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In this episode, the hosts are joined by a special guest, Ben, to discuss the transition from being a subject matter expert to a salesperson in a B2B tech startup. They explore the misconception that sales is a dirty word and discuss the importance of curiosity, empathy, and problem-solving in the sales process. The conversation also touches on the advantages that founders have in sales, the impact of introversion and extroversion on sales ability, and the value of small talk and building relationships. The hosts and guest share their personal experiences and insights on sales and provide practical tips for founders. In this conversation, Ben and Phill discuss imposter syndrome in sales and how to overcome it. They emphasise the importance of investing in training, practicing in safe environments, and believing in oneself and the value of their product. They also highlight the significance of having a clear and compelling value proposition, being authentic, and building trust with customers. They stress the importance of being true to oneself and not trying to universally please everyone. They also discuss the power of giving away value and building relationships, as well as the balance between being likable and knowledgeable in sales conversations.
keywords
sales, B2B tech startup, subject matter expert, transition, curiosity, empathy, problem-solving, founders, introversion, extroversion, small talk, relationships, practical tips, imposter syndrome, sales, training, practice, value proposition, authenticity, trust, likability, knowledge
takeaways
Sales is often seen as a dirty word due to negative experiences and the perception of manipulation, but it can be approached as problem-solving and helping others.
Founders have a natural advantage in sales because they have created something of value and can convey their passion and expertise.
Introversion or extroversion does not determine sales ability, but being curious, empathetic, and a good listener are key skills for successful salespeople.
Building relationships and establishing trust are crucial in the sales process, and small talk can be a valuable tool for engaging with potential customers.
Qualifying leads and finding the right fit between the product/service and the customer is essential for successful sales.
Sales is about connecting the value proposition with the customer's needs and providing solutions that deliver value. Imposter syndrome is common in sales, especially for those new to the field or pitching a new and untested product.
Investing in sales training and practicing in safe environments can help build confidence and overcome imposter syndrome.
Believing in oneself and the value of the product is crucial in sales.
Having a clear and compelling value proposition is essential for sales success.
Being authentic and building trust with customers is more important than trying to universally please everyone.
Giving away value and building relationships can lead to sales opportunities.
Balancing likability and knowledge is key in sales conversations.
Creators & Guests
What is Cult Products?
Dive into the essentials of start-up success with Cult Products, hosted by Yaya's co-founders, Adam Yaya-Durrant and Phill Keaney-Bolland. This podcast delivers sharp insights on creating revolutionary products, radical branding, and attracting a loyal following of early adopters. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, each episode is packed with actionable advice and stories from those who've built successful businesses. Join Adam and Phill as they help you transform bold ideas into start-up success.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (00:17)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Cult Products podcast. And today we are joined by a very special guest. My name is Phil. I'm one of the founders at Yaya
Adam Yaya-Durrant (00:33)
My name is Adam and I am also one of the founders at Yaya. And Ben, would you like to do a bit of an intro?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (00:39)
and
Benjamin Western (00:41)
Yeah, great to be here with you all. I've had the pleasure of knowing you both for about 10 years. And so it's very surreal and also great moment to be on your brilliant podcast.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (00:44)
You
Phill Keaney-Bolland (00:52)
Yeah. So that's incredible, really, isn't it? 10 years. We all originally met at Chemistry Group when we were working in the marketing team at that startup. And first introduction to Ben was pretty memorable because I was basically called into a meeting on the basis that like, you're going to meet this really cool guy. And then
Adam Yaya-Durrant (00:53)
10 years.
Mm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (01:20)
There was no further briefing or agenda required for that meeting. I don't know exactly what you thought you were there to do in that meeting, Ben, or if you'd had any more brief. But basically, we talked for about an hour with about five of us in the room. And then the CEO turned around to two of us on one side of the table and said, Ben's really cool, isn't he? Which one of your teams could he work in? With the premise that you'd either come and work in product.
or marketing. And I don't think any of us were really expecting that question. But all worked out well in the end. we did get the chance to work with each other then. And since then, really, I guess you've been the person who's really helped me and Adam most as far as like thinking about business development and sales. And, you know, that was obviously very new to us at one point. You've also worked with
as at Yaya are helping to train everyone really in what you call showing up and sales really, really well. So I'm really excited in today's episode to talk about getting into like how B2B tech startup founders can transition into more of a sales role within their organization, what they need to do, some of the psychology behind that, and basically just pull a load of your experience and the lessons that you've learned out of your head. So welcome to the podcast Ben.
Benjamin Western (02:48)
Great, looking forward to it.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (02:52)
Cool. Cool. Cool. All right. So just a good place to start, suppose we've, you know, we've been having a lot of conversations lately with people who've started these, these B2B tech startups, and I've come from a background where they are maybe like a subject matter expert. You know, they've, spent a lot of time kind of developing and mastering their craft in a, in a space within a business, but they've never been salespeople before. And I think a good place to start.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (02:52)
if
Phill Keaney-Bolland (03:21)
is let's talk about that transition phase and how you get from not being a salesperson to being a salesperson. So interested then what your sort of reflections are on that.
Benjamin Western (03:36)
Yeah, I think it's an interesting thing with sales because it's almost a bit of a dirty word or even taboo word because people hear sales and you might think of like the archetype of whether it's a door to door salesperson or someone bringing you up or into a retail shop and trying to sell you something you're not sure whether you need or perhaps think you adamantly don't want. And then when people are faced with the idea that they've created a product or a company and a company, and then now they actually need to sell it and there's
I've trained well over a thousand people to sell and, I think sell is, it's, it's almost like a, too much of a basic semantic because all of us are selling most of the time, whether it's like selling our ideas or to convince our partner that this thing that we should buy is a good thing or we should go on this holiday. All of us, all of the time in some way or not are selling. yet sales is still seen as this very particular technical thing that you do.
when you're trying to essentially bring in money to your company. And of the many, many people that I have trained how to be really good at selling their ideas or their products or the company or whatever it is their services. My favorite to work with is always been founders of organizations or people that are from a architectically not sales background. So there might be a data analyst. might be, there might be someone who's the head of product because
The reason I've always loved sales is it's only about really great human interaction. And I started selling when I was six years old, because I had an eight year old brother. Well, I still have a brother, he's no longer eight years old and I'm no longer six, but he decided we should have a car washing business. And so at six years old, was traipsed from around behind my older brother and knocking on doors and trying to convince them to give these two young kids five pounds to do a
Adam Yaya-Durrant (05:17)
you
Benjamin Western (05:32)
would turn out to be an average job of washing a car. I'm sure that all the business we got was a sympathy vote as opposed to a one a competency. So I've now been selling for inverted commas for 34 years. And I'm still fascinated by the fact this thing exists where two humans or many human beings come together and as an exchange of conversation that results in one person buying into the other person and therefore normally exchanging money in order to buy something from them.
