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Keith Rabkin - CRO @ PandaDoc | Otter.ai

Keith Rabkin - CRO @ PandaDoc

Frankie Vignone28min

Griffin Reilly

00:00

Welcome to another episode of the elite selling podcast. We are your hosts, Frankie and Griffin. Today we are joined by our good friend Keith Rabkin. Keith is the Chief Revenue Officer at Panda doc. And Keith has held multiple leadership positions, not just in sales, but in go to market in growth in partner management at companies like Google, Adobe security scorecard and more. And today, we're talking to Keith about what enterprise sellers do specifically around customer focused and being customer centric and what that actually means what you need to do to be a customer focused seller and why it's so important. And before we jump into this episode, if you're liking our content, if you're listening to this episode, please do Frankie and me a favor, like, subscribe, share this episode. Without further ado, here is our good friend Keith.

Griffin Reilly

01:04

Welcome to the elite selling podcast. Thank you for jumping on how are you today?

Unknown Speaker

01:09

I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.

Griffin Reilly

01:11

It is our pleasure. It is Friday afternoon, Frankie and I are ecstatic to have you on to talk about it leads sellers in your opinion. And I know just given your experience, we talked about really what an elite seller means to you all the different characteristics. But there was one key theme that came across, which is the elite sellers are customer focused, Frankie and I would agree, obviously. But we'd like for you to kind of go a little bit deeper on what that really means to you around customer focused selling.

Speaker 1

01:42

So I think in terms of elite sellers, being customer focused, there's a couple things. The first is, you've got to understand what keeps your customer up at night, that could be the state of the business, it could be understanding what they're doing to get in front of their customers, how they sell the different challenges that the business is facing. But you're only going to get a couple of shots in front of your executives that you're selling to and your prospects. And so it's really important to be able to put yourself in their shoes. I still remember like this one book that I read in high school, and it was like about taking a walk in another person's shoes to try to understand them. And I believe that elite sellers are those who can do that. Because you understand your customer, you're able to relate to them, you're able to put things in a way that resonates with them. And you're able to find that Win Win value that they get something they need, and you get the sale. So that's really important. I also believe that the best customer centric sellers sell on pain, right? We all talk about value based selling. But what customers love that pain is what they care about solving. And so I think, a version of fear, tapping into that pain and how you can help them avoid it is a really big motivator. Yeah,

Speaker 2

03:02

everyone wants to talk about the feel good stuff. But what gets people to move and make a decision is pain, fortunately, or unfortunately, at least at least we know it now at least if you're listening to this podcast, so great call out. What would you say? Like value? Right? It's beyond? It's beyond the steak dinners. It's beyond buying people drinks, fine people, Christmas gifts, right? Like what is something that's of true value? You kind of touched on a few points, but like, give us a little of an example of that.

Speaker 1

03:31

I think there's like what, what motivates the person that you're talking to write and it's, it's what motivates them from a business perspective, but also intrinsically as a person, right? Do I am I afraid of looking bad in front of my boss actually recently had this conversation with the sales exec at a pretty big company. And I was asking them, you know, do you ever worry about missing your forecast and from the CRM, or that has actually nothing to do with their business results and everything to do about their personal relation and their personal career growth. And if I can help solve that problem, then I make them look good. They know they're gonna get to avoid looking bad in front of their boss. And maybe I can get that sale. And they were like really interested in that. So that personal pain is one thing to fear. It could be business results, like I don't want to miss my revenue target. My company's spending too much money. It takes too long to upload documents. That's something we saw that Panadol like, how often do you go through this pain of like as a seller wasting your time moving data back and forth between systems? If you can tap into that, like are you worried about spending too much time moving things around and wasting time on documents versus being in front of customers and selling doing what you do? Well, suddenly you're tapping into this thing that's really visceral and intrinsic, and you move beyond this rational sale to something that is is like deeply rooted in what the person wants to do and what they care about. Yeah,

