How to Turn Being 'Different' Into Your Sales Superpower | Della Zhuang of Ataccama EP 08

And then sometimes people say, I don't want to be the diversity token, but I think sometimes I need to be the diversity token. I need to be that young-ish looking Asian woman in sales so that other young Asian women, they can see that, oh yeah, if someone that look like me can do that, then maybe I can consider pursuing a career like that as well. Hi and welcome to the She Sells podcast. Today I have Della Trang, from Atacama, and she's the VP of Growth. Welcome, Della. Thank you. So excited to be here. I know, I was just saying it's the first time we're having wine, so cheers on the podcast. Cheers for Friday. Yes. So let's get started. My exploration of finding you on LinkedIn was really interesting because I was looking at your experience, and you started within Atacama about 6, nearly 6 years ago, is that right? So I'm heading to the 7th year. I was like telling people I start accruing long service leaves. That's amazing. And that's actually quite, in my opinion, a fast runway from sales exec up to VP of growth, which is really impressive. Tell us a bit about the journey for that experience for you. Yeah, it's been quite some time. I think 6 years in the same company. In today's environment, I know not many people stay for like more than 5 years. Typically they will jump, especially in sales, like you do every 2 years, 2 to 3 years, and then you might jump to a competitor or similar company in the same industry. I joined Atacama actually by chance. I was with a different company in financial services doing banking technology. I wasn't thinking of leaving, and I think this job just came up on my LinkedIn. They say, oh, I think you are the— LinkedIn say you are the top applicant for this job. And I just don't believe the analytics. I was like, there's no way I'm the top applicant when they're looking for someone that's on paper really, really senior on paper. But because I was skeptical, so I just do the one-click apply, and then next day I got an interview with the regional CEO back then, and then she offered me the job, like, literally after 2 interviews. And I think I was, I think at that time, you know, 6, 7 years ago when you're like early 30s, like you don't have anything to lose. And I was just like, you know what, I don't know about this company, but I think the things they're doing are quite interesting because I come from analytics and, you know, doing data quality, master data management, you know, getting the data right before you get to the analytics team is quite interesting to me. So I was like, you know what, there's nothing I can lose. So why don't I just quit the job that I was actually doing really well to join this company that I was the first person they were hiring in this region. And then And I told myself, look, if it doesn't work out, I can always go back to work for a well-established company and then start again. And then I was thinking about just stay there for like 18 months, because I thought 18 months is long enough to be on the CV. Doesn't look like, you know, too short a tenure. Oh, 18 months turns to 3 years and 6 years. I think the benefit of like working in a small company, because back then I was the first hire in the region. We have another consultants in the region as well. So I think is the opportunity is that you do a lot more. I was doing marketing, I was being my own SDR, I was doing running the sales. When I signed my first client, the very first client for us in the region as well, was I was the project manager and I was not a technical person, never code. I don't know anything. I know the analytics, you know, I can do analysis, but not on software configuration. And I was pushed to be the project manager for my first project. So I think because the opportunity, you can do a lot more than people see the results and they associate that with me personally. So you sort of like Your brand internally get amplified a lot more. And I think when we have opportunity coming up, when we are growing the team locally, the opportunity just presented itself. And I wasn't, wasn't a negotiation that said, oh yeah, I need that job. But I told my manager at that time, he's like, you know, this is what I would like to do in the long run. Is there opportunity for me? And I think it just like, it just happened. Now we are a different company now. So I think back then when you're working for like a sub-200 200 to 300 size company, you can do a lot more. Like the title is a lot bigger, you know, but you do a lot more, but the operation is a lot different. And now we're moving to a completely different motion globally as well. So a lot of things that's been changed. And some people reach out to me, they say, oh, you know, what do you think of like being the first hire in the region? And I always said it's going to be hard, but you get a lot more upwards opportunities as well that you might not get if you work for like a well-established company. Like me. I'm not born in Australia. And tell us a bit about your background and your story, because I find that really fascinating. Yeah, I actually went through a period of my identity crisis a couple years back. How I introduce myself, my cultural background, I'm Chinese Australian. And I find that being Chinese, you know, culturally and through my heritage is very important for me. And having the Australian values, because I spend majority of my life in Australia, is also very important. But I remember when I, I think when I just turned 30, I had this moment that I feel I'm not Chinese enough and I'm not Australian enough. And it was really challenging. I didn't quit my job when soul searching because I think there's too much of a risk. Instead, I went to, like, you know, I talked to different people. I went for a leadership program like Asia Link Leadership Program to really understand what does that mean to be an Australian business working with Asia. So there was something that was quite fascinating. And I think after that journey, that 6-month learning with University of Melbourne and Asia Link, it really helped me to understand what does that mean to be Australian and what does that mean to be Australian at the same time having my Chinese culture cultural heritage. I moved here, my family moved here when we were, when I was a teenager. I don't know what you think, but I think is having different cultural heritage and then spending like more than 50% of my time in Australia, it just, I think it just give you, give me that, I call it diversity of thought. You can have both ways of thinking and both way the culture to help you to be more critical. Going