Sebastian van Heyningen
SUMMARY
How much did the individuals who just promoted you to management participate in maintaining the status quo?
The management is wholly responsible for the outcome and the process, and it is up to them to make each minor but crucial improvement. Many executives who believe that the team will be led by the high achievers and that the others will just figure it out practice laissez-faire management or management by abdication.
How much of a normal marketing budget is wasted on redundant, unnecessary, and untrained technology?
90% of their clients arrive in that condition, and at least half of their technology is duplicated, due for replacement soon, or not in use at all. It is very usual for the technological processes and flows to be so tightly bound together, with a complete lack of documentation, which prevents simple manipulation and monitoring. This is frequently caused by the quick staff turnover, where workers depart with understanding of the training but no one is prepared to take over.
What is the function of salespeople in problem-solving, and how is it different from the function of other teams?
A salesperson's job was to educate, engage, qualify, and close deals. Instead of finding and starting the project that results in an issue being solved, they are in charge of discovering problems. They serve as fact finders, detectives, and hype men, but the product, customer service, and account management teams are responsible for finding a solution to the issue. Additionally, salespeople are in charge of gathering the relevant data and ensuring that the consumer is a good fit for the service. Instead of acting as transactional sellers who are only concerned with revenue and expense, salespeople should try to be cooperative partners with their clients and not become emotionally invested in the product, its features, or its functionality.
TRANSCRIPT
Marcus Cauchi: Hello, and welcome back to The Inquisitor Podcast with me, Marcus Cauchi. Today, my guest is Sebastian van Heyningen. Sebastian is the president of Central Metric, and he says a future super bowl winner. I think he's probably looking a bit a too old to be starting out as a rookie. So we'll cover all sorts of fun stuff today.
Marcus Cauchi: We're gonna explore why organizations are opaque and they lack internal visibility. Um, we're going to explore, um, why the buyers journey is so poorly misunderstood. Maybe there's a clue, you know, you might want to involve your buyers. Do you find that your organization is being held ransom to bottlenecks?
Marcus Cauchi: Because someone is a team of one and they rescue, um, they micromanage, you know what, what's going on? Why are they creating these blockages instead of releasing the creative capability of the people in their team, more than not, we see early decisions made in a business having repercussions later. So if you think of, you know, the sins of the fathers inflicted on the sons, well, early decisions in terms of your structure, your compensation scheme, the kind of culture, the kind of people that you go after, then that can have deep ramifications later.
Marcus Cauchi: And when it gets baked into culture, then those chains are very difficult to break. So we're gonna look at some frequently unasked questions. You know, why is it people have lazy wise manic hows, uh, but they don't ask why enough, they don't have enough strategy or any strategy. Why is it that they're connecting pieces of technology?
Marcus Cauchi: Do they even need it? Should they be connected? And if you do it that way, what are the repercussions on the, the poor people have to live with it. So, Sebastian. Welcome.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Thank you. Glad to be here.
Marcus Cauchi: It's a pleasure. I'm really excited to dig into these topics because I don't see enough people really thinking deeply there's too much of a rush.
90 seconds on your history
Marcus Cauchi: So what I'd like first of all is to get 60, 90 seconds on your history and then let's get straight into the meaty gristly bits.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Brief history on me. I came into consulting and revenue operations via the sales development function. So I started as an SDR. That's how my career was born. Essentially, I am probably 20,000 plus cold calls in and an insurmountable number of emails, uh, and LinkedIn messages in.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And so I have literally been the end user of a revenue, operations teams, software platform, you know, that combination of CRM, sales, engagement, data, insights, et cetera, et cetera. So I have been that end user. I've been the squeaky wheel saying that the process doesn't work for this reason, or I need support in this area.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And I know what it looks like when you don't get that help, uh, and how difficult it can be to hit your goals when the entire organization is not moving in the same direction. So, uh, job talked a lot for that reason also because I'm, I'm not a great employee. And, and, you know, long story short I, um, two and a half years ago founded, uh, what was a sales ops consulting freelance shop, which has now exploded into a revenue operations consulting agency.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And we can probably talk about the differences there because to the uninformed, it probably sounds like I said the same thing twice.
Sales ops consulting freelance shop vs revenue operations consulting agency
Marcus Cauchi: Well, it's probably a good idea to do that because I'm not entirely clear. So, um, uh, help me understand.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Gotcha. We started out as your typical Salesforce admins on Upwork charging an hourly rate.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Our clients would come to us and say, we need this done, can you please do it? We would do the thing and we would tell them how many hours it took. Which is a great way to build a life in this world. You know, there are people who have whole businesses and careers based on being very good order takers, but with my co-founder and my experience, you know, you know, at that point, having consulted dozens of businesses already, we wanted to get on the other side of the glass, so to speak. Uh, and that's why my LinkedIn headline is and will always be revenue operations is an executive function.
