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Sales Tuners

SalesTuners is a weekly podcast where I talk with great sales leaders and high performing individual salespeople about the attitude, actions, and abilities that have led to their success.
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Now displaying: July, 2018
Jul 31, 2018

Full Notes

Book Recommendations

Sponsor

  • Costello - What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
Jul 24, 2018

Takeaways

  1. Be Real: Sales calls should be mutually beneficial. If you’re just talking at prospects, naturally their guard is going to be up. Yes, I know you have required fields and boxes you have to check on each call, but what would happen if you worked with the prospect and said “hey, I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, here are the couple of things I need to be able to get out of the call as well.” If you’re real with them, they’ll understand you have a job to do as well and this track will disarm them.
  2. Don’t Let It Go to Your Head: The rollercoaster of emotions in sales is real. Once you start seeing some success and you find a lot of your time is being spent closing deals, realize the only way to close any deal is to open it in the first place. Make sure you’re balancing the time needed with new prospects. On the flip side, if you find yourself stringing together a bad few weeks, don’t lose your confidence. Focus on the things right in front of you and continue doing the activities you know drive success.
  3. Understand the Consequences of Inaction: If you lose a deal, it’s not like it just happens in an instant. The reality is, you lost it much earlier in the process, you just happened to find out when the prospect told you. As you’re running any sales cycle, you must understand what happens if certain things don’t take place. I mean that on both the prospects end as well as yours. If they don’t solve their problem, what happens? If you make the wrong assumptions, what happens? Minimize inaction and you’ll start seeing many more closes.

Full Notes

Book Recommendation

Sponsor

  • Costello - What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
Jul 17, 2018

Takeaways

  1. Don’t Be Afraid to Work Hard: Just like the quote at the beginning said, winners embrace the need to work hard, where losers see it as punishment. If you want to be great at something, you have to be willing to sacrifice. Just showing up and running through the motions is not going to make you better. Sure, you may have some short-term success, but it’s one of those things where in 10 years, you won’t have 10 years of experience; you’ll have one year of experience 10 times.
  2. It’s Okay to Ask for Help: You don’t have to know everything. Today’s culture seems to be one of needing to memorize answers instead of developing a perpetual curiosity. Don’t fall into that trap. Ask your peers how they do things. Invite colleagues who aren’t in sales to lunch to understand how they impact the business. Ask your customers what really matters to them. Get the notion of “I know” out of your head and start asking others.
  3. Know What Customers Say: Once a company has bought your offering, whether from you or someone else on your team, dive in to understand their perspective. Why did they buy any solution? Why did they decide on your product? What are they hoping to solve? Don’t conflate this with what you do, find out in their words what was important to them.

Full Notes

Book Recommendation

Sponsor

  • Costello - What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
Jul 10, 2018

Takeaways

  1. Set Daily Goals: I know most of you listening to this are the type that set a really big vision for your year. Unfortunately, it’s too hard to see that far into the future. Break down that annual goal and know exactly what goes into it. What do you have to accomplish this quarter? What about this month? What about this week? What about today? The more incremental your goal is, the better chance you have of iterating on what works and achieving the overarching metrics. The last thing you want is to get too far down the road and realize you have no chance of success.
  2. You Have the Right to Call Prospects: Unless you’re day one at your company, the reality is, you’ve had more conversations about your product and solution than any of your prospects. What does that mean? It means you have a right to call and reach out to prospects you believe have the problem your company solves. I believe if what you’re offering truly does solve the problem you’re calling about, not only do you have the right, you have the duty to help them.
  3. Let Prospects Save You: This is one of my favorite tactics in sales. From cold calls all the way through the sales cycle, the notion of intentionally playing dumb can work to your advantage. Notice, I did NOT say, “be dumb,” I said, “play dumb.” Even when I know the answer to a question, I will find a way to ask it — even going so far as saying, “help me out here, what does X mean” or “how does Y happen.” Your prospects will save you… if you let them.

Full Notes

Book Recommendations

Sponsors

  • Costello - What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
Jul 3, 2018

Takeaways

  1. Manufacture Urgency: Pushing a prospect across the finish line is one of the biggest questions I get day to day. That said, without fully understanding what a company has to gain or lose with any decision will leave you standing alone at the finish line. Let me be very clear, I am not a fan of end of the month or end of the quarter discounts; however, Sean’s notion of “exploding offers” really intrigued me. If you know you’re in a competitive situation and you can get a prospect to show you their current bill or current contract, that would be worth making a deal.
  2. Don’t Position Yourself as the Best: Unless an analyst or third-party researcher has literally labeled your offering as “the best,” don’t talk like you are. Doing so will make you look foolish to any sophisticated buyer. Understand, I’m not saying you shouldn’t believe in your product. If you dig in and understand the competitive landscape - what capabilities each company has as well as the pros and cons of the different offerings - you’ll be able to have a better conversation with prospects. You’ll be able to break down their specific needs and align those to things you do well. Maybe more than anything, don’t disparage your competition. It may work in the short run, but long term, you’ll be the one looking like a fool.
  3. Use Pilots to Close Deals: At this point, it seems every buyer has had an experience of being duped by a salesperson or buying something that had a less than successful rollout. If you have a cautious prospect, but you know your product will help them, offer a pilot. Making it a paid pilot ensures your contact is one that can go obtain budget. Before fully rolling it out, set expectations on both ends. You want to understand, and even suggest, how the prospect will use the product during the pilot period. Lastly, you want to set the acceptance criteria up front to deem what success means.

Full Notes

Book Recommendation

Sponsor

  • Costello-what if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
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