Chris

00:00 - 00:10

Larry , in this conversation with Skip Level Talks , what I wanted to kinda share with the audience is , what is a skip level talk ? Because not everybody knows what that is.

Larry

00:10 - 01:05

Okay. That's easy.

If you're the leader , the VP of sales , the global sales leader , whatever you're called , the CRO , when you take the time to go a couple levels below where you are to get information. So if I'm a CRO , that might mean going to a sales manager.

You know , if I'm a VP of sales , that might mean going to a sales rep. But , you're just you're you're going a couple of levels below where you are to try to get some information that you think it can , you know , help the business.

And , I think I just think they're really important to do so that you stay attached to what's actually going on during the sales process of your organization. So , you know , it's a skip.

That's why I called a skip level. You're you're not going to the level that directly reports to you.

You're going somewhere below that level , and you're getting information.

Chris

01:05 - 01:09

Why are skip levels important for leaders ?

Larry

01:09 - 02:28

Well , they're important because if if something is happening that's really good in your organization , but you're only seeing it in pockets and rather than across the board , it's good to find to sit down with the people that are executing at a real high level , especially when it comes to individual contributors or sellers. It's really nice to be able to go call in , talk to those folks , and get a firsthand , feedback as to , you know , how they're able to be successful.

Why are they so successful executing where others are not ? And , you know , it's hard to get that. Even if you're you're very close to your team , you can get a feel for what it is , but to actually talk to the individuals that are that are executing out there in the field , it gives you the raw data , and and it's very useful to you when you start messaging to other people in the organization as to what's happening and why you're being successful.

But But it also can be helpful if if things aren't going so well and if you're losing opportunities or losing deals to go below the sales management level and talk directly to the sellers and get a get some feedback and what the challenges are at and get some feedback as to why they haven't met those challenges.

Chris

02:28 - 02:32

When do you utilize those skip levels ?

Larry

02:32 - 04:22

I can remember , when I was at the Tandberg organization , and we were working on you know , we sold , you know , infrastructure solutions , video infrastructure solutions. And we had you know , this one really hit me hard because we had we had some rich technology that we thought was pretty good.

And , we started to hear rumblings in the Salesforce that there was a newcomer in the business. And at that time , that newcomer was Codian.

And and they were being very successful at beating us when it came to video in infrastructure. And we were a bigger company , much stronger at the time.

We had a full suite of products. And so , typically , we would have an advantage in that area because we had a full suite of product.

But but this this company , this small company was doing extremely well. And I remember reaching out to one of my sellers at the time and asking them , you know , what what is it about this product ? And , the seller admitted to me that they had gone to get a demo of the product and , and that , you know , they went to see it.

Now this was one of my top guys , so I was a little nervous that they had actually gotten a demo of the product because that means they're talking to that company. So I'm a little nervous and , and he crystallized for me , and the...