Join us for a special episode with Matt Dixon as he takes us through the research and insights from his new book, The Activator Advantage!

* What sets top rainmakers apart?

* How do they win and grow client relationships?

* What can you do to adopt their success habits?

Backed by three years of research, this session will break down the mindsets and behaviors driving real business growth. Don’t miss it!

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 -

• Matt Dixon, sales expert and author of the upcoming book The Activator Advantage

This week's Host was -

• Alex Abbott, Founder of Supero

This week's Panelist was -

• Rob Durant, CEO of US Operations at The Institute of Sales Professionals

Transcript of SalesTV.live Mid-Day Edition 2025-03-18

Alex Abbott [00:00:00]:

Hello, and welcome to Sales TV, the show where we aim to help salespeople learn at least one new thing each week to improve their performance, or this week, salespeople and professional services consultants. I'm your cohost, Alex Abbott, also known as the bearded sales guy, founder of Sipiro, creator of the conversation operating system, and cofounder of Alex, a social enablement platform by Critical Convo. And my passion lies in helping people and organizations build real meaningful conversations that drive growth and success. And to help me navigate this conversation today is mister Rob Durant. Hello, sir.

Rob Durant [00:00:49]:

Hello. Hi, everyone. I am Rob Durant. I am CEO of US Operations of the Institute of Sales Professionals, and the ISP has one goal, to elevate the profession of sales. That's why I'm so happy to be a part of sales TV and especially today's episode. I think we're well on our way to doing that.

Alex Abbott [00:01:12]:

Excellent. Excellent. So we're diving into an exciting and a highly relevant topic. What separates top performers in professional services and sales from the rest? We're thrilled to be joined by a legend in the world of sales. Our guest today is Matt Dixon, the coauthor of groundbreaking books like The Challenger Sale, The Jolt Effect, and his latest book, The Activator Advantage, What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently. In his new book, Matt explores how activators, a specific type of rainmaker, consistently outperform their peers by embedding business development habits into their daily routines, leveraging their networks, and delivering both business and personal value to clients. So let's dive into the conversation and welcome mister Matt Dixon. Hello.

Rob Durant [00:02:10]:

Thank you, Matt. Welcome.

Matt Dixon [00:02:11]:

Thanks for having me.

Alex Abbott [00:02:14]:

Great to see you. Now it's been we were just talking about this before the show. We think it's been over a year, possibly two years since you were last on sales TV.

Matt Dixon [00:02:23]:

I'm like a bad penny, guys. I always And

Alex Abbott [00:02:29]:

and then it was about the jolt effect, and and now it's about your, latest book. Now, you know, you've you've shaped modern sales thinking with the challenger sale and the jolt effect. What inspired you to write the activator advantage, and what gap in sales performance are you addressing with

Matt Dixon [00:02:52]:

it? Yeah. It's a it's a great question. Actually, it has a funny, origin story, which I'll I'll tell you and, and the the guests today. So, when the Challenger Sale came out, it was around 2011, and I remember that about I think it was about a year, year and a half after that book came out, I was actually invited to and I was doing a lot of speaking at conferences and sales kickoff events, around the world. And I was invited to speak, at a partner retreat of one of the big strategy consulting firms. There's only three, so so everyone has a one in three chance of guessing who this was. But, I was invited to their partner retreat. I actually it's one of those keynotes where I never had a chance to actually talk to the client.

Matt Dixon [00:03:31]:

It was just booked. I I knew what my time slot was, when it was. I sent my materials, and then I show up. I'm introduced. I show up. I start giving my keynote on the Challenger sale, and I was about forty five minutes in. It was planned for about sixty minutes, and I had this experience that had never happened to me before. And I pray it never happens again, which is the the person who hired me, the managing partner from this firm, is sitting in the front row, stood up, and starts waving his arms to get me to stop talking.

Matt Dixon [00:03:59]:

And I'm thinking, like, oh my goodness. Well, the first thing I thought was, what time is my flight home? Because this is pretty unnerving. And, what this guy said, well, clearly, I was gonna take questions in a few moments, but please, you've got something in your mind, go right ahead. And what he said was really interesting. He said, you know, for forty five minutes now, you've been talking about sales, sales productivity, sales effectiveness, sales people. And it's all really fascinating stuff, and and I'm sure our clients would be very interested in this work. It's it's brilliant stuff. But what you've got to understand, and then he gestures to the 400 partners sitting in this ballroom, is none of us are salespeople.

Matt Dixon [00:04:36]:

In fact, there's there's not a single salesperson in this room, and our firm doesn't actually sell anything to our clients. And I did a I I I hit a beat there's a beat in my heart for a moment. I'm, you know, thinking, can I move my flight earlier? Because this is a very bad number. And I wish you had seen the title of the presentation before you invited me to present. But the only thing I could think to say, and I am stealing here from, Professor Neil Rackham because the same thing happened to him many, many years ago when he was presenting the spin selling work. And he told me the story years ago, and his witty rebuttal came came right out of my mouth in the moment. I said, let's just stipulate to the fact that there's a mysterious process by which the client's money ends up in your firm's bank account. And so we just call it sales for the next fifteen minutes.

