#192 – The story of the Sales Mindsets on Higgle: The B2B Sales Club Podcast (Part 2) w/ Mike Lander

 

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Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

 

George: Hi everyone. George here, the editor of the Sales Transformation Podcast. This week on the show is the second part of Phil's chat with Mike Lander, which originally appeared over on Higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast. So if you haven't listened to the previous episode yet, please go and check it out before this one.

Last time Phil discussed his original research into how customers want to be sold to and how the sales mindsets emerged from the results. We rejoined the discussion as Phil is describing how having come up with the mindsets, he then worked with Hewlett Packard to test them out on live deals. Enjoy the episode.​

 

Phil: Um, I, I, I need to kind of also explain, and this, this was quite exciting. Part of the research was that as I was doing the research, I mentioned Hewlett Packard earlier on, is that they were really interested in, you know, I was engaging with them, you know, with, with my, my thinking and, and they'd created this large deal bid pursuit team in Europe,

Mike: I remember.

Yep.

Phil: Focusing on live opportunities. Yeah.

Mike: And I remember because a lot of the big huge technology solutions services companies, we all started adopting that kind of bid room. Okay. Used call them, uh, sales war rooms. We used to call them.

Phil: Yeah, exactly.

Mike: Right. Um, for big, for big pursuits.

Phil: Yeah, they did. And, and literally sort of, I was working with.

These teams of people in those said war rooms. And, um, but with a guy that was leading that team who totally believed in the mindsets that were emerging at this point. And so he said, every single engagement, every single email, every single, you know, site visit, we somehow need to operationalize these mindsets.

So I then went into, um, a very privileged, actually sort of being involved in some very, very important large, you know, large opportunities, working with amazing people. But my role was to, um, explain the mindsets and then work with them, facilitate innovation sessions, facilitate strategies and approaches with them throughout the deal cycle.

And, uh, we created this control group. There are about 200 in the, of salespeople, uh, in the control group. And we mapped the results of those large wins.

Mike: Ah,

Phil: you know, against another control group.

Mike: Exactly. I was gonna ask, did you manage to get

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Because you need to be in a big sales organization with lots of people to be able to do that.

Phil: Exactly. So I had the, I was so fortunate, um, forever indebted to the client who believed that this was leading somewhere. But they saw it as strategically important for them. Absolutely. Um, because they felt that if we. You know, logic suggests, you know, no one's ever pushed back on these mindsets saying, no, they're rubbish or they won't work.

I mean, uh, but, but the, you know, the devil's in the detail in terms of how you sort of take these frameworks and then, and, and then start applying them.

Mike: So what did you find Phil, in terms of the correlate with the control group?

Phil: Oh, amazing.

Mike: Versus the, um, the ones that were, uh, focusing on those eight values.

Yeah. Uh, the four positives. The four negatives.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: What were, what were the findings?

Phil: Ation? Well after, uh, it took, some of these sales cycles were large.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: Um, but the, um, and they took a long time, but over a two and a half year period, uh, the win rate went from one in 15, um, to, I think it was 74%.

Mike: Whoa.

Phil: Over a period of, of, of that. Um, over that timeframe. Um, and the total contract value, you know, was in the billions 'cause 'cause it was, yeah. Uh, it, it was significant. Now, some of the win rate was, you know, the, you know, what were the leavers Well one of the levers was not bidding on contracts that you felt you had no chance of winning.

Mike: Correct.

Phil: Yep. So

Mike: ation critical.

Phil: Yeah. But that was quite interesting because, you know, in some cases you, you get invited to do a tender where you have no relationship with a client. Yep. It makes it really difficult for you to live these values that we talked about without

Mike: any, that's impossible.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And in fact, if procurement's in the way, they will actively prevent you as a supply organization from engaging with stakeholders.

Yeah. Outside of the process.

Phil: Yeah,

Mike: exactly. The process is designed to stop you from using, using the very, yeah. The very values that you, uh, believe are important and buyers believe are important. Procurement effectively, I'll say, get in the way. My procurement colleagues won't appreciate that, but if you, if procurement get in the way of the stakeholder, um, engaging with the supplier in complex bids, then I think that's a very negative thing that procurement do personally.

