Channel Waves by StructuredWeb

Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where channel

leaders share success strategies, best practices, and emerging

trends, brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Here's your host, Steven Kellam.

Welcome everyone, to ChannelWaves.

StructuredWeb's view into everything channel.

I'm your host, Steven Kellam.

Very excited to have Andrea

Sittig-Rolf, Chief BlitzMaster and CEO, founder

of BlitzMasters, joining us today. Welcome. Thanks.

Happy to be here.

So maybe you could tell

everyone, some of the listeners.

Well, I'm going to back up for a second.

I think most people in Channel know who you

are, but there may be some listeners who don't.

Maybe you could tell us a

little bit about BlitzMasters.

I know it's about effective appointment setting. Right.

But that could be a pretty broad range.

Maybe you could tell everybody a little bit about

that and maybe a little your background as well. Sure.

So I started the company 20 years ago after running

blitzes for a data cabling company in the Seattle area.

And when my boss called from Austin, Texas,

kind of out of the blue and said,

what's going on in the Northwest?

Your numbers are off the charts.

I'm just looking at all the regions across the country.

The Northwest is on fire. What's happening?

These blitzes?

And I just kind of told them about it

and we he said, keep up the good work.

I can see the results on the bottom line.

I thought, why would I keep up

the good work for this guy?

This could be a business.

I could do this full time.

So that was 20 years ago.

The rest, as they say, is history.

And in a nutshell, we help channel marketers

grow their business with partners through sales, enablement

Blitz Workshops that bring same day results.

Okay, so how does that fit in the market today? Right.

I work for a marketing company, by the way, I

love what you do and I think it's incredibly effective.

But how does that fit in the market today? Right.

Very interesting.

One point, I was on a podcast just the other day

and they were talking about doubling down on marketing right.

And doing something non-intuitive.

I think that probably ties pretty well into what

you do, and it's probably not a bad idea.

Yeah, well, I think now what's happening is

people need to get back to basics.

There's obviously a lot of layoffs that are going

on in tech and outside of tech, and this

whole idea of marketing is still very important.

But you have to talk to people.

You're not going to sell anything

unless you have a conversation.

So it's bringing back that human connection, getting

back to the basics, picking up the phone,

making those calls, booking the appointments, and getting

the pipeline full of those opportunities.

But so much of it is just talking to people now.

I agree.

So I think we had talked about it before.

It's really the last mile, right?

You can do all that marketing, you can

create all that awareness, you can create all

that value and even those leads, right?

But at some point, somebody does

have to talk to somebody. Yeah.

And that's kind of where we fit in.

We call it the last marketing mile.

You've done all the social and the email and maybe

text campaigns and then now you got to call people.

Now you got to make that call, book the appointment.

So we're sort of at the last marketing mile and at

the very beginning of the sales process, because what we teach

folks to do is to get that first appointment to start

that conversation or to start that new relationship.

What's the goal? Right?

I think this is where people I'm

going to back up for a second.

Sometimes when people hear what you do and I think

when I first heard what you did and first met

you, I wasn't sure really, what is that goal, right?

Is it once again tying very closely to that

marketing or is it just sitting down with a

bunch of people doing a bunch of telemarketing?

And maybe you can talk a little bit about what is

really the goal and maybe even how that has changed, right.

With marketing coming down the funnel to the sales

funnel and sales going up the marketing funnel.

Right, yeah.

Well, the goal is really just to book the

appointment and that's a little bit of a paradigm

shift for folks who are used to calling and

then they start selling right away.

And you have to keep in mind you've interrupted

someone's day, they're in the middle of something, chances

are, so you don't really have their undivided attention.

And the best way to get hung up on is to start selling.

So the idea is to make it short, less than 90 seconds.

Probably the whole purpose is just to book the meeting

and it makes it easier for the salesperson, the prospect

appreciates it because you're not taking their time.

Then the goal is to set up that future conversation, whether

it be through zoom or in person or at an event.

You're not taking a lot of their time.

Now you're booking that future time when they're

going to give you their undivided attention.

That sounds pretty simple, right? Yeah.

But I'm sure there's challenges along the way.

So what's some of the challenges that are out there?

How do you guys work to overcome them?

We could talk about trends maybe a little bit later.

Yeah, well, the big challenges, things like getting

past the gatekeeper, handling those objections, getting the

voicemail return, it's all sort of the roadblocks

that sales reps run into when they're making

those calls and trying to book those appointments.

So, great tips in terms of gatekeepers.

You can call before 08:00 a.m.

Or after 05:00 p.m..

A lot of times gatekeepers are gone.

You can get right to the decision maker

or when the gatekeeper answers the phone.

You can ask for sales.

You're not going to get screened from

asking for sales or even accounting.

You can ask for another department and then

from there get transferred to your decision maker

and then with objections, I'm not interested, we're

all set, I'm too busy. Call me back.

There's all these objections that you hear

and we've got some great tactics to

handle those objections and get appointments.

And then we teach the eight second voicemail.

