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Rob D. Willis: [00:00:00] Welcome to superpowered with me, Rob d Willis. Each week I talk to people from inside and outside the business world about their superpowers, how they got them, and how you can get a little bit of them as well if you're new here. Please make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

We've got great guests every week, and today I'm talking to Alda Johansen about getting inside your buyer's head. This is a skill which transforms not just sales results, but really I think any situation when you need to truly understand someone's perspective and get things done, and my father brings a unique approach.

From her experiences building teams across multiple countries and industries. And today she's gonna share her framework for what she calls professional stalking, the art of deeply Understanding prospects to create meaningful connections. Alda, welcome to the show. Thanks

Mafald Johannsen: Thanks for

Rob D. Willis: for having me.

Mafald Johannsen: a pleasure to to speak with you, Rob.

Rob D. Willis: [00:01:00] For those who don't know you, could you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah,

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: So currently I'm head of business development at Finnish company, a cloud company called The Cloud. and what my, my department does is exactly what you mentioned. We are professional talkers. We convince people who never heard about us and don't wanna talk to us to. Listen to us and take their most precious resource, which is time to, to explore further what we have to offer.

So, yay, not easy, but super exciting. And

Rob D. Willis: aside from that I.

Mafald Johannsen: working in these area for many years now, but apart from that, I, yeah, I have a lot of hobbies. I manage a jazz band. I wrote a book and we will talk about it later. I like reading and writing a lot. I, I studied music.

I did theater, so yeah, that's a bit of who I am.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, a lot to dive into. But let's, [00:02:00] let's go dive straight into the book because it's coming out this month when the podcast is being released and it's got a really cool title sales for people who don't think they have talent. What made you choose that title?

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah. Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: made me

Rob D. Willis: made me choose from that title?

Mafald Johannsen: the

Rob D. Willis: It's the principle I used in processing.

Mafald Johannsen: So you

Rob D. Willis: you

Mafald Johannsen: in business development and in prospecting, and again, convincing people who don't wanna talk to you, never heard about you, actually listening to you by

Rob D. Willis: mention

Mafald Johannsen: Their

Rob D. Willis: pain? Mm-hmm. Something,

Mafald Johannsen: is, you know, that that hurts.

And a lot of times I've been working in sales for a long time and

Rob D. Willis: No one

Mafald Johannsen: that I

Rob D. Willis: that I know

Mafald Johannsen: starting in sales because they wanted to. Right. It just, I didn't have any job. I have,

Rob D. Willis: I have,

Mafald Johannsen: I

Rob D. Willis: I have

Mafald Johannsen: rent to

Rob D. Willis: to.

Mafald Johannsen: Suddenly I'm selling. And

Rob D. Willis: And this is,

Mafald Johannsen: of all sellers. And when you start doing it and you like it and you actually like your [00:03:00] profession and you're good at it then I try to convince other people to work in sales, especially people who come to me and they're like, I'm tired of my job.

I need to earn more. You know, like, I need the career shift. I don't want to do, and I'll say, try sales. And their response is, I was like, no, I don't

Rob D. Willis: I.

Mafald Johannsen: talent for it. No, I, I don't have a gist for it. It's always the first reaction and I'm talking about people, 'cause I only suggest to people that I think they have the potential.

If I think that you, you don't really have it, I would never suggest it's a thing. So I see people that I know because I've recruited a lot of sales. I work with a lot. I can, I. I can't spot a good salesperson from far And I have a lot of acquaintance and friends that I think they would do amazingly, but they, they think they don't have any talent.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: And many times when they allow me to explain how does it work, they're like, Hmm, I could do that. 'cause it's a process, right? So, so, and that's why I think if I would write a, a sales book that says, I don't know, sales for winners, I don't [00:04:00] know. That would only attract salespeople. If I write

Rob D. Willis: I.

Mafald Johannsen: that most people relate themselves with, I think I, I'm, I have more chances to catch the attention of people that would never think about buying a sales book.

And hopefully, and that's my goal. That, and I mentioned that in the book. I want people to read that and consider a career in sales, you know? And that's how I finished the book. Okay. Now that I read the

Rob D. Willis: I read.

