 Hello everyone, welcome to the second half of the elevated third hour. This is new business is everyone's responsibility And since there's three of us from the team, we're gonna do a little do-op group thing where we stand up here And then we trade off so Apologize as we kind of awkwardly work through that Very important just wanted to make a note about these contribution sprints Obviously Drupal works because everyone contributes so if you're developer, please check out these sessions and contribute to the community We're not a developer All right, so just quick intros since this is new business is everyone's responsibility We brought a few people from different departments in the agency and you can tell which one of us is The developer because he's not wearing a sport jacket. We try to make it easy for you. I'm Nelson Harris I'm a business development strategist at elevated third. This is Jeff Calderoni He's our CEO and founder and then this is the developer Nick Switzer. He's our development director And if you were around for Melissa's talk, you heard that elevated third is a digital agency based out of Denver, Colorado We're about 30 people And we help organizations solve technology and marketing problems But today we're going to talk about our sales process and kind of some of the lessons We learned as we've kind of grown as an organization. So with that I'm going to hand it to Jeff to speak about that Hey everybody, it's nice to be here. I'm gonna start with a story so This is me in 2005 After about a year in business. We had a hundred and fifty square foot incubator office and a few subcontractors and one big client Although apparently I still couldn't afford a computer. So that was a problem What I didn't know when this picture was taken that we were about to lose our biggest client and about to lose about 80% of our business and Subsequently, I figured out that I didn't know how to sell anything So even though I have it, you know, nicely framed MBA on the wall I didn't know how to sell and in business school. They teach you how to do finance They teach you how to do marketing HR, but they don't say what happens before all that and so, you know The quote the fairly famous quote is nothing happens until somebody sells something And so all of our livelihoods depend on somebody selling something and that's what we're going to talk about today So after that wake-up call, I also had another problem. I didn't see myself as a salesperson I'm not an extrovert. I don't Don't like to negotiate. I'm the person that will pay a sticker price. I just want to get out of there And I I haven't perfected kind of the double guns wink. How you doing? thing that you do at networking events But as I muddled through I realized that it wasn't really necessary and in fact those sales cliches are really counterproductive to being an effective salesperson The sales team we recently read a book called to sell as human by Daniel Pink And one of the things that he says they did a study where they had extroverts and introverts and amberverts Which are kind of right in the middle. They're neither You know introverted or extroverted but amberverts outperformed both the extroverts and the introverts in terms of closing deals And what the study suggested was that the reason that happened is they were Competent enough to sit back and listen to the client and listen for client problems But they still were able to they weren't so shy that they couldn't speak up or they were afraid to speak up when they did Have a solution and so I think this is important because whether you're a developer or a designer or on the account team Your company really needs you to engage in this sales process and you can engage in the sales process It's not that the double guns wink person that really sells. It's the person that can listen to their client and solve their problem So really all we need to do with a potential client is listen for pain and if we have a solution that makes it go away We need to tell them so there's no Scripts no closing statement. You don't have to stare at them willing them to pick up the pin and sign the contract All we're doing is just solving business problems in a profitable way So if if everyone in your agency can help with sales We're gonna tell you a little bit of why we think That's the most effective way to organize your process So let me ask if you know for those of you that are in the agency business Let me ask if this scenario has ever happened to you you get an opportunity That's twice as big as any single project that you've done up until that point But there isn't really enough time or access to the current site to really evaluate and look under the hood And see what you're agreeing to and why oh and by the way, it has to be fixed bid But you keep telling yourself, but look at all those zeros. There's got to be enough money in there for us to make a profit, right? And then you bring in the developer and you've already decided that you're going to take the business and you're looking at the developer With your double guns wink and saying there's got to be enough money here, right? right and You can imagine how this project turned out we've got Four times the number of hours that were that were estimated and 18 months later We still weren't done with that project and so I don't know if any of you have made that mistake You'll never forget it and you'll never do it again Because it's so painful with that client sort of slogging through this under under documented underestimated poorly scoped Project because you didn't take the time to involve the whole team And and get real buy-in and real momentum with the with the project So as as Jeff just set the stage for you're probably expecting that there's got to be a better way and there is This is the the method that we've developed over kind of working in a sales process with the rest of our team So the first thing that you do as soon as we hear that, you know A potential opportunity and we qualify that opportunity as a salesperson is we talk about it with our team And what that really involves is getting people into the same room together So you can actually speak in person