Salestuners: B2b Sales Training And Coaching From Prospecting To Negotiation And Closing

Takeaways Raise Your Business Acumen: Selling into the C-Suite of enterprise companies is more education than pain-based. They know the problems they have and they’re looking for salespeople to rethink what’s possible. This has nothing to do with your product features and benefits and everything to do with their business. You need to be able to quickly identify your value and show a direct correlation to their pressing issues. Define the Trigger Moments of Custom Success: When it comes to customer success, it’s not enough to just get your customer to the point of that they can’t live without your product. What you need to really dig into is why they can’t live without it. What are those trigger moments that get them to go from exploring to needing to not being able to live without it? Have the Conviction to Say “No”: Lose the happy ears. Not everything is a good opportunity for you or your company. Could you potentially lose a deal with this approach? Damn right, you might, but the level of respect you’ll g

Takeaways Learn How to Learn: When tackling any new topic or initiative the first question you have to ask yourself is “why.” The second question should be “how.” Using the notion of synthesis, take all the artifacts, insights, and data points you can find from a variety of sources and then apply it to your own situation. This should help you determine at least one hypothesis as a starting point. And for crying out loud, pick up a book and start reading. Remember Who the Credibility Belongs To: No one cares what you know or what you think. The truth is, prospects are looking for a way to prove salespeople wrong. So, when you don’t have credibility, invoke those that do — i.e. your customers or external reports. When you can cite 3rd party research or share stories from successful customers, your story is more likely to stick. Every Objection Has a Hidden Meaning: Regardless of the type of objection you hear, you have to get to the root cause of the statement. While your prospect may seem to be evoking logic

Takeaways Master the First 20 Seconds: We all get defensive when we receive an unexpected call from someone we don’t know. Don’t take it personal as it’s a cultural issue. However, it is your job to dissolve that defensiveness very quickly. First thing first — remove iffy language. Don’t tell them you’re “just calling” as if you have nothing better to do. Also, don’t ask them how they are. Not only is that a tell tale sign that you’re a salesperson, but when a stranger asks about your health, you get even more defensive. You need to quickly get to the reason for your call and then immediately show them how the call is relevant to them. Notice, this has nothing to do with you. Prepare to Think on Your Feet: I get it. Email is easier because you have time to both think and edit. On the phone, you clearly don’t get that luxury. So, be prepared. Obviously, you need to have a couple of open ended questions ready to go, but you also need to know what the 3-4 typical responses are that you’re likely to get from th

Takeaways Buyers Can be Miseducated: While a lot of research can be, and is being, done prior to your first conversation with a buyer, it doesn’t mean they know exactly what they’ve made the right assumptions. While they’re clearly looking for something, it’s your job to be a helpful expert and advisor to the process. Dig Deeper: It’s very important to understand the existing state of a prospect’s business. Where are they? What do they already have to work with? What can you leverage? Buyers aren’t looking for you to tell them everything they want to hear, they’re looking to you for understanding. But how can you understand, if you haven’t asked enough questions? Don’t Leave a Mess for Delivery: Just because you’ve got ink on a contract, doesn’t mean your job is done. Help yourself by making the client handoff to fulfillment as smooth as possible. As a salesperson, every once in a while you're going to have to do something where you are pitted between meeting a prospect's demands and meeting or working with

Takeaways Do the Boring Work: The best salespeople I’ve ever met run the same process every single time. I know how boring that sounds to most of you, but the truth is you don’t have to get fancy in sales to win. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Focus on the little things — those foundational elements that you know actually move the needle. Control the Signal vs the Noise: With the volume of email being sent by sales reps today, combined with the number of calls being logged, you have to stand out from the crowd. Think about your own life — how many emails do you delete without opening? How many calls do you screen with caller ID and wait for the voicemail transcription to see if it’s worth your time? If you sound like every other sales rep out there, why would any buyer think differently of you? Vanity Metrics are Worthless: I’ll admit when personal email open tracking first came out I was thrilled. Until I started having prospects open the message 37 times and never hit reply. You know you’re in sales to

  Takeaways People are Creatures of Habit: Quit spending your mental energy trying to figure out when your prospects are more apt to respond or engage with you. Just like you have a routine, so do they. They likely get out of bed around the same time, commute into the office at the same time, and guess what — respond to emails and phone calls at the same time of day. Look for those patterns and learn to strike while the iron is hot. Practice Genuine Empathy: A lot of people talk about empathy, but most don’t practice it. What does it mean to truly understand a prospect's challenges? Without trying to sell anything, sit down with a few of your ideal prospects and let them teach you. Ask them what industry struggles they’re having right now? Ask them how they are personally measured on initiatives. Ask them how they are compensated for success. These small nuggets can turn into a pile of gold. Be Willing to Walk Away: As excited as you are about what you sell, it’s not for everyone — at least not right away. G

