Why Sales-Ready Leads Are No Longer Enough with Freya Ward

[00:00:00] Freya: Thing. Everything, AI and everything, automation and everything. Data is only as good as the information that you feed it and as good as the information that you put into it. Profiling your audience, understanding more about their pain points and their challenges. This could be a sales activity, so rather than calling the prospects at an earlier stage in their journey and trying to sell to them, instead, you can call them and try and understand.
What software are you currently using inside of your business and what are your common pain points? So it's about personalization, but true personalization.
[00:00:30] 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.
Freya, thanks Ever so much for joining me on Higglle the B2B Sales Club podcast.
[00:00:57] Freya: Thank you so much for having me again, Mike.
[00:01:00] Mike: Exactly, and this is not our first rodeo. As a lot of people in the US would say, you've been here before. So I invited you back because the last episode was fantastic. I got a lot of very good feedback on that and I wanted to follow up around.
The listeners will find out in a second what we're gonna follow up on. But before we do that, for those that haven't heard you before. Who are you, what do you do, and what's your favorite song and why?
[00:01:23] Freya: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me back, Mike. It is an absolute pleasure. So I am Freya Ward. I am the associate managing director at a business called Headley Media.
We're a B2B technology lead generation supplier for B2B technology companies worldwide. Um, when I last joined your podcast, I was the global sales director at
[00:01:43] Mike: you were. Congratulations, you've been promoted.
[00:01:45] Freya: Thank you so much. Yeah, exciting year ahead in 2026, and I'm looking forward to kind of getting my teeth stuck into the new position.
So that's a little bit about me. I come from a sales and marketing background, so trained in marketing initially, and then jumped over to the dark side of sales seven, eight years ago, and the market was very, very different when I first joined. The sales side of things. My favorite song, this has stumped me a little bit.
I'm not gonna lie.
[00:02:12] Mike: That's what it's meant to do. That's perfect because it's a natural conversation.
[00:02:15] Freya: It is indeed. I love every type of music, every genre. My Spotify wrapped is wild. You would think I'm about 20 different people within that. Spotify wrapped. My favorite song on the spot would probably be a song by the XX called Islands.
The reason being, it just takes me back to a wonderful time in my life that was just really calm. It was when I was enjoying the summer. I was in my kind of late teens spending lots of time down by the, by the seaside. And yeah, it just takes me back to a really warm, fuzzy feeling. So I would say, yeah, it was a quick response, the XX Islands.
But to be completely honest, it depends what day it is, what mood I'm in as to what song I'm listening to.
[00:02:56] Mike: Brilliant. And again, you know, consistent with every guest. Songs evoke an emotion, songs, audio is a brilliant memory jogger about where we were, what we did, and it makes us smile. By the way, have you tried, this isn't an advert for Spotify.
They don't sponsor the show for those listening, but if you want to please get in touch. No, don't. So have you tried DJ on Spotify?
[00:03:17] Freya: Oh, no, I haven't. Does it happen? Does it? Oh,
[00:03:19] Mike: it's Fab. Does it? Oh, it's very good. It's an AI DJ that talks to you and it suggests songs for you.
[00:03:26] Freya: Oh, wow. It's really
[00:03:27] Mike: good.
[00:03:28] Freya: I'm gonna have to check that out.
I mean, again, it'd be a very confused dj, I'm sure, based on my playlist and the music I listen to. But same here. Check that out. Thank you.
[00:03:40] Mike: Give it a go. So let's go onto the questions. So today we will discuss why optimizing only for sales ready leads no longer reflects how buying actually happens, why trust, familiarity, and internal justification are now the real drivers of growth.
I think this is a really critical topic. All the data that I read before Christmas and over the holiday, all points towards buying processes have absolutely, definitely changed. No one can deny it now. They've definitely changed in B2B. So first of all, talk to me about how buying cycles have changed and what are hidden buyers.
