Tech Stack

In this second episode of a visit with Chris, Corey, and guest Brian Perks they dissect the evolving landscape of data, innovation, and sales in the modern economy. They explore how utility-like standardization is reshaping industries, drawing parallels between electricity and data as foundational infrastructures. The conversation weaves through the challenges faced by innovators, the importance of reasoning in a data-rich world, and the potential for AI to enhance decision-making. Brian offers insights on the future of shared scientific innovation and data resources, while Chris and Corey tackle the complexities of avoiding reasoning errors in high-stakes business decisions.
With a mix of analogies ranging from 737 pilots to Wile E. Coyote moments, the trio unpacks why clear thinking is crucial in a world where data utilities can make or break a startup. And just when you think it's all serious business talk, Chris reminds us that sometimes, all an entrepreneur really needs is for someone to walk in with a cold Alaskan amber. It's a deep dive into the world of B2B sales and data strategy that'll leave you pondering - and possibly thirsty. Join us for this episode, “Wile E. Coyote, Data Utilities and Empty Beer Bottles.”
Links from this episode:
5x5Brian Perks on LinkedIn
Corey Frank on LinkedInBranch49Chris Beall on LinkedInConnectAndSell

In this solo episode of Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall explores the potential of AI-powered data analysis using ChatGPT. Chris demonstrates how this cutting-edge technology can uncover valuable insights from complex sales data in a matter of minutes, a process that would typically take a human analyst days or even weeks. By utilizing ChatGPT's Data Analyst feature and uploading data from ConnectAndSell, he's able to quickly examine the correlations between sales reps' skills and key business outcomes, Chris showcases how AI can help identify the most critical factors influencing pipeline generation and financial success. This eye-opening episode is a must-listen for CEOs, CROs, and CSOs looking to leverage the power of AI to make data-driven decisions and optimize their sales strategies. Join Chris as he delves into the future of sales analytics, revealing surprising findings that could revolutionize your approach to sales training and coaching. Join us for this episode, "Your New Data Analyst BFF Uncovers Surprising Sales Insights.
Key points and timestamps from the episode:
(00:01:37) Chris Beall introduces the topic of using ChatGPT to analyze sales data and uncover insights.(00:02:39) Chris shares his experience working with ChatGPT to write a book summarizing Market Dominance Guys podcasts in just two days.(00:04:20) Chris discusses using ChatGPT for a pricing exercise at ConnectAndSell, balancing customer ROI and company profit.(00:04:55) Chris explains his plan to use ChatGPT to analyze the correlation between reps' skills and business outcomes.(00:07:37) Chris walks through the process of uploading data to ChatGPT and having the AI analyze the columns and data structure.(00:08:34) ChatGPT identifies key columns relevant to the analysis, including activity metrics, conversion rates, and skill scores.(00:19:49) The correlation matrix reveals that asking for the meeting has the strongest correlation with positive outcomes, while professionalism has a surprisingly low correlation.
Keep listening for the analysis results:
The regression analysis shows that 24.1% of the variability in direct amounts is explained by the combined skill metrics.
The breakthrough score has a significant negative coefficient, suggesting that higher breakthrough scores might be associated with lower direct amounts.
Conclusion:
Chris emphasizes the value of using AI for rapid, unbiased data analysis to gain insights and make data-driven decisions in sales.
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
[00:00:00] Susan Finch: Welcome to another session with the Market Dominance Guys, a program exploring all the high stakes speed bumps and off ramps of driving to the top of your market with our host Chris Beall from ConnectAndSell and Corey Frank from Branch49.[00:00:20] 
[00:00:23] Susan Finch: In this solo episode of Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall explores the potential of AI powered data analysis using ChatGPT. Chris demonstrates how this cutting edge technology can uncover valuable insights from complex sales data in a matter of minutes, a process that [00:00:40] would normally take a human analyst days or even weeks.
[00:00:43] Susan Finch: By utilizing ChatGPT's Data Analyst feature and uploading data from ConnectAndSell, he's able to quickly examine the correlations between sales rep skills and key business outcomes. Chris showcases how AI can help identify the most critical factors influencing [00:01:00] pipeline generation. and Financial Success.
[00:01:02] Susan Finch: This eye opening episode is a must listen for CEOs, CROs, and CSOs looking to leverage the power of AI to make data driven decisions and optimize their sales strategies. Join Chris as he delves into the future of sales analytics by uploading his own data and [00:01:20] feeding in complex prompts. This reveals the surprising findings that could revolutionize your approach to sales training and coaching.
[00:01:27] Susan Finch: Join us for this episode, your new data analyst BFF uncovers surprising sales insights.
[00:01:38] Chris Beall: Hey everybody, Chris Beall [00:01:40] here with another episode of Market Dominant Skies. My co host Corey Frank is actually in Armenia right now. And while technically I'm sure it's possible for us to co-host Market Dominant Skies Armenia and Southern Arizona at the same time. Well, let's let [00:02:00] him be. It's getting pretty late there.
[00:02:01] Chris Beall: It's about 2. 35 in the afternoon here in Arizona. Intuitively, I know that's got to be very, very late in Armenia. So I want to try something today and let's see if it works. It could be a little bit tricky, because it could require following a fair amount of verbal input from [00:02:20] me, I guess output, input to you, for something that's a little bit complicated.
[00:02:24] Chris Beall: But here's what I want to look at. I want to look at an example, maybe inspirational, maybe more step by step, you can use it in some way or another. to an example of how to use ChatGPT in [00:02:40] particularly to analyze some information that you might have and point the way forward, maybe give you some surprises.
[00:02:48] Chris Beall: So I've been doing a fair amount of work with ChatGPT since it came out, at least since I was introduced to it. By a couple of smart young people in the backseat of a car coming back from Whistler, [00:03:00] and they were using it to do something that was kind of surprising to me, but made a lot of sense. Once I understood it better, that was to write a yearly family letter and the results were great, but it was the process that really intrigued me.
[00:03:14] Chris Beall: So I decided to learn a little more about it, ended up working with ChatGPT, so to [00:03:20] speak, to write a book that summarized a bunch of market dominance guys podcasts, and I wanted to see, could you do that in a couple of days? The book wasn't great. It never got any human editing, but it was usable. You could read it and you could get something out of it.
[00:03:38] Chris Beall: And two days is pretty [00:03:40] short for a book. Half a year, a year, a year and a half, two years is pretty common. So I thought that's really interesting. And it was very straightforward. As I proceeded through 2023, more and more taking time with ChatGPT to see what I could understand, [00:04:00] uh, building some scoring capabilities for reps skills on cold calling as part of that process.
[00:04:07] Chris Beall: I thought, well, let's, let's just see how far we can go with this. And at one point I did a pretty. Substantial pricing exercise for the products here at ConnectAndSell, trying to balance the customer's [00:04:20] return on investment with ConnectAndSell's own profit on any given deal, at any given price point, given structure.
[00:04:28] Chris Beall: And what surprised me was that it was a better analyst than any human analyst I'd ever worked with, part of which was, it was just comfortable. There's something about asking a bot to do [00:04:40] something for you that has both an impersonal quality, but kind of gives you a feeling of, I'm in control of this.
[00:04:46] Chris Beall: There aren't going to be a lot of, yeah, but I'm not going to deal with a whole bunch of bias. It's going to make mistakes. I'm going to have to pay attention, but not a bad experience at all. In fact, a very, very good experience. So I thought, [00:05:00] Hey, there's a lot of things we all believe that might be subject to analysis.
[00:05:05] Chris Beall: And one of them is that RepSkill in conversations is correlated with outcomes, business outcomes. So I thought I'd take a skills analysis done by a GPT 4 model using a skills [00:05:20] rubric itself written by a. GPT 4 model that was provided originally with an input of about one hour of a detailed description by an expert of exactly what needs to happen in a cold call, second by second by second, and what skills need to be demonstrated.
[00:05:39] Chris Beall: So the [00:05:40] rubric was good. It's kind of long. It describes for each one of the skills that it invented, by the way. It describes what happened at sort of a zero to one point level, you know, two to three and so forth. And it was a 10 point scale. And so just ran that against a whole bunch of data that we [00:06:00] happen to have about our own reps.
[00:06:02] Chris Beall: And pretty much just took the transcripts of all their conversations they had for a few weeks, put them together in, uh, in a form that the GPT. system or the GPT model could digest, apply these skills rubrics to it [00:06:20] and basically score all the reps one week at a time on these different skills. So that was something that was fairly straightforward to do, but it required a lot of, I'll call it kind of mechanics, you know, grabbing a hold of the recordings and turning them into transcripts and making pipelines of [00:06:40] data that went to processes that did X, Y, and Z.
[00:06:43] Chris Beall: But once I had it, I thought, you know, I wonder, we kind of assume that these skills mean something with regard to outcomes. Why don't I take a look? So here's an analysis that was done by the ChatGPT [00:07:00] data analyst, which is one of the kinds of flavors of ChatGPT that you can get nowadays. And I'll actually read through it and tell you how long it took.
[00:07:11] Chris Beall: So this entire process. It took about 12 minutes end to end once I had all the skills in an [00:07:20] Excel file. And here is my initial prompt. I said, let's analyze a collection of weekly results of the ConnectAndSell sales team's cold calls. I will upload an Excel file and walk you through what the columns mean.
[00:07:33] Chris Beall: And we can then conduct a regression analysis to understand the impact of each rep's skills on [00:07:40] three business outcomes. Meeting set per prospecting hour, meeting set per week, and amount of new sales pipeline influenced directly or indirectly by those reps. Now one thing I like about ChatGPT, I don't know, I feel a little foolish liking this, but, ChatGPT.
[00:07:55] Chris Beall: com Our emotions count is it comes back [00:08:00] usually with some encouragement. So it says, that's, that sounds like a great plan. Please go ahead and upload the Excel file. And we can start by reviewing the columns and the data. Once I understand the data set, we can proceed with the regression analysis to examine the effects of the rep skills on the specified business outcomes.
[00:08:18] Chris Beall: So I upload away. [00:08:20] And the data analyst comes back and says, thank you for uploading the file. By the way, no analyst has ever thanked me for anything before. So this is great. Let's start by loading the data so I can understand its structure and contents. I'll check the first few rows and provide a summary of the columns.
[00:08:35] Chris Beall: The dataset contains a detailed breakdown of weekly results from sales [00:08:40] representatives activities. Here are some of the key columns that might be relevant for our analysis. And then it lists the columns. The rep name. The week start date and week end date, the dials, connects and conversations, the number of meetings, the total session time, total talk time, total wait time, total wrap time.[00:09:00] 
[00:09:00] Chris Beall: Those are relevant in ConnectAndSell LAN. Session time is how long we're using the system to call people. Talk time is obviously talk time. Wait time is the time between when you push a button and get a conversation. And wrap time is the time you spend wrapping up, taking notes, And setting next steps and [00:09:20] formulating your teleprompter for your next conversation.
[00:09:23] Chris Beall: So then it says conversion percentage, conversion rates from dials to meetings and from conversations to meetings. Scores. There was a greeting score, an opener, breakthrough, a meeting score, an objections score, [00:09:40] and a score for assertiveness, professionalism. And there was also an overall score, which was.
[00:09:45] Chris Beall: Actually weighted based on the number of conversations that got the subscores. So then it says there are also more complex fields like direct amount by stage and positive amount by stage, which seem to indicate financial [00:10:00] metrics related to sales pipeline stages. I'll stop reading here and just say that was pretty good.
[00:10:07] Chris Beall: It got everything right, including the financial metrics. And I'll explain these financial metrics here in just a moment. Since we're interested in regression analysis, it goes on to understand the impact of rep [00:10:20] skills on business outcomes. We should identify which specific metrics and scores will be most relevant to use as independent variables, predictors, and dependent variables, outcomes.
