Gap Sales Approach: The Key to Customer-Centric Sales

Intro VO  00:05

Welcome to revenue rehab, your one stop destination for collective solutions to the biggest challenges faced by marketing leaders today. Now head on over to the couch, make yourself comfortable and get ready to change the way you approach revenue. Leading your recovery is modern marketer, author, speaker and Chief Operating Officer at Tegrita Brandi Starr

Brandi Starr  00:34

Hello Hello Hello and welcome to another episode of revenue rehab. I am your host Brandi Starr and we have another amazing episode for you today. I am joined by Celeste Berke Celeste a self proclaimed self sales growth strategist is a natural collaborator and partner to executives who easily pinpoint gaps in strategy and create roadmaps to implement plans and achieve targets passionate about creating cross functional collaboration, team development and delivering results across top performing teams. Celeste has over 21 years of experience holding both a BS and MS degree. Her accolades include the director of sales of the director of sales of the Year Award two times Manager of the Year and being named 40, under 40 for the triad Business Journal. In early 2020, Celeste branched out on her own to scale a female owned consulting and training business, Celeste holds the designation of certified gap selling training partner with a sales growth company and the gap selling methodology. Welcome to revenue rehab, your session begins now.

Celeste Berke Knisely  01:50

Thank you so much for having me. What what an intro, I didn't realize I had all of these accolades and backgrounds. I guess as the years go on, you seem to wrap things up as you progress on your sales and marketing journey.

Brandi Starr  02:05

Yeah, and I always find it like, you know, when I hear people introduce me or talk about my accolades, it's like, wow, this person seems pretty awesome. And it's like, oh, wait, that's me.

Celeste Berke Knisely  02:18

Right. And it's, it's interesting to note, as women, we tend to downplay our accomplishments. I was in a room full of women the other day, 616 individuals, 15 females, not including myself. And we started talking about that, and you just see, their eyes were like this, uh, I have to talk about myself and my accomplishments. And last year, I did a spoof on a video of women. It was a study of, I think 30,000 women, a certain percentage, it was like 62%, or don't quote me, but more than 50% would rather clean. Then talk about their accomplishments.

Brandi Starr  03:03

Know that there are I don't know that cleaning ranks higher than almost anything.

Celeste Berke Knisely  03:12

Yeah, it's really a natural many of us in in the sales and marketing career. Like we're more competitive. We've had to be on teams, we compete on a leaderboard, we're looking at statistics over and over again. And when we see it in black and white, we have a hard time correlating that to our own success, or we're playing a part in that success. So I'm right there with you championing championing women to start getting uncomfortable getting comfortable talking about yourself and your accomplishments.

Brandi Starr  03:40

Yes, I echo that 100% And I might have to have you back on the couch and talk about that topic because it is one that comes up all the time. But before we jump into our actual topic today, I like to break the ice with a little Gusau moment. I called buzzword banishment. So what buzzword would you like to get rid of forever?

Celeste Berke Knisely  04:07

It's just an acronym, but I would love to and those of you who are in sales will know especially if you've been in a long time if sales for a long time like I have bet the acronym BANT?

Brandi Starr  04:20

Yes, that is one I think that may have been banned once before or it's come up in so many conversations. A lot of people don't like it. But tell me why don't you like bat? Sure.

Celeste Berke Knisely  04:33

So I can say I'm a traditional band seller. When I first came into sales, I knew nothing about sales I that's a whole nother topic of how I was got a job leading a team and I had zero experience in selling anything nor managing individuals. I was traditionally trained on band. We take and we put our sellers hat on and we start asking questions that are going to get us closer to the sale. And as I've progressed through my career, I I continue to hear bam, even as late as last week, a company that everybody knows one of their accounting executives was telling me we use bat. And what's interesting is it's so seller focused, it's so based on our outcomes, versus putting ourself in the buyers role, putting the buyers hat on, what do they want to get out of this experience and ban is completely seller driven, and it doesn't focus on our customer.

Brandi Starr  05:32

So I am happy to help dance, you know, as a career marketer, it has frustrated me for many years, you know, generating what I would do, you know, I have always taken pride in really qualifying leads and not, you know, just passing over the, they have a pulse. And it's like, these are people that have some real interest. But because you can't validate that in a first conversation, you're just gonna dismiss it like up, there's nothing here. And, you know, but I'm getting too deep into our topic.

