30: Getting to #1 Globally Through Personal Relationships - Jelle den Dunnen of Bullhorn

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:25 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Jelle den Dunnen, who is a senior account executive at Bullhorn. Bullhorn, where he was the top seller globally last year out of the Netherlands. Welcome to the show, Jelle.

0:38 Jelle den Dunnen: Thanks, Scott. Happy to be here.

0:40 Scott Ingram: So let's start like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe have allowed you to be the top seller at Bullhorn so consistently over the last few years.

0:50 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. I think that the, the most important thing for me to start with would be qualification of pipeline. It's so easy for any sales rep to kind of start working on every opportunity that passes by, but what really makes people stand out, what I've seen in my organization, is the people that qualify their deals and pick their cherries to focus on. And that's what I've been working on a lot in the last couple of years to really nurture down and get it right on what the key deals are for me. And I not only use that to qualify my pipeline, but I also use that throughout the day, in my day-to-day work as well.

1:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and that's really become a consistent theme on the show. I think that the best sellers are really focusing on the right deals. How are you… what is that qualification process for you? How are you making those decisions?

1:51 Jelle den Dunnen: So we have a qualification mechanism in our company that we use, but it's also, of course, coming from experience. And I think the, the most important things, uh, definitely, you know, looking at the fact that I sell software, is are they in an active buying cycle? Um, then second would be, have they quantified the impact of not changing their technology to their business? Um, and then of course, you know, are you really differentiating? And it's not just like USPs that you see yourself as, as a company, but What would the customer or prospect tell you what your differentiators are? Those are the most important things I would say.

2:33 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So qualification is number one. What's number 2?

2:36 Jelle den Dunnen: Um, so number 2 is, is, you know, deal strategy. From the moment that you've qualified your key deals, it's all about looking at the deals and how individual deals and how you're going to approach them. So I work a lot with my peers. Uh, we work with a sales engineer and a sales on every single deal that we work on. And I work together with my managers and, and other stakeholders in our business as well. Okay, how are we going to address the challenges of this organization and how are we going to work with the people that are involved at the prospect side and how can we pair everyone up on a deal strategy? Because no deal is the same and it's very important that our messaging and our demonstrations align with what the prospects are looking for. And that's something that, you know, I've been working on mostly in the last 18 months. First of all, it was the qualification of the general pipeline. Now it's more a per-deal strategy. And with these 2 kind of initiatives in the last couple of years, I think that in the last 2 and a half years, I looked up the numbers. I've increased my win rate from 40% to 64% last year, and I'm on the same rate this year.

3:49 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And we'll come back to digging into kind of the specifics of your approach to a particular So we'll circle back on that. Before we do that, what's number 3 for you?

4:01 Jelle den Dunnen: It's a simple one. It's work hard, play hard. Like, you don't make Achievers Club without putting in the efforts. You know, working on efficiency has also allowed me to do more because it's so easy to kind of get caught up in things and not manage your priorities. But being focused on your priorities every single day and set them out for yourself, as well as Really looking at work-life balance influences in how efficiently you go through your day-to-day work. And it's very important to pace yourself. Um, I've definitely… sorry, go ahead.

4:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I was going to say, when you think about the work-life balance thing, is, is that sort of throughout the day? Are you compartmentalizing? I've seen a couple of different approaches there. I'm curious to how you're sort of tackling that.

4:49 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So typically, um, throughout the week I will build in some blocks that are really me time. Um, they're not Not in my working day, to be honest. They're more in the afternoon, in the late afternoons, evenings, or in the weekends. But I set apart really blocks where I spend just time with me. And sometimes it kind of depends on how you're kind of pacing yourself in a day. But sometimes I'll just take out a full block at lunch where I just do nothing work-related and take about an hour, hour and a half because it's simply needed. Sure.

5:25 Scott Ingram: And what do you have kind of favorite activities that you're doing in the me time blocks?

5:30 Jelle den Dunnen: So I enjoy running and basically going outside with my girlfriend that I live together with. We do a lot of things together going outside, but also some frequent holidays. I think that's also very important to just really get out of your day-to-day life and your day-to-day routines and, you know, relax and see other things and experience culture and things like that.

5:59 Scott Ingram: Excellent. So let's get a little bit of context going. Tell us just a little bit about Bullhorn and what you're selling and who you're selling to. Sure.

6:08 Jelle den Dunnen: Okay, so Bullhorn is the global leader when it comes to delivering recruitment software to recruitment agencies. We were founded about 17 years ago, originally from Boston, And 8 years ago, they moved outside the US and also expanded into Europe as well as Australia and Asia-Pac. Um, 4 and a half years, almost 5 years already. Um, I was the first non-native English speaker in the company to be the first, uh, you know, feet on the floor in the mainland of Europe to set up the business there.