[00:10:31] Chris Beall: Please guide me on how you would like to proceed. Specifically, which outcomes and variables we should focus on for the analysis. Now, that was a [00:10:40] fair amount of output for a fairly small amount of input, and it sort of nailed everything. These financial metrics, by the way, are from an attribution report that we have in ConnectAndSell that looks at opportunities by stage, and opportunities [00:11:00] by how they were influenced.
[00:11:01] Chris Beall: So some opportunities came about after a meeting was scheduled. Some after a positive conversation, that was the positive amount by stage, and some after any old conversation, and that's called possible amount by stage. So all of this data is in the spreadsheet. It's a very, very wide [00:11:20] spreadsheet, and it has a lot more columns in it that talk about things like.
[00:11:24] Chris Beall: Which objections were the most common? How were those objections handled? And also, what was the rationale for each score? But I wanted to stick to the numbers here. So now I'm about, what, maybe 2 3 minutes into this entire process. I get this [00:11:40] set of analyses and guesses as to what the columns are. And they look pretty good.
[00:11:45] Chris Beall: So I said, well, let's take a look at the columns with Amount in their name. And it said the columns in the dataset related to Amount are DirectAmount, Direct financial outcome associated with activities. This means meetings, by the way. Positive [00:12:00] amount. These are associated with positive activities. Now, GPT, the ChatGPT got that wrong.
[00:12:08] Chris Beall: It said positive financial outcome. It actually was intended to mean is financial outcome from positive conversations or preceded by positive conversations. But [00:12:20] is good enough for this purpose. I didn't need to correct it. And then there's a possible amount, which is the same thing, but it's possible attribution, possible influence.
[00:12:29] Chris Beall: And then it went on to say these amounts are also broken down by sales pipeline stage. So we could look at every stage and look at, say, the closed one only, or look at [00:12:40] contract through the closed one, or whatever it happens to be. Then it goes on to say these stage specific columns likely provide a more detailed breakdown of financial outcomes according to different stages in the sales process.
[00:12:51] Chris Beall: Given this information. It says, by the way, this is the ChatGPT analyst. Given this information, we could analyze how [00:13:00] these financial metrics are influenced by various factors, such as the number of dials, connects, conversations, and different score metrics of the sales reps. Would you like to explore any specific relationships between these financial outcomes and other metrics in the data set?
[00:13:16] Chris Beall: And I said, we will focus on [00:13:20] direct amount. As the financial outcome of interest. So that means a meeting has to be set. Well, it's really not shocking that we're gonna find a high correlation of direct amount to guess what meetings that are set. It won't be a hundred percent. 'cause not every meeting set is actually a meeting attended, and nor is [00:13:40] an opportunity created for every meeting set, although in our way of doing business at ConnectAndSell.
[00:13:45] Chris Beall: We tend to create an opportunity as soon as a meeting is set, because that way we can track it more clearly. So the data analyst says, great. I love that, by the way. We'll focus on analyzing the [00:14:00] direct amount as the primary financial outcome to see how it's influenced by various factors. We can investigate its relationships with 1.
[00:14:07] Chris Beall: Reps performance scores, 2. Activity metrics, such as dials, connects, conversations, and meetings. Thanks. Given the potential complexity and size of your data set, let's start by [00:14:20] exploring the correlations between direct amount and these various metrics. This will help us determine which factors might have a more significant impact on financial outcomes and are worth including in a more detailed regression analysis.
[00:14:34] Chris Beall: Shall we proceed with this correlation analysis? I love that it asks. If there is [00:14:40] any specific subset of variables or additional factors you're particularly interested in, let me know. And I said, this is the easiest of the prompts. Yes. That means I'd like to proceed. It immediately outputs a correlation matrix between direct amounts and all the predictors.
[00:14:59] Chris Beall: Of [00:15:00] course, every predictor maps to itself perfectly, so that correlation is one. And then there are correlations of Meetings, as an example, with outcomes and that correlation is very strong with the outcome of direct amount. Meetings correlated at a [00:15:20] 77 level. That's a high correlation and with conversations at a 59 level.
[00:15:28] Chris Beall: That's not too surprising. It's really hard to set a meeting in ConnectAndSell. Unless you have a conversation first. So it doesn't say that all you really have to do is just [00:15:40] have tons of conversations, but it does say that conversations are highly correlated with meetings and meetings are highly correlated with direct amounts.
[00:15:48] Chris Beall: Therefore, conversations are correlated with. DirectAmount. That's just kind of the way it goes. That correlation of conversations to direct amounts is 56. It's almost the same as [00:16:00] the correlation to meetings. So, it gave me this beautiful matrix. So, down one side it says DirectAmount. That's the answer, so to speak, what we're correlating to, that's the financial outcome.
[00:16:11] Chris Beall: And then Dials, Connects, Conversations, Meetings, and then the Scores. The Greeting Score, Opener, Breakthrough. That means how well did they [00:16:20] execute the breakthrough portion of the conversation. The part that goes something like, I believe we've discovered a breakthrough. That completely eliminates the need to To do a bunch of manual analysis in order to have a detailed and comprehensive set of insights based on complex data.
[00:16:38] Chris Beall: I just made that up right now, [00:16:40] but that's an example. And then meeting, which is asking for the meeting and re asking for the meeting and re asking for the meeting. Objections, objection handling, assertiveness, and professionalism, and then the overall score. So this map is red. I'm not showing it to you because we don't do that here on Market Dominance, guys, [00:17:00] but could.
[00:17:01] Chris Beall: Red is the 1. 0s. That's a 100 percent correlation. Most everything's correlated to itself. And then there's sort of an orange, that's some lower level of correlation, kind of a white, which is medium level, and then it goes into the cold blues. All the way to, to a dark blue. So [00:17:20] it shows me the correlation matrix.
[00:17:22] Chris Beall: I can look at it right, there is huge value in making a correlation matrix like this in Excel or some other way. I don't know if I would've done it. It's just too painful. It's too much work. This is a huge time saver, and I can look with my eyes at it and let my visual system [00:17:40] call things out that are surprising and I say, huh, 
[00:17:44] Susan Finch: we'll be back in a moment after a quick break.
[00:17:52] Susan Finch: ConnectAndSell. Welcome to the end of dialing as you know it. ConnectAndSell's patented technology loads your best sales folks up with 8 to [00:18:00] 10 times more live, qualified conversations every day. And when we say qualified, we're talking about really qualified. Like knowing what kind of cheese they like on their Impossible Whopper kind of qualified.
[00:18:12] Susan Finch: Learn more at ConnectAndSell. com[00:18:20] 
[00:18:20] Chris Beall: Here's something that's surprising. There is a very low correlation 0.05, which is almost the same as zero between how professional the reps are, professionalism and meetings, and there's also a very low correlation. Which is 03, [00:18:40] even lower, between professionalism and the direct amount of pipeline that's built through meetings.
[00:18:48] Chris Beall: So I wouldn't have expected that. I don't think you would either. One would think that. A rep that is more professional, that comports themselves in a way that we would say is professional, they don't get rattled, they don't [00:19:00] have emotional responses that don't make sense, that that would be correlated with positive outcomes, and it's not.
[00:19:07] Chris Beall: It's funny, though, because it's a negatively correlated with the number of connects and negatively correlated with dials, which kind of makes you think that if you have too many conversations, you might lose a little bit of your [00:19:20] professionalism, something to keep track of out there. Assertiveness was a little bit better.
[00:19:26] Chris Beall: It was a 0. 28 correlation out of 1, so 28 out of 100 with the direct amount. So it's not nothing, but it's not strong. Objection handling is [00:19:40] 0. 32, a little bit better than assertiveness. But nothing to write home about. And then BreakthroughScript itself. We prize our BreakthroughScript. We think it's really fabulous.
[00:19:52] Chris Beall: That adhering to it makes a difference. Well, the correlation with direct amount is 0. 17, 17 out of 100. The [00:20:00] opener also we think is super important, and yet it's correlated only 0. 12, 12 out of 100. Hmm, that's pretty low, right? Same thing with the greeting, 0. 15. So the greeting The opener and the breakthrough, which is the first kind of chunk, most of the [00:20:20] bulk of the breakthrough script and all of these reps are using our breakthrough script.
[00:20:23] Chris Beall: And these are all cold calls. They don't amount to much with regard to booking meetings and therefore getting opportunities on the books that required booking meetings. The strongest correlation of all was the [00:20:40] correlation with, guess what, asking for the meeting. And then kind of insisting that the meeting is a good idea.
[00:20:47] Chris Beall: That correlation is 40 out of 100. So it is approximately 2 point something times how well you do in the opener, or the greeting, or the breakthrough, and [00:21:00] it's about maybe, you know, something like 33 percent more important than objection handling. And assertiveness is vastly more important, uh, you know, more than 10 times, probably 12, 13 times more important than professionalism.
[00:21:18] Chris Beall: Not that we want people to [00:21:20] be unprofessional. I'm just saying it doesn't lead to measurable results. You probably shouldn't be coaching it too hard unless you're just doing it for your own feelings. So, then, I just explained all that to you, your listener, but ChatGPT Data Analyst explained it all to me. And it [00:21:40] basically said, key observations from the heat map.
[00:21:43] Chris Beall: Meetings have the strongest positive correlation with direct amount, suggesting that as the number of meetings increases, the direct financial outcomes tend to be higher. One could say, well, duh, but it feels kind of bad to say, well, duh, to a well meaning bot, right? So I'm going to say, oh, that's, that's good that you [00:22:00] saw that.
[00:22:01] Chris Beall: It actually. it is kind of comforting that this obvious connection was made. Conversations and Connects also show positive correlations, though not as strong as Meetings, indicating their importance in influencing financial outcomes. Now this is important in a very simple way. You actually have [00:22:20] control if you're running an organization to some degree over how many conversations the team has.
[00:22:25] Chris Beall: Your data could be better than it is right now, and it would take fewer dials to get conversations. You could use technology like ConnectAndSell that gets you more conversations. And you could also look at the reps' activities and ask, [00:22:40] is too much time being spent wrapping up or pausing or hanging out, petting the cat and drinking coffee?
[00:22:47] Chris Beall: Could that time have been spent? Without abusing the rep in actual conversations. Sometimes reps have fewer conversations than they otherwise could. Jeff Blunt says one more dial. [00:23:00] We always say one more conversation here at ConnectAndSell. Then it says most of the score metrics show positive correlations.
[00:23:08] Chris Beall: Those are the skills with direct amounts, but these are relatively modest. This suggests that while higher skills ratings do relate to better financial outcomes, the strength of these relationships [00:23:20] varies. So then it says, given these insights, a regression analysis focused on meetings, conversations, and perhaps some of the higher correlated scores could provide further understanding of their impact on direct amounts.
[00:23:32] Chris Beall: Would you like me to proceed with a regression analysis based on these findings? Or is there any specific aspect you'd like to explore [00:23:40] further? Now, this is super important. At this point, I could go with the flow and say, yeah, that's about it. But on reflection, what I'm really interested in is. What about the skills?
[00:23:52] Chris Beall: We work a lot in sales on skills. We coach skills. We don't work as much on data, [00:24:00] even though it could increase the number of conversations easily by getting better data. I mean, say all of your data was for calling was data that told you that these are people who answer the phone. Or their actual propensity to answer the phone.
[00:24:15] Chris Beall: Now we actually have that data in ConnectAndSell and it's automatically integrated into every [00:24:20] calling session, but it's still one of those things that management pays less attention to than they do to skills, at least with regard to lip service. I'm not sure how much attention is actually paid to skills.
[00:24:34] Chris Beall: Because I'm not sure that the breakdown of skills is actually done that cleanly. But here's what I [00:24:40] said to my friend, a ChatGPT data analyst. The correlation with meetings is actually mechanical, in that direct amount is defined as, quote, pipeline that resulted from meetings set in cold calls using ConnectAndSell.
