In our next episode of SalesTV.live, we're diving deep into the innovative world of Design Thinking in Sales. Our guest, Ashley Welch, Co-Founder of Somersault Innovation, will share how becoming a customer anthropologist can revolutionize your sales approach and lead to extraordinary results. Ashley has been transforming sales teams with design thinking methodologies, resulting in 100%+ pipeline growth for her clients.

In this episode, we'll ask:

* What does it mean to be a Customer Anthropologist?

* How can Design Thinking principles be applied to Sales?

* What are the key behaviors of a co-creative seller?

* How can empathy lead to faster deal cycles and increased sales opportunities?

* What tools can sales professionals use to co-create solutions with their customers?

With her extensive experience working with high-tech sales teams from companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, Ashley brings a wealth of knowledge on leveraging Design Thinking to build deeper client relationships and accelerate revenue growth. Join us live to learn how to transform your sales approach and achieve unparalleled success.

Facts, the latest thinking, chat, and banter about the world of sales.

Come and join us for some lively discussion and debate.

This week's Guest was -

• Ashley Welch, Co-Founder of Somersault Innovation

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results

Transcript of SalesTV.live Mid-Day Edition 2024-07-30

Rob Durant [00:00:02]:

Good morning. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. And good day wherever you're joining us from. Welcome to another edition of Sales TV Live. Today, we're asking, want to sell more? Become a customer anthropologist. I'm joined by Ashley Walsh, cofounder of Somersault Innovation. With her extensive experience working with high-tech sales teams from companies like Microsoft and Salesforce, Ashley brings a wealth of knowledge on leveraging design thinking to build deeper client relationships and accelerate revenue growth.

Rob Durant [00:00:40]:

Ashley, welcome.

Ashley Welch [00:00:42]:

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Rob Durant [00:00:45]:

Absolutely. Ashley, let's start by having you tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

Ashley Welch [00:00:55]:

Sure. So, I have a background in sales. I was I've been in sales for over 30 years. I started at a consulting firm, and during that time I was there for 20 years selling, and during that time I learned, about design thinking, which is an innovation methodology. And although I was selling the methodology as a process that people could learn to do in their companies, I also was delivering it, to groups of people and fell in love with this methodology. I would say design thinking is a process that's fun, it's energizing, it's collaborative, and it reduces your risk of failure and increases your risk your, rate of success because it gets you close to the customer. So, fell in love with the methodology, left the company I was working at with a co founder, and said, let's start our own company so that we can just focus on teaching people these skills of design thinking, and then quickly realized that these skills really could tremendously transform how sellers sold. So that's a different type of application of design thinking in the sales environment, and so that's what we pioneered, bringing these tools basically curating the best tools to enhance, a seller's ability to move through the deal cycle faster for a greater opportunity with their customers.

Ashley Welch [00:02:11]:

So that was the birth of Summersault Innovation almost 10 years ago now, and we started working at Salesforce, and I think because of that, we've stayed in the high-tech space mostly, working with go to market teams, account executives, and sort of various roles within the go to market community.

Rob Durant [00:02:29]:

Fantastic. Thank you for that.

Ashley Welch [00:02:32]:

Sure.

Rob Durant [00:02:32]:

So I wanna jump right into the topic for today. What does it mean to be a customer anthropologist?

Ashley Welch [00:02:41]:

Yeah. Thank you for asking. Well, I think of anthropologists as super engaged in understanding with all sorts of interesting tools and techniques the person they're studying. And so in sales, we need to be really curious about our customer and understanding everything about them and their customers. And so, I've coined that term in order to help sellers really orient themselves to the degree to which it would benefit them to really understand their customer and their customer's customer. And because of the world of design, who are experts at discovery, there are all sorts of tools and techniques you can use to actually get more interesting information about your customer and their customer. So customer anthropologist is basically saying what who you should you who you should embody as a seller in your discovery phase with your customer.

Rob Durant [00:03:39]:

Okay. So, you brought up design thinking principles and sales. How can design thinking principles be applied to sales? Tell us a little more about that if you would please.