[00:04:16] Freya: I think this will be a really interesting topic to break down. And like you said, it's absolutely undeniable that the buying cycle has. Shifted in the B2B world, it's being reported that something like 70 to 80% of the B2B buying journey is being conducted online and independently before decision makers even raise their hand to sales.
So as sales professionals, that means we have to adopt a slightly different approach. We can't just wait until people have made their decisions for us to start reaching out and prospecting them. It also means that there's been another shift in the buying cycle, and it has elongated complex. Of stretching nine months, 18 months, in some instances, two years.
We have to be mindful of that sales cycle and that buying cycle when it come. Not forgetting the actual financial investment of purchasing your product and your solution and the the line of products you are looking to. Sell. Who are those decision makers involved in that buying cycle as well? That has been a big shift, and we call them hidden buyers, and you have your tier ones and your tier two.
So your tier ones, if you're a B2B tech company or software company, they're gonna be your end users. They're gonna be your IT managers. Maybe they're gonna be your technical purchasing individuals that are. Advocates for your brand that, uh, understand, you know, messaging around ease of use or the actual benefits of using your product over competitors.
So those are the ones that we know, and those are the ones that we're really familiar with as salespeople we're selling to. But there's this whole group of people that. Often companies aren't prioritizing as part of that buying cycle, and that includes, I know you talk about it a lot, Mike, on your podcast.
That includes procurement. That includes legal. That includes
[00:05:54] Mike: hr.
[00:05:55] Freya: Hr. In some instances it could be your business decision makers, your C-suite as in the CEO, the business owner. The founder. Depending on the complexity of your product and your solution, the financial investment involved in purchasing, if there's a competitor displacement argument there as well.
I think Gartner reported. Haven't looked at the recent reports, but the most recent ones I've looked at, it was something like 15 to 17 individuals making up that technology. Correct. And decision making committees we used to
[00:06:21] Mike: call it. Yeah. Kind like 11 touch points and one of kinda six stakeholders. I think now they are saying, yeah, it's well over 10 stakeholders that are involved now.
[00:06:29] Freya: Absolutely.
[00:06:29] Mike: Yeah. And talk to me about, it's all very well having 10 stakers involved, 10 stakeholders involved, but if eight of them have no power, it doesn't matter. That has changed, hasn't it? They actually have a lot more power than their position would say.
[00:06:42] Freya: Absolutely, and I think it's more so I, I think the better definition is that eight of them don't have measurable power.
And what I mean by that is you don't see their signature on your SOW or on the invoice. You don't hear from them, and maybe as a salesperson, you don't actually speak with them directly. They
[00:06:59] Mike: don't have a budget. They don't have budget to sign off.
[00:07:02] Freya: But that being said, if you can influence procurement so they at least recognize your brand and there's some awareness and brand recognition there, then at the point of the IT decision makers, the core, that tier one audience that we're already familiar with getting sign off from procurement for this investment, there'll be a familiarization with your brand and a brand association happening there If you.
Aren't doing that and your competitor is they're going to Exactly. They recognize, right? So it's about making sure you are in the right places and you're talking to the right people with the right messaging. There's an argument here, Mike, is it down to marketing to do that or is it down to sales to do that?
And actually what
[00:07:41] Mike: now should sales and marketing. Should they be separate? Should they even exist as separate functions in the modern buying world? Should the seller have separate functions? Discuss?
[00:07:52] Freya: In my opinion, no. They should be combined or there should be alignment and there should be
[00:07:58] Mike: alignment.
Common objectives.
[00:07:59] Freya: Common objectives, common language, I think is the. Biggest breakdown of that relationship. I mean, we could do a whole podcast about sales and marketing, right? We could
[00:08:07] Mike: and we might do, who knows? Another one, A follow up.
[00:08:10] Freya: Exactly. It'll become the Mike and Freya show.
[00:08:13] Mike: It'll the Mike and Freya show.
