πΆ βEat your own dog foodβ
Blaise shows us how to practice what you preach & using your own product to sell. The proverbial 'eating your own dog food'...if you will.
After discovering a current customer moved to a new role at another company with UserGems, Blaise jumped right in with a highly targeted message.
Leading to an intro with the movers & shakers at the top of the totem pole.
Leveraging a powerful champion, customer stories, & a lot of data, the deal closed in just three weeks.
Guest Feature
Blaise Bevilacqua (means Drink Water) spent 2-years in South Korea teaching English as a Second Language before moving into the sales game.
Weβve recently seen a big shift in teachers leaving the classroom and joining tech, and more specifically sales, so we know there is a lot to be said here.
Blaise has been selling for 6 years for a few SaaS companies. Heβs currently at UserGems.
Deal details
What are you selling?
- Sales pipeline generation software
Where did the prospect come from?
- Found the deal champion using his own product as the trigger event
Company type
- Open-source cloud computing company
Prospecting method
- Cold email based on buying trigger
Barriers to Overcome
- CRO drilled in on the ROI & what it would take to 10x their investment.
- Only one shot at demoing the technical team. Screw it up & the deal is done.
Buyer types
- Chief Marketing Officer
- Head of Sales Ops
Deal length
- 3 week sales cycle
Episode Highlights
Note: timestamps correlate with the full conversation
Objections: Selling to an unproven market? Leverage vision & raw data (24:50)
3 Tips for Account Executives
1. Stay on top of prospect job changes. Automate where you can.
2. Get to a personal level. Texting > email in later stages.
3. Prospect top-down. Faster sales cycles & fewer barriers.
Watch the full conversation
Full transcript
Taylor Dahlem
βWelcome back to How I Deal, where we examine a single past closed deal, how it played out that way, and hopefully provide some sales tips from people that are actually seeing the trenches day to day that you can use in your deals today. My name is Taylor Dahlem, full cycle account executive, now content guy, and I'm joined as always by my co host, Junior Lartey, our deal detective here at Pickle. What's up, man?
Junior Lartey
βIt's episode twenty one. These nicknames are getting a tad ridiculous, but anyways, something to think about. We've got twenty episodes out after today twenty one episodes of full deal cycles. So go through, find the deals that are most relevant to you based on size, industry, timeline. Start to create your own deal map. Like, have you built a champion? Is this deal within your average closing window? Do you typically team sell, try to uncover those things, go through the process, and then use that deal map based on, you know, the past twenty episodes to help you close more deals. Something to think about.
Taylor Dahlem
βYeah. We are building a content database to make that a lot easier to sort through and sift through and really get to the value of the gold that are in each one of these episodes that every one of our full cycle account executives are delivering that are coming on here each week. So we'll be an awesome resources for any new AEs or AEs that are wanting to learn how to approach a certain deal. But if you have not heard us before, or at least haven't heard us for a while, how these episodes work. We want to go through a single deal each conversation we want to chat through from start to finish. Leaving all names. Places. Or at least trying to keep it as anonymized as possible and allowing us to dive deep from the first time they spotted them on LinkedIn or got some kind of trigger alert. Which you'll hear about here in a second. That you need to pay attention to a certain prospect all the way to getting that final signature and kicking off implementation or whatever happens once the deal is closed.
Junior Lartey
βToday we've got Blaise Bevilacqua from UserGems. Before the sell scene, he spent two years in South Korea teaching English as a second language. We've recently seen a big shift in teachers leaving the classroom, enjoying the tech scene, and more specifically, the sales world. So we know there's a lot to be said there, but ultimately Blaise has been selling for six years. So Blaise, tell us about you, your role, and what problems user Gem solves.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, for sure. So quick, interesting fun fact, my last name means drink water in Italian, but Junior, you pronounced it beautifully, so that's rare.
Taylor Dahlem
βI spelled it out cool.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βSo yeah, enterprise Account Executive here at User Gems, the problems that we typically solve is curing pipeline anxiety for revenue teams by tracking customers, champions for job changes and automating a lot of the manual processes that reps have to go through.
