Transcript

[0:00] The reality is the way in which we've approached discovery is ineffective.
I'm not saying don't ask questions, saying change the way in which you approach asking questions.
You need to earn the right to be able to ask me a whole bunch of questions as a buyer, you got to earn the right.
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.

[0:39] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom Podcast. I'm your host, Hamish Knox.
Today, I am very excited to welcome Doug Landis from Emergence Capital Portfolio to the podcast.
Now let's hear from one of our affiliate partners. When you need to hire top sales professionals, turn to a recruiting partner that speaks sales, that's Allant Workforce Solutions.
For more details and to book an introductory call, go to www.fullfunnelfreedom.com slash Allant. That's www.fullfunnelfreedom slash A-L-A-A-N-T.
So my guest today, Doug Landis is a sales professional wrapped in a marketer's body who understands the secret to build a successful company is leveraging customer success.

[1:29] An expert in all things go to market, Doug has built and scaled some of the world's top technology companies, including Oracle, Google, Box, and Salesforce. Doug brings a wealth of experience in driving sales efficiency and excellence through data and customer insights to help transform how sales organizations scale, develop, and engage with prospects and customers.
Building and accelerating growth of a sales organization requires intention, execution, the right people. And Doug's built repeatable processes in a framework that is utilized in SaaS companies around the world. Doug has received his bachelor's degree at the University of Oregon, and when he's not cheering on the Ducks, you can find him on the golf course, the soccer pitch, or surfing in the sun in Los Angeles. Doug, welcome to Full Funnel Freedom.
Dude, Hamish, I'm not gonna lie. I've done a lot of these. That was one of the best intros.
I think I've ever heard. So kudos to you. You've got a secondary career in radio and research.
I appreciate that. That was good. I was even listening to it. I was like, normally when someone's doing the intro, you're like, yeah, okay, let's get to it. I'm like, wait. Oh, wow. That's pretty good. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I agree with that. Yeah. Oh, go ducks.

[2:43] I was totally present. I was in it. I was in it. I love that. I appreciate the intro, Hamish. It's It's great to see you again, all you listeners out there.
I hope we make the next 30 minutes of your time worthwhile. We're gonna drop some nuggets, some insights, some stuff that we want you to do in your organizations because let's just call it like it is.
It's hard out there. Amen.

[3:09] It's really hard out there. And we need to be doing maybe some different tactics, maybe thinking about approaching things in a slightly different way.
And I think one thing I'll add to the intro there, cause you kind of nailed it.
A couple elements I'll kind of build upon.
I have been a, both a seller of software for a very long time.
As you said, I'm a professional wrapped in a marketer's body.
I've also been a buyer of software and technology for an equal amount of time.
And what we're going to talk about, what I want to share with you, is actually more from a buyer's perspective on how to approach me as a buyer.
Cause you know, I'll tell you as a seller, most, you know, 95% of sellers out there, even if you're frontline sales leaders, even VPs of sales, they don't spend a whole lot of time buying technology.

[3:56] And so when we talk about like, put yourself in the buyer's shoes or have empathy for the buyer.
If you haven't done it, it's hard to actually experience that or really understand what that means.
So we'll talk more about that for a little bit of context, as you mentioned, I work in emergence capital.
We're an early stage B2B SaaS focused venture capital firm based in San Francisco.
We made a bet 20 some odd years ago that all software was going to move to the cloud.
Said it was a pretty good bet.
Our first investment was Salesforce. Imagine that. It's a pretty good start.
And then we followed up with Box and Viva and Zoom and Yammer and Steelbrick and SuccessFactors and bill.com and Doximity and you name it.
We've done fairly well. But at the end of the day, it's largely we've done well.
I would argue is also kind of in conjunction with this conversation.
We've done well because we've been hyper-focused.