Matt Dixon [00:05:21]:

And everyone started laughing, thankfully. But it was at that moment that I I realized, well, the first thing I did was I I turned down every invitation to speak to a partner retreat again for the next ten years. Because, you know, I I think I realized in that stunning moment that this really is a foreign concept in many respects for professionals. So in in the professions, we're talking about law, accounting, consulting, investment banking search. Basically, think of these as worlds in which one doesn't sell a product, but one sells oneself. Right? So we're selling expertise. We're selling our credentials. And in this world, what the most common go to market approach is the doer seller model, where a partner in a firm is both selling the work and delivering the work to the client.

Matt Dixon [00:06:07]:

And they themselves are the product that is being sold, as well as the expertise of their team, of course. But, you know, it occurred to me that our work, while I think it really did address the needs of B2B sales professionals selling products and productized services even, it didn't really speak to this big segment of the B2B world, which was professional services. It's actually the second biggest sector of the global economy. And so I parked in the back of my mind that at some point, I'd really like to go and study professionals to find out, if engaging clients and selling in that world is in fact different. Do we find different best practices? What does it tell us about, being effective in this world? And, you know, fast forward many years later, and we have the chance to do that. And as you mentioned, Alex, the new book, The Activator Advantage comes out, here in just a short time. May 20, it comes out.

Alex Abbott [00:06:57]:

Yeah. Nice. Nice. What why do you think it is that professional services consultants don't consider themselves as salespeople?

Matt Dixon [00:07:06]:

You know, I think that is a that is a great question, and I think it has there are many reasons. I think on the one hand, I think that perhaps the, the skeptical answer or the the glass half empty answer might be that they perceive sales, or they look down on sales. Right? That sales has a bit of a pejorative connotation. It has a it has a reputation problem in the market. You know, and much of that, I would argue, is, has been given to us. Thanks, you know, thank you to Hollywood. Right? It's Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross and The Wolf of Wall Street and these kinds of movies that, give sales a little bit of a bad name. And so in many respects, I think, one would say and I I think this is probably true for some professionals.

Matt Dixon [00:07:48]:

These are very intelligent, highly educated people, and they kind of look down on sales as a profession. But I think the the thing that is more often the case is that they actually see what they're doing as is quite different from sales. I think in their mind, sales in a traditional b to b context is a linear process by which I get a lead from marketing. I work that lead. I close that opportunity, and then I hand it off to the implementation team, the customer success team, customer support, and there you go. Right? And then I'm on to the next opportunity. But in their world, it's much more of a circular, dynamic where I am actually generating the the lead or the opportunity. I am closing it, and then I'm actually delivering it.

Matt Dixon [00:08:31]:

And I've got to deal with all the customer support issues along the way, And I've got to make sure the client's happy, and I've got to set them up for a renewal and upsell or cross sell. And so they are owning all parts of the, the go to market motion, not just, you know, closing the deal. And I I guess the the last thing I would say when we do training around, this activator model, which we'll talk about, you do hear from professionals that they have this mindset that sales, you do sales when you're trying to convince somebody to do something they otherwise would not do. And and so that again, I think, bleeds into this kind of pejorative connotation. I think for partners and professionals, getting them to understand that, no. In fact, you got into this profession, whether it's engineering or it's PR or it's it's law. You got into this profession to help people. And sales is just a different way that we help our clients.

Matt Dixon [00:09:22]:

Right? It's it's, helped by another name, if you will. But there's this real kind of mindset that you've got to break down, first before you can kinda build up and teach them the behaviors to be effective commercially.

Rob Durant [00:09:34]:

Yeah. Yeah. Matt, it's interesting that you share that. I, just this past weekend, was teaching an MBA class on social enablement. And in the class, we had a number of people that were in accounting and finance and law. And their question to me was exactly the same. You know, I I don't sell. I said, well, let me point you to Dan Pink's book to sell as human.

Rob Durant [00:09:57]:

Oh, yeah. Yep. And if we replace the term sell with to influence others to come to a decision Yep. Then in fact, you do sell. And in that, like, you're right. It takes away all of that pejorative. Yeah. Again, back to the ISP trying to elevate the the profession of sales.

Matt Dixon [00:10:21]:

Yeah. And you're you're absolutely spot on, Robert. I think so in our training, we it's funny. We buy everyone a copy of that book because we're, you know, it's it was it's it starts here. Right? And you've got to, you've got to put aside your kind of mental model, if you will, and think differently about the kind of relationship we're we're building with with our clients. And really, when you look at what the very best salespeople do, it doesn't actually feel like sales, does it? It feels like it feels like influence. It feels like help at the end of the day. That's really what we're trying to do with our clients.

Alex Abbott [00:10:52]:

Now the book, the book is based on a pretty extensive study that you've done. I think there were, what, 3,000 professionals across various industries. Yep. Can you perhaps share some insights that, surprised you in the research that you did?

