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:

Welcome to The Insider’s sales and marketing podcast. I’m Simon Hazeldine. I’m a sales transformation strategist and sales performance consultant, helping my clients get more sales more often with more margin. I’m also a keynote speaker and author of several books on sales and negotiation. And I’m your host for the podcast, along with my co-host, the one and only Richard Lane, who is the co-founder of durhamlane, who are an inside sales partner that helps businesses grow their revenue through an integrated sales and marketing methodology. So Richard, great to be back in the studio with you again and with our guest for this episode. So we’re going to hand over to you to introduce him.

Richard Lane:

Excellent. Thank you, Simon. And wonderful to be back. Really pleased to introduce Peter Schopf today. Peter is the head of EMEA sales for Siemens MindSphere. Really looking forward to our conversation. It’s going to be full of huge value for our listeners. And Peter, welcome again. And I’ll hand you back to Simon to get us started.

Simon Hazeldine:

Wonderful. Thank you, Richard. So Peter, what we normally do with guests is ask them to just introduce themselves by way of giving us a little bit of background and how you came to be in the role that you’re in currently so our listeners can kind of get to know you a little bit before we go into some of the other questions. So over to you, give us a little bit about your background please.

Peter Schopf:

Yeah, sure. And first of all, also, thanks a lot Simon and Richard for inviting me to your podcast. I do admit I wasn’t aware really of durhamlane up front, but you have some very nice content in the internet, which I now put into my favorites and look past that once in a while

Simon Hazeldine:

Oh, thank you. Excellent.

Peter Schopf:

But to your question in terms of my background, so I’m with Siemens actually for 14 years. I joined Siemens with the Siemens Graduate Program. It’s kind of a high profile graduate program, also recognized globally. And back then, that was my one and only application to Siemens because I was very much in favor of that company. Still a big fan. Basically back then they had these mega trends which they put into the core of their offerings and their visions. And that really caught me in that case.

Peter Schopf:

Since then, I did various different environments and industries like metals technologies, smart grid, rail electrification. I’m currently now with digital industries software. And what might be interesting, I actually started off as business administration colleague and was quite good in that or had a successful career, but I was kind of missing the impact I can have in my role. And so what I did, I switched sides basically from business administration to strategy and business development. Now finally ending up at sales ever. If you do the job right, you have a very big impact in any case. Yeah, so that’s basically where I come from and where I ended up now.

Simon Hazeldine:

Great. And back and ended up in sales, which obviously has to be one of the best places to be, but I might be a little bit biased there. I’m also really jealous that you only applied for Siemens on the graduate program. I used to lead a high potential graduate program for who want to have a proper job. And I knew they all applied for about five or six different graduate programs so it was always super competitive to get them on board. So I think Siemens had it kind of lucky there. So at Siemens MindSphere, we’re really interested how do you structure and look at your markets, Peter? I know people there are various ways and approaches people have. We’re really interested to get your insights and your approach.

Peter Schopf:

There are several dimensions that you need to consider. Obviously, as I’m running the EMEA market, we look at our different countries and there are big differences between the countries. There are stronger countries leading the digitalization. Some countries are more careful being a little bit slow to adopt. This has an impact also on how we set up our sales structure of having strong, dedicated local teams when there’s a company driving digitalization, having a more reactive approach when this is not the case. UK, for example, is doing quite well. We are very much engaged, for example, in the water business in terms of, I mean, MindSphere is an IoT platform, we are internet of things. So we connect data. That’s what it’s all about. Basically data connection and algorithms and analysis is on top of that. We also work together with some of the excellence clusters we have in the UK in terms of, well, future proof visions. The close loop digital twin for example, we feedback data from the machines that you have in the field to your simulation models and things like that.

Peter Schopf:

So that’s really going quite well as one of the examples, but at different ways to… Structure’s how you look at markets of course. It’s the industries, for example, bigger markets, we segment according to industries. They might be stronger or weaker. So for example, heavy machinery automotive, but also kind of emerging industry like battery manufacturing and things like that. So we cover all of those. What is also interesting is to look at companies in their size on the one hand side, but also their technological maturity and to see which ones do we address first and how do we address them kind of with high touch or low touch, tech touch, which would be just looking at IT tools to manage. So all of those things and more, like use cases and else, play a role in some of the decisions we take.