So yeah, so I, it's great to be here to talk about it because in some of all of that, I think if you are a, a founder or co -founder or a member of an organization that has created something in the tech space and you need to sell it, I absolutely fundamentally believe you can be brilliant at selling and ultimately you need to be otherwise no matter how good your product is. Generally speaking, you won't be able to sell it if you can't have some sort of expertise or ability to convince people that they're worth giving their money for what you've created.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (06:32)
And why do you think, Ben, that founders have a natural advantage when it comes to selling? What is it that you've seen in all those thousands of people that you've done sales training with?
Benjamin Western (06:44)
There's the one cliche, which I think stands the test of time is that people buy from people. And I'll probably go through a few technical ish frameworks here, which are great ways to look at selling. Cause I think it's really helpful and it's impossible to running any training session. I think without at least one two by two matrix. And so the first one I'll offer is that there's, there's one where it's like likeability from let's say zero to 10 or you go minus 10, right through to like a 10 out of 10 likeable person. And then.
On the other axis is competence going from again, zero to 10. And where people will buy from someone is generally speaking, because they like them enough and they think they're competent enough. And of course, where you want to be is that it's called like a lovable star, like the top right hand box where it's like, you're both likable and you're competent. And the reasons founders have an advantage is by default you've created something that is going to have a
that you hopefully have created that's of value to the world. And if you think about the people that you've been compelled by, it's normally because they've done something which is really inspiring or compelling. human beings were complex in nature, but also there's still simplicity to us, which is we love to, we love to kind of buy into something, particularly from the start. And so if you're a founder and you've created something which the world could benefit from, when you start presenting that to people, their eyes will light up.
And actually as a founder of a tech company, I think you have the most advantage starting point because if I'm coming along as like a rep from a big global company, most people are immediately going to have an order date will show this. They're a defense wall up. like, here comes the salesperson. Like they're going to try and flog me something. Whereas when you're a founder, it's like, I'm here as someone that has put my blood sweat and tears into this thing that I'm really passionate about. And so people normally give you more time as a starting point.
than the other. And then as you start to tell the story of what you've created, if you do that well enough and you don't have to be like 10 out of 10 perfect at a sales kind of process, then you'll start to see immediately people are warming to you. And then from that point, you hopefully are on the path to then getting the outcome you're looking for, which is they buy the thing that you're selling.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (09:07)
Hmm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (09:07)
It's really interesting. I think, you know, if you, I get a lot of messages and requests from people on LinkedIn and if they, if a job title is something to do with business development, or they are obviously working business development, but they've changed the tagline to like empowering founders to generate leads for their business. I'm instantly, that wall definitely does come up and I'm like, no.
like you, I'm sure you're a lovely person, but I don't want to, I don't want to let you over this wall because I know within about five minutes, I'm going to get something saying like, in today's challenging times, the startup journey is more difficult than ever. Here's how we can sell you something. And, and I do think that if you're a founder and you're, and you're genuinely passionate about what you're doing, then that is a more interesting conversation to have instantly. We, we talk about, obviously, you know, we're
we're building a product and a service that's aimed at helping founders to do a lot of this stuff themselves. But the natural advantage that founders have when it comes to designing their first prototype and, you know, articulating what it is that they do as a business. I think because a lot of founders that we've seen who've been really successful, they do come from a background where they've kind of had...
their career to some extent, they've, you know, they've learned about a space in really, really deep terms, they've achieved a lot. And now they've spotted an opportunity to make that space better. That actually is, is just really useful in so many ways. I think it's probably worth saying when you talk about founders, when we talk about founders, we're talking about those kinds of founders more than people who've just started.
random business because they just kind of like like the sound of it. And so that's, that's, think, really cool. I wanted to just ask another question. You started off saying that sales is often seen as quite a dirty word, and can feel a little bit grubby. And actually, I think, you know, when we've been speaking to a lot of people who are just kind of dipping their toe in it for the first time, they've echoed that sentiment as well. Why do you think that is? Why do think it has that
perception.
Benjamin Western (11:33)
Because sales is ubiquitous, in almost everything we do every day involves some form of exchange of money for something in return. We're all being sold to all of the time.
If you look at the, it depends on your data point between 80 to 92 % of people don't trust salespeople because they think that they don't really have their best interests at heart or they have their own interest is literally their own interest, which is, I just want you to buy this and then I'm done and I've got your money. So I think that's fundamentally the foundational reason as to why it's seen as a dirty word is that we've all had bad sales experiences.
And I don't think that's a universal qualifier. I genuinely believe that if you were to list to people, have you had a bad sales experience? We could probably all ream off streams of them. And so I think that's why it's seen as this terrible thing. But at the same time, you then say to people, well, tell me about a good sales experience you have. Almost all of us will relay the time they spoke to somebody that was really warm. They were really kind. They were really interested. They asked great questions. And it was actually like you wanted to then give them your money for the thing.
Now you still need to want the thing, whatever that product is. And, but it's almost like the default human position is to sort of think about the negative experiences more frequently. It's something like if you have a bad sales experience or bad experience for company, you're likely to tell between eight and 12 people about that experience because like, I had this deal and it was like, it might've been like, I won't name the company in cases I get done for libel, but I can think of we've probably all had.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (13:01)
Hmm.
Benjamin Western (13:10)
bad experience with a big global company. If we have a great sales experience, we'd like to tell at least five people. Actually, although we'd more like to tell more people about the bad experience, if you have a great experience, you're still going to tell people. The other final thing I'd finish on as to why it's such a dirty word is that I think people's own mindset as a founder.
is when I'm a product person and I do product, I don't do sales. So people almost have this feeling of inertia where they don't just want to have to go and do that thing. And almost as well, often, and it's not totally true, but products tend to be built by people that are more introverted and are more of a color profile, more blue, which is more analytical. And when you look at the archetypal salesperson, they tend to be more of the red and yellows.
So when you look at literal personality types by psychometrics and behavioral science, the people that tend to design products don't tend to be the people that would normally be like the salesperson. And so it almost feels dirty to them as well, because it's like such an alien concept.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (14:24)
Yeah, I'd take it.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (14:24)
And do you think that being introverted or extroverted has much of an impact on your ability as a salesperson?
