Profitable outbound team? 'Autopilot' is what must be achieved.

wilma eriksson: [00:00:00] Hi, and warmly, welcome to Failing Row. You have tuned into Failing Row, which an. OPEX Niche Podcast, it stands for Operational Excellence and it's for you who wanna increase your profits and become even more profitable. So if you wanna learn from very experienced people that are humble, in my point of view, funny, uh, who wanna share their fails and their growth, you have tuned in, right?

And Filling Row is hosted by me. Wilma, I'm one of the co-founders to vsq. CQ stands for configure. Price quote. So when you wanna ensure that your quote is error free and looks really good and they're easy to say yes to, then you should use CPQ and UX q. And today I'm honored to say I have, [00:01:00] uh, a guy from Finland joining Felix looks Q and he's not only the one of the founders to Lido.

A great way to make conversation at your webpage, but also to a new network that's called in English, if we translate it to Sales Collective. So this is a very important sales community because you get to know. Both peer to peer. You can really have a good chat with someone dressing the same kinda step obstacles that you have in your sales process, but you can also learn from really, really experienced sales expert.

But for free, welcome Timo. Nice to have you here. Thank

Teemu: you. Thank you. It's nice to be here.

wilma eriksson: Nice to be here. So sales Collective in finish?

Teemu: Yes.

wilma eriksson: Could you try it out because I won't,

Teemu: you sure?

wilma eriksson: Yeah.

Teemu: It's called. Very easy,

wilma eriksson: min,

Teemu: the collectivity. Gotcha. Pretty good

wilma eriksson: with a Swedish pronunciation there. Yes.

Teemu: Yes. Good enough.

Good enough,

wilma eriksson: good enough. Okay. But tell us a [00:02:00] little bit about yourself and also why you found the, the, the sales collective, as I choose to say.

Teemu: Yeah, so basically I've been working in sales for the last, or sales, everything for the last 10 ish years. And during that time I've actually never joined a company that was really, really good at onboarding new people.

Um, I've had some mediocre onboarding and some very bad onboardings myself, and I'm also done some very bad onboardings myself, but talk about fails. That's one of them. Yeah. But anyway, um, I realized at some point that there's not really a place to learn, you know? Easily from, from your peers or from other people in the sales field.

And I decided that it's time to build one. So then I spoke to a couple of people and here we are now. We launched, uh, moon, the Collective. We launched a collective, uh, last April, and we have a bit over a thousand members in LinkedIn at the moment, and about a thousand. People subscribing to the [00:03:00] newsletter and so on.

And we've, we're doing webinars and events and so on. So it's great. It's going pretty good and it's nice to see that people actually needed it.

wilma eriksson: Yeah. I could really see the need for it. And, uh, I've also done all those mistakes, uh, onboarding in the wrong ways. Uh, having onboardings that was like, this is your computer.

Mm-hmm. This is your phone and, uh, do your thing. Yes. Yes. Wow. Okay. Uh, I don't know where to start, but I'll call someone and see if they have a need for whatever service I was selling.

Teemu: Yes. Yeah, same.

wilma eriksson: Hmm. Okay, good. And you have also experienced a boat selling, uh, uh, to the Nordics, but also internationally.

What do you share a bit about those experience that you have?

Teemu: Well, yeah, especially building Liu for the last four years, uh, we expanded to, to Sweden and the uk and we've tested a bit of Germany and a bit of Netherlands and so on, and it's different. For those who don't know it, it's different. Even going from Finland to Sweden, [00:04:00] it's very different, but then going from the Nordics to the UK or to Germany or to even Netherlands, which.

People tend to say it's easy, easy market to go for. So it's, it's very different. It's not that easy.

wilma eriksson: That is my experience too. Do you have, if we will take, uh, each country there, do you have a hack that actually worked for you at Lido? For UK or Netherlands or Germany or, or Sweden. By all means,

Teemu: I think the hack is to localize things enough.

Like you, you simply can't force the process that works in Finland to another country, or a process that works in Sweden, might not work in the uk. You need somebody who's locally enough and who knows how people actually behave and who, how people actually wanna buy in that market to make sure that your sales is working.

That's I. That's my take on it.

wilma eriksson: Good advice. Good advice. Well, uh, it's a true pleasure having you here and now I'm very curious what you pour in your drink when you have an after work.

Teemu: [00:05:00] So I was thinking about this, but. I'm gonna have to go with a whiskey sour, but it obviously need to be in a good enough place to have a good one, because if it's bad, it's pretty bad.

But a, a good whiskey sour would be preferred, but if you can't get one, then any sort of cold beer goes. Well, I.

wilma eriksson: Yeah, I could really see that the sound drinks isn't that dependent on where you drink them. Mm Uh but some of them are. And even a agin and tonic could be really poor or really good depending on where you are.

