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Today’s show featured an interview with Anna Frazzetto, the former Chief Revenue Officer at Airswift, a workforce solutions (staffing and recruitment) organization.
Find Anna on LinkedIn.
ANNA’S TIP: “With the clients that you currently work with, find out something that you don’t know about them. Because there’s going to be something that you don’t know. Either about the individual that you sell to. Have you done research specifically? If you’re selling to a C-level person, maybe they belong to a certain committee that you didn’t know about. Find out something new. Every bit of information helps out.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m talking today with Anna Frazzetto. She’s the Global Chief Revenue Officer from Airswift. She was introduced to me by one of our past Sales Game Changers guests, the great Jennifer Ives, who’s a good friend of ours. She is doing a lot of great leadership stuff with AI. She said, “Fred, I have a great friend. She’s really smart. She’s a great sales leader. You definitely want to get her on the podcast.” Anna, we’re doing today’s interview in mid-June of 2024, for people who are listening in the future. I’m excited to talk to you. Why don’t you give us a very brief introduction of what you do at Airswift, what Airswift does? Then I’m excited to get deep with you in some of the questions we’ve lined up.
Anna Frazzetto: Thank you so much, Fred, for having me. This is a lot of fun. I always love talking about sales in particular, that’s my passion. I am the Chief Revenue Officer for Airswift. Airswift is a workforce solutions organization. We basically provide talent to our clients, ranging from engineering and technical type staffing worldwide. We have 70 offices worldwide, and we have over 9,000 consultants on billing. We’re pretty busy, but it’s what we love to do.
Fred Diamond: Has most of your career been in the staffing industry?
Anna Frazzetto: It’s interesting you ask that question, Fred, because I have to tell you, and I used to deny that I was in the staffing industry, and not for any negative, it’s because I always was in a staffing company, but did something different. I focused more primarily on providing what you would call solutions-oriented, project-based type of consulting services. I would always say, “We’re the solutions arm.” Then I realized, “You know what? It’s all the same thing.” We’re just wrapping talent differently. Either it be SOW or it be contracting, or it be a direct hire, it’s all under the same umbrella.
Fred Diamond: Give people a perspective on what the chief revenue officer does at a staffing company. Again, this is the Sales Game Changers Podcast, and we’re going to have a great conversation here about sales. What do you sell, to help people put this into context?
Anna Frazzetto: It’s a couple of things. One, it’s sales techniques and basically sales methodology is one of my areas of focus. The other is also looking at diversifying your portfolio of services. A lot of companies start and they might hone in on just one particular type of thing that they’re selling. But then as time goes on, you realize that you don’t want to have all your eggs in one basket and you want to start diversifying your portfolio. That’s what I spend a lot of my time focusing on, is diversification efforts and being able to come up with new products and services that we can offer our clients.
Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about sales leadership. Let’s talk about some of the qualities that you think are essential for a successful sales leader. Give us some insights. What are some of those qualities that are essential for a successful sales leader?
Anna Frazzetto: I would have to say intestinal fortitude. When you think about sales, first of all, to be a sales leader, you need to have carried a bag yourself. I’ve seen this happen in some organizations where somebody takes on the responsibility for sales, but meanwhile they were always involved from an operational perspective and never the direct contact with clients. I think that sets you up to fail, because you’re not going to understand the trials and tribulation of the sales process. The ups and downs. How do you turn a client around? How do you deal with complex solutions that you might be selling to a client? Those are all things that you need to personally carry a bag. You develop this internal strength to be able to carry forward and be able to handle rejection.
Be a great listener. I used to use the expression show up and throw up. New salespeople get in front of a client, “Oh my God, I’m so excited. Let me tell you about A, B, C customer. Let me tell you about what we have to offer,” and not once asking the client to explain, what’s your operation like? What are your pain points? What are you having challenges with? If you could fix one thing, what would you fix? But really more focused on being able to describe their own company. Intestinal fortitude, listening skills. With that, there’s a level of ingrained leadership that you need to have. You need to be able to work independent to a certain degree. Because a lot of times it feels like it’s an island, you working with a client and really trying to get that client to want to buy from you.