[00:08:16] Freya: I think often the best. Sellers in the modern buying cycle, the best sellers and the ones that cut through the noise are the ones that are allies of marketing or position themselves as sales and marketing to a degree. Now, I'm not talking writing the content, I'm not talking, uploading the LinkedIn ads and things like that.
Salesperson should not be doing that, but they should be doing their own. Marketing, marketing themselves, reading the marketing collateral. Why is this sales enablement piece created? What pain points does it address sitting with and feeding back to marketing so that they get that, that direct feedback and not just marketing leads don't convert and instead, I don't often speak with procurement.
So these leads within finance and procurement arent. Somebody that I can talk to, but tiering that approach there is still value in influencing those hidden buyers, and if you can ensure that your marketing team are influencing them and you are supporting them in doing so and providing that feedback, then yeah, it blurs the lines between sales and marketing.
But I believe the most successful salespeople are investing in marketing, especially when we go back to that statistic, which is 70 to 80% of the B2B buying journey is conducted independently and online. Before they raise their hand to sales, how do they find your brand if they're not answering your cold call?
And the answer to that is your marketing. Exactly.
[00:09:35] Mike: So I spoke to Brent Adamson and Carl Schmidt quite a lot last year. They've written a book, which is all about basically the buying cycle and how buyers now buying. And one of their findings in that book, I won't hopefully don't misquote them, is around buyer decision, self-confidence.
And the problem we've got now is. For bigger decisions, a hundred k plus, pick a number that buying community, those hidden buyers. If you've got eight stakeholders, then if you've got misalignment around those eight stakeholders and you make the purchase decision with the seller that you've chosen and it goes wrong, just are you probably may get fired.
So buyer self-confidence. Now the seller's job is to help the buyer. Align internal stakeholders. Get them comfortable with the decisions that they're making, explicitly bring out the challenges that they face and the risks that are below the surface and be an advisor. And it is going back to that.
They've gotta trust you to advise them. That elongates the sales cycle and it changes the nature of the B2B salesperson. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:10:40] Freya: I completely agree with it. I think with, with so much information out there, there's so much noise, right? And if these buyers are losing their self-confidence, rightly so, based on the explanation you just provided, they need to ensure that whatever they're putting forward is.
The right thing. And I think as a sales person, this is why salespeople are struggling to sell in the traditional way, to pick up the phone, cold call because there is a real breakdown of trust. I think something that we can dive into a little bit in this conversation, and that has a huge impact on this trust piece is AI making personalization, scalable and easy.
Ah,
[00:11:21] Mike: definitely def. So let's talk now. Definitely about. The problems with AI, mass personalization and what impact that has on buyers? Yeah,
[00:11:31] Freya: I think, let's address the positives. It has made access to information much easier. It has made the consumption of information and content a lot easier. It has.
Provided businesses with the opportunity to personalize, to scale up and to know more about their target audience than ever before, and the B2B buyer than ever before,
[00:11:51] Mike: all of which are good things,
[00:11:52] Freya: all of which are good things. Flip that on its head and you have lots of bad things. So personalization is not personalization if it is generic or incorrect information.
Personalization is only beneficial for the B2B buyer if it's actually personalized based on the content they've consumed or the pain points they've told you about or the challenges that they might be having. Um, the biggest issue that I see and the biggest challenge that I see with AI when it comes to elongating the B2B.
Buying cycle. And when it comes to, um, salespeople trying to cut through the noise is exactly that. It's noise. So more content, more resources, more advertising opportunity. If everything is urgent, important in your face, there's nothing, you're not looking at anything,
[00:12:42] Mike: then nothing is important.
[00:12:44] Freya: Exactly. And I think what is happening is the B2B buyer is becoming fatigued.
The B2B buyer is becoming frustrated. The B2B buyer is like you said. Losing self confidence when it comes to purchasing because there's so much information, there's too much information. And what that does is it erodes trust. It erodes trust in.
[00:13:04] Mike: Lemme talk to you then about first party email. I'm no marketer, but you know, first party data.
