Don't Give a Sh*t About Your Sales Process, Focus on Your Customer Behavior

W (00:03.021)
She's so nice, everyone who's with her is nice, otherwise you can't be with her. But it's still embarrassing. I know I sent you the playbook yesterday evening, is it something you're thinking about or does it feel okay? I thought you might be a podcaster, but it's great.

Mathias Härenstam (00:08.43)
Good answer, good answer.

Mathias Härenstam (00:19.246)
That feels okay. What do you put in OPEX?

W (00:26.785)
I mean, honestly, I put everything that has to do with growth and profitability. Some people talk very specifically about what they think of OPEX, like on Klarna, where they say that they implemented OPEX. While OPEX for me can be when you wrote Buying Journey, I was like, perfect, I think that's right.

Mathias Härenstam (00:29.454)
Mm-hmm. OK.

Mathias Härenstam (00:39.66)
Hmm?

Mathias Härenstam (00:43.899)
Mm. Dumbass.

W (00:48.818)
I will have a little monologue first and then I will ask which skit should I say about you and Salsonomics which is better for me to say than you say?

Mathias Härenstam (01:00.342)
And what do you think is the best thing to do, or the best result to achieve?

W (01:07.999)
eeeh eeeh, what you wish people would know and what you would like to shout about yourself

Mathias Härenstam (01:10.419)
Wait, Simon just came in. I have to disconnect. I'm sitting on his computer.

W (01:16.262)
I'll see you next time!

Mathias Härenstam (01:20.45)
Simon, your Airpods just arrived.

W (01:36.608)
I can still hear you, I don't hear anything else. Now I hear myself.

Mathias Härenstam (01:42.26)
Now we will take it back.

Mathias Härenstam (01:47.124)
Is it back now? Yes, good, perfect.

W (01:48.757)
Ja, vi hör dig.

W (01:54.121)
Well, shit is what you really want people to know about you and your but it gets fresher if I say it.

Mathias Härenstam (02:06.199)
A really cool thing we did was a collaboration. We started with 100 companies 3 years ago. On average we have increased turnover by 34% and 193% in profitability for the customers we have worked with for 12 months.

We do action that drives the result. I like that and I talk about it.

W (02:24.454)
Yeah, they had hooked.

W (02:31.445)
Now I'll see. So when you've been working for three years, you've done an investigation with 100 companies and on average you increased them.

Mathias Härenstam (02:37.986)
We work with only 100 companies. On average, those companies have increased by 34% in turnover and 193% in profitability during a period of 12 months. Then they started a collaboration with us.

W (02:50.709)
and

W (03:04.07)
And, okay, you who are listening to this know that I'm not very good at English. So if I'm going to say increased profitability, is it increased margins, or is it just so I say, like, increased profit? Increased profit sounds good.

Mathias Härenstam (03:17.339)
Increase profitability with 193%.

W (03:25.725)
The one who usually stares at the camera is me. If you pretend to be me, it's like, we'll have to change that. We'll change it, it's not that bad. But whatever, I'll just go with it.

Mathias Härenstam (03:32.473)
the

Mathias Härenstam (03:36.226)
And then, when it comes to sales economics, we can talk about helping to design our customer journey end to end. From customer's first thought until it becomes a brand ambassador.

Mathias Härenstam (04:06.214)
Sen vet jag inte om du ska ha någon skryt om mig. Det är jag sämst på.

W (04:06.601)
Okay, I...

W (04:13.353)
It was really fun. It was all possible. It speaks for itself. I am one of the top 50 best-recommended cell coaches in Sweden, but I think the other one beats that one, if I'm honest. I say that. I think that's a good one.

Mathias Härenstam (04:13.706)
I'm arguing with my customers.

Mathias Härenstam (04:29.449)
Hmm. And personally, I have been involved in the 10X project. I have done a six-year growth journey myself.

Mathias Härenstam (04:44.934)
So I've taken it to companies from 40 million to 450 million.

W (05:00.56)
I see, he had some screeds lying around and smacking it.

W (05:05.677)
Great, let's do that. And today's topic is the buying journey.

Mathias Härenstam (05:14.463)
I think it's clear that it's the B2B customer journey. It's so much when you think customer journey that some think B2C and talk about customer experience. It's really complex B2B customer journey. That's what it's about.

W (05:36.989)
I always think only about B2B, but that's because I only work with B2B distribution. And that doesn't mean that everyone else listening shouldn't apply themselves to others. But that's good.

Mathias Härenstam (05:46.327)
No. But what do you think when you think about customer journey? What are your thoughts? What do you see ahead of you?

W (05:53.177)
Oh, too many. You can put it on, I can pull it out. Because we have to start recording soon. But in short, it's that you are awake and you care. You really care about the customer value. And I think that's the only way to build a long-term... A company that grows in a good way. That's up to its employees. But... I don't understand companies that don't really care about that. Not just talking about it, but doing it for real.

W (06:22.375)
Okay, but is there anything else? Or are we ready to go?

Mathias Härenstam (06:27.323)
We try. Let's switch the brain over then to some English.