The purpose is just to get that return call.

Not to sell anything on voicemail, but

just to get that call back.

So we really help with the roadblocks that sales

reps run into when they're making those calls.

So what does the engagement look

like if someone's working with you?

Is it small engagements, large engagements?

Maybe you can talk a little bit about

your average customer, what sort of customer they

are, and what sort of engagements look like. Sure.

So we do this what we call single partner Blitzes,

where you just have one partner, it's just one team.

They could be in one physical location

or they could be spread out.

And then our more popular program, we call it

Blitz Anywhere Multi-Partner because it's actually many partners

with lots of sales reps spread across the US, Canada.

Sometimes Latin America.

So it can be as small it could be

as small as a single partner with five reps.

It could be as large as 50 partners and 1000 reps.

It just depends on what the vendor is looking to do.

So, yeah, it really just depends.

But in any case, the goal is to book

the meeting, get as many appointments as possible, and

the value props are always based on the sponsor.

We tweak it, we customize it so that

all these techniques are applied to the value

prop of whomever is sponsoring it.

So two questions, how does someone know they need you?

And then what sort of

organizations are most successful?

Actually, three questions.

And if they're not, what do they need to get there?

Right, so, sorry, that's a lot of math, Steven. Okay.

All right, so how does someone know that?

Let's start with how does someone know they need you?

Usually it's a pipeline issue.

So what we've tried to do in terms of our branding

is we want to be known as the person to go

to the company to come to when pipeline is an issue.

Who are you going to call? BlitzMasters!

Let's get that in there.

Have you actually used that? Ghostbusters.

But I mean, I think that's trademarked, but have

you actually we have a video about that.

We've done with who are you going to call? BlitzMasters!

So, yeah, if you're having a pipeline issue,

you need leads, top of the funnel.

That's the area where we help so that's when

people know they need us, we need pipeline.

How are we going to get there?

And who we're going to call,

and that's when you need us.

I'm going to take that video from you.

And when we promote this, everybody on

LinkedIn, we're going to use that video. Right.

I think that's actually pretty cool.

So who's most successful with this? Right.

Because, take it a step backwards for a moment.

Everyone has a pipeline issue.

I've been in sales a long time.

Even if you got a big pipeline,

you always need it to be bigger.

And if you got a small

pipeline, you have a big problem.

Right, but how does anybody not

need this, from my perspective? Yeah.

I guess the only time they wouldn't need it

is if they have more leads than they can

deal with, more business coming in than they can

deal with, not enough product to fulfill orders. Right.

There's some of that going on, but once the

whole supply chain thing is fixed and not an

issue anymore and you need that pipeline, then yeah.

And there isn't really a particular profile of

a partner or a vendor that's successful.

It has more to do with how involved

sales leadership is, which can sometimes be tricky

because a lot of times the vendors we

work with have relationships with marketing. Right.

And yes, marketing is definitely involved, but we

need to talk to sales leadership because it's

their reps who are participating, so we need

them to be really involved as well.

Well, I would think, having been a former partner who was

heavier in sales, we were good at marketing, but we were heavier

in sales as far as what we had as a partner.

We had and we were $10 million MSP. Right.

So we weren't huge, but we had

great technicians, great support, strong salespeople, and

we're starting to do the marketing.

So from that perspective, you'd have been talking the

vendor would have talking to the head of sales

and marketing, which is pretty much a sales guy. Right.

I think that's an easier fit for partners than

actually trying to get them to do marketing, which

has been very interesting as of late. Yeah.

And the idea with BlitzMasters, we position ourselves as

a tactical, practical part of a broader strategy.

We're not the only thing that you're going to

do, but it needs to be a part of

the mix with social and digital and all of

the other things that people do to generate leads.

Having that sort of that calling piece

is an important part of the mix.

Not the only part, but it's an important part. Sure.

Since the goal is to get an appointment

and you said it's to get it fairly

quickly, is there any product that doesn't work?

I mean, there's some pretty complex solutions

out there in our market in particular,

and there's some pretty simple ones.

Does it matter if the goal really

only is to set that appointment?

Yeah, that's such a great question because it doesn't

this is just about setting the appointment, starting the

relationship and starting that sales process, whether you sell

supplies, ink, toner, which is obviously a very quick

transactional type of sale to server storage software, even

if it's a three, four year sales cycle, you

have to start somewhere.

And so that's what this is.

It's booking the appointment.

Even if it's a long sales cycle, you

still have to get in the door and

you've got to start somewhere, basically.

So it works for any product.

It's just some products are going to have a faster

ROI than others, just based on the sales cycle. Sure.

Is there any geography to this? Right?

Are you North America?

Are you global?

What's the size of the organization

that you can work with?

And then how fast can you

turn something around on this? Right?

Someone calls, we get three or four people call you in.

What sort of capabilities can you handle?

And can you do it globally?

Yeah, we can do it globally.

We can do it in English, and we can do it in Spanish.

