When to Call in the CEO

[0:00] I would say that if you want more sales, if you want to thrive in any environment, and if you want to provide a great customer experience, you should listen to this show so that you learn how to involve your CEO in these very complex deals at the right time in the right way.

[0:30] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. If you are listening to this, you are likely leading a team responsible for generating revenue. Purpose of Full Funnel Freedom is to support people like yourself and keep your funnels consistently reliably full.

[0:48] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Hamish Knox. Today, I am ecstatic to have Alice Hyman as my guest. As chief sales energizer, Alice is internationally known for her expertise in elevating sales to increase valuation for companies with a B2B sale that have exceptional growth potential. Spending her time strategizing with CEOs, company leaders, and their sales leadership to build the strategies that find new business and grow existing accounts is her passion. Her clients love her spirit and the way she energizes their sales organization. Organization she's the host of the popular podcast sales talk for CEOs Alice dedicates time to local entrepreneurs by teaching at the University of Nevada in the entrepreneurship minor which he helped inspire Alice also serves on the board of several growing companies to energize and elevate their sales when she is not guiding CEOs to elevate their sales she can be found hanging out with her family walking snow skiing sailing in Lake Tahoe volunteering the the community or reading a book in her backyard. Alice, welcome to Full Funnel Freedom. Oh my gosh, thank you. That is a mouthful, Full Funnel Freedom. It is. And thank you for that beautiful introduction. You're very welcome. Well, that's the 30,000-foot view of your story. Thank you. Tell us your story. Take us from where you started to how you got to where you are now.

[2:13] Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm going to keep it short, maybe. But I started as an elementary school teacher. I have revealed that on some other podcasts as well. So not too many people know that about me. But I did spend 13 years in public education before I went into business with my dad and stepmom at the company Miller Hyman. By that time, my dad had bought out his partner, Bob Miller, and he and his wife were running the company. And I joined them not to be in sales, but to work on their curriculum, teacher curriculum, get it? They're like, oh, hey, we need to revamp all this curriculum. It's really old school. We need to bring it up to date in the way it looks and feels as well as the way it sounds. And so my dad had been rewriting the books, strategic selling and conceptual selling, wanted to update did all this and wanted a curriculum expert, which I was. But like any good teacher, once you work on curriculum and reform it, you want to teach it to make sure it works the way you want it to work, right? And even though I had worked with several of the more seasoned Miller-Hyman trainers, you know, and worked with them on it, I still just wanted to feel how it felt myself to make sure it was where we wanted it to be. And so I, you know, told my dad that and he's like, listen, Alice, teaching salespeople is not like teaching kindergarten.

[3:39] And I wanted to say to him, now, how would you know that? Because you have never taught kindergarten. I had never taught any salespeople. But by this time, I'd worked with a lot of people in the company and started to have an understanding. Turns out, for all those listening, it is quite a bit like teaching kindergarten. So just saying, Dad.

[4:00] Anyway, so I got out there and started running these programs. Then I became the person who trained all the trainers. trainers, and you're familiar with that from your work with Sandler, but training trainers sometimes is like teaching kindergarten also. That's true. Yes. So it was a lot of fun. We had a good time, and I learned a lot about the complex sale in those years with Miller-Hyman. Funny enough, people think I was there a long, long time. I was really only there three years, because after my dad talked me into working for him, He and his wife let me know that they wanted to sell the company. And so I learned how to do a successful exit of a mature company, which has served me very, very well. But prior to that time, I had never done anything like that. I believe that this is correct. I'm almost positive. That was the first sale of a trading company to a private equity firm. Wow. That was in 1998. So that was pretty, I learned a lot about private equity back then when people really didn't know what private equity was. So that was really interesting. And then it was the dot-com time and so I left the company knowing that they were going to sell it.

[5:11] We had a successful exit. I started my own company and at that time everybody was fleeing their companies, right? So I worked with big companies, Fortune 500, I worked with Fidelity Investment, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T. Dow Chemical and the like, right? And so GE Capital, the first .com I worked with, one of the senior people from GE Capital left and was starting up this little .com with a bunch of his buddies, right? And some money. So got into that and worked with these startups who had no sales team and needed to start from scratch. So that was really interesting. I'd never done that before, but we did it very, very well. And my name spread and it was like one CEO tells the other. And then it just became that from these, you know, the dot coms, we know what happened. They all dot bombed.

