If we train our salespeople to use data and devise probing questions that sort out which prospects are worth their time, is our main instruction to reps, “Go for the disqualification jugular vein!”? How’s that working for you? Santosh Sharan, president, and COO of Apollo.io joins our Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall, and Corey Frank, in part three of their three-part conversation about the roles of technology and data in cold calling, and the necessity of training the human voice to do more than disqualify prospects. Santosh explains, “Sales reps depend on technology so much that they don’t take time to do research and take a look at conversations strategically.” Chris and Corey both concur: To be a good talker and listener in a sales setting, training is essential, and the goal of that training should be gaining the buyer’s trust through the use of a great script and “The Impact of the Human Voice,” which is the title of today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode.

Listen to the previous segments of this interview:

EP105: Data & Trust: Your Assets in Market Domination
EP104: The Increasing Atomic Weight of Data
About Our Guest

Santosh Sharan, president and COO at Apollo.io, a leading data intelligence and sales engagement platform. Previously, Santosh was COO at LeadGenius, COO at Aberdeen, and VP at ZoomInfo.

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Here is the complete transcript to this episode:

Corey Frank (01:21):

Well, that's critical. Again, as you know, not denigrating my profession, I'm in my profession, so I know. And is that you can't just take this plutonium 235 and drop it off at the office of the sales manager, and then just say, "Hey, you're good," without any guiding principles and data about operating procedures. And I think that's where Chris to your point was on the tech stack. The MarTech stack particularly is there's so many different increments that we can chase endlessly, but I think it really comes down to the companies that have the deep philosophy, right? You're not a carpet bagger. This is your industry. I don't think you're going to medical school or law school anymore. You are in the data industry. You are in the success industry, right? You are an entrepreneur that continues to see the world differently when it comes to empowering, giving companies like mine the rocket field, companies like Chris' the rocket field.

Corey Frank (02:22):

And so I want to know that about Apollo as if my folks are aligned that way, philosophically, that I'm buying into a product like Apollo that sees the world that I do, or that challenges me versus simply as a one-dimensional MarTech, that's going to charge me another seat license. And it may not last renewal period because, hey, my guys didn't use it or they didn't use it well. And you realize your account managers, your success managers that you have been spending an awful lot of time trying to reengage with the clients after they've sold them about, "Hey, did you know about this feature? Hey, did you know about this feature?"

Corey Frank (02:59):

And there's got to be some correlation where how many success managers you have versus your renewal rates. And I'm sure for a lot of companies it's a diagram, you should have maybe positioned it or sold it the right way at the beginning. And finding out a little bit about the culture of the organization, which is tough for salespeople to do, because, hey, we want to hit that number, but Chris, what are your thoughts on that?

Chris Beall (03:24):

Well, you know me, my crystal ball is actually here because I drove the excursion down to Arizona. So I have the room in that massive 9,000-pound beast for a crystal ball finally. No trunk, it's mostly crystal ball. I actually think what Santosh just described is coming to pass. We've seen it in what Henry at RealSource is doing, that he does have a system that analyzes that highly vertical data in commercial real estate world around medical office buildings.

Corey Frank (03:54):

Very small ma