Transcript
Pei Mun Lim 0:03
Hello, good morning, Kenny. Welcome to my podcast. It’s called OnThePeiroll. How are you today?
Kenny 0:11
Very good. Thanks very much. Yeah. Enjoying this nice weather that we’ve got a moron weekend, apparently.
Pei Mun Lim 0:17
I know, we were just talking before we got started that I really enjoyed a British spring in summer because it’s so vibrant with so many colours.
Kenny 0:25
Yeah, it’s a fantastic time. Yeah, where I am right now, my garden office, I literally just look out across green fields, trees, when I walk across the morning, I’ve got the birds singing, it’s so different to the commute into London that I used to have to.
Pei Mun Lim 0:41
I have seen some of your videos, and I am envious that you can actually do that in them. You know, just walking and talking in such a great environment. I think those sorry, those videos actually project a lot of energy. And I think it comes natural when you’re just enjoying your surroundings.
Kenny 1:03
Yeah, yeah, that’s good to hear. It’s always great to get feedback like that. But yeah, I certainly feel invigorated when I’m out in the countryside. So it’s good to be here.
Pei Mun Lim 1:12
Thank you. Right. So our mutual friend manda introduced you to me. And he said, You have to interview Kenny, he’s got some really good insights. And he’s met Marc Benioff. And I think that your audience would really appreciate hearing some of the thoughts and insights from him. So that’s how we met. And I looked at your profile, and I thought, wow, there’s just so much in here I’d like to dig in. But let’s just start with you telling us a story of your journey, where you came from, and how you got your where you are today.
Kenny 1:50
Okay, so that’s going to cover many years. So I’m gonna make it very compact, really, I guess where we start, where I kind of got my motivation, because we will get our motivation somewhere, don’t we and I know very clearly, where I got mine. And it was actually from failing. So it was from failing the 11. Plus when I was 11. For those that don’t know it, that’s an entrance exam that some, some counties still have to get into a grammar school. And I rather late decided I really wanted to pass and then started working like a crazy thing. But ultimately, I didn’t get in. So I went to my second choice of school. And that experience meant that I was just desperate to really prove myself. So I then spent that next year, working really hard. I ended up coming topping every exam at that school. And eventually, at the end of that year, I got transferred into a grammar school. But for me, I think it was that thing of failing at something that I really wanted, and then turning around saying, What can I do to make this better, that gave me a desire to prove myself. And I think it was that that also drove me a lot when I got into selling, which was, I think another way of helping me to kind of prove myself. So there are a couple of steps on the way my first selling probably was selling myself when I was a teenager trying to get gigs at pubs and clubs, because I’m a musician, and singer have been for a long, long time. So that’s my first taste of cold calling that you’re getting on the phone to work humans clubs. Hello, I’m Kenny Orphic. Go away. That was the response I often had. So I sort of started to learn objections, and how to handle them. And then I got into recording music, I actually got a record out way back and started to hope that around some of the bigger record labels, so that was really another experience of selling, again, selling myself, but having to sort of handle situations in a more corporate environment. Anyhow, long story short at 21, I decided I’m not going to make it as a pop star. So I’ll get into something else. And it was almost by chance I got into sales and into high tech sales. And that’s really where things took off in my career took off and fairly early on, I sort of focused in on software. And that’s that really led me through to what I do today and what I did for the next 30 years.
Pei Mun Lim 4:28
That was a quick whirlwind description of what prompted you to get into sales. It’s early, early exposure to the as you say the cold calling, knocking on doors and saying Will you buy me will you buy my where will you accept me for all this thing that I’ve produced? Yes, that gave you the impetus. So just just has there been any think the change in terms of how you approach sales? Is there anything different from, you know, when you’re trying to get gigs, to high tech sales? Is there any difference in the approach and the people that you talk to in your target clients?