W (06:29.157)
Wonderful. Yeah, I'll try, I'll try. Okay, I'll start the monologue in one, two, three. Yes.

W (06:45.693)
like an athlete, now I'm ready. Okay, hi, and a warmly welcome to FeelingGrow. You have tuned into an OPEX podcast, Nyshtu into operational excellence. So this one is for you who want to increase your revenue and become more profitable. And I assure you this episode will be extra interesting. So this is a place for you who want to learn from humble people that are really experienced OPEX professional. So

Today's guest is a very humble yet as experienced person. He's equally passionate as me about the buying journey. Spoiler alert about today's topic. And your host is Nii Vilman. And one of the co-founders to VillexQ CPQ stands for configure price end quote. And we attract growth companies that really wanna work with their pricing as a growth strategy and to become profitable.

but now to the interesting stuff. Mattias Herrenstam, today's guest. He has his own experience of done the 10x growth journey, at least I am aspiring to do and longing to accomplish, and All Organic Growth. He is the co-founder and CEO of Salesonomics, a very impressive company that during three years time has worked with a lot of companies. And they have done a survey to see what kind of results.

do you achieve when working with sales economics? So 100 companies from the period of 12 months of starting working with sales economics have increased their turnover with plus 34%. And even more interesting, I think, they've increased their profitability with 193%. Is this really true, Mathias? Welcome here, you're finally here as a guest.

Mathias Härenstam (08:37.017)
Thank you. And nice to be here. And yes, those numbers are true.

And I think it's often you focus when you talk a lot about growth, you talk about like the overall turnover, but I think the interesting thing is what you do with the resources that you have. And therefore you can increase profitability in quite easy ways. And when you work with the thing that you mentioned, operational excellence in every detail of the customer journey.

W (09:08.889)
Really, it's a really pleasure to have you here, Mattias. I know that we have talked about it several times and then you didn't call me. You write to me at LinkedIn, I think. I was like, hi, shall we schedule? I was like, yay, great timing. So I'm really happy to have you in the show. I'm sorry for not being the one that forcing you into it. But.

Mathias Härenstam (09:23.502)
Hahaha!

Mathias Härenstam (09:30.448)
Sometimes the timing is perfect and now we found the perfect timing. So I'm glad for that.

W (09:35.709)
That's true. That's true. But say it's anomic. How would you describe the company with your own words?

Mathias Härenstam (09:41.186)
I would describe Salesonomics as a B2B growth partner. We work with designing the end-to-end customer journey for companies. So from the customer's first thought that they have a problem or that they have some possibilities that they have seen until they really become brand ambassadors and therefore also can give your company new customers when they spread the word about the...

how satisfied they are.

W (10:13.525)
sounds really great. And what kind of companies do you prefer to work with? Do you have like an ICP or?

Mathias Härenstam (10:20.29)
Yeah, we prefer to work with more matured companies that have been around for some years and they are quite stable but they have they need to think in new ways to take the next step. They want to modernize themselves, they have realized that the customer interactions have changed and they work with complex business to business selling.

So when they talk to several stakeholders within the company, that's like a perfect match.

W (10:51.765)
Okay, do you have any dream customers that you want to mention? That you don't work with yet, obviously.

Mathias Härenstam (11:00.046)
We have a few dream customers when you talk about globally. For example, I'm very interested in the manufacturing kind of companies, very traditional kind of companies. I work with the largest steel provider in the Nordics. And that's one type of customer that would be nice to work in globally, I would say.

So that's one part and also industries that are going through a change. For example, if you look at PVC and Deloitte and EY, the traditional companies where a lot of the things that they actually have done are replaced by artificial intelligence and things like that. And they need to sell in other kinds of services. So they're interesting companies.

W (11:51.941)
interesting. I agree with you.

Mathias Härenstam (11:54.17)
They need to change. That's the common thing.

W (11:57.757)
they need to change and adapt and obviously your number speaks for itself.

And now I'm very curious. Your favorite after work drink. What is that?

Mathias Härenstam (12:11.798)
Actually, I have two. That depends a little bit on the occasion. When I celebrate a glass of champagne, it's always the right thing to have. But when I really want to have like a cocktail, Moscow mule is my totally favorite.

W (12:22.666)
I agree.

W (12:28.917)
nice choices. You can't go wrong with a Mosca Mule, but it's quite seldom people actually both, I drink them at least my friends, talk about them in flailing row. It's often like a lager, some bubbles or champagne if you will, gin and tonic. But I'm glad you addressed them welcome in Mosca Mule. It's a good one.

Mathias Härenstam (12:30.177)
Hahaha

Mathias Härenstam (12:48.943)
But it must be served in this really shield-like copper... What do you say? Copper cup? Copper glass. Yeah.

W (12:53.289)
Yes.

Yeah, a cuppa cup. Yeah, I agree. It's not the same drink almost when you, yeah, when you pour from...

Mathias Härenstam (13:01.806)
when you have it like in a standard long drink glass. So it has to be served in the right way.

W (13:05.81)
Nope.

W (13:09.413)
Okay, so today it's Thursday when we're recording. Is it time for celebration tomorrow or is the Moscow Mule coming up?