Sebastian van Heyningen: So your leader of technology and process is not an order taker. And all of your strategies have to filter through their lens. Uh, because like you said, since of the fathers, you go wind up with the wrong tech and the wrong process, just essentially hamstringing your development as a business and holding you back. The best product doesn't always win in this world, as we know, but the best designed sales process that provides the most value pretty much always does.
How complicit were the people who just proceeded you into management and propagating the status?
Marcus Cauchi: This is really, very exciting. Cuz we can get into some very uncomfortable and uh, uh, gritty conversations. So my first question is this, as you are going through the ranks and you are witnessing these, uh, issues, how complicit were the people who just proceeded you into management and propagating the status quo?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Completely completely complicit. Yeah. I mean, I would say as a manager, the outcome, you own the outcome, but you also own the process. And so even if it was handed to you, the process is now yours and it's up to you to improve each small integral piece of it. To, you know, find better efficiencies or, you know, get better numbers for your team.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And, you know, a lot of leaders, they can kind of fall asleep at the wheel and think, you know, this is working. Maybe I have two to three high performers that are carrying the team and everyone else will just figure it out. There's a lot of, they'll-just-figure-it-out mindset.
Marcus Cauchi: Laissez-faire management.. Laissez-faire management or management by abdication.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Hands up in the air. Here's your phone. Here's your list. If you lose, you lose. It's very good.
Marcus Cauchi: You're immediately replaceable.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. Yeah. You'll we will put you on a PIP and within a month you'll be gone and then we'll spend three months of salary hiring your replacement and everything will be fun.
Marcus Cauchi: So help me understand.
Marcus Cauchi: Cause I'm spending a lot of my time now researching, how to have impossible conversations with people who are intransigent and fixed the mindset, and then helping them realize that there is a better way. And it's really very, very taxing. However, what I'm conscious of is it's not about finding difference.
Marcus Cauchi: It's about finding agreement. I'm curious your advice to a new manager, who's been through the SDR, maybe the, a role
Sebastian van Heyningen: Mm-hmm
Marcus Cauchi: And it's their first role in management. What are the boundaries that they need to establish upwards
What are the boundaries that they need to establish upwards as a middle manager?
Sebastian van Heyningen: As a middle manager? Yeah, I think the, the first boundary you set is around the outcome that you're trying to achieve.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And the levers that you have to achieve it. So make it clear and get agreement that this is your goal and that these are the things that you have to help you get to your goal. And then it's your job as a manager to make those two things congruent, essentially, uh, here are the things that I can do the levers I can bowl, like the budget that I have to help get this team to perform at this level.
Sebastian van Heyningen: So just make that clear from the start, because it's easy as a manager to fall into more of a counselor role at an individual level or more of a steward role of, you know, the team is working. I'm just gonna take again laissez-faire, take a step back and let it go.
Marcus Cauchi: I see something else happen as well, which is that managers get sucked into the job of doing which they're paying other people to do.
Marcus Cauchi: They fall into the trap of supervising.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: And they spend no time coaching cuz I'm too busy to coach. Idiotic response cause the reason you're too busy to coach is you're not coaching.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: If anyone has any doubts and yeah. The words I'm too busy to, the reason is you're not coaching.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Is you only have two lines on your job description as a sales manager, hire the best people.
Marcus Cauchi: Get the best out of them.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Marcus Cauchi: That's your job. Your job is not to carry a quota. So I'm very curious, your thoughts in terms of player managers.
Thoughts in terms of player managers
Sebastian van Heyningen: Oh, never, never, ever, ever, ever do it ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, never.
Marcus Cauchi: Right. Got it.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I mean, I will make a caveat though, if, and I would like to see if this has ever been done.
Sebastian van Heyningen: If you're going to do it, you need to compensate for both outcomes. If you have a player coach, they need a personal quota and their own personal commission plan and a team quota and their own team commission plan. It's a very simple equation. You need to incentivize the things that you want your employees to do.
Sebastian van Heyningen: If a player coach has a personal quota, they're not going to manage. If they have a team quota, they're not going to sell. So if you're gonna do it, pay them for both of the things that you're asking them. But also don't do it.
