The Eye-Opening Research That Questioned Modern Selling with Philip Squire, Part 1

[00:00:00] Philip: This great debate about is it possible to train someone to be a great salesperson, or is it they just born with the skills of doing it? You know that debate, and there are some people, very senior sales leaders, who strongly believe that you've either got it or you haven't. Why invest in developing salespeople.
[00:00:19] Mike: My name's Mike Lander, and you are listening to Higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales, RFPs, negotiations, and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders. Round leaders and procurement leaders, please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released.
Phil, thanks ever so much for joining me on higgle, the B2B Sales Club podcast. It's great to have you as a guest.
[00:00:47] Philip: Well, thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to be with you. I'm very much looking forward to the conversation we're about to have, so Me too. I've forgotten now. Who introduced us? We were introduced by Joanna Hillman.
And that's right. Joanna Hillman Mackay. Yes. Mackay. And we were talking about the global research project that I think we're gonna be talking about today. And she mentioned, uh, you at one of their conferences, I think talking about, it's
[00:01:12] Mike: about procurement from a sales perspective.
[00:01:14] Philip: Exactly. And so I said, oh God, Mike sounds like a really interesting person.
Could you make an introduction? And, and that's how we came to, uh, be connected. So, exactly. And so I'm really,
[00:01:27] Mike: I'm really looking forward to this because I always like talking to people who have got a, a strong research base in the sales community, which is quite rare, I find. So kind of without further ado, Phil, who are you, what do you do?
And then obviously what's your favorite song and why? Okay, so
[00:01:42] Philip: I'm Phil Squire. I'm the CEO of Lia. We're a sales business school, and what is my favorite song? And I've always been wanting an opportunity to talk about this, and I've never had the courage to do it at our GST event, but it's gonna be a brick in the wall.
Oh, what a great song. I just love the song and I find myself singing to it. You know, quite often in the car, but it's, yep, it, it's quite topical for a number of reasons, which I could go into now. We could talk about later. I'm happy to, I think, go into now. Phil, why is it so topical? I think that there's an irony to this.
Okay. So, you know, I ain't got no education. It is quite topical, and that here I am running a business school. Yes. But I remember when I was young, in my early years, I was actually considered quite a bright, you know, student up to the age of about 13. And then for some reason my interest in education crashed and I sort went through the slightly rebellious years of maybe 13 to 17.
I would much favor being on the sports field than I did in the classroom. And I just came out with some pretty mediocre A levels except in one particular topic, which I did quite well in, but I elected not to go to universities. So, you know, from an education point of view, I opted out at an no.
Interesting, but the kind of concept of, but now I, I'm, as you'll hear later, fully embracing education and I think in, in a way, coming back into it. Wiser, having been around the block a few times in a topic that really interests you, has made, you know, for me, the connection, uh, education, more topical, but, and in a way the symbolism of a wall.
And, and funnily enough, was it Gilmore who wrote the song? Like I, I dunno who, who actually wrote the song, but I can remember he, he lived quite close to me, actually in Sunbury. And I've actually seen the wall where that Oh really? Yeah, it was actually, I've seen the wall and it, you know, his walled garden that he's got in Sunbury.
And so for me it sort of brought together location, the fact that education ironically is very important, but actually recognizing that there was some sort of rebellious days as well and you know, electing to come outta the system. But that's probably helped shaped who I am. As a person in a way.
Definitely. I just love that song. I find myself singing to it quite a bit. I did want to play it at GST, but I was told by my colleagues it's probably not the right thing to do for a sales business school.
But here we are talking about it now. Yeah,
[00:04:35] Mike: exactly. I, yeah, I, I always think whenever someone talks about favorite songs and why it's often quite deep rooted in them. Uh, often it can be joyous, but sometimes it can be very sad. But music has a way of connecting us with other human beings and with our life and where we've come from.
So let's move on to the questions, Phil. So let's start talking about your doctoral research program on how customers want to be sold to back in 2009. So can you talk to us about kinda what was the spark. And what did you find? And then bring it to life with some stories. So we're gonna stay in the past for a little while and talk about that initial research in 2009 with some stories.
