If you’re heavily involved in B2B sales, it’s no secret that phone-based selling has become an outdated and less impactful practice. What was once seen as the best way to turn cold leads hot is now met with more hesitation than ever before – and getting people to pick up your call is nearing impossible. Due to this fast-paced change, many sales leaders are stuck wondering how to change up their playbooks to help their remote sales teams gain the most traction.
What steps can sales leaders take now to increase momentum and keep their sales teams from falling behind?
Team-focused social selling is the answer and there’s nobody better to unpack this strategy than Nick Capozzi, Head of Storytelling at DemoStack and Founder of SalesPitching.
In this episode of Evolved Sales Live, host Jonathan Fischer sits down with Nick to discuss how sales teams can work together to build more effective marketing, sales, and business development strategies while using social media to connect with leads on a human level.
Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more engaging sales insights and discussions! Happy watching!
Meet Nick:
With over two decades of high-impact experience as a marketing leader, Nick Capozzi has been a key player in helping multinational companies step up their marketing and sales efforts. As Head of Storytelling at DemoStack and Founder of SalesPitching, Nick uses empathetic messaging strategies to put ideal clients at the forefront of sales – and keep them there.
Check out the transcription of this webinar episode below!
Jonathan Fischer 0:00
It's time once again for remote sales live. Welcome back, everybody. I'm Jonathan Fisher Great to have you back on the show with us. We are still experiencing many of the challenges created by the pandemic. For business development leaders COVID is made their already tough job even harder. Many companies are finding that their phone based SDR model has taken a beating. And in today's social selling world, managers are unclear how best to position their remote team of SDRS to be successful. Well, today's guest is the man to help us with this. for over 21 years now. Nikka, Posey has worked in the front lines of business development, leveraging his sales, team building and leadership skills to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for several notable companies over the years. Most recently, Nick skills as a marketing leader have caught the eye of multinational SAS demo stack, the world's number one demo experience platform, where he works as the head of storytelling. He's a key player in driving their explosive growth over the last year. And on a personal level, Nick has always been generous in sharing his insight with others to help them build more effective marketing, sales and business management strategies. And we're excited to have him on the show again today, Nick, welcome.
Nick Capozzi 1:12
Did you have to say was 21 years Jonathan, you kind of threw me off a little bit old?
Jonathan Fischer 1:17
Well, I was gonna say he looks young. But it's been more than two decades that I went with different wording. So
Nick Capozzi 1:23
I'll take it. I'll take it. It's okay. No, it's been a fun career. It's been a great career. But man, yeah, it has been. She's 22 years now. Oh, my gosh, okay, blow. I'm just gonna stop. I'll let you I'll let you handle the show. I'll shut up.
Jonathan Fischer 1:37
No, love it. That's why we love having you with us. This is your second time. And I trust it will not be the final time that you're a guest with us, Nick. To our audience. Just a friendly reminder, we definitely want to save some time here in about a half an hour for some q&a. Go ahead and start sending in your questions in via chat. And we'll spend a little asked me anything time with Nick, after our main conversation also will make everybody aware that Nick is has an exciting launch of a podcast all his own called go to market this week, launching this coming Monday the 10th you can find that anywhere you like to go and get your podcast content. Alright, so Nick, jumping in. I mean, maybe we could have you share just a little bit about what you're doing there at dentist app. Before we get into the topic for the day. What's your day to day work look like right now?
Nick Capozzi 2:21
Absolutely. So I'm the head of storytelling, which translates to the marketing evangelists. So I do a lot of content, I do events, I throw parties, anything that kind of brings awareness to the brand. But then secondary to that I also do a lot of social selling. So how do you take that brand awareness? And then how do you actually turn that into booked meetings? And that's a big part of what I do.
Jonathan Fischer 2:45
So well, so what does it actually like mean, in terms of storytelling, for booking meetings, I'm very fascinated by that.
Nick Capozzi 2:50
So they're kind of two different things. But I'll tell you about storytelling. Let's start with that. And I think what's really interesting is that I came from a very b2c environment and the cruise industry where we were selling high end luxury goods. So how do I tell the story of a Swiss watch House? If there's 15 Other Swiss watch houses I also have to talk about in that same presentation. And that came, you know, what I learned at that time was how do you tell a great story, right? How do you really differentiate and do something that's going to engage a but then keep people's attention. And then finally, if you tell a great story, you're more likely to get the call to action, follow through on follow through on. So that's kind of how I look at it, I look at it as if you tell a great story, you're gonna keep people more engaged. And by telling a great story, what you're trying to do is take someone who's in the audience right now, that's right, I'm looking at you, and pull them onto your side onto the stage. And if you do a good job of telling a great story, you'll do that. And if they feel that they're involved, they're more likely to become your champion. If they become your champion, you're more likely to get velocity throughout the entire sales cycle.
