“When you share your life nuggets, you don’t know when it’s going to matter to someone,” observes Elena Hesse, our Market Dominance Guys’ guest and the Vice President of Operations of Thomson Reuters’ tax and accounting professionals in this third of three podcast episodes with our hosts, Chris Beall and Corey Frank. For the past four years, Elena has led the “NoTimeToRead Book Club” for #GirlsClub, an organization dedicated to changing the face of sales leadership by empowering more women to earn roles in management. Corey starts off the conversation by asking Elena to describe what happens in a book club that doesn’t require reading the book. “A book is just a vehicle for a conversation. You never know when something is going to resonate,” she says, as she explains how the subject matter generates ideas and experiences that club members share with each other. And just like the book club participants, Corey, Chris, and Elena share ideas and personal insights of their own, which cover everything from the sales benefits of a live conversation over an emailed message to the trust-creating habit of asking for clarification when you don’t understand something. As Chris says, “The essence of curiosity is embracing our ignorance.” So, get ready to open your mind and heart to embrace what these three experienced salespeople share with each other — and with you — about the essence of this week’s Market Dominance Guys podcast, “Why Conversations Matter.”   About Our Guest Elena T. Hesse, Vice President, Operations – Tax & Accounting Professionals at Thomson Reuters, has been with this firm for more than 30 years. Elena is also a thought leader for #GirlsClub, leading the book club discussions to support #GirlsClub and its continuing work of changing the face of sales leadership by empowering more women to earn roles in management. Full episode transcript below:   Corey Frank (01:46): Elena, one last question for you, maybe a good plug for what we were talking about here towards the end about empowering women leadership, particularly in sales and tech, which you're at the heart of certainly at Thomson. You have a book club, The No Time to Read Book Club. Maybe you can end this with a little plug for the book club, and what you do, and maybe some of the learnings over the years leading that? Elena Hesse (02:05): Absolutely. One, the reason that the book club even exists, in a way, is because of Chris Beall. Because Chris, you told Lauren Bailey about me, and she reached out to me for Girls Club, so that all happened. Elena Hesse (02:22): So, in the Girls Club organization, which I'm a part of as a thought leader, Lauren and Angela, there's so many great people there, we have this book club. We do it for each cohort. I think this is our third or fourth year. What I really love about the book club is that it's really a time for women. Sometimes there are men too, so this is not just a one gender conversation. Elena Hesse (02:49): The first book I pick, the next two, they pick. It tells you where their heads are. Where are they looking for help? Where do they want some insights? And we just talk. We read the book. Sometimes they don't read the book. I'll be honest with you, there's a reason for the title. It's hard to squeeze in book reading sometimes. Elena Hesse (03:08): A lot of the women in Girls Club, if I were making a general statement, I would say are women with families. A lot of times you got young kids. Time's precious, so we don't use that as a filter, if you will. So, we have a book club in which reading the book is not necessarily needed, because I always read the book. Elena Hesse (03:26): There's always some people that read the book, and we just go through the highlights, and share our personal stories as they relate to the books. I don't know if it's any more magical than that, Corey. It's really people coming together to say, "Never thought about that," or "This how I reacted to it." When you're sharing your life nuggets, you don't know when it's going to matter to somebody. Elena Hesse (03:48): I will make a point to our conversation and how it all started, Chris. You flatter me and humble me with remembering a statement that I made many years ago, frankly that I would never have been able to repeat back to you if you asked me, do you remember what you said? I would not have been able to, right? Elena Hesse (04:07): You never know when the teacher arrives. The student has to be ready. I'm not saying you're a student in that respect, but you never know when something's going to resonate. You never know. So, anytime you can bring people together with some level of continuity to the conversation, a book, that's just a vehicle for a conversation. Elena Hesse (04:28): A good book club, that is just the muse. You could go in lots of different directions and learn about each other, and walk away with something that no one would've thought that one little something would've mattered. Elena Hesse (04:41): So, I like to have spontaneous interesting conversations because I never know what I'm going to learn something. God knows I never could have repeated back that quote you told me. I'm very happy that I gave you something that meant something, obviously. I bet you we all have things that resonated with us and the person who delivered it had no idea what they were delivered to you. Corey Frank (05:01): Well, Elena, we have almost 200 episodes of this podcast stemming from my purely selfish desire to get inside the head of Chris Beall, so welcome to the club. I think that's a beautiful way to end this episode, especially since you're almost going to make Chris cry again. Chris Beall (05:16): It's working, it's working. Elena Hesse (05:18): You are not crying, don't tell me that. Are you? Chris Beall (05:23): I am, but I won't even hide it very well. Yes, Corey knows me well. The fact is, we all have so much to learn from each other. The essence of curiosity is embracing our ignorance. Elena Hesse (05:35): Yes, yes. Chris Beall (05:36): Really being enthusiastic about our ignorance. I love being ignorant. It's my favorite thing in the world. Whenever I think I know something, it makes me nervous. Elena Hesse (05:46): Yeah. Like, do you really know it? You've got to be vulnerable to that. I'll be in conversations, and if someone says a word that I don't know, I will say, "Stop, please. Can you tell me that means? Because I don't know what you're saying right now." I'm sure I've looked really ridiculous, but I don't care. Corey Frank (06:03): No, just the opposite, Elena. I think that's endearing. I think that for somebody who understands the courage it takes, especially at a manager or director, vice president C-level, to stop and ask a question like that? Hey, an acronym you'd use. Especially in sales, we throw around these all the time. Elena Hesse (06:19): Gosh, yeah. Corey Frank (06:20): I think, to me, there's got to be some Chris Voss, Candyland shortcut, that really engenders trust very, very quickly, like a shortcut if you say, "Stop, what does that mean? I don't understand that". We could you feel the burden on you and the trust part just catalyzes from there. Elena Hesse (06:40): Because typically people are saying things that are important, and you want to have the same vocabulary or knowledge so you can move faster, kind of back to our original statements. Chris Beall (06:49): Yeah. Well, everybody's an expert on thousands, millions of things, in fact. We just don't know what they are until we have a conversation. We have a little tagline at ConnectAndSell, and I've had branding people talk to me about, "Why don't you change that and make it fresher?" Conversations matter. Chris Beall (07:06): It's not that they matter for selling, they just matter. We just can't figure stuff out on our own, because our own experiences take us inside our own experiences. We need to be inside of other people's experiences in order to be able to gain access to what they're an expert at. Chris Beall (07:28): Everybody's an expert at millions of things. It's not limited. You think of how long a life is, think about all the years. Years? Try milliseconds. We learn stuff hundreds of times a second. We can't really share it with anybody unless we have a conversation. You have to have that high velocity, 20,000 bits a second, right into the mid brain. Then we have a shot. Elena Hesse (07:53): Yeah, and let's absorb it, and be brave enough to maybe change a position if you hear something that makes sense. Don't get too buried in your own belief. Pick your values. But what I believe in, because I'm using those very differently, it could change a little bit because your experience has showed me something I never saw before. Elena Hesse (08:15): Now, that's why I think ... I'm not going to get political, I promise. But just generally ... both sides of the aisle, once you pick a position, you got to stay consistent or else you're not considered credible. I want a leader who takes it all in, and makes decisions that are right, not just following a pattern of an echo chamber. So, it's okay to say you're wrong. Corey Frank (08:41): Oftentimes. Chris Beall (08:42): Well, Corey's wrong all the time, so. Corey Frank (08:44): Yeah, just ask my wife. Right, exactly. Chris Beall (08:48): ... Into little diamonds. Elena Hesse (08:52): Sure. Chris Beall (08:52): This was the best conversation I've had in a long, long time. Corey Frank (08:54): Oh yeah. Elena Hesse (08:54): You're sweet. You guys are very flattering. I don't know if you do this for everybody else, but you make people feel good to participate. I was very happy to do so. I've learned things. I've jotted down books and movies. Corey Frank (09:09): Yeah. Chris Beall (09:09): I keep thinking of Little China. Go watch that one, that's a good movie. Corey Frank (09:12): Yeah. My wife knows there's no such thing as a quick conversation with Chris because it's so tangential. You talk about a lot, about a lot of things. Corey Frank (09:22): I've known Chris for a long time. I've never heard the primates example, but this is a guy that reads scientific journals for fun all the time. It's the Jiro thing. Jiro the movie, he dreams of sushi because he's such a craftsman that is so entrenched. As they say, "By the work, they shall know the workman." Elena Hesse (09:45): Yeah. Corey Frank (09:45): So, he's dreaming of sushi. You're like, "Come on, it's just fish. It's a meal. Can't you go drive through somewhere, or go to one of those things in Japan where they go around and grab the sushi?" Corey