody dies. So it's okay if anybody listening has an experience like this, it's okay. I have a question that I ask every guest on my in progress shows. Are you coffee or tea?
Andre Lachlan (34:28):
Coffee.
Gayle Kalvert (34:29):
Hot or cold?
Andre Lachlan (34:30):
Hot.
Gayle Kalvert (34:30):
Do you have a special coffee? How do you take your coffee? This is a really, people are opinionated.
Andre Lachlan (34:35):
Oh, interesting. Yeah. I try to limit my caffeine. I've noticed I've developed a dependency and if I don't have it, I get a head-splitting headache. So I don't want to have too much. So I let myself have one cup of coffee a day in the morning with just a splash of milk and that's it. Once that coffee's done, I don't get to refill it.
Gayle Kalvert (34:55):
Okay, I'm with you. I just have one cup of coffee in the morning and that's it. What's your hype song?
Andre Lachlan (35:00):
I’m really into Chappell Roan lately. She goes after a younger female demographic, and yet it speaks to me. So yeah.
Gayle Kalvert (35:07):
Andre, whatever speaks to you. It's all good. All good.
Andre Lachlan (35:11):
What's yours?
Gayle Kalvert (35:12):
I have so many. Oh my gosh, I have so many. Trust Fall by P!nk.
Andre Lachlan (35:17):
Yes.
Gayle Kalvert (35:18):
Might be a little cheesy, but it couldn't be more accurate because when I really need to get pumped up to do something scary, it is literally the lyrics. Right? You got to just take the leap. That one works really well for me. I also am a big fan of the nineties hip hop. Lots of explicit language and yeah, embarrassing dancing. Regulate...
Andre Lachlan (35:40):
Okay.
Gayle Kalvert (35:41):
Big fan of Tupac.
Andre Lachlan (35:43):
You've got a catalog.
Gayle Kalvert (35:44):
I do. I have a whole catalog. Well, and every guest I ask, so then I'm getting so many great suggestions. So we actually have a work in progress playlist. We'll add some to it. Yeah, you're not listening. You should start listening.
Andre Lachlan (35:56):
I will. Thank you. Or maybe last question for you. You said, Hey, you are in the midst of hiring a sales professional to join your organization as a marketer. What are you looking for in a sales individual?
Gayle Kalvert (36:08):
I love that you're interviewing me. Okay. How did this happen? Okay. You're a good salesperson because you're getting information from me. I like that.
Andre Lachlan (36:16):
Exactly what I do.
Gayle Kalvert (36:17):
Well, in this case, I'm a business owner, so I am looking for somebody who is obviously really motivated. If you're in sales, I think you can speak to this. You've got to be relentless. I like to call it relentlessly optimistic. You can't get upset by the no, or we've talked about, most of the time it's just hearing nothing and you just have to keep going. So I love your advice about having a conversation with the prospect, even if they're not answering you and somebody who gets along with people and creates relationships with people. And I feel like we're not saying anything new, but what I do also find fascinating is how this is sort of new information for a lot of people. There is no magic bullet. Everybody wants a magic bullet. What is the thing? How do you cut through the noise? And it's all of those things being done consistently that end up giving you the success that you need.
Andre Lachlan (37:13):
Exactly. Well, thank you. Half of what you said is what I look for when I'm hiring as well. So we are well aligned.
Gayle Kalvert (37:19):
Okay, well, if this whole thing doesn't work out, I'll call you. You can hire me to be on your team.
Andre Lachlan (37:24):
I would love that. Any day. Gayle.
Gayle Kalvert (37:27):
Andre, this has been so fun. Thank you so much. For anyone listening, if you have more questions for Andre and you want to understand better what's going on in the sales team's head and how can you have more success, maybe you want to know how to get them to take you out for drinks, that one's easy. Send us a note and we'll have Andre back and we'll continue this conversation. I hope you'll come back, Andre.
Andre Lachlan (37:48):
Absolutely. This is fun. I'm hoping that this is the start of many. So thanks, Gayle. Appreciate it. And what a fun forum you've built here.
Gayle Kalvert (37:57):
I hope so. We hope people like it. All right. Thank you so much. I hope that was helpful. If you know someone that you go to for this topic, send them my way. After all, we're just figuring this out together. See you next time.