Phil: Yeah, yeah. Correct. And, and I think that that was also recognized by, you know, the, the teams and so I, you know, there were, there were some deals that we said were at an unfair it, this is an unfair competition because we don't know you well enough to be able to put our best

Mike: exactly.

Phil: Solution forward and, and

Mike: you won't, you won't give us access to your stakeholders.

Yeah. So we're gonna come second before we start,

Phil: before even we start. And the cost of doing these deals was about a million dollars, you know, in pre sales costs. And so

Mike: why would we bid?

Phil: Why, why would we bid? So there was, that went on. But there was one lovely story of, of a very positive engagement with the procurement team, which, um, which was with, uh, Anglo-American big Mining company.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: And, uh, I can go, I can talk about this publicly because we've, um, talked about this in the book

Mike: Perfect.

Phil: Because I've written about it, but, um, and got permissions. But the Anglo was really interesting because, uh, literally RFP came in via, via an email. Um, we brought together a pursuit team. I remember that workshop where we looked at the bid and we looked at what was being asked of a vendor like hp.

And it was, if the. RFP was written for HP actually, right? I mean, it was just hit all the notes. But the, the thing was that there was just no relationship with hp, right? They bought, Anglo bought a few laptops and servers over the years, but really, no, they didn't even have an account manager for, for this client.

And so, uh, what we decided to do was, uh, to put together a carefully worded email and the email, read something like this as a dear, you know, whoever it was, um, massive thanks for sending through, you know, the RFP and inviting us to take part. Um, we've just had a two day workshop. You know, we brought together, you know, some of the best minds that, that we could think of inside hp.

And when we looked at your RFP, it was as if it was written for hp. I mean. There's no, there's no doubt that, uh, that, that, that we can give you what you are looking for in, but I'm afraid on this occasion, yeah. We simply feel that we can't be involved in the bid process.

Mike: Brilliant. Perfect. Yeah. This is, this is, this is bringing, um, concepts and theories and stories together for me Yeah.

Into also the, the, a research oriented, uh, view. Yeah. Which is there's a way of turning down an RFP, which reengages the client in a different conversation.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: But you have to be, um, when I say brave, professionally brave, you have to have confidence. This is

Phil: audacity, you know, so when you think back to the.

You know, you know, it takes quite a lot. 'cause the natural inclination is you see a quarter of a million dollar deal, you know? Yeah. And

Mike: you are like, I can't not bid for that. I can't Not, especially for a trophy brand.

Phil: Correct. And it was, it was so interesting. Um, so

Mike: what happened? So the email, well, so I interrupted you.

Phil: So Yeah. Email went

Mike: off. We feel that we, we feel that we, that we can't bid.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: What was the end of the email? What was the hook in

Phil: an authentic way? No, it, it was, it was almost that, you know, we'd love to, that was it. We, we just feel, yeah. We just, you know, so they, they didn't suggest what could be done, right.

That we make bid. They just, they just said

Mike: no.

Phil: They just said, we feel we can't, as much as we would something like, as much as we'd love to

Mike: Yep.

Phil: We feel we can't. It was something like that. You know, those kind of words. And so

Mike: what happens next?

Phil: Well, they then got a call, right? They got a call from Anglo, and of course Anglo said, you know, we've looked at the vendors we'd like to bid and we chose you because we felt you could do it.

Mike: Yes,

Phil: we want you to bid. Uh, we want to be able to see your sort of capabilities and so on. And so what, what's the reason for you not wanting to bid?

Mike: Hmm.

Phil: And the, uh, lead pursuit guy said, well, it's, it's simple really, that we, we know technically, we, we know technically we can provide everything you're looking for, but we simply don't know you well enough.

We don't understand the business. And it's not really just the technology, it's what impact does the technology have on the people using it? As well. And, and so, and we know, you know, that if we're gonna go through with this bid, it's gonna be a million dollars of pre-sales costs.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: And we also know that 80% of the time it goes back to the incumbent and we just Exactly.

And we're just not in a position given how little we know about you that we can go ahead.

Mike: Brilliant.

Phil: Um, and, and they were sort of having this conversation and, and, and I think it was, I don't think it was procurement, maybe it was head of it, said, well look, we've got a meeting in London of our IT directors coming, coming to London.

You know, we can give you an hour. You know, you come and join a meeting, just come and meet us before you just say no, just go and meet us. Say, uh, they, uh, they went and they had this meeting and. I'll never forget when they came back because the bid team were eager to only two people went to this meeting eager to know how it went on.

