The Sales Transformation Podcast

#199 – Talking Intellectual Authenticity on The Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast w/ Darren Mitchell
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George: Hi everyone. George here, the editor of the Sales Transformation Podcast. This week on the show, Phil is once again being interviewed by Darren Mitchell in an episode that originally appeared on the Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast. Phil has been on the show a couple of times before, and this time he was back to discuss the evolution of the sales mindsets and how authenticity is becoming intellectual authenticity.

There'll be a link in the show notes to where you can find more episodes of the Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast. So if you're in any way interested in what makes a great sales leader do be sure to check it out. Darren really is one of the leading experts in this field, and there are almost 900 episodes in the back catalog, so there's guaranteed to be plenty of relevant interviews no matter what challenges you're facing.

In the meantime though, please enjoy the episode.

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Darren: Welcome back to the Exceptional Sales Leader Podcast, and it is my absolute pleasure to welcome back. Uh, actually for the third time, I just realized this is the third interview, um, because we did two episodes.

Phil: Oh, we did?

Darren: In, uh, in 2023. So it's been a little over two years.

Phil: Wow.

Darren: Um, coming in all the way from the United Kingdom, where you're telling me it's really cold,

Phil: it's also cold, it's just, it's just pouring with rain here, which is, you know, very much what people would expect.

I think. Never. You talk about England.

Darren: Well, and coming from Melbourne, when people, uh, have a crack at Melbourne, they say four seasons in one day because you can't be, can't be sure whether it's gonna be hot, cold, or anything in between. Right. But it's probably gonna rain. But we're not gonna talk about weather.

We are gonna talk about sales and sales leadership, and particularly some research you've done. Mr. Phillips Squire, welcome back to the podcast.

Phil: Aaron, thanks so much. It's, uh, it's always a pleasure to, uh, take part in your podcast series. I, I really think you're one of the best interviewers I've, I've, uh, met during my, my career.

So very happy to join you again.

Darren: It's absolute pleasure. And may I say Philip? There is only, I'm just trying to think. I think there's only another two people in the six years that I've been running the podcasts that, who have been on the podcast three times.

Phil: Wow. Okay,

Darren: fantastic. And yep. And this, this episode, I, I don't know what specific number it's gonna be, but we're, we're at about 860, so there's, there's only a you're in, it's

Phil: incredible.

Darren: So talking about the winner circle in the top 10. Yes. You are. Sorry. Do I make into your winner? That's right.

Phil: That's amazing. Well, I remember when we had our first interview and you, you know, you were talking to me about, uh, uh, when you started and you know about the pandemic and, and already when I think we had our FI, i dunno how many you'd done, but it's a, it was a significant number of, uh, podcast interviews and Yeah, it's, it's incredible.

And I know how much effort goes into running these 'cause we, we have our own podcast channel as you, as you know. And actually we've really got to get you on half too, Darren. So we will, we will do that. But, uh. Yeah, absolutely.

Darren: Anyway,

Phil: nice to be back again and, uh, and thank you for having me

Darren: looking forward to this, and it's, um, it's great to have you back.

And just for the listeners benefit, uh, I'm gonna assume that not everybody may have listened to the episodes a couple of years ago, but for people listening to this, um, Philip is the CEO of Consalia and, uh, the UK's only SAS dedicated business school and consultancy. And I should actually preface this also by saying, um, you are a doctor.

You have a, you've done a doctorate.

Phil: I am, yes.

Darren: Uh, you did some doctoral research, is it 15 years ago now?

Phil: Yeah. Yes. I qualified in 2009. Yeah, with a doctorate. Yeah. So between 2004 and 2009, that was when the, um, research study was done.

Darren: Love,

Phil: which we can talk about a bit. Yeah. 'cause it

Darren: relates Well, I was gonna, yeah, I was gonna ask you if you can do, do a little, give us a little bit of your background that, that led you to start Consul and what you do because you've, you've redone some research in 2025, which, um, a white paper is just been released, and we'll give people access to a link at the end of this episode for them to download.

Um, and I'll, we'll talk about that towards the back. But, um, if you can just give us a little bit of background to the, the Philip Squire story. Uh, what led you to start Consalia, um, and particularly in the sales realm, what, what was it about the sales industry and I guess the psychology behind sales that really got you into this type of business and the research that you do?

Phil: So, like many things, Darren, uh, sort of fell into this a little bit by accident, you know, um, sort of fell into sales by accident, fell into research by accident. Um, but what it was, um, uh, with a. I was doing a project with one of our clients, um, Hewlett Packard at the time, who had asked us to go and interview some of their customers about how their customers wanted to be sold to, uh, not just by hp, but just generally how they wanted to be sold to.

And this was to produce some video content for a big kickoff event, um, that we were working with them on, in, in, in Europe. And, um, we chose three people to interview in, in the initial stage. And, uh, what I was doing was collecting stories really from a buyers about, about good and poor practice of salespeople and, uh, some of the buyers were very sort of charismatic and very opinionated and had.

Uh, really strong points of view about, about salespeople. All, all very bright, all very intelligent. You know, we're talking about sort of C-suite type level buyers. And, uh, I remember after the first interview I did, I, I tr you know, sort of asked this question, yes, you carnie told me what you like and dislike about salespeople and, and, um, and what percentage of people sell to you in a way that you really like.

And you know, I'll never forget the first one said, well, in, in my view, sort of 95% of salespeople complete waste of time. And so I thought, I'll tell you what, I, I think that might go down quite well at this kickoff event. Um, and then I thought what I'd, I'd, I'd add that question, um, formally to the next interviews that I did.

And, uh, the next person I interviewed said, less than 10% sold in the way that wanted, and that really sort of triggered this question. About, you know, I was, I was concerned about the low percent because I know, know, companies spend an awful lot of money in sales training, sales development programs. And really, you would hope if you had access to these senior level decision makers, you would, you would turn up better than that.

Mm-hmm. And so, again, by chance, I happened to be speaking to a professor at a, a university. I had no, I, no thoughts. And I would turn this into a doctorate and, and he said, well, why don't you take that research that you've done and, and turn it into something bigger? And I thought, well, it would be great to get this sort of academic underpinning by broadening the research.

And really that led to me then doing the doctorate. And I was sponsored, um, a lot by our clients. HP were interested to sponsor us with clients of theirs around the world, Tetrapack, Siemens, others. And so I conducted this. A significant piece of work and what surfaced for me, um, all those years ago, um, was the, uh, connection between sales behavior and sales values.

Darren: Hmm.

Phil: And, uh, a lot of what I think the sales sector had traditionally been involved in terms of developing salespeople was around sales techniques, sales behaviors. And it was very unusual to then start to go deeper to what kind of values, you know, sort of underpin the kind of behaviors that customers are looking for.

And that's what I did all those years ago and identified four positive mindsets, which we can talk about, and four negative mindsets. And, um, and then since, since then, uh, the whole native. Um, interventions had happened working with clients, with salespeople, testing the hypothesis, uh, evaluating, um, the connection between performance and living, the positive mindsets.

And then we decided, decided that after 15 years, let's, let's go back and see whether those values are still relevant, have there been any changes, you know, and so on. So that's, that's a very quick. Summary, but I, I know I haven't sort of shared with you the, the core findings, which we could go into now if you think is relevant.

Darren: Yeah, we will. We definitely will. Yeah. But it's, it's a really interesting topic and, and I love the fact you've done a doctorate on sales because, um, sales doesn't necessarily get taught in in universities, although in MBAs it's now starting to become more prevalent. But

Phil: yes.

Darren: Uh, most, most sales, and I think you said the same as well, it sort of accidentally fell into it, but, um, yeah.

Most sales, most salespeople and sales leaders don't wake up one day and say, I think I'm gonna be in sales. I'm gonna go and learn how to be the best salesperson and be of great service. They kind of fall into it. Yeah. Um, but I love the fact that you, through that research and through the work you were doing at, um, at Hewlett Packard, and isn't it interesting how it came from like a sales kickoff event that you, they, they wanted you to do some interviews and through that process, some questions were asked and some feedback you think, man, there's something in this.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, I, I actually, I took the, um, I took the feedback from those interviews, I suppose you could say slightly personally, because, you know, I was representing an industry sector that that needs to professionalize sales and I felt is there's something that perhaps we're, we're missing or I've been missing.

Um, so that, that's. That trigger was really important. But actually what was important to your point about, uh, how many doctorates are there now in, you know, how many people have done a doctorate themselves and, and it's very few. Um, but I was taken with the way the organizations that's, that kind of sponsored us with the research.

Also, were interested in the, um, thoroughness of reflection that you get from doing a doctorate and any kind of academic study, you know, and indeed it was HP that said, could we help design a master's program for their large deal bid pursuit team? And, you know, we weren't in that business then. And we decided that we would, um, you know, I talked to the university that I was doing my ate with and said, look, can we create a master's program for.

Very senior salespeople. Mm. And I was taken with the, um, application and interest. You know, I thought, God, why did these get, why did people want to do it? You know? And I think for many, it's, it's kind of legitimacy, you know? They're all proud of the profession they're in. Like you said, we fall, we fell into it by accident, but it's like, um.

It's, it gives legitimacy, uh, I guess an authenticity to, um, the person that's, that's actually got an academic qualification at masters or, or doctorate level. Mm-hmm. Um, so that then took us into the whole sales education space. And, um, for Consalia it's been quite a transformational, uh, transformational, I mean, from the early days of, of doing the master's programs, uh, for hp, um, I think we've now got three or 400 active students going through undergraduate and postgraduate programs now.

Um, and so we've literally, our alumni is approaching thousand, you know, if you, so it started small, you know, and it's sort of grown into this, uh. Um, amazing actually. It's a really amazing story and I'm very, very kind of proud in many ways of what's been achieved, but, uh, just incredible seeing how the individual students have responded to going back to school.

Yeah. And writing academically and really doing deep reflection on what I think is one of the most important functions of any business, which is sales.

Darren: Well, and when you think about it, every single organization, including Hewlett Packard and, and all the companies you, you Tetrapak, and all the others you mentioned, um, nothing happens without a sale being made, so,

Phil: that's right.

Darren: Yeah. it's a profession that people should be really, really proud of. I actually believe that sales is the ultimate form of service, and it's one of the greatest professions on earth. Yeah. But it's fascinating how many people have this negative connotation when they think of sales. 'cause I think, oh.

It's all about being pushy and trying to retrofit Yeah. A product or a solution into a perceived need. And, and it will get into some of the negative values that Yeah, you got through your research. But yeah, really it can be one of the most fulfilling and, uh, service based professions on the planet if done correctly.

Phil: It's done correctly. And yeah, and I, I think you're right. I think, I think a lot of, a lot of people do it really well and they do it very professionally, but a lot of people don't and they, they tend to give the profession a bad name and of course, you know, that negative feedback sticks. Um, so yeah, you know, sometimes.

Um, because people have been so often mis-sold to Yes. You know, it makes it even more difficult for those that are good to get over that initial trust barrier.

Darren: Yes.

Phil: Um, that you have at the very beginning, you know, who trusts the salesperson? Not that many, you know, so,

Darren: well, no, but, and I often ask the question of salespeople and of sales leaders who likes to be sold to.

Yeah. And it's very rare that anybody puts their hand up. It's, it's probably, I could count probably one in 20, one in maybe three in 30 that actually put that up and say, I actually enjoy to be sold to because it's something I can learn from the person who's trying to sell me something. Which kind of leads into the research you did and, and the discoveries that you had when you first did this, this research.

