#195 – GST XX: Hitting The Right Notes in Sales w/ Jessica Guihard

 

 

Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

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Phil: We always like to give some space to one of our amazing, uh, alumni, uh, to share their master's research and I'm. Really thrilled to welcome Jessica, uh, to come and, I've asked if Jessica could share with you, um, the uh, master's project that she did. Um, and, probably it's best for Jessica to Come on stage now, introduce herself and share with, uh, share with us her.

Amazing. uh, amazing. Thank you Phil.

Jessica: Thank you so much, Phil. and we'll get started with, uh, actually sharing first a video with you

​[SEE ABOVE FOR VIDEO]

Jessica: so here we go. Hello, everyone. Um, hope that, uh, you had a good, uh, break, a good coffee break and that, uh, hopefully the. Music in this video help you release some dopa so you can actually, uh, stay with me for the next, uh, 25 minutes. So I suggest that we start, uh, looking briefly at, uh, what we just saw in, uh, in this video.

Um, that was really a. Very simple experiment. You see that, uh, we have random people in the street conducting an orchestra, and, uh, the reaction of the orchestra is actually very obvious, uh, to the, um, the way a conductor is actually leading this orchestra. You see that, uh, when you have the conductor being confused, the orchestra is confused.

If the conductor is, uh, actually, uh, slow, you hear that, uh, the orchestra is going slow or the music got actually softer when you see, and at the very end of the video you see a conductor that is, uh, bringing the energy, the confidence, the direction, the guidance, the orchestra actually comes alive. So you see the point?

No, that, uh, I'm actually, uh, trying to make here. Um, the conductor is really the one that is bringing like the, the tempo, the clarity, the, the guidance and the direction. And even if you have the best musician in the world, and this orchestra is actually pretty good, right? Um, you have individual performers, but if you are not able to conduct them the right way.

Yeah, you actually don't get real music. You get eventually noise. You know, that's exactly the same with sales. In sales. That's if you don't have the right leader to conduct actually the sales team, you may have the best individual contributor, in your team. At best case scenario, you get average performance and worst case scenario, you may actually get, uh, total chaos.

So that's really the, the point here that I really wanted to make and, uh, and I will share, uh, about the, the research. But, um. In sales. It's not only about hitting the right notes, technically speaking, but it's also about alignment, bringing like a leadership aligned together, a harmony and clearly a sense of of purpose.

So, uh, look, um. So I am Jessica. I am, um, currently a sales development leader at the SAP, uh, at EMEA region. I am a lucky leader of an amazing team of 150 professionals. And we have a clear purpose to address our customer in a digital fashion. And they have a mission to generate, uh, quality conversation with our customers, uh, to generate pipeline, quality pipeline that ultimately converts into revenue for, for SAP clearly.

So, um, so. In, in sales, what are really attracting me. And that's something I want to share a bit more about myself, not about the job title, but uh, uh, that's the human aspect. And it's good because that's the theme of today. You know, it's a human connection and that's that human element of, of sales that always attracted me.

Clearly sales is a number. And we are talking about execution and numbers, but so about people, and I think that Fiona was saying that earlier today, uh, we are dealing with people. We are actually selling to people and, uh, we are working with people. So that's really what attracted me, uh, to, uh, to that profession.

Um, if I can share about my values and that Phil actually brought me to reflect a bit more on, on my values, uh, I, I. Define myself with, uh, clear values of being passionate. Uh, you will probably see that in the next, uh, 20 minutes. Um, being always curious to learn new things, to be determined, and also to be optimist, uh, always.

So, uh, so which is good in the era that, uh, we are, we are, we are within, uh, but very often in my career in, uh, in sales, I have seen that some of my personal values. Me clashed, you know, with, uh, with, um, the leader that I was expected to be and, uh, and the master in, uh, in, in sales transformation that I actually enrolled to, helped me big time to reflect on, uh, on this.

Uh, I can tell that thanks to these three years program where I have looked at who I am as a leader, uh, I am a leader, like believing in values. And these values, they actually.

Uh, within empathy, like leading with empathy that leads through collaboration, through innovation. And these values really like, uh, define who I am and who I, how I show up at work basically.