Benjamin Western (14:31)
Absolutely not. that's not just, don't just take my word for it, Yaya. Like look at the data, right? It's yeah, generally speaking, it has nothing to do with introversion, extroversion, nothing to do with your colour profile. The only thing, the only asterisks to put on that is that as a starting point, you are, you're at a slight advantage if you are more extroverted because it tends to fit the types of behaviours you need.
But once you've had like a day's worth of training, it becomes totally irrelevant. And actually what you start to realize is that introversion, for example, put you at a much bigger advantage because if an extrovert walks into the sales space, the reactions could be like, here they come, the bombastic nutcase, who's going to try and blitz me of energy. Whereas the understated introvert...
we'd be more serious like, all right, that person's not saying much. when they do speak, they tend to be less verbose and get to the point. And I say that as someone that is very yellow on the personality scale.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (15:37)
Hahaha
also very good at selling. But I think there's some really interesting things that you've just said that chime in a lot with a lot of the things that we've been speaking about with founders. think that kind of grubbiness feels like it stems from a misconception that sales is about selling people things that they don't want and almost like tricking them into doing it, it's like a dark art.
that is somehow kind of manipulative. And actually, our experience of this, and I think you recommended the book To Sell is Human, which I think was a really great shout in the early days, I'd really recommend anyone in a similar position reading that, is that for me, the sales process is more like problem solving.
and you know, using, talk about empathy as a key design skill a lot, a lot of the time. but I would say that it's more about listening and asking questions and understanding what people's problems are. And then joining a dot between that and the dot on the other side, which is these are the, these are all the ways that I can help you. and, and actually when you take that mindset,
you're not you're not you're not just kind of jumping in and going right I've got all this stuff do you want to buy it? Okay, here's that why you should you're going I recognize that you have problem I've understood that problem. I think these are the ways that I can help you and I can deliver you a load of value. And it starts to become not quite altruistic because you're obviously getting paid for that. But I think it feels a lot less grubby. Because you're actually
doing something that feels helpful as opposed to sort of foisting something onto people that they may or may not quite want or need. And that for me is like, that's the only real way to do sales, isn't it? I suppose you can make people buy stuff they don't want and they don't need, but that feels like...
I don't know, that feels like something else to what we would typically do or what we typically advise B2B founders to do.
Benjamin Western (18:10)
Yeah, absolutely. that taps into almost, I think all the things you shared there taps into almost all the fundamentals around what great sales looks like because fundamentally, yes, you can just sell things to people period. And there of course are people and companies that don't really care about the end user because ultimately they just want to sell something.
We're obviously not talking about that because we're talking about people that are founders that really do care about their customers and we've tried to create something of great value. So assuming you're going into this with integrity and sincerity that you want to do the right thing. One of the first steps of sales and not to be too technical here is to qualify whether you're connecting with the right people that would actually benefit from what you've created. I think one of the most...
helpful things you can learn is how to run a great meeting. So when you engage with someone, whether that's online or whether it's in person or you've bumped into someone in an elevator or a networking event. And after you do the nice exchange or pleasantries to know who they are and where they work, the first step in any great sales process is to be brilliantly curious and to be curious on the three levels of curiosity, which is B.
be epistemically curious, which is like deep knowledge. So learn a lot, all the facts and figures about that business and that person to be diversively curious, which is to have these sort the abstract thinking, the creative question outside the box, kind of trying to understand the dots they're trying to connect in the business. And then to be empathetically curious, which is to really understand the culture and the person themselves. And if you do that really well and you show how curious you are and that you genuinely do care about
supporting them to achieve what they're trying to achieve. Then not only will you show up as a very sincere and interesting person, you'll be a trustworthy person. And what you're therefore doing through all of that is that you're qualifying whether that conversation is worth continuing because it could be that they're just not the right type of organizational person to buy from you. And that works both ways. Like your products might not be quite right. If you think about what Yaya do,
there is a certain subset of founders that you're trying to help. You're not trying to help all founders in all industries. You're trying to help and you're trying to help fundamentally tech founders, right? And so therefore that's a very, very clear group of people that you're trying to help. And then within that subset, there'll then be another layer of, if you take that whole marketplace of people in that space, then not all of them will also be right for Yaya and vice versa.
But ultimately you're trying to find the people that you really can support. And there's this magical moment through asking great questions and then response those questions, you sharing ideas, I what you do, that there'll be that epiphany moment where everyone goes like, yeah, this is, this is it. We're, we're, the perfect match. And it is like matchmaking. That's what you're always trying to do.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (21:12)
Yeah, that's I was thinking about this because it really like is a stage of kind of dating almost isn't it you go for that kind of first audition. And I always feel like you kind of know instantly, whether you could work with that person. if and I think they're thinking all the time, can I work? Can I work with these guys? And I think, you know, we've just because we've been doing it for quite a while now, we come off calls and we feel like, yeah, this is that's
that felt really good. The chemistry was there, the right values were aligned, and they get it. And I think, you know, nine times out of 10, those are the ones that kind of go through and go through the whole time. But and we've kind of got a good kind of gauge now on the ones that don't feel so great. And and often that's us kind of being a bit resistant to that, which is quite interesting. But it's definitely, I feel like it is a massively a two way street. And I think even more now with
stuff like Zoom and being able to kind of jump on calls quickly and be able to have, you know, quicker time together because before you were just kind of, you know, arranging meetings and so I think now it's more important than ever that that chemistry is right. Because you do spend a lot of that kind of collaboration time with that person. So, no, it's really, it's really interesting. Yeah.
Benjamin Western (22:33)
Yeah, that's it. And I think you've touched on something that is very advantageous now, which is the ability to meet someone virtually. Because before it takes a lot of effort to go and meet somebody in person. it is, but the irony is that we've got, we've now got this great ability to jump on a virtual call and have that initial, if you call it discovery meeting is what I do typically call it. And, but actually at the same time, you can see people that are
I think where we've lost a bit of the art of inhuman connection is I used to think about Matt times when I first worked in sales, like sales proper when I started my career, like in the 2000s was you'd pick up the phone to your boss multiple times a day. And now we always have like these moments in a day where it's like, have the big meeting, you know, and every day is a one -to -one that happens at 11 o 'clock on a Thursday. It's like, we've also lost the art of just the quick conversation. And one of the best ways that you can grow what you do.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (23:18)
Heh.