That it was more the values that are underpinned the behavior, not necessarily the behavior. And yet a lot of organizations focus their time on. The techniques, the process, the methodology, the behavior, the doing thing.

Phil: Yeah.

Darren: Um, can we start with a bit of a, um, an under, under understanding of the, of the values that you found through the risk?

Yes. Both the negative ones and the positive ones.

Phil: Yeah. So I, I just, um, I wondered, uh, I'll just very quickly start it, um, with a sort of pic painting, a picture. So you've got, um, of take an Onion, you know, you know the core. You've got, you know, you've got the core of the onion and then wrapped. You've got the different layers that, that are, are, uh, a sort of wrap round before you get to the surface of the onion.

And there's a framework that influences or influence me quite a bit called Corte and Onion model, which, which is why I mentioned Onion.

Darren: Yeah.

Phil: And, um, and behavior. It really sits at the outer surface of the onion. And then if you go from the sort of behavior, you've got competence, and then you've got values and beliefs, and then you've got mission and and core.

You've got these different layers. And you're right, I think a lot of. You know, traditionally we've looked at, if we want to improve sales performance, let's focus on behavior and what's the quickest way to do that. It's by, you know, providing certain techniques, frameworks, and models that, that, you know, whether it's a spin model or whether it's the challenge of sale or whatever, these are, you know, quite often linked to certain frameworks or methodologies.

And the thing is that the customers can often see through that and they, they start to question, you know, those, those particular techniques. Um, so, so what we did in the research was to, to look at what is the underpinning value. Values, set of values do salespeople need to have that will drive the kind of behavior that they really want.

And if we focused on creating the right values and using those to govern how you act, think, strategize, do stuff, then will it lead to sales performance. And we identified, um, four differentiating values that were seen very positively about salespeople, um, from buyers. And the first one was authenticity.

Which is, um, uh, you know, you spend a lot of time sort of coming up with the word, you know, we could have talked about integrity, but we, we chose auten authenticity because, uh, it, uh, or originates from the Greek sort of, um, uh, but it's about originality. Uh, uh, you know, so you have your original Levi Jeans, I think it was, it was one of the early ads of Levi Jeans.

But, but, but it's that originality of thinking, uh, you know, is part of. Uh, sort of being in acting with integrity, but it also is about transparency and honesty and ethics and all of those, um, elements as well. So authenticity was really important. Uh, client centricity, obviously it's a no brainer. It's being focused on the client and, um, and what we found in that first round of research was that those two are sort of foundation blocks for building trust.

And without trust you can't do the next two, which are the rarest.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: But it's where buyers really want to get to, which is around proactive creativity. It's sort of not just waiting for the buyer to come up with, um, sort of solutions that they want salespeople to work on. Um, in a creative sense, but they like it when salespeople actually come up with ideas that maybe they haven't thought of.

And, uh, you know, the final one, which I, which I love is tactful audacity. It's, it is the art of knowing how far to go without going too far. So it's acting with respect, but being bold. Um, now that is fine when you've got trust. Mm-hmm. But when you don't have trust, it will come across as arrogance, you know?

So that takes us into the negative mindsets, which were manipulation, uh, supplier centricity, complacency, and then arrogance. So yeah, the first round of research had had sort of defined these. These four values that were positive, four values that were negative. And then we'd worked with the large deal bid pursuit team at HP to look at, uh, particularly the large deal space to, to assess whether or not there's a link between winning large deals and, and the mindsets.

And I was lucky enough to be able to work with a couple of control groups, um, to see what, what could be achieved. So we started off with just the words to begin with, and then we translated that into every single step from, you know, responding to RFPs or, or making outgoing calls right through to negotiating and closing, but underpinning everything with the mindsets.

And that was so

Darren: just on that. As you were talking about that, I'm just, I'm just thinking back to when I was a sales person, but then when was a, when I was a sales leader and

Phil: Yeah,

Darren: just taking, for example, a response to an RFP and yeah, I'm kind of cringing to myself reflecting on the proposals and particularly the executive summaries where it would mention our organization as the selling organization, probably by a factor of one to five as compared to the buying organization in a proposal.

And it was all about us and we thought that if we, um, impress the buyer with all this fantastic information about how good we are and all these case studies and these white papers and these big network, et cetera, then that would help. And so you mentioned something really interesting there that the last two in the positive values, um, you can only do when you have a big, deep bedrock of trust and that being the proactive creativity, but also I guess the tactful audacity where you can push the boundary Yeah.

And maybe challenge the customer. But there is a fine line there because if, for example, which many organizations are under pressure to hit a number, um, under pressure to hit a margin time.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Darren: That can very quickly switch into, um, over arrogance or complacency.

Phil: It, it really can. And so, yeah. Part of the kind of analysis when we sort of identified these, these values and mindsets was recognizing that salespeople operate within a system of targets, KPIs, and, and, and, and various levers.

And often the system encourages. The negative mindsets rather than the positive. Mm-hmm. Um, because of the pressure to get results, meaning that you, you need to rush the conversation sometimes with customers, not do the research as, as diligently as you should have done. Um, uh, it, yeah, I mean, it, it's really interesting when you start to look at all of the levers that can work for you or against you.

So I, and, and this has made us realize you need to have a systemic approach if you're going to allow these values to flourish in a, in, in a positive way. But, but yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting you brought in that there's a kind of leadership dimension. 'cause you're so, so, so, you know, it's so true. It

Darren: is, it is.

Now. Um, last year you did a, um, another. A piece of research and asking the same question, but you wanted to, I guess, interrogate and verify whether the values that were there previously still had relevance and particularly out of, 'cause you mentioned in your white paper as well, uh, things like the pandemic, but also the prevalence of AI and Yeah.

In the digital world, in the hybrid world, do these values mindsets still have credence in the marketplace today? Yeah. And are customers and buyers still looking for those from their sales organization, from their salespeople? You know? Yeah. Interestingly. 'cause I wanted to talk about a couple of things and, and we'll draw out how authentic authenticity now becomes, um, intellectual authenticity and we wanna talk about that.

