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When it comes to sales discovery, reps are often trained to ask basic, surface-level questions about the customers needs. What type of solution are you looking for? Why now? What made you decide to look at us? The issue with these questions is that they fail to provide a sense of depth and insight into arguably the most important motivation behind the customers decision to even look at solutions; their problems!
By all restaurant measures, Eleven Madison Park in New York City is a culinary juggernaut. It boasts Michelins highest 3-star rating; one of only 14 restaurants in America. It earned The New York Times coveted 4-star rating; one of only five in the city. It was also ranked the number one restaurant in the world and features an entirely vegan menu; the only Michelin 3-star with that distinction.
One of the biggest problems I hear consistently from my clients (even big, established companies) is that they get stuck in a sea-of-sameness and struggle to differentiate themselves from their competition. “We have a unique solution, leading technology, and an amazing, experienced team, but our customers still see us as a commodity! In the end, we have to give deep discounts to drag deals over the finish line.
Restaurant servers rely on tips to supplement their hourly wages. Not surprisingly then, numerous experiments have been carried out in the realm of social psychology to determine how and why customers leave the tips they do. In one such experiment , researchers explored the impact of giving customers a gift at the end of a meal; a small candy along with their bill.
In the fierce battle for customer attention, many of the salespeople and leaders I work with in my practice come to me with the same problem. They feel they have a good value proposition and pitch, yet customers continue to ignore their outreach. They lead with statements like, “We can help you… …harness the power of AI for your business to help you grow 20% faster” …boost your revenue and reduce your credit card processing fees by up to 25%” …make critical decision
Some of the most common and innocent interactions between sales reps and their managers can also be the most harmful. For example, reps often come to their leaders with questions like: “My customer went dark on me. What should I say to get them back to the table?” “This customer is asking for a 30% discount to get the deal done. Should we agree?” “I asked for a discovery call but the customer just wants a demo.
The Massive Impact of Great Sales Leadership I started my career as a research scientist before spending nearly two decades in sales leadership roles across four high-growth tech startups and five years as a Vice President at Salesforce. I’ve spent a lot of time studying the patterns and research around what makes great sales leaders. That’s because in a profession often plagued by poor experiences and bad reputations, great sales leaders are not only a beacon of light to their teams, but the te
People don’t love companies because of their physical products. They love them because of the experiences they create. For example: IKEA doesn’t sell furniture. They sell easy transport and assembly. Uber doesn’t sell transportation. They sell frictionless rides on demand. Disney doesn’t sell rides and movies. They sell magic and enchantment.
In my wildest dreams, I never imagined I’d end up in sales. You probably didn’t either. David in his “Big Bang Theory” Days (1997) I started my career as a research scientist and got into sales (by accident) in 2000 at the turn of the dot-com boom. Joining startups was the thing to do back then and I was lured into one by the promise of rocket ship growth and working with super smart people.
When the pandemic hit, my entire sales training and coaching practice went virtual. While I’m grateful that my clients feel my presentation style is fun and engaging, to create the live experience I was after (not to mention creating my entire online Sales Academy program), flipping on my webcam, popping in those ubiquitous Apple headphones, and looking down at my laptop wasn’t going to cut it.
In sales, customer objections are a fact of life. But running into the same objections time and time again can make selling feel more like Groundhog Day, especially when you know they’re coming! Maybe you have one of the more expensive solutions on the market and have to routinely defend your pricing. Perhaps you work for a boutique firm or startup and constantly deal with questions about your size, youth, or perceived lack of experience.
This guest post was written by Alex Cook , Manager, Enterprise Sales at Klue. Year-end can be the most exciting time in sales. It can also be the hardest. As an AE, you may be blowing through your number, signing deals, and having the time of your life. You could also be well behind your quota, struggling to stay motivated and worried about job security.
Email prospecting is one of the simplest and most widely-used strategies for generating sales leads. It’s also one of the most overused and abused. If you’re not doing it right, it can not only be a colossal waste of time but can also damage your personal and corporate brand. About 320 billion emails are sent and received daily around the world, increasing at a rate of about four percent every year.
