Achieving Full Funnel Freedom Without Burning Out

[0:04] This is the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast, supporting sales leaders and managers to improve their sales funnels from people to prospects. I'm Hamish Knox. In this show, you'll learn how you can improve your results, lead a great team, and hit more targets with Full Funnel Freedom.

[0:21] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Hamish Knox. Today, we will We'll be getting ideas and insights on Full Funnel Freedom from Shannon Miller Hopkins, Regional Vice President of Sales at BetterUp. The Full Funnel Freedom podcast is brought to you by Sandler in Calgary. Sandler in Calgary supports our clients in creating consistent, repeatable, scalable sales organizations. Shannon is the Regional Vice President of Sales at BetterUp. She has 15 years of selling experience in environments such as enterprise SaaS organizations, like Salesforce, as well as startup environments, such as League and BetterUp. Shannon loves the art and the science that sales requires and brings her analytical training coupled with her passion for people into her professional career. Shannon, welcome to Full Funnel Freedom. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here. So tell us a bit more about you. I gave the audience the super high level version, but tell us a bit more about you and what brought you to your current role at BetterUp. Yeah, for sure. So like you said, I love the combining of the science, the art and the science of sales. And that comes a bit from my educational background. So I was educationally trained as a biotechnologist.

[1:37] You know, a bit of the art piece, I was a little bit of a child pianist growing up as well. So those things together. Yeah. And I always like to start out with the fact that, But I had that science training because I think it's super important to how I look at my role in sales. And especially now as a sales leader, like you mentioned, very analytical, focusing on data, which is super important. And important not only when you're a leader, but to know your numbers, know how to go and find your formula when you're a rep is super important as well. And it seemed to have served me well during my time. And I was selling biotechnology. I decided I didn't want to be in a lab. And in the pursuit of growth mindset and never better, better, never best, decided to take a sales course and got introduced to Salesforce that way. Cool. The instructor was a Salesforce account executive. Yeah. He brought me over to Salesforce and I found the wonderful world of SaaS sales and haven't left since. And like you said, I have held various roles. I've managed teams from BDR teams all the way up now to Fortune 500 enterprise sales teams. And then I guess a little bit more about me personally and recently has changed a little bit of the approach and how I look at sales and how I look at managing my teams. I would say my story really can be summed up in one word, which is resilience.

[3:01] And two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with a very acute form of leukemia. And I would say before that, probably I was like most sales leaders or salespeople, working crazy hours and burning at both ends. And I took a step back after that and realized that there has to be a better way to both do what you love and see great results in sales, but also find the balance. And make time for yourself, make time for your health, your family, your well-being. And that really led me to better up. It was this perfect blend of

[3:35] an opportunity to grow and be part of an organization working towards IPO. We're Series E. We actually, last year, had our Series D and E in the same year. We made almost $400 million in one year. So an incredibly fast-paced company, but finding the balance. And we are a digital coaching platform. We have products that focus on growth, transformation, leadership, diversity, and inclusion, and mental fitness. And we use our own tools. And so it was a great opportunity for me to invest in myself, something that I had never done, executive coaching. Coaching, and as well, you know, align my newfound passion for balancing, you know, sales and all the other things that we have going on in our life and helping my teams to be able to do that as well.

[4:26] Totally. Well, thank you very much for sharing that with us. I got to ask, you're doing okay, though, two years on? I am doing good. Yeah, I was a lucky recipient of some, you know, sweet person who decided to donate their bone marrow and I was able to get a bone marrow transplant. So, you know, I've been in remission now for just over two years. And, you know, I had wrote a post recently on LinkedIn talking about the importance of taking breaks. And I had mentioned that, you know, that's non-negotiable for me now, having been two years in remission. And yeah, it's just the importance of taking care of yourself. Amen. Well, if we can't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of others. Fair? Yeah, exactly. And as leaders, we can't take care of our teams.

[5:10] Absolutely. Absolutely. So this is really cool because when we talk about this idea of full funnel freedom, I mean, that sounds like a super aggressive and super hard charging and it's like, well, yeah, but you can do it with all the cool things that you just talked about. So can you help us understand a bit more about like, so you went from the classic hard charging salesperson, sales leader, burning the midnight oil. And now you're like, oh, I can, I don't know if have it all is a fair term, but you can achieve this balance and still create full funnel freedom. So walk us through that journey a bit more. I'm really curious to hear that from you.