when that's a possibility We try to bring one representative from both the sort of creative and design side of the house as well as the development and sort Of strategy side of the house so that we are getting both perspective on a large web project So what this allows us to do is create proactiveness through communication So when you get people in the room that early on You may not think that there's really a lot for you to talk about because it's a brand new deal You may not know a lot about the project or the client But you'd be surprised when you just set up the opportunity to have that conversation That the conversation kind of free flows and people start raising questions like hey I wonder if they thought about this thing or is this really doable for the scale that they're hoping for and the budget That they've allocated for this and if this red flag comes up that would be a big problem And who's in you know who's responsible for that is that it's something the clients worried about is that something? We're worried about as an agency And so it really keeps you kind of ahead of the curve and ahead of the ball as it's rolling And so you know as an example of this earlier this year We we had a very large RFP response for a transportation authority That was sort of you know Complicated and had a lot of sort of parts of the house that we had to involve in the agency and because we as soon as We heard about the opportunity we got everyone to a room and we talked about it We brought up the idea of oh well content migration is pretty big part of this project They didn't mention anything about that in the RFP are they doing it or are we doing it? And so when we crafted our response we assumed that they were doing it Of course an addendum was issued like a couple of days before the RFP was due saying oh, yeah No, you guys need to be worried about content migration And so because again, we talked about it right away We were able to say oh well We already figured out what we would probably do in that scenario and here's what it is And so we were able to respond pretty much instantaneously with an updated scope of work And we were able to actually win that contract as a result Another really big advantage of getting the people in the room early on and talking about these things is that it allows people to Leverage passive connections and what I mean by that is your subconscious mind is amazing amazing things when you're in the shower Or when you're working on other projects if you've thought about the project early enough so Since we started doing this, you know, we've been amazed at the type of passive connections that people have been able to make sometimes It's as subtle as oh actually have a friend that works at that company. I didn't think about that until now I wonder if they would have any insight into the project or You know a family member that works a similar organization. I bet their structure the same way subtle things like that But also things like as somebody's working, you know on the implementation team on an entirely different project They come across the exact same problem that the the RFP or the you know initial prospect had raised and they go Oh, well, we're we're solving it in this way in this project maybe we could adapt that solution to fit the this response and You know, sometimes it's also something as silly as you just read the RFP for the fifth time And you notice something that you didn't notice before sometimes those things can be very lengthy and you miss something But we had a situation like that with a botanic garden We were responding to an RFP and they were trying to build a separate commerce experience and then they had a main Drupal site and We were kind of like why after we read the all the requirements again, we were had planned to respond in a certain way We go why not just integrate the commerce experience into the main comm because we do Drupal and we understand how that all works And we ended up winning that contract as well because we were kind of breaking the mold and stepping outside of the prescribed Requirements that the RFP had set and I think that they appreciated that So I'm going to hand it over to Nick about warming it All right, so like Nelson mentioned First thing we do is get in the same room. So let's talk a little bit about what actually happens when we're in there So in there, I mean our goal is to come out of that meeting and maybe it's not the first one Maybe it's a couple depending on sort of the size of the opportunity and that's something we'll gauge when we initially meet But you know, we want to come out of there with an estimate and and that's the whole goal of this collaborative meeting Is to get everyone in the room and you know, like he's been saying talk through sort of all the The various possibilities and really leverage the different types of expertise that we have in the room and sort of available to us through the office and so what we do is, you know, we really push to Actually produce the estimate in there. We don't just sort of all take notes and then go our separate ways we really try to follow through on that collaboration and we've got sort of a you know a Formatted estimate document that we'll go through every time and you know, we'll build out features We'll build out assumptions. We'll all agree on sort of the complexity of the response that we want to put together based on You know size of the project and other sort of various factors that we've evaluated As an agency and that that does a lot of really neat things I think you know, it's it's great that it sort of keeps people out of those silos like these guys talked about Because then you don't sort of have your developer sitting over here Your designer sitting over here sort of coming up with their own separate solutions that may or may not Be aligned in the actual scope and the budget of the project So to dig a little more into that Brainstorming, you know late like we've been hinting at I think you know We really try to read between the lines of RFPs as much as we can And you know that I think gives us opportunity to really brainstorm different alternative solutions and make sure We're