Yeah. Um, but I also wanted to delve into, uh, the self, the self-assessment that salespeople did.

Phil: Yeah.

Darren: And the correlation from what they believe across those value sets. Yeah. As compared to the buyers and how they interpret and how they see it. Yeah. Can you just talk a little bit about that in terms of any material change last year as compared to the first time you did the research?

Phil: So, um. What we had now, what, what we have now in the, in, in the last 15 years that we didn't have when I did the doctorate was we had a lot more quantitative data because we have, um, the sales mindset survey, um, uh, that, um, people can access on, on our website. Um, and a lot of our client engagements will involve us in, in inviting our clients to complete the survey.

And so, yes, we, we have a lot of, um, a lot of data now that we just didn't have before. But this is, this is self-perception, you know, so this is how do you as a salesperson perceive yourself against the positive and negative mindsets? And, um, so we. I mean the, the, the, the data itself is, is really interesting.

And we found that if you, if you look across all four mindsets as an average of all of the 1500 or so, just under 1500, now respondents that took part in the survey we're quite close to what we would say, um, you need to be, to be in, in the winner's circle. So, so on the survey we say above 80%, the chances are that you self perceive yourself to be very strong across authenticity, client centricity, practical creativity, and ful dusty.

But when we looked at the data in a bit more detail, we found that less than 10% of all the respondents saw themselves above 80% across all four. And it really made us realize that the, the importance of something we talked about earlier, which is. You need to have all four. You can't, you can't be strong in tactful audacity or proactive creativity, but actually pretty low on authenticity and client centricity because it kind of, you know, you may think you're tactfully audacious, but the chances are your client's gonna see you as, as being arrogant or being, you know, so, so that was, that was a really interesting realization.

Um, so that was, that was one thing, um, when we've got 180 degree data, meaning where clients, and it's possible to, to have a, a client, uh, assess you as a salesperson using the mindset survey. And we found examples of where the client's perception of salespeople were. Uh, um, a lot lower across the four mindsets than how self salespeople did.

Meaning self. People think they're doing a lot better than clients do, but we also found the opposite. In some cases, salespeople ranked themselves much lower than their customers did. And, um, and what's, uh, and, and, and what's interesting about this is and I, is that it doesn't really matter in those 180 degree scenarios what the score is.

What matters is what you do with the data once you get it. Um, you know, for example, I know that with some of our key accounts where we've done a self-assessment on how do we think as Consalia we're supporting them, we have been quite critical of ourselves. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we've marked ourselves, you know.

Sometimes harshly, quite low. Um, when we ask the client to give feedback, they've marked us really quite high. And when we sat down and shared the results with them, it's given us a chance to explain to them why we marked our scores low. 'cause we had reasons for doing it, because we felt that more that we could have been doing, that we weren't doing.

Darren: Mm.

Phil: And we felt that this detracted from the potential service that we could provide them. So it became a very rich source of conversation. And that's as useful as if a client had marked you very low and you marked yourselves high, because it's really important you understand how your clients perceive you as a self person.

Yeah. So, um, so yeah, it's, it, you know, the, the self-analysis, the quantitative data has been really interesting, but it's, it's based on the old framework, not the new one because it's only been in November last year that we published the findings of the new data. We, you know, we've just recently modified the mindset survey to bring it in line with the new findings.

So it's a bit of a look back on the historical framework to kind of add a bit more richness to the data that we've got.

Darren: Love that. I love that. And, and the fact that you have used it yourself and

Yeah.

Darren: Are able to do the reflection and sit down with your buyers and, uh, go through it, it gives you Yeah.

And that, that probably does two things from, from my perspective, it's demonstration of authenticity. Yeah.

Phil: Um,

Darren: there's a level of curiosity there, which is understanding how does the client see you, which leads into client centricity. Um, and through those two gives you a great basis to get information to improve the client engagement, which through that process improves trust, which then enables you to now work with the, the client because Yeah.

How many organizations want to have a collaborative win-win partnership agreement or a relationship rather than just a supplier customer relationship?

Phil: Right.

Darren: And when that happens, you've got a, a position or a platform where you can be. Tactful and audacious, but do it in a respectful way.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah.

That's right. So I, I, you know, can't see any reasons why you wouldn't want to do it. You know, there's, there's so many, there's so many reasons for doing it, whether, whether it's bad news or good news. It's all, it's all helpful. Yeah. It's all helpful.

Darren: So,

Phil: um, I, I'd just like to add one thing Yeah. That's become clear.

And that is that if you are, um, an account manager or a sales person and you are looking after 60 or 70 accounts,

Darren: Hmm.

Phil: It's really difficult to apply the mindsets all the time with all, all of those accounts. And this, uh, for us has, uh, had sort of led us down the importance of segmentation.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Um, and, you know, how do you structure your Salesforce?

So for leaders, I think it's, it's been a, an interesting exercise in, in sort of reinforcing the importance of segmentation and therefore the investment you need to make in your key accounts in order to kind of maximize the relational value you can get by applying the mindsets in a, in a strong way.

Darren: Yeah, I love that. Um, because you can't, if you've got 60 accounts to manage, you simply don't have enough time to be the same to all people.

Phil: And of course, technology now is enabling you to, to get up to date more easily, but the quality thinking time that you need to have in order to, uh, sort of come up with proactively creative ideas and bold suggestions.

I mean, it takes time to do it. And, and it's, it's difficult to do that. Yeah. If you've got a huge account base to work on.

Darren: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So before I talk about the latest research Yeah. And talk about one, one particular element, I just wanted to ask you in relation to this research as a tool, not just for organizations to customize, um, development plans for their sales teams, whether it be sales training, but also from a sales leadership point of view, how can they use or how have organization, uh, organizations use this research?