[5:44] Yeah, it's actually interesting. And I would say probably started even before, you know, all of this craziness with my health happened. I remember being a SMBAE at Salesforce and having come off, been really successful in my career prior to that, always achieving my number, making the President's Club, all of that. And I was having a really difficult first part of the year. I had entered territory in DC. There was a lot of government contractors, didn't know anything about that. And I was really struggling. I was really down on myself. And when you're in that point, you kind of, you know, you become super stressed out. you almost become desperate. You forget the things that you know that made you successful to get to that point. And so I just remember at that point, taking a step back and saying, you don't need to operate in that desperation type of environment. You don't need to throw the playbook out the window. You know all the things that you need to do in order to be successful and you really just need to stay the course. And so there's almost like a light bulb or a light switch at that point where I was sort of able to separate work and home life and not take that stress and not take that day-to-day home with me at the end of the day, be able to go home, decompress, rest, you know, recharge, and then come back the next day and do it all over again.

[7:07] That's amazing. And what I'm curious about is as you've developed, you know, over the past, two years at least and all these new things. But I know I'm still struggling with things on databases. What is something that you're struggling with in terms of your progression as a leader and keeping that funnel consistently full? Yeah, I would say, I think this is something common that everybody struggles with. But saying no, right? And not only saying no to that one other meeting or somebody asking for a favor of you, but sometimes also saying no to clients and making sure that you are spending your time in the right place with the right people. So much of when you start your sales career as an SDR or a BDR, you're always chasing prospects down. You're always trying to qualify them and you're always trying to find a reason to sell them something. And as I've been learning in my journey over the years, as you go up into enterprise sales, you can make your deal on one number sometimes. And so making sure that you spend your time in the right area with the right people is super important because those deals are very complex, that you need to be a partner and you need to know their business better than they They know it themselves. And so that takes a lot of time. And so you can't do that for everyone, right? True. Being able to identify that early on to say to people, this isn't always the right fit for every organization.

[8:34] I'm happy to tell you why. And I'm happy to spend more time with you to learn more about where we might be able to help you. But I just want to be upfront with you in that, this is maybe for companies that are doing something a little bit more bleeding edge. This is a little bit newer. And if you're risk averse, then we might not be the right company for you. Yeah, absolutely. And I know I have and I've had colleagues in my sales career, you know, chase and chase and chase and chase something because it was the logo or, you know, they wanted it was the one deal that was going to make their number for the quarter for the year. And it ended up in heartache and tears. Well, yeah, and that's it. It's not only that. I mean, yeah, you're going to have the heartache and tears that you didn't, you know, close the deal. And I don't want to also be the person that looks back and says, Oh, I spent all my time at the office and I didn't go to that birthday party or call that friend. And so it's... I don't want to look back and say, At what cost was my success or my sales career done to my life?

[9:35] Because there are... When you have something like that happen to you, there are more important things in life. Absolutely. Absolutely. But this... Message of saying no to clients, right? Because we're always, you know, we hear the client is always right and never say, you know, never say no, and such, etc. How have you been imparting this message to your team? And what sort of positive and maybe not so positive responses have you gotten from your team when you're telling them, hey, listen, you're allowed to say to a prospect, we're not a good fit? Yeah, I think many of them were a little bit taken aback.

[10:11] I You know, I think it's at BetterUp, we have, you know, a list of high impact behaviors that we, you know, leverage in order to, you know, make sure that we're building the culture and the business in the right way. The very first one is do less, deliver more.

[10:25] And that, yeah, it's the most difficult one to do and put into practice. And every year it's, you know, on our surveys, it's the one that people struggle with the most, especially in a very fast paced startup environment. But it really just comes back to that. I also don't want my clients to have to, you know, spend a lot of time and spin a lot of cycles. I'd like them to be able to go back and, you know, have quick answers and, you know, know right away what companies they want to partner with and not have to do, you know, 10 different demos to buy one piece of software. And so I think it's, you know, it's always about putting yourself in the mindset of the client, sitting on that same side of the table with the client. And if you can do that in a way that isn't just about you when you're speaking to a client, it's about them, then, you know, it's always received quite well. And like you said, our time is valuable. Their time is valuable, especially right now. No one wants to sit on eight Zooms back to back and not get up from their desk. So anytime people can save time, it's such a valuable resource. So why not? Why not? Absolutely. It sounds like you're really imparting to your team that.

[11:37] They have the right to be treated as an equal in this and that their time is just as valuable as their prospects time. And if it isn't a high value activity, very politely, respectfully, move on, but move on. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely. And you and I have talked about this. I love Sandler. I think one of the very first things that I learned from Sandler is that my time is valuable, even if I'm just the BDR, right? And that has followed me throughout my career. And absolutely. I mean, our time is valuable, their time is valuable, but part ways as friends as, as you know, Sam Leroy says as well.