[00:24:55] Chris Beall: This is also true to a lesser degree with regard to conversations and connects. [00:25:00] Even though the score metrics, that's the skills, have a weaker correlation with direct amount, they're actually more interesting to me because the impact of skill scores on business outcomes is an unexplored research topic.
[00:25:13] Chris Beall: So let's try the regression analysis with the score metrics and see what we get. Now, one of the [00:25:20] things when you're working with generative AI, and I work a lot with ChatGPT and then some other GPT 4 turbo models that we've created. is, hmm, it'll do anything you ask it to do. It'll give it a shot. This is highly different from most human employees, especially [00:25:40] analysts that you work with.
[00:25:41] Chris Beall: If you say something to an analyst and they don't really agree that that's worth studying, you're not going to get their best. I love the fact that there's no complaint about rework. or delving in again, or correcting it and giving it another shot by this particular [00:26:00] bot data analyst. I think it's huge because it lets me be more creative.
[00:26:04] Chris Beall: I can simply ask it to do what I want it to do, look at the results. I didn't put a lot of mental energy into the mechanics of producing the results because That's what it did. And I can be more reflective. I can think [00:26:20] more about what I'm seeing and what I'm learning. So, the data analyst here, when I said, hey, let's do the scores, it says, that makes sense.
[00:26:28] Chris Beall: Ah, comfort to me. Focusing on the score metrics, the skills, to explore their impact on direct amounts will help us understand how rep skill levels influence business outcomes. Since [00:26:40] this aspect hasn't been deeply explored, it could provide valuable insights. We'll perform a multiple regression analysis using these score metrics as independent variables and direct amount as the dependent variable.
[00:26:53] Chris Beall: I'll prepare the regression model and show you the results. Let's proceed. And then it goes ahead and does the analysis. [00:27:00] Now, if you're like me, you probably could do a multivariable, multivariate regression analysis. With some effort. Using Excel. I don't know how you might do it, but you could probably get it done.
[00:27:17] Chris Beall: This wasn't much effort. I just said, please do it. [00:27:20] And here's what I get. The results from the regression analysis using the RepSkill scores as predictors for direct amount are as follows. Regression summary. R squared. 0. 241. That means that about 24. 1 percent of the variability in direct amount is explained by the combined score metrics.
[00:27:39] Chris Beall: [00:27:40] Which indicates a moderate level of explanatory power. So this is really important, because even though skills, it turns out, are not highly correlated with outcomes, there are some things we can go after and try to make better. And 24 percent of your pipeline is a lot. So if 24 percent of the [00:28:00] variability in your pipeline, at least in this case produced from meetings, is explained by these score metrics.
[00:28:05] Chris Beall: Well, okay, it might not have been super strong, but it could be worth pursuing. And then there's an adjusted R squared, adjusted for the number of predictors. And it indicates after accounting for the [00:28:20] number of variables, the model explains about 18 percent of the variance. So less than 24%, still not zero.
[00:28:28] Chris Beall: And think of it this way. If there is potential variance in the pipeline from 1, 000, 000 to 1. 18 million, or [00:28:40] some number like that, the skills could actually influence your ability to get that extra 180, 000 of pipeline. So these are not locks, by the way, because we really don't have cause and effect here yet.
[00:28:51] Chris Beall: We have correlation, but worth knowing. And then it gives me the individual coefficients, [00:29:00] and the individual coefficients They tell you how statistically predictable these predictors are, that is, how wrong they are. So it says the greeting, opener, objections, assertiveness, and overall score are not statistically significant predictors of direct amount, as their p values are [00:29:20] greater than 0.
[00:29:21] Chris Beall: 05. That is, the p value means probability of the variance just due to Randomness. So, would you get the same thing over and over and over, or would it spread all over the place, so the p value is basically, say, percentage due to chance, eh, kind of high. The score [00:29:40] breakthrough, the breakthrough score has, get this, a significant negative coefficient.
[00:29:45] Chris Beall: with a p value of 043, suggesting that higher breakthrough scores might actually be associated with lower direct amounts, which is an interesting and possibly counterintuitive finding. Now this is the analyst, [00:30:00] the GPT analyst, telling me that this is interesting and possibly counterintuitive. So if you kind of think about that.
[00:30:07] Chris Beall: That's pretty amazing that a bot that just knows how to spit out next tokens and next, effectively, words, would conclude that this is an [00:30:20] interesting and possibly counterintuitive finding. So I find it counterintuitive also, especially since I'm Kind of one of the people who came up with the breakthrough script.
[00:30:30] Chris Beall: And I would think following the breakthrough well would be a good thing, but maybe not, or maybe it's only in the case where you're trying [00:30:40] to follow the breakthrough and you fail that that's a good thing. So again, we don't know, but it pointed that out. The analysts pointed that out. The meeting score.
[00:30:49] Chris Beall: This score has a significant positive coefficient with a p value less than 001, it's a really small chance that it's due to chance, indicating a strong [00:31:00] positive impact on direct amount. This suggests that skills in securing meetings are crucial for achieving higher financial outcomes. Well, in one way, that's well dubbed because if you don't ask for the meeting, you don't get the meeting.
[00:31:12] Chris Beall: But in another way, it tells you, hey, if you're going to coach something, go coach that, asking for the meeting. That would, in sales [00:31:20] in general, be considered to be coaching for closing. There's whole books on this subject, but I think it's particularly interesting that the mathematical analysis says it's kind of where it's at.
[00:31:30] Chris Beall: And then the last one is professionalism, which also shows a negative coefficient. and p value close to the threshold for statistical significance, [00:31:40] suggesting a possible negative impact on direct amount. So, then it gives me an interpretation. We're almost done. I hope that this was tolerable for you to listen to all this, but I thought it might be interesting because I'm going to go back and just go through the prompts and tell you how long this took.
[00:31:57] Chris Beall: I don't think I could have done this kind of work if I'd been [00:32:00] left alone for a day, and I wouldn't have trusted the results. I would have had to go back and check them. More than once. And then also, if I presented them to somebody else, they surely wouldn't have trusted the results because they go, hey, Chris, these are your results.
[00:32:15] Chris Beall: So, here's the interpretation. The most influential skills based on this model are [00:32:20] related to handling meetings, that is, asking for the meeting, and breakthrough moments in calls. With meeting skills being particularly critical for financial success. So, interestingly, one was positive and the other was negative.
[00:32:34] Chris Beall: This analysis suggests a selective impact of different skill areas on [00:32:40] financial outcomes, highlighting the importance of specific training and development focuses for sales reps. So now it asks me, would you like to delve deeper into any specific aspect of these results, explore other models, or adjust the analysis in any other way?
[00:32:55] Chris Beall: And I'm going to do a live demo right here, and I'm just going to add a prompt. [00:33:00] Let's consider The impact on another financial metric, which is possible. Now, I'm testing it here to see if it can figure out that possible means possible amount. It does a great job. It says we will now analyze the impact of the REPS skill scores on another [00:33:20] financial metric, possible amount.
[00:33:21] Chris Beall: Possible amount means some conversation took place, and later,
[00:33:30] Chris Beall: So, what happens here? Interestingly enough, even if the conversation did not [00:33:40] lead to a meeting, you have the same correlations of the skills, the greeting, the opener, the objections, the assertiveness and professionalism to the outcomes, which is pretty much nothing compared to what Except for one thing, [00:34:00] professionalism has a strong negative impact on possible amount.
[00:34:03] Chris Beall: Now think about that. Isn't that just fascinating? That you can be more professional and maybe you sound a little stiffer. Maybe you're harder to trust. Anyway, it's a strong negative impact on the possible amount and on the [00:34:20] amount directly from meetings. So I think that's quite fascinating, and the breakthrough score is still negative, but it's not as strong as professionalism, and the meeting score, asking for the meeting, has a positive coefficient on the overall amount, that is, whether it's from a meeting or not.
[00:34:39] Chris Beall: Now, [00:34:40] we have to have a little bit of warning here. When you're looking at results from any analysis, whether this kind done by a GPT model or done by hand, By an analyst, you have to be careful of certain things. So this particular analysis has a flaw in it. And the flaw is a kind of selection bias, and that is [00:35:00] the overall metric, which is, Hey, did you get anything in the pipeline at all?
[00:35:06] Chris Beall: Includes the metric from the meetings. That is, from the direct attribution from a meeting leading to the pipeline. So what I should really do is subtract out the, [00:35:20] uh, the pipeline that was generated from meetings and make sure that it's not being included. And I could go ahead and do that even without reloading the spreadsheet.
[00:35:29] Chris Beall: I could ask the analyst to make up a new metric that subtracts the possible.[00:35:40] 
[00:35:46] Chris Beall: So again, I'm going to recap the purpose in this whole exercise. The reason I'm doing this is just to show you that there are deep insights, or at least interesting insights that can be gotten much more rapidly than you might think. And I [00:36:00] think in a more compelling way, it's easier to think about because you didn't wear yourself out on the mechanics of the analysis, and you didn't end up with the biases of your data analyst and just using a GPT model, like ChatGPT, and I recommend that the GPT 4 Turbo Model Data Analyst, just because I'm using it here.
[00:36:19] Chris Beall: I'm sure [00:36:20] there are others that are Equally good, and perhaps better, but using that in a simple way by loading up some data and then telling it what you're trying to do. As I said, let's analyze a collection of these results and look for a regression analysis to understand the impact of skills. On business outcomes [00:36:40] and just be guided by the response of the GPT model.
[00:36:44] Chris Beall: It comes back and says something, you ask another prompt and away you go. This entire process for me, the first time, I think, took 12 minutes. It would have taken me about a week. I get one pretty picture out of it, which is a correlation matrix, which I [00:37:00] can share with people. I get an analysis that I can share with a little copy and paste.
[00:37:06] Chris Beall: I got some, I can't do this because the file has gotten stale. So I reloaded the file and did it again. The whole analysis again, I didn't even have to tell it what to do other than let's switch over to the possible amount from [00:37:20] direct amount. So, I hope this is somewhat enlightening. The main thing I want to do is, I want to encourage folks to use these large language models as their partner in reasoning through business situations and understanding them without relying [00:37:40] On a human analyst, you might take you a day, two days, five days, or forever to come back with results and may be injecting their own bias, either through selection bias or survivorship bias or something else.
[00:37:54] Chris Beall: And you can avoid a lot of arguments this way, get yourself some insights, and [00:38:00] then they're packaged up nicely so you can discuss them with others. So a very different episode of Market Dominance, guys, but hey. We believe in data here and unanalyzed data. Well, it's kind of like an unexamined life. Is it worth living?
[00:38:15] Chris Beall: We don't know, but unexamined data or unanalyzed [00:38:20] data generally is not worth very much. So for Corey Frank, Enjoying Armenia and Chris Beall, this is Market Dominance, guys.
[00:38:37] Susan Finch: Selling a big idea to a skeptical customer, [00:38:40] investor, or partner is one of the hardest jobs in business. So when it's time to really go big, you need to use an uncommon methodology to gain attention, frame your thoughts, and employ successful sequencing that is fresh enough to convince others that your ideas will truly change their world.
[00:38:56] Susan Finch: From crafting just the right cold call screenplays, to curating and mapping [00:39:00] the ideal call list for your entire TAM, Branch49's modern and innovative sales toolbox offers a guiding hand to ambitious organizations in their quest to reach market dominance. Learn more at branch49. com. Never miss an episode.
[00:39:19] Susan Finch: Go to any of your [00:39:20] favorite podcast venues and search for Market Dominance Guys, or go to market dominance guys. com and subscribe.

Corey Frank and Chris Beall are once again joined by Fred Mondragon for this final segment from their visit. In the first two episodes with Fred, the guys covered the topic of The Seductive Shadowboxing of CRM data - Fit vs. Intent, Then the other side was discussed - Intent, Fit and the Future of Sales intelligence.
In this final segment, the trio explores how Rev's AI-powered platform is helping sales teams "find the zipper in the weasel suit," transforming weasels into top-performing pigs. Fred explains how Rev's "special purpose AI" leverages vast amounts of data to help reps identify and target their ideal customers, while Chris emphasizes the importance of engaging in trust-building conversations. Corey sees the immense potential in combining Rev's AI targeting with ConnectAndSell's powerful sales acceleration tools to solve the challenge of "Who do I go after next?" Join us for this episode, "Finding the zipper - helping weasels become top-performing pigs."
About Fred Mondragon:
Fred, a senior sales and business development executive with extensive experience at SaaS software companies, joined Rev in 2021. He has managed revenue generation channels at numerous successful startups and large companies, including TimesTen, Oracle, and most recently, Medallia, where he set up the channel sales and alliances function from scratch. Fred received his B.A. and MBA from Stanford.
Links from this episode:
Fred Mondragon | LinkedIn
The Sales Development Platform: Find your next best customer | GetRev.AI
Corey Frank on LinkedInBranch49Chris Beall on LinkedInConnectAndSell