You've got someone's email, it's been permissioned, it's got all the right attributes, et cetera. That used to be the gold standard. If you had lots of first party data and it was regularly updated and you communicated with that person, used to have much better chance of cutting through. What happens now with first party data with ai?
Mass personalization at scale, what does that do to first party data trust?
[00:13:33] Freya: So I think often first party is slightly misunderstood. So first party, because of ai and because of cookies and because of tracking and traceability and everything else, first party data is often implied and it is often based on behaviors.
As opposed to explicit information. So what that does is it dilutes the value of that first party data because we also have another shift. B2B buyers are working remote, they're working on their home ip, they're not working in a business capacity. That means anybody that is using a laptop inside of that.
Same wifi connection is feeding into that first party data. So think of your household, think of all the individuals that are within that household, that when you're at home, you're not consuming content purely within a B2B capacity. You could be an IT manager, but you're also a father. You are also a brother or a son or, or a daughter, or you know, a mother, whatever it might be.
Um, might. Therefore, it's really diluting the value of that first party information. So enter into the chat. Zero party data. Zero party data is. In the traditional sense, in the marketing sense is information that's been explicitly given to you within your website by your target audience. So that is profiling questions that are entered with inside of a form on your website to consume your content.
That is the comment section of a contact us form that someone has populated. That's the explicit information that is assigned to an individual, individual inside, traditionally, inside your own website and your own platform. There are also lead generation providers, and I'm gonna do a shameless. Drop of head media here, but I'm sure there are others as well.
Yeah. That operate with zero party data. So what that means is they have an established relationship with their audience and their database, and they're generating explicit consent and explicit information and profiling of that audience through form fills and everything else. This takes it back to like marketing 1 0 1.
This is like your magazine subscriptions, right? This is, but in the digital world, it's explicit information from that target audience, and that is where personalization can be more accurate and more beneficial for the B2B buyer if you are using information from a reliable data source. The profile is your target audience, and then you are responding back to that, not by saying you downloaded a white paper and you told us this is your pain point, but instead sharing more content that aids them on that 80% research journey that addresses the pain point that they told you explicitly that they have.
Um, you are passively becoming a trusted advisor. You are passively positioning your brand as a brand that they would like to consider when they get to that evaluation stage.
[00:16:11] Mike: And how do you, so I know nothing about this area whatsoever, so I'll ask the expert, which is you. Uh, so in order to do that, you need to work with the media company, presumably of some kind who own all of that zero party data.
Is that right? Or,
[00:16:24] Freya: yeah. You work, you can work with an in-house. Lead generation provider, or a media owner, whatever you wanna call them, um, that owns their audience in their database and is generating leads in that way, or your marketing team can do it within their own CRM. So don't disregard your first party data.
Don't disregard the information you've got within your CRM, but be more strategic with how, with the information you gather when your marketing team are promoting content to this ideal audience. We all have CRMs, right? And we all have rich information. The volume of information that's inside of a sales CRM is hugely valuable, but like everything, everything, AI and everything, automation and everything, data is only as good as the information that you feed it and as good as the information that you put into it.
So profiling your audience, understanding more about their pain points and their challenges. This could be a sales activity. So rather than calling the prospects at an earlier stage in their journey and trying to sell to them, instead, you can call them and try and understand. What software are you currently using inside of your business and what your common pain points?
Often when I speak with IT managers in cybersecurity, their challenges are X, Y, and Z. Does this align with you so I can share some more information with you about that pain point and that challenge? So it's about personalization, but true personalization, fact finding. Profiling, understanding more about these buyers and how you can influence their decision making earlier on in that journey sounds like an awful lot of hard work.
It is an awful lot of hard work, but you'll reap the rewards when they get to that 80%, and you have been the individual that has built their confidence in a decision. Shared resources with them to help support them during that buying journey. And if you as a salesperson collaborate with your marketing team, they'll be doing the same thing.