To be more pinpointed or more targeted in terms of the coaching, the mentoring, the development they do for their sales teams.

Phil: Um. I think that, um, when you start to talk about values, you, you, you, you touch upon culture, you know, and the kind of culture that you want to kind of build in, in your team. And as a, as a leader, I think that is, you know, it's a fundamental question is, you know, what is your vision, you know, for how you want to drive your self and your sales teams to a, a achieve, uh, the objectives that you, that, that you have.

So, um, and then, you know, as, as a leader, then it, it touches upon coaching and mentoring and development. You know, if you've got, you know, for example, if you've got, um, a perception in your team that you've got a lot of. A lot of the team could benefit from being more practically creative or more tactfully audacious in the way that they approached, you know, you it, it can touch on everything from account planning to, uh, you know, how you train them to negotiate.

There's so many different things you can do to develop people's skills, design thinking. If it's proactive creativity, there are many, um, self-reflection frameworks and techniques that could be used to get people to problem solve in a more creative way. So, yeah, I mean, there's many opportunities to kind of look at how you can develop your team to apply the, the different mindsets when you, when you, uh, if you believe it to be important.

Um, but, but we often say that the starting point for driving this sort of initiative changes with customers. There's, there's nothing. You know, the, the, the interviewing of customers about how do you want to be sold to, I don't think happens enough.

Darren: No.

Phil: You know, people do a lot of those, you know, customer service surveys, but they don't ask, how do you want us to sell to you?

And so I would, I would often recommend Start with your customer base. Get the data, get the stories. 'cause there's nothing like customers telling you

Darren: Yeah.

Phil: What's important to them to get change happening inside the organization. Absolutely. A

Darren: hundred percent. And, and the reason I ask that question is there are so many organizations that go and buy off the shelf sales training thinking that the sales training is gonna make a world of difference to how they sell to their customers.

And they don't have the tailing of, they don't understand how customers like to be sold to. They think it's the, the spin, the spin methodology or the challenger sales methodology. Yeah. Which by the way is all supplier centric. It is not customer centric.

Phil: Yeah. I think that's so true and a, and a lot of, and one has to be a bit careful because I, you know, sort of have a lot of respect for people like Neil Rackham who's done, you know, a lot of research that that's led to, to spin.

And also, of course, the challenger sale is great, um, as well in many respects. But if used, uh, in the wrong way, I think could come across as being very supply centric and, and, you know, this insight led conversations, you know, yes, that tends towards proactive creativity, but if you don't have that construct of trust, you know, in the first place, then I think it, it, these are tools that you can have.

And sadly, I think many of the sales training solutions on the market are just, as you've said, things that you are more addressing the behavioral side, not the values that underpin the behaviors. And, uh, the correlation between sort of values and behavior is essential in my view. It, it's where you need to start.

It's like the operating system has to be correct for the applications that you might want to sit on top of. It could be types of techniques, uh, if they're gonna work effectively.

Darren: Absolutely, absolutely. Um, now the research you did, uh, was it the same, was it just under 1500 this time around as well?

Phil: No, no.

The, the research this time was qualitative, face-to-face interviews, right. With buyers from around the world. Um, uh, and, uh, it's very similar to what I did in, in the doctorate.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Um, so, uh, the mindset survey, which is, which is, uh, on our website was, was designed, uh, just to collect. The, the, the data around.

What were the initial four mindsets? Not the new ones. The new ones. Now, yes, the mindset survey, of course, is, is being adjusted. I think it's live now on the website, but it's so new, this research.

Darren: Mm.

Phil: Um, I, I think the mindset survey still stands, but the, the nuances, I think of what we've got now, having conducted the research again, um, 15 years later is really important.

Um, and it's, uh, it's great to have this chance to talk about it with you, you know, on

Darren: the podcast. Excellent.

Phil: Yeah.

Darren: Um, and interestingly, what the research showed this time Round was the, essentially the, the four positive mindset values remained the same, but there was one in particular that evolved. More ly than the other ones.

And that was authenticity and it turned from authenticity into intellectual authenticity. Yeah. Can you explain what that is and

Phil: Yeah, of

Darren: course. Why is it, why, and what was it about that that, um, sort of stood out for you as an employee?

Phil: Yeah, so sometimes it's a, a word that a buyer says that tri, that suddenly is a bit like a light bulb going off and what happened this time round, um, that suddenly made a lot of sense given some of the huge.

Um, changes that have taken place in, in the world in recent years. You know, we can talk about the pandemic and we can talk about AI in, in particular. Um, and, and I'm just gonna quote Yeah. I'm just gonna quote, I've got a list of quotes here from some of the buyers, but this is two different people mm-hmm.

Are talking about. Use the same word in a different way. Um, this is the chairman of a board of one of the largest, uh, tech companies in the world. Yeah. Was one of the interviews. And, and he said, you come to trust the intellectual honesty and the competence. No smoke, no mirrors, no superlatives. Yeah.

Darren: Mm.

Phil: And so that was, that was equate.

That was made. And this word, and that's, if it's just a one-off, you know, you would've said it. That's an interesting word. Yeah. Why is he chosen? My intellectual honesty. And then we had someone, uh, completely different, um, uh, completely different country. This is in Italy. He said, I'm disturbed first by intellectual dishonesty.

Yeah. Don't tell me smoke or hot air. It's funny, they used the, it, uh, two completely different people. And I, I'd be, I, I'd never heard the word intellectual in all the interviews that I did first time round. So, so that was a, for me, a, a new word. And I, I began to think in the context of all the other interviews that we did.

Yeah. Um, why, why has this? Is it just luck? Is it just, you know, why have these two words kind of surfaced? And if you, if you take this into the context of ai Yeah. In particular, which is more, more recently, and here's some other quotes technology has made salespeople lazy.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Relying purely on bots and ai and sending autogenerated emails is damaging the reputation of their company.