Yes. So I can imagine that. The whiskey sour is something extra. Yeah,

Teemu: it works the same way.

wilma eriksson: Good. And you are already, uh, shared some, some with us, but is there a funniest one that is work related that you wanna share with us?

Teemu: Um, if you don't mind, I have two. The, the, my, my own is very short one and very, very, very boring.

But it's the, it's the one that I came to mind, but then I have one that's might be a bit of a [00:06:00] funnier story that's. Didn't happen to me exactly, but the person I was managing at the time, so I was involved. Okay, go for it. Uh, but my, my own one is that when I used to work in media sales and we, we went from Outlook and the Microsoft environment to Google, and so we had Google Drive and we had three folders, sales, marketing and production or whatever.

And one day everybody went to work and noticed that there is no marketing folder anymore. And then somebody looked at the logs and I had deleted the whole. Which included every presentation, every picture, and every video, and every, everything. That we had. Wow. I wasn't even admin, so I have no clue how I was able to delete it, but I was.

But luckily enough, Google saves things for 30 days so you can just, you know, bring it back. It took a while. It was pretty big folder, so it took like a day to actually come back to life, but I felt a bit dumb at the time.

wilma eriksson: Well, thank you for [00:07:00] sharing. It's an easy one, but it's a funny one. Obviously had some effects while it wasn't there.

Yes, yes, yes

Teemu: it did. It did. But it was a, luckily it was a quick fix, but the other one is a bit harsh. Let's see if this actually gets into the pod, but, um, let's see. I'm gonna anonymize things, so let's just call the guy I was managing. Let's call him. Frank. Mm-hmm. Frank. Frank and a team member, let's call her Alice.

So I was managing Frank, and me and Frank, we decided that we need to let Alice go. Like she wasn't performing and she wasn't really a good part, like good team member to have in the team. Uh, and this wasn't Finland. So I asked Frank, could you please check with our lawyers in this particular country that everything goes by the book, so we don't have to pay any extras or fuck anything up, you know?

So Frank wrote an email to the lawyer saying, okay, we need to get rid of Alice's [00:08:00] and we wanna do it this way. We wanna do it today. Are we doing this right? And he sent it to Alice, not the lawyers. Oh, oh God. And they were in like rooms next to each other at the office and, and then he called me like I fucked up.

Dude, I fucked up. Help me. What do I do? Like, okay, what did you do? Then he explained that actually accidentally sent the email to Alex, not the lawyers. I'm like. Okay, so where are you? And he's like, we're both at the office. What do I do? Whoa. I, I'm like, what can you do? Then she's like, just no choice. You just need to walk to the office that Alice is in and talk to her and talk to her.

I let her know that this is your last day and I accidentally sent this email to you, but this wasn't on purpose, but. Please leave your laptop in [00:09:00] leave.

wilma eriksson: Wow,

Teemu: that went really well.

wilma eriksson: That is, I mean, I could feel like the sweat dripping down my forehead. And also like, uh, I mean, I, I, I just want to believe that everyone is nice and have a big heart in the inside, even though it's not always, you know, how you, uh, yeah.

How one is, is appearing, you know? But. Alice probably didn't have a great day. Uh, and obviously you guys didn't either and I mean, that is not how you wanna end an employment.

Teemu: No, definitely

wilma eriksson: not.

Teemu: It didn't go down too well. Let's not get into the specific spot. Yeah,

wilma eriksson: I could really imagine. So actually I have a friend of mine, uh, that this happened to, but.

I know, I know the other guys, so I know it wasn't you guys. Okay. But you aren't the only one that have done this. Yeah, so, so we were coworkers, uh, and I just met her in the corridor and she was really upset and I was like, what is [00:10:00] going on? And it wasn't exactly the same, you know, everything was, I, I don't think.

I actually, I, I actually think that they were just, uh, uh, emailing each other about this topic. Mm. It wasn't supposed to go to the lawyers and she received it. So, I mean, I. We, we fuck up. Obvious. Yep. But, uh, I think it's how you handle it afterwards. Mm-hmm. That says everything about you guys. Yeah. So I hope you did it well.

Uh, as well as it's Yeah. As one can.

Teemu: I hope so too.

wilma eriksson: Yeah.

Teemu: I think we did. I think we did. It was just let's cool

wilma eriksson: Alice. Yeah.

Teemu: Let's not, um, it was just, you know, it was funny and horrible at the same time when this guy called me and I fucked up. I fucked up and yeah. Then he tells me what he's done and I'm like.

Laughing at the same time and trying to help him because what, what can I do? I was, I was in another country. I couldn't, and I couldn't jump into the situation. They were both at the office. What can I do?

wilma eriksson: I agree with you.