Matt Dixon [00:11:10]:

Yeah. I so I think, there's there's two, things I would point to. The first is so we did we ran a very similar analysis to what we did with the challenger work. So for those viewers who, remember that book, we found there were five types of salespeople. Here, we actually, as luck would have it. And by the way, we've tried to run this this approach many times and failed, or rerun it with other populations. This is the only other time it worked. We take a population that is strictly professionals or doer sellers in the professional services industry.

Matt Dixon [00:11:41]:

What we find is there are five types of partners or five types of professionals. So I'll just very quickly walk through them. The first one is, the expert. So the expert is who they sound like. They've got really deep subject matter expertise. Their mindset is that the client, because of the depth of their expertise and how well known they are in the market, the client will find them. And so in the words of one CEO we we spoke to during this research, he he determined very quickly all of his partners were experts or most of them were. And he said their go to market approach is to quote unquote aggressively wait for the phone to ring.

Matt Dixon [00:12:15]:

As you can imagine, he wasn't a huge fan of that approach, but it it it's actually quite typical of experts. They are very reluctant. They don't like sales. They of all of these profiles, those are probably the ones who have the most deep seated pejorative connotation of selling and what it means. They believe that clients should find them if they need their help, and they will find them as long as they speak at industry conferences, if they serve on panels, if they publish thought leadership, if they're ranked highly like in the chambers ranking in law, for instance, my clients will find me. But what it means in practical terms is, you know, by the time the client finds the expert, they're probably talking to a few other experts from other firms, and then they these folks get driven to into a lot of RFPs and a lot of competitive pursuits. The second one is the confidant. The confidant, I would describe as kind of an old school trusted adviser.

Matt Dixon [00:13:03]:

The the trusted adviser model, is really held up as kind of the gold standard in the industry and has for many has been for many decades. The way these folks do it, I think the authors of the book, you know, Charlie Green, David Maser would probably not say that that's what they meant. I think they take it to a bit of an extreme. But when you look at what they do, the way they execute this approach is they try to build a very small small portfolio of very deep client relationships. So it's basically like I'm trying to build a personal set of ATM machines and then just stand by those ATM machines to collect money. So they they try to build a moat around these the small handful of key clients by delivering great client service. They really bend over backwards for their clients. They deliver great work product, and they try to build not just deep business relationships, but actually personal relationships with their clients.

Matt Dixon [00:13:49]:

So many of these partners, when we interview them, will speak wistfully about the fact that they go on holiday with their clients, in their client's family or that these were this was a friend from law school or business school, and now that person has become my client as well. So they really do pride themselves on that that kind of depth of relationship. Their mindset when it comes to business development is, if I've got this kind of relationship, the client should automatically come back to me the next time they need help. It would be it would be a violation of the kind of relationship we have for them to force me to compete for the work. Like, that's just not the debt you know, that's not the kind of relationship we have. So they kind of, expect the client to keep coming back. Now the other the dark side, I would say, of the, confidant is because they built this personal ATM machines, they are very reluctant to share them internally. So they've got very sharp elbows inside the firm.

Matt Dixon [00:14:40]:

They don't put any notes in the CRM system. They get mad when people when the the unsuspecting associate phones into their client to ask for a meeting, they go, you know, up in arms. Because they live in fear of what might happen if a colleague comes in and basically screws it up for them because they don't have very many of these relationships, and it's what, you know, pays their bonus every year. The third one is the activator. So the activator is a super connector. So they're very, very active on LinkedIn, big users of, tools like Sales Navigator or Exec Atlas from Equilar, to to manage their networks digitally. But they also, make very purposeful use of live events. So conferences, firm sponsored events.

Matt Dixon [00:15:20]:

These are the people we know these people. They're the ones who go to the event with a game plan. So they know who's coming. They've set up the coffees and the lunches and the breakfasts and the dinners, and they've got kind of a hit list of all the people they wanna talk to. And what's interesting, because people have asked us, why don't you just call them connectors? Because that's kinda what they're doing. But we think it undersells the active ingredient, of Activator, no pun intended. But what they do is they take these LinkedIn connections, they take these stack of business cards they collect at the event, and they turn them into plan paying client relationships by proactively bringing new ideas to the client, which might sound familiar because it's something that we also found in the challenger work. They are very focused on what is the thing that I know that my client needs to know? And I'm gonna proactively reach out to them with those opportunities, those ideas to make money, save money, mitigate risk, grant market share, whatever the outcome is that I drive as a professional.

Matt Dixon [00:16:12]:

I'm not gonna charge my client for that insight, but I'm gonna use it as a way to pay it forward. So that when the client sees that this is a need and opportunity, I've shaped their understanding of it and I've established preference for me as the service provider. The other thing I'd say about the Activator is unlike the comp our new box their colleagues out, the Activator looks to bring their colleagues in. And they do it for lots of reasons, but I think the most, if you will, the the economic reason they do it is that they know that the market is much more competitive today. In fact, you may remember this. Alex, in the article, we talked about the fact that client loyalty and professional services is kind of on a secular decline. Clients are much less likely to just automatically come back to the incumbent firm again and again for follow on work. And acumenors know that, look, it's all well and good if the client sees value in the service I provide.

