ISEs3 Ep14: Todd Caponi - Sales History Nerd + Transparency Evangelist @ Sales Melon

Erich Starrett: 00:00:00

Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Sales Enablement Season

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Three Enablement History, and joining

Me in the Orchestrate Sales Studios.

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Today is someone who knows a lot

about history, a lot more than me

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sales specifically, but it's Mr.

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Todd Caponi and he is the founder,

speaker, not just speaker, but CSP.

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Certifiably speaker.

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He'll probably share a

little bit about that.

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Amazing to me.

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I didn't know such a thing existed, CSP.

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And he's a workshop leader for his own,

very successful company sales melon.

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In addition to, as I alluded to, he

is the sales history, nerd and host.

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Sounds familiar.

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Just got to add the enablement, right?

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For the sales history podcast.

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And man, Todd's great to meet you.

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We had a pretty fun pre show and we

were like, we got to start recording.

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This is gold.

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So Todd, anything I missed before we dive

into the questions, you've got such a

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broad, deep and wide history, my friend.

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Todd Caponi: Now it's funny.

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I when cool people are doing cool

things on the weekends, I'm digging

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into late 1800s, early 1900s books

on sales and sales management.

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I've got, I'm building

basically a museum for sales.

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I've got triggers set up and eBay and all

kinds of places, anything that comes up.

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I'm buying it and like my wife and

family are saints for putting up with,

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it smells like the deepest corner of

grandma's basement in here from all

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the musty books in here, but I love it.

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Erich Starrett: That's great.

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And for those of you who can't

see the visual we do in fact have

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an entire library of phenomenal

books, including two of his own.

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I don't think I mentioned

author among those.

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And he is the author of both the

transparency sale and looking to click

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up to the sometimes forgotten leader

of sales, the transparent sales leader.

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So I'm sure we'll get to a little

bit of more of that in a minute,

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but let's start off Todd with okay.

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Sales history.

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Where did sales enablement come in?

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Todd Caponi: It's funny.

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I'm going to share a quick story

for you because it's one of the most

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amazing stories I'd ever heard about.

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You call it sales training,

you call it sales enablement,

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call it whatever you want.

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We all have probably heard

of Mark Twain, right?

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Mark Twain, the author of the

adventures of Tom Sawyer, the

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adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

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And then you may have heard of a U

S president Ulysses S Grant, right?

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So Ulysses S Grant, war hero, president.

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When you're the president back

then, you didn't get a pension.

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There was no 401k.

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He had made some good money.

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Him and his son connected up with

another guy and they created like

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a wall street investment firm.

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That other guy turned out to be a

crook, absolute crook of the worst kind.

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Ulysses S grant 1884 had

lost all of his money.

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None of it.

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He also smoked like 60 cigars a

day and ended up getting diagnosed

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with terminal throat cancer.

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Yeah.

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And so he's sitting there and he's

listen, I want to write my memoirs.

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I need to be able to leave

some money for my family.

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What am I going to do?

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He signs on with a publishing

firm that didn't give him

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the best terms in the world.

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Mark Twain considered Ulysses

X Grant to be an absolute hero.

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Jumps in and it's wait, I will

publish this book for you.

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I will do, I'll put together programs.

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I will do this.

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And Ulysses X Grant's I already signed.

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I'm like no.

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You can get out of that.

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Come with me.

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Mark Twain then helps him.

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So Ulysses S.

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Grant writes morning, noon,

night on his deathbed.

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There's pictures of him, curled

up in he's shaking doing this,

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he's dying, he gets the book done.

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In the meantime, Mark Twain

creates a publishing house.

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He finds 10, 000 people

to go sell this book.

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And most of them were

former pieces of Ulysses S.

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Grant's military.

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He taught

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Erich Starrett: a true

customer facing frontline.

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Todd Caponi: absolutely and enabled

them all to go door to door.

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He created something called

selling the memoirs of Ulysses S.

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Grant.

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These 10, 000 go door to door.

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They're taught exactly how to message

this, how to do it all in the end.

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The book comes out.

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He dies somewhere between

three and seven days later.

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All right, but within the next year, Mark

Twain was able to hand his widow a check

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that in today's terms would be 12 million.

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Erich Starrett: Holy sucker.

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Todd Caponi: is, and I consider it the

first true product launch enablement

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program that is done, and this is 1885.

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And some of those stories that

I see and I hear, I'm like, Man,

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people got to hear these stories.

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Who would ever have associated

Mark Twain with being a pioneer for

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sales enablement and product launch.

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But there we go.

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Ulysses S.

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Grant at the time was that book

was the second highest selling

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book of all time behind the Bible.

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Amazing.

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And there's more from a history

perspective, by the way, we

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can dig into people like I'm

a big fan of john Patterson.

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You may have heard of him, Patterson

was really his the way his brain worked.

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He created so much of the foundational

structures of what we use still today.

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First dedicated territories, first quotas.

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He did the first sales kickoff in 1887.

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And I've got some of

the details around that.

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His brother in law created a play,

a sales handbook for the team.

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It was called the NCR primer at the time.

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It was how I sell NCR cash registers.

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That was written in 1925 on

Patterson and it is fantastic.

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Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

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What great story already.

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So that's the first time in history,

arguably with sales enablement.

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How about the first time

you heard those two words?

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Todd Caponi: When I first got my

first sales leadership role in

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2008, My lens was always, Hey,

listen, everybody, we're peers.

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Like I'm nobody's boss.