6:46 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And what is your territory? Because you're obviously in the Netherlands, where all are you selling to?

6:52 Jelle den Dunnen: Gotcha. So my initial territory, because I was the first man on the ground, was pretty much everything in the mainland of Europe, as well as Africa, Middle East, um, any size, to be honest. But as we were kind of growing in the business there, uh, we started segmenting more and more parts of my territory to other people. If you look at today, I'm mostly focused at the mid to large organization within the Benelux area.

7:21 Scott Ingram: Okay, excellent. And then what's… how did this all start? How did you get into sales and find your way to Bullhorn?

7:27 Jelle den Dunnen: So that was actually quite a long time ago when I started, I would say, the concept of networking and using that for sales, uh, back when I was still 15 and, uh, selling tickets, uh, to parties, basically. Um, that's how it kind of started with social selling, I would say. Um, but when I really got into sales, when when I stopped at college and I got in, I just put my CV online and I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do or kind of industry that I wanted to get in, but I knew that I was a generalist and I knew that I'm definitely a sales type kind of guy. So I just put my resume online, sales tiger looking for his first working experience, and it was pre-recession. You know, that was good enough to get a job. And I was contacted by a recruitment agency and started a week later. Um, and after that, I worked for 5 years in recruitment myself, and now I'm selling to agencies myself.

8:31 Scott Ingram: Uh, so I imagine that's really, really helpful having been in the role that you're now selling to.

8:37 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely. It's great to use, you know, live examples that you've been in yourself or that you really speak the language and also can share a lot of experience that I've built up throughout the years. And we see that across the board. Actually, that we work with a lot of peers that are coming from the industry itself. Um, so you can help that, uh, help with that knowledge as well.

8:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's, that's a pretty incredible talent pool. I've, I've known many recruiters over the years and they definitely, you can't be successful in that job without working extraordinarily hard. So I imagine you find successful recruiters and bring them over and you know that they're, they're going to be willing to do the work that's required to be successful.

9:17 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely.

9:17 Scott Ingram: Well, before we talk about Jelle's performance and results, I want to thank the exclusive sponsor of this episode, and that is the tool formerly known as ViewedIt, which is now Vidyard GoVideo. Thanks to Vidyard GoVideo, the rest of this episode will be completely uninterrupted, and I hope you'll help me thank them and help yourself in the process by getting their free Chrome plugin that allows you to create personalized videos that you can include in your email outreach to really stand out and get significantly higher response rates. Just go to top1.fm/vidyardgovideo. That's the letter V, or go to any page on top1.fm and check out their new ad. So, Jelle, can you quantify your results for us?

9:58 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So I've been in 17 full quarters at Bullhorn with an average of 133% per quarter on performance on my quota.

10:14 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And what about last year where you were number 1? What did that full year look like?

10:21 Jelle den Dunnen: 171%. And it was the first time that I hit the spot, number 1 spot globally. I hit my spot international in my first year actually, but it was just everything outside the US. And 3 out of 4 years I went to the Achievers Club as well, aiming to hit my 4th year in a row, um, at the end of this year.

10:49 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. So walk us through, I mean, we, you were talking about deal strategy as kind of your 2nd key point. Walk us through your process and your approach in some detail for us.

10:59 Jelle den Dunnen: Okay. So, uh, once I've kind of recognized the deals that I have in my pipeline and I qualify them on, you know, how live they are, how real they are, um, I also look at how much of a match are they, not only with the technology that we provide, but also with our company our culture and the way that we do things, as well as that I do things personally, because the personal relationship that you have with your prospects is very important as well. If you can't get along, then you won't sell to them eventually, or it's going to be a lot of work versus how easy it can be when you have a good relationship. So that's also a very important criteria for me as well. In my day-to-day work, I would say that every single day I look at my key deals and see what can I do for these deals today? What are the open items that I still need to do? So that's kind of how I look on a day-to-day basis. On a deal… on a per-deal strategy, I think the interviews are most important that we do quite early on in the process to understand more about the business of the prospect itself, their goals, their challenges, and where you can make an impact for them. And that's what I use to recognize and decide what the right strategy is.

12:22 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And in that interview, in that discovery process, is there a favorite question that maybe you have to really open up and get a view into what's most important to that company and how you're going to position that strategy?

12:36 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely. What's the impact if you don't change?

12:39 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Absolutely. Good. So let's talk about some of the ups and downs, starting with the ups. I mean, over the course of these 17 quarters, what are you most proud of?

12:54 Jelle den Dunnen: I would say my number 1 spot last year. Of course, hitting the number 1 spot globally is a great achievement, but I think it's also testament to the work that I've put into developing myself over the years and the help that I've received Um, and guidance from the people around me. And it was really a great achievement to get there.