[4:45] And I'll carry that over into this conversation right now, which is like, in order for us all to be really excellent, I'm gonna call go-to-market professionals, because I don't care if you're in marketing, sales, or customer success, if you are in front of customers, or you engage with customers, whether that's through content, whether that's through a QBR, whether that's through implementation or through selling, You know, you need to be focused.
And your focus needs to be on that customer. Amen. Amen. I have long heard ever going back to my days in frontline sales, success equals freedom. And then one of my colleagues once said to one of our sales leaders, yeah, except if I don't feel successful, I feel like awful and I don't actually want to do anything. And I really believe that focus to your point, focus equals freedom. Because if I'm focused, I know what I need to do, when I need to do it and everything else I can push to the side because it's not going to get me to where I need to go.
Totally. And if you're focused, you actually, you realize you're focused on the things that you can control because there's a lot of things that I can't control. So the things that I can control, I want to make sure I control them very well. And I make sure that I want to make sure that the things that I can't control, I make it easy for the people that are in control of those things for them to do what I want them to do. It's not manipulation. No, no, not at all. So, Doug, when we first chatted and speaking of your, talking about as a buyer and educating our audience of sales leaders on how they can coach their people to be more buyer empathetic.

[6:12] The phrase was discovery is dead. And by the way, audience, please don't crash your cars when you hear that. There is an explanation behind it. So Doug, let's play off of that phrase, discovery is dead. Tell us what you meant by that and how that can help us be more successful in coaching our people to keep our funnels reliably full.
Yeah. So I'm just going to say it. Discovery is dead and it should be dead. And I will not, falter from that. Period. And here's why. If you've ever bought anything, whether it's a car or something for your house, or you've actually bought software as a sales leader, or you happen to be in a position where you got to be part of a buying process or experience, one of the things you'll realize when you're on the other side of the table, discovery is maniacally and unapologetically selfish for the seller. So as a buyer, I hate discovery.

[7:08] I hate the stage. I hate the phase. I hate the phrase. I hate everything about it because invariably what it means and what is meant historically as a stage in your sales process is like, okay, we're on discovery stage. That now means I have authority or the approval or I'm supposed to, I'm being coached and guided to pepper my buyer with a list of questions, a slew of questions. And arguably, you could even extend this to qualification for your SDRs.
Equally as terrible, equally as not appropriate or even useful for me as a buyer. Why do you think buyers don't want to talk to SDRs? They don't add a whole lot of value to the conversation.
In fact, why do you think buyers are 80% through the buying process by the time they actually get in touch with somebody? because SDRs and AEs, BDRs, nobody's adding any value to the conversation. So I'm relying on my own research, my network, and my extrapolation of information to get me further along before I actually have to talk to somebody. Because we've done it wrong. We've done it wrong for a really long time.

[8:14] Okay. So I like the idea in theory, because theoretically, right? Like it accelerates conversations, right? And if we're looking at creating more velocity in our funnels, so we can hit our targets. Sounds great. At the same time, I'm not a mind reader, and there's stuff I need to learn about my buyers off of Google. So if I'm a sales leader, coaching my people to let go of discovery, how does that actually work in practice? Because it sounds great in theory, but I can also see this going very badly when it's implemented.
Totally. Yeah. It's like giving the wrong person a loaded gun and be like, hey, like, be careful where you show it, where you point it, because it could accidentally go off.
So, here's the thing. The reality is the way in which we've approached discovery is ineffective.
And what I'm basically saying is like, I'm not saying don't ask questions.

[9:05] Saying change the way in which you approach asking questions.
There we go. You need to earn the right to be able to ask me a whole bunch of questions as a buyer. You got to earn the right. And how, so how do you do that? And how do you change the nature of the conversation so that it's no longer a Spanish inquisition, right? Where I have no idea when it's going to end, what I'm going to get out of it and why I'm even having this conversation, which is why I just give you all the things you want to hear so I can end the call. It's why I say things like, I throw objections, like, show me a demo, give me the product, how much does it cost? How do you compare to your competitors? I just pepper you with stuff back because this is what you're giving me. If you think about mirroring, it's like, you're going to pepper me, I'm going to pepper you back and this is going to get really ugly and we're not going to get anywhere.

