This interview was originally recorded on July 28, 2023, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
Elana Leoni:
Hello and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni. And I've devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement.
Each week, I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs and experts in educational marketing and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing, or content marketing and community building. I'm excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of All Things Marketing and Education. This week, I am so excited to sit down with Dan O'Reilly, the CEO and founder of Fuel Sales. You might hear me calling him Dan O because that's what everybody calls them as well. Today, we are going to be talking about all things EdTech sales. We very rarely get a chance to dive into the sales component of EdTech, but for sales to be effective and for marketing to be effective, they've got to work together.
So, we're going to be talking about the best ways to sell to schools and districts, including what's a good sales presentation, what are some best practices, what are mistakes to avoid, what is the EdTech purchasing cycle in a typical year and how does that vary within EdTech products. He's going to talk about really good tips and tricks on how to follow up. And spoiler alert, we're going to be talking about how to listen in EdTech sales.
But before we get into those topics, let me give you a brief background about Dan. So, I haven't known Dan for too long, but I met Dan O through Rayna and Rayna Glumac, and those of you that might know her, she's the CEO of RYE Consulting. A shout-out to them, they're a very good procurement and marketing intelligence firm within EdTech. We'll put their info because Rayna was a guest on our show in the show notes as well.
But Rayna did the introduction. We set up time to meet in person at ASU GSV at a cat cafe, and those of you that don't know what a cat cafe is, Google it, but there's a bunch of cats all over you while you're drinking coffee. It's my happy place. But unfortunately, the cat cafe was closed, but we ended up having a great conversation at a diner in San Diego at a conference. And I learned so much from him during just 30 minutes. I immediately said, "You've got to come on the podcast. People need to know what you know."
And what he has to share is pretty amazing. I already listened to this episode. I've rewound it many times. So, this is an episode not to be missed. But before we get started, I'm just going to give you a brief background around who he is and what his experience is.
So, Dan O has about 30 years experience in sales. And he's the founder and CEO of Fuel Sales, like I mentioned. He's going to talk a little bit about what that is. But overall, they provide a sales bootcamp, and they help place a lot of the times educators into sales rep roles, which he calls SDRs.
So, he trains a lot of educators, but other types of people as well into becoming SDRs that EdTech companies really want. They want to have reps trained by Dan, and you'll see why in the conversation. Before Fuel Sales, Dan led sales and marketing for a local EdTech company called Netchemia, and he's going to talk a little bit about that in the podcast as well as what he's learned throughout and how product differentiation can change sales cycles as well.
So, welcome, Dan O. We are so excited to have you on the show. Let's talk about some of the primary ways that EdTech B2B is so different from other industries. And some people say business to business or almost business to government because we are working within government-funded entities, but there's so many ways. But from a sales perspective, how do you begin that conversation with people that don't know the industry?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. The industry, you're right, is incredibly unique. It is different than most others that you're in. I think one of the main big differences in it is that the majority of the prospects that you're working with are all very mission focused.
And so, when you're selling into this space, it's not about ROI and it's not about getting some kind of financial return and investment of any kind. It's really about the mission that they have to help with student achievement or support the teachers in some way, shape or form. And so, that's a totally different mindset to get yourself into when you are prospecting or engaging with these folks.
Another big thing is the fact that I think that the majority of the leadership, if you think about how they got into that position basically, is that they started as an educator and they moved their way through that process into a leadership role. And so, there is not a lot of business sense in there. There's not a lot of went to a college to get a business degree.
These are educators. And the way they make decisions a lot of times is very focused on the social side of it, wanting to make sure that someone else has done something very similar or they want to compare with friends or colleagues. And there's this collaborative feeling. It's not a competitive industry.
One school is not going to say to the other school, they're not going to try to hide what they're doing. They're sharing and helping each other solve the problems that they have.
Elana Leoni:
Interesting. And I knew that, but it's nice for you to point that out, because in the essence, we're talking with people that joined education to make a difference, worked their way up in the industry, became leaders, and then as leaders, it becomes very collaborative and it can probably be a little bandwagony. Like, "Oh, did you hear what they're doing? Let's try that."
Dan O'Reilly:
Fred's using it. I want to check it out.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah, for sure. So, when you think about selling to people like this, what are the top ways that you can get, I don't know, I was going to say, what are the top ways you get yeses immediately. But as you teach it, it takes a long time of ramp, but how do you get in there? How do you start this process of I'm selling to schools and districts, what do I do to get started? What are the things I should just never do?