Taylor Dahlem
βSuper clean walkthrough. We always appreciate when a value prop can be done in like two sentences. So that was awesome. Great job to the user gem marketing team and team at large for that. But speaking of which, what deal are you walking us through today?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βCool. So I was thinking about something very near and dear to me. It was a cloud, open source cloud computing company. Eight hundred person companies led by their chief marketing officer and head of sales operations. The reason why I chose this is we use our own product to track people for job changes and the champion at this deal was the recent executive buyer at their previous company. And so with that it was the warmest path of entry and happened to be like one of my fastest sales cycles from it was a three week turnaround. So this was all led just based on this key trigger event that people are hoping for.
Junior Lartey
βThat's awesome. And I love that you can use your own product to initiate the sales process. That's like what anybody would hope for is whatever you sell, you're able to actually use yourself. So that's super cool. I also love the solving pipeline anxiety. That is like the most human sentence I think I've ever heard, especially as someone who sells. So it's kind of a stupid question at this point how you found out about the company because insert user gems but tell us about maybe how that looks, how it works and then what research you conducted in doing so.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, for sure. So ABM is such a buzzword these days, but we have a pretty it's awesome, like the amount of revenue alignment we have between sales and marketing. So each rep has a set list of they're called whatever it takes accounts and these are our focus accounts for the month. And so when a job change occurs and someone lands within that target account, depending on who they are, they'll automatically get enrolled into a campaign queued up and ready to go before you actually hit send out of outreach. So I had an outreach task as well as an email notification saying, hey, XYZ has left here, he's now over here as the chief marketing officer. They're ready to go with a message that's ready to be sent out right now. So that's how it came about and yeah, after that to actually get the meeting on the board. I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn voice notes, so just happen to leave them a quick, hey, kudos on the job change, hope all as well try to make it as human as possible. So that's kind of like the genesis of where this came from, the voice message, that's new.
Junior Lartey
βHow often are you doing that and what's the easiest way to go about doing this?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βFor sure. So I use voice messages every single day, pretty much every single deal. Post demo I'll connect with everyone who was this sounds like crazy and very like there's too much, but post demo I'll connect with everyone on LinkedIn and then depending on who was the most engaged, I'll just say, hey, thanks so much for chatting with us today, it was awesome meeting you. And just leave it at that. And then from there it's like there's no friction there's no asked, you're just recognizing that this person was engaged and could possibly be your next evangelist.
Junior Lartey
βSuper fantastic idea, really cool. I had one thought. This may already be a feature and you don't have to start talking about user gem features, but if I close a deal with a specific person right, for you, it's a chief marketing officer. I want to tag my name with this person. So then when they jump, it doesn't go to Taylor, it only goes to me. I sold this guy last time, I'm going to sell them again, keep Taylor's name out of it. Just some thoughts for the user Jim team over there.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βI'll relay that to our product team and it's funny too, because the amount of job hopping that you see these days, like, I've seen champions leave and go to like, the ideal company, I'm like, no, but the awesome thing is we're all in this together. So you've got some good notes to share with people.
Junior Lartey
βYeah, we're in it together, but I'd like to win over Taylor.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah. I'll relay your product feedback to our CTO.
Junior Lartey
βThere we go. There we go.
Taylor Dahlem
βSo Blaise, I think obviously we've handled the user gems aspect of it. They pinged in your inbox or wherever that lands, I assume salesforce or whatever your CRM might be at that point. Like you said, it kicks over to an outreach type automation. A task is created. It's very smooth and quick moving process. But I'm curious, all of this is happening on your end. What happened on their end? How did they reply? Or what do they actually say that maybe led to that meeting being set up or kind of what did their side of the equation look like?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, for sure. So there's a lot of heavy lifting going on behind the scenes with these campaigns getting created automatically, like the messaging is there, but given the high intent and being that this was the executive sponsor, what I did was look into the quantifiable stats that came from his previous company, given that user gems is closely tied to pipeline and bookings. And so with that I sent the voice note and then within that first touch hey, kudos on the new role. Super stoked that you're here, by the way, because you brought us in over at X. This is where they ended at the year end and just left it there like no ask, nothing. And then from there, I think it was like a second touch. I was like, hey, cool. Like, any feedback on that first note? And then finally they were like, oh great, sorry, a ton is happening these days. Let's set up time to chat.