[9:49] So what should you do? And this is for SDRs and AEs. Well, my belief is if I'm a buyer, and let's just say I'm a VP of sales and you're trying to sell me a sales engagement platform, just going to throw this out, we're just making this up. So I'm a VP of sales. I'm going to venture to guess that Hamish, your team talks to VPs of sales pretty much all day, every day.
You kind of know about me pretty damn well. And if you don't, then maybe you're selling the wrong product. Or you've got a bigger issue, which is like, you don't know enough about who you're selling and why, right? Because we tend to focus a lot on our product versus actual people that we're supposed to be talking to. What I believe instead of discovery, I believe in this approach, what I'm calling hypothesis selling.

[10:39] Predicated on having a hunch. And your hunch is about me and my world.

[10:46] And I want you to come to the conversation showing that you've demonstrated you've done a little bit of work. And in order to build connection and demonstrate credibility and show some level of empathy, you need to come to the conversation with a hypothesis or a point of view or a hunch about my world and what my world might be like.
Might is an important word. You cannot come in and say, you know my world. I don't care if you talk to a hundred other VPs and sales, you don't know me. We haven't built enough of a relationship.
And so, yeah, guess what? You've got a hunch that my world might be pretty similar to your world as a VP of sales, to Steve's world as a VP of sales, to Sue's world as a CRO.
There might be some similarities and we might struggle with some of the same problems and we We might be using some of the same tools and technology. We might've had some experiences, good, bad, or indifferent the other way.
Is that fair for all of you leaders listening right now to build a hypothesis, to expect your reps to be able to build a hypothesis about the industry company persona that they're calling, based on the previous experience of engaging with companies in that industry, those similar companies and those personas.
Is it fair as a leader to expect that your reps can actually come to a conversation with a hypothesis or a point of view about the person they're speaking to?
Is that fair?

[12:14] I think it's fair. It also sounds really hard and people are lazy.
Not, it's not. That's the problem.
Actually, dude, we have to chat GPT. Go on to chat GPT and say like, if you sell into the oil and gas industry and you're a brand new rep and you don't know anything about oil and gas, to chat GPT. What's going on in the oil and gas industry? Who are the top players? How much did they grow last year? What are the biggest issues that they struggle with? What kind of technology do they typically use? Type that into chat GPT. They're going to give you all the industry information you want. And now you could use them and be like, okay, I've got a point of view about oil and gas. Guess what? I don't know anything about oil and gas. We're going to do this live right now. I know very little about oil and gas. The one thing I can tell you is they've been printing money lately. Look at gas prices. Now, granted, they came down a little bit because we got this thing called inflation that's been happening, but for a while, call it the last two and a half, three years, they have been printing money. I live in LA. Gas prices got up to $7.50 a gallon in the US. Yeah, bananas. Why do you think I got an electric car? I'm like, I'm spending $400 a month on gas. So if I'm spending that much on gas, they're printing some cash. Awesome. So, I'm calling somebody in oil and gas.
I got a hunch, Hamish, you're in oil and gas. I have a hunch that you've been doing quite well.
And with all this, you're flush with cash. I may be wrong. It's just a hunch given what's going on in the industry. So, now I've got, I can build a point of view about the industry in seconds.

[13:41] I can then take that insight about the industry and apply that to the company.
So, okay, you're Shell Oil, you're Chevron. Let me just do a little bit of quick chat, JPT, what's going on with Shell? How have they been performing? How do they compare against Chevron? Who are their top competitors? Great. Awesome. Done. So now I can build a hypothesis about the company, your Shell Oil. Shell, you've been investing in alternative energy sources.
You realize that maybe in the future, there's going to be a mix of electric and gas. And you realize that maybe, especially in the state of California where what in 10 years, it's supposed supposed to be all electric cars.
What's that gonna do to your business? So my hunch is maybe you're thinking about this right now.
Right? Okay. So look in, what, we did this 90 seconds? Literally on the fly, I'm building a hypothesis about the industry, a hypothesis about this company, and now in your role as VP of sales, my hunch is that right now things are super flush, but maybe as you start to think about planning for next year realize things might get a little harder in some markets.
Just a hunch.
Here's the beautiful thing about having a hypothesis. Number one, it's not hard.
It's about understanding what it is that you're looking for so you can build this perspective.
Number two, it is not about being right.