Teemu: So I guess [00:11:00] he learned his lesson to check who he's sending emails to, uh, if nothing else.

wilma eriksson: Yeah. But isn't that just, you know, so typical you get a bit stressed up. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then you send it. To the, to the, I can, I can share another thing. I know I don't typically share all these fuck ups myself, but, uh, me and my, uh, last boyfriend we're still very good friends. Uh, but we were together for over a decade and we were, I mean, we were engaged and everything, so.

Yeah, when we had done the breakup, we weren't on a happy place, but we are today. So I was so frustrated with him on, on it. I don't even recall what it was. And I'm writing this very long text to my best friend about how bad he is, you know, and how angry I with him, and this will typically him being in this way and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I sense it. And I remember because I was on Christmas holiday with my family, I. Uh, we were in an after skill, but it was like a quiet after skill because it was with my [00:12:00] family and children and everything. And then I get a text from my ex-boyfriend, he says, like. Is this how you see me? I was like, no.

And then I had to call my best friend. It's like, this is what just happened. And we were at the same, you know, level. We were just laughing and I was like crying and I was like, I didn't mean to be, I mean, he was obvious, very sad when I received this mess. It's like, is this is how you perceive me? But yeah, we talked it through, but I think sometimes it's just good to be very honest, to begin with.

Teemu: At least you get, get to the end goal too.

wilma eriksson: Yeah,

Teemu: the message goes through

wilma eriksson: deliver you learn.

Teemu: Yeah.

wilma eriksson: Okay. Well thank you so much for sharing and sharing, uh, two fuck up too. That's, uh, yeah. You get an extra golden star in my, in my opinion for that. Yes.

Now we're gonna try to move on here and we're gonna talk about something more serious and we are gonna talk about today's subject that is using a multi Shannon outbound, uh, and the right tools and training, I guess, in the sales process, [00:13:00] correct? Yes. Yes. So, um, when we start talking, I said, uh, I would love to have you on the show.

It should be something about operation Excellence. And then you asked me, is this opics enough? And I was like, yeah, for sure. And please describe a bit why you feel that this is so important, why you choose this topic.

Teemu: I think it's grossly like forgotten topic in the Nordic. And this is, this is coming from my experience working with like, especially the UK market, but also other markets in Europe and also obviously, uh, us knowing US companies.

I haven't worked towards the US but like actually doing outbound. When you're talking about outbound sales, actually doing it multichannel with an actual tool that's meant for it in a way that it's measurable. We don't even know about it in the Nordics. And it's maybe SaaS companies do, but it's not typical and it's, it's scary to me because I think we're [00:14:00] losing out on a lot of potential sales by doing things very, in a very old school way, more expensive way, a harder way for the sales reps, and a harder way for the sales managers.

So there's a couple of reasons why I think it's, it's important.

wilma eriksson: Yeah. Uh, I agree, and this is actually something that I've been thinking of lately because. Um, uh, a friend of mine, she used to be running this, um, uh, firm that books, appointments mm-hmm. For other companies, but now she's consultants and doing other stuff.

But, uh, we talked a bit at LinkedIn and she was like, I just love the cold calling because no one seems to call anymore. Yeah. And that is my experience too, because we had a lunch, now it's, it was before summer, so it's almost a half a year ago with the CEO and, um. The CFO, uh, of our customer. Um, and, uh, we asked them, how many phone calls do you receive if you compare [00:15:00] it to emails?

And they were like, whoa. Zero phone calls. Mm-hmm. And every morning, at least 20 emails. Yeah. So that is what directly popped into my mind when we, uh, when we decided upon this topic. But I mean. Uh, I guess we don't use system that should be calling more, or how do you feel when I say this? I mean email. Is it email tools?

What kind of tools is it? How should we work in a more efficient way?

Teemu: So, let see, I wanna clarify things first a bit. So I, I'm not opposed to cold calling or cold emailing or texting or using LinkedIn or using anything. I think you should use all the channels that work for you. And that needs to be business specific.

I can't say for every business that you need to do exactly this way, you're selling to construction companies. And the only way to get to them is to actually go to the construction site, then fucking go to the construction site, like whatever works. But [00:16:00] my take on it is that purely relying on one channel means that you're losing out on a lot of potential and.

If you think about a proper kind of outbound sequence or a cadence or whatever it's called, it's typically builds with like phone calls, emails, LinkedIn messages, text messages, videos. Now, those are the typical kind of things in use, and if you think about doing that completely manually, it sounds hor horrific.

Like if you call somebody today, how are you gonna remember to send them an email tomorrow and then. Text them an hour later and then send, send the LinkedIn connection request and then repeat that too. 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 depends on the business people a day or even a week.

wilma eriksson: And it won't happen.

Teemu: It won't happen.

wilma eriksson: I just don't see it. This happen.