Ashley Welch [00:03:51]:

Yeah. So as I just mentioned, design thinkers are experts at discovery, they're experts at co creation, they're experts at curiosity and empathy, at insight generation. So all of those things are things that we, as sellers, need to do well as well. So what we've done is say, well, let's look at this body of work in the design thinking world. How do we really simplify and make some really easy tools that sellers can use? So I'll give you an example. So the notion of, let's say your customer's customer. This is something that seem a lot of people really like and tune into because it's a little different. So most of us really focus on our customer, but if you can focus also on your customer's customer, and let's use an example.

Ashley Welch [00:04:37]:

So let's say, my customer is Target. Their customers are all of us, right? And there are all sorts of types of us, right? There's families, there's young people, there's older people, people millennials, etc. So if you think about Target's customer, how can you as a seller really understand what your customers care about? And you can start to do that first by just creating a map visually of who's your customer and then who are all the different customer sets they serve, and it could be businesses too, and then start to think about which would be an interesting customer set to get a little bit more information about because it connects with what my customer cares about. So let's say I'm making this up. Let's say Target is really trying to go after the new mother population. If I, as a seller to Target, am able to do some good discovery about new mothers and learn about what they care about right now at this time in the world and serve that information up to Target, that's interesting to them. Right? That causes them to lean in and say, well, wow. Tell me more about that because that's something I'm interested in.

Ashley Welch [00:05:45]:

So you're paying attention to where value is derived for your customer, and if you can learn just a few interesting insights about that customer set, it changes the conversation with your customer because all of a sudden now you're consultative. You're bringing something to them that's interesting to them versus talking about your product.

Rob Durant [00:06:03]:

I love it, talking to them about the things that they care about instead of talking to them about the things that I care about.

Ashley Welch [00:06:10]:

Exactly, which sounds easy, right? But, I think in sales, the other thing I'm fond of saying or I think about is, like, the pressure of sales and the promise of pay really obliterates our ability to stay customer centric, to stay curious and empathic, because we are sort of being told we need to close. That's how we're gonna make our money, and that's what our company, our executives, and if we're public, our shareholders are looking for.

Rob Durant [00:06:39]:

Ironic. The more we push towards that, the the further it goes.

Ashley Welch [00:06:44]:

Totally ironic. Right? And if you can relax into, let me just stay curious and open, you create better connections, people share more, and, of course, more is likely to transpire from that vantage point.

Rob Durant [00:06:58]:

So you've mentioned co creative. I'm a seller.

Ashley Welch [00:07:02]:

Mhmm.

Rob Durant [00:07:03]:

Here's my stuff.

Ashley Welch [00:07:05]:

Mhmm.

Rob Durant [00:07:05]:

This is the stuff that I have to sell. What do you mean by cocreative? What are the key behaviors of a cocreative seller?

Ashley Welch [00:07:14]:

Yeah. Okay. Well, and I think also a good question is, like, why even co create? So let me start with the why. So I'm wondering I have a question for you. Have you ever washed a rental car?

Rob Durant [00:07:28]:

No. No. I have not.

Ashley Welch [00:07:29]:

Why not?

Rob Durant [00:07:31]:

Because it's not my car. It's not my job. I expect they do that.

Ashley Welch [00:07:37]:

Exactly. So, when you're not invested, you don't take a lot of ownership. No one washes their rental car. So it's the same idea with anything. The more our fingerprints are on something, the more we have ownership, the more likely we are to want it. And so, as a seller, the notion is how can I co create with my customer, in small ways or big ways? So a smallest like, the smallest, smallest way, I think of is just if I had a meeting with a customer and I have an agenda, I might say, Hey, this is what I'd like to cover during this meeting. What would you like to cover? Right? And get your input into how we're going to spend our time together. That's a co creative move.

Ashley Welch [00:08:15]:

It's a mindset that translates into small behaviors. You know, another move would be I'm you've asked me for a proposal on something, I put it in a word document form or Google doc where you can actually edit and I send it to you and say, this is just a draft based on our conversation. I'd love to get your input. If you could just, you know, make edits or I'm gonna share it with you, and as we go, I'm gonna make edits as we go visually so you can see basically how your thought process is embedded in what I'm offering. So, I think, first of all, for as a seller to think about how can I co create with my customer, how can I get their fingerprints on it is transformative in and of itself? That mindset is gonna cause you to do different things, and then there are all these different tools and techniques for doing this. Some of the I told you we we work mostly in tech. These big tech firms really understand this. They understand that if we can co create our most strategic accounts, we are going to drive much larger deals and partnerships, so they have what I like to call like the Navy Seals of Design Thinking, These small teams internally who only work on the premier marquee most strategic accounts, and they will take them through anything from a day to a month several months to a year long process with their customer of co creation.