Benjamin Western (23:27)
It's just to have as many conversations with as many people as frequently as you can, particularly when you're building your product, where you're trying to validate ideas. And for those that are trying to get good at sales is you just need to practice, practice, practice. So for example, one of the great ways to build, to run great meetings, to get really good at small talk. And if you get really good at small talk, you learn that the moment you meet somebody, you have a...
Immediately rather than talking about the weather or the commute, you have a really engaging conversation. Now, how'd you get good at small talk? Practice small talk as many times a day as you can. So when you're in a queue talking to someone that might, the barista might be serving, like getting you a coffee or it could be like you're on the train. Just get good at sparking up conversations and you get really good at small talk. If you get really good at small talk, then your meetings you have with people start and it's far more engaging way. And so yeah, the art of jumping on a call and
essentially pitching what you do is this is the intro, this is what we do. And if the person should immediately be like, that's interesting. And then you start talking about what, then you start asking the questions and you kind of go from there.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (24:35)
Yeah, love a bit of small talk. I remember when I was having to do, and this is the only kind of way that I kind of realised that I could be actually alright at sales. And I've talked about this before, but when I moved to Australia, was doing charity fundraising. And the small talk I used to use if someone had, if someone had like an ACDC t -shirt on or a band t -shirt, that was, that was just gold. So, so easy. But yeah, as you say, like, don't try not to talk about the weather, although naturally as Brits we
Benjamin Western (24:59)
Yeah.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (25:04)
and that's kind of revert to every single time. I do think you can do a lot and accomplish a lot with virtual meetings, but I do think in person is also brilliant because the stuff that just gets really left behind, especially with certain people that are kind of harder to break down than those kind of calls. So yeah, it's a mix.
Benjamin Western (25:26)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And actually, you're, you're, you're really good example, Adam, right? Because I remember when we first met and I was running essentially a, stylish training program at the company we all worked at. And you came into that as totally self -deprecatingly, like you're this, you're this amazing creative. And, and yet not only did you have a very natural, you had the most astonishing ability just to be able to report people because you're just great at that. But actually.
You're someone where you don't need to show up as a technically gifted salesperson. You just need to know enough and have enough structure and enough understanding about how it works. so, yeah, you're actually a great example of someone that would never normally see themselves as a salesperson, but you're having to sell all the time.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (26:13)
Thanks, Ben. That means a lot. I think it was, I was that person as well who kind of poo -pooed it. you know, I thought, I did think it was like, when think of sales, my brain goes to like annoying people in like car phone warehouse. You know, that's kind of, think what a lot of like assume and it's really not that at all. But yeah, it's a, Cool.
Benjamin Western (26:14)
you
Phill Keaney-Bolland (26:40)
Very good. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to talk about some imposter syndrome, giving away value and how you join up product marketing and sales. So see you in a
back. We are still chatting to Ben about sales. And one of the things that's come up a lot in conversations is people feeling like they have imposter syndrome when they are starting to have their first sales conversations, partly because they haven't
done sales before and partly because it's an early stage business. So you are pitching something that's new and largely untested. Is that something you've seen a lot of Ben and how do people overcome that?
Benjamin Western (27:35)
Absolutely. think it's probably the, it's the starting point for most people that I think I shouldn't be doing this. don't want, and also I don't want to be doing this. The first thing I would say in response to that is don't try and push it away. It's like anything, if there's anxiety there in your life about something, just be aware of it first and foremost. And it's really natural. Even the most seasoned South people before a pitch can get nervous and have imposter syndrome. So I think it's very, very natural.
And, I also think it's, can quite comfortably conquer it. And I think conquering it comes down to a few fundamental things. The first is I do, of course I'm going to say this, but I do think it's worth investing in some form of training. And that training can be as, as simple as a half a day or through to a few days where you can just learn.
fundamentals of how you run effective meetings, facilitate great workshops, because it's like anything, if we have training, then we being given knowledge and ideas as to how to be more effective at something. And by doing that, you immediately feel more confident because you're like, okay, I've got an understanding of what great looks like. The second thing is, of course, is to practice and to try and practice in safe environments. And when I say safe environments, I mean in low risk. if, for example,
You happen to be lucky enough to get a really high potential meeting whereby the person that you're meeting with could be buying a lot of what you do. You want to go into that meeting ready and prepared. so practice pitching what you do, asking great questions, running a great discovery, small talk, opening a meeting, set an agenda with your colleagues or with friends or anybody you can.
in the most effective way you can, which is to almost brief that person on the type of person that you're meeting. And I think the, the third way that I would advise anybody to overcome imposter syndrome, is to firstly believe in yourself, which might be an obvious thing to say, but when I say believe in yourself, like believe in what you've created. And if you believe in yourself and know that it's got a value to the world, then you should be really proud to go out and talk about it and try to enjoy it.
And that will lean into something else I'm sure we'll talk about, which is if you, if you can just be good at one thing, it's like telling your value proposition, like telling the story of your company. And if you get good at that and you get good at that by it being a good value proposition, then you're also immediately going to have high confidence or higher confidence at least, because you know what you're talking about and someone's going to be interested to hear that.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (30:07)
Hmm.
There's a lot.
There's a lot to unpack there. So let's, let's get into it a little bit. think the first thing I'd say is my own personal experience, which I've spoken about a lot of coming in and, I worked in marketing, which is probably in itself a little, a little bit of an advantage to people who maybe haven't worked in that kind of space at all. I, I've said before, I don't think that I felt like I had imposter syndrome. I felt like I was just a real beginner at sales. I'd never done it before. And
I knew it was something that was going to be really important to get good at, but I started off and I wasn't great at it because like, why would I be? I hadn't done it before. I hadn't had any real training in it. And I had to kind of learn and that practice point you made, I think is really, important. So I don't think don't think imposter syndromes where you're like, am I this person? I've got doubts about it. I was very sure I just wasn't a salesperson because, you know, it was all new.