Teemu: And then you rely on the channel that's easiest for you, which for a lot of people will be email because then you don't actually have to deal with rejection on the phone. [00:17:00] That's harsh, but sometimes true.

wilma eriksson: Uh, you support it. Yeah, I support it. There you go.

Teemu: For some people, the easiest channel is, is the phones, because they don't know how to write good emails.

I. And for some people the channel's linked in because they know some people who know some people and maybe that works. But then if it stops working, what do you do? I'm frustrated by the topic, as you can see.

wilma eriksson: Yeah,

Teemu: I think it's the only, like if you're doing actual outbound with any sort of volume, like if you're targeting three companies a year, then do whatever you want.

I don't really care. But if there's any more volume, you need some sort of a. And a process in place to actually reach these people that you want to be targeting and you can't do it manually. If you want to actually succeed.

wilma eriksson: I agree. And what really hits me is how cost inefficient it is. Mm-hmm. To work without the process, without the system, uh, relying on man [00:18:00] hours.

Uh, and I would say. Hope that this happens, that that people just know how to approach a person in a, yeah, suitable amount of times in a suitable amount of waste, or

Teemu: it's very cost inefficient. And then adding a layer to the cost inefficiency, in my opinion, is if you just rely on one channel or do everything manually, then you have no data.

To make things better, like as a sales team, lead sales manager, sales director, whatever, what do you change if it doesn't work? If there is no data, if you just randomly call people or randomly send emails and nothing logs anywhere and nobody can see anything, what do you do when there's not enough meetings or not enough sales?

Can't really do anything, then you kind of have to go into kind of one-on-one coaching with everybody from a similar angle because you don't know which angle to take, and then [00:19:00] you're maybe one out of 10 people actually need it, that training and nine out of 10 spent that time for nothing because they were good at it already or they don't use it at all, whatever.

So it's like it's so inefficient in so many ways.

wilma eriksson: Yeah. Really, uh, and very expensive. And, um, yeah, I could see that SaaS companies in general maybe use more tools Mm. But it doesn't say that they used them well. Uh, and that's, uh, remember now I'm co-founder of a SaaS company. Mm-hmm. So I, I gave me a bit of a, a, a hard time there too.

Mm-hmm. Uh, what kind of tools? Do you see? What kind of tools would you recommend companies to implement and how to really get them to be cost efficient and not another sales tool?

Teemu: Yeah, the sales kind of tool fatigue is a real thing. Like even as a leader, we just have too many tools and then we cut out.[00:20:00]

Majority of them, just because we didn't really use them. So the tool itself doesn't really solve the issue before you realize how you should be working with it. But obviously the tool and the implementation of the tool can help you actually figure out also how to do it. But just implementing a tool. It doesn't do anything if it's not in you as well.

Um, I've used SalesLoft. I've used HubSpot for sequencing. I know there's outreach. I know there's a few others. I, I think if you just Google like sales engagement platforms or outreach tools or sequencing platforms or whatever, you'll find plenty of them. I. But especially in the Nordics, I think HubSpot is pretty widely used actually, and it actually has a sequencing tool that nobody uses.

Even HubSpot themselves don't really know much about it, which is a bit sad.

wilma eriksson: Wow. That was ours. Yeah, but it's true. Yeah. Well, how, how should one work with it then? Uh, if we, uh, [00:21:00] it would be really, uh, would be very interesting to have someone from HubSpot here. Yes. Being able to answer that, but, uh, we leave them alone.

Someone else at another company. How should you work with this in a proper way?

Teemu: Um, first I think you should figure out how you actually can get in chat, touch with people where they are, how they behave, like who are the people you are targeting, and then figure out a sort of a. A sequence to get to them.

But basically what the tools do they allow you to build these automated sequences that, let's say they have 10 or 20 steps. There's a phone call, there's an email, there's a text message, there's a LinkedIn message on the day one, and then day two there's another phone call on day three, there's another email and so on and so on and so, and when you build that ready and you build email templates within it, you build LinkedIn message templates in it.

All you need to do as a salesperson is just. Open your laptop, put on your headphones, and click start, and then your system tells you what to [00:22:00] do, and you remember to do all the follow-ups using the right type of emails because they're already templated. You make enough dials because they're there waiting for you and you just execute and you leave.

All the kind of thinking of who should I call next, and what should I do now? Away. Um, it might be a bit difficult to explain how it actually works, like purely on a podcast, but basically what it does is allows you to just go on autopilot as a salesperson, and it's magnificent. It's just like it makes your life so much easier as a salesperson that you don't need to think about what to send this person now or what to do with this thing now.

