Selling for the Elusive First Impact with Bruce Scheer and Chuck Marcouiller

Bruce Scheer: Well, welcome to the show, Chuck. I am really glad you're here, everyone. We've got Chuck Marcouiller So welcome to the ValuePros Show, Chuck. Everyone, we've got Chuck Marcouiller, and he's joining us to talk about selling for the elusive first impact. So, Chuck, thanks so much for being part of this.

Chuck Marcouiller: Thanks, Bruce. I'm excited to be here.

Bruce Scheer: Awesome. Awesome. Well, hey. Let's let's jump right in. Chuck, what is selling for the first impact? How would you describe this? What definition will you put behind it?

Chuck Marcouiller: I'm I'm glad you asked this. It's the most common mistake that I see sellers and see us folks make is we rush so much when we're first selling and getting excited to bring a new prospect on that we, spend a lot of time gathering their situation, we spend a lot of time mining for pain, and then automatically we prescribe something, but we don't understand the impact that they want to have. Or we understand the ROI, but we don't know the first stage of success that we both mutually define in order to know that we're progressing to the agreed upon result. So, first impact is what is the first measurable co agreed upon point that we can both come to to say, yep. We're getting to the point that we both agreed we're going to work towards in order to hit that end result.

Bruce Scheer: Awesome, Chuck. Yeah. And I know, you and I were talking about our value ready framework, and I'm I'm sure people checking out this show have probably seen it. If you haven't, our listeners and watchers, it's off our website at valuepros.io, off of our resources store. You'll even see a value ready assessment. But Chuck's talking about in what we were talking about is how do you get impact ready? And and Chuck brings this insight around, you know, how to sell for first impact, where you and your buyer have a really good definition and alignment around what is impact. So I I'm I'm really excited that we're gonna kinda break this down. It's so important and often missing, Chuck, as both of you and I were talking about.

Bruce Scheer: But, let let's move into the kind of the next type of dialogue and and why is selling for first impact so important? What could you share share there, Chuck?

Chuck Marcouiller: Well, I you know, I've been I've been a seller, I've been a sales leader, and I've been doing sales enablement for 30 years. So I've I've coached a lot of sellers and, you know, made a lot of mistakes as a seller too. And the thing is is that we often prescribe without fully diagnosing. And the big thing is is that impact is is really defining the value. And value is defined by the receiver, not the giver. I wish somebody would have told me that earlier on in my career. I didn't I didn't come into that until after I was, you know, getting out as finishing up my career as a sales leader that somebody said, hey, did you know that value has to be really defined by the receiver, not the giver? And I love that. It's you know, if and and how do you know that you're getting to that value unless the buyer tells you what their what's what's worth investing in, what's worth actually putting their hard earned dollars and going through the pain of making a change unless they stop and actually tell you.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. Totally agree. So, so far, we've talked about, you know, just, you know, you know, one of the mistakes you often see, Chuck, and and this comes from you, but just prescription without full diagnosis. And and we've always preached, you know, and and in my world, you know, diagnose before you prescribe, even you yourself said it's malpractice when you don't. But you said that that often happens. And then, let's see here. You were also just talking about this whole notion. Do you want us to describe this for us in terms of the result that that we're trying to sell? Yeah. Because

Chuck Marcouiller: so many of us are selling software. And in software, we're selling the invisible. Right? It it isn't like a iPhone or TV or AirPods where you've got this tangible thing that someone could touch. Right? And say, okay. I've got this thing. I I know what it is. So when you buy software, Bruce, what are you buying? You're buying the end result. Right? I'm I'm buying a vehicle.

Chuck Marcouiller: I'm buying this tool in order to achieve an end result. So it really becomes at that point, we've got to it's it's so critical in order to keep this reoccurring revenue because that's what we're selling software for is that reoccurring revenue, is that we have to define what the impact the agreed upon impact going to be and what the first impact's gonna be so that we know that we're headed down the road. I mean, how many times have you been working with a customer where they say, hey, Bruce. We we think we have the market leading software out there. We we we've been selling this stuff, but one of the biggest problems we have is we have we have about a 30% churn. And, somehow, we've gotta stop the hemorrhaging. We don't understand why. It's just our CSP people.