Kenny 5:14
Yeah, there’s obviously a huge difference. And I know many of your listeners are probably individuals looking to market themselves, actually, the process of marketing yourself as the product is, is quite tough, really. And that was, so it was probably a good good training for me early on to do that. But obviously, when I got into the world of software, it was another whole ballgame. Because suddenly, you are selling into organizations, some of them eventually quite large. I started off all about activities it was all about, I’m just so determined, I’ll just do activity. So it was literally I became the, again, the cold calling king when I first started in actual business sales, and threw a lot of activity at it. And then there was a sea change moment that happened to me, it was actually a manager, new manager that came into the company I was working with at the time. And at that time, believe it or not, I had 500 accounts, I thought this is fantastic. I’ve got 500 foot ring around those accounts, they’re mine, I can call them. And if anything, I went into this first meeting with this manager, expecting to get some more accounts, believe it or not, because it was all about activity, he basically said, you’ve got too many accounts, Kenny, you need to focus, you’ve got 20, choose that 20. And that’s it. And I almost felt like resigning on the spot. I thought you can’t take 480 accounts off me like that. But that was actually the best thing that could have happened to me, because that was a turning point in my career when I went from all our activity to all our focus and became, I guess, a big game hunter. And it was no coincidence that about 18 months after that I won the biggest deal to date of my career with a very large company, it was an international deal. And a very important deal. And there’s a little story around that that we might have time for. But the point is that I learned about focus, I learned about really sort of analyzing the landscape in terms of the people, the politics, the way decisions get made. And the way you can influence those people as opposed to before that being all about activity. And the product, I was much more product proposition focused, I then became much more people politics, I guess, process decision process focus, which is what you need when you’re selling into probably all accounts ready, but certainly into larger ones.
Pei Mun Lim 7:48
That sounds very much like what we do in terms of implementing software. So obviously, we’re in the, I’m in the Salesforce ecosystem. And a lot of my audience are as well. So in terms of implementing system, we’ve got to go in and figure out where they are and meet them at that point, before we can implement a successful system. If we don’t meet them at that point. And we meet them where we think they ought to be or where they’re not, then it’s not going to turn out right. Do you see the we see that happening as well in sales cycle?
Kenny 8:29
Absolutely. Yet, I see real parallels there. Because you know, what you guys are doing is, is something that’s gonna be very strategic within an organization. And therefore, you are also going to be handling politics, people expectations. And the extent to which you can do that skillfully, as well as use the technical skills that you’ve got is going to be the extent to which you are successful. So I think there are very strong parallels and the best people that I’ve worked with, you know, when I was at Salesforce, IBM and some of the other companies in the technical sphere, were the people that also got the politics and the people side of it, and they were able to put the two together. Because the landscape is probably more sophisticated than it’s ever been. Now in terms of the buying process. Buyers are more sophisticated in terms of their knowledge, what they know about you, your organization, your customers, your clients, your track records, and you as an individual when you come to them, either as a solo entrepreneur or a salesperson. So you really do have to be very professional very on your mettle. And there are a lot of things that I worked with sales managers and salespeople to do to help prepare them selling and working in that much more sophisticated buyer aware arena.
Pei Mun Lim 9:55
That’s very interesting. So if you will indulge me for a moment, a lot of projects that I’ve been on and that I have seen, rightly or wrongly, there historically has been a disconnect between delivery and sales. Yeah, there is a tension there, when we are trying to work together, and you are talking about the sophisticated clients, the purchase and buyer. And a lot of times, in the past, maybe in some of the partners that I’ve worked in, there seem to be a lack of attention, whereby the opportunities closed one, we’ve made the sale. But the promise that we’ve made, doesn’t seem to be something that can be delivered realistically. And there is a mismatch somewhere along the way, you know, the sales cycle, either right, the beginning or throughout. You know, sometimes when I have been able to develop a good relationship with sales team, the process is a lot smoother. But can you talk to me a little bit about how, you know, just aiming aiming the second at the account management and the sales and the business development team? How can they set things up so that we are able to make promises that we can keep that we can over deliver and delight customer? How can we start that process from the beginning?
Kenny 11:31
Yeah, well, it’s a great question and a great topic. Because ultimately, if you take company like Salesforce, they, they came from a place of wanting to deliver something different on the back of all of our previous technology that had failed in the CRM space. And certainly when I joined back in 2005, there was a massive focus on that everybody was rallying around it, I think, I think that clearly still is, but there was a very big focus. The challenge then comes when you have obviously, very, very highly motivated sales, people selling into big accounts, then the handover to customer success, and many other parts of the organization that needs to become engaged as you start to deliver. And then potentially also partners who are external to Salesforce, but still part of the ecosystem. A lot of it comes down to I think, the approach and personality type of the salesperson. So my approach was always to build a virtual team. In fact, I a lot of my training that I deliver is, covers virtual teaming, because it’s such a critical skill, in selling and in many other disciplines like your own. So if a salesperson creates that virtual team, as they start to sell to the customer, and brings people into that team, like customer success in their own organization, professional services in their own organization, obviously, the pre sales organization, but also partners, you know, if you’re going to work with a partner, and I worked with a number of partners, obviously, that’s where I first met man Dev, bring them into the sales process earlier rather than later. So the relationship starts to build. And then at the point that there is that, and it’s not a complete handover, because obviously, as a salesperson, you’re always involved in developing the account and drain account. But as you hand over that particular project, to delivery and customer success, there’s a much more seamless handover, because they’ve already got ownership, they’ve already been part of it, as opposed to a kind of a ego. Give me a quote for that install that can’t talk to you. Now I’m off trying to find my next deal. So you know, some of it does come down to the approach, and you can try and systematize some of that to make sure salespeople do it. But it really is, as you say, critically important to get that handover, right and to make the relationship start early enough, so you don’t get this drop off at the end. And then inevitably, the expectations aren’t met.