[6:02] But these guys went to other more mature companies and, you know, just brought me with them. And so I ended up working with the CEOs of these more mature companies on their sales strategy, rebuilding, reforming sales teams, sales organizations conversations, to fit the market better, and then helping them execute on those strategies. And that's really where we are today. I work with these mature companies, and we work on their strategy together. It's a lot of fun. It's fun to see a CEO's eyes light up and like, oh, she's got me going in the right direction. This is exactly what we need, right? Because they want to have a successful exit someday too. And in the meanwhile, they want to to have a high valuation. They want to have the freedom and the money to go ahead and, you know, acquire other companies or invest in their own company or whatever it is that they want to do. So it's something I wake up and can't wait to do every single day. What an amazing story. I love that. Love the background. Love that experience.

[7:03] What is so cool. Thank you very much for sharing that with us, Allison. Your expertise is in starting at the top, working with that CEO and those mature companies. And of course, because they're mature, they've reached a certain level of success. And now they're looking to create more set up potential exit, etc, etc. And so for our audience of sales leaders around the world, this can be a challenge. I know working with my own clients is when do you bring in the boss? Now maybe the boss was the founder, right? So they have some domain expertise. Maybe they're not maybe they're they're a professional executive who was brought in and everyone loves talking to the CEO, right? So there's a reason. So what's a trigger?

[7:41] For when to bring in a CEO? Because we'll dive into the dangers and what's too early, what's too late and all that. But what would be some of the things that a sales leader would want to be hearing from their sellers that would indicate, maybe we got to bring the boss in? Yeah, yeah. So this is really important to just set the scene a little bit for those who are listening. I work in the world of the complex sale, just like you do, right? And for many of our listeners. Now, the world of the complex sale is business to business, right?

[8:12] And in my world, it's small companies, you know, they're under 100 million selling to companies that are, you know, 100 to 1000 times their size, billion dollar companies, right? So just take that as a complexity. Here I am, this little company, I'm not a startup, or maybe I am early stage, you know, I'm 10 years or less, or maybe I'm 20 or 30 years in, but I'm I'm still a $20 or $80 million company trying to sell to these huge, huge companies, right? So that's the first complexity, right? And so in that, right, then understanding, wow, there's a lot of dollars at stake here. Either the deal size is hundreds of thousands or millions, or the lifetime value of the customer is hundreds of thousands or millions. Even though a deal might start at 50,000, average deal size may be 250, something like that, which is pretty common in the companies I work with, but the lifetime values and the upsell values are there. Right?

[9:10] So that makes it complex because people have to let loose of a lot of dollars. Right? And then on top of that, we have buying teams and selling teams. Now in the complex sale, we used to mostly talk about how complicated the buying team was, right? How many people, it went from, you know.

[9:27] Five or six to now people are saying, oh, there's like 12 people on the buying team and we never get to talk to half of them. Right. But they're all there. And that makes it very complex because we have lots of humans to deal with. But now there's the complexity of your own selling team. Right. Because we are not lone wolf sellers anymore. Selling is a team sport. It includes sales. It includes marketing. It includes customer success. It includes senior leaders at your company, sometimes including the CEO, right?

[9:58] So, and then the last complexity is usually something technical, right? There's a lot of integrations or things that have to work together. So all of these things, you know, make a long, long sales cycle and make these deals very complex. So it is important to know when to bring other people into these deals. The CEO, importantly, right? Right. But there's a lot of other moving parts and good sellers today work with their immediate leader, you know, their sales manager to determine how to best position everyone on the selling team with the people on the buying team. And maybe your selling team is only three to five people and their buying team is 12. Right. We got to have air coverage. We've got to cover off on all of these people. So when you start to map out in whatever way that you do, whatever methodology that you do, you map out your position, right, to move the deal forward and eventually hopefully close it. When you start to map that out, you have to look to see who am I going to need to close this deal.

[11:07] And that's when you and your sales manager decide we're going to need the CEO. Right. You're going to need a lot of other players you're going to have to decide on, too. And you're going to have to get them bought in. But when you look at it and go, we're going to need the CEO in this one. So what are some things that are going to make you say that?