Matt Dixon [00:17:02]:

But if I can get my colleagues plugged into this client organization and we're supporting them across many different priorities, areas, regions, offices, etcetera. That's a much stickier and resilient relationship in a world of fraying, client loyalty. And then the last two, are, the debater. And this one I'll I'll tell listeners I think was personally surprising back to your question, Alex. The debater is the sharp elbowed opinionated know it all. They they like coming in and telling the customer or the client you're doing it wrong. They do that. You find a lot of these folks in in industries where there isn't a lot of daylight in pricing or capability.

Matt Dixon [00:17:37]:

So take, for example, executive search. I spoke to one debater from an executive search firm who told me he does CFO placement for Fortune 500 companies. It says my goal is when I'm called in, because I know all the other four big search firms are being called in as well, is to come in and tell the client they're thinking about it all wrong, like, to blow up their conception of what they need. And I asked, so how does that work out for you? And he said, well, I I get kicked out about 90% of the time, but 10% of the time I win. And when I win, the client tells me I help them think outside the box. Now what's interesting about this is this, I think listeners know, that debater, is very similar to the challenger in many respects. And what it told us, I'm tipping my middle of it to the results. Debaters don't do very well in professional services.

Matt Dixon [00:18:23]:

They've been largely weeded out of this, this world of professional services. But what it told me is that it's okay to to really push your client and to challenge them and be a debater when you're selling a product. But when you are the product, it's a little bit of a different, ballgame. And I think it's it becomes a tough posture to adopt with the client. Clients are very clear. I want my partners to push my thinking. But if every time I sit down with them, they're telling me I'm doing it wrong, I'm going about this the wrong way, I just don't have time or patience for that. It's a relationship that I'm buying ultimately, and I need to like the person I'm working with.

Matt Dixon [00:18:56]:

And then the the last one is the realist. The realist is kind of the, the truthful transparent partner, which sounds great, but it comes across the clients as a little bit glass half empty. So, they're all about telling the part the client that things are gonna cost more than they expect. They're gonna take longer than they expect, and the outcomes are gonna be less than they expect. So and the reason they do this, you find a lot of these folks in management consulting actually, but the reason they do this is that they know that every client has been burned in the past by a consultant who's overpromised and underdelivered, and so they try to do the exact opposite. And again, they don't do particularly well either. So tipping my mitts of the results here. But, what I think what clients tell us is, look, I appreciate the transparency, but I also want my partners that I work with and I hire to paint the art of the possible.

Matt Dixon [00:19:43]:

What could we accomplish together, not just what can't be done, through this work. So those are the five types. We always caution partners that these are not mutually exclusive. Every partner has a combination of these five. And also it's not about personality, even though I think at some level it sounds like it. But we focus on the things that partners, how they spend their time, the things that they do out in the field, their behaviors, techniques, tactics with clients, and, also how they use, or don't use, as it were, a firm resources, whether it's technology resources, marketing, and BD support, etcetera.

Alex Abbott [00:20:19]:

Yeah. So given the, that's great. Thank you, Matt. So give so given, the traditional client loyalty is is fading, is the conclusion that the professional services firms need to empower or enable, more of an activator approach across

Matt Dixon [00:20:40]:

the So when we looked at the the data and we overlaid these five profiles with performance, we found, two interesting things. The first is if you look at this retrospectively so in other words, if you look at historically how these different partners have performed, what you find is, that there are basically five ways to be a top performer, but they're not all created equal. So where you've got the greatest probability of being a high performer is the activator approach. So in layperson's terms, if you put the took all the firm's partners and you you identified them, in terms of profile and you put all the activators' names in a hat, you picked one out at random, you'd be much more likely to pick up the name of a top ring maker or an above average performer than finding, a below average activator. That calculus kind of flips, especially with, confidants, experts, and, debaters. Those three profiles are actually more likely to be a low performer than a high performer picking one of those three approaches. But I think the point remains, and you you hear partners say this, that they can identify top ring maker to fall into all five. And we say, look, the data backs that up.

Matt Dixon [00:21:46]:

Again, you can be a top performer. Your likelihood of being one, though, is not equal. A different analysis we did was a regression. Regression is a predictive analysis, of course. So we looked at what would happen if you took the average performing partner and they improve their performance on each of the the skills and behaviors, time spent characteristics associated with each of the five. And what you find is that four of those, are negatively correlated with performance. And only one, the Activator approach, has a positive statistical correlation with performance. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you go from not very good to very good on Activator, you can increase your personal revenue generation by up to 32%, which is a big number, of course.