Junior Lartey
βComing in hot. Quantifiable stats based on the beauty here being he's the one who bought and implemented before leaving. So you can do that. I'm like seeing just a ton of value in being able to use a tool like user gems. I'm even thinking if I could track users, maybe they weren't like a decision maker or a buyer. But any of my users that jump companies, if I could start a conversation with them too, like, the wheels are turning over here, man, I love this idea. So you get this meeting booked with the most relatable and relevant prospecting message you could. So at that meeting, what did it look like? What were the problems that you were able to uncover? What did you learn here?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, so what's interestingly enough, according to McKinsey, that executives spend seventy five percent of their budget within the first ninety days. So they're looking to shake things up. They're looking to replicate previous success. They're going to be ripping out products. They're going to be bringing on tools that they've used. So this is why it's such a critical moment that when a new executive does join a company, you are speaking with them. So with all of that in the back pocket, starting from a very macro standpoint, asking them, hey, based on your initial analysis of the new Horizon, what are you looking for over the next three to six months? People typically in your position, other CMOS that are talking to us are looking for reducing acquisition costs, finding a repeatable scalable channel that isn't dried up yet. Did I miss anything? Just kind of letting them know that, hey, you've been here before. And then from there they're going to either just open up and let you know what the problem is, or you're going to have to peel the onion back a little bit.
Taylor DahlemSo I guess Blaise, I'm always curious, is there a very specific problem that came to be from discovery or how many conversations did it take to kind of whittle away at that real need here? Obviously they used it before, but it's a different use case now. What did you do to kind of get to that core of the issue?
Blaise BevilacquaYeah, good question. So pretty much just saying, hey, what are you hearing from the sales team today and what themes have you seen in the past like two weeks? What was top of mind for them is that they've seen repeat customers come in, but they were blind to that. They didn't know where these folks were coming from. It was just like by chance. So it was a very reactive measure. And so from there kind of understanding, cool. This is it sounds like this is like a very blind event. Not a lot of people can do this at scale, especially given how manual it is. So having them explain what the process looks like by bringing in other sales leaders and saying, hey, our sales team, our top performing reps are doing this today. But it's pretty discretionary, it's reactive, it's manual. And then from there, you could quickly identify what the pain looks like by then backing into their contract size, how many reps that they have. So it's a very conversational discovery where you're trying to do like, quick math on the fly. So to your question, peeling back the onion based on what they're hearing from their sales team who are in the trenches.
Junior LarteySo I don't think there's a ton of actionable sales tips from the TV show The Office, but I'm reminded of that episode where Michael Scott is talking with Ryan and Ryan asked him all these business questions, one of which is, is it more expensive to acquire a new customer or to sign or to do like, repeat business? And Michael Scott doesn't know, and Ryan says it's actually more expensive to get a new customer. This is like the best of both. This is a new customer, but they also are almost existing. So you found a way to take those margins and make it way more bearable.
Taylor DahlemYeah.
Blaise Bevilacquaβ
And Junior, I mean, hey, man, it sounds like you immediately understand the value prop like we're hiring. So if you're looking for a sales role, like, come knocking on user Dem's door.
Junior Lartey
βOkay, duly noted. The deal.