Frank (09:54): It's like, no, you're missing the point. "Well, can't I dial and talk to people? Can't I just email? Isn't it the same." It's going to take a little bit longer, but come on. You're missing the art, and the honor, and the dignity of the profession. Elena Hesse (10:06): Yeah, I love those last few things you just said, the art, and the honor, and the dignity of our profession. Chris Beall (10:14): I think we would do well to spend more time with our sales teams on these topics. Elena Hesse (10:23): Yeah. Chris Beall (10:24): People will say, "Well, sales is an honorable profession," all that kind of stuff. I don't think most people selling in the innovation economy even get what they're doing, why they're so important. Chris Beall (11:29): We tend to, I think sadly, by leaving the coin operated comp plans in place, we actually insult our salespeople by saying ... This is a Japanese thing. I spent a lot of time in Japan at one point in my life doing a big joint venture with Mitsui, so dealing with board level people there. They're very happy to let you be yourself, but if you're open, they're happy to teach you about what it's like to be them, which is really kind of interesting. Chris Beall (12:02): The thing that characterized Japanese society more than anything else was that it's insulting to tip somebody, and yet we pay our sales people by tipping them. The commission is a tip, right? The implication in Japan, the thing that's so insulting, is you're saying to them, "I don't believe you would've done your job with excellence unless I gave you this additional financial incentive." Chris Beall (12:30): That's an absolute insult to a Japanese person to say, "You did it for the money." You went the extra mile not because of who you are and your commitment to the excellence of what you're doing and the joy of serving somebody. You did it because you're trying to get 20% instead of 18%. It's the deepest insult. Chris Beall (12:53): I think that we have a hangover in our society from sales at the crossroads where a commission would make sense. Because basically I trick you into buying and I should be rewarded for it. That's kind of what it was. Chris Beall (13:08): Now, here we are, we're actually in partnership with people we have not yet met. That's the essence of the modern sales person, is your tribe includes people you have not yet met that you're going to help, that you're going to be curious about, and you're going to help. Yet we base our compensation schemes on the notion that you wouldn't really do it unless there was something in it for you. Elena Hesse (13:31): So, I'm curious. I will say this, when I first started in sales and probably the reason that I was willing to go into a sales position, because I'm a CPA, so that part of my brain was like, "What? commissions?" I don't want to put anything at risk. Elena Hesse (13:47): But when I started at Creative Solutions, they did not have commissions. It was straight salary, there was no anything. But kind of to your point, we looked at reports all the time to see who was selling the most. That was driving behavior, but it wasn't paying based on that behavior. Elena Hesse (14:07): So, my question to you Chris, since you've had a lot of exposure here, how do the Japanese companies pay their sales reps? Is it strictly a salary? Is there no differentiation for excellence? They just don't use money for that? What do you see? Chris Beall (14:22): Well, in their sales world, God knows what they do. I never got into that. That was not part of what I was ... It's funny, I never felt in these long relationships that we were putting together that anybody was working me for a commission. I never felt that, not even for a minute. Chris Beall (14:40): I never also felt, I have no instances to counter this, that a handshake wasn't as good as a contract. Never, not once. There was no like, "Here's a word here. We could do this," or whatever. You didn't do deals other than on an achievement of mutual understanding of what you were going to do next. That was the deal itself. There was no other deal. I don't know if I recognize these people- Elena Hesse (15:06): A lot of trust. Chris Beall (15:07): ... but I do know that every time I would go to leave Narita Airport in Tokyo, there's a yellow line that you cross and you're no longer in Japan when you cross that line. I would stop at that line. Elena Hesse (15:27): And like have [inaudible 00:15:29]? Chris Beall (15:29): I would stop, because I felt like I was leaving civilization. We have examples there. We don't need to have this corrupting system, where I have to grease your palm a little bit before you'll carry my suitcase. We don't have that everywhere. We have salaried positions. We trust our engineers to work without tipping them for a line of code, or giving a commission. Chris Beall (15:52): Can you imagine? "You wrote 26 lines of code today, $55, yay." No, we would actually be concerned, like "Oh my God, this stuff's got to work. That could be sloppy." I want it to be right. What do they get? They get their stock options, and they get their opportunity for promotion, and they get their career, which is actually worth more than all that put together. Chris Beall (16:13): You get your reputation, you get your career, you get the fact that you can walk out the door without taking a single step. You get all of that. I think we still have got a cultural hangover. We got untrapped from the office, and we can now choose to use the office. But we've never gotten untrapped from the coin-operated notion of a salesperson. Elena Hesse (16:36): It's a very distracting part of the business, because if you don't have the coin-operated machine well oiled, highly tuned, with all the variations, it's like a pinball machine, as I pull it back, I'm trying to hit as many things as I possibly can. If I hit them and didn't get paid, now my focus as a salesperson is, "System's not working. How much do I need to get paid?" I'm in the back of my mind, at the very least. That's distracting me from my relationships. Corey Frank (17:10): Well, the social contract, they're going to feel is broken. Elena Hesse (17:14): Exactly. Corey Frank (17:15): "You hired me, and you're going to spend all this money on all these MarTech back tools. I follow your playbook, I should have six figures, and I should hit my quota." When I don't, it's tough to look introspectively, I've got to look at probably the leads, my boss, my manager, my comp plan, my commute, whatever it is that's natural. Corey Frank (17:37): Actually, in the movie, in Jiro they talk about that other concept we've heard, Kaizen, that continuous improvement, that main kind of principle. But the piece that they talk about in Jiro, [foreign language 00:17:48], a incredible book from the 17th Century about the Samurai way and the Japanese. They call it ikigai. It's finding one's central satisfaction and meaning in life. It's the reason for being. Elena Hesse (18:02): For your personal reason for being? Corey Frank (18:05): Your own personal reason for being. That's one of the Japanese philosophies that they have, is that it describes your value and your own worth, to you. It's your life, and your purpose. When you, like Chris, you go around Tokyo, the cabs are impeccably cleaned. They're like 1986 Maximas. The cab drivers are impeccably dressed and they wear white gloves. Elena Hesse (18:29): Wow. Corey Frank (18:31): They're beautiful. Chris Beall (18:31): And they smell good, the cabs smell good, they smell great. They all smell the same, they all smell great. Corey Frank (18:37): I think that pride starts at home. That pride of ... If I cared about my title, I'd be a banker. But if I'm a salesperson, the only thing I have to show, I can't have really my title, I got to have my stuff, my currency, which is [inaudible 00:18:52]. Elena Hesse (18:51): Yeah. I never thought about it that way, but yeah. Corey Frank (18:54): Other currency, which is learning, curiosity, being supportive, group, et cetera. But anyway. Chris Beall (19:00): I think the lock-in comes from the market. We pay our salespeople commission because the lock-in comes from the market. The lock-in to the office came from the market, and then the market blew up because it turned out it was better to work from home than to die. But that's what it took. It actually took- Elena Hesse (19:18): A pandemic. Chris Beall (19:19): "Otherwise we're going to die." The fact that we commuted for an insane amount of ... Truly, if you just think about it, we did an episode on this, the hundreds of billions of dollars in the hours spent just commuting makes no sense, once you figured out how to do something remotely. Chris Beall (19:39): You can't go back and find them and go, "We were so good when we were together, that it was worth two things." One is all the commuting, and two is having our entire talent pool be within 50 miles of us instead of everybody on earth. Those things were incredibly valuable. They weren't incredibly valuable, they were locked in. Elena Hesse (19:56): So, I have a point. I know you got to leave in a minute and I'm going to respect that. But I will say this onto return to work. I believe in everything you just said. There's a lot of was in commuting. However, I can't accidentally bump into anyone on a video call. I can't do it. Elena Hesse (20:16): My learnings come from accidentally bumping into the world I live in. If I'm not at least coming into a central place where other people that I want to bump into are there periodically, I'm talking about hybrid, like two days a week, then I lose. The company loses. But it's a really hard message to get across to people who are so used to now working from home all the time. Because it's hard to argue your productivity comment. I am probably more productive- Chris Beall (20:43): Or the rest of your life. It's like, who are you working for? Are you working for the man, so to speak? By the way, my one minute may come here. Chris Beall (20:53): I think what we're going to see on this topic is we're going to see the market play out. The market is now for top talent. The top talent is simply, they're going to call the game. The rest of us who hire top talent, we're in the thrall of those people. They are our customers, and that's it. Chris Beall (21:16): It's not a very subtle game at this point. It's simply, what do they want? If they want to bump into people, well, maybe they'll bump into people. Here's where I think they'll end up going. Corey knows I'm a mathematician