[15:01] Really important. It's not about being right. Hamish, if you come to me and you demonstrate that you've given this some thought, and you're like, okay, the venture world, and venture capital.
Hunches. It's a little tough right now because there's not a whole lot of exits. There haven't been any exits. There was 40 IPOs last year. At this point in time, there's been one. Okay, cool. So I'm just doing some hypothesizing and you're going to whittle that down to me and my role and some of the challenges that I might be having in my role. If you're wrong, it's okay because what you're showing me is what I call a high give a shit factor. You're showing me you've You've given, you've put some work into this, and you're demonstrating some level of empathy.
Now what you do, here's where the questions come in.

[15:46] The question that I want you to ask me now is like, how is this resonating? Right?
So I'm not saying don't ask questions. I'm saying do the work and come to me with your thoughts, your hypothesis, and let me validate or refute it. First of all, way easier for me as a buyer.
Because for me to just be like, you know, hey, kind of right.
But here's where you're wrong. One, as human beings, we love to correct other people.
Like we love to do it.
And so like you give me the chance to correct you. Not that I want to be an asshole about it.
And then the other thing is I'm now, the information I'm going to share with you to kind of course correct is like gold.
You have it from my words as to what's really going on in my world.
And so, like, so far it's safe, it's easy. And you're now building more credibility with me and a deeper level relationship because you've just shown that you've tried.
And again, so the problem is we get caught up in it being right.
This is why it's really important that you're clear about the words that you use.
My hunches, I have a hypothesis, you know, thinking about our conversation, I was thinking about, so it shows a little bit of work.
And then my questions are very much like, how's this resonating?
How's this landing? I'm curious to get your thoughts.
Now we're having a conversation, not you're peppering me with a whole bunch of questions.
Here's the trigger. This, this is the stuff that gets me angry as a buyer.

[17:14] When you use these three words, tell me about.

[17:20] So, leaders out there, if you hear your rep saying, hey, so Hamish, tell me about how you manage your lead flow, when someone comes inbound after listening to a webinar.
No, don't ever say those words again.
Why? Because Hamish, if I were to say to you, hey, say, Hamish, tell me about how you actually, tell me about your process of how you publish podcasts.
Very cool. What did that just do to you? Well, it sort of put me a little defensive, number one.
I'm putting you on the spot.
And, and yeah, like I feel, I feel like, yeah, on, on the spot and very uncomfortable.
Cause I'm like, I don't know where to go from here.
And by the way, I'm making you do all the work. Totally.
I'm making you do all the work. What if I was like, Hey Hamish, you know, you know, I was just talking to another podcaster and they were sharing with me this process of how they actually have to, to get a podcast live on Apple or Spotify.
And they walked me through this process and it made me realize like, wow, that's way more difficult than I ever imagined.
My hunch is you might actually be having a similar experience.

[18:23] Do you see how much easier that is on you as it is versus being like, so, hey, tell me about how you actually publish podcasts.
Absolutely, absolutely. It's like asking someone for a testimonial.
It's like, hey, Doug, can you write me a testimonial?
Hamish exists. Like, what else do you want me to say? What do you want me to do?
Like, no, I want to write you a testimonial I'm doing all the work. Write it for me and then I'll modify it if it's so true. It's like a draft on behalf, right? It's like, do the work, don't make me do all the work. And so that's the reality.
That's why I hate discovery is because discovery is for the seller and it makes the buyer do all the work. If you come into a conversation with a hypothesis, now the work is almost more, it's a little bit more even, or maybe a little bit more one-sided towards the seller, which is a buyer, That's what I want. There are a couple other components to this that are really, really important.
OK, go.
One is, I need you to bring some social proof. So, I did this with you and you didn't even notice it, but what I shared was like, hey, Hamish, I was talking to this, you know, Jason, who also hosts a podcast called the All In Podcast. And he was sharing with me how he actually gets those podcasts published and how he gets them, how he elevates their ranking in Apple and Spotify. So, what did I just do?
I pulled in Jason, who's also a podcaster, whether you know him or not, it doesn't matter, but I'm pulling him. So it's insights that I've learned from someone that I feel like might be similar to you. So it's not me, the seller that's coming up with all of these hypotheses.