What to do with this prospect? Who should I dial? And also, have you ever been in a sales team meeting, for example, that somebody says that someone's not making enough dials or enough activities? Never. Never, never. Don't mean either. Never me either. But [00:23:00] if you use the tools correctly, that doesn't happen because it tells you every day what you need to do.

It says that you have 20 calls today. 35 emails today. 20 LinkedIn messages today. To do. And then when you start executing, you're done with them in a couple of hours and you're done the kind of the activities for the day.

wilma eriksson: What about, uh, personalization? Uh, is this very, because I think every one of us have received, uh, if it, if it isn't an automatic one, it feels like one.

Mm-hmm. So how could we ensure that this is personalized enough?

Teemu: Could you invite some of lavender people to your port please? Then they can answer this question better than me, but that is true, basically. Obviously when it comes to phone calls and LinkedIn messages, it's very easy to personalize because you need to personalize your phone calls.

In other words, it's gonna sound like an obvious Yeah,

wilma eriksson: the phone call feels like that. That will be personalized. Yeah.

Teemu: Uh. When we're talking about emails, I guess. Mm-hmm. Um, just purely like mass, sending 50 [00:24:00] emails a day, I don't think will work. Um, I'm not an email expert, but I'd say that I. You still need to personalize every one of them if you want anything to come out of kind of on the other end.

wilma eriksson: So you're like, uh, this is, you will have those 35 emails. They are pre-written, but you go, you'll go in and edit them. Yes. So they get personalized. Yes. And it's a very good idea to invite someone from the Linder people. I. Got to know about them at uh uh, SIUs this spring. Yeah. And I was really amazed. I was like, wow, I understand why these guys do good.

Yes. And sell well. Exactly. Exactly.

Teemu: But when we talk about personalization of emails. Simply adding like these dynamic fields, you know, like first name or company name. That's not personalization. That's, that's easy. Automation,

wilma eriksson: yes, that's true. Once and for all. Could we just like, that is easy. Automation.

It's not personalization. Yes, and I mean, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

Teemu: Even writing [00:25:00] in there. I saw you are the VP of sales at Liu in LinkedIn. It's kind of personalization, but it's pretty shit. Personalization?

wilma eriksson: Yes,

Teemu: personalization should be done in a way that it's relevant to the actual topic that you're speaking about.

If you know that I live in Lapland and I do phishing, that's not very relevant for a cold email, but personalizing it to what you think that I'm actually struggling with at the moment. You have about my company and my role and the situation with other companies with similar roles, for example, and making that easy to understand in an email.

That's personalization. But yeah, let's leave rest of the personalization stuff to Lavender because they're better than we are.

wilma eriksson: Of course. Yes. And they are so, so welcome to failing Grow. A bit earlier on you said, first of all, we have to know, uh, how to reach the people where they are. So. Uh, if I [00:26:00] understood it correctly.

So we have to start with mapping out the buying journey, or is that overkill? Or where do we have to start with this?

Teemu: Yeah. I'd say that depends on, obviously the company where you are and the phase you're in. And if you're a startup trying to get your first deal, there is no buying journey, you know?

Mm-hmm. But if you're an established company, you've probably thought about it before. But often then it's marketing who started about buying journeys and sales, never even heard of it. Mm. Um, so maybe talking to marketing would be a good idea. Um, but yes, map mapping a buying journey is not a bad idea.

It's not a bad place to start depending on, like I said, depending on the scenario, but even having some sort of an idea of, okay, these are the people we're targeting. This is how we think they probably behave. That's a starting point. It's better than having nothing and just calling everybody and hoping it works.

wilma eriksson: That is a very good point. So it's better to start with this kinda tools to get data to start out [00:27:00] the texts and everything. Mm-hmm. And the personal personalization than get stuck in that we don't have a buying journey, it's no idea for us to implement this.

Teemu: Uh, I agree. And when. You use some sort of a tool for this correctly.

It will also tell you where you are booking your most meetings, for example, or how you're progressing your deals better and so on. But let's just think for the simplification, it's easier to talk about booking meetings in this case. Sure. So, um, it'll tell you that whether it's the first phone call or the third phone call, or the fifth text message, or the ninth email or whatever, that's actually getting the best replies and also positive replies.

Because like mass sending a thousand emails and saying we have a 30% open rate, not giving you anything but where you are actually booking most of your meetings. That matters. And then you can start kind of fine tuning the other kind of sequences in use to go towards that. And also, when you [00:28:00] think about different people within your organization, they might have different.

Parts of the sequences or different sequences that work better than others because somebody might be very good on the phones and horrible at writing emails. Somebody might be killer with emails and not very good on the phones, and somebody might be a LinkedIn nerd like me. And for example, for me, my own, I build a LinkedIn.