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But we have different

responsibilities and you help me.

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I help you.

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This is what we're going to do.

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And one of the ways I'm going to help

you is I'm going to try to make you

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better at what you do when you walk out

of here than when you are right now.

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That was always my lens.

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I ended up going to a

company called Exact Target.

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That's an email marketing

unicorn at the time.

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If you want to call it that based

in Indianapolis, I was one of the

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four people running the country.

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So I had a big region, most like the

central region and then half of Canada.

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Erich Starrett: Wow.

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Todd Caponi: I got hired, my boss,

this guy, Andy was like, Todd.

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When you get here you're going to

attend something called nest, which

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is new employee sales training.

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And Todd, I know you, you're

going to hate it, right?

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Like you're going to, but you

got to go through it, take notes.

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If you can come back and coach us a

little bit on what we can be doing better.

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All right.

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And he did warn me.

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Erich Starrett: Don't

leave the nest, Todd.

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Todd Caponi: he is not only don't

leave the nest, but don't take it over.

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I didn't make it.

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By the first Thursday.

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This is not going where I went

back, I met with him, met with our

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guy that was running ops, and I was

like, guys, if we're scaling this

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company like I'm gonna be hiring reps.

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I can't have 'em go through this.

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This is just, it's broken.

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Fast forward a few months.

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I'm running the region.

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We're doing really well.

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They tap me on the shoulder

and they're like, Todd, we

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want you to rebuild enablement.

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It doesn't matter the cost.

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Just go.

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We've got to be prepared for this.

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We're taking these big rounds of funding.

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And so we want you to run

enablement and that sounds like fun.

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That's cool.

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And then I left and I was like, all

right, Google, what is enablement?

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What is this word?

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I literally never heard

the word enablement before.

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And the people that come came

up, people like Scott Santucci.

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And he had an event coming up in.

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California in San

Francisco Forrester event.

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I remember him walking out.

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He's got his like Superman shirt

on under a sport coat and sat

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next to Jill Rowley, who's another

classic enablement professional.

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Erich Starrett: Jill

shows up every episode.

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I love it.

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Of course you sat next to her.

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Todd Caponi: And I learned I soaked

in as much as I possibly could

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there about what enablement is.

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And then when I got back to the office, I

had a revelation through a friend of mine.

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Who had told me about a guy in Columbus,

Ohio, who had a doctorate in just

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adult learning and how people learn.

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I was like let's go spend a half a

day with this guy and just soak it up.

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We did.

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And then came back with kind of a

new chart for how enablement should

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be run to be of the scale at that

level, all adhering to how the brain

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takes in information, truly learns

and truly is able to apply it.

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And it turned out to be a raging success.

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We got acquired in 2013 and it was

one of the things that went really

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well post acquisition was making

sure that we were able to enable Mark

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Benioff and his 2000 salespeople.

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As quickly as possible to figure out

what they just spent 3 billion on.

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Erich Starrett: A little bird

told me, in fact, speaking of Mr.

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B himself, He had a nice word or

three to share with you on a kickoff

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call in the combined companies.

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Todd Caponi: Yeah, it was one of

those proud moments . We had these

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conference calls where all the

leaders were on Europe, like all the

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sales leaders, enablement leaders,

operations, they would talk about

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Hey, how's comp planning going?

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It's a disaster.

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How's operation?

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It's horrible.

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How's enablement planning going?

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Listen, we got to get these 2000 reps

speaking the exact target language

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in the next, you got 60 days.

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And I was like, I don't want to sound

arrogant, but I could do it in 15, right?

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Cause we had it all.

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We had created these on demand e

learning modules that we could just

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turn into their LMS and they could start

taking the classes right away and start

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getting familiar with the language.

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We were doing recorded role plays.

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Using your webcam back in, 2012.

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We found a company that was doing

it for recruiting and we're like,

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could you do it for enablement?

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During that call I took everybody

through that and one of the things

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like Benioff said was wow Like

enablements the one thing that seems

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like it's going really well thank you.

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Erich Starrett: That's the

exposure to sales enablement.

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What about the society itself?

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You shared that your first encounter

with Scott who ended up founding

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the society not too long thereafter.

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But the sales enablement society

now revenue enablement society.

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Have you been a part of that?

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What's your history there?

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Todd Caponi: Not a whole lot.

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I've been familiar with it.

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I remember back then, there was some.

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But there was some like

enablement heroes at that thing.

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I learned so much from those people

and I've always kept close with Scott

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over the years and I love what they're

building and these communities for

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sales enablers, they're so important.

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So one of my books back here from

like: 1912

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idea that as the economy gets tight, as it

gets harder to sell, you need two things.

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You need better sales leadership

and better sales enablement.

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They didn't use the word enablement.

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You need both.

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Now, what tends to happen

when the economy tightens?

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For whatever reason, our subconscious

knee jerk reaction is, Hey,

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let's train our leaders less.

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Like they, they just got to get to work.

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We don't have money to

be training leaders.

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And number two is let's downsize our

enablement because that's overhead.

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That's insane to me.

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Like that to me is the

craziest thing that we know.

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That as things get tougher, those

investments need to go up, but

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ironically, they've gone down

historically over and over again.

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We've seen it again recently.

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And those sales enablement societies are

just such great opportunities for the

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people that are in those roles to find

each other, to find the roles to up level

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so that reputation goes away as it should.

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Erich Starrett: Those are great points.