Chuck Marcouiller: They just aren't aren't selling the value to our customers. And our and our sellers, they're not selling the right value that they've done. Well, I'd probably go back and say, it's not that they're not selling the value. It's just that they're not reminding people that, hey. Here's where you were, and here's what happened along the journey, and here's how we took you from your initial state to where you are now. It's just like getting into Harvard. Remember all of those kids, how excited they were to They get into an Ivy League school, and then all of a sudden they get into Ivy League school. They have no worries.

Chuck Marcouiller: Right? They got into an Ivy League school. Their their lives are set. But there's as much depression at an Ivy League school as there is at any other school. They should be the happiest people on earth. They're the the some of the best schools in the world. But, no, now they're worried about everything else because the goal post has moved. Now that you started working in this area or have this new tool, you now have a new goalpost, and you have to start figuring out what is the result and what's the measurement that we're going to do in order to make sure that we're moving towards the end result that we both agree upon. That that promised land of happiness, that promised land of achievement, which was the reason that we bought the the software in the first place and the reason that we'll renew.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Make make sense. And again, we're talking about why do we wanna sell for 1st impact for creating that clarity around the result. And speaking about clarity, Chuck, you'd given me some of this wisdom on what what a buyers really want. Do you wanna talk about this a little bit, the 3 c's that that you've coined?

Chuck Marcouiller: This really came out in our conversation earlier where we you know, because you you folks are the, you know, the value pros. And how do you find value how do you define value today? I mean, what do what do, buyers need sellers for? I mean, one of the things that I heard on one of your earlier podcasts is most people want to buy online today. You know, do do people even need human sellers anymore? And like you said, I would describe, yeah, absolutely. But the need for human sellers has changed. Ages ago, when I first got into selling or when you first got into selling, we were the keepers of information. We had the information on the product. We had the information on the marketplace, and sellers and buyers came to us in order to get that valuable information. But now with AI and the Internet, they have access to as much information as we do on what's going on in the marketplace and what every competitor has and what we have.

Chuck Marcouiller: Right? So so what's the real value of the seller these days? Well, they come to us for 3 key things. It's context. So how is this thing really used? Can it be used in my world? Can you adapt or or explain it in the lens that I need to understand it in? It's clarity. How are you different than anybody else? And one of my favorite questions is, Bruce, what's the difference between AT and T, Verizon, and T Mobile, and you can't say coverage area? Can you tell me?

Bruce Scheer: Nope. I don't know either.

Chuck Marcouiller: But they're spending 1,000,000,000 of dollars each on marketing to try to convince you that you should move from one to the other. Mhmm. But we don't know. And when we don't know and it's not clear what the difference is between 1 or the other, we don't make changes. We decide not to decide. How many of our deals these days, especially now, are lost to no decision? No decision is our greatest competitor. And it's because we're not clear on what makes us different. And then the last thing is confidence.

Chuck Marcouiller: Am I confident that if I bet my job because that's what your sponsor is doing, especially in companies these days, if I go with your solution, if I tell everybody else in my organization that we have to go with this this software and make this investment, is it really gonna work out? So, yeah, I can buy it online, but I don't know if it's really gonna work in our, organization the way I need it to work in our specific connections, our specific way. Who else has done this? Is it really different than all the other solutions that I see out there? I could do the chat gbt search and they tell me that there is a little bit of a difference, but I really don't understand it. And I need to look somebody I need a human being to tell me it's gonna be okay. And if those conditions aren't there, we don't have a tendency to buy. But we buy because, again, coming back to impact, we buy because of that perceived value, that perceived impact. Value equals impact. What is how am I gonna be better off because I went through this process and made this investment? What is the result? What is the pain that's gonna go away? Because we we buy primarily on the avoidance of pain more than the anticipation of gain. And or would how is my world gonna be different? And is it worth the pain of change? Is the pain or the gain of a better tomorrow worth more than the cost of having to make a change? That's right.

