What I Wish I'd Known About Sales With Zac Thompson

Hi everyone and welcome to What I Wish I'd Known About Sales, the show where we learn all about the highs, lows, and lessons from the front lines of selling. I'm Martin from Lead Forensics, and today's guest is someone who's built his career and his brand around telling the truth about sales. Zak Thompson is the founding director of We Have a Meeting, co-host of the podcast of the same name, and the author of Sales is Therapy. If you've seen him on LinkedIn, you already know he cuts through the noise with honest takes, sharp messaging, and a healthy amount of humor. His agency helps sales teams fix what's broken in their outbound, whether it's low-quality meetings, bad fit leads, or just not enough pipeline. We're going to talk about sales pressure and what happens when you stop trying to sound like a salesperson, amongst other things. So, um, welcome to the show, Zach. Thanks for having me. That was a lovely intro. Thanks very much. Um, so just to kick it off, Zach, you've done a lot of different sales roles over the years. Um, what's the one thing you wish you'd understood much earlier about selling? I think just how much it is— this will sound so obvious— but just how much it is, um, buyer-focused rather than seller-focused. I think a lot of what salespeople are taught is and just get in front of them. We're great when we get in front of people. Just show them what we've got. Once they see how great the tools are, they'll love it. All these types of things. But actually, if you think of every other aspect of your life where you're interacting with someone to solve a problem, it's nothing like that. You don't go to the doctor and the doctor sits you down and says, before we start, let me tell you how great I am as a doctor. I'll show you a few slides of where I went to school as a doctor. I'll show you some awards that the practice has won. That never happens. The doctor first sits you down and says, why are you here? What's the problem you're trying to solve? How long has it been going on for? And when you bring what works in real life into sales, it works 10 times better. So I wish I had known that, but some lessons have to be learned the hard way, I think. Absolutely. That's such a good metaphor. You know, go to the doctor's. I've got some really good drugs. Um, so when you look back at your kind of early sales years, what, what were you getting wrong, um, but you didn't necessarily realize at the time, apart from obviously not leading with, uh, you know, I know all the answers kind of thing? In, in my early sales career, I've talked about this another, another podcast, but I worked for some real, like, lunatics. Like, real— that's probably another story I'll have to write one day. I, I was first coming out in sales, and Wolf of Wall Street had just come out. And I think a lot of businesses were trying to kind of replicate that type of culture. Really, like, problematic. And a lot of what I was being taught was that it's all about relationships, right? Which is like a common thing that you hear in sales, that young salespeople hear. It's just about relationships. Relationships bias decision-making, right? So what you tend to have in relationship selling is I will build a relationship with a buyer, which is normally in the UK built around let's go out and get drunk together and do things that we probably shouldn't do. And then we work together. Fine, okay, I've won the client. And then gradually every year, because that relationship, they pay less and less and less and less, and it discounts while other people are trying to build relationships with them. So any industry that's built on this relationship building style has a big, big massive long curve that's this big race to the bottom until all the profit margins are totally sucked out of it. So I think that, that I was most wrong about was that that is a factor that's important, that you have to have these like strong alcohol-based relationships with people in order to do business. I think it's just totally wrong. I've not done that at all in my business and it's worked very well and profitably. Interesting. Yeah. Um, That is an interesting one. And I think that— is that a particularly British thing? Probably, probably is. I imagine other cultures have it as well. Probably. Yeah. There we go. Your book. So obviously you brought a book out called Sales is Therapy. Yeah. Where did that idea come from? So when I was starting the business off, I was looking to kind of build our own framework and methodology, basically to give salespeople that were new to the industry something that they would give them like a really, really nice, good start. So the first thing is like that you wouldn't feel slimy and like you needed to go and have a shower every time you finished your day's work and that you were doing things in the right ethical way, but a framework that actually worked well. And what I kept coming back to is the area where people are most honest with their problems and have the most opportunity to change is in a therapy setting. So we kept coming