>> Andrew Jacobs: Hello everyone and welcome to this episode, the Sales one of the Women Talking About Learning podcast. I'm Andrew Jacobs. Sales is a scary topic for lots of people in learning and development. Are we salespeople, are we marketing people? And um, why is sales a bit of a dirty word? To work this through, we just wanted to pull at some threads and are delighted to welcome some guests who are going to do that for us.
Our first guest is Kirsty Lewis. Kirsty is the founder of the School of Facilitation, known for her passion for designing and delivering brilliant workshops that create purpose, ownership, safety and and engagement. She's a convener of freelance facilitators and trainers through the SOF Collective. While supporting corporate clients to evolve their learning game. On the side, she is dishing up SoFest 2025, a, uh, festival for all facilitators and trainers. Our second guest
is Sarah Wood. Sarah loves creating learning and development programmes that really help people grow and do their best work. With a solid background in learning and development, she brings that experience into high velocity sales enablement teams where things move fast and impact matters. Sarah builds practical, engaging frameworks that support both individual growth and team success. I really do recommend listening to this episode. I've heard it three times now and it's like an
onion. Each time I listen it unpeels something new. Recorded in April 2025. This is Women talking about learning. This is Kirsty and Sarah talking about sales. >> Kirsty Lewis: Hi Kirsty. >> Sarah Wood: Hey. >> Kirsty Lewis: Hi. Hi. How are you? >> Sarah Wood: I'm good, how are you? >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, I am really good, thank you. And I am going to jump right in and I'm going to ask you what attracted you to this topic and why are you here to talk about it today?
>> Sarah Wood: Uh, why talk about sales? So firstly, I come from a commercial background, so when I was actually in uh, an organisation I was in uk, uh, sales team selling one of the biggest global beer brands in the world, which was just amazing. Guinness, uh, and then I worked in their global sales team and that's where I then discovered, um, training, development and learning. So I just love the sales conversation and I realised, though I hated it at the time, let me be really clear,
but I really enjoy it now. How about you, what brought you to this conversation? >> Kirsty Lewis: Well, it's interesting because I have a really strong background in learning and development, um, all the way back from When I was 17, I worked in a Petsmart in America and I, um, trained puppies. I was a puppy trainer. So I've essentially always done training of some description in my career. But what I realised in recent years is that a lot of it was
for salespeople. So even though I was in an L and D function, it was for salespeople, it was always for salespeople. And then I thought, um, why not just be like pure sales enablement? So then I moved into sales enablement. >> Sarah Wood: Actually, just as you're talking, I'm like going, I have been a salesperson, I then train salespeople internally. I then train salespeople from a freelance
perspective. And now that I run my own business, I sell, I have to sell in my role as a provider, supplier back into corporates and also on a B2C and a B2E basis. So, yeah, always selling thread. >> Kirsty Lewis: There is a thread there, yeah. >> Sarah Wood: Wow. >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, yeah. But I think that it's interesting because sales is um, something that as L and D people we need to like be skilled in in some way and
feels it. I, I, my body language, you can't see it, but my body language like kind of scrunches up at the thought of selling things. >> Sarah Wood: Oh, it's really interesting. Let me just decode some language because I fell into the three letter acronym TRAP. B2C is business to consumer and B to E is business to entrepreneur. So, so selling, it's not just, um, business to business. B2B.
>> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah. >> Sarah Wood: And there, I think there are different types of sales models that exist and therefore different type of conversation that you have. And I can app, you said like your body's like sort of almost like shrinking in on itself. I'm like, yeah. Honestly, when I was a graduate I had the choice, did I want to go into the marketing programme or did I want to go into the sales programme? And I chose the marketing programme because I thought it sounded
sexier. And the thought of being a salesperson, uh, it reminded me. So in Britain we would call it being the double glazing salesperson. >> Kirsty Lewis: Oh, yeah, yeah. >> Sarah Wood: Or the car salesperson. And it just, I just thought I don't want to be that person, like pushing M to me it was like a pushy role. And then I, I become the accidental salesperson because for various reasons in my career and then I realised, oh, uh, it's not about pushing, it's about relationships.