Celeste Berke Knisely  06:13

So time and time again, we've seen that just as we would if if we have a problem, budget goes out the window, right? If the gap is big enough, if the problem is big enough, and we can't get to that future state, and we have to the budget doesn't matter. So yes, for another time, but we will agree to let it

Brandi Starr  06:34

Yes, yeah. And you know, that that's a good place to dive in, because I know that, you know, our CRO, like, almost refuses to even acknowledge the budget conversation around budget, like, he's very much like, let's, let's talk about what the problem is and what you need. And we'll get to dollar signs later. Because you're right, like, if the issue was big enough, you'll find you know, you find budget, it's kind of like, you know, if you your roof starts leaking, like you didn't really plan for a new roof and your budget, but you don't just go up? Well, you know, we'll wait until I've got the money like, No, you got to figure it out. So I think we've already kind of alluded to why you're here. But if you can tell our audience, what brings you to revenue rehab today?

Celeste Berke Knisely  07:22

Sure. So I'm here to shed some light on the way that we sell. And we approach especially discovery conversations, you talked about rooting yourself and finding a problem. And so what I want to talk about today is do you know the problems you solve, you don't know what to look for, unless you know the problems you solve. And I would say 9.5, out of 10, sellers, CROs VPS we talk to are stuck in what we call a technical weeds. And we can get into that. So I'd love to chat about how do we come rooted in looking for problems we solve in order to have higher level discovery conversations.

Brandi Starr  08:06

Love it. And I firmly believe in setting intentions, it gives us focus, it gives us purpose and most important, it gives our audience an understanding of what they should expect from our discussion. So for those listening, what's your best hopes for our talk? What would you like them to walk away with?

Celeste Berke Knisely  08:27

I would love for listeners to walk away. Being able to write down on a piece of paper, these are the technical problems I solve and we can get into technical problems. It's usually a process a broken process, a missing tool, a broken process or a missing tool. And on the other side, write down why does that matter? If a business doesn't have my lovely product? Why does it matter? That's where you'll start focusing on those big level business problems, versus staying in the technical weeds, which is what most marketers and sellers do with their messaging with their discovery is talking all about what's broken. And as you know, just because something is broken, doesn't mean we want to fix it mica for example, my car had I slid in down a hill when it was icy last February. So a year ago, into a delivery truck, that delivery truck was fine. My car has a huge dent in it. Every time I see someone, even my parents, they'll say, Oh, you need to get that fixed. And I'm like, do why. It's not a problem. It's not a big enough problem. There's no impact to my child's safety. It has not affected the efficiency of the car and how it's going to run where it's getting me from point A to point B it's not impacting my work, you know, it goes on and on those bigger level business problems. I don't need to fix it. It's not a big enough problem. But sellers will sell to that broke In process, the dent, aka my car all the time. Yeah,

Brandi Starr  10:05

that and that is that is so true. And in some cases, like, I think using your car example, it goes to like that, why does it matter because for some people, like I know some car folks who would, you know, not be able to sleep with a dent in their car, because the aesthetic of the vehicle is something that is really important to them. And so, you know, they would have, like, slid into that delivery truck, and then immediately drove into a collision center to, you know, do whatever to restore it to near perfect. And so that is and that also, you know, thinking about it, like goes back to like, who were you selling to? Because, you know, and why, like, for you that, you know, dent repair is, you're not the audience. Sure.