Marcus Cauchi: Don't do it in theory. Theory and practice are the same in practice. They're not, I can't remember who I should attribute that quote to.
Sebastian van Heyningen: That's nice one.
Marcus Cauchi: Now, in theory, paying people for both is a great idea.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: In practice, what they will do is they'll focus on the thing that they have control over.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Which is probably their, their quota,
Sebastian van Heyningen: Their personal quota.
Marcus Cauchi: If they don't know how to coach and if they've not been coached or trained how to coach, how can they?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: The biggest challenge your middle management has largely is ignorance. They don't know what they don't know.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You're describing the first phase of my career right now.
Marcus Cauchi: My history is your future. That's the only difference. And hopefully you won't eat quite for many cakes. So, um, Over time, you start to see organizations evolve and they start to put systems and processes in place. How often are you having to unpick the Franken tech? So technology spaghetti that's morphed over the years because when they run out of people that they can throw at the problem, they start throwing technology at it.
Marcus Cauchi: And what would you say 60, 70, 80% of the technology is either duplicated, irrelevant or never used?
What would you say 60, 70, 80% of the technology is either duplicated, irrelevant or never used?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say 90% of our clients come to us in that state and at least half of their technology has overlap, should be replaced soon or is not being used at all.
Marcus Cauchi: So how much typically are their, uh, overall marketing, uh, spend
Marcus Cauchi: is being wasted on duplicated and irrelevant and untrained. That's the other thing because of the fast turnover, often people come in, uh, and then they leave and they leave with the knowledge of the training and no ones trained the, the next generation.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah, I mean, sales, marketing success across the board.
Sebastian van Heyningen: We, we just brought on a client where without getting too deep into the weeds, they used Salesforce. They had a 20 hour per week Salesforce resource who built their entire process in a complex coding language, only native to Salesforce called Apex. And none of that is easily changed or monitored by anyone other than the only human being that set it up and administrated it, who is no longer at the business.
Sebastian van Heyningen: This is not the exception. This is the rule. It is very, very common, uh, and not just for a piece of technology, but for the processes and flows within that technology to be so tied up in themselves, uh, with a complete lack of just a simple document saying this button does this.
Sebastian van Heyningen: When you do this, this will happen. Uh, and these are the reasons why we set it up the way that we set it up. So our number one kind of priority in months, one and two with this client are literally untangling the knots of their apex code and trying to convert it into a more easily manipulated version of that.
Marcus Cauchi: You know, the, I did an, a level which is high school. Back in 1986 in computing
Sebastian van Heyningen: mm-hmm
Marcus Cauchi: And my teacher at the time was ex-IBM and he recounted a case of one programmer who was fascinated with farmyard animals. And so he had a coding system.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Oh no
Marcus Cauchi: Cows and ducks and different Genesis, you know, and different types of duck and different types.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: He left and that a bank was running this system that IBM had installed using farm yard animals.
Sebastian van Heyningen: That's hilarious
Marcus Cauchi: In the eighties. You'd have thought there'd be some governance brought in, but what is it about humanity that we don't learn from history?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. And I would even add to this one of my favorite quotes that I've heard recently.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And I, I can't even remember who told me was that big tech innovates, very slowly. And so those since are the fathers, those same mistakes IBM was making, they were just passed down because all those people, they went to the funds, the firms and the businesses that they do at the IBM way, which is a tried and true method of that it just compounds over time.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And, and it happens over and over and over again. That's why businesses like mine are able to exist, you know, frankly, Thank you very much. Yeah. Thanks, IBM.
Marcus Cauchi: Cause there seems to be a pattern over the last 30, 40 years where the customer has become a more and more distant and convenient part of the whole process.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Um, I've seen that happen to the detriment of so many companies and it, it creates a terrible experience for the customer. The disconnect, the being thrown over the wall and having to start over again and the miscommunication because of lack of coordinated or orchestrated coordination between, uh, different departments at the handover points, communication, you know, CS being brought in early enough, all this kind stuff.
Marcus Cauchi: And I'm really fascinated about where the customer sits in most founders or, uh, executive team's minds.
Where the customer sits in most founders or executive team's minds
Sebastian van Heyningen: If I had to guess, I would say that they are ancillary, they're seen as ancillary to the process, not necessary, but a part of it, which I think is the problem.
Marcus Cauchi: How could they not be necessary?
Sebastian van Heyningen: I know, I know. I know.