You know, that's just what procurement, right. With ai sellers answer with ai, with procurement and procurement. Then mark the homework with AI responses all look the same, you know? Um. I mean, I, I've just picked out a few. They're selling something that isn't there. The selling the seller is selling a bubble.

And so, you know, I'm just picking out from the many, many different quotes that we've got. A few, but I, I, I sort of came back to this thing about AI and where in this world of, you know, this AI wave is hitting us, and that, and then people are generally questioning the authenticity of, of approach.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: And so what is the, uh, so, so what are they looking for from salespeople? And you, you've got, you've kind of got the, you've got the intelligence element, which is the AI element. Um, and then you've got the human element. Yeah. And, and it's clear that AI is an incredibly. Incredible support tool. Yeah. You know, for doing search, for helping, for becoming more, more productive, but used in the wrong way, it can completely destroy tr trust.

So we then said, well, okay, let's go back to this word, authenticity, because anyone who is themselves is authentic.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: But what buyers are saying, well actually yes, we, we want authenticity, but we want something a bit more than that. Because, and, and they're Right. You know, they're looking for someone who provides, um, the, uh, an an intellectual framework, which is genuine.

It's authentic.

Darren: Yeah.

Phil: Um, in the way that they apply, the way that they're looking at problem solving or they're synthesizing information or data. Um, and that intellectual. Authenticity is a real differentiator for salespeople. Um, so, um, it's quite interesting that we use this metaphor of a butterfly in transformation.

You know, are you trying to build a fast caterpillar? We often say by doing what you're doing more effectively, or are you trying to transform as a caterpillar into a butterfly? And, and so we use this a lot when we are working with sales leaders. You know, are you, do, is the problem you're trying to solve with your sales team, one that requires change faster, caterpillar, what is it?

Anyway, so we, because we are playing with this sort of transformation. Imagery a lot or metaphors then and, and, and the butterfly. We, we have AI on the one side of the wing of a butterfly, which is what everyone's talking about. And then we've got IA on the other side. Yeah. That's the, so, so it became a very, very strong image in, in our mind of what we think is important.

So the word intellectual, um, relates to something that we've often say on our academic programs that we teach is, is about, um, reflective practice.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: The ability to think, the ability to, um, yeah. To draw upon different experiences, data points, information. Sort of, which is very personal. Yes, AI is important, but how you prompt ai, how you, how you work with AI to give something that is genuinely your thinking is what buyers are saying.

They look for from salespeople. So they expect you to use AI of course, but they want that magic ingredient. They want to trust you, authenticity, but they need you to be intellectually authentic in the way that you, um, act in their view. And,

Darren: and is that then being more in the eyes of the buyer, more transparent?

So if I am using AI in research for a proposal, I actually, when I provide the proposal, I don't just do a, Hey, write me a proposal to fill up for this particular training, and off it goes. I interrogate it, but I also also. Maybe put a reference point like you would in a research paper, in a book to say, AI has been used in the formation of this.

Is it? Is it, yeah.

Phil: I think that, yeah, I think that is, you know, citing your source, you know, citing your, your source is a very important component of being authentic.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: And I think we're beginning to see more of that now, uh, where people are saying, yeah, this is an AI generated, you know, whether it's a LinkedIn post or, or whatever.

You know, we've used, uh, you know, there's a book that, um, uh, that David Brock has just written actually around sales mindsets. I dunno if you've seen it, but he's written it with Claude, and Claude is an AI agent, you know, so, so he, he, he's, um, kind of cited it. Um, uh, so yes, I think, I think that. Um, that is an example.

I mean, we're seeing it a lot from, from marking academic papers, you know, plagiarism, um, and the use of AI to, to, you know, to, to submit work. Um, you've really got to make it you. And yes, you can use AI to do that, but if it's too much, just by saying, yes, I've used an AI tool to help generate it, it doesn't tick all the boxes.

I mean, you, you've got to Now, for example, of course we used AI to help us with our thematic analysis of the research. However, the AI tool did not come up with intellectual authenticity as one of the defining mindsets we did.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: It wasn't, yes, we, we, we extrapolated the data from the thematic analysis and it, it suddenly made us realize, actually this is something that is important.

Yeah.

Darren: And the thing that I was thinking about then is, and I've seen salespeople do this, fall into the trap of, of writing a proposal through ai and it sounds very impressive, looks impressive, and they send it to the customer. At some point in the buying process, they have to have a real conversation with a real customer.

And that might be, um, a pitch, it might be a negotiation. So they need to understand what they've actually written or what the context of what they've written is. So if they give into AI and just send that to, um, to a customer, they'll be found out very, very quickly that, Hey, this wasn't your work, this wasn't your thinking.

This was something you just throw in, threw into an AI bot, and it spat it out. So I love the fact that the intellectual part is You don't give into ai. You use AI through the method of, of maybe reframing or, um, yeah, getting some detail around what, what you're putting in place. But it has to be your thinking and you still need to interrogate, and that's where the reflection part becomes really important.

Phil: It is. Yeah. It, yeah, that's, that's exactly sort of kind of where, where we're, we're going with it. And, and also it's, it's quite inspiring in a way. 'cause I think, you know, it's a slightly dystopian society that we feel we, we we live in. You know, what's real, what's fake, you know, fake news. There's so much of this sort of around.

But actually it is what is, it's being human at the end of the day. What does being human mean in this world, when it's being intellectually authentic? That's being human. Well, I think Philip, I love your take on this. I think sort of moving forward in the next 3, 4, 5 years, the differentiation that, that people are gonna have, and particularly salespeople and sales leaders, is the ability to be human.

Darren: Because at the end of the day, we still crave human connection. And so if we give into all of the AI and get AI to do everything, then we're no longer having that human interaction. Yeah. And it's the, it's the organizations that can humanize this, and this is why I love the, the intellectual authenticity is you can bring back the human and focus your attention on the human 'cause.