Jonathan Fischer 3:54
That's really great stuff. Sounds like we have the topic for our next show already lined up.
Nick Capozzi 4:00
Ready, we'll be in coach.
Jonathan Fischer 4:01
All right. All right, you got it? Well, for today, we definitely want to dive in. Because I know this is a real felt need from talking to our audience members. We've had a lot of changes post COVID, as I said in the intro, and one of those is that this phone centric approach to putting in at you know, SDRS, you know, lock and load the data, get them burning through on those dialers and getting some appointments on the calendar. It's just not having quite the leverage that it did. And many teams are finding that they're having to just discover some new ways to develop opportunity and keep the calendar filled with appointments. And obviously, social selling is one of the areas where that's getting a lot of attention. So why don't we lead off with what are some of the issues here with SDR based business development in a post COVID world? Where what do you see that it's a hit and miss out there among business development leaders today, Nick?
Nick Capozzi 4:48
Well, I think what the pain is, Jonathan, is that one is the is the data, correct? I mean, that's the first one especially since COVID. Right now, you're trying to reach people on their cell phones. And then what's the etiquette of that? Are you comfortable calling someone on their cell phone, I don't mind taking a sales call. But I think that's a little bit different from that traditional picking up your phone at the office. And then frankly, I mean, there's been discussions that I've been involved in of like the the, the locator, like cold FaceTime, someone I mean, that's the point that we're getting to. And the more we become invasive in people's lives, the more that it separates the person, the individual you're trying to contact from their company. So I think a lot of great ways to still be an effective seller, through the b2b channel through the company. And a lot of that has to do with with social selling, which is a huge missed opportunity. But that's the first problem. The second problem is, is that there's just more products being sold. And if you found yourself on a list, if you're in one of these, you know, if you're in someone's CRM, the likelihood of you getting called, you know, it just has increased, like I went from getting maybe one sales call a week to sometimes like a 10 a day now. Yeah, so if I'm kind of inundated with that, your message is likely to kind of get, you know, lost in the ether. Whereas if it's a more targeted way to you know, get someone's attention and turn that into a meeting, so that sort of generate interest to turn it into a meeting to get them to buy, I think there's more effective or I won't say more effective, necessarily, but as someone who's gone into a lot of sales departments and looked at process and looked at opportunities missed a big part is actually leveraging the social elements of most of your sellers, especially, you know, if you have EDRs and SDRS, that are millennials, you're not necessarily leveraging the contacts and relationships that they have. Yeah,
Jonathan Fischer 6:39
I think that that makes a lot of sense. One issue that I'm seeing in terms of people responding to the challenge, I was talking to one business leader, he's got a 30 year career. And he was based on primarily a global workforce of SDRS, working to fill and just like we're talking about here. And he found that this was his instinct, he wanted to switch over to completely native born English speaking team. He replaced alternative seats with all now I don't know that that's had any positive impact on his numbers. But that's where his head was at is the thinking was, well, with all of the clutter. You got technology, sometimes there's that time time lapse. And then if the if it sounds like the speaker isn't isn't a native born people, just all are all the more likely just to tune it out. Now, I'm not I'm not sure I agree with his instincts on that. But I have to think there's probably a trend there. What are your thoughts on that? And what would you recommend? And maybe, if it's you in your in his place? Well, so
Nick Capozzi 7:32
if I'm stepping into a sales leadership role, I'm looking at my team of, you know, sales development representatives, the first thing I'm looking at is, you know, Where are they based? Obviously, because I'm looking at territories I'm looking at when we can dial What are opportune times to dial there? Is there something to the language, potentially, but if you're based in San Francisco, I mean, what does an SDR cost you? As an example, right? Because forget English speaking, but just if you want someone who's local who can come into the office occasionally, so that's an issue. Second is I don't know that I'm necessarily buying the issue with non native English speakers. And the reason is, is I was in the cruise industry, most of my life, and most of my staff was coming from Colombia and Serbia and South Africa and Thailand, where maybe their first language wasn't English, and that wasn't necessarily an issue. What I did have to do in that case, though, was Americanize them. And what I mean by that is, what are the top 25 cities were selling into Denver, Boston, Detroit, what do we know about those cities? What can we you know, can you Google and, you know, Columbus, Ohio, and click the News tab. Hey, Jonathan, it's great to talk to notice last night that it snowed in Columbus in September, whatever it is, but these ways to kind of have no right to tie these. So that so that actually binds right. And I think, I don't know that I would do first of all, cold calling is not going away anytime soon. But I think there's still an opportunity with non native English speakers making those dials. But I think what the the second thing I'm looking at Jonathan, is where's that time going? They're using an auto dialer. Like if they're gonna make 100 dials a day and only 15 pickup, like, what actual time are they physically putting into that job? And it's not to criticize teams. But you know, when I look at, when I come into a company, and I look at someone's calendar, like there's a lot of gaps there and you only have, you know, five hours a week dedicated to cold calling. So are you are you putting 35 hours into, you know, finding those? Well, you have zoominfo Wait a minute, okay, hold on. I'm confused. Now. Where's that time going? Yeah. So I think we kind of step away, especially in the SAS space. We're so programmed with, well, this process has been working for 20 years. What are the opportunities where can you actually kind of, you know, get more efficiency and more in agony, squeeze more juice out of the fruit?
