Many startups experience early success with Founder-led sales, but scaling beyond that point requires a new approach. In this episode of SalesTV.live, Elizabeth Andrew, a 5x Sales Leader and Fractional CRO, will discuss how businesses can successfully transition from Founder-led sales to scalable, high-performing sales teams.

In this episode, we’ll ask:

* What are the signs that a business needs to transition away from Founder-led sales?

* How can Founders hand over sales responsibilities without losing the company’s vision?

* What strategies should be in place to ensure a seamless transition to a professional sales team?

* How can businesses build a scalable sales structure that maintains momentum and accelerates growth?

Elizabeth has guided multiple companies through this pivotal transition, scaling organizations from $0 to $100M ARR. Her experience in building high-growth sales teams while keeping the founder’s vision intact will provide valuable insights for any startup looking to grow beyond its initial success.

This week's Guest was -

• Elizabeth Andrew, 5x Sales Leader and Fractional CRO

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results

Transcript of SalesTV.live Mid-Day Edition 2024-09-18

Rob Durant [00:00:02]:

Good morning, good afternoon, and good day wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of Sales TV live. Today, we're learning why relationship selling beats closing tactics every time. We're joined by Jason Cooper. Jason is an award winning sales trainer and relationship coach With over 25 years experience coaching global sales teams, Jason specializes in helping sales professionals shift their focus from short term gains to building meaningful client relationships that drive consistent performance and success. Jason, welcome.

Jason Cooper [00:00:48]:

Hey, Rob. Good to see you and really appreciate you inviting me here today. I'm in the afternoon. I'm probably in the future because I'm based in Dublin, Ireland and you're in the past. So all that

Rob Durant [00:01:02]:

information I

Jason Cooper [00:01:03]:

say No.

Rob Durant [00:01:03]:

No. I think you've got that reversed. I'm in the future.

Jason Cooper [00:01:07]:

Are you in the future? Are you sure, Rob? I think

Rob Durant [00:01:10]:

I'm not sure of anything these days.

Jason Cooper [00:01:12]:

I'm a bit confused today.

Rob Durant [00:01:14]:

Jason, 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.

Jason Cooper [00:01:23]:

Yeah. Jason Cooper. I'm based in Dublin, Ireland. But as you can probably tell from my accent, I'm an Englishman. So I've been over here for about 20 years. And over that time, I've done some phenomenal things. But even before that, I got to selling I've got to in in the in the nineties, and I started out my career selling, digital photocopiers of all sorts of things. So, the training there wasn't the best at that time, which always stuck in the back of my mind is how can I improve on that? So moved out to Ireland, found an Irish woman, settled here, and co founded 2 startups.

Jason Cooper [00:02:12]:

1 in the fashion business with huge amount of investment from a private company. They're pretty big in Europe, but so they invested in in us, my cofounder, and also run another startup as well. But fast forward, like, I've worked as a sales director. I've worked as a cofounder. I've worked in sales for a number of years, over 25 years and about 10 years ago, I had a little bit thing going on in my head. I need to change. I need something. My, maybe it's a midlife crisis.

Jason Cooper [00:02:47]:

I don't know what was going on, but I needed to make a difference. Always being curious about human behavior. Always being curious about people and communication skills and being effective and making a difference. So I studied a lot, did a lot of train the trainer and became a coach and certified trainer and all of that sort of stuff. But learning was still key to what I wanted. And, as you could probably tell from my books behind me, I'm an avid learner. I'm always investing into myself. So about 10 years ago, I I started to train people, to be a little bit more effective of what they do.

Jason Cooper [00:03:28]:

I've had a few incarnations, since, in what I'm doing because that's growth and that's change. I've failed 100 of times. And as Marshall Goldsmith always says, you fell forward. So keep falling failing forward until you learn an effective feedback to yourself. Go, well, what can I do? How can I pivot? And how can I change? So when I say I'm the sales relationship coach, that's my tagline. But now I'm actually looking at high performance within that. And when I say high performance, I want people to perform at their best potential. And it's down for me as a facilitator trainer and coach because I coach a lot of people, is I want to make sure that your intrinsic motivations are in line with what you want and where your purpose actually might be.

Jason Cooper [00:04:24]:

So we look at lots of different areas of human development and behavior analysis and lots of other things based around your selling, your sales skills, but also your mind, your mindset, and the the behavior in your body language. So as you build those effective relationships going forward, all of these things come in line and in congruence with what you do. So that was a long answer to a very short question. Never ask me a short question because you know you're gonna get a long winded answer from me.