So, um, that, uh, master on leading sales transformation really helped me to. To feel good about it, to feel good about who I am as a person and who I am as a, as a leader. That's, uh, really make a huge difference to, to me. So, uh, again, very, very thankful for, for the journey that we have been through. And, um, talking a bit more about the, the leading sales transformation program and, uh, what inspired my thinking.

Uh, Phil gave, uh, this introduction that I will share a bit more about the research that I went through. Uh, so a mix between theory and practice. I was very happy to, uh, learn from great thinkers, uh, from theory, uh. Clearly, you know, from reading, like selling performance and, uh, and studying the sales, uh, mindset of, uh, of Phil.

But, uh, uh, I see Tony is in the room actually, so my professors as well, uh, who actually helped me, Louise. Uh, so I was really inspired by a lot of, of different, uh. Uh, professors, teachers, clearly, uh, we are so, uh, uh, professor Birkinshaw as well with a competitive advantage. These were really like, uh, elements that helped me, uh, learn and, um, and bring the theory basically with the practice.

I am a practitioner, I am a leader in, in an organization, so clearly, uh, what also helped me was to, uh, learn from, uh, not only the, the theoretical aspect, but also the practice. So the beauty about the. The master in sales transformation is that, uh, you get to know the theory, but you get to practice and to apply, uh, what you are learning into your real life examples, uh, with your, your sales organization.

And, um, and, and that, that helped me a big time. And I must say that, um. I also, uh, uh, besides the classroom, uh, I also learn a lot from, uh, from leaders in my organization. Uh, the leaders were inspiring. I am pretty sure that we, uh, we all have names in mind and, uh, we picture them that these leaders that inspire you every day, we actually are lifting you up or lifting teams up.

And, uh, maybe surprising, but, uh, I was not inspired, but guided with. It's a wrong example of leadership, you know, uh, this is, uh, exactly. Uh. Uh, the same as in sales. You know, when uh, you go through your win loss deal reviews and, uh, you look at what good looks like, so then you can repeat and close more revenue.

Um, you also look at of course, what went wrong and, uh, in, in your losses. Uh, that's the same for me with leadership. I am inspired by leaders that I admire and that are actually to me. Putting like the different pieces of the puzzles and, and they, they actually, uh, lead their, their teams to, uh, towards performance.

Um, and, and the wrong examples, uh, really like the people where you see clearly that, uh, uh, their impact on their teams and on their performance, their. Misaligned, they are actually acting with, uh, pressure, uh, they are acting eventually with, with fear. And, and clearly it drives like a, a terrible chaos in, in the sales organization.

So this is also, uh, something that, uh, actually, uh, guiding me, uh, a lot and, uh, and outside of, um, of, um. OO of this, um, I, I really wanted to share a quick story, uh, and, and here I'm not going to share anything about, uh, SAP, uh, or any, uh, very recent, um, uh, experience. But I'm going to, uh, drag you back to my first job in sales. Uh, my first job in sales were, um, yeah. We had in the office, a small break room and, uh, where people were having, uh, coffee breaks and breaks. And, um, the, the manager there, uh, he, he was, um, he decided to put the whiteboard, uh, literally a true whiteboard. You know what I'm talking about? You need to go, uh, few years behind.

We're not talking about AI dashboards. We are talking about a whiteboard that you update. You know, with markers, you know, so markers are green color, uh, orange and red. Of course, typical in a sales organization, you update the numbers, so the numbers there from everyone, everyone's name on it, and, and, then every, everyone visible.

So very typical in a sales organization. Again, nothing wrong with it, but look, the manager was typically coming, um, into that, that room, uh, with his markers in hand, and he was coming. Barely a greeting, even people being there like having coffee. And he was just standing there like updating the whiteboard silence.

So he was updating numbers, colors, and uh, and then look what, what? He was just working away without saying anything. So no greetings or celebration of the people in green. No encouragement for the people in Orange or in red. It was just working out. That's it. Period. Silence. Nothing. As a young professional, I can tell you, I was like, that's weird.