So
[00:05:15] Philip: just to get the dates in the right order. So the doctorate started in 2004, and then it was published in 2009. You know, it is a four year, four and a half year. Sort of academic research project and like many things in life, it sort of started with a bit of sort of serendipity in the sense that I had no intention when I embarked on this journey to turn the journey into a doctorate.
And I had done a number of interviews for one of our. Clients, Hewlett Packard, who asked her to go and interview some of their end customers about how their key account managers were engaging with them from a sales perspective and, and what they felt. And they wanted me to go with a film crew and know to do a, a pretty high class production for one of their European kickoff events.
And so I found myself speaking to some very senior people. In a bank, in a pharmaceutical company, and in one of the largest Tels, really just asking them questions about what their perceptions were of salespeople. But what was interesting was actually not just to ask 'em, what do you think of the way in which this organization is selling to you, but can you give me some stories of conversations or.
Procurement processes that you felt were brilliantly handled, you know, by the supplier company, and could you also tell me some stories about where things really fell off the rails? And so I, I was interested in the stories and then to extrapolate from that, those stories. What were some of the key themes, you know, that detracted or, you know, helped progress the sale?
And then, you know, what struck me at an early stage was that we, you know, we're dealing with very senior level buyers, so not heads of procurement, but these were chief technology officers. You know, one was a board director of, of, uh, bank with, first of all, that they were prepared to give an hour and a half of their time.
You know, to talk about the relationship. So it's, it shows that they were really invested in wanting, you know, the topic interests them, how they're sold to interest them, it matters to them. When I was doing the interviews, I was also taken by the energy in which they spoke both positive and negative energy in a way, energy, where they were incredibly frustrated at.
Some of the things that they saw happening that really pissed them off, frankly. But also energy around when there is a fantastic relationship is sort of how it can, you know, help them transform whatever problem they're trying to kind of deal with, but lead to a much easier engagement process across, you know, all parts of the organization.
So. And I remember after the first interview and I guess the first interview that I did, he was quite a challenging guy to sell to. I would say in many ways. He had very high standards. He had a very strong points of view. And as we were leaving the office, having dismantled all of the film equipment, I asked a question that wasn't part of the original survey, which was what percentage, you know, you've told me what you like and dislike and it's great, but what percentage of.
Salespeople sell to you in a way you like, and and he said literally as we were walking out of the door, he said, well, I think that 90%, maybe 95% are a complete waste of time. Yes. Then he said, I, then I then said, would you mind getting that on video? And so we went back and he said, absolutely not. And so I went back and, um, we videoed him talking about it, and I then decided to keep that question, you know, for the next two interviews that I was doing.
So my goal was not to set out to find out what percent I, I simply wanted to collect stories, but, and we did the three interviews and the next person I interviewed said, 90 uh, 10% of salespeople really get it right. And the third person I interviewed didn't want to put a percent on it, but said, not as many as you would want to hope for.
You know, and I suppose that's the, we got some great video content for the kickoff event. I mean, the stories were amazing, but actually that was what ignited, you know, this interest in what customers are really looking for and, and the reason why. It's relevant to me was because of course, we're in the business of helping develop salespeople sell in a, in a professional way, and it was kind of indictment of us in the sales development, sales training space that we clearly were not preparing salespeople to sell in a way that customers wanted.
Absolutely. I found myself questioning what I was doing. It was quite a deep rooted question for me because I was thinking, well, how relevant am I in this world I've chosen to make a career of if we're getting such a negative feedback?
[00:10:35] Mike: And in fact, Phil, if you go back to the two thousands, my experience of selling back then.
I was fortunate. I was trained 96 to 2000 by KPMG who believed in investing in sales training. Uh, 'cause they recognized the value of it. I think if you took a population of a hundred sellers, a vast majority of those will have had no training at all. They will have learned by osmosis from good people what some techniques are that work that have found their own style and then they engage with customers.
So in some ways it's not surprising that customers are like, sometimes it's great and very often it's pretty messy as an engagement between a sales person and a buyer. So I think it's depressing. I'm hoping things have moved on, that actually people are investing more in sales training. You'd do better than me.