Sebastian van Heyningen: It's almost like you, you build the world's most amazing rollercoaster but the seats are too small for a human to fit in them. You've thought about the whole ride and the mechanics and it's a feet of engineering that a piece of metal could move this quickly and in these directions and then flip in this way, but no human beings can fit on the ride comfortably.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And so the ride is not popular. The park shuts down the business fails. I think that's what it is. It's an overengineering. And you think you have this amazing funnel. Flywheel. Bow tie. You know, there's been so many names for it and you haven't considered, if I was a person going through these steps, would I be happy?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Would I learn something that helps me do my job well? And would I be incentivized to make a decision that benefits both parties?
Marcus Cauchi: This then raises another interesting question about how we define the word sales and selling and what the, the actual job to be done as a seller is I'd be really curious about your take.
Marcus Cauchi: I mean, what, what, what is our job as a salesperson?
What is our job as a salesperson?
Sebastian van Heyningen: I think our job is to inform, engage, qualify, and sell. And sell is last. Sell is the last thing you do. If you do it at all. You can even say that salespeople discover and start the project that ends in a solved problem. I don't think salespeople solve problems.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I think that is very much overused in our world. I think the product solves the problem, the CS, the account management team they're solving the problem. Salesperson has a huge part in that because they're helping you identify it. They're making sure you're a good fit for this solution. They're getting the information and they're handing it all.
Sebastian van Heyningen: But the problem itself is not solved by sales. You know, we are the fact finders, the investigators, the hype men, or women, or, you know, other genders that are out there , but essentially we are there to build the groundswell and start the project so that it gets to a place where a problem is solved. A client is happening and invoices are paid.
Marcus Cauchi: Yes, and I think there, it will depend largely on the space you fit into in the market. But I think far too many sellers attached to the product, the features, the functionality, hitting quota, all of these kind of things. And when we were prepping, you said something that there's a lack of curiosity, the strive to hit the number and chasing the next letter in the funding series.
Marcus Cauchi: I thought that was lovely where they hit the number and run. Well, I always describe a lot of sales behavior as being a bit like a drive by shooting, uh, every three years. They come back for the renewal and yeah, they call it SaaS. It isn't, it's just repackaged, um, you know, perpetual license,
Sebastian van Heyningen: Just licensed software.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. That's it's
Marcus Cauchi: The customer hasn't really been thought about in this. I think selling should be a cooperative activity. You as the seller and your customer may be partners or even competitors are involved in getting your eyes and brains on the customer's problem and then project managing the conversations.
Marcus Cauchi: Certainly at the enterprise level, that seems to be a big part of our role is the, the orchestration, the planning, the choreography, the right people have the right conversations at the right time, in the right way. And have clear next steps to captain those, those conversations so that everyone else's crew in the one shared mission, which is to help the customer achieve the best decision for themselves for now and the future.
Marcus Cauchi: Now that's anything by order taking it is problem solving, but it's a very different level to the transactional seller who has become, or is the byproduct of that revenue and cost, everyone works to serve shareholder value. Ultimately you can come in, strip the assets out of the company, fire everybody, as long as the investors walk out with some cash in their pocket.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Everyone's happy. They're not. A lot of really pissed off, burnt out people who made these successful and, uh, feel aggrieved, justified.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I think that's a good point. It, I think it, it changes at scale, a smaller company, smaller deal, size, smaller team, you know, maybe a rep that owns the full cycle. You know, they will be more focused on the problem in, in those cases, but they could also slide between into that transactional turn and burn attitude.
Sebastian van Heyningen: But, you know, when we separate those parts of the sales process and, you know, mind you of procurement is also separated into different teams. So on both sides of the equation, we have multiple stakeholders. And that's why I always say that, you know, real estate is a great feeder functioninto sales in this way, because in the same way, as an enterprise deal, you're dealing with, you know, a large ticket item, multiple stakeholders, deadlines that have to be met, uh, policies and, and kind of priorities that have to be, you know, focused on.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And then you're just driving towards that. What you are hoping and kind of advising is the best decision for the central person, which is the buyer.
Marcus Cauchi: Again, the last few months has been really instructive for me as I've started to try to get to grips with this concept of jobs to be done. And the, the theory goes that there is a job to be done and everyone in the organization is subordinate to the, that or those jobs.
Marcus Cauchi: They're not buyers. They're executors of the job.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Gotcha.
Marcus Cauchi: They play a part and they're one of many moving parts.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Okay.
