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Software is bad. It makes RevOps look like system admins. But also, software is also good. In fact, it's very much needed.
That's why we decided to cover how to approach buying software. In the episode, we cover:
That's why we decided to cover how to approach buying software. In the episode, we cover:
Creators and Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
[00:00:00] Toni: Toni Holbein.
[00:00:01] You're listening to the Revenue Formula. In today's episode, we're going to talk about two ways you should be buying software and how to get a good deal doing it. Enjoy.
[00:00:14] Mikkel: Oh, man, so which one are we going to go for today?
[00:00:18] What do you
[00:00:19] Toni: let's warm up with this one, yeah? Let's warm up with this
[00:00:21] Mikkel: Good. Good. Let's do that. Warm up with software. That's good. Oh, right. So another thing happened. I was working from home last week and, uh, you know, I'm still learning about being a homeowner and everything.
[00:00:36] And we have heating in the floor. And then we have this cabinet filled with technical stuff that I just have no effing clue about whatsoever, whatsoever. Like, I'm an office worker, I've never been able to understand that stuff. And the seller said, you know, when we took over, it's, yeah,
[00:00:53] Toni: it's super simple.
[00:00:54] Mikkel: No, no, they said it's... It's pretty complicated in there, guys. And then I realized there wasn't enough pressure on the boiler. And I was like, okay, so what do I do? I google and you watch videos of, you know, tens of different solutions and you learn that you need to fill water on the thing. And how do you do that?
[00:01:13] It took me like forever. And it's just to say, even after having purchased something, you will still discover complicated things after, you know, a certain amount of time have passed. Didn't you also have this? Or was it easier with your?
[00:01:29] Toni: do with yours?
[00:01:29] No, um, but uh,
[00:01:32] Mikkel: all
[00:01:33] Toni: all of this stuff my wife takes care of. Yeah, yeah. It's like, honestly, it's, um, I think, um, and Cecilia, when you, when you hear this, you know, please, please don't give me a bad time afterwards. But, uh, you know, all of these things, like those things at home, I'm like, I look at it as like, I don't, you know, I've, I've, in Germany, say, if, uh, Two thumbs on the on the left side or something
[00:01:57] Mikkel: that. yeah, yeah, thumbs for fingers. Yeah.
[00:01:59] Toni: and You know, I rather don't touch it.
[00:02:02] So the the last time when something kind of broke in the house I was just you know, I was down in the with like a bathroom downstairs. I was like
[00:02:10] Mikkel: was like, this, this sounds weird. And then
[00:02:15] Toni: I literally just texted my wife, Hey, you need to come here and listen. There's something sounds weird. And you know, lo and behold, there was, there was a big problem actually, kind of weird water kind of gushing through and kind of into the, so not, not into the house, well into the house, but then kind of also running out.
[00:02:31] So we're basically kind of, the meter was running for probably a week without kind of us realizing. It's like, something sounds weird here. Well, at least,
[00:02:38] Mikkel: know, so you know as your wife, it's not like this magical thing, like, where do all these clean clothes come from?
[00:02:43] I have no clue. At least you know, so you can give her credit for it. I think that's, you know, kudos to you.
[00:02:48] Toni: Yeah, I don't know. Anyway.
[00:02:51] Mikkel: anyway, we're, so the thing is, we're, this is the segway I stitched together for today. Buying stuff, complex, software.
[00:02:57] We're gonna talk
[00:02:58] about buying
[00:02:58] Toni: Did I ruin it
[00:02:59] Mikkel: No,
[00:03:00] no, no, not at all. Not at all. You made it better.
[00:03:01] You made it better. So the,
[00:03:04] Toni: Correct answer, employee.
[00:03:07] Mikkel: renewed. No, so, um, the funny thing is, we've kind of talked quite a bit about Remy Operations obsessing too much. Software tools
[00:03:19] Toni: tools
[00:03:20] Mikkel: and Yeah. And today we're gonna talk about software. Yeah. But I guess there's a reason for that because, uh, we've been working on an ebook and in that book it's very clear, you know, you just need to have a handle on that stuff.
