Q&A Write-up: July
Monthly write-up
Q&A’s happen once a month where I answer a paid subscribers question and do a write-up answering it for the entire community.
July’s Question:
“I recently moved into the SMB AE role with a fixed territory (90/10 split of installs/new logo). Few issues I'm coming across:
- I'm currently finding it very overwhelming to stay organized (came from ENT BDR role with <10 accounts). Can you point me towards any spreadsheets or methods to stay organized?
- Lots of accounts are steady-state for the near future. How can I create large, strategic plays with them?
- Most accounts are upset that we rotate account reps every fiscal. How can I intro myself and create a great relationship without pissing them off that I'm the new guy? Some accounts don't even want to meet with me because they don't have a reason to (since it's SMB, can't find much info to create a compelling event aside from renewals/license overages)
- When doing Q&A on a disco, I'm having hard time to transition from questions into talking about our solutions. Any tips here?
Thanks!”
I'm currently finding it very overwhelming to stay organized (came from ENT BDR role with <10 accounts). Can you point me towards any spreadsheets or methods to stay organized?
Doing this well can be broken down into:
Taking good notes
Organizing those notes
A few points on how to take good notes:
additional context to add for your notes:
Gain = Goals, Opportunities, and OKR’s
Action items
Tasks/Reminders
Client insights or key takeaways / points
Now seeing how this is also a systems problem, I recommend evaluating your tech stack & day-to-day processes. There are many helpful tools that can help you including AI tools that can take notes from your Zoom meetings and immediately sync them with your CRM, for example.
Do a consult with BowTiedSystems. He can help you sort this out.
**Also, if you, the reader, have spreadsheets or methods of organization you’re open to sharing, then feel free to share in the comments to help our fellow anon.
—
Lots of accounts are steady-state for the near future. How can I create large, strategic plays with them?
In a nutshell:
By asking what their long term strategic plans are
thinking of all the problems / roadblocks they’re likely to encounter on the journey of that strategic plan that you can help solve for
and Framing your conversations within that context.
Have lots of conversations with their executive team / leadership. You sell into SMB so their org chart is going to be relatively flat.
Talk with everyone who has a stake in / is affected by the long term strategic plan.
Understand their point of view and think how you can help them solve problems they care about.
This chart will help visualize it for you:
Audio context for the chart:
—
Most accounts are upset that we rotate account reps every fiscal. How can I intro myself and create a great relationship without pissing them off that I'm the new guy? Some accounts don't even want to meet with me because they don't have a reason to (since it's SMB, can't find much info to create a compelling event aside from renewals/license overages)
Ah.. Yes.. you are being commoditized by your company’s processes, and as a result, being commoditized by the client.
Some accounts don't even want to meet with me because they don't have a reason to
**I’d be curious to see your outreach messaging to them and their responses. I get the feeling you are approaching them the same way past reps have which adds to their frustration.
You’re going to want to “step out” of the Frame they’ve put you in by behaving differently.
Few ideas:
Send a personalized intro video saying something like:
🐲: Hey John, my name is Chad I’m with Company. I wanted to introduce myself.. I’m going to be your account rep. Obviously if you want to discuss renewals and changes to your plan, I’m your guy. But also if you want to bounce ideas or discuss your goals for the year and see how we can help you get there, just let me know. I know your space quite well and have a lot of ideas that I’m open to sharing. I’m going to give you my cell so if you want to text me or call me you can, the number is [number]. You can also find the number in my email signature. Alright John, talk soon.
Audio version + context:
Find out what’s going on in their company / industry. Look at their socials, Google News, etc and use that as a “compelling reason” for reaching out.
A week or so after sending the intro video you can reach out again:
Ideas to get you thinking creatively
🐲: John, this is Chad with Company. Can we jump on a call to discuss your goals for 2024? I’m not seeing any issues with overages and you have a while before your next renewal.. This is more for me to get to know you and your business better. And for you to get to know me better. You can also text me at xxx to set something up if that’s more convenient for you.
^ This can be sent as a standalone email as well without the selfie video intro. Harder for them to say No to an authentic / personal request.
🐲: John, I’m hearing that [similar companies] are [following trend].. How does that compare with your strategy for 2024? I’d prefer to discuss over a call but feel free to respond here if more convenient.
🐲: John, congrats on the recent podcast launch. That last episode was solid. I liked the point about data needing to be blah blah before xyz. That mostly falls in line with some of the best practices I’m seeing in the space too. Have you considered [point they may have missed]?
^ “Mostly” creates the intrigue and status gap.
**BTW compelling events aren’t just limited to renewals/license overages. In SMB, funding is a big one too.
BowTiedSystems wrote a great post on compelling events here:
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When doing Q&A on a disco, I'm having hard time to transition from questions into talking about our solutions. Any tips here?
Tip #1
🐲: We’ve got about XYZ minutes left in our meeting.. would it be helpful for me to present a few solutions?
>Yes
this next part is really important:
🐲: Can I ask why?
and they’ll start justifying why / selling themselves which can lead to even deeper Discovery if you follow up with additional questions.
Tip #2
Try an Intrigue Frame. Example:
Audio version:
🐲: So I’ll say this.. the problems you’ve mentioned are quite common given the stage of your business, your current technology environment, and where you guys are currently at. These are the sorts of problems that we hear often. We solve for it in a different way than most.. high level what we do is.. we.. *explain high level how you solve the problems*”
and then pause.
At this point they will either:
ask for a demo
ask to learn more
or ask you follow up questions
And then you go from there.
LMK how this works for you
-BTSG
Reminder: Accelerator Enrollment for course buyers is opening first week of August. Will send an email with all the details on Tuesday, August 6!
Stay tooooon’d.
The timing on this is insane. My company just reorganized the sales structure so Im in the same boat now....lots of new accounts that need touchpoints and lots of upsell potential