Jonathan Fischer 9:53
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There's also been the trend in post COVID world of And maybe it's talk the other side of the domestic job market. Right, we have this whole quiet quitting trend. It seems like there are some issues that may take a little while to sort out, which brings us back in another way to the global workforce. Right, we probably need to keep our horizons broad, to make sure we can get great people and keep working are our business model. A, would you agree with that? And B, what are your thoughts on worker trends?
Nick Capozzi 10:27
So I think it's interesting. And I think, let me start with the second one of worker trends. I think that that there was definitely a great resignation early this year. I think the economy has changed a lot of that. But I think if you're a good seller or a good SDR, there's a place for you to land especially if if your SDR an SDR was kind of back channeling through dark social or other ways of building relationships. But I think that goes to, you know, an opportunity to use a remote workforce. I mean, when I was in the cruise business, my top sellers universally and I'm not painting with a broad brush. My top sellers who are not American were South African. And so there's something to the tone, there's something to the culture that that has that kind of Americanized vibe of selling. So can I take advantage of people who are maybe in different time zones, where they can't just hop off and take another job, because the job market in South Africa, for example, is gonna be much different than San Francisco?
Jonathan Fischer 11:19
Sure. Well, and I think it's another concern people have with a remote workforce that's global, is the time zones could be an issue. Frankly, you could you can monetize time zones, right? By by attuning that to whatever your market might be, and make it work better for you have a 24/7 workforce.
Nick Capozzi 11:32
Not only that, but if you're paying a fraction of an SDR salary to someone in South Africa, you can't make that money in South Africa. I'm just talking from personal experiences based off, you know, relationships, I've had over 20 years of the cruise industry. Now I'm painting with a broad brush. But, you know, if you have someone who is more eager, maybe they they're working 4pm to 11pm their time, hypothetically. Right. So So when I've had remote workers, timezone has never been an issue, we've hired them, because we believe they're good. And part of the reason they're good is they're adaptable and willing to kind of work when they need to work.
Jonathan Fischer 12:11
Yeah, and I would agree, there are certain pockets around the world where there seems like whatever reason, there's a confluence of factors that makes that a really great job market, when I tap in, it could be the Dominican, it could be the Philippines, it could be different parts of the world where there's just something kind of good going on. And you might as well take advantage as a business development leader. But back to the challenges we're facing. So we live in sort of a post COVID world where a we're all getting inundated with too darn many messages. I think we all agree and we've all experienced what you're talking about, there's just so much clutter. Now, a lot of us if we're softhearted, we've been on the other end of that phone, we try not to be too rude, but doesn't mean they're gonna get a full conversation with you. There's still just too much going on. So that's one challenge. The other challenge is a lot of of the key go to market models had been in use for 20 years, or they've been probably long, long in the tooth prior to COVID. But it's just highlighted that and people who have have needed to get more innovative, more creative, and more social based in their selling. So why don't we revert over now, Nick? If you are if you were handed a team of SDRs a global workforce today? Why don't you share with us? What would be my steps? What would be your steps rather to position that team to be successful? At every level? Maybe just set up your outline for us? You know, what, where would you start? What would be the tools that you would need to use? What are their skills need to be what's your go to market model look like? Maybe something like that.