by background, and that I've never lost that hideous nature. The math says that we should get together, but less frequently and more intensely. Chris Beall (21:38): So, where the conferences used to be to meet customers, we will start having conferences to be with each other, and to actually take that time truly away from other things, and not just bump into each other, but bump into each other with a little intentionality, but still bump into each other. Chris Beall (21:58): The other flip is, when you do that, it's like opening a digital relationship with a conversation. When you get together, immediately, and I do mean immediately and I've charted this stuff, you start interacting differently with the people you were just with physically when you're texting them, so it's a catalyst for that future. Chris Beall (22:21): But two days a week, I think, might be a little much. But two days a month all getting together, maybe not at the office but somewhere else where ... Because the flights are cheap. The hotel venues or whatever, conference venues, are cheap. When people get away, they focus with each other, and you can have fun. Fun is the other thing. People got to have fun together. Elena Hesse (22:48): Yeah. I think your point is right on, and I think that's one of the reasons that we successfully lifted and shifted in COVID, is because we already had the tapestry of trust within physical contact with my team. Then we were able to go and continue that. Elena Hesse (23:05): The problem is, as we were hiring people remotely, we don't have that physical connection, that meeting up with each other. I don't know the 100% remote people as well. I just don't. We got to create situations. We can talk all day. Chris Beall (23:21): I'll make one more point. You have a 20,000-bit-per-second channel into somebody's mid-brain in a conversation, and I don't think we pick up the phone enough. I talked for 42 minutes this morning with one of my reps, that I had no reason whatsoever to speak with when I woke up this morning. Chris Beall (23:38): Mark and I now have got this 42 minutes. That's 42 minutes, times 60 seconds a minute, times 20,000 bits of emotion-laden information even though we don't think of it that way. What were we talking about? Friction in our sales process. We were getting down into the nuances of, "If you do it in this order, there's friction. But this order, there's no friction. So, are you willing to try it in this order instead of the traditional order?" Chris Beall (24:07): It was bumping into each other. Why? Because there was a conversation, that somebody who sets meetings for me, had with somebody that Mark's going to do a test drive with. I wanted those two to talk in a debriefed sense. So, I sent a text to both of them. Then mark said, "You sent me a text," and he called me, and we bumped into each other. Elena Hesse (24:28): That's great. Chris Beall (24:29): The key, I think, is to get away from the damned email and thinking that you're communicating when you're sending email, because you aren't. Elena Hesse (24:39): Yeah. That's one of the reasons I like Teams Chat. It's the closest thing to bumping into somebody I can do, because I can spontaneously say, "Do you got two minutes, because I need to pick your brain." Chris Beall (24:53): Yeah. Well, Helen sells that stuff, so I'll tell you how much value. That's Teams Chat. Chris Beall (24:59): By the way, I've been listening conversations at Microsoft about what they want their customers to do, because she's now customer success. The only word I heard yesterday, and I heard it over and over, is phone, which is really, really interesting. Chris Beall (25:14): She has people working for her in customer success who actually are spontaneously asking, "Can we do some cold calling? I want to talk to people outside of the IT people we're talking with." Elena Hesse (25:25): That's awesome. Chris Beall (25:26): Customer success is the new sales, and thank God we don't pay them commissions. That's where I'm going to end this. Elena, I tell you what, next chance we have, let's get together somewhere. Elena Hesse (25:39): Yes. Chris Beall (25:41): This was a great get together though. Elena Hesse (25:43): Yeah, this was awesome. I very much appreciate it. Nice to meet you Corey, and nice to get to know you more, Chris Beall. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Chris Beall (25:51): Thank you. Elena Hesse (25:52): Helen sounds fantastic, if she could have captured the heart and the mind of Chris. Chris Beall (25:58): She wins. No, I win. I'm the lucky one. Elena Hesse (26:01): Oh, you're sweet. Chris Beall (26:02): I'm just a lucky old beast. Corey calls himself a big dumb farm animal. I'm just a lucky beast that wandered into the right corral. Corey Frank (26:09): Well, Elena, it's been a absolute pleasure. Thank you for finally saying yes to this, which I'm sure was Chris's frequent torments to you to "Come on the show, come on the show." So, thank you for finally saying yes. Corey Frank (26:21): So, another episode in the books, Chris, with one of the best yet, with one of the brightest yet. So, with Cory Frank coming in for our Chris Beall, the Sage of Sales, the profit of profit. Elena, you're now the Curator of Curiosity, how about that? Elena Hesse (26:34): I'll take it. Corey Frank (26:36): We [inaudible 00:26:37] in the title, it looks great. Chris Beall (26:37): I love it. Corey Frank (26:38): Until next time, this is the Market Dominance Guys.    

“When you go to a doctor, do you want that doctor to be excellent — or okay?” Elena Hesse, our Market Dominance Guys’ guest and the Vice President of Operations of Thomson Reuters’ tax and accounting professionals, poses this question to our podcast hosts, Corey Frank and Chris Beall. Their answer — and yours too, no doubt — is that they want doctors who love their job and do it extremely well. Elena, Chris, and Corey talk about how this equates to the role of the salesperson. In the old days, sales was generally a “hit and run” affair. You’d probably never see your customers again once the sale was made, so there was little reason to provide true value in a product or to develop and maintain a relationship with a customer. But in the modern world, most of us want to sell our customers an upgrade or an add-on or a renewal. So, product value and excellent customer relations are essential. In other words, if you want to be successful in sales today, our three sales experts say that it’s crucial to have skin in the game. Oh, yeh. It’s self-examination time. Evaluate your personal investment in your job as you listen to today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode. “Do You Have Skin in the Game?”   About Our Guest Elena T. Hesse, Vice President, Operations – Tax & Accounting Professionals at Thomson Reuters, has been with this firm for more than 13 years. Elena is also a thought leader for #GirlsClub, leading the book club discussions to support #GirlsClub and its continuing work of changing the face of sales leadership by empowering more women to earn roles in management. Full episode transcript below: Announcer (00:23): "When you share your life nuggets, you don't know when it's going to matter to someone," observes Elena Hesse, our Market Dominance Guys guest, and the Vice President of Operations of Thompson Reuters Tax and Accounting Professionals, in this third of three podcast episodes with our host Chris Beall and Corey Frank. Announcer (00:39): For the past four years, Elena has led The No Time to Read Book Club for The Girls Club, an organization dedicated to changing the face of sales leadership by empowering more women to earn roles in management. Announcer (00:51): Corey starts off the conversation by asking Elena to describe what happens in a book club that doesn't require reading a book? She says, "A book is just a vehicle for a conversation. You never know when something's going to resonate." Announcer (01:03): She explains how the subject matter generates ideas and experiences that club members share with each other. Just like the book club participants, Corey, Chris, and Elena share ideas and personal insights of their own, which cover everything from the sales benefits of a live conversation over an email message, to the trust creating habit of asking for clarification when you don't understand something. Announcer (01:26): As Chris says, the essence of curiosity is embracing our ignorance. So, get ready to open your mind and heart to embrace what these three experienced sales people share with each other and with you about the essence of this week's Market Dominance Guys podcast, Why Conversations Matter. Corey Frank (01:46): Elena, one last question for you, maybe a good plug for what we were talking about here towards the end about empowering women leadership, particularly in sales and tech, which you're at the heart of certainly at Thomson. You have a book club, The No Time to Read Book Club. Maybe you can end this with a little plug for the book club, and what you do, and maybe some of the learnings over the years leading that? Elena Hesse (02:05): Absolutely. One, the reason that the book club even exists, in a way, is because of Chris Beall. Because Chris, you told Lauren Bailey about me, and she reached out to me for Girls Club, so that all happened. Elena Hesse (02:22): So, in the Girls Club organization, which I'm a part of as a thought leader, Lauren and Angela, there's so many great people there, we have this book club. We do it for each cohort. I think this is our third or fourth year. What I really love about the book club is that it's really a time for women. Sometimes there are men too, so this is not just a one gender conversation. Elena Hesse (02:49): The first book I pick, the next two, they pick. It tells you where their heads are. Where are they looking for help? Where do they want some insights? And we just talk. We read the book. Sometimes they don't read the book. I'll be honest with you, there's a reason for the title. It's hard to squeeze in book reading sometimes. Elena Hesse (03:08): A lot of the women in Girls Club, if I were making a general statement, I would say are women with families. A lot of times you got young kids. Time's precious, so we don't use that as a filter, if you will. So, we have a book club in which reading the book is not necessarily needed, because I always read the book. Elena Hesse (03:26): There's always some people that read the book, and we just go through the highlights, and share our personal