Mafald Johannsen: are you at least considering it? And that's how I finished the book because I think it's a fantastic profession. As you mentioned, most solopreneurs. They need sales skills, whether they want them or not. So you better start learning that, you know, if you're a solopreneur, you have a project or there are people who actually hate their jobs and they're not well paid and they're still afraid of trying something new like sales because of the red reputation.

And that's why I really try to, you know, help people getting into the profession and maybe be happier and, and, [00:05:00] richer, hopefully.

Rob D. Willis: It, it's a great angle, I think, and you are really pointing to a, a, a few misconceptions about cells which I think originate from the salespeople who we all have. Contact with who are like your mobile phone company who are calling you up out of the blue, reading out some script and trying to get you Yeah.

Ex. Exactly. Or we think of Glen Gary, Glen Ross and that, that sort of image of the sales person. Exactly. Ai DI mean, it was a great performance, but not something I want to, to emulate myself. But as you say. Whatever you do, you are going to have to sell at some point. And a lot of people think, well that's not me.

'cause I think they misunderstand what, what sales really is and what the process is. And once they read a book like yours, hopefully they will get to [00:06:00] understand it a little bit more. So I know that your real key area of genius, your superpower is very much prospecting.

Mafald Johannsen: Yes.

Rob D. Willis: For you, how would you define prospecting and can you take us through your process for achieving that?

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah. So prospecting starts with a strong foundation, and that's where most companies, sales teams people fail. And when you fail from the start, forget about the rest of the process. So, and the foundation means the right ideal customer profile. You need to understand who your market is, why they are buying from you. Like, why would they buy your product? Right? Which challenges are you solving now if you don't have that, define, forget it. You can write amazing emails, doing cold calls, putting all the work you want. If that foundation is not solid, you will struggle. Okay, so prospecting is [00:07:00] understanding who your ideal customer profile is, which triggers which events. Pointed to you that it's a right moment for you to go after them. And when you go after them is what we call prospecting. So whether it's email, cold call, LinkedIn, so any touch point with a potential customer that fits your ICP ideal customer profile with a trigger, something that happens, an event that. Indicate that they might need a solution like yours. This is my definition of proper prospecting.

Rob D. Willis: Okay. So it's identifying who your, who the customer is, and the goal is simply to identify what those moments are and then get in touch with them and, and say, I mean, what, what, what do you think is the goal of a a prospector? Is it to just start the conversation? Are you trying to close the deal immediately?

Mafald Johannsen: No.

Rob D. Willis: No, and that's,

Mafald Johannsen: [00:08:00] and that's

Rob D. Willis: that's

Mafald Johannsen: of

Rob D. Willis: of the

Mafald Johannsen: mistakes I see often in, even in really good salespeople. So I'm not even talking about you know, juniors, you

Rob D. Willis: you know?

Mafald Johannsen: targets and we have pressure. Yeah. And so we want the meeting right away,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: to say right away. And that's not happening. And especially nowadays, you know, cell cycles are getting longer and longer. sometimes impatience will be your enemy. 'cause you can't just burn the bridge because you were too impatient trying to close on the spot. You can barely close on the spot. This is not B2C. This is B2B. Right.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm. So,

Mafald Johannsen: so

Rob D. Willis: but yes,

Mafald Johannsen: The, the, the, the

Rob D. Willis: the prospect.

Mafald Johannsen: if you just do that. If you are from a business development department, your job is not to close the deal.

It's not to do negotiation. Now, that's another department. Your goal is to. Spark interest and to open the door. That's it.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: always telling that to my team. I say, you are not customer [00:09:00] service. You are not a closer. go that, that, that route, because if you go down that rabbit hole, are not sparking the interest.

You're trying to do something else that it's not your job.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: They will shut you down in two seconds. 'cause guess what? They don't wanna talk to you in the first place.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, and I don't think this is just a problem for people who are professional prospectors, like sales development, business development. Think about like founders in early stage companies. They are doing the sales. Think about solopreneurs, they are doing the sales. There are moments in which quite senior people in companies are there to build relationships with other companies in order to drive some sorts of sales.

And I guess the, the same goes for them. Yeah. Their goal is simply to start the conversation.

Mafald Johannsen: Yes.

Rob D. Willis: And what I mean, just to, we'll go into your process for getting to that [00:10:00] stage. But let's imagine your like big Kanban board in your mind, what makes you move them to the stage where like, they know who we are.

They find us interesting. What signals are they giving you?

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah, so it, it depends a lot on your product, on your service and your by person and your SP. That's why it's super important to define that. So

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: that, you cannot answer that question. But for example, I'm gonna give you. Two, we call it triggers. Two events that are usually really good and very widely used in a lot of service in progress.

One of them is company growth and the other of them is a new person in the role, right? A new CRO, a new CTO, someone new, and these two events. They're, first of all, they're really easy to find. Those are filters in sales navigator. So you can get a list of those two

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: two seconds, which is scalable.

Do you have a trigger that is scalable?

And the[00:11:00]

Rob D. Willis: and the other reason is usually if the company growing

Mafald Johannsen: that's a great thing. But

Rob D. Willis: growth always comes Challenges.

Mafald Johannsen: Right, so,

Rob D. Willis: So, so usually that's why

Mafald Johannsen: trigger because it's impossible to have growth without having new challenges. Whether, whether you

Rob D. Willis: you need

Mafald Johannsen: more

Rob D. Willis: people.

Mafald Johannsen: more tech, tech or new processes, you know, so there is always coming something to it.

Maybe your solution is one of the solutions or not.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: but it's a quite obvious one. The other one, the new person in the role, the new person in the role wants to change things,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: to, to, to apply new techniques, to get new tax tech to, so usually they are more motivated to listen to you,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: if you can provide. If you understand what this person in this company would be probably looking at, and we can use that angle. So these are two examples of triggers, that will give you an indication that they [00:12:00] might need what you have to offer.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. These are big, high level changes essentially, like when there is a change. People are going to feel some sort of discomfort, I guess, funding as well. Now they've got these expectations, that's an important thing. And then the kind of offer is gonna relate to the kind of funding they're getting. If it's series B, c, whatever there are, are there also like, are you a fan of those sort of micro triggers?

Like let's say someone is. Trying to build a personal brand or something like that. And they're trying, and the the end goal is they want people to, to eventually buy from them. What do you think about like interacting with particular posts or.

Mafald Johannsen: Those are also triggers. Absolutely. So, so definitely if you can, and, and I actually mentioned when, when my BDRs want to go after, let's say certain company, I, I told, I tell them to click on the bell of the prospect. So [00:13:00] on LinkedIn. So whenever he or she posts something, we can be notified and interact right away.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: definitely it's a great way, it's also considered a trigger, right? It's a reason to reach out. You

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: just because,

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: yeah.

Rob D. Willis: I get the feeling though, that the trigger. Which is I think a really important point, but it's maybe not the first thing you do. Probably this comes after understanding the customer. Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: yes.

Rob D. Willis: so could you just walk us through, I mean, obviously high level without giving away your secrets.

Mafald Johannsen: I am an open book,

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Okay. Can you walk us through,

Mafald Johannsen: my secrets in the book. I have nothing else to add.

Rob D. Willis: okay. Can you walk us through? The research process, like step by step, how, how would you go into that?

Mafald Johannsen: yes. So I think. Everyone from the sales departments and definitely solopreneurs as well, but they should interview their customers. So in bigger comp, medium, [00:14:00] bigger, bigger companies, marketing interviews many times for customer stories, product interviews to develop new features and the product roadmap. But we don't have the habit in the sales departments to interview the customers. For our messaging and for the way to go about it. So I, in every company, or if I do any consulting, the first thing I ask is I'm interviews with customers, current customers, and I

Rob D. Willis: always

Mafald Johannsen: ask about, first the general challenges. Challenges as a whole. challenges

Rob D. Willis: challenges.

Mafald Johannsen: help solving, how we help solving unexpected benefits. again, what was the moment that they start to feel the pain that we are solving? Why us and not our competitors? Meaning why, why stood out? You know? 'cause if it's stood out to you, it might stood stand out to other prospects that are similar to you. So I really try to [00:15:00] understand these and all of these elements. Profiles will be used to first segmentate my ideal pro, pro customer profile. Understand which triggers we should go after, and then write messaging to the challenges, to the triggers, and hopefully get similar customers to the ones that we've interviewed.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, I mean that it's not just sales. I think that lack this habit. I reckon a key challenge or a key blocker in companies is that even senior leadership have no contact. Often with customers, and that means that the strategies that they put forward can somehow be disconnected. And I think all of us could do more to understand and talk to the people who we're we're serving.