That's very strange actually. So, um, uh, that, that shaped really like the way that, uh, I, I saw a manager behaviors actually reacting to, uh, uh, and the people reacting to this manager behavior. So. But back then, anyway, what, uh, I did, uh, is that I was a young professional. I was stuck in orange actually on that, uh, on that whiteboard.

So I decided, okay, you know what? I'm going to shadow as a top performer in the green, and then I'm going to learn and I'm going to be there because I want to be actually on the top of the leaderboard. So that's what I did. I, uh, shadow the. So-called performer. Why so-called is because clearly when I shadow that, uh, top sales performer when I was very disappointing, um,

He was by far, uh, Phil, customer centric.

He was actually, uh, gaming the system, pushing the deals, uh, very hard with no interest whatsoever on the customer needs. So that was very disappointing for me. And, and then I, I thought, okay, but the manager, I mean, did he know.

And guess what? Yes, he knew. Because what happens when you have, uh, non happy customers?

You receive what customer escalations. And that's what he did. You know, he received customer escalations and manager knew. So then, back then, I really thought that, uh, there was, uh, there was something like, uh, wrong there in uh. Actually allowing and having like the leadership behaviors, um, or absence of leadership.

'cause in this case, it was also a, mainly a absence of leadership. It's not that this, this person was not a bad person. Not at all. It's just the absence of leadership, but was actually causing, uh, clearly a challenge in terms of the culture that he was, um, he was generating in.

In his organization. So, um, look, if I'm sharing that story, uh, clearly is, but, uh, I'm pretty sure that, uh, some of you, you, you may have faced like similar situation, uh, that may resonate.

Uh, you may, um, you may remember some leaders who felt, uh, distant or disconnected from reality. Uh, and, and that has a strong impact actually on the, on the performance of the, of the team and the, on the culture of, of this organization. So there are moments like that where are really like starting exploring better, like, uh, how I can bring that, uh, human element with the performance element.

Uh, what are the driver of per performance of the team. And that's what I did in my research and I'm going to to share that with you actually in a minute.

Um, let me share the five, uh, themes that came out from, uh, my, my research, my dissertation. As I said, I'm practitioner, so everything that I learned, I applied with my, uh, my organization, uh, five teams that came up.

Uh, so regarding the importance of metrics. Leading indicators, um, the leadership culture that we just talked about, uh, briefly, uh, empowerment versus, uh, surveillance and the change readiness aspect. And finally, the, the trust. So let me, uh, first start with, uh, actually the, the leading indicators.

So if you read again, the book of, uh, Phil, you know that leading indicators are factors that help you predict the future outcome.

So, uh, uh, there are early signals into, uh, into what is going to be, uh, right performance or wrong performance. So when I did my research, uh, within my organization, um, I think that everyone. Agreed, that leading indicators they matter. You know, there are these early signals that help you predict So when I say everyone agree in my organization, because I went through the interviews, so with indoor contributors, with manager, with executive, they all agree that leading indicators.

They matter. Um, so that's a common, uh, common sense. But, uh, the, the challenge that we are facing with using metrics and sales organizations we use metrics here and there everywhere, is that we very often, uh, overlook the importance of explaining why actually we have metrics and especially leading indicators, leading indicators are, are, are these early signals that, uh, we are looking at before the results actually come.

And if we're not able to explain why and what are they, but most importantly why they are, they are actually important. We miss a point and we miss a big point. And, and, and that clearly like, um. Uh, let's say that it avoids, um, the, the sales team to understand, uh, why they are doing things, you know, and, uh, why it, it matters. So, uh, for, for me, uh, and going back to the analogy and the metaphor of the orchestra, um.

The leading indicators or indicators, the metrics, they are actually the tempo of the organization. So, uh, if you are able to make sure that, uh, there is, um, a clear understanding of what are your metrics and not like, uh, hundreds of metrics that key important metrics that are really driving the right results with predictive, uh, aspect, you will be able to, um, uh, have an organization that is aligned and that organization aligned means.

With, uh, same as in music, it means that we play together. You remember in the video then that, uh, when you have a conductor actually starting together and then getting actually on the right and the same, tempo it's the same as in music. If we're relying on the metrics and we understand the purpose of these metrics.