[00:03:32] Yep. It, it's gonna need to happen anyway.
[00:03:34] Toni: need to happen anyway. No, absolutely. And it's, so obviously we're sometimes like, uh, you know, system admin and so forth, strategic. I mean, you need to have your, your, your stuff together also with, uh, with the different tools that you have.
[00:03:44] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Toni: So you can't get around this, right? This is part of your, this is your core job function.
[00:03:49] You can't just like, you know what? Toni and Mikkel said, I don't need to care about this. No, it's obviously it doesn't work like this. Um, so today we wanted to talk a little bit about, um, uh, buying software. Um, because in, in different times, I just say one or two years ago, people were like, Oh, I'm done implementing this tool.
[00:04:08] What I'm going to implement next, you know, let's, let's just buy something else. Um, and so I think that has changed a little bit recently. I think maybe, uh, by the way, I think maybe we're starting to. Uh, see the light at the end of the tunnel here, kind of in, in terms of, um, how, how sales and software and all of that is going.
[00:04:26] But we wanted to talk today about how you should be buying software in the right way instead. Um, and, um, yeah, let's jump into
[00:04:34] Mikkel: So we have, um, Let's say two approaches we're
[00:04:38] going to walk through today.
[00:04:40] And I think one is going to be eerily simple to how a lot of folks are doing it. Uh, we're still going to cover it because there are some important steps in there, but there is a second approach coming, wait for it.
[00:04:49] And that's going to be a bit different. So
[00:04:51] Toni: is the first one, this is the textbook one. Um, and, and I think everyone kind of knows that that's how it should be done. But no one is actually doing it like this. Um, but we still want to cover this obviously, right? And the, um, you know, if you imagine a pyramid, uh, on the top, on the top, you know, triangle or something. You write strategy, yeah? And then below that, uh, you have people. And the idea is how you need to figure out what the strategy is, what you want to achieve, and then you need to figure out... What the people are, who the people are that you need in order to fulfill the strategy. So far it makes total sense, right?
[00:05:31] And then, um, once you have the people in place, then you can think like, okay, what are the processes I need to run for those people to work together in order to achieve the strategy? Right? So far, everything kind of, that makes sense. And then, and only then, only then you would be like, okay, now that I have strategy, I have people, I have processes.
[00:05:52] Now you need to think what are the systems. I need to help run those processes for the people then to go and execute the
[00:06:02] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:06:03] Toni: Yeah. So on the, on the, on the base of the pyramid, um, you basically then have systems. Um, and I think, um, if you Google this and have different, uh, blog posts, it's going to be, uh, four Ps purpose.
[00:06:16] People, Process, and Platform. That's, that's the, the cool version. I like, you know, Strategy, People, Process, Systems. And, um, and only then you should be like, Ah, okay, now that I, now that we are running a specific process, let's buy a tool to help us with that process, right? so what is a process? Well, it's...
[00:06:36] Very simply, um, let's just say you have a sales team and they're running a sales process. Then you would be like, Hey, maybe we need a sales process management tool. And then it would be like, Oh, it's called a CRM. And then let's buy that thing. Right. So that's, that's how that works. Funny side story, by the way, there's, um, uh, uh, talk to, I mean, I talked to a bunch of different folks, but there's a company 300 plus million in ARR.
[00:07:04] Uh, they just recently went from spreadsheets to, uh, Salesforce, by the
[00:07:08] Mikkel: Salesforce, by the way.
[00:07:10] Wow. Wow. Yeah.
[00:07:11] Toni: and we're talking like a thousand sellers and stuff. So it's, um, uh, they've, they've really milked that Google spreadsheet to the end. Um, and, and for them it was then, okay, now's the time where we gonna, you know, uh, professionalize that part of the, um, of the customer journey, the buyer journey and so forth.