[11:29] Well, dollars, right? High dollars, definitely. Prestige. You know, we're this little teeny tiny company who hardly anybody knows the name of. And we're selling to Coca-Cola. everybody knows right yes well that would be a prestigious account for us to land Fidelity Investments that would be a prestigious account for us to live so when there's prestige involved right that may be a trigger as well, So when we start hearing these triggers, then we have to say, great, now, what is the best way to bring the CEO in? Who do we want to position the CEO with? Now, if I'm a $20 million company, my CEO probably doesn't get to talk to the CEO of GE, Ford, GM, Fidelity. Probably not. Right, probably not. But if there's a division of that company that I'm selling to and a general manager of that division, that's where I want to position my CEO. So I want to position my CEO at the highest possible level within that organization that's going to help me get momentum. And so that's what we have to decide first. You know, is it important to bring the CEO in hearing these triggers?

[12:51] The answer is yes. Ding, ding, ding. Now, what do we want the CEO to do?

[12:58] So that's always a tough one, right? Especially, I'm going to just say this and you all can be mad at me and it's okay. But all you founders out there that love to just jump in, take over the sales call and try to, you know, like your salespeople hate you. Don't do that. Don't do that okay don't do it um but this happens because we ask the ceo to get involved and then we don't have any strategy around that and we don't have a plan and we don't even do a pre-call prep so what do you expect your ceo to do you're not moving fast enough you're not asking the right questions i'm just going to jump in here and save the day right never never happens alice come on so i mean I mean, come on, if you want your CEO in there, then you make a conscious decision, intentional, to have that CEO in, and then you talk about the approach. And you probably have several meetings about it before you actually let your CEO get on the line or get in person with anybody, especially if there's a team of people, right? Because you have to orchestrate that entire team, not just your CEO. And I liken it to tossing the ball, right? Right. So it's like, all right, here's what we're going to do team.

[14:16] And now here's how we're going to do it. So CEO, this is the role we want you to play. These are the questions we want you to ask.

[14:24] Here's when we want you to shut up on. Here's where this person's going to come in. But how do we make that happen? Well, I, as the AE on the deal or whoever's leading it, right. I let everybody know what role they're going to play. I tell them what questions they're going to ask. I mean, of course, it's a discussion and they can have input, but I'm orchestrating it. And then I say, now, look, Hamish, here's what's going to happen. When it's your turn, I'm going to go...

[14:50] You know that is a great question for hamish here i'm tossing you the ball okay but i'm not going to literally move my arms like that but i'm going to say something that's a trigger and that's a great question for our ceo ben can you please you know or our subject matter expert mary is going to explain how that works so i am orchestrating and making sure that everybody gets a turn Now, if you start in on something, but I really wanted the CEO to answer that, I'm going to be like, you know, good points. And I also want to hear what Ben has to say. Love it. So I am going to toss the ball where I need it to go. And I'm going to teach you in our practice sessions how to toss it to somebody else so that if you don't know the answer or you want them to chime in, you know how to do that. And it's simple. You just say their name and what you want them to do. too. It's super easy, but people just don't do it. Why? Because they don't prepare to do it. Amen. And by the way, I love like the rugby moving the ball analogy. That's very, I do like that, actually. Alice, Alice, over to you. How about you answer that one? I really like that visual.

[16:01] So, and I'm glad you brought up, you know, the person's name because we, you know, that's one of the things that is the easiest way to get someone to stop talking in a meeting, right? If if they're stepping offside, is to say, hey, Alice, thank you very much for that. You know, let's, you know, hey, Ben, you know, what do you want to add to that? So this ties into my next question. All of everything you've said sounds awesome. I love it. It's great.

[16:26] And then the CEO decides to step offside or go off the plot, as the British like to say. So from your experience, yes, you've had this experience. Experience from your experience how do you gently bring the ceo back to plot in the conversation because the minute that we look misaligned we lose all of our credibility so how how can we corral that founder that ceo who's pontificating and and not going to plan so that is really really hard to do in the moment and that is why you have to practice practice practice you have to prep them Right. So that they don't do that, because in that moment, you cannot make your CEO look like an idiot. Right. Amen. And so you just can't let it happen. And that comes with a frank discussion.