Dan O'Reilly:
Well, a lot of folks feel like sales is about pitching a product or selling a product, and the majority of the sales process is more of a learning process. And so, a lot of the mistakes that people make when they get into this is that they focus very specifically on their product and they feel like they have to educate the buyer and talk to them about what they do and how they do it.
But at the end of the day, it really is about the problems, the issues, the challenges, the frustrations, the struggles that get you in the door. And so, if you can make it focused on the other person, if you can focus it on the people that you are engaging with and say, "Hey, I'm reaching out and wanting to understand do you struggle with these problems, do you have these concerns? If you do, let's talk. I want to learn. I want to understand. Are they big? Are they bad? How much are you struggling? And maybe I can help."
But if it's all about, "Guess what I can do for you." They're not interested, because they feel like they have to make a decision right away. Like, oh, I have to decide whether or not I want to work with you or talk to you and I'm not ready to do that, but I'm open to talk about problems and struggles, especially if I can relate to them and I feel what you're talking about, I'll open up and have a conversation with you about that.
So, that's a big difference between other processes that you go into. This is a very pain-focused conversation. It's a very one-sided, "I want to learn about you and not share about me as much until the time is right."
Elana Leoni:
I have so many questions, and it's because I'm in this learner mindset. I've been in the world of marketing for so long and although I've collaborated with sales, I don't get into the nooks and crannies. But I guess my two logistical questions are, I can imagine emails if you are doing emails are very much like, "Hey, is your challenge this? I'd love to sit down with you, free consultation." It's like listener kind of positioning. And do you email typically or what's the process that you recommend? Because I know it's so relationship driven in K12.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. It is relationship driven, but there's a good combination of email and phone calls. The typical kind of approach to it is best practices associated to outbound outreach is nine to 12 touches in a two-week period of time. And so, we attempt to mix phone and email in a two-week period of time to try to get ahold of that decision maker. But making the phone call or using the phone is probably going to be the most successful approach. It just can't be the only thing that you attempt to do.
So, we will mix in emails and a little bit of social depending on who we're going after, but it is about connecting one-on-one with that person over the phone.
And I think one of the big advantages that K12 has is the fact that if you're calling at the district level and you don't get ahold of the decision maker, there's an opportunity to talk to many other individuals within that department because they all know what's going on and you can learn a lot of information and almost like create this coach that's supporting you or even a champion that is really excited about what you do and is interested in helping you get to the decision maker. So, the phone really, really is a big tool during the sales process, especially when you're prospecting.
Elana Leoni:
I like it. Old school, but relationship driven. And sometimes we're now in these days, we're afraid to pick up the phone and just we rely on a lot of outbound emails. But I just want to reiterate what you said, nine to 12 touches within two-week period. After that, do they ghost to you after that, you lose them?
Dan O'Reilly:
No. I mean if you're attempting to get ahold of somebody and you've reached out nine to 12 times in two weeks, you're persistent. But if you keep going beyond that, it almost becomes like you're desperate. You're begging. And you're like, "Please, please. Answer the phone. Where are you?" I'm like, "You're the only person that's ever going to buy from me."
So, you have to shut it down and give them a break. And basically, if you're working well with your marketing department, you're tagging that one as unresponsive, potentially putting them into a nurture campaign, sending some value emails to them on a regular interval to keep them warm and the brand in front of you. And then you circle back maybe three or four months down the road and hit them with a new message. See what happens.
A lot of sales is a timing issue and it's just not the right time. And you get in there, you make an attempt and then you jump out. You don't want to get to a point where you're annoying and desperate and pushy to try to get their attention. If they're interested, they'll talk to you. If they're not, you can move on.
Elana Leoni:
Good tip, good tip.
Dan O'Reilly:
Waste too time.
Elana Leoni:
Don't project desperation. And I love that.
Dan O'Reilly:
Desperation repels people.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And it's hard to recuperate from that too because we have so much moving, especially in EdTech decision makers, too, that you might see someone at ASU GSV or NASSP later on and they're like, "Oh, gosh, there's Dan O." Now, that person's representing another district, too. So, really make sure that you maintain the relationship.