Then we can play together. And for, for more cohesion, uh, I will touch very quickly on the leadership and, and cultural aspect. I think I, I, I've shared quite a lot on the conductor of the orchestra. Uh, so that's exactly, uh, uh, my point here on the importance of, of a leader to explain, uh, behind the decisions.

You know, that may looks very easy to say. But we see so many people who are actually always missing the point, you know, so explaining the decision that we are making, ensuring that we are aligned, that we are moving in sync, that we are also of course, requesting, uh, feedback and, uh, and that we, we adapt to the differences within an organization.

I think that, uh, this is very important in my research. What I saw was, um. Uh, and, and I really like the fact that, uh, uh, Julian Kin show said that, uh, we don't need perfection. And that's good. Actually, we are all happy to, uh, to hear that, uh, we don't need to be perfect. Uh, I'm very happy to hear that, by the way.

Um, but it. People don't ask for perfect leaders. You know, that we are bringing back to the authenticity aspects. Uh, we don't need perfect leaders, but we need leaders who are actually giving like the direction. And again, same as a conductor of orchestra, we go all together towards the same, uh, direction.

And we are much more powerful on that if we are missing that point. Um, clearly we, that's where we have, um, an excess of, uh. Control And, uh, and, and clearly control is something that is, uh, um, destroying entirely the psychological safety of your organization. And that's where you start like seeing performance going down.

So that's a fine balance. It's uh, between, um, the empowerment you give to your, to your reps and, and also the, of course, the metrics that you are, you are, you are using to drive actually predictivity and, and results. So. Um, again, in, in my research, people were not, um, in, yeah, all the individual contributors, they, they, they didn't mind at all.

Like the metrics, the leading indicator, lagging indicator whatsoever, you know, uh, but they mind, uh, actually being controlled, you know, and that's a lack of empowerment. That is a killer for the performance of actually a sales organization.

But if you are able to bring like the right structure in place. You have actually the right, uh, the right setup to, uh, to empower your people and for them to, uh, to trust you as a leader, uh, to go forward and, and then to, to give their best. Um, I will, uh, yeah, two more things. Uh, that one that is, uh, sometimes, uh, very overlooked by, uh, leaders is, uh, the emotional aspect of, uh, of change.

Uh, well, we have been talking about change and, uh, change in, uh, in, uh, in the era of ai. Clearly changing technology everywhere. Uh, leaders, they very often overlook like the impact of change. And, uh, and, uh, I would say that that's always like in our organization, new product, new solutions, new processes, like every, every time that there is something new.

So, um, the impact of actually the change and the readiness, but that's not automatic. You know, it's something that you need to adapt to it. Requires time, but it also requires clear communication, transparency on why there is a change and emotional intelligence as well. Uh, and also beyond the emotional intelligence, what we call also the, the RQ that you see there is relationship intelligence.

Reading the room, making sure that, uh, all leaders, they are able to read the room to interpret what's happening, you know, and how are the feelings. So there are very simple things to do, uh, in theory, but, uh, when you put it in practice, it's, it's consistency across how people are reacting to, to change and how they are able to, um, uh, to cope with, uh, with change.

Um, and of course last but not least sounds cliche, but uh, uh, the foundation, the element that brings, uh, everything together. For me and my, that was the fifth theme of my, uh, of my research is, is trust. So, uh, again, trust is, uh, was everywhere. In, uh, in the, in the interviews that I've been, uh, I've been running trust in tools, trust in leaders, trust in processes, uh, that was really the, the cultural lever, what I like to call the cultural lever of, uh, of the performance of an organization. Um, same as, again with the orchestra, uh, if, um, the, the musician are able to trust their conductor and trust that they can start at the same time that they go towards the same direction, that there is a perfect alignment, they are much more equipped to actually deliver like their highest performance.

They deliver their best. So for me. Trust is clearly not soft at all. That is definitely a performance driver, and that's maybe a provocative, uh, question here that I can leave you with, um, on this is: how is trust, uh, a leading indicator of your organization? How do you measure it today? Uh, and if you are not, I would, uh, strongly encourage you to actually do it.