13:20 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Now, what about the flip side? What's been the biggest challenge or the hardest part over that time?

13:25 Jelle den Dunnen: Um, the path on my way there, to be honest, I think I learned some hard lessons throughout my sales career that kind of got me here. Um, so I've not always thrived in every environment. Um, I've also been a little bit, um, it's difficult to find the English word for that, uh, stubborn. Um, when it comes to learning curves, I kind of wanted to find it myself, find it out myself first, uh, before listening to experience of others. And, uh, I think I went flat out a couple of times before I kind of got it.

14:04 Scott Ingram: Well, and what, I mean, how did you break through that? What, what were the most important lessons you sort of learned through that process that helped you get to the level of achievement that you're at now?

14:13 Jelle den Dunnen: So I would say that, you know, every loss is an opportunity to learn. Um, I think that's a catchphrase that we hear more frequently, uh, but I definitely bear in mind with every single challenge or obstacle or loss that you face in a sales experience, what can you learn from this? And I think one of the biggest things that I've learned throughout the years is being me, to be honest. I think that when I started being in sales, I was quite young and I always wanted to position myself as very professional. So I always wore a suit, a tie, tried to address people very formally. And that was only getting me a bit of results, fairly average performance, to be honest. But it was only until like my manager of my previous employer who really taught me that they need to do business and want to do business with Jelle. So I need to be personable. I need to be myself in the way that I communicate, the way that I work with them, my personal traits I need to show them. I can be informal because that's who I am. And I think that has made a lot of impact in my relationships at work, but also with the relationships that I have with clients and prospects.

15:42 Scott Ingram: Well, and how does that manifest? I mean, what is like the essence of Jelle and how that sort of comes across where you're truly being you when you're working with a prospective client?

15:56 Jelle den Dunnen: So I'm quite honest. So I'll, I'll often tell my clients and prospects that if they're not being smart, I'll just share that. But I'll always try to tell them what they can learn from that and why they're doing things that I think that are not really smart and how we can do things differently, because it's important that you're seen as a partner, not as a supplier. That's very important. I really emphasize that a lot in my interaction with the people that I work with. I would also say that I will simply share things of my personal life. So if someone asks, how are you doing? I'll actually tell, well, I'm doing great. Um, you know, I did this and that last night. Um, I'm scheduling a new… I'm looking for a new holiday or things like that. I'll actually tell them something about me and hopefully that will open them up to, to respond to that. And you can have, um, an interaction on something personal and not just business.

16:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah, excellent. Well, speaking of things about you, let's transition and talk a little bit about some of your habits and routines. So starting with, are you more of a morning person or are you a night owl?

17:10 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely a night owl. Okay.

17:12 Scott Ingram: So given the night owl tendency, what does your evening look like? Are there any routines that you're following in the evening, particularly as it relates to work?

17:25 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So, uh, quite strangely, I do start quite early in the morning around 8, because then it's nice and quiet in the office and I can kind of get my first emails out, pick my priorities for the day, plan out my day. And then I'll kind of take a break, um, around about midday. I typically work until like 7 and then have a phone call with either colleagues or my manager, um, after 7.

17:53 Scott Ingram: Okay. And then what does the rest of kind of the structure of your day look like? And are there key habits and routines that you're leveraging?

18:03 Jelle den Dunnen: Um, it's difficult to kind of find a structure throughout the week. Uh, but I would say that I start the first, um, 2 hours kind of working through priority setting, priorities, and working through my email. Um, I tend to, uh, prep for my meetings at the end of the day because that's just, you know, my time when I'm sharp. I spend a good amount of time for that. When I schedule meetings, I typically schedule them from 10 to 2 and combine them with a lunch meeting. So again, provide you with the ability to be personal with the people that you're meeting with. So we can connect over lunch. Um, and the same applies with, you know, a late afternoon meeting that you combine with dinner, of course. Um, so it's difficult to say if I have any kind of key things that I do throughout the day. Um, because every day is just, you know, very much different for me.

19:03 Scott Ingram: Sure. Well, speaking of very much different, I'd love to understand. I mean, you are obviously selling internationally across many countries and I imagine many different languages. What is, what does that look like and how do you manage that element?

19:20 Jelle den Dunnen: So the good thing is that I live right, well, very close to the border of the Netherlands and Belgium, so I can get anywhere by car, and I like to drive, so I definitely drive a lot to my clients and prospects. And beyond that, currently I think I have about, I would say, 8 to 10 flights Oh, that's pretty manageable. Yeah. It's not too bad actually. There's a lot of things that you can do over the phone. You just need to make sure that you make the trips worthwhile. So I often, you know, try to combine it with, uh, you know, either a lunch or dinner when I'm over with clients. So you can really discuss about other points when you've kind of covered the official agenda. Um, if that resonates. Um, and of course, you know, combining it with other meetings or maybe meetings that you would normally do in, uh, 2 separate locations. Dates in the diary, combine them in one big day, and then get a lot of progress in the stages that you're working on.