Nick Capozzi 13:32
So it would depend on the team, it would depend on the product. So that, you know, obviously I would prefer to kind of give a more bespoke answer based on on, you know, who I'm actually assessing. But I think there's trends that I see consistently trends, that one is the info good, you know, for dialing all day, and that's a priority. Are those phone numbers. Good? Because it's one thing to develop a thick skin for rejection. It's another thing to develop a thick skin for, you know, I'm actually converting these calls, especially if you don't have a dialer like can you imagine like manually dialing phone numbers today? In 2022. I go crazy with that. First thing I'm looking at second is going to be all of their activities. So where have they been slipping into the CRM? Let me look at what they're doing. What their cadence is, like, is everyone lockstep? So whoever I took over from was there a process? If not, what is the process so the first thing is going to be tech and tools. Second is going to be the process. And then the third would be kind of individual with the team members understanding what their strengths and weaknesses are. I've got an extrovert I've got an introvert How do I best deploy those two types of people. So that would be kind of where I would start out of the gates. The next thing I would do is once I have a couple of weeks in, I think that this is an opportunity that's missed. I know it's missed because I talk to sellers every day that are not being coached. So they might have a great solution like gong for example. But someone actually listening to the gongs with them. So then Next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to go through and actually listen to what's being said, how are they saying it? What is their tone? And what's the reaction? Well, maybe this person is getting more success than that person. Why is that? And then I can kind of drill down once I have all that information, I can formulate a really good plan. So I think that speaks to the first question, Jonathan, about, you know, what I'm looking at when I come in, I think opportunities missed is going to be social selling, which I know is a big part of what we're talking today. But that has been so missed, and actually had a conversation earlier today with a senior VP of sales. And he told me his exact words, were I use a lot of old school techniques, I need to know what people are doing today to better take advantage of the team that I have.
Jonathan Fischer 15:47
So if you are going to start that list, you know, what are some of the main things where today's SDR has to have a finely honed skill set.
Nick Capozzi 15:58
So I think if you want to be a great SDR or you want to develop great SDRS, there's three key components from what I consider social selling, one is going to be content, let's, for the sake of this conversation will mostly float around LinkedIn, but it does kind of spread out to different social, but LinkedIn is where a lot of our buyers are, and a lot of our sellers are second is going to be communities that is hugely untouched, that I've seen people social sell shocking numbers, quickly, through communities, we can drill down on that if you'd like. And then the third is going to be using video. And if you're an SDR booking meetings, how do you create that engagement? And to get someone excited to talk to you? How do you use that to hold a meeting, I went into a company last year, the meeting hold rate was 42%. It was a very transactional product that was geared towards doctors. So you'd have doctors that were kind of quickly, you know, booking a meeting through social media but then not showing up because was on their personal email. How do you hold that meeting. And then the other places that people have completely missed? Anytime I send a proposal, it's via video, I'm using a product like VGR to actually send that out. So what is all that do makes you approachable makes you likeable, creates awareness. And I think a lot of what an SDRS function is, is pushing social selling polls. So when someone is actually ready to buy, they're more likely to come to you because they're aware of what you've done. And a great example of this is what Gong did, I mean, Gong had incredible amount of success. And what they did was they deployed their sales team to go out and they were blessed to use social media at their discretion. A lot of it had to do with a lot of data that Gong was developing from conversational intelligence, which was kind of new to the market. So it was a great way to, to intro those conversations. But using a platform again, like LinkedIn, and I, you know, so I'll quickly go down a rabbit hole, which we can go down deeper. But there's also three ways that you can use social media. One is creating content, which everyone assumes There's the first one, and they're correct, but a lot of people get stuck on that for a lot of reasons. The second is curating content, how can you be a new source for your ICP, and then finally is commenting on content and why that's so important. So those are kind of three newer ways that I think a lot of the dark social, or a lot of groups that I'm part of where a lot of issues emerging, those would be three key pillars. So the
Jonathan Fischer 18:25
three C's of social selling, when it comes to content, the three C's of content on social, creating, curating and commenting. Exactly. So that's all that's all really good stuff. I think it's fairly clear from the titles, curating good content, content being a source of good news and information. Why don't you unpack each of those just a little bit further for our audience. So if I'm, if I am, if I'm good to create, let's start with that when the FBI hit that out the shortest time frame. I mean, a lot of a lot of STRS just have a gift of gab, or they have a lot of drive and ambition. They may or may not be expert copywriters. You know, or even content creators, will you recommend?
Nick Capozzi 19:03
So I think the first thing to do is decide so where people get stuck because they don't a know what to talk about? Or if they do they get stuck at their laptop in front of a Word document trying to figure out like, what does it actually look like? So this is the easiest way to create content. Think of something outside of sales that you're passionate about. I'll use you as an example. Jonathan, what's something you're passionate about? You're in Columbus, your Big Blue Jackets fan, big hockey fan?