back to these ideas around therapy and realizing that actually being a CEO is a very lonely place, and being able to solve the problems of those CEOs, you're probably better being the therapist rather than the salesperson. And there we are, the book takes it away from there. Yeah, that, that's, that's a really interesting take, I suppose. Um, maybe that brings you— brings it on to how it may be prospecting, etc. Like, how do you initially get to the point where you are kind of providing the therapy when, when prospecting? Yeah, so I mean, later— yeah, there's loads of different examples I can give you, right? So let's take— so we're talking about Lead Forensics for example, right? That might be a good place to look at this. An opportunity for Elite Forensics is to ring me up and say, Zach, I know that you're a business owner. We're an award-winning tool that helps people see visitors on their website. I just want to get 15 minutes in your diary to show you how that would work, right? That's probably like classic SDR approach. The therapy approach would say, Zach, I'm normally brought in by people who are really ambitious, they've built great websites, but they recognize that probably people are visiting those websites and not converting in the way that they would like them to. And as a result, they've just got this horrible feeling. Am I missing opportunities? Is the website working as well as it should? And am I being passed by? I've suddenly taken what is a— here's this everything about me to here's everything about you. You're out there spending money on your website. You might be missing opportunities. And usually what happens when I present it like that, they then open up about, oh yeah, I've spent loads on my website actually, and it does make me look like a, like a bit of a fool because I've spent so much money. And yeah, yeah, God, yeah, you're right, the, the conversion isn't where it needs to be. And suddenly we are in this therapy session rather than in this like, can I grab 15 minutes to show you what I've got type call. Yeah, and it's more like even the language you're using there is more sort of emotional human connection type language, right? So yeah, yeah, exactly. That's going to be— I know AI is a hot topic at the minute. That's probably going to be everyone's big differentiator, like lean into making it sound human, even, even like human in an awkward kind of clunky way, because AI sounds a bit too clean and clinical. Oh, 100%. I was talking to— I don't know if you know Tom Boston, um, yeah, he was saying he would ring people up and he would do awkward things like say, oh, you just caught me in the middle of a biscuit, that kind of thing. Like, AI never going to do that, is it? No. Or maybe it will. Let's, let's not give the robots too many clues. Um, but yeah, so what, what do you think, um, something that, um, what do salespeople misunderstand about empathy, do you think, in sales? Um, that it's— I think that it's, that it's prescriptive. I, I would actually say that is, along with listening, empathy is one of those things that people will say, I'm really empathetic, I'm a really great listener. You don't hear people I openly admit I'm not very empathetic and I'm not a very good listener. The reality is most of us aren't that empathetic and most of us aren't that great listeners. I think with empathy, what— where people get, get this wrong, if you listen back to your calls as salespeople, what you find is people miss all the little nuances of what people say, the little pause where they got a bit nervous about opening up too much, the bit where they stumbled over their words. The bit where suddenly they said, yeah, I am under a lot of pressure. A lot of salespeople just go, great, well, when have you got 15 minutes for me to sit down and show you what I've got? Rather than actually saying to someone, oh, it sounds like you're in a really tough spot. What's going on? What happened there? Why has that not worked for you? God, this sounds like a nightmare. You just don't hear that with salespeople at all. And the example that I was given in my own life that I learned this from is not from a salesperson. My stepdad is a very beloved taxi driver in and around Blackpool in the Northwest. He is the best person at this in the world. People can get in his cab and talk about anything and he's going, bloody hell, how long were you doing that for? God, sounds like a nightmare. Oh God. Like he sounds like that with everyone who gets in. And people then say, can I speak to that guy again? Can I deal with that guy again? They know nothing about him. All they know is that he's a great listener and a great empathizer. Absolutely. A lot of people and teams say that outbound is kind of broken. Um, from what you see, what is it that's broken and what isn't? Okay, so this is the— I think this is a— this isn't a new thing. This is, um, we spoke to Rory Sutherland on our podcast a few times, right? And he talks about, um, short-term fixes that have really long-term problems. So in sales, a short-term fix is SDR being told just get meetings in the