So we've done virtual and on site

programs actually all over the world, but

again, just in Spanish, just in English.

And then we need 30 to 45 days notice not

only for runway, but just for availability as well.

I do have four BlitzMasters, so technically we

can do four programs on the same day.

Okay, but the runway piece is important.

The prep is really important.

What do you think appointment setting looks

like in the next couple of years?

Because we've had the virtual side, because you've had

COVID, and now people are getting back out there.

So what does that trend look like?

Are people continuing to do more virtual training?

Are they moving to inside pieces? Is it a blend?

Kind of.

What have you learned from that?

And where do you think this is going to go?

Yeah, I've actually been doing my research.

I've talked to about 25 of our top customers in

the last, I don't know, months or so because we

are going to bring back our onsite programs.

When I started the business 20 years ago,

that's all we did was on site.

And then twelve years ago,

we started doing them virtually.

And so we had a mix before COVID

and then obviously, the last two and a

half to three years have been only virtual.

So Blitz Live is our live program where we send

a BlitzMaster, and the BlitzMaster is on site.

But what I found out with these conversations

is that so many of our customers and

partners and vendors don't have a critical mass

of people in one physical location.

Offices have been closed around the country.

Some of our biggest customers,

they've closed 14, 15, 16 offices.

And people are working remotely, and they're saying, well, the

only time we would do a live program is if

you came in for a QBR or as part of

sales kickoff, where we're already bringing people in.

And so I don't think there's going to be a

huge demand for the onsite, not like there was

before COVID where maybe half of our business, but we

want to be ready for when it is.

And then, of course, there's a

lot of interactivity, coaching, role play.

We got to think of COVID friendly games to

play on site where people still feel safe.

And so we've come up with some ideas there.

But I think that the virtual step is

still going to continue for a while, probably.

Do you see in the future appointment

setting becoming more important for the final

mile of the marketing pipeline?

Do you see the need for this services growing?

Right, yeah, for sure.

Because again, you, you have to talk to people and

especially if, if a lot of the training is going

to continue to be virtual, you still need that human

connection of having the conversation, reaching out to people.

I mean, I had people 20 years ago when I

quit my business to start this, say, oh my gosh,

don't quit your job, no one will hire you.

That's so old.

Like cold calling, of course, 20 years later,

it's like, I love seeing those people now.

Like, remember when you said that?

Of course, I'm like, hold my beer, like, watch this,

because it just ended up being this fantastic business.

And I continue to be asked

that question, is it still relevant?

Does cold calling still work? That's a way better.

Sorry, I'm going to go back and Christopher,

you can pull this back in.

Is it still relevant?

I actually know it's relevant today.

Is it going to be relevant in five years?

That should have been the question that I asked you.

Yeah.

God, I hope so, because I still

love it, so I sure hope so.

But yeah, I just I don't see how

you're ever going to get away from the

human to human connection and talking to people.

I don't know how sales is going to work without that.

I suppose there are some transactional sales where

you don't need a salesperson, but in our

business and the industry in the channel yeah.

You still need to have conversations and picking up the phone

and calling people is a great way to start that.

Oh, one last question.

It wasn't the last question.

Does it matter what vertical it's in?

I didn't even think about that. Right.

Maybe we can take it in two directions.

There's B2B2C and there's B2B.

And in the B2B, obviously you've

got everything from hardware, to software, to cybersecurity.

Is it working better or do you see it working

in a particular industry or vertical better than others?

Yeah, I call it industry neutral.

It works any industry, you're just booking

an appointment, it doesn't really matter what

you sell on the back end.

But like I said, we do take the value prop

of the vendor or of the customer, and then we

weave that into the training, into the technique.

So it's specific to that customer.

But whether it's sled commercial, whether it's veteran

reps, new reps, inside, outside, it works for

everybody, because, again, you're just getting the appointment.

You're not selling anything that day.

And so the mantra that people in technology won't pick up

the phone is wrong. it's very wrong.

Okay, you just got to give them a reason to

pick up a phone or just be persistent or both.

Yeah, it's all the above.

Yeah, you need to give the salespeople a reason

to pick up a phone because they're reluctant.

But usually the reluctance is because they don't

feel confident, they don't have the skills, they

don't know how to do it.

And then you've got to give the prospects that

you're calling a reason to pick up the phone,

which is where our voicemail techniques come in that

are highly effective at getting those return calls.

So, yeah, just all the way around.

We just need people to pick up the phone.

Pick up the phone.

There was a book sorry, I didn't write that book, but

there was a book called Just Pick Up the Phone.

Did you see that?

It was just I'll find a copy, look it up.

There's one called.

Just Pick Up the Phone.

So how do people get in touch with you?

What's the best way for people to reach you?

If they want to discuss this, they want to find

out a little bit more about what you do.

Blitzmasters.com it's all right there.

Okay, fantastic.

Well, Andrea, thank you for joining us.

We really appreciate it.

Listeners, thank you for joining us.

And to everybody, have a great day. Thanks so much. Bye.