Ashley Welch [00:09:37]:

So let's say an envisioning workshop. So let's get in a room together and let's talk about, like, the art of the possible. What could we do together? As you can imagine, once they start to see their ideas on the board, if you can draw them even better, they start to be much more invested. So, there's I'm actually just writing an article on co creation. There's so many things that people are doing in this space, that are really interesting, but it's still very, I'd say novel and not used very much. So I think this is a really smart space for go to market teams to pay attention to.

Rob Durant [00:10:12]:

Oh, I absolutely agree. Some of the things that you were talking about, like, getting their input on the agenda. I've heard some top salespeople talk about that, but I don't know that they talked about it in the context of cocreation.

Ashley Welch [00:10:27]:

Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:10:27]:

So they know that it works just inherently.

Ashley Welch [00:10:31]:

Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:10:32]:

But they don't know why. So when they go and tell their peers, you know, this is what works. Well, I don't understand why, and and and I'm not going to emulate it. But in that framework, that's just one of many things that you can do to get people to buy in because when it's no longer my rental car. Yeah. When it's my car

Ashley Welch [00:10:54]:

Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:10:54]:

You you're damn right I'm gonna wash it, and I'm going to change the oil, and I'm going to do all of the other maintenance with it. And, oh, lo and behold, I'm going to see it through.

Ashley Welch [00:11:06]:

Yes.

Rob Durant [00:11:06]:

Whereas in a sales process, if it's if it's not about me at all, I'm opting out.

Ashley Welch [00:11:12]:

Exactly. And I think there's another piece of this, which is the authenticity of of this. I mean, when I talk about being a customer anthropologist or being curious or being co creative, it has to come from an authentic place. Otherwise, it's just manipulative. And so that is a, you know, as you say, people might pull people, you know, ask their customer for input on the agenda could be just a manipulative move because they know it works, and that will come through. You know? So authenticity is important as well.

Rob Durant [00:11:42]:

Oh, absolutely. So how can empathy lead to faster deal cycles and increased sales opportunities?

Ashley Welch [00:11:52]:

Yeah. So empathy, as you you know, we're wired for empathy. I don't know if you've ever, there's a great video that has a mom with their baby, and in the in the video, it was done by a, a doctor. It was done years ago, like, in the seventies. You can find it online. So mom's with her baby, and the mom the baby's sitting in front of her, and the mom is engaged with the baby and cooing at the baby, and the baby's all happy and reactive, and then the mom is told to just turn away. So, the mom literally turns like this and gives nothing to the baby. And the baby starts to, like, sort of reach out and starts to, like, gurgle a little bit and, like, make these, like, moves or sounds to be like, Hey, pay attention to me.

Ashley Welch [00:12:40]:

Finally, the baby gets so distressed that the baby starts arching out of their seat until the mother finally turns around and says, Oh, you know, I'm back. And so you can see how we are wired for this empathic connection, and when we don't receive it, what happens to us? Of course, we've developed all sorts of coping mechanisms as adults to figure our way through if we don't have an empathic person on the other side of us. But, because we're wired for this, both to give it and to get it, the more empathic you can be, this is an obvious point, with anybody in your life, not just sales, the more people are willing to trust you and lean in and give you information. And so what does empathy mean and look like? I think a lot of people think, like, well, empathy just means, like, I'm paying attention to you or I care about you, Rob, but you can demonstrate your empathy by paraphrasing what you hear. So it sounds like you feel really frustrated and then sort of saying, did I get that right? You know, is there anything that I'm missing? That's an indication that I am paying attention, And, literally, in your brain, because we're wired for this, that causes connection. You get connected to me. So, empathy in any stage in the deal cycle is so paramount for creating trust and getting great information that it behooves us to be empathic in sales.

Rob Durant [00:14:04]:

Some people believe that empathy or EQ is a lot like IQ, intelligence. It's hardwired. Mhmm. How do you work on developing better empathy?

