Speaker 1:

Hi, and welcome to The Insiders by Durhamlane, where we get perspectives from industry thought leaders about strategies that are unifying marketing and sales cycles to help accelerate growth inside your world.

Simon Hazeldine:

And welcome to The Insiders Sales and Marketing podcast. I’m your host, Simon Hazeldine. I’m a sales transformation strategist and consultant, and I help my clients get more sales more often with more margin. I’m also a speaker on the subject of sales and the author of a number of books. And my co-host is none other than Richard Lane, co-founder of Durhamlane, who are an inside sales partner that helps businesses grow their revenue through an integrated sales and marketing methodology. And Richard, you have the great privilege of introducing our guest for this episode. So over to you, sir.

Richard Lane:

I do. Thank you, Simon. And hi, everyone. Really, really thrilled to be able to introduce James Webb to our podcast. James’ VP of Central Europe and marketing at Fellowes Brands and James, really pleased to have you with us today. Thank you so much for joining. And I’m totally looking forward to the conversation we’re about to engage in.

Simon Hazeldine:

Wonderful. Fantastic. Thank you, Richard. So wonderful to have you with us, James. Something we always ask our guests is to let us know a little bit about your background, how you came to be in the role you’re in currently, just helps our listeners to get to know you a little bit. So yeah. How did you come to be where you are now, please?

James Webb:

Yeah, absolutely happy to do that. And thank you very much for having me on today. I’ve been with Fellowes 25 years. In terms of where I’ve got to, I’ve been in a number of different roles. Started in marketing, moved into account management in our retail business, then transferred into some management of our UK business, moved into a European role. And then in terms of my role today, it’s VP of Central Europe and European marketing and that’s responsibility for both our countries and our product teams as well. So I kind of wear two hats in terms of sales and marketing of our product categories out to consumers in the trade.

Simon Hazeldine:

Fantastic. That’s obviously going to be keeping you busy in a working week, wearing two hats. So probably not wondering how to fill your Friday afternoons by the sounds of things at the end of a busy week. And I guess first question, if we look at Fellowes, the business has been around a long time and it was founded in 1917 when Harry Fellowes introduced his original Bankers Box in the Chicago area to the banking industry which addressed a problem of disorganized paper records, remember paper folks? We still have a lot of it, don’t we? We’re supposed to go on paperless, but we still appear to have a lot of it. But what changes have you seen and the problems, the demands and the expectations from customers in the industry sectors that you are working in?

James Webb:

I think obviously as you say, paper, there is a certain myth of the paperless office, but the fundamental need for people is still the same. People want improved organization. They want to work more efficiently. They want to work in a state of flow. So really the products that we create are trying to help people do that in their primary workspace. So the basic need is the same, people value innovation if you can really understand what the consumer frustrations are. So we try and transfer that from our storage boxes in terms of being quick set up through to our shredders in terms of making sure they don’t jam, through to our other products as well. So basically, a lot’s changed and some things have remained the same.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. Luckily we’ve got customers who are still frustrated, right? Causing issues and problems. And on the podcast, we’ll often discuss the concept of finding out what those customer frustrations, those customer challenges are before we do some sort of product pitching kind of work or putting those things in place and still rather like paper in the office and awfully prevalent problem for salespeople. I mean, Richard, in your experience with the folks you work with at Durhamlane, do you still see some clients who the sales teams have this premature pitching problem we might refer to it as?

Richard Lane:

Yeah, absolutely. I think just reflecting back to what James articulated then, is I love the fact that you’re solutioning with all of the products that you create there, in terms of we are creating shredders that don’t jam. It’s evolution, but it’s still got the solution at heart. Part of, I think the biggest challenge in sales and the perception of sales full stop has been this sort of pitch mentality. Just pitch a product, no idea whether there’s a problem to solve or not. And that leads only to someone feeling dissatisfied with the communication they’ve just had with that salesperson I think, Simon. So our role is discover and [inaudible 00:05:17] inspired but our third mantra is, be interested to be interesting. The reality is, the more interested you are in someone else, the more interesting you become to them. So that’s how we try and position it.

Simon Hazeldine:

And James, from your point of view at Fellowes, in terms of, you’re pulling together your marketing activity and therefore, that’s going to influence the sales activity that takes place. What do you do as an organization to sort of stay on top of current frustrations or problems or challenges? How do you do that kind of intelligence of your end users and indeed channel partners and distributors?