The second thing I think within that is, you know, I think the value proposition is just the most fundamental building block of everything in any business, but particularly in startups. And I think it's, you know, it's really fundamental to brand and marketing, because that is an expression of your value proposition. It's really important to product because
It is, you know, that, that is basically setting the direction of what you're building, what problem you're trying to solve, what value you can add to people. And it's really important to sales speak in my view, because it's the, it's the sort of nucleus of, of everything. If, if you know that and you've really internalized it and it's, and it's really clear to you what that is, you can actually then express it in lots of different ways. And when we spoke about.
you know, joining up the problem that people have with, with your solution, your solution really, you know, the thing that people really care about is the value that it adds people, not necessarily the sort of features and functionality of the technology. So if you're really clear on what that value is, then, you you can, you can join that dot much more easily and say, right, yeah, we can, we can help solve a, a defined problem for you and add this value. Here's, here's how. And I think because all of those things are connected,
It's easy and easier in the early days of the startup to think about them holistically. And it gets harder as time goes on and you start to build up silos where, you know, marketing might have a view of what your customers need and what your, what your product is that is different to what your product team have. shouldn't be the case, but sometimes it is. And then the value you find that kind of marketing have a, may not call it a value proposition, might call it a brand ethos or something. Product might have a.
North Star, which is effective value proposition. The sales people, I think, are particularly interesting in this mix because they're the ones that having the most conversations with actual customers. They're the ones who are constantly getting bombarded with signals of interest. And those could be really like micro things like body language in a conversation, how people, you know, how their eyes light up when you talk about something. Or it could be
the problems that people are articulating that you're then going out and trying to kind of build solutions around. And so they have this amazing sort of like database of customer inputs that's building up all the time. And I think, you know, when you're in the early stages of business, the founder is probably in the midst of creating the brand.
in heavily involved in creating the product and having those sales conversations. So, that again, there's a natural advantage where founders are able to create these really amazing and compelling value propositions and iterate them over time because, because they are the kind of nexus point of all of those things. and I think, you know, actually there's a lot that bigger businesses could learn and benefit from taking the same kind of approach that
a founder would take in a startup.
Benjamin Western (34:37)
Yeah, absolutely.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (34:42)
Okay.
That's right.
Benjamin Western (34:45)
I can hear some like zzzz in the background.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (34:46)
It was like a soaring or something wasn't it? Yeah that's cool.
Benjamin Western (34:52)
So should, because it just cut now to me answering or responding to that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to jump in on that point Adam or should I go next?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (34:56)
Yay, we can cut this bit out.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (34:57)
What if I jump in first?
No, I was just going kind of build on the power of the value proposition because we've talked about it so much and how people just don't get it right at certain business. But yeah, I think you go and then I can jump on whatever you do.
Benjamin Western (35:17)
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And one thing that I should have mentioned earlier as well is that the way that you also become really successful at selling your ideas and your product is like authenticity. And that's what people really buy into. They buy into the person that's behind the whole idea. And so if you show up as a really authentic person that is really passionate about what they do, you're again at a great advantage. But ultimately it doesn't matter how authentic you are.
how technically brilliant you are at sales, your value proposition is the genesis, it's the epicenter, it's the whole pie. it's for value proposition is one of those terms that most people have heard of, but I don't think we consciously think about the words, which is like the value of your proposition. And to give an example, one of the areas I think that people go wrong is they...
Adam Yaya-Durrant (36:08)
Hmph.
Benjamin Western (36:18)
almost become too self -indulgent about the story and of the message they want to put out to the world. Here's a good example. Everything I train when it comes to sales comes back to one, I think, beautiful thing, which is building trust. I began sales training from the point of most sales training, I didn't think it particularly good, but most of it was too gnarly because it was all about just this mean, let's just sell stuff. I thought
But I really want to build training where people are really themselves and their greatest asset is the fact that they're different. Your greatest value is your difference. And therefore, style should be about building empathy and trust and genuine rapport that's long lasting. And so my value proposition was all about that, which is all about this heartfelt, soothsayer, wonderful essence of be a good person and then you'll be really successful at what do.
My audience was predominantly sales directors and what does sales directors care about? Helping me sell more. Now a lot of sales directors also care about all the other things. So the value proposition should be, we help you sell more. Now the next message is, and we do that by making you brilliant at how you show up, be authentic, be yourself and build trust that lasts forever. And you become irreplaceable to your customers and the way we do that and away you go. But ultimately what's the value that people are looking for from sales training? Cause I ultimately want to be good at sales. And so.
When it comes to your value proposition, the ability to get it down to a sentence, to a paragraph and a page, but ultimately focus on the most important person, which is the person that's going to buy what you do. And as we know in most things that you sell, there's two or three buyers. So you might have the primary one. If you think about sales training, you have the sales director, you tend to have the head of learning. And then you have the most important people at the end, which is the people that you're going to train and the people that they're going to sell to.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (37:50)
Hmm.
Benjamin Western (38:13)
But ultimately you've got to think where's the starting point and the starting point will be the decision maker and the one that ultimately says, okay, we can sign that contract for that value. so getting great, your value proposition is not only fundamental to the ability to present your value to the world. Coming back to imposter syndrome and why it connects is if your value proposition is on point, which will take many iterations a lot of the time.
And I don't know many companies that have ever truly been happy with their value proposition. It constantly moves like a moving target. But if you get your value proposition really on point, that will also reduce the imposter syndrome because you know, you've got a really great story that you can tell to people that are going to want to listen to it because they really understand the value of your proposition.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (39:02)
Hmm.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (39:03)
That's cool. think...
Phill Keaney-Bolland (39:05)
going to take a second just to explain what a value proposition actually is, because I know that we've talked about it a little bit. But I think for the benefit of listeners who are perhaps just coming into this episode, it's probably probably worth saying what we mean by it. And it's basically I think, you know, it should, it should, as you said, you can can articulate it as a, you know, a story, a paragraph, a sentence, but I would start with the sentence, which is usually the harder thing to try and create.
we would always use the format. We help a specific person and type of organization to release some value or realize some value by doing a thing. And the thing is, what we do as a business. Where I think a lot of businesses get to is we do this thing and an unclear
map of who they they do it for, or just a sort of attempt to do, you know, be everything to all to all people and not be not be really focused. And actually forget the value part of this, which is, you know, the reason that people are buying your technology isn't because of the buttons that they can click, it's because of the impact on the business of of this technology. And that's the that's the thing that you really actually have to sell.
this is the thing that you really have to focus on when you're building a product. And it's the thing that you really have to communicate when you're building a brand. Otherwise, what you're doing is basically just sending like a product spec, which is like, great. Okay, who does all these things? I don't really care. And I think I also wanted to just talk about the sort of authenticity point as well, because we had an interesting
Adam Yaya-Durrant (40:42)
Huh.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (41:00)
thing the other day, which I think kind of highlights why that is so important. So we have a value proposition. The value of the work that we do as a business is essentially, you know, we help people to secure early adopter customers into their start -up. Now we do that by designing brands and, you know, product prototypes and finding product market fit and...
building websites and all of those kinds of things. But the reason that people invest in those things is because they're trying to get customers into their business and they're trying to grow their business. I really like it when we have business development meetings and you can have a really direct conversation. And one of the questions that we've been asked a bit recently and specifically in this meeting the other day was,
You keep telling me that we need to be different to every other business to be successful. We need to be really differentiated. Why is your business different from everyone else? And why should we go with you? Which is, you know, is, is not just a great question, but the way the directness with which it was asked got me really excited because I was like, okay, we're just not messing about here. But obviously that you have to, you have to think on your feet, how you're going to respond to that.