[00:07:27] Right. So it's, uh, uh, that is a typical thing. And I think, uh, in their case. Uh, I would assume, you know, you always have these when you're doing the plan and then you put your inputs in and then, um, it doesn't, you know, fit, we need to, there's a, there's a gap and what should we do about the gap? Um, no one puts their, you know, implement CRM and then we kind of hit the target, right?
[00:07:48] Because it's like, that's not
[00:07:49] Mikkel: the target,
[00:07:50] Toni: In that case, totally possible. In that case, it could be like a 20 percent lift for the whole productivity of the sales team. And it's like, boop, you know,
[00:07:57] Mikkel: be the ROI case you're gonna read on the
[00:07:59] Toni: Yeah, I know for sure. But it's, uh, so this is, this is how it ideally should be. Right. And then, um, you have, um, you know, another, another thing, which is a little bit more recent than the CM run is outbound.
[00:08:14] Right. So in late 2000s, you know, 2010s, the, um, the SDR function became a thing. Uh, in the beginning, super messy, all those emails and put them in the CRM and then those calls and where do you make the calls from and where they're tracked and how do you know that, you know, how do you, how do you track all of that stuff and how do you organize it and how do you work on those cadences and then see there was a cadence tool.
[00:08:40] and nowadays what's that sales loft and outreach. And I think, uh, Gong has something now as well. And then who's the last one? Clari a groove now, right?
[00:08:49] Mikkel: Those,
[00:08:50] Toni: Those sales engagement platforms, right, they basically kind of solve that specific thing. And in our case, which is, when, when I rolled out, well, I didn't, I was maybe I was signing the check, but then I, you know, it's like at home basically, you know, someone else kind of fix everything.
[00:09:08] But um, uh, basically the thing was we. I think at the time we had maybe 100 SDRs,
[00:09:15] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:09:16] Toni: in three, four different offices on three different continents. everyone was running a little bit their own thing and we were sitting there, you know, the RevOps team were like, Oh, okay, cool. We're going to buy this thing now.
[00:09:26] It's going to be pretty straightforward. I mean, we're super well organized, right? So, um, and then we bought this and then we want to implement it. And then it dawned on us that literally basically everyone of those 100 SDRs. Kind of running a different playbook
[00:09:40] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Toni: like all of them and the worst thing is that the the 20 really successful ones you know, everyone else, you know, yeah, you know, we have a new playbook now, here's the playbook, you need to do it.
[00:09:51] But you know, with the successful ones, you can't really do it like this. So that was, that was extremely difficult to roll this thing out. And I think it took us three or four or five months or something
[00:10:02] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:10:03] Toni: I'm going to drink a beer with a, with a guy who's, who's been running this, uh, later tonight.
[00:10:07] So, you know, I'll ask him. but, um, that is, that is one of those things we have like, Hey, we have these, we have a growth strategy and we want to do that through outbound. Uh, let's hire all of those SDRs. Let's have the process in place in order for them to call and for the managers to manage that and so forth.
[00:10:23] And then, Ooh, we need a tool for this, which then basically kind of, that, that is the right way to do it. Um, and, um.
[00:10:30] The, the wrong way, for example, to do it, and it's slightly different from this other piece that we're going to go into is. Um, you know, try and do it the other way around, try and, you know, buy a tool to invent a process for people to do something that is not aligned with the strategy.
[00:10:46] Um, that's the wrong way about it. and I think I've seen, I've, I've done this myself, uh, and I, and then I think it's pretty popular for people to still do this, right? So kind of keep this in mind. It's really, you want to go top down, and, uh, and if you catch yourself going the other way around, then, hey, there, there must be something.
[00:11:05] It sounds like, it sounds like an outbound call that went really well.
[00:11:10] Mikkel: can't believe she signed it. Okay, so this is, uh, the textbook example. Pretty much how everyone should approach it. There's some strategy, people, process, and then you can look at the systems.
[00:11:22] But there's another way to go about software buying, which we're going to get into now.
[00:11:26] Toni: Yes. And, um, so I think intuitively we all know this one, but I've never heard it really being spoken out loud.
[00:11:36] Uh, like this, I recently kind of chatted with, um, with someone who, who basically kind of prompted that thought here to make this a topic. and basically he talked about it as, um, software buying as a forcing function.