And I love how you say, "How can I help you and be value driven and listen." If I am listening though, I know you train people that are educators into sales reps, but what if sales reps don't have background in K-12 education or may not 100% know the product as well as they should? How do they navigate that?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. So, early stage in sales, if you're going to be one of those prospectors at the beginning, the most important thing for you to have is knowledge on the industry and not necessarily the product. You need enough to be dangerous about the product, but when it comes to you prospecting, you need to sound intelligent and you need to understand the conversation and the challenges.
So, diving deep into a specific area, basically what happens is that when we engage with a client to really start working with them and prospect for them, the first thing we're doing is trying to understand the problems that they solve and the people that they are focused on.
And if we can go deep into the problem, like help me understand how people are doing this today without your service? What are the hangups? What are the challenges? Why are they struggling? If we can understand that conversation really well, that's really the main topic that's going to be discussed during the prospecting call is how are you doing things today that are causing you these challenges so that I can decide, is this solution over here going to benefit you?
And so, the SDR's function is really just to say, "I need to interpret whether or not there's enough of a problem there and if the prospect is ready for change, and then I hand them off and say, 'I'm confident we can help you. Let me send you to the expert.'" And then we set up a meeting and then the person that is the salesperson, they have a ton of product knowledge and can support that conversation beyond that, really connect the dots for the prospect and move them through the sales process.
Elana Leoni:
Yes, 100%. So, you talked about timing in nine to 12 touches. We know that there is an interesting cycle within when EdTech is actually gathering information and when they have to buy things and when their budget runs out, there's a standard cycle. Do you want to go a little bit over that purchasing cycle? And then in my head I'm like, "Gosh, if every sales rep's doing nine to 12 touches, are they just not sleeping during peak periods of time?" How do you go all out during peak buying season, too?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah, yeah. Everybody has a little bit of a difference in the peak buying seasons and when they do, depending on what they're selling, but typically it starts to ramp up late in August, early September, and this is prospecting time. So, there's a difference between prospecting and buying time, if you understand what I'm saying.
There's this opportunity to fill the funnel and really get engaged with people to learn about your products and start putting you into the budget and working. And so, that typically happens between September and April. So, September all the way through the end of the year into April, and that's when things start heating up for purchase. And so, that latter part of Q2 into Q3 is-
Elana Leoni:
Sorry to interrupt, but that prospecting time, are the salespeople just fueling value and saying, "Hey, we're here. Here's some good resources." I guess, I worry in the beginning for back to school, what's the attention level at for admins that are crazy busy, too? But you're saying September through April. So, it's a long warmup, right?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. It's a long warmup and it's one of those things where their budget was established, they've got an idea of what they need to put in place and now they're hunting. And so, you've got to be out there and saying, "Hey, I've got what you need. I can help you with the challenges you're trying to solve."
And then they work through, is this the right fit? Is there another vendor that can do this? What's the pricing associated to it? How are we going to fit it in? What are we going to do to implement? And there's a lot of planning that goes into it, purchasing, potentially doing pilots or tests and things like that in certain schools before they go district wide and then they buy in a bigger way.
That's not to say that districts don't buy every single month. They do. They can buy, it just depends on the complexity of the opportunity that you're selling. The season in which the challenges exist the most.
So, for example, one of the products I used to sell at Netchemia was a product called Records, basic name for it, but it was managed a lot of the records in the HR department processes and records. And so, one of those processes was the way that they manage teacher contracts.
Well, teacher contracts is a problem that's in this window of time and this window of time only. And so, they're not really worried about it during this other part of the season. And so, we have to sell ahead of the time that that happens and they need to implement right before then and execute.
So, teacher contracts are happening throughout beginning right before summer in throughout summer, and then they're trying to wrap them up as school is starting. And so, that process is intense and hard in that period of time. But outside of that, there's not a lot of concern for that.
Elana Leoni:
I'm thinking in my head on different product lines in EdTech. So, if you have an SIS or an LMS or those type of things that are foundational for starting a school year, I reckon it would just be the first they would want it in place by the school year, and that would be more rigid. They're not going to roll out a comm system in January, right?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yes. It would be buying in April and potentially implementing and rolling out through the summer so that they can have this thing up and running in August.
Elana Leoni:
But maybe there's stuff like tutoring and they might be using tapping into governmental funds. And do you see, when you said the buying happens throughout every month, I would imagine that, "Oh, I've got some extra dollars or I didn't realize I had budget. Let's try something like tutoring or there's probably other lines of business." Do you see that, too?