Marcus Cauchi: And what's really fascinating is the number of sales people who will stop at one or two people within an organization where they're 10, 12 people. Then they wonder why they've got a 2.6% win rate.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: But that's okay. Cuz my, my point being here, there are so many different moving parts in the sale nowadays. People have access to amazing amounts of information, but it fits the internet.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Easily make a terrible decision. And so we're seeing a big trend where people want a seller free buying experience, but those customers are very high on the trend risk levels.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Marcus Cauchi: Because they haven't had their questions answered. They haven't had someone challenge their thinking. And I think that's where salespeople again. Are often very weak because I think it is our responsibility to challenge our customers.
Sebastian van Heyningen: A hundred percent. Yeah. The best sellers are the ones that I'd say,
Sebastian van Heyningen: hesitate to say that selling isn't their number one skill, but it's almost that they become experts in their field, whatever they're selling into. If you're you're selling HR tech, you are an HR consultant, essentially. And the value of taking a call with you is beyond using your solution. You know, it is the advice that comes with someone like yourself who speaks to dozens, if not hundreds of people in the same seat, dealing with similar problems.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And you know, that, that's what I think. The best sellers are moving towards is a, an approach that is more consultative, more long tail, and just kind of throws value at you until you are ready to buy. And then even kind of pushing back when you think you're ready to buy and, and making sure that you're qualified and that this is the right time and that this is the right solution.
Marcus Cauchi: Well, again, this is where, um, the data is really key and so few people really are using their data. Well, when you look at it, the actual, uh, wasted activity involved in cold email, cold marketing, cold outreach, cold, cold calling, bland vanilla, more content, uh, from your marketing department, it's all about featuring functionality and self referencing, uh, all that kind of stuff.
Marcus Cauchi: Um, you spend a fortune doing. To create noise and be deaf, uh, and deaf in your prospects too, to your message.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: And so few are taking the time to step back and think, well, what's a better way. Why are we not looking at, for example, second meeting ratios?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Mm.
Marcus Cauchi: Because the second meeting tells me they turned up, they were valuable enough to be invited back.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah. First meeting just tells me that the SDRs hit their quota or didn't. Yeah. I don't care about them hitting that quota. I care about the outcome. Yeah. The outcome is how does a team hit their number and deliver to the customer? The outcomes that they're hiring from us. And then how do we get 'em to stay?
Marcus Cauchi: Cuz I don't wanna have to go out replace. If I'm losing 15%, every three years, I've got to replace half my customers.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Marcus Cauchi: That's an awful lot of work and a lot of profit walking out the door.
Sebastian van Heyningen: It's the everyone's favorite adage. You know, it costs X amount more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an old one.
Marcus Cauchi: Well, the profitability statistics that came out of banks SaaS is reporting 2019. Are that new business generated an average of 18% profit sells 170 expansion sales, 1150%.
Sebastian van Heyningen: There it is..
Marcus Cauchi: So you got numbers hundred times more profit.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Like you wanna work harder because somehow it's a right of passage. (inaudible)
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah, new logos, new logos, the board deck needs the new logos. Marcus.
Marcus Cauchi: Well, some something struck me a couple of years ago after having spent 33 years beating my head again. So all going after new business a lot. And it's this, if you focus on your medium too long term pipeline, that starts generating cash, maybe six to nine months down the road up to about 36 months out.
Marcus Cauchi: If you can just keep the Wolf from the door in month, zero to nine, maybe spend 20% of your time on that.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: You spend 80% on your medium to (inaudible) long term pipeline. Then your short term pipeline takes care of itself.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Marcus Cauchi: And you've got long term pipelines, so you've got breathing space. You've got time. You can pick and choose and you might need maybe a dozen prospects in a year instead of 600.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah
Marcus Cauchi: I can then have 30, 40 relationships within that one account. How much better informed am I gonna be turning up?
How much better informed am I gonna be turning up?
Marcus Cauchi: You know,
Sebastian van Heyningen: Much better. It just makes sense. Like it just simple logic.
Marcus Cauchi: But I don't think people are using any logic.
Sebastian van Heyningen: They're not, but I, there's also limitations that are unique to each business.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You know, some businesses, what they offer is what they offer. You know, there maybe there isn't an expansion opportunity with the stage they're at, in their process, or maybe they have a long term product. People are locked into those deals already. You know, renewals are not a thought process for them because these are five year deals, three year deals.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You know, the funding does not operate on the same cycle as the revenue does. So I, I think every company is different. Like I think everyone listening here will have a reason why they have not focused on that, but I think that's the challenge is dig deep into that reason why, and, and understand that, you know, this is something that if you fix it, it will cascade all the way outward onto, you know, other projects, other needs, you can lower the cost of your sale for new business by expanding your current clients.
Marcus Cauchi: I discovered a really interesting concept, which is how do you create non customers or how do you attract noncustomers? So, um, the, a guy who founded tar was driving around, I think it was in Mumbai and he saw a family of five on a moped and it was pouring with rain and he figured not a great safety, um, not safe way to travel and probably pretty unpleasant.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Mo- moped in the rain with five of you on it, slipping around on, you know, shitty roads. So he decided to throw himself into the problem, which is how do you create a car that's cheap enough for a poor family to be able to buy the car?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: So have shelter and at least, you know, they're not skiing around on two wheels and it needs to fit five people in by the way.
Sellers who really throw themselves into the problem
Marcus Cauchi: And he managed to do it cuz he threw himself into the problem. And I'm really, really intrigued about sellers who really throw themselves into the problem and whether or not they can survive in an environment where they're having to carry that quota.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah, it it's, it's funny. It's like a, it's a two sided thing, because you always say you want an entrepreneurial salesperson. And I think an entrepreneurial salesperson is more focused on the problem than their quota and building relationships that lead to sustainable growth, rather than I need 10 meetings at this amount of revenue, by the end of the quarter, where on the opposite end, you still need those people to hit their quota.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Uh, you know, that, that those numbers exist for a reason. So I think short-term, there are many situations where they just won't survive. You know, I I've, I've been one of those reps. I, I actually fired myself once. You know, I , I was a, a first salesperson. We got eight to nine months in, and my feedback to the CEO was that this is not a sales strategy product.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You need marketing, you need partnerships, you need PR this is a come to us type of software. Rather than a beat the ground show up at your door type of software. And he agreed with me, which meant my position was terminated immediately. So I was focused on the problem. I was fired for it. Uh, and I think there are countless stories like that out there.
Marcus Cauchi: You regret it?
Sebastian van Heyningen: No, not at all because in the long term, you know, that mindset has served me very well. And you know, it's allowed me to create my own business where now I am totally dedicated to the problem.
Marcus Cauchi: I, I learned something last week. So I'm gonna ask you a very unusual question and feel free to start mind my own business.
Marcus Cauchi: Uh, what do you regret in business?
What do you regret in business?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Oh, What do I regret in business? I think I had a lack of foresight at times, and I think, um, I trusted my gut a little too much.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I think, yeah, I think I, I did not act with enough caution throughout my career, which, you know, caused me to learn a lot of lessons in a short period of time, but I could have done so with less desperation, let's say
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah. I always marvel I've lived this long and survived as far as I have without someone stabbing me or beating me.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah. Yeah. My propensity for self sabotage is legendary. Okay. So we've got this shift coming. We're seeing a generational transfer. um, we've I mean, I, if you are selling of managing in this marketplace and over, you know, 22, 23, 24, you're gonna have to be pretty bloody resilient.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: You're gonna have to thick skinned. You're gonna have to be compassionate. You're gonna have to be adaptable. You're gonna have to be really good at workaround. and you're gonna have to be fantastic with your pastoral care. Um, among many other things, cuz we're heading for what is probably one of the toughest trading periods that I think this is my fifth recession and the last one was quite tough.
Marcus Cauchi: Um, it's gonna be a lot worse.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I think you're talking about the COVID one, the housing one or
Marcus Cauchi: well it's, it's just yeah. This, um, slew of them.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Just, you know, we've got world war II and a half maybe. We've got China's rise. America's decline, Europe falling apart
Sebastian van Heyningen: The full inflation, rising gas prices
Marcus Cauchi: Water problems in California,
Sebastian van Heyningen: Climate problems aren't going away. They're just only getting worse.
Marcus Cauchi: So, you've got this incredible environment, which must be driving people's brains, flush with adrenaline and cortisol and their, yeah. How can you create an environment of calm so that they can think, and they can respond to their circumstance rather than react and probably overcorrect?
How can you create an environment of calm so that they can think, and they can respond to their circumstance rather than react and probably overcorrect?
Sebastian van Heyningen: I mean, I think that's its own its own podcast in itself. Yeah. Just to simplify it, I would say it starts with you as the leader. You don't appear frazzled. Be honest if you're worried, but you know, don't show that energy don't lead with that energy. You know, you you're, as the leader, you are the studying force, uh, and the one that sets the tone.
Sebastian van Heyningen: So be the one that sets the tone and, you know, set it towards the tone that you think is best for the team rather than a reactive one. This is one thing that I've actually learned in my, my side job, which is a DJ. Uh, I had. When I started out, I would play the music for the room. I would look at the room and say, I think the room needs this music, but as I've grown, I've realized that I am controlling the mood in the room.