Taylor Dahlem
βDetective Blaise, I guess at some point you've gotten to the core of the issue. You've really stressed out here's. What's currently going on, maybe where do you want to be? Right? We talk about Gap selling a ton, current state, future state, but at some point you do have to show product. And a lot of salespeople, including all of us probably in this room, have shown product too soon or just wanted to dive into the features. But how do you keep a very visceral, real core problem? Like how do you take that and really make it personalized and focused when you're actually showing a product and not just maybe feature dumping on a bunch of things they don't need?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, for sure. So we're pretty blessed that we don't have a separate interface or a new UI to demo. Everything lives inside a CRM. So essentially we're just looking at data points and then talking it's mostly around strategy and operationalizing this data. So it's like, hey, data is table stakes, but what are you going to do with this changes? Like, how are these going to be acted on? So a lot of our conversation is just consulting them based on the different nuanced campaign strategies, messaging, the routing configurations, because once they're bought in, theoretically from what we could help solve, they want to understand how are we actually going to leverage this? So it's a very white glove hand holding process where we're saying from day one, this is what's going to happen, this is how the leads will be acted on, this is who's going to be notified. So with all of that, they understand they're bought in, but data doesn't lie. And I'm sure you guys also have to do this. People say, all right, we want to do a proof of concept. What does that look like? So we don't offer trials, thank God, because that could just extend by either months to years. So instead of a trial, what we do is an initial audit of their database, or what this is essentially it's a look back analysis. So they share with us either their entire customer contact list or a segment of people. We'll process that for them and then give them a statistical report, surfacing the amount of outdated contacts where they are today, as well as raw data for their validation. So then instead of me just telling them how great this is, they say, oh, shit, okay, here's what we're going to receive on day one and on an ongoing basis. So that's kind of the nail in the coffin in terms of proving value.
Junior Lartey
βI'm really curious because through this process, you have a former buyer. Was this person your champion by chance? Or did they, like, hold back some cards because they are new? Even though they're going to rock the boat, that's not necessarily an indication that they're just going to root for you, right?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah. And you'd be surprised. A lot of times champions, to your point, are a little bit hesitant just because, hey, they just landed. They don't want to see them a certain way. But however, this person really did bring us all the way through to the finish line. They were the ones evangelizing and opening up doors besides what was happening after calls. But we needed to get consensus from, of course, multiple departments. So the other main technical buyer, the head of operations, post data test and then post product walkthrough implementation call, that gave them comfort around just like what they would be expecting throughout our partnership. So this is typically not a usual deal. Usually it's like multiple departments. There's over ten people. But one thing that what I've realized is the higher you are in the totem pole, the less people that you need the faster deals accelerate.
Junior Lartey
βThe higher you are on the totem pole, the less people you need to get involved. I mean, that's not one of your tips. That's not what you mentioned as one of your tips, but damn, that's good. Okay, we're going to take a quick pause. I will be right back. Like, two minutes for sure.
Taylor Dahlem
βBlaise will cut this part, but Junior has to go to the restroom.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βAll good.
Taylor Dahlem
βHe like, slacked. He's like, Dude, I'm dying. But he's like, It's such a good question. I don't want to leave yet. I was like, all right, this part because I've been there.
Junior Lartey
βI was like, I got to go to the rest.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, thank God I had fifteen minutes before this, so I was like, yeah, make sure everyone's comfortable.
Taylor Dahlem
βNo, this is good.
Junior Lartey
βThis is smooth.
Taylor Dahlem
βAnd I think on my end, I'm curious, what are we on barriers to overcome? Getting signed off on technical barriers, I will say that's always where we get the most reaction. People are like, have expressed that's where they learn a ton in these episodes, so they're deeper, kind of more nuanced you can get there would be good on how to get sign off from technical, or at least how deep did you dive to overcome that barrier?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βAwesome. That's good. I know, because there's like the business barrier and then there's the technical barrier, so there's a lot of meat on that bone.