back to how you had the identity crisis, when I first moved here, I would say that I was British Asian and they're like, but you're Indian. And I went, no, it's what we call that in UK is British Asian. So Asian in the UK is actually the whole of Asia, which includes India, but people don't call that here. Asian is different. So I found that unusual when I first moved here. But I also have had that identity crisis being the only brown kid growing up in a white school. And for a long time I wanted to be white. I wanted to be accepted. And then my hair started coming through when I was 11, and I just was like, is there anything else that needs to make me stand out even more? You know? So that was an evolution for me as well in terms of coming to Australia. So tell me about the cultural differences that you've noticed. I do think that doing business with Australian business versus with Asian, you know, business located in Asia or headquartered in Asia is probably easier to do business in Australia because, you know, we're here, right? You know, we're based here, our APAC headquarters in Sydney and Melbourne. We know what is happening. We know the policy. We can tell the client that, you know, we're local. We have the team end to end from marketing to post sales and support, they're all here. And you give that confidence from our customers that we're invested in this region. And I remember 6 years ago in one of the requests for proposal, they asked a question, you know, what's your company's investment in this country? Which is very important for a lot of companies here. And it's exactly the same in Asia as well. They ask the same question and then we still managed to do some business in Asia remotely. I think COVID being digital really helped change like how you need to do business, always stay like face to face in Asia. It definitely helped a little bit. But I still find that like you are not able to fully like unlock the potential of the market, like Singapore, Malaysia, where we also want to be as well, because you just don't have that face time with a client. And sometimes you're sitting on a Zoom call, Teams call with customers in Asia versus customers in Australia. In Asia, it's not about what they say, it's about what they didn't say at the core in the group, but it's about what they didn't say at the core, but they might be able to share with you privately in a one-to-one. And I think not having that one-to-one make it a little bit more difficult or or like say an international business want to go into a new region. I think the things that has changed for us is we started in an office here. When I started, we were like 2 people and companies are very skeptical because Australian business, they want to work with partners or companies that have a long-term strategy in this space. And I think that's the same for our customers in Asia as well because they don't want company that we buy your software and then you leave and then leave them no support locally. And I think we start getting a lot more business the second year that I was in at Accountable. And I think the reason was maybe I've been joking about this is the reason those customers start taking business, start giving us business because they feel pity for me because, oh, that girl is still there. I think they might stay there for a little bit longer. Let's give them a shot. I know it sounds like a joke, but I think that to some extent there's a truth to it as well because they see that, you know, you see a company that's not coming in 5 months and didn't work out, let's exit. And we see some of the similar companies in our space, they did the same as well, you know, come in too hard, exit, try again. It just doesn't keep that confidence of the business that locally want to work with them. Build the trust. And it's like that familiarity that they need is like, oh, okay, you know, I've seen this name before. They're still there. There's that familiarity. Oh, I can trust them. And that you're going to have that stickiness. So you can have the opposite of that, which is to fracture the trust by having too much movement in terms of personnel and headcount, I assume, you know. I think one thing that we tell our customers is, you know, how we show our commitment to the client. And I think that's been like stick to that for a long time is I always tell my client that, you know, 6 years I still manage the customers that I signed 6 years ago. I still know their requirements 6 years ago and what are the challenges they have gone through. And then the person who has done the solutioning for the client 6 years ago is still in the same company. They are still someone that will be able to support them. So that continuity and that transaction make them have that comfort. They always have someone that can turn to that really know their business. And I think that's how, like you say, you know, being there differentiate yourself as a company as well. Because at the end of the day, it is It is business, but it is not just about business. It's about the people that behind it and about the people and the clients. I know that's something that you pride yourself on is building those long-term relationships and having those connections. I did have a question around, do we still think the hunter-style enterprise sales is more a man's game? I hate to say this, but I think yes. I think it's still very traditionally been seen as a male-dominant profession, and I think up to this point, whenever I joined core, I don't see a lot of females on the other end. I think that has changed from like my client side, because I think in the past, I think the first maybe 6 years ago, even like 6, 8 years ago on the client side, they probably not a lot of a female head of data, chief data officer. But now it's changed. Now we see a lot more like women on the client side, you know, they are the chief data officer, executive manager, executive director that runs the data office. And we also see a lot of like data engineers, like female join the data space. So that has changed. But I think from selling, and then we talk about pure new business, is still proportionally a lot smaller from having female account execs and female hunters in this space. I think especially in data management software sales, and in Australia specifically. And I think is I definitely want more women to sell. I think female generally, women, they might be drawn to more like an account manager, look after existing business, customer success, because they might think that it's less demanding. I wouldn't say it's less demanding actually. I think it's maybe it's just the nature, it's a nurturing role. There might be some