And as soon as that started to become more apparent, it's about how you build relationships, how you understand what the other person wants and needs. It just helped me shift my, my mentality that it, uh, selling wasn't, isn't a dirty word, but it can feel like it. >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, no, I Think that's such a, like, almost profound sort of moment that you touched upon. Because that relationship and that person
to person and that's. That that human element is why I enjoy learning and development is tapping into what sparks the fire in someone to learn something, to change behaviour, to. I like to use the phrase elicit behaviour change. It's like kind of like draw them towards you, like you would like. Gently, gently. And. And that. That understanding the other person's point of view and that is sales that is creating good training. It's the. It's. There's a similar thing that you're
tapping into. So this is where my body language has kind of become more animated and I'm less kind of like tight and worried and I'm more like, yes, this makes sense. >> Sarah Wood: And because when I think about selling, for me, I'm selling in, into an organisation and I don't even think of it like that, more from those. Just have a really good conversation because someone's coming with a need and then, um, you're there to help solve the problem or help with the pain.
From your point of view, what kind of selling do you do internally? >> Kirsty Lewis: So in the sales enablement, creating training for salespeople, I have to really understand, again, their pain. Where, what. What is. What are they facing every day? A lot of. A lot of the things that
they're facing into is. They're. The organisation that I work for, for is selling a technological software solution that is really, like, complex and it's proffering a solution to a very complicated problem that lots and lots of people in the organisation have touch points over and have different responsibilities over.
And so that salesperson is the spokesperson for the company and has to have gravitas and has to have like, um, the ability to speak to lots of different spokes, people in that organisation with confidence and to. They don't want to feel stupid, they don't want to, like, be asked a question that they can't answer and then their credibility is through the
floor. They have, they have, um, a really, like, almost scary, I would say, um, facing into these sorts of conversations and it's my responsibility to help them have the tools and the knowledge and the understanding that they need to. To hold those conversations. Um, most of the time they're, uh, they're amazing, honestly. They are amazing group of people, but they always are like, asking for more, asking for more, asking for
more. And, um, there's a. There's a lot of, um, very quick pivoting that we have to do to create training for them, but it's good. >> Sarah Wood: That they're asking for it and there's a pull rather than you feel like you've got to go out and push. Push training down onto them. >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, yeah. >> Sarah Wood: I was curious, like, though, from your point of view, though, do you have to do any. Selling inverted commas, she says with her fingers.
>> Kirsty Lewis: Well, I probably didn't answer your question earlier, did I? So I'll. I'll try again. I, um, think that I, I don't like to sell to them because if they're not needing it, if I'm not, um, try. If I have to convince them that they need a thing, then they probably don't need that thing. Um, it's. >> Sarah Wood: Or do you have to like. And not necessarily. It doesn't sound like you need to sell to your, your salespeople, but it's like
influencing and working with senior leadership. There's always. I sometimes just flip the language. It's not internally. It can be about influencing and persuading it. It's still the same set of skills, in my opinion, as it is when you're often selling. And I was just curious, like, what. >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, no, let me, let me restart then, if I could, because, um, I, I do have an example to share and it's a very recent one we are delivering.
I am running a programme. It's a weekly programme where we're delivering a, um, a series of live trainings that is, uh, once a week, half an hour with Q and A on topics that are top of mind in terms of like, it's end of quarter, you need to close on this deal. Or this is a new product that your customers are going to be asking you about because we just advertised it, um, these sorts of, like, very, um, in the moment topics. And, um, I am not the subject matter expert, so
my responsibility is to run the show. I have developed the programme and I am keeping the wheels on the bus turning. But I'm not the one delivering the training, I'm not the one who is the subject matter expert, but I am weekly, throughout the week, in advance of the session, I am, um, coaching the subject matter experts to deliver content that is appropriate for the audience.