[12:12] And there's maybe a better time for them to come back and evaluate, you know, maybe they're just looking for information right now. That's totally fine. But as long as we're all honest about that from the beginning, we can be truthful with how much time we spend on that opportunity. We can be truthful with our managers about where we're forecasting the deal and we can create that that trust and transparency, both internally at an organization and externally with our partners. And then hopefully when, you know, there is a better time for them to evaluate, they come back because you've earned that trust, you've earned that credibility and respect with them. They see that you're not just out to sell them another product, but you truly care about their best interest. And they'll come back to you and maybe that deal cycle will be shorter because now they actually have a budget and they're ready to buy. Absolutely. You know, no does not mean no forever. in sales, especially enterprise sales, right? Where the cycles are so much longer. And my friend, Carlos, who runs a Sandler office in Miami says, I will love you from afar. He's from Manchester. So it sounds way better when he says it than when I do it. But yeah, it's that idea about no doesn't mean no forever, but especially like you said, in that enterprise where it is such a long sales cycle and we do get emotionally invested after a time in pursuit, it can be really challenging. And so the earlier we can identify that maybe it's not going to come across the finish line.

[13:34] Within the sales cycle, but maybe it's the next budget cycle for the prospect. That just allows us so much more freedom to go out and pursue real prospects or prospects who are really committed to starting right now. Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be just an enterprise sales. I mean, I think way back, you know, like I've been in sales for 15 years, I think back 15 years ago to my days as a BDR. And that was the same, you know, thing that i applied then which is you know someone doesn't want to take a meeting with me fine when do you want to take a meeting with me i'll put you on my list for when you said for me to call you back but you better believe i'm calling you back then right but i'm not going to waste my time and hunting you down and chasing you down and i'm not going to waste my account executives time as well and putting you on the phone with them if they're not ready to have a conversation so it can apply all across different sales roles for sure great great point because, we're all human beings. Our only valuable is our time. So yeah, no matter what role you are in that organization, whatever part of the funnel you are, yeah, we want to make sure that we're making best use of our time. So Shannon, from your experience, and maybe this goes back to early in the sales career, so forgive me if it's a trigger. What are some of those early warning signs when a salesperson's funnel is maybe starting to look a little bit skinny?

[14:55] They you as the leader can be like, you know, Hamish, you might want to make some adjustments because here's what I'm seeing. What are those warning signs for you? It's interesting because sometimes it actually also isn't looking skinny, right? Sometimes it can look very full and it can be deceptively full, which is, I think, worse than if you have a skinny funnel. If you have a skinny funnel, then you are being honest and truthful with yourself. And as we've talked about, you're You're spending time, hopefully, on the right deals in the right areas. You're focused on deals that have engagement, have momentum, are moving through the funnel, and hopefully have a better chance of converting. But yeah, so I almost look at it in the reverse when someone has a full funnel, but deals aren't progressing. You know, they're old, they're hundreds of days old. They've been in the same age for hundreds of days.

[15:51] But you know that salesperson is still holding on to hope you know they're saying oh but every time I reach out they're engaged they say yeah we really want to talk like call me next month kind of thing and they keep that deal open it is you know a type of opportunity it maybe shouldn't be you know forecasted where you have it but what that also does in thinking about what we were talking about earlier with where you spend your time you.

[16:19] That opportunity is holding... It has a placeholder in your funnel. You're saying, Hey, I think there's a percent chance that that's going to convert. And so I'm not spending my time elsewhere, finding new opportunities, having new conversations. And so it's that false hope. And so I always say better to just dud it out, go focus somewhere else, go think creatively, think outside the box of other companies, other types of opportunities you can pull into your pipeline. And then that person, if it was really a real deal, they'll come back to you. I always love the, you know, the strip line, the walk towards the door. Great. You know, I'll put the ball in your court and when you're ready to talk, come back to me. I will be here. I will welcome you back with open arms, but I don't want to be a thorn in your side.

[17:08] Totally. And one of the things that we talk to the leaders that we work with for their salespeople is when a prospect or a client is pulling us forward, we can't be pushy salespeople. When they're saying, I want this now. I've got the budget. I have the timeline. Well, now we are that trusted advisor. We're on the same side of the table, as you mentioned earlier, as opposed to sitting across from the table, trying to pull our prospect over to our side. And now we're pushing aggressive salespeople and we lose all of our credibility. Yeah. There's a really fine balance, right? I mean, we're talking with our team about this right now is especially when you have a product that is maybe newer to the market, or is a new approach in an industry, people don't know how to evaluate that, right? It's super important to be prescriptive and clear about how you've seen other companies evaluate this type of new product and what they've done to be successful. Again, putting it in the lens of the client, not of yourself, not, I need to do a demo, I need to do this discovery for my purposes. It's no, our clients have found it helpful to do X, Y, Z.