That's gonna d drive higher level and deeper levels of trust then your competitors. Yeah, you should focus on it

Phil: a hundred. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent is, uh, yeah. So it's really, it's, it's uh, there's no doubt that AI and agent workflows and all of those things are gonna have a profound impact, I think, on sales.

Um, yeah, generally. But it needs to be counterbalanced with this human connection. Yeah. And that, and that's why in this sort of transformative world in which why I think we are living now within sales. I mean, this is an interesting thought that I've got, which is, I mean, if you look at, um, what AI can do to help the sales profession, it's huge.

It's massive. You know, whether you're looking at predictive forecasting, whether you're looking at coaching, whether you're looking at putting presentations together, and I have wondered whether AI is, is, has the potential to make a, a bigger impact on sales as a function than, than almost any other function of a business.

Because we deal with data, we deal with human relationships, we deal with customers, we deal with products, we deal with services. I don't know, maybe not, but I, I, I just think it's massive. The danger is we let it take over, you know? Yeah. We let it take over, um, the sales function. So I think, I think getting this balance is where the magic will happen and will help differentiate salespeople from each other.

Darren: Yeah.

Phil: And companies. Yeah. Who embrace,

Darren: I think, and I think the point you've been making through this is that the reflection piece, the interrogation, as you mentioned before, the AI through the thematic research or the, the analysis didn't come up with the terminology of intellectual authenticity. You did.

Phil: No, it didn't.

Darren: So you, you can't give into the ai. You can use it for effectiveness, but you've still gotta question it.

Phil: You do.

Darren: Yeah. So the other piece I wanted, there's two questions left I wanted to ask you, 'cause I'm, I'm conscious of time. Um, the other point I was question I was gonna ask you was in the relation to the winner circle.

So it was interesting that, um, a number of years ago around about 10% would be in there. Did that materially change or was some nuance? Nuance?

Phil: Oh, yes. Yeah. I'm so glad you've raised that because the o the other thing I've been slightly concerned about is, is, uh, of course I was le when we did the research, first time round, less than 10% of salespeople sold in the way customers wanted.

And that's a fairly damning indictment of the sales profession. And um, when we did the research this time round, it, it, it was less than 30%. And so I was, I was really pleased, you know, that the, the needle has moved, you know, the floor has, has changed in that, in that respect. It's still only. Less than 30 is still not good enough in, in our view.

But it seems from the research we've done that buyers are seeing a more professional sales people sort of turn up than they did all those years ago, even though there's still, uh, room for improvement. And I, I felt, uh, I felt, I felt pleased, uh, with this progression. You know, it is progress. We should celebrate it, you know, that's it.

Um, and I felt a bit awkward. Keep on citing the less than 10% figure because I, yeah, it's, it was so low actually all those years ago. Um, so yes. Yeah. Progress has been made. So that's good news. That's really good news.

Darren: Well, it also indicates that there is still work to be done, my friend.

Phil: It's there is, there is, there will always be work to be done.

What I, what I'm guessing what I think if we come back to our global research project in a years or two's time, I'm worried that the authenticity piece is going to score even lower.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Because I think that of this overreliance on ai.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: So I, I, I, what we've decided as a business to do is to keep this survey running not once every 15 years, but to keep it updated.

Maybe sort of do many research announcements every, every year. We haven't quite decided how we're going to do that.

Darren: Yeah.

Phil: You know, just to, to keep, uh, more of a track. But, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the buyers that we interviewed all. People that we interviewed were worried about the role of AI in the buyer seller engagement process.

Darren: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Even though that 30% figure also came from them, they were worried about the impact of ai.

Darren: Yeah, yeah. I understand that. I understand that. Um,

Phil: can I share one other thing with you just quickly?

Darren: Absolutely.

Phil: Yeah. Which was, you know, I was also interested going into the research about a McKinsey report, and I think possibly Gartner as well.

We've talked about buyers not wanting to deal with salespeople.

Darren: Mm.

Phil: Yeah. Just deal via, via, you know, so sales salespeople would come extinct if you believed what they had to say. So, um, we were very explicit in asking all of the people that we interviewed, um, about the McKinsey report and what their feelings were about salespeople.

And it was unanimous in our survey. That everyone that we interviewed said, no, they absolutely saw value in engaging at a personal level with salespeople. It's really, they could not imagine. One, one person said, I couldn't imagine, imagine sort of spending, you know, a million dollars on a, on a big CRM.

Yeah. And saying to the CEO No, I, I met no one. I just, I, I just couldn't see myself doing that saying We made a decision purely without meeting anyone from the company. And I think a lot of people feel that way. Yeah. A lot of people. So, I, I, I fundamentally disagree with the data. Points that we've got. I really believe from all, certainly all the people that we've interviewed, um, that the role of the seller is really important to buyers, which is why so many people gave us time, you know, for this research study.

Darren: I love that. I love that. It's, it's, um, and I keep saying people love to do business with those who they know, like trust, but also remember as long as you can do the things we've spoken about today Yeah. Or that level of trust, be intellectually authentic, um, and have that as a bedrock. But as you were talking, you, I, I had this vision of sitting in a pub and getting my mobile phone out and actually taking a photo of a QR code.

Imagine doing a million dollar CRM by actually taking a photo of a, of a, uh, of a QR code and just do self selection.

Phil: Self, it

Darren: sounds ridiculous.

Phil: Yeah, but that's, that's essentially, I mean, uh, the McKinsey report even cited, uh, sort of multimillion dollar contracts being done and, and, and, but all the procurement people that we've, we, that we interviewed said there's no way they could, um, they could, they could envisage that, um, happening, you know, they, they were genuinely against the concept.

So, yeah, to your point, I think people do buy from people. Yes, they do. They may do a lot of more research online and come better informed, but to not have any human connection throughout the entire buying cycle. Uh, for many, they, they wouldn't go there.