James Webb:

There’s various different ways. On a kind of a bigger, broader scale, we’re looking at the trends in the workplace, whether that’s hybrid working, whether that’s the demographic changes you see in new generations coming into the workplace and what they demand. So the ways of working, flexible working, the environments people work in. And then from a product perspective, we do a lot of end-user research around our specific product categories, what frustrates them, what people value. It’s on a number of different angles. And as we see trends changing and shifting things like the move from the paperless office, you see the rise of health and well-being solutions and we certainly see that rise in our business and how we then adapt our approach to market moving from more of a transactional approach selling online in one part of our business to much more of a consultative led approach in the other side of our business.

Simon Hazeldine:

Well, actually you mentioned that sort of transactional aspect and I know we were having a conversation before we came on air and we were talking about this change that had taken place where I think it was 2014, I was at an event and Neil Rackham the author of the very famous book, SPIN Selling, predicted that business to business buying will become increasingly polarized. So the middle ground where buyers were prepared to pay a little bit more for the benefit of getting a bit of advice would diminish and buyers would either buy transactionally or consultatively. So there would be these sort of two camps, I suppose. Is that something you are experiencing at Fellowes, that sort of polarization?

James Webb:

Yes. It depends on the products. It depends on the channels that you’re serving. It depends on the end user needs. So for example, we might speak to a financial institution about their shredding needs, but your small office consumer will happily purchase the product online. So there are some broad themes, yes, it’s getting more transactional, but there’s always some exceptions and areas where you would add value in our more core business. And then absolutely, if you take the health and well-being part of our business, which is much more consultative, people are willing to pay for the value of that guidance and advice. So in the posture of our business, our sales people are trained to do workstation risk assessments because that’s what their clients are demanding as a service that’s provided and they’re willing to pay for that service because it takes away something that they would have to do themselves.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. And it’s an interesting comment. You’re a financial institution, if you don’t get that shredding, right? You’ve got a serious problem, haven’t you? In terms of breach of confidence, et cetera. So the risk factor for those customers is far higher, therefore, they’re going to probably want a more intimate relationship with your organization in terms of understanding the needs and making sure they’re satisfied properly.

James Webb:

Particularly with this legislation involved. So GDPR was a great example where people had that problem to solve, and they really needed that guidance.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. That’s not something you want to be getting wrong with the potential repercussions. And Richard, that polarization? Your comments from your perspective?

Richard Lane:

Yeah. I mean, I was going to maybe reflect back to something James said earlier about the different approach needed depending on the size or type of clients. We spend a lot of time on behalf of our enterprise customers going into C-suite organizations, individuals and organizations trying to raise awareness and do discovery and create meaningful opportunity. But our methodology selling at high level is solution-based, consultative in nature and stems from question-based selling, I guess. So all approaches we make, whether it’s quite a transactional purchase or not, we tend to come at it from a solution basis. And has that been an evolution for you, James? Do you think in terms of your organization and the way that you sell to the polarization of the transactional, maybe even no friction, touchpoint from a sales individual at all, through to the consultative, have you seen that sort of shift?

James Webb:

Yeah, absolutely. I think previously, a lot of it has been about selling in as much as you can to the trade, and now it’s much more about selling out and pulling through and getting as much connection with the consumer as you can, I guess. Thankfully, in modern marketing you’re able to do that. But yeah, being able to provide either good content, because even the transactional side needs a good level of content and support for people to be able to self-serve through to an evolution of where people actually want a service. And they might want that service, they might not need it face-to-face, they might want to provide it online in an environment like this, for example, where you can have a good, meaningful discussion about air quality in a building, for example.

Richard Lane:

Yeah. And I guess it’s that balance and I suppose cost of sale, isn’t it? Around making something frictionless, but also being supportive and having the resource available to be consultative and answer the questions, yet making it still a profitable business to run and to build.

James Webb:

Yes. Yeah, I would agree.

Simon Hazeldine:

And how have you found your sales people have adapted to the move from say what it might have been traditionally just face-to-face sales and into what we might call, like you mentioned, hybrid working? So Richard and I will hear the phrase hybrid selling quite often now where sales people are having to be quite agile and move between different communication mediums with customers. How do you think your folks have adapted to that kind of change?