Corey Frank and Chris Beall share eye-opening insights from their recent marketing conference experience that every CSO and sales manager needs to hear. Chris uncovers a startling truth: nearly all MarTech tools are based on the misguided belief that you can't achieve success by simply calling prospects and having meaningful conversations. He challenges this notion head-on, emphasizing the immense power of genuine dialogue in building trust and gathering valuable information.
Our Market Dominance Guys also explore the critical difference between a mere phone call and a true phone conversation, revealing how these conversations can dramatically amplify your downstream marketing efforts. This episode is packed with actionable insights that will help you leverage the power of conversations to dominate your market and drive sales success. Listen to episode 216: Conversations, the Kryptonite of MarTech?
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
Corey Frank (00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank and the Sage of Sales, the Hawking of Hawking and the profit of profit. Chris Beal. Welcome to Phoenix, Arizona and the campus Grand Canyon University for an onsite edition of the Market Dominance. Guys,
Chris Beall (00:17):
I'm telling you onsite, anybody, by the way, who has a chance to come to Grand Canyon University and visit this incredible campus and meet these incredible people and come in and actually hobnob with the Branch 49 team. I say, book your tickets now. Avoid that spring training thing because unless you really want to come and get some baseball too, because there's a lot of great baseball this time of year around here. There
Corey Frank (00:42):
It sure is. And what brings Ms. Ucci and Mr. Beal to Phoenix and the greater Phoenix area, Scottsdale, Arizona if you had a very interesting couple of days at a marketing conference. That's where I wanted to have a special edition of the market. Dom guys talk, not just about the conference and some of the learnings, but just kind of an above the line treatise, if you will, manifesto of what your rant for 2024 is about basic MarTech tools. So Chris, what did you learn at this conference where I'm taking deep
Chris Beall (01:19):
Breath? Well, I learned two things. So the conference is great. It was really well organized. It's in Phoenician, so it was beautiful. It's put on by Emerald, I think who puts it on, and they've got a bunch of conferences, so I highly recommend they do great conferences, go to their conferences, and I was invited to this one with Helen by our friend Scott Gordon and Lamb Alliance. They're of salutary data, so they kindly invited us. They were going and they had kind of a discount coupon so to speak, and so well, but marketing conference, do I really want any marketing, right? I mean, I love marketing, but marketing tools and technologies and services have always struck me as there's something about 'em that puts me off a little bit. But I decided, Hey, I want to go, Helen, you want to go? Yeah, let's go.
(02:08):
So we drove up a couple hour drive, and here's my impression twofold. One is actually about ConnectAndSell, which is surprising, and that is almost everybody, by which I mean about 35, 40% of the sales reps who were there pitching these marketing tools when they saw who I was and where I was from, as Helen said, you're actually a little bit of a thing. I said, yeah, well, it's kind of a thing that they would go to ConnectAndSell. I used that in and then they would cast it out in their mind when I was at this company 10 years ago, six years ago, nine years ago, whenever it was, and I love that all I had to do is push a button and talk to somebody and make this sort of a dance. Like, oh, I'd sit back in my chair and it was all smiles and all that kind of stuff.
(02:57):
And some really senior people were like, yeah, yeah, I really know. ConnectAndSell, blah, blah, blah. And one of them said, there's something wrong with you guys. Your technology is so powerful, you should be dominating the entire world, and I'm going dominant, market dominant must not be doing something right. So that was part of it, but that's a minor part. The major part was I went and talked to all the vendors. It was kind of a little bit of a quiet conference. It had some sessions. I didn't do any of the sessions except I went and listened to ZoomInfo and technology advice together, and I like Henry a lot. So it was great to go and sit and have lunch and get to talk to him for a minute afterwards. That was kind of enlightening. They're bringing in what they call second party data to go with first party data, which is the stuff you have third party data, which is the stuff ZoomInfo has.
(03:43):
But what about second party data, which is published data, but it's not the data, it's the fact that people who might be your potential buyers have come to consume it. So from publishers. So that was interesting, but the number one thing I walked away with was this, and I may be getting this wrong, but my impression is every single piece of marketing technology that's out there is predicated on one concept, and that is that you cannot get a conversation by just calling somebody and talking to them that you must go through some, what I call textual time-based gymnastics in order to either cajole, influence, trick, herd, whatever, somebody to come to your website and talk to you. And so I thought, how interesting, and I'm starting to look at this. I'm thinking, how many hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into the development of all this technology. That's based on what I believe is a fundamentally false premise.
(04:48):
As you know, Corey, we connect about 4.5 million conversations, live conversations with decision makers every year at ConnectAndSell. So I'm thinking this is just interesting to have a whole industry built around a notion that you can't talk to anybody because if you could talk to people, then you would use every one of those tools differently. You would use the advertising differently, the sequencers differently, the stuff that tells you who you should talk to differently. You'd actually use it to talk to them. You would send emails after a conversation. So that's kind of what struck me. Then the third thing that struck me was something mathematical. We always talk about the math of sales. We never talk about the math of marketing. And Helen told me something the other day, which she says, everybody says the same thing, and then they show you the same diagram and they believe this thing looks like it came off of stones that came down from the mountain.
(05:47):
It is etched in stone that only two to maybe 3% of your market is in the market now, and therefore you should do X, Y, or Z, which generally involves buying this vendor's technology or their services or whatever in order to try to move that needle in your favor. And I just thought, what an odd mathematical claim that is. It's just an odd mathematical claim. And here's my thoughts about it. Say the number's 2%. So somebody says, Hey, 2% of your market is in the market right now, so let's just go forward. Say in the market means for one quarter they're considering something for one quarter. So 2% in one quarter is 8%, four quarters, which is a year. And now that means that whoever says that believes truly that the replacement cycle for everybody's category of solution in B2B is about 12 and a half years because 12 and a half times eight is Yeah, but
Corey Frank (07:02):
That's true. Versus the great chat holmes who we know from market dominance is three.
Chris Beall (07:08):
It's been three years. I mean, does anybody really buy a serious solution for their business? Unless it's something really, I'll call it strangely sticky, you can't get away from, okay, Salesforce is a great example. Once you start with Salesforce, you're probably doomed. Although I see people try to get off of it all the time, I mean, it's like a rare rabbit in the Briar patch, you're not going to get away from it. Why? Because all the fields change all the time and nobody knows what anything means, but it's supposed to be your single source of truth. So it has the convenient feature that as a single source of truth, it never contains ascertainable truth and therefore you can't get rid of it because there's always a constituency for some flavor of the truth. We can't take that away. It might not die. But in general, solutions in B2B last on average about three years, they don't last for 12 years in the innovation economy. 12 years is 12 forever, right? So I don't know, what are your thoughts about that?
Corey Frank (08:05):
That's fascinating. So who attends these marketing conferences? Are they looking for the proverbial hope? Are they looking for the 40 yard path? Because when you extrapolate the math like that, and when you look at the wide variety of tool sets, that for the most part exists to get a couple of mere basis points. Not whole numbers of increases, it's just people are running out of time, sales reps, sales VPs, CROs, board members, investors. It just seems that we're on the T access here is running at a faster rate than the actual cash burn,
Chris Beall (08:46):
And that was a real theme when you talk to individual people who are attendees. So I'll make a sharp distinction. So this conference was great, had a lot of good vendors there. The vendors of course send their salespeople, so that made it really easy for me to go talk to 'em. By the way, I realized that we are being kind of dumb at connect, and so we should just go to every conference of anybody doing anything. They send their salespeople and I go talk to 'em, and those salespeople will go, wait, you mean I could push a button and talk to somebody? Except what I've really learned is they say, I used your product before. I love that thing. It's like, are you using it now? Well, no. That's one thing is the conference itself is divided into the marketing people and up to chief revenue officers who show up to learn, which is great. They're from the sessions and to check out the vendors and maybe to go to the happy hour. And there was a great dinner last night that was just a super dinner. The folks at postal put it on. By the way, the ceo co founder of postal actually said that postal is an okay name. I said, postal doesn't going postal. And he said, no, no, nobody under the edge of 40 even knows what going postal.
(09:57):
That was great. And then we got invited to dinner. So there's all this great stuff going on, and these are folks who are looking for something that they can kind of plug into their stack in order to really, in order to generate leads or pipeline. There was a lot of taco pipeline, pipeline, pipeline, pipeline, pipeline, pipeline, which is great. Really,
Corey Frank (10:15):
Really interesting.
Chris Beall (10:17):
A lot of taco pipelines, but nobody told me that they could measure a pipeline, not one. Nobody said, yes, we will help you produce a measurable pipeline. It was always, we will help you produce pipeline. It's like, well, but if it's not measurable, is it really a pipeline? It's that tree in the forest, right? It's like is non-measurable? Pipeline, pipeline? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I thought that was a curiosity also.
Corey Frank (10:45):
Well, if you're measuring this pipeline or you're not measuring this pipeline, you just want more of it, right? Everybody wants more. What did you see at the conferences? You're roaming the halls here. Okay, great, thank you, Mr. Marketing automation tool or MarTech. He helped me get more pipeline. What can you do or what should I be doing to help close, nurture, qualify, move down the funnel here with this pipeline? Is that, oh, no, no, no, that's your problem. Now, that's a different conference altogether. We're only about X, right? Versus Y.
Chris Beall (11:20):
Yeah, you still got the sense, I still got the sense that it's us over here in marketing and them over there in sales, and if only them over in sales loved what us in marketing, were giving them appropriately, then we'd have alignment because we're working very hard to give them good stuff that's going to become pipeline, whatever that means, leads or whatever. And I think there's a great deal of sincerity and there's still a lot of frustration. There was also, by the way, a big murmur everywhere, including a question asked from the stage on one of the sessions that I did go to. Basically it says, Hey, raise your hand if for marketing. These are challenging times. And everybody's hand went up. And the reason that was given was because CFOs and investors are now scrutinizing marketing spend and marketing spend is challenging to justify. So there is a general feel of compression. We're being squeezed. And I don't mean the vendors, I mean the attendees we're being squeezed on budget. And the place where a lot of the squeeze comes across the boundary from sales to marketing is the SDR teams. So SDR teams shrunk
Corey Frank (12:38):
Really.
Chris Beall (12:39):
So down to a quarter or a half or whatever, all that's mostly happened because of the need for efficiency. So efficiency with growth is now the thing because venture capital and private equity and all other investment dollars are now competing, quite frankly, the returns they would get from investing in these, whatever they're investing in, they have to compete with the returns you can get from just higher interest rates. So now holding periods for these companies, if they're private equity held as longer, much longer, and what do you do for the extra two and a half years? You have to hold that company. Well, obviously this quarter is not the only thing that counts. So sales can't be there yet. So nurturing is a thing, but how do you get the budgetary support to nurture if nurturing delivers results in the future and the future is uncertain?
(13:33):
It's a very interesting time where the marketing people are looking for, I would call it less expensive stuff that works because their budgets are squeezed and something that's measurable. And I just thought it was interesting to say to people, Hey, it kind of strikes me if you could push a button and talk to somebody, which for those of you who know how this works, I mean, we enable 4.5 million conversations with decision makers a year. So there's pretty hard evidence that at least once you can push a button and talk to somebody because 4.5 million greater than one
Corey Frank (14:08):
A lot.
Chris Beall (14:09):
If you could do that, what else do you need? And actually, I think Helen went off a little bit on one of the folks about sequencers, which I thought was interesting. Somebody said, well, plus sequencer. Sequencer. She said, why would you use a sequencer? And you could have heard it rippled across the trade show floor.
Corey Frank (14:29):
What?
Chris Beall (14:29):
Somebody threw a stink grenade into the middle. Yeah,
Corey Frank (14:33):
Right? Right.
Chris Beall (14:34):
Why would you need a sequencer when you can just talk to people?
Corey Frank (14:37):
Yeah. Is there a natural aversion to that or is it just Occam's razor where it's too simple? Or they're going about a complex formula, methodology, and technology pathway. When you forget to dance with who you, which is what are my prospects? What are my people in my TAM saying, what are the people in my ICP? What do they want? What pain do I solve? And gosh, if I could just have a conversation, not send them a survey, not send them an email, but actually have a conversation that can open up these veins of trust that that's the key versus carpet bombing them with content, with white papers, with Gartner magic quadrants, and there's no dialogue there. That's monologue,
Chris Beall (15:20):
Right? This is kind of the awkwardness that I noticed in the entire thing. I'd asked this question, what if you could just talk to people? It's like, oh, well, you can't just tell Chris spiel that you can't talk to people. That one doesn't work. You can't go down that road. I'm sorry. No, you can't talk to people. Then it's like, well, but you'd still need, and then they'd tell me that you'd still need, and I tend to agree. I mean, my thing I was telling folks is, look, I think all the digital stuff is fantastic, but why not cheat by starting with the conversation? You can't get enough conversations for it to be worth cheating. And I said, well, isn't go to a SDR or BDR world if you had 40 conversations a day with targets, that's the equivalent of 40 targeted Google ads that caused somebody to go to your website. So that's pretty good right there. What would 40 targeted Google ads to a vice president or whatever you're trying to reach that actually caused them to go to your website, what would that cost? And they generally go like 30, 40 bucks each. Well, that's $1,600 a day without any meetings of value that you're getting from the advertising of just having conversations. Surely you're not paying your BDRs $1,600 a day. There's margin in there.
(16:39):
And the idea that, oh, talking to people could be a form of marketing that is, I think where the edge is. It's almost like, but talking to that's
Corey Frank (16:48):
Interesting
Chris Beall (16:49):
Light or something. If marketing can't include talking to people nowadays,
Corey Frank (16:55):
It's like bottled water. Hey, we're out of water, we're out of bottled water. We're going to die of thirst. Well, what about this little thing called the tap? I tell that my kids all the time. It's like, Hey, dad, the ro, and we're awa. It's Arizona. You got springs all over the place. So sometimes I suppose we're trying to overly complicate something where there's conversations all around, but what do you say to that rebuttal of you can't have enough conversations to make the math work? I think you and I would disagree on that, right? But is that where fundamentally the mindset is? Is that Chris? That's cute. You can talk with a couple people, but I'm talking about sending out mass emails and segmentation, and I do more before 7:00 AM than you do all day with a conversation.
Chris Beall (17:37):
Well, I would say that that level of confidence is not what I was seeing at the conference. It was more like this, which is really, that seems unlikely. And I sometimes have my phone with our current statistics just for the day. I could go look at it right now and probably find how many conversations did we connect yesterday? So we have this thing that's called daily dials, and  if I were to look at daily dials, here we go, daily dials, I can probably find some numbers. And this is one of the things that I tend to do is just look at the numbers every morning when I get up. Actually, I'm kind of lazy, so I lie in bed and I reach over for my phone, and here I am looking at the Daily Dials report, and it said that ConnectAndSell customers had 19,352 conversations yesterday.
(18:35):
Not over some vague period of time, but literally yesterday. And out of those, so say that they only set 1,679 meetings, and one of our customers sets lots of meetings. They set 983 with just one of their groups. Really, really kind of a good brand. So if I bring this up and I go, well see here, there's this group of folks and it's 242 companies, and they had 19,352 targeted conversations. It's like, yeah, that's them, but not everybody can afford that. And I'm thinking, well, wait. So I talked to somebody who does advertising, saying we wanted to send an ad or have an ad associated with all the online activity, the phone, particularly activity of everybody we talked to. So that'd be 19,432 people a day of everybody our customers talk to. Is that doable? Oh, yeah. And how would that work? Well, it cost you $20,000 a year minimum.
(19:32):
You have to sign up, you have to commit. It's like, well, why? Well, I mean, for $20,000, you'd have a lot of conversations. Yeah. Well, it's just like, it's almost like I'm trying to come up with a good analogy. I love your bottled water analogy. It's kind of like if you had the world of medicine divided into two kinds of doctors, those that had access to imaging like X-rays and MRIs and that kind of stuff, and those that just didn't, they just didn't. They're not allowed to see what's inside the body. They just kind of have to go with what might work. Here's something that might work, take this pill and then, oh, maybe you should take this pill. It feels like that. I feel like the guy who's going in and saying, oh, no, no, there's this box. See, you can put this thing in front of a person and see all their bones, or you can actually see what's going on in their soft tissue. You stick 'em in this big tube full of magnets and freak 'em out, make nasty noises, and then you can see what's the soft stuff and talk about something that is so not experienced. But the weird thing about the show, for me, almost everybody at the show itself, salespeople working for these MarTech companies, was excited to talk about their personal great experience using connect and sell to talk to
Corey Frank (20:51):
People. Yeah, I bet that's good. Last question here in this abbreviated episode, I'm curious, Chris, that when you look at folks are good friends on the MarTech side, and you look at two statistical models, same group, first group sent out emails, and you're going to get responses, you're going to get, do not calls, you're going to get, take me off your list. But ultimately I'm trying to gauge, is there gold, a divining rod in this team? And I compare that with the same team, but I call and I talk with people, and let's say that takes nth degree longer, shorter, it doesn't matter. But if I just have two, can I deduce the same conclusions of a market if by email versus buy the phone and buy conversations? What do you see?
Chris Beall (21:45):
I think there's two answers to this. One is, can you get enough information back from say your email campaign or your ad campaign or whatever to tell you what folks' needs actually are? And this a lot of AB testing. So I'd say with email, even as attenuated it is, you're going to get back in terms of the quantity, the response rates are way down. You're still going to get back. Kind of a careful AB test will tell you which messages are resonating. So that's fine. And there's a lot of technology out there that'll tell you who's looking right now, who's looking for solutions. So that's another thing that will tell you that kind of information. And by the way, whoever's looking, I think it's great. It's like, oh, bomb boas, six sense, blah, blah, blah. LinkedIn has got it, but it just takes you right into a red ocean. So if you're seeking competitors because you like competing with deals rather than you like exclusivity, if you prefer competing for deals, then pay attention to intent. Because intent to buy right now means everybody knows the intent is there. If it's worth knowing, all your competitors know it, therefore, you're all now competing for the same customer
Corey Frank (22:56):
At the same time
Chris Beall (22:58):
And you're doing it from whatever advantage or disadvantage you had coming in, but you can't really move the needle. So I think, by the way, there's incredible technology now available through ai. I talked to somebody about it last night, a company called Rev. I was talking to Fred Mongan and we're going to have him next week on market dominance. Guys. Incredible technology because it basically says, ah, intent is nice, but fit at the company level for your solution. Even if you don't know the timing, fit is greater than intent. We're going to talk about that next week. I think it's an awesome concept that does give you the 11 quarters that you're otherwise missing, and it solves a false negative problem that plagues everybody in B2B. They're calling on folks that are like the folks that they think they've worked with in the past, but they actually can't see all the patterns out there.
(23:54):
They don't see all the employment data, all the job histories of every single employee, of every company. These folks take every employee of every company in North America and make a fingerprint of the whole thing like Google does with websites. These guys do it with the employees of companies and everything they write about themselves, right? Yeah, that stuff is powerful. But the difference is if you talk to people, you don't just get the information, you actually get the trust relationships, and so now you're in a superior position because as you need more information, you have folks that you can rely on.
Corey Frank (24:29):
Yes. Bingo. Bingo. Yeah, I agree with that. And there's an atomic weight of having a conversation, as we've talked about many, many times on the false negatives as well as just on the positives. And it just seems that the vehicles of beyond take me off your list or unsubscribe. I'm not getting the richness of the signals on the false negatives on the digital side, but it's very interesting. Chris, we will learn more from Fred Mongan from Rev next week and the market dominance. Guys, any final thoughts as you depart probably your thousandth trade show in the career of trade shows here.
Chris Beall (25:06):
I love walking around those things. My thought is this, if you have marketing technology right now, look at it. Think about what it does, and ask yourself a simple question. What if this technology were used after a conversation rather than to get a conversation? That's the question I would ask, because you've made an investment. The tech is amazing, by the way. I think the MarTech stuff is really stunningly clever because it's trying to solve a really hard problem, which is how do you get people to love you when you can't talk to 'em? But what if you could talk to 'em? Could you get 'em to love you even more? So I don't think the MarTech industry is a waste in any sense. I just think it's interesting when you add the catalyst of a conversation to the beginning rather than have the conversation be the goal.
Corey Frank (25:54):
Yeah, as the great Jerry Hill says, right? The conversations amplify your downstream efforts. And if you start with a phone call first, I think the rate's about 14 x increase in the conversion rates from having a phone call first and then an email versus an email first and then a phone call. So lemme
Chris Beall (26:13):
Jump in and make a subtle distinction here. A phone call generally results in nothing. A phone conversation is a completely different beast.
Corey Frank (26:20):
Good point. Yes. See, even after 250 episodes, I still have the sensei, correct? Correct. My nuanced language matters here. Language matters here at the market matters,
Chris Beall (26:32):
Matters a lot.
Corey Frank (26:34):
Well, for the sensei of sales, this is Corey Frank and for Chris Beal. Until next time on the market, Dominus, guys.