Ashley Welch [00:14:23]:

Mhmm. Yeah. Well, I think we can learn to be more empathic. I think you're right. Some of us may be born, or nurtured in a way that we are naturally more empathic or it's easier for us. But there are certainly ways and, I think about, like, actually even, there's different ways, like, just the way I said, that can cause you to learn, like, oh, wait a second. If I slow down and I paraphrase and I check for understanding, you know, did I get that right? Is there anything you'd add? That's just an empathic move. And so by teaching that as a series of behaviors or moves, people can learn to be more empathic, and I think then it becomes like a flywheel effect.

Ashley Welch [00:15:09]:

Like, you start leaning in, you tell me more, I'm like, oh, that worked, you know? And I mean, I'd say to anyone, try this on a date. You know, people just wanna be listened to and loved, I think, at the end of the day. So, the more you can try this out and practice these different techniques, I think the more effective you are at building that relationship. And, actually, you know do you know Chris Voss who wrote, Never Split the Difference? So he talks and he, and other things as well, and he was a hostage negotiator. So he talks about tactical empathy. Now I don't love that term because it feels a little manipulative, which as a hostage negotiator, you're definitely, trying to manipulate things so that you get your result, but he talks about basically being empathic as a tactical move in order to get people to engage with you and collaborate with you so you can learn various techniques to be more empathic.

Rob Durant [00:16:05]:

Alright. I'm convinced. Divine design thinking is what my team needs.

Ashley Welch [00:16:11]:

Uh-huh. What do I

Rob Durant [00:16:13]:

do?

Ashley Welch [00:16:13]:

Started. Yeah. Yeah. What do I do? What do I do? Alright. Well, first of all, I'll plug my book, Naked Sales. So this is on Amazon, easy to get. If you send us, Rob or myself, your address, I'll even send you a copy. It's short.

Ashley Welch [00:16:30]:

We wrote it as a one plane ride read, I like to say. It's easy. I'm a seller. You better make it easy and powerful and useful. So there are lots of tools and techniques in here that you can just start using yourself. Another thing is to reach out to us. We teach a program called Sell by Design, where we're teaching people these tools in relationship to a target account, and then we coach people to use them to grow their accounts. And I think if you're, like, you wanna geek out on design thinking, there are lots of online courses as well that you can take and, you know, choose for yourself which tools and techniques you think are useful, to help you.

Rob Durant [00:17:10]:

What are some common challenges that sales teams face when trying to adopt this customer anthropologist mindset, this design thinking for sales?

Ashley Welch [00:17:21]:

Yeah. Well, I think, design is really useful. Her design thinking tools are really useful when it's complex, when there's complexity. Anthropologist and really understanding every single which way you might write. Anthropologist and really understanding every single which way you might write. But the more complex the deal, the more this is relevant. So one of the things or challenges is people start to say, well, how you know, where do I become sort of a customer anthropologist or do deep discovery versus when do I just need to, you know, keep my run rate business going, and if you call, I'm gonna sell you what you want. So I think it's important to have a lens through which you're saying how much do I need to understand about this customer, how much is how much value is there here in actually doing a little deeper discovery than I would have? Because it does take some time.

Ashley Welch [00:18:19]:

It doesn't take tons of time, but it takes a little more time. So that's one of the challenges or or I would say opportunities to just have that conversation with yourself or your manager. When do I wanna go deeper versus I don't need to?

Rob Durant [00:18:33]:

And besides revenue, how do you measure the effectiveness of design thinking approaches?

Ashley Welch [00:18:41]:

Yeah. Well, I think first and foremost, it's around pipeline growth. So I think when you start to do this, we just see consistently pipeline growing. We just worked with a technology company, actually with their sales engineering population, and they added, what was it exactly? I think it was $18,000,000 to pipeline in two and a half months. We worked with Microsoft last year, 33 account executives, and they added $900,000 in unsighted revenue, also, several, 20 +1000000 to pipeline. And then the other big thing we measure is number of decision makers that you get access to. So in their case, they got 143 new business, decision maker contacts, many of which were outside of IT, which is what they were looking for. So pipeline, revenue, number of, decision makers, other people wanna measure deal velocity, or growth, you know, cross sell opportunities, all of those things sort of emerge, but I think pipeline is what you see first.