So there's a challenge, there's some tension there because subject matter expert, they know everything there is to know and I have to sit down with them and say, that's great, but what's one thing that they, they can do better after. After 30 minutes? 30 minutes isn't very long. So what's one thing that they can do better and how can you kind of distil all of your amazing knowledge into a
30 minute session? And they're like I can't, I can't. So I have a lot of coaching and a lot of guidance that I offer as we move through that process of developing a session that they can deliver that will meet the needs of the salespeople in that moment. Um, does that. >> Sarah Wood: No. I'm curious what and I just think it's something that L and D people probably need to know how to do is how to sell L and D internally. How to sell or position. The benefits of L and D
uses sales skills as far as I'm concerned. So it's understand the benefits of L and D, understand um, what is the needs of the business and therefore how do you match benefits and needs and then use your features? Um, so that's where I was coming from in my head is serious because I know when I was in the global role at Diageo and we were lucky, we owned our own learning
as the sales function so we didn't have to position it. But I know my leaders were always positioning back into the board, into their peer group of the sl, the senior leadership team. Um, the benefits of why we were doing something called the Diageo way of selling. So I think, and we could do it because we were salespeople but it's something we've talked about before is like not everybody knows how to sell or knows how the techniques.
>> Kirsty Lewis: I think there's a lot of challenges with L and Z as a function in that space in terms of selling its ability because the, there's, there's um, in my experience and so I don't want to generalise across an entire profession but there is difficulty in measuring impact. So how do you measure impact and how do you define what the need is? A lot of times people say oh, we need training, we need training. Just uh,
create us some training, it'll fix the problem. And then when you drill down into it, actually training may not be the right, the appropriate solution. And so then you're spending company resource on something that isn't going to actually solve anything. Um, so there's, there's a need for um, as you touched on leadership, being able to position L and D in a way where it can be a strategic partner in the business and
can have access. There's um, that partnership um, element of it where we as a function need to be able to speak, speak to other people and other teams and have um, that level of um, conversation where we can say, well, what are your problems? Tell me what's going on. And there's um, you know, I faced into like a lot of siloing or a lot of um, like fear, like, oh, you're, I, I can't tell you what's wrong. I don't want to get in trouble or I don't want any, any, anything to blow back onto
me. So there's lots of culture issues that you face into as well. I think that sales enablement where I sit now in my current role is uh, better positioned to be able to measure the impact of training because you have pipeline length or qualifications and all these sorts of metrics that are already being measured
that you can hang your hat on. But in L and D it's a little bit more loosey goosey and you end up in a position where you could almost be saying, oh, well, we think that this will solve a problem, but we aren't in any position to be able to investigate all of the other factors. And so we don't actually know, but we're going to do it anyway. And then, uh, and then you're just kind of like shooting.
>> Sarah Wood: I do wonder as well though. The question is, um, like, why do we struggle to think of L and D as a sales process? You know, how do we, how do we sell? I wonder if it comes to stand to real simple capability. Like, people in L and D didn't go into L and D to be salespeople. They probably went into L and D because they have a passion for the subject, they have a passion for learning.
Um, and just like me running a business and many other, um, solopreneurs who run their own training agencies, a lot of people didn't go into this to run a business that they did it because they wanted to be really like, I don't know, leadership or finance or supply chain. So therefore I hypothesise that not everybody has the, uh, capability to sell and nor have they been shown what a simple process
it can be and what the steps are. And the fact that they probably do have a lot of the skills needed to sell internally or in how, or back into, in house. They just have never put it into, They've just never put it into that context. And therefore I feel sometimes now when I'm working with my own clients, I feel like a, uh, real advantage that I was taught how to sell and I know how to have account. M account, we'd call that account management. Key account management. I'm sure you do too,
internally. But how do account managers work like how do you structure a conversation that you go into. Right. With a new client? And uh, the number of times I've observed people have a conversation and it doesn't go anywhere and because it's not my conversation to own and it frustrates the hell out of me because everyone's just like chatting and talking and I'm like what, where are we going in this conversation? What's the outcome you want to achieve?