So clearly we have typical, um, employee annual survey, uh, that is measuring how you trust your leaders, how you trust your organization, how you trust the board of the company, the tools, et cetera. But that's the, the change, uh, aspect that we are going through requires more than an annual per annual performance or, or employee, uh, uh, review.

We require a pulse, uh, aspect. And, uh, a dynamic that, uh, helps us to, uh, to see when actually trust is, um, is, um, is assessed. So, uh, look, um. These five themes that I have briefly, uh, shared with you that are the outcome of my research, they all point into the same direction. If I can, uh, actually continue on the five themes is, uh, they point out on the fact that metrics, of course, in our organization matters.

Yeah. Clearly tools, they matter. Absolutely. We're all in agreement with that. Uh, there are, uh, a lever for productivity increase. But without human, uh, interaction, uh, and the leadership to bring everything together. We're not able to create the, the harmony of, uh, of the team, you know, and, um, and, and the harmony.

And I really like, again, I mean, Julian helped me big time to, to confirm also some of this thinking. But, uh, that's the interpretation of it. Uh, ai, uh, and the tools that we are using, uh, they may help us. Uh, in a lot of different aspects, but, uh, at the end, uh, sorry about that. Bear with me. I'm, I'm almost there.

Uh, but at the end it's all down to the interpretation. So, uh, if the human, um, is able to interpret and give meaning and a sense of purpose of what we do and how we do it, uh, then we get to, uh, to clearly, um, a, a better, better state. So, uh, so you just saw, so I'm going, uh, straight there. Um. As the theme today was, uh, human connection and ai, uh, even if I didn't research, uh, on, on AI specifically.

Uh, but there is clearly a connection there.

Um, so, uh, I will leave you with, uh, my avatar. Uh, Trevor is not here, but, uh, always, yeah. That's good that he's not here actually, because, uh, I have used another tool, uh, to actually bring my avatar to you. So I will present my personal avatar, um, made by, with my image, uh, also replicating a bit my voice. However, with a higher French accent that I think I have, but it's okay. Uh, it's okay. So you'll see. But, uh, I leave you with my avatar to say a few words and to illustrate the point that I'm trying to make.

Audience 1: An orchestra follows speed, beat and tempo. Each section has its parts and dynamics create contrast and balance.

When individuals execute correctly, the music is technically accurate, but technical accuracy is not the same as a unified performance without share, interpretation and connection. The result is coordination, not harmony.

Jessica: Exactly. So AI can, uh, read the score, uh, but AI can't read and feel the music and the feelings. Uh, we never know where we are going, but at least yet, uh, this is not something that, uh, that AI is able to actually deliver to, to us.

So, uh, what, what my avatar was trying to say is that, um. In music or in sales, that's never like, uh, the sum of individual performance. That's, uh, really like the harmony that we are able to bring, uh, together.

Uh, and the togetherness and the alignment in terms of purpose of alignment and, and values that we share. And of course, like metrics as. So we bring a higher performance level. So, uh, as we are talking about AI and, uh, and clearly what is, uh, the future, uh, of sales, uh, organization, uh, I will leave you with that.

But we will always think about what is changing and lot is changing. That's what I was referring at in the change readiness aspect. Um, but there are also things that don't change that we should leverage even more. And these. Again, back to people. And people are the one that are the constant. And, and that relationship that we are having, like with our customers or with our, our employees, uh, clearly is the constant.

So people are the one, and leaders are the one bringing interpretation, uh, to, uh, the sales performance. They bring the meaning, they bring the sense of, uh, of purpose. So, uh, when you are able to do that, because all of that sometimes makes. Seem very simple to say. You may have hear it like over and over and, okay, is Jessica bringing something new?

Yeah. Okay. I heard it here and there. Yes. But in practice, that's much more difficult to actually implement than, uh, than to, uh, to put like, uh, the combination of it. When you are able to do that as a leader and you need to practice on this, we need all to practice on becoming actually a better version of ourselves, uh, as part of human being to drive ourselves organization.