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Todd and 1 of the things that I'm

hearing consistently, in fact, coming

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out of the digital now conference in

Chicago with corporate visions and

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Emblaze and the revenue enablement

society as a partner, by the way.

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The main theme for enablement was

having a seat at the CRO table,

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CXO table, being able to speak CRO.

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Todd Caponi: in my second book that

you mentioned, the transparent sales

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leader, I've got a section that I

talk about enablement for leaders

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because there's this always been this

misnomer of what the role is really.

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Designed to be.

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This idea that, Oh,

enablement, that's training.

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All right.

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Maybe a little, but I tried to break

down the responsibilities in the

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book, also with my enablement teams.

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When I left exact target, I went to a

company called power reviews in Chicago.

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I was their CRO and, it was immediately a

fight with my CEO, a guy named Matt Vogue.

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Matt had an old school perspective of

enablement And so I had to go in and

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really fight for what needed to happen.

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I broke it down into three

core responsibilities.

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First of all, the first responsibility

the word I used amalgamate meant that

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I wanted my enablement leader to go and

constantly survey our leaders and figure

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out what our priorities needed to be right

and go amalgamate all of that, right?

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Because everybody's got different issues.

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Look for those consistencies, look for the

things and then we're going to prioritize

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them and then we're going to go.

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They're going to enablement leader is

going to sit down with me and a couple

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of my lieutenants and we are going to

create a priority of top five Right?

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Here's the five things that

we are going to accomplish.

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Now, as the random crap pops up.

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I needed to empower that enablement

leader to your point about sitting

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at the table with the CRO to be

able to say, Hey, you need that.

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All right, cool.

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Which one of these five is

going to come out then and to be

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able to have that conversation.

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Then the number two responsibility

was the word orchestrate.

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Which meant I didn't need my enablement

person to be the trainer, right?

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They're not always the

best person to do it.

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The classroom's not always the best way.

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And so orchestrate was based on

that priority, putting together

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plans to orchestrate what needs

to happen in the most optimal way.

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And that's, through people it's e

learning versus books versus classroom.

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Like we need to figure that out

for each one, put together a plan

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and find the best people for it.

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One of the guys that I

hired at exact target.

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His name was Steve.

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He was a super nerd and he

was not afraid to be a jerk.

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He's a self made dude.

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He didn't even need a job.

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He just liked doing this.

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And so little funny story.

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We'd have product come

in and teach a class.

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And so product would come

in with all their slides.

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And Steve would be like, we're

going to go through these first.

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We're going to optimize them.

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And the product is guys like they

need to learn all of this stuff.

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And Steve would be like

then you're not teaching.

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He wasn't afraid to tell

him this is garbage.

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These 40 slides.

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They only need these five.

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We're going to X those out.

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We're going to opt like he was

awesome and people hated them.

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And I think they still talk

about what Steve guy, dude,

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but it was fricking great.

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But that was orchestrated, optimizing

the path of getting those priorities

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into the brains, into the actions

of our revenue organization.

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And then number three was evaluate, right?

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I always felt my enablement team

had a closer eye into The successes,

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the failures, the struggles,

the strengths, the weaknesses

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of my team before any of us did.

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Even new managers hiring a new rep, my

enablement team could see that before

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the manager themselves could see that.

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And I needed to be able to create a

mechanism so that they had a seat at

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the table to say, Hey, She's awesome.

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That dude sucks, right?

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And be able to do that in a way so

that we could see those holes before

322

: 00:15:34

they formed and became canyons.

323

: 00:15:36

So amalgamate, orchestrate, evaluate.

324

: 00:15:39

That was the role.

325

: 00:15:40

And once we really got that nailed

down, things started to get controlled.

326

: 00:15:44

We were hitting the priorities that

we needed to, and we were seeing

327

: 00:15:47

those holes before they formed.

328

: 00:15:48

So that's my rant on what

enablement is and how it always

329

: 00:15:52

worked in our organizations.

330

: 00:15:55

Erich Starrett: Outstanding.

331

: 00:15:56

And in the orchestrate piece , you

said across the revenue organization.

332

: 00:16:01

What does that mean?

333

: 00:16:02

Todd Caponi: Yeah.

334

: 00:16:02

When you see things on LinkedIn or

whatever about sales has changed so

335

: 00:16:06

much, the buyer knows so much more.

336

: 00:16:08

No, they don't.

337

: 00:16:08

Like most of what is said

about how sales has changed.

338

: 00:16:13

Trust me, it's incorrect, right?

339

: 00:16:15

Like buyers know more

nowadays, those four words.

340

: 00:16:18

1912 Thomas Herbert Russell's

book, Salesmanship, referring to

341

: 00:16:22

the fact that we had catalogs.

342

: 00:16:24

Nobody can see this, but this is a

: 1908

343

: 00:16:29

is essentially Amazon, right?

344

: 00:16:32

Like you could buy, there's a department

of human hair if you need any human

345

: 00:16:35

hair, but it's got like tractor, you

could buy everything in here, right?

346

: 00:16:39

This is Amazon 1908.

347

: 00:16:40

Buyers have always had access to

more information than salespeople

348

: 00:16:44

felt comfortable with, right?

349

: 00:16:46

What do they need us for?

350

: 00:16:48

More information available to

buyers has not made it easier.

351

: 00:16:51

It's made it harder, always.

352

: 00:16:53

And salespeople doing right by customers

focused on a service oriented mindset

353

: 00:16:58

where we're helping them achieve optimal

outcomes, things maybe they thought

354

: 00:17:02

they couldn't even achieve, whether

it's with us or with somebody else.