[19:51] It is, I'm leveraging conversations that I've had with other people that I feel like might be similar to you. And here's what they've shared with me. And this is how I've used this information to build my hypothesis. Straightforward. So now I'm incorporating, and it's also helping you to build credibility because guess what? Now all of a sudden you're like, oh, you just talked to Jason from the All-In-Pot. Wow. Okay. You might know what you're talking about. Right? So now I'm earning, I'm just, I'm putting money in the bank, so to speak. So I'm earning the opportunity to dig in a little bit further. I'm earning the right to.

[20:27] When you feel like I'm earning, I'm earning the right to talk a little bit more about myself, but not yet. But not yet. That's the important thing. Because here's the thing. If I feel like I understand your world to even the smallest degree, Hamish, ultimately the question that I really want to understand, it's not your infrastructure, it's not whether or not you're in a buying cycle, it's none of that shit. It's like, why on earth would you ever change the way in which you publish your podcasts? So, I'm trying to get down to this, the ethos here of like, why change from what you're doing? But the only way we can have a conversation about that is for me to demonstrate that I feel like I might know what your current environment is.
Because if we don't get agreement on that, then the conversation about why change doesn't matter.
Right. Right. It's stranger danger. Because I don't know you. I don't know you at all.
And so, I'm building a relationship with you. I'm building credibility. I'm demonstrating empathy.
I'm also building a connection because I'm pulling in some other people. Like, oh no, you know, Jason, I listen to all your podcasts all the time. By the way, it's a great podcast.
And so, the reality is, it's like, I'm doing all these things, I'm bringing the guard down.
And then, you know, like, listen, you know, Hamish, look, if you're like Jason, my hunch is that you may not even feel like changing away from this process makes any sense. And I kind I kind of understand that.

[21:49] Because that's what he shared with me. But then he shared something else.
Right? And so now I'm like, I'm sharing what somebody similar to you has shared with me.
It's no longer about me, the seller. I'm just the messenger now.
Exactly.
Right? So I think the problem that I've always had with discovery and look, by the way, I'm like, I know all about Sandler and the pain funnel and all like, you know, the upfront contracts and all the techniques. And I know about spin selling and I know about Challenger and oh, by the way, I know all about gold sheets and blue sheets. I'm dating myself. So, I'm not going to talk about that. Here's the deal. The thing that I always struggled with as a seller was like, where am I going with this? All these questions. What's the point of asking all these questions?
It's not like, okay, I want to qualify them out. I want to know who the buyer in the buying group.
Yes, I get that there are things that I want to try and accomplish, but if you simplify things, Why change? Why now? Who's involved? And ultimately, we're going to get to why us.
But I got to earn the right to talk about why us. We all talk about why change and why now, then why us doesn't matter. Exactly.
Exactly. It's easier to stay with the devil you know than the angel you don't.
Right. And unfortunately, we lead with why us? Of course.

[23:09] Hamish, as a smart buyer, you know what you're going to do? You've done your homework. And so, you're going to go, hey, Doug, why don't you just show me a demo? Totally.
Right? So sellers, sales leaders, I've got some tips for you. Anytime someone says, show me a demo or just give me a pitch, I want you to straighten up. Maybe you want to I want to beep this out, but tighten your sphincter, and I want you to say, no.
And here's the thing, and then I want you to follow it up with this.
I don't feel like I've earned the right to.
Now, if you give me 90 seconds, I think I might be able to get there.
And what am I going to do in those 90 seconds?
I'm going to demonstrate, I'm going to share my hypothesis with you about your industry, your company, your world, maybe what your current state might be. And I might say, and you might be considering changing away from what you've been currently doing in terms of how you publish podcasts.
And therefore I'm earning the rights. And then now we're moving away.
Now you no longer are like, well, show me a demo. You're like, huh?

[24:10] Wow, that's pretty interesting. Yeah, you kind of get me. Oh, and can we talk more about Jason?
Like what was Jason doing?
Cause he's got, he's got, they've literally got 20 million followers.
How did they do that? Like, so now we're having a different conversation, you know, and it's no longer about the demo.
Right. Demo doesn't matter. It's an objection. Talk about a fun challenge.
Here's a fun challenge as a sales leader. Put together a big old spiff, like a $10,000 spiff, for anybody that can close a deal without ever doing a demo of significance.
Love it. If you can close a deal over $10,000 without ever doing a demo, I'll give you a big old spiff.
That's amazing. I love that. So, Doug, a couple of things I'm hearing from a leadership perspective.
Number one is, it's okay to be wrong, right? We talked about this idea of a hypothesis, right? So making it okay.