Fred Diamond: One of the questions I used to ask on the Sales Game Changers Podcast was, what is your superpower? To the sales VPs, I would ask. Listening came up so often. As a matter of fact, in the first a hundred shows, I’m a great listener came up at least half the time. Matter of fact, we actually did a study of the sales terms that were uttered on the first 450 Sales Game Changers Podcast episodes. A lot of our listeners know this, because I refer to this, empathy was number two, and listening was number one. Since you brought up listening, give us your advice for the sales professionals listening today, how can they become a better listener?
Anna Frazzetto: That is so difficult because especially if you think about the personality of a successful salesperson, sometimes they might have ADD. They’re extroverted, they like to talk. They like to maybe in a good way be the center of attention, kind of engage the room. Those all work counter to listening. Where you need to become almost an introvert and read body language, read the room, how can you engage and develop a relationship with this person that you’re talking to?
For example, as I’m talking to you, Fred, I see that picture behind you, and maybe I would ask you a question about that picture. “That’s a pretty cool picture. Where’d you get that?” Because you get to engage with the individual at a different level. That’s becoming harder and harder as we deal in a virtual world. You have to get creative as to how you approach that. But that’s what I would say, is it’s almost force yourself to hit the pause button and remember the number one objective is you are there to understand them, not the other way around.
Fred Diamond: They want to be understood. They want to come up with things. We used to have this metric that if a sales call is 90% the customer talking, then that’s a good sales call. Now, of course, if you’re doing a demo, people would say you want it the other way around. But nonetheless, it’s about that.
One tip that I used to do, still do, is when I go into a meeting, I still bring paper and pen, and I always write in the upper right hand corner, LHT, let him talk, or let her talk, to remind me that it’s all about them so that they can come up with observations about what they need. That being said, what are some of the sales strategies that you’ve discovered to be most effective in today’s market?
Anna Frazzetto: From a sales strategy perspective, a couple of things. One, I had mentioned sales methodology as far as how to adhere to it. There are so many out there. There’s Miller Heiman, there’s force management, to name a couple. There’s target account selling. Obviously, we follow a VFE process, which is basically value focused engagement with a client. But all of them have one similar characteristic, and it’s really to almost roadmap what the client needs are. Understand your client. It’s a little bit like playing the game of war when you were a child. You want to understand who’s the coach on the client side, who’s an influencer that can influence the decision-making process, but not necessarily a decision maker, but they can help in the process, who are the decision makers?
Then you start learning, how do you engage with these people? It’s important, regardless of what you’re selling, is to have that level of detail and understanding of the client that you are about to go and pitch a solution. That’s why I’m a big fan of, you need to follow some kind of methodology. There’s also a technique called blue sheeting. It’s a blue sheet, is the way it started. Now, you obviously have a digital form that you can fill out, but you go through and you say, “What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Who’s my competition? What am I up against basically to be able to win this client over?” The more you are educated in the process, the better the outcome.
I find it very frustrating when I have a salesperson reach out to me, and I used to work for a company called Harvey Nash many years ago. I had this salesperson reach out to me saying, “I was talking to Harvey, and he mentioned that I should ping you.” Meanwhile, the name Harvey Nash was a made-up name. Clearly, no research, no nothing. They just thought that if they would throw the name, that this would be a way to get engaged with me. It actually worked counter where I wound up expressing myself and saying, “You’ve done no work whatsoever. If you want to be a successful salesperson, that’s not the way you go about doing it.”