Griffin Reilly

05:03

you you're talking about empathizing with your customers and put, like you said, putting yourself in their shoes and understanding and kind of coming with a point of view around. This is what I think might be keeping you up at night. And this is something that we're helping our customers solve, and the challenges they're running into. One thing that I think sellers struggle a lot with is moving, moving B moving on in a sales cycle, once they've found surface level pain as opposed to they hear forecasting is a challenge. Okay, great. Forecasting is a challenge. I check that box, I found pain now I'm going to move on as opposed to Okay, forecasting is a challenge. What about forecasting is a problem? How big of a problem is this? I think as sellers we're so we're so we're optimistic, we're positive, we want to be liked. And so we're we hesitate to really dive into pain because we don't want to be linked with with pain, we don't want to have a negative conversation. We'd like to keep it positive. So what do you say to sellers, either in your organization or up and coming sellers that, like, how do you coach them to get really deep into that pain and why it's so important.

Speaker 1

06:13

I like to keep it positive on talking about, I think one of the tricks is if you can anchor on that pain, and then tease a little right. I know sellers can be you know, have a lot of personality sometimes, sometimes. And you can tap into that, like oh my god like that. That's really tough. I think I can solve that for you. But before I do that, let me get a little bit deeper. Let me understand exactly why this is so painful for you. And you're holding out the hope like you're tapping this, like this glimmer of the promised land for them without getting into and I think oftentimes sellers just want to jump ahead, you're like, Okay, I got them, I got the T's in, it's time to move forward. Let's move this from s one to s two. Just hold on, take your time. Get with the customer, let them let them understand that you're in it with them. And tell them you're going to solve it. You're going to tell them how you're going to solve it. But like keep going deeper to understand their perspective. And I think that's how we work it. Or how I tried to get my team to work. Yeah,

Speaker 2

07:17

there's there's definitely an art to it. You don't want to just go down the line asking blunt questions, but have a little finesse to it. So that's why I'm gonna bring

Griffin Reilly

07:26

your personality Frankie. That's what I've been trying to tell Frankie, you know.

Speaker 2

07:30

You've been working on this for a long time. Griff. It's still not working. I don't know what's going on. I'll coach you up. I'll catch up. Appreciate you always always saving my butt. What else do people need to know about being customer focus? Keith?

Speaker 1

07:42

I think it's okay to tell the customer No, I mean, or tell them they don't need something. I love it when sellers like, you don't need that. Because like instantly, I trust them. If you're not trying to sell me the feature I don't need. That's a great sign. Like I know you're in it with me. I think you know, a few minutes ago, we talked about trying to find that win win, where the customer gets the value. And the seller gets the deal will show them you're in it with them, right? This is not about getting the sale and getting out and I'm handing you off to the CSM. This is like I'm here for you. And I'm not going to just sell you something because I make more Commission, or I get a bigger deal size. I'm here to give you the thing that's actually right for you. And the moment you can tell them, Well, you know what, you don't need that. Like, there's no way I'm gonna sell you that package. It's not right. Like you've built this trust. And suddenly they're like, Oh, well, maybe if he's not telling me this, I actually do need the thing that he or she is telling me to buy? Yeah,

Speaker 2

08:41

it's like it's like going to go into a restaurant and asking for the recommendation. And they don't tell you to buy the most expensive bottle of wine. They're like, this is the middle of the road, you're like, Alright, now I'm buying more from you.