20:26 Scott Ingram: Sure. That makes sense. Well, so let's talk about your information diet a little bit. And I don't know if that goes with what you're doing while you're spending time in the car. I know you like to drive, so I don't know if you're listening to things in the car, but what are you listening to? What are you reading? What are you watching?

20:42 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So typically listening to normal music, you know, what's normal, that's quite relative. I think I'd like to listen to, you know, a little bit of party music to kind of get myself pumped up when going into a meeting, to be honest. So that can be, you know, something like Hardwell or, you know, like DJ kind of music towards tech house, I would say, that keeps me going. With regards to reading, that's a complete different side, of course. I just like to read typical novels and graphic novels to kind of take myself out of it. So when I look at business-wise, recently I read a book on The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, which I find very interesting, as well as The Oz Principle, all around accountability. I found that very interesting. So I like to mix it up from like business-minded reading into really light reading that really, you know, is something completely different.

21:56 Scott Ingram: Got it. Now I know you are a pretty big fan of social selling and have used that to pretty significant impact of late. Talk about that a little bit and just What is, what does that mean to you? What, what, how are you defining social selling? How are you utilizing that in your process?

22:13 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So typically, um, what you hear when people talk about social selling is selling via social media. And I'd like to see that a little bit broader than that. I think social media should be a starting point for social selling because it's all in the word social, which comes back to, to my earlier comment around being personable. The relationships that you have need to be very social. And so I try to engage. With everyone that I work with, as social as possible, as quick as possible. So I use my social media to get into events or connect with people face-to-face to nurture those relationships. And I'm actively using the relationships that I've been building for years to get introductions and referrals into the accounts that I'd like to work with.

23:05 Scott Ingram: Got it. So, I mean, your definition's great, right? I mean, you're thinking about more of just real human relationships. So it's not so much about, oh, we're doing this on LinkedIn or we're doing this on Twitter. It's that's informing the process, but more about how do I build actual relationships with people that is going to lead to business and referrals and things like that?

23:24 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely. Social media should really just be the starting point to build that little bit of connection. So it allows you to pick up the phone and have a conversation and relate to something that you, you know, shared already with one another, whether that was via a tweet, a blog that you both liked, or the blog that the other person posted or something like that.

23:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So I think we're starting to get a glimpse into this, but I'm curious about how you would describe your style and your approach.

23:53 Jelle den Dunnen: That's difficult. I would say Personable. I don't know if that would be the right way to describe my approach. I would say direct as well. I think I'm pretty direct in my communication. And also when I'm looking at accounts that I want to go after, I kind of figure out how can I go to this account directly, but I prefer to go to people that I already know that can get me into a direct introduction to the right people. I used to be a huge prospector about, you know, more than 5 years ago. You know, I had targets of like 70 calls a day and did all that, but I actually found out that going via introductions is so much better than doing cold calling. So I'm really working on the introduction piece and, you know, getting a personal introduction because of my personal relationship with the people in my network. So I would say, yeah, definitely personable.

24:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So it sounds like you've made a transition over the years then. So, you know, it started much more cold, much more volume of calls. What is your introduction approach? How are you asking for those? How are you kind of finding those connections and using that to open enough doors to build a strong enough pipeline to be at the top?

25:15 Jelle den Dunnen: Sure. So it's basically account mapping where you start, you know, you find an account, you figure out the affiliates, all the information that's public You know, how big are they? How many offices do they have? How many people are within their business? A lot of that information can be found from their website as well as LinkedIn, of course. And LinkedIn is a great way to, um, you know, find out who's connected to whom. And with large accounts, I would actually completely map that, um, in a map to kind of see who's connected and who can introduce me to whom. And, you know, the key stakeholders at my prospects, how many people are connected with those and see if, you know, who's my best most valuable relationship amongst those shared connections. That's how I kind of start, but I also work the other way around. So I have a couple of very good relationships where we help out with one another and we often see each other in the same business. I would just have a conversation with them like, hey, this is a couple of accounts that I'm looking after that I want to engage with. Can you tell me something about it? Do you have any kind of pieces of advice? Is there any anything that you know that I can use, or perhaps even an introduction.

26:35 Scott Ingram: Now, when you talk about mapping the account, is there a tool that you're using to do that, or is it just sort of in a note?

26:44 Jelle den Dunnen: In a note, but we use shared documents a lot within the company, whether that's Google Sheets, PowerPoint, whether it's Word documents. We kind of, you know, take several documents that we use and share across the group. So everyone works on a piece and, and, and of that entire puzzle. And, and you just keep working on that and you fill in more and more information throughout the time.