Fred Diamond: I get 30 to 40 people who want to be on the Sales Game Changers Podcast per week, so I get pitched all the time. But the reason I’m telling you this is I’ll get an email, “Hi, I’m a big fan of Sales Game Changers Podcast, a podcast that helps sales professionals,” blah, blah, blah. It’s like, that is my meta tag right up on the internet. Then they’ll always say, “I listened to your episode with Anna Frazzetto and I found it very informative.” Sometimes I’ll just delete the email when it’s obviously a standard one. But sometimes I’ll reply back, “Well, what did you really like about the interview with Anna Frazzetto?” Then they’ll have to either do one thing, they’ll just delete it, because they know they were caught, or they’ll go find the interview and either they’ll read the transcript or listen. But yeah, people see through that all the time.
With automation, it’s become such a scam, which goes back to the fact that, I like what you’re talking about, sales. We believe sales is a profession. If you’re a professional, what does a professional do? Well, a sales professional studies, they get deep into understanding what the customer is dealing with. As a sales professional, how do you stay up to date with the latest trends and developments in sales? What do you recommend for people listening?
Anna Frazzetto: That’s also another great question, because it’s so hard. There’s so much data out there. Just the point on the fact of with automation and AI, it should make you smarter, not lazier. I think what’s happening is a lot of shortcuts are being done by, “I’ll use ChatGPT and I’ll find out what Sales Game Changers Podcast is about,” and spew out and send an email and then get in front of you that way. But I like to listen to podcasts. Podcasts are one of my favorite things to do because it’s easy. I can do it when I’m walking. I could do it when I’m in the car. I could do it when I’m working out. It’s great fillers and you feel like you can keep your brain engaged.
I like Simon Sinek. He does a lot in the sales space. I’m a fan of his. Years ago, I used to be a big fan of Jeffrey Gitomer, who was a great sales leader. But there are so many out there. Honestly, I don’t think you can go wrong. I think listening to podcasts, not to say this now as we’re talking about your podcast, but listening to podcasts of other sales leaders and what they do and how they do things, I think that’s very educational. I learn constantly. That’s the thing, it’s you have to have the mindset that you’re constantly learning and always stay curious. This is how you keep your skills fresh and current. As soon as you think that, “I’ve done it. I know this is the only methodology out there. This is the only CRM out there,” you’re wrong. There’s always something else out there that’s going to be better, faster, quicker, help you sell more. I think those are all key items to look at and keep yourself fresh.
Fred Diamond: The great sales professionals are continuous learners. I’m going to put you on the spot here. I’m learning how to play some songs on the piano. I took piano lessons when I was in fifth grade, and I never practiced. I regret it. I decided I’m going to learn a couple songs. I’m not going to learn how to play the piano. I’m going to learn how to play a couple of songs. To put you on the spot here, what’s something right now that you’re trying to learn?
Anna Frazzetto: It’s funny you say this because I just had this conversation with my husband where I was tempted to say, “Okay, I don’t think I should be doing this.” It’s stripping old pieces of furniture and then refinishing them. It’s quite an extensive process. I took a class. I thought that made me the expert because I took a class. But you’re dealing with some pretty strong chemicals to strip the varnish on a piece of furniture. Then you have to sand it. I’m doing all this work, and just this weekend I’m making a complete mess in the garage. My husband and I were talking, I’m like, “Maybe I need to find a different hobby because this is becoming overwhelming.” But I love it because I did complete one piece of furniture. To see the finished product is amazing. It’s like when you close a deal. There’s nothing more rewarding when you see it finished, done, delivered, signed off. That’s what’s keeping me engaged.
Fred Diamond: Good for you and continue with that, and hopefully you’ll get to your second piece of furniture as well. What’s been the most rewarding part of your sales career?
Anna Frazzetto: That’s a hard one in the sense because it depends when I look at my career in different segments. I look at my career when I first started to get into sales and the thrill. I was a technical person. I was a developer, a programmer for years. I was a tech nerd, loved it. Then it was a mentor in my life who said, “You are so extroverted, you should be engaged with the clients.” Then they developed this role, which was technical sales support. I would go on sales calls with the sales team, but then I would be able to engage with the client explaining our product, our service offering. Slowly I bit the bug, that got me going. My friend said I joined the dark side, I went a hundred percent into sales. That was very rewarding, that first deal you close. That feeling that you get.
