The right time to talk to a salesperson: It's the disqualification that you have to be able to do early, especially given that we know most of our buyers would prefer to do their research and everything else online before talking with a salesperson. 

Like, eighty percent of people would rather not talk to a salesperson, and then there are all of the stats that talk about how far along in the buying process people are, making this digital transparency, as I like to call it, so much more important. 

So, when was the right time to talk to a salesperson? 

Whenever we did enough research to feel comfortable, we started with five products we were looking at, then narrowed it down to our top two. We had a couple of questions between them. Then we started a conversation. 

And the conversation was not. "Hey, let's get on the discovery call so that you can tell me if I'm a good fit for this, and then we can see a demo. Then I can ask you some questions". It was, "Hey, I'm sold if you can do this one thing. I just need to know, If I add three people on a team to this particular event, can you make magic happen?"

And a simple yes or no in a live chat can give me that answer, and then I can move forward. 

And so, when you finally talked to a salesperson at Callan Lee, how did it go? 

I don't know if we talked to an actual salesperson. We might have just signed up and then asked support a few questions. Okay. 

Was this a self-service type of option for you? 

It was. We've talked to their sales teams or members of their sales team over the years as we've grown and things have changed. But we started with, you know, one user. Let's get in and give it a shot. And if it doesn't work, it was, you know, ten bucks a month or whatever. And then we could talk about it. 

Is there an experience you could think of when you talked with a salesperson after going online and finding all of these things? And it went well? 

So one, we've just started with it's a customer advocacy program or platform called Influitive. And for those unfamiliar, customer advocacy is turning customers who are happy with you into advocates for your brand. 

Influitive is a platform to incentivize them to leave your review, give you referrals, or engage with you in a conversation. We've been saying for a while, hey, all these customers love us. We need to find a way to put a formal program around incentivizing or showing them our appreciation. Let's start the research process. For that process, I talked to a few respected people, who I saw had their programs going on and asked them what they did, what platforms they use, etcetera, etcetera. 

I cut out as much personal research as possible by getting a referral and crowdsourcing from a few different people. There were three or four platforms that came up. And then we did some of our own research too and talked with some people. 

But then, from that point, we went to their website and reached out and said, hey, have questions. This is what we're trying to do. And intuitive of how to have a good experience with their rep, Dylan. I might talk to him later today, believe it or not. 

Shout out to Dylan! 

The process is straightforward, and Dylan is very professional. He's knowledgeable about the industry and wasn't trying to nickel or dime or show me everything the product could do. I just said we're trying to do these three things. He said, here's how you do these three things. Are there any other questions you have? 

Then we had a call about they have their pricing, their basic pricing listed on their website. We had a conversation about the nuances of it. How many things of whatever are included or not? What will we need? You know, we're still determining how this is going to go. Let's start with something and refresh it in two or three months if needed. 

They address that all very quickly, very hopefully, and very clearly. So that's been a great experience. 

And so, in your conversations with Dylan, it sounds like you had a specific set of products and features types of problems or questions. What else about that conversation stuck out to you as giving you a good experience? 

The fact that he would address the question with what I'm trying to get out of it, not with what he's trying to get out of it. I love that. I wish there were more of that. Yes, too often; I mean, I'm in marketing. Right? So, too often, businesses say what they want to tell, not what they need customers to remember. 

It's why we call these "buyer first." It's why I talk about it. It's not about us and what we want. It has to always be about what they want because those who have the goal are the ones that make the rules, the buyers. 

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