Junior Lartey
βBlaise, this has been pretty smooth. Almost too smooth, right? Like it can't just flow this well every time, every deal you've got a previous buyer, they're ready to go. So did you run into any bumps, any barriers, or is this just like a sure thing?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYou're spot on. It never is this smooth, but I think there are two components to this. There's technical buy in and then there's the business buy in. So starting with the business, when the CRO gets an eighty thousand dollars contract split across their desk, they're like, okay, this is awesome, but what are the projected returns? So with that, the way that I would always try to arm myself or working with coworkers, how to do this is really understand what and this is specific for user gems, but understand what their ASP or average contract size is. And then from there we do very basic rudimentary financial modeling where we'll then be able to help plug in based on their data sets, based on the raw data that we've identified, what the realistic conversion could look like. And then from there, it's typically justified to make the investment. And it's funny, it's like the old adage of like, well, this ten X. So you've got to either massage modeling or you got to really work together hand in hand with your champion before they present the case. And you'd have to build this out simultaneously together. Code design it, it's not something that you just send them and say, here, present this, work together, hold their hand, and code design. So that's from the business side. And then there's a lot of meat on this bone. So the technical component is given that operations nowadays, they're becoming the governors of the tech stack. They're drinking from the proverbial fire hose every five minutes. Adding another tool to the stack is just one way for them to just get even more pissed off with their team. So showing and understanding, like, you have really one demo with these people, and if you screw that up, then it's a very unlikely chance that they're going to give you another twenty, twenty five minutes. So I think coming prepared and coalesce don't go it alone. I am not a technical person. However, I'm going to leverage my VP of Ops. If they're bringing in their head of operations, they're the ones like, bring in the domain experts. Don't rely on yourself. It's okay not to know. I'm probably the dumbest person in the room. I leverage the C suite. I leverage engineers. I leverage anyone who will be on that call who can have a more effective combo than I really could on the business side.
Junior Lartey
βGoing back a couple of steps, do you find it frustrating? Not necessarily frustrating because it's not that the CRO is against you, but they do want a little bit more like, reasoning behind this. Whereas in my mind and maybe even in your mind, right? If user gems or insert any product helps a company close a deal that is larger than ADK, it's already paid for itself. You know what I mean? So I always struggle with the ROI calculators and how do I prove that this is going to be worth it when I'm like you're? One job change deal, close away in this instance. But you can't convey that message. Like, that's not really going to stick with the CRO unless I'm off base. What do you think?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYou're spot on and it's surprising. And I think the hesitancy comes with so many people being burned by software vendors in the past that they're like, this sounds too good to be true. Like, no one has ever gotten fired for purchasing zoom info, even though it might not be the best data quality, but it's just a necessary tool that you need to have in your stack. Given that this is so nascent. And when you're like the first within a market and you're selling a vision almost before it's built out. That's where it's critical to get that CRO on the call before they. You know. You slide that proposal across their desk so early access to leadership get them on the call and then a lot of customer storytelling backing into their own theories from what they're seeing. Like repeat customers asking them how many people they've seen come back to them and then tying this back. So effectively, it's a lot of storytelling, but then at some point, you got to put the foot on the gas a little bit and say, hey, this is the oldest revenue playbook. Your team is already seeing success. Now we're just putting gasoline to the fire. So kind of a long weighted way of saying it's a very difficult dance. It's proving it out with data, with storytelling, and with people believing that you're not going to screw them over.
Junior Lartey
βStorytelling vision. There's like master classes on these things. It's something that sales leaders talk about all the time. So if you're out there and you're like, I'm not a good storyteller, that doesn't mean you're not going to get a sales. But start considering, how can I tell a different story, a better story? Because you will get to a point in some conversation where you've got to do that. On the technical side, it's definitely nice if your product absorbs some other tech stack off the shelf. If that's not the case for you, then you just really need to understand your buyers. Like really understand the people that have to look at the tech stack and know where they see and find value. Some really good points there.
Taylor Dahlem
βSo this deal, in essence, it's a hell of a quick turnaround, right?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βThree weeks.
Taylor Dahlem
βIt's not that long of a deal cycle, but a ton happened within that timeline. So curious. Could you just really quickly recap that timeline, maybe walk us through what was going on behind the scenes? How did you manage the deal and really keep yourself in order?