But then as I’ve evolved in my career, where you transition where you are not the one just carrying a bag, but you are the one that now is managing salespeople around the globe. What becomes rewarding is watching their success. You always have somebody on the team who’s going to fight you. Some of their strengths can become their weaknesses in the sales process. Especially sometimes when they have so much success that then they lose the being curious. It’s like, “I’m rocking and rolling. I bought my first BMW, I’m feeling great.” Then they start losing touch with reality. It’s when I can get them back engaged and understand that, “No, no, no, no. This is an evergreen process,” is what I typically say. We got to keep learning and keep being curious because there’s going to be another client out there that is going to be completely different than any other client that you sell to. It’s not one size fits all.
Fred Diamond: Even in enterprise sales and complex selling, things change and things come up, and timing and things like that. I want to note that you’re also one of the co-authors of a book called Together We Rise, and the book fosters membership and helps women rise and dealing with imposter syndrome. Tell us about your contributions to that.
Anna Frazzetto: This book, first of all, it was definitely a labor of love. This book came out from COVID. What had happened was we in the staffing industry, we were about to celebrate a great leader, Joyce Russell, who wrote the book Cherry on Top. We were going to Executive Forum in Florida, March of 2020. We were going to have this dinner the 15 of us, and to celebrate Joyce. Well, what wound up happening is literally the conference got canceled, everything is in shutdown rather quickly. We wind up doing a Zoom call and we have virtual toast and celebrate Joyce.
We decided, “Why don’t we get together once a month,” and we developed this book club so that we had some connection with people within the industry. One of our guest speakers at one of these book club monthly sessions was an author. She said, “The 15 of you are so dynamic, you should write a book.” Of course, we said, “Okay, yeah, sure.” We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but we did.
We each wrote a chapter, and what was amazing is that most of us had not met each other in person. We did all of this remote. We didn’t talk about what we were writing in our chapters about. Yet when the book came together, there were consistent themes throughout the book. Imposter syndrome, mentorship. The fact of not necessarily feeling like you belong to a team or to a project. People coming from diverse backgrounds and just some of the challenges, especially in the tech space. It was amazing to see these themes flow through the book.
You mentioned imposter syndrome. I think all of us share different stories about feeling that we didn’t deserve, or I shouldn’t be in the room right now. The reality is, it was all self-created. You do this to yourself. We have some of the authors, both Leslie Vickrey and Lauren Jones, that talk about the evil DJ that sits in your head. Lauren talks about the shitty committee, she would say, that basically is giving you all of this negative feedback. But all those things we’ve all experienced, and we all connected on that level that we need to rise above that. We need to be supportive of each other.
That’s one common theme that we’ve seen. A lot of times women are not very supportive of each other. Not anymore. I definitely have seen a big change in the industry over the last couple of years, but that was one of the other themes about lifting people up around us, to the left, to the right, above us, below us, make sure that we can rise the next generation.
Fred Diamond: As a lot of listeners know, of the Sales Game Changers Podcast, at the Institute for Excellence in Sales, we host the Women in Sales Leadership Forum, which has helped women around the globe at companies like Amazon Web Services, Hilton, Salesforce, Oracle, et cetera, rise each other and become greater leaders and things along those lines. Congratulations on the book. As you know, I’ve published two books during the pandemic, and it’s definitely been life changing. I hope you continue to write.
You mentioned AI before. Where do you see the future of sales heading in the next 5 to 10 years? Along the ways, what would be some of your advice for sales professionals to be great sales professionals over the next 5 to 10 years based on where you think it’s going?