stories as they relate to the books. I don't know if it's any more magical than that, Corey. It's really people coming together to say, "Never thought about that," or "This how I reacted to it." When you're sharing your life nuggets, you don't know when it's going to matter to somebody. Elena Hesse (03:48): I will make a point to our conversation and how it all started, Chris. You flatter me and humble me with remembering a statement that I made many years ago, frankly that I would never have been able to repeat back to you if you asked me, do you remember what you said? I would not have been able to, right? Elena Hesse (04:07): You never know when the teacher arrives. The student has to be ready. I'm not saying you're a student in that respect, but you never know when something's going to resonate. You never know. So, anytime you can bring people together with some level of continuity to the conversation, a book, that's just a vehicle for a conversation. Elena Hesse (04:28): A good book club, that is just the muse. You could go in lots of different directions and learn about each other, and walk away with something that no one would've thought that one little something would've mattered. Elena Hesse (04:41): So, I like to have spontaneous interesting conversations because I never know what I'm going to learn something. God knows I never could have repeated back that quote you told me. I'm very happy that I gave you something that meant something, obviously. I bet you we all have things that resonated with us and the person who delivered it had no idea what they were delivered to you. Corey Frank (05:01): Well, Elena, we have almost 200 episodes of this podcast stemming from my purely selfish desire to get inside the head of Chris Beall, so welcome to the club. I think that's a beautiful way to end this episode, especially since you're almost going to make Chris cry again. Chris Beall (05:16): It's working, it's working. Elena Hesse (05:18): You are not crying, don't tell me that. Are you? Chris Beall (05:23): I am, but I won't even hide it very well. Yes, Corey knows me well. The fact is, we all have so much to learn from each other. The essence of curiosity is embracing our ignorance. Elena Hesse (05:35): Yes, yes. Chris Beall (05:36): Really being enthusiastic about our ignorance. I love being ignorant. It's my favorite thing in the world. Whenever I think I know something, it makes me nervous. Elena Hesse (05:46): Yeah. Like, do you really know it? You've got to be vulnerable to that. I'll be in conversations, and if someone says a word that I don't know, I will say, "Stop, please. Can you tell me that means? Because I don't know what you're saying right now." I'm sure I've looked really ridiculous, but I don't care. Corey Frank (06:03): No, just the opposite, Elena. I think that's endearing. I think that for somebody who understands the courage it takes, especially at a manager or director, vice president C-level, to stop and ask a question like that? Hey, an acronym you'd use. Especially in sales, we throw around these all the time. Elena Hesse (06:19): Gosh, yeah. Corey Frank (06:20): I think, to me, there's got to be some Chris Voss, Candyland shortcut, that really engenders trust very, very quickly, like a shortcut if you say, "Stop, what does that mean? I don't understand that". We could you feel the burden on you and the trust part just catalyzes from there. Elena Hesse (06:40): Because typically people are saying things that are important, and you want to have the same vocabulary or knowledge so you can move faster, kind of back to our original statements. Chris Beall (06:49): Yeah. Well, everybody's an expert on thousands, millions of things, in fact. We just don't know what they are until we have a conversation. We have a little tagline at ConnectAndSell, and I've had branding people talk to me about, "Why don't you change that and make it fresher?" Conversations matter. Chris Beall (07:06): It's not that they matter for selling, they just matter. We just can't figure stuff out on our own, because our own experiences take us inside our own experiences. We need to be inside of other people's experiences in order to be able to gain access to what they're an expert at. Chris Beall (07:28): Everybody's an expert at millions of things. It's not limited. You think of how long a life is, think about all the years. Years? Try milliseconds. We learn stuff hundreds of times a second. We can't really share it with anybody unless we have a conversation. You have to have that high velocity, 20,000 bits a second, right into the mid brain. Then we have a shot. Elena Hesse (07:53): Yeah, and let's absorb it, and be brave enough to maybe change a position if you hear something that makes sense. Don't get too buried in your own belief. Pick your values. But what I believe in, because I'm using those very differently, it could change a little bit because your experience has showed me something I never saw before. Elena Hesse (08:15): Now, that's why I think ... I'm not going to get political, I promise. But just generally ... both sides of the aisle, once you pick a position, you got to stay consistent or else you're not considered credible. I want a leader who takes it all in, and makes decisions that are right, not just following a pattern of an echo chamber. So, it's okay to say you're wrong. Corey Frank (08:41): Oftentimes. Chris Beall (08:42): Well, Corey's wrong all the time, so. Corey Frank (08:44): Yeah, just ask my wife. Right, exactly. Chris Beall (08:48): ... Into little diamonds. Elena Hesse (08:52): Sure. Chris Beall (08:52): This was the best conversation I've had in a long, long time. Corey Frank (08:54): Oh yeah. Elena Hesse (08:54): You're sweet. You guys are very flattering. I don't know if you do this for everybody else, but you make people feel good to participate. I was very happy to do so. I've learned things. I've jotted down books and movies. Corey Frank (09:09): Yeah. Chris Beall (09:09): I keep thinking of Little China. Go watch that one, that's a good movie. Corey Frank (09:12): Yeah. My wife knows there's no such thing as a quick conversation with Chris because it's so tangential. You talk about a lot, about a lot of things. Corey Frank (09:22): I've known Chris for a long time. I've never heard the primates example, but this is a guy that reads scientific journals for fun all the time. It's the Jiro thing. Jiro the movie, he dreams of sushi because he's such a craftsman that is so entrenched. As they say, "By the work, they shall know the workman." Elena Hesse (09:45): Yeah. Corey Frank (09:45): So, he's dreaming of sushi. You're like, "Come on, it's just fish. It's a meal. Can't you go drive through somewhere, or go to one of those things in Japan where they go around and grab the sushi?" Corey Frank (09:54): It's like, no, you're missing the point. "Well, can't I dial and talk to people? Can't I just email? Isn't it the same." It's going to take a little bit longer, but come on. You're missing the art, and the honor, and the dignity of the profession. Elena Hesse (10:06): Yeah, I love those last few things you just said, the art, and the honor, and the dignity of our profession. Chris Beall (10:14): I think we would do well to spend more time with our sales teams on these topics. Elena Hesse (10:23): Yeah. Chris Beall (10:24): People will say, "Well, sales is an honorable profession," all that kind of stuff. I don't think most people selling in the innovation economy even get what they're doing, why they're so important. Chris Beall (11:29): We tend to, I think sadly, by leaving the coin operated comp plans in place, we actually insult our salespeople by saying ... This is a Japanese thing. I spent a lot of time in Japan at one point in my life doing a big joint venture with Mitsui, so dealing with board level people there. They're very happy to let you be yourself, but if you're open, they're happy to teach you about what it's like to be them, which is really kind of interesting. Chris Beall (12:02): The thing that characterized Japanese society more than anything else was that it's insulting to tip somebody, and yet we pay our sales people by tipping them. The commission is a tip, right? The implication in Japan, the thing that's so insulting, is you're saying to them, "I don't believe you would've done your job with excellence unless I gave you this additional financial incentive." Chris Beall (12:30): That's an absolute insult to a Japanese person to say, "You did it for the money." You went the extra mile not because of who you are and your commitment to the excellence of what you're doing and the joy of serving somebody. You did it because you're trying to get 20% instead of 18%. It's the deepest insult. Chris Beall (12:53): I think that we have a hangover in our society from sales at the crossroads where a commission would make sense. Because basically I trick you into buying and I should be rewarded for it. That's kind of what it was. Chris Beall (13:08): Now, here we are, we're actually in partnership with people we have not yet met. That's the essence of the modern sales person, is your tribe includes people you have not yet met that you're going to help, that you're going to be curious about, and you're going to help. Yet we base our compensation schemes on the notion that you wouldn't really do it unless there was something in it for you. Elena Hesse (13:31): So, I'm curious. I will say this, when I first started in sales and probably the reason that I was willing to go into a sales position, because I'm a CPA, so that part of my brain was like, "What? commissions?" I don't want to put anything at risk. Elena Hesse (13:47): But when I started at Creative Solutions, they did not have commissions. It was straight salary, there was no anything. But kind of to your point, we looked at reports all the time to see who was selling the most. That was driving behavior, but it wasn't paying based on that behavior. Elena Hesse (14:07): So, my question to you Chris, since you've had a lot of exposure here, how do the Japanese companies pay their sales reps? Is it strictly a salary? Is there no differentiation for excellence? They just don't use money for that? What do you see? Chris Beall (14:22): Well, in their sales world, God knows what they do. I never got into that. That was not part of what I was ... It's funny, I never felt in these long relationships that we were putting together that anybody was working me for a commission. I never felt that, not even for a minute. Chris Beall (14:40): I never also felt, I have no instances to counter this, that a handshake wasn't as good as a contract. Never, not once. There was no like, "Here's a word here. We could do this," or whatever. You didn't do deals other than on an achievement of mutual understanding of what you were going to do next. That was the deal itself. There was no other deal. I don't know if I recognize these people- Elena Hesse (15:06): A lot of trust. Chris Beall (15:07): ... but I do know that every time I would go to leave Narita Airport in Tokyo, there's a yellow line that you cross and you're no longer in Japan when you cross that line. I would stop at that line. Elena Hesse (15:27): And like have [inaudible 00:15:29]? Chris Beall (15:29): I would stop, because I felt like I was leaving civilization. We have examples there. We don't need to have this corrupting system, where I have to grease your palm a little bit before you'll carry my suitcase. We don't have that everywhere. We have salaried positions. We trust our engineers to work without tipping them for a line of code, or giving a commission. Chris Beall (15:52): Can you imagine? "You wrote 26 lines of code today, $55, yay." No, we would actually be concerned, like "Oh my God, this stuff's got to work. That could be sloppy." I want it to be right. What do they get? They get their stock options, and they get their opportunity for promotion, and they get their career, which is actually worth more than all that put together. Chris Beall (16:13): You get your reputation, you get your career, you get the fact that you can walk out the door without taking a single step. You get all of that. I think we still have got a cultural hangover. We got untrapped from the office, and we can now choose to use the office. But we've never gotten untrapped from the coin-operated notion of a salesperson. Elena Hesse (16:36): It's a very distracting part of the business, because if you don't have the coin-operated machine well oiled, highly tuned, with all the variations, it's like a pinball machine, as I pull it back, I'm trying to hit as many things as I possibly can. If I hit them and didn't get paid, now my focus as a salesperson is, "System's not working. How much do I need to get paid?" I'm in the back of my mind, at the very least. That's distracting me from my relationships. Corey Frank (17:10): Well, the social contract, they're going to feel is broken. Elena Hesse (17:14): Exactly. Corey Frank (17:15): "You hired me, and you're going to spend all this money on all these MarTech back tools. I follow your playbook, I should have six figures, and I should hit my quota." When I don't, it's tough to look introspectively, I've got to look at probably the leads, my boss, my manager, my comp plan, my commute, whatever it is that's natural. Corey Frank (17:37): Actually, in the movie, in Jiro they talk about that other concept we've heard, Kaizen, that continuous improvement, that main kind of principle. But the piece that they talk about in Jiro, [foreign language 00:17:48], a incredible book from the 17th Century about the Samurai way and the Japanese. They call it ikigai. It's finding one's central satisfaction and meaning in life. It's the reason for being. Elena Hesse (18:02): For your personal reason for being? Corey Frank (18:05): Your own personal reason for being. That's one of the Japanese philosophies that they have, is that it describes your value and your own worth, to you. It's your life, and your purpose. When you, like Chris, you go around Tokyo, the cabs are impeccably cleaned. They're like 1986 Maximas. The cab drivers are impeccably dressed and they wear white gloves. Elena Hesse (18:29): Wow. Corey Frank (18:31): They're beautiful. Chris Beall (18:31): And they smell good, the cabs smell good, they smell great. They all smell the same, they all smell great. Corey Frank (18:37): I think that pride starts at home. That pride of ... If I cared about my title, I'd be a banker. But if I'm a salesperson, the only thing I have to show, I can't have really my title, I got to have my stuff, my currency, which is [inaudible 00:18:52]. Elena Hesse (18:51): Yeah. I never thought about it that way, but yeah. Corey Frank (18:54): Other currency, which is learning, curiosity, being supportive, group, et cetera. But anyway. Chris Beall (19:00): I think the lock-in comes from the market. We pay our salespeople commission because the lock-in comes from the market. The lock-in to the office came from the market, and then the market blew up because it turned out it was better to work from home than to die. But that's what it took. It actually took- Elena Hesse (19:18): A pandemic. Chris Beall (19:19): "Otherwise we're going to die." The fact that we commuted for an insane amount of ... Truly, if you just think about it, we did an episode on this, the hundreds of billions of dollars in the hours spent just commuting makes no sense, once you figured out how to do something remotely. Chris Beall (19:39): You can't go back and find them and go, "We were so good when we were together, that it was worth two things." One is all the commuting, and two is having our entire talent pool be within 50 miles of us instead of everybody on earth. Those things were incredibly valuable. They weren't incredibly valuable, they were locked in. Elena Hesse (19:56): So, I have a point. I know you got to leave in a minute and I'm going to respect that. But I will say this onto return to work. I believe in everything you just said. There's a lot of was in commuting. However, I can't accidentally bump into anyone on a video call. I can't do it. Elena Hesse (20:16): My learnings come from accidentally bumping into the world I live in. If I'm not at least coming into a central place where other people that I want to bump into are there periodically, I'm talking about hybrid, like two days a week, then I lose. The company loses. But it's a really hard message to get across to people who are so used to now working from home all the time. Because it's hard to argue your productivity comment. I am probably more productive- Chris Beall (20:43): Or the rest of your life. It's like, who are you working for? Are you working for the man, so to speak? By the way, my one minute may come here. Chris Beall (20:53): I think what we're going to see on this topic is we're going to see the market play out. The market is now for top talent. The top talent is simply, they're going to call the game. The rest of us who hire top talent, we're in the thrall of those people. They are our customers, and that's it. Chris Beall (21:16): It's not a very subtle game at this point. It's simply, what do they want? If they want to bump into people, well, maybe they'll bump into people. Here's where I think they'll end up going. Corey knows I'm a mathematician by background, and that I've never lost that hideous nature. The math says that we should get together, but less frequently and more intensely. Chris Beall (21:38): So, where the conferences used to be to meet customers, we will start having conferences to be with each other, and to actually take that time truly away from other things, and not just bump into each other, but bump into each other with a little intentionality, but still bump into each other. Chris Beall (21:58): The other flip is, when you do that, it's like opening a digital relationship with a conversation. When you get together, immediately, and I do mean immediately and I've charted this stuff, you start interacting differently with the people you were just with physically when you're texting them, so it's a catalyst for that future. Chris Beall (22:21): But two days a week, I think, might be a little much. But two days a month all getting together, maybe not at the office but somewhere else where ... Because the flights are cheap. The hotel venues or whatever, conference venues, are cheap. When people get away, they focus with each other, and you can have fun. Fun is the other thing. People got to have fun together. Elena Hesse (22:48): Yeah. I think your point is right on, and I think that's one of the reasons that we successfully lifted and shifted in COVID, is because we already had the tapestry of trust within physical contact with my team. Then we were able to go and continue that. Elena Hesse (23:05): The problem is, as we were hiring people remotely, we don't have that physical connection, that meeting up with each other. I don't know the 100% remote people as well. I just don't. We got to create situations. We can talk all day. Chris Beall (23:21): I'll make one more point. You have a 20,000-bit-per-second channel into somebody's mid-brain in a conversation, and I don't think we pick up the phone enough. I talked for 42 minutes this morning with one of my reps, that I had no reason whatsoever to speak with when I woke up this morning. Chris Beall (23:38): Mark and I now have got this 42 minutes. That's 42 minutes, times 60 seconds a minute, times 20,000 bits of emotion-laden information even though we don't think of it that way. What were we talking about? Friction in our sales process. We were getting down into the nuances of, "If you do it in this order, there's friction. But this order, there's no friction. So, are you willing to try it in this order instead of the traditional order?" Chris Beall (24:07): It was bumping into each other. Why? Because there was a conversation, that somebody who sets meetings for me, had with somebody that Mark's going to do a test drive with. I wanted those two to talk in a debriefed sense. So, I sent a text to both of them. Then mark said, "You sent me a text," and he called me, and we bumped into each other. Elena Hesse (24:28): That's great. Chris Beall (24:29): The key, I think, is to get away from the damned email and thinking that you're communicating when you're sending email, because you aren't. Elena Hesse (24:39): Yeah. That's one of the reasons I like Teams Chat. It's the closest thing to bumping into somebody I can do, because I can spontaneously say, "Do you got two minutes, because I need to pick your brain." Chris Beall (24:53): Yeah. Well, Helen sells that stuff, so I'll tell you how much value. That's Teams Chat. Chris Beall (24:59): By the way, I've been listening conversations at Microsoft about what they want their customers to do, because she's now customer success. The only word I heard yesterday, and I heard it over and over, is phone, which is really, really interesting. Chris Beall (25:14): She has people working for her in customer success who actually are spontaneously asking, "Can we do some cold calling? I want to talk to people outside of the IT people we're talking with." Elena Hesse (25:25): That's awesome. Chris Beall (25:26): Customer success is the new sales, and thank God we don't pay them commissions. That's where I'm going to end this. Elena, I tell you what, next chance we have, let's get together somewhere. Elena Hesse (25:39): Yes. Chris Beall (25:41): This was a great get together though. Elena Hesse (25:43): Yeah, this was awesome. I very much appreciate it. Nice to meet you Corey, and nice to get to know you more, Chris Beall. Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. Chris Beall (25:51): Thank you. Elena Hesse (25:52): Helen sounds fantastic, if she could have captured the heart and the mind of Chris. Chris Beall (25:58): She wins. No, I win. I'm the lucky one. Elena Hesse (26:01): Oh, you're sweet. Chris Beall (26:02): I'm just a lucky old beast. Corey calls himself a big dumb farm animal. I'm just a lucky beast that wandered into the right corral. Corey Frank (26:09): Well, Elena, it's been a absolute pleasure. Thank you for finally saying yes to this, which I'm sure was Chris's frequent torments to you to "Come on the show, come on the show." So, thank you for finally saying yes. Corey Frank (26:21): So, another episode in the books, Chris, with one of the best yet, with one of the brightest yet. So, with Cory Frank coming in for our Chris Beall, the Sage of Sales, the profit of profit. Elena, you're now the Curator of Curiosity, how about that? Elena Hesse (26:34): I'll take it. Corey Frank (26:36): We [inaudible 00:26:37] in the title, it looks great. Chris Beall (26:37): I love it. Corey Frank (26:38): Until next time, this is the Market Dominance Guys.  

“If you’re not curious, you’re not going to be a good sales rep.” That’s the well-considered opinion of our Market Dominance Guys’ guest, Elena Hesse, Vice President of Operations of Thomson Reuters’ tax and accounting professionals. As a naturally curious person herself, Elena has observed that “You can’t be speaking more than you’re listening” if you’re going to learn what you need to know about your prospects and their businesses. You have to ask those insight-seeking questions and then truly pay attention to their answers in order to discover whether your product or service is a good fit for their needs. Our two podcast hosts, Corey Frank and Chris Beall, totally agree with Elena that the best way to establish a good relationship with your sales prospect is with an inquiring mind — not a sales pitch. Curious about what else these three have to say? Listen to today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Do You Have an Inquiring Mind?”   About Our Guest Elena T. Hesse, Vice President, Operations – Tax & Accounting Professionals at Thomson Reuters, has been with this firm for more than 13 years. Elena is also a thought leader for #GirlsClub, leading the book club discussions to support #GirlsClub and its continued work in changing the face of sales leadership by empowering more women to earn roles in management. Full episode transcript below: Corey Frank (01:17): And we are here again, Chris, the Market Dominance Guys podcast is on the air. Welcome to our fabulous guest that we have in the seat today, Elena Hesse who's the Vice President of Operations over at Thomson Reuters. The behemoth that is, the worldwide force that is Thomson Reuters, and Elena hails from somewhere on the hand in the... Not the upper Michigan, but somewhere over there. Elena Hesse (01:42): Right there. [crosstalk 00:01:42] That's right. Corey Frank (01:43): Absolutely. Well, pleased to have you as always, my name is Corey Frank and we have the duke of dials, the profit of profit. We have the CEO of ConnectAndSell, my pal, Chris Beall. So Chris, welcome once again to the Market Dominance Guys, another great reporting with an incredible guest here that we've lined up for today. Chris Beall (02:00): The guest who has the best quote I have heard in my entire business career, so... Elena Hesse (02:09): What is that, Chris? Chris Beall (02:09): And you know, I've heard a lot of stuff and I said a lot of stuff and I don't forget very many things. Corey Frank (02:13): Okay. All right. Pen in hand. What's the quote? Chris Beall (02:15): Pen in hand. Well, we'll tell you the quote later, but hey, we missed you on the episode with James Townsend. I was going solo, but some people say it's acceptable, but now we're in the real deal. So, Elena, this is just beyond thrilling to be here with you. This is- Elena Hesse (02:31): [crosstalk 00:02:31] Your expectations are kind of low. Corey Frank (02:35): No, no, no, no, not at all. Thomson Reuters again is just a beat-in industry. It's been there for a while. Looks like you've had quite a stellar career over there, but I have to ask what kind of rundown gin joint did you stumble into to meet a guy like Chris Beall, for him to lasso you as a guest on the Market Dominance Guys? Elena Hesse (02:54): Well, I wish I had a fancy story. I will say that I was walking the aisles of our sales team when Chris was in the office to get us started on ConnectAndSell and got introduced to him there. We just started chatting up, which I love people and Chris is easy to love because he's got a lot of stories to tell. Elena Hesse (03:13): I was fascinated with ConnectAndSell and just the whole concept. So one of my good things, bad things, I don't know, I'm super curious and probably asked a million questions is probably my MO is I always like to know how things work. And he explained a lot of that to me, so that's how it all began. We need a gin joint, Chris to meet up. Chris Beall (03:37): Well, here's my version of the story. Who is the person running the show that day for us? April, right? Elena Hesse (03:42): April. Yeah. Chris Beall (03:43): Yeah, so... Elena Hesse (03:43): April Welliver. Chris Beall (03:44): So we're in the hands of April, who's just incredible, wonderfully organized. This is one of the cleanest test drives and we do these test drives, right? The full production, full-day, crazy things happen in them. In fact, the biggest one we ever did was actually a Thomson Reuters down in Texas, the day after Christmas, once we did 108 people in a test drive. Elena Hesse (04:05): Wow. Chris Beall (04:05): And it was just fly on Christmas day and go down there and have... And it was more fun than is right to have. But this one, here we are, I hide in the conference room because I don't want to disturb the action on the floor. So my people are doing that, I only had one people at that at moment. And so I'm hanging out in the conference room and I'm just doing things, making calls and sending emails and doing whatever and April walks in and says, "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey," I go, "What?" Chris Beall (04:29): She said, "You got to meet Elena. She's the boss! She's the budget holder." I said, "Ah, budget holder. Got it." So I go walk out on the floor and you got to picture this. There are reps on the right or left, kind of depends on how you see in Zoom... And both sides, right, and there's an aisle straight down the middle. So she's walking to me, I'm walking toward her and it's loud. It's like your floor. It's like Branch49. It's loud. Chris Beall (04:56): And I'm looking at the numbers and there are 26 meetings that have been set in one hour and 55 minutes. So stuff is happening. So I walk up to Elena and we get about 12 feet apart. And I say, "So Elena, what are your thoughts? And she says, and this is the best quote in the history of business, from my experience, she says, and I have this word for word. I did not forget a word. "Chris, I have no thoughts. I have tears of joy in my eyes. You have turned my silent library into a sales floor." Corey Frank (05:34): That is the famous Elena. Okay. You've mentioned that quote several times over the years. Now, I can actually put a name and a face with that quote. Yes. The library, the famous library quote. Yes. Chris Beall (05:47): Yes, and I cried. Chris Beall (05:51): And I do again... It really... Because we're on this, as you know, this market dominance mission, right? And we're always just doing these test drives, hoping to resonate with a team and a leader that really want to dominate and do it right. I don't mean dominate in a mean way. I mean, what I mean is trust-based, high-velocity, trust-based market dominance. And it was like, holy moly, what she just said was a better way of stating our mission and what we understood we were doing than we had ever said. And that's... We've been at this for years. It's not like we just started, this isn't easy stuff. So I still... Elena I hold that quote in my heart. Elena Hesse (06:37): Well, you're very sweet. I appreciate it. I wish I could have told you what I said. Chris Beall (06:42): That's my job to remember. Elena Hesse (06:45): But unfortunately, I just say a lot of things. Chris Beall (06:48): But it's so poetic and it's such a thing. It's like you turned my... It was yours. I loved the proprietary nature of it. You turned my silent library into a sales floor. And I [crosstalk 00:07:03]- Elena Hesse (07:02): Well, I mean at the end of the day, right, if we're not talking, if we're not communicating, we're not selling. I will say this, that may be controversial, I have no idea. Right now what we're seeing all over the industry, including Thomson Reuters, and there's positive intent here and there are good things here, but it's the move to digital and trying to get as many eyeballs as possible out on the websites and draw them in and digitally satisfy a buyer or a prospect's needs. Elena Hesse (07:33): My personal opinion is that's great, but at the end of the day, I don't think I'm any different than most of the buyers and prospects. I want to talk to a person when I want to figure out the nuances of what's going on and that matters. In a world that's going heavy digital, I want us to have really quality conversations and if people are responding to the tool sets that you have, certainly that gets them in the door. Then I think sales reps, really good ones, get it done. So thank you, because I know we still use... That was a few years ago and ConnectAndSell is still being used today, so that's a big testament to you guys. Corey Frank (08:15): Absolutely. Absolutely. Chris Beall (08:16): But you went through a lot of changes. You guys have [reorged 00:08:18] a lot of ways. There has been a lot that has gone on. Robert Beaty once