James Webb:

I think you have to play to people’s strengths. So there’s still an element of that traditional, but then there’s equally an evolution in dealing with eCommerce accounts from a selling perspective requires a very different skill and approach to dealing with 2000 … One of our customers has 2000 salespeople and what you need to do to motivate them and engage them is very, very different. But generally, I think you have to identify the strengths that people have and make sure you put the right people in the right place.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah, absolutely. I think some of the role profiling sometimes, right? Really important to make sure you’ve got people with their psychological makeup that suits the sales activity that you want. I mean, this goes right back to that sort of more traditional hunter to farmer concept, isn’t it? Which has been around for kind of ever and a day.

James Webb:

Yeah. And I think generally, the sales person has had to evolve to be a bit of a sales and marketing hybrid as well. So not just that selling in, they’ve got to be able to liaise and work with a customer and talk their language. And sometimes that is, how can they market our products through that customer? Which is very different now. So giving them a base level of understanding whilst not asking them to be experts is important as well.

Richard Lane:

We come across a lot of our customers or the sales professionals within our customer base who typically we’re creating opportunity for really struggle with that omnichannel approach. You have to be omnichannel now and we find that it might be phone call, it might be email, it will be LinkedIn, it might be WhatsApp, it could be Instagram retargeting, whatever it might be, but actually you have to be comfortable or at least willing to give any type of communication a try. And basically you got to live where your customers live, haven’t you?

James Webb:

Absolutely.

Simon Hazeldine:

And you mentioned that sales and marketing hybrid and another part of what we were talking about before we came on air was that, Richard and I will often work with organizations and speak to people who experience the quite all too common, sadly divide between sales and marketing and the friction that sometimes exists. And you were saying you don’t really experience that at Fellowes. And because that’s such a common challenge, I would love to get your insight into why you think you don’t have that as an issue, you’ve got that classic challenge solved by the sounds of things.

James Webb:

Whether I’ve got it solved completely, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Richard Lane:

The secret source.

James Webb:

Yes.

Richard Lane:

Here we go.

James Webb:

I was reflecting on this and I think honestly it stems back to the fact we’re a 105-year-old company. We’ve tended to focus on the customer and the consumer all the way through that and we have a clear value proposition. It doesn’t deviate too much, but the company continues to evolve. But I think making sure you are clear on the direction the company’s going in, that’s easy for people to understand, it creates a joint sense of purpose and that helps keep people aligned. And then working back from that is making sure you’ve got a clear plan. We have a clear plan over the next three years, and that again, makes sure people are focused on the right priorities, the right sales and marketing activity. And then also having people with joint responsibilities is a big benefit. So I have joint responsibility, our country managers have joint sales and marketing responsibility. So you’re asking people to make decisions, not choices, and that helps them keep their team aligned as well.

James Webb:

So I can’t say we don’t have healthy debates, we do, absolutely because investments are made and it’s right that we challenge each other on where those investments are made and how they’re made. But generally, it seems to work okay.

Simon Hazeldine:

I mean, healthy debate is part of a great team. All teams have tension, great teams or great organizations, that tension is used positively rather than in a destructive way. And like you say, if it’s a tension, it’s a debate about how do we best achieve our common purpose? I say that’s a healthy thing. It’s when we get a lot of infighting, I think that starts to cause the issues. If everybody’s agreeing, that’s probably also quite a dangerous place to be.

Richard Lane:

It’s also measurement though, isn’t it, Simon? Actually, what we see a lot is that the marketing organization is measured on the creation of MQL, for example. The sales organization is measured on wins and order value, but there’s nothing that’s connecting those two together and that’s where we come in. But I think one thing that James has said there is that the country managers have dual responsibility. You look after both so actually Fellowes has put it under one roof which has to surely help because at the end of the day, it’s in your and the country manager’s interest for the two elements of sales and marketing to connect and be successful together.

Simon Hazeldine:

And I think my other comment from very early in your response, James, with my ears shut up, Fellowes has been around since 1917 folks and if you want to know why, I would say it’s focus on your customer and your consumer. Clearly, that’s part of the whole ethos of the organization. And that’s so sadly lacking. The LinkedIn state of sales survey from late last year was showing us something globally, 60% of sales people think they’re customer first and only 20% of the customers think that. So we’re folding ourselves sometimes. I think it has to be a philosophy and a cultural thing, not just a phrase on an office wall where I think a professor at London business school, are your values lived or laminated? I think this was his tongue-in-cheek cover. But that sounds like that’s a sort of a cultural thing that permeates Fellowes.