And it was really interesting. They, they said, we could tell from the warmth of reception we had with the people in the room that they were wanting to positively engage with us as a business. Um, and they could also sense that they were really pissed off with their current supplier.

Mike: Right?

Phil: Yeah. And so, um, they thought this is a genuine.

We want to switch. Yeah.

Mike: Yes. So this is, this is not in the 80% Yes. Of incumbent wins. Yeah. This is the 20% of we genuinely want to switch. So now we know the client has a genuine need. Correct. And reason to do something different. And if they didn't do something different, something bad would happen on their side.

Yeah.

Phil: Correct. That's a very good way of putting it. Yeah. Very good way of putting it. I, yeah, I hadn't put it into the 20% category, but I know that we had those discussions when we came back. But here's the, here's what happened after that. So after they came back, had a meeting, and then picked up the phone and spoke to the guy again and said, look, we've had a meeting, brought the whole team together and we really enjoyed meeting you guys.

We still feel, we still feel that we,

Mike: wow. Don't

Phil: know you well enough

Mike: because we've only had one meeting for an hour. We've only

Phil: had one meeting. And, and the guy said, okay, well what are your thoughts? And he said, what we really want to do is go and visit some of your minds.

Mike: Ah,

Phil: yeah. We want to, to spend time with some of the,

Mike: with the

users

Phil: of the technology.

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: Yeah. And, and, and, uh, we would be, if you are open to us visiting a number of your minds, then we are going to be really open to you adding us to your bid list.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: And that's what, and the, and the guy said, that's great. Yeah, we'd love you to go and visit some of the mines. You get more context, you get to sense some of the frustrations we've currently got in more detail.

And, uh, and so that's what happened. So, uh, they visited, um, mines in South Africa and also Brazil, uh, Chile.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: And what they realized when they went to some of these mines, which are vast, is that the service level agreements for supporting the technology on some of these sites were simply impossible.

Mike: Right.

Phil: To be able to live, like to our, takes you two hours sometimes to go through security into a mine. So if a server's crashed on a mine,

Mike: yes.

Phil: You need to, you, you need a and you're gonna be penalized on a two hour response time.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: Yeah. So they, when they started to look at the detail of what was being asked, they said.

Well, the RFP in its current form is not written

Mike: exactly

Phil: in the right way.

Mike: So this is what I call the tank traps, um, in an RFP. And I know from having written lots,

Phil: yeah,

Mike: there are tank traps. Not that I've laid that I don't know.

Phil: Okay.

Mike: I don't know what, I don't know. I've written this RFP and um, if I find a supplier that challenges me and says, we're not gonna bid because we don't know you.

But what we do know is in the way that the RFP is written, there are quite a few tank traps that if you are not aware, you will fall into no matter who you appoint.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: We'd be very happy to explain where those tank traps are, but we're still not going to bid, but we're very happy to have a conversation with you.

Would that help?

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Most buyers, a procurement person's gonna go, I'd be quite brave. To ignore that.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Because if we appoint and those tank traps turn up, well, I might get fired.

Phil: Correct? Yeah, correct.

Mike: So I know I'll have a conversation with you about them.

Phil: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I, I think at this stage, you know, um, HP said we will, you know, we, we will bid.

'cause it's, again, it's big investment. Both, you know, the, the risk to Anglo of opening up conversations with general managers of the mines, for example. Uh, and then HP deciding not, you know, so there was a lot at stake. Yeah. So at this stage, HP said, yes, we're, we want to formally enter the bid on the basis that we can have these, uh, these conversations.

And of course, when they came back from the mine, um, there were two things that happened and there were. You know, they were small but significant. One was that one of the things that kept the general managers awake at night was, um, asset, human asset tracking, knowing where people were on the mine from a health and safety point of view, and HP were developing this technology at their lab in Bristol, which could enable them to monitor where humans were, you know, in, in a mining environment.

It wasn't launched on the market. It was one of the patents, right? It was a new thing that they were emerging. Nothing to do with the RFP, this, it was just something that they'd noticed and heard. And when they came back, there were two things. There was that, as well as the fact that there were tank traps and maybe you, you should rewrite parts of the RFP because it's not written in the right way.