I would love it because I imagine this, this process is, it sounds simple the way you are describing it, just like have a chat, ask them, you know, what the problems were. I'm sensing that it's not that [00:16:00] simple and it does take. Good listening, good questions. And also a way to translate, because people are not always that good at defining what the problem was.

They just, they just kind of had a

Mafald Johannsen: you need

Rob D. Willis: weird feeling. Exactly. Could have You got an example, maybe one of your clients. What kinds of cl people customers were they serving? What questions did you ask? What came out, which was maybe a surprise to

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah,

Rob D. Willis: client, to the company?

Mafald Johannsen: Absolutely. I'll answer first, your kind of half question and then I'll go into that. So yes, a lot of people, they don't know how to talk about their own challenges you, when you are interviewing, it's like a psychologist, you need to go deeper. So just a very quick example on that. Imagine I interview A CTO, right? So someone technical and he will tell me, yeah, bugs are a problem. This is not enough. You need to understand and, and, and I, and I [00:17:00] do the warning in the beginning. I say to my interviewee, look, I'm gonna ask you some silly questions. Sometimes. Don't be defensive. I'm gonna go deeper in certain things. I. It's on purpose. It's not because I'm silly. Well, I'm also silly, but that's not the reason why I'm going so, so I also warn them for certain questions I'm going to ask so they don't feel defensive. So if someone tells me, yeah, bugs are an issue, I ask you why are they an issue?

And I don't want them, and this is obvious why they are an issue, right? why I call it a silly question, but that's not the point. The point is I want to hear how they talk about it, how they feel about it, which words they used to describe that issue. And you need to go deeper. If you, if you happy with bugs are an issue, you still, you haven't have your messaging.

It's not there yet, right? Because you need to understand which implications do they do they have in your day-to-day. What does it mean to you over time? Stress, wanting to quit your comp, your employees quitting, and then [00:18:00] you have to put that time aside to recruit new ones and train them. And you don't wanna do that.

You just want to have your, your stable team. Now, what is that? No bugs. What does that translate into? Your own wellbeing, into your KPIs, into your life. And once you get into there, then. Then, then you got it because that's exactly how you should translate. So you can say something like, look, we help you find bugs.

Your team doesn't have to do it. We can do it for you. So they have time to focus on strategic projects and they can meet their deadlines. this is proper messaging. We are saying, Hey, do you want to clean some bugs? This, you know, maybe they do, but it is not compelling enough.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. It is not tapping into that emotive driver.

Mafald Johannsen: Precisely. So this is on the part that you asked me, you know, that people don't know how to talk about their own challenges. I need to guide them. That's the first one. The second one, the story that you asked me about the customer [00:19:00] that found something new. So I had the customer that they sell to head of Customer Success, and they were super happy with 'em, and they are indeed the ones that use her product, but they're not the budget holders.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: So even, and even if they love the pro, the, the service and if they wanna like, work with them, the, the, the person that deciding if they're gonna work with them is the CEO. He, he's the budget or she's the budget holder. In this case, this company I'm thinking of, it's, it's a guy. And when I interview him, he said, yes, I'm wearing way too many hats and I don't give enough support to my CS leader. And I'm like. That's interesting. I built messaging not only for cs, but I also built for CEOs. Hey, do you feel you don't give enough support? To your, you know, CS person. 'cause you just can't, it's just too much. Maybe it's not your ev or your area of expertise. And I'm like, Jesus. Yeah, I feel [00:20:00] that. Right.

So, so, so this was a surprise thing that we found out where maybe even though they were targeting, targeting the right people, but they were not targeting the budget holder with his or her own pain.

Rob D. Willis: That's a really interesting perspective. First question, how many people are you gonna talk to when you're trying to create a

Mafald Johannsen: I

Rob D. Willis: process?

Mafald Johannsen: So it's, it depends a lot how easy it is to get interviews. So it depends a lot on your persona,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: your product. Ideally, I would like three customers per ICP

Rob D. Willis: Okay.

Mafald Johannsen: ideally.

Rob D. Willis: Id ideally, yeah. I mean doing anymore can just take way too much time. And also you don't want an average of everyone, do you? You want like some very key emotive language

Mafald Johannsen: Yes,

Rob D. Willis: and then this, there's quite a bit of skill I feel in what you're doing. Translating that into [00:21:00] messages which are, get to the heart of the point, but also are not too on the nose.