Pei Mun Lim 14:05
That dutifully segues into another tweet that I wanted to pick on in terms of what you just said. So you do coaching and you have worked with partners like Manda, for example. So interestingly, I think I have been talking parts as well. So they are also a section of my target market. So I’ve been coaching a lot of the project managers in the delivery heads in terms of how to put in product governance and deliver pretty well. Now the feedback that I’ve got, has been, oh, you know, sales have made promises. And you know, we can’t deliver this moon on a stick. Yeah. What can we do? So the only thing I can do is to advise from what to do from there. Don’t you’ve already got a signed statement of work? How do we work within it to make sure that we’re delivering we’re able to deliver as close as possible, and try and deliver a project that successful. However, from where I’m sitting, I can see that the account management, division needs help. A lot of the founders and Salesforce partners that I’ve spoken to have spun off from them being a technical architect, or a solutions developer, sorry, a solutions architect and thinking, hey, I can do this. My company’s billing me out at you know, somebody 1000s a day, I’m pretty sure that I can get projects in and do them well. That’s why we’ve got long little partners, kind of like springing up. And the challenge that they have, from where I’m sitting is two pronged. One is they are delivering, like me, they have maybe done really great projects, they’ve got customers who are happy with them, but they don’t know how to sell, they don’t know how to finesse that operations. And they don’t know how to apply project governance. So they can do the work, but they you know, the overarching quality. So I’ve spoken to quite a few on like this part two of the process, so to speak. But they’re lacking in part one. So you talked about helping people like Monday, and maybe some potential founders to, you know, to put together a proper sales organization, Tommy’s true, the steps that you would take in one of the things that you might do with a partner like that?
Kenny 16:59
Okay, well, the way I tend to work is, is very, very tailored specific. I know those words get bandied about a lot, particularly in my area of sales, coaching, training enablement. But that, you know, that is absolutely the way the way I do it. So if I come into any kind of organization, the first thing I’m looking at, obviously, is, where are they at the moment? Where do they, you know, where where do they think they want to be, because where they actually need to be, you might not be where they think they want to be, but so you have a process of understanding that. And then, of course, you’re looking at the gaps in between. So invariably, organizations I’m working with already got salespeople, they’ve already got sometimes quite experienced salespeople, and some good salespeople, and some not. So good people, they’ve all got processes, they’ve all got CRM tools, all of that stuff, you know, I’m not getting into organizations that have got nothing, I’m dealing with actually quite sophisticated sales organizations, because they’re in high tech, and you have to be on your game. But when you then look at where they are, and where they want to be, you can then always find a number of gaps. And what I then tried to do is put together a program that doesn’t go in and say, hey, you need to do this whole new sales process sells regime, which is the quest regime, I go in, basically, and build a program that targets those gaps. But in a way, that is a intuitive, progressive kind of program, as opposed to something that just feels, you know, scattered. So it’s, it’s taking that very tailored approach, but turning it into a logical program that you can take the organization’s sales leadership leadership team through some of my biggest clients that those programs went on for many months and involved multiple workshops across different geographies. In smaller clients, it might be just a few weeks and just one or two different workshops. But either way, I’m trying to identify those gaps, put together a program. And then the way I work is I build very specific, very engaging interactive workshops, either face to face, or now more often virtually. And I’m starting to move into the space of online training delivering Solomon are some elements as well through pre recorded videos to at least provide a foundation of knowledge that you can then work on when you when you have the face to face time. Does that help to answer the question, but hopefully,
Pei Mun Lim 19:38
it does to a certain extent. And I can understand why they need to be bespoke, because organization organizations are different. And that’s kind of the approach that I take as well. But it would be helpful. If you’re able to provide an example maybe just you know, take out the company names, let’s say company had this specific issue. So can you just paint that picture for us so that I can have in my head? Those are the types of problems that you know that we could use your skills to help us.