And, um. Anglo then went down to the laboratory in, in Bristol because they were really interested. It had nothing to do with the RFP, but the fact is it showed, uh, Anglo the resources that they're buying into beyond the RFP itself, you know, the, the innovation, the technical innovation. Exactly nothing to do with the RFP, but it really helped, you know, develop that appreciation of who HP were and just generally how they like to help clients solve client problems beyond Yeah, the RFP.

And anyway, the long story of it was that, um, they helped write. Or work with the team to write the RFP in a slightly different way. And that, uh, so,

Mike: so now HP's fingerprints are all over the RFP.

Phil: Correct.

Mike: But to your point, Phil, about in a very authentic way

Phil: and Yeah,

Mike: totally. This wasn't, this wasn't manipulation.

No, no. This was, uh, insight based revealing where the problems were in the RFP. Correct. Helping the client

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And then saying, yes, we're very happy to bid. Uh, and it's a, it's a fair playing field. All suppliers now get the revised RFP.

Phil: Correct.

Mike: But of, but of course HP have an advantage.

Phil: Yeah. They've, at that stage,

Mike: it's not manipulation, it's that they've invested, they've invested heavily in,

Phil: invested in the relationship.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: And, and it was both ways because it was Anglo also investing in HP because they were prepared to, um. They were, they, you know, they, they, they were prepared to make that investment in this supply that they didn't really know

Mike: exactly.

Phil: Um, as well as HP investing in them, you know, by, you know, flying people to

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: To these mines. Um, and, and then the long and short of it was that HP one, this particular contract. Yeah. And it was, uh, it, and it also involved in, in a relationship with BT and HP working together on, on voice data as well as the IT infrastructure.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: And, and that took nine months. Yeah. And that was incredible.

So they went from no relationship to a quarter of a million pound deal in nine months and, yep. That's just an example of

Mike: exactly

Phil: authentic innovation, tactful, audacity, client centricity, authenticity, all of the positive mindsets coming together and reflecting on those kind of stories and know that, you know, there are many other brilliant stories, but that, that was super brilliant.

Mike: Um, now just outta interest, Phil, if you now look, so we're gonna close off the kind of like the first Yeah. Research in a second. Yeah. And then just do a, a, a kind of 10 minutes perhaps on the, what you've found recently. If you, did you take all of the, once you had now a framework Yeah. Did you go to, um, a a hundred suppliers and, uh, and get the salespeople to fill in a questionnaire to find out if the, you know, that 90% of customers go, these are the values that we don't like, and these are the ones that we want.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Did you test the framework? Go back out to sellers and go, let me see. 90% of sellers have all the negative traits, and that's why there's a problem.

Phil: Um, I do, uh, we've done that since the doctorate. So the doctorate proved that the mindsets actually

Mike: work

Phil: worked.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: Yeah. But the journey didn't stop there, you know?

Right. Because the journey in a way had only just started.

Mike: Yes.

Phil: Yeah. It was the, it was the foundation. So yes, of course. We've been back and I can share maybe in the second half

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: Or in the next 10 minutes, you know

Mike: exactly

Phil: what we've done to, to kind of move, uh, move the, the story on.

Mike: Yeah. So, so why don't you talk about that now, about, about how you've moved the story on,

Phil: um, yeah.

So. The way, what, you know, we decided that, that it's been, uh, you know, 15, 16 years since that first research project was done. And over that time, of course we've been working with clients, working with salespeople, um, seeing evidence across different sectors of, of different industries. The mindset's working.

Um, but one of the tools that we have also built is a, a self-assessment tool.

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: And the self-assessment tool is collecting data from salespeople about their perception of where they are against the sales mindsets. Mm. And we realized earlier this year that we have over 1500 now. Interesting. It, it sort of self-reflection.

And we've also got, um, studies of clients who've done. A self-reflection at the beginning of a program, self-reflection at the end. Because there's always this question, you know, that you're asked is, is it possible to change mindset?

Mike: Exactly. And you, that was my next question was,

Phil: is it, is it possible? Does

Mike: this Yeah.

Because you've got inside human beings, even at a simple level, I understand you have core beliefs, you have values, which are your own values.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: You then have company values. Yeah. And then you've got behaviors.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And the question is, you can tell someone what the company values are, but can you fundamentally change someone to adopt those values?