The guys are back with sales visionary Shane Mahi as we dive into the vital facets of authenticity, ethics, and trust in the world of sales. As sales leaders, you know these elements are crucial for fostering customer loyalty and closing those pivotal deals. Shane elaborates on how transparency and being genuine have led to exponential sales growth for him over the past months. They also investigate AI's emerging impact and why interpersonal skills remain vital, even with advancing technology. This forward-looking discussion offers invaluable wisdom on steering sales teams through a shifting landscape. Whether you aim to amplify results or spearhead AI adoption, you will gain insight from Shane’s real-world perspectives. Join us as we continue unraveling the keys to ethical and successful selling in this next-level episode, "The Future of Sales: Balancing AI and Authenticity."
Links from this episode:
Shane Mahi on LinkedIn
MEGA.ai
Corey Frank on LinkedIn
Branch49
Chris Beall on LinkedIn
ConnectAndSell
 
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Below:
 
Chris Beall (00:32:56):
So the ethics piece I think actually is simplified down to the bot's, got to tell the truth that it's a bot. It turns out that's also the practical path. Bots that lie are like salespeople that lie. By the way, there is no shortage of the ladder. I mean, we act like, oh my God, the bot's going to be lying about being a bot. The salesperson is going to be lying about being on your side. In B2B sales, I have exactly two jobs. One, I have to be an expert. Two, I have to be on your side. If one, I'm not an expert, but I portray myself as one and two, I pretend to be on your side, but actually over here on the side, I'm kind of dragging my commission in here to make sure that it talks to you before I do. If those two things are happening, which I believe happen in a very high proportion of sales conversations, then I'm exactly what people think. I am a lying salesperson. We have a podcast here that has 210 episodes that say you can dominate markets with the human voice at pace and scale under one and only one condition, which is that you tell the truth. That's actually the condition. And it's very interesting. I mean, we're conceptually hoping to liberate salespeople to tell the truth, but you got to liberate the bot to tell the truth. You built the damn bot. Have it tell the truth.
Shane Mahi (00:34:16):
Well, I think that's the only thing that made us successful. We picked the most lovely industry to go into, and that's telemarketing and cold prospecting. And what was it? And the only reason that I was able to get to the truth faster was because read about Daniel Disney when the pandemic hit found, cog found ConnectAndSell, bought Cog, bought ConnectAndSell, spoke with Gerry, did Flight Scool, had seven meetings in six hours, and that's where it started. It was the ability to have your script, be honest, open, and just get into those conversations. And by doing that fast, quickly, efficiently, and at scale, we were able to progress our business much faster, I think, than a lot of people. We actually had 444% growth from year one to year two from using ConnectAndSell and implementing a system called the Entrepreneurial Operating System™ by Gino Wickman.
(00:35:15):
Now the authenticity of our brand, and even what is happening right now, it came from all of the mistakes we made. And those are typically our storytelling, selling mechanisms, the mistakes we made and the path we took got us to a place where made all those mistakes, learned everything, service customers. I obviously lost my business because of some bad decisions I had to let go of my business, A lot of bad decisions. But I've recreated my business. That took me three years in three months with the use of ChatGPT. And why is because I prompted all of my problems, all of my stakes helped me build a business plan that bypasses these mistakes and gives me the outcomes I'm looking for in half the time. And in that now, my marketing, my messaging, emails, prospecting, research, everything that, again, like you said, rightfully so, anything in the future is anxiety.
(00:36:12):
Anything in the past is regret. The only thing that matters is right, right now. And what's happening right, right now is yes, you better get on board because AI is happening. As much as you are worried about what can happen 5, 10, 15 years in the future, that shit is going to happen whether you like it or not. So it's either get ahead of the curve or get with the curve, or you are going to be that. They're just bums, bums who want to stay behind and complain and say, this is going to ruin me. This is going to take my job. Get with the program, dude, get with the program. Start using it. I was a novice, an absolute novice using ChatGPT when it first came out. The only thing that drew my attention was a hundred million users in one week for that alone. I was like, all right, let me see what this is about. I'm a novice still to this day, but the amount of times I've set up till three in the morning, six, seven hours, prompting, prompting, prompting to the point, the only reason I went to bed is because it said, you've maxed out your attempts. You can't use us anymore.
Corey Frank (00:37:13):
You finished the internet, you exhausted ChatGPT. 
 