Speaker 1

08:55

Is it like where someone tells you, you don't need something you're like, I really trust you. And I want to buy more like I love this interaction. And they're gonna reverse psychology. It's weird. But

Griffin Reilly

09:06

do you feel the same way about disqualifying a potential client? Like do you do you think that it's important to say, you know, for reps to say, hey, look, based on what I've learned so far, I don't think we're a good fit. I think we should you know, we should we should not be working together. Do you feel that it's it's the same ballpark? Or do you feel like they're a little bit different? If

Speaker 1

09:24

you really believe it? I do. Yeah. Because I think what's going to happen is you're just going to turn that deal out later, right? Let's get them over the line. That customer is going to be unhappy with your company. They're going to tell everybody what a bad experience they had. Suddenly word gets around. Your churn stats as a company go down and yeah, maybe you got the commission and maybe you even make it through without a clawback. But the long run impact is worse, where people start to say, you know, the selling process was Bs, and it didn't make sense and they're trying to force fit, something I didn't need and the company's losing costs. summers and your CSM are unhappy with you. It's not worth it to me, like, I want to do what's right for the customer because I believe that's going to build long term value. And they may go refer someone like, wow, these sellers are great. You know, they're they're not trying to force me into something I don't need. So I really believe in direct by the customer, even if it's a DQ, yeah,

Griffin Reilly

10:21

so outside, so outside of outside of saying no or showing that you're not trying to sell them things that they don't need. And in really being customer focused, like, what else can reps do to really build trust with their current clients and prospective clients? Give us some give us some action items for some sales reps,

Speaker 1

10:41

I would say make things easy. There's this one seller I can think of who's selling into me into my company, and she's just making it so pleasant, so easy the information she sends me, it's always customized to what I need. Do I want a video? Do I want a paper? Do I want like one slide? Ask your ask your customer. And look, you probably have great enablement materials at whatever company you're at. But if it takes one minute to go record a video where you're taking a paper and vocalizing it, so your customer can watch it on their phone. And if they prefer it that way, that's fantastic. Or take a paper, put it in chat, GBT, your CIO might not like that. But they'll you know, have it summarized into like, a bite size tip. That's super helpful. Make a referral, anything where it meets with what the customer wants, and the way they want to digest that information. Because they're so busy. If you can make the the information that you have land for them. That's so powerful.

Griffin Reilly

11:46

Yeah,

Speaker 2

11:48

that's great. I love it. We're is there like software that she's using to make it easier? Is it just like old school? Over here? Everyone's thinking it how do you get that book

Speaker 1

11:59

on their site? Like, there's a lot of deal rooms? And I think some of them are kind of clunky, right? Um, or easy? You know, he

Unknown Speaker

12:08

was asking, yeah, I

Speaker 1

12:09

think that I and I don't want to give it away. Because if I give away the company, she's okay. Don't say it, then. Yeah, but some of the deal rooms, I think, even though like, I'm really amazed, like in this case, they had a mutual action plan. In the deal room, the way it was format, it was just so well done, made it really easy for me to digest made it easy for me to send to my rev ops team. That was super helpful. But what was even better was, I frankly, don't like clicking the links, like I'm kind of an email fiend. So she just stuck, stuck the information right in the email. And then it was right there and easy for me to digest. Like, that's not a very hard thing. I don't think I'm very hard customer. But, you know, she's she's quickly figured out too, that I respond to emails quickly, I read the stuff that's in an email. And the stuff that's in the room is great for me to send to others, but not as great for me to read. And so she does a good job of multithreading using the room. But for me to consume new information, she just sends an email with it right in the email, instead of having an attachment that I need to go click through and read. You're gonna

Speaker 2

13:12

have a bunch of people emailing you once this goes.

Griffin Reilly

13:18

Man, you took an interesting path in your career starting at Charles Schwab and UBS and in Google on some of the, you know, operations manager side on the marketing side, like obviously, you know, running sales at Panda doc, and you've run sales security scorecard like weird it along your career, did you form this, this passion for customer focus? Was this early on in the career outside of sales? When you notice this? And you brought that in? You know, from day one? Or was this you know, hey, when you got further down your path and sales leadership, you really focused on like, if you my team, I'm going to build a team that is 100% customer focus, we're along this journey. Did this happen?

