Going from Connection to Opportunity Creation with Blue Flores

Going from Connection to Opportunity Creation with Blue Flores

Outbound is hard. Smart buyers can recognize an outbound template from a mile away. And that template? It’s bound to find its way in the trash, if not spam.

We took a moment to chat with Blue Flores, Strategic Development @ Liveperson, formerly QuantumMetric, to learn more about what is working for him. Here’s what he had to say:

Put yourself in the buyers’ shoes

There’s this assumption that companies buy software so there’s a lot of focus on the company and titles, but at the end of the day a person is going to approach buying software just like they approach buying anything else. 

When you buy something - what’s the first thing you do? Ask people you trust for recommendations. For shoes, that’s probably your friends, but if it’s software it’s probably your team, your partners, your peers at different companies. 

Trust should be your first signal

People only want to buy from people they know (and trust). So the big question for you as a seller becomes, how do I get into that inner circle of trust? 

Previous Product Users are the warmest leads for me because they know what Quantum Metric is, know the value, and used it at a previous company. 

Understanding the actual relationship someone has with your company is important. We used another platform before Champify, but it just showed me people who worked for our customers. We work with enterprise companies so there are thousands of employees, and not all of them are familiar with our product, so it didn’t have the same degree of warmth and trust built in. 

There are two big other areas of warmth where you walk into conversations with a different level of trust and rapport: partners and existing customers. 

I try to work with partners and reps at complementary tech to see if we can do joint campaigns together. One of us will already have built that relationship and that trust for our customers, making it easier to start the conversation.

I also make sure to keep my relationships with my customers strong. If they’re our customer and they know someone I want to work with - I’ll ask them if they will introduce me. That comes with double the trust because they’re actively using our solution. 

People are willing to help people they know and trust. 

Start a with a Conversation not a Pitch

Starting with a conversation is what separates the good from the great. If you can start and carry on a conversation that’s valuable to your prospect, you start to build trust and that relationship.  We sell a technical product so a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to sales people. You have to really be able to build that relationship first. 

With Champify it’s easy. I usually start out with a conversation - “Hey saw you used Quantum Metric at {Company} - what did you think of it?” “How were you using it?”

I’m able to use that conversation starter to connect the dots, and tie into an initiative their new company has to see if we can help.  

I am constantly looking for new ways to build relationships first. I moved to Denver, used that to start a conversation about the tech-scene and Denver and get their thoughts. I met someone at Out in Tech and built a relationship with that shared foundation. If I don’t see something I can connect to them right away with, I talk about things I’m hearing in the market and ask their thoughts, and if it applies to them.

These conversations lead to genuine relationships and trust. Even if it doesn’t make sense to explore Quantum Metric right away, when they have a problem with analytics - I’m always the first to come to mind.