Matt Dixon [00:22:26]:

But more to the point. So the I think the question is, you know, how does Activator the Activators win? That the data shows that very clearly. I think there's, like, a a double click here, which is why do they win, and does it have to do with this new world of client buying behavior we find ourselves in? And I think you're spot on there, is that it does. So activators, we find, do three things. The first thing they do is they've got a commitment to business development. So, again, these are people whose for whom sales is not their full time job. And if partners don't want to sell, all the other remaining work, client delivery, firm initiatives, will expand to fit the time. Right? So but activators have a a cadence and a routine around business development, which makes them actually look in many respects like a b two b salesperson.

Matt Dixon [00:23:13]:

They are building pipeline. They are following up on opportunities. They are constantly working that commercial side of their portfolio, if you will, in addition to delivering client work. The second thing is, that activators, connect broadly and deeply. They build these really robust networks. They also do that inside their own firms. As we said, they're big collaborators inside the firm. They wanna bring in more colleagues, more practice groups so they can establish more points of connection with the client.

Matt Dixon [00:23:40]:

And then lastly, they're proactive. They don't wait for the phone to ring. They bring the idea to the client. So just if you think about this world of frame client loyalty, committing to business development makes a lot of sense because it's a very dangerous game to bank on that small handful of clients like a confidant and and expect them to keep coming back to you. Because what happens when one of them just suddenly goes to a competitor? Well, if you haven't invested time building your pipeline and building a more robust and, I guess, deeper book of business, then you're kind of exposed. If you think about, collaborating as we talked about before, activists are really trying to establish more points of connection so that it becomes harder for the client to pull up the 10 stakes and go with the competitor. And then this idea of proactively bringing ideas to clients really works in a world where clients, they wanna drive that that, that work through an RFP process. Right? They wanna force you to compete on price.

Matt Dixon [00:24:33]:

And what activators do is they get ahead of that by creating the need with the client, and shaping the client's understanding of the need in a way that ideally, they're seen as the only professional who can help the client achieve the outcomes. They just taught the client. We're even there for the taking. So, again, it is very much I I think if we've done this research twenty years ago, we wouldn't have found the same thing. In a world where clients come back to their partners over and over again, where that was the default posture, I think an expert approach or a confidant approach probably would have been the winning approach. But I think in this new world of much more competitive, market of of clients who are buying in a much more formal way using RFPs and procurement is starting to get into soft spend in a way that they've never done in the past. It really does, call for more of an activator approach as a winning model, in this new world of client buying behavior.

Rob Durant [00:25:26]:

At the tactical level, do you see any commonality between, behaviors of activators? What do they do that makes them so successful?

Matt Dixon [00:25:35]:

Yeah. So there's there's a lot. I mean, when we get into we built a an entire in the book, we talk about the activator model. And what we find is at the highest level, you've got those three kind of pillars of the impression, three meta behaviors. Committing to business development, connecting broadly and deeply, and then creating value proactively and at a personal level for your client. But underneath that, there's a lot of stuff going on. So we identified three mindsets that activators share. So just the way they think about business development, the way they think about client needs, and the way they think about the value they can deliver to clients.

Matt Dixon [00:26:09]:

We found six distinct workflows and habits that they exhibit on a day to day basis. And then what was so interesting is when you get down to it and you really dig into what activators are doing, they really seek to differentiate their approach in what they what I would call pivot points in the client relationship. So they know there are certain moments in the client relationship that just matter more than others. Whether it's how we first get engaged and when I first propose, a pain relationship or how I deal with a setback or a fee negotiation. Like, these are these are bigger moments in the client's mind that drive a lot of how they'll feel about you moving forward. And actives really seek to differentiate themselves in those moments. So, yeah, there's a lot more to it, or underpinning those those three c's of committing, connecting, and creating when you get down to kind of the day to day habits, workflows, how they comport themselves in client interactions, etcetera.

Alex Abbott [00:27:07]:

So one of, you know, one of the biggest challenges is time when we think about business development, whether there are professional services, professional, or even an account executive that is running running a sale. But, you know, how how do activators what is it that causes them to find the time, create the time to do to do what Yeah.

Matt Dixon [00:27:33]:

I so I think what, I think a lot of the science around habit formation, you see activators exhibiting this even though they they've not read, you know, James Clear's book or, or Charles Duhigg's book. They're not really familiar with this stuff, but it's actually what they're doing. It's a really important point. But when you talk to activators, they're most of them will tell you, I was not born to do this. Like, I wasn't I didn't come out of the womb with a gift for sales. They had to learn how to do this. And and many for many of them, they weren't really comfortable with it, but they kind of got better at it by building these small habits into their daily routine. So, you know, we had a lot of partners tell us, you know, when they're describing how they got started.