Speaker 1

14:02

Yeah, it was really, outside of sales. So I like to think that I grew up as a leader, as a manager as a business person at Google, I spent 10 years there. And one of the first principles they drill into you is to follow the user. And it just stuck with me, I joined there in 2007. It was like right in the middle of hyper growth. And it was just an amazing time to watch this company that has since become so ingrained in our life, look at what customers were doing, trying to anticipate their needs, and always try to do the right thing for the customer. So that was really important to me. I took it with me, I've taken every single job since then. And it was followed up by this mentor I had, who was my manager for two years, who came back to it he was like customer centricity everything. Don't do it if it's not customer centric. And why did that resonate? Not just because of my time at Google, but when I like look at the marketplace of companies that I respect and companies that I think have done phenomenally well. They follow the user, Amazon, right? They just make it so pleasant, so easy to transact, that you don't even go looking for a better price anymore half the time. I mean, sometimes you do, but like, it's because it's so easy. Like, I just bought a pair of shoes. They were too small, I gotta return. I'm like, I don't have to do anything except, you know, click a button on my phone. And when I go to Whole Foods, drop them off, when I'm already doing my shopping. Netflix, like another one. It's just like, the easiest software to use. It's so convenient. I'm probably dating myself. But like, I remember going to the store and like dropping off, you know, the videotapes, or like having a male, the DVDs, that all went away. They were the first ones to do it. And they reap the rewards. I think you know, another one, maybe more modern a stigma on the b2b side. Like, it's just this beautiful product that's so elegant. Everything's done simultaneously in the cloud. And that customer centricity just goes so far, and makes people successful. And they love the product. Yeah,

Speaker 2

16:03

I kind of miss those days of going to the to the blockbuster that that was fun.

Griffin Reilly

16:09

Saturday night. Yeah.

Speaker 2

16:10

And so I point on the Amazon thing, I can't remember the exact story behind it. But I know that when they're reworking the app, they, they were like, there's too many clicks to make this happen. So they like went from three clicks to two to one. And like, every single time they did that, like their sales just skyrocketed. So I think going back to your point about that woman who's selling to you, she's just making it so easy, where she could easily just go into, you know, a seismic or a high spot, grab some generic content, flip it over to you probably get a decent job, but like we're talking about her on the podcast, because she's like, What are those next easy clicks for Keith so that he doesn't have to go search for it. Don't make people chase for new material, don't make people go look for things when you're trying to sell them something. So I think that applies to sales. It's like how can you go that extra mile make it that one less click for your customer?

Speaker 1

17:05

I think it's a great point. I mean, if you treat you if you treat the sale, like a product, like you're turning your sales process into the Amazon mobile app of how you get them to buy, and you optimize that for what you know about this customer, you're gonna have a more successful outcome. Yeah,

Speaker 2

17:24

and you'll build that brand. Because the world is small people are going to talk about you see, eventually, you'll have sales coming to you. Hope we

Speaker 1

17:32

see that all the time. I mean, we have customers who have amazing experience with our sales reps of Hana doc, and they refer customers and we've started to really tap into that. And, you know, try to double down on that customer centricity because we know it leads to a great experience.

Griffin Reilly

17:49

That's awesome. Keith, what's what's something that you see sellers miss, often, when it comes to delivering that great customer experience, or being that customer focus rep, what's something that often gets overlooked or missed in the sales process, or even the customers or customer management process?

Speaker 1

18:10

I would say, be authentic, you know, I think a lot of times sellers have a personality, and it's, it's a very hard job, like you've got to be on all the time. He's got to be entertaining, because if you're not entertaining, like, anatomy, and like entertaining, like, really funny, but you've got to keep them engaged, engaging, maybe he's a better attorney. Yeah. Um, but you can put on a front and the moment you have that front, if it's not really who you are, your customer is going to sniff it out, they're going to feel like you're hiding something, or they're going to think you're tricking them. And it's, that's going to create a gap between you and them, which is going to prevent you from helping them get to the value. So I think it's really important to establish an authentic brand that you're comfortable showing up in day in and day out, even when it's a bad day. You know, it doesn't mean you have to act like super high doesn't mean you have to act all like, slick. It's just like, be yourself, let that come through. And I think that goes a long way with customers. And it ties back into what we were saying about, like being willing to say no, being willing to tell them what you have isn't what they need. That is being authentic. Yeah,