Yes.

Mafald Johannsen: yes.

Rob D. Willis: do you balance that?

Mafald Johannsen: I balance that by, I know that sounds obvious. I speak like a normal person.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: don't to sound salesy or mark theory, or I don't like, you know, I, I write an email, for example, if you're talking about email prospecting the same way I write to you, Rob,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: like, like, you know, no fancy words, no promises that are too big. no promises at all actually. And many times I even. don't even, most of the time mention what we do in the first email. And that's, I know it sounds weird, but on the first email was like, let's see, heard that a lot of CEOs in your position are wearing way too many hats and they don't have time to do this.

That, is that your case?[00:22:00]

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, so let's go into that. So with an outreach strategy, let's say, let's stick with the client that you were talking about. How many touch points are you going to use? 'cause I think one key challenge people have in sales, but also I. Every department is, they kind of feel that I've sent a message. If they don't respond, I guess that's it, or it's their fault.

You do need to follow up. So how many, what's your kind of standard rules of engagement?

Mafald Johannsen: 14 to 17 touch points.

Rob D. Willis: Okay, so that's quite, quite some,

Mafald Johannsen: talker. Remember, let's go

Rob D. Willis: eh.

Mafald Johannsen: beginning of the podcast. If one email is not considered talking 17 touch points, it should

Rob D. Willis: Is, sorry, who is this lady? And are you let's say in the, you are using those sort of closed questions in, in those emails to try and just get a response.

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: Do you have like a standard, like the first one should generally be [00:23:00] this, the second one should generally introduce things.

Mafald Johannsen: So the first one, and this is a tip that your listeners can take right away. The first email cannot have links, images, attachments, because of spam. So I. If you want the, the email to land in the inbox plain, including your fancy signature, take it out. But your fancy signature has your picture and the link to your website that counts.

That's not good for spam out.

Rob D. Willis: Okay,

Mafald Johannsen: So that's, that's a, a, a easy thing that will help lend more, you know, outbound emails in your inbound. In your inboxes. But I

Rob D. Willis: I always,

Mafald Johannsen: first. Touchpoint and email. I always show that I made research. I know what's going on in the company or in the person's role, and I mention a potential challenge and I usually don't pitch. So this is how I start and

Rob D. Willis: and.

Mafald Johannsen: I have the rest of the cadence. But the problem that when people hear, wow, 17 touchpoints, is she insane? Yes. But the [00:24:00] thing is. 17 touchpoints. It doesn't mean that you have a hard touch all the time. So these 17 touchpoints are not 17 emails. That would be insane. And that would damage your spam score like no other thing. So touchpoint means a like on the publication or on, on, on, on LinkedIn. So if I like your post, that's a touch point. If you, if I visit your profile and you receive a notification. me visiting your profile is a touch point. If I invite you to a webinar that's a touch point, so touch point is not always a cold call in an email.

Those are hard touches, and then you have soft touches and you need to balance them all in order to keep following up without being too annoying. The other thing is. Remember when I mentioned you that impatience is your enemy? Because we are so eager to sell and to show how good our product is, we give all the cards of the game in the first email, boom.

Rob D. Willis: [00:25:00] Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: then the other 16 touch points or, or whatever. You have nothing else left to say, so you are annoying. Because you're repeating yourself all the time. No. Have you read my email? Have you read my email? Have you read my email? You don't want that. So if you staggered the information throughout the, your cadence of touch points, then you're not repeating yourself.

You're giving new information all the time. So hopefully you are less annoying to your recipient.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, and it's probably over a reasonably large amount of time. Sales cycles are pretty,

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: oh, two, three weeks. I was expecting over a month or something.

Mafald Johannsen: no, no.

Rob D. Willis: I.

Mafald Johannsen: we are professional stockers. You know? We are,

Rob D. Willis: Exactly. Stay on it. You, I remember you used to have a podcast where you did, you interviewed buyer personas,

Mafald Johannsen: yeah.

Rob D. Willis: and I'm sure that must have given you some discoveries, some surprising discoveries about what those [00:26:00] particular personas care about versus what salespeople think they care about.

Mafald Johannsen: Yes.