Matt Dixon [00:28:11]:

And these are some top rainmakers and some of the biggest firms in the world. And many of them said, you know, it started with, you know, fifteen minutes of, of checking my updates in my LinkedIn network and connecting with the people I care about in the firms that I'm trying to get into and commenting and seeing what they're posting on and commenting about and just investing that fifteen minutes. Usually, turns out, like, on a Sunday night or early Monday morning so that I kind of form up this BD game plan, and then I'm doing it in these little pockets of time. But the other thing that's really interesting about Activators is when you ask them how much time they spend on business development, the numbers are kind of unbelievable. I when I share this data with partners, I did this just recently at a law firm, and it was a group of brand new partners, from it's a very big law firm, like an Amlod one hundred firm. And it was a a new partner class. And I was presenting some of this research, and somebody asked me, well, how much time do Activators spend on business development? And the number I gave them, it's, like, 39 or 40% of the time. And they immediately like, jaws hit the table.

Matt Dixon [00:29:09]:

And somebody said, well, how do they hit their billable hour requirement from the firm? Because we've got a bill as partners, like, two thousand hours of client work a year. How am I gonna hit that and also spend 40%? Like, there aren't enough hours in the day. Do they not sleep? What's so interesting about this is when you dig into the the time spent data so as in professional services firms, partners, track their time. So they use software to track their time because those are that drives the invoice and it goes out to clients. Right? And and how do we build for time and materials on different client engagements and projects. But when you look at how the much they actually spend in business development, it doesn't really map to what they say. But when you dig into this, what they what you start to realize is they see client delivery as itself an opportunity to do business development. So so I might have tagged it in the system as a a delivery moment with a client, but I'm using that to surface new opportunities for us to engage with these clients, client, other needs, things we can work on after this engagement is over, ways to deepen the relationship.

Matt Dixon [00:30:09]:

And so in their mind, they're spending, like, half of their time on business development. But in point of fact, it's actually not half their time. It's overlapping, if you will, with their delivery time. In fact, there was a partner, we interviewed as part of this research. We asked her how much time she spends, definitely an activator, how much time she spends on her business development, and she said a hundred percent, which she was tongue in cheek. Right? But what she meant is every moment is about deepening the relationship with the client.

Alex Abbott [00:30:36]:

Yeah. So so we know activators don't just rely on their on the firm that they're working with to to generate leads for them. They're leveraging their personal networks that they're creating all of the time. What are some perhaps additional best practices, that came out of this research that I found?

Matt Dixon [00:30:56]:

I'll I'll tell you. I'll share with you just a a little bit more of the research. This is pretty fascinating stuff, and then a tactical thing I tell whenever I speak at partner retreats, the thing I tell them to go do right away, which I think for most salespeople might be like old hat. But for partners, it's shocking. So first, the research. So, viewers might be familiar with a guy named, Robin Dunbar. He's famous for, he's a primate anthropologist from Oxford. And I see Rob's spot, it's Rob Rob knows Dunbar.

Matt Dixon [00:31:23]:

But, he, he's famous for The number of relationships she's got. Right. Here you go. Yeah. So Dunbar is famous for what's called the Dunbar number. And the Dunbar number, based on I won't go into how he did the research, but it's now been validated across dozens and dozens of academic studies that really people can manage about a 50 relationships. And so that runs from the inner rings of, like, family, right, very close, relationships to good friends, to acquaintances, etcetera, and eventually get to a 50. Dumb or the shorthand version of this is think about the number of people that if you met them, you ran into them on the street, you wouldn't feel awkward in the least suggesting they hop into the pub for a drink or go grab, a bike for lunch.

Matt Dixon [00:32:07]:

It wouldn't be an awkward request. And when people look at it, it is about 150. It varies a little bit. Women turns out to have more than men. Extroverts have slightly more than introverts, but it's around a 50. So we actually were very curious whether this mapped to how partners, top performing partners, manage their professional networks, and we actually found the same exact thing. So we actually use data from, a pro a software company called Intap, and we scrape the data out of their system, and then we looked at how partners spend their time. And it turns out, that they manage about a 50 relationships.

Matt Dixon [00:32:43]:

Now in the very, very close inner circles, they've got those clients who they're texting on, like, a Saturday. Right? And then it gets farther out and there's you get to the farthest ring. It's those acquaintances who I've kind of worked with on some client projects. Certainly wouldn't feel awkward in the least reaching out to them or introducing a colleague to them. But then when you get beyond that, that's like the rest of my LinkedIn network. And there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of those people, but they're not quite in those inner rings. What you find from activators is that they they kind of again, they're not familiar generally with the Dunbar number. They don't know that they're doing this, but they also know their time and their attention is limited.

Matt Dixon [00:33:20]:

And so what you find is that they're kind of ruthless when it comes to moving people up and down in their network. They will identify people who have the potential to be like those inner circle, really deep client relationships and work hard to move them into that inner circle. And by the same token, they're always looking for client reciprocity. So who are those clients where you're thinking, they're kind of in that second or third ring. They're in my one fifty. I think we've got a deep relationship, but they're not really responding to me. Right? And I might be kind of stuck in the friend zone. Right? I can't get them into a deeper commercial relationship.