Dan O'Reilly:
Tutoring is a great example because you're going to find that, as you progress through the school year, you're going to see results on grades and challenges and they're going to be like, "What do we do? How do we fix some of that?" And so, it's like, "Bam, we've got to implement that in January so we can finish the year strong and get something going." So, they'll buy at that point.
Like hiring teachers, there's a recruiting and hiring of teachers. We've got to manage that throughout the year and sometimes it's heavier at certain points in time, but we need to still manage it. So, they're buying that throughout the year and potentially implementing at one school and seeing how it goes and then moving it out from there.
Curriculum, sometimes you're going to be on a three-to-five-year cycle with something like that, where they're going to buy and then they're done for three years. There's not much to do for a while, and then they have to re-up their curriculum again.
So, these windows are dependent upon what it is you're selling, the challenge you're solving with that, the department you're focused on, and whether it's a school or a school district. District wide implementations tend to follow that seasonal pattern more than a school implementation where they can make a decision very quickly on something and move forward with it. If the buying power is at the principle level, it can happen pretty quick.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And as you were talking, I want our listeners to pause and if you're having a checklist here is, what are the challenges my problem uniquely solves? Has it been validated by lots of conversations because you say you trained sales reps to really listen. So, really honing in on that.
And then, when do they typically gather information and sell? Does it follow the traditional EdTech K-12 cycle that you're talking about or is there some nuance that you should be aware of? And you talked about one of the services you do is when you go out, you also really hone in on, you didn't use the word "persona", but who is this person? What are the different variations of these people?
So, checklist time, if you don't have those things, talk to your team and see if there's ways you can develop it. And I find it fascinating, the nuances of it, but the pandemic flipped a lot of things back and topsy turvy, but I feel like we're back in traditional buying?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. We're starting to get back into that feel of it. The traditional buying cycle. ESSER funds are going to be running now. People are going to get back to that normal pattern of purchase and things of that nature. There's not going to be this extra money sitting on the side as much. So, yeah, we're getting back into that cycle.
Elana Leoni:
Okay. So, you said they're gathering until April. So, from April until June, early July, their fiscal budget ends. Is that when it's peak buying time?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. We used to see peak buying time really happen, pretty big spike in July. It was late June, early July, spiking like crazy. Starting to come back down in August. And then it really died out in August because people were just like start trying to get school taken care of, getting ready. And then it starts picking back up as far as the prospecting and really filling the funnel and some purchasing happening, but depending on that as you get into September, October.
Elana Leoni:
So, if you could orchestrate the perfect marketing and sales what they are doing during the peak time, what would marketing be doing to compliment? And then what would be sales doing to really get out there, get as many leads in the pipeline and close?
Dan O'Reilly:
Sure. Yeah. Marketing, I always think of marketing as ground cover basically. They're the air cover where it is, I need to really educate the market, help them become aware of what we have out there. And so, I'm doing webinars. I'm doing lunch and learns. I'm attempting to get our team set up at conferences and seeing which ones are those best conferences we can be part of.
So, the email campaigning and things like that is just part of introducing a webinar and saying, "Hey, let's bring a client that we have in and have them share with us about the challenges that they had and how they used our product to solve those challenges, talk about results and things like that, send the leads off to the salespeople." Same thing with a lunch and learn approach where it's more of a regional, "Let's get together for lunch and talk about the challenges and see what we can do to help."
And then on the sales side, it's more about when you were talking about persona, it's we got to find our ICP. Who's our ideal? Who's the lowest hanging fruit group? Which are the people we're going to go after? And then we put out a targeted campaign towards that.
The sales team is a one-to-one approach. Marketing is the one to many. And so, our one-to-one approach is going to be very targeted in saying, "Okay. These are the folks that I care about the most in order to try to get in touch with." And so, I'll hit them with my outbound campaign, that nine to 12 touch outreach, a lot of phone work, seeing what I can do to generate some interest.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And I think on top of that, what I see and try to compliment when we work really closely with sales teams is like what are the deals you're trying to close and how can we add value to them without being a stalker? So, without being not that desperate person, but for example in social, if you cue your social team in, they can at least start following the districts.
They can follow if the leaders are there and make sure that they're liking some things and just being aware and maybe sending over relevant tweets and posts over to the sales rep and say, "Hey, did you know they're interested in this?" Sales people are always trying to find relevant conversations or reasons to reach out, right?