[17:15] Sometimes you get carried away. What is a signal I can give you when you're doing that? And I always have a back channel set up, you know, a private chat, not on the Zoom meeting, just in case you accidentally chat everyone. But you have a Teams chat or a Slack channel up in the corner. You have a text going. I don't like text as much because you have to look at your phone. But if you have a Slack channel or something and it's on your screen, you can kind of look down for a second and type something to somebody. Right but in the moment it's really hard to do um but you could say something like oh ben ceo before you do that so you do have to be strong enough to cut them off right but it's like oh ben great point but before you do that But, reel it in. Go back. Go back. Back up the bus. And then you redirect. But the point is, don't let it happen. And the don't let it happen is in the practice. So, first of all, let's just stop there and say, what is the CEO's role in a complex deal? What is it? There might be many, but the key, especially if you are an under $100 million or under $500 million company selling to a billion-dollar, multi-billion-dollar company, their role is to purvey that CEO confidence.

[18:40] Really, their only job is to get in there and show them, look, I got a vision. I got a team. We can do what you need. I need to give you that confidence. That's really my job. I don't need to say anything else. I don't need a demo I don't need to do a lot of anything. I need to give you confidence That's my role as CEO give you confidence now I can do that by clearly expressing my vision for our partnership together I can do that by asking a really smart question and again Again, you're going to see that question. You're going to tell the CEO, this is what I know about this account. Ask this person this. That'll really get them going, right? So that CEO can ask them about their vision and what results they're looking for. You know, I know you've talked to my team, but I want to hear in your own words, your vision for the success of this project. Beautiful question, right? Then just let them talk and the CEO really doesn't need to say much else unless they're asked.

[19:50] You really need to know your customer well, know the people that you're going to be talking to. You need to prep everybody on your team. These are the people. This is what they do. This is how they talk. This is what they say. This is everything I know about them. This is why they care. This is what they want from us. All those things, right? Now, here's the roles I want each of you to play. And the CEO, here's what I want you to do. And let's practice that. And you also want to practice tossing that ball, tossing that ball, tossing that ball. I love that because that really just ultimately sales leaders, as you're listening to this, it's about the preparation. If Alice hasn't said it enough, I'm going to reinforce it. It's about the preparation. We need to make time for the preparation because especially in these giant accounts, you typically don't get more than one shot. So, you know, yes, maybe years later, but you still might not be in business. So, Alice, the sales leaders who are listening are kind of in the middle of this because, you know, as you've really eloquently described, you've got the AE, the seller who's running the opportunity, and you've got the CEO and the sales leaders kind of in the middle. So I got questions about going in both directions. The first one I have for you is as a sales leader, right? I'm the sales leader. Ben is my CEO. Sometimes CEOs like to insert themselves.

[21:10] And I got to be the one who goes to Ben and goes, thanks, but no thanks. Now, definitely more eloquently than that. How does a sales leader effectively help a CEO understand that maybe their presence, whether it's in the opportunity at all or at this stage, is probably going to do more harm than good to the opportunity? Yeah. So, again, it's just conversation, right? Right. So when you're starting out to do this, you've got to get your team together and say, hey, we're going to do things a little bit differently now. So don't expect people to just be able to do this. Don't pop into the middle of it. Right. We're going to start out with the CEO. We're going to start having prep meetings. OK, you're scaring me. Right. So we're going to start doing things differently. I'm going to talk to the senior team first and say, look, sales team, these deals are getting harder to close. Sales team needs senior sponsorship on some of these calls this is what I'm noticing they we need senior people on these calls not always the CEO but senior people on these calls so what are we gonna do well here's here's a plan, we're going to map out these deals and see how we're currently positioned and figure out in which of these opportunities we need senior people people.

[22:27] We're going to then come to the senior people and say, Hey, we need you on this deal. Now, how is that going to look? This is going to be like two weeks in advance. We're going to prep you. You're going to have to do some reading. We're going to pull you into one or two prep meetings, and we're going to need, need you to put this on your calendar and keep those appointments with us. Cause they're going to be really important because if a senior executive doesn't prep, they don't get on the call. That's it. Period. You got to make.