27:09 Scott Ingram: Got it. What about other tools and apps that you are utilizing on a day-to-day basis that are impacting the way that you work?

27:17 Jelle den Dunnen: Um, I used to work, um, a lot just with the standard social media, to be honest. Um, and of course Of course, you have some aggregated tools like Hootsuite and what's the other one called? TweetDeck, I believe, that I used some time ago. Quite frankly, right now, I would say the only one that I use is HubSpot. Besides, of course, standard CRM functionality, I'm not using a lot of tools right now because to be honest, I'm getting a lot of business from my network that allows me to stay busy enough. To not have to get out there too much.

27:57 Scott Ingram: Got it. And is that… what do you attribute that to? Is it just longevity in the business? You've been doing this long enough, you're well established enough, and you've built that network up over time that, you know, it's generating enough intros for you. Talk about that a little bit more.

28:13 Jelle den Dunnen: So definitely, absolutely that. So I've worked a lot of the first couple of years when I came into the recruitment industry, when I was recruiting myself to build that network, spend a lot of time on Twitter and LinkedIn, building connections, building relationships with people, meeting them on events. I think that I attended like 1 or 2 events every single month, um, over a couple of years. Um, and that really, you know, did a lot of the groundwork and the legwork for, for building out my network. And I think the…

28:43 Scott Ingram: yeah, go ahead.

28:44 Jelle den Dunnen: So I think that the last couple of years, it's also due to the fact that Um, we have a good presence globally and we can make a lot of impact to the business. So, uh, it, it's quite easy to use that and work with the, um, uh, accounts and prospects that you work with. So, um, it, because it's, um, our platform and technology is the core of a recruitment agency. Um, so we cover about 80 to 90% what an… what a recruitment agency does. With technology. Um, it's different when you're trying to sell a part of the technology that they use. Um, so that's the kind of substantial difference that makes it easy as well. You're so impactful in their day-to-day business.

29:33 Scott Ingram: Got it. And so it sounds like in a lot of ways, as the Bullhorn brand has grown, uh, in, in that industry, along with your personal brand, you're now at a point where, uh, with the network that you have, you're just able to get into enough opportunities and deals, which obviously That would, that would, I think at some level explain your 64% close ratio is when you're being introduced and you're being referred, that's a completely different animal than when you're cold calling somebody.

30:02 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that, that's definitely been a change of experience. I mean, I just, I can remember about 6 years ago, I was doing those 70 calls a day, 300 meetings a year, all face-to-face driving, uh, 93,000 kilometers a year, just getting out there, meeting people. That was so exhausting. And if I look at the ratios from that investment on activities and time versus revenue and performance, it's a complete different ratio compared to what I experience today. And it's also way more enjoyable. But in all honesty, one cannot live without the other. You need to build up a network, you need to build up a territory and relationship within that territory to kind of be in that sweet spot where you can kind of more think about strategies instead of just creating pipeline. Um, so yeah, but it's definitely a nicer way.

31:04 Scott Ingram: Well, and I was going to ask, like, do you think that there's a way to shortcut that process? I mean, if you were starting that over again today, is there anything that you feel like you could have done to accelerate that network building to get you to the point that you are now? Or is it just the reality, like, you have to do those reps, you have to do that work in the beginning to generate enough business to understand your product and the market and everything else well enough, and it just takes time?

31:36 Jelle den Dunnen: Yeah, good question. I think you absolutely have to need to experience working hard by doing cold calling in order to be good in sales, or, or because you kind of need to know what it is to appreciate the other parts of the business when it's going easier or when you're more working on deals instead of creating the pipeline. Um, yeah.

32:02 Scott Ingram: And what about, are, are you applying any sort of qualification to the relationships that you've built? I mean, obviously that can be very time-consuming depending on how you go about it. So how do you decide who you're spending time with in order to make the most of the network that you've developed? Sure.

32:23 Jelle den Dunnen: So it's quite easy. You know, with regards to social selling, you need to be open yourself. You need to be willing to help other people, and you need to give them leads, advice, an introduction here and there. And you try that a couple of times until the point where you don't get something back. I mean, of course that, that happened with me as well. And, um, then you make a decision, you know, is it worth spending more and more time with them and giving them more leads and referrals, uh, before you get something back, or do you call it a day? Um, yeah, that's how I would kind of, you know, qualify my network relationships.

33:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, in a past life, I used to speak about networking quite a bit. And one of the things that I've found is people tend to be wired one of two ways, right? There are people who are prone to make those introductions and to help out, and there's some people who just aren't. And I made the mistake early in my career in significantly investing in relationships that on the surface had a ton of promise, like, oh, this person is so perfectly positioned to introduce me to some really fantastic accounts. But the reality was that's just not who they were. And I found that some people who you wouldn't think would be in a great position to make those introductions. I mean, my… the first company I ever started was an IT consulting company when I was, uh, in my early, early 20s, and my best referral partner was a plumber. It made no sense in the world that he would have access to the kind of people that would be my clients, but that's just the way that he operated. So I, I think there's absolutely something to your approach where you give first, uh, you kind of find the people who are willing and able to reciprocate, and then you just Yeah, absolutely.

34:20 Jelle den Dunnen: I think I had quite a similar experience with regards to learning from the people that you try to nurture. I think what's also very important that, that helped me throughout the years is to find like-minded people that are kind of in the same position, that are building their career, building their network, are eager to work with one another, but also keen enough to share their knowledge with you. And I think that I have a couple of individuals that, you know, came across my path throughout the years that I still actively work with today. And some of them are even, you know, really close friends and then that I go on holidays with just because you're so like-minded. And that again comes kind of back, you know, being personable. It doesn't only apply on prospect, but also applies to your direct network. That you utilize. You know, if you show yourself and who you are, people will either like you or they don't. And if they like you, you can do a lot of great things together. I mean, looking at friends, that might be you're gonna go to the cinema or do fun stuff together. With people that you meet in business-related occasions, it means that you can drive nice business with one another.

35:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, it sort of sounds like my world. I mean, if I look at my friends, I'm not sure that I have any friends that aren't somehow connected connected to my professional life, and they're just people that I enjoy spending time with, and we're compatible professionally and we're compatible personally, and that works great for me.

35:53 Jelle den Dunnen: Yeah, absolutely.

35:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, Jelle, how do you think about motivation? What, what motivates you?

35:59 Jelle den Dunnen: Um, I'm very competitive. I think that everyone in the company kind of knows that I'd like to be challenged. So think about, you know, internal competitions, rankings, doing bets with one another because it's fun. And I just like to be winning or be on top, but I also like to share again on something back. I mean, currently, you know, I've been with the company for 5 years and there's a person that started almost a year ago and he's, you know, it's his first job, but he's doing great and he's doing amazing. So I'd like to kind of, you know, make it fun for him as well, motivate him by applying the kind of same things that I like. Um, so we're like, you know, winding each other up, like, what are we going to do this quarter or this year? If we do that, should we then, you know, have a night out? You know, the, the, the person that performs less is the one that, you know, picks up the bill and, and things like that. So yeah, a little bit, uh, very salesy when it comes to being competitive. Uh, but yeah, that, that's what motivates me.

37:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I mean, I definitely get that vibe from you. So we've, we've been working for a while to coordinate this conversation and it's, it's funny to watch I watch, uh, you and, and just competing in terms of your position in the company and what you're, what you're working on kind of quarter to quarter. So I absolutely, uh, can, can see that in you. So I, I wonder, from a… as you look at, uh, average sellers or, or sort of the standard sales approach, like, what part of what they do or what that standard is do you think is off-base or I think I'm surprised the most about that people are afraid to look at losses, recognize what they did wrong there, or that they can learn from it.

37:54 Jelle den Dunnen: More importantly, that people just don't do that. I know it's not easy to reflect and look back and look yourself in the eyes. You know, what did I screw up there? Or what can I improve the next time? Or where did I make a misjudgment? Um, but it's, it's great because you can learn so much from it. I spend a lot of time actually, uh, going through that, you know, every quarter we have like a quarterly business review and I look back and I really spend a lot of time on every deal that I lost and worked on. What did I do here? What could I have done differently? What would have been the impact? And the same thing on the thing, on the deals that I did win. What did I do right? How did How did it make a difference this time? How can I use that for other deals and keep that going? What's definitely working for me? And I spend a fair amount of time on that. And in the last couple of years, I've seen some people around me that were a little bit afraid of spending time on that and looking back because there's so much to learn. It's just really weird.

39:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Do you ever incorporate like win-loss type interviews? Are you ever reaching back to uh, the, the deals that you lost and just asking them, hey, what, what did I do? And just kind of getting that feedback or maybe understanding why somebody else beat you?

39:19 Jelle den Dunnen: Yeah, absolutely. We do that for pretty much every deal that was like, um, at least averagely progressed in the sales cycle. You know, if it was only initial phases, you know, it doesn't, you know, really make sense to ask that because there was probably not enough ground that you've covered to kind of get substantial and constructive feedback on that. But when you've kind of progressed and spent several meetings with one another, you can definitely ask for constructive feedback. And it's something that we do within the company a lot to learn from that. So that's something that I've learned from the people around me within Bullhorn.

39:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, I've seen a number of companies will do that where they have sort of a formalized win-loss interview process and shout out to my friend Tim Rhodes, who's like the master of the universe in this area. But what I like about about what you're doing? I think that's instructive, right? It's absolutely helpful to see across the organization, why do we appear to be winning deals? Why are we losing deals? But more specifically, and I think tying back to something you said earlier about you, you sell like the way you are, right? You're not pretending to be something else. You're trying to be the best version of Jelle. Is doing some of that self-reflection yourself and understanding what was it about the way I approached this, you know, that either won this deal or what was it that I did wrong that maybe has nothing to do with a lot of what is typically uncovered in a standard win-loss, which might have to do much more with the, with the product and the competitive landscape and some of those things.

40:54 Jelle den Dunnen: Yeah, absolutely. And I was just thinking that it's also very important in that personal development and recognizing what you're doing right and where you can still improve is to get a mentor. Whether that's within the business or outside the business, but someone that you respect, someone that can, you know, be honest and upfront with you, whether it's positive or negative, as long as it's constructive, is very important. I definitely learned some key lessons throughout the last couple years from the people around me because we were just simply able to have an open and frank conversation. Now, I didn't always listen the first time because the stubbornness didn't completely disappear. But I definitely had people around me that would have an open and frank conversation with me that got me to where I am today.

41:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and you know what, I forget to spend enough time on these questions. I'd love to kind of get your perspective around who are your mentors and how do you leverage that to improve yourself and improve your results?

42:00 Jelle den Dunnen: So I have a really close friend that I actually met in the business. Business, building my personal relationship in my network that is of the same age. Well, he's a little bit younger than me, but he's outpacing me in every way possible when it comes to sales, which is of course sometimes a little bit difficult due to my competitive nature. But because he's a very close friend of mine, he's a great person to work with because he knows me so well and he's He's very, very direct. So he'll just flat out tell me if things are working or not working, or the way that I communicate, or the way things come across. And I think that that's definitely something that really helps. I would definitely also say my previous manager, David, that I worked with for like 3 years, who now again is my manager. I had a little bit of an in-between because I was changing teams. Who helped me a lot with the whole piece around focus and deal qualification. I got distracted a lot, and I think that that's the single thing that I would contribute to him the most. You know, he definitely did a great job in getting me spot on with that part. And currently, you know, my mentor is high up the ranks in sales because, you know, he's in a position where I would like to see myself in, you know, 15 to 20 years. So He's constantly working with me on every single step. What's next? What's next? And, um, you know, one step at a time, but continuously looking at what's the next step of development.

43:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so much, so much great stuff there. So I want to talk about your, your boss and that impact a little bit, but you, you also mentioned, you know, distraction was a big issue. How, how did you end up solving for the, the distraction Complication?

44:01 Jelle den Dunnen: Being rigid. It's not easy to kind of cut down the noise, so that takes a little bit of practice. But you know, it was mostly around the deal qualification. I just you know had to look at the numbers. I'm very much a data-driven guy and very much focused on numbers. So I just spend a lot of time of looking at the numbers, looking at ratios. I was like, I'm wasting so much time. I mean, where am I losing time and where am I wasting my efforts on deals that I'm not losing? What are the commodities across those initiatives that I can learn from and save time and save distraction, uh, moving forward? And, um, I think that was, you know, a lot of impact, um, a couple of years ago.

44:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah. That's interesting. You know, and one of the things that I've also seen is I don't think that there has been, and maybe they wouldn't share. So maybe this is kind of a little bit of a But I feel like everybody who's been on the show that is at the very top of their game, none of them have like a horrible manager that they have to work around or put up with. What is it about your relationship with David that has, has been so impactful and helped you improve in how you guys work together?

45:21 Jelle den Dunnen: So it was very interesting because, um, when I joined, uh, or when I was interviewing for this job, he was also in the interviewing stage. So he, uh, started to interview me. Started one week before me. Um, and we were also going to work remotely, uh, both of us. And therefore it was very important for us to connect really well. And I think that we started on the right path from the beginning. Um, so the, I think the second time that we met, we had a long dinner, a lot of chats around, you know, who you are, what do you care about? What do you want to do? What do you do in your, your personal time? What are your ambitions? Hobbies, pretty much everything, like pretty much a first date with the manager, to be honest. And then we did something fun. So we shared the interest for movies. So we went to the cinema after and saw a good movie. And I think that that's how it started, being honest with each other, but also being open about where your mind is at. And I think that we did that from the beginning, and I think that's mostly because I recognized that I needed that coming from my previous job into the job that I have in Bullhorn. But I think that's also a personality trait from David himself. So that just lined up really well.

46:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's really interesting. So typically I ask what advice you'd give to somebody starting out in sales, and I still want to go there, but why don't we continue along the boss thing? I mean, what would What advice would you give to somebody who wants to improve their ability as a sales leader to get the most out of somebody like you?