355

: 00:17:06

As fast as possible that

is always the goal, right?

356

: 00:17:09

So that part of sales hasn't really

changed buyers doing more homework

357

: 00:17:14

before they talk to the rep.

358

: 00:17:15

I got a story of 1926 where they would

have basically interns call companies and

359

: 00:17:22

ask for catalogs so executives can read

the catalogs and not be bothered, right?

360

: 00:17:26

That's always been the same.

361

: 00:17:27

What has changed the as

a service economy, right?

362

: 00:17:31

That back when I started in sales, we

were, you get the deal and good luck.

363

: 00:17:35

See ya.

364

: 00:17:36

And then if they had a complaint,

what are they going to do?

365

: 00:17:38

Write a letter, call an 800

number, like talk to their four

366

: 00:17:42

friends that have, who cares?

367

: 00:17:44

Today, the as a service economy means

that the deal is no longer the peak.

368

: 00:17:49

It's basically an early milestone to

having customers that stay, that buy,

369

: 00:17:53

stay, buy more and become advocates for

you and take you with them to their next

370

: 00:17:57

company, which again, there's a lot more

ent now than there was in the: 1920

371

: 00:18:02

And so you need to create long

term value for these customers.

372

: 00:18:06

And that's that long game helps

you win the short game too.

373

: 00:18:10

And so my client success team needed to

be an extension of everything because

374

: 00:18:14

they were actually more important than

my new business team, not less important.

375

: 00:18:18

So I always looked at sales client

success Hey, we need to be all doing

376

: 00:18:24

this together and all in lockstep.

377

: 00:18:26

As a matter of fact, client success,

you're going to hate sitting next

378

: 00:18:30

to our sales team, but you're going

to do it because they're obnoxious.

379

: 00:18:33

But you're like, we need us

to all be like, like this.

380

: 00:18:36

When I think about enablement, it was

uplift everybody together and create those

381

: 00:18:41

connections and make sure that there's,

consistency in everything we're doing

382

: 00:18:45

because that long game wins the long

game, but it also wins the short game too.

383

: 00:18:50

Erich Starrett: Yeah.

384

: 00:18:50

And it sounds a lot like

revenue architecture.

385

: 00:18:53

I'm a big fan of Jacco -over

at Winning By Designs -bowtie.

386

: 00:18:57

Let's turn the funnel on its side.

387

: 00:18:59

You literally had that going on in real

life where that demarcation point, that's

388

: 00:19:03

the middle of the funnel turned on its

side, which is, Hey, we signed a deal now

389

: 00:19:08

goes over to the other side of the floor.

390

: 00:19:09

Literally the baton is passed

physically in the office.

391

: 00:19:12

I love that visual over to now

we need to get that first impact

392

: 00:19:17

and make sure that transparently

everything we shared comes true.

393

: 00:19:21

We show that impact and now it's

recurring impact and we keep turning

394

: 00:19:26

them through that right hand side

of the bow tie and customer success.

395

: 00:19:30

And maybe even it goes back across

the aisle and you bring sales back in.

396

: 00:19:33

Todd Caponi: Yeah, exactly.

397

: 00:19:35

For our deals maybe not with the smallest

deals, but some of our, mid to larger,

398

: 00:19:40

there was basically a requirement before

a contract could be signed that client

399

: 00:19:44

success was a part of the deal there,

at least for the last parts of it to

400

: 00:19:48

make sure that there's pure alignment.

401

: 00:19:49

Like my favorite sales quote of all time.

402

: 00:19:53

A guy named Arthur Dunn, his book,

Scientific Selling and Advertising,

403

: 00:19:56

the year is 1921, and his quote is

simply, and there's a whole page

404

: 00:20:01

dedicated to this one sentence.

405

: 00:20:02

So you're reading the book, there's a

page, it's blank, it's got one sentence

406

: 00:20:05

on it, and the sentence just says this,

if the truth won't sell it, don't sell it.

407

: 00:20:11

Right?

408

: 00:20:11

I like, it's a beautiful line,

: 1921

409

: 00:20:16

had to drive in our organizations.

410

: 00:20:17

Again, in this as a service economy.

411

: 00:20:20

If you need to lie to get a

deal done, you probably should

412

: 00:20:23

go find another job, right?

413

: 00:20:24

That's the reputation that goes along,

like the blow horn by which people

414

: 00:20:28

can share negative experiences means

that maybe you get that one deal,

415

: 00:20:32

but it costs you four that you never

knew existed because they're hearing

416

: 00:20:36

in the back channels about how you

suck and they're not coming to you.

417

: 00:20:39

One other little semi rant that sales

leaders need to pay attention to.

418

: 00:20:46

When I was a revenue or sales leader,

one of the things that I would look to

419

: 00:20:49

my team for one of the metrics was, Hey,

listen, at all times, You need to have

420

: 00:20:54

four X, your quota and pipeline, right?

421

: 00:20:57

That old four X you got to have.

422

: 00:20:59

And so that's like the bow tie being

a big floppy one, like a clown.

423

: 00:21:03

And so what we ended up

doing is we'd measure to it.

424

: 00:21:06

And what would happen?

425

: 00:21:07

My reps would fill their pipelines with

four X, the quota filled with crap.

426

: 00:21:12

And we'd lose slowly.

427

: 00:21:14

We'd hang on to deals that

we shouldn't be working.