Simon Hazeldine:

That’s fantastic. Because it’s always a tough question, isn’t it? Right? Where do we go first? I think with things like digitalization, it’s interesting you’re talking about the people who are earlier adopters maybe or faster movers, and then you’ve got slower ones who are probably going to be on beyond a bit of a journey that’s going to require, I guess, a different sales focus, which is great. And on the subject of digitalization, obviously you are a leader in this. With the comments about the early adopters, maybe my words, not your words and maybe people are not so, how do you convince your customers to come on that journey with you and what challenges do you find you face in doing that?

Peter Schopf:

You put it exactly the right way. It’s a journey. I think the things we are struggling with also and everybody else in the industry is this understanding of why you should take this journey. This approach needs to be clear to the decision makers within companies, within the customers. That’s very often not the case. So what very often happens is that companies start something off, try something out. But for example, they think, “Okay, when I have not the return on investment with my first use case, I stopped because obviously it failed.” And that understanding that, “Hey, it’s a digitalization journey. It’s about transforming your business, about being future proof. It will take years to get it really done.” That is a very important first learning and insight. I think that’s something we need to constantly work on to provide these insights to our customers to understand how can you address that, why should you do it.

Peter Schopf:

I really like this Golden Circle of Simon Sinek where you start with the why in your message and then you continue with how and what. And that is I think key. So I actually also have a little podcast on LinkedIn calling The Brutal Truth of IoT. So it’s this brutal truth to have that understanding. And that’s something I’m working on and I love to discuss with customers.

Simon Hazeldine:

I love The Brutal Truth, so check that out folks. Follow Peter on LinkedIn and have a look at that. Richard, you must have a similar kind of context at durhamlane. You might have to convince clients to consider using an inside sales partner for the first time. So how do you address that as an organization?

Richard Lane:

Yeah, it was really interesting listening to Peter there talking about it’s a journey, it takes time. We have exactly the same conversation. So there’s no point ramping up an outsource sales program for example, and then stopping after two months. You need to give it time because an outbound cadence of sales activity typically takes longer than when people are finding you. It takes longer to create the opportunity. It takes longer than to nurture and develop that opportunity and convert. So we very transparently, Simon, go out and recommend at least 12 month termed agreements. Now we can do less than that as a proof of concept, but anything less than six months, it’s pretty hard to really assess something correctly I think. So, yeah, I like the journey analogy. We use it often. And sales takes time. And that’s the reality of it.

Simon Hazeldine:

I think that it’s an interesting one in trying to convince clients of ROIs with a longer time perspective. I think that is a challenging thing for sales professionals to be able to do, because certainly if you get any sort of economic contraction like we’ve had historically ROI timelines come shooting down, don’t they, and the CFO wants to return pretty quickly.

Richard Lane:

It was also just thinking back to when we were talking about Peter’s European focus. We do a lot of work around value proposition and messaging. And so make sure you understand what types of companies you’re looking to become your customers and what types of individuals within those companies you want to be your customers. And then there’s an extra layer, which is, it depends which country they’re in, which will depend in how evolved they are. So you have to do that work upfront in order to give yourself the best chance of success I think.

Simon Hazeldine:

No, thank you. Great. Great to see the two perspectives. And Peter, when we were having our sort of pre-interview, we obviously chat with you in advance of coming on for the recording, you told us that you are passionate about the use of video selling. I think that’ll be a really interesting topic for our listeners. I think it’s definitely a hot topic. Could you tell us how you’re using this and why you are such an advocate of it?

Peter Schopf:

Yeah. So first of all, I mean, I love experimenting with different ways of selling and different ways of doing things because especially in this environment as we discussed before, there are very different dimensions that needs to be considered. And the success, nobody yet found kind of the holy grail of success, how it works and the perfect way of moving things forward. So that means you need to approach it in different ways. And especially with Siemens, we have a huge sales force. However, this sales force is used selling hardware for the most part and licensed software for the other part. So suddenly coming around, trying to sell SaaS has many different implications ads. It’s from technology point of view. It’s quite complicated also from an incentive point of view because suddenly they have been incentivized on big ticket deals and now SaaS is more land and expand approach. So considering that we need to make it very, very easy for overall Siemens sales team to be successful in selling cloud software and these new technologies.