Mathias Härenstam (13:17.294)
Actually, it's time for celebration tonight. We are part owners in a recruitment company and the founder of the company is visiting Stockholm today. So we will actually go out tonight. So I will take a Moscow mule then because we have some things to celebrate.

W (13:35.973)
Wonderful, wonderful. Have a great evening as well. And moving on to your funniest work-related fuck-up. I'm super curious and thrilled to know more about you and your fuck-ups.

Mathias Härenstam (13:39.014)
Thank you.

Mathias Härenstam (13:48.866)
Actually, I have two that comes up in mine. The first one is, I don't want to say that it's funny, but when I started out as a manager, I did it within the fitness industry. So I was running three fitness clubs. I had 160 employees in total. And the second month that I was hired as a manager, I sent out the whole list with all the employees' salaries in an Excel.

W (14:16.585)
haha

Mathias Härenstam (14:18.042)
to all the 160 employees.

so everybody could see each other's salary. And I learned a lot from that. And one thing that I actually have been thinking of like all the years after is to, when I put a salary on a person, that if this happens again, that I always can explain why. So that was like one, but I had also another thing.

Have you seen The Greatest Showman? The movie.

W (14:52.85)
Good. Cool. This is an embarrassing thing, but I can say it out loud here and it can also be recorded is that I watch a lot of movies. I love watching movies, but I never recall them. It's like it doesn't work, you know. So I've probably seen it, but please enlighten me. What does it have? What is it?

What's he talking about? What's he smiling about? What does it include?

Mathias Härenstam (15:15.907)
No it.

No, but it's about like, it's about one person that creates a circus with like people that's outside the norm. So it's a fantastic movie, you need to see it. But when I started out as a CEO for a staffing and recruitment company, I wanted to have like this first great expression of me.

W (15:33.832)
Okay, yep.

Mathias Härenstam (15:49.338)
And we rented Teletoo Arena because we had them as a customer. So we had a whole arena for ourselves. We had the 500 staff sitting and waiting for me to do my entrance. And I was coming in like a circus director. And we have also hired gymnastics. So they were doing a lot of kind of tricks. And then I had, it's like a magic opening song in this movie.

That's called the greatest show. So I came out and I was singing that song with all the management team also behind me. So in my mind, this was like the perfect start for my work as a CEO in a company. And I'd had the 500 employees, but the sound was terrible. It was like a total echo all the time. And after I sang the song, I was also going to like deliver a speech.

W (16:23.241)
Wow.

W (16:38.729)
Hahaha

Mathias Härenstam (16:48.462)
But after like two minutes, I realized that they can't even hear what I'm saying right now. And all thing I heard was my voice back over again. So I would say that during those minutes, I wanted to die. And that was the first impression that they got from me as a CEO for the company. So lesson learned, always do sun checking.

W (16:49.052)
Oh.

W (16:54.709)
Yeah.

W (17:05.922)
Sorry, I'm fine.

W (17:12.801)
That's, I mean, thank you so much. Yeah, always the soundchecking. And even though you do, it might sometimes don't work anyhow, but thank you so much for sharing. I mean, this is really great fuckups. And I always, you feel like a very humble person and obvious you are. I mean, the Excel, the Excel hell, that was one and not that very...

Mathias Härenstam (17:17.782)
Ha!

Mathias Härenstam (17:27.767)
Yeah.

W (17:40.465)
nice I can see and the other one yes for your personal sake I mean oh jumping back from that the first impression was hmm so thank you so much for sharing great

Mathias Härenstam (17:54.062)
But at least I've performed at Teletoo Arena and that's something to be proud of.

W (17:59.537)
Exactly. One can choose which part of the story one tells, right? Even though I'm very happy that you chose the full version. But people must... I mean, you can't not like a person entering like that, with a heart in the right place. Or was it tricky for you to gain trust after that? No.

Mathias Härenstam (18:04.804)
Exactly.

Mathias Härenstam (18:23.83)
No, it was not a problem, but I think a lot of them also thought that maybe he shouldn't sing. And actually, I'm quite proud of her being a quite good singer, but this didn't sound good. So, but I...

W (18:38.341)
I mean, obviously you wouldn't sing if you weren't a good singer. I mean, no one would have done that in Teletwo. You recovered. Okay, great. Thank you for sharing. I'll try to recover, start laughing, that means. Move on to today's subject. So, the complex B2B customer journey is today's subject. And you actually...

Mathias Härenstam (18:43.678)
Yeah, but I recovered. I recovered. Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (18:57.251)
Yeah.

W (19:07.369)
asked me before we start recording, Wilma, what's your thought on this? I was like, we have to start record now because this is just too interesting to talk about. But since I am, I'm not the expert here, you are, you are the guest. So I first wanna ask you, why did you choose this topic?

Mathias Härenstam (19:23.17)
choose this topic because it's the topic that creates most frustration for me right now. It's something that I see that there are happening a lot of things and you see those services that in just two years, 80% of all sales interactions between suppliers and the customers will be digital.