[22:55] So, but you've got to explain all this in advance to the senior people and get their buy-in. And then you've got to explain it to your sales team. This is how it's going to work. And I like written guidelines. I'm a big believer in written guidelines. So, I have written down for my team, here's how and when to use a senior executive. Right. And, you know, sometimes there are urgent emergency type of situations where you need a senior leader. It's horrible that we get into that situation. But even if it's five minutes before the call, right? Right. There's no call without the prep. Postpone it. That's it. And I hope you get more than five minutes on the calendar to prep it. So get these guidelines in place. Train everybody up on it. And then let's OK, this is our first one. Let's do it really well. You know, let's practice.

[23:44] Everybody ask their question. Let's get somebody from another team to be the customer. Let's get two people in here. They can pretend to be the customer. We're going to be the selling team. They're going to be the buying team. let's practice tossing the ball let's practice looking in the camera you know there's nothing worse than CEO on video and they don't know how to look in the camera true are you kidding me but did you check first no you didn't shame on you don't expect people even in this day and age a lot of people are not good with the camera yet so make sure everybody knows how to use the camera properly right so don't don't assume anything here's what we're gonna do Here's how we're going to do it. We're going to practice. If we're in person, great. Then what are we going to wear? You know, eat first. Especially with younger people in the workplace, I find that they don't know what to wear to a meeting. Because they lived through COVID and now they don't know, like, what do I wear when we go see a customer? Please tell them, right? Tell your CEO, too, because I had this with a sales team recently. They said to me, oh, my gosh, Alice, you have to talk to our CEO. Yo, he does not dress appropriately for these meetings.

[24:50] And I'm like, well, what do you mean? Well, he wears like jeans and a t-shirt and everybody else is kind of like snazzy because, you know, they're in the art business and such.

[24:58] And I'm like, okay, so what should he wear? Tell me what you'd like him to wear. So they told me and I said, okay, great. So I went to the CEO and I said, Hey, listen, I didn't say anything negative. I said, your team would really like it. If you would dress this way for these meetings, can you do that? Of course I can. Okay. Right. Right? So don't take it for granted. Tell people what to wear, what to do. If there's a meeting at 10, make sure they've eaten first so their stomach isn't growling and they're not getting hangry at the meeting. I mean, simple things, but just plan ahead and prepare everyone so we all show up and we can be our very best in that meeting, whether it's on video, a conference call, or in person. Make sure everybody has the opportunity to be their very best.

[25:44] Brilliant. Yes. Love that. And that actually ties into my second question. So we've done sales leader going up. Now let's go sales leader going to their seller. Because as I'm hearing you say about how the seller controls the session and they're running the account and all that, and I'm sure some of the sales leaders who are listening who were in that role, like, yeah, that'd be great. And I could never talk to my CEO that way. So how, as a sales leader, can I coach my seller, whether they've got 12 months of experience or 12 decades of experience experience to actually have the confidence to say to their boss's boss this is how I would like things to go right well again that starts with you as the sales leader or sales leaders going to your senior leadership and saying we're going to do it this way now and the AE is the orchestrator perfect so you know the AE is the orchestrator that means they've done all the prep and all the planning so that when you come to the meeting they're going to tell you what your role is now Now, it's not that you can't suggest something, but they will have prepped well enough to know what it is that they need you to do.

[26:52] And of course, you can have input into that. And that input could be great and it could change what everybody decides to do. But it's the CEO knowing from the sales leader that the seller is the orchestrator. That's their role. And, you know, I'm not saying this is going to be easy. There are some CEOs who have a big ego and it's hard and it's this and that. but it's like, look, do you want more sales? I'm telling you how to get them. Okay. I'm telling you how to get more sales. So you want to, you want to have an ego or you want to get more sales? You decide because we can go either way. Right. And I know you can't talk to your CEO like that necessarily, but you can say things like, I'm curious, how will it feel for you to let the, AE, the account executive be the orchestrator? Yes. Great question. I'm curious. Will you be able to take direction from the team.