Chuck Marcouiller: It is. But how do I know it's going well? When I'm in the trenches and I'm making this change, when and there's that that famous sort of curve that, hey, things get worse before they get better. We break stuff. We go through the unlearning curve. I used to be an expert on the old system. I thought I knew the new system, but it's a little harder than I had thought before I become an expert at this this new system that you have me in to be able to get that understanding. But we have to persevere through that. If we don't, we never get to the full result that we anticipated getting.

Chuck Marcouiller: But if we do, we've gotta get our customers, then we have it, you know, to to really make that investment, then we stand a chance of getting that result that we both went into this opportunity for.

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. Yeah. We've covered a lot of ground here. But, and also I wanted to introduce, Chuck, a concept. I don't think I've mentioned this to you. I'd like I'd love your reaction. But I also think about, the value fog, especially as it relates to indecision that you were talking about and how high that is. One of the latest stats I've been throwing around is in decisions at 60%, you know, in in a SaaS world that you're talking about, you know, on average, it might be 1.5 out of or 2 out of 10 deals might close 20% close rate, indecision 60%, the competition gets 25%, you're stuck with 1.5 out of 10 deals that that you're closing, which is horrible.

Bruce Scheer: And I think one of the biggest reasons for that is what I call the value fog that, the customer and the buyer and the seller didn't do a really good job of understanding the result that you were talking about. What what are we shooting for? What's possible? Or and also what goes away in terms of the the impact that goes away, creating the opportunity. So, you know, ultimately, what we wanna do is clear that value fog and get super Yeah. I love what you say context, clarity around the result that we're looking for, and then confidence that we can achieve it to move forward. You know, great, great framework, Chuck on the 3 c's. I I think that characterizes it really well. So why don't we, move into a little bit of how to land now? You know what, and and I think you've got some ideas what not to do and also what to do. So take it from here, Chuck, and I'll just support where we where we go from here.

Chuck Marcouiller: I I think one of the things that we have to think about is, you know, prescription without diagnosis. You know, it's one of the things that we have to do is go back to the concept of, value is defined by the receiver, not the giver. And it goes back to and forgive me for I I wanna share sort of a personal story, because it illustrated it so clearly for me. My mother passed away before Christmas, you know, several years ago. And my father was was old school, and he was like, I am not going to pay $2,000. And my mother wanted to be cremated. He goes, I am not gonna pay $2,000 for an urn for your mother. He goes, she deserves better than that, and that's just paying for for a porcelain jar of $2,000 would be she'd be horrified.

Chuck Marcouiller: That that's just stupid. So he looked at me and my brother, and he said, boys, go out, find something really good for your mother that's worth it. Make sure it's valuable. And we're like, what are we gonna do? What what the heck does he mean? Now to give you a little context, my father graduated from Syracuse with a degree in forestry. He was a forester and a surveyor for most of his life before becoming a sales guy for Champion Lumber. So he love he was a wood guy. He called himself a wood deck. He loved wood.

Chuck Marcouiller: So we knew we gotta go find a beautiful wooden box for mom. That's just stunning. Where are we gonna find it? I don't know. So we're wandering around Milwaukee, looking in all of these furniture stores, jewelry stores for this beautiful box. We got tired, got hungry, so we went to the mall. What do you guys do? They go to the mall. So as we're wandering around the mall near Christmas, we see these vendors who, of course, pop up vendors. There's this guy who's selling humidors.