Celeste Berke Knisely  10:59

And you think about it, you know, a classic example of this is I had a call like many of the many of the listeners here, you're having sales calls, Discovery calls, whatever you call them. And when you start digging in, and you find the business is doing well, right, the things you solve for aren't really broken. Most people will continue to push the sale because we're outcome driven, and we want to get that sale, we want to have that win, versus taking a step back and saying, there isn't a problem I can solve here. And the best thing I can do for this potential buyer is to let them know, I cannot help them. Because the gap isn't big enough. Now, yes. Well, some people still buy because they want training, they want a new logo, they want new marketing, email cadence absolutely, that you know, those are outliers, we are talking about when you have to make the case for change for your buyer. Marketers have to do this as well, salespeople have to do this as well, you have to be rooted in uncovering and quantifying the problems you solve so that your buyer thinks about it differently. Now, if someone in the car industry came to me, and sat and nobody has, and came to me and said because of this dent, like tell me about your future, what what is your desire, and I would say, oh, you know, eventually buy another car, we're going on a cross country trip in two years, my daughter will be out of a car seat and riding in the front seat. I mean, I'm making that up. She's only five, not even five. But let's say she will eventually and the person starts talking about maybe the safety impact over a long period of time, corrosion rust, what's happening, and how that can start impacting that future state of Oh, interesting. So the corrosion could actually affect the tires. The tire may not spin, it may get out of balance that could cause XYZ. And as a buyer, I say, Oh, I didn't think about it that way. So you're telling me if I don't fix this now, it could impact the tire. And because the tire isn't spinning, the tire could blow out. And I'm How often are you driving down the highway? Bah, bah, bah, you know, we get into this place where you're making the buyer realize, Oh, I didn't realize this was a huge problem, and the impacts it has to that desired future state or where you're trying to go. Now that's an extreme case. Luckily, it's just cosmetic. But I don't know, maybe, maybe there's other ones that I have no clue about.

Brandi Starr  13:36

Yeah. And so I want to back up for a second, I always like to ground in definitions. So I know you are certified in the gap selling approach. And although I am familiar with it, I'd like to have you define for the listeners, what is the gap sales approach?

Celeste Berke Knisely  13:56

So the gap selling methodology. So it's not a framework, it's not a checkbox, you don't get a list? It's ruining you in understanding the problems that you solve? What business problems do you solve? How to find them? How to quantify them, and qualify a potential buyer based on? Do they have a problem? Do they understand they have a problem? Is that a problem I can fix? Are they willing to solve the problem? And are they willing to go on the problem journey with you? Those are our four qualification states. So it is based on the psychology of how buyers buy versus the transactional approach to selling that a lot. A lot of other frameworks or methodologies are so this isn't necessarily a framework. It's looking at problems and really being rooted in the problems that you solve in order to help your buyer so it's completely buyer focused, which makes sales people All very uncomfortable because it's out of the norm. And we are very passionate as a team. We're a small and mighty team, there are two certified sellers to female certified sellers, Kenan, who is the founder, building building this brand, but we're out there challenging all of the traditional frameworks that are very customer, anti customer focused, and more focused on the seller.

Brandi Starr  15:27

Awesome. And so thinking about this, because I, you know, having talked to a lot of salespeople, you know, been involved over the years and a lot of different organizations and how they sell. Many would argue that like, yeah, that's, that's totally what we do. But in that conversation, so in addition to going back to bands that we're trying to manage, some would argue that, yeah, that's just the end in BANT, like what's the need, but I still got to make sure that I'm talking to, you know, even if we dismiss the B, I got to make sure that I'm talking to someone that's got the right authority, and even the T kind of falls in, you know, the timeline, like, if it's important enough to solve, then, you know, the timeline kind of becomes built in. So, you know, some would argue that, like, this isn't different. It's the same. And, you know, banter is just what we're tracking to make sure that we're also talking to the right person. And so I'd love to hear I always like to speak to the naysayers before I jump into the details. Like, what do you say to those people that like, believe that like, yeah, we're totally doing this like, but we just also need talk to the right person. So

Celeste Berke Knisely  16:51

buyers don't like change. When you gather information from them from a checklist, bam, what's your budget? There is no impetus to change within that question with gathering that information. Are you the right person? You know, we don't know, we haven't dove into what is the problem you're trying to solve. A lot of times when we have a conversation with an individual, they may not have the information, they have to go find somebody else to get involved in the conversation to get that information. But we aren't off the bat disqualifying them because we don't have the information we're truly treat seeking to understand. Need, again, oftentimes, the buyer will come to you and say they need something and through a proper discovery, they do not need that. It's something else, it's stemming from something else. But if we are so trigger, happy to sell based on what a buyer tells us they think they need, we could be missing the mark. So we are the anti checklist. We are seeking to find information. And that has to be stemmed from what problems you solve. When ever we ask a seller who's in a traditional medic med pick band, what problems do you solve? They will say we increase efficiency,

