What is the Pipeline Summit event about?
It’s simply helping businesses learn how to bring in new customers and business. We create great products, but we don’t always know the best way to monetize it. Pipeline Summit brings to Central Europe, people who have done this successfully to share their best practices
Could you, please, tell us about main Pipeline Summit rules?
The goal of the event is to take some super intelligent speakers, and ensure that the audience walk away with really actionable tips. To make this happen, we need to set some rules for our speakers.
1. Name 3 things you can implement the very next day
This is to ensure that that speakers back up their suggested strategy with easy to implement actions for the next day
2. How will your company make it’s next 10 sales
This is the secret sauce. Even myself, when presenting theories, didn’t actually implement those theories yet in Brand24. I want speakers to share exactly how their businesses make sales.
How did you choose your speakers for Pipeline Summit?
I spent a lot of time listening to people on podcasts such as ‘The SaaS Revolution Show’, reading articles about sales and also tracking impressive companies on the rise. The trick to try and not pick companies that are already huge, so they can still relate to our audience and that their practices are still applied to smaller businesses. I don’t want a speaker who will say their next 10 sales will come from buying a superbowl ad. I’m super happy with the speakers we have. I feel Slack, Chart Mogul, and Price Intelligently are prime examples of where we want our businesses to be.
What are the differences between Gdańsk’s and Warsaw’s events?
Our Gdańsk edition is the little brother of Infoshare (partner of Pipeline Summit). We worked that to our advantage, and it meant that we got a much wider range of audience. Taking place the day before Infoshare and just across the street from the main venue it was a logical choice for the all round attendee.
I feel Warsaw, as a standalone event has even a stronger sales focus, both in speakers and attendees. We have a great partner in the City of Warsaw that shares our opinion that businesses need help learning to sell
In your opinion, what is the most important value of this event? What people will find for themselves during this edition?
I want them to learn how to make 1 more sale in their business. To improve conversion by 0.1%. In any business, that is enough in exchange for the ticket price and their time. They will walk away with 33 tips and know how companies will make 110 sales, plus have the chance to network with 250 like minded people.
Let’s talk about the sales: what have you found to be the most important skills in closing a sale?
Adaptability. I don’t believe in the perfect pitch. It doesn’t exist. A good sales people has 1,000,000 pitches. It’s about reading your lead and being honest to them. So the most important skill to close a deal, is to know what the customer will find most valuable in your product and simply show them.
What motivates you and how do you motivate your sales team?
I’m still very much motivated by 1 more sale. Maybe it’s not a good thing but I hope I never find myself staring at an Excel just counting numbers far from client interaction. We at Brand24 have a strong emphasis on each and every new client.
My team are certainly bonus motivated, but they also believe that customer first approach will deliver that bonus in the long run. So no hard sales, no chasing clients 20 times a month. Solid, value first approach and clients always close in the end, but with a much better company experience.
What’s the ideal relationship between sales and marketing, and how do you operationalize that?
In Brand24, we simply don’t need too. It’s an easy answer, because I was in Brand24 quite early and myself and Mike Sadowski share the same philosophy. We created a Customer Success Team, and that team includes Sales, Marketing and Customer Support. All with common goals such as new business, retained business and net customer growth. Outside of Brand24, I know the reality and have worked in businesses with strong divides between sales and marketing. The best approach I believe is something created by Hubspot which was a SLA between the departments. In which marketing promises to deliver a specific standard of lead, and in return the sales team promise to deliver a specific conversion. But openly, I think the solution is to not have this barrier as much as possible, and to create common targets both teams effect.
How did you develop your best-selling techniques? How do you present a product?
The trick is to know as much as possible before you involve the client. Research is key and the internet is our best friend now, as it can tell us so much about a business or person already. So I can know the experience, company size, type of clients, current social presence, so that when I reach the client, I’m already tailoring the product to their needs.
Here is a great example. I know that popplet is a great tool for people to create mind maps. I know they can find new clients using social media. Rather then just tell them that, I showed them – HelloImClo
I literally did as much of the work as I could before they even got started. Much easier to offer someone a problem and solution, then just a problem and a theory.
Could you, please, describe some success stories and some difficulties from your experience. How did you handle the difficulties?
I’ll leave the success story above, but one difficulty is saying no to business. It’s easy to get distracted by requests. For example, a fortune 500 brand wanted to work with Brand24 in the US. Their requirements were fair, but we would have had to change our product a lot. We had to say no, because our core focus is SMB /SME and as much as we all want to say Pepsi Cola or American Airlines is our client, you have to remember your core audience and build your product around their needs.
Do you cooperate with Polish salesmen? What do you like/unlike the most in their way of working?
I really like working with Polish salespeople, and in fact I’m constantly advocating for Polish businesses not to hire in the US or UK, and to invest into Polish based sales people. The concern is that Polish Salespeople sometimes lack the confidence to sell abroad. It’s not as scary as it sounds. Take the US for example, who have a huge migrant population and cultures mix everyday in sales. Mixed approach, mixed accents etc. Polish salespeople have nothing to fear, and just need to be more confidence in their skills.
What is the best advice you would give to someone who is thinking about going into sales?
Sell what you believe in. If I’m interviewing and someone says they can sell sand to Egyptians or snow to Eskimos it’s a red flag for me. Pick the product or service you feel is a fit for you. If you don’t have the sales experience to get a job there, start in customer service for example or intern there. Learn the people, the products and grow into a sales or customer success role. But don’t take ‘any’ job. Every position you have is an investment into your future job. Think about what skills you need to learn to get there.
Thank you very much for the interview.
Pipeline Summit gives the real life processes how to optimise every stage of the sales process, from Lead Generation, to Conversion and Retention.
The event is held under Link to Poland’s media patronage.
Mark your calendars 18th October – Warsaw and get your tickets now! Only one week left to buy!
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