Where are the questions like please would someone ask a bloody decent open question to start to get the client to talk and tell us what it is that's really truly going on for them and would everyone who's not a client shut up? Because it's not about us. Uh, I want to hear what the client's got to say. I want to hear what their pain is. I want to hear what their needs are. Uh, what they think the benefits of doing
this piece of work is. Like how does this, how does this potential solution fit with their business strategy three, five years down the line, like, like let's go future. So that's what I mean by having those conversations. I think I do that naturally. But it's not everybody's start point. >> Kirsty Lewis: No. And I think that there, there aren't. There, there are uh, role roles within an L and D function aren't really suited for that
level of discovery. Right. You, you get given like I, I've been in roles where I've just been given the specific and I m, and I build to that spec. Um, but in, in other, in other roles I've, I've had that um, autonomy as it were where I can have those discovery conversations and, and drill down and dig into people and ask those open ended questions. So yeah, I get, I suppose that is a, an opportunity that is a sales adjacent sort of
behaviour isn't it? Where you're owning that conversation and you're looking for specific, specific outcomes and you're asking those open ended questions and pulling at threads to try to get more info out of people. So that is a sales behaviour, isn't it? >> Sarah Wood: It is for sure. I was just wondering as well, um, from your um, experience of um, having external suppliers coming in and like you've asked them to come maybe pitch for a piece
of work. Have you had a different experience when it's a, ah, female founded business versus a male founded business in terms of the type of conversation that shows up? >> Kirsty Lewis: Do you know what? I don't think that I have. I think that I've been really lucky in my professional career where um, that has been something that, if it, if there has been any bias, that's been smoothed out before I came along. But I'd be interested in your experience if you've got something.
>> Sarah Wood: I'm, well, I'm a woman, so I just do it my way, which is conversational. And it's very much. I don't go in with a pitch deck. Like, I wouldn't. I've never done a pitch, uh, like with a load of slides. Just doesn't even occur to me. So it's. >> Kirsty Lewis: Do you think that's a man thing? >> Sarah Wood: I don't know if it's a man thing, but I, I've spoken to some of my. I've got some really good male friends who run their own
businesses and they're like, no, no, here's the deck. And I'm like, yeah, I just don't do that, um, because it just, I want to have the conversation. And that leads to then often me being asked to write a proposal, which then leads to the opportunity to share, you know, the thinking. I just wondered if, um, people in house is, is there a difference between how, ah, a female led business supplier, like, works in and with a male led. I'm just, I was just curious.
>> Kirsty Lewis: No, I, I'm afraid I don't have any insight on that. Um, but I do wonder if there's also a level of confidence, conversational confidence, that comes into play with that, um, this idea of women liking empathy. Men like telling. Is that a thing or is that, is that a stereotype? >> Sarah Wood: I don't know. We'll have to ask the listeners who are here right now to send Andrew a message or two and like, see how many people come back and give him a hard time that, yeah, us men
have empathy. You know, men do have empathy, but it's just how it shows up and how we have those types of conversations. Do you think, um, from an L and D perspective, what benefit there would be to have to learn how to sell? >> Kirsty Lewis: Oh, I think there's a massive, massive benefit. And I think that one of the reasons why I was attracted to like, um, joining this podcast today was that the overlap is huge. I did, um, I did a professional qualification,
uh, CIPD Level 5. And as part of that qualification I did like a mini dissertation style research project. And it was about storytelling. That was my topic decided and, and, and how storytelling is linked to learning. And salespeople at heart are really great storytellers. And that is, that is how people connect. It's how people learn. It's how you Remember things. It's how you touch on emotion which then changes behaviour. It's all
there, all the pieces are there. It's just presented in a slightly different way with slightly different language. But I think that, um, L and D professionals would, would be silly to not realise that they should be looking at sales for tips, tricks and ways of doing things. >> Sarah Wood: But then it goes back. But then it comes back down to the old question of when, when do L and D eat? Because as far as I'm aware,
um, they eat lost. They're very good at, ah, helping everybody else or getting involved in other people's learning and development. And whenever I speak to L and D leaders, I often hear, because I'm, I'm, I'm there to help them upskill in terms of their training or their, their design. And they're like, oh, yeah, we haven't got time for that. Or we're just, we're just way too busy. And it's like, oh, but you've got to look after yourselves. Put your own oxygen mask on.