Rob Durant [00:19:51]:

Okay. Give me a starting point. Help me with a simple exercise, something I can do soon as we get off of this episode where I can start, improving my own performance.

Ashley Welch [00:20:05]:

Okay. I'll give you maybe 2. So, one, we haven't talked very much about curiosity. So curiosity is another thing that you can learn, like empathy. You know, again, some of us are more curious than others naturally, but even if you, you know, you're not perhaps naturally that curious, you can get better. You can get more curious. And so what I would say is listen to 4 things in a conversation. Next time you have a conversation with your customer, listen to 4 things.

Ashley Welch [00:20:31]:

Listen to, if you hear any inconsistencies. If you do, that's a place to dig and say, like, well, Rob, that wait a minute. You said this, but now you're saying this. Tell me more about that. That's an inconsistency. Pay attention to what people value, which means, like, it's emotional for them. People make decisions based on emotion, not and then they back it up with logic. So you wanna understand emotion.

Ashley Welch [00:20:53]:

So if, Rob, you seem really frustrated, super happy, anxious, interested, whatever it might be, I might say, like, a lean in. That sounds like you really care about that, Rob. Tell me more about that. Or that sounds like a problem that's really bothering you. Tell me more about that. So, what people value, hacks or workarounds, you've all of a sudden come up with your own technology to get around the system because whatever technology you have doesn't work. That's brilliant for a seller, like, oh, why did you create that? Tell me more about that. That's a hack.

Ashley Welch [00:21:22]:

And then lastly, things that surprise you. So, oh, I didn't know you were gonna do that, or I don't understand that acronym, or wow, you know, tell me more about that. If you hear a surprise, lean in. All of those are portals to more information, and you'll get more information that you can use. So those are curiosity tips. Another tip would be just immediately, next time you're on with a customer, ask them to tell you about their customer. You could say, tell me about your favorite customer. Why do they buy from you? What's the value to them of your services? Reorient the conversation to their customers.

Rob Durant [00:21:58]:

In that context, are you seeking an exact customer or a customer persona?

Ashley Welch [00:22:06]:

Yeah. I'd say an exact customer because it just becomes more interesting. I mean, they're gonna give you what they give you, but if I said to you, tell me about your favorite customer, you'd probably give me something real. And then that becomes more interesting to you, it's more interesting to me, and I can get information that becomes useful. And I think in all of this, especially in this discovery phase, you're not looking to just find the problem you can solve. That narrows what you're going to hear and what you're going to ask about. You wanna open the aperture of what you learn because that's where more opportunity shows up. So forget about what you're selling for a little bit.

Ashley Welch [00:22:41]:

Just focus on learning.

Rob Durant [00:22:43]:

Forget about what you're selling and just focus on learning, AKA listen. Yeah. That's really scary territory for most salespeople.

Ashley Welch [00:22:53]:

Yeah. Yes. And that's why I think a lot of people don't do it because I don't also know what you're gonna say. So, I think we also need to shed this idea of being the expert for a little bit. There's this, I think, of the myth of expertise, like, you're more likely to engage with me or I'm more successful the more expert I seem. And I would say, actually, it's about being more curious is what actually draws you to me. We wanna be connected first. From 1000 of years ago, I need to know, like, are you gonna hunt me down and kill me or not? I need to know, do we have a connection? 1st and foremost, next, I care about what you know, how smart you

Rob Durant [00:23:35]:

are. Oh, I love it. Excellent. Ashley, this has been great. How can people learn more? Where can they get in touch with you?

Ashley Welch [00:23:43]:

Yes. Well, LinkedIn is probably the easiest thing. Ashley Welch at somersault well, somersault Innovation being the company, or you can email me, ashleyat somersaultinnovation.com. Check your spelling at somersault, one m, and, I'm sure they can find me through you as well.

Rob Durant [00:24:03]:

Absolutely. We now have a newsletter. Don't miss an episode. Get show highlights, beyond the show insights, and reminders of upcoming episodes. You can scan the QR code on screen, or you can visit us at salestv.liveat forward slash newsletter. This has been another edition of Sales TV Live. On behalf of everyone at Sales TV, to our guests and to our audience, thank you very much for being an active part in today's conversation, and we'll see you next time.

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