Kenny 20:13
Okay. Well, let me see, let me take, again, I’ll spare names. But this was a large, large software organization. So there were quite a few things that were addressing it. But one key error that came out of it was that they were losing deals, sometimes in the later stages. And they are also having a lot of deal slippage. So that’s the kind of problem statement. So we then started to look at, well, why was that these deals, you know, were being forecast worked on for quite a long period of time, obviously, there’d been a level of qualification throughout the process. And it turned out that they were falling through in the final stages of the deal, what we would typically call the closing phases, which obviously involve a lot of contractual staff, commercial stuff, lots of covering stakeholders, there’s a lot that can go wrong in the final stages have a deal. And to some extent, they were leaving that part of the process a little bit to chance. So what we did then is I worked with the leadership team to put together a workshop that that focused solely on what we called a transition plan. So it was actually a closed plan. But the language we use as a transition plan, because we were basically looking to transition from prospects to customers. And that workshop, then together, we built a process, I took them, I already had, obviously a premeditated idea of what, what needs to be covered. But we basically went through a process of drawing all of that out, you know, we had a whole side of a room mapped out with these different activity streams. And we broke down, you know, what do the final phases of a deal look like, you know, you’ve got a commercial stream, you’ve got a sign off stream, you’ve got a due diligence stream, you’ve got a technical stream, etc. So we streamed all of that out. And then, at the end of the process, having done that, on paper, we created that, as it happened, it was in Excel, to create a simplified transition plan that those salespeople could then all use to plan the final phases of their deal. And we also turned it into a customer facing plan as well, obviously, with slightly less detail where they could say, okay, customer, you know, Mr. Customer, you would like to go live. Because remember, with the customer, you don’t focus on what you want, which is signing the deal, you focus on what they want, which is to go live. So we’d say okay, to go live on that day, we need to work back from here to get the project started at this point, which means we need to sort out the paperwork by this point, nice and low key, but it allowed the salespeople then start panning back and saying, Well, if we’re going to be in a position to move forward at that stage, we need to be really looking at some of the commercials and contractures at this stage, etc. So, you know, we ended up with output of that, that those salespeople were much better able to control that final stage of the deal. They could reduce ultimately, the number of deals slipped or fell out altogether, because they were managing that process better.
Pei Mun Lim 23:28
That’s not such a great example of how just focused attention from somebody like yourself, who’s seen quite a lot to be able to pinpoint and say, this is the thing that you need to do. And it sounds like there was a lot buy in. Yes, there was
Kenny 23:47
yeah, they’re still using that plan. I mean, that we did that started out three or four years ago. They now call it a I think a route to go live plan, which is even nicer, really, because it’s all about what the customer wants. And they’re still using that that process and plan today. So yeah,
Pei Mun Lim 24:05
that’s perfect. And if it’s a software company, go live feels to me very inclusive, that just that phrase feel very inclusive of the delivery team. So it’s not just when we make the sale, that’s That’s it, but we need to make sure that they go all the way to go live. So
Kenny 24:26
yeah, I think that’s absolutely right. And that was a really that’s why, you know, we started off with with transition and it was then always focused around the project kickoff, but I think that route to go live is is even better, because it’s you know, it’s all about what the customer gets out of it. So that’s that’s the beauty of working with clients is you know, you go in and you learn from them as well and you get ideas from them. So, if I was doing that workshop again, now I would probably be looking to use terminology like that rather than Transition Plan and certainly not closed plan which is very, very sales oriented. totally,
Pei Mun Lim 25:01
absolutely. So I’m just going to hop into a slot, something that’s been the I’m seeing a lot in my feed. In the past, there’s always been, you know, you’ve got your marketing, and then you’ve got your sales, and now they’re calling it revenue operations. Just want to get your thoughts around that whether from my point of view, rights are always looked from delivery over to that side, and there always seems to feel, to me like a very segregated culture between the marketing who’s out there getting leads, and then sales, you know, pick it up, whether it’s sales qualified lead, or you know, the process, there seem to be a difference in culture. So we’ll just want to get your thoughts around, transition over to this revenue operations model, whether it’s a new fandangle term, or whether it’s something that a movement that you think should, you know, should should be taken forward?