Matt Dixon [00:33:54]:

Well, that might be a client you wanna deprioritize and make room for somebody else. The the piece of advice I give, partners all the time and again, the the average salesperson is gonna be like, of course. But think about this. This is these are people who for whom sales is they've kind of an got an allergy to sales. Right? They they're not comfortable with it, and they're always afraid of crossing the line with their client. So what I always tell partners is, here's one way you can you can more actively manage your network. Look in your calendar, and I want you to send a personal LinkedIn invitation to every single client that you've got an upcoming meeting with, whether it's a pitch meeting, it's a delivery meeting, it's a call about an invoice the client wants to dispute, whatever it is. I want you to send an invoice to that client with a personal note.

Matt Dixon [00:34:40]:

And and clients are like, oh, hold on a second. Or, sorry, partners are like, hold on a second. I my client doesn't want that kind of relationship with us. And we always say, no. They absolutely do. In fact, they expect it. And here's really why you should do it, is once you're connected with them, then as you guys know very well, you're training the algorithm to now surface and feed you things that that client likes, that they comment on, that they post. And you're in the flow of information.

Matt Dixon [00:35:04]:

And look, I don't wanna open the debate about whether LinkedIn is becoming like Facebook, but people post personal stuff on there too. So now we have this really deep understanding of our clients, not just about work, but about issues that they're passionate about, challenges, causes they might be, passionate about, etcetera, things they're dealing with outside of work perhaps. And here's the real reason to do it, is that if you don't do it and your competitor does do it, then they're in the flow of this information and you're not. And every single partner out there can can, retell a story where they lost a piece of work to a client that they didn't even know was up for grabs. Because they're waiting for the client to come to them. And meanwhile, some other enterprising partner at a competitor firm connected with them on LinkedIn, offered something of value, created a conversation, and the client went with them. And when those partners reach out to their clients and say, hey. Hang on a second.

Matt Dixon [00:35:55]:

We we do this work too. The clients are are completely surprised. So we had no idea. You know, I didn't do this to offend you or that you've done anything wrong. I just didn't even think of you guys. Right? And that happens all the time. Yeah.

Alex Abbott [00:36:07]:

It it's funny that those two words, social selling, have such negative connotations in the in the world of professional services, you know, from ex my own experience speaking to, you know, senior executives who are running professional services businesses, saying things like, oh, no. Our our ticket price is is is is very high. We're we're we're an enterprise sales. We, you know, we we can't do you know, social selling isn't for us. And so, yes, we need to change the language for them, but it absolutely is Yep. For them.

Matt Dixon [00:36:45]:

Yeah. It it it is. It it's, the language, you're right, probably needs to be changed. But we spend a lot of time talking to partners about, using technology. So, again, we spend a lot of time talking about how to make strategic use of live events as well. But we we spend a lot of times, talking about using technology to manage a network that can get unwieldy, and it can be hard to stay on top of it. And and if you will, again, take away that that sort of pejorative connotation, but it's more more about using technology as an ally to really stay plugged in and close and tight with these these clients to understand when they're changing jobs. Right? To understand when certain events have happened.

Matt Dixon [00:37:27]:

Their company acquired a company. And as we all know, we tell salespeople this all the time, when somebody takes a new job, when when something big and transformative has happened, those clients will spend most of their budget within, like, a hundred days. Right? So they line up their service providers, their vendors, and they go. And so these are tremendous opportunities to plug in and engage with the, with client. One one thing I'll I'll offer, and this is, another piece of advice I give folks is and and it helps them, I think, with this idea of, like, I don't wanna be seen as a social salesperson. Because when clients take new jobs, think about, like, the lawyers whenever somebody moves from, you know, general counsel of one company to general counsel of another, all of the law firms reach out, and they all wanna check-in. And clients hate that because they're like, this is just these are just people trolling for work. Right? And so instead, what activators try to do is deliver a personal value in those moments.

Matt Dixon [00:38:19]:

So, Alex, I saw you just landed this GC job, in in this industrial firm. You're coming from a technology firm. This is an area where we've got a lot of depth, and I'd love to make some introductions as you build out your network in this space. Maybe just folks for you to get to know, bounce some ideas off of them in terms of how they manage legal risk and compliance in industrial as opposed to other sectors. I know it can be hard switching industries, and so I'd love to offer that to you. Or, you know, even very simply, hey, Alex. Or or, Rob, I saw you just moved to, just moved to Boston. Of course, Rob Rob didn't.

Matt Dixon [00:38:54]:

He's been in Boston for a while. But, Rob, Rob, I saw you just moved from Boston to from, from London. And, I know what it can be like moving to a new city. We've got a big office there, and and if for no other reason than to compare notes on things to do on the weekends and things to do with kids and great restaurants in in town, let me make a couple introductions for you. And it's just that thinking of your client like a person, which often is it creates the stickiest relationship even beyond the business value that you can deliver as a partner.

Rob Durant [00:39:22]:

Matt, I smiled when you talked about the Dunbar number because in my own book, I coined the term Dunbar network.

Matt Dixon [00:39:28]:

Mhmm.

Rob Durant [00:39:28]:

And that's being more intentional about that outer ring. Yeah. Yes. We have a 50, but at any given time in our lives, different people come and different people go.