[25:00] For your sellers to be wrong while still doing the work. This isn't like I just off the top of my head went to the bathroom and was like, I think this is what Doug's world looks like.
Like I actually did the work.
The other thing is that building this library internally of stories so that when I as a seller can come in as a new person on your team and I'm going out to meet with Jason and you say, hey Hamish, I see you're going to meet with Jason.
Here's all the stories that you can pick from that that are gonna give you some social proof.
Am I hearing you correctly on that?
Yes. Although I might change, it's funny because I'm like, I was the chief storyteller at Box before I joined the dark side at Emergence.
I'm gonna change the word slightly because again, I'm a wordsmith and words matter.
Instead of here's a list of library of stories, here are the libraries of hypotheses. Ah, there we go.
Here's your hypotheses about these industries that we sell into.
Here are your hypotheses about the companies that we've engaged with.
Here are your hypotheses about the personas we talk to and the problems they might be dealing with.

[26:03] The problem is from a marketing perspective, we just say, you know, here are the industries, here's what you need to know about them. Here are the personas, here's what you need to know about them.
Here are the problem, you know, here's the product and here's the problems we solve.
So it's really just about repackaging and reorienting all this great work that marketing's doing.
I'm not gonna, you know, poo-poo all over marketing.
No, I have my issues with them. I want you to be thinking about like, okay, how do I build my hypothesis around this conversation?
And by the way, if we believe that there are what, 10 to 15 people involved in any buying decision over $10,000 these days, CFOs included.

[26:40] My hypothesis is industry company persona and that needs to be different for each persona that I'm engaged with and talking to, but it's all still connected to the same industry and company.
But my hypothesis about you, if you're no longer the podcast host And maybe you're the editor to your full functional freedom.
So my hypothesis about the editor, call him Charlie, is gonna be slightly different my hypothesis about you, Hamish.
Very well said. And what the problems that you struggle with, because Charlie's problems are going to be slightly different than yours, but they're all connected.
Absolutely. And audience, reinforce that with what Doug just said, industry company, and then every individual buyer persona, because we all buy for different reasons.
And the CFO is going to buy for a different reason than the VP of sales. So you got to make sure, that it's unique to the persona. Thank you so much for highlighting that, Doug.
Let me add another little twist to that. By the way, the persona, what connects all the personas, what connects them all is they're all connected to the company and the strategic initiative of that company at that time, which is either drive revenue, mitigate risk, or cut costs.

[27:53] Right now, in the US, the number one initiative a year ago, the number one initiative was drive, revenue. Go, go, go, go, go. Buts and seeds, go drive, push, push, push. Right now, everyone's like, cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, cut costs, cut costs. I got a trade-off. So where am I spending my money? So all of these personas are going to make decisions predicated on what the strategic initiative is for the company. So when you're building your hypothesis about the company, what you want to understand, what's the strategic initiative of that company right now?
Right.

[28:23] Right? Going back to the Shell example, the strategic initiative of the company is to ensure that we don't lose market share over the next 5, 10, 15 years as things are moving away from gas and moving more towards electricity. Wow, it's interesting. So the people that I'm talking to at Shell Oil, I want to have a hunch about how their role is connected to these initiatives.
Yeah. Love that. Love that. Doug, I could bandy about this all day with you. I'm totally aligned with this idea. I've got something I'll share with you offline that relates to this. A few more questions for you before we wrap up today. However, curious, what have we not talked about in terms of hypothesis selling that you wanted to make sure before we move on to our closing questions? It's not as hard as it may sound right now. If you can just take a step back and think, okay, industry, company, persona, current state. Just focus on why somebody might change away from what they're currently doing. And as a leader, I might even put why change and why now as fields in Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever CRM you use and make those mandatory to fill out.