47:09 Jelle den Dunnen: Make sure you know what that person cares about. Meaning, you know, what are their challenges at that moment? What are the obstacles that they would like to overcome? What are the ambitions that they have? Because take the day-to-day work away. And that's what they think about. That's what they think about when they leave their office and they sit on their couch, when they spend time on the weekends. I think it's important to kind of spend time with that, not just the day-to-day stuff. I think that's very important to collaborate with one another as a sales leader, making sure that you spend time on the personal part part of an individual. It's very easy to kind of get into a deal-to-deal driven conversation. Okay. What about this deal? What about the next deal? Okay. What are we going to do next? What about this meeting? How are you doing? Oh, okay. I'm doing fine. Okay. Well, you know, it's often you go into like very quick 5-minute conversations in between, but I think it's important to really set some time apart to talk about the that are beyond work and pipeline.

48:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good stuff. So now let's talk about kind of the sales rep advice. And I like to think about this in 2 levels, right? One, kind of the starting out. And so this could be what advice you would give to somebody who's starting out in sales, or maybe better yet, this would be what if you could go back and talk to yourself as you were starting your sales career, what advice would you give young Jelle to help him improve along his path and maybe get through some of these challenges faster?

48:57 Jelle den Dunnen: Yeah, so that's definitely a difficult one because on one hand, I kind of know what lessons that I learned and I was like, you know, if I would have learned them quicker, you know, I would have had a lot of benefit from that. So, you know, maybe be less stubborn, for example. But on the other hand, I had to learn those lessons and I think it was very important that, you Um, some obstacles were just, you know, quite, quite substantial for myself. Um, I would say that if there's one thing that I do would like, wanted to have done differently or earlier would be the self-reflection and, you know, looking back at everything that you've done so far and what you can learn from it. Um, I wish I would have started earlier with that, you know, looking at what you do right, to look at what you are not doing right and what you can learn from it. From that.

49:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah, excellent. And then what about somebody who is further into their career and they're doing okay, but they're, they're not at the top? What advice would you have for them to really pick up their game and, and make some strides into the upper ranks?

50:08 Jelle den Dunnen: I would say qualification and efficiency. So typically, if you're average performing and, and you know there's more there that you can do, look at what you're already doing. Where are you being less efficient? Where are you losing time? Where are you putting in a lot of efforts where you perhaps can be quicker or be more accurate on things? So it all comes down at looking at efficiency and deal qualification that would kind of make sure that decrease the time that you spend and waste on deals that you were never going to win in the first place. And that often means that you have to be rigid and you have to be direct. Last year I worked on, I think, an average number of opportunities per quarter, there were like 18. Today I'd like to work on like 8 opportunities at a time, and I'm closing more deals.

51:07 Scott Ingram: Right. Quality over quantity.

51:10 Jelle den Dunnen: Absolutely.

51:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great stuff. Well, before we come to our final question, which is around creating an actionable challenge for the person listening to us, I wanted to call out a couple of things, and I'm not quite sure exactly how the timing is going to work with the release of this episode. So this may be redundant. I maybe have already made this announcement, but the hint that I'll provide is along the idea Uh, mentoring and learning from the best. And, um, well, I'll be a little bit more direct, um, being able to connect with, uh, the, the individuals that I've interviewed on this show. I've got some really interesting things that I'm working on for next year, and I will give, uh, first access and the best opportunities, uh, to those things for folks who are on the mailing list and part of the Sales Success Community. So if you head over to top1.fm/sales-success, and get on the mailing list. That is going to be the best way to learn about all of those things and see kind of where things are going for next year. I'm really, really excited about some of the things that we're working on. And Jelle, when we finish the recording, I'll brief you on exactly what I'm doing there. So let's kind of wrap this up. Jelle, so we release episodes every 2 weeks, and I like to create something very actionable that the person listening to this can put into place right now and work on over the next 2 weeks until the next episode's available and the next challenge is there, what would you recommend that they do?

52:47 Jelle den Dunnen: Okay, I'm gonna use an example that I gave as a challenge to myself over the last 18 months. And it comes back to deal qualification and being efficient. Look at the data, look at the stats, how you're performing today, whether you look back on a quarter basis or the year or the last 2 years, But make it a little bit of a longer period so you can actually see trends and ratios. Now take a couple of those ratios that are most impactful on the things that you're measured on. So think about deal duration, average deal value, conversion rates, things like that, and set a target for yourself and set a date on when you want to achieve that target. Now make that realistic because, you know, You don't want to disappoint yourself, and start working on that.

53:41 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. Measure it. Make some incremental improvement. Jelle, this has been really, really fantastic. Thank you for your time today.

53:49 Jelle den Dunnen: You're welcome. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm/successstories.

54:02 Scott Ingram: FM.