Or is it too ingrained in our psyche and it becomes, um,

Phil: yeah. No, it's such a good question because we, we, we, we, you know, sort of, we always get asked, asked this question, and, uh, so you've got, you know. You've got personality and you've then got values so that, you know, one of the things we do is talk about the difference between personality and values.

So, you know, you can have an extrovert, for example. Yeah. Who, um, is authentic, who's client centric. Who is creative and ta, but you can also have an introvert. He's authentic, he's client centric. Yeah.

Mike: Yes. So,

Phil: so, um, and I think personally, I think personality is quite different. Difficult to change, you know, I think that that's deep.

It's ingrained, but we're not born with values, you know, we are not, you know, we acquire them through parental upbringing, through life experiences, through work experiences. Of course that suggests that values can be shaped.

Mike: Yes.

Phil: Um, how easy is it to change? I think it, it, it's like anything, it's something that you first of all need to be aware of.

Then you need to practice. Yes. And you need to do it in a, in a programmatic way. You know, so you, you know, yes. You can read a book. These are the four mindsets. Yeah. That's obvious. Yeah. But going from that into embedding that into everything you do and how you think goes quite deep. So. A lot of what we do is we take people on a, a sort of reflective journey where they start to explore their personal values, link it to the values that customers want, and then start providing frameworks and tools that get them to apply those values across all points of engagement.

Whether it's a negotiation or whether it's a presentation or a qualification meeting. Um, so yes, we've got evidence of companies now who've done this before and after, and you can shift the needle. Interesting. One of the things that we found with the self-assessment is that we have this concept called winner's circle, which is if you score above 80% in the positive mindsets, you're in the winner's circle.

So if you look at all those four, um, as an average, you would look at the data and say, actually. We're about 70, 74% quite close to the winner's circle. But when you start to look at what percentage of all the respondents are above 80% in all four,

Mike: yeah,

Phil: that figure drops down to 10.

Mike: Wow.

Phil: So, and the f And so you may score, you may self score very highly on proactive creativity and tactful audacity.

But if authenticity is, or clients that, that's a, you may think you're audacious, but your client will not think that.

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: They, they all see it as the opposite. Sorr. Now Arr, they'll see it as

Mike: arrogance. Yes.

Phil: Arrogance, correct. So, uh, and we don't feel we've pulled that data out of our data set until this new report that we've just done.

Um, so. There. So, so the story is you need to, it is like spinning plates. You need to keep the spinning, you know, to be in what we call the winner's circle. So yes, we believe you can, but it, it's, it takes time and you can't do it. It's not like picking up a book and reading it. You've really got to work at it.

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: Um, and then you've got to have the whole ecosystem of how you reward and how you train and how you coach. You know, there's so many different dimensions to it. Yep. That, that you need to, if you want to create a culture around the sales mindsets, you've really got to approach that from a, you know, from a holistic perspective.

Not just, it's not just the mindsets, it's not just the skills and the tools, it's the whole system with which you want to engage with your, your clients. Um, and we've got clients that have embarked on that journey and Hmm. You know, are seeing the fruits of that through, through their, you know, their performance figures.

We've, we've got big project that's now public with Royal Mail Group where, uh, which is, uh, where they've won two awards, you know, with their, with their program. Uh, you know, where, where we've shifted the mindsets, it's linked to, to many, many opportunities which have since closed, and a program that's been running now for four or five years.

So,

Mike: amazing.

Phil: You know, it's, it, it is possible to do, but you've, you've got to have people at the top who really want it to happen. And, uh, yeah, believe that it's important, uh, to happen.

Mike: But I think that's the, the, the insight for me also here is that the sales leader, the CRO, the sales director, whoever it might be, has to fundamentally understand and believe mindset has a big impact on win rates, the lag indicator, but more importantly, the way customers perceive your salespeople.

'cause that's not just about winning a deal, that's about a long-term relationship.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And about retention,

Phil: I know you sadly couldn't make GST, but

Mike: No, I couldn't say no

Phil: question that we often pose, you know, to the audience. Now, what would you rather, would you rather have people with the right mindsets but not necessarily the right skills and competence?

Or would you rather have people with the right skills and competence but the wrong mindset?

Mike: Ha, it's an obvious answer. I

Phil: don't protect the mindset.