Beautiful things happens, you know, and, uh, powerful things happens and you bring like a, a team, uh, not only to execute task again, was talking about that like the difference in our era is not about executing task. This is going to be replaced, uh, by, uh, our agent. I, uh, but, uh, but clearly is, is uh, about making sure that we can, um.

Uh, we can collaborate, we can collaborate, we can work together, and, um, and, and we can bring like, uh, the individual performers making like a team performance. And that makes actually the, the really, the, the, full difference. So individuals are not performing, uh, on their own, but they are actually performing as a as a team, and, uh, and that makes a difference in terms of performance.

So I will leave you, uh, with, with that. Um, I do believe that, uh, in this era of, uh, ai, um, we, we have heard from many presenter today, so it's not about, uh, replacing everything by ai. Uh, we don't forget that the human connection is there and, uh, we need to, uh, to bring the two together.

Uh, to go back to the analogy of music, ai. Should be for us as sales leaders are responsible of, of companies, um, they should be the amplifier of the human connection. The, that's really how I see it, and I see that as a, as an opportunity. Remember, uh, I am an optimist, so, uh, I really, uh, think that, uh, there is an opportunity ahead of us.

So, um. That, that's really where I would, uh, leave you with. Um, remember the leader in the complexity of, uh, what a leader responsibility is to bring leadership alignment, uh, mission, uh, values, uh, and. Bringing like the, the team to work together in harmony, that impacts drastically your performance and your, your growth, uh, that we are expecting to, uh, to reach, uh, in, uh, in, in this new era.

Anyway. So the human contention is definitely more important than ever. The leader is more important than ever. And we really need to, uh, make sure that, uh, as a collective group, uh, we empower our leaders as well to, uh, to, uh, to bring, uh, to bring everything into a better place.

So I leave you with, uh, with that I hope that, uh, you can live with that simple, uh, thought, uh, that same as in music.

We are able to, uh, play, um, uh, harmony, um, and a symphony only, uh, when we are bringing everyone together and not like a, a sum of individual parts, but it's a togetherness that actually brings like the full orchestra delivering high performance. So thank you for your attention. And thank you for, for listening.

Hope that, uh, it triggers a few thinking. Jessica,

Video: can we just go down this one?

Phil: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And then when Jessica started with this question.

Jessica: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Yeah, I think we're managing a fairly small team of people in Barcelona now, 120 people, so it's been amazing the progress you've made. Any quick questions for Jessica?

Yeah. Oh yes. Oh yeah, sure. That's okay.

Audience 2: Thank you, Jessica. That was fabulous. Can you explain your RQ term and where that came from?

Jessica: Ah, that's, uh, yeah, that stands for relationship intelligence. Uh, I think that you would find it, uh, also under the name of Social Intelligence, for instance, Goldman Goldman, who is, uh, who has actually wrote a lot about emotional intelligence and.

And also social intelligence. So that's similar concept on the ability of, uh, someone to actually build a relationship, build rapport, rapport, and uh, and have the connection with, uh, with the people and, and really making like a relationship works in, uh, in a positive way or even like a resolving conflict way.

Okay. In a nutshell.

Phil: Great. Thank you. Okay, any other questions for Jessica? Hiral.

Audience 1: Just a simple question actually. How do you feel seeing your avatar talking?

Jessica: That's weird. Huh? Super weird. Uh, yeah, it's weird. Uh, you get uncomfortable a few times and then, uh, that's the same as when you record yourself, uh, and then you, you hear your voice.

It's at me. It's terrible. Uh, but then you get used to it and we get used to everything. So, uh, uh, yeah, I get used to it. And then, uh, using it, uh, also. Through on scaling some of the messaging, uh, towards my organization or, uh, we use it a lot in for training, for instance. And, uh, yeah, I feel, I feel okay, you know, I feel okay sometimes.

I, I must say I feel it even cool, but I actually, uh. I become an astronaut one day, and then the next day I can be, uh, a Santa. Actually, I, my team will probably see me as a Santa avatar anytime soon to, uh, give my wishes to, uh, my end of the year wishes. So I'm okay. I have embraced it, uh, let's put it this way.

Phil: Yeah. Great. Well, thank you very much, Jessica. Thank you. Thank you.​