Kenny 26:10
Yeah. Well, I think it is part of an evolution that’s going on, that we’re all probably seeing, and that is the the change in selling that’s happened, particularly over the last 24 months when things have by virtue of what’s been going on, had to become much more virtualized. And I think that has meant that people have started to look at other ways of reaching out to clients, they’ve started to think, for themselves, what they can do via their own social media, tools, things like obviously, LinkedIn. And I think to some extent, that the display sales is always a very distinct discipline, and it has a lot of things around it, a lot of skills, a lot of processes that need to be developed. However, I think now marketing and sales are merging in certain areas, particularly the area of the early stages of lead generation, etc. To an extent that you do need to have that integrated approach. Especially when you’re trying to generate opportunities and leads, I think, when you’ve then got into it, you do revert back to some of those very classic sales skills like qualifying, you know, you really need to be able to qualify an opportunity, or you’re going to waste your time, and you’re gonna waste your company’s resources. So that’s a very key skill, you know, you need to obviously be able to talk to value as opposed to just features and benefits. But But again, that’s another area where of course marketing is is highly related. So back to your core question, I think it is the right direction, because I think many parts of the process now are highly integrated. But equally, Each discipline has its own specifics. And it also needs to keep at a very high performance level in order to be successful.
Pei Mun Lim 28:04
Thank you for that. So that leads me to my next question, which is, do you qualify our your clients? In? What are the criteria that makes you think? I don’t want to do this with you?
Kenny 28:19
Yeah, well, that’s the answer, of course, is yes, I always try and do it respectfully and gently. But I think one of the beauties of running your own business and I love running quest nine, their sales coaching and consulting business is that you get to choose who you work with. And that is a wonderful privilege that I treasure and value very much. So one of the first things I’m really looking for is do we get each other? You know, are we are we on the same wavelength do we do they kind of get the way I work and vice versa. Because if you haven’t got that, then you’re better off probably going and looking for another client to work with, rather than, you know, working with the wrong client, because it isn’t ultimately going to work out well for you or for the clients. So that’s probably the key thing that I look at to see, can we work well together. And there are lots of things that I am very, into, because I’ve found to be very successful, like, for instance, mind mapping. And most of the people that I’ve worked successfully with both my clients now, but also clients I worked with, when I was at Salesforce clients, I work with an IBM. I’ve been ones that have kind of bought into some of that kind of collaborative creative type of approach. So now, for instance, I would be probably looking for clients where when I use tools like that, and approaches like that, I see them lighting up and going, Oh, I like that. It’s supposed to like what is that you’re doing on the screen? You know, why can’t we just have it in Excel or can we have just a word document you know, that would read a few alarm bells because I just be thinking we’re probably not going to be working in the same way. So that that’s one of the key areas. And then obviously, I’m qualifying a number, the other aspects, one of the things I’m looking at is their commitments, you know, are they really serious about doing what they’re talking about? Will they actually put management time and commitment into it, because the worst thing is to just just to be set up for failure, where they talk about doing something, but ultimately, they don’t get behind it. And when I say getting behind it, it means, you know, at the beginning of a workshop, you might have the management team, join it, talk about what they want to get out of it for themselves and for their team. And you know, what I do what I call share back and feedback sessions, which is kind of the bit where salespeople put their learning into practice, it can be quite pressurized. Sometimes I always make sure that the management team were involved in that and sometimes roleplay in that, because I want them to be very much part of it. So I’m looking for that as well. And then there’s all the other basics. Are they going to invest? Are we actually going to get to the decision or the goods, the goods quality, housekeeping qualifying that you need to do? So? Yeah, simple answer is yes, I do qualify out if I don’t feel we’re a good fits, or I don’t feel they’re really serious about it. And, you know, I again, enjoy the provision of being able to do that.
Pei Mun Lim 31:21
How about any other aspects of leadership? culture that you think? So you talked about? Do they have commitment? And whether you chemistry, is it, that’d be the right word? Chemistry? Is there anything else in a leadership culture? So as an example, I was just talking to somebody else. And I was just musing about, you know, for example, at Enron, in GE, and how they do and some of the consulting firms where there’s an upper out culture, whether you hit your target, you don’t hit a target, you’re out this high, competitor, competitive. You know, that environment is nurtured. And it’s quite detrimental, I think, and I feel. So you look at those are things like compensation and the reward scheme, or any other cultural aspect of an organization that you might feel that you know that they’re not going to be there for the long run?
