Sales Coaching and Mentality with Kendra Warlow, part 2

Brad Seaman: [00:00:00] Sandler, I believe teaches these reps to be really not curious. In in your, and I know Josh has I’ve, I’ve listened to a lot of his stuff and he talks about the talks about curiosity and the importance of like, you know, he’s really into Chris’ boss. But even if you listen to Chris, he’s very conscious of the fact that a lot of the questions, like how you ask a question is really important because it can come off as like demeaning.

And so what’s happening with these early on BDRs and SDRs is we give them these questions. And then they’re just really insulting. Like I was listening to oh yeah. You’re covering up.

Kendra Warlow: [00:00:40] No, no, no. I’m like, I know, I know this because I, I, I have helped SDR teams and listened to them and been like, Well,

Brad Seaman: [00:00:49] they’re just right.

And so, and I think the other thing you got be careful of when it comes to buyers and I, and I liked seeing her, but I think, and I using them and, you know, they’re probably like disc is to personality profiles. They’re kind of the, everything sort of breaks from everything sort of from that template.

Right. Or some version, some version of that. What I think happens too, is that you create a situation. Where not only do you potentially demean your buyer, but everybody doesn’t buy in a pain funnel. Like I don’t buy an, a pain funnel. So like, for example, as soon as they start asking like, like my pain funnel, blockers go up, like, I don’t like being, I don’t like being in the pain funnel.

Like it doesn’t, I just don’t like now some of that is, I think is a buyer. I like to see, like I buy things, not because I necessarily am in pain, but because. I have a vision for what I want the future to look like. And I don’t believe that the BDRs or even the AEs can actually tell me whether their products are a good fit for me, because what I want to know is like, show me, show me your product and let me figure out, you know, how we can get this into our organization or into our product.

Like, I may want to

Kendra Warlow: [00:02:05] Brad, I’m going to push on you on that. You’re a unique person to talk to. I think, and, and maybe you can challenge me back on this. I think there it’s a, oh man. It’s like the golden nugget. When you get a C-suite level person, who’s like, you know, I really do care about, you know, the future in terms of like, let’s look at tech now for the future.

Let me see how I can plug you in, because I like what this is. I think it’s, it’s rare to get. To find a CEO or not even a CEO, just a C suite level person like that. And I think for two reasons, right. One is they’ve been sold to this one way for so long. Right. And so they do the same thing, right? They, they put up the blockers, but I would guarantee it that when you meet salespeople and you’re like, let me figure out how I can fit this into my org.

Brad Seaman: [00:03:03] Yeah, you break the, you and I try to be cognizant of the fact that like, Hey, look, you got a little space. So like, if you were selling there, I’d be like, yeah, Kendra, look, I know you got a little speech. I know you’ve got all your little questions, you know, I want to be, I want to be, uh, you know, as polite as I possibly can.

And I want to answer your questions the best that I can, but it’s like real possible that like, there’s not like I I’ll give you a really good example. The prep calls. Gets me on the phone. He, he, I’m not interested we’re users, but he’s trying to sell. We can’t the only way this thing’s going to work is if their product integrates with our product.

So I’m like, can you tell me, do you have an API? And he’s like, let me get back with you. So he calls me and he’s like, we got an API. I’m like, okay. So then I get on with the that’s like the junior guy now I’m on with like the, not super senior, but I’m on like with the senior, um, just like two days older than the junior rep is now on the phone.

And he immediately like just starts going through the pain funnel and like, tell me your process. And I’m like, here I, my interest is if we can move everything onto one platform, I’ve talked, you guys like a hundred times. I I’ve got a, we’ve got a really specific play in strategy that we run I’ve yet to see where I could solve this problem is a piece of the solution currently is can solve the whole problem and we can move everything onto one platform.

I am, I’m all aboard. Didn’t listen asked all the questions, but he didn’t listen to any of the answers. He’d never been to our website. He argued with me about the. Like the integration, like why? Like he demeaned me when I asked for an API, he’s like, well, what do you need API for? And I’m like, well, Hey, we need an API because I need our data to come from this application.

And then he’s like, well, you can use the phone integration. I’m like, Hey, look, I can’t use your phone because we’re in the phone business. Like that’s so he does totally. But when it really came down to when we got off, if he had just simply cared, the call would have gone. Like, I mean, that’s, if you want to be a good SDR, just care a little bit, like, like be naturally inquisitive.