Chuck Marcouiller: And all of a sudden, I tap my brother on the shoulder, and I say, Jake, look. Look at this. There's this gorgeous cherry wood humidor. Just absolutely perfect. My father adores cherry wood. It's lacquered. It's a beautiful color, beautiful texture. We go over and we say, okay. So tell us about it. Guy tells us about it. Tells us all the features and functionality of it. And he goes into this this is a beautiful handmade box. It's top of the line. It has state of the art humidity control. It is velvet lined. It is absolutely the best on the market for maintaining the perfect temperature control and maintaining your cigars.

Chuck Marcouiller: We go, okay. Great. We gotta go get dad. Go grab my my, 70 plus year old father, bring him out to the mall, and we say, dad, we found the perfect thing. Here it is. He takes a look at it. He asked the guy, this is great. How much? Guy says, $150.

Chuck Marcouiller: He goes, why? He goes, well, it's state of the art. It's fantastic craftsmanship, but the real value is humidity control. He goes, that's great. How much without the humidity control? He goes, sir, I cannot sell you this without the humidity control. It is really the reason why this is such a state that he goes, yeah. Yeah. Great. How much without the humidity control? Because it would just absolutely ruin your cigars without the humidity control.

Chuck Marcouiller: He goes, sir, how much without the humidity control? He goes, sir, I can't sell it to you without the humidity control. He goes, sir, ask me what I'm gonna do with this damn box. He goes, alright. What are you gonna do with the damn box? He said, my wife died. I cremated her. I'm putting her in this. She doesn't care what the humidity is. How much without the humidity control? He goes, 75.

Chuck Marcouiller: He goes, alright. So and we just sat there and chuckled and laughed. And I know that's a little bit of a morbid story, but it it just sat there and illustrated more than anything else. The seller was not listening to my dad. He did not he cared about the box. The value was in the box. The value wasn't in the humidity control. And think about it.

Chuck Marcouiller: How many times do we as sellers get caught up in our technology, our our doodad that's in the center, our feature that we think everybody's gonna buy because of this piece because that's how we define it. It's not about the humidity control. Sometimes it's about what how the customer wants to use it. And so when we look at impact, we've really gotta take and I see so many sellers who forget in the the process that impact, you know, they mind for pain, but they forget the step of asking and listening for impact. So let's let's pull that apart.

Bruce Scheer: Gotcha. I wanted to make one quick point on that. You know, for people watching this episode with Chuck, and myself, it I'm showing a an iceberg And, of course, we know an iceberg, there's things above the above the surface and down below. And I I think your story Chuck's really beautiful because that seller wasn't really probing for needs at all. He he made assumptions around needs And hence, that's why he was saying, hey, we're not willing to budge on the product, but not not not digging a little deeper level 2, level 3 type of deeper to really understand the pain and and as you say, the potential impact. So anyway, I just wanted to share this as well. Should we talk then about the, the types of impact, Chuck? Or

Chuck Marcouiller: Yeah. Let's let's talk. Let's let's unpack impact. Yeah. So, you know, impact's one of my favorite topics to sit there and get into with sellers because it's one of those things where we we surface level talk about it, but we don't really understand it. Now I like to say that there's 2 types of impact, and there are 3 stages of impact that we have to remember in the sales process. So the types of impact are emotional and rational impact. There's the logical. So, Bruce, in your experience, buyers make decisions primarily on emotion or logic.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Or emotion for sure. There's data around that as well.

Chuck Marcouiller: Absolutely. We're we're emotional creatures who talk logic or make decisions with a thin veneer of logic. We speak this logical language, but we decide on emotion. So when we're when we're diagnosing, when we're sitting there and talking to our prospects, one of the things we have to listen for and and rationalize, what are the what is the ROI? What is the monetary return? What's the benefit to the company? But emotionally, we have to sit there and think, are we listening for why does this person care? What's the benefit to them for sponsoring or going through this process? And if there isn't, then we're missing, you know, half of the solution. So any level of impact or stage of impact, we're always listening to the emotional impact and the rational impact. And put a big asterisk underline and whoopee light on the emotional. If the emotional impact isn't there, when I'm coaching reps, if they can't tell me what the emotional impact is for the person that they say is gonna sponsor it, I don't believe the deal is gonna come in because why is the person gonna do it?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah.

Chuck Marcouiller: Why do I care for the benefit that the the company is gonna save x amount of dollars? Unless I'm the owner or the major stockholder, rarely are we talking to them. Why does a mid level person care? It's nice, but it's not the driving factor.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah, absolutely. Chuck, one of our affiliates, he's got a model, that that we lead with very often. We call it the value triad, but there's there's 3 components of that emotion. And that's typically the biggest factor as you talk about, you know, people, you know, decided an emotion and to justify with with rationale. But part of the rationale would be the financial dimension of revenue enhancing benefits, cost reducing benefits associated with the change And how do you frame all that up? But, again, just just to give you a a framing, the value triad is what we we teach quite often.

Chuck Marcouiller: Yeah. Just to to divert for just a second. I was I was Gong's 5th customer. And do you know how Gong was able to close me? Gong was able to close me because I wanted to be my daughter's lacrosse coach. And he said, what would it be like you know, what's what is one thing you really wanna do, Chuck? And I said, you know what? Part of my role as the director of sales enablement at this organization is I have to review, and and coach a lot of calls. I gotta be on a lot of calls. And the and this is when call recording, call intelligence was just in its infancy. So what if they were all recorded? You could listen to them at 1 and a half speed, and you could do it whenever you wanted to.

Chuck Marcouiller: I said, then I could be a coach. He said, what would it mean to you to be a coach? I said, I could finally be a hero to my daughter for at least 1 year. I've been a workaholic.

Bruce Scheer: That is so

Chuck Marcouiller: funny. I'll do it. I'll do it. I'll sponsor this.

Bruce Scheer: That is awesome. I think I've heard this story. I don't know if I told you. I I worked with Gong a year and a half ago and built 1 of their sales narratives. I might've heard this story. That is awesome. Full circle, full circle moment. But that is great, But, definitely well, should we talk about the stages?

Chuck Marcouiller: Yeah. Let's talk about the stages. So when we talk about the stages, there are really 3 different distinct stages of impact that we've gotta ask for and understand and diagnose. And a lot of times, people talk about the solution impact. What's the impact? What's the ROI of making the change? We love to do that because we've got our studies and our stats. But sandwiched in between are the 2 that we often forget. And what's the impact of the status quo? So early on in the discovery is we sit there and say, hey, Bruce, what's the problem at your organization? We should also be asking for, oh, that's really interesting. What does that mean? What is that costing? What's that causing? When you don't if you don't address that, what's what's happening? What's the drag on your overall process? That's the impact of the status quo.

Chuck Marcouiller: If there is no real impact of the status quo, they're not gonna change no matter what. And again, hearsay is not admissible in the court of sales. If they haven't said it, we don't know it. So we have to have them say that there is a real cost, not tangible cost, could be an emotional cost, but there is a real cost to the way business is done now. Otherwise, they're not gonna vote to change. And then, of course, the solution impact, the status quo impact, the solution impact. Oftentimes, sellers end there. But the really good sellers, the really good sellers and the really good CS people understand that there's one more, one more stage, and I like to call it the hidden stage, and that's the first impact.

Chuck Marcouiller: So we say, okay. We're going for 3 x. We're gonna we're gonna improve your conversion rates. We're gonna reduce, you know, we're gonna improve your overall revenue, reduce your cost, because people only buy software for two reasons, reduce their cost, improve their revenue. Alright? But we have to say, alright. How do we know we're on the right road? We have to sit take the steps of defining first impact. How are we both going to make the investment and know that we're both taking the steps in order to achieve that first milestone to know that both parties have made both good faith efforts to go down the road so that there can be success? And that's the first impact. I love it.

Chuck Marcouiller: That, I shared with you I I have a little acronym.