[00:11:50] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:11:51] Toni: Yeah. Um. So basically, you could say, well, house is different from, you know, the, the, the bottom up, yeah, the, oh, you just, you know, buy a tool to then kind of have a process.
[00:12:03] Well, it's, you're doing this, um, you're doing this with a little bit more, uh, purpose in mind, right? Kind of, it's almost, so what, what you want to achieve is you want to, um, get some outside help. It could be a consultant, it could be a service, it could be a tool, to help you achieve change management inside the organization, right?
[00:12:26] And that might be that, hey, no one is doing this process yet, but the desire is that that process is being done, or the people don't actually know some of these things, but the desire would be that, you know, people would actually know this in order to then fulfill the strategy, right? I think what's what's pretty clear to me is, you know, if, if this is the path you choose, you probably have your systems to a degree be aligned with the strategy.
[00:12:54] But not the stuff in between, right? So basically, that's, that's what they're then trying to kind of push change from the bottom up into strategy is a bit more difficult. Um, but that's basically kind of how that could work, right? And, um, if, if I take the examples from before, it could be that, uh, you have an outbound function.
[00:13:15] That is all over the place, uh, maybe you're unsuccessful, um, maybe you're not sure if you even hired the right people, uh, all of that, you know, all of those questions might, might be there and the reason why you would then, buy a software tool to help you solve that is to force a specific behavior into that SDR team, to then get consistent metrics and diagnostics out of this to see what's actually going on.
[00:13:45] Uh, for you to make a better choice on who are the right people maybe, um, and, you know, are we doing the right things? Are we running the right process, so to speak, um, to then support the strategy to begin with. Right. And, um. And it's, it's, you know, Oh, you know, it's kind of similar, but it's also not. And in the first case, you're basically trying to optimize what's already there.
[00:14:08] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:14:09] Toni: Yeah. so you're happy with what's going on and you just bring in a tool to make everything a bit more sleek and fast and easy. And the other thing. Uh, you're, you're using the tool and tools, when you, when you look at tools, it's really encoded best practice into a product,
[00:14:26] Mikkel: Yeah. Yeah. There's some opinions in there.
[00:14:29] Toni: right? Think about it like this. It's not, it's not an Excel spreadsheet where you can do everything and anything. It's, hey, this is the best way to solve that problem that you're having there. And we know because we talked to thousands of people and we spent, you know, millions of hours on, pouring this into this product solution that's a perfect fit for this, for this problem.
[00:14:50] If, if you feel otherwise, There's a solid chance that maybe you are the one making the mistake here, right? So the, the, the software can actually help you, um, to streamline the stuff and, um, and, and figure out, you know, what the right things should be and could be. Um, and, and then you start using it as a forcing function.
[00:15:10] Mikkel: think one of the reasons why this is also interesting is it does something to the motivation also. When you think about, so everyone wants to be healthy, like period. I assume at least everyone wants to be healthy. And everyone maybe wants then time to work out in order to become healthy. But you know what?
[00:15:28] You might have a license for a fitness gym, whatever, and then not really use it. But if you paid, let's just say, 2k a month for a trainer who will be there, expect you to come and run you through a program, you would probably show up. You would have high motivation because of the monetary side of it as well.
[00:15:45] And I think it's some of the same dynamics that happen, mentally speaking, when remu operations and even the exec team says, okay, we know we want to enforce this. This process on streamlining outbound and the fastest path for us given where we are is actually we, we invest in the tool to commit everyone to getting it done because there is no failure in here.
[00:16:06] We are going to achieve it and I think there is some motivational aspect
[00:16:09] to
[00:16:09] it there.
[00:16:10] Toni: And I think when you think about this as a. You know, revenue operations making a decision to buy something like this, right? I think RevOps coming in and saying there's a tool to help us with this specific process. I think that's expected. I think this is, um, 101 for revenue operations to make sure that, uh, the stuff that's running is being supported by the right tools.