Like if you can just find, find something, like I realized people were boring, but find something that you can get interested about. Cause that makes the whole thing better. Like I think that’s

Kendra Warlow: [00:05:22] well, that’s the prevailing debate right now. Brad, can you teach curiosity? Can you teach it? I see this all over LinkedIn right now.

What about people having natural curiosity and that’s what makes them good at sales because they care because they’re curious, they want to know. Right? Like I would have asked about, you know, history of the company. How did you develop this? How did you get into this? Where did your idea come from to build monster connect?

And like, where did that, like now, what, how did you, how did you get to where you are now and hear your story?

Brad Seaman: [00:05:58] See the thing that, that only matters if you really care, if you don’t care now I’m like really annoyed with you because I’m like, I know you just asked that question. And, and there’s a balance, right?

I mean, I don’t, I don’t

Kendra Warlow: [00:06:11] know. I mean, what are the flags that you look for when you care? Because you just mentioned this with, you know, Chris Voss talks about how you ask questions. Right. And it’s the same thing. Like when I called Josh, I wasn’t like, how do you know you have failed payments?

Brad Seaman: [00:06:29] You bring up a really good point because. As it pertains to the Chris. Cause I love Chris’s stuff, but if you’re not careful, you will think he talks to people like that, but that’s not how he talks to people,

Kendra Warlow: [00:06:41] but that’s the same, that’s the point. So like what are the flags you look for? Right. Because yeah, I could roll up and inauthentically say like, so what’s your founder story, right? Brad. It is so spectacular to spend time with you today. Thank you. I would love to know your journey from, you know, inception of this idea to where we

Brad Seaman: [00:07:04] are today.

So you I’m like going back. Can you teach curiosity? I don’t know. I mean, I’m naturally curious, like I find lots of things. Very

Kendra Warlow: [00:07:16] curious.

Brad Seaman: [00:07:18] I think we were encouraged to, or at least I was, I don’t know about my other siblings, but I was encouraged to read. And so I read a lot and I think, I think reading it makes you curious and I find it hard.

I mean, I, yeah, I reading makes you curious cause you start reading things and then there’s, there’s like all these little lakes, it’s like you start reading about a person, particularly if you read biographies, I think it makes you more curious, but you start reading about a person. And then they’re like, they mentioned something and you’re like, oh, what’s that?

And, and there’s all this content, you know, in a book and then you just start fare. You start thinking yourself. Well, how’d that get in here? Where’d that come from? So, so I don’t know if I was, I mean, we were, we were taught to, or we were encouraged to read. I mean, reading was a really big, it was a really big thing.

So I would assume that maybe the curiosity is from the reading, but I don’t know. I mean, some, you know, some people read it.

Kendra Warlow: [00:08:13] I think it’s a tough, it’s a tough thing to teach because if I think back to where my curiosity came from, it came from PBS. We had three channels growing up. PBS was one of them. The best part of it.

Did

Brad Seaman: [00:08:26] you grow up on a farm? No.

Kendra Warlow: [00:08:28] Nope. Um, PBS was the best Nova American scientific frontiers with Ken burns. Did you watch

Brad Seaman: [00:08:37] oh yeah. I love that. How it works. Do you

Kendra Warlow: [00:08:39] remember that? Yeah. And so, and then my dad, um, we were outside all the time. Boom. He’d call me boop. Boop. Do you see that salamander? Boop. Do you know how to determine what tree this is?

Like we had dichotomous keys when we were like 10 walking through the forest, like dad being like, okay, what’s the street. And so I wanted to know because it was so exciting to learn.

Brad Seaman: [00:09:00] And how many siblings do you

Kendra Warlow: [00:09:03] have? I have one biological and then my sister moved in with us when she was 14. My parents had a huge open door.

Anybody that needed a mom and a dad were open and available to come into our home. Kids stayed with us for, you know, two weeks or my sister moved in at 14 and she’s still my sister.

Brad Seaman: [00:09:22] Those are now did you have, now is the with your biological sibling, is there that same kind of curiosity?