Takeaways Know What to do Next: You just made the investment in acquiring data, hashing out your target accounts and cold prospecting, but what happens when you actually get someone on the phone? Make sure you build out at least the basic infrastructure to know how to handle responses both positive and negative. If your goal is a meeting, make sure you’re not getting stuck in a 20-message email thread or look silly when your prospect ends up on your website talking to your chatbot. Put Your Hands on the Keyboard: Building from the last takeaway, when you work with smaller numbers, you have the opportunity to get more personal in your messaging. Instead of letting your sales automation do all the work, put your hands on the keyboard and customize your outreach. Make it obvious that your message could not have been meant for anyone else other than the person you’re sending it to. As Adam said,, you can only deliver your first impression once. Leverage Messaging from Paid Advertising: If your company has inves

Takeaways Learn From Others: Everyone learns from failure, but you don’t have to learn from your own failure. Whether it’s your peers, other professionals in your network, books, blogs, or even podcasts like this. You owe it to yourself to seek out knowledge both positive and negative from others. But be careful, you want to learn from the best, not just your buddy or some random stranger. Pride Will Kill You: The stubbornness of pride locks you into your own thoughts. We have a cognitive bias around consistency that once we’ve formulated an idea that we can’t be inconsistent with that or flip flop our position. However, this is ridiculously dumb and short sighted. Be willing to listen to others and study the data that may challenge your worldview. Good Things Come to Those Who Practice: One thing that continues to amaze me is salespeople not practicing their craft. How much time do you prepare for each call? Showing up to work and running sales calls is not practicing. The biggest personal example I have o

Takeaways Successful Customers Trumps Revenue: The goal of sales should not be revenue at all costs. It’s our job to find people we can make successful through the value prop we’re pitching. Rather than focusing solely on the signed contract and commission check, make sure the customers you close are going to find value in what they bought 90 days later. Buyers Don’t Have to Talk to Salespeople: 20 to 30 years ago, every buyer had to talk to a salesperson. Today, buyers can watch demos, compare and research alternative products, and even get ballpark pricing online, all before reaching out to talk to a salesperson. In the shifting world of buyer empowerment, you have to provide value in each interaction with a prospective customer. Live Your Buyer’s Job: What does your prospect’s daily job look like? What’s their role in their company? What are their goals? How do they quantify it? What happens if they don’t achieve it? It’s not enough to just ask those questions. When looking at things through their lens,

Takeaways Outsource List Building: While you need to own the process of creating and validating your ideal customer profile, you can and should outsource the data gathering. Using the idea of virtual assistants from countries like the Philippines, building targeted lists of prospects can be done quick and cheap. Build Outbound to Create Inbound: Instead of blasting inboxes with requests for 15 minute conversations, leverage your outbound messaging to deliver information that entices prospects to click through to your site. Then, using a chatbot tool like Drift, those visitors qualify themselves, generating conversations actually worth having. Optimize for the Long Term: When comparing opportunities, consider the long term value of opportunities over short-term money. OTE is often a mirage. Make sure you ask the question to understand how many reps actually hit quota and achieve the expected OTE. Oftentimes, it makes more sense to take less money today in order to work for a better sales leader or CEO. Full

Takeaways Open and Close Shop: Airline pilots go through a checklist before taking off. Restaurant managers have a standard operating procedure for each shift. I have check downs for the conversations on this podcast. The point I’m trying to make is that you should have a routine each and every day that helps you begin and end your work session. Being intentional about the time you have creates your opportunity for success. Be Confident in Execution: To be good in sales, you need to have confidence in your solution and believe it can solve a customer's challenges. But, to be great in sales, you have to truly believe in yourself. Your biggest competitor or obstacle is the man in the mirror and the matter that exists between your two ears. To execute at the highest level, you have to get your mind and attitude aligned with your priorities. Go Talk to Customers: Some of you have listened to all 75 episodes of this show and have been waiting for the secret. Well, here it is, go talk to customers. I don’t mean at

Takeaways Frameworks are Better than Scripts: When you try to straight up copy someone else’s style or words, it quickly becomes clear it’s a script and/or inauthentic. You need to develop frameworks of how to handle situations and have the confidence to make it your own. If not, you’re no better than a robot or a recording and I don’t see either of those having much success in sales today. Create Check-down Lists: Most of you listening probably have “required fields” or something similar in your company CRM. While they can be valuable, I’d rather focus energy and training on why I need to get certain things out of each stage. Doing that allows me to go back to #1 and create the framework instead of just a black and white requirement. Don’t Fear the Next Question: If you find yourself afraid to say certain things because you have no idea what a prospect may ask as the follow-up or if you’ll even be able to answer the question, get over it. They’re going to have a next question whether you say the right thin

  Takeaways Get Something in Return: Whether it references, case studies, access to your C-suite, or proof-of-concepts, there are only so many things we have in our bag as sales reps. So, before you give away the farm for customer requests, make sure you’re getting something in return for each ask. Overwhelm the Prospect's Request: Once you decide it’s time to send over references, overwhelm them with your approach. If they ask for two, give them four and do it as fast as possible. This shows that not only do you have 100% faith in your product, but your existing customers do too. Bonus tip - this also works in the prospecting stage. Send over testimonial quotes from existing customers who are in a similar industry. Leverage as Many People as Possible: James considers himself a resource hog and wants everyone in his company to know about every deal he’s working on. With that, he’s able to align his CEO with his prospect’s CEO, his VP of Technology to his prospect’s VP of Technology, any subject matter expert