And that I think is where the authenticity point comes in. Because I genuinely believe in our value proposition, and it's how I approach everything. I was like, okay, I don't really need to think about this. I just need to kind of express authentically, like who I am and how I how I think about that. And my answer to that question was something along the lines of the reason that we're different.
to everyone else is that we're a real pain in the ass about this stuff. You will work with us. We won't just give you the brand that you want to have. We'll give you the brand that you actually need. One that is genuinely differentiated clearly from your competitors. And if you don't want that and you push us in a direction that is very middle of the road, we will kick up a fuss about it and we will push back on it. And to be honest, that's reason why you shouldn't work with us as well. If you don't want to have a difficult time,
when you you try and go down what we see as the wrong path, the path that kind of conflicts with our values and our beliefs about how we how we do this and how we deliver our value proposition, then it's then it's going to be problematic. And that actually landed landed really well. And I think they were, you know, they were saying, well, you know, we're looking for a partner on this who actually won has beliefs, which
surprisingly small amount of businesses have, two stands by those beliefs, and three is like almost, you know, can't exist in any other way because of that authenticity point. And I think the final thing is, and is actually fixated on the value, rather than just the deliverable, because it would be easy for us to just go, yeah, we will just give you we'll give you a brand, we'll give you a website, we'll give you a product prototype.
what I was trying to say was, what we'll actually give you is the chance for your business to be successful the way that we think it needs to be done to unlock that value. And I think, you know, that that is like muscle memory. That's really what the authenticity is. It's that kind of instant reflex to go, yeah, of course, I've got an answer to that question.
Benjamin Western (44:45)
One of the, one of the, it's a great story. And one of the, one of the sad things that I think sometimes about the way that we use technology now and social media platforms is certain words. think they get a bit ruined or a lot ruined and the word authenticity is probably one of them because 10 years ago, the word authenticity wasn't really in the common lexicon that frequently or sort of the ether. And now you see it everywhere. It's about your authenticity and telling the truth. And I think it's there for us on the face. It might've lost its value, but it actually is so important. And.
I was reading this great book just last week called the art of creative thinking, which I would recommend to anybody. And in one of the chapters, they're all very pithy chapters. It talks about Coco Chanel and how Coco Chanel, particularly in the early days was ridiculed and laughed at and mocked because she was so different. And there's a quote from her. I think I in some ways paraphrased it earlier, which is in order to be irreplaceable, you have to be different. And there are companies that need to exist that basically have a box and you buy the box and the box is great.
And then there are companies and normally tech founders that are creating something which is, has got a real authentic, the whole thing is authentic and people, your great advantage in when you come to sale is just to be yourself. And that's why I say you want some technical ability to be able to understand how you run meetings and facilitate workshops, but your greatest asset will always be you. And I can say wholeheartedly.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (46:12)
Hmm.
Benjamin Western (46:15)
that if I were to take the hundred best salespeople I've ever seen, about 10 % of them would just be technical experts that could just execute a sale as though it's some sort of blueprint, almost like robotic. And that is a thing. But the other 90, the reason they're so successful is because they're just brilliant at being themselves and they don't really compromise or not. don't really, they don't compromise their personality in any way, shape or form.
that can include, for example, an interesting one. like, what should you wear to a sales meeting? Now, there is times, for example, if you're going to go and you are going into, let's say, the boardroom of a bank, out of respect, you probably want to wear a suit. actually, I could never wear a suit of like a hipster might wear, right? Because I'm not a hipster, right? And so it'd be inauthentic for me to wear that type of suit. But if you're a hipster and you show up in a suit from Next and nothing wrong with a suit from Next.
you yourself won't feel right and they'll see through it. And so it's like, you should wear a suit, but you should wear a suit, which probably is a bit baggier and low around the high around the ankles, because that's authentic to who you are. So you've really got to understand like your own, your own style. And if you can never compromise on that and then combine it with just that little bit of sort of technical flair, then
not only will you be fine, like you'll flourish.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (47:45)
I that's a good point, isn't it? Because I kind of used to think about that quite a lot, like, you how should we kind of be showing up in terms of like how we should be, what we should be wearing. And I think sometimes we've, we've, done stuff that I think we've both felt uncomfortable with in terms of like, we've kind of dressed up for a meeting or something. And it just didn't really feel, it didn't feel authentic, it didn't feel like ourselves. So I think that's a, it's a really important point.
Obviously, you don't want to be there with kind of flip flops on, but I mean, definitely, you know, there's, think it's much more acceptable now. And as a founder, think, you know, you have to show your personality and that comes across, not just in like, you know, an Oxford shirt and, and Chino. So it might be, might be, that might be your vibe, but I think it's important to, to, to, for you to feel comfortable. Cause if you feel comfortable, then you're going to, that's going to come across in, in the way that you communicate.
That's interesting, Ben, I was like thinking, you know, in terms of, you know, authenticity, and I really feel for your answer there was like, it was great, because that's kind of a, almost a different perspective on what authenticity is. And that's kind of authenticity, and like what you believe in fundamentally, and your values and all that kind of stuff. And it's, and it's, and it's great. And it's kind of like being authentic, and just in terms of like, how you speak, and you know, not being too prescriptive, and all that kind of stuff. What's the kind of balance then between, you know, creating that kind of environment where
that that person is you're likable to that person. But then also like, know, your onions and you know, what you're talking about, like, is the kind of, if you were giving advice for someone going into the first sales call, and we've talked a lot about people talking more about the features and we talked about the archetypes of the generally founders who are much more like focused on more technical things, you know, and get kind of lost in that, what is the right kind of balance for someone?
Benjamin Western (49:43)
It's absolutely a brilliant question. And this comes back to why practice is so important because we can talk about anything as an art and a science. it's really true of sales. Like the science of it is there is a way to run a great meeting. Now it's not a total blueprint, but rather there are segments in a meeting. A segment in a meeting is preparation, make sure we're prepared right. Another segment is like how to open a meeting. Another segment is how to ask great questions. And those things will move around and they'll blend and conflate.