Kendra Warlow: [00:09:29] Yeah, Brian is, um, my brother he’s younger than I am.

Uh, it manifests itself in different ways. He gets hooked on something. We also were lovingly genetically gifted ADHD and add.

Manifested itself with my brother in like hyper fixation of stuff. So his curiosity came like when he got on something, it was like, and for me, me, I love like an inch deep, but a mile wide,

Brad Seaman: [00:10:00] like, okay, so you break, so you bring them. So there are two different types of curators. You know, and so is everybody curious, they’re just curious and different.

They fall into one of these two buckets

Kendra Warlow: [00:10:12] of curiosity. That’s a great, that’s a great, a thought experiment right there. I, you know, I don’t know, because I also have met people who just aren’t curious and it feels shallow, I suppose, where maybe, you know, virtual reality matters more to them or like they don’t, maybe they’re.

I guess we would have to like define what curiosity is and how it’s exhibited, and then be able to measure how people make choices based upon curiosity.

Brad Seaman: [00:10:45] Well, you got my gear. You got my gears. There’s like smoke, smoke, roll. I’m rolling out of my brain right now. Do you have so, so do you think you can sell without being curious?

Can you be a sales? Where could you be a good salesperson and not, and not be generally,

Kendra Warlow: [00:11:01] I’m going to give you my economics answer it D it depends. That’s what economists say. It depends. I think, yeah. Look, if you. If you’re selling to a group of people that’s in need, you know, people need this thing, then they’re gonna, they’re gonna take it upon themselves to do the research.

The, the consumer is going to take it upon themselves to do the research and then buy the product. I think tech sales, I think you have to be curious, unless again, it’s such a bad pain point. You’re like, oh my God, my company’s at a grind. It’s at a standstill. And then you wouldn’t care if that person didn’t ask you the questions, because you already knew that you needed in one day.

What they offered. And to me, I think that’s, it’s a cop out for this person who’s selling that they’re not being challenged, but that goes back to you and I, and both of our fundamental beliefs, that hard things create opportunities for learning and growth. And so when you have a sales person and everybody coming to them as like, I want this thing, I want this thing already and they don’t have to change.

They’re going to stay, stick to the status quo and they don’t have to be curious or wanted to know more.

Brad Seaman: [00:12:16] Yeah, I did. I just shot, like I said, I guess, and maybe some of it’s an annoyance, I’m just shocked at how, um, you know, the, they put young BDRs on the phone. They give them the script, they ask them to ask the questions.

They totally miss the cues and the sign. I mean, you’d have to assume somebody would say this is

Kendra Warlow: [00:12:35] top spot for this, right. I think because we all know what it feels like to be uncomfortable, even though you and I have gotten very good at it. And we now know what level of uncomfortable we feel like or how to navigate it.

Like it’s not a stranger to us. Uncomfortable is very. A warm, it’s a sweater, right? We’re like, oh, great. We’re going to put this on because now we’ve got to learn something. Okay. Okay.

Brad Seaman: [00:12:59] So do you feel like their curiosity is, or not? So, so sorry. Keep, keep going. I I’m, I’m trying, I’m trying to understand like, Hey, you got a new SDR, new BDR.

They’re going through the process. They’re following

Kendra Warlow: [00:13:10] them. Right. They haven’t had enough experience yet to let their guard down to be curious because there’s so. Anxiety written about doing well in this brand new job, how to handle working probably for the first time and, and life. And now they’re uncomfortable on the phones, a billion times a day with this script and they.

They don’t have the life experience to relax and understand that like you, these are just conversations with people and I think they get so nervous. And so I don’t want to put it on them. I wish that companies would take the time to do some mindfulness training with their new reps to help

Brad Seaman: [00:13:51] them. Yeah. I think it’s more of a, like a, not a knock on the BDR.

I think about it more on the knock on the company that the companies think that it’s okay. To, uh, well, I don’t know. It’s a balance cause I start talking. It’s like, I like, I’m a proponent of scripting. Cause I think it’s really important. Like, I don’t know how you could sell, like I know there’s a lot of script haters and you might be a scripted or, but I don’t know how you could sell if you don’t learn the material.