Brandi Starr  18:13

we activity, product. Visibility, we

Celeste Berke Knisely  18:17

save the customer time, typically buyers don't buy because of that those are broken processes or tools that when we dive deeper into we have to quantify what does missing productivity mean to the organization? Have we quantify that? And if there's a very small gap from how much your product is to how much you're going to save, there is no sale? When you quantify, because Okay, I understand you because this is broken. This is what's happening in the organization, you're not able you have like really horrible retention rate or customer churn, like typically those business problems that we want to speak to that elevate the conversation we can't get from a traditional method of let me ask you, yes or no questions based on the technical problems. So it is about the psychology of change, and getting the buyer to agree that they have a change. And when we hear often through Well, I went through my checklist and you know, ask these questions, and we lost to no decision or no change we lost to the status quo. It is because it's not based on timeline. It's because we didn't create any urgency to show them. If you stay in this intolerable or in tenable state, you are not going to get to the desired state. This is the case for change. This is how big the gap is. If you do this, you can get over here. And so that's how we differ from the traditional band checklist ish type of discovery.

Brandi Starr  19:52

Yeah, I know we take the approach pretty much with everything like with sales with projects of what's current state? What's the desired future state? What's in the way? Yeah. And that's how we either talk to clients about what they need, either from us or holistically when we're going into projects. That is what defines what's in scope versus what's out of scope or what may be like a phase two. And it is that that gap of like, what do we need to solve?

Celeste Berke Knisely  20:29

inward? And it may be called something different. Obviously, there are a lot of Franken frameworks out there taking a little bit of this taking a little bit of that. It's not that our team is against all of that. I mean, any framework is better than nothing. It is the adoption, and how are you measuring success? What are that? What is that criteria, if you're in marketing, if you're in sales, that is going to allow you to measure success. So oftentimes, our team will walk away from projects, I've walked away from many, or it's like, I cannot help you, because you cannot define where you want to go. This is a like to have. But you have not helped me to identify how success is going to be measured. So oftentimes, when we hear from people, oh, this framework didn't work. Our team, you know, tell me more about that. How are you measuring success? If people watch the videos like that, is that a measurement of success? If we don't have success measurements in place, we will not see the needle move. We do not want to work with teams who are not willing to go that extra mile. And typically that comes from, as you know, with anything you mentioned, you add a son before our children don't learn something once and then master it. No, it is the repetitive nature. And us as learners learn in an environment or we are in an active learning seat. So not watching videos, listening to people talk to us lecture style, we are in the CRM, we are looking at current opportunities, we're working through deals, we're role playing 50% of the time, but then after that, what is that kind of Rev ops? Let's call it like a process that is in place, how are we measuring success? How are we holding the team accountable to this? What is our CRM usage look like? All that reinforcement and retention, that helps people to truly make a change when it comes from a sales process side.

Brandi Starr  22:24

Okay, and so let's talk about what this looks like in practice. So thinking about, you know, starting with the marketing side, if if I'm an organization and we've gone all in, in tapping into this framework, like what is good look like. So starting from marketing, progressing all the way all the way through to, you know, how we are reporting or tracking or measuring, like, what does good look like? So

Celeste Berke Knisely  22:57

good looks like there is alignment across all divisions of the company, typically marketing sales operations on the problems we solve. And so that is people can do it on their own, you can download a problem identification chart, its problems impacts root causes. We work with teams on pulling that together. It is a tough conversation internally, marketing and sales usually do not see eye to eye on the problems you solve. Right then until you nail those like the business problems you solve. So that's not something that can be fixed like this. For me, it's I'm looking for low close rates, a decline in sales with pipeline generation. That is an impact right to the business stemming from a no sales methodology. qualification criteria isn't in place, there's no adoption, you know, could we stemming from a whole bunch of things, getting the team to have a consensus on the business problems you solve is good, having it written down in whatever format you like, marketing messaging relates to that. Sales discovery, outbound from BDR hrs operations is able to weave that in sales leadership is able to talk about it, everybody is using the same vernacular in understanding the problems that they solve. But that takes a bit to get some alignment there. So I would say that's number one, from a standpoint of marketing, that we're only talking about the technical problems on our websites, at our trade shows, in all of our outbound messaging, we are not resonating with a buyer because everybody else is talking about that too. So that's good from a marketing standpoint, moving into sales and adoption. It is then ensuring that everybody is talking about your opportunities the same way are we all gathering the same information? Meaning do we know their current state you just mentioned it? Do I have the few Get your state for this opportunity. Do I know the gap? What is this stemming from? What are those root causes? Putting that in the CRM so that when you're looking at a deal, it's all being scored the same way all based on the same criteria, you'll see that in a lot of frameworks that really is important. And it's important to operations because of forecast accuracy. So typically, we see a lot of impact column like poor forecast accuracy. That's the impact, right? It's can be a root cause as well, when we have alignment across all of the organization, especially in our pipeline, operations is able to look at a forecast that is accurate. So it kind of weaves through the whole organization. But it has to start with some uncomfortable conversations and getting alignment across the whole entire organization, which is a huge change. So leadership has to be bought in as to the why. And you have to know the metrics that you're striving for across the entire organization. In order to know okay, I need to get from here to here, this is how we're going to do it.

