1506 – Sales Mercenaries with Konsyg’s William Gilchrist

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0:55With us right now, it's William Gilchrist. William, you are the founder and CEO of Consig. You're found on the web at Consig.com. That's K-O-N-S-Y-G.com. William, thank you so much for joining us. Josh, thanks for having me on. It's an honor. Yes. And what does Consig do? Very interesting. So we've been called a few things, but we are effectively, how I like to describe this is that we are a sales mercenary group, right? Because more often than not, the word outsourcing and lead generation and sales outsourcing is such a bad word. It's kind of like a buzzword that people tend to have opinions on.

1:35So the best way to describe us is that we're a sales mercenary group. We help companies generate revenue in any way that would make sense, particularly technologies or small and medium businesses, even some enterprises and governments as well. We kind of grew to that. But yeah, we're a sales mercenary group. It's the best way to describe us. Yeah. And so who do you, what types of companies do you typically work with? So that grew over time. So we just celebrated our sixth birthday last month. And when we first started, my vision was to help startups, technology startups in Asia expand into the West, particularly the US.

2:17That was the idea that I had because I saw so many U.S.-based startups coming to Asia really quickly, but I didn't see Asian-based startups going into the U.S. really quickly. So that was the initial idea. That kind of grew really quickly in the first eight months into U.S. companies coming to us to come into Asia even faster. Asia companies try to go into Europe. And then from there, we ended up with a global team of sales mercenaries and 14 different offices within the first three years. So the type of clientele that we deal with goes from startups all the way to governments now. So it's kind of shifted and it boomed really quickly because of what we're selling.

3:00Yeah, yeah. And so what does Constance do that works well in a way that maybe someone that you're working with, it would be challenging for them to do on their own? Well, during my time kind of working in corporates, I was five years in Google. I worked in lead generation companies, marketing companies, startups and med tech and inventory management companies. One common thread that I saw from whether it's a large company to a medium-sized company to a startup is that they didn't really have the sales piece figured out. There's assumptions, there's archaic kind of systems, archaic theories. People are looking at podcasts and reading certain books on how to run a proper sales organization.

3:51And more often than not, the individuals who are implementing these sales organizations had never actually been salespeople themselves. They never actually had to close deals themselves. So with that, that's become contagious across a lot of industries where people don't really have the sales structure figured out. They have ideas, they've been given advice, but they haven't really lived it. So where we kind of come in is we come in not only as actual outsourced salespeople, but also consultants by way of doing the work. So we're the individuals that are consulting you while we're also showing you why we're correct in our consulting.

4:31Like, have you seen your pipeline? Have you seen your market? Are you looking at how the market's responding? This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. So that's kind of the value that I think that we're bringing into a lot of these companies is really showing them a realistic view on how their sales process works, but how sales works in general. Yeah. And so what is like, what would you say some of the trends that have been really emerging over the past few years when it comes to sales itself? That everybody can do it. That it's not its own independent skill set. That's a trend that I'm seeing is that individuals, more often than not, are well aware that they can't do marketing.

5:15They're well aware that they're not a plumber. They're well aware that they're not an engineer or a product specialist. When it comes to sales, suddenly everybody is becoming a specialist. They have their own opinions. They've watched Wolf of Wall Street or whatever. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's so cool. It's a Hollywood hit, right? And Glengarry, Glen Ross and all those movies. And magically, everybody's a salesman when they put on a pinstripe suit. But, you know, that's the common thread that we see oftentimes with either new clientele or people that we talk to or just people in the market that, you know, are just walking around.

5:53They don't have much sales experience, but they kind of feel like they do because they think because they see it in action that, oh, that I can do that as well. I'm charismatic. I'm funny. And there we go. I'm going to close the deal. Yeah. Yeah. And that's not, again, there's major, major costs to doing things ineffectively or just say, well, I don't know, I'm good with people. So let me give it a shot. And, you know, there's maybe other stuff that that CMO should be doing. It shouldn't necessarily be, you know, doing that type of work. And so not only are they ineffectively doing the sales job, they're also now not doing the work that they should be doing.

6:40They should, you know, stay in their lane, perhaps. You know, at the beginning, you know, listen, we all got to wear all the hats. You know, that's not unexpected. You know, I suppose that there's probably been, William, a lot of times when you've worked with folks that have been, maybe the founder CEO is still very involved in sales. And it's time to kind of help them, you know, kind of move on from that very kind of founder-led sales process into truly building a team. Well, there is an evolution in that. And I'm glad you brought up the founder CEO being the salesperson. That's actually a really good thing.