Peter Schopf:

So what I really liked is that we have set up some short video snippets, five to seven minutes about different solutions. Very tangible, addressing a specific problem of end customers to say, “Hey, here, if you want to have remote condition monitoring of your machines, that’s the solution. Look at it in five minutes. Does it address your problem? Yes or no?” Or energy management for example. “Do you need energy monitoring? Yes or no? Look at it five minutes. Does it ring a bell or does it not?” And so what you save with that approach is that you need to enable your sales force on a broad scale with hours and hours of, “Hey, that is cloud. This is what it can do for you. Oh no, there’s an update. We need to retrain or refocus.” And they struggle with that because of the complexity nowaday. I mean, they’re very good in already complex topics, and these complexities add up on top of them.

Peter Schopf:

So what we do for example, therefore, is to use these videos, also use LinkedIn and also these IOT videos there, which actually even there’s not so many likes, many people now addressed me personally when I meet them and said, “Hey, I watched your video.” And that’s kind of expanding that reach, making it easily scalable what you provide. It’s definitely not bringing you to the final closing. Yeah, there are other steps in between, but it can be a very good initial stage of addressing things, making people aware. I was hoping also but I do admit that didn’t work out fully yet. That then people within an account will pass it on the videos to other areas of the account. Because to crack an account, you talk to one person often or a team, a group, but to really understand, “Okay, who has that problem?” And it can be everywhere in a huge account. So ideally it would be to encourage your contact, your champions at account to forward these videos. This has happened to some extent, but I mean, we are still also trying out these things and improving step by step.

Simon Hazeldine:

But I mean, I think it’s a great reflection that sometimes people will talk about their champion as being their salesperson inside the client. And of course you’ve got to empower your champion, haven’t you, to be able to sell effectively on your behalf. I think short, sharp, five to seven minute videos that really hit the mark does the job for the champion. “Hey, have a look at this from Siemens MindSphere. I think this might be something we ought to discuss further or and share around the organization.” So I think that’s a… And you’re making it very easy for them to do that.

Peter Schopf:

Exactly.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. So I’m sure it’ll start to happen. I think like with social selling and things on LinkedIn, people get sometimes over obsessed, like, “How many views has my video had? Or how many views…” Yes, numbers matter, right? But it’s the people looking. And if you’re getting the right people, that I think is more important than, I don’t know. Something viral is normally funny, right? Or something like that, or emotional.

Richard Lane:

We have a good example Simon of video use internally at durhamlane. So both for our new business development work for our new business team, but also for our customers. So we are using video much more now to garner interest and to turn interest into a conversation. But we’re also from a new business point of view using it in multiple ways across the sales process.

Richard Lane:

So a recent example, we submitted a recommendation paper into a potential client, asked our sales guide, then recorded a video and sort of just took the prospect through some of the key steps of the proposal and sent that off. It got lots and lots of views internally. So yeah, we then also want to do that live, but actually you can’t get everyone live. So it’s synchronous and asynchronous and you’re able to make sure that message stays true. I think one of the things for our listeners to think about, and I’ve always reflected on this, is that we spend really very little time with our prospects when they’re just making a decision around who to use. So the more we can guide them and support them and provide them with materials or tools or information that supports our business case, then the better, because we spend little time with them really.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. There was some research done a few years ago about the amount of time a buyer actually spends in conversation with a salesperson. It’s an minuscule percentage of their time, and probably that was pre COVID. So it might even be more different now. And again Richard, I think what Peter’s saying is nobody’s found the holy grail. So if you’re not using videos, why not try them, right? Because you got to experiment to try these different things. So they seem to be working for Siemens MindSphere. So probably a good one to go and have a look at some of those and see how those are structured I think will be a good example.