A misunderstanding is that the digital will take over because for some years you said that in 2023 there will be like 50% less sales rest within the market and nothing happened. And I think there's a misunderstanding when you talk about the buying journey that you think that we will switch from the human connection to the digital. But they need to work together.

Mathias Härenstam (20:22.682)
That is one huge misunderstanding that also makes so few people ready to change this because they don't want to lose their job.

Mathias Härenstam (20:35.678)
So from my best topics that I'm engaged with, that comes from frustration. That I have seen that a change is happening and I just want the world to see that this is happening, whether you like it or not, and you have to do something. So this is my way of trying to inspire other, to get the courage to start doing something actually.

W (21:06.249)
That's great. And obvious, there's a fear going on. Like I don't want to lose my job. So let's not digitalize if I should put it, I mean, a bit sloppy out there. You're nodding for the ones who doesn't see you, but you're nodding to that. And what do you think if we would deepen down in the fears, they don't want to lose their job? Don't...

Won't they lose their job if they don't do anything about this?

Mathias Härenstam (21:37.89)
Definitely. And I put it up on LinkedIn recently, but I see when you talk like with sales leaders, their mindset needs to like shift from being like, they're thinking they're leader of sales reps. And for me, that's wrong. They are leader of the function of selling. So they need to think in a

Mathias Härenstam (22:07.118)
they have a future proof selling that will work for the future also. So they need to like get this understanding and understand that we need to have a digital go-to-market strategy also. And I think that what's happening within the field is if you look, for example, at marketing, they have happened a lot. And I think a lot of marketing managers are quite open to changes. And you see a lot of marketing systems.

that they use. They use a lot of technology that enables them to do a better work. Because suddenly marketing gets a field where they see that I can do a huge change here because other in the companies, they haven't understood this really. So marketing see a huge possibility and then sales get even more afraid. Okay, now my job as a sales manager,

it's not that important anymore because now the marketing manager starts to speak a lot about this and they talk about like demand generation and they come up with a lot of words that I don't know. I thought we were talking about leads. We started with leads for one year ago. So I think that there's also like this internal conflict within the companies that makes this challenging.

W (23:30.345)
between two different personas, if you will. One in general a bit more open to change and one more traditional or.

Mathias Härenstam (23:33.239)
Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (23:38.946)
Yeah, I would say that. Because if you for real look at the sales role for the last year, last year's, there's only like a few real changes that you can see. But if you look at the marketing role, there have been like substantial changes for our marketing managers. They need to really be updated. I would say that some sales managers that I meet, they live like they lived for 10 years ago.

W (24:10.293)
But how does it still work? That is what surprises me the most. Not that there's friction or someone is fearful for something, but I mean, why are they still there? How does it work?

Mathias Härenstam (24:24.834)
Then we come into more fears because sales is so important. If you back the history, sales is always the ones that created the revenue in the company. So the CEO doesn't want to question sales. They just want the revenues to go up. So they always want to give the trust to their sales manager and things like that.

So I think that there's no one that really challenge the sales manager.

because they are a little afraid of doing that. Because if they start doing it, the sales manager will say that, I've created this revenue, I'm the one that's knowing this best and so on. So I think that this needs to be a topic for the whole management team, because it's not about sales and marketing, it's also about how you develop your products or sell your solutions or deliver your solutions. So there's like, the whole team needs to be included within this question.

W (25:03.581)
No, that is true.

W (25:34.669)
and also maybe hold responsible and accountable for it, not only the sales manager, but the whole management team, right?

Mathias Härenstam (25:44.342)
Yeah, the whole management team, all functions needs to be included within this.

W (25:50.989)
And if we back up it, why do you think the sales manager is less open to change?

Mathias Härenstam (25:59.93)
That's a really good question. And I don't know what's the right political answers within this. But I think it's, it's coming pressure from a lot of, like, different angles for the sales manager, for example, if you just discuss the women and men thing.

W (26:07.937)
Oh, we don't have to be politically in office, it's an after work, remember?

Mathias Härenstam (26:27.834)
Sales has always been about men.

a lot about men, not only, but a lot. And there's, if you look at sales managers today, I will still say that I saw, this was like conducted two years ago, sorry, but that's shown that 82% of sales managers still were men. So that's like, and that's one challenge, because if you look at marketing positions, there are often women, and women getting...

goes into this area now and marketing starts to talk about revenue. But that's the thing that I own in sales. Why do you start to talk about revenue? So then we have a challenge. So I think that is one challenge. Actually, that's the real value. The other thing is that sales is very, very complex.

think about like coaching a salesperson, it's one of the hardest leadership jobs you actually can have because it's about skills, it's about attitude, it's about like the personality, there's a lot of complex things going on that you need to be able to coach it. The job is already quite complex.

And I think that you don't dare to ask for help. For me, example, I rarely speak to sales leaders because when I speak to them, a competition starts. They want to show that they know sales better than me. And then we go like back and forth and discussing and challenging them and so on. But the person that always listened to me is the CEO. Because the CEO wants to increase the revenue

Mathias Härenstam (28:23.49)
wants to increase the profit of the company and don't think about like the internal agendas that are going on.