Dan O'Reilly:
Right. And marketing is pushing this information out, trying to educate the market. And what you hope to see back is some hotspots starting to happen where your message is getting read, they're starting to engage with your content more. And you're like, "That's an opportunity to wreck the sales team and say, 'Hey, Virginia's lighten up. You need to see what you can do to open up that area a little bit more. I would get involved in that.'"
So, there's opportunity there for this cross conversation, this very collaborative feel of saying how do we continue to look at this market in a way to adjust our approach so that we're supporting each other in a better way? Not just to blast everybody, "Ah, I see some things happening here. Let me see what I can do to get into that area a little bit more." Seems like the message is resonating really well.
And also, sales is reaching back to marketing saying, "I've been talking to a lot of people." The things that are really getting them excited is when I say, "Oh, let me change my messaging and push that out to a greater group of people and see if that ups my numbers and gets people more excited." So, got to help each other with that process.
Elana Leoni:
A hundred percent. So, we talked a little bit about getting started and you talked about some approaches of phone, email, touches, but if maybe it's a small sales team or maybe I'm starting as a marketing director, sorry, a sales director at this time, how do I begin to choose what schools to add to my prospect list? You might inherit prospects if you're lucky. How do you create a sales strategy? Do I go for the big guys in the big districts? Do I go for the middle, the small? I know it depends on product, but probably do answer that very broad hard question.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. I think it starts in a big way with traction that you currently have, where are your customers today and what do they look like? When I say K-12 is a very social sale, that means they're very regional as well. If you are selling to people in Georgia, it is harder to use those names in Texas or in New York or in other states outside of Georgia because they go, "That's not me. I don't buy like Georgia. I don't work like Georgia. I'm different."
Same thing to be said as far as size of schools or districts. The bigger districts are going to say, "That's not me when you're trying to share with them." Look what we've done for other districts and they're all like 2500 student count, 1500 student count, and they're way up at 80,000 student count.
So, the way that you're looking at it is to try to say, "I need those lookalikes of my current customer base as the lowest hanging fruit. Are they charter, public, private? Which area have I seen the most success in?" And I hate to say it, but it's almost like this virus approach where, "I want to go after the lookalike people close and then I start the rings out from there because-"
Elana Leoni:
It's kind of like clustering though. So, you have one person in Georgia, then you cluster that, cluster that and maybe you hire another sales rep or have another territory that you have a little traction in Texas and you try to cluster and grow that cluster, right?
Dan O'Reilly:
Right, right. Thinking about it in this pod group where you've got SDRs and AEs, so the SDRs are the main prospectors and then the AEs are the closers, but the AE does all the work, too. I mean, they still prospect. And so, your AE, if you use that person as an opener in a state, for example, let's say we have a great foothold in Texas, but Oklahoma is not working for us. Louisiana is not working for us yet.
My SDRs are going to be centered in Texas just creating volume like crazy in that area and my AE is going to be focused in Oklahoma and Louisiana and saying, "Let me visit in there. Let me go to regional conferences. Let me set up meetings where I can start to really create relationships." As soon as they get a couple of anchor accounts in there, they have referenceable people with outcomes, SDRs jump in and then start creating volume off of those and the AE moves to the next area.
It's like, "Let's follow the leader. Come on, I just opened it up, let's go." And deploy the troops.
Elana Leoni:
Awesome. Well, let's get into some nitty-gritty. Part of the sales is the demo and actually walking them through the product and getting that down. What are some best practices that you say in the demo, you've got to do this. And I know that you teach so much about this and I'm sure that you've probably attended demos that you're like, "Oh, no, I wouldn't do that." So, what are the mistakes as well?
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. It's so much more fun to talk about the mistakes, isn't it? When it comes to demoing, this is the first time your prospect has the opportunity to really connect the dots and say, "Ah," like it's their aha moment on things.
But so many times, I see people creating these demos or these presentations that are very cookie cutter. They're like, "Every time I do a demo, this is how I do it. I say these words, I execute this way and I have no connection to what they care about the most." Don't do that. Your demo needs to be about them and it has to connect to the issues that they feel like they have.
Sales reps will be like, "We can do so much more though. Look what my product can do. It does all these things." Well, sometimes you're overwhelming your prospect and you're losing a sale because you're showing them that this is way too much for them and they don't need all of that. But if you can get your foot in the door with something, you can then sell into that even more and grow your presence with them.