Mike: I've always take the mindset.

Phil: I so, so when you ask the question, yeah, you always get the answer i'd. I'd much rather people with the right mindsets. But I think the problem that exists is that the leaders are under so much pressure.

To get these quarterly

Mike: short term results,

Phil: these short term results. So they default to lag indicators and they don't look at lead. And as we've said, mindsets is a lead indicator.

Mike: Exactly. So

Phil: that's, that's, so

Mike: this is really important, Phil. I think that's critical. I've worked in the recruitment industry at scale.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And I think one of the problems is, um, often because of the pressure on short term results.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: We recruit for, um, technical skills and what we call experience. Yeah. Have you in sales, have you built a sales pipeline? Have you built sales reports? Do you understand how to measure the eight key dimensions of pipeline velocity, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And, and we recruit for that, whereas actually, if you take it, can we, because we believe that's a shortcut to success.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Whereas actually, and I was talking to a CEO about this a while ago. I would much rather recruit for what we were calling then attitude than technical skill. We, we can train technical skills.

Phil: Yeah. We

Mike: can't change mindsets easily. It's very difficult.

Phil: Yeah. And

Mike: it's, it's possible as you say, but it's difficult.

Phil: Yeah, it's difficult. It is difficult to do. And so it's interesting what you say about recruitment because, um, it's, it is so difficult to, to make the right decisions on recruitment as we know.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: Um, but you know, how would you change your interview process so that you recruit to the mindsets? Yeah. How would you go about. In an authentic way. How, how would you establish, uh, yeah. How they think? Uh, and of course you can do it, you know, you, you, you, you can do it. But it's interesting when we interviewed for, for people joining Consalia.

Yeah. You know, we, uh, we asked them to share with us, um, pivotal events that have shaped who they are

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: Uh, and so they, they make, so, so the selection of the Pivotal event Yeah. Tells us a little bit about, uh, them, but then we go into, um, what, what is it about that pi, you know, what did they do having had that pivotal event?

That has helped shape them into the person they are today. Yeah. And, and what we're looking for are, you know, the, their, their ability to reflect at a deep level. Um, and also, you know, what are we hearing from the way they're telling their stories that links to the, the four mindsets that we're looking for.

Mike: Exactly. I mean, it might be, if you go, if you look at the consulting industry, um, getting into what was then the big five, uh, when I went in, in 96. Yeah. Was it was challenging then. I think it's probably even more challenging now. There were multi-state interviews. Yeah. Why? I don't think they codified it this way, Phil, but they were looking for basically part, a big part of what they wanted was mindset.

Yeah. Do you have the ability to engage with. Our customers, our clients. Yeah.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: In a way which is gonna challenge them, but in a respectful way. Do you have a client service mentality?

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And you do that by having lots of different partners and directors and consultants interview you.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely. No, I know that they have very sophisticated, uh, very sophisticated methods of, of recruitment. But no, it's not, it, it's a really big question, but I think to. The point that, uh, you, you perhaps you made earlier is, you know, what's changed in, I was gonna say, what have you

Mike: found that's

Phil: changed in the last kind of five

Mike: minutes?

Phil: What have you found that's changed? Um, so one is that we, um, that the percent of salespeople who sell in a way that customers want has risen from 10%. This is 80, you know, taking 80% of the respondents similar, you know, sort of, um, metrics that we're looking at. And that's moved to, um, 30% or below, you know, so it's the shift from 10 to 30.

So I think it is still, you know, long way off, but you know, it's shifted in the right direction. Yeah. So we're really pleased to have seen that shift. Um, but the interesting. Dimension to the research in this world in which we, we live of artificial intelligence is, is that the, there's a very important nuance, um, that clearly with artificial intelligence, you now have incredible tools that can enable you to show up.

Having done your research with insights, that's irrelevant. I, in fact, there's, there's no excuse for not turning up to a meeting as prepared as you you could be. Exactly. And so in a, in a sense, the benchmark has, has risen. I think because the expectation there is, if, you know, you've got all these tools, you, it doesn't take much time to, you know, do them.

Pretty interesting research. But coupled with ai, this is, uh, a personal, uh, view, I guess, but we've seen it also in lots of the interviews is complacency in the sense that a lot of ai, um, without that human connection is, is, is going, you know, it's, it's going to be seen through that. Yes, this is an AI generated email to try and get a meeting with me.