Anna Frazzetto: Let me just say this, sales is a contact sport. AI is a tool, and it’s meant to help us. It’s meant to provide more information faster and readily available to you. It is meant to help you do your research on your prospect list a little bit faster and quicker. But let’s not lose sight of, you’re not going to close deals and win deals by sending emails and not having that contact with the client. You need to have that face-to-face time. You need to be able to establish relationships. The power of relationships is amazing. I can say in my career, because I invested in developing relationships early on, without knowing, purely by accident. I think it’s more my personality. These individuals have followed me in every company that I’ve gone to, and they’ve taken me to every company that they’ve gone to. That’s a secret sauce that I love to share with every salesperson. It’s, don’t be transactional. Take the time to develop the relationship.
I go back to the point of being curious. You can use AI and automation to keep the curiosity going, but keep in mind, it’s up to you using your brain power to be able to engage with a client. Read the room, AI is not going to read the room for you. You need to understand body language, when people are engaged, when people are not engaged. How do you change your pitch midstream because you start noticing that a key decision maker, either on a video call or in person, is starting to fold their arms and pulling away from the conference room table? You’re not hitting the mark. You got to be quick on your feet. How are you going to shift direction? That research is going to make you quick on your feet because you’re going to have that in the back of your head.
Fred Diamond: You raise a great point. I was speaking with a sales leader at a extremely well-known company. Everybody listening will know the name of this leading technology company. As I mentioned, at the Institute for Excellence in Sales, we’re very proud of our Women in Sales Leadership Forum, our Women in Sales Emerging Leaders Forum. This leader reached out to me, director level, and said, “I see all the great things that the Institute for Excellence in Sales does for women in sales. What are you doing for my young men?”
I said, “Well, tell me more about the problem.”
She goes, “Well, here’s the thing. I have all these smart young men in their 20s. They’re great at emails, they’re great at Zoom calls. They don’t know how to talk to people,” and they don’t know how to do a lot of the things that Anna Frazzetto just mentioned, read the room, prepare. She said, “I was on a call with one of them, he’s three years into the job, he’s brilliant. The customer talked for a little bit. Then my sales rep went right for the close. After the customer spoke for a couple minutes, he didn’t ask any questions. He just went right for the close, on what our pricing model looked like,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. She said, “I was cringing. I was appalled. I couldn’t wait for it to end. It led to nothing.” She also said, “Well, it’s an existing customer and we’re trying to sell them new things.” They didn’t lose the account per se, but she said, “We got to train these young sales professionals on engaging in conversation,” like you just said, reading the room, being empathetic, listening, understanding.
Anna, thank you so much for giving us all these insights. I want to acknowledge our great friend Jennifer Ives, who also participated in a couple of different books as well. She’s a great friend of the Institute, doing great stuff with AI as well. I’m thinking about that Harvey Nash example, where you talked about the fact that this Harvey Nash guy doesn’t even exist. I remember when I was reading your bio, I pictured this guy called Harvey Nash being a big Mahoff in his industry and his locality, and pretty much knew what he looked like. That’s such a brilliant point.
Again, I wasn’t selling to you, so I didn’t need to go do the research per se. I took everything you put on LinkedIn in your bio as what it was. But so many people are lazy, and even the AI will generate, “She worked for Harvey Nash. Harvey Nash was a great businessman in the late ‘70s,” because maybe it says that somewhere on something that’s not true. A sales professional got that from AI thinking, “Okay, I’m going to refer that Harvey mentioned that I should call.” That was a great story. Thank you so much.
Anna, give us an action step. You’ve given us so many great ideas. Give us something specific that people should do right now after listening to today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast, or after reading the transcript.
Anna Frazzetto: I would say with the clients that you currently work with, find out something that you don’t know about them. Because there’s going to be something that you don’t know. Either about the individual that you sell to. Have you done research specifically? If you’re selling to a C-level person, maybe they belong to a certain committee that you didn’t know about. Find out something new. Every bit of information helps out. That would be my homework assignment for everyone.
Fred Diamond: I also wrote a book on Lyme disease awareness, and I’ve seen some of my prospects on committees at some of the top Lyme charity organizations. That’s something that immediately gave us a reason to speak about, and the same thing with your advice.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo