Jesper Toft, Head of Sales Enablement & CRM - Avidly Denmark

Hello and welcome to our Marketing Experts series. With us today we have Jesper Toft from Avidly. But I would love actually for you Jesper to introduce yourself just a little bit. I'm Jesper Toft and my primary role is actually helping sales organization start using new tools and start working with new technologies to be better at what they do, selling. My official title is Head of Sales Enablement but I've been working with sales for almost 25 years now. So I've also seen the development going from really classical sale until what we see today where the sales role has changed dramatically. It has indeed and one of the topics or the main topic that we're talking about today is video and video in sales. But before we get to that point, talking about this trend, how have you seen the landscape changing in the sales and marketing landscape I guess? The way I've seen the landscape changed has been primarily video going from something glamorous, something with high fashion, high complexity into something that you and I are doing. My children, Snapchat and all those new platforms, when they started evolving and we saw famous people talking on the phone while they're driving and we have actually adapted that. Both that we don't care about the quality anymore, we are more about convenience and oh, I have a thought and I have an idea, let me spread that to my peers and my contacts and my friends. That change has actually also changed the way that sales are using video today. So going from something that is really expensive to something that we just do on the fly because it's there and it's convenient. That I think is the biggest change when we look at video in what I do. And how has this change affected how sales team, sales people are leveraging video? The way that sales teams are using videos and using the tool in their role, as I see it at least, is that it has been difficult to get that close relationship upfront with your clients because you actually meet them much later in the buying process. And in the good old days, I'm actually trained in a shop, I was selling Hi-Fi and people was coming into my shop and I had to embrace them and invite them in and just do good. Today a lot of surveys say that 60, 70, 80% of the buyers journey are done by myself. So the way that I'm interacting with the sales rep is when I'm ready. So I don't have a relationship that we used to have. And with video, I can actually start educating and introducing myself much earlier in the buying process. And I see a lot of sales reps that are like crying a little bit, say, yeah, I don't get the meetings that I used to do. I have difficulties in actually being that role and the knowledge or the educated person and I'm going to explain what we can do with our clients. I have trouble getting there. With video, it's so much easier to start building that relationship very early in the sales process. We can see that when people finally meet us, we have a relationship and I haven't met them. And I think that UseRight, of course, because it's also a powerful tool, but UseRight, it is so much easier to start that relationship and get that engagement on a really early stage. And that has changed the sales role or will change the sales role in the future. Interesting. So let's talk a little bit about practicalities and realities. First, my question would be around how are you guys in everly leveraging video yourself? We are using videos everywhere. If you visit our website, you will see that a lot of our content is video for the same reasons as I mentioned before. We want people to have some kind of relationship with us. When we start engaging with people that we actually don't know, for instance on LinkedIn, we often invite them into our little world with a video. And if we are really sophisticated, we create a personal video to a person we don't know and say, hey, you don't know me, I know you. Please come in and see what we have been doing. It might be interesting for you. And one of the things that we can see has done a huge impact on the way that we work is that we don't send out a quote anymore without a video explaining in details what was the reason why we suggested this solution, not this solution. Because you've been to sale, you know that if you send out a quote, people look at the last page and they, oh, this is expensive because they don't have the narrative why we created this quote in this specific way. So now we explain it step by step. And my feedback from my customers is that, okay, this is what we usually spend a lot of time understanding, meaning again, you explain to me what you were thinking. Now we get everything from the beginning. And small follow ups. That is also really important that we communicate more and more in video. I have a good example. We had a returning client and we had this telephone call and I had to suggest something to her and I was creating a video and I screwed up big time. And it was like, oh, it's recording and I just, oh, this is okay. And she came back with, hey, it's so cool that it's just you. And more and more meetings that I had is people start saying, hey, I've seen you. And I was like, where? And yeah, I saw this video, you explaining something. So we can see the benefit of having that interaction with our clients in every part of the sales process. So one of the topics that you mentioned is personal videos. Why is that so hot right now? What makes it such a powerful thing? As I mentioned before, because we have actually lost the opportunity to get that contact with people. And I can see that on sales departments that don't really have this tool in use, they're suffering a little bit. They don't get those meetings. And when they have the meeting, they actually start a little bit from scratch. So in my opinion, or in my experience at least, we can see that the relationship is built really fast. And you get that, I trust you. I can see who you are. And that's of course also a pitfall, because if you start behaving badly or you're just not good on