It's so, um, so there's a, a lot of, um, caution expressed by buyers in, uh, or concerns about salespeople not. Thinking through deeply enough how they use the AI to turn up in an authentic way.

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: And, and

Mike: so I think it's at the heart of it, Phil, personalization at scale, which is what we now have

Phil: Yeah.

Yeah.

Mike: Is forcing buyers to say, I can't tell if this is really human or ai. I think it's ai. I'm not gonna take the risk. I'm gonna withdraw behind the corporate firewall and ignore anything that comes in.

Phil: And yeah, that's, and I think we, we have serious concerns and some of the words that buyers have used, uh, that, and was really triggered, uh, a nuance to the mindsets that we talked about is, is they talked about intellectual dishonesty.

And two different buyers use the word intellectual. Someone said that they, they wanted intellectual honesty.

Mike: Yep.

Phil: And another buyer talked about intellectual dishonesty. So that's manipulation.

Mike: Yes.

Phil: And intellectual honesty is, is really accentuating, uh, authenticity, you know, that that leads to the integrity, authenticity.

But the word intellectual is so interesting, and I think what AI is enabling salespeople to do now is to have information, have data, but they want original thinking.

Mike: Yes.

Phil: So the nuance is, and uh, if you imagine we talk about this construct of a caterpillar and a butterfly, you know, are you trying to, uh, so if you imagine the wings of a butterfly on one of the wings, you've got ai.

And on the other wing you've got ia. So the wings are closed together. The eyes join up and the A's join up. So this is part of me getting into a sort of a metaphor of transformation, but the IA is intellectual authenticity. And the AI is artificial intelligence. So even the we artificial

Mike: exactly

Phil: is, is contrasted to authenticity.

And then you've got intelligence and intellectual. So AI can give you the intelligence, but the intellectual is gonna make sense of the intelligence so that when you turn up, you have that original thinking and that's your source of differentiation.

Mike: It

Phil: is as a seller

Mike: and being authentic. Phil, I wrote a paper, uh, I've written a couple of papers quite recently, one about the change.

I think there's a reset coming in the agency world in 2026 for all sorts of reasons. I've written a paper which I'm now syndicating with people about. Where my thinking's gone and why it's gone there. But in the beginning of the paper, it says, this has been a re this is basically a research paper that draws on, um, uh, LLMs.

So I've used chat GPT to be a fire start with thought. It draws upon research papers that I've added into my LLM, so that I've created a custom GPT in a private environment. And it's my original thinking based upon research and discussions with customers.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: So when anyone reads it at the very beginning, it's like, this isn't just me.

Yeah. It's a, it's an amalga, it's an amalgamation of different sources, but I've then brought it together and gone, what do I think this means?

Phil: Yeah. And that's exactly. That's exact intellectual authenticity.

Mike: Exactly.

Phil: You know

that?

Mike: I think so.

Phil: Yeah. It,

Mike: I hadn't, I hadn't termed it that, but now you've said it.

I'm like, yeah, that's what I'm trying to be.

Phil: I mean, this is intellectually authentic.

Mike: This,

Phil: that's exactly what buyers are looking for, you know, from sellers. It's that we expect you to do the research. Yeah. So use the tools. Yes. But don't just, don't just use the tools and let the tool do all the writing.

You need to put this layer. So we used a AI tools to do the thematic analysis of all the interviews. Yes. But none of the thematic analysis identified intellectual authenticity as a mindset.

Mike: Hmm.

Phil: They just didn't do it. That word was not used.

Mike: No,

Phil: but that

Mike: precisely,

Phil: but that was the. That's

Mike: the human added value and

Phil: the human insight, value making sense.

How do you see beyond what AI is giving? And I think that links very much to what is the purpose of being human,

Mike: you know? Exactly right, Phil. Now there's a separate podcast there probably all together. So why don't we, uh, I'm very conscious of your time. You've been very kind, uh, with your time. Do you wanna just like at, at the, at the end, 'cause this will be part two.

Um, do you wanna just give kinda like a three recommendations for sales leaders, um, looking into 2026 into what will be a very difficult market with buyers that are now more skeptical and are withdrawing. What would be your kind of recommendations for a sales leader thinking about what they do with their sales team next year to engage more authentically with buyers?

Phil: I think that, I think the first thing is to kind of reflect on what is the problem you're trying to solve a next year, and ask yourself the question, um, in terms of all the objectives we have next year, are we trying to design a faster caterpillar, meaning become more efficient or more productive in what we're currently doing?

Or do we need to change to become a butterfly? Uh, because I think if it's a transformational change, what you need to do as a leader, uh, you need, you know, the, the, it takes longer. You really need to think through, um, the steps of winning hearts and minds on that journey.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Phil: And I think sometimes people treat a problem as a.

As a change when it's transformation that they need, you know, they need to shift mindsets in order to achieve the goals. They can't just try and do what they've been doing, but more, you know, tinker with it. Exactly. But it depends really on what the leader, so the leader really needs to think about, is this a change issue, is a transformation issue.

So I, I think that's one of the,

Mike: yeah.

Phil: One of the things, I think this whole topic of intellectual authenticity is so relevant in today's market, which is, so, you know, we, we, it's a slightly dystopian society in which we kind of live. And I think this, this, this skill of, um, uh, sort of critical reflection that you need as a core competence, I think for sellers today is, is, is, is actually key.

Um, so I've got two, I'm trying to think of what the third would be. Um, what would the third be? Uh, third key takeaway. Let me just give them, so

Mike: I, let me add one to see if this, if, if this resonates because it really struck home when you were talking.

Phil: Okay.

Mike: Whe when we're recruiting salespeople from what you've now said, my, my view has definitely shifted, which is.

You have to be interviewing for the values, the mindset, as well as some basic, basic sales skills. But the mindset is absolutely critical.

Phil: No, I, I, I would, uh, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, I, I think it's so critical and of course I'm, you know, arguably I'm biased, but this is based on so much customer research that I know Exactly.

I know it's, you know, focus on the operating system, not on the apps that sit on top of it. Yes. And that's for recruitment, it's for how you lead, it's for how you coach. It affects so many different parts of the business. So

Mike: It does, yeah.

Phil: I would,

Mike: uh, because we send these people out into the world and they meet customers.

If you've got a hundred salespeople meeting, you know, two customers a week, you've got like a hundred interactions per salespeople. So that's 10,000 interactions with customers. You want to make sure that they've got the right mindset and the right values. Yeah. So that when they show up, you are not in the, you are not in the 90% of it is all rubbish.

Yeah. You are in the third percent or hopefully more of,

Phil: yeah.

Mike: Customers saying that was a good interaction. I'm not buying right now, but that was a valuable interaction.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: You're on my list of people to come back to.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: And that's really important. I mean, as a, just to finish off that bit, Phil, as a procurement person, I would be in the same category.

My view was 90% of sellers actually weren't adding huge value and weren't people that I would Right. Maintain a relationship with, and that was sad.

Phil: That's why I think what you're doing is so interesting in the sense that you're coming out this, uh, whole topic from having been on the procurement side. So,

Mike: yeah.

Phil: Um, you know, people are going to believe in you and your stories and, uh, and so, you know, you have an awful lot of credibility in suggesting to salespeople what they should be doing. So

Mike: thank you. You know? Thank you. And also, your research now has given me frameworks that I can reference and source

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: To say, you know, Phil, you fills in an awful lot of work on this, and there's huge amounts of research depth that validates what we instinctively kind of knew, but rarely practice.

Phil: Yeah. And

Mike: that's the important thing, Phil. It it's been amazing. Genuinely amazing. Thank you. Where, where can people find out more about you?

Phil: Um, well, there's obviously the website, uh, which is, uh, www dot Consalia dot com. Um, I'm on LinkedIn. Um, it could be for those that are interested, we could put a link to the recent state of the sales mindset research. I don't know, I, I don't know if that's what you'd like to do in the show

Mike: notes. Yeah, definitely.

Phil: Yeah. Um, and yeah, there is the free sales mindset survey that people can do on a website as well if they're interested in the topic. Um, yeah. And yeah, so I'm, I'm fairly easy to to find it. Perfect. If any of your listeners wanna to know more, happy to speak.

Mike: Phil, thank you ever so much. It's been a real, real pleasure.

Phil: Yeah, it's been a great, uh, talking with you. Thank you, Mike. Yeah,

Mike: thanks Phil.

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