Stalking sequence, which I called it, uh, for last six months at Lido when I was using it, worked really well for me.

wilma eriksson: Would you, uh, tell us a little bit more about that, about that the stalking LinkedIn sequence sounds

Teemu: worse than it is, but it, it just, uh, it starts with a bit, bit like a, um, low fraction kind of engagement, I'd say.

So I don't want to go into your inbox and say, buy my stuff. First thing that you've ever heard of me, but I might like your posts first. Then I might, might comment on something you've [00:29:00] posted or comment on something you've commented or so on and agree or disagree or whatever, but kind of start a conversation.

I. And then when there is a conversation, then it's very easy to go into the inbox of the person and still not say, buy my stuff, but continue the discussion. And then at some point it's okay to ask, do you mind if I share a bit more about what we do? Because I think you'd be a perfect fit. And then you can send a two minute video explaining what you guys do.

Um, a meeting booked

wilma eriksson: is

Teemu: that, I call that LinkedIn stalking.

wilma eriksson: Stalking. That's great. That's great. And that's also a great example of the different sales reps, uh, prefer different tools. Mm-hmm. Uh, in the toolbox. And that is okay. We just have to work in a very, in a much more efficient way. Yes. Because otherwise it's just too costly.

Teemu: It's too costly and too random, and you can. You can't make anything better if you don't know what's working.

wilma eriksson: [00:30:00] Uh, yeah. Obviously very hard to improve. Yeah. Okay. So do we have any concrete in numbers that you could share with us? If you work with this like, well,

Teemu: no, no, I'm sorry. I've No worries. I've not been at, um, at DU for example, where we used this for, it's been six months since I left, so I don't remember any kind of concrete numbers from my own perspective.

Um, when I used it, like obviously for booking meetings, I just know that I can book a lot more meetings in a faster amount of time, or I can book the meetings I need. In two hours instead of two days when I'm doing it, you know, semi automatically. Mm. Because I know what I should be doing at all times. I. I just know that it works in a more efficient way, and then I can spend the rest of the time doing the other sales related tasks that there's, there's a few of them.

wilma eriksson: It [00:31:00] definitely is for sure.

Teemu: Yeah. And when it comes to the, for example, the UK team that we had at Liu are still have there anymore. Uh, the team that we have, they couldn't work without it. So it's quite, quite concrete. Like we couldn't have these people working for us without a proper tool for. Outbound and a proper process as well for outbound.

'cause if we just did the old school onboarding, like you said, here's a phone, here's a computer, and you need to book 20 meetings a month. Cheers. Nothing would happen. Nothing because. Especially the UK market, it's very like, obviously it's very cluttered. It's very noisy. Everybody's there. Everybody wants to be there.

Mm-hmm. And it means that these decision makers, they get a lot of phone calls and they get a lot of emails, and they get a lot of everything. And you need to find a way to stand out, but you also need to find a way to do it in a processed way. Otherwise you'll end up doing kind of nothing. And we tried that and we [00:32:00] failed.

We tried it without a tool, we tried it without a process, it didn't work out. And that is also a very costly trial. One shouldn't probably do one, shouldn't probably open up a new market without having some sort of a plan and a process and the right kind of toolkit for it.

wilma eriksson: Very good advice. I'm very humble of you to share.

And then you implemented, uh, you learned, you learned the wrongs mm-hmm. And you implemented the process and system and you could see another result, I guess.

Teemu: Yes. Well, well, in a nutshell, you could say that we, we could never get the sales and the SDR team profitable with the old school way of doing things.

But now it's working because we do it in a way that it should be done.

wilma eriksson: Impressive. Very impressive. From the customer point of view. I have an idea, but why is this important?

Teemu: I'd like to hear your idea, but I think we might have the same, um, from a customer point [00:33:00] of view. People act differently. People want to buy differently.

Some people don't want to buy at all, and that's fine. We are still gonna call them. Uh, it's our job. Yeah. But if you're purely relying on phone calls, for example, but the customer that you're trying to reach out doesn't answer the phone, you're probably just gonna annoy them very much. Mm. Or if there's been a lot of talk in LinkedIn about this as well.

If you call somebody and they don't pick up, I. If you don't send a text right after saying it was me who was trying to call you because of this reason, they're never gonna call you back. And it's just an annoyance. Or if you're spamming a hundred emails to somebody without ever dialing them, and it's somebody who would rather speak on the phone.

You're gonna anno them. So before actually speaking to somebody, before getting in touch with somebody, you don't really know what's gonna work for that particular person, even though you've mapped out maybe the audience and you have some sort of ideas, [00:34:00] but you won't know what will work for that particular person.

So doing it in a structured way. With the multichannel approach, we'll give you the best possible chance as a sales person, obviously get in touch with the person, but thinking about the buyer's perspective, we'll give them the best kind of experience as well, because they're more likely gonna be targeted in the actual channel they want to use.