Kenny 32:34
Yeah, well, I suppose it depends what the focus is, if I’m really thinking about how we’re going to be able to work together, and how am I going to be able to get them the outcomes that they want? And are those outcomes realistic? So one of the things I think that I’ve seen that has definitely marked out the more successful projects, and I think organizations is in a leadership culture is to genuinely have a real commitment to coaching. And I don’t mean, like, coaching is a buzzword. Yeah, let’s say we do coaching. But I mean, genuinely a commitment to coaching. And that means not telling, but coaching. So it means not saying to someone, why don’t you do it like this, because I’ve always done it like this, and I’m the boss. And it’s this is the right way to do it, instead to say, so how’s that while you’re doing at the moment working out for you? What might you do differently? You know, what other things have you tried? What are the ideas if you’ve got, and then at the end of that may be saying perhaps you might want to try this approach. So I’ve just in a very basic way, they’re highlighted two different approaches. But some people when they hear coaching, think coaching means Okay, so I’m that certain experienced sales manager, let me tell you how to do this. This is how you go when you qualify, and be coached on qualifying. Now, first of all, you go in and you ask this and you ask that that’s not coaching, that’s telling. Coaching is is a discipline on its own. And in fact, I do provide a coaching for managers, specifically aimed at sales managers really training program, where I use an established coaching methodology that I’ve been trained in. And I train them in that but very specifically towards selling and it’s amazing how differently they go into discussions afterwards. That’s not to say there aren’t times where you do need to tell clearly. But you need to have a big commitment for coaching if you truly want your people to grow and become independent.
Pei Mun Lim 34:39
mazing Thank you. So in terms of the clients, not clients, or the some of the audience that I have that also some of them are developers, and they have created a product for the app exchange or the growing that. How might they think Thinking about so it’s quite different. So I’m just flipping it right now. So are those the kinds of people that you might coach as well? Or are you thinking about? Because you mentioned like videos and some elearning? How would How would somebody like that be able to learn from you?
Kenny 35:20
Okay? Well, there are a range of ways. So I have worked with some very small startup organizations where they’ve asked me to come in and help them sometimes design a sales process, which I’ve done for probably a number of companies, and others are then wants me to come in on real point specific things and help them and then others, we’ve obviously developed whole programs. But what I’m now looking at doing and you picked up on it, really is to say, How can I create greater reach? How can I also leverage my time better. And that’s where I’m going to be going more into the realm of online learning. So again, very, very tightly focused on sales, both professional sales, but also solo entrepreneurs, and using some packaging that really the knowledge and experience and I’ve got together over the last 30 years. So at the moment I’m I’m working through, you know, where to start, what kind of things will be most useful to people? What sort of size of training modules do I look at very small mini courses or bigger programs. But ultimately, that’s where I’m heading. So then people will be able to go on and get training from there. The I suppose the short window to that is what I’m starting to do on LinkedIn, have been since the beginning of this year, which is putting together short little videos and articles just to, again, get a little bit of thought provoking knowledge and ideas across to get people engaged that way. And I’m obviously working with clients directly, still putting together very specific programs. So any number of those ways, the best thing is if someone feels they need some help, and they feel that I might be the right person to, to work with an SSH to reach out via LinkedIn, or whatever, and then we can have a discussion and go from there.
Pei Mun Lim 37:14
Thanks for that, Kenny, you seem like somebody who doesn’t get knocked down very much by life. But do you? You know, do you have can you share, like one of your worst moments that you’ve had to face in? How did that change you as a person?
Kenny 37:35
Okay, so you mean in my professional career? We’re talking about here? Yeah.
Pei Mun Lim 37:39
Feel free to choose? Yeah. Well, because
Kenny 37:42
I mean, you said essentially, you say that one of the reasons I started Quest was to basically, I think I got to the point of almost burning out, I was at stage really where I’d spent 30 odd years in a very high pressure job. I had, we were investing in property, I think we had some of that 16 properties at a time. Obviously Busy, busy family life going on and all sorts of things. And I also lost my younger sister to cancer and all of that, out of the blue came and just knocked me sideways, which was a really, really strange and awful experience, just because I’ve never encountered anything like that. So I do know what it is to have the you know, to have a bit of a meltdown. And I think going through that helped me become much more empathetic. It made me finally step off the very, very fast treadmill or Treadwell that I’d been on and reappraise things, and actually became a very positive experience, although at that time, it was pretty awful. But out of that came a plan to basically create more time in my life to be much more in control of my time. That’s why I then started quest because I still realized I wanted to do something related to what I had previously done, but I didn’t want to do it with the same stress level and work rate. So that experience very, very difficult when I first went through it has created really the opportunity now and and being somewhere probably much more rural with more land around us and you know, my wife and daughter continuing their interest in horses, etc. So it’s been a great it’s been a really good thing. So that I think was the biggest challenge I probably faced in my professional career. I’ve had some pretty big challenges as well and any salesperson knows how awful it is to spend months sometimes years working on something and then for that not to happen for various different reasons and you need to build each time pick yourself up, re motivate, get out There start generating opportunities again. And sometimes that is very, very hard. But I think that’s something that I have learned. Over the years, the ability to pick yourself up when you’re knocked down, dust yourself off, start again, get going. And sure enough, you end up being probably even more successful than you thought. Whereas at that moment in time, you kind of thought, it’s all over. It’s terrible. That’s it. So there we go. There’s a couple of thoughts out on that topic.
Pei Mun Lim 40:32
How about let me rephrase this, then, the biggest mistake you’ve ever made that you’ve learned the most from
Kenny 40:42
biggest mistake that I ever made, okay, let them pick one thing, this was actually the biggest deal of my careers ended up being a $50 million deal. But the lead into it was a disaster. So the lead into it was basically I had a very successful year, I was at a huge company at the time, I won’t say which one. And they wanted me to take on a new account, because I managed to turn around one account that had been very difficult. But bizarrely, this was q4, they wanted a quick deal done around a certain maintenance contract effectively. And to me, it just felt all wrong, it felt hammer, I’m going into a new account where I want to build relationships. And the first thing you want me to do is to go in, and basically, you know, price hike this particular offering, I just thought this justice didn’t feel right. I was still relatively new into the company at the time. And all my instincts, were saying no, don’t do it. But eventually, I did do it and went in to procurements we put the similar table and it just blew up, absolutely blew up. The whole relationship blew up. And I kind of thought that’s exactly what I thought was gonna happen. But Why will my management team so keen to have this this deal done effectively. So what I decided at that point is that in the future, if something didn’t feel right, however much pressure I was getting from management, I would not do it in I would not do that, because I realized that your company as a salesperson pays your salary, but your customers pay your commission. And the commission is down to how successful you are in meeting their needs. And ultimately, therefore them buying into it. So what then happened was, it took us about 18 months to repair the relationship, there are many months of no revenue, low revenue, lots of contention with the client, but painstakingly I rebuilt the relationship, and then started a campaign with a group of people within that organization that then lead after a period of time to that huge deal, which was a complete turning point where we actually managed to repair the relationship ultimately, with procurement or with the other people in that client. So for me, that was a huge vindication of doing the right thing, after doing the wrong thing, albeit with the, you know, on the request of my management team.
Pei Mun Lim 43:14
I’m loving how much parallel there seems to feel between your world and my world. And before this conversation, I wouldn’t have thought that it’d be that close. And how you’ve described it could easily describe some of the feelings that I get when I land a project. And I’m looking at the Statement of Work and thinking, How the heck are we going to do this? It is going to go wrong, it’s a car crash in motion. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes I feel that when you’re on that side of the fence where you are, you could say, stop and not get that signature. Whereas on my side of the fence signatures already there, it’s in the contract. And so then my job is to make sure we fulfill the contract without killing ourselves. And yes, and then it takes, it goes wrong, as you know, as I can, you know, as it unfolds, and then it takes time to rebuild that. But during that time, you know, there’s lots of mental health issues. There’s just so much stress and so much, sometimes acrimonious conversations and finger pointing into you know, and then through to, you know, patients pain and blood, you know, we get to the other side, and, you know, you’ve kind of repaired it, but it’s kind of unnecessary, unnecessary, it feels to me so thank you for sharing that story. Because maybe feel not so alone. That you guys feel the pain too.
Unknown Speaker 44:54
We do. We do. Yeah, absolutely.
Pei Mun Lim 44:57
I want to be really mindful of your time. And so I will make sure that I do get to ask this question because Amanda said that you had a great story about Marc Benioff. And I would really love to hear about if you can, if you can share it.