said to me when he was taking me to the airport somewhere in San Diego. And he said, "Do you realize our COO's office has a whiteboard?" We're doing this big reorg and the only words on the whiteboard are "intelligent cross-sell using ConnectAndSell". And he said those words have sat there for months and months and months. Chris Beall (08:40): Because to me, what was so exciting about your organization, in particular, was it was the classic cross-sell opportunity because you're coming in with my pay, and here's something that could be sold a lot of different ways. You could go sell it direct, you could do all manner of things, but you also have this big tax and accounting organization and the idea of channelizing through those customers and doing that as an upsell... And it's a very modern upsell because ultimately it comes down to the usage. Chris Beall (09:15): It's not just here's a transaction, now we got your money. Right? Corey Frank (09:18): Right. Right. Chris Beall (09:19): It's very, very modern. It's like what my fiance Helen does. She runs customer success for those Microsoft products that you think are Microsoft products, right? And including the power apps and stuff like that. Ultimately, customer success is all about helping folks succeed and the economics come through the usage. And this cross-sell play, post-MNA, nobody cross-sells. Chris Beall (09:42): They say they're going to, it's in the docs, right? It's like, why did we buy this company? Why did we merge? Wow, we're going to do this cross-sell. And I was hard over on that at Thomson Reuters, because I saw this company that had done a divestiture and after a divestiture you always have, I'll call them... There are organizational stresses that occur after a divestiture and you can never get rid of the overhead as fast as you got rid of the revenue. That's the main [crosstalk 00:10:07]. Elena Hesse (10:07): True, true. Chris Beall (10:09): Right? So you loosed a wolf in your house. So then it's like, "Oh, do I have to feed you?" This is interesting. And so I thought, "Wow, this is the best I've ever seen." Because it's also a really, really cleanly run company to promote the idea of cross-sell without cross-training. Chris Beall (10:26): Where you disaggregate the first conversation from the expertise and then put them back together in order to get the customer to be able to trust and move forward. And so it's still my number one example of all time of modern, conversation-enabled... Cross-sell still goes on every day I look every day at the numbers and listen to conversations and it's my entertainment. As I said, there's no work to be done. I'm a CEO, right. It's like, what do you do? Elena Hesse (10:52): Yeah, for sure. Chris Beall (10:53): We have a delightful relationship. It took five years to create, I don't know if you ever heard the story Elena of how it went down, but I was at a conference and every year I would ask the executive retreat, AA-ISP, and every year I'd ask Rob, I'd go by him on the way to something at the end of the conference and say, "Can you make your next year's number without ConnectAndSell?" And every year he would say yes. And then in 2017, I think it was... Or '18. I said, can you make... I think it was '17. I said, "Can you make 2018 without ConnectAndSell?" I'm on my way to the dessert bar. And he says, "Nope." And I said, "Okay, test drive next Tuesday." And he said, "Got it." Elena Hesse (11:31): That's awesome. Chris Beall (11:32): And it took five years. Elena Hesse (11:34): Yeah. Yeah. It's always funny when people ask how long is the sales cycle? Like it all depends on any product, on anything it's so hard to do that. Corey Frank (11:44): Well, the sales cycle is, to your point, Elena, the sales cycle is digital. It may take a little bit longer than conversations... You had just said a few minutes ago, right, that this trend in the digital world away from conversation, certainly, right. Chris and I have talked a lot about that over the years. And we still see that. I mean, there are great tools out there, the outreaches of the world that have nurtured. But Chris, you were on a podcast just recently and somebody aired this infographic from the residue of your brain and do you want to talk about this because Elena, I don't know if you've heard Chris' dissertation on the math of why conversations matter more so than just digital. Elena Hesse (12:27): No, I have not. Is there a summary you can share with me? Chris Beall (12:31): Well, this is... The summary is pretty simple and it's what you said as a buyer, you need to talk to a human being to get through the nuances and I'll make a claim. You also need to talk to them to de-risk the situation. That is if you were to go do the research all by yourself, you're taking the risk that you're not an expert and somebody else is, right. The seller is always the expert. You're always the generalist as the buyer. There's career risk, right? You're a very, very... You're a deeply embedded player at Thomson Reuters, but even you, if you screwed up and bought the wrong thing and it hurt the company, it would hurt your career. Elena Hesse (13:09): Yeah. Chris Beall (13:09): Simple. Elena Hesse (13:10): And 1 So you're collecting that information to offer up to a final decision-maker. You're right on the career more so... If I'm an owner and I'm doing that to myself, well then I'm doing that to myself. But many people are serving that up to their bosses, right. To make a recommendation. And that is a reflection. And really right before this conversation, I was in need of a chat with a colleague just as an example. Elena Hesse (13:43): There were emails that went back and forth that I wanted to have a conversation about because I knew that if we continued the emails or the teams chat, that one, we'd be doing it forever. And two, you lose really the background intangibles as to what we needed to discuss that you can't always capture in a word, especially without facial expression and body language. I think that's super important still to this day. But I will say this, there's a place for digital, absolutely. I think we were in a world that was all sales rep, personal touch, if I didn't dial you didn't know about me. And now we're trying to get to this digital play where you can buy without talking to someone. Neither one of those is the answer. Elena Hesse (15:30): It's here. It's here somewhere here in the science and the art of where that pendulum that needs to swing is something we are still figuring out. And the good news is we're trying to figure it out, right? Chris Beall (15:43): I agree deeply. Elena Hesse (15:44): [crosstalk 00:15:44] be perfect. Chris Beall (15:44): So what this is about, by the way, Elena is super simple, which is the trust piece of the relationship-building is something that requires a huge amount of information. That's not the information about the product. The first-order question is, do I trust you enough that I would put my career in your hands? Elena Hesse (16:02): Right. Chris Beall (16:03): That's the real question, right? When we're buying for ourselves, I always make this comparison. If I buy a Tesla and I spend $70,000 on a Tesla, because I want a good one, right? It's like a mid-range Tesla. I buy it and I bring it home and I discover after driving it for a couple of days that unbeknownst to me, no doctors ever told me this, I'm allergic to electricity, and being close to electricity gives me hives. It's like, oh my God, right? So I got to dump this Tesla and I got to get it out of my life. Chris Beall (16:34): And so I dump the Tesla and I'm out $10,000. So now I'm out $10,000, and as you said, but I'm the owner of my own life, right? So I bought the Tesla for me. Now I buy that same Tesla for the company and it's going to fulfill a very important mission in our, say supply chain. So our company... I don't know we do something with eggs and we got to have a vehicle to transport eggs. Then I get this Tesla and it electrocutes the eggs and makes them unusable. The Tesla salesperson, I never talked to them, right? I just went online and I went click, click, click. I didn't realize, oh, there was something the salesperson could have told me which is, don't use this thing to transport eggs. By the way, folks, I just made that up. Chris Beall (17:19): Teslas are fine for transporting eggs and you cannot get hives from them. Elon, I'm sorry I said all of that, but you're a funny dude too so I can say stuff and get away with it. I will not tweet any of that. I guarantee you. So anyway, the point is we need to get trust as the seller and trust... And this is what Chris Vos taught me. So Mr. Never Split the Difference, I asked him one night, "How long do we have to get trust in a cold call?" And he said, "Seven seconds." And I said, "Seven seconds. Wow." Chris Beall (17:53): Our research says eight seconds. And he said, "Your research is wrong. It's seven seconds." Oh, got it. Okay. So what do we have to do in those seven seconds? He says, "Oh that's easy. All we have to do is show the other party we see the world through their eyes. We call it tactical empathy and demonstrate to them we are competent to solve a problem they have right now." And I said, "Well, isn't the problem they have right now, me?" And he said, "Bingo, that's why you're in control. You own the cold call because you are the problem. And therefore you can offer to solve the problem. And if you say the right things in the right tone, you'll get trust." Chris Beall (18:30): And I asked him, "How long will that trust last?" And he said, "A lifetime, as long as you don't blow it." And when you think about the problem of B2B, the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the top of the funnel is that seven seconds to get trust and I asked him what happens after eight seconds. He says, "No chance, you're done." We have to replace you as the seller. You fail to get trust. You will never be trusted. So when you think about it from that perspective, which is what this 130-episode podcast is about. This is the book Corey wanted me to write and it's like, wow. So digital is great then as long as we have trust. So how many bits of information does it take to get trust? Well, it takes about 600,000 bits of information to really get trust. To get- Elena Hesse (19:15): To get trust without a person? Is that what you're saying? Chris Beall (19:15): To get trust at all, right? Your brain has to consume a huge amount of information before you go, "You know, I think we're going to let these Vikings into the village," right? It's like you got to know a lot about them Vikings before you're going to do it or you got to meet a Viking that you trust, right? One or the other. I mean, that's how it works. So it's like, "Hmm, I have an issue if I try to go digital first because oddly it doesn't have enough information." Chris Beall (19:44): So an email contains a few thousand bits, right? 