They'll be building workflows, they'll be feeding LLMs with information that spits out your brand for a particular pain point and challenge. It's all about this holistic approach and it's about meeting the B2B buyer where they are versus trying to get involved in that decision making much later on without considering who else is at the table.
What are their, exactly, what are their preferences? What are their particular challenges? It won't necessarily accelerate that buying cycle because that has elongated, and that's the reality of what we're working within. But it'll position your company as a preferred brand for consideration when it gets down to that evaluation stage.
[00:18:42] Mike: Because when it comes to the evaluation, what we know is when the buying committee sits and they decide on a material purchase, and you go around the room on those eight stakeholders, if it's eight stakeholders. If they've all already been exposed to a brand and they're all aware of what problems it solves and what the benefits are, and the unanswered questions that it's answered, and you are much more likely to go collectively, that feels like the right direction.
In a guided way through procurement running a process, maybe naturally that supplier's got a massive headstart Yeah. On the competition at that point.
[00:19:17] Freya: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. And I think there's other factors at play here as well. You know, we've talked a lot about the, the trust side of it.
How you can build and develop that trust earlier on in the journey. But what we must remember is not to forget about our network, not to forget about the partner side of it. I think something that's got lost in the shift to remote work, the pandemic definitely didn't help it. Um, is that networking piece and that.
In your partner network. You know, I think there's an awful lot that can be learn from the channel to be perfectly honest with you. And I know Mike, when we last spoke, you were talking to me about, you know, there's lots of different tools out there for complimentary software and essentially referrals. I dunno if you can dig a little bit deeper on that side of things for us.
[00:20:03] Mike: Yeah, so I've been speaking to a number of companies that use technologies now to build an ecosystem. Using software rather than a spreadsheet. When I did it back in the day, you'd have a spreadsheet, you'd have your partners, you'd have opportunities that you'd track, you'd look for overlaps. It's much more sophisticated now, and I was talking to someone yesterday who runs a, a big partner community for a tech company.
They use very sophisticated tech that allows them to look at, if I was partnering with you, there's a way of sharing accounts that we both have in a confidential way without breaching any data privilege that allows you to see what the crossover is between your accounts and my accounts, and then how we can help each other.
If I'm targeting an account and you've already got relationship a meaningful way, an easy way of saying how can we help each other and how can we help the client to have an integrated solution? I think that now has become much, much more sophisticated. And I've got other friends and clients whose dominant lead generation is all through partners.
I had one guy on the show last year who said it's all partner or referred everything, and they were a decent size marketing agency. And he said, we've invested in partnerships, complimentary partners. They don't do what we do. We compliment each other. Uh, we share a common ICP. And it works exceptionally well, but you have to invest in it, and you have to invest in the technology that goes around it.
Otherwise, it's what I would call the gin and tonic brigade. You know, you all stand around, you have a nice drink, you exchange PowerPoint slides, and nothing really happens. So much more intentional now than it was I think 10 years ago, I would say.
[00:21:29] Freya: It's fascinating though, isn't it? And what that does, what a referral does, as we all know, is trust.
It builds trust immediately. You, you're leveraging the trust that that individual or company or business has built and they're saying, I recommend this, and that is the easiest input, quite potentially the hardest thing to do. It is the referral these days. Not because your product's not good or not because the people who had bad experience, but just it's the nature of the environment that we work within.
It's not as natural. To do that. I know you and I have done it, Mike, where we give each other a call and say, Hey, I'm looking for someone that can help me with something like this. Do you know anyone? But that's because we've built and established our network and we've built this rapport. It's much more challenging to do that authentically now.
So I do think the partner based selling is a really key factor, and maybe that's more for sales leadership to take on board and consider because of the investment behind it.
[00:22:23] Mike: And it takes time freer, you know, investing in channels. Again, probably a different podcast episode, but investing in channels takes time because by its nature you are piggybacking off someone else's relationships as they are doing with yours because it's reciprocal.
