Selling with HubSpot is a podcast hosted by Luis Silva-Ball, CEO & Co-Founder of Digifianz designed to help HubSpot sales reps optimize their sales processes for greater success.
How to Ace Your Discovery with HubSpot Head of Direct Sales Fiorella Cardenas
•Digifianz•Season 1•Episode 4
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00:00 | 10:43
Meet Fiorella Cardenas, HubSpot's Senior Head of Direct Sales for Emerging Markets/Latin America. In this episode, Fiorella shares some of the differences between selling to the American market and the LatAm market, and how to best approach each region.
Fiorella gives the hot take that rather than focusing on the flaws of your competitor, it's better to really dig deep into how HubSpot can best help your prospects- in other words, put your consulting cap on!
We wrap up the episode with Fiorella's takeways on how to ace your discovery. So grab your pen and paper and get ready to take notes!
Digifianz is an award winning HubSpot Diamond Partner. At Digifianz, we believe in the transformational power of humanizing business relationships. We believe driving honest, open conversations with prospects, and constantly providing them with value before they've ever bought anything, ultimately leads to better sales and a happier & loyal customer base. That's why we help companies grow with a people-first mentality & strategy.
Speaker 1:
Hey everyone, welcome to our podcast of selling with HubSpot. We have here Friarela Cardenas, who is the sales manager for the Southern Cone of Latin America in the HubSpot sales team. Friarela, could you tell us a bit about your experience with HubSpot, your experience with sales, how you came to your position? I know it's a very fascinating journey you've had there. Could you elaborate a bit on that?
Speaker 2:
So I started at HubSpot back in 2017 as a BDR for the Latin America team. At that point we were a very small team and from there I promoted to be an account executive. I worked in Latin America for about a year and a half before making a complete change within HubSpot, within the sales org. So up until then, I had only sold HubSpot in Spanish to a developing market, to net new customers, and I pivoted to sell HubSpot to install based on so an existing book of customers only in English to North America. So it was a completely drastic change. After that, that particular team ended up being absorbed into our account executive team. So another change selling both to net new customers and to install based. And then after that, I switched over to be a BDR manager for our mid-market team and after that I switched over to be a Southcone manager for Latin America again.
Speaker 2:
Kind of a full circle journey.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, absolutely Now. So throughout this journey, I mean, you've seen just about everything. Have you noticed any differences within the Latin American market and the American market?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so in the American market you're selling a lot to businesses that are using competitors so probably using one of our major competitors and in Latin you're more selling to businesses that have used something not really a fully developed CRM, maybe something that they built in-house, or an Excel sheet.
Speaker 1:
We've seen a lot of those.
Speaker 2:
Nothing at all and you're more selling them on the change of what transforming their process and organizing things would look like, and in North America you're more selling to. Well, what's the value prop of HubSpot? Why would you want to do things differently? Why would you want to have something all in one? And how different things would look like in HubSpot?
Speaker 1:
That is a very fascinating difference. Yeah, I think I can relate with that Absolutely. And what's your approach? How do you approach both different aspects, whether somebody already has a CRM software that they're using and maybe they're not fully happy with it, versus somebody who doesn't have a process, doesn't have a CRM, how do you approach that one?
Speaker 2:
I think it all boils down to the discovery. I think at the end of the day, if you run a good discovery process, you're going to have a good value prop anyway. So if they're using X competitor, then it's understanding and actively listening and look to understand what needs to happen that's not happening or what needs to stop happening that's happening within their day to day and where does their process break down and understanding how these things are impacting the business. Going back to the business proposition and how these things are impacting the specific person that you're talking to, that's how you went over a champion. It's understanding what's relevant to that.
Speaker 2:
So when you're selling more the dream of inbound or the dream of the CRM system, if you will, that is more of a change management sale. So it's understanding that these things are going to be really different. But is it worth it for you? Kind of giving them pushback and being like you know, if you have this in-house bill, sort of Mickey Mouse CRM, and you've been using it, or if you've been using your spreadsheet, what makes you want something different now? And like kind of understanding the different people that are the different stakeholders, like how would this help each one and, ultimately, how does this change help the business become more profitable? So it's really understanding of the pain. That's the key right.