association of like gender characteristics that you might think women generally be more nurturing, so they might be more suitable for account manager. There might be some unconscious connections there. Well, it's a long-term play. So the nurturing, the persistence, the relationship building, rapport, active listening, those are all really important things to have, and sales cycles are getting longer and longer. I mean, I know it was difficult during COVID but now I feel like there's a lot of hesitancy in the market. I think it's also society expectation of like a woman's role in the family as well. I remember like a couple years, like a while ago, like someone that I was, I went on a date with and then they were like, they make this comment because I travel a lot. And then in sales profession before COVID times, you have to travel. Like sometimes you just want to be in front of the client because if you don't spend the time with the client, they're spending time with your other vendors and the competitors. So I travel, you know, there was a period of time I travel 3 days, more than 50% per week. And then we have this person that make this comment, he said, oh, 'Oh yeah, it's great that you're doing this job, but you know, if I would be with someone, I don't want my other half to travel so much.' And as I make this comment, I was like, 'But you travel a lot too.' 'Oh, but that's different.' I'm like, 'How is it different?' Obviously that didn't go ahead, that, you know, that day was the one, the first and the only one. But you can definitely see that the expectation that in the societies you expect like a woman will take a more— I wouldn't say home, but like more traditional role. And sometimes traveling might put off a lot of like mothers from time to time, that, you know, that might not be a career that they can pursue until the kid gets a little bit older. So true. And we've had a few female leaders on this podcast in sales who have been required to travel, and the number one thing that they brought up that enabled them to do that was a supportive partner. And I think that as career-driven women in sales leadership, I think that that's something that you do need, especially if you do want to have a family. And even if you don't, still having a supportive partner— it is high pressure, and we'd still want to go after their promotion. So yeah, that definitely is something that's come up. I do think that the flexible working definitely make it open the door for a lot more women to join, to become a sales profession. And I think maybe the other reason why is a more less female participate in this profession could be just the reputation of being a salesperson. I think historically just it's not the nicest professions that like you have, I think. But I think tech sales is different. And I think the way that we engage our clients can change how people perceive the profession. And with that, to try to encourage more women to get into that as well. On a personal level, tech sales enterprise level, it does have a high skew towards male counterparts being in that space. And yourself being a female, I think in terms of what was the ratio in your team and how did you manage to navigate going from sales exec to becoming a leader? It's still very male dominant. For example, when we were hiring, new AEs, like a lot of CVs that you get generally just, we get like 200 CVs and we'll probably have like 3 women like applicants. Maybe that's exaggerating, but it's like if you get 200, we get like less than 10 CVs that's coming from female candidates. And I think that was saying like people, they, you know, there's a study show that it was because men that generally feel like they're more experienced than what you actually ask for. And for women, you need to feel like I need to tick every single box so that I can be qualified for that. But often I find women, if you've passed them through for interview, they generally know a lot more more about their work, and then they did a lot more preparation and research before they come into the interview. So we have people that come into cross-industry coming in, and they didn't do any research about what we do. They see the word data, and then they thought they might be reporting analytics, but it's actually data management. Actually is completely different. I call it like the boring but important foundation work. So you can see, you can hear like how much preparation they come in. I would generally find female candidates are a lot more prepared. They invest a lot in, you know, just simply put out in the interview as well. And we see female sales execs that also more successful— I wouldn't say more successful, like our top 3 salespeople in Atacama, they're all female, like last year. And then we have this woman, she's been in Atacama 6 years or 7 years, and she was the very first like proper salesperson hired a long time ago. And she's been hitting her target every single year, and she's just so consistent, and clients love her, and she's just so like really like all-rounder. Another female one, sales that we have in different regions. She's also very, very driven, young, and then just get the things done and get the deals through, and then really care about the customers. And I think there's sometimes that you just, you know, there's no— everyone is a salesperson, but it's just like you have to open the opportunities there. Yeah, and really harness it. I think we have talked a lot about imposter syndrome on this podcast, but what I want to understand is, you now in the female leadership role and also at Takama, how can businesses like that in the tech space really put out to market that we're inclusive, we want more women to apply, how do we change the number from 3 out of 200 to at least 50, you know, more, or 100 out of 200, at least 50%? How do we get there? What do you think? Have you seen any great examples of businesses that really advocate for more women to apply, or what do you feel like could be done? I think what could be done— there's a lot can be done, but I think, you know, there was a period of time that people were talking about whether having a quota is that effective or not? I think to some extent it might be effective, like you can definitely use quota just as a hard measure to trying to increase the participation. Sometimes those backfire as well. I think what, what will prompt more women to say join in tech, in data, or in sales is they can find someone they can resonate with. That's why I would actively participate in like diversity program. And then sometimes people say, I don't want to be the diversity token, but I think sometimes I need to be the diversity token. I