[27:45] So I always go to curiosity when I need to move someone to where I need them to go, right? Totally. And for me, the flip side of that is I'm confused. Because if I'm confused, it means someone said or did something they said they wouldn't say or do, right? So if the CEO says, yeah, I'm totally comfortable taking direction from the team, and then we even in the prep calls or in the meeting or in the debrief, the CEO becomes the proverbial bull in the china shop. It's like, ah, Ben, I'm a little confused.

[28:15] Yeah, I'm confused. What happened here? Exactly, exactly. And by the way, sales leaders, let's expand on what Alice is also saying is your seller has to be really prepped. And I've had this conversation with sales leaders before where they're like, yeah, I tried to bring my CEO in and my seller showed up and they're like, so let's sell stuff. Or the CEO is like, what's the brief on the account? And the seller is like, I don't know. They said they like our stuff. And so sales leaders, in addition to what Alice is saying about prepping your up, you got to make sure your, your AE is coming to the table. Is that fair? A hundred percent. So there has to be a checklist. And in every company that I work with, there's a checklist of what the salesperson has to do before they can come ask me for a senior leader to be involved. Brilliant. So let me see your map. You know, my world, it's a blue sheet, right? She's excelling in any other world. It's whatever it's called, right? Let me see your, that you've laid this out and you understand our current positioning and where we're trying to go and what you need. Let me see that. Let me see, you know, what it is you want these people to do. You know, I need a plan. Okay, great. Yes. Now we may go ask the CEO. Okay. Right. So now they're completely ready. And I, as the sales leader, take that on. That's my responsibility to make.

[29:34] The CEO and whoever else, subject matter expert, engineer, whoever else is getting, you know, customer success person, whoever's going to be on that call with us. It's my job as leader to make sure that salesperson is ready to tell everyone what the plan is, to give them all the information they need, prep them properly, tell them what their role is and to provide the practice. Beautiful. Alice, I could nerd out with you all day about this stuff. I'm having a blast and we also have other things to do. Both of us are highly scheduled. So I got a couple of questions or a few questions to wrap up today. I'm looking forward to carrying on this conversation with you offline. The first of the questions is, if you could go back and coach younger Alice, go back as far as you like and go, hey, younger Alice, in the future, you're gonna have this amazing organization. You're gonna be working with these incredible CEOs. You're also gonna have a lot of scar tissue and bumps and bruises.

[30:30] What would you coach younger Alice us to say or do different to get to the same place with a little less scar tissue, maybe a couple of less bumps and bruises? Yeah, I would just say ask for the help that you need. And if you don't know what you need, you know, take the time to think about it and figure out what's going to get me to the next level. I don't think that when I was young, I thought about my future very much or what was coming next. I was like living in the moment. And that's kind of my personality. I live in the moment. I don't live in the past. I don't live in the future. I live in the moment. But I believe for young people today, for people who are trying to advance, it's good to spend some time thinking about your future. It's good to ask for help. It's good to find a mentor. And those are things that I wish I would have done when I was younger.

[31:13] Brilliant. Thank you very much for sharing that with us. And that's a really great, what is that, a cliche, but that's why it's called the present, right, because you live in the moment, something to that effect. So love hearing about how you're living in the present and being your best self. What have you read, watched, listened to, whether recently or in the past, that you would encourage the sales leaders listening to check out for their own development? You don't need, like, my brain is so full. I listen to everything. I watch everything. I read everything. I've read so many great books lately. One of the books that stays with me and I've recommended to a lot of people that I've read more recently is a book called Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. That book is about positioning, but it's from a sales point of view, not a marketing point of view and it's from a marketer who's also done sales she is amazing April Dunford so obviously awesome if you have any question about how you are positioning your product in the marketplace today read the book really really excellent will help will help you will help your sellers will help your marketing team so that's a really good one.

[32:18] I'm reading a book that has nothing and everything to do with sales right now. It's called Invisible Women. One of the things that I work on as a passion project with a couple of people, Laurie Richardson, Dr. Mary Shea, Siobhan Thatcher, and Hang Black, a variety of us are very concerned about having more women in sales. Awesome. And not just women in sales as sellers, but women in sales leadership and rising up to the CRO position. Position so we are doing everything that we can to support that and in reading this book.