[00:16:36] I think the other thing, this is, this is something that goes a little bit further into
[00:16:42] Mikkel: You
[00:16:42] Toni: know, I guess what we would call strategic revenue operations, right? So really spotting, well, what isn't working well, and can there be a tool out there that helps me to actually achieve that, right? And I think this is, is a, is a much more difficult, purchasing process actually kind of, you really need to make the, you really need to build a internal team in order to, to agree to something like this.
[00:17:08] And, first and foremost, what you need to make sure is that this is actually fully aligned with the strategy, albeit it might not fully, fully be aligned with the existing processes and the existing people that you
[00:17:19] Mikkel: you have Yeah.
[00:17:20] Toni: which makes this really difficult to actually pull off.
[00:17:22] Right. Um, and, uh, because of that, uh, I believe doing something like this from a RevOps only perspective, I think it's much more difficult. Um, but I think this can actually be one of those things where. Um, yes, through buying a, you know, some random tool, you can actually strategically align and help your organization to kind of get better at a specific thing.
[00:17:44] Mikkel: to kind of get better at a
[00:17:45] Toni: use
[00:17:46] Mikkel: specific thing. You know, buying a piece of software as a forcing function. Do you think this is more of a stick scenario versus the other, the other textbook cases? It's not that it's a carrot, but you know, there's a process to get people prepared and bought in.
[00:18:00] And yes, we've considered your reflections and blah. Whereas if you use it as a forcing function, you might end up saying, well, if you don't follow the process, then I'm sorry, we can't work together. Like put on
[00:18:11] the limb
[00:18:12] Toni: I think it's um, I'm not quite sure if, if I would, delineate something like this. I think if you, ultimately you buy whatever you're going to buy and it needs to be used for the value to be. taken from the tool, right. And, uh, especially as a, as a RevOps person, if you're.
[00:18:32] If you're too much thinking, you can just force people to do it. I think that will be kind of extremely difficult to then actually see a usage coming out of this. and the best example is this whole like, oh, please clean up the CRM and data quality and all of these things. I think, in the rollout, it's always, it's super important for everyone, that you as a RevOps person have a what's in it for me.
[00:18:57] Line for every single different group. Right. and I think you can, you can sometimes be obviously a bit more harsh. I think at the beginning, you're going to be soft on the project management and kind of getting this in, uh, but over time you're going to be more and more tight and clear and know this is what this is now, uh, to, to take these folks on, on the journey and make sure that.
[00:19:19] Uh, that it lands in the right way. but ultimately, uh, especially when, when you are championing something like this here, you will be more or less also on the hook for the usage of it, right? So you, you will need to make sure that, um, all the different stakeholders and users are coming along with you in order to, uh, make this a successful.
[00:19:41] Not only purchasing, but also really kind of getting the value out of this. Um, but I think, in some areas it, it will require a little bit more of a stick. So I agree with that. but I think in, in those cases you probably will need to align very well with their boss, for example,
[00:19:58] Mikkel: I guess it's also like, you're not going to neglect all the best practices of rolling it out anyway. You're not just going to, you know, suddenly create users and SDRs are going to go, well, I got an invite for this tool call, whatever now, what's up?
[00:20:12] So you can't just forego that part of the process.
[00:20:15] So, now we talked about basically the two ways to go about buying software, but there is also a point in time where you actually have to... Buy it. Buy it. Mm-hmm. , you know, . So how do you go about that? I, I think there's a couple of differences here. It's, you know, there's a conversation around to use it to reinforce and force, but also in the negotiation side and actually procuring the
[00:20:36] Toni: the software.
[00:20:37] Yeah. So, um,
[00:20:40] Mikkel: I've,
[00:20:40] Toni: I've been buying a bunch of, a bunch of tools and sometimes I feel like. It's, uh, it's bad sales karma that something's, it's, you know, hitting Growblocks sometimes, you know, but, um, so what, um, what we developed, uh, we developed a framework to purchase. Software. And what we did is, and we feel super smart about it, but it's super straight.