Speaker 2

19:28

I remember when I first started in in tech sales, I was working for Cisco and I felt like the dumbest person in the room probably because I was because everybody's so smart over there. And you're just like trying to I remember I was trying to make up all this stuff. And then eventually I was like, people can just smell it right away. And when you just say, Oh, I don't know, or let me go find that answer for you. It puts it takes the pressure off of you.

Speaker 1

19:53

I remember that same lesson like a long time ago, in my very first job at Charles Schwab. What Were one of my bosses like, if you don't know, it's okay. To say you don't know, just say, I don't know, I'm gonna find that out immediately. And I'll get right back to you. And I think that's another way to just establish that credibility with your prospect. I don't know, I'm going to find out. And I'll get back to you today. And it's another chance for you to have an interaction. But it also shows that, you know, you're not there to BS them or give them the wrong answer.

Griffin Reilly

20:25

I had this similar experience, my old company barracuda. And I was probably a year in and I was on a call with one of my sales engineers. And you know, we had probably six or seven, technical Senior Technical Specialist come on and grill me with some questions, we had an hour long call. And I remember in the first five minutes, I was like, I could try and Bs my way through this meeting. Or what I did was I just said, look, I think there's been a miscommunication. I am not a technical expert. I do not want to waste another 55 minutes of your time. Why don't we pause here. Let's reschedule and let me make sure I've grabbed the right resources on because I don't want to waste your time. And the reaction that I got was very appreciative and very genuine, like, thank you. We appreciate your honesty. It's okay. Let's reschedule. So that to me, was kind of the lightbulb moment of you're allowed to say I don't know. And you're allowed to raise your hand and just be genuine and be honest about that. Did you close the deal? Or what? You know, I can't comment on you know, you can

Unknown Speaker

21:34

gonna be the roast of Griffin Riley on that thing?

Griffin Reilly

21:37

Oh, go ahead. Jazz, right. Oh, that would have been fun. That would have been fun.

Speaker 2

21:41

Keith, anything else that you'd like to share with the listeners that we haven't touched on?

Speaker 1

21:47

I mean, I think it's table stakes. But you have to do your homework. Right? And I don't, you know, it's very again, that like in authenticity is really easy to sniff out. So when somebody does like the the cursory homework. It's like, I knew you just like looked at my LinkedIn and grab the first person read that, but where you actually do your homework, and you're like, okay, not only did I see the company you're at in the company before, but I looked through your entire history, like the fact that you went all the way back to Charles Schwab, for my history, which is a long time ago. It's like, you've done some homework, if you know, that, like my career progressed through these different things. And I'm a non traditional CRO, because I didn't grow up in sales. And so hey, I may have a different take than someone who's been in sales for 20 years. That's great. If you've read one of my articles, versus you've read all my articles, you can sense a theme on those articles. It's like, how much do you want it? Yeah, that's a lot of work. But when you do that work, you get all this insight into the person, go read the 10k on the company, what are they struggling with? Now? Is there a way you can help them? What do you know about the other execs who I'm working with? What do you think they might care about? Right? Now it's this, we've got the economic buyer, as well. So like, what do you think my CFO cares about? Have you gone and researched him? That kind of homework is the next level that can help you be more customer centric? And also understand some of what might be going on in my mind beyond? What's happening in the sales process?