Rob D. Willis: Have you got an example?

Mafald Johannsen: I think like I, and I can give you the context before I give you the example, I'm getting a context why I

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: live podcast because I've noticed that the main challenge for every sales. across all the industries is not understanding their buyer persona. So I was like, look, you still should go and speak to your customers because each customer is different.

But I'm gonna do a generic one that least, you know what three CFOs think, what three CROs think It's better than not. It's already more than what you know by now. So I saw this gap in the market and I did it really to help because, you know, when I was when I started my career in business development, that would have been. The piece of content that I needed, you

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: I was like, okay, what did I need that? So I created it for other people. so that's why I, I created a podcast and it was great for me because, you know, I [00:27:00] haven't

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: a ciso, you know, challenges are. Once I understand this, the, the challenges of A CFO, my relationship as the head of department with the heads of these departments will be better. Because I'll, I'll, I'll understand what they're going through. I won't be less impatient. I will, you know, I will try to, okay, how can I do for you to have what I need by Friday? Right. So, so, so, so these knowledge improved not only the the sales skills, but me as a professional because it gives you empathy that you need to work on a daily basis.

Rob D. Willis: That's.

Mafald Johannsen: I still have an answer to your question which is [00:28:00] the, like a curious thing to, to that I discovered, so I've discovered that there are all the departments have some similarities that are all alike, and then things that are very different, you know, so there, so, so which shows, you know, we, human beings in the end, we are all the same. So the two things that I heard in. Every single episode, no matter the department was, I don't have a typical day. It's like I, you know, it, it, I, I decide on the day what my day will look like or people decide for myself and. We feel outreach to me. You better be relevant. You better speak to my challenges.

So these are the two things that no matter the department I heard in every single podcast. And then you have small little things that are different from department to department for, so for example, the CFOs is like, look, I want numbers. You want to convince me, I wanna see numbers. We love numbers, [00:29:00] we are CFOs. And then, for example, another person I interviewed that was. Head of UX and Marketing and Design. He had this mixed role and head of product. Product. It was product that he also did UX and design 'cause it was a smaller company. He said, look, do you want to sell me your design services? Put on in your email right away what your design looks like.

Don't make me to go to your website. That's, no, you want my time, you want to convince me, show me right away. Don't, don't make me go to your website. You

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: right? My love language is, is design. So please speak to me. Right?

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: so, so those are the things that I found, for example, really, really interesting.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, that actually is a really interesting point, like. Embody what you are trying to do, so don't tell as they say.

Mafald Johannsen: don't tell. That's my life motto. Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. And let's think about the, I mean, you've had a very wide ranging [00:30:00] career across lots of different countries, cultures, industries, have you got like any approaches to understanding different buyers based on maybe cultural contexts? Technical, non-technical? Are there any things that you kind of take as a given when you are going to a certain environment?

Mafald Johannsen: So I think, and I think this this is related to the last answer I gave, which is. In the end of the day, yeah, cultural differences matter and they exist. But at the end of the of the day, we are all humans and we all care about the same thing. You know? So if you make my life easier, I'm gonna listen to you.

No matter, I'm Chinese American,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: you know? You know people want. lives to become better and easier. And if you can show,

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: don't tell, show that you can do it. You're gonna have their attention no matter what. I think the small details will come when you go deeper, right? So there are some nationalities that they have a hard time to say no because it's rude [00:31:00] that are others that.

Tell you no right away in a very rude way, but you know, but at least you know exactly what you, what you are expecting, and you as a salesperson already after prospecting, when you're already longer in the sales cycle, you need to understand if the person. Really will, will really buy or not. And then this is when the cultural difference can play a role.

Where is this an A yes in this culture or is this a no, but I don't wanna be rude, for example. Or there are cultures where, you know, with flat hierarchies, they have more decision power. There are others that they have to bring more stakeholders. So you need to understand these kind of things. Depending on the region, but bottom line, the foundation is the same.

It just needs to work on the details later.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. And, and kind of con continuing this point on all the different countries and and industries we've worked in. I mean, we know each other from when you worked in tourism, but you've also been in media and tech and SaaS. Which [00:32:00] industry do you feel taught you the most about understanding buyers?

Mafald Johannsen: I mean, I would say all of

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: but, and maybe this is not the, answer you expect, but you know what really taught how to understand people is good literature

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. Okay.

Mafald Johannsen: and you come from a literature background, so I.

Rob D. Willis: Tell me more.

Mafald Johannsen: So so basically, you know, the end of the day sales, customer service, customer success, marketing, we're talking about people in the end of the day, right? And, and usually good books and good movies. But I think the book, you have more time to go deeper because it's your own time. You know, you less distract more in the content. The people, the good writers, they understood. Human psychology, very well motivators. What, what actually moves people. Not the whole you thing, you know that they're so fake, they're so far from reality,

Rob D. Willis: [00:33:00] Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: the things, 'cause I, I, I love reading since I'm a kid, since I'm six, I read a lot I, I want to think I read the really good literature. Obviously that's a bit subjective, but I would

Rob D. Willis: I would say.

Mafald Johannsen: made me really understand what, what drives people, it's, it's other people's observations and you can do that. With other ways of learning, but this was one of the, one of the drivers in theater. And because in theater you really, when you do theater, you are there.

It's a ritual of sacrifice. You are there instead of the others, right? So you have to impersonate someone that you're not. So you really need to understand your character. [00:34:00] You know, you really need to under understand why is he or she behaving this way? You know, why did we, how, how we like express this sentence.

You know, how is it anger, is it sadness? You know, what does it make? What? And all of these empathy exercises from a young age really helped me. know, and

Rob D. Willis: Working

Mafald Johannsen: service like I did when I, we worked together in that position. I didn't do many sales. I, I sold the tickets, but, you know, I had to deal with a lot of guides that were freelancers and, you know, a lot

Rob D. Willis: mm-hmm. Of them were

Mafald Johannsen: You know, they have big egos. It, it is true you know, or angry customers in tourism. They want, I want this and I want this now, and I don't care about you. You know? And, and, and I think that really. That having that background really helped me. And then practicing, right? Like, so if I had to deal with a lot of people all the time, you start also then to see patterns.

Okay, I, I tried to solve this way that it didn't go as I thought, let me [00:35:00] try this way. Ah, this way worked. Let me double down. And that's what you do also in prospecting, right? So you try different hypothesis, you do AB testing. Some of them fail, which is fine. We abort them. You double down on the ones that worked, and when you refine this process, you will see consistent success.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm. I, I quite agree. There's a lot to, to unpack there. Firstly, I love your point about the theater. I was talking to an actor called Salima Saxton, who's gonna be coming on the show soon. She was touring me about the process of developing a scene. She when she's working as an actor, and a lot of it is about, not, not the, not the lines, but.

Discovering what is true in the character to yourself.

Mafald Johannsen: And what's

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. Yeah. What's the feeling? And then where is that in me? And I guess it's pretty hard if you're playing like a serial murder or something, but you have to understand like

Mafald Johannsen: [00:36:00] bit of serial

Rob D. Willis: exactly.

Mafald Johannsen: I feel that from time to time when I see certain people on TV doing certain things and I'm like, oh, I feel I have the serial murder in me. You know?

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, but there, there are like parts of the emotion, rage, anger, jealousy, we've all felt them.

Mafald Johannsen: have those.

Rob D. Willis: And I guess the same is true of everyone you are communicating to, like everything they've had, you've had that emotion at some point just may be a different situation. Yeah. Also with literature, I was gonna say ask this in the rapid fire, but what do you feel is the best.

Or a very good writer, author who really captures the essence of humanity and is a great observer.

Mafald Johannsen: George Saunders.

Rob D. Willis: Okay. Yeah. I love George Sanders. I've only read the swan in a pond in the,

Mafald Johannsen: I love that book.

Rob D. Willis: the thing.

Mafald Johannsen: If you wanna Be Better in Sales, read that book.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. It's very, very good. I'm better in [00:37:00] storytelling too. He really unpicks what a story is. Very, very good. Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: so it's not even a classic yet.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: George Saunders is outstanding. Like that book is one of my favorites, the one he just mentioned. And the other book that I read from him is a short stories book called Liberation Day. How interesting.

Rob D. Willis: Mm-hmm.

Mafald Johannsen: and really, really read that one.

If you want to understand human beings and humanity, read that one better than a lot of business books. And I wrote a business book so I can, I.

Rob D. Willis: Okay. Well, I think this is a good moment then just to, to move to the rapid fire thing as we're, we're kind of pretty much in it already. Favorite tool for bio research.

Mafald Johannsen: For bio research. Interesting. So I would say I. Ample market really helps with that, but not only, but it helps you with the trigger. so ample market ha has a lot of different things, but for buyer research also helps you there. And they're pretty efficient with ai. Their AI works really well.

Rob D. Willis: [00:38:00] Okay. One question you always ask in a dis in a discovery call

Mafald Johannsen: and then discovery call with a prospect or with a client.

Rob D. Willis: With a client, with a prospect.

Mafald Johannsen: With the prospect. When did you start searching for a solution like ours? When did you start feeling the pain?

Rob D. Willis: Okay. And with a client.

Mafald Johannsen: What's the cost of inaction if you don't solve this issue?

Rob D. Willis: Brilliant. Like the impact of it. Okay. Apart from your own, what's a sales book you really love?

Mafald Johannsen: I

Rob D. Willis: I really like

Mafald Johannsen: the Chris Foss one, the negotiation one. Never split the difference. I think it's pretty good. It's pretty solid,

Rob D. Willis: You've given me some good triggers, company growth, new enroll, interacting with posts. Is there maybe an underrated bio signal that people don't ever look at, which you think is great? I.

Mafald Johannsen: so it depends a lot. But

Rob D. Willis: but

Mafald Johannsen: I. I

Rob D. Willis: I think

Mafald Johannsen: fix themselves in the common ones, like the ones I mentioned, and they [00:39:00] don't make

Rob D. Willis: make enough effort.

Mafald Johannsen: the trigger for their own business. They don't go deeper there. So for

Rob D. Willis: So for.

Mafald Johannsen: one underrated trigger. It is people don't find their own triggers, which then is problematic 'cause everyone is using the same triggers and everyone is getting the same or similar messages. So I can give you an example. For many companies ago, a very good trigger that was good for us was app store reviews. So if, if I read the app store reviews that saying Too many bugs app doesn't work, we did app testing. So that was a perfect trigger.

Rob D. Willis: Hmm. Awesome. Yeah, I've also heard about people reading Glassdoor and all kinds of things to, to get understanding of the culture and so on.

Mafald Johannsen: Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: Brilliant. Now let's move on to the listener challenge. And in this part of the pod, we give listeners a ritual or an exercise, something that they can try out over the next week to get a little bit of your superpower.

My father, what have you got for us?

Mafald Johannsen: So I would say, obviously I [00:40:00] would recommend to really do a full interview of your customers, but something really simple and fast that you can do is really preparing a short survey. With these two questions, when did you look for our solution and why? Us and our competitors? So it takes two seconds. You can fire that to a lot of your customers and you get data 'cause it takes them two seconds to reply to, to all of it.

And you can get really interesting data in with no much effort from them.

Rob D. Willis: That's.

Mafald Johannsen: wouldn't that with proper buyer interview

Rob D. Willis: Yeah,

Mafald Johannsen: interview.

Rob D. Willis: and I think this is gonna be an exercise, which I don't just want the salespeople to do this. I think everyone needs to take this time.

Mafald Johannsen: It's

Rob D. Willis: Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: fun. It's one of the best part of my job. It's so cool. Like it's really fun.

Rob D. Willis: My father. Where can people go to find out more about you?

Mafald Johannsen: LinkedIn. I don't have TikTok, I don't have Instagram. I am, I, I know it's, it's hard to believe, but I really don't like social media. So LinkedIn, I [00:41:00] still have my two podcasts on YouTube as well. A day in the life of by a persona and sales training, dread sins about sales training mistakes. So definitely find my content there and everything else LinkedIn, really easy to find me.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah, and we're also gonna be linking to your book

Mafald Johannsen: Yes.

Rob D. Willis: it will be out by the time this comes out.

Mafald Johannsen: if you're a Portuguese speaker the book is for you. If you cannot read Portuguese, well, then

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. Learn.

Mafald Johannsen: learn. a great language. Learn it.

Rob D. Willis: Okay, then Valda, many thanks for coming on. It's been a great chat. Great chat. Yeah.

Mafald Johannsen: a lot of fun. Rob, as usual, thank you so much for having me.

Rob D. Willis: Woohoo. Now how do I stop this? There we go.