Bruce Scheer: So, Chuck, this has been great. You know, just to put this into some vernacular that I see a lot of people talking about with status quo, you're really trying to look at, you know, what's the cost of inaction there? You know, what's the cost of that pain, that problem situation? What's the cause or the cost and also the causes? I loved how you frame that the solution impact that might be, you know, hey, what's the potential ROI that we could achieve together over, say, 1, 2 or 3 year period.

Bruce Scheer: But then, what's what's really neat, and I think a blind spot for so many is what you coin as first impact. How do we prove that the cost is going away, and we are on our path to achieving that ROI as part of that first impact. And and and that's a point in time, not way down the road, but and I know you'll push into this a little bit more.

Chuck Marcouiller: Absolutely. I wish I was the person who coined first impact, but I'm I you know, they say, I wanna be the smartest guy in the room without a single original thought. This is this is Jocko winning by design, kind of. I shamelessly stole from him. But I love the concept and I'm always looking to improve improve on it. But first impact for me, I but the acronym I came up with is I MADE. And when I say first the framework I MADE is I I I'm the one you know, I'm I'm an engineer by background, though I've never engineered anything. I went to school to become an engineer.

Chuck Marcouiller: And so I'm always looking for models. And for me, I had to think of something that would allow me to anchor to, and IMAID is the acronym. So impact, there are 4 keys to getting to that first impact. It's metrics. It's, first of all, you have to have agree upon what what are we gonna measure? How are we gonna know that we're making progress? What's a tangible, realistic piece that we can both see and count that both sides are invested and we're seeing movement towards that final end result that's worth achieving? Mhmm. Then the second piece is, of course, accountability. Who's going to do what, and what can we hold each accountable for? Then the this third thing is date driven. Alright? If we don't have a time bound, just like any goal, we've got to sit there on both sides, agree to you're gonna do this by this date.

Chuck Marcouiller: I'm gonna do this by this date. So we know that we're making progress together. And part of that date driven piece is when are we gonna get back together to really look to ensure that we've achieved that first measurement that's worth achieving? And then the third piece is explicit effort. What's the effort that we both agree we're going to put in? What's the skin in the game? So many times we as vendors say, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, and I put it on your side and then I go away, never asking if you're actually gonna do anything on your side prospect. That's a mistake. Any software implementation has to be a partnership. It has to be, hey, I'm going to give you this. I'm going to do the the training.

Chuck Marcouiller: But who on your side is going to fill in the data, put in your standards, define your value, whatever it may be, in order to make sure that the software actually works. If both sites aren't actually putting it in there, if the actual users or the department that it's it's designed for, don't actually get in there and start to use it because there is, of course, that learning curve, that breakage curve, that if there isn't a commitment by senior leaders on both sides to go through that and get to some end stage and then come back and meet, did both sides meet the expectations, then we're not gonna have a renewal. It's gonna be vaporware, shelfware. And, of course, the end user is gonna say, oh, I hated it. It sucked. It didn't do what it did we even try it? Well no. But I just knew by looking at it. Smelled bad.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah, I I love the framework. I just want to recap for everybody on this chuck just for especially for our listeners, you know, chuck is illustrating this framework impact, or I made, which is really interesting. So you start with impact and and chuck has talked about the different types of impact that we're looking for those 3 types. But then we need to end stages, excuse me, 22 types, emotional and rational. And then we had the stages now, you know, that that's impact. But then how do we move towards first impact where you talk about metrics getting really clear on what we're gonna measure for accountability, how we're gonna keep ourselves accountable to tracking that. Let's have a date on the calendar being date driven, where we know that, you know, you and I have to look each other in the eyes and see how we did and putting effort into this whole, puzzle, especially to get over that that, you know, trough of disillusionment and getting that value, making sure there's effort. So we are achieving that impact.

Bruce Scheer: I I I love it, Chuck. It's a it's a great model.