[00:21:04] It's super simple. Um, but what we did is, uh, we took how, um, how we were selling software, um, and, uh, tried to reverse engineer it basically. Right. Because we were sitting there with the sales reps and the sales reps, we could clearly see what worked with them. And then they came to us and, and, and so forth.
[00:21:26] Um, and, um, or just also seeing, you know, something is ghosting and, ah, now they want to have more discount and so forth. So we basically collected all of these different things that we saw worked with us. in terms of getting a better deal, basically, um, and, and how, how the prospect achieved to get it.
[00:21:46] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:21:48] Toni: Um, and, um, we took all of that in and then reversed engineer it to then try and do it ourselves
[00:21:55] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:21:57] Toni: in order to get the best deal.
[00:21:59] Yeah. And obviously we needed to have a cool acronym, but I'm not sure if it's cool, but an acronym that helped us. Right. And, and we, we looked at BANT, budget, authority, need, and timing, and then we had to reverse it, for, you know, the purchasing process. And we called it BACT.
[00:22:20] Mikkel: BACT.
[00:22:22] Toni: Budget, Authority, C stands for competition and T stands for timing.
[00:22:27] So the reason why the need needed to be replaced with, you know, something else is that, you know, as you go through the purchasing process, it will be increasingly clear that there is a need, right? And, and, um, and you, at some point you can't escape the, okay, fuck, I need this.
[00:22:46] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:22:46] Toni: So what else could you do about it?
[00:22:48] And you know, I'll, I'll get to that in a second, right? But, uh,
[00:22:52] If you kind of go through those different steps, uh, so, you know, budget in, in, in the purchasing sense is there's no budget.
[00:22:59] Mikkel: Yeah. I have zero. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:02] Toni: No, I have no money. and, um, You can navigate this through different ways and, uh, and every time someone says a number, you're surprised of how large that number is and so forth.
[00:23:14] Mikkel: Did You add a zero too
[00:23:15] much by
[00:23:16] Toni: I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, yeah, is it per year or is it per month? I'm really worried, you know, everyone listening to this, they're
[00:23:23] Mikkel: they're gonna, call
[00:23:23] Toni: they're gonna buy like this, yeah, yeah. Um, so this is, this is number one. Number two, authority. And this is really important. it's, it's one of the, the biggest levers, actually.
[00:23:33] so never, never go in with the highest authority. So f When we bought, I think when we even bought sales loft, we had our most junior member of the RevOps team call up sales loft
[00:23:44] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:23:45] Toni: and start the process there. And then, every time we got in another layer.
[00:23:50] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:23:51] Toni: we basically ask for another discount, which is what people did to us
[00:23:55] Mikkel: time. But it's also a new person coming and saying, so what price is this? It's like, what is it?
[00:23:59] No.
[00:24:00] Toni: yeah, but it's also this, and you can basically kind of play this, this champion game then, uh, and be like, Oh, you know, I really want to have it, but my boss, and you need to help me with my boss and, and so forth. Again, happened to us all. All the time. Um, and, um, that's how you then, you know, it's also awkward when one person asks for a discount five times, right?
[00:24:23] But it's different when there's a new face showing up. It's asking for a discount again,
[00:24:27] Mikkel: Yeah.
[00:24:28] Toni: And then the most important thing, and this is, I mean, this is so funny because it's just so true. The real economic buyer, the real, real decision maker, can never, can never interface directly to the seller.
[00:24:39] Mikkel: No.
[00:24:41] Toni: Yeah. So basically, it's then, it's in my case, the CEO or the CRO or, you know, whatever. and, uh, you never allow the seller to speak to the actual economic buyer. And ideally, if, if you're included in an email chain, you, you answer with like three words, you know,
[00:25:00] Mikkel: That's the way
[00:25:01] Toni: no fucking
[00:25:02] Mikkel: way, Yeah.
[00:25:03] Toni: um,
[00:25:04] Mikkel: Haven't looked at it. Don't
[00:25:05] Toni: yeah, so, you know, this is, this is, this is how you need to play the authority letter.