Jonathan Fischer 19:28
No. I love going there. I'm probably more of a music guy myself.
Nick Capozzi 19:34
The kid Great. What what genre? What era?
Jonathan Fischer 19:37
Well, oh my gosh, I don't know. I hesitate to answer this. I enjoy classic jazz and classical music. And I like classic rock groups from when I was younger. So I would
Nick Capozzi 19:49
love that. Could you could you talk about classic jazz for 30 minutes uninterrupted. If I asked you to. You're probably so probably so. So here's a great technique to create content and what I'll do We all use cooking. So when I use this example, I was talking about cooking. So open up a Word document or a Google Doc and click dictate and just talk for 30 minutes about classical jazz or cooking. After you do that for 30 minutes, it's key, this is the key part, you need to print it up. And I guarantee you're gonna have eight pages of single spaced, copy the 30 minute conversation with yourself, the circling through the highlighter and looking for actionable insights. Those are things that people can stop the video and actually go play. Great example right now tied into cooking. Anytime that I cook salmon, I only use a cast iron skillet. Because you get the university the uniform heat from the skillet. You drop that skin side down for three minutes, you flip it for three more minutes, it's done. It's the crispy salmon skin, you're gonna have you'll never get any other way again, 18 seconds, what is that that's an actual insight. So as I wouldn't be talking about cooking for 30 minutes, I'd have 30 to 60 of those ideas pop up. But as you're actually highlighting them, I guarantee those will double. Because you'd be like, oh, wait a minute, I didn't think about cooking halibut in the cast iron skillet, for example. And then what happens is you're going to have somewhere between 60 and 80 distinct, actionable insights, distinct thoughts. Those now is six months worth of posts. If you were talking about cooking, so it's the same thing about being an SDR. And if you're new to being SDR, your story of being new to an SDR can be the story. So finding a Northstar about what you want to talk about. And then I'm telling you talking to that Word document for 30 minutes, you'd have so much content in so many ideas, you're not going to know what to do. So it's actually really easy to create content. One thing I will say you do not need to be a subject matter expert, you need to be one rung higher on the ladder than someone else to bring value. Because we're just stepping the ledge ledge will appear, don't be afraid to actually go out and start creating content. So that's another issue, or that's, that's creation.
Jonathan Fischer 21:54
That's good stuff. And I love what you said there that you don't have to try to attain to some level of expertise as though you are yourself a thought leader, you can just be a regular guy who's passionate has a few extra insights to share. You know, just like if you're a little bit better swimmer, you can help someone else is in a tight spot. Right. 100% I love that. So now with curating what what are your tips.
Nick Capozzi 22:14
So this is super easy. So let's say that I am an SDR for an accounting software. And I'm going after accounting departments. Okay, hypothetically. So what I'll do is I'll set Google News Alerts that pertain to my ICP. So the biggest thing that one thing that makes me crazy is, hey, I'm just following up right in an email or not having a good intro. So what I can do is is now that I have these these Google News Alerts, which are going to pop up every day in my inbox, oh, here's an interesting story. Well, there's an excuse to send that out to 100 people as an SDR and say, Hey, listen, this popped up, I thought this was really interesting about the space you work and just wanted to share. That's it, what you're becoming as a new source now. And what will happen is you'll get people following you, if that is something that you start curating about, you'll get people shockingly, who will follow you, that you're not expecting, right? So you might have CFOs now following you, because you're actually giving them something that is valuable to them. And you're not just knocking on the door, you're coming with a gift, right?
Jonathan Fischer 23:14
Love it, love it. And then the commenting. That was pretty easy, right? Look around for some folks. Hopefully they did your ICP and notice what they're doing and interact with them a little bit is that pretty much it? Or is it a little bit more?
Nick Capozzi 23:24
Pretty much it but we can definitely drill down because of the three C's common thing is far and away the most important if you did not curate or create a piece of content, commenting is key. And I'll give you an example. So let's say I go through my Sales Navigator on LinkedIn, I will find my ICP so all the CFOs. And then what I do is a lot of them have the creation, the content creation option turned on on their LinkedIn and you recognize that by just to the right of the logo of where they work, there's a little bell, you go ahead and click that. Now every time that see Mr. or Mrs. CFO creates a post out or even comments on a post, I will see that pop up in my notifications. If I'm trying to get a meeting with CFO of X company and they're posting a couple times a week. I don't care if you're a CFO, everyone has some sort of fear when you're clicking posts, right? There's that there's that self doubt. Well, if you're the first person to comment every time that CFO is putting out content, and then 2345 posts later you asked for a meeting, do you think you're gonna get it? Almost exclusively? Another thing that is a huge missed opportunity. And this revolves around commenting, going through the comments, right? If you have a post that took off by a CFO and maybe your comment isn't relevant. Look at the follow up with there's a ton of follow up questions that come up in those posts that the Creator doesn't often take the time to go back and answer. So now what you're doing is, hey, there's four things I can answer here. Three that tie specifically to my product. Let me reply to that comment that went unanswered. Now the person who asked a great question has an answer and it's coming from me Not the Creator, who has a much larger audience and maybe I do as an SDR.