Griffin Reilly

23:20

Absolutely, I think that it's just such an easy way to stand out with just a little bit of homework. I mean, if you're willing to do more homework, and the more prepared you are in a conversation, it just gives you this level of confidence that you know, you're going to stand out because you're knowledgeable about the person you're speaking with and the company that they work for, and the goals that they're trying to solve. If you can come in with that point, it will just help you shape a point of view. And I think that that's what elite sellers bring to the table is not just the homework but okay, then. So what what is your point of view about problems that you can help solve, because if you can get to that point fast, you're going to be respected, and you're going to look to be looked at as that trusted adviser. Spot on. So let's jump into some resources that you often recommend to sellers. And again, we talked about this, it can be relative to this topic of customer centric, or it can just be anything that has made a difference for you and your career.

Speaker 1

24:22

Yeah, I'm gonna give some I don't know if these have ever been given on your podcast, let's say you're a little bit different than maybe some of the like, never split the difference, I'm sure how many times which is great it is. But all right, we'll see if we can give something different. So the first thing I would recommend is go read the Google IPO letter. It's it's a couple years old at this point. But there's a whole section on serving users as the focus of the company. It's also in a document called the nine principles of innovation that Google produce, and I just think it's brilliant. I mean, there's plenty of things Google has maybe not done as well over the years. But the core principles that the company was founded on is amazing. And I continue to refer back to the nine principles of innovation. And I think it will serve seller as well. So that's my first. The second is my all time favorite business book was actually given to us as a gift. When I was at Adobe. I was like, I don't know about this, but it's called the heart of business. I think that name maybe turned me off a little bit as being too soft. But it's by this guy cubera, Joe Lee, who was the CEO of Best Buy, and an ex McKinsey consultant. And he talks about the purpose of a company and the purpose of a company is solving problems for its users. And then in return that is rewarding to employees, including sellers, and in return that drives profit for the business. And I love it. Like it's actually really well written, it resonates really well, I think one of the things I always try to find is that win win win between the business, the customers, the employees. And, you know, it's amazing, the best buy this, like brick and mortar resource has actually thrived in the age of Amazon. And this principle, the heart of Business has been a really big reason for that. And I think if you go into a Best Buy, you'll see that their sellers are very customer centric. And that's something I love. And then my last favorite would be the book grit. I say my all time favorite word is tenacity, like that ability to just like hold on and break through any obstacle in your path. But this book, grit kind of merges tenacity with the purpose of helping customers or the purpose of a business or the purpose of anything. And I think that combination of purpose plus tenacity, fits really well with what an elite seller should be. The ability to break through any obstacle in your path while fulfilling a purpose. And that purpose has to be this like mission of solving problems for your customer, while rewarding your business.

Speaker 2

26:58

Love it, I can honestly say I don't think we've heard a single one of those. So well done on bringing some fresh material to the pod. Appreciate that, of course. All right key. So let's wrap it up here. Last and final question. How do you define an elite seller,

Speaker 1

27:12

so probably no surprise at this point, somebody's customer focused ability to understand the customer resonate with them, and connect your message of what your company has to offer them to solve their pain. Second, again, no surprise, what we just talked about tenacity or grit, the person who's willing to go through the extra effort, find ways to solve problems for their customers, and willing to kind of do that extra work that we talked about whether it's recording that extra video, or going back into the deal room and pulling the information and sticking it in a different format just so I can consume it. That extra mile that tenacity that grit is super important. And when you bring these two things together, the customer centricity and the grit, that's somebody I want to work with, again, like they're solving problems for me, they're not selling to me, they're solving problems. And that's what I love. And that's what I love to see in my team because I know they're going to help my customer that's going to lead to business results that's going to lead to happy customers and that's going to lead to growth for the seller.

Speaker 2

28:23

Key thanks for joining the podcast today. So many good takeaways. If you're enjoying the podcast, do us a favor, like subscribe, share it out with a friend or two it would mean the world to us for takeaways with Keith, be authentic, bring your own personality to the sales cycle, do your homework and finally make it easy for your customers to buy from you. He thanks again for joining us today. Hope to have you on again soon.

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