428

: 00:21:16

And our most valuable asset that we

can convert to revenue is our time.

429

: 00:21:20

What are we doing?

430

: 00:21:22

And so that's a lot of where this

transparency element comes into is we

431

: 00:21:26

need to reveal what we give up to be great

at our core early, like a pricing range.

432

: 00:21:32

If you're talking about a six figure

deal to a four figure buyer, One

433

: 00:21:36

of you is in the wrong room, like

you better figure that out, right?

434

: 00:21:39

And we need to clear that out so that

big clowny bowtie becomes more like a

435

: 00:21:44

cylinder and then spews out at the end.

436

: 00:21:47

That that's the ultimate.

437

: 00:21:48

And I think enablement plays

just such a key role in that.

438

: 00:21:51

And it starts with leadership.

439

: 00:21:53

A lot of our measures drive

the wrong behaviors and we

440

: 00:21:56

need to wind that back up.

441

: 00:21:58

Erich Starrett: Yeah.

442

: 00:21:58

And so that evolution that

you did naturally enabling

443

: 00:22:03

the customer service group.

444

: 00:22:05

We've seen chief sales officer

to chief revenue officer.

445

: 00:22:09

We've seen sales ops to rev ops.

446

: 00:22:12

And now we've seen sales enablement

to revenue enablement society.

447

: 00:22:17

Todd Caponi: That's a natural evolution

to the one big thing that has changed

448

: 00:22:21

in the world of sales, which is the

long game of everything as a service.

449

: 00:22:26

Product as a service.

450

: 00:22:26

Sales as service.

451

: 00:22:28

Services, as a service, like whatever.

452

: 00:22:29

If you're not focused on long

term value of your customer.

453

: 00:22:34

You're going to lose.

454

: 00:22:35

And my business today, I do keynotes.

455

: 00:22:38

I do workshops for lots of companies.

456

: 00:22:41

I had been almost solely tech companies

and now my business is about 50, 50

457

: 00:22:46

tech and then outside of tech, the

tech world seems to get it right.

458

: 00:22:50

The outside of tech world

seems to be a little behind.

459

: 00:22:52

We're getting them across

that chasm that it's not.

460

: 00:22:56

Hey, sell the deal and deal

with the consequences later.

461

: 00:22:59

It's we need to think about revenue,

the revenue names in all the things that

462

: 00:23:04

we're doing and look across all elements.

463

: 00:23:07

And make sure that we're creating

these long term value customers because

464

: 00:23:10

that's where the profitability comes in.

465

: 00:23:11

And otherwise, it's just not sustainable.

466

: 00:23:13

I'd love your opinion on that.

467

: 00:23:15

Erich Starrett: Yeah, to me, it's

been fascinating that I've really only

468

: 00:23:19

delved into the SAS space and startup

space over the last four or five years.

469

: 00:23:24

I've spent a lot of my career

knocking down silos in businesses

470

: 00:23:28

that have already been built, a

lot of which have stood for years.

471

: 00:23:32

You have the opposite effect when

you have these greenfield companies

472

: 00:23:36

where there's are there's a natural

no walls, but they start to build up.

473

: 00:23:41

So there's still that opportunity

to orchestrate cross functionally

474

: 00:23:44

and to build that design.

475

: 00:23:46

But exactly to your point of what I've

been seeing the last few years have been

476

: 00:23:52

a trend towards growth at all costs.

477

: 00:23:54

Without really thinking about how do we

keep that recurring impact that recurring

478

: 00:23:59

revenue and that has changed seemingly

to me overnight and especially in the

479

: 00:24:04

sass space they're like the lightning rod

for that because of how dependent they

480

: 00:24:08

are on that recurring revenue there are

huge changes in the go to market motions

481

: 00:24:14

down to hiring individual positions.

482

: 00:24:16

Todd Caponi: Yeah, it's history

repeating itself, literally.

483

: 00:24:19

If you look at this is nerdy, but

if you look at the period of: 1914

484

: 00:24:25

1923, we are in 1923 right now, because

: 2017

485

: 00:24:33

1914 to 1917, you had slow and

steady, like regular growth, right?

486

: 00:24:39

It was good.

487

: 00:24:40

It was a strong economy.

488

: 00:24:41

We lived that basically 2017 to

: 2020

489

: 00:24:46

The economy shut off in 1918

when we went into world war one.

490

: 00:24:50

Like just shut the, like off

manufacturing, stop, take everybody,

491

: 00:24:54

throw them to the war effort.

492

: 00:24:55

But we didn't stay in world war one

long and the economy opened back

493

: 00:24:59

up pretty quickly and then took off

exactly like mid: 2020

494

: 00:25:06

where you had high turnover, voluntary

turnover among sales reps, literally

495

: 00:25:12

in 1919, salesperson turnover was 65

percent and it was largely voluntary.

496

: 00:25:17

As reps went chasing money, like they'd

go to a job and then go to another

497

: 00:25:21

job, go to another job because there

were so many jobs and not enough people

498

: 00:25:24

and money was pouring into sales.

499

: 00:25:27

Then what happened?

500

: 00:25:28

Inflation spike, inflation

went up and I saw this in: 2022

501

: 00:25:33

I wrote an article February 2nd, 2022

saying, Here ye, hear ye, the end is near!

502

: 00:25:39

And people were like, shut up, Todd.

503

: 00:25:41

You don't know what you're talking about.

504

: 00:25:42

There's too much private equity.

505

: 00:25:43

Okay, Inflation spiked.