>> Kirsty Lewis: Oh, yeah, 100%, I think, um, there, that's always been the case in my experience as well. But I have decided personally, from my own professional development, um, to prioritise ongoing, um, professional training. So if I work for an organisation that allows like a budget for training, I tap into that from January, I'm like, right, what can I do this year? What am I doing?
>> Sarah Wood: But not everybody's like that, Sarah. Are they? Yeah, let's be honest, not everyone's as proud, proactive. Um, imagine, um, someone listening to this conversation and they go, actually, I would like to improve my, my selling skills, my, my influencing skills. How, how would, what do we think someone would do to start? Or where could they go? >> Kirsty Lewis: Well, there are so, so, so many resources out there for, for salespeople,
like a bajillion. Um, so I can understand why that might be a little bit daunting. I think that, uh, if they work for an organisation, probably a really, really solid piece of advice would be, if you work for an organisation that has a sales function, what sales methodology does your organisation apply? What do they do?
Learn that so that you can speak the same language as all the other people in your organisation who sell, that would, I mean, I think that that would be an amazing thing to do, um, and build relationships with people that are in your organisation that are sellers, for sure. >> Sarah Wood: I think, um, from my point of view, like from the outside in, for freelancers and it's often a conversation that I have in the, in the SOF community people are really
nervous about selling. So we, we talk about it quite a lot. Um, but there is, I've never found one organisation or one place to go and get that information. Um, I often find people come almost to the, the kitchen table to me to ask for advice on like how, how do I have the conversations with my, my customers, my clients, um, and I just share with them to your point, the process, a six step process that I use to manage every single client interaction.
It's like a face to face meeting, whether that's virtual or in person. Um, but it does boil down to I think some just core factors of like know where you want that meeting to go, that is your outcome. What are the questions you want to ask? And write them down please because it gives you bandwidth. Like you don't have to try and think of questions on the fly. Um, be prepared. Like you are, you are learning professionals. You know how to build
rapport with someone. You know how to flex your body language, your tone of voice, use all of that amazing skill that you have and then just ask the questions and listen and probe. Please keep probing. Don't take the answer that the client or the customer gives you at face value. Mhm. Go deeper like to your point, like understand what it is they truly need. And then the language technique of summaries is brilliant when you're selling. So can I just summarise what I've heard you say?
And what you get back is what you're doing to me now is like the nodding and you see the customer or the client going uh-huh, uh-huh. And then you go, okay, let's move into a different topic. But then more often than not you sort of gather up all this information and in a sense checking like what's most important to you. What top three things do you want to change in the world
that you work in? So um, it's that that understanding phase is just, I think it's so, so important versus going to a meeting with a potential client and opening up your pitch deck and just presenting at. >> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah, no, that would turn me off completely as a, as a potential client because I'd be like, well why am I here? You already have this figured out. >> Sarah Wood: Exactly. And like you're just talking at me.
>> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah. >> Sarah Wood: I do remember once I was doing some sales training and uh, with a um, rather infamous company that sprinkle magic fairy dust and I said look, I'm. No disrespect. I said I don't think Tesco care two hoots about the magic fairy dust. They want to know what you can do for them. So come start with the questions. Start with a true understanding and then you can sprinkle your magic fairy dust. Uh, so that's
always one for me. Yeah. >> Kirsty Lewis: And I, it's the asking why, like what is it five times or something. Why? Why? Keep going, keep going, keep going. >> Sarah Wood: Exactly. Uh, and Bill only asking why questions once you've really built the rapport. Otherwise you just see that get turned off. Angie's just asked us a question. I'm going to put this out there. It says, he says, I love talking at as a concept. How do women avoid this?