Brandi Starr  26:09

And I think one of the things that I am hearing in what you're saying is less focus on what you're going to sell them. And I think that that is a place where a lot of salespeople will fail, is they will right out of the gate, whether it's you know, a software and you've got different tiers or different options, or, you know, all the way through to service like you go in thinking based on whatever, you know, whether it's form they filled out, or you know, what they expressed as the need, that this is what I need to sell them. And I feel like from what I'm hearing, like doing that too early, you're going to completely miss the mark in understanding like what they you know, what they hate to use the word need over and over, but what they actually need, and that we've got to just start the sales process and start the marketing process, not even thinking about what we're going to sell, which I think is a bit counterintuitive. Certainly on the marketing side, we're so

Celeste Berke Knisely  27:18

read in our product, we love our products, because they are the best, right? There's no competition, it's a blue ocean, nobody's selling this will eventually people are and we have to move to this place of seeking to help seeking to understand and getting our sellers out of this place of having commission breath where they go in and like I have to make a sale, I have to move this along in the process. No, can I help this person, a phrase I love to share with marketers on our team shares with sellers as well as like, why does this matter? Why does it matter? Why does this matter? Asking over and over? Like why does this matter to the organization what could be going on creating hypothesis. Now this is like an elevated level of selling of taking myself a traditional band seller and realizing I asked some really crappy questions very early on in my sales career and still do sometimes we're all human. But when I truly seek to understand, I'm not attached to the outcome. I don't talk about my product. So for example, this morning, I got paying someone in the chat said, you know, this is my team size, this is what I'm looking to do. This is what we sell, how much does it cost to have you come and speak? It's like, most sellers would say, Okay, here's the price What are you looking to do it? How can we move this along? Let's get on a call blah, blah, blah, no. I'm not going to share any of that information with you. Like I don't even know if I can help you What are you trying to? Why now? What's going on in the organization? In so it it is breaking this uncomfortable place that all of us are in have We have to hurry up and get to the finish line? Versus Do I have enough quality of information in order to help this person so that when I do get closer to that finish line, the business case and the case for change is so great that they cannot stay where they are they have to make a change or it's not there I can't help them and I'm willing to walk away and you know, keep them in mind for future when something does change or the organization goes through a major change or something like that. So yeah, it's it's it's definitely tough to disassociate, disassociate yourself from the product. But we always say you can't do sales malpractice like I cannot do you sales malpractice here I cannot commit it just like a doctor can't commit malpractice. I cannot commit sales malpractice which would be selling you something without seeking to understand first and

Brandi Starr  29:59

like a little I love that phrase. I've not heard that before. But that is a great way to think about it. Because, you know, thinking about like a doctor malpractice is like serious, like someone could die. You know, and it's like, a lot of times I've heard salespeople think about, like, have a sold them the wrong thing, like, you know, we'll figure that out on the back end and get them on the right product. And, you know, as if there's a no big deal factor there. And, you know, of course, nobody's gonna die, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that it's no big deal. And so really, actually, you know, and it kind of goes to like, you gotta care as well. It takes away that old sales mentality of just, you know, get it done. You know, you think about like old used car salespeople, who would, you know, say, whatever, turn the lights off on the dash, like, that form of selling is just gone? Because buyers are also more savvy? Oh,

Celeste Berke Knisely  31:02

yes, absolutely. Buyers already have formed an opinion, they've come to you. I saw an interesting post on LinkedIn yesterday from the CEO, CMO of colab. Basically saying, if you're not coming with any information that is new and exciting, and makes me think of something differently, you're not getting any time. Like you have to be this good in order to grab attention from individuals. And it can't be talking about the silly stuff that everybody else is talking about time, money, freedom, visibility, productivity, like that is it's over overused, and our marketing messaging and sales messaging, if we do not change, we are not meeting those individuals, because they're so smart, they have access to all the tools that we do. So I thought that was a really interesting post. I'm forgetting her name. But the CMO put out yesterday, because it's It's spot on, our buyers are really savvy.