Shane Mahi (00:37:18):
That’s right, and that happened multiple times. And my knowledge comes, which is why I believe podcasts, even to the education of AI and ethics and sales and marketing, everything behind it has come from listening and watching podcasts. That's the only reason I was able to learn. Well,
Corey Frank (00:37:34):
Sure, sure. And Shane, you're a prolific podcast guest, and again, a purveyor of a lot of thought leadership on LinkedIn. Chris and I we're on the campus of Grand Canyon University here. Shane, and Chris are responsible for what we built and why we've built Branch 49. He coined the phrase that we use here pretty ubiquitously now that this is a finishing school for future CEOs, part of that finishing school that curricula is that you have to have educational programs that not just teach technological aptitude, which is Hey, how to use chat gp, which you just went GTT, which you went through or Salesforce or ConnectAndSell or Cognizant or anything else. But Chris, I think what we've talked about many, many times, Shane, and I think your epitome of this is that you can't just teach technology. You can't just teach technology aptitude. You
 
 have to teach interpersonal abilities that have to foster that trust and have to foster those connections.
(00:38:45):
And if you don't, then you will be threatened by a chat GPT that will very quickly enable you to engender trust faster than probably somebody who's fence posts the emotional AI that you need. The emotional intelligence that we've talked about, right in this profession for a long time, will be key. So I think one of our early episodes, Chris, we talked about, or maybe it was a guest, we talked about how there's an ability to hear a smile, right? We've talked about that from our earliest mentors, right? Studies have shown that our sense of hearing is so incredible. It's so acute that we can identify emotions and conversations even in a Zoom conversation like this. We can respond to the nuances of a head nod of no, of body language if there's disassociation with the topic. So how does ai, I mean, I hear it's coming that this ability for AI to listen to a stammer, to listen to a nuance, to hear a smile, and then maybe respond with a softer question with maybe a couple of verbal disfluencies on a pause versus finishing a response and then hitting with a direct question right out of the gate without any social nuance.
(00:40:14):
So do you guys see any of that or anybody teaching that, any technologies that you're aware of that are moving in that direction?
Shane Mahi (00:40:23):
All of them. I'll jump in real quick on that. So I ran a podcast, actually the second one with James Buckley, John Barrow's, right hand man. And I asked him, who else do you think would be a great guest on the podcast? And he said, you've got to check out these two guys. And one of 'em is Sybil, and there's another one that came with a W. I'll check out the name. But one of those softwares has the ability now, just like you said, Corey, with going like this, your hand gestures, your movements, the ability to tell if somebody's being genuine on a call, it detects eye movement. Did his eyes go like this? Here's your trigger. Here's your cue for this. Did he make a gesture? Did he lean back when you said this question, did he lean into it? Now, sometimes we're on calls and we do have hidden agendas in some you shouldn't, but everybody has some sort of hidden agenda.
(00:41:16):
Well, whatever the case may be, and you don't have any way of knowing that without having your second or third party or let's just say software to help you discover that. And I saw this the other day, right? So I'm sitting up on WhatsApp on social media, and I get a message from somebody and they say, oh, I love what you're doing. I've seen you on this and this and this. Do you want to have a chat? I want to talk to you about a few things. And usually I wouldn't say yes, but I said, all right, fuck it, why not? So I jumped on the call with him and sat on the call with him for three hours. It came to a point where I told him a little bit about my story and I didn't expect anything from anybody, but I just saw the eyes go and right then the call was dead for me. I'm not working with that guy ever again. I told him, don't ever call me again the next day. He just like
Corey Frank (00:42:11):
That.
Shane Mahi (00:42:12):
Just like that because I'm not stupid. I've been through plenty of experienced prisoners. I've been to prison, I've been to rehab, I've been living in the US New Jersey, I've come to the uk, I've been to Morocco, all kinds of countries. I sense body language, you can sense and feel people's energy. And when you see somebody being disingenuous, I've had conversations with Chris for three and a half hours while he's walking around the desert barefoot. So that to me is genuine. But when I'm having a conversation and now we're talking about brand identity and who you are, and now the brand is you, Shane, and then when you ask for my opinion and you are not intrigued or interested and it's just a motive, you are hidden agendas. You just want money out of me because you heard I generated X amount of revenue the previous year May, I'm done with you, and I don't say that to a lot of people. So what do you think about Chris with the ability to recognize authenticity on these calls with any of these AI bots or AI softwares, and how can you trust the AI software to be genuine when it is dictating those outcomes to you?
Chris Beall (00:43:19):
Well, I think there's two things. One is I think it's okay to interact with somebody whose motives are clear. In fact, I think one of the uses of humor in conversations is that you can, in a light way, touch on the issue that you're looking for a deal or whatever it happens to be.
Corey Frank (00:43:40):
Introducing our friend Orin's introduction of tension. You have to introduce tension to create authenticity
Chris Beall (00:43:46):
And there's natural tension, but it doesn't need to be hidden. It doesn't need to be cryptic, but it does need to be on an acceptable path from where somebody is emotionally to where they might be able to interact with you with a clearer mind. And that's actually sort of what the entire this whole market dominance thing is about is you're trying to help somebody go from their current emotional state, which is that they're afraid of you because you ambush them, but say it's a discovery call, they're apprehensive about joining that call. They're pretty sure you're going to try to sell me something, and that makes somebody feel a bit put upon it feels dangerous, right? As the future CEO, you need to learn how to take somebody or help somebody make a transition from their current emotional state to one where you can be more useful to them.
(00:44:46):
And I'll use an analogy, I worked a lot with animals. I grew up around lots and lots of animals, and some of them were very large horses in particular, and you owe that horse after all, the horse is getting a pretty good deal. It's not out there running around in the desert trying to find a little pond to suck up a little water so it doesn't desiccate and croak out there in three days. So it's living in a nice paddock and in a corral, and you're feeding it and you brush it, even just like people walk after their dogs and pick up dog shit. You're a slave to the horse and all of that, but you owe that horse enough moment by moment awareness of its emotions that it can do its job so that you can afford to keep it. Its job includes having a bit in its mouth.
(00:45:38):
That ain't that fun actually, if you think about it, right? Who would want that? Why don't you put a piece of steel in my mouth, attach it to some ropes, so to speak, and then pull on 'em to tell me which way to go. Oh, great deal. Love it. I'm signing up for that right away. That horse wants to sign up for that, but it does kind of like that bale of hay and then horse pellets and a little oats every once in a while and a place to get out of the rain and maybe some horsey friends that it can hang out with and stuff like that. So it's a trade-off, but you owe that animal the emotional journey to help on the emotional journey to where it'll accept the bit. That's what we do as helpful experts in sales. We need to help somebody go on that emotional journey.
(00:46:27):
So bots, if bots are going to be successful, cheap as they are, they also need to be able to help somebody on that emotional journey. Fortunately, that journey has been mapped out for different parts of the sales process in ways that certain kinds of scripting and voice can help somebody. If you refer to it as manipulation, you're actually inferring that the purpose is your purpose against their purpose. If you believe you can be helpful, then you're kind of obliged to do this. I was once a witness to a head-on collision where two guys not wearing seat belts went through the windshield of their vehicle, and I was driving a big truck that was full of cement mix. And so I'm looking down at this accident, very dramatic, right? I owed those people who are now lying there, bleeding from all the glass cuts and all lying on the hood.
(00:47:30):
I owed them if I could do it. And I was trained in this stuff, and some help on the emotional journey from laying there, bleeding and being all hyped up and thinking you should run around, took calming down, calming over, lying down, being treated for shock. While I had some people do some things like call ambulances and stuff like that because I was more expert than the other people around who watched that accident and these people were in need, I owed them if I could do it, the opportunity to go on an emotional journey that let them be treated medically. Because if they were going to run around chickens with their heads cut off and scream at people and jump up and down, it wasn't going to happen. Life is full of this stuff. If you want to be a leader, you are obliged to take on an understanding and skills around helping somebody get to the point where you can help them, and that's really the essence of sales. That's what we do. That's why what they're doing at Branch 49 is so interesting because you go into the conversation pit, so to speak, and you learn how to have conversations that, yeah, it has a set of meeting outcome and everybody applaud and all that, but what you're really learning to do is to help somebody get in a state where you can help them. That's actually what it's all about.
Shane Mahi (00:48:50):
I agree. And just to add a bit of context to that situation, the point of the conversation was supposed to be, let me show you a few of the things that I'm working on on the mega brand. So somebody who was supposed to be part of that, and hey, cool man, let's have a look. Here's a couple of the images. And without being genuine and saying, Hey, I want to show you this because I believe I can expand, or I can grow your brand with the same mechanisms to do this, then I'm game. I'm fine. Again, if we were on this podcast and after the podcast, it came to, Hey, Shane, can you buy this from me? It'd be the same thing if somebody came on my podcast and I was interviewing them because I want to share their journey with my network and have other people become educated on the path to entrepreneurship.
(00:49:41):
And then all of a sudden at the end of it, I said, oh, well, I want you to pay for this too, and I want you to give me this and give me this. And they would be like, Shane is a scumbag. So for me, again, that authenticity piece and the ethics behind just trustworthiness and being honest and transparent and frank, I've closed more sales in the past seven months from not trying to sell anything than I did in the past three years of my entire business career. And again, it was because I learned, I've had conversations very, very, I'm not bragging on nothing, but I've had very high level conversations with important leaders. Chris, like yourself on Chris, I want to fire the team. What should I do? Remember that
Chris Beall (00:50:22):
We had that conversation. That one took about two and a half hours actually, and was right over there on my patio that I was on the desert.
Shane Mahi (00:50:30):
We had that chat and many more. And then my conversations changed from, Hey, do you want to learn about how we can book you more meetings to, Hey, do you want me to tell you how I can increase your valuation and help you get to an exit in three years versus the next 10, right? Those types of conversations changed everything about what I'm doing, and it's because I'm ethical in everything I do and how I approach my market. So that's me on that piece. Just to chime in on that,
Chris Beall (00:51:00):
Corey, I think there's a problem that you're going to face, and the problem is we do need people to learn how to interact with other people starting from where they are. So when you're young, your interactions when you're really young have a lot to do with your parents and a lot to do with power. Anybody who's ever had a 2-year-old knows it has everything to do with power because you're trying to get a little power in the world, and there's ways to do it. Screaming your head off in a public place works pretty well. There's a bunch of others. The word no comes to mind, right? The original tough customer is a 2-year-old. They've got a response to your suggestion, no, you're trying to sell 'em whatever. Why don't you sit in the high chair here at the restaurants that run around the table and kick our feet?
(00:51:46):
No, right? I mean, that's where the resistance to sales actually starts. We need people to learn how to do this, not in order to sell things to other people, but in order to have their own learning, which in certain ways will always exceed any bots. And here's why. By the way, in the world of the innovation economy, all the value is created by bringing things together that weren't together before, and discovering that you can get new value from simple combinations. If you've ever worked with a patent attorney, you'll be told by a good one. Look, you don't come up with something new. You combine two things that exist, and now you have something patentable. That's the world of patents. And as you know, I have a certain book of them and my patent attorney, Sid Leach, up in Phoenix, the best that I've ever worked with, I've been working with them since my 40th birthday, so that means 29 plus years.
(00:52:46):
And that was the first thing he taught me was, you're not coming up with something new, even though it's novel, it's always a combination. It's always a combination. Well, everything can be combined. That's why the innovation economy is so huge, because there's so many combinations. So you asked, what is this AI stuff in sales? Oh, look, a combination AI and sales, two things brought together, but in order to get the combinations to happen, it takes conversations both with other people and inside of our own little noggins as we cro around in the desert barefoot or do whatever crazy things we do, and if we want to share those with somebody else and have them make a dangerous decision, do I want to try something new? Which is the essence of innovation, economy, sales, do I want to try something new? We need to get really, really good at helping somebody get to the point where we can have that conversation.
(00:53:39):
So if we deprive folks of the ability to do the baby conversation, which is the cold call, how are we going to get into the adult conversation? Which is, what do you think? If we were to take that technology, that technology and that company right there and put, I don't know, maybe a hundred million bucks into it, what do you think? Can we do something there? That's a much less comfortable conversation because there's more on the line, but there's always more on the line. So you're going to face a problem, Corey, which is, and it is not going to happen fast, but when cold calling is better done by bots or done as well, but much more cheaply, which is a likely thing to happen at some point, at least for the first call, where does the practice come from for people to become competent business leaders? And it's going to take some thinking and work.
Shane Mahi (00:54:34):
I have a quick question on this, Corey, and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. So let's just call the typical outbound service in today's society, roughly. It costs about 10,000 pounds for us to deliver a monthly service, 10,000 pounds, a monthly retainer, let's call it that. Now you've got one or two dedicated reps, you've got a research team on there. You've got quite a heavy opex cost, let's say 50 to 60% of the entire deal value or the monthly deal value goes towards that. When the time comes that a bot has the ability to do that process that those researchers can do, and those first callers can do the, does the outbound, does the outbound arena, the environment still keep their costs the same, the value is still the same, you're still getting the outcome, or does it now become a period of, or a playground where we're going to fight on costs?
Chris Beall (00:55:35):
I know the answer to that question because I didn't study Elizabeth and poetry. I was reading Peter Drucker when I was seven years old. Oh, okay. Lemme throw you the answer. Prices always follow costs downward, always. And the reason is that there asymmetries and situations among providers, and for one provider, even holding quality constant, which is pretty impossible to know if you've done, it always is the case where they could either make more money now on the transaction or in the future off the market by offering the same service at a lower price. Therefore, they will do that, and therefore they will take share from you.
(00:56:20):
That's just the answer. And a question of, in any competitive environment, how does that work out? I mean, again, this is a big deal on this podcast. We often talk about the fact that the world of sales obsesses about competition and also acts like there isn't any competition at the same time, which is truly bizarre when you think about it. So if you want to get a salesperson hyped up, talk about a competitor, oh, there was a competitor in that deal. Oh my God, what are they offering? Where's our battle cards? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it's like, well, what are we offering? Oh, absolutely. We're offering this value and absolutely we're doing this. No, it's all relative, you're offering something that has an unknown and a kind of known quality at one thing that is known, which is the cost, at least the dollar cost, and comes with other costs like, oh, you got to actually implement it.
(00:57:15):
You got to hire people, you gotta train 'em, you got to do whatever. So what happens over time is competition shapes, markets and new material science shapes costs. New material science always shapes cost. As soon as you make rolled steel, you change the cost of automobiles. As soon as you can make a combination of rebar and concrete that you can take up far enough to put some really inexpensive glass on it, you make skyscrapers instead of three story buildings in old downtowns and you reshape the world. Material costs and per unit capability shape the economy's direction because of competition at all times relentlessly and pretending it's not going to happen is frankly idiotic.