7:18Because the more the founder and CEO has tried to sell their own product before, the more they understand the realities of what it takes to generate the revenue. So their forecasts and their projections are going to be a little bit more realistic because they've been in the market. They've been operating, trying to sell. They've gotten the rejections before if they're really trying to sell it. But what happens more often is that you'll have a founder and CEO that has closed a few deals by way of their network. And that's a big mistake. So they've had friends or friends of friends or people who knew them in their previous roles who've come in.

7:56and now they're suddenly spending customers because they know them. And they think that that's their sales cycle. So we've had countless CEOs and founders that said, look, I can close three deals in the first three weeks. Well, how long have you been in operation? Six months. How many deals have you closed? Three. How did they close? Well, you know, I went to this networking, and then you figure out that it isn't closing at all. It's through a network and maybe a referral, but not really a cold outreach salesperson. Well, so, and then the other myth I wanted to spell as well is that it sounds like, or I would assume that you're working with companies that these are going to be bigger ticket sales in many regards.

8:40You're not selling, you know,$2.99 type things. You need, you know, the service contracts and maybe longer term engagements. And so also just to put this out there, and this is kind of a no-brainer, but very little of that can you automate, right? It's not appropriate. I mean, sales assets are going to be incredibly valuable, but that's not your buyer that is, you're asking them for$80 ,000. They're not going to come through a webinar, likely, right? It's going to be very, very human-centric in your experience. I'm making a lot of assumptions here. No, you're actually 100 % correct. You're 100 % correct.

9:24There is a range or a bracket when the cost per deal warrants a certain type of sell. And actually, that number is a lot lower than$80 ,000. I mean, what we have found is that when companies spend anywhere between$5 ,000 USD and above, they want to talk to somebody. If they're spending about$20 ,000, they need a constant person that they can always go back to and talk to consistently. And that's across any industry when it comes to sales. There is a kind of a price point where you do want a point of contact once it hits a certain level. So, yeah, the human interaction is key. And, you know, of course, with the new emergence of, you know, the chat GPTs and the AIs and stuff like that.

10:11And everybody's worried, oh, you know, this will replace sales. it can't replace sales because people need to be able to level with someone and be able to have a back and forth and certain, you know, customizations and personal preferences that need to be kind of massaged into certain pitches, sales, you know, deals, last minute discounts, whatever it may be, you know, most deals that are over the$10 ,000 mark also comes with more arrangements, understandings that might not necessarily be something that, let's say a computer or that a webinar or a website can do for you. Yeah. And the kind of the, you know, the next thing I was thinking about was, you know, someone that's listening to us and they've toyed with this idea of outsourcing.

11:05And maybe they've said, well, look, I see these salespeople, they're on Upwork or, you know, maybe I got a cold email from somebody and there's a lot of noise out there. I get a lot of the spam. Like, how do we know who to hire? Like how can we vet that they're going to be a great sales partner for us? That's the story of my life. A lot of noise in the outsource world. What I would suggest is never go for the company that's chasing you. Right. More often than not. Like for instance, Consig, we only actually onboard 10 % of our prospects, right? Just because, you know, we've gone through a great conversation and we see great value, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be our client, right?

11:50We have to do things like deep dives and things like that to really vet whether or not your KPIs are realistic. Never, ever, ever take the company that says yes to every single thing that you present in the beginning. If you say, can you get me$10 million this year in revenue. Anybody who says yes without any more information, right? Or anybody says, absolutely, we can get you, you know, 75 leads in 30 days, right? How many leads do you want? We could do that. Anybody who's saying yes a lot, that's where the red flag is. The company that says that, you know, do you have any data to support that?

12:31What are the numbers you did last year? Where'd you get this number from? Those individuals and those companies might be the ones you can trust more because they're having a real conversation. Yeah. Yeah. What in lead gen today? I mean, obviously, you know, I'm getting hit up a lot in my email and LinkedIn. Is that where a majority of lead gen is being done? No, actually, it's still the cold call and email. Yeah. Still the cold call and email. We've been very surprised with how underperforming LinkedIn has been from a lead generation standpoint. I mean, it's decent, but it's better to be kind of a mixed martial artist.