Sebastian van Heyningen: I have all the speakers, I have a microphone. I have everything at my disposal. If I want the mood to go up, all I need to do is start yelling and play upbeat music. And so find your version of that. As a manager, get people into the mood or tone or thought process that you want them to be, but also be understanding that there's a lot of negative information out there and people are dealing with their own shit pretty much.
Sebastian van Heyningen: So also be understanding and empathetic and I think kind of to, to tie it all up. I think that the job of a leader is to align the incentives of the individual. With the incentives of the collective, you know, everything melts away and becomes a lot more simple. If you know that by doing these things today, I will positively affect this thing, which will lead to a benefit for everyone involved.
Sebastian van Heyningen: All that other stuff, you can talk about it. You can make it a focus, but you know, we have a tendency to come to work, put on our work hat and, and do the job. So set it up, set up a world where they can get into that mindset, do that job and understand that the work they're doing has meaning and is valid and is, is going to help the business as well as themselves.
Marcus Cauchi: This is such an interesting question because I see the world of work. And how people value it, what they derive from it changing quite dramatically as the generation shift, because when were you born?
Generation shift
Sebastian van Heyningen: Ninety one.
Marcus Cauchi: Ninety one. So you were just coming into the 92 recession. So you probably didn't realize that.
Marcus Cauchi: So the one that hit you was the next one, which would've been the 2002 or 2000. We had a bit of a blip didn't we? And then that was 2000.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah,
Marcus Cauchi: Right?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. I would, I would say I wasn't financially literate at the time, but like my first memory, like historically was 9/11.
Marcus Cauchi: Right.
Marcus Cauchi: Right. Okay. Ah, that's really interesting.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. I was in fourth, fifth grade. They sent us home from school because there was an attack.
How has that shaped your perspective on your place in the world as a citizen?
Marcus Cauchi: So tell me this. How has that shaped your perspective on your place in the world as a citizen?
Sebastian van Heyningen: I mean, so one thing, one main takeaway, which I don't know if this is the podcast for that but (inaudible) my main takeaway was when the entire world unites around one enemy or one action.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You need to scrutinize that the most, because what happened after 9/11? Where did the US military go? What was the justification for that occupation? And what did we learn? 10 to 15 years later? So that was my takeaway was like, okay, we can all unite around one idea and that idea can be completely incorrect and list the pressure from the culture to fall in line.
Sebastian van Heyningen: You know, I think that was actually one. President Barack Obama's like first political moments was he came out against the Iraq war when it was not cool to, you know, nowadays everybody in there is trying to say that they had doubts at the time, but you know, the whole nation united around that one idea.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And upon further scrutiny, maybe we should have had some extra thought before just running up into that country.
Marcus Cauchi: That's really quite an advanced form of thinking. I'm very impressed that you took that. You took that outta it. Okay. Cause what, what I'm really interested in is how these events in people's lives, um, cause them to experience the world and filter it, uh, and how it affects values. So, uh, in terms, and, and the reason I asked about regret as well is Dan Pink did a talk at the nud stock event, uh, last week. Where he's released a book about regrets because regrets tend to point to what people value the most.
Marcus Cauchi: Um,
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. Wow.
Marcus Cauchi: And so I'm curious, uh, because I think values is something that we really need to get, uh, a much better understanding of because as your values affect how you behave, even when no one is looking.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: That's really telling, cause if you can understand someone's values when you're hiring.
Marcus Cauchi: The one thing I don't look for diversity in is values. I have an ecosystem that I'm putting together.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: We have four rules. No, our assholes.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Never take advantage, even if you can. If the customer could benefit from two or three of the other partners within our ecosystem, uh, from seeing what they can offer, it's your responsibility to bring them in cuz the customers, the third rule is buyer safety first.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yep.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah, so the buyer has to feel safer with one of us or any of us by their side on their journey than without us.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Mm-hmm.
Marcus Cauchi: Cause if they don't buy from us now they'll buy from us in the future. Cuz we play the longest. They'll do that. And the fourth one is that we delight in our partner's success.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Okay.
Marcus Cauchi: If I bring you in, I could have won the business, but you win it. Great customers best served.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: So those like that, those are the four values that we've worked on so far. I think values are such an important filter, uh, on how people will behave. And you talk about company values, but if they don't live them, they're not really a value.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. They're just written down on a word document and your website yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Or painted on your wall to look good.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah. I don't know exactly how growing up in that time period has affected my values yet.