diary, right? So they get just any, anything in the diary. Then your AE or demo person, close or whatever, just put any opportunity through. So they put in their CRM, here's just any opportunity, just conversation I'm having. They might become nothing. And then that gets passed to shareholder and investor in the business by leadership to say, look at all this great stuff we're doing. That is just hope. It's just things that just never become anything and never matter. And that has all this knock-on effect of just meeting for meeting's sake, demoing with people who don't really have a problem, and showing people opportunities that are just hope. And you can't have hope in your pipeline. It should just be on yeses and nos. So that isn't a new thing. We're probably just at the, the tail of the impact of that being, oh, it feels like it's broken, it doesn't work. The reality is it's probably been from probably pre-COVID that that's been a strategy that people have adopted. So I would say it's not broken for good, it probably just needs fixing. Yeah, so I mean, meetings that don't convert, how do you, how do you as a leader in an organization, how do you begin to fix that? Because I imagine there's pressure on these people, you know, to get to a certain level of, you know, opportunities in the pipe, etc. So yeah, I think there's a mixture of things, right? So SDRs, if you didn't just target them on booked meetings, but let's say even simpler, I'm going to just, I'm going to target you on attended meetings. That could be the first thing with someone who starts in the business. So we actually set the right precedent at the start. It's not about actually just booking people because reality is if you do that, hardly anyone's going to show. If it was, let's base it on attendance. Naturally, the knock-on effect of that is I have to actually qualify people properly or they won't attend and I won't get paid. So that'd be the first thing. The, the, the, the other thing that we do with more the AE role is you're not allowed to say something's an opportunity if you don't have a diarised follow-up in the diary. And this is something that I would say all sales leaders should put in. So if I've had a great meeting with you, Martin, to sell something and my boss said to me, well, when's your next meeting with him? And I say, I don't know, he's going to get back to me. Nope. Can't have it, can't go in there, can't go in the pipeline. If I don't have a next step that's diarised and accepted by both of us, it's not an opportunity. It's just me waiting to hear back from someone who's probably just said yes to get me off the phone. Yeah, don't, don't call us, we'll call you, right? Yeah, exactly. That's not good. That's not someone who likes you. It's probably the opposite. Fair play. What's something that you've seen that sales teams obsess over that doesn't really move the needle? Would you say? Discounts, I would say. I was gonna— there's probably a few things there, but I think discounts is the big one. The discount culture that you probably should have— I know it's hard for some big businesses to do— is a— you've just got a really transparent pricing model and there are no discounts. That would be— that should be what you should go for. I think it's the most ethical way. And it's the most easy way and it gets a bit of buy-in from the start. So if you're trying to book a meeting in with us, it's just like, yeah, but before you sit down, there's all the pricing. Be really comfortable at first, but yeah, absolutely happy to sit down with you. I think a lot of businesses, and I've worked in loads of them, it gets that last week of the month and what discount have we got? Oh, my competitor's doing a big discount. Let's get that in. Bang, bang, bang, and start putting that through. If you're a salesperson out there, who has a competitor who heavily discounts, and someone's come to you and said, well, they're offering us a 25% discount, you should be saying to that prospect, well, why are you speaking to us then? There is a reason why. It's not you now need to do 30% discount. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, and I think because obviously you're talking about, you know, getting towards the end of the month, that kind of thing, how do— how can people protect their mindset when results aren't where they need to be? Well, everyone will have their own personal way of, of doing this. My business partner Jack, he's known for on LinkedIn, he always ends his posts with 'remember you'll die,' the old Marcus Aurelius, uh, memento mori. Yeah, but his big thing is like, most of the things that you worry about don't actually matter when you put them in the frame of one day you will die. And I think it's like, it's a morbid way to think about it, but I think it's, I think it's very, very true. The other thing is, this is a privilege for the lifestyles that we've got and the world that we live in and the opportunities we get to do, because 300, 400 years ago, your ancestors were probably really scrambling around to try and make something work through disease and starvation