[32:54] It's really talking about the biases the unconscious biases and the things that we do in corporate america and globally just globally that hold women back and how we have to start recognizing these things that we do so that we can stop doing the things that are detrimental and start doing more things that are positive and helping and so it's making me look at the whole situation in corporate America with women in a different light and especially with women in sales beautiful and that though both of those are on definitely on my reading list as well very passionate we, through my other company have a scholarship for a woman in a sales leadership role and a woman in a sales role that we give out every year so yeah Yeah, very, very much aligned with you on that. And the last question for you, Alice, is you have given so many amazing ideas

[33:44] and insights already about how we can get successfully our CEOs involved in complex sales. What do you have as a closing thought, a final bit of wisdom, or something to plug? The floor is yours. Yeah, so if you are a CEO, start talking to your team about this. You may be at the point in your organization where you, in the life of your organization, that you're like, hey, I've been out of sales for a long time and I want to stay out of sales.

[34:08] Unlikely but there are those of you who are in that position but think about how much ground you could gain how much better you could do how much more your company could thrive if you took the role in sales that you need to for that maturity I always say the CEO will always have a role in sales but that role changes as the company matures so what is your current role in sales and what does it need to be so if you're a CEO please think about that and then if If you are the sales leadership team and the selling team together, think about what you could do better, faster, easier, if you had more involvement from your CEO in the right ways, right? Right. So taking a look at those deals.

[34:55] You know maybe it's like 10 of those deals that you have in your pipeline right now that really need that ceo attention and even if it's not having the ceo show up at a meeting but if it's briefing the ceo and having them understand that whole situation and how you're positioned to get their input remember in a lot of cases these are the founders right they've been there done that they stay close to the customers I hope and they have input so don't overlook that brilliant I love that what a great way to wrap us up today Alice I've had a blast visiting with you today and all of our other conversations thank you for being a guest on full fungal freedom oh my pleasure.

[35:40] We sales leaders I had an absolute blast chatting with Alice today I'm so glad Glad that we had her on because the idea of bringing in our CEO, our founder, is a topic I talk about a lot with the sales leaders that I work with, and I'm really glad that she shared her ideas and insights with us today. A few takeaways on my side. Number one, the idea of prep, like you've heard it over and over and over again on this podcast, and those of you who work with me directly have heard me say it over and over and over again. And it's about prep and it's about ensuring that the CEO founder understands that prep is non-negotiable and helping them make time and put time on their calendars and keep that time sacred in their calendars to do the prep. So we come in with a united front and not in an aggressive way as i said on the pod the minute that we look misaligned to our buyer to our buyer we lose all credibility and for those organizations that alice was talking about that we're selling to we often don't get a second chance with them and even if we try to do the end around thing where we're talking to one division and we lose our credibility and we get punted and we try to go to a different division those buyers talk internally.

[37:06] So we can't necessarily do that. We have to make sure that we present a united message. We all look aligned. And we also have the pressure release valves that Alice talked about with whether it's a safe word or you've got the Slack channel open or whatever that might be. We need to have those on the back end. So if our CEO goes off the plot and starts pontificating or taking over, we can gently corral them back in without breaking that united front that we're presenting to our buyers. I love this idea that Alice shared about checklists.

[37:43] Number one checklist for when do we involve the CEO, checklist for our sellers of here's what you need to bring to even have a conversation with the CEO about getting involved in the sale. And then also the other big takeaway for me is having the CEO really understand their role and how they can best support the overall opportunity and getting it moving forward and getting it across the finish line. because ultimately they want their business to grow. However, if they're not getting the guidance that they need from us as sales leaders, we are at fault for not supporting them and not supporting our sellers and being the best that we can in front of our buyers. Those are my takeaways. I'm very curious to hear what yours are in the comments on our social media. Until we connect on the next episode, go create full funnel freedom.

[38:37] Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Full Funnel Freedom podcast. Podcast you can continue to support us by leaving us a review and a rating sharing this episode with a couple of sales leaders in your network who you care about i'd love to connect with you i'm easy to find hamish knox on linkedin also if you'd like a free 15 minute call with me go to www.hamish.sandler.com forward slash how to sandler until we connect on the next episode go create full funnel freedom.

[39:10] Music.