[00:11:19] Philip: Yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to talk about that as well. But um, yeah, I think there's, you know, you're right that a lot of people feel, you know, this great debate about. Is it possible to train someone to be a great salesperson? Or is it, are they just born with the skills of doing it? You know, that debate and there, there are some people, very senior sales leaders, who strongly believe that you've either got it or you haven't.
Why invest in developing salespeople? Wow.
[00:11:48] Mike: That's quite frightening. I find, personally, Phil, I find that really quite deeply worrying. Yeah, I think it's a trainable skill. Like negotiation. Is negotiation's a trainable skill? Yes. You will meet people in negotiation realms who happen to be brilliant, naturally, instinctively brilliant, but a vast majority of people that are very good negotiators.
They're trained. Yeah. It's a muscle that you can build. Yeah. Same as
[00:12:11] Philip: selling. Exactly. Exactly. So no, I, well, of course I a hundred percent agree and we can talk. More about that topic, but going back to the research, you found these, that one question three people. Yeah. That one question was the one that got me thinking about what do I want do, yeah.
What I want to do with this information. And then the serendipity bit was meeting, uh, professor completely by chance. And in fact, I was introducing the professor. To the Real Tennis Association. Okay. That was headquartered at Hampton Court. Yeah. And because the professionals there, and I, I love playing real, you know, it's one of my great, uh, you know, I love playing real tennis.
I used to play a lot more than I do now, but they felt as I was in the trading and development business, I could help them create a training program for the young professionals that were. Working for them, and I had made this introduction, or someone had introduced this professor to me that I then introduced to them and he turned round to me and said, okay, we've talked about professional development for the Real Tennis Association, but what about you, Phil?
And I said. I've never been to university. I was always, you know, interested in, at some stage doing a degree of some sort. And he got talking to me about what I did and he said, you know, you could probably go straight into doing a doctorate with your experience with the, and I told him about these three interviews and.
You know, he said, why don't you, and that a Middlesex University were the first university in this country to have an institute of what's called work-based learning. And it was initiative set up by the government in the 1960s to recognize academic learning in the workplace. And he said, and it's designed for people like you.
Clearly bright, clearly. You know, you've gotta be reasonably bright, sort of running a company as you're, so he said, why don't you go and talk to the professor that runs it? And so that's what happened. And I then found myself embarking on this quite incredible journey. But it started with this question, how do customers want to be sold to?
And the fact that just three people I I interviewed at. At the time had given it a pretty, given the sales profession, a pretty harsh critique if you like.
[00:14:43] Mike: So what happened then? So presumably from that, you then embarked on doing the reform research?
[00:14:48] Philip: Yeah, so what happened was that I went back to Hewlett Packard and I said, look, you know, I've done these interviews for you, but actually there's a much bigger question.
I think we need to, you know, to explore. And it was only three people, you know, so it wasn't really validated, you know, and I told them I was interested in actually doing this on a much bigger scale. And Hewlett Packard said, well, it's great 'cause what you did for us then was very useful and that we will like you to go and interview our clients around the world.
And I, they chose. I don't know, 20 or 30 clients in different geographic locations. And in addition to them, I'd also started talking to Siemens Tetrapak, a number of other, other organizations about what we were doing with hp. And they wanted me. To also do it for them. Yeah. Suddenly found myself spending a lot of time jumping on airplanes, going and uh, visiting people around the world, collecting data and evidence, using very much the same framework of questions that I was using, writing that first stage.
And also doing other sort of interviews, sort of ad hoc interviews if you like, for through other networks that we had anyway, and I started meeting some really interesting professors, connected with the global account management space and sharing with them what I was doing. I ran a workshop with Professor George Ypp, who was at London Business School at the time, because he was.
Interested in the research that I was doing, and we brought together a group of buyers and sellers to kind of reflect on something like 80 qualitative interviews that I'd done by that time. And we wanted to work together with both sides to say, well, what does the data tell us about? The core competencies, attributes that salespeople really need to be successful.