So, sell what they need in that demo, not so much more that they become overwhelmed and say, "Man, maybe this is too expensive and something we don't need. Maybe I need to find somebody who can do just what I need it to be done." So, there are a couple of things.
Elana Leoni:
So true. That is so true. I think that I've been working on focusing on what they care about most, like you said, and then selling that vision of before and after. Imagine that world that you don't have to manually roster kids or whatever. Sixty percent of our customers within six months experience this. And imagine that.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. We all know that people buy based on emotion. And so, the order of operations is not to say, "Let me tell you all about us and here's a picture of our office and look at all the different ... " Just bombard them with boring information about you to try to build credibility before you share a solution. It's like they're not ready to receive that information yet because they're not emotional at that point.
And so, the best order of operations is to start the meeting with reeducating them about the issues and saying, "Let's get all on the same page. And this is why we're here today. Anybody want to add anything to this? This is the challenge you're facing today that you're trying to solve." Or if it's an inbound opportunity and you're doing a demo, there's an opportunity to educate about the problem in the market and see if they relate and connect and do your discovery like that.
But it really is about creating an emotional engagement with them at the beginning and have them feel like, "Oh, yes, I hate what I'm dealing with. I need to solve the problem." And then they get engaged. Then you move directly into the solution. And you don't talk about yourself. You talk about the solution and saying, "This issue can be solved by this. Do you see how that works? And this can be solved by this." And you move through the process by saying, "Here's how we make your life so much better, and this is what the world is going to look like."
And they get so excited about that. They're emotional about it. They're happy about I hopefully. Then you move into the credibility. And say, "The reason why we're the best at doing all this and solving this is because boom, boom, boom." And so, they're ready to listen to that stuff at that point because they're emotional, they're engaged, and they're excited about your solution. They believe in you at that point. Now they're going, "This is awesome. I love all the credibility you're adding to this."
And it's really nice to end with knocking that question off the table about implementation and having a nice little slide that's like A, B, C, one, two, three. This is how easy it is to get our product in the door with you and the adoption's going to be amazing and all that stuff.
Elana Leoni:
It's so good. Very good order of operations. My question, and it probably depends on the type of product that EdTech is selling. Where do they put the price in all of this conversation?
Dan O'Reilly:
It is very dependent. So, if it's a very transactional easy pricing point, you can put it right at the end and talk about price right away. The more complex the product is, the more you are putting together a proposal post demo and saying, "Let's set up a proposal review meeting and really dive into the pricing more with you."
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. That makes sense. I just want to make sure that the salespeople that are listening are like, "Oh, gosh, I don't want to waste my time." You probably qualify their budget to make sure that when they're in the sales demo, they can somewhat afford the range. That's always a tricky dance.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. Ghosting you talked about at the beginning of this, and that's a huge problem for folks that are going through this demo and they get really happy ears basically. That's what it's called, like they get excited about the response they're getting from the prospect and the prospect's like, "Okay, this was great. I'll talk to you in a couple of weeks. We're going to just huddle, call me back, see you." And they don't set a meeting at the end of this to continue the process.
And that's the biggest challenge. They end up going back and forth trying to get somebody on the phone. Priorities get skewed on the other end and the emotion behind solving this thing deteriorates and they lose the opportunity.
There's a great way to really set yourself up for success at the beginning of the meeting for that end of the meeting conversation. And usually what I do in that area is I say, "During this conversation, I want it to be really interactive. I want to be able to get questions from you and hear from you through this. Interrupt me the whole time through this.
But at any point in time, if you feel like this is not a good fit for you, like there's something that pops up and it just feels like, 'Man, this is a game changer. We're not going to be able to do it,' then just let me know and we can stop and not waste anybody's time."
And then if I hear that in any way, I'll be listening, if I hear something that makes it just not a good fit for you, I'm going to let you know. Again, we just don't need to waste any time. Is that fair? And everybody's like, "Yeah, sure."
And then you just follow that up with, "If we make it to the end of this presentation and it all feels like there's something good there, then I'd like to reserve about 10 minutes at the end to just understand how you purchase a product like this. I just want to walk through the process that you go through." Is there an opportunity to do that? And everybody's like, "Sure. We can do that."