really getting at what we think the RFP and the client are getting at and and you know That's that's a lot easier when you've got two three four maybe even more people in the same room that are all Putting their heads together and aligning on that strategy and sort of bringing their experience and different expertises From around the office to produce something that will meet the requirements, but maybe not be quite what the potential client was expecting And then while you're actually producing that estimate It's important to remember that estimates are exactly that their guesses right which on the surface It's kind of like yeah, of course, you know their guesses, but You know, I think just our perspective on that is you know You could put two developers completely separate estimating You know some feature or some major projects in one estimate maybe five times what the other is And it doesn't necessarily mean one is right and one isn't I think you Each just comes with sort of a different set of assumptions and they're approaching it from a different angle And I think that's where you know in the brainstorming phase It's it's really great to you know you get sort of the technical minds and then The sales minds and maybe the strategy minds in the same room because you can sort of have those understanding understandings of the client's objectives from the business side really Tempering sort of the what-ifs and maybe we could try this and maybe this is a good fit for this modern technology As you really start to craft that pitch So I'll hand it back off to Nelson So you've brought your team along the way On the entire process of estimating and figuring out what the strategy and the solution is going to be and now You know, hopefully the client has invited you in to actually pitch the solution And we feel like it's important to continue to bring that collaborative approach into the pitch meetings So pitch meetings aren't just for the sales people with the double guns. They're also for developers. We found a Lot of success surprisingly with bringing a developer into the room to actually not just demo Like a lot of you know pitches might go but actually just talk to the client directly one-on-one no script about solutions And you'd just be amazed how how that lights a client up I mean when you think about the fact that a client at this point has spent a lot of time You know mapping out their requirements and coming up with what it is that they really the pain points that they're trying to solve And they're meeting with vendors They're in this sort of tumultuous place where they're not sure whether or not you're really going to be able to deliver on their entire Scope on budget and on time and so it's it's really an amazing thing when a developer can come in and say No, this is how I would handle it. This is this is easy This is you know easy for me to do and here's exactly how we would do it from a Drupal perspective or form a development perspective But also on the flip side of that to say no This is really a concern and this could inflate your budget pretty drastically and you know This is a red flag and we're going to be wanting to manage to that the entire time and and pay careful attention And it just creates an instant rapport that the client has with the developer and a trust there that you can't really Manufacture by having a salesperson sort of be in the way So for me, it's just as a salesperson my job to sort of direct those conversations and make those moments happen And we've we've actually had a couple clients sort of break the The mold of the sort of interaction that you normally have in a pitch process and just and just say like I want that Developer on my project are they gonna be in my project or and this is my dream This is literally what I've been thinking about the entire time We've been talking about putting this this RFP together or scoping out this project And so this sort of magical moments happen when you bring a developer into the pitch And I want Nick to to talk about kind of how developers Perspective is on on bringing into the pitch Talk about those magical moments Yeah, so I think we put a lot of effort into you know thinking about who does collaborate on that estimate And and you know, I mean it might be part of our first initial meeting because I think what we really try to leverage You know as Nelson is sort of getting out was we've we've got a lot of different experience in our agency not just technology experience but life experience and lots of different backgrounds and You know, we'll find a lot that if you bring people who are passionate about what you're pitching about Yeah, and I mean like honestly most times that's Drupal What kind of sometimes you've got the bonus of you know, oh, hey, we're gonna pitch a ski company, right? Like that's that's pretty cool so get someone in on that who really cares about it and we'll go the extra mile to Help make that happen and you know, I mean I think it can be a little dangerous too because I think You know speaking from a developer's perspective I absolutely do this and I've seen others do it too that you know You really want to get into the weeds and you want to talk about browser support and you want to talk about implementation specifics and It's not really the time for that at this point So you want to make sure you know if you're the developer in the room or whoever the developer in the room is sort of has those Guide rails I guess a little bit Provided by an outline so that you know We can still give the client something to look forward to in the implementation process when we actually do get into those details and start building things So you've you finally won the project and you're ready to get to get to work The deal may be one But the whole agency involvement shouldn't stop now And so because the whole agency was involved in the pitch process It shouldn't be a big milestone in order to get started the same people and the same thinking in the same process It should be just sort of a continuum for that smooth transition As a company we read a book called Let's get real or let's not play and it's a sales book But that's one of