Simon Hazeldine:

Peter, in our previous conversation, you said you’re an advocate of copy and paste. I know you didn’t mean that in terms of a Word document or email, but more of as a concept. So what do you mean by copy and paste? It’s a two part question. And secondly, how do you encourage that as a leader?

Peter Schopf:

So it comes back to experimenting and trying things out. This leads to different approaches. Obviously you need to then identify those which work, which work quite well. And then try to structure that, capture that in a way that it can then be multiplied and scaled. That is basically the principle idea of the whole thing. And as we do have, for example with IT, you do have different use cases in all kinds of areas, so what we try to identify is what use case works best, what approach did we do in that context, what message rang the bell basically of really getting that use case engaged and implemented. And all of this we tried to capture and then multiply that throughout the team.

Peter Schopf:

This is an ongoing process with different stages. As a leader, I obviously talk about those things and we have tried to establish a process in terms of, “Okay, if somebody want a deal, we analyze that deal.” We structure it, capture it. What’s the essence of the sales success basically and also the customer value and his success? And how can we then, in an easy way, structured first with simple slides, kind of a two pager explaining that, share it with the overall organization. So it comes back to knowledge management. And I think really knowledge management, we can do always much better than we, in principle, do and in companies. So that’s one of my also big topics where I’m very interested in and engaged in.

Simon Hazeldine:

Well, there’s often lots of really, really great knowledge and ideas out there and practices out there. You just got to find them and then find a way of sharing them. So I think that was why I was really interested in your copy paste. I’m also a staunch advocate of win-loss reviews being done. And it’s often that learning is lost in organizations. So you’ve won. Why have we won?

Peter Schopf:

Yeah.

Simon Hazeldine:

And it seems to be cultural, whether an organization puts more focus on the wins or the losses, whereas you can learn from both. Although the loss reviews are often less pleasant.

Peter Schopf:

That’s right.

Simon Hazeldine:

But they can be super kind of helpful from that. This is I think a really important topic, my next question, and one that a lot of organizations don’t do particularly well, which is the approach you use when you’re making decisions about which customer projects to pursue and which customer projects to walk away from. So it might often refer to a sort of opportunity qualification I suppose, or customer qualification. A lot of sales people positively pursue everything with equal vigor and end up getting awfully busy. But what approach do you use when you decide whether to follow on with a project or to take that tough decision to walk away?

Peter Schopf:

Yeah. And it’s a difficult one because I’m a principal optimist so I always think, “Okay, we can still have a chance.” So obviously that’s probably one of the sales traits you need to have. But in some cases you need to make these hard decisions and walk away. And we had several of those. Especially when you look at the IoT environment, it’s a very dynamic one. Companies are struggling finding their way through because it’s not been done before in many cases. So there’s not much knowledge around how do I structure a tender. And therefore we pretty early can see, “Okay, this company might have been influenced by a competitor or else to look, for example, only on connectivity.” That’s obviously an important part, but it’s only a part of the whole big vision of digitalization and what you can do.

Peter Schopf:

So if the tender or RFI, RFQ, whatever it is, is then very structured and pointing to one direction, we try obviously to engage the customer and try to convince him of the complexity that he needs to see, but also to avoid certain complexities that are not necessary at the beginning. And if we achieve some communication with the customer where we see, “Okay. He’s listening. He’s understanding. He’s trying to find a way and we can still guide him together as partners,” then obviously we stick to it. But if there’s really a clear process and we say, “Okay, that’s not going into our directions, we cut the losses and move on.” So that’s always a case by case decision for sure. But in principle, it comes down to, does it fit to our portfolio and the understanding we have of how you approach digitalization or do they have a completely different understanding?

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. If I’m ever talking on this topic with clients and I ask account managers or key account managers what’s it like filling out an RFI, RFQ or tender document which has clearly been heavily influenced by your competitor, the faces, oh everybody just shakes their heads and just goes, “Been there. Been there. Don’t want to kind of do.” Richard, your perspective from durhamlane on this?