Hmm. And then obviously if we take it a step back and talk about the template to the emails and so on, just writing good enough emails and messages that make sense to me as a buyer. It's less annoying than sending spammy shit emails

wilma eriksson: when someone said, hello, I see you are the COO of vq. I was like, no, I'm not.

And I was, I was the poor person. Uh, yeah, it was a bad day, obvious for me. So I was like responding back. I was like, I'm not to see you. Yes. Do your homework and get back. And I didn't answer. [00:35:00] And then to me it's like, it's so automated. Yes. That it's embarrassing. Uh, and luckily I get so many emails, uh, similar to this, like all other decision making out there.

Mm-hmm. I don't even recall who it was or what company. So if the same person would email me again Yeah. Uh, I probably wouldn't recall it. Right. So that is like, the mistake is, yeah. It's not that huge, but it's yet mm-hmm. It's embarrassing.

Teemu: Yeah. I've gotten those ones too. Yeah.

wilma eriksson: I shouldn't talk about more about that.

I just feel it's so frustrating that people hides behind, uh, poor CMA automatic emails. Yes. We have to take another step. This is not what this podcast show is about, or this episode is about. It's another thing. It's to be cost efficient. Mm-hmm. Um, as you said, your sales team and your SDR team was profitable when you implemented this.

I mean, who wouldn't wanna achieve that?

Teemu: There you go. Who wouldn't?

wilma eriksson: Who wouldn't? I have a question about the data. Uh, is it important to, uh, how important [00:36:00] is it to have it, it's within your CM or have an add-on tool to your CRM? What's the difference from your point of view?

Teemu: Well, my last role at LIU for the last kind of year and a half of sales operations.

Uh, so if I would say that it's not very important to have it in the CRM. That would be very weird. Um, wow. But there, there's some obvious problems with it. If you're using another tool and the data just doesn't sink into the CRM, but you've chosen that tool for a reason, then it is what it is. But I, I'd say it's very important from a kind of, again, a profit profitability point of view.

Because when you think about the whole journey of the customer, not just the. Idea of booking a meeting and then giving it to somebody to sell or selling it yourself, depending on, on the company, but you find a prospect, then you get in touch with them, then you book a meeting, and then eventually you close a deal and then something needs to happen after closing a deal, [00:37:00] typically.

Mm-hmm.

wilma eriksson: Typically,

Teemu: and in most especially SaaS companies, it's a different person taking care of the actual customer. After it's been closed. Um, and if they have no idea what you've spoken about and how the meeting has been booked and how the kind of sales process has gone, and so on and so on, how are they gonna serve that customer well?

And how are they, how are they actually gonna know what they bought and why they bought it and how they behave and so on to serve them in the best way. To prevent churn. And I guess we all know if we talk about operational excellence, that if we spend a lot of money, we, we choose the tools and we implement a process and we spend a lot of money in selling and then the customers leave.

I. We're fucked.

wilma eriksson: Yeah. Typically, it's a very bad thing for everyone to lose a customer if it's not the customer yourself wanna end in for some reason. But then it was wrong in the first place to begin with even though, so. Yes. Yeah. [00:38:00] Yeah. Okay. Understand. Is there something else, because we have to wrap up unfortunately.

Is there something else that forgot to ask about, about, uh, using multichannel, outbound and the right tools and training? Is there something that you want to address that we have missed?

Teemu: Uh, well, we didn't really get to the training part, but that's fine if we're running out of time. But basically I'd just like to add that the point is that when you use, when you have a process and then you use a proper tool for it, then you actually can do training that's meant.

To help the actual rep, and it's not your best guess what they need, but it's actually. Worthwhile.

wilma eriksson: Is it a key to have a playbook or we, if we just put a few minutes into training, um, how do you actually succeed with the training and what do you need to, to succeed? Uh, despite obvious the process and the, the, the tools,

Teemu: well, obviously you need to know if something's not working that how.

Could it be done better? So you kind of kind of said, do you need a [00:39:00] playbook? I think you need some sort of a playbook. Well, playbook is a very fancy word. Playbook is a document like where things are written down that actually work like you. You don't need to over like, uh, complicate playbooks. Um, just have a place where you document things that actually work, good call recordings and good email templates and good LinkedIn approaches or whatever it is that you need to actually document that's playbook ish enough.

Um, and it doesn't need to be pretty, if it works. And then you need to put time aside to actually doing it. I think this is where most companies often fail is that they don't do any training. You can't really get any better if you don't do any training. And, uh, but the point being when it comes to the actual systems and the processes, like if everybody's just free styling and everybody's doing the different thing, then you have no clue what works.