James Webb:

Yeah. We have what we call a 360 value proposition and that’s very clear and that’s been the same for at least 20 years and there would’ve been a version of it before then. So things we do well, we try and keep the same and there’s obviously areas we can do better. But generally, what we do is not so complicated. We are trying to sell great products to end consumers and we don’t need to over complicate it. So not over complicating is important and linking your revenue to your expenditure from a marketing perspective is something we try and make sure that we do so we’ve got a clear handle on what we’re doing and if it makes sense.

Simon Hazeldine:

And in terms of customer focus, Richard, what do you see out there in terms of what’s getting in the way of that genuinely being the case for some organizations?

Richard Lane:

Well, I think the way that people in customer facing roles are probably targeted and measured is still a challenge, Simon. So if you are targeting someone on making a number no matter what, then you’re probably not going to be driving the right behaviors. But if you are focusing someone on behaviors first, you’re more likely to be customer centric. And it’s easy to say, isn’t it? Customer centric approach, but actually I think being able to master that and put your feet in the shoes of the customer, demands a lot of emotional intelligence. And I wonder how much training in the commercial world goes into helping people to be listeners first and talk second. I still think the world of sales training has an awful long way to go in that respect. So yeah, that’s just sort of I think where we’re at.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. I think I’d have to have a deep sigh sometimes if I’m working with folks and I’d say, “Take me through your sales presentation or your value proposition,” and out comes six or seven slides all about themselves first and how many offices they’ve got around the world and all of that sort of stuff and don’t start with the customer. That just seems to be missing sometimes. So to have that as an ethos at Fellowes is really probably a powerful testament to the organization’s longevity, James.

James Webb:

It is. We try and encourage our sales and marketing teams to spend as much time with the customer or with the end user as we can. We want that interaction. So we try not to get bogged down in systems administration. It is about the customer and whether that’s doing an audit of their premises to understand their air quality and being able to talk to them about that. It’s not about how many air purifiers can I flog you with? It’s where have you got a problem with air quality? So it’s very much that approach. And then if you do those things right, then the revenue tends to follow as opposed to putting the revenue first.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah, absolutely. And on that sort of subject, we also discussed in our pre-interview conversation around your focus on outcome focused sales and marketing. So what do you do to make that happen in the organization?

James Webb:

That’s really the big part. We’ve now got a three year plan and we are very clear as an organization on where we would like to be and what that means in terms of the product solutions we’ll provide. So I think working back from the end goal, but also thinking about the solutions we want to provide is key and working it backwards in terms of, is it achievable? So if you want the outcome to be the market leader in air treatment, you’re going to have certain pillars and proof points to make sure that’s the case, whether that’s around product performance, understanding the category, product testing. So it’s making sure you’ve got the pillars in place to support what you’re trying to achieve. So we wouldn’t tend to set an outcome without really understanding, okay, have we got all the capabilities to achieve that? Because it can be dangerous to set an aspiration and a target. And I think sometimes companies can be guilty of that, you don’t necessarily then understand truly what’s required from a capability perspective.

Simon Hazeldine:

And Richard, your reflections on that kind of outcome focus and its importance or why it’s missing or in place sometimes?

Richard Lane:

So just a small example from our business, we don’t pay a standard commission to our SDRs, which is very unusual for our marketplace. Why don’t we do that? Well, because if we did it, we believe it just sets totally the wrong incentive. Actually, we’re about creating meaningful quality opportunities for our customers. As soon as you put a pen and note on the creating of a meeting, you’re driving a totally different behavior potentially. So we talk about inputs, outputs, outcomes, and insights. So how do we make sure we’re delivering the right level of outcome? We’re garnering insight for the customer, and actually everybody’s incentivized to drive forward and create a successful long-term partnership. And I think when you get people thinking in that way, the day job happens, right?

Richard Lane:

Because you’ve superseded that sort of first level goal, and you’re going towards the vision. And just something James was saying there, maybe if I could just pick up on, there’s been a lot of, I think starting with Jim Collins, the BHAG, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, sounds like Fellowes actually are saying, well, no, let’s be … We have a saying internally, ambitious yet realistic. And it sounds like that’s your approach as well. It’s sort of, let’s not shoot so far away and hope that we get somewhere near it, but let’s actually be considered and create goals that are meaningful and no stretch, but we know we’re going to deliver with the right infrastructure. Would that be fair to say, James, is that the sort of mindset?