[18:18] And yeah, and that's always just the best approach. Totally. Well, all human beings, we love social proof, right? We don't want to be the outlier, right? Because if we go back to wherever we believe we came from, if we were the outlier, it means we were kicked out of our tribe. And that means we were probably going to die back then, right? So there's a safety perspective. And when we can position it in such that wonderful way you just described of, you know, here's a third party reference, and we're not literally giving them a reference, but a story about what other people have done. The other side of that is I'm a very big believer in owning our process, right? Our process is what information do we have to gather to qualify an opportunity? But by owning that process, we're actually projecting confidence to our prospect, especially in newer or cutting edge products like BetterUp, where they literally never bought it before. They may not have even heard of what you're bringing to the table. And to be able to say, we're here. We go to here next if you want to. We go to there next if you want to. They go, oh, I now have a path instead of this giant black pit that I'm looking into right now. And I just think the salesperson is going to push me in and take my money. Yeah. And it's also, I talk a lot about decision fatigue as well. A lot of that, you know, when we see dead no decision on opportunities, it just, It's so much mental gymnastics for a prospect to figure out how do I get...

[19:35] I have no idea what I need to do. Maybe I'm a lower level person in the organization and my VP or CEO is going to ask me for a bunch of information and I don't know how I would ever go about delivering it. So it helps with that. And then it also helps with really just being able to, like I said, be that partner and come to the table and help them solve their problems. Problems um and you mentioned something earlier about you know how does my team think about you know when i say it's okay to say no to a client and there's always that pushback a bit of the well you know.

[20:12] Reciprocity and making sure that you're giving something to the client as you're asking for something from them in return. And this is a really nice way to say, look like I'm here and you're a trusted guide. I have all the answers that you need. I'm going to give you all the information. This is the best approach that we've seen be, you know, as I said, in time for people. Yeah, absolutely. I was actually on a discovery call with a prospect yesterday and we're basically at the point of moving forward.

[20:41] And now they are the type of more reserved communicators got to go think about it, which, okay, totally cool. We have a clear next step in the calendar to reconnect. But they literally said to me, hey, can you send me something with the features and benefits of what we talked about today? And I literally said, I actually don't know what you're talking about. I don't do that. And I said, but what are you looking for specifically?

[21:01] Because he asked everybody for features and benefits. And he said, well, I'm looking for this. I said, oh, I got that. I'm happy to send that to you because that makes sense in terms of finalizing your decision.

[21:13] But I'm certainly not going to send you a bunch of stuff that says, look how awesome my company is and look how long we've been in business because you actually don't care about that. But you don't necessarily know how to ask me for it. So it was on me to go back and say, what are you really looking for? Because then my credibility goes up because I've actually given them something that's useful as opposed to just, I love marketers. Just to say that I love marketers without just giving them some marketing fluff that they're like, okay, yeah, this doesn't actually help my decision-making process. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier about saying no to prospects and you don't have to flat out, you know, say no to people, but it's just about being conscious and asking them that one more question. Question of why are they asking that question? Why are they making that request? Are we aligned on what that means? Are we talking about the same thing? Are we speaking the same language? I feel like people are sometimes or salespeople are sometimes afraid to challenge or push back or ask that question of their client because they're afraid they're not going to book that next call or come back. And oftentimes, it can actually be the, you know, the turning point in a deal where you were thinking over here, you were thinking they were meaning something over here, and they were meaning something totally different. And now we're on the same page. And now we have a very clear path forward. Our credibility is enhanced by the quality of our questions. And one of the things that I know I've coached leaders to coach their salespeople on is, if we ask a question.

[22:41] To clarify, right? Prospect has said something. We ask a question back to make sure we understand. And the prospect responds in something other than a positive way. You know, like, why are you asking me that? Or something to that effect. Do we really want them as a client? Like if this is how they're going to treat us now, like what are they going to be like when we're actually engaged with them? And I would rather say at that point, you know, appreciate your interest, but maybe we're not a good fit right now. But I've yet to run into the situation where when we ask a clarifying question, someone responds in with anything other than like basically saying thanks for

[23:11] asking because they don't even know sometimes what they're asking for. Yeah. I think, and not only that, I mean, we talk about full funnel freedom. You're not just talking when you are at a startup, especially, you're not just talking about the pre-sales, right? You're also talking about post-sales. You don't want those clients maybe that are going to come on board that you don't have that mission or company alignment with that, that don't see the world the same way as you. They're going to get in, they're going to use the platform or whatever you're selling. It's not going to work for them or they're going to be wildly unhappy with it. And so better to understand that early on so that we're not wreaking havoc on our customer success and renewal. Absolutely.