The guys are tackling the big question on every sales manager's mind: Could AI replace me? With wisdom and reassurance, Corey and Chris explore the power of Taylor, an AI sales coach created by grw.ai CEO Alex McNaughten. Taylor provides a judgment-free space for reps to vent frustrations and surface red flags managers miss. As Chris explains, Taylor's conversational skills elicit "confessions" from reps. And for managers worried an AI could do their job better, Alex gently says: "The goal here is to make leaders better...not replace them." So breathe easy sales managers, and get ready to be 10-50X more effective. With the power of AI augmentation Sales Managers will be unstoppable. Join us for this episode, AI Coaching Conversations Elicit Unfiltered Rep Feedback.
About Our Guest:
Alex McNaughten - CEO/Founder - Grw.ai
With a background in B2B sales for both Kiwi startups and US tech giants, Alex is passionate about increasing the level of professionalism & performance in B2B selling globally. Prior to Apprento, through his advisory firm, he trained hundreds of founders, executives and sales professionals and worked across over 130+ ANZ businesses from pre-revenue startups like SafeStack Academy, to growth companies like Rocos to large multinationals like Vodafone, helping them to reduce their sales costs, speed sales cycles, maximize win rates, build out teams, expand into new markets and ultimately generate $10s of millions in new revenues.
Links from this episode:
Grw.aiBranch49ConnectAndSell
Alex McNaughten on LinkedInCorey Frank on LinkedInChris Beall on LinkedIn
 
Full episode transcript below:

In this episode, Chris dives deep into the intricacies and pitfalls of sales tooling, questioning the effectiveness of piling on more tools and the notion of an 'Uber tool.' Chris explores the impedance mismatch between the world of sales tools and the neurodiversity of salespeople, highlighting the challenges faced by salespeople who switch attention frequently and the toll it takes on their productivity. With references to a recent Forrester article, an insight into sales conversations, and a sprinkle of Beall's Laws, Chris delves into the complexities of sales processes, the importance of meaningful conversations, and the hurdles of creating a one-size-fits-all tool. Tune in as Chris discusses the present and future of sales technology, neurodiversity, and the search for an optimal toolset. Join us for this episode, "Decoding the One-Stop Shop Sales Tool."
 
Full episode transcript below:

Are you looking to gain a competitive edge in your sales process? Are you interested in understanding what lies deep inside your sales funnel and pipeline to drive more revenue? Then you don't want to miss this episode!
Join our Market Dominanc Guys, Chris Beall, and Corey Frank, as they dive deep into the world of sales technology and AI-powered tools. Discover the true advantage of understanding and optimizing the flow rate within your sales projects. Learn why it's essential to focus on time as the denominator when measuring success rather than vanity metrics like conversion rates.
They provide valuable insights on discerning whether a tool truly de-risks your sales path and reduces friction or merely adds to your tech stack inventory without tangible results. Explore the fascinating concept of "speed beats free" and why pushing time on the denominator matters more than dream outcomes in sales.
Join us for this episode, “AI for Sales? Don’t be ‘Candy Crush’ Complacent
 
 

Chris Beall and Corey Frank take us on a nostalgic journey through the evolution of sales tech and the intriguing world of AI. They start with a blast from the past, reminiscing about a 1960s AI program called Eliza, which acted as a non-directive therapist, fooling people into thinking it was a friend. Fast forward to the present day, they question the true value of CRM systems, pondering whether they actually help make money or just keep salespeople organized.
Corey shares a road trip story of stumbling upon racks of rock salt in Alabama, sparking the idea of the right people selling the right tools. Chris passionately emphasizes that onboarding salespeople should involve engaging them in discovery meetings from day one to boost their success.
This episode encourages sales managers and CEOs to rethink their sales tech strategies, focus on revenue-generating activities, and find the perfect balance between the human touch and AI. Join us for “Rock Salt & Roll: Unraveling Sales Tech's Mystery.”
Linked from this episode:
EP9: How to Harvest Authentic Trust in your Discovery Calls
Corey Frank on LinkedInChris Beall on LinkedIn
Branch 49ConnectAndSell