Rob Durant [00:05:04]:

Alright. So let's try this then.

Jason Cooper [00:05:06]:

Yeah.

Rob Durant [00:05:07]:

Let's jump right into it and, address the the biggest question I wanted to ask you today. Why is relationship building more important than focusing on the close?

Jason Cooper [00:05:22]:

Well, let's have a look at that because when we start to look at a pyramid as such, you have things like being a vendor. Do you wanna be a vendor? Do you wanna be amongst everyone else, because they call you up, but they might call 2 or 3 other people up or if you're pitching for something. Where you would like to be and where you want to be is that trusted adviser at the top of it, at the top of the pyramid. So a trusted adviser is where you work with your clients or your clients actually come to you when you actually have any challenges or any issues that they want you to help them to control. But in order for that to happen, you need to build effective relationships with your clients. I'm not saying that you need to go down the pub with them or to bar with them and wine and dine and all that sort of stuff. No. You just got to look into their shoes.

Jason Cooper [00:06:23]:

Be empathetic to freely understand from everyone's point of view and especially their point of view. Because at the end of the day, it's not about you. You've got a brand. You you you're a trainer, your coach, you got your your your products, your services, or whatever that you have, great. Obviously, there's a initial connection there, a bit of curiosity, but everything is from the standpoint of the other person. And in order to be at that trusted adviser, you really need to resonate with them. You really need to connect to them at that emotional level. And in order for that to happen, certain things need to be built onto that area of trust, credibility, obviously, likability.

Jason Cooper [00:07:08]:

You don't again, you don't wanna be their best mates and all of that, but there's certain amount of likability in there. Knowledge, expertise, the Robert Chowdinger's law laws of influence. So authority, which basically means you are knowledgeable about what you do. You're an expert in your field. You know your stuff really well, which builds up that credibility in the other person. But you have to really ask them lots of questions. You should be doing less talking and they should be doing a lot more talking than you. And you need to be open and curious.

Jason Cooper [00:07:43]:

I know you're smiling about that because I know that's a fundamental thing about that. But in order for that to happen, we know what we do in relationship and also to build up. It takes around about 4 seconds for us to connect with the other person or might be slightly less. What a lot of things are missing in a lot of these training courses and methodologies and all of that, especially when you're building that relationship is what we don't say. If, as an example, there's that 73855% rule, which basically nonverbal communication is about 55% of that. And basically what that means is you have to be completely congruent with your nonverbal communication to be effective at being likable, trustworthy, and have that immediate gut feeling, that connection with that person or persons depending on what they are. And I think that's imperative in everything that we do, whether you're relationship selling or whatever it might be. There's lots and other things that you might be able to get from that.

Jason Cooper [00:09:01]:

And I can see, within the chat, in b two b, you won't break through being a trusted adviser unless you can gain their trust and respect and immediate problem solved. You're absolutely right, and I totally agree with you. You can't go around and put your arm around them and be like that. You have to work really hard. It takes an awful lot amount of effort and time to be that pinnacle at the top of that pyramid to be that trusted adviser. There's lots of things I'm throwing out here because I'm extremely passionate about what I do. I'm extremely passionate about there's lots of elements within being that trusted adviser, but there's also lots of other things that you should be doing in order to build that knowledge, trust, authority, likability, consistency within the other person, and that takes time. It's not made overnight.

Jason Cooper [00:09:58]:

But, again, that 4 second rule, that instant thing. Whatever it might be, there's a direct correlation between us and the other person, whether there's that gut feel that we all get with someone or the other person that that might be, whatever that might be. But you have to make sure that you display that first off in an instant. And then it's how you speak and how passionate that you are and how and what your attitude is when you are in the room or on the phone or whatever it might be.

Rob Durant [00:10:36]:

So I wanna pick up on what you were saying, that knowledge, trust, likability, and so on, that relationship. First, I wanted to, acknowledge and thank Bob Britton for that comment. The, one related to b to b and and breaking through as a trusted adviser, and I encourage anyone else who's tuned in to join the conversation through the chat. Back to that relationship part.

Jason Cooper [00:11:02]:

Mhmm.

Rob Durant [00:11:03]:

How does relationship driven selling improve long term business results? I need to close now. I need to hit my quarterly goal. I don't understand why it's so important to build the relationship when I really just need to build the sale.