And that avoids everybody at the end going, "Oh, I got to go. Sorry. I'm wrapping up and I got to get out of here. I got to another meeting." You save that 10 minutes and you have a conversation that is basically saying, "Okay, if you purchased something like this, when would you want it to be live? When do you want to be using it?" And they say, "Oh, probably around this time." Okay. You start working backwards in the process. We got to have an agreement here. What does it take to get an agreement? Okay. We've got to take these steps and probably need a proposal.
And you end up defining what your next step is going to be. And it makes it so easy to be like, "Okay, well then, I'll get you the proposal and then we're going to have to set an appointment to review. That seems like what the next step is. Let's do that. What time do you have later this week to do that?" And we set a meeting.
Elana Leoni:
Yes. You were saying all of these juicy wonderful things is you're setting a meeting during your meeting, so you're not following up in a busy schedule and not trying to get the meeting. And you're allowing them an out in the beginning and really a transparent culture of like, "Hey, if this isn't a fit, just let me know."
I always say, especially in education, I don't want to waste people's time in education. We are all in it for the right reasons. Let's not waste each other's time. I think your time is extremely valuable. And I love setting the expectation upfront and then trying to figure out, "Hey, typically what is your timing? But back me out of it so I can make sure I'm meeting your needs as well."
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. I want to service you and I want to do the things that are going to lead to you getting this on time delivery, basically. And so, that's a really huge part about it. And you said booking a meeting in a meeting, we call that BAMFAM, like book a meeting from a meeting.
Elana Leoni:
I love it.
Dan O'Reilly:
It's so important to do that. The chances of you selling a deal, if someone says, "No, I'm not ready to set an appointment from this meeting," they just decline significantly. So, if there's interest, they're going to be, "Yes, let's continue the process. Let's move on. Let's keep going." But if they're not, they're like, "I'm going to have to talk to some people about ..." And it's the nice way to say no.
Elana Leoni:
Yes. And then you don't want to waste your time and you don't want to seem desperate, and you can throw them in those nurture, you can throw them on the marketing list being as value driven, making the case, and maybe they're ready for next year once you ramp them up. But all amazing things.
And for anyone starting out, rewind, rewind the order of operations that Dan O was talking about and beginning to start with that out. And I love challenge oriented. What is a specific thing they said their challenges were, and incorporate that. Let's not go on, "All right, today I'm going to talk about this and blah blah, blah." Monotone.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. Are you ready for my monologue?
Elana Leoni:
This isn't mandatory professional development. All right. I have so many other questions to ask you, but we are running out of time. I think I'm going to love to have you on the show. We can talk about conferences, how do you use conferencing for sales? We can talk about scaling a team and sizes of teams, all of that fun stuff.
But is there anything you want to add to people that, "I forgot to say this," this is really what you need to think of when you're thinking about sales and EdTech that you want to add before we get into some closing questions?
Dan O'Reilly:
No. I mean, I really think that the two big things that I care about when it comes to sales is really listening to the prospect and empathizing, bringing that level of empathy to the conversation is where you start to get some really good traction. So, just be a really good active listener during that prospecting time. And don't shortchange that discovery process. Really try to understand.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And some of the salespeople I've talked to, if it's not your first rodeo, you have hundreds of calls, you know what they're going to ask, too. So, the more you can proactively address things like, "Hey, they're going to talk about data privacy, because that's really important to them." And are they COPPA, FERPA, all the things certified. It's okay to proactively address it as well. And I feel if a sales rep doesn't know those basic things, okay, I'm going somewhere else.
Awesome. Well, thank you for your wisdom. I don't want to close it off yet. I want to ask you one really cool question we ask all of our guests specifically around EdTech. When you are hitting the grind and you are out there making the calls and you're outbounding and you maybe had a challenging day, what are the things that you do to personally recharge so you can show up the next day and go, "Okay, another day."
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. I mean, you just have to remember that the folks on the other end, there's never this personal attack that's happening. Anything that's going on on their end is because of the day that they're having and not because of your call. And so, you've got to realize that these folks are very, very busy. They're struggling with a lot of things. And if you catch them off guard, it has nothing to do with you. Someone could have walked in the door and got frustrated at them and then they picked up the phone in this angry state. It's not a personal thing.
And so, if you can maintain that mindset that my job is to really help people get into a better place. And every morning I remind myself of that is that that's the role my job is that I'm a problem solver. I come in here to help people get from a bad place into a good place, and I really believe in what I do.