Speaker 1:
It's like you're really more of a consultant, but you want to understand that. You said it like the profitability and it's like all around. It's not just like the sales team, but everybody in their team. How can this benefit them overall? And you got to get to know them. It's not just like you're not just selling a tool. You're understanding about it and seeing if what you're selling is the right fit for that.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, and a bit of a hot take. But I'm not really a big fan of selling against specific competitors like as like, okay, like you need to know everything that's wrong with this competitor because at the end of the day, the sale like if I'm here to consult you on HubSpot and whether we're a good fit for your business, then I need to understand your business and I need to understand where your process is broken.
Speaker 1:
Right, and I mean there's a lot of HubSpot competitors and there's some really good ones too, and that's perfectly okay, and you don't want to say like, no, no, this one is terrible. You're more like, yeah, we just want to find out if HubSpot can provide value for you. It totally makes sense and that makes it so you're more trustworthy as well. If you approach them in that open mindset framework where you're really concerned about their needs, their wants, their problems. I like that, yeah, absolutely. Now, any challenges that you see when selling HubSpot both in Latin America and in the US.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean in the US it was, it was a lot more. These systems are so ingrained into our processes that it's going to be such a pain to remove them and it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of like like a lot of live work. It's going to be expensive, it's not going to be pretty and it's going to take some time. But I think that the big thing there is you know, if you're working with a company that will actually, if you've done a good job at a discovery, at your discovery process, and you got to the point where you really understand how this change is going to help them be more profitable, and you've communicated that and they're aligned in that, then it's a matter of understanding. Well, okay, what? What is this process going to look like and am I in good hands to help me with this process? Whether that means having my team trained a certain way, whether that means you know I need to, I need to budget for certain things and I need to, to, to, to kind of taper expectations so that I know what to expect in the transition period, so that I would say was more for the US market, in Latin.
Speaker 2:
As far as selling HubSpot. You know there's a lot of volatility. There's a lot of volatility in the market. You kind of never know what's going to happen in Argentina, what? Two and a half weeks ago we woke up and the the value of the peso to the dollar dipped 20% and you know that's going to impact business. But at the end of the day, if you have a solid value crop, if you're listening to your customers and if your solution can solve it, all boils down to the discovery and understanding like what is actually missing in their day to day and their process and their their go to market strategy, that will actually change things and help them be more profitable and and helping them understand that that transition, what, what that's going to look like, how that's going to help, and if you've done a good job at your discovery, at that point you should know, like your prospects should know, if this is worthwhile for them or not.
Speaker 1:
I love it. I love it. And so we've talked a lot about the discovery. I think you've you've done a bit of a deep dive, but I want to go even deeper, like how would you advise someone to properly run a a like a good discovery? What are those like I don't know key indicators that that would give away to you that, yeah, they've done a good job? They've got to know this company? Do you have anything that helps you identify that that was a good discovery?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean I generally try to avoid thinking about it as a checklist, but if I had to list certain things, I'd say some pain point, a challenge that pertains to how the business can either make more money or run something more efficiently, or control and reduce costs or reduce risks. So if you have a pain point and you've communicated it and your prospect understands how your solution will help them make more money, gain more efficiency or cut costs and reduce risk for their business, then you're in a pretty decent position. Then another point is do you have everybody involved? Have you multi-threaded? Do you have enough people in the business? Because the biggest thing that you want to avoid doing is confusing your prospects.
Speaker 2:
Your champions enthusiasm for the business's pain. So a pretty good indicator is that you have a couple of people on board. You have a team that is on board. The area is going to have detractors, but as long as the folks who are on board have a clear understanding of the value prop and they're aligned in that this could help the business in some critical way, which boils down to those four the risk, the money or the efficiency and the cost then you're in a pretty decent spot.
Speaker 1:
Love it Awesome. Any last tips for somebody who's starting in sales like somebody just joined your team, what would you recommend to do?
Speaker 2:
I think the biggest thing is be curious. Be curious to try to seek to understand things. Seek to understand why things are the way they are and use the resources that you have at your disposal. Figure out what resources you have at your disposal. Have a good capacity, especially at HubSpot. Take care of your capacity that's the accounts that you have under your name, that you can work. But yeah, the biggest thing is be curious about things. Don't be afraid to challenge, speak up, come up with different ideas, and you don't want anything by doing the same thing over and over again. You want things by thinking outside the box, and HubSpot's a good place to do that.
Speaker 1:
Love it All right, awesome, awesome. Thank you for that. Thank you, guys. Thanks, all right Cool.