the things that they talk about is that really in a consultative sale It's not the sales people landing the business and tossing it over the fence to the developers and the designers Like it's consulting all the way through and really just at some point you start getting paid But the process should feel seamless and and the client and the team should feel like they're just continuing on in that momentum keeps going So when we went a piece of business we we try to celebrate the the sales team typically buys alcohol for the the team that Was involved and passes it out in the all-company meeting And we give kudos and really try to make people feel like they're vested in the process And that they really helped us as an agency by Investing their time in doing this The other thing we have is we have this nautical Air horn it's like this Really loud obnoxious thing and I'm really conflicted when I hear it because it's like great new business But I want to punch somebody right now because I'm trying to work But but I guess overall it's a good thing to hear But I think I think the other thing that that is important to talk about is You know we lose you know our close rates pretty good, but we still lose more than we win And I think the team that's involved and you know developers and designers and account people need to realize that it's Competitive out there. We've got a lot of good competitors And there's always price pressure and other people that are willing to take more risk than we're willing to take And it's always that balance and so when we lose work I think it's good for everybody to know Just how hard it was to get that work and to see that really we can't just Manufacture a client that has an unlimited budget that wants to do their bleeding-edge stuff with paired programming and Completely agile like it just in our world that just doesn't exist those things don't exist together And so having everyone recognize that it's it's competitive And so that we can really celebrate when we win because we know how hard it is and and how good our competition is So I think the other thing is just Since everyone is is bought in everybody is part of the process Like I said like we can just continue on and so we've really worked hard on our documentation So that the sales team and the knowledge that we gained throughout the sales process is really captured So that as the team members are added to the process It's not as though life begins at the contract like there's a lot that the sales team understands about the client There's a lot even than the prospects Prospecting phase that is important to capture and we haven't always as an agency capture that and brought that forward But the insights that we get the pain points that are discovered like those should be the things That help us make decisions as Melissa talked about before when we're deciding where the buttons should go like we should know What problem they're trying to solve even in the sales process and so working hard to sort of get that all together So yeah to add to that I mean in the same way that we've involved developers and implementation people on the You know sales process and the pitching of the deal and the scoping and the estimation You know, it's it's important that the sales person is involved in the project as well, so as a sales team it's it's you know We're always in this kind of place where we're about to hand off the project And nobody likes as a client to be working with one person that they finally Established trust in a relationship with and be handed off to an entirely different person that's going to manage their account or or their team And I think what we do by building out this this collaborative process in the sales process allows those people to have you know Those are familiar faces to them. They've talked to the developer. They've talked to you the account manager often that will be working on the project And so that's important and and you know as a sales person since we were involved in the process So early we know those red flags that could potentially come up and it allows us to kind of be Outside of the the implementation process But still checking in on it and knowing exactly what we talked about from a key performance indicators perspective or a goals perspective And just make sure that those things are staying on track Another thing that's really nice about this from a sales person's perspective is As we go out and continue to look for ideal customer profiles and clients that we would like to work with And maybe prospect and look for new leads It really helps us to qualify those leads and to create a better customer profile If we see the successes that are happening in real projects that are being implemented and we're part of that process It's really why we call ourselves business development strategists because we're helping kind of with the strategy piece And it helps us strategize to find new clients So if we for example know that we do really really well with Botanic gardens or cultural institutions that need ticketing and membership services That helps me as a sales person to say I know, you know who fits our profile You know as a good customer and how we would be able to help other people with similar pain points And I'll let Nick talk briefly to you about sort of relaying that to Deb Yes, I think just a quick point here You know don't spend all the time working on the collaboration if you're not gonna continue it through the process I think just in general in our implementation process We really like to prioritize sort of living documents and being efficient and not throwing stuff away So don't just sort of toss all the assumptions and collaborations and feature definition everything you put together in the initial phase Out the window when it's time to pass it on to the implementation team And you know, I think that's when you really start to you know See the power of having you know a developer and a designer and sort of people who move all the way through the process Because they can bring those assumptions to the rest of the team as you go through the discovery and implementation process And and I don't think that