It takes time to trust,
[00:22:37] Freya: of course, and you have
[00:22:38] Mike: to experiment and run campaigns together and try events together, and it takes time. I think that's why it's a great channel, because there's a barrier. Whereas I think going back to what you were saying and educating me about zero party data, first party data is AI personalization at scale.
It's not the solution. Technology on its own, rarely is the solution, but what you've talked about is how you use it cleverly.
[00:22:59] Freya: Yeah, well we all remember when we first started getting email newsletters that didn't say Dear friend, or, yes, dear company owner or dear manager, and it suddenly was Dear Frayer, or sometimes it went up and it was Dear Fred, but you know, that's where the personalization started.
That's where the automation started. Coming in, um, your company name would be inserted there. And AI has enabled marketing professionals to do personalization at scale, but it's almost gone too far. And that is now noisy. It is unproductive. It's frustrating for buyers. And like we said earlier, if everything is important, then nothing is important.
So if you consider actually what information have I got or could I get and how can I personalize? It's not personalization at scale, but that's not what the market is asking for. The market is asking for genuine, trusted relationships, help and guidance. Based on what you know about me and the signals I'm giving you.
And then there's the other side of it we won't go into in too much detail, but multi-channel activation.
[00:23:59] Mike: I was gonna ask you multi-channel activation, so just touch on that.
[00:24:02] Freya: So B2B buyers are consuming content resources constantly through a multitude of platforms. There's out of home, you know, there's taxis, there's billboards, there's, we, as marketing professionals, we're a victim of our own success.
Well, there's basically nowhere that isn't safe of placing an ad these days, right? And mobile consumption. Desktop consumption, there's tablet consumption, there's all different platforms as well as channels, as well as devices. And I think as a salesperson, how can you, not as a marketing person, because there are ways that you can touch all of those different touch points, but as a salesperson, how can you leverage that?
And I think considering all the medium. That you can use. So if you are a serial cold caller, keep doing it. I'm proud of you and I am absolutely backing you. Cold calling is not dead. I, no, it's not dead. I, it's not dead. I'll, I'll do that forevermore. If no one else is doing it, then cold calling is thriving, right?
Yeah. So, but don't just cold call, combine email. Combine LinkedIn. If you're selling to B2B buyers, LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for you to build your own personal brand. And if you are seen in multiple use cases, multiple platforms as an individual that is approachable, that is human, that is not just a salesperson, people will start coming to you or they will start picking up the phone when you call them, or they will start responding to your email, or they will, I think direct mail mail is gonna make a big comeback this year.
[00:25:25] Mike: I've been hearing about this. Yeah. Remember the old, you'd get a phone in the post and you'd open the package, there's a phone in it, you have to ring the number to find out what the prize is, blah, blah, blah. That. I think that's gonna come back. Yeah,
[00:25:37] Freya: I
[00:25:37] Mike: do too. Someone was talking to me about over the day.
Yeah.
[00:25:39] Freya: The challenge in B2B is blurring the lines between B2B, B2C, because it'll be remote work, things like that. That's the challenge for direct mail. But when someone comes up with a solution to address that challenge, I've seen some awesome campaigns already this year. People sending out, you know, who knew QR codes were coming back until the pandemic, right?
Yes. And people sending out golden tickets with a QR code on it and that kind of stuff. Yes. But it ignites some kind of nostalgia in those of us that have been around for a little while. There is natural human curiosity, and it is another channel and touchpoint. So really thinking outside the box and making sure that you are active across all variety of channels.
There are communities where your ICP are, they're in the community. They're communicating, asking each other questions and challenges. Yes. If you come in like a salesperson, you absolutely,
[00:26:28] Mike: you'll get thrown out.
[00:26:29] Freya: You'll get thrown out within a matter of minutes. But if you come in, it'll, as an advisor, if you have conversations that are just outside of your topic matter expertise, but you are comfortable in communicating, share your life experiences, those kind of things will start to build trust without you ever even talking to that individual.