Richard Lane:

Yeah. Totally changed our world actually. We’ve built over the last couple of years, I say we, the Royal we, the Royal we has built what we call a validation toolkit. So we are now much more selective around the projects that we bid for, much more selective around the work that we’re willing to take on and from what type of customer, and that’s had a profound effect on both the clients we win, the projects that we retain, and the projects that we grow. So that’s one angle in that, spend your time where you can be most successful is one of our sayings.

Richard Lane:

The other thing, I love the psychology of sales and I was saying this to one of my colleagues the other day. We had an RFP, we made a strategic decision that we were going to go for the RFP because we didn’t have any background. We didn’t have any knowledge. We therefore decided we weren’t going to win it, but it was important for us to have a go and to get maybe in front of that procurement team in that business. The irony is or the psychology is, that the more time you spend on something, the more you feel like you deserve to win it, don’t you? It’s that sort of thing.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. Yep.

Richard Lane:

And so we had to just keep telling ourselves as we were going through this process, and it took a lot of time to complete, that actually we don’t deserve this. It’s not been written for us. The sting in the tail of this one is that we’ve been told we won it. So it’s so… But actually, normally and I always think there are the anomalies to the rule in life and particularly with sales, which is why we do Peter, I think I agree with you, we do tend to be of the glass half full nature or the positive side of life. So what I don’t want someone saying to me is, “But we went for that one and we won it.” That doesn’t mean that that’s the way it normally works. So you have to try and take the emotion out of it and spend your time with customers that you can serve well, that you can grow with, that you’re proud to represent.

Simon Hazeldine:

We definitely don’t want to take away the kind of optimism that Peter’s talking about. I mean, I do think that more positive optimism does seem to be part of the character or DNA of a salesperson, right? So we definitely don’t want the pendulum to swing too far over to pessimism on the other side. But it’s just that what are you busy with is always the thing. How likely are you to win it? And if you are going to go for something, it’s like we’re saying Richard, you’re making a strategic decision to get some time in front of a client for maybe for longer term development. And that can be a decision, but don’t fool yourself if that’s what you’re not doing.

Richard Lane:

Yeah. And there’s a time versus reward equation there, isn’t there?

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah.

Richard Lane:

So we can say, “We don’t think we’re going to win this because of X, Y, and Z. It’s going to take us X number of hours to complete. That investment of time we believe is going to be worth it because we’re going to get the following outcome or output.” And so that’s fine. That’s okay, isn’t it? If you can work that through.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah. Peter, you mentioned earlier the sort of the importance of bringing insight to your customers and you mentioned to us when we were talking before we came on air that you make use of the Challenger Sales approach. Could you give us some examples of how you use that approach at Siemens’ MindSphere because I think it was hugely popular, and still is, but I think it was often seems to been a little misunderstood by people. So it’d be just great to get your perspective.

Peter Schopf:

Sure. Yeah. I mean, especially in such a context of new technology, innovation, challenging the status quo and the beliefs of people I think is key. What I like very much on the Challenger is also is this storyline they build up. I mean, if you mind, I can give you one example a little bit more in detail and run you through these processes.

Simon Hazeldine:

Yeah, please. Go ahead.

Peter Schopf:

Emotion is a very important part of that. And so if you think about it, kind of the emotional impact on things, then for example what the Challenger Sales gives you is these stages. The first stage would be a warmer that people kind of warm up to your idea. And for example, if you say, “Hey, sales can actually drive digitalization,” because if sales understands what their end customer are needing in terms of new solutions and also different solutions are not only selling the equipment, but selling equipment as a service suddenly, or even output as a service, so completely new business models, new approach, where you can have a better relation and longer lasting relation to your customers, isn’t that great?”

Peter Schopf:

And in tendency, people say, “Yes, that’s great. I feel warm and comfortable.” They might even think, “Okay, I did that already. I started that discussion with my IT team.” But then the second stage comes and that’s the reframe where you challenge the beliefs and status quo of people. And you then, for example, in that case, you say, “But many businesses take the wrong decision to then let the IT department decide on how to move forward.” And the IT department, in general, they believe they can do that because maybe they already have a smart home and things like that. But in principle, also IT departments strongly underestimate the complexity of an IT platform. So they might even think of, “Okay, I have more budgets. I have more men and resources,” but they are challenged very often on that.