Jonathan Fischer 25:04
I love that. And one thing that is occurring to me, Nick is that these are things that as a manager, I could model for my own team, because they're still doing it for themselves. It's not like I have to like split, we've talked with other guests on the show about, if everything's too corporatized, it doesn't really have any leverage. It has to be an individual to another individual to really have any poll in LinkedIn space and love what you've given us today, something that I could train up to 10 other people to do, do myself, and we're all the more likely to get some results, and have any other comments on that vein in terms of like things that the obviously the company still needs to have its own voice, its own following, and so forth. But talk to us a little bit about the interplay, the as you see that see it, corporate versus personal, when it comes to making these social plays.
Nick Capozzi 25:47
So I think the personal I think, if I'm gonna go back, and like, try, if I'm coming into an organization when trying to replicate what Gong did, it was really more about it was the personal individual, but taking this data that had been pulled by the company. But I think if you're about giving value shining as little a light on the company as possible, buyers know what you're doing. Yeah. So if you're really out there giving like good faith, you know, insights, I think there's a lot of value in that. Absolutely. Without question. One more point I will make. I recently a couple months ago saw one of the best social sellers I've ever met, leave a company where he had free rein to social sell, joined a new company where the CEO said no, everything has to go through us. And what happened was they went from being a rockstar to definitely a step down. So take the chance. I mean, there's, you know, maybe the first couple if you want to just take a peek of what's being but don't the biggest mistake leaders make is when their comment or when they're suggesting what we should be putting out on social is that it's gonna be with the company. It's not about the company, about individual we're pulling, we're not pushing.
Jonathan Fischer 26:55
Love that, well, this is really great stuff. And it's blown by I knew it would, Nick, you've always got lots of great gems to share every time we talk. I'd love to turn it over to you now as well let our audience know how can they best follow you and continue to glean more insights as you share them.
Nick Capozzi 27:10
So definitely follow the demo stack. So now I'm going to I'm going to not drink my own Kool Aid and tell you the opposite. Follow the demo stack page on LinkedIn. But the reason is, is we're launching a bunch of new content, which is going to be really topical to this and kind of everything in the go to market space. And that's going to be go to market this week. You'll find any favorite podcast net catcher, but there's gonna be a lot of great clips and insights and interesting people that'll be on the demo stack LinkedIn page. So if you wanna give us a follow, hopefully, we'll give you content that you'd actually want to pay for, but it's free.
Jonathan Fischer 27:39
Yeah, love it. Well, that's a great vision and we're excited about your launch on Monday. I'll definitely be tuning in myself Nick. Appreciate you being here. Everybody we're gonna get into our Ask Me Anything phase with Nick. But before that want to give a friendly mentioned to our sponsor overpass.com. Need to build a team of remote sales professionals fast. Overpass makes building a high quality Sales Team fast and easy. With 1000s of qualified pre vetted candidates to choose from the overpass talent marketplace allows you to filter by industry and experience than interview and hire in as little as two days. Find out how easy it is for yourself. create your free account today@overpass.com.
Nick Capozzi 28:18
Can I plug something for overpass or connect? Can I throw something out there? Yeah, it's someone who has had literally sellers from over 100 Different countries in the cruise industry working for him. If I'm googling on over found like South Africa, Colombia and Serbia, just throwing that out there.
Jonathan Fischer 28:32
Yeah, yeah, I love it. Those are some great, great areas. I actually got some mentions here in the comments from some overpass folks that are listening in today. They definitely agree with that. All right, so let me in no particular order here we have from Sumana. He's asking if sales leaders in STRS still live on Excel sheets in CRM. Can these updated captures be automated to free up the SDRs to chase opportunities all the time and not get daunted by manual data input? So I guess you how important is tech stack to SDRs performing in the ways you've been talking about here with us today? I think I've got that right. You can tell me Sumana the comments they get close to what you're asking there.