W (28:31.925)
That's very interesting.

Mathias Härenstam (28:32.134)
So I think sales is pressured by from a lot of angels and they are not used to use help. If you compare to marketing managers, they have always been okay to like use an SEO agency if you want an expert in that field. You have used an agency if you want to be great at social media. It's okay that you don't know everything. But for sales, you should know it.

W (29:03.713)
That's true, that is very weird. But what do you think about all the new roles, new or yeah, I would say it's new in the Nordics, like sales ops, revenue ops, all the ops roles that often comes in with the more, maybe more technical skills than adding to the coaching part. Do you have seen, has this done any effect? Has this done any change into this? Or is it still very uncommon in general that you have those sales ops?

Mathias Härenstam (29:05.914)
Yeah.

W (29:33.595)
or what would you say?

Mathias Härenstam (29:34.79)
I would say that it's really uncommon in general that you have it. And I reflected because I listened to the podcast where you met the founder of Quinex and Ingrid, for example, Andreas. And if you listen to him, you can hear that he is very mature when it comes to these kinds of things, very forward thinking. But I think if you...

W (29:46.696)
Andreas.

Mathias Härenstam (30:00.986)
have CEOs for like a manufacturing company or some other business to business company, a lot of the things he said sounded like Greek for them. So I think it's a field in the Nordics and that's the SaaS companies that are very forward thinking regarding this topic. But I think there's a lot of industries that are left behind.

W (30:34.321)
From my point of view, I mean, a CPQ tool does two things, if I should slim it down. The first one is that it really, really cuts the time. I would say waste, not being political here either. You waste on creating quotes. And the other one is it corrects wrongs, or it ensures it always becomes correct. And I mean...

Mathias Härenstam (30:51.724)
Yeah.

W (31:00.169)
I thought that sales managers or CSOs or whatever title they have leading the sales organization shouldn't ought to care about this. But for, I mean, we have been running VLogs Q4.3 for three and a half years. For maybe one and a half, two years ago, we stopped addressing sales managers as a persona.

because the response we got often was like, yeah, but if the dialogue is that hot, it is okay if they spend four hours. I was like, four hours? That's like 10% of their actually scheduled time during the week. I mean, that's, you know, okay, whatever. And we do have some sales managers that has brought in the CPQ, but in general, they have a CFO experience or their...

very technical like engineers or they have another perspective of this so from my point of view it's not verticals it's like the persona per se but okay we're poor sales manager you can you can we are just happy if you're frustrated and angry with us by now right then we have at least throw them around a bit right

Mathias Härenstam (32:06.303)
Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (32:14.326)
Yeah, and I think there's a reason why a lot of like within the within the sauce industry that are very forward thinking. And I think that it's because the business model is so different. Because when you when you operate as a as a sauce company, you know that sometimes you don't even earn money the first year with a customer. But like, year two and three, you get like the hockey stick effect that everybody wants to have. And therefore,

you need to like really calculate on the average sales cost per deal and things like that because you still need to keep the costs down because the revenue will come later and the profit will come later and when it comes it will be huge but I think a lot of other services you like pay the price for the solution either it's some service or it's some product you pay it like directly

Mathias Härenstam (33:13.558)
like the cost for the deal was. You maybe calculate how much it costs to deliver it, but you don't look at how much did it take for us to take this in. There's only a few companies that really calculate on how many hours they really put in to close a deal. If you look at 90% of the rest of the industries.

W (33:17.781)
Correcting.

Mathias Härenstam (33:40.65)
And therefore, I think that also that your topic about the prices, they don't care about it because they don't look at those numbers.

W (33:50.789)
Okay, we answered this with a complex B2B customer journey. We have to go back there, I feel. So why is this perspective? You said they're not leading, you said they were leading salespeople, right? Not like this, you said something else, the sales function. So why is this important when we talk about the complex B2B customer journey?

Mathias Härenstam (33:54.69)
Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (34:07.426)
Yeah, the sales function.

Mathias Härenstam (34:17.47)
And I think it's important for many reasons. For example, I think for like 10 years, we have been talking about that sales and marketing needs to cooperate, but still there's a huge frustration. And when I'm in like marketing community and discussing this, they said, oh, I'm so tired of talking about this because we have been talking about this for 10 years. And still, I don't see the change within the field. Let's give a concrete example.

My colleague Simon attended an event recently with marketing managers because he's a marketing manager. And they were talking about LinkedIn. And you had a whole room of marketing managers that were frustrated that they wanted their sales reps to be more active on LinkedIn, to spread the brand, to become like top of mind earlier in the buying journey and things like that.

But still, when you then start to like asking them about the problem, you also see that they have some fears because they start like wondering what would happen if they just start to post on LinkedIn? How can I have control over the things that they post? So it's connected with our brand. So I don't say that is always the sales that has wrong. I think marketing also has some things to work with.