Brandi Starr  32:02

And so the the last kind of direction that I want to take here is thinking about this as an approach. I like to you know, we've talked a lot strategically around, what does this look like big picture, etc. I want to talk a little more tactical, like rubber meets the road, you go into an organization, you know, let's say it's an organization total mess, like all there, they're talking all the product, they got the productivity efficiency, like that's what's all over everywhere. Tactically, how does this change happen? Like if someone is trying to go from the traditional checklist, product focus to this more, you know, focused on Discovery and GAP selling? And all the things we've talked about? What does that really look like?

Celeste Berke Knisely  32:54

Yeah, taking a step back, all of us who are in a sales seat, have either case studies have customers of our own. So I would encourage you to take a few moments and think, why did these customers come to me? Like, what is that through line that is happening in all the organizations? That isn't a technical, broken process? Missing tool? What is that? What are they trying to achieve? Are they trying to raise money? Right? Is our employee engagement? Is that tanking? Do they have turnover? churn? You know, what are those big things that I keep seeing coming up that we solve for? So that would be like the first technical is talking to a couple of customers, or reading through some case studies and pulling out two to three high level business problems that you solve that can't be solved with a snap of a finger or plugging something in or implementing your tool? It is like a something as C suite a board would care about. So that'd be the first tactical step. Obviously, reading the gap selling book is like great, or you can listen to it on Audible. If you haven't heard Keenan, who is the author, he narrates it, he does use a couple of choice words, but he's very passionate about it us really being customer focused customer centric. So that's where I would start is like dipping your toe into what do I keep hearing? That isn't about my product that I solve for? And then when we are the next step, I would say like, let's we're just trying to crawl here we're not trying to run would be how do I open up a discovery? Seeking to find information? What is the question I can ask? So often, we're asked like, Do you have a checklist of discovery questions I can ask like, no, what information are you trying to seek? So thinking about your business problems? What's going on in the organization that prompted them to reach out like getting as much information from the buyer as you can in that first question? So that would be my kind of like the tactical, let's start crawling. See the through line? What are the business problems that you hear over and over and over again, that keep coming up? What are they trying to solve for? Read the book and or go on, look at our blogs, we have so much information out there. And open up a discovery with one question that helps you seek to gain as much information as you can from the buyer. And then take it from there. You have to be listening during a discovery call. You don't there isn't a checklist, there isn't a list of questions. It's whatever the next step goes for. But typically we say, if you don't know what business problems you solve for, like, the discovery is squirrely and all over the place. If you know, then you can start to quantify it. So for here's a real life example, low close rates, that's typically the number one thing that I see when I'm talking to a company. I have to quantify if that's good or bad, just because somebody has a low close rate of 10%, across the organization doesn't mean it's bad, doesn't mean it's good. I need to know, where were they last year? Where are they this year? Is it trending up? Or down? Is this one rep or two? Rep? Is it across the organization? Quantifying that? What's in their pipeline? If at this close rate, are they going to meet this metric by this time? What's their sales cycle? So see how it all weaves together? But I knew that's one thing I want to hone in on in order to start to understand to quantify what's happening in the business to make the case for change. Okay, so

Brandi Starr  36:34

I want to repeat that back to make sure that I'm absorbing it. So starting with finding those themes, those threads, then, as an organization going through and defining, documenting, like, what are the problems you solve so that everyone can align their messaging and talking points to that, and then redefining how the sales team approaches discovery? And getting adoption for that? It sounds like is like the key starting point.

Celeste Berke Knisely  37:06

He's starting points. If nothing else, I mean, the key starting point would be admitting we have a problem. And we need to make a change. And typically, as you start to see any of you go to your website, what does that messaging look like? Is it all the visibility, the productivity, saving time getting more leads? Like that's a lot of process? What are we trying to accomplish? You're really help with. So I think you nailed it, it, it is a big undertaking, but you can take small starts to just have an awareness, because we all don't have 100% adoption, it starts with like that. 1% 1% 1%. So gaining an awareness? Are we product centric, and technical problem centric? Are we moving to what really matters for our customers in this, you know, two to three, and there really aren't going to be more than two, three to four business problems that you solve as an organization. Okay,

Brandi Starr  38:03

well, talking about our challenges is just the first step and nothing changes if nothing changes. And so in traditional therapy, the therapist gives the client some homework, but here at revenue rehab, we like to flip that on its head and ask you to give us some homework. And so I think through this discussion, you've given us a lot of action items, which I love and have taken a bunch of notes. But at this point, I'd like to ask you for your one thing. So if our, you know, listeners, this resonates with you. They're like, we got a problem. I need to move in the right direction. What's the first step?