506

: 00:25:45

And sure enough, in March

of: 2022

507

: 00:25:50

And then what happened?

508

: 00:25:51

The bottom dropped out.

509

: 00:25:53

1921.

510

: 00:25:55

You had 77 percent salesperson turnover.

511

: 00:25:58

Almost all involuntary 1922, 85 percent

salesperson turnover in companies

512

: 00:26:05

were purging their sales organizations

because the economy had dropped out.

513

: 00:26:08

It was the forgotten

depression of the early: 1920

514

: 00:26:11

Now that's exactly what

happened in: 2023

515

: 00:26:15

Where we suddenly, we had this dip

and all of a sudden you'd saw across

516

: 00:26:19

SAS and tech, like salespeople

getting purged everywhere, and

517

: 00:26:22

then it slowly starts to come out.

518

: 00:26:24

When we go from revenue at all costs.

519

: 00:26:27

1919 early 1920 to depressionary

recessionary to Profitable growth.

520

: 00:26:35

Guess what though?

521

: 00:26:36

We're going to do it again, dude.

522

: 00:26:39

Like we're gonna we're gonna start

going back to revenue at all costs.

523

: 00:26:42

It's going to happen What I hope

t happen is that we don't hit: 1929

524

: 00:26:47

here which was the start of the Great

Depression that lasted almost 10 years.

525

: 00:26:51

We got to make sure that we learn

these lessons But right now we're

526

: 00:26:54

in this profitable growth stage

hat we experienced exactly In: 1923

527

: 00:26:59

it lasted for a couple of years.

528

: 00:27:00

And then we started to

get a little shady again.

529

: 00:27:02

And we had the roaring twenties later

on the: 1920

530

: 00:27:07

Erich Starrett: I don't know

that a whole lot of us can

531

: 00:27:08

wait 15 years for that, Todd.

532

: 00:27:10

So

533

: 00:27:11

Todd Caponi: Exactly.

534

: 00:27:11

Erich Starrett: I'm cheering for the

light at the end of the tunnel is the

535

: 00:27:14

actual end of the tunnel coming up here.

536

: 00:27:17

Todd Caponi: Yeah.

537

: 00:27:17

Let's hope that we just continue

to be smart about profitable

538

: 00:27:20

growth and get back into.

539

: 00:27:22

A sustained period of

time where that matters.

540

: 00:27:24

But man, when you shut off an economy,

it's like you took a pendulum and you

541

: 00:27:28

pulled it and then you released it, right?

542

: 00:27:30

So it's off and then it swings and then

swings and it takes a while to get back.

543

: 00:27:35

And then we're here.

544

: 00:27:36

But if somebody shuts it off

again, we're bound to have the

545

: 00:27:39

same situation happen again.

546

: 00:27:40

God willing, let's hope

that doesn't happen.

547

: 00:27:43

Erich Starrett: Yeah, perfect timing.

548

: 00:27:44

Cause we're rounding the corner here

and shifting from past to present.

549

: 00:27:47

Anything else specific to transparency,

the title of both your books, right?

550

: 00:27:53

Todd Caponi: The concept of transparency?

551

: 00:27:54

Like I said, Arthur done 1921

talking about honesty, right?

552

: 00:27:58

Transparency is an overused word.

553

: 00:28:00

Here was the trigger for me.

554

: 00:28:02

I was the chief revenue officer

of PowerReviews here in Chicago.

555

: 00:28:05

We're a reviews company, right?

556

: 00:28:07

So You've probably experienced it before.

557

: 00:28:10

Retailers, brands, you go to crocs.

558

: 00:28:11

com.

559

: 00:28:12

You're looking at a product,

scroll down, there's reviews.

560

: 00:28:14

There's us doing the collect and

display for them and a thousand

561

: 00:28:16

other retailers and brands.

562

: 00:28:19

A few years ago, we partnered with

Northwestern University here in Chicago.

563

: 00:28:22

When a website's acting as a

salesperson, what do people do?

564

: 00:28:25

That was the study, right?

565

: 00:28:26

Had nothing to do with outside

sales, or so I thought.

566

: 00:28:30

It came back with three data points.

567

: 00:28:32

Thanks.

568

: 00:28:32

Two of which changed my life

like it only happened to a nerd.

569

: 00:28:36

The one data point that didn't

change my life was that we

570

: 00:28:38

all read reviews today, right?

571

: 00:28:40

The number now is there's 99

percent of us when we're buying

572

: 00:28:43

something we haven't bought before.

573

: 00:28:44

We're going to do our homework, right?

574

: 00:28:45

But here's the two that changed my life.

575

: 00:28:48

And again, this is what a

website's acting as a salesperson.

576

: 00:28:51

Number one, we're up over 85 percent

of us read the negative reviews first.

577

: 00:28:57

We skip the fives, we read the

fours, threes, twos, and ones first.

578

: 00:29:00

Most of us, when we're reading reviews,

we'll go read the negatives before

579

: 00:29:04

we go read the glowing positives.

580

: 00:29:06

And the last data point, and this

number is skewed a little bit since

581

: 00:29:09

the original research, but the original

research said that a product with

582

: 00:29:13

an average review score between a 4.

583

: 00:29:16

2 and a 4.

584

: 00:29:17

5 on a five point scale That's optimal

for purchase conversion, meaning that

585

: 00:29:22

a product that is negative reviews

right under it sells at a higher

586

: 00:29:25

conversion rate than a product that is

nothing but perfect five star reviews.