necessarily means they're sort of checking boxes on an SOW and saying okay We're doing this we're doing this I think it just gives them a much better starting point and and really makes everyone Involved to look better to the client because we can come in with a you know A nice informed and pro approach and really hit the ground running when we get into discovery and you know Maybe the project stays the same maybe it doesn't but we have a really well-informed team asking the right questions to get Us to where we need to be through discovery So essentially, you know everything we've talked about here can be sort of summarized into a really quick Bulleted list of how to win business together as an agency which is Bring it up to your team as early as possible and get people in the room physically when you can War room it and collaborate on your estimates so that developers and salespeople are aligned on budget and total scope Bring your developers to the pitch because they can be your best closers Celebrate and begin work together and finally continue to work as a team and keep the salesperson up to date and involved in the actual implementation process So thank you very much. We hope you've learned something and enjoyed our talk and we'll be here for questions. Thank you So you mentioned RFP We do a lot of government work ourselves and as the engineer I always get the RFP after the question answer session is already been completed So I can never ask any questions in this RFP is totally You know worded ridiculously But on the rare occasion where the sales teams actually give me the RFP early enough so I could actually ask a question I'm always kind of it's always two-edged sword, right? It's like you talked about that one example of migrating data, right? The thing is is that at least in the government space when you When you write a question Everybody has to see the question and the response so now you're giving your competitors and understanding of their direction You're going so sometimes I like to mention it in the RFP Hey, if you need to migrate the data This is how we would do it and not ask the question because I'm hoping that most of my competitors Do you even think of that which immediately disqualifies them and makes us? You know the winning candidate so I'm kind of curious as to what your thought process is with that as well Do you ask all the questions you hold stuff back, you know kind of what your methodology is for that? Yeah, it's a no it's an excellent question And I think you know again one of the reasons we like to talk about it So early is that we do bring the velifers in on the question and answer portion because I think that's where some of the real You know meat of the project sometimes can come out. I think it's a conversation I'll let I'll let these two weigh in as well But I think it's a conversation That is important to have as both the sales team and with the developers because the sales team can say on a tactical level We don't want the competitor to know that we're thinking about this And maybe it's not that important and they can ask the developer like how critical is it that we know this right now? Or is this a discussion we can have during sort of statement of work conversations and negotiations? But I think again It's it's just more proof in the pudding right that the more collaboration and communication you can do earlier on in the Process between sales and development creates a much more smooth handoff process And you can develop that strategy and tactic together and the developer can say this is mission critical We need to know this if we're going to respond Otherwise, it's not worth our time and then we can say okay Well our competitors may know about it, but it's important that if we want to go after this contract We we need to ask that question or whatever the case may be I would just say that it's it's always a balance between like showing credibility and Sort of selling from the very beginning and like you said kind of risking that your competitors can follow in your wake I think that if it's really the secret sauce, maybe I keep that and put it in the proposal But if it's just really something obvious that everyone's missed then I want to be the first one to say that So that the client recognizes that we're ahead of the game versus sort of trailing behind And you find that actually gives you an advantage in the RFP selection process I mean you never you never really know because they never really tell you how they how they decided but it's it's the same when you Like when you have a competitive advantage and you put it on your website, you know You can people can try to copy you But if you're ahead of them and you're executing better than you're just it's always better to sort of stay ahead or get Ahead and stay ahead if you can Gotcha. Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks Thanks, that was a great talk. Oh, thanks So I wanted to know if you could say more about your slide that was called I think leverage passive connections so I'm I'm a partner at an agency and I'm in charge of the selling and I would love it if my staff were out You know making those connections and bringing in leads and that kind of thing. So I'm curious Is that what you meant by that and how do you incentivize and how does that work out or does it work out for you? Sure Yeah, so I think that's definitely one element of the slide I think obviously like just the earlier you can bring something up. It's just what what connections do I already have potentially is kind of the main goal I was trying to sort of communicate on that slide but certainly We we try to Talk about initiatives that the agency is sort of going through or you know as a sales team We build campaigns for outreach of like this is an ideal customer profile We're looking at and we'll just tell people about it Even if it's in the hall or you know when you're getting lunch or at an all-company meeting sometimes We'll even bring up this is kind of initiative We're working on and we've seen people go. Oh, well you guys are targeting You know 100 million and above in the tech industry like I have actually a friend that works at so