Nick Capozzi 29:10
So I think the best way to look at it is that a tech stack is critical if you have the budget for a tech stack, right. And I think if I'm a sales leader, it's one of the questions I'm going in is what do we have existing? What kind of budget do I have to add tools that maybe I'm comfortable with? Or I'm really good at using? What I will say is that if you're on an Excel spreadsheet, I mean the HubSpot CRM I believe is free. So I would definitely be using some sort of CRM without question. But I think a lot of these a lot of these. Yeah, I mean you something if you can't, if you can't use Salesforce, I use HubSpot. And then you can track everything through there but a lot of the things I'm talking about you know content communities using video, no tech required. I mean, you'd love to use a tool like vid yard for your video as an example. But you know, in general, all these things are just stuff that can be inputted as notes into your CRM Sure.
Jonathan Fischer 30:03
We have to assume I'm gonna love him a follow up. He's got two good questions here. What are the key elements of an exceptional highly effective product or solution demo? When delivered virtually. So you're gonna your storytelling angle is obviously going to be central to that. But maybe you can round that out a little bit further.
Nick Capozzi 30:19
Absolutely. So a demo is critical, right? This is when you're actually showing off your home. Right? So your home is for sale, and you're showing it off now. So I mean, that's, there's nothing more input you can have, you can do everything right, and get to the demo and mess it up. And suddenly, they're not interested anymore. And I think part of the problem with demos, is that we, you know, a lot of companies, especially if your product is complex, we're using sales engineers, there's a lot of dummy data, there's a lot of stuff that's being thrown in there. We don't really trust our AES, to kind of put together a demo quickly because they can't. But if you tell a great story, and you cross train both your sales engineering team and your AES SDRS as well, to give a great demo, there's no question that's important. It goes back to to the things we mentioned earlier, which is one using vivid imagery, versus technical imagery. And the second is, is I forgot, it'll come back to me. But you know, this is a great opportunity. I'll just quickly plug demo stack, if I may, what we do is we clone the front end of your product without touching that back end data. So if you want to spin up a custom demo environment in just a couple of minutes, you literally go to your product, you click everything that you want to show you click clone, and in two minutes, you're AES ready out the door to go and give a great demo.
Jonathan Fischer 31:41
Well, after the way you just tee them up their sim on if you're looking for work called Nick, he may have an open slot for you. There a demo stack. Just kidding. So Andrew asked an interesting story. We've all heard of the famous elevator pitch or the stadium pitch as my mentor Chet Holmes used to call it Do you feel like the these these new this new storytelling approach is kind of the that's the new iteration of that. Is that today's elevator pitch?
Nick Capozzi 32:04
I don't I actually, I think so. My old company was called sales pitching. And one thing I've realized, as I transitioned to the tech space, I shouldn't call it sales discovery. Because it's not about pitching. What I think a great story does, is it makes you topical, and it makes you top of mind. And I think brands stories if it's a good one. The problem is, is that a lot of companies don't do storytelling. Well. That's the issue. But I think if you step back and tell a great story, there's a startup. I think they might still be still so I might not mention it. But basically, it has to do with work life balance. And the CEO told me the story of where he came up with the idea. And I said, Stop. Don't tell me anything else about your company. All I want you to do is tell me that story. And then your call to action. Because that's such a great, powerful, poignant story I'm sold, right? Yeah. And for me who hear stories all day, it was so effective. So if you're a product marketer telling a story, it might sell like a product sound like a product market or telling a story. But how does the founder tell the story? Well, actually, here's a great example. Here's what Jonathan, our CEO and founder, you know, I mentioned showing your home before, showing your product with dummy data is like showing your home off without being staged, right? If you stage your home, people can come in who are looking to buy and are much more, they're better able to connect the dots themselves of what is lived in home.
Jonathan Fischer 33:38
Yeah, for sure. That makes a lot of sense. That sounds like you have a really good marketing advantage there. We've talked often in our program about not just trying to pitch benefits and features and all of that. I still see most companies aren't doing that they're leading new features and benefits, and they're assuming that their audience knows what they need. So it's important do you think to get in touch with pain? And this is my own personal add on question and how if I already know you're gonna say yes to that, so then how if so how does that interact with storytelling? The story is its own thing, right? How did I come across this thing? How can you interweave those two things that Reno pain, according to Jay Abraham motivates action nine fold over the desire for a benefit?