Jason Cooper [00:11:25]:

Yep. And we've got all of that pressure and built up by lots of cortisol in the brain, and our bosses are telling us to close the cell, close the cell, close the cell. Do you wanna close a good cell or bad cell? Do you want to do a a quick cell? And then maybe you haven't asked all of the right questions along a process that you've designed and developed and not get it right. For me, I think building up what it might look like to have that relationship for the 1st year, the 2nd year, and the 3rd year to continually build up upon that because making sure that you have the right narrative behind the stories that you tell the other person about maybe other conversations that you might have had with their, previous companies that you've worked with. So I just don't believe, like I've I've worked in short sales cycle and it does depend on the client. So if we are looking at b to b and we are looking at the big corporates, there is a lot of, work needed to be done with the influencers, the the sole decision maker, but the people actually might be using and utilizing your technology. To make sure that there's a buying decision all the way through and making sure that everyone is in line. So building just one relationship is good, but you might need to do multifactor relationships with people.

Jason Cooper [00:13:25]:

And I always believe that if you make sure that you get the sale right in the first place by building that relationship, stronger referrals and testimonials, and referrals to other clients and businesses might be essential for you. But once you've actually built that trust and once you've actually practiced what you preach and once you've actually delivered that and once you go beyond the sale, and what I mean by going beyond that is once you've actually sold it and they bought it into the process, then they sell themselves rather than you closing it. Obviously, you do your pre closes and everything else inverted. But the most cleverest way is for them to think of the idea and them to buy into the process as opposed to you selling it or should I say advising.

Rob Durant [00:14:21]:

So relationship driven selling leads to all of those things that you're talking about, referrals, etcetera. I'm convinced. Now my question is, how can one develop deeper and more trusting client relationships? How do you coach people through that?

Jason Cooper [00:14:45]:

How can you develop that? Well, there's loads of different things that you possibly can do is be a people person. Like, there's no gimmicks. There's no ways and means is high performance and relationships is a communication. It is essential. Where's our where's our emotional intelligence here? Can you pivot? Can you have critical thinking? Can you talk to that other person like they are a person as opposed to a number or whatever you might wanna con consider? So pretence just practicing just being a person, practicing that they are another person. You're not hiding behind that email. Like, the some of the generation now are just hiding without picking up that phone and having that conversation with people. Some things that you can do is just practice your body language, practice your tone, practice how you communicate.

Jason Cooper [00:15:56]:

As Gary Player always says, the more I practice, the luckier I get. And that is so true to what we do. If you don't practice, you're not gonna get any good at what you do. And ironically enough, I was running a workshop this morning and I give out, a learning journal. And what I mean by learning journal because I want them to write down, reflect on what they've learned today and I want them to practice. I don't I'm not there to look over them at it. But once you engage with pen to paper, you're more likely to learn. And then it's down to that intrinsic motivation that they might have because they want to learn.

Jason Cooper [00:16:37]:

They want to grow. They wanna get better at what they do. But without that, they have to have that self determination to want to achieve. You want to connect better with the other person. And then in order for that to happen, who can you practice with? You can practice with your peers. You can practice with your sales coach or your coach. And I'm just looking at sellers need to be naturally curious. Absolutely.

Jason Cooper [00:17:08]:

And that can also help with even practicing questioning. Record yourself. Listen to how you sound. If you sound good, excellent. And also it's the stories that we tell ourselves to be more confident on how we control our thoughts. Because our controls, our thoughts even can tell it's a long day for me. I've been very busy today and, tripping over my words. But what we say to ourselves is incredibly imperative to what actually comes out of our mind and out of our mouths.

Jason Cooper [00:17:48]:

So whatever I say, like, this is quite a cheesy cliche. If you believe you can or if you believe you can't, then you're right. And what I always suggest to people is whether you believe in affirmations, whether you believe in something else like that is how you talk to yourself. Whether it's positive or negative, what's gonna come out of your mouth is their answer. Because you have to make sure that whenever you do speak, it's controlled and it's utilized in positive language or linguistic language that resonates with other people. But again, it's not easy if you don't practice. If you're winging it every day and you're thinking that I'm just gonna flow through life and it's gonna be easy, it's not because you have to work hard at it. But then you have to work hard on lots of different elements.