video, then you have to have a little bit more specialized role. If you're really insecure and your role is to make people secure, then you have to practice. So do you think that rolling out personal videos in an organization, in a sales team, etc., is it more about specializing a few reps or is it something that any sales rep needs to actually apply at some point? When you think about sales organizations and people in general involved in sales, I think you have to embrace the fact that everybody is in sale. And I think it's mandatory that sales reps are trained in using personal video and actually how they behave on video, what they say, and they should really spend some time practice. But I also think that the most reliable person in an organization will be the specialist. And again, they have a very short distance when you present something and you find out, hey, this person actually knows a lot about the topic that they are talking about. And some of the most convincing videos I've seen has been from an IT company. I know them by name and I've seen some of the videos and I have no clue what they're talking about. It's so complex. I don't understand the language. I don't understand anything. But they're communicating with people that speak this language. And it's so convincing. And you can really see that this person will be horrible in front of other people. And you will not make him speak at a seminar or something like that because he will probably be introverted and not able to communicate with people. But he's so convincing because he's talking about something he truly loves. And when you get that sensation looking at this video, you find it trustworthy. Here we actually have a specialized person that knows everything about his topic. He loves what he's doing and he wants to share. And a company like ours where we work inbound in every aspect of what we do, where the concept is we help people to understand what they're going to buy, this is a powerful tool. So it's quite a shift from way back in the days, still happening today some places, but in a real-room style to actually having specialists really know what they're talking about, topic, etc., doing personal videos. But how, to what extent is this scalable? Of course, if you are building your business on one-to-one communication and you actually have a product where you have to sell many thousands of products, then it is difficult to scale that. Then you have to use another tactic where you can get the feeling that I'm actually talking to you. I can see that a lot of software as a service companies can with benefit use video in another way where they actually let people like the customers explaining. Actually it's a basic old-fashioned case. Instead of just having a case explaining how cool we are, have somebody else explaining how cool we are. But somebody we can relate to. So if you're selling software as a service to accountants, then you will have an accountant speak. If you're selling it to sales professionals, you have a sales professional. If you are into neuroscience, you have a person in a white coat explaining what is the benefit. So I think it's a matter of looking at the customers, buying process, and understand how can we actually tap into that. And again, everywhere in the buying process. And there's a difference between having like really total funnel awareness content and more closing content. Because in the beginning it's all about what we can do and in the bottom it's more about okay will this actually apply to your business? How do we get started? How much should I invest in this? So it doesn't come as a surprise when you click on the I want to buy button and you get a shock. So I think look at the buying process and understand how can we actually use this tool into supporting you understanding what should you buy, what's your problem. Understanding what is the outcome, how does the product work, building evidence that you're actually good enough to do this. Taking a step back here, what kind of trends do you see in terms of organizations and sales teams in particular moving into the world of video, leveraging video? Because what I see is that more and more organizations are stepping into this. But it's also for many people a little bit frightening to, you know, the first time it's a camera, etc. Well for an organization to start using video it can be a little bit frightening as you mentioned. And I think it's a matter of strategically decide this is a high priority for us. This is the way that we want to communicate. And instead of just throwing people in front of a camera and really let them live out that educate them, train them, invest in people behaving in front of a camera. Because in my opinion is that some I really like being in front of a camera and I have colleagues that truly hate it. And I have been doing this for many years and in the beginning I was like retaking a video 70, 80 times because oh I got this word wrong or I mispronounced it or I forgot this point where is I have found peace with myself. I know that I will fuck up. I know what I will I will say something wrong. I know that I will forget something. But it doesn't matter because then we have to do something else and do it again. But again easy. But for people that are just starting with this I just had a colleague and her first day at the office. She came in and said okay we have to send this mail out to a customer. Let's just make a video. And she was like and she started thinking about I should have had something else on and my hair and then we did it. And she was like I thought it would be so hard and she liked the result. But the process was not that great for her. Now she's like okay I did it once I can do it again and it's okay. That's not necessarily what I would suggest. I think that you should invest in teaching people some fundamentals. Have them relax doing all those things but really invest in people if this is a priority for you. So what are some of the fundamentals? Know that this will not be the end of the world. We can retake it that focus on the