Chuck Marcouiller: Thank you. Thank you. It's it's helped. So let's let's put this into play. What what would that sound like? And it's one thing to sit there and say to a model, but let's talk about how we put it in play. Bruce, do you mind if I I play it with you? Yeah, please. Yeah. I'll I'll be a a consultant for Value Pros, and you be a a buyer of Value Pros.

Chuck Marcouiller: And what I'm doing is I'm selling you a, a coaching model. We're gonna come in. We're gonna coach for the explicit, purpose. We're gonna improve your overall discovery process. By going through the Value Pros model, we're gonna improve your discovery process. And the end outcome, Bruce, is that if you use the value pros, learning program and coaching program, we will guarantee that you'll improve your conversion rate from your SQLs to your SALs. Is that worth achieving?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. What are we talking about?

Chuck Marcouiller: Well, some of our some of our customers have if if we even achieve a 5% improvement in conversion rate, what would that be dollar wise given your ARR?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. Me and CRO, oh my god. That it hits my top line hugely, and it's all straight to the bottom line as well because my cost structure doesn't really change. So, yeah, that that that's really juicy.

Chuck Marcouiller: So let's take Bruce, so let's identify 2 teams. 2 of your leaders, because we all we we can't do everybody, but let's get 2 leaders to get success in this. I like to call them the domino reps or the domino teams. If we can get them to tip, everybody else's tip. Let's get 2 teams that we're gonna run the program on, and then let's sit there and figure out for 1 quarter, let's get them trained and certified, tested. Let's get them trained, make sure that they understood and certified. But let's also coach your leaders to make sure that they know how to coach and measure on what we train them on for the improved discovery process.

Bruce Scheer: Mhmm.

Chuck Marcouiller: And then what I need your you to commit to and have your reps your your leaders commit to is that they are going to coach at least one recorded call of your reps each week. Is that something that you could hold your leaders accountable to?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Mhmm. I know the teams. I yes.

Chuck Marcouiller: Mhmm. Right. So we'll train at your SKO on the 2nd week of January, by the end of the 2nd week of January. By the end of January, do you believe well, how how long do you think it will take that, they could take the test and say that they understand the basic material that we we did for discovery a week?

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. That should be fine.

Chuck Marcouiller: K. So we want at least 90% of your people to pass the certification and the test by the 3rd week of January, and we're gonna have your leaders coached on how to coach and how to inspect and how to to measure a call. Right? And then what we're going to look for is about at the end of February, we're gonna see if your leaders are actually coaching the calls. I'm gonna have a call with you to make sure that and we're gonna see in your system if they're coaching the calls, and we'll do a touch base with your leaders as well. But then what I want to do is I want to have a live Zoom with you and your leaders and your rev ops leader as well in order to look at the conversion metrics. What I need you to do, will you share with me your current conversion metrics on both your reps and your leaders in those two teams as of the end of, fiscal year 24 to see that we can make at least an incremental change within the Q1. Because if we're doing this right, it's gonna be a little disruption before they they get this right. But I bet if we could see at least a 2% increase across the teams in aggregate, will that give you an indication that we're heading in the right direction to achieve that overall 5% increase by the end of the year?

Bruce Scheer: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Makes sense.

Chuck Marcouiller: Okay. Great. I feel like that will give us an indication whether we're you know, the investment is heading in the right direction or whether there are things that we can incrementally do in order to course correct to get your folks to the desired outcome that, you're making this investment for. But we both have to be

Bruce Scheer: Yep. Yeah. And then we'll know if we need to scale it at that point. That's that's perfect.

Chuck Marcouiller: Right. So did you hear a tangible metric? Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. 2% to 5%. Right? Did you hear a, an accountability plan? Who's gonna do what? Mhmm. Did you hear a date? What was the date? Were we talking specific dates? Yep. Yeah. January, 3rd week of January, mid February, March, we're going to do the QBR. And then effort. Who's gonna do what? Who's who's responsible for doing what? Mhmm.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah. No. We covered the whole model. One thing we probably could have added is, hey. If the leaders aren't playing ball bruce, what what are we gonna do together there? You know, just a little bit of that f, you know, more of that effort piece to to make sure everything goes according to plan. So we can have that moment of truth, in in in March to see how things went.

