Staying Curious In a Changing Industry With Leslie Venetz
Leslie Vannetz is the founder of Sales Team Builder and also serves in roles including Top of Funnel Sales Coach, Founding Member at RevRoom, and Advisor at regie.ai among a host of other professional pursuits. Owler sat down for a conversation with the founder to discuss the ever-evolving landscape of sales.
Could you share some background on your career and what led you to where you are today?
Venetz recently celebrated her first year as a full-time founder currently focused on outbound sales motions. Prior to this, for 15 years, she was a sales leader and individual contributor, spending most of her career focused on penetrating enterprise accounts and C-suite titles.
“So, I spent a ton of time making cold calls, right? For all those folks listening that are doing that right now, that are pulling up Owler every single day to get that inside info to pick up the phone or write that email, I get it.”
Venetz spent a lot of that time in sales leadership, even joining a startup as employee number one for two years.
She goes on to say, “I think B2B sales specifically as a profession, as an industry, we are transforming. We have enough people that are putting a concerted effort into creating a type of selling that is buyer-centric where we respect people…I think sales is the best it's ever been in terms of the way we are thinking about the culture we create inside of our organizations and also how that is reflected externally to our customers.”
What is the best way for a leader to remain current with industry changes, and how do they transfer that knowledge to their team?
“One [way] is simply have a willingness to do it. One of the most significant hurdles I see when working with folks is that they are really emotionally attached to the old ways of working…”
Venetz thinks part of remaining current and the transferral of knowledge comes down to a mindset that acknowledges there is more than one way to sell.
“We need to start actively seeking out those new creative, exciting ways to connect with our buyers.”
She suggests being proactive about tapping into external perspectives and external communities.
“One way for leaders to evolve, I think, is very much with a willingness to question what has worked and be eager to seek out new ways of working. And then how do we extend that to our teams? I think some of it's going to happen really naturally if you're creative and willing to experiment and willing, frankly, to get stuff wrong, to make mistakes because that's part of the evolution, your team's going to see that and it's going to embed some of those behaviors in them as well.”
“I think that often we leave things up to assumption…And so it's really helpful to explicitly give permission. Encouragement to try those new ways of selling to be more buyer-centered.”
How can you talk to prospects versus talking at them?
Leading with an example, Venetz says that in the simplest form, the difference between talking to and talking at a prospect includes removing the “I, we, our” type of language in favor of language that communicates why your product or service matters to prospects and what the benefit is to them. She suggests pairing this practice with curiosity while ensuring your experience doesn’t keep you from seeking a deeper understanding.
What factors are needed to make a prospect convert?
According to Venetz, one factor is the seller-centric way of looking at prospecting. “Figuring out elements of who is most likely to buy and buy now and buy without asking for a discount and you know, buy on a faster sales cycle. That's important stuff.”
“Once we have earned the right to that prospect's time and attention and then consideration in the sales process, I think we really need to pivot to the buyer actions as our gauge. … And then once we have the conversation started with the buyer, making sure that we are taking our cues from them instead of hearing what we want to hear and kind of moving forward with that hopeful optimism that the deal is going to close.”
Can you explain what Business Book Club is, and what you are currently reading?
Smiling as she starts on the topic, Venetz says she is excited about the Business Book Club. In Venetz’s words, “Micro-communities are it, they're the future. You're bringing people from all different walks of life and industries and job roles together to share their lived experience and what they got out of the book and what was meaningful to them.”
The community can be found on Patreon during the first Tuesday of every month,* where they meet in a private Zoom and engage via a private Slack, discussing books focused on leveling up business acumen.
Planned reads also include:
Strategize to Win by Carla Harris
You're Not Listening by Kate Murphy
Shut the Hell Up and Sell by Ronnell Richards (will be featured on June LinkedIn Live)
*At the time of the interview, Leslie and her Patreon community were reading Brene Brown's, The Gifts of Imperfection.
As a proponent of diversity and inclusion in sales, what challenges have you experienced or witnessed people experience? What can someone who wants to be an ally do?
“A super easy way to counteract sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia – whatever it is – is to use a Chris Voss technique called mirroring, where you just repeat back the words that somebody said to you.
So if it's like a sexist trope:
‘Leslie, can you be the notetaker for the meeting?’
And you're the only woman in a room full of men, [respond] ‘Notetaker?’
Really make them explain why you should be the one to take notes. Or for other folks that are trying to be advocates. I think it's easy to do without being aggressive or mean…Sometimes folks simply don't realize how harmful their behavior is. So I think that there's a lot of ways to do it where you're calling people in instead of calling them out.”
Regarding experiences she’s witnessed over the years, Venetz says, “These behaviors, I think, show up on a huge spectrum…At the C-suite level, less than 10% of leaders are women. It's like between one and 2% for women of color. It's hard to imagine yourself or aspire to be a sales leader if you don't have any mentors [and] nobody in your organization that's a leader is a woman.”
Despite these challenges, Venetz is optimistic, saying, “I do think that we're in the best position we've ever been in terms of, at the very least, a desire to be better with our customers in a better way that centers them, a desire to be more inclusive – and not just in a diversity check the box – but really in an equity and inclusion way. So I think we're tracking in the right direction, but that doesn't mean we should stop, it means we should go harder.”