need to be that young-ish looking Asian woman in sales so that other young Asian women, they can see that, oh yeah, if someone that looked like me can do that, then maybe I can consider pursuing a career like that as well. So I think that's one way that is, I think, branding your marketing, you know, having those brand ambassador program. Even though you might not think it's effective, but sometimes for like individual like in a different level, it actually makes a difference because you can see someone that has done that before. And the other one is actually a path to convert. I think people want to pursue this profession or even in sales or in coming into data management, for example. So we talk about reskilling. A lot of people, they say, you know, how the tech world changes, people with certain skill sets might not be relevant now because of AI. What are the paths that we can reskill our team to actually get them into like that kind of role. You know, how can we train someone that have absolutely no data skills and become a data governance steward? So that's like certain training, internal training program, or, you know, open education program, you know, all those online training that, that will also help as well. And I think one thing is company, if company acknowledge those skill sets from a non-traditional university degree, that will also help to lower the cost of people to get the skill sets, because it's really expensive to get yourself skilled in a proper university. But if companies recognize the certification they get, like say from Coursera or edX type of learning platform, and I think that will also get people that say, you know, there's a pathway for me as well. And I think for sales, it's actually easier because there's always a very linear path from the look of it. Like you join, you become SDR, there's always a path. It's a path that provide a lot of trainings that you can get in a lot of companies is that when we're looking for salespeople and business development people, it's not about which uni you go to, it's whether do you have the drive, do you have the attitude, you know, those personal traits that get you in. From an SDR, you can work your way up to, you know, an inside sales person, or you can continue on the business development. Over time, you become like an SME rep, commercial rep, enterprise, and strategic. So you can— there's a pathway forward, and you can choose to stay as well. Like, not everyone wants to pursue leadership, and I think that's everyone's choice. Like their choice as well. But I think sales is, you actually have a path, can move in different direction. Now you can move into down the track, move into customer success, existing business as well. So I think from a selling perspective, there's actually an entry that is not as hard as of like a data job because it actually takes an attitude. So that's a, I think it's just really to showcase there's a path for them to move forward. I've not heard that before, but I can see it. So if you want to get into sales, start with an SDR role because you will get product training, you'll get account training, you'll get systems training, industry training, and some of the companies out there are really rigorous with that. They are looking for more soft skills. So as a sales leader, what kind of soft skills do you look for? I know you mentioned attitude being one of those. Give me a couple of others that you would look for in a newcomer into the sales space. Being curious, I think is like, I always say you can't teach someone to be be curious because they either are curious about things around them. So it's, for example, there will be like, if we tell, for example, we tell people that this is the core script, this is how we do it, and then some people just take it as it is and then just replicate and do it. Some people are, I will challenge this, I don't actually think this will resonate, I think this is a better way for it. So they will be actually coming to, they have their thoughts, they think through what's presented to them and actually make changes. And this is a reflection of them being curious about what they've been handed over to. I think that's something that is really hard to find. The other one is, and this is hard to, to spot at the first sight, is whether someone's persistent and resilient or not. Because selling is hard, especially selling enterprise software in a highly competitive environment, especially in the environment that companies are looking at to cut their costs. So it's a, it's a really challenging process and it does take the grit, the persistence, and also like resilience to actually go through that journey and then see it through. The longest deal I have done was 5 years. I started when I joined Atacama in 2019, and I started with a client. The first was not cold call, just dropped an email to see if they want to replace their current legacy client. And then throughout the years, we— they come back and then they ask some questions. They went back, and when everyone just thought, oh, we don't think there's a deal, we don't think they will ever move, it's too hard, I just have to believe in that. Not necessarily believe in myself, but I was just like, I think we have a good product. I think at one point they will realize the challenges cannot be addressed by them. We need to be there for them. And it's just like the ongoing checking in, trying to be the educator on, like, for them, to help them. And at one point they, they come in and say, we're ready. And it's 5 years later, they said, we're ready and we want— we— you are the first that we are calling to tell you that we're ready and we want you to participate in this. Obviously they're still very competitive. It's not like, oh, give me a call and then sign a contract. Done. Yeah, one day, yeah, you know, one day that might happen. Someone give me a call, say, we are looking at this, send us the contract. That will be That would be a dream. So in terms of that nurture, and how do you make sure that someone continuously remembers you? Because there's so much noise in sales. Every single company that is in enterprise, in SaaS, there's so many different products and services out there now. And what I'm hearing is that decision makers are inundated with cold outreach, whether it be a cold call, an email, oh, here's a piece of content, LinkedIn outreach, how do you stand out? That's the question I ask myself every day. I think the products, like, I think having a good product is really, really important. And that's how generally a lot of customers, they come back, like, your product speaks for you, but also they need to have a good experience