Jason Cooper [00:18:46]:

And as you're doing right now, I think one of the biggest things that we can all practice, I mean really practice, is that muscle which is here on our head and is listening. If you're too eager to throw lots of questions out, which is great, and I think that's found just shut up and be quiet and really empathetically listen. I was very close to swearing and I didn't swear. It's to shut the hell up. Be quiet because we speak in our head, 800 words per minute and we talk in 200 words. Some people talk a lot more than 200 words. I mean, at the moment, I'm talking about 400 words per minute. But in my head, I'm talking and you're talking and everyone else is talking in about 800 words per minute.

Jason Cooper [00:19:44]:

So if someone's speaking at 200 words per minute, we have to listen. I have to really listen to what they're saying.

Rob Durant [00:19:54]:

Absolutely.

Jason Cooper [00:19:54]:

And that's one of another powerful skill that we can all continue to learn because like me, I get tinnitus. So what tinnitus is is that high whistling. I have to really focus on what someone is actually saying because words have power and meaning, but if you want to really resonate with that and that is hugely important in building up those respectful relationships with people.

Rob Durant [00:20:27]:

So we've talked about relationship building and how to go about that. What are the most common mistakes salespeople make when trying to build long term relationships?

Jason Cooper [00:20:42]:

Sometimes you need space, not get too eager to want to build and to be congruent with wanting to actually build that relationship as opposed to using those people as a number and a pressure on you. If you are to build an effective relationship, relax. Relax the hell out. If you're too intense, the analogy is probably way back in the day when we were single and free and we're looking for a girlfriend as an example. People can tell or if you were looking, for your girlfriend, wife, or whatever, but people can see desperation in you. And the analogy is if you're desperate and you're trying to buy a girl a drink or whatever it might be, they can just instantly see it in your eyes. So relax the hell out. Only a conversation.

Jason Cooper [00:21:46]:

It's the bigger picture that you make in your head, which, can actually turn into that procrastination, but that can then turn into that jitters that you might get. So you have to learn to control yourself, especially if you want to be more effective what what it is. And I'll give you an example. My wife bought a car recently and she went to this showroom out of, somewhere and she knew what she wanted. And the salesperson was really eager, overly eager to bombard her with emails, bombard her with phone calls, bombard her with everything else. And she just went, I've got this funny feeling about this person. And again, something to do with the body language, something to do with the tone, something to do with something else what was going on just wasn't quite right. And she went somewhere else and the person actually listened.

Jason Cooper [00:22:45]:

The person was actually genuine. The person's genuinely into what she wanted. And after driving it and all of that, I went along and I shut up. Made a little mistake when he came in, and I'm probably diverged from the question. But he's he went like that to shake my hand first, then he went, oh, shit. And he went over to my wife and shook her hand first, and I just stayed out of it. But I was looking for something else. But he she actually liked him.

Jason Cooper [00:23:17]:

And the point of the story is he left her alone. He wasn't pressuring her. He wasn't doing anything else like that. So there is a balance there, and there is a bit of time because I always like to say there is 12 points touch points along the way. And that does include the initial conversation, the emails, the text message, the WhatsApp, or whatever. There's there's touch points along the way. But don't be too focused on the sale, but focused on the person because that speaks volumes in people wanting to buy from you as opposed to being sold to.

Rob Durant [00:24:03]:

Right. People buy from people they like. People buy from people they know, like, and trust.

Jason Cooper [00:24:09]:

It's that's exactly what's not even about sheet. Yeah. And it and it is so true. People like people they like trust and also connect with. Absolutely.

Rob Durant [00:24:21]:

Jason, this has been great. Just like that, our time is up.

Jason Cooper [00:24:26]:

Oh, no.

Rob Durant [00:24:27]:

How can people learn more, and where can they get in touch with you?

Jason Cooper [00:24:31]:

LinkedIn is my number one source. I'm active all the time. I'm posting all the time on LinkedIn. My thoughts, my ideas, based on decision making and all of the elements in around the sales process, high performance. They can find me on my website jasoncooper.i0. That is I o at the end, so remember to remember that. I'm not on Twitter anymore, so I've given that a miss. And Jason a Cooper on LinkedIn.

Jason Cooper [00:25:05]:

No. I mean, Instagram and, yeah. You can email me at jcooper@jasoncooper.iou. I'll be honored and humbled to have a conversation.

Rob Durant [00:25:20]:

Excellent. Thank you. 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.live and click on newsletter. This has been another edition of Sales TV Live. On behalf of the panelists and everyone here at Sales TV Live, To our guests and to our audience, thank you for being a part of today's conversation, and we'll see you next time.

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