And when you have no clue what works, you don't know what to improve, and [00:40:00] then you freestyle and then you spend a lot of time and money for. Activities because you're freestyle.

wilma eriksson: I love how you describe a sales playbook too. That is a, yeah, that could be a, an episode of, uh, by its own, definitely. Mm-hmm. Mm.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much for sharing. Uh, when you wanna get inspired yourself about this topic, uh, where do you, where, where's your source for inspiration and more knowledge?

Teemu: Uh, hard to pick one, but let's say not only for this topic, but also when it comes to messaging and listening to the kind of customers first before building email templates, for example.

And, uh, all things sales. Like one of my biggest inspirations, uh, I'm, like I said, I'm a LinkedIn nerd, so go to LinkedIn and search for Kevin KD Doey. He's, uh, I don't know why, but I've been following him for a long time and I I'll his way of just [00:41:00] explaining things in a way that you understand them and making simple enough.

And actually being in the trenches and not just like shouting from the sidelines. I'd follow him.

wilma eriksson: Good, good advice. I'll go to LinkedIn and search him up. Therefore, I was a bit quiet because I,

so, hey, this is Neil Fredrickson, CEO of, and my question is. What do people and culture mean to you in the context of growing a successful SaaS business?

Teemu: I think I could talk about it for like 30 minutes, but to summarize, people and culture are kind of what actually grows the business. The business itself doesn't really grow.

Without people and the people won't be there without a proper culture. But to me, you have to think about it in a way that when the [00:42:00] company actually grows, the kind of people and culture needs to grow with it. So, you know, in the beginning when it's a small startup, it's a, it's a bit of, a bit of a hype and it's a, it's a crazy time and often it revolves around the founder.

There's a bit of a. A cult around the founder typically. But when the company starts growing, uh, it goes into this growth phase and people buy into the story more. So you need to create a culture around the actual growth, and you need to hire people and you need to be actually growing so that the story becomes reality and the culture revolves around the growth itself.

But then when it's a bit more stable and it's a it a bit more mature phase. Then you need, you will need structure and you will need more process. So the culture needs to change towards being a bit more stable, in my opinion. And this typically means that you either need to [00:43:00] be able to find a way to change the culture itself, or you need to change some people.

And it's not as harsh as it sounds. It's quite natural. People like different style of companies. Uh, so you kind of have to figure it out as you grow. There's no real, just, this is our culture from now until forever. I think it grows when you grow.

wilma eriksson: Oh, that's great. And, uh, running out to the outro, uh, what are your main challenges in your business right now that you problem, that you are addressing, um, uh, would like to share with us?

Teemu: You mean like internal problems that we're struggling with at the moment?

wilma eriksson: It could be anything.

Teemu: Um, when it comes to the sales collective, I think the biggest kind of problem at the moment is that we're a small team, so everybody's doing everything. Like you probably know what that means. Yes. So unfortunately, prioritizing time well enough to have enough time to do sales well, is a, is a problem that we're facing at the moment.[00:44:00]

Uh, it's very solvable. Because you just solve it, you know, you deprioritize other things. Um, but when you, when you have that situation that you, you feel like you don't have enough time to sell, uh, you start selling very bad and you try to, you know, get quick wins from here or there and left, right, and center, and typically quick wins never work.

So. Yeah, we have a problem and I know we need to solve it by getting back to the basics and just sell better.

wilma eriksson: Sell better, and sell more. Mm-hmm.

Teemu: Yes.

wilma eriksson: I feel you. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We are also a small company, so yeah, prioritize time. Very tricky in a small company when it lots has to be, has to be done by someone.

For sure. Yes. And we have Al already talked about the lavender people. Is there someone there, you know, that you want me to invite to the podcast or did you prepare, uh, for me to invite someone else? I'm happy to invite more people than one.

Teemu: No, I just think you need to invite the lavender people. That's good.

I [00:45:00] think they're very good. And I think when it comes to any excellence, when it just record it. Thought with them about how to write Hillary emails and save crazy amount of time and money by doing better emails and getting a better response rate than you could dream of. There you go. There's, there's your tagline for it.

There,

wilma eriksson: there, you, you almost recorded the podcast for me. Almost. Thank you so much for that. But I, I, I agree with you and, um. When we have that whiskey sour mm-hmm. In our glass sharing, maybe celebrating a good week, I don't know. Mm-hmm. And these songs comes up and then after work

Teemu: that you really, really enjoy, what are we listening to?

I dunno. I'm gonna have to say not just a song, but I'm just gonna say a band I've been. Uh, taking myself back to old school times and listening to a lot of Lincoln Park lately, Lincoln Park, and especially the old ones like the hybrid theory album and Minutes to Midnight Album Field Week. [00:46:00] Great songs.

wilma eriksson: Great, great choice. Uh, thank you so much for joining you, uh, and cheers. Have a great weekend. You too.

Teemu: I.

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