Right? Like how can you act if you don’t learn the script? I mean, there’s going to be some period of time where, where it’s not natural, but over time that should transition. Right? I mean, you should be able to transition. What’s awkward. That’s why I’m a

Kendra Warlow: [00:14:31] proponent of a framework and not a script. You have a framework, right.

And Josh teaches this. This is what I have the opportunity to coach on that. It’s a, it’s a framework, not a hard and fast script because you want somebody to be able to sound natural. You don’t want to force them into saying a line that they would never say that’s when it comes out and authentic, that’s when you’re like, oh dear.

This poor person. They could have taken that line and made it their own, but they were not given the permission or they didn’t feel like they had the permission from their superior to change this into something they would say, I think, yes, you have to get the material down.

Brad Seaman: [00:15:11] Well, I think you got to separate.

I think you got to separate understanding the material from executing on the field, knowing the playbook from actually being on the field, running the place. If something changes on the field. You can’t just run, you can’t just hand off to the linebacker or the running back stop. If he didn’t get the playwright and he’s moving, you know, if you turn around to your handoff, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t know the play.

So, so I think that you need to memorize something. You need to memorize the material so that you know it, and then you take a framework onto the field and you try and you execute off. Right. Experience or what you’ve

Kendra Warlow: [00:15:46] learned. Yeah. I think you can memorize. I, I don’t know. I think you can memorize the framework.

You can memorize the framework and you can know the material, the material is ever changing. The material is a living thing, right? You’re always in an organization going to figure out, oh, I could’ve said it this way. I want to say it this way. So. The material builds the foundation for the naturally move on the field.

Right. But new reps aren’t given space to learn the game either. And so,

Brad Seaman: [00:16:20] yeah, I would agree with that a hundred percent.  there’s the script is not the material. That’s two separate things. And in that what we do is we try to use the script as a way for them to learn the material and execute the plays at the same time.

I think it’s two

Kendra Warlow: [00:16:34] separate. Yeah. Yes, it is. It’s two separate things. And when these new folks come in and they’re bombarded with everything, What about this company? What about my coworkers? My peers. What about like all of these things? The last thing that they have the capacity for is to detach themselves from the outcome of this call, because it’s the one thing that they’re supposed to do with, with everything else.

And I think taking time upfront to work with new reps to help them understand. Hey, remember the last time you went to a bar, this is my friend, Jeff Burns, who taught me this when I was struggling with cold calling. You know, the, remember the last time you went to a bar, most of me like, yeah, cause it was, you know, two days ago and great.

You sit down and you happen to look over and the person sitting next to you has a t-shirt on with the logo of a prospect. What do you say now? You look at them and probably will say, I know that logo. Do you work there? Right. And the person’s going to say, yeah, I’m their VP of sales and you’re going to go.

No, dude. What has the last year like looked like for your sales team? That’s natural. That’s a conversation. Not you don’t sit down next to somebody and go, can I have 27 seconds to tell you why I sat down next to you? That gets real, real quick

Brad Seaman: [00:17:58] doing it. I feel like I’m going to try that tonight. There was a bar next to the office.

I’m going to just go over there.

Kendra Warlow: [00:18:06] Can you please, I will give you my cell. Please text me. I’ll put a $5 wager on this. I want this to

Brad Seaman: [00:18:14] happen. I feel like I need to throw this out to the community. Hey, if you’re listening to this, you need to go. I will get your money to get this on tape.

Kendra Warlow: [00:18:24] Well, we will give you money.

If you used sales tactics, you’ve been taught on the phone in real life and then tell me how it

Brad Seaman: [00:18:33] works out. So awesome. I think that would be a con I think we might turn that into a content piece over here,

Kendra Warlow: [00:18:41] because think about it. It doesn’t work. Does, it’s not a conversation because you’re not caring about what somebody else is saying. You’re trying to remember what you say

Brad Seaman: [00:18:52] next. Totally agree.

Kendra Warlow: [00:18:56] And I think it would be hysterical to use traditional cold call methods in real life conversation. We could do parody videos on this for

Brad Seaman: [00:19:05] ads.

I mean, so one of the things that I think just naturally interacting with people, I think there’s, I just think most, if I could think about most of my, the relationships that are close to me, There is a level of just awkwardness that occurred when we became friends. Like, if I think about my, my best friend from college, or I think about, you know, um, some of the, you know, who’s my kind of current best friend now how we met there was like a level of like, when you meet, like, for me, at least when I meet people, there’s like a couple seconds where it just doesn’t feel normal.