and so company Like would that be a fit and then we go yeah, that's awesome Like that's fantastic And so it just kind of brings about those conversations when you are just sharing strategy for the types of Organizations that you want to work with Jeff I think can probably talk a little bit more about how we like incentivize referrals and things like that But we've had a lot of success with just folks that aren't on the sales team Bringing us leads just because we're talking about what we want to go after and I think that starts conversations Yeah, I'll just add to that that we That for employees that bring us just basically really warmed up leads that we end up closing will do a spot bonus for that But it's not it's not one size fits all it's not always the same But there's always a gift or a thank you and then again Like if somebody brings us in to a deal that we just wouldn't have had a chance at otherwise We'll do a spot bonus and so the combination of those things We also have a sales slack channel and so these guys will get on and just say like Anybody know anybody at so-and-so company and somebody will say oh, yeah I used to know somebody that worked there like and it just sort of reinforces that we're always kind of thinking about it And we're grateful to the person that chimed in on slack and like just trying to create a culture where we were just sort of always Aware and then you know, not only do we sort of get that feedback? But we're letting the team know that is interested in the health of the company that we're really aggressively trying to grow and we have These opportunities and so just trying to generate that chatter is also part of it That's great. Thanks. Yeah, thanks Thanks. That was a great presentation and I think some of my questions were just answered but okay, I was just curious around like You know running an agency like from a management sort of leadership perspective like how do you resource? You know, how do you build this culture where? People that are very busy developing products and are billable to the client like how do they get pulled out of that? And how do they feel comfortable thinking? Okay? This is okay I can put this off until tomorrow like I'm just wondering if you have any recommendations for sort of dealing with that paradox That's a good question and and really Hadn't really figured that out up until recently and what we've done is You know, we've got a new operations person That's just much better at the numbers and getting as data around those things and everyone tracks their time And so we've given the sales and marketing team a budget which includes a Block of money for the opportunity cost of pulling developers and designers into into pitches And so the sales team and and I have to be careful We're trying to ration that because we know that it's not unlimited It's basically a trailing percentage of the previous month's revenue And so we're doing great then there's more money to go after bigger things But if we had a tough month then we've got a ration a little bit And so it just helps everybody on the sales team sort of think about that It's not an unlimited resource and so like if developers are our best closers We want to take them to the pitches even when we know we've got no shot just in case But if we know that our resources are limited we might just say We've got no shot. I'm gonna go do this one by myself I'm saving your four hours for Friday because I really want you to work on this RFP And just to add to that too. I think because we have this collaborative process There's a tendency sometimes even for me on the sales team to be like, you know I have a call with this Fortune 500 company and they have their developers on I want to bring You know three developers so that I just have this like warm safety blanket that you know I can be sure that they can talk about it. And so when we have to manage to that marketing budget It allows us to say like yep No, I really need three developers on this and I'm willing to sacrifice for whatever because this is important Or it lets you say I could probably get by with one or whatever and you know figure it out from that So it's good system. Yeah, for sure I was just gonna speak up because I kind of approach it sort of advocating for the projects in this position a lot of times and We've put together a really great Process as a company where we have sort of a larger scheduling meeting every Friday where we have the sales team in the room We have the account team in the room I'm in the room our creative directors in the room and sort of that gives us an awareness of Everything that's happening at the company so we can you know sort of way that like the budget is great And we definitely manage to those numbers, but we can also weigh like there's no way we can pull that developer off this week They're gonna miss all their deadlines like sort of what's the importance there And we've also used that to really put a lot of effort into a long-term planning tool Where you know, we can use that to say you can't have them now, but how's next Thursday, right? Or you know and that also gives the sales team the opportunity to make sure that business sort of fits into our pipeline as well So yeah, it's collaborative. It's good Yeah, I mean you start to develop those signs like And you try yeah, and it's coaching too because you know I think I think you're right There's a risk there because the developers and just the reason that they're really good at what they do is because they're Immediately thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong And so you don't want that to be the first thing that comes out of their mouth in the in the sales meeting And so just it's that balance of like, you know If there's a meeting where that happened you just sort of take the developer aside and say like Look, I get what you're saying, but let's let's show the client that we know how to do this There's plenty of time for us to back out if it gets tough or we haven't given them our price yet Or whatever those things are to sort of help them feel like it's not going to just come down the mountain on them If we close the business that that helps