You know, George and I were both facilitating the, I think it was an initiative directors. We were doing this, and I remember coming away from this event, this is about two years into my research, feeling utterly depressed because the things that came out of it were things that I, we already knew about.
There was no fresh insights. They were saying, well, salespeople need to be very good at understanding clients. They need to be very good at presenting. They need to be good commercially aware. They need to be resilient. You need to have good sales systems, you know, to support sales. You and I looked at it and I think, well, if we looked at all of the sales training and all the programs we've been running, that's what we've been doing, right?
And I still care, but why is it still 10%? If we're still doing all this, why aren't people doing it? So that then shifted the direction that I then took in the research. But I went through a pretty low point in my research because I felt I'd spent two years collecting all the data, fascinating interviews around the world, but the output, I just.
I was almost ready to jack it in, you know, at that 0.2 years of work. Yes. Interesting. But really wasn't furthering no profound insight. There's no profound insight. And then it's funny, there's a great academic called Otto Sharma who's uh, I think at MIT and he's got this concept of Theory U. So if you're looking at innovation and transformation, you go through on one side of the U, the sort of.
Letting go of your biases, your frames of reference, and then you, you've really got to strip out the way in which you frame things and then you get to the bottom of the U, which is like no man's land, you know? Yep, absolutely. And I think that I was. No man's land after two years. And then, and then you sort of, it's got this concept letting go, then letting come new ideas.
And this is the, you and I was reading up about OT Sharma and then I had this, um, workshop that I did at, at Middlesex run by Professor Jean McNiff, who's an expert on action research, living theory. And she just asked me a very simple question, which completely transformed. The way I started to look at the data.
So tell me if I'm rambling on too much. No, no, no. Carry on. Phil. No. Are you okay? I mean, I'm happy to shorten this. No, and, and she asked me what my core values were and you know, like many people that we ask that question. We don't often deeply reflect on it. And she was coming at this from the angle of a researcher, you know that when you looking at data and information, you have a filter, you know your experiences, your training, all the beliefs that you've been fed.
And she was wanting me to really study what my values and beliefs were, because the block in my research could be coming from my bias, you know? 20 years in a profession, you are bound to have fixed beliefs. And this for me was an aha moment because I then spent a month or two deeply going into what I believed to be my core values.
And in the process of doing that, I then began to see the correlation between values and behavior. And then when I saw the link between values and behavior and I got all this data and I was looking at the data from a behavioral point of view, it then may be questionable. What are the values that lead to behavior?
Because in a way, it's like leading a lagging indicators, you know? I was looking at the lagging indicator, which is the behavior, trying to find the answer to a, a problem or a question I wanted to solve. And the reason for that behavior is it's not the behavior, but the values and belief systems that lead to behavior.
[00:20:59] Mike: Which goes to the leading indicators versus lagging indicators. Correct. And we know if we look at any business problem, and I work, unfortunately, I work with a lot of agencies and a lot of services companies on different types of problems, and they say one thing that I often bring is. Looking at a problem from afar and working out well, what's the lag indicator and what are the leading indicators?
And when you look at the leading indicators of the problem and then get into what the root cause is that are driving those leading indicators, you get into some quite interesting ways of solving problems, which someone in the business doesn't see. Same in sales. 'cause you keep repeating the same pattern but you do it harder and faster because you think that's gonna improve things.
I think that is interesting. Yes.
[00:21:39] Philip: Yeah, I found it really interesting and of course, having access to all of the academic research that's being conducted in sales that you get whilst you're doing a doctorate. And looking at what previous researchers have done on this topic, I realized that most of the academic research this has been done into sales performance was looking at it from a, a behavioral point of view.
You know, so they, there were constructs such as. You know, adaptive adapt is one of the key words that some of the academics used, which is, you know, the ability to be able to adapt your behavior to that of a customer. You know, so you've got your neurolinguistic uh, uh, sort of programming type approaches and, and again, but it was very much from a behavioral point of view.
You know, so much of the academic research. In fact, there was no academic research at all on values that. Needed. So I, I realized that I suddenly uncovered a new area, which was this whole area of, well, if you can define the values that customers are looking for from salespeople. Yeah. And then start to apply that to the way you look at live opportunities.