with you as well. I think cold outreach still works to some extent. I don't think you will get a client that's ready to make a decision in the next couple weeks. And I think that's rare. I think a lot of time is like you don't do a cold call, you do a research and you do a call. It's not cold. Like you actually know what the client might be looking at. You already been using those ABM platform, track their intention online, using really using this technology from a sales perspective, you know, where the intention, where the buyers buying intent, I think that's what it's called. And then you're looking at doing a lot of research in terms of what the company's working on at the moment. Human and you do that call, then it's not as cold. And I think those calls are more likely to turn into a true engagement. But I think, I think standing out is— I think it's hard. I think the other one that I find is people don't buy from the company, they buy from the person, they buy from their peers. So it's those things that you have done in the past that gives you— makes you stand out. Because if you— I think when a client requests, say, hey, can I talk to someone that's— how can I talk this person, you're one of your clients that you mentioned on your, you know, we do all this marketing of the biggest bank in this country use this product, but how likely this biggest client of yours is willing to take a reference call with this client? I think how we differentiate ourselves is if a customer say, call me today, say a prospect call me, say, hey, we're interested, but I would like to talk to this client because you claim that they use a product. Are you able to set up a call for us to get to know them and a peer-to-peer level without you present. And I think if I will be able to pick up that call and say, yes, I'll get that organized today and come back to you, I think that's, that's what differentiates us. Because we have that trust from our client, and I have that trust that the client's having a good experience from us. Then I think we stand out in a way that, in a more subtle way. Maybe on branding we're trying to stand out as well, but our marketing is doing incredible amount of work to make us— we have the best branding, like great engagement, great experience when they come online. But what really make a difference to the client is those things that, that we're pretending and we're not lying about all. And they're just not another, just another number on the, on the list. I think it's really interesting is that you're talking very much about how you handle clients and how they value that human engagement, that, you know, the back and forth and being able to ask you, how can I validate this for my business? How do I know that this is a good product for us? And having marketing support that, and then I think it's interesting that it really is down to that human-to-human interaction. So I imagine that hiring the right person is so important because they've got to be able to do that and be able to engage in that way and provide that relationship support throughout. One of the pieces of work that we've done around how do we make sure that the sales team are remembered is a disrupt disruptive campaign that we did that involves sending something in the post. So we went out to the finance industry and we picked the top 50 companies that matched the criteria of what we're looking for. It took us a while to identify the ideal customer profile. We looked at the types of accounts, the buyer intent, who the stakeholders would need to be that we needed to engage, and then we did a whole go-to-market on behalf of the sales team. So marketing were involved because we want to make sure we get the message, the tone, you know, the delivery has to feel really amazing. And we want a combination of human and digital touchpoint. And so the human touchpoint needs to be driven by the sales team because they're the ones who drive the relationship. So we go to market and we reached out to the top 50 companies. I think it was around 19 weeks. We got 23 of them booked in for a consultation, a meeting, and with the key decision makers. And I think that piece of work was around— it's kind of quirky, but everyone remembers it. So we sent a cake in a box delivered to their desk. So first of all, we had to find a cake and then think about the message. So the message was driven by a marketing message, was that you're missing out on a certain percentage of this type of customer Australian market if you're missing out on this amount of Australians. So it was 84%, and so you're only playing within 16% of the market. Imagine if you had more market share. So we sent them a slice of cake that was around 16%. So they opened the box and there's a slice of cake with a fork, and it's like, do you want more cake? Do you want a bigger slice? And it took them— QR code to a landing page with a video that took them from curious and interested and awareness to educated. And then the salesperson would follow up and say, did you receive that? What did you think? We wanted to get your attention. But if you called that lead in a year's time and you said, hi, it's blah blah from salesperson, they probably won't remember you as a person, but they will always remember, hey, you remember we sent you that slice of cake? And it's that moment of experience that actually jolts that person to have a positive association with the brand and the person and the business. So it's a really fun way. I mean, you have to really put yourself to think outside of the box, right? And not every campaign is going to have that. There's got to be that trigger moment in the campaign, I feel, that can give you that point of differentiation. It's a story that they remember, and you have a story that it's not just about the product that actually keeps them remembering you. Yeah, because I find sales can be quite monotonous. It can be really boring. You're doing the same outreach all the time, using the same buzzwords. Exactly. And it's like, oh my gosh, they're so tired and fed up. How do we make them have a surprise delight experience that takes them on that journey. So yeah, that's, I guess, moving away from the hard sell and actually trying to get marketing to think of ideas of how do we inject some personality, how do we create a moment in the sales journey. That's right, yeah, because that's the brand association that you want to create, right? We get asked this question, it's like, if I ask your friend to describe you in 3 words, what would that be, right? It's the same thing as that if you want your company to be remembered for 3 3 words, what would that be? Like, it can't be like the things they