5,000 bits in an email. So I've got to get you to read 120 emails in a focused way to get to 600,000 bits, which is a 32nd human conversation. That to me is the core of the problem is our brains are wired for involuntary trust and it takes a huge amount of information and we don't have enough time in digital land to do it. Who's going to read 120 emails? I mean, it's not going to happen, but a lot of people will listen to seven seconds of a conversation and then let you go ahead with the next 27 seconds. And then you have a relationship, now send them the email. Elena Hesse (20:24): Right. Great point. Great point. I mean, I read a book once called The Speed of Trust. Are you familiar with that? Chris Beall (20:31): I love that book. Oh my... Elena Hesse (20:32): Yeah. I love it too. And I think it's the essence of how good business is done. I can get a lot farther, faster when I trust who I'm dealing with and in a world of over-information, misguided information on every aspect, not just buying something, but the news, everything. Elena Hesse (20:53): When you know that we're in a space where trusting data is not guaranteed because even the source is at question. I want to be able to trust that information and that's based on the person that I can look straight in the eye and say, "Hey, I'm listening. I believe in what you're saying, tell me the truth. And then if you do boom, we can go," right? So yeah, I think it's more important today than it was 10 years ago. Chris Beall (21:21): I think it's everything. And I think that folks don't get it because I call it Gresham's love of business communications. So Gresham's law of money says bad money or counterfeit money drives out good money. Because when the bad money is in circulation, well the good money goes and hides because you can use the bad money, right? Elena Hesse (21:36): Right. Right. Right. Chris Beall (21:39): Bad digital communication because it's cheap, it's counterfeit in a fundamental way, which is with money, with coin back in the day. What was interesting about counterfeits was the cost of goods was low. You made them out of cheap metal and then you passed them off as the good stuff. Well, digital is always cheap. It's not cheap to design. It's cheap to disseminate so you can flood the market. If I can send you one email, I can send you two. Chris Beall (22:05): If I can send you one, I can send you and Corey the same one. If I can have a bot that goes in and says Elena and Corey, I can pretend I'm personalizing. If I can have that bot look up on LinkedIn something and say, "Hey, I see that someone,"... I got one yesterday. "I love your volunteer work at Live Earth Farm." It's like, what? Now, I don't trust you. You were there when you [crosstalk 00:22:29] the sheep. I don't trust you. Elena Hesse (22:30): Yeah. Yeah. It's a deal. It's real. And it goes beyond [crosstalk 00:22:36] selling. And I know this is about selling, but I think that comment just goes beyond selling. Unfortunately, for salespeople or organizations, we suffer at the hands of the larger digital play being untrustworthy because already salespeople, let's face it have to overcome, you're just trying to sell me something, right? Communication is powerful. It's powerful. And how we use it is how we're going to get something out of it. Be careful for what you use and how you use it, right. Chris Beall (23:07): Well, and I think sequence really counts. It's ironic that these cadence and sequence tools actually promote something that is called a sequence or a cadence, which is true, it is do this, then do this, then do this, wait this long, blah, blah, blah. But there's a funny thing about it, which is that the sequence of operations in the sequence, the easier one is start with an email. But the only one that's known to work is start with a conversation. And none of the sequence tools have built into them, start with a conversation. Chris Beall (23:36): They have start with a dial. But a dial is like a breeze blowing through the woods. It means nothing. A dial is like I walk by... Say I was interested in Helen back in the day, right. I'm still very interested in her and we plan to get married and stuff. But you know, say that was my goal, right. I know a bar that she frequents and she likes to drink Manhattans. But instead of going in and talking to her, I just walk by. That's like a dial. I walk by on the outside. I didn't talk to her, but I go, oh, activity it was that touch. That's what we call the irony of the whole digital thing is we send something to somebody that they ignore and we call it a touch. Right? And it's... Elena Hesse (24:16): That doesn't make any sense. Chris Beall (24:16): It doesn't make sense, but it's the core of the entire sequencing revolution. We teach people something that when they do it, they go, oh my digital is 14 times better. And what really is 14 times better which is just start with a conversation. Pretty easy, right? Except, of course, you got to get conversations, it's our business. But start with a conversation of voila that here's the magic subject line that changes everything about email. Thank you for our conversation today. Elena Hesse (24:45): Right. Chris Beall (24:46): Boom. Elena Hesse (24:47): Right. I agree with you. I don't think any one particular digital play is bad. It's just how we are... Let's figure out the best way to use them. You know? I mean a hammer looks stupid when you have a screw. So, I mean [crosstalk 00:25:04]- Corey Frank (25:04): All you have is a hammer. Chris Beall (25:05): Yeah, or trying to drink a cup of coffee out of a hammer too. It really works better, just drip, drip, drip, all over the place. Elena, you have thoughts. What are your thoughts? Corey Frank (25:15): You know, I'm curious, you've been at Thomson for a long time, right? Thomson is known as... It's a top-shelf sales organization, has been for years, right. Recruits the best talent and acquired all these companies over the years. You've probably had a front-row seat to see ridiculous amounts of talent, particularly in the inside sales teams, all the different divisions from the Thomson learning to the taxation and the other great subsidies. Corey Frank (25:41): What do you see makes an uncommonly great salesperson that maybe they don't have the pedigree or the LinkedIn, but a fisherman knows another fisherman. You know that this person... Because you're a mentor over there at Thomson, right? Certainly in the leadership role that you play. So what are those that residue, maybe unseen by the common person that you know this person is going to ascend to higher ranks? What are those traits that you look for, the inside sales, specifically? Elena Hesse (26:12): Sure. This is going to sound like I've been prepared for this question. I did not know you were going to ask me this question, but I actually have an acronym that I've used for years. And if you'd like, I'm happy to share it and I've tweaked it a little bit over the years, but I honestly believe this acronym is true for a salesperson. It's true for any professional, but I will focus on sales, if I could. So I call it the ACE sales rep, A-C-E. So it's an acronym and there are two words for each letter. So if you would, don't mind me going here. I know acronyms can get old, but it helps me. So for A, I think a great salesperson has a wonderful attitude, not an attitude that's only good when I'm winning, but an attitude that's there when I'm losing and knowing I have to bounce back. Elena Hesse (27:03): So actually what I'm going to do is I'll list out the names of the things. And then I'll come back to how I look at it. So attitude is one. Accountability is the second A. Okay, I'm going to skip over C and go to E, effort, effectiveness. And I consider those rotating on the axis of the C in two ways, consistency and curiosity. So when I say that, back to my attitude and accountability, if you're not consistently having a more positive attitude than not, then you're going to fail because we hear nos more than we hear yeses. You've got to be self-regulated to understand that both things are going to happen and stay steady. Okay. Accountability is simple. If you're going to say it, do it. It's on you. Your quote is yours. Yes, someone gives you the quota, but it's done with reasonableness like 95% of the time. You'd need to be able to own that, right? Elena Hesse (28:07): Let's go to effort in regards to consistency. In the world that I came from... In the beginning of my life, I started as a sales rep at Thomson Reuters. It used to be called Creative Solutions. The same thing that holds true, then that holds true today in effort, for us, it was all about dialing, right. Making the calls, making the calls, but effort is seen in lots of things. It's how much are you there? Are you leaning in? Are you being here now? Are you showing effort in what you're doing? Or are you coming up with excuses? And then effectiveness, so that ties to effort in a way, because we would have people that would say, "I made 50 dials," right? But if you're making 50 dials and you're not selling, then you're not effective. So how are you figuring out how to make that effort pay off? Elena Hesse (28:53): All of those things are on this access of consistency. At the end of the day, if I had to pick one of those as my number one, it would be curiosity. If you are not curious, you're not going to be a good sales rep. Sorry, you need to be curious enough to know what someone else's problems are and to figure out if you can solve it. You can't be speaking more than you're listening. You have to be a discovery person and you have to be uniquely and authentically interested. I think I'm very curious. And certainly, when I was a sales rep, I had my successes, but I think curiosity has helped me through all of my different phases in life, personally and professionally. So yeah, if I meet somebody that I'll make a statement and if they don't ask me why, what, how, they don't want to know more, then why are you going to do that with a sales opportunity? Probably a long-winded answer... Chris Beall (29:48): Gosh, that was a good answer.