587

: 00:29:30

Products with perfect five star reviews

sell at about the same conversion

588

: 00:29:33

rate as a product that's got a 3.

589

: 00:29:35

25, which sucks.

590

: 00:29:36

And so I looked at that and I was like,

wow, that's, why does that happen?

591

: 00:29:39

And then I looked at my sales team.

592

: 00:29:41

It was about 60 strong at the time.

593

: 00:29:42

And I'm like, we've been

teaching these reps to basically

594

: 00:29:45

present our solutions as 5.

595

: 00:29:47

0.

596

: 00:29:47

And hope the customer doesn't find out.

597

: 00:29:49

And maybe should we be the

ones doing that homework?

598

: 00:29:52

Should we lead with what we

give up to be great at our core?

599

: 00:29:55

Our biggest competitor is bigger,

stronger, publicly held, better logos.

600

: 00:30:00

Why would we wait?

601

: 00:30:01

Let's share.

602

: 00:30:02

Where we are.

603

: 00:30:03

And if they're not cool with that,

let's take that most important

604

: 00:30:06

asset we have to convert to revenue,

which is our time and optimize it.

605

: 00:30:11

And so we started leading with what

we gave up to be great at our core,

606

: 00:30:14

whether it's technology, whether it's

something like our pricing model.

607

: 00:30:18

Like I said, if you're talking about

a six figure deal to a four figure

608

: 00:30:21

buyer, one of you is in the wrong

conversation, figure that out now.

609

: 00:30:23

And suddenly magic happened.

610

: 00:30:25

Win rates went up.

611

: 00:30:27

Cycle lengths shrunk considerably.

612

: 00:30:30

Our qualification in was better.

613

: 00:30:31

Our qualification out was faster.

614

: 00:30:34

And we disarmed our competitors.

615

: 00:30:35

They couldn't message against us

because we already did it, right?

616

: 00:30:38

And we became Chicago's fastest

growing tech company from: 2014

617

: 00:30:43

Now, sure it feels good

to be transparent, right?

618

: 00:30:46

But my argument is you got

to do it anyway today, right?

619

: 00:30:50

The blow horn by which people can share

their experiences, they can do their

620

: 00:30:53

own homework when you're coming in five

Oh speak and hope they don't find out.

621

: 00:30:57

And they do trust erodes when

rates go down, that status

622

: 00:31:02

quo loss number goes way up.

623

: 00:31:04

I believe that the future

of sales is two things.

624

: 00:31:07

Number one is going back to that

service oriented mindset that we're

625

: 00:31:11

providing a service to our customers.

626

: 00:31:14

Arthur Sheldon in his 1911

book, which is right here.

627

: 00:31:18

This is a fricking beauty.

628

: 00:31:20

His, my favorite quote

in this book is true.

629

: 00:31:22

Salesmanship is the science of service.

630

: 00:31:25

Grasp that thought firmly

and never let go, right?

631

: 00:31:28

We need to get back to that.

632

: 00:31:30

And then number two is we've got to

have this long game thinking about

633

: 00:31:34

doing the homework for the buyer.

634

: 00:31:35

Remember, as Thomas Herbert Russell

said, buyers know more nowadays in

635

: 00:31:40

1912, while they know it more now,

and that hasn't been good for buyers.

636

: 00:31:44

It's been bad.

637

: 00:31:45

Do the homework for the

buyer, lead with it.

638

: 00:31:47

And you'll find that all that

magic starts to happen and

639

: 00:31:50

you'll have customers for life.

640

: 00:31:52

Erich Starrett: Love it.

641

: 00:31:52

Let's go future.

642

: 00:31:53

What's next.

643

: 00:31:55

In the enablement evolution?

644

: 00:31:57

Where do you see this thing going?

645

: 00:31:59

Todd Caponi: Throughout history,

we've taken every piece of technology

646

: 00:32:05

and we've ruined it as salespeople.

647

: 00:32:07

Right behind me, there

is a phone from: 1908

648

: 00:32:10

It is a old cathedral phone from

the Swedish American company.

649

: 00:32:14

The telephone, when we talk about

like sales technology and we're

650

: 00:32:19

in a sales technology revolution.

651

: 00:32:22

Okay, cool.

652

: 00:32:22

But yeah, The greatest one happened

th of,: 1876

653

: 00:32:27

notorious AGB, Alexander Graham Bell,

made the first telephone call, right?

654

: 00:32:32

By the 1910s, it was becoming pervasive,

and it truly changed everything in sales.

655

: 00:32:38

And by the mid 1920s, we had ruined it.

656

: 00:32:41

Like we had created, we've gotten

blinded by scale and we use the

657

: 00:32:45

technology for evil instead of good.

658

: 00:32:47

We needed technologies

created to prevent its usage.

659

: 00:32:50

And then, AGB would be rolling over

in his grave if he knew that the Do

660

: 00:32:54

Not Call registry as of two years ago

had 221 million phone numbers in it.

661

: 00:32:59

We screwed that up, right?

662

: 00:33:01

The government had to get involved.

663

: 00:33:02

We did the same with email, my LinkedIn

connection requests, dude, they make

664

: 00:33:06

you want to like, it's they're terrible.

665

: 00:33:09

Like we started ruining video.

666

: 00:33:11

I'd get these video outreaches from

people that are like, hello, you.

667

: 00:33:16

Your background's really impressive.