and illness and all sorts of stuff. And if you could go back and say, oh, this guy's not responded to my email, they'd be like, oh my God, what are you talking about? What happens? What's the point in carrying on this, this lineage in the first place? So just, I would say, really put things in perspective. The, the third and final one that I think is an easy one, there's a thing you can put in on Google which is a, a view of where you are on Earth, and you can just constantly zoom out from that. And as you zoom out, you'll get to the UK, then Europe, and then before you know it, you're out at the world view. And at that view, does it really matter that the deal didn't close? Probably not. Fair play. Very wise, wise words, I think. What's one belief about sales that you'd like to see disappear? Oh, wow. I think I think the idea that, I think the idea that, that is a shame because a lot of people are brought up believing this and a lot of founders believe this, is the old we're great when we get in front of people. I think it's a real shame for new salespeople to be in businesses that believe that, and I always feel a bit sorry for founders that come to me and tell me that because they think they have a Zach, can you help us book more meetings problem? Because we're great when we get in front of people. And then what tends to happen is we get them in front of people and, oh, but no one's closing. And their love is blind. They love what they've built so much that they're blind to actually the problem, that maybe people aren't that interested in it or, or whatever it may be. So I, I wish people could have a more objective, rational view of that. I don't see that going away though, because it's a fundamental change in psychology. Subtle human nature, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just, I suppose, the getting the perspective on it. But maybe that's where you do need someone external to say, well, hang on a minute, have you considered, have you considered this? Yes, that's where I spend my life saying that. Yeah. Um, so What would you say, from your experience, what separates reps who kind of stay stuck to, uh, from those who continue to progress, um, throughout their career? Yeah, there's, there's, there's a few different things. So, so one is a very clear, um, structure to your day. So it might be, here's the amount of conversations I need to have to have X amount of meetings, here's the amount of meetings I have to have X amount of people go through to, to an opportunity, and so on. But I think the big thing that really changed things for me was having a really strong why. I'm going to be, um, a bit pompous and drop a Nietzsche quote, and we'll put Nietzsche's Instagram handle in the, in the bio, I'm sure. Um, but Friedrich Nietzsche said, with the right why, you can bear any how. So when you are struggling as a salesperson to like find motivation, the reality is if you ask the question, why am I doing this, you'd find that the answer just isn't strong enough. Otherwise, you don't find that you struggle in that way. When I was a person without children and I was just paying for a nice holiday to somewhere on a beach, and that was my goal, what would happen naturally is I'd get the nice holiday, go to the beach, and come back and have a really crap performance for a while. And I bet loads of salespeople, you sort of hit the goal and then you're like, oh, now I'm crap again, so I find another goal. Um, and it happens that whereas when I'm not saying people need to go and have children, you can if you want, but I'm saying have a very strong why that isn't finite, one that is infinite in its, in its longevity, and you just won't struggle with that as an issue. That might be the most deep answer we've, we've ever had on the podcast. I was not expecting a Nietzsche quote, but I think that is, um, yeah, no, that's absolutely spot on. Um, So if someone can see that their pipeline is kind of drying up or pretty bone dry right now, what would you say, what should they stop doing first? Um, what should they stop? I mean, it's usually a case of what should they start doing. What should they stop doing is probably people normally have, I've got the one big deal that I'm counting on, or they have a few relationships that they're just like chasing up a bit, you know, they're chasing like, are you ready to go, are you ready to go, and they're not going after the new things. There's loads of things that you can do to, as a sudden like cash injection to the business, to, to, to get opportunities live. But I would look at your diary, where are the revenue driving activities, and if it's like looking at website building, business card, LinkedIn post, reality is they're not revenue driving, get rid of them. Put revenue-driving stuff in their place. Yeah, I think that's, that's pretty fair. Um, so on to kind of quickfire bit. Um, cold calls or cold emails? Cold calls all day. All day, because there's no faster way to actually qualify someone. The purpose of a cold email is to get someone on a call. Why not miss, skip that step and just get them on a