Chuck Marcouiller: Absolutely. But but that's the key. That's that's the process that I think about when it's the first impact. And when we do that, when we have that first QBR after implementation and we go through the I made model and and check those boxes. And it's not, hey. You have to start with metrics. It's not an a a chronological list of topics. It's making sure, like, med pick you don't start with the M and medic and or med pick and go through those. It's these are topics that somewhere within the deal review, we should get to them. Same with ingredients.

Bruce Scheer: Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck Marcouiller: Core ingredients. Doesn't matter what order you put them in, but you need ingredients to make sure that check, check, check, we have them in our plan in order to make sure that we're we have a chance to hit what our end objective is, which is that we both have a common understanding that we're both in this together in order to achieve something that's you have said is worth achieving. The reason that you bought this, putting the tangible to the intangible to be able to get to that, and I would remind, hey. Here's the emotional, impact that you wanted to to go for. So that's why we're doing this. You know, we're putting all this effort in and holding people accountable. Okay? That's

Bruce Scheer: right. And, emotionally, we're gonna celebrate in March cause we're both hitting it out of the park at that point. So good. Good. Well, hey, that's that's beautiful. You know, we we've talked about, you know, we've covered so much ground, but as it relates to first impact, you've really made this practical with the framework, Chuck. And you know, how do you set that up for success, both you and that buyer for success. And then then you then you earn the right to both retain that customer and grow that customer, because you're doing a great job with first impact.

Bruce Scheer: So this is a gift. It's a blind spot. It's a misstep by so many. And thank you so much, Chuck, for breathing this wisdom into the the, the sales process and the buyers journey. Anything that we haven't covered that you wanted to mention just in conclusion, Chuck? Or

Chuck Marcouiller: I think one of the things that I would I would, say, you know, taking it to the next level, the best sellers not only know the process, but they put it into some form of documentation. I'm a big believer in digital sales rooms and mutual success plans. It's that co documentation that we share, whether the the first prospect does it or not and contributes to it or not, it's creating that experience, that confidence and clarity, going back to the 3 c's. If you create that confidence and clarity through the documentation to the buyer and showing them that you understand, you're good. No matter what you're selling, you're gonna set yourself as a cut above all of the others by putting it in front of them and letting them know, hey. I'm along with you to make sure that you are successful and you stand a better chance by working with me than with Brandex and the other guy. So

Bruce Scheer: Absolutely. Yeah. And then also you're you're derisking a little bit in the the business value narrative or business case that you might be developing, as you talk about potential risks, and how are we going to manage for this, having that the the this first impact, this this motion as part of that should create that confidence and the outcome as part of that business case as well, for some of the bigger deals. Yeah. Well, very cool. Well, Chuck, I I just want to highlight, my thanks. And then for everybody listening, you can find Chuck on LinkedIn, people watching. I'm actually showing Chuck's beautiful LinkedIn profile here.

Bruce Scheer: But definitely, find Chuck on LinkedIn. The way you spell his last name is marcouille r. So and, you know, just look him up. He's there any other way in LinkedIn that that they would type in to to find you?

Chuck Marcouiller: They can find me on my website as well. SaaS enable. What do I do? I enable SaaS.

Bruce Scheer: Okay. Easy as that. Okay. Sas enabled.com, you said? Or

Chuck Marcouiller: sassenable.com. Yep. Perfect. I didn't think I could get that URL, but it was out there, so I snagged it quick.

Bruce Scheer: Nice. Nice. Well, Chuck, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

Chuck Marcouiller: My pleasure, Bruce. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat with you.

Bruce Scheer: You bet. Let

Chuck Marcouiller: me 1x 00:00:00 00:39:35 Claude is active in this tab group Open chat Dismiss