Perennial Real Estate

How was the opportunity sourced? 

Working with a team of SDRs, AEs, and event coordinators, we pored over a list of over 3,000 attendees before Inman Connect Las Vegas. Once we identified the agents, their geo, and their production, they were distributed to the correct AE to research and prepare. At the event, I recognized Marci and met with her, Dan, and Gali in our personal meeting space.

What was your approach to qualification and discovery? 

Our ICP is very specific and exclusive. We only work with agents that are in the top 1-2% of production. They also need to be in the States we operate and have an average price-point to qualify.

Once I met them and had a 50,000 foot level conversation about our model and value, I then dove into discovery. Some of the discovery was done ahead of time online. I personally believe discovery to be one of if not the most important part of any sales process. Not only does it tell you everything you need to know about your client, it also gives you insight into what they care about, how they make decisions, their pain-points, etc. Luckily, real estate agents will usually talk as long as you'll let them from the simplest of questions; I suppose that's true of most people! I ask the right questions, listen, and take notes. I also record every meeting I have via zoom. It helps me down the line, I share it with the client and urge them to rewatch it to remember things, and I share snippets of the recordings with my coworkers who are assisting me in the process to give them insight on the client and the piece they're helping with and speaking to.

Who was involved in the decision on the customer's side?

Dan Metcalf, Marci Wasserman, Gali Sapir, and Meg Finn.

How did you identify stakeholders and decision-makers in the account?

All three of them qualify to be a partner on their own. Combined they do over $100m in business . In my research, I only showed that Marci was going to be at the event in Las Vegas. When I researched the group, and when I met them in person, it seemed that Dan was the head of the group. His mother had been in the industry for decades and was the initial leader of the group handing that all down to Dan. As I got to know them more, I understood how strong of personalities they all had and who had the most influence over decions. Marci was my cheerleader, Dan was most hesitant but would follow Marci and Gali, and Gali, if won over, was the lynch pin. About half way through the process, Dan's mother's name had come up enough that I also identified her as a strong enough influence over the decision that I wanted to get her involved as well.

What were the evaluation criteria?

• Tech stack
• Pricing
• Change Risk
• Growth/Support
• Legal/Compliance/Brokerage

What risks or roadblocks emerged during the cycle? How did you resolve them?

The biggest roadblock was FUDI: Fear Uncertainty Doubt and Inertia. They were comfortable, making tons of money, and supported. This was a big change in every aspect of their business from tech, to the structure of their business, the people they interact with on a daily basis, and even the identity and brand of the business itself. One way in which I was able to overcome this was through building trust. I slowed the process down. Instead of pitching everything, I brought in multiple members of the team internally to speak to their subject of expertise, and I introduced them to Partners who had already taken the journey they were evaluating embarking on. It's easy to get sucked into the minutia of a deal. I would frequently force them to take a step back and look at the big picture, painting the future they so desired and shining light on the path to getting there.

Another roadblock was pricing. The brokerage they were currently with was fairly bare bones, which means they paid very little but had costs to piece together the value Side includes standard. Because we have a set pricing plan, I needed to make up the difference with value, not dollars and negotiating. While there was pushback on pricing throughout the conversations, I was able to resolve it by highlighting value rather than offering concessions or negotiation.

What resources did you leverage?

All of them! I pulled out all the stops. Sometimes a sales process will only include one or two pieces of support in the form of a broker or a sales engineer. For this opportunity I leveraged someone internally to represent and speak to their area of expertise for every aspect of our value proposition; sales engineering, brokerage, partner success, expansion/growth, finance, and the executive team. I also leveraged the most valuable asset of all: our community of customers.

How did you approach commercial negotiations and contract structuring?

The vast majority of the time our pricing is very straight forward. It's a split like traditional brokerages have, but with cliffs at certain benchmarks. We have concessions at our disposal we can make to get a deal done as well. About 40% of the time, a concession is used to get a deal done. I have brought on more Partners in my time at Side than anyone and I have never used a concession. For me it moves the conversation from value vs value to dollar vs dollar. Value I can win, financials I often cannot.

Pricing was a big risk to this deal. I knew that from the beginning. Long & Foster offers little support, and has a significantly lower cost. In discovery, I learned everything I could about their costs outside of what they paid L&F so I could do a redlining exercise with them down the road. I also got buy-in around growth with our support as opposed to without it. When negotiation questions came up in the conversation, I was able to quell them with callbacks to that buy-in of value and ROI.

Any lessons learned that you can/will apply to future sales cycles?

Big time! A lot of the time sales can feel like you only have one song on your playlist. It's a good jam, but depending on the crowd you're with, it may not be appropriate. Most people love Eminem but it's not my go-to when I'm rollin' with my grandmere to the bakery. This deal taught me that there is no box. While there are set and titled meetings in the standard process like "discovery call" or "demo", every process doesn't need to follow the norm.

I also learned a lot about how to traverse a sales process with multiple decision makers who have vastly different personalities, needs, cares, etc. In these scenarios, injecting internal support allows me to align myself as being on their side instead of in front of them. It also re-highlighted that trust is paramount.