Kenny 45:13
Yes, I’m sure I can. So this, I won’t say who the customer was, although that’s that that is not significant in this story. But the we basically, what I decided fairly on when I was in Salesforce, as I wanted to get senior people involved, this was back in 2007, or eight. So I used to have, when, when there was an opportunity for Mark coming over, I would make sure I tried to get him into my accounts. And that’s always a double edged sword sword clearly, because if you screw up, you’re gonna screw up in front of your CEO, and you will not survive. It’s as simple as that. But equally getting mark in there. And Mark was is a great salesperson, a great marketer, a great CEO, it can make a huge difference to your client. And it can also make them feel very special. They’re getting the CEO of this massive growing company. So I was taking Mark into meet the was the global head of it, and a very, very large bank, one of the biggest banks in the UK in the world. And we were driving over to Canary Wharf, which is where they were based. And first of all, the car journey was kind of interesting, because I was in there with Mark and also the the head of Europe. And it was a barrage of get me sounds on the phone, change the flight for this and it was Kenny, tell me what you’re doing today. And I’d start talking to him, that’d be like, cutting out counsel that actually we won’t do the flight tomorrow or the day after you rearrange press for later on. Okay, can he carry on. And I was, you know, there was this, like 30 minutes of just hyperactivity going on. But when I had gone out of the car, Carl Schachter, who is the head of EMEA. So that just came over to me and looked at me and said, Hey, Kenny, welcome to my world. But by that time, Mark was already off walking to reception of the the bank. And so we went up to the 30th floor, which is the exact floor got amazing views out of all of London. And we walked into this meeting room where, you know, my, the guy hosting the meeting, who’s a very senior guy was already there. And we’re waiting for the main visitor to arrive. And instead of spending a lot of time looking out the window or small talk, I saw Mark looking at the screen where we had Salesforce. So one of the rules with Mark on a call was you always had to make sure Mark was able to demo because he liked to demo his own software, even though he was now the CEO of the company. And Mark started looking at the screen Salesforce homepage that was up there and became fixated on it. And I kind of looked at Mark and Carl looked at Mark and my host looked at Mark and thought, What’s going on here, you know, and eventually he just said to Carly said, Just get me sound. So on the phone, there’s a rendering error on the lower left quadrant on the data page, I need it fixed. And I was just like, oh my god, first of all, I couldn’t see what Mark could see that level of detail. And instead of just not mentioning it, he actually wanted to sort it out there. And then. And what it taught me was, and I think what it also showed to my client is here’s a CEO who’s got incredible attention to detail. You know, he’s in the midst of a visit to the UK with a gazillion things going on. He’s walking into a room, and he spot something that isn’t right about his software. And he gets it fixed. And I just thought, that’s pretty cool. So that’s a story that I actually, you know, share a few times afterwards, because of what I think it showed about marks attention to detail. Even though at the time I was sweating, as Mark was fixated on this TV screen, as opposed to my client
Pei Mun Lim 48:57
and give them that. So did you did you close the deal?
Kenny 49:02
We did. Yeah. And that that that particular bank became a huge customer for on one of the biggest in the UK. But it was and I took Mark in in there two or three times. But that was one that I particularly remember because of the circumstances. And it was always it was always interesting because you might be on the way just about to arrive at a meeting and Mark would decide he wants a coffee and then the the limiting but Stark, he would charge out with the entourage and walk into Starbucks, you’d be thinking we’ve got about five minutes before him. But you say you just had to learn to just breathe in and that might do his thing because he was in he was the boss and all already a bit of a rockstar in the US by that time maybe not quite so well known yet in the UK. But he had the way he operated and you had to kind of work with that.
Pei Mun Lim 49:57
Outstanding. So here’s a question. Would you recommend that leaders be, as you know, have that sort of attention to detail? Because obviously, now Salesforce has got a wide range of suite of products through acquisition, there’s no real way that anyone could know all of it. Do you? How do you think? Obviously, you know, this was on time? How do you think, given your, you know, short snapshot of, you know, interaction with him? How do you think he handles this broader array of products?
Kenny 50:35
Well, I don’t know, might want to know exactly how he’s operating right now. But what I do know is that he’s very good at building a really good team about him and attracting really good people into the company. That’s something that I think he’s done. And he’s, he’s also brought lots of people in from industry. In fact, two or three people from that very large bank, who were then my customer became Salesforce employees. So they bring a lot of expertise in from industries, from areas from all kinds of different disciplines. But I think it is a challenge. Now, it’s a very broad product set. And therefore, you know, you have to have people that are subject matter experts in each of those, but also people that can see how it all fits together. And I think, in your sphere for your, that the audience that you’re working with, you know, that is a challenge. But you probably need those combination of skills, you need to be a business professional that can obviously focus on the problem that someone’s trying to fix, ultimately, and understand that and empathize with the client. But equally, you need to understand how technology can be applied to it, and sometimes a whole raft of technology. But that’s where you probably also need to have other subject matter experts that you rely on a new bring in, rather than trying to be all things to everyone.
Pei Mun Lim 51:55
What a beautiful way to wrap up a truly fascinating conversation. I’d say Kenny, like I said, you know, when I when I started, I had no idea where this would go, but it’s been. You’ve had me riveted throughout. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.
Kenny 52:13
Yeah, well, thank you for the opportunity. It’s been it’s been good fun, nice to sort of talk through all those different things and get some other viewpoints as well. So appreciate it. Thank you.