And start to test whether those values are working. Then, you know, that became the second two years of the doctorate in a way. So the first was to define what the core values were. Working backwards from the behavior. So if you've got customers saying you don't listen, well, what's the value that leads to not listening?
And you get sort of drawn into curiosity. Client centricity, if a client wants you to, you know, to come up with creative solutions. Then, you know, you bet, well what value do you need to have that makes you look at problems in a creative way? So I was really trying to distill and we, you know, it was quite fun actually, sort of going back to all of the interview data and distilling it down into what we're for differentiating positive values that customers look for from salespeople.
And then counterbalancing that with the four negative values that they often saw.
[00:23:50] Mike: So Phil, did you, in the research, when you did that piece of analysis, did you see across all customers that you talked to? Yeah, there were broadly eight traits. Some four good, four bad.
[00:24:02] Philip: Yeah, absolutely. And the other interesting thing about the research.
You know, I did the research all over the world, so from Mexico to Thailand, Singapore, you know, Japan. And what was interesting is that the values that we kind of defined as negative and positive translated across all across cultures. Wow. Of course, what changes is behavior because the way in which you earn respect, you know, taking Japan for example.
It's very different to how you might do it in America or Europe, you know, for example. So the nuances of behavior are very much driven by culture and geographic location. But the values don't change. The values don't change.
[00:24:45] Mike: Uh,
[00:24:45] Philip: it's like the operating system, and I think that's what. Made it also interesting was that when we presented back the values, you know, to both salespeople as well as customers, it was kind of a sigh of relief in a way, because salespeople were saying, so you mean I don't have to adapt American style sales training techniques with my clients in in Asia because I just, it doesn't work, you know?
Yeah. And so I began to really see the power. Of actually addressing it from a values perspective and getting that buy-in, if you like, from communities of salespeople. So we were, you know, one of the values, you know, the core values was about authenticity as being authentic and. Of course any, any script that any salesperson is told to use is not seen as authentic.
Exactly. It's by its nature. By its nature. So, so rip up the script sheets, rip up, you've gotta be you. That's what customers want.
[00:25:47] Mike: So now talk through the eight values, Phil, that you found back then, the four positive and the four negative. So for the listeners, just remind ourselves, this is about basically talking about from a buyer's perspective.
The values that buyers respect and want, and the values that they don't want in salespeople. And they were four positive and four negative. Do you wanna just talk through the four positive and four negative
[00:26:11] Philip: four negatives? So let me start with the negatives and I'll move on to the positives. So the four negatives were.
Manipulation. Yeah. So this is behavior that's seen by customers as you wanting to manipulate conversations to something that you, that you want. And it's surprising even the way even open questions are asked how the nature of that. Open question can be interpreted by a customer as Yes, I can see what you're trying to do.
Exactly. Trying to get me to explore.
[00:26:45] Mike: Interesting. That's you're manipulating, you're not trying to upsell me. You're trying to manipulate me. That's right. 'cause there's a difference between giving choices and manipulation.
[00:26:53] Philip: That's right. So manipulation was one. Supplier centricity. So yeah, being. Totally kind of obsessed with your company, obsessed with your company, and you know, their products, their solutions, and, and not having the capacity to really see beyond it, you know, see context in a different way.
And then we had complacency. And now this was interesting because. We found this particularly with large accounts, you know, where people expected an account to give them business because of the length of relationship. So this is taking just a general sort of complacent approach. You know, taking things for granted.
Then you had, um, we called it overt arrogance that sometimes that's driven by the brand, you know, that I work for. I remember, you know, in the telco space working for, for, for someone who bought a lot of Nokia, Nokia had 45% market share and you know, Nokia salespeople walking in expecting, yeah, we're big, you've gotta do business with us.
And having that arrogance, you're lucky
[00:28:00] Mike: I'm here. You know? Yeah. You look, should. You'd be fortunate that I've turned up to sell to you. Yeah, yeah,
[00:28:05] Philip: yeah. And then you had the other dimension of arrogance is, is just salespeople can come across as being very arrogant. So those are the four negatives. Four positives were authenticity, which I've already mentioned.