Nick Capozzi 34:18
Well, the answer is great discovery. And that's probably one of the biggest areas of weakness of most most sellers that I talked to is doing great discovery. There's a there's a great, here's a great follow up. I can plug someone on LinkedIn, Charles mold, Bauer, one of the best out there for discovery. Definitely were the follow. But if you ask great questions, you find the pain point, right? If you're not asking great questions, or if you're pitching, right, well, you're not finding pain points. What you're doing is you're making assumptions right? To sale needs to be individualized. People need to really understand, you know why? As a CFO, I really need this accounting software. You do that by asking great questions. You have the answer. Now you have the pain point. Now you can have a few different avenues of stories that you could go down depending on the pain points, but it'd be much more tailored to that conversation.
Jonathan Fischer 35:06
Well, and it sounds to me too, like the place for the for the storytelling to really shine is going to be at the at the point of the spear in terms of your your marketing, right because we storytelling is the art of drawing people in you said at the start of our conversation today, Nick, when you hear a good story, you kind of lean in, you know, if you're the listener. And I think that's probably the power of bringing this approach into our marketing efforts. If I have a really great offering. The last thing I need to talk about is features or benefits, because man is part of the clutter. But I have a cool story. Hey, I get a listener. And maybe that's positions us for another conversation now. It's probably my turn to become the listeners is it? That's kind of my word for what I think I heard you just saying, Would you agree with that?
Nick Capozzi 35:44
So I do, but I will, I will have a caveat in that. There is something still too. We don't wanna get too much on the product lead growth side, right? Because we aren't we are talking about sellers and SDRS, and stuff like that today. So you know, great marketing story for a plg product is great, a great marketing story for something that that isn't necessarily set up for product lead growth, leads now to that pull to the SDR who most STRS that I talked to, are doing a lot of discovery more than I think ever before. So you know, if you if they are doing that, you know you okay, it's one thing to get the meeting. But then, like, if you're a sales leader, listen to that conversation. What are the questions they asking? Are they on the right track? Is little tiny tweaks make a big difference in discovery? Yeah, love it.
Jonathan Fischer 36:34
So I'll close with this question. Here. It looks like it's kind of on point with some of your recommendations for moving forward in a social selling model into today's atmosphere. Nick asks, how do you provide value that's well received. Without posting fluff, I think you'd like a little bit more insight and how to pick that sounds like store that I'm assuming Nikki can that you can follow up but not only for curating, but I guess when also creating like, is someone to think he's just fluff. I'm talking about my hobby, like, maybe give us some help on that.
Nick Capozzi 37:03
So I think what's interesting is that you can talk a little bit about personal stuff. I mean, I'm known as a cruise ship guy, right? I mean, that, frankly, help, you know, grease. The rails for everything that I've done was it was just it was different. It was like, Oh, that's interesting. Do you have an interesting hobby? You know, there's this one guy that I follow religiously, who works out in his gym in his garage and talks from there. That's just different, right? But Michael to to say, to avoid fluff, I'm a big fan of death to fluff is actionable insight, what's something that's actually usable? Right? So you can talk about weightlifting in your garage. But if I'm going to talk technical stuff, now, what's a story that actually you know what I read that post or I watched that video, I press the stop button. And I can actually implement that strategy immediately. Right, commenting on LinkedIn, that's actual insight, because with the three tips I gave you earlier, that's something you can get off this and go right onto LinkedIn, and apply those today. Someone told me that when I started this two years ago, and actionable insight has been a flag that I've carried. So just make sure that it's actually relevant. But the fluffy stuff when I say fluffy, talking personal stuff, I don't get into, you know, I learned something a long time ago on cruise ships and ever talking about politics or religion on a cruise ship. Same thing applies here. But you know, you can get even tighter on that. But hey, listen, if you're if you're weightlifting in your garage, but you've got actual insights, you're more likely to without question, get traction. But the common thing if even you're putting out great content, you need to comment you need to engage with people who are relevant, because then they point back to you. So commenting is that is the foundation for doing just that or doing everything with LinkedIn. But you still need to comment if you're going to build content. But again, you'll get a trickle down effect of just commenting.
Jonathan Fischer 38:54
Well, speaking of content, you've done a great job of providing very high value insights and content for audience today. Nick, I want to thank you once again for question,
Nick Capozzi 39:01
Jonathan. It's all you buddy. I'm just I'm just the face man.
Jonathan Fischer 39:07
Well, you're invited back in the next next time we'll go deeper on storytelling sounds like a plan.
Nick Capozzi 39:11
Done. You just call me I'm here for you,
Jonathan Fischer 39:12
All right, my brother. Well, to all of our audience we all always love and appreciate you being with us as well. Please make sure to share and next week, we're gonna have another great conversation with another fantastic guest dropping truth bombs to help you grow your business more effectively. That's going to do it for today's show. Take care everybody