  Takeaways Put in the Work: Trong talked about how he views sales as a craft. As any artist or athlete knows, you have to put in the time to become great. I see too many reps today think that showing up to sales calls is all the practice they need. I hate to tell you this, but you’re not going to rise to the occasion under pressure. If you want to become truly great, you’ve got to put in the work when no one else is looking or expecting you to do it. Get Comfortable Sharing Challenging Information: There’s a song that says "It’s not always rainbows and butterflies” — while I don’t think they had sales in mind when they sang it those lyrics, it definitely applies. It’s easy to share positive information, but if you want an executive to actually see value in you, you’ve got to break the internal filter of information they get. Share what’s actually going on, no matter how challenging it may be. Take a Portfolio Approach: It would be nice to only spend our time working on enormous deals, but the reality is we

Takeaways Blaze a Different Path: I’m a big proponent of starting outreach as high as you can in an organization. However, when you can’t reach that person, you have to try a different approach. Figure out who the direct reports are for the person you ultimately want to connect with and try to build a relationship with them. Doing this correctly could help you gain valuable insight on initiatives, priorities, communication preferences and even the decision making process. Don’t Rely on Others: Your success is just that — your’s. It shouldn’t come from peers, another department, or even your manager, it must come from within you. Having that mentality will help you overcome many obstacles. Don’t have enough data or prospects on your call list? Find it elsewhere. Don’t have all the answers to objections? Research your prospects to understand the root cause of their statement. Don’t have all the tools you need to do your job? Buy them yourself. Never Give Up: Unless a prospect tells you they’ve left the compan

Takeaways Understand Time to Proficiency: Prior to joining a new sales team, find out the average time it takes a rep there to become proficient. This is usually talked about as time to fully-ramped quota, but whether it’s three, six, or nine months, you need to embrace this time to learn. I know sales people are competitive and typically think they know everything, but make sure you’re using all available resources during this time to map out the sales process. Map Out the Sales Process: Sales is not magic. Obviously, you need to know and understand the product you’re selling, but more importantly, you need to master the buyer’s disposition. Who are they? What are they currently using? What are the issues and challenges they are facing? What are the business implications of those challenges. Mapping those considerations to your own training and content development prevents you from needing to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Do More, Than Less: As a new rep at any company, you need to do more. You don’t have th

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Takeaways Break the Mold: What do you believe is expected in your specific industry? What are all the other reps doing to call on similar prospects? If you want to stand out and be seen, you’ve got to do something different. Could you actually walk in your prospect's office? Could you mail them something that gets their attention? Could you write an article about a topic they’re interested in and use them for a quote or reference? Quit following all the “best practices” and use some creativity to open doors. Why Ask Why: I listen to sales calls from my clients every day. In nearly 99% of the recordings, I hear prospects ask questions or give objections and the sale rep immediately answers or gives a rebuttal. But do they know why the prospect is even asking or saying whatever it is they said? Do you? Wouldn’t it be nice to have more context? By simply asking “why” most times a prospect will back up and elaborate on their statement giving you both the opportunity to thank as well as gain clarity. Build a Pow

Takeaways Trial and Error: In the absence of data in the early days, you have to lean on good selling principles. What does that mean? The only thing prospects care about are their problems — not yours. You have to work diligently to understand your buyer and figure out how they talk about their pain points. Doing so will allow you to test different positioning statements and align your features not only to their pain points but also to your own price points. Qualify with Goals and Challenges: Qualifying with BANT may be the least enjoyable conversation for a prospect — especially when it’s done too early. Oftentimes, prospects will lie to you to either get off the call or lie to you to keep you on the call (so they can steal information from you). By leading the conversation around what their goals and challenges are, you’re able to better determine whether you should continue having a conversation. Quit Thanking Prospects for their Time: If you’ve uncovered a real challenge or helped a prospect identify a

  Takeaways Empathy Saves Time: I know it sounds counterintuitive, but slowing down a sales process can often times speed up the deal. If you lean into your prospect and get a good emotional intelligence read, the empathy you show gets them to open up about their actual concerns. Get to “No": When you are leading your prospect to say “yes," they get worried about what they are committing to and anxiety creates confusion. But, when you get them to say “no,” they feel protected and they have the illusion of control. Once a person says “no,” they’ll likely give you implementable context to move the deal forward. There’s Always a Favorite and a Fool: If you can’t get the scope of your prospect's problem, you need to realize they never envisioned you in that solution. In every deal, there’s a favorite and a fool. The fool is often used to drive down the price on the favorite and expose their weaknesses. Thus, you should be looking for proof of life in every opportunity. Full Notes  https://www.salestuners.com/