James Webb:

It is. It’s interesting you talk about BHAGs because sometimes we will use them, but we’ll use them in smaller areas because then you can take a risk or you can take a chance. But it’s not distracting from your overall direction.

Richard Lane:

Right. Okay.

James Webb:

So I think it’s about finding the right balance where you want to set a clear outcome. But if you want to try something, I think that’s also an important mindset to have as well.

Richard Lane:

Oh, that’s interesting. So you’ve sort of got the, I was going to say the juggernaut, maybe that’s not right, but you’ve got the core business and the brand is rolling and driving forward and you know where you’re going with that, you’ve got a long history. And then you’re experimenting in other places with some probably pretty wild goals in terms of let’s shoot for this, but that’s not at the expense of the core.

James Webb:

Yeah. Making sure you try things. I mean, that’s one of the benefits of being privately owned. You don’t have to keep … I guess your shareholders are relatively limited in their size. There’s only a few of them. And just being able to have the freedom and people to have the freedom to try things and do things differently or do things quickly, is a real benefit as well. So I think you’ve got to get that balance right. But ultimately, having that clear focus on the outcome is really important.

Richard Lane:

Yeah. Excellent.

Simon Hazeldine:

Fantastic. I mean, the comment as well that resonated for me was, to paraphrase you, James, don’t worry about how many units the customer might buy, find out what the customer’s problems and challenges are and then the units take care of themselves. And I think that takes a little bit of a leap of confidence for some people to realize that if you focus on the right thing, you get the right results. And I think the customers can tell the difference, can’t they?

James Webb:

Yes.

Simon Hazeldine:

And they know that one of your folks has got their best interests at heart, they’re going to trust them, which lowers a lot of the purchasing risk for the customer. And just interested to ask you, my experience is the use of case studies and customer success stories and testimonials, is still often quite underutilized by sales or marketing teams. How do you approach that area of the [inaudible 00:26:28] sort of social proof part of using other customers to tell potential customers about what you do?

James Webb:

I think in our more transactional categories, it’s a lot more straightforward. Take shredding as an example, the need is quite clear and the solution is quite clear. So it’s then about selling the innovation and the Fellowes brand in our air treatment business, which has changed dramatically over the last two or three years because of the pandemic, being subject experts to be able to give people the confidence they’re buying the right solution, because ultimately whilst COVID has created awareness around indoor air quality, it’s still an invisible issue to an extent. So being able to give them confidence and case studies around what happens when you put the product into a room and the results has been key. So case studies either before, in terms of much more technical, so you might have it backed by a scientist because the proof point is there through to a study that we’ve done with the Chicago Cubs or Doncaster Rovers, to be able to show actually, this is the types of environments you would put the product and the benefits it can have, and then having those people from those organizations talk about the benefits of that product.

James Webb:

I think it also helps people relate. So it’s been really, really important for us in that category where it’s a little bit more complicated and people are prepared to take a lot more time to research as well. So on our website, we’ve got a massive range of case studies, whether that’s through dental, whether that’s through the environments, I’ve already talked about whether that’s offices. So it’s been a really, really interesting part to explore actually.

Simon Hazeldine:

And from Chicago Cubs to Doncaster Rovers, James that is-

James Webb:

There’s a solution for everybody.

Simon Hazeldine:

For one side of the sporting world to the other geographically, that’s a wonderful diversity of customers.

James Webb:

What we have learned is sadly, it can’t always translate to performance on the pitch.

Richard Lane:

No matter how pure the air is.

James Webb:

Exactly, exactly.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah, it’s a contributing factor, but it’s not the only thing to the performance of the [inaudible 00:28:41]. Wonderful. Well, I think on that sporting note, James, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Really, really appreciate it. Richard, any closing comments or thoughts from you, sir?

Richard Lane:

No, I think that was just to reiterate your thanks really, Simon. So James, thank you.

Simon Hazeldine:

Pleasure.

Richard Lane:

Really fascinating. I think we’ve covered a number of subjects and the ultimate one for me comes down to, our job is to listen and then tell relatable stories of how we’ve helped solve problems in the past. And sounds like you guys are doing that all across the board in your business, so congratulations and really lovely to have spoken with you today. So thank you.

James Webb:

Thank you.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1:

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