W (35:33.813)
Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (35:44.93)
But I think this topic is just important because if you look at us when we as consumers, our behaviors have changed. For example, if I use lenses and when I buy lenses, it's very easy because I always get an email that, okay, you have five days left now from off your lenses. Should you buy some new?

and it's just one click and I have the invoice and everything is ready. And I want to have it some of that easiness when I also buy things in my business to business world. And you see that the commerce platforms, they are becoming much better. They are becoming more customized. And I think like solutions like you, when you also have easy ways of calculating the prices.

It's also a possibility to make it much easier to do some complex buying online. So we will shift more to that. But then we have the other part. We don't want to lose the human connection because we know that is so important. So therefore we need to think about how can we connect those worlds? For example, how can we use marketing?

that inspire me to get the first thought about something that makes me interested in seeing an opportunity. And when I see this opportunity, then I can connect with a sales rep that helps me to understand that, okay, is this something suitable for you? Is this something that's realistic for you? How have you thought about this and getting to know my business a little bit more. And then I want the sales rep to maybe give me a few options that you can either do

one, two or three. And then I want to go back as a customer and educate myself and see of these three different solutions what is actually best for me. And when I've done that then I can meet the sales rep again because then I have more knowledge and we can discuss how can we get a shared value out of this. How can you get a good business and how can I get a good business

Mathias Härenstam (38:07.31)
This is where we need to think about that customers today, they have more knowledge than before. It's so easy and go out Googling it and things like that. But we need to secure that they also get good stuff when they educate themselves.

And we need to think about what are the questions that come up in the brain when they're going to do like this kind of purchasing.

W (38:26.338)
And how...

W (38:34.933)
And how, if one is like, yes, we have to do this, we have to start doing it or we have to be better at this, how would you suggest a company to start working? In which end should you begin? And what is the main focus areas that you have to be established?

Mathias Härenstam (38:55.198)
The absolute best way to start with this is look at your five recent deals that you have done. Call those customers and ask how was your journey? How did you come up with the first thought that this is something that you need? And what have you done during this journey? Who have you talked to? What have you googled? What have you read about? Have you met other suppliers? What did they say? And things like that. So like go just and ask.

five of the recent deals that you have got to understand what was the process. So you understand the buying process for, for sure. And after you've done that, the second thing is look at your five, absolutely best customers. They can have been customers for years and call them and just ask them, how come that you are still customers with us? And what do you really like in our corporation?

but what are also some things that you see that we actually could change to give you a better experience. If you do those 10 calls, I would say that you have a magical start because instead of sitting in a room and thinking about what are our customers thinking about right now, why did they buy from us? Maybe they did like this. Go to the reality and ask them themselves. And if you cannot do it,

use help like ours to do that work for you and come back with a plan what you actually need to change but start talking with the ones that you actually want to target. And the third thing is that call five of your dream customers that's not your customers right now and ask them what do I need to do or what do we need to do as a company to become relevant for you.

and to make business for you. What are the challenges you're facing and things like that? So that's my like top three, go out and speak with the ones that you actually want to attract and understand how does the journey look like. Don't give a shit about your sales process right now, think about like the buying process because that's the most important thing. And then of course we want to align.

W (40:53.245)
Very good, handsome.

Mathias Härenstam (41:15.098)
the marketing process, the sales process to the customer's buying process. But we need to understand first things first, and that's their process.

W (41:26.409)
very practical spot on hands on advices. Thank you so much for that. And when you've done this, what effect and results could you expect?

Mathias Härenstam (41:37.946)
The first thing that you really can expect is that you can see what you actually needs to stop doing that doesn't give a value today. You will also see what things that you actually need to start doing in a good way. But you will also remind yourself of the things that you really shouldn't change because that's also important when you start thinking about like the buying journey.

I have two examples. I had a bank like they changed from that they had you had your personal advisor, but then they changed so that you had an office instead because they wanted you to have more availability with all the advisors. So instead they connected with your whole office. But what happened? All the companies felt that I don't have a contact person anymore. So they left the bank and the bank needed to go back.

and have personal advisors, a personal contact person, like again. So I would rather say that if you don't do this work, your company will not stay in the field the coming two, three years. So this is something first of all, that you have to do. And if you do it, the first thing that you will see is that your profit profitability goes up because you will also know.

What are the actual customers that you should spend time with? And what kind of time should you spend with them? And I had I had an example with a company that they work with a very like complex solution and they went out to a customer. The customer said, yeah, we're interested in buying this. And they spent three hundred hours on calculating. The the solution that they were going to make.

So 300 hours later, they went back and said to the customer, this is the way we can do it for you. And the customer said, yeah, that's good. But I'm talking with another supplier and they gave me half the price. So I will go for that instead. So one thing we just changed with this company was that they instead sold in a concept that this is a concept. And it took like 10 hours to create the concept. This is the concept that we actually can help you with.

Mathias Härenstam (44:03.082)
And this is a preliminary investment that you need to do. It could differ like 100,000, but when we talk about solutions for millions, that's nothing. So instead of having 300 hours in the sales process, going back and said, no, sorry, they instead have those 10 hours that secured the deal. And then they could spend the rest of their hours to really get the deal.

W (44:16.714)
Right.

Mathias Härenstam (44:32.186)
create this good solution.