The art comes from that bit, right? So in terms of what the balance is, you've got to get a feel for it. And this is when you get to a lower, a more further down the rabbit hole of sales, which is like the psychology of sales, which really is a fancy -ish way of saying, like understanding people. So for example, if you go into a meeting with someone that loves to talk and have high level conversations,
and think about the art, the possible, and is very visionary. You need to respond to that accordingly. I had a meeting just this morning where in the first 15 seconds of the meeting, my meeting plan went out the window because this person opened up with said, I know we've got an hour, I've only got 30 minutes and I want us get straight to commercials. Right? So in that moment, the very worst thing I can do is to go, well, I want to talk about the vision.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (51:10)
Hehe.
Benjamin Western (51:11)
Right. They're just going to immediately get annoyed by me. And so part of it is just experience and where you're at a disadvantage if you've never really sold in that type of environment before, is you don't have that experience and you've got to probably go through some painful moments. And a big part that as well is that just accept some meetings won't go well. And it is the case that they're the best ones to learn from. But thinking we're starting at ground zero and thinking that I want to give a tech founder a good answer.
I would say the best way to approach this is to firstly learn how to run great meetings. Secondly, prepare really well. So think about those types of scenarios and what could happen and what your response be in each of them. Really make sure that you connect with that person. Ensure you connect with the person on LinkedIn first and try to get a of a read of their personality style. And that's quite straightforward because if they've written loads and they write articles and they
Adam Yaya-Durrant (52:06)
you
Benjamin Western (52:09)
Post lots of comments, know, okay, this is probably a, what's called a yellow, yellow personality or green personality. So there's sort of very, they like to talk. They like to have animated conversations. If they've got cold facts and not little written, they're more likely to be a more just get to the point type person. And, and then the final thing is just, it's just to really know your stuff. And when I say know your stuff, know the types of questions you should ask. Know how to tell your story really well, know how to overcome objections. And so.
Typically speaking, whatever you're selling, there's going be a certain set of objections that people will have. And it might be objections of price. might be objections on the feasibility to implement it, integrate it with other systems in the company for selling a tech product. So think about all the problems that could come up on a call and try and prepare an answer for them. And, and I think to summarize all of that, it'll probably be quite transparent that as we've gone through this conversation, I keep coming back to the same things because really selling is quite easy.
And it's, have a structure, know your like, know what you do really, really well, really know your customers and really know the value that you can bring. And, those first meetings, it's a mutual two -way thing to understand if there is that relationship there that's worth pursuing further. And if you get those things right, then you're, you're, you're way further ahead than most people are beginning.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (53:33)
That's great advice. think one thing I would add is that, and Ben, you talk a lot about being likeable. think being likeable is really important, but I'd say being universally liked isn't, I think that is actually not a great goal to go for. And that's both at a level of like, know, do you have positive interactions with somebody and do you like their personality?
But also is what you're selling going to be universally liked as well? In some cases, it's not the right thing for somebody. And one of the worst things I think you can do in a sales meeting is you have those conversations where somebody's just quite resistant to what you can offer. And every time they sort of make a point that counters an argument that you've already put forward, you're like, no, what I actually meant was that it is the thing that you want. And they're like,
Well, don't think I don't think it is. No, no, let me let me like desperately kind of explain to you why. And you just kind of like on the back foot and backtracking backtracking, but sometimes it's not the right thing. And it's not the right fit. And I think with the personality thing and the authenticity and all those those kind of things, like, if you're genuinely authentic, some people are not actually going to respond well to you. And that's, that's, that's okay. I remember something that you said to me a few years ago. I think I think you, I think you just
you said, yeah, I know I'm quite, I'm quite an unusual person. But I bet you've told your friends about me. And actually, that's, that's quite a cool way to think about it, isn't it? Is that you you want to you want to, you want to be memorable to the people that, you know, are going to have an interest in you and are going to want to kind of build a relationship with you. You don't necessarily just want to be, you know, a vanilla middle of the road person.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (55:14)
Rock and roll.
Yeah, and also like, sorry, Ben, obviously now, because now you're like, you know, you've got to you got to punch a bit harder when you're a small business. And you know, you're often up against like bigger organisations, like you need to you need to stand out. And I think you need to be memorable. I think it's definitely how we've worked against bigger agencies, because we've kind of flipped the conversation on its head a little bit. And that's that's
Benjamin Western (55:30)
Yeah. You got him.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (55:58)
been a really good way for us to sell. So I think, yeah, you're right. I like that. It's kind of, it is a bit Marmite sometimes. But I think that's, it's not a bad thing.
Benjamin Western (56:13)
Yeah, absolutely. mean, firstly, it's funny hearing that because I'd forgotten I said that. It's the type of thing I would have said about 10 years ago and probably wouldn't say now. the thing is, it's probably still true, which is in the sense of, I remember I've got like a friend that everybody loves and we walked into a room and I remember thinking, man, it'd be so nice to be that. But actually you've got to understand who you are. And actually I think those two points you articulated there punch a bit harder, it really stands out.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (56:20)
Yeah
Benjamin Western (56:42)
And fundamentally, one of the great stories I relay is someone had gone into a meeting and they were really themselves. So someone went through a training program and because they were really themselves in that meeting, the person had said, exactly the scenario you described, Phil, it clearly wasn't a right fit. so the founder said, I don't actually think we're the right fit for you.
And they sort of ended on good terms. a week later, they got a call from someone said, you spoke to my friend the other week. And they were laughing. They said, you're not the right fit, but he thinks you're the right fit for us. And they landed their biggest contract from that person because he had the honesty to say, I don't think we're right for you. And that stood out to that person. And because of that, that person then happily, and I think they've now won three bits of business through that person. So it's a bit of a gamble, right?
Adam Yaya-Durrant (57:39)
cool.
Benjamin Western (57:40)
That is a really good case, but just be yourself and know what you can and can't do. And that's ultimately going to be in the long run, the best strategy.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (57:50)
Yeah. Yeah. We're not, it's not telling people to be like, go out there and be, you know, dicks or anything. It's just, it's, it's just kind of standing up for what you believe in. You know, if you don't, if you don't like Coldplay, don't say like Coldplay just to make everyone happy. Like, you know, you know, have conviction in, in, those things. I don't mind Coldplay anymore.
Benjamin Western (58:00)
Yeah.