And again, it makes you approachable as a salesperson. It makes you more than just a salesperson. It makes you a thought leader. It makes you a trusted advisor and all of. These things start to combat that big noise, that noise that your competitors are making and helps you get closer to your target audience at an earlier stage in their buying cycle.
[00:27:06] Mike: And my advice on that also to people listening is become a storyteller. You know, storytelling, we've almost forgotten about it, but it's what counts. Telling stories. If it's your own story and you experienced it, no one can deny your own experience. And if you're good at telling stories that people can relate to that, help them think through a problem, not solve it, but help bring clarity and ignite emotion, I think you're a long way ahead of the game.
[00:27:30] Freya: I totally agree. I totally agree.
[00:27:32] Mike: So bringing it all together, 'cause we're at time, if you were listening to this in the car and you were doing whatever it is going to work on the school run, whatever it might be. And it's like, what did I learn from this? What can I do? What can I practically apply? All around engaging prospects?
What are your three kind of takeaways?
[00:27:49] Freya: Three takeaways. If we can summarize all of that into three. Three, you've done
[00:27:54] Mike: well.
[00:27:55] Freya: We do very well consider not only the prospects you can see and that you know and you are familiar with. Consider the other people that will be involved in that decision making process.
[00:28:05] Mike: So the hidden bias.
[00:28:06] Freya: The hidden buyers. Yeah. Consider your hidden buyers and don't forget about them. How can you either communicate with them, ask for your marketing team to support in communicating with them and get your brand in front of them appropriately? Not with a sales piece, but with, you know, something softer, something that's relevant for them earlier on in that journey.
Takeaway number two would be consider all platforms in your own personal profile when it comes to thought leadership advisory, and just positioning yourself as someone that is approachable and human. And part three is consider the difference between zero party and first party data. And what information do you already have at your fingertips that you can use for personalization?
Forget about. AI personalization at scale and focus in on good sales 1 0 1. What do I know about my prospect? Or if I don't know anything about them personally as an individual, what do I know about their company and what do I know about their competitors? Because that is true sales personalization.
[00:29:07] Mike: Exactly right. And in fact, if I go back to how I was taught to sell, there was this kind of 45 second test. You're in the elevator. You've met the CEO, there's only two of you in the elevator. It doesn't stop on any floors. You've got 45 seconds. Well, you better bring something new to the conversation. And bringing something new is things that they don't know about.
What are their competitors doing? What's happening in other industries that could be relevant to them? You have to bring that to the table, and that I think is also what we're talking about, is you've gotta bring your own thinking. AI is great as an assistant, but it's not there to replace human judgment
[00:29:38] Freya: a hundred percent.
A hundred percent, and it, what we have to remember is everyone inside of a business has their blinkers on to some degree, and they would absolutely love to know what the competition are up to. You don't have to know on a granular level as a salesperson, it may not be an account that you work on personally, but a broad understanding or use ai.
To do a quick search on their competition, what's in the news, what's currently going on at cybersecurity company, whatever it might be, and bring that, add value and position yourself as someone in the know, share something like you said that they don't know that is sales 1 0 1 and that is still something that is.
So valuable, if not more valuable in this day and age with the current B2B buyer, those elongated buyer's journeys, the elongated sales cycles and everything else, human information, intelligence and relationship and rapport cannot be replaced by ai. This is simple. Exactly
[00:30:33] Mike: right. And that's a perfect way to end this episode, Freya.
It's been fantastic. Thanks ever much for joining me. Where can people find out more about you?
[00:30:40] Freya: You can find me on LinkedIn, so search for Fray award on LinkedIn or check out heady media.com. Um, and you can find out heaps of resources about all this kind of stuff. And yeah, B2B buying cycles.
[00:30:51] Mike: Brilliant Fray Award.
It's been fantastic. Thanks. Ever so much for joining me.
[00:30:54] Freya: Thank you, Mike.
[00:30:55] Mike: 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.