actually do, but there's ways that to describe your company. And I think that's so important. Now, you mentioned it's quirky, but you know, everyone to be quirky because that's how you stand out. And I think that that question there, we actually did an exercise quite interestingly. The sales team are obviously having regular conversations, but what if you got the sales team to ask, so when you think of our brand Atacama, what are the 3 words that come mind, right? And your customers, your clients were telling you the top 3 words, you would start to see a pattern. And then that, you could go back to marketing and say, this is what our customers think of us, whether it's good or bad. How do we, one, change that? How do we take what they think of us and turn that into a campaign? Because it's live data points and feedback that you're getting. And I feel like that's the missing piece sometimes when sales and marketing aren't working together cohesively, that you're missing so much like data and insights from the conversations that sales are having. Marketing don't get access to that. Yeah, I think you are absolutely right. It's like, you know, the salespeople have like the first access to the client, what they think, what is in their mind, what works, what doesn't work. And sometimes they might not be necessarily translated into marketing because I think marketing is, is such a, it's a challenging function because, you know, top of the funnel, you do a lot of brand and everything digital and sometimes it is is about marketing is trying to project what we think our brand is, what is good about what we do, and then curate it as stories, as messaging, and then project it out. But where sales is like, oh, this is actually not what's being received. And I think what you are describing, that's like the gap, right? You know, that bridge in how do we actually convert, translate what the clients see us, and then what do we do about it, right? And I think it needs to work two ways. So we've done an internal campaign where we set up sales with the right kinds of questions that enable marketing, and then marketing could look at at the answers to be able to help them shape the next campaign. Because what was happening was sales was saying that the lead quality wasn't quite right, and also that sales were complaining, well, marketing are not giving us enough leads, we're not hitting quota, what are they doing? That's the things I just commented earlier, right? Yeah. So, and how do you overcome that? What do you think that marketing could be doing to support sales better to be able to hit the numbers? Because it is meant to be a one goal together, like one revenue team, you Sometimes we look, it's really hard, right? Because marketing is not just about getting, it's about, it's quality and quantity at the same time. And it's really hard to strike that balance. And what I find is what works for me, at least, you know, in this market in the past years is because we were a very lean team locally and then we have the global support from our marketing. So we never had a dedicated marketing person locally. We're all support centrally. And that sort of presented some challenges that local nuance, even though, you know, it's a lot of company, they, when they want to expand outside out of US or Europe is they come to Australia because we speak English here. But that's probably the only thing that's common, like the only thing that's similar. Like that local nuance, we had to fight. Wouldn't say fight, we have to convince our product marketing teams, I'll make sure you Australianize the spelling. Yeah, don't be using Zs in your organization. That's right. Yeah. And I think that's sometimes that cultural nuance from a marketing perspective that is a bit, sometimes make it a bit harder to say, oh, how to translate a global messaging, locally. So that was one. And I think what also works is we actually have a sales team, our sales team here, because we don't have someone locally to support, like, say, events, campaigns. So it sometimes falls under to the sales team. So, you know, our partner salesperson, our account execs, our BDR, even our customer success. We run a lot of our— I wouldn't call it marketing, but a lot of engagement. So we support events heavily. We will co-craft the messaging when we're going to, say, we're sponsoring a conference we say, okay, this is the global messaging. We think we need to tailor it a little bit. And then we are a lot more involved in the engagement. And then we're constantly asking, you know, what is a nurturing campaign? What are the statistics? What works? What doesn't work? Can we do something else? So we're constantly trying to ask for more, and that helps to drive the attractions locally, trying to just make it happen. And, you know, instead of like saying, oh, marketing not giving us lead, we're looking at like, what can we do? Like, can we do something this quarter? Can we do a little more online engagement? How did this work? And then we're looking at why other market get so much traction? Yeah, what did they do? And then look at it and try and just, can we do this? And also make friends in marketing. I think, yeah, it's, um, because we are tracking— what I'm saying is we're— it's different KPIs, you know. Salespeople are different company, have different KPIs. You're talking about, so maybe say how many we call sales qualify leads or sales qualify opportunities. We're really looking at the qualification, but marketing is different, like, criteria. You know, we may use, you know, the bent, they say, yeah, that's fine. But when it comes to sales, it's different. That's the first problem though, because like if you both had the same criteria, the same KPIs, the same target ICP, and you collaborated on understanding the ICP, that is the first piece of work that needs to happen. And some of the examples that we've had on the show, some are much more advanced and some are just starting. And some are not even touching the sides. And I— we're seeing such differences there. So I definitely think that there's a lot that businesses can do just to start getting both the teams working together and having roles like head of growth, chief of growth, to be able to try and bring the collaboration together. And that's what comes into things like account-based marketing. I know we were talking about the businesses now transitioning into working in verticals, right? Instead of it being a blanket approach, we're approaching each vertical differently. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So that's a way to be, you know, invest your time and effort in a more focused manner because you just like, we, the team, like if you want to scale, you know, obviously you can scale by just adding more people, but it's just never the most sustainable way. But I think in terms of like, how do we grow at the rate that we desire is really focused on where we can get the most success out of, like area that we can get the most success out of. So that's one thing that, you know, we've been like looking at, like ICP, like where are we getting business, where are we winning business. And then we focus on this is the industries that we want to prioritize because maybe 40% of our customers coming from this industry and they have exactly the same challenges, we have a great fit, they love us, let's replicate our success and actually penetrate the entire sector first and before we move on to the other sectors. So I think that's the approach that we're changing to as well. So it's a little bit more focused, but sometimes it can be a little bit like black and white. Oh yeah, this client falls outside of our ICP this year, so maybe say thank you but no thank you. But it's not like that, it's just more like where do we want to invest our time. Yeah. Our effort and like money as well, you know. Yeah. Because this, it's quite costly sometimes to just do go-to-market. Yeah, it definitely is an approach that we work with a lot of businesses on. The biggest challenge I have is that the business is hesitant to focus on one vertical at a time or a couple at a time. So we might pick 2 or 3. But they feel as though, what if we miss out on all of the other, other general opportunity? And also, we don't want to pigeonhole ourselves into one category. But I think that the belief is that you've got to see it like a stacking system. So you take one vertical that you know is the biggest growth opportunity, the biggest revenue driver for your business, and to become a leader in one category at a time means you get to dominate over time. And really understanding, okay, we have reached it, you know, we've actually reached, say, the top 100 companies in manufacturing in Australia or APAC, and now they're all under nurture. So let's move on to the next one because we've done the activation stage, we've done the awareness, the marketing team are on board, and then move on to the next. That focused approach is scary to a lot of businesses, but actually it gets you to increase your revenue a lot more faster. Have you seen that starting to work yet for you guys? We just transitioned to vertical-based this scary, and I have to agree with you, it's quite scary. Because if you're looking at, say, example manufacturers, right, how many manufacturers in Australia are there and actually out there? You know, quite fair bit, but the thing is, at the scale that you want to have, that is, have the needs for spending certain budgets on certain technology, that can be scary because you might be saying, I'm only working with like 20 customers, and that's quite scary. Because you will be thinking about, am I going to hit the target this year by just working on these 20 customers? But I think what also helped was like, for example, in the past quarter, just looking at, you know, how do you actually just working with 20 accounts for the year is like the approach is different. Like you can spend more time looking at what is happening in their company. What is their challenges? Like what are likely stakeholders? How can you actually spend more time to trying to break into one of the prospects? So it's different approach and it is, it feels a bit strange because you like, before you do everything, you just feel like, I'm so busy, but you feel productive in a way that you might see that it's productive, like you're so busy. And some people, they like the business, but they might not be the most productive way of like maximizing the revenue. And where for in the focus approach, I actually have a lot more free time. And the free time, in a way, there's not like you don't have enough work. You're actually doing a lot more strategic work that require deep focus. You know, if I'm to look at how do I get into, you know, one of the winemaking. I had no idea. Then I need to look at like, like that entire company history, what they do, what the challenges, even if a new industry regulations and how they come about. Then this takes a long time, and this is the time that you would not be able to do if you're like busy all the time, jumping meeting to meeting. Yeah, so it's different approach, and I agree it's scary. So something that maybe I will report back in the 6-month time. We're talking about trust the process. Yes, trust the process. So we find that we're saying that a lot at the moment, but it is— we are seeing that when we adopt a vertical approach, an account-based marketing approach, and a focus on 20 to 50 accounts for 6 months, it actually gets us to 15% more profitable than a scattergun approach of trying to do every everything for everyone. And I think that, you know, when you think about luxury brands and how they position themselves, and one brand, I mean, we can probably think of, say, a handbag, a luxury handbag, and you know that brand just does handbags, you pay a lot more because they— that's what they're known for. But if they were like a Kmart and they did everything, you know, it's not necessarily about that, that brand anymore and the fact that they care about the stitching and the button and where the button comes from and, you the, whether the Italian leather and, you know, all of that. So I think that you can translate some of the B2C stuff that we see into B2B to kind of really show that the care and the diligence in a category. Yeah, I was listening to a different podcast and then we talk about, it was a comment around the Australian, you know, super, any, like the super industry, and we talk about being the super funds trying to bring the fees so low, you know, just bring the fee down. And then what that means that they don't have the opportunity to spend money to invest in technology to provide better experiences for their customers. But what my takeaway for that was, why I mentioned that is actually customers are willing to pay for good services. It's cheap, right? Like, you know, you want to be as low as possible. Like price is important, but sometimes retail investors or like, you know, companies, they're willing to pay extra, like for good services or good product. For like good outcome and for good experience. I think the value, we call it value, selling value, right? It's not just about, we don't want to get into a price war with our competitors, but we want to be the one that to do the value selling. It is challenging to justify the extra spend