Junior Lartey
βRight.
Taylor Dahlem
βAnd where do you think stand and how do I get it across the finish line?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah, so when these really special opportunities come up, it's almost like you want to put your entire attention to that, even though you have one hundred other opportunities, like knocking on the door. So I think ways that I stay super organized is I'm a huge Scratch pad person. I think that product has changed my life. So on the initial call, I'll just immediately pull up Scratch pad and almost just like, I'll be listening and then be able to just quickly jot down any key metrics that they're relying on or they're telling me. And then after the demo, quickly go into Gong, look at the transcripts, see if I've missed anything. But Scratchpad has helped keep me organized from a task perspective, making sure that things are moving quickly. So after the first call, then from there, let's bring in our head of operations. We had two calls with them just to get all of their questions out of the way. Once we got the technical buy in, that's where the data test came involved. So that was meeting number four. And while all of this is happening, I'm a huge fan of texting and connecting on Slack and also LinkedIn sending messages. Email is great, but it's mostly just as like, hey, this is like quick homework for us. But to keep the velocity going, you have to be texting your champions. You have to be on Slack. At least for me, that's just like my selling style, where I've seen things move fairly quickly. And then after the data test, from there, it's essentially putting together a proposal. The great thing is, the higher that you are up, like, they'll be able to nudge infosec, legal, tap them on the shoulder, it won't wait in a queue. And so once all of everything has been greenlighted, the DocuSign is approved to sign out. That's where, okay, you could finally take a breath after holding everything in for a month, pretty much how to skip.
Junior Lartey
βThe queue, go higher up the ladder. I've got a question, Blaise. This deal was fast. It was three weeks. Is that the user Gems sale cycle or is that more of an indication that former users that have purchased any product out there that are now at a different company, is it more of an indication that those people buy faster? What are your thoughts?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βIt's more of an indication that previous customers buy faster and typically larger deals. The product is stickier, better implementation. Yeah, you guys have probably seen this like, in the past, so it's an early indication that if you can at any point you want to keep tabs on everybody, even the end users, because they're the ones that are opening the doors to the leadership. So, yeah, not just the executive sponsors are your champions, but the people that are living and breathing in your product every day.
Junior Lartey
βYeah. I shouldn't say this, but if you don't see value in something like this, then you're wrong. That's all I'm going to say. What are three tips that you learned throughout this sales cycle that you would give as advice to anyone trying to sell?
Blaise Bevilacqua
βYeah. So going back to our original thesis, track customers for job changes, the oldest revenue playbook, but now you can fully automate that process. So that's number one. Number two, get on a personal relationship via text, LinkedIn voice notes, slack connect. Gone are the days of b to B and it's as corny as this sounds like more human to human because I think people they understand as Josh Bronze as a commission breath. Like, you want to be helpful, you don't want to be like a pushy salesperson. And then number three, I'm going to change number three. But I think the higher you are up on the totem pole, the less people that you need to be a potential. Blocker. So if possible, start high early and that will also help accelerate the deal. Those are the three great tips.
Junior Lartey
βI love the human connection, right? Trying to have a conversation in your case like the Slack connects the LinkedIn voice messaging text. Like all these things that you did throughout this deal are just indications that it works, that it's real. So it was great to have you, great to have you on the podcast. Some great tips. A good podcast to go back and listen to and try to understand some of the value and not just user gems but keeping it human throughout the process because I think that's very clear on what you were able to do. So thanks for joining us today.
Blaise Bevilacqua
βAwesome. Thanks for having me, guys.
Taylor Dahlem
βYes, and just like that, another episode of How I Deal is in the books. Thanks again, everyone, for tuning in. We always appreciate it if you give us some comments, leave some reactions, reviews to this kind of stuff because we want to talk to more people like Blaise who's just dropping insane, insane amount of knowledge on these things. And I think it's really actionable. But yes, thanks to Blaise for joining us and until they're we will see you next time.