Like you’ve got to like work, you got to like work through it. I feel that same thing. Or I would say probably not. Right. You don’t feel bad. You’re like, bring it, bring it on the drug.

Kendra Warlow: [00:19:51] Because I’m like, I’m going to be my new best friend. Okay. I feel like, oh shoot.

Brad Seaman: [00:20:03] I feel that a little bit. Like when I, when I meet, when I am not always, but there’s definitely times where, you know, and it’s probably them feeling it less than it is me. Right. Hey man, I really like your shoes. And it’s like, you know, I don’t know about that.

I’ve got a friend for Boston and he said, when you moved to Indiana, he’s like, dude, it was weird, man. Everybody would try to talk to me and they’d be like, you know, how’s your day. He’s like, I don’t know, man, how’s your, like, I get rolled. Like, I’d get fired up. Like I wanted to fight every time somebody talked to me.

I like, why is that? I’m like, relax. He’s like, I don’t know. Yeah.

Kendra Warlow: [00:20:39] Yeah. For some people there’s that level of awkwardness look, it’s, it’s also been my detriment. Like let’s be really clear here, right? That level, that moment of awkwardness can be a very good thing. I’ve been on the other side where now throughout the course of my life, I have had to learn how to control my nature and not allow my nature to control me.

It can be me dialed up to 10 turns. A lot of people off me. Yeah. Okay.

Brad Seaman: [00:21:06] So you got to learn that over time, that, that, can you tell when you’re going to 1000%.

Kendra Warlow: [00:21:14] And most of the time it’s going, like, it’s a simultaneous thing where you’re like, I know I’m way too much right now, but it’s so hard to stop. And that’s where the mindfulness practice comes in.

Right. There’s a reason I’ve meditated. I

Brad Seaman: [00:21:25] love it. I mean, how can you not love somebody at 10? I love people, you know,

all caffeinated up. I’m ready to go.

Kendra Warlow: [00:21:42] Sales has space for both kinds of people too, to create and form relationships with. And that’s why I love teams. I love team selling with introvert. It’s logical because you connect on the frequency of whoever is sitting across from you. And even if that person’s in the middle and they can go both.

Having

Brad Seaman: [00:22:01] somebody else. See, I love team selling too. Like as a CEO, I’m like, Hey, get me on, give me on the deals. Not because I want to take over, but I just feel like I love that, that energy. It’s like, you’re answering the question, answering a question. You know what

Kendra Warlow: [00:22:16] I, I wish we did more of it. Right. Having somebody with you, you don’t ever have to be alone like cold call buddies, get with your best friend, get on zoom, make the cold calls together.

It doesn’t matter if you’re from a different company, literally one person goes to the next person. So when you screw up, you have live feedback from your bestie or they’re going to call you back. That sounded like

Brad Seaman: [00:22:37] shit.

Or

Kendra Warlow: [00:22:42] when somebody’s nasty to you on the phone, you can hang up and be like, wow, that guy spilled his Cheerios this morning. I’m

Brad Seaman: [00:22:49] always shocked. You know, I’m sure maybe I’ve maybe I’ve done this. I’m always shocked at VPs of sales who, who are mean to the ER, who are just like, Hey, what are you calling me for?

And you’re like, Hey man, are you treating your sales? I got no, like we called you. Cause we know you have a bunch of sales development reps or are you, is it’s really going down right now. So, but you’re right. Everybody has a different experience, I guess. You don’t know what happened before you hopped on the phone, right?

Kendra Warlow: [00:23:18] Yeah. But that’s still that, that is still crazy to me when salespeople are rude to other salespeople like bud, you know, the grind. Why like what, you’re not that far removed from this pal, like. It’s, uh, that’s why I think it’s hilarious when you know, somebody like Josh brown gets on and still makes cold calls, or like you have these people who are looked up to in sales communities who will still jump on and like do sales stuff.

I love

Brad Seaman: [00:23:45] that too. He’s done great. He does great. He does great stuff. So how’d you get, I know we’re, we’re probably cruising down to an hour here, but how’d you get connected with Josh and then what are you doing? What’s uh, what are you doing now? What’s what’s happening in your world today?