[23:58] Yeah. Well, and I've been reading something recently about how all startups are trying to hockey stick, right? That's the ultimate goal, right? We'll get the hockey stick. But what we forget is if the hockey stick is a cliff where we just massively churn on the back end, well, all of the efforts, as you just identified over here, are wasted because now our customer success team is completely underwater. And we may actually be going backwards as a company because everybody that we signed up or a percentage of them have moved on because they weren't in the line. And that's something that we want to avoid as a sales leader. And not only that, you also get the cliff from the, you know, everybody needs referenceable clients to sell more, right? And so it's not just about our, you know, our friends in post sales, but it's also about how are you going to, you know, go out and bring case studies or ROI to new clients if, you know, people on the, on, you know, with your product. Very much so. Yeah. Getting asked for a reference and having to say something like, well, 90% of our clients have turned over in the last 12 months. Probably not going to be beneficial to long-term success of that organization.

[25:05] Yeah. No one's going to buy that. No, not at all. Not at all.

[25:08] So Shannon, I'm curious if you could go back. So you could go back maybe, let's say 15 years to when you were starting out your career and whether you want to go back there or not and give your younger self some advice that that might've, that might've accelerated you to where you, you know, to where you are today, what would you say to that younger self? So much. I mean, I think first and foremost is just patience.

[25:36] Patience with yourself, patience with your clients, patience with your leaders. You know, everybody's just human. Everybody has things that they're struggling with, that they're focused on, that, you know, you never know when you're talking to a client or someone that has had a bad day or had something really difficult happen in their life. And so I think patience is from so many angles and that not all paths are always going to look the same, whether that's on a deal or whether that's in a career. There are multiple ways to get to the same point. And your deal cycle might look like this, your career might look like this, but you're always going positive momentum forward in some way, shape or form. And that is important.

[26:26] So those two things I would say for sure as well. And then, like I said, I think patience as well comes in with being able to just take a step back and make sure that you're spending your time in the right places. You're spending your time on the right deals. You're not chasing tennis balls or chasing customers around. And you're probably gonna end up with the same results and actually have a better, fuller life. Thank you.

[26:53] Love that. Very, very cool. Thank you for sharing that with us. What are you currently reading, listening to, watching for your own professional or personal development that some of our listeners might appreciate knowing about? Yeah, I know. So it's funny, you know, when I was thinking about today, there, obviously, there's a theme to today where it's about, you know, time and how precious of a resource that is. So a couple of, we are very lucky at BetterUp, we have the most brightest science board and executive team, their authors, their TED talkers, I mean, it's just incredible. Incredible. So there's a couple of authors on our team here. So there's a book called Accomplish More by Doing Less by Christine Carter.

[27:34] Do Less to Deliver More, one of our values. And then Burnout Fix by Jacinta Jimenez, who is our head of coach operations. I talk all day long to HR leaders and teams that are trying to fix this problem of burnout for their entire teams. You know, there's not a company that I talk to that doesn't come to me and say, our people are burnt out. And so that's something super important. I think that everybody can take away. Awesome. Thank you for sharing. We'll put those in the show notes and we'll definitely link to BetterUp as well. So anyone who's curious can go check out the amazing things that you're doing over there. Shannon, it was a real pleasure to have you on today. Thank you for sharing and telling us all about your story. It was really a pleasure to have you here today. Thanks so much. I'm happy to be here.

[28:24] You've been listening to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. I've been your host, Hamish Knox. Today, we got some amazing ideas and insights from Shannon Miller Hopkins, Regional Vice President of Sales at BetterUp on how you can make full funnel freedom, but you don't have to burn the midnight oil. You can maybe have it all. The Full Funnel Freedom Podcast is brought to you by Sandler & Calgary. Sandler & Calgary supports our clients in creating consistent, repeatable, scalable sales organizations. Thanks for listening. like and review rate and share until we connect with you on the next podcast go create full funnel freedom thank you for listening to full funnel freedom with hamish knox if you want to increase your sales with ease go to full funnel freedom.

[29:12] Music.