Well I don't know. That's assuming that women avoid it. I've met some women who still talk at. >> Kirsty Lewis: I think that um, the, so the, the most fruitful conversations that I've had with my internal customers when I'm trying to uncover is when I've been in like first of all I built a rapport as you've already said. So, so there's two, two different scenarios that could play
out. Either I'm in there on my own and I've already built a rapport with people, people in the room and so I'm not able to like I, I, I won't, I won't fill um, the
air. I'll listen. So I'm asking those questions but they're comfortable with me to be honest and to, and to keep going or I've got a uh, really like strong relationship with a colleague and we're in there as a team and we're bouncing off of each other and there's again it's the open ended questions, it's the listing, it's the picking up on tiny little things that they say or how they react and building on that and going oh Kirsty, I noticed you nodded when I said such and such. Could you like
what do you think? Tell me more. Um, all of those things are really, really powerful tools. And, and, and it's the, you know, we have two ears and only one mouth kind of concept. Right. Let's listen more than we're talking being talked about at. I'm not sure if Andrew was asking about that element of it where we're the ones being talked at as women in meetings. That's a little bit more of a generic sort of experience that can happen no matter what role you are in an organisation.
>> Sarah Wood: I can't talk to it because I, I know I normally make sure I own the conversation and I lead it and I'm quite Comfortable saying let's, let's just pause. Because sometimes people dive into a conversation and, and I'm like, can we just, can we just take a couple of steps backwards? What, what do you want to achieve today? Like, let's just get very clear what we're here to do and um, what, where we're going to go in this. We've only got an hour,
so where are we going? Yeah, and let's get super clear on that. And then I'm like, they often go, oh, do you want to share your thinking? I'm like, no, I'd like to ask you some questions. And they're like, oh, but then you build that rapport and then by the end of it like, and you say what, what's the logical next step? They um, people time and again are more likely because they, they feel seen, they feel heard, they've had an opportunity to express themselves that when
you say what, what do you want to do is the next step? They're, they're more often than not in my world say can you come back to us with a proposal or can we have another meeting to go deeper? And that's all, that's all I want to achieve in meeting number one. And the same would be true internally. It's like you can't, it's really rare. And I'm sure this is true internally to get an agreement in meeting number one on a new
subject, but we forget that. I swear, people forget they think they can go into a meeting and get agreement straight away. >> Kirsty Lewis: When I work with a new stakeholder, I have an intro call. This is only about shaking hands. Like we are here to meet each other, to get to know each other and, and then we'll talk more in a few days. That is, that is, uh, that sales. Right? That is the way you do it. And, and you keep saying the word feel, which I think is so
important. We're here to build relationships with people and help them to feel something. Whether it's to uncover that pain and feel like that you're the person who's going to fix it for me. I feel a connection with you or you know, however they, they need to. They, the only way they're going to change their behaviour or do a thing that you want them to do or progress to the next meeting or whatever is if they feel something. Right. >> Sarah Wood: Yeah. Okay.
I've got another question, a different angle. So I, I'm external, you're internal. Um, and it's a conversation I had this morning with ah, another fellow business owner. Faris Arenki. And we were talking about pipeline. So for us as externals, we need to keep feeding a pipeline. And, um, he talks about doing 20 to 30 voice notes a day just to say hi to people. How do internal people feel about the external suppliers dropping into their inboxes? People they know? So this isn't cold calling or
anything, but like the. Hey, how are you? Fancier coffee. We haven't spoken for so long. Like, I'm curious how. What's that like, from your point of view?
>> Kirsty Lewis: Well, I mean, unless. Unless I'm in a position to have any sort of influence, um, over the buying process, I feel like I'm wasting that other person's time as, as an internal person because I, um, I can make recommendations, but if I can't influence the outcome of that, I feel like I don't know why I'm doing this or taking up your valuable day. So it's. I feel, um, unsure about how to. How to proceed with a. With it.