call first? Play. Um, most overrated sales phrase? Um, we can absolutely do that. I think a lot of people— a lot— there's an expectation versus reality, right? A lot of salespeople will sell it perfect. Even if your product is great, it will be disappointing because it's not perfect. Sell the 4.7 Amazon review, not the 5-star one. People will trust it more. Fair play. Um, uh, one question every salesperson should ask more often? Why now? I think it's probably one of the best questions that you can ask. I— we had a, a therapist on our podcast ages ago, and I said, what's the best question to get someone to open up? And she said, why now? And I've thrown it in ever since then. Inbound inquiries, outbound inquiries, as soon as someone gets on to I'm, I'm in a problem Why do you need to do something about that now? Right, that is the, that is the golden nugget. Everything falls into place in that question because, because you, you have to get to a deeper belief. If I was to say to you, Martin, what did you do on the weekend? Fine, you'll answer it. Um, how was it? Fine, you'll answer it. If I say, why did you do it? You'll go, what do you mean, why did I do it? I— so, so, so if I'm talking to someone about what are they doing at the minute, how's it going, and then I go 'Why do you need to talk to me then?' It suddenly accesses a totally different part of the brain. So you, you'll feel when you do it, you get to true motivation through asking that question. Very, very interesting. Um, best reaction you've ever had to a cold call? Oh, I've had loads. I've had loads. I remember once, um, I mean, I think this is funny, sometimes people don't. A woman said to me once, 'Oh, I normally tell salespeople to go and kill themselves, but go and you can have time. And then I told her my pitch and laughed and said, so what should we do now? And she went, I think you should go and find a rope. And I was like, oh my— yeah, it was like real dark. And then probably a lighter one is I had a guy once say to me, give me a second, I just need to find my teeth. And that really threw me. Oh, brilliant. Wow, I was not expecting that. Um, Sales motivation, discipline or emotion? As in what's the— how do you mean? So to keep motivated. Oh, to keep motivated. So discipline is the key thing to manage. As salespeople, we don't get burnout in the same way a heart surgeon would get burnout, but we do get burnout in a way of getting emotional burnout. It tends to be an issue with either validation or rejection. You find the best salespeople are actually quite indifferent to the whole process, but the ones that have the most sporadic performances tend to get really high off the wins and really low off the losses. And as a result, they're probably only good for 3 months of the year because they're on a roller coaster all the time, right? Um, and what's one thing salespeople worry about too much? Probably currently, probably AI, right? But But, but the people who are telling you to be worried about AI are also trying to sell you an AI solution. So just be aware of where the message is coming from. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a theory about all this anyway. What's your theory? Well, this whole thing around basically everything is designed, you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff is kind of designed to get worse. There's this phrase for it, isn't there? Enshittification, basically. Right. You get something very cheap or free. And then they introduce ads and then XYZ, XYZ. And I feel like with AI, there's, there's going to come a point where businesses are so reliant on AI that the prices just go. Yeah. Do you see what I mean? Because also, you know, especially if, you know, if teams are getting smaller, etc., etc., long-term planning, those companies will be, the AI companies will be thinking, great. Like happy days, we've, you know, we've got this locked down. Yeah. So that's the way I see it going. But someone showed me something the other day and they said, and it's a good question, like I don't know what people would think of this. They said, how many AI projects in businesses, so from pilot, do you think fail percentage-wise? So what do you think the answer to that is, Martin? I'd say 80%. Is it higher? 97%. Wow. Only 3% passed the pilot to be a thing that a business goes, okay, that is good enough for us to use as a business function. The rest all fail and people go back to what they had before. And probably that 3% is stuff like I, I do a spreadsheet that's a bit annoying. Okay, now AI does that for me. Anything that's like what we're doing right now or the human stuff, you can't trust it yet with that. No, I think, I think that's fair. Right, um, on that note, Zach, thank you so much for joining us. Um, for everyone listening, um, go and follow Zach on LinkedIn if you haven't already. Um, and also definitely listen to the podcast, uh, because it's very good. Um, that's it for today's episode of What I Wish I'd Known About Sales. And don't forget to share this with the rep on your team who really needs to hear it. Thanks for joining us today.