668

: 00:33:17

And they'd have in the background, like

my LinkedIn pro gosh, stop ruining it,.

669

: 00:33:21

AI, like AI is now all the rage.

670

: 00:33:24

Oh my gosh, it's going

to change everything.

671

: 00:33:26

We're going to ruin it.

672

: 00:33:27

Like we're going to figure out ways to

use it best, but there's going to be

673

: 00:33:30

a percentage of people that ruin it.

674

: 00:33:32

But my future lens is this.

675

: 00:33:36

We are all going to be

needed in the future.

676

: 00:33:38

If we continue to embrace

that service oriented mindset.

677

: 00:33:42

Enablement professionals, if you're

creating that and optimizing that

678

: 00:33:45

service oriented mindset throughout

your revenue organizations that you

679

: 00:33:49

help and that you aid and you help

achieve optimal outcomes with, there

680

: 00:33:53

will always be a place for you.

681

: 00:33:55

You will always be valuable.

682

: 00:33:57

You're in a great profession.

683

: 00:33:59

And when we're doing things right,

it should feel really good too.

684

: 00:34:02

And my perspective is don't

be worried about technology.

685

: 00:34:04

Just keep doing the right things.

686

: 00:34:06

Control what you can control.

687

: 00:34:07

There's always going

to be a place for you.

688

: 00:34:09

And I think it's going to be

highly valuable and maybe even

689

: 00:34:11

more valuable into the future.

690

: 00:34:14

Erich Starrett: love that.

691

: 00:34:14

What a great note to end on and i'll

double down on it through a Hashtag

692

: 00:34:18

I threw together at some point which

is AI curious human enthusiast And

693

: 00:34:25

through the lens of what an awesome

opportunity for enablement to both

694

: 00:34:31

in their own role, get rid of the

administrivia with the robots, right?

695

: 00:34:37

Lean into that, help sales do

the same so they can focus on

696

: 00:34:41

that relationship building.

697

: 00:34:43

And the additional bonus to

me is to lean into back to the

698

: 00:34:46

Santucci and the S on his chest.

699

: 00:34:49

What your superpower, what is your

unique human being superpower?

700

: 00:34:54

If you can take the administrivia off

their table and focus on what makes you

701

: 00:34:59

special and unique, it's empowering!

702

: 00:35:02

Todd Caponi: For me personally,

like before I do a discovery.

703

: 00:35:05

I used to go read review

sites for whatever the company

704

: 00:35:08

is that I'm gonna go talk to.

705

: 00:35:09

I look at the reviews.

706

: 00:35:10

I'd read them all.

707

: 00:35:11

I'd try to create an impression of my mind

that you know what the pros and cons are.

708

: 00:35:15

Now I just go to AI and go under

what circumstances is company name

709

: 00:35:20

a good fit under what circumstances

is company name not a good fit.

710

: 00:35:24

And then it would give me 200

words on both and I'd be prepped.

711

: 00:35:27

That's fantastic.

712

: 00:35:29

There was one of my customers, they

compete with another company all the time.

713

: 00:35:33

I went into chat GPT and I wrote,

if I worked for competitor name, how

714

: 00:35:38

would I message against my client.

715

: 00:35:41

It came up with a whole playbook, right?

716

: 00:35:43

That's amazing.

717

: 00:35:44

That's so valuable that can be used

for good, not evil, good, not evil.

718

: 00:35:50

Not scale.

719

: 00:35:51

I think the word scale is a dirty

word when it's thought about in

720

: 00:35:54

terms of, hey, let's just more

monkeys and more typewriters.

721

: 00:35:58

Think about, optimizing everything

you do again, to your point about

722

: 00:36:02

superpowers, like what's our role?

723

: 00:36:05

Our role is to help customers achieve

optimal outcomes as quickly as

724

: 00:36:08

possible with us or with somebody else.

725

: 00:36:10

That's our job to help be their Sherpa.

726

: 00:36:13

Use AI to help make sure that

you're able to provide that kind

727

: 00:36:17

of consulting and advisory to those

customers as quickly as possible.

728

: 00:36:20

It's all there for the taking.

729

: 00:36:21

I think that's a great opportunity.

730

: 00:36:23

Don't ruin it.

731

: 00:36:24

Do all of the above transparently

732

: 00:36:27

Exactly,

733

: 00:36:28

Erich Starrett: Awesome, Todd.

734

: 00:36:28

Thanks so much for your time.

735

: 00:36:30

We'd love to have you back

at some point in the future.

736

: 00:36:33

. Todd Caponi: You've only touched the

surface of my nerdery, my brother.

737

: 00:36:35

Erich Starrett: And that's a

great reminder to the audience.

738

: 00:36:37

Be sure to not only follow Todd,

click into his YouTube channel.

739

: 00:36:43

He's got a lot of entertaining

stuff out there and of course

740

: 00:36:46

his podcast and get both books.

741

: 00:36:49

I'm only halfway through the

first one and it is a mother load

742

: 00:36:53

of thoughtfulness, not only on

transparency, but on sales mastery.

743

: 00:36:58

So again, Todd, thanks

so much for your time.

744

: 00:37:01

Any parting words?

745

: 00:37:02

Todd Caponi: It's been a pleasure.

746

: 00:37:03

This has been a blast

face hurts from smiling.

747

: 00:37:05

Thanks for having me on.

748

: 00:37:06

Erich Starrett: Back at you, Todd.

749

: 00:37:07

Appreciate you, man.

750

: 00:37:08

Talk soon.