Matt Dixon [00:39:38]:

That's right. Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:39:39]:

And it's about being intentional about that.

Matt Dixon [00:39:42]:

Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:39:43]:

So along those same lines, and to put a a a finer point on what we're talking about, how does the activator model apply to sales professionals outside of professional services?

Matt Dixon [00:39:57]:

Yeah. It's a it's such a great question. I I had, somebody who said to me, a good friend, CRO who's, you're just a phenomenally talented b to b salesperson, and sales leader. And he was one of the folks who saw this work, first. And he said to me again, leading a b to b sales team, not a professional services team. But he said to me, I think this is just what great salespeople do, and I think it's gonna increasingly be the norm for sellers irrespective of, whether they're in professional services or not. And I asked him what he meant, and he said, I think we live in a world where you know, the old adage, we all know in sales, people sell to people. Right? But I think increasingly, people are seeking to give preference or buy from people, not just that they recognize as people, but people they trust, and people they've got relationships with.

Matt Dixon [00:40:50]:

Right? Think about when your companies are going to hire a vendor, how much more likely you are to to, seek out the help from a vendor that one of your somebody in your network recommended, right, or you've got a personal relationship with. And I think that might just be a function of the world we live in today. Misinformation, lack of trust in institutions, and in companies. And, truthfully, like, let's be honest, I think people have been overthrown for a very long time with promises, where maybe, vendors confuse the current tense and the future tense in describing what their platforms could do. And, you know, there's been a great reckoning, especially looking at, like, SaaS technologies over the last couple of years where people bought things on a promise and these things never got used, and the value was never extracted from the investment. And so I think increasingly, we're seeing the great that great salespeople are doing this Activator thing even if they're not in professional services. Now, of course, there are some things that make professional services different, the the biggest of which is that these are not people who chose to be salespeople. These are people who were given a bag once they made partner and told that they are now a salesperson.

Matt Dixon [00:41:59]:

Right? And so it's a very different mindset. And it also to Alex's point before finding the time is just harder. Sales is your full time job, and we always talk about this in b two b sales, don't we? How do we free up salesperson time so they can spend more time with customers, so so they can be more in the market? So we get them not doing the admin stuff and the the company initiative stuff. We want them out in the field. That's even more true for partners because they've gotta deliver the work that they sell to the client. So time is really, really hard to come by for, for the average partner. But other than that, I think if you looked at this model and you compared it, for instance, with what the best strategic account managers do or the global account advisers, there's probably not a lot of difference between what those guys are doing, the conversations they're having versus a top performing McKinsey partner or a Lloyd partner or a law firm, partner. And and again, it's that ability to understand client value, to to be seen as a source of value.

Matt Dixon [00:42:59]:

Your clients always be investing and be proactive with your clients. Then I'll I'll share with you guys one last thought, which is the most, predictive single variable in the model, and this is really fascinating, was when the partner's response to the following statement, my clients think of me even when we're not engaged in paid work. So in other words, I have the kind of relationship with a client where they will text me on a Saturday or Sunday or whenever and ask for my point of view and ask for my opinion because we've got that kind of depth of value exchange between us. They're not expecting an invoice for that. They just see me as a source of value. Those when when client when partners say, yes. I have that kind of relationship with my clients, though that's highly correlated with revenue generation and being a top rainmaker in their firm. It's when partners adopt the mindset that I won't have a a conversation with a client unless I'm billing for it, that they end up on the lower end of the performance scale.

Matt Dixon [00:43:55]:

As one partner told us, my billable work pays my bonus this year. It's my unpaid work and the free advice I offer that pays my bonus next year, when I book my book.

Alex Abbott [00:44:07]:

Nice. Nice. Matt, now where where can where can our audience find out more about the the Activator Advantage, and where can we find

Matt Dixon [00:44:15]:

the book? So, check us out at our company's website, dcminsights.com. We've got a whole page on there actually dedicated to the book. It's got, some early content. It's got some upcoming information about the release. We'll be updating this as we get closer to the launch date where we'll be, where we present the content, how to place bulk orders, where it's for sale, for preorder now. But it's all the usual all the usual spots. I would say the the local bookstore, but I don't think the local bookstore is like Amazon these days. Right? Or Barnes and Noble and all the places that, all the places that create books or something.

Matt Dixon [00:44:49]:

So

Alex Abbott [00:44:51]:

Yeah. Brilliant. Matt, this has been excellent. Thank you so much for, Yes. Thank you

Matt Dixon [00:44:56]:

so much.

Alex Abbott [00:44:57]:

With us again. Yeah. And for doing so much for for the sales industry. Keep keep on doing the great work.

Matt Dixon [00:45:03]:

Thank you, guys. So I look forward to, joining you again soon, and I appreciate the invite.

Rob Durant [00:45:08]:

Excellent.

Alex Abbott [00:45:09]:

Yeah. Until next time. Have a great week, all.

Matt Dixon [00:45:12]:

Bye bye. Bye bye.

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