Marcus Cauchi: It's gonna be interesting.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: Interesting.
Marcus Cauchi: There's a, a book we were talking about earlier called the Fourth Turning by Neil.
Marcus Cauchi: Howe and, uh, William,
Sebastian van Heyningen: There was a Strauss, yes. Yeah.
Marcus Cauchi: And it was talking about this, these, uh, historical cycles that have been lived through four, five, uh, five or six times before and predicting the one we are going through now, uh, with depressingly accurate and graphic detail. That would be my book book recommendation for today's episode.
Marcus Cauchi: What would be yours?
Book recommendation
Sebastian van Heyningen: My go to book that I think every human being should read is Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs.
Marcus Cauchi: It's fabulous. I love Thank You For Arguing. In fact, we had him on the podcast. It it's the one, uh, about rhetoric for any of you who
Sebastian van Heyningen: I'm going. I'm going back for that.
Marcus Cauchi: He was brilliant.
Marcus Cauchi: I love that book. Thank You For Arguing was wonderful. But
Sebastian van Heyningen: One I go back to a lot.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah. And the other one, um, I recommend this on almost every episode. Just Listened by Mark Goulston. If you're a member of the speakeasy you need to read, just listen and apply the stuff. It works. It's fantastic. Okay. You've got a golden ticket and you can go back and you can advise the idiot
Marcus Cauchi: Sebastian age 23. What one choice, bit of advice would you whisper in his ear he would've ignored?
What one bit of advice would you whisper in his ear that he would've ignored?
Sebastian van Heyningen: Buy Bitcoin? no, but seriously, I would, I would just reconfirm how important the network is. I think that's one that I didn't pay attention enough to early in my career. I thought I could just trail blaze my way in and out of companies.
Sebastian van Heyningen: And you know, the people I met along the way, I'd see them another time. I think managing and, and being intentional in your network is the most important thing I could have learned back then.
Marcus Cauchi: Yeah, it's, it's sad that wisdom is wasted on the, uh, the old and youth wasted on the young. Okay. Sebastian, how can people get hold of you?
How can people get hold of you?
Sebastian van Heyningen: LinkedIn. LinkedIn's the best way. Uh, DM me, tag me in a post. I think I have links to either email me or, or, um, set a call with me there, but that's where I am most active. LinkedIn.
Marcus Cauchi: And who do you typically serve the best and what's your superpower?
Who do you typically serve the best and what's your superpower?
Sebastian van Heyningen: We serve CEOs, heads of marketing, heads of sales, heads of product at, I would say in the series A SMB to mid-size space and our superpower is building a buyer journey that is reportable, scalable, visible, easy to change, you know, essentially, you know, the, the saying that you can't build the plane while you fly it. Ya'll focus on playing the plane. We build the plane while you fly it.
Marcus Cauchi: That's really interesting. And how far along the buyers journey do you go? Where, where do you begin and where do you end?
How far along the buyers journey do you go? Where do you begin and where do you end?
Sebastian van Heyningen: End to end. Inquiry to renewal expansion, upsell and referral.
Marcus Cauchi: Okay.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Because every step has its own technology, its own process, owner, its own exit criteria, its own internal and stakeholders, its own important fields, values reports, you know, you can get, you know, we, we mock it all up in an Excel sheet and each phase has its own kind of rows and it gets very complex.
Sebastian van Heyningen: But the end result is you have a blueprint that you can build your entire revenue organization from.
Marcus Cauchi: That's really impressive. Okay. Well, we need to dig into that offline. Excellent Sebastian. Thank you.
Sebastian van Heyningen: Thanks for having me
Marcus Cauchi: So this is Marcus Cauchi signing off from TheInquisitor Podcast. Once again, if you wanna get hold of me, my email address is marcus@laughs-last.com.
Marcus Cauchi: And if you're the owner or CEO of a tech company, and your goal is to generate annual recurring revenues in excess of 20 million, maybe we should have a call. Right now, I'm helping companies like yours achieve genuine, sustainable, hyper growth, profitable, hyper growth. Let me be clear about that with highly engaged and highly productive employees who love giving discretionary effort and clients who stick with you year after year.
Marcus Cauchi: So if you are out for a brief conversation, then I'm happy to share some ideas with you and strategies that can help you achieve profitable growth. One idea that you might want to mull around with is product market fit as a service. Being able to establish that within one quarter, if you wanna get hold of me, marcus@laughs-last.com.
Marcus Cauchi: Thanks a lot. Stay safe. Happy selling. Bye-bye.