W (44:35.625)
Great, I could talk to you about this for hours, but we have to start wrapping up and what is that I have forgot to ask about? I guess it's a lot, but that you really want to add to the dialogue today.

Mathias Härenstam (44:50.746)
Now, I think also one important thing is like, look at the business to consumer side to get good examples. For example, I mentioned like lenses, it was Lensway, that they can predict when I need new lenses. And if it was a more like complex product with a higher price, maybe they also should, could call me and say that. But they do a really good like digital marketing to me. And look for IKEA, for example, you have this like,

great tool where you're creating your own kitchen online. And then you often want to still go into the store and get that detailed help. That, okay, I don't know how to do this and things like that. You have cars that you can build online. But that's also, this is just one part of the customer journey. So what would happen if someone becomes buried for me at...

I think that I need a new car and that also follow up if I stop building this car in the tool and they see that I have a problem, someone calls me up and asks that, oh, I see that you started creating your car, but I also see that you stopped. What happened? So I think that there's companies outside doing pieces that is really good, that have changed the customer journey. So if you like to take all the good pieces.

and make it in your own business, I can promise you that you will be the winner in the end.

W (46:25.053)
Nice, and when I should try to explain CPQ to someone, I always say, I guess you have sometimes went into a car dealer's webpage and built your own car. People are like, yeah. I mean, most people nodding or they know someone has done it. And that is a CPQ tool. So I'm just longing for that customer, you know, calls me says, Wilma, I'm interested in your CPQ tool, but I want it to be applicable directly on our website for our customer to start doing the journey. I have a few of them, but no one really, you know,

dared to take the step maybe yet. But when I have, I'll call you back and we'll have another episode because then we have to celebrate the person. Yay! Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Okay, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. When you try to get even more inspired about this topic, where do you search for new knowledge or inspiration or is a person or something that you can recommend us to follow? Or do?

Mathias Härenstam (46:58.319)
Yeah.

Mathias Härenstam (47:02.062)
Then we have a joint mission. You and I, we have a joint mission.

Mathias Härenstam (47:24.386)
I do it quite simple. I always look at the world outside and thinking about like as I mentioned with IKEA with the cars and I'm looking for details that I think is really good and helping me as a person and then I always try to translate this detail how would that look in my environment. So I always like go out and see what are the small things that actually companies are doing in a really

either when I'm in my professional role or when I'm a consumer and see how could that translate to my world. So I think that's my absolutely biggest inspiration of all. But then I will also say that I follow a lot of like good marketing persons because I think that they are a little bit more forward thinking within this field. But the problem is that they just

think the absolute first part of the customer journey. So if you look at the sales funnel or our marketing funnel, it's like the marketing funnels do a lot of things. And then you have a small, small thing that's called meeting with a sales rep. And then you have a customer. And you and I that work with sales know that the sales work isn't that easy. So.

W (48:42.016)
I wish it were.

Mathias Härenstam (48:44.102)
But I still think that they have a little bit wider picture of the like buying journey. And both me and Simon, we follow for example, refined labs that we're thinking doing a fantastic work where marketing really makes sales easy. So that kind of things.

W (49:05.365)
Great, thank you so much. Now it's your turn to wing an answer to a business related question. So, see if I can manage to share this in a proper way. This is the scariest part of the whole podcast recording. Let's see, I didn't get out of the way.

W (49:33.274)
I didn't realize how beautiful it was when we started.

What the hell did I turn it off? Oh my god, this is completely over Ehhhhh Now we'll see, Riverside, where did I find it? And then turn it off too, but oh my god Okay, give me, now it's a bit messy here Riverside Sorry, Mathias I also know that we're running out of time

Mathias Härenstam (49:57.247)
It's cool. That was my fault, so that's on me.

W (50:01.28)
I don't know, I had the world's most dangerous technology cup ever. We'll see about that.

W (50:08.085)
Go to studio.

W (50:18.973)
I'll start by sharing. Let's see here.

W (50:28.413)
But I didn't want to go into it, I wanted to listen to the recording. Oh my god.

W (50:43.189)
mornings.

It's good for you to breathe a little and charge up here. It's perfect.

Mathias Härenstam (50:51.638)
I'm nervous about the question.

W (50:55.66)
Do you know any NIMA who drives Lexi's hair?

Mathias Härenstam (51:00.949)
I know Alexis, I don't know him.

W (51:06.985)
Hello? I'm clicking on the shit. Come on now.

W (51:13.541)
Is it because I'm sharing that it takes such an absurd amount of time?

W (51:19.663)
Or at least we can just skip it, but that feels a bit boring.

Mathias Härenstam (51:24.998)
What the question is?

W (51:29.925)
I don't know. But what the fuck, come on now, please. I've been working with tech for 15 years, but I have zero patience for it. I really hate tech.

Mathias Härenstam (51:31.335)
I'm sorry.

Mathias Härenstam (51:43.498)
I'm sure you've seen me when I was a kid and I was like, this is embarrassing. This is embarrassing for me. I'm like, we can't solve this now.