[00:25:09] Then we're moving on to C, so competition. and the thing is you need to mention the competitor's words, like. All the time. so for example, when we bought Salesforce, the first thing I said was, Hey, sorry, my, you know, I, I really like Salesforce, but my boss is a Microsoft Dynamics
[00:25:30] Mikkel: Yeah, yeah. , dynamic
[00:25:33] Toni: Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics, Dynamics, it's
[00:25:34] Mikkel: yeah, yeah. Dynamics.
[00:25:35] Toni: all the time.
[00:25:36] Right. and, uh, and you can use it just to kind of kick off. You can use it during the proposal. You can use it, you know, discussing pricing, you can use it to kind of get a discount. It's like, it's use it everywhere around, um, and it's, it's really good to create this. What it does also is even, you know, you're at signature, you literally at signature in, in the sales process, you had 90 percent completed.
[00:26:03] But the, the thing is the sales rep cannot feel it to be 90 percent at that point, because it still might only be a coin flip at best, because it still might be the other thing. Right. So, which then motivates the sales rep to kind of always go. You know, one up on, at this point, I don't want to lose it to the competition.
[00:26:22] So let's be super aggressive, which then also helps them internally build the case and so
[00:26:26] Mikkel: forth. Yeah
[00:26:28] Toni: Dude, we're not going to sell any
[00:26:29] Mikkel: No.
[00:26:31] Toni: And then time, So everyone knows Salesforce's year end, fiscal year end is the 31st of January. Everyone knows that.
[00:26:38] Mikkel: have time.
[00:26:39] Toni: Yeah. Um, and the I did the reach out. So in this case, Salesforce, I did the reach out, on the 1st of January and said, I need to buy it by the end of the month. so what did this do? Well, it created like, oh, wow, this just popped into my forecast kind of feeling for the rep. I didn't need to ask the rep when the quarter end was because I knew that already.
[00:27:00] and, uh, you can, you can dangle with like, ah, I'm not sure if we can make this decision by then, you know, it's, for us, it probably is going to push out more, two more weeks and, you know, you can kind of use it like this, but then also there's a, there's a negative side to this, as you have less and less time available, the number of times you can play ping pong basically reduces and reduces and reduces, right?
[00:27:23] If the timeline is coming up and in Salesforce case, if the clock strikes midnight on the 31st, no, it's not going to be a last year's deal anymore. It's a, it's a new year's deal. And, and all the discounts do disappear because you know, they don't. They're different, right? Um, and you know, when you come up to this, to the last week, then, you maybe have one or two shots left or something like this, right?
[00:27:47] Because, uh, in their case, you need to literally run it up and down the, the approval chain and, and, uh, I do know that, uh, Salesforce was very upset with, uh, the Falcon account. Um, Very upset with a Falcon account. Um, so, um, that played out as well. So it's BACT, uh, Budget, Authority, Competitor, and Timing.
[00:28:07] Mikkel: the competitor. Good thing we don't have a discount here, huh?
[00:28:08] No, that's right.
[00:28:09] Toni: right. That's right.
[00:28:12] Mikkel: Okay, but I feel like, uh, so two ways to actually use software, you reinforce the strategy, force a change, and then a neat little nugget in the end on, um, How to actually then go and buy the
[00:28:24] Toni: How to, how to
[00:28:25] Mikkel: How to buy the thing. And I felt like this was a great episode for us to cover because we have a ebook coming out.
[00:28:34] And it's about how to get strategic. And some of these elements you'll also find in the book. It's just a tiny part of it because we don't want to deal. you know, spend too much time on tools. There's a ton on how to get time, how to become strategic, learn from all the best folks, across some big
[00:28:51] Toni: we've interviewed a couple of really fantastic people for this book actually. So let's, uh, let's see.
[00:28:55] Wonderful. Mikkel, thank you so much.
[00:28:57] Mikkel: Thank you, Toni.
[00:28:58] Toni: Thank you everyone for listening and bye bye. Bye.
[00:28:59] Mikkel: Bye.