Peter Schopf:

Now that’s the second stage basically, this new understanding, “Oh wow. Maybe the IT guy who should know about it is not the right person to talk to.” And then you follow that up with rational drowning, the third stage where you come up with a lot of examples. It’s about the data model you need to set that’s about the governance of the access of data. It’s these updates that you continuously need to run when maintaining a platform, monitoring components, the security, the certificates that you need to fulfill and else. And so this rational drowning has many impacts. They make you believe and understand, “Okay, wow, it is complex. And my IT department is probably over his head when they try to tackle that or they spend everything on the platform instead of really on the end customer value.”

Peter Schopf:

And then you come to the third stage. I mean, from an emotional journey, that’s kind of the worst situation because you then talk about real life examples of, for example in this case where the sales teams they wanted these new solutions for their end customers. They needed it because of market pressure and competitors doing this. Their IT team took three years and they didn’t get a solution out there because it was just too complex, this international management of data and then putting applications on top, defining the data model and else. I mean, the more specific you make example of the sales leader who was desperate and losing market share, the more is the emotional impact. I think that is also very important not to manipulate people, but for them to understand the message and the implications also for themselves.

Peter Schopf:

And then if you come then after that emotional impact stage to the next stage, and you say, “Well, but there’s a new way.” And a new way by the way, that’s there’s players out there in the market that have an integrated platform where you don’t need to build the platform, you can concentrate on the solutions that bring value add to your customers. You can concentrate on that part. Then the emotions go back up and they say, “Okay, wow. Maybe I’m not stuck with my IT department. That might take the wrong decisions. I can really have a different path forward.”

Peter Schopf:

And then at the very end, and I think that’s important, at the very end in the seventh stage, you talk about your own solution, MindSphere in my case. And then how we can help the customer to get things done. For example in this case, also after three months we had the machines connected and first solutions with the customers. So that’s something that really is from my point of view a very strong way of tailoring messages. And you can do that on different levels. You can do that over the overall sales cycle, but also in this very short story telling. And on different levels, you can have these kind of emotional journeys. I think that’s a strong point of the Challenger Sales.

Simon Hazeldine:

Wow. What a very eloquent illustration of the Challenger Sales process, Peter. That was I think a masterclass in the process and the stages. So thank you. Thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it. Richard, comments from you with regards to the Challenger approach or the comments Peter’s made?

Richard Lane:

Yeah. I love that. We can probably snip at that as its own little thing and have a Challenger Sales example. Just maybe very quickly. We have our own sales methodology at durhamlane called selling at higher level. It came out really of my corporate experience in sales. And when I set up my own business, I was thinking how do I help people that maybe have never thought about the process of selling before, give them some structure and some intuitive ways of working so that I can help them to be successful.

Richard Lane:

And just after I’d started at my first business, the Challenger Sales came out. I bought it and read it cover to cover and got to the end and thought, “Phew, that’s an absolute relief because selling at high level is very similar. It’s question based. It’s consultative in nature. It’s all about value. It’s about putting your feet in the shoes of the customer and ultimately building the story.” I love the way you taught that through Peter. It’s a really good example. It sort of ties together this whole conversation when I think at the beginning. I wrote down a note, you said, “It’s a journey. It takes time.” Well, you’ve just demonstrated your seven stages there, which guide your potential customers through until they become customers with you.

Simon Hazeldine:

And I think a wonderful reminder of the role of emotion in selling and probably the power of stories as part of a sales approach to really bring it to life. So, Peter, thank you. We’re very conscious of time, so we really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and thoughts with you. Thank you so much. They’re really 10 out 10 for the Challenger Sales masterclass. So that’s got to be worthless for people listening into the podcast alone for that. Very, very beautifully articulated. So thank you very, very much for your time. It’s been a pleasure having you on The Insiders, and we look forward to keeping in touch.

Peter Schopf:

Thank you.

Richard Lane:

Thanks Peter.

Peter Schopf:

Pleasure.

Speaker 1:

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