[29:36] You cannot tell me that this is a real opportunity if you don't have in their words why they think changing might actually make sense. If that doesn't exist in Salesforce, if you can't explain that to me in their words, you don't have an opportunity because it's not going to go anywhere. And what 60% of all deals, even well-qualified deals end up in dead no decision because I can't build consensus inside the organization as a buyer because I'm not even clear about the problem I'm trying to solve.

[30:04] Right? So it's like the big message is it's not as hard as we think, as long as we're really clear about the path.
And as long as marketing can help us to build out our insights about the industry, company, and the personas we sell to, so then we can use those to build our hypotheses.
Love it.
Love it. Very cool. Very cool. Doug, thank you for sharing this idea of hypothesis selling with us.
I'm absolutely loving it.
A few questions before we wrap up today. First one, you could go back and coach younger Doug.
Younger, however young you want to be. And you're going to go, hey, younger Doug, in 2023, you're going to have all this amazing role. You're going to be a emergence, but you're also going to have a bunch of scar tissue and a bunch of bumps and bruises. What would you coach younger Doug to say or do so you arrive at the same spot, but with fewer bumps and bruises and maybe a little less scar tissue? That's a really interesting question. I mean, but there's a big part of me to be like nothing, like just, you know, just be more present, enjoy the ride. Be more honest and more transparent about what you're afraid of.

[31:10] And tackle that because fears are what keep us, what holds us back. And just be really honest about that so you can tackle those because that's what's going to get in your way.

[31:23] I could have gotten here a lot faster if I hadn't been slowed down by a bunch of my own insecurities and fears. What a cool answer. Thank you for sharing that with us. You are also someone who is a lifelong learner, what have you read, watched, listened to, whether years ago or recently that you feel the audience might want to check out to support their own professional and personal development? I love this question because I don't have, I'm not going to tell you about any sales books that you need to read that are must reads and this, that, and the other.
I mean, I've got a bunch. I love good to great. I love, there's a lot of great books out there, but the truth is, is like selling is, is it's a personal experience. And oftentimes in the in the world of sales, we're distracted by thinking of the next question we wanna ask, thinking about what I need to do to move this forward, thinking about reading the signals of what's happening in this conversation.
And we forget how to be present in the conversation itself. We get distracted by 18 things.
And there's a book that is one of my all-time favorites called The Power of Now, written by Eckhart Tolle.
And it's a great reminder of life passes you by if you're not present.
And most of us are not present a lot of the time. And your interactions will be richer and more fulfilling with both buyers, teammates, your friends and family, if you're present.
That is such an amazing book. Love that book. Thank you for that recommendation.
Last question for you, Doug, before we wrap up.
Closing thought, bit of wisdom, something that you'd like to plug the floor is yours.
There are.

[32:49] One, I'm going to turn this hypothesis-selling model into a book, so that should be fun.
But I think right now, the biggest message that I have is, be careful about AI.
And what I mean by that is, it's all the buzz and all the rage. Use it wisely.
You can use it to help you do research. You can use it to help you build hypotheses about companies and industries and personas.
Use it to your advantage, but it's not the savior of your life.
It's going to replace you if you're not mindful.
It has the opportunity to give you the freedom to be able to focus back at the very beginning on what really matters, which is that human interaction and being present in that interaction.
So to use AI and chat GPT and all the others, use them wisely.
Great way to close up our episode today, Doug. I have learned a ton, audience.
I hope you have as well.
Thank you very much for being a guest on Full Funnel Freedom today.
Thanks Amish. Thanks everybody. You've been listening to the Full Funnel Freedom podcast.
And we've been getting amazing ideas and insights from Doug Landis at Emergence on the idea of hypothesis selling instead of rote discovery.
The full Funnel of Freedom podcast is brought to you by Sandler Calgary, Sandler's Calgary's clients desire to dominate their niche and seek to scale their sales sustainably.
To find out more and book a 15 minute intro call, go to www.hamish.sandler.com forward slash how to Sandler.

[34:09] Thanks for listening. Share this episode with a sales leader in your network who you care about.
And until we connect on the next episode, go create Full Funnel Freedom.

[34:30] Music.