Uh, client centricity, which is the opposite to supplier centricity. Then we found that those two were really important to build what we call the baseline, the foundation of trust, uh, without which the next two, which are the rarest but most desired by customers were proactive creativity. It's not reactive creativity, it's proactive creativity.
And I think one of my favorites, uh, is tactful audacity. So this is being bold. Yeah. Yes. But it's actually doing it with respect. With tact. So customers saying they like to be challenged because we, you know. We'd like you to bring insights. You mentioned insights earlier on, but it needs to be grounded in your knowledge of us as a business.
Therefore, it's gotta be relevant. But yeah, bring these bold ideas, but do it with a certain amount of diplomacy as well.
[00:29:16] Mike: And I think Phil on that, I was taught something again many years ago by KPMG, but you have to earn the right. And what you are saying makes perfect sense to me. Now you've almost kind of, you've almost decoded what I was kind of taught in some ways, which was you have to earn the right to be audacious and you have to do it a certain way.
[00:29:33] Philip: Yeah. You
[00:29:33] Mike: can't start with audacity if you haven't earned the right at the beginning. Correct. Because it doesn't work. It actually doesn't
[00:29:40] Philip: work. And it comes across as arrogance. It's the arrogance. Yeah. Or, um, supply safety. It makes sense now, you know, or manipulation. So there's a very. Thin dividing line between the positive and negative.
You know, just a word can completely change the way a customer's thinking about your approach. And because they've been mis sold to so many times. Let's come back to the 10% that I mentioned earlier on throughout 80% of the 90 that's rounded up to 90 people that I interviewed said that less than 10% of salespeople sold in a way that they really wanted.
You know, that was a really bold, we've got a problem, there's a burning platform here in the sales world. We've gotta fix it. And then the fixing of it for us was very much based to the operating system as we've defined these values and mindsets. You've got to build your operating system around these. I need to kind of also explain, and this, this was quite exciting.
Part of the research was that. As I was doing the research, I mentioned Hewlett Packard earlier on, is that they were really interested in, you know, I was engaging with them, you know, with my thinking and, and they'd created this large deal bid pursuit team in Europe, I remember. Yep. Focusing on live opportunities.
[00:31:03] Mike: And I remember because a lot of the big huge technology solutions services companies, we all started adopting that kind of bid room. Okay. We call them, uh, sales war rooms. We used to call them. Yeah, exactly, right. For big pursuits.
[00:31:16] Philip: Yeah, they did. And literally sort of, I was working with these teams of people in those said wars, but with a guy that was leading that team who totally believed in the mindsets.
That we're emerging at this point. And so he said every single engagement, every single email, every single site visit, we somehow need to operationalize these mindsets. So I then went into a very privileged, actually sort of being involved in some very, very important, you know, large opportunities, working with amazing people.
But my role. Was to explain the mindsets and then work with them, facilitate innovation sessions, facilitate strategies and approaches with them throughout the deal cycle. And, uh, we created this control group. There are about 200 in the of sales people in the control group, and we. Mapped the results of those large wins.
Ah, you know, against another control
[00:32:25] Mike: group. Exactly. I was gonna ask, did you manage to get, 'cause you need to be in a big sales organization with lots of people to be able to do that.
[00:32:31] Philip: Exactly. And so I had the. I was so fortunate, forever indebted to the client who believed that this was leading somewhere, but they saw it as strategically important for them.
Absolutely. You know, logic suggests, you know, no one's ever pushed back on these mindsets saying, no, they're rubbish, or they weren't working. I mean, uh, but you know, the devil's in the detail in terms of how you sort of take these frameworks and then start applying them.
[00:33:01] Mike: We've now reached the end of part one of this two part episode with Phil Squire.
Tune in for part two and a future episode where Phil talks about the findings and implications of his research and also brings it up to date for 2025. Thanks for listening to Higgle the B2B Sales Club podcast series with your host, Mike Lander. Please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next episodes.