Darren: And I think that's really important. 'cause you, as you rightly said, buyers today are more educated than they've ever been.

And there's more information available to them where they're often doing research before they engage with any selling organization.

Yeah,

Darren: yeah. In some cases, they've already made a buying decision before they've chosen to integrate or in, in interact with that organization. So this sort of loops back then to, for the selling organization to really focus in on that intellectual authenticity.

Yeah. Because you know, even simple things like putting, uh, putting post up on LinkedIn, right? Yeah. Or putting post up on your own Facebook page or, or wherever you happen to have your social platforms. Um, people are gonna do research and it'll pop up, right? So you wanna be, you wanna be your per, are you a person of integrity?

'cause that's what people wanna do business with. Who, who they wanna do business with.

Phil: Yeah. A hundred. Yeah. Absolutely. So

Darren: the final question for you, Phillip, and I know we've, we've gone, um, a little bit longer than I said I was gonna, oh, sorry. It's been a fantastic conversation. Yeah. Um, can you talk now just, just briefly to the sales leader that's listening to this who.

Um, he's operating in a, in a pretty competitive environment, and they've probably got some friction between, um, trying to try to become more customer-centric, client-centric, but the behavior internally is more of the supply centricity and some of the pressures that come with that. With all the research that you've done, is there one or two key things that a sales leader today can focus on or start to build the muscle around to at least start moving in the direction of where we want to head having these four positive mindset values in place?

Phil: Um, as a, as a leader, I think you, well, if you, if you feel that this resonates as a leader, you know that to have these, then I would, uh, what would I do? I, I would look at building a kind of culture around it, and you can do that by. Um, getting your customers involved in the journey. 'cause you know, this is a customer-centric kind of initiative, so talk to your customers.

Ask them how do they want to be sold. Use those cust, use the customer to help drive change. Um, I mean, it's using Cotters framework of a Guardian coalition. You know, create supporters around you that believe in making something like this happen. Um. Use, you know, different, uh, reflection techniques yourself to work out how, how, you know, how would you make this come alive in your business.

Um, but be forensic in the way that you start to look at every step of the sales cycle, the sell, you know, what do these values mean in the way that we do stuff, you know, even down to LinkedIn posts or how we reach out to organizations. But, um, oh, there's lots of reading material. There's the, you know, mindset survey data.

There's, uh, the, the, the reports that we've got, there's all sorts of stuff if, if people are interested, you

Darren: know,

Phil: to kind of learn more about it that they can have access to. Um, but I think it starts with, um. A vision of what you believe to be important as a leader, you really need to get underneath the skin of these concepts.

And if you believe in it, then I think you'll, you'll work out, you'll figure out a way of making it

Darren: happen. I love that. I love that. And, um, to, uh, I guess to steal the, the methodology or the thought process of Simon Sinek, start thinking more about the infinite game and not, not get restricted by the finite game.

'cause the other thing, we've, and you mentioned this in your, in your white paper as well, what customers and buyers are looking for is for you to, um, uh, be empathetic towards their buying cycle, not to try and get them to fit into your sales cycle. Yeah. So that's what they're looking for. And you might, once you've got a bedrock of trust in place, you might be able to, I don't know for want of a better term, call some favors, but it's not something you wanna make a.

Um, a regular habit of, um, but just treat it as, hey, this customer is gonna be here. We want a lifetime relationship with this customer. So we don't wanna jeopardize that by trying to get them to bring things forward just to appease our sales director or CEO.

Phil: Yeah, I think that's right. But I, I, I also think for sales leaders that, um, so much of the behavior is influenced by the quality of pipeline that you've got in the business.

So, um, if you haven't got a strong enough pipeline, then sometimes that can drive the negative behavior. So when you start to look at driving a culture, you need to look at not just, uh, the values, but also, you know, the, the way in which the business is being managed, the, um, the depth of pipeline that you've got, you know, lty speeds of deals and things like that.

So, yeah.

Darren: Love it. Love it. Phillip, it's been an absolute pleasure having you back on the podcast. Um, I'm gonna ask you with

you

Phil: again.

Darren: It's, it's been brilliant and, um, I could keep talking to you for hours. The, the question I wanna ask you though is, uh, for people who want to connect with you, learn more about Sali, but uh, perhaps get access to the mindset survey, but also the white paper that you've recently released.

Where's the best place for them to connect with you and do that?

Phil: Well, I imagine, Darren, that there may be some notes in the posts that people can connect to, but obviously our website is the place to go where both the mindset survey, so if you just sort of. Typed in sort of Consalia sales mindset survey, it would take you to the, the page.

I'm not quite sure where the global research paper is, but it's probably very closely linked to that page as well. But, um, yeah, just reach out or contact me. Uh, peace Quire, it's Consalia dot com. Um, I'd be very happy to kind of connect with people if they want to be connected with.

Darren: Perfect. Perfect. I'll put that in the show notes.

I'll, um, Eddie did send me the link for the white paper, so I'll take that link and put it in the show notes as well. So, um,

Phil: yeah,

Darren: that's great. Look, people listening to this, if you're in sales and sales leadership, which is majority of people listening, please do yourself a favor and, um, and learn more about what Philip does.

And please get your hand on the white paper 'cause it's, um, it's filled with gold. That's only gonna help organizations become better at serving their customers, which is gonna help hopefully. Here's my, here's my prediction. Hopefully more and more salespeople and sales organizations will become part of the winner's circle.

So in 12 months time, maybe it's 40, 50%.

Phil: Absolutely. Yeah.

Darren: Brilliant.

Phil: You done,

Darren: Philip? Absolute pleasure. Um, you're an absolute star. And, uh, keep up the great work and thanks again for being a guest on the podcast for the third time.

Phil: For the third time. I'm very honored. I didn't realize it was three, I thought it was two.

Thank you, Darren. It's been fantastic being with you again. Yeah,

Darren: brilliant. Thank you.

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