13:13People still like the old fashioned email. People do like the cold call, but the cold call doesn't necessarily mean you're going to close the deal on the first call, but you start to engage in conversation with people. That still is the most powerful tool that we don't see large droves of interested leads coming from LinkedIn. And I think that that kind of is, you know, tipping our hat to the previous point, which is you just cannot automate this stuff sometimes, right? Sometimes you do need to connect sometimes an email is a little bit closer. The phone call is the ultimate closeness. But the email to the phone allows us to have a conversation and then for lead to come in.

13:54And it's really qualified, right? Because we've talked about every piece and what it means to your role and your business and all the good qualification questions that we bring. Yeah, I suspected, you know, email outreach, I don't know what language would work. But, you know, I know I'm constantly trying to protect myself from noise, and I have gatekeepers and that sort of thing as a founder of a company myself. Yeah, I, you know, What is it, you know, when we think about email outreach in terms of like best practice generally, you don't have to share all your trade secrets, but, you know, at least we don't do more damage out there in the world.

14:35What would you urge? I love the question because it still is in the same line of what we're saying, right? Which is the personal touch. See, if you've got a mass marketed email that's clearly from a MailChimp or whatever, right? You can recognize that, right? You know that this is an email that has been sent out and it's probably been sent out to hundreds of thousands of people. But what if you got an email that was speaking specifically to you? It's addressed to you. It's speaking to very clear pains that you might be experiencing. The person also describes how they got your contact. That closeness, again, that human touch, the email.

15:14and more often than not, you shouldn't be overly verbose in your first email. You should be asking permission for the next email. Like, hey, look, I believe this is your email, Josh. Just wanted to reach out just to talk a little bit about these particular things. I think you were the right person because you're in this particular industry and here's the reason why I'm trying to reach out to you. I do have your number here. This is how I got it. I'll give you a call later on this week that just want to give you an email just to give you a heads up. Sometimes they'll respond back. And this is a volume game too, right?

15:50I mean, they're probably gonna say, no, don't, don't call me or, hey, look, I'm not interested, which is fine. That's normal. But the individuals who did read that and saw how contextualized and how personal it was, who might be interested in your value proposition, they'll take you more seriously because you actually took a minute to think about the email, not just, hey, do you want to have a meeting with me about cybersecurity? reading. It's very broad, right? Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm doing when I'm looking at my email. I'm like, was this sent one to many or is this really sent one to one?

16:21And so I'm looking for those clues to try to, you know, figure out because, you know, if it genuinely feels like a one to one email, I, you know, there's a little bit of that emotional, psychological, I'm not going to be too much of a jerk, even if it's cold, you know, I'm at least gonna, you know, give it a a reading, but, you know, when I see evidence that's just sloppy spray and pray stuff, it is, I just market as spam and I move on. Of course. And, you know, if you got an email with somebody asking for directions on how to better engage you, that's a much nicer email than someone just trying to sell you something, right?

17:01Look, I don't know if email is the best platform. I don't know if LinkedIn is the best platform. Just wanted to be able to get on the phone with you maybe for 15 minutes to discuss X or Y or Z. That permission-based seller usually gets a lot farther than the Wall Street guy who's the A-type. I've never sold a deal in my life directly. I've just had good conversations for people to agree to sell themselves. So when somebody goes to Consig.com, and that's K-O-N-S-Y-G.com, what would you recommend they do? I would recommend that they look at our content, they look at our blogs, they go on our LinkedIn as well and look at how involved we are in the sales kind of narrative.

17:49Check out our services and just see for real what it is that we're trying to accomplish for our clients. forget the whole point of whether or not we're going to do lead generation or sales or digital marketing for you all that stuff is kind of irrelevant because we're mainly focused on what can help you get revenue what is the revenue you're trying to attain in the next 12 to 24 months and you have a mercenary group that's going to use a variety of tools in order to help you get it and that could be field we've gone on planes and flown in to do boardroom level pitches and traditional lead generation stuff, all the way to complex ones, account-based marketing.

18:30So we have a lot of services out there, but the services alone doesn't win. It's us having a good conversation, figuring out what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it, when you want to achieve it. And if we get all that aligned, then we'll be able to show you what tools were in our toolbox for you to get there. Yeah. You also, I should point out that Consig has a podcast, fireside chat by Consig. So to our friend that's listening to that, you can, you can go find that podcast, hit subscribe. Looks like you've got some videos, a lot of good resources here. So again, consig.com, William Gilchrist.

19:08I really appreciate the conversation. Thanks so much, Josh, for having me.

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