Celeste Berke Knisely  38:39

The first step is to write down? Why does that matter?

Brandi Starr  38:45

I love it. And I wrote that one down. Well,

Celeste Berke Knisely  38:48

matter, I do that a lot. Why does this matter? Why does this matter? And you can even do it in your personal life is?

Brandi Starr  38:55

Yeah, no, yeah, definitely do that one. Like, why should I care is kind of the way that I phrase it. So awesome. So we're going to start by writing down, why does this matter and understanding our business impact of you know, what it looks like if we change and shift the way that we are doing things? I think that is a great start. I think that you also threw in a number of other great action items through here that are good conversations to initiate internally, or even just the self evaluations to say, you know, because we use a very similar approach to what you've talked about. But even for us, there's like a couple things. I'm like, oh, like, I need to kind of think about that a little more, or we might want to tweak this there. So even where you're not totally doing it wrong, and or I won't say wrong, but doing it with a checklist. There's still you know, opportunity for everyone to grow and evolve and to be better and more customer centric.

Celeste Berke Knisely  39:58

Absolutely. It's It's been a pleasure chatting with you, again, we're looking at making a 1% improvement. We do this with our coaching and our feedback. Individuals can absorb a lot. What's one behavior we want to change? Let's see at the next time, and then we build upon that we build upon that. But you have to start with, what is the organization trying to achieve? If you don't know that that's a bigger conversation, and many organizations don't we want to grow. We want to get better, and you're like, at what? Why does that matter? Why does that matter? Why does that matter? We call it define everything when someone gives you a vagary ask for a definition. If they're cagey like, is it 10%? Is it 20? Is it closer to the 30? Okay, 30. Because vagaries do not help us help our buyer when we seek to understand and typically buyers give us vagaries when they think you're trying to sell them something. And if you can reframe it and say I'm truly truly seeking to understand if I can help you or provide any value in this conversation, typically when I see XYZ it means this does any of that resonate with you. They just want to know, buyers have been done dirty for a long time. And do that. Yes,

Brandi Starr  41:13

I agree completely. And that's why I was used that analogy of the old used car sales people because it you know, that's like a really relatable example. But we all have been through those bait and switch and you know all the different bad sales experiences. Well, Celeste, I have enjoyed our discussion on our time for today. Before we go, how can our audience connect with you and definitely give the shameless plug for what your consulting firm does?

Celeste Berke Knisely  41:46

Sure. So I am searching to chat with VPs and CROs who are experienced who are willing to admit that things are going backwards low close rates decline in sales week pipeline generation everybody is looking to go outbound and nobody knows how to do it because they don't know what business problems they solve. So if you are in that boat hit me up I pump out a lot of content on LinkedIn funny videos. I think sales is a little bit weird. So I make it a little weird and poke fun of it. You can find me Celeste Berke nicely on Linked In, that's the best place to get in touch.

Brandi Starr  42:21

Awesome. Well, we will make sure to link to your LinkedIn and I'm gonna make sure to check out your videos I love to you know, I love when you can poke fun at what you do. Because I

Celeste Berke Knisely  42:32

have a series that I've started I'm only two videos in it's called Panic at the Disco where somebody calls in because they're in a panic mode from a sales situation and I kind of poke fun at it. I wear my daughter's like cat earphones so

Brandi Starr  42:49

Oh, that is awesome. So yeah, that is next on my list to look for. But thank you so much for joining me. I have truly enjoyed this discussion. And thanks, everyone for joining us. I hope you have enjoyed my discussion with Celeste can't believe we're at the end. We'll see you next time.

Outro VO  43:12

You've been listening to Reverend rehab with your host Brandi Starr. Your session is now over but the learning has just begun. join our mailing list and catch up on all our shows at revenue we have dot live. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at revenue rehab. This concludes this week's session. We'll see you next week.