Do you know what? Can I finish on a Kendrick and Drake kind of anecdote? Well, which is someone was relying a story because people don't know that Kendrick and Drake had this big beef and Kendrick Lamar by every sort of objective measure kind of won that. But what was interesting about it was someone related a story of how they
Adam Yaya-Durrant (58:14)
Well, I know you're going to say, of course. Wow.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (58:15)
I'm amazed it's taken this long to get it.
Benjamin Western (58:35)
They'd met Drake and they were wearing like an Arsenal shirt. And they said that Drake was saying to them like, Arsenal, favorite team. it was wax and lyrical about Arsenal. And he said that three months later, he saw Drake talking to someone and Drake was doing the same thing about Man City. He was wearing a Man City shirt. he said, you know, and it just, and I probably get the teams wrong and I'm butchering the story a little, but that's insincerity. And one scale I talk about in sales is the sincere to insincere scale. And in the middle of that is like being a sicker fan.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (58:49)
So that.
Benjamin Western (59:03)
Right. Incincere is where you just being dishonest. A sycophant is when you just say, yeah, I like everything because you want to get on the person side where the people that are great sales are just always sincere to the end from the start and to the end. And if you do that, then again, it's about playing the long game because your reputation ultimately is really everything and your reputation will always precede you and your reputation. it's one of integrity, then you can never really go wrong and
And again, come looping all the way back round. That's why I love working with founder tech companies because that's normally their starting point because that's all they know. Like they care so much about this thing and people will see that. yeah, stay to the, stay to Sincere.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (59:45)
Cool. Yeah.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (59:47)
really thought that story was going to end with and of course, Kendrick Lamar is a huge Newcastle fan who goes to all the away games. Yeah, and I think that's, that's brilliant. So just to sort of bring things all together then, and just kind of one final thought, think, I think when you're in the space of starting a B2B tech startup, and
you know, a lot of what we've spoken about today is really relevant to those kind of sort of low volume, but high value sales conversations where, you are obviously, you know, you're in a conversation with a human being as opposed to just kind of buying stuff directly off a website. I think the, you know, the principles that you've outlined of just, you know, being true to yourself and true to the value that you're actually delivering to people.
They're really fundamental because you're not going to have a long track record and a load of case studies and things like that. know, when you're talking to your first customers, they need to buy into you as individuals. need to, they need to really believe in you trust that you can deliver the value that you claim to be able to deliver through the technology that you're providing. They need to like you and they need to have an element, you know, of being a bit of a risk taker because you are going to be.
probably a smaller alternative to something else that's out there. You also need to be really differentiated because you need to be able to offer something different to those larger incumbent people. And that again comes back to being a bit Marmite, being sincere, being authentic and all those kinds of things. And ultimately, one of the things that I think we've learned and that I think we've talked about a little bit today is that with the
idea of having a clear value proposition, which, which will change over time. And you know, it's, it's an iterative thing and it's really like, as I said, kind of part of the product development process, as much as it is part of the part of the sales process, it will evolve over time is actually that gives you a really clear position on what you actually do and how you provide value to businesses. What that then enables you to do is to say,
Okay. The highest amount of value that we deliver as a business is delivered by becoming a customer and using our tech platform and, you know, unlocking a load of value through interacting with, with that package. But there's a, there's a whole then series of other things that you can do and you can provide to people that are, different ways of delivering that value. And I think this comes back to the point about imposter syndrome and sales feeling a bit grubby potentially is if you see.
your role in this as giving away as much value as possible as often as possible to as many people as possible. You know, it's back to that almost kind of altruistic thing. It makes you personally feel good. mean, for us, it gives us a lot of energy to just have conversations with founders and say, you know, what are you struggling with? Okay, we've got experience of this, you know, we maybe should think about this kind of thing. We're not charging money for that. It's just good.
What that then does is that people then start to build trust in you and that helps you to sell to them ultimately. But what it also does, which we've noticed, which is really interesting, is it then makes them want to go and recommend you to other people. And that's how you then start to kind of amplify out your ability to build a network and do all this kind of thing.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:03:20)
Mm.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:03:31)
You know, I'm a big believer in karma, but I'm also, I have noticed that, you know, funny little things that at the time you almost think, well, you know, why am I, why am I going for a coffee with this person? Or why are we having a conversation about this thing? And what I'm like, know, giving, giving this away and I don't see that there's a potential sale right now. They have this sort of butterfly effect where you don't actually know where those things are going to, are going to end up. But some of the most interesting sales conversations we've had have come off the back of just giving stuff away.
And I think, again, not random stuff, but stuff that's linked to your value proposition. That for me is really, really, important and one of the most valuable things that you can do in terms of getting comfortable with sales and also getting more sales.
Benjamin Western (1:04:24)
I fully agree. Yeah, absolutely lovely way to summarize a lot of the things we've spoken about for sure.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:04:33)
Cool. Okay, well, we are probably at the end of this chat. I hope not the last time we get to chat to you on this podcast, because I think there's a whole, there's a million other things that we could chat about, think, together. But before we go, I would highly recommend to people seeking Benjamin out and following him on
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:04:41)
Definitely.
Great.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:05:00)
LinkedIn and is there is there anywhere else anything else that you want to point people towards today?
Benjamin Western (1:05:06)
Unless you want to hear a joyful person play moody rock and minor keys, on which I share on YouTube, no, just LinkedIn's the place.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:05:19)
Boop.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:05:19)
Okay, well, yeah, we'll maybe put the link to the YouTube channel in the show notes as well. Yeah, cool. And as ever, from us, we would ask, please, if you've enjoyed this conversation today, please like, subscribe, if you can leave a review, and, you know, recommend us to other people that you think might might be interesting in the WhatsApp groups and wherever you
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:05:24)
Yeah, put the link in there anyway. Get you some views.
Benjamin Western (1:05:25)
What?
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:05:47)
wherever you talk to people. The prototyping toolkit is still available and you can find out more about what we're doing at cultproducts .yaya .co. Yeah, really enjoyed the conversation today, guys. And yeah, thanks a lot for coming on the podcast, Ben. It's been great having you. I think that's all from me.
Adam Yaya-Durrant (1:06:12)
Thanks Ben. It's been great. Cool. Alrighty. Cool. See you guys later. Bye.
Benjamin Western (1:06:13)
Yeah, thanks having us. been great. Yeah, awesome.
Phill Keaney-Bolland (1:06:17)
Nice. Great. All right. See you next week. Bye.
Benjamin Western (1:06:20)
Take care.