Kendra Warlow: [00:24:01] Um, well, I got connected to Josh cause I cold called him.

So shout out to everybody. Who’s listening to this. Just make the call. You have no idea.

Brad Seaman: [00:24:11] I literally don’t know.

Kendra Warlow: [00:24:14] You might cold call your next boss. Um, and what’s happening today is that I have accepted a position with an extraordinary company called smart path. And they are about equitable financial education and personalized coaching by way of an employee benefit.

Um, financial wellness is near and dear to my heart. I have my own, uh, you know, financial story and. So many folks have never had the opportunity to learn personal finance, to learn how to budget. And it’s really tough. And we see it all the time. We see what financial stress does to employers and we see what it does to homes and households.

And so to be able to be part of a, an organization that says, Hey, here’s all the resources. Here’s a place for you to step in and freely and openly ask anything that you need without fear of being pitched or sold to on some kind of financial product. This is strictly for you and your spouse and your family as an opportunity to learn.

How personal finance works for you and what you need to do to put yourself in a good position. And they have,

Brad Seaman: [00:25:28] so how’s it how’s that solar. So are you selling that to, to HR or are you selling that executive level? Like who makes the decision on someone?

Kendra Warlow: [00:25:39] Yeah, we go to HR or CFOs and we also work through insurance brokers.

Yeah.

Brad Seaman: [00:25:45] I, you know, I, I think that, uh, so I have a friend who’s got a business agency and he won’t hire anybody without them having to take a financial literacy class. His belief is, Hey, you know, when I bring you onto the company and it’s a small, but I mean, there’s probably 10 employees, but you know, his belief is like, Hey, if I can, I’m going to Stuart you with me.

I need to make sure that you’re going to be the best skewer with the money. And if you can be a good steward of your money, then that’s going to create opportunity for me to give you more money in the future, whether that comes through commissions or advances or whatever, and that you’re gonna, that you’re going to be in good shape.

The last thing in his last thing he wants is like, Hey, I got an employee who all of a sudden their problems, my problem. Right? Cause if they can’t, if they can’t manage their money as a small employer, then, then I’m going to be the backup. Um, so I love it. I love what was the name of the company? Again?

Smart path. More path. Okay.

Kendra Warlow: [00:26:40] Yeah. Smart. They set everything up on this really wonderful, easy site. And you go through a quiz to understand where you are presently with your finances, and then they curate you with this mini financial plan that says, great. You need to worry about doing a one month emergency fund for six.

Here’s how you do that and oh, by the way, here’s a personal coach to help walk down this road with you. So you don’t feel left out.

Brad Seaman: [00:27:06] Sounds great. I think that’s a great first step. If you’re an entrepreneur out there and you’re listening, I think it sounds like a great, I was like a great program. All right.

Well, anything, anything specifically that you wanted to cover that we didn’t cover that you’re super passionate about? I sounds like you probably have a lot of passion.

Kendra Warlow: [00:27:23] I have a lot of passions, but the one obviously is, is the ocean. So for anybody listening, Do your research on the products that you buy, be mindful that, you know, the ocean will still look the same, even if everything is destroyed underneath it, you’ll still stand on the beach and it’s still going to look the same.

So take time to learn a little bit about what goes on underneath and, um, kind to protect it. And of course, let me know. Normally I throw up ocean Tuesday videos, so

Brad Seaman: [00:27:48] I I’ve seen, I’ve seen some of those well. Okay. Well, great. Well, Kendra, thanks so much for coming on. There’s so many good takeaways here. Um, how do I do.

You did great. This was so much fun too.

Kendra Warlow: [00:28:01] I’m in it for a competition about actually like using cold call techniques in real life and just walk people and being like, do you have 27 seconds to tell you why I walked up to you?

Brad Seaman: [00:28:13] All right. Let’s let’s, uh, I’m gonna keep this on the radar and see if there’s somebody out there that’s going to either, they’ll have to pull it together a year and I’ll have to do it.

Maybe we’ll have to get together and just show up in an airport somewhere. And, uh, Well on the play on, on everybody at the airport, so all we’ll do it. Okay. Well, this was great. All right. Thank you. So thank you so much.