W (51:52.494)
No, it shouldn't feel like that, really not. Yeah, you notice, I'm really bad at... Well, I'm even worse, but now we'll see. So... It might not want to play when I'm in another room, could it be that way?

because I'm coming to the picture, but I can't download the shooter a little bit faster.

Oh... There is my thumb.

W (52:22.766)
I can't click it up. It's like it's angry because I'm in another room. Okay, I think we'll have to skip that. I'm so sad.

Mathias Härenstam (52:31.661)
If you want to complete the task, you can contact me later or if you want to do it in another way. I'm flexible.

W (52:37.765)
If I can send the sound file, you can send a sound file back to me. That's what we'll have to do. Because it really doesn't want to. Let's see. Then we pretend that you have answered that. Then we have only a little bit left. And then I'll ask you, are you ready to continue? Continue.

Mathias Härenstam (52:41.826)
Yeah, that can be fixed.

Mathias Härenstam (52:56.773)
Yes.

W (53:01.287)
Okay, now I'm curious to know more about your main challenges in your business right now.

Mathias Härenstam (53:10.158)
I think mine or ours biggest challenge is to like get this topic to be really prioritized to understand that you have a direct link between how you design the customer journey and how that really affects your profit in the end. So like get the word out without like talking.

solutions. For example, a lot of companies knows us for being good at sales training. We are outstanding at sales training, but we need to know what are the behaviors that we actually need to change. How is the process? There's a lot of things that needs to be put in place first. So I think like to talk about the designing, understand the designing first of all, before you start doing a lot of changes.

W (54:06.517)
Interesting. Thank you. And who would you like me to invite to a failing row?

Mathias Härenstam (54:13.046)
Actually, the first one that came up in my mind is actually an HR director. And she's an HR director for the steel company that I mentioned, that's one of our biggest customers, because she's a huge inspiration for doing change in a company and thinking like business-driven HR.

W (54:38.869)
Very interesting. What's her name?

Mathias Härenstam (54:41.454)
Anneli Östberg.

W (54:43.621)
Anneli Aspary. Anneli, you're more than welcome. That would be a really interesting perspective.

Mathias Härenstam (54:44.666)
So, she's.

So she's really a brave and inspiring and forward thinking person that also is connected to the name of this podcast because she dares to fail because she knows that that's one thing you need to do to be able to grow. And I would say that she challenged her whole organization within that field.

W (55:13.893)
Awesome. Great. It would be... Yeah. That's... I love it. And the perspective is really interesting too. So please connect us. And I hope that Anneli is excited to get into an episode. And the best part, the final part. Tonight, you have that Moscow Mew in your hand. This song comes up and maybe you start dancing or singing. I don't know. What are we listening to?

Mathias Härenstam (55:14.746)
So just to have someone a little bit outside the box.

Mathias Härenstam (55:43.042)
We're listening to right now the song called Rise. It needs to be the Sam Felt remix, but it's with Cailan Scott and Sam Felt. And I feel like king of the world when I listen to that.

W (56:01.885)
That's a wonderful feeling. Thank you so much for joining. Thank you so much for really wise words and I wish you the best of evenings.

Mathias Härenstam (56:09.926)
Thank you for a great talk and nice to see you.

W (56:15.549)
That's awesome. Should we record your question so I can record it for someone else? I'll send you his voice clip in a smooth way.

Mathias Härenstam (56:20.442)
Hahaha

W (56:28.718)
So when you're ready, you can say who you are, where you work or which company you run. And then your question.

Mathias Härenstam (56:36.814)
Mattias Härnstein, co-founder of Salesonomics. And I'm curious if you would choose one thing that businesses needs to change within the coming two years. What's the single most important thing that you see that business in general need to change?

W (57:00.284)
Thank you for your time. This will be released next Friday. Not now, I think. Next Friday. I'll double check.

Mathias Härenstam (57:05.883)
Just one detail, you said I was CEO, I'm co-founder, Otto is CEO.

Mathias Härenstam (57:13.123)
So I don't know if you need a

W (57:13.481)
Then you have to cut that out. Yeah, maybe I'll just take it off. But I would like to ask for one last thing. CSGO. That unambiguous title.

Mathias Härenstam (57:26.585)
I am CSO. But we have put in, it's not sales, it's strategy officer. But more that positions me as co-founder and more strategic advisor. And Otto is the one who has the official title. I don't know if so many people will agree on that.

W (57:32.22)
Okay, that one feels more like it.

W (57:44.553)
Okay, I was the one who used the link before. No, but it's right, so the photo should be right. So I either get to edit it or he gets to cut it off so I can say I'm more of a co-founder. But I would like if you could hold your hand like this, then we can turn the camera so I can take another picture and put it on the link in the description. And then a little smile if you want.

Mathias Härenstam (58:00.686)
Wait, here we have a nice background.

W (58:04.317)
My background is a disaster. Okay, one, two, three. Great, Mattias. See you. Thanks for putting up with him. Have a nice lunch.

Mathias Härenstam (58:09.515)
Nice!

Mathias Härenstam (58:13.614)
Du, du samme. Heere.

W (58:15.921)
Hey.