message. Don't focus on how you look or this might look stupid or whatever but really focus on what is it that you want to say and just relax that you are actually good enough for delivering this message. And I think that finding peace with yourself and your role is the most important thing. So how much in terms of also fundamentals how much are you guys thinking about in personal videos the framing you know your outfit how you appear etc. Perhaps not that much. I think that when we start working with video it was really to have that feeling that you are talking with me. I have also sent out videos recorded in my living room in the night where my kids are asleep so I have to say something. And I start explaining the reason why I'm talking really in a low volume is because my kids are asleep. So framing the situation can make people forgive you for a lot of stuff. So we haven't really agreed that we look in a certain way. It's more that people have to feel us and the message is the most important. If you look really okay you just got up from bed and you are then of course there's a link between you looking like a professional and being like looked upon as a professional. So things have to be aligned but we don't like force people to not wear a cap or whatever. Before we were talking about also that video is everywhere right. And the way that you also you guys are leveraging video when we're looking at also still in the realm of sales we also see more and more people not doing one to one personal videos but also doing videos on LinkedIn doing that personal brand etc. How important is that these days to create that personal brand for you to you know in a sales scenario. I think the use for personal videos for instance on LinkedIn or Facebook is getting more and more crucial. And why is that? I think that the point is that we are overloaded with crap and we can see that people are sharing a lot of content and a lot of it is really simple like okay three good advices to have a happy life make sure that you're happy and it's like we see that all over. We also see a lot of videos where people are like recording themselves in all sorts of I have no clue how many hours I spend on YouTube but I can see on some of the feeds that I have on my personal social network people spend a lot of time looking at crap. So I think that the point is to the message that you have has to be a message that spread out on more platforms if you want to use it in a professional way. So it's not just that look at me I recorded a video but it has to be a video with an edge. The other day I recorded a video myself because we have created a new landing page something like that and I think hey this might interest perhaps nobody. So I made this look at me I'm driving in a car video and with a like new legislation in Denmark about how you are not allowed to hold your phone and etc. and of course I have a hand free set but the reaction was really negative that hey don't film while you're driving and of course it's true. So I think that the angle the purpose the message everything has to be like mixed and matched together so we know exactly why we're doing it on what platform we are delivering it because it has to be sharp because there are so many things you can see everybody I don't know my feed is like video all over so what do we do when everybody is transmitting video we have to make it count we have to make something that is a little bit edgy. We have to stand out basically. Yeah definitely. So you could also maybe argue that that quality then is differentiated now that everybody is shooting from the iPhones from the bedrooms and the cars etc. Is that true? I don't know because I think that the message for me personally is that if the matches or the purpose of this video is important to me then I can forgive you for a lot of things but if you're wasting my time and the quality is poor or you don't have subtitles something like that then you I don't spend time on it you have my three seconds and if you're not entertaining me I'm out again and I think that again framing the purpose what is that I'm going to experience watching this video is getting more and more important. On an end note here what would you be your advice you know two or three pieces of advice for sales organizations starting to you know wanting to go in and leverage video but you know haven't taken the plunge yet haven't taken the first steps. I think my three advices for companies that want to start working with video in the sales department is to get started and get some experience. I think that coming from nothing and starting with something is a good way of just throw yourself out there because my point about that we are overloaded on social media is not the same situation when we are talking about personal videos in sale because practically nobody is using it in my experience. And a lot of the companies that we work with when I have sent them a video explaining my quote they are oh it's amazing and it was so fantastic because I didn't have to explain this to my boss or something like that. So forgive yourself for looking stupid or saying something wrong get things out there and live. So that will be the first thing. The second thing is to invest in some equipment that you actually have a good microphone you have a good camera and that you have some software that can support you. So it doesn't take up a lot of time. And the last thing is that get some feedback from your customers and have people evaluate you and come up with some good advice. Okay when you use that phrase or you use that sentence it sounds wrong and spend some time rehearsing get some feedback rehearse some more send it out there and I think the best thing is to forgive yourself that you might look stupid and then you end up looking amazing. Practice makes perfect. It definitely does yeah definitely. I know I look stupid on camera quite a few times. Thank you so much for joining today. Anytime. It was amazing and a really good experience and I learned a lot at least and I hope you did too. Thank you so much for listening.