And so, if someone's angry, frustrated, it's just not the right time for them at this moment. It is not the right time. I'll try them again. But I'm looking for the people that are struggling that need something like this. And if I can find one of those today, I'm going to be pretty dang excited about it. And so, that's how I look at it, is that I got to focus on the positive outcomes as opposed to the huge pile of the rejections that tend to happen in that because that's what motivates me and moves me forward.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. I would say that sales gets a brunt of on the front lines. Marketing as well, but specifically in social media, burnout is quite high. So, with my team members, I've talked to them about that, what you just said is really, you have to build up a thick skin and you know that if an educator is yelling at you or an admin, it's not about you. It's really never about you. And I think we all had to learn that lesson the hard way.
I learned it for decades in being a waitress. And I remember I once had a customer break up with me. She said, "I feel abused. I feel betrayed." And I'm like, "Oh, this isn't about me." Light bulb. So, I love the reframing of it and also the way you beautifully reframed it with value. I'm here to make a difference. I believe in my product. I want to help you. And people caught that authenticity, too.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. The other way to just recharge on the K-12 side is to, I have a Google Alert set up and I have it send me notifications every morning with a list of news articles that are focused on the keywords that are in my industry or the thing that I'm focused on. And so, it gives me an opportunity to wake up and catch up a little bit, learn a few new things, and almost have something to spark a conversation with during that day.
So, I pick the articles I want to read. I read through those with my coffee. I'm like, "Oh, okay. I've got my mind set on the industry now, I've got some cool things to bring up in conversation that are new and interesting. All right. Let's go."
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. You recharge through learning. I love it. And that is not uncommon, but the way you put it, I love it. Lifelong learner. So, Dan O, how can people get in touch with you? I know that you've got your website that's gofuelsales.com, correct?
Dan O'Reilly:
Right, right. Yeah.
Elana Leoni:
But how can they-
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah. They can find me there. They can find me on LinkedIn. We've got a pretty active TikTok account as well. But also, just my email address is dano@gofuelsales.com. So, feel free to reach out to me anytime there. Happy to answer any questions or help anybody that way.
Elana Leoni:
Yeah. And we didn't really get into his business, but I just wanted for context, one of your main bootcamps is you train educators into becoming SDRs and you help place them into EdTech companies. Did I oversimplify that?
Dan O'Reilly:
Absolutely. That is one of the main things that we do. I mean, our business is a lot of education, so we educate anybody interested in getting into sales. But you're right, it's mainly former educators, former teachers that are looking to get into EdTech sales. But we also train founders and folks that are trying to understand the sales for their company and grow a team.
And so, we have a bootcamp that's for EdTech founders to help them build out their sales playbook and grow their organization. So, a lot of the education pieces. And then, we also do outsource lead generation and some things like that. So, a lot of other little service-based stuff.
Elana Leoni:
Well, awesome. I have learned so much. I feel like this is such a treat because I have a lot of questions, but sometimes I don't know who to ask them to. And sometimes, we all don't share this information as freely as we'd like to. And a lot of times, there's conflicting information. So, I appreciate you coming on and just saying, "Here's what I do." And it works. People do it.
Dan O'Reilly:
Yeah, yeah. No problem. I appreciate you having me.
Elana Leoni:
Thank you so much for joining us, Dan O. What you have shared has really cleared up a lot of things for me personally. And I love how open you were and how practical and also strategic your advice was. So, thank you. I know you're going to be sharing some resources in the show notes as well.
And speaking of the show notes, you can access them at leoniconsultinggroup.com. So, that's leoniconsultinggroup, so two Gs dot com backslash the number 53, so backslash 53. We're going to include the transcript of this in case you just want to be a quick reader. We're going to embed the audio. And like I said, we're going to put in all relevant resources as well. So, thank you all for joining. We will see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. If you liked what you heard and want to dive deeper, you can visit leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast for all show notes, links and freebies mentioned in each episode.
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Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Dan O’Reilly, Guest
With over 30 years in sales, Dan has a love for the profession. He also has become very committed and passionate about the education space, specifically the K12 EdTech market. Working with and selling into school districts is unlike any other B2B sales process. While leading the sales and marketing departments of a local EdTech company called Netchemia, Dan really connected to the overarching mission to improve student achievement and loved working with people who are truly trying to make an impact in this world. It has now become his mission to share that experience by helping other EdTech companies in the K12 market to create more scalable and predictable demand for their offerings.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
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