from the customer, say, by saying you'll have a better experience with us if you spend, you know, this much extra with us. So I think it's balancing having been competitive, have a good offering to the client commercially, but also at the same time that's, you know, it deliver real value value to the client, and then they're willing to pay that, just to go internally to justify the extra spend as to why they're going with this company when they're charging us, say, I don't know, like 15-20% extra. So important. I think sales teams really contribute a lot to the brand's success. There's a stat here: 70% of brand experience is based on customer experience. And it's so important. Like, I know which airline I want to fly with, and I will save my money because I want to go with Singapore Airlines all the way back to London, and I don't want to go with any other airline. It's because the experience is top-notch, and I'm willing to pay for that. And I think that even in B2B sales, like, creating the right customer experiences does help the brand overall. So it comes back to who you're hiring on the team, who— how we handle the clients from an end-to-end experience. It's, you know, super fascinating. Exactly. I think I always say you are the brand. Like, our chief revenue officer, they say, you know, how you present yourself is so important because the client, they look at you, how you present yourself, and then how, like, the— how you treat your work really represent the brand as well, represent the company. Like, you know, simple things on the proposal deck or like a company or like some pitch deck that you send to client, like the type and whether this slide is font 10, next slide is font 12, is so insignificant, but it is so important as well. Because it's about like how much effort you're willing to put in to actually say, oh, I want a client to read this. When they read this, they have this good experience. And I think that's, you know, like you say, attitude and how you present yourself, and that affect the brand. It does. Even like first impressions, like even how you dress, you know, how you show up, how people see you and they make a decision on whether they're going to do business with you or not. A bit like dating, within 7 seconds, right? They see you and they're like, it's a yes or a no. And people making that judgment on how you show up, whether it be in an email, whether it be a LinkedIn message, whether it be a call, like the first 7 seconds is so important. So scary. No pressure. Yeah, no pressure. You know, I use the— what's the— I think that was —what's the one called? The Gen Z, they— or like Gen Alpha, they are— where do you have a good vibe, right? Are you vibing? Yes, yes, yes, definitely. And so as we come to an end in this, I would love to just ask you, like, is there anything else that you'd like to bring to the forefront of this conversation around elevating more women in sales, or how we could be doing sales differently and looking to the future? That's a really great question. I think one thing that I find, and then myself is— and then I you mentioned the imposter syndrome, right? And I think it's actually— I think for women want to get into sales, and I'm just speaking, I remember how I got into sales profession, and I came from statistics. I was like, you know, I'm living up to my Asian stereotype. I was actually really good at math, so I did math as my degree. And then when you're converting from a degree and the background like that, profession into sales, is I question myself, and you're just like, oh, can I do this job? And then I think one thing is like just do it. I was like, if you don't know if it's the right decision or not, or if you don't know what to do, just do it. And I think for a lot of time is I have to have that constant reminder for myself, like going to mirror and tell myself that, you know, I'm good enough for this job. And then it freaks me out. And, you know, this is something that I find is actually common, not just women, men as well. I was talking to some of my— some peers and very senior execs as well. They were like, you know, asking, talk about, oh, how did you end up in this career? They said, oh, they describe it, oh, I never get a degree, you know, I just work in the field 20 years, and then he said, I still feel like, oh, I have imposter syndrome. And these are like senior execs in the client side. And I think just for, you know, what we want to bring forefront is, I think for women, like, you are more than enough, like, for this job. It just depends on when you want to start and where to start. And it's hard to work through those noise as well. You know, you might have like obstacles, but I always say like everyone is a salesperson. My sister said, oh, I don't want to get into sales. I'm like, you're born to be a salesperson. You have a good personality, you care, and then your problem solver, and you genuinely believe in, like, you want to be helpful to the clients, I say you are more than enough to be a salesperson. And I think that's an attitude change. It's just someone needs to tell you, you can do it. And it's a wonderful profession if you like to deal with people. And you don't have to be salesy. This is the thing, a lot of people say, I'm not salesy. I'm like, you do not need to be salesy. There's so much more to sales. You have to be an active listener. You have to ask the right questions. You have to apply some psychology. You have to have a ton of strategy and creativity. You have and stand out. You, you know, there's just so many things in sales that multifaceted. It's no longer the hard sales, you know, that it used to be during the tap dance and like, you know, being a tough negotiator. And you see all these people on Instagram that are like giving you the script and the sales bro sort of energy. And I think that in enterprise sales where sales cycles are so long, it's built on relationships, it's built on persistence, curiosity, and attitude. If you have those things, yet being authentic and really just caring about the outcome for the client, sales is definitely a profession and a really successful one to consider. Yes, for sure. And definitely for women too. Yeah, absolutely. I have absolutely loved having you on. For our listeners, where can they reach out to you, connect with you? Where's the best place to do that? The best way will be on LinkedIn. Just search, uh, Della Drang. So D-E-L-L-A L-A-Z-H-U-A-N-G. I think there's only one person with the same first name and last name. Yeah, we'll put the link in the bio. So thank you so much, and we hope to have you back on again one day. Thank you. All right, hope so. Yes, me too. Yeah.