>> Sarah Wood: That's interesting because the reason people would. We reach out to people we know, so we always talk to people we know. It's more a case of just, hey, what's going on? And get a felt sense of what's happening in the business because someone's just hearing. There's that, um. Sometimes we know you're not the right person because we know what you do, but we. But you. I don't
know if you realise this. You probably influence the decision makers sometimes as well, without realising that, you influence the decision makers. So it's. From a supplier perspective, staying in touch with people through the business works in a. In a great way. >> Kirsty Lewis: But how. What is it from your perspective? If. If that doesn't go anywhere, like, if you. >> Sarah Wood: If I'm ignoring you, fine, genuinely, um, I've now grown some thick
skin. So you. The reason we put out multiple messages or you make multiple connections is exactly for that reason, but also just not taking it personally, because what. There's two things that comes out of that for me is one, I might say to myself, well, the time isn't right right now, uh, for Sarah to have this conversation. That's fine. And then secondly, just. Even my message or my voice note to you can be just a reminder just to put
me back up your. I don't know what you would call it, even, like moving my hand up and down here, like back up into your mind that should the time come and you go, ooh, actually, yes, I have a need and I know who to go and talk to about it. You might think of Kirsty first or School of Facilitation first. But um, growing the thick skin has taken some time for sure. Um, and it's just getting used to making the ask and getting the.
No, but that and realising it's got absolutely nothing to do with me. Absolutely nothing. And when you can reframe it versus oh, I've put a message to Sarah and she's not replied. Oh my God. Sarah doesn't like me anymore to. I've put a message to Sarah, she's given me a thumbs up but that's it. Oh, reframe. Sarah's probably really busy. It's the end of Q2 or it's the end of H2. Um, she knows I'm here. That's cool.
>> Kirsty Lewis: Yeah. I wonder how um, uh, internal people can adopt a similar sort of feeling because I think with an internal customer audience, that is, um, the strong relationships with people is pretty vital. >> Sarah Wood: Um, absolutely. And I think it goes back to doing some really simple prep every year which is like, what is our strategy within L and D? Like what do we, what do we want to be achieving this year? 18 months, 2 years have we looked at our stakeholder mapping recently?
Um, and therefore who are the right stakeholders to be connecting with? So you're not spending your time talking to people that you shouldn't be speaking with because you're not going to get anywhere. I think that's okay. >> Kirsty Lewis: That is, we've, we've touched on quite a few really strong discovery, um, actions that salespeople can take in order to build strong relationships and have a really good first
or second touch point with the prospect. But I think the L and D people can really, um, mine that uh, and use similar things where we know who our key stakeholders are and we understand their role in business, whether it's internal or external. External. We know who to contact to build strong relationships and how we interact with them. Um, that's, that's for anybody really, isn't it?
An internal or external. And then this idea of discovery calls and having a goal for a conversation in, in terms of like, how does what I like what you said, it was like what do I want at the end of this call? How am I going to get there? What questions am I going to ask and then how am I going to guide that conversation to move to the next phase? >> Sarah Wood: So something I would offer up for L and D people, uh, is a bit of a reframe that it's not
selling, it's a relationship building. And you all know how to build relationships. So I would offer up um, a mindset, reframe. It's about the relationship. Um, and secondly, like you said, go and talk to your sales teams and ask someone from that team to come and run a session for you and do a one day session and build in role plays and learn how to sell an L and D solution using the five steps, the six steps, whatever it is, and have a practise. It's the
only, you know this L and D people. It might make you feel queasy. But do do the purposeful practise and you'll get some real insights and learning into yourself about a sales conversation. That was awesome, Sarah. I really enjoyed that conversation. Thanks uh, for the convers, thanks for the chat and the insights that you shared. >> Kirsty Lewis: No, thank you Kirsty. I really enjoyed um, understanding
your point of view as well. It's been great to have internal versus external or no. >> Andrew Jacobs: As with all the episodes, we're never sure where they might go and with this one we really weren't sure what it might be like and it wasn't anything like we even could have expected. The essence of sales as a thing took some time to work out and a massive thank you to Kirsty and Sarah for sticking at it and giving us some real food for thought. It really does warrant coming back
too, so please make sure to listen. Again, a huge thank you to both Kirsty and Sarah for their time and a great conversation. Their contact details are in the show notes along with links to our website, future episodes and to our donation page. We'll be back in a couple of weeks time and next time it's the L&D community 1. As always, thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon. >> Sarah Wood: Sam.