When I was a VP at Salesforce, one of my sales managers came to me with a disturbing problem. He told me he got a voicemail from a customer saying that he didn’t want to work with the female sales rep responsible for his account and requested that we assign a man to help him. “What do you think we should do, David?”, he asked. No matter how detailed your onboarding manual or how comprehensive your ongoing professional development is, sooner or later each of your team members and colleagues will
As we’ve all learned over the past few years, with adversity comes perspective. Being diagnosed with cancer gave me lots of it. I was thirty-six years old when I got the news, which, similar to many people, came out of nowhere. I was instantaneously thrust into a world of tests, scans, special doctors, surgeries, follow-up treatments, and the crazy rollercoaster of emotions that go with all the above.
Despite dealing with economic and geopolitical curveballs for the past 2+ years, uncertainty in the market shows no signs of slowing down. With heavy talk of inflation and a looming recession (or a recession that’s already started) buyers are anxiously shifting their budgets, headcount, and growth plans, leaving salespeople to hear objections like: now isn’t the right time. my CFO is asking me to put together a “recession plan”. call me back when the storm passes. we’re only moving forward with
Have you ever been completely put off by the rep on the other end of a sales call? Maybe it was their tone, demeanor, or that they didn’t have their camera on. Maybe they seemed distracted, low energy, or disconnected from the product they were selling. Perhaps it was all these things. The way sales reps show up matters to buyers. And in an increasingly digital and virtual world, it matters more than ever.
One of the biggest reasons salespeople fail to create a sense of urgency in the mind of their customers is because they mistakenly focus too heavily on business cases and not nearly enough on their customer’s emotional motivators (i.e. the real reason they buy). As a result, they suffer with low close rates and poor forecast accuracy. Does this narrative sound familiar?
When it comes to running high-impact sales discovery, one of the areas so many reps struggle with is asking engaging discovery questions that customers actually want to answer! In other words, how choosing the right questions can help you avoid “politely interrogating” your buyers and encourage them to open up about the pain points, business goals, and solutions you’re after.
Since March 2020, the world has been in a state of constant change and uncertainty. We’ve seen the splintering of society with the pandemic, politics, issues of social injustice, the great resignation, and now, inflation and recession. For salespeople, the pendulum has swung – from pandemic-driven job losses all the way to labor shortages that fueled a candidate-centric recruiting market, back to the current climate of fiscal tightening and unfortunate layoffs.
It was a couple of days before the end of the quarter. I was a VP back at Salesforce when one of my reps came to me with a request. “Hey David, I’ve been working with this customer for a while now and I think we can get the deal done by our deadline. We have all the terms ironed out. The only thing is, they’re asking if they can pay quarterly instead of annually.
“How should I talk about my competition to customers and prospects?” A great question and deceptive complex question that I get asked a fair bit. Of course, as salespeople, we have a natural tendency to want to defend our products and services but also to elevate and differentiate them over our competitors. At the same time, we need to do it all in a way that comes off as authentic and credible and not arrogant or petty.
One of the most important concepts in negotiation has to do with feelings of satisfaction. In other words, regardless of whatever concessions you decide to give it’s important for the other party to FEEL like they’re getting a good deal. That’s why one of the most effective ways of reducing the size of the concessions you give while increasing the other side’s level of satisfaction (especially when negotiating at month-end ) is giving in slowly.
Good salespeople know that the quality of your discovery motion is directly related to the quality of the questions you ask. But when it comes to asking high-value discovery questions there are a few key traps many sellers still fall into. Here’s what they are and how you can avoid them! 1. Asking Leading Questions. A leading question is a bit like a logic trap.
Some of the greatest sales lessons of the pandemic era have come from governments and medical professionals trying to get the general public to comply with their public health measures. From mask mandates to social distancing to vaccinations, crafting the directives is one thing. Getting people to actually follow them is quite another. But it’s not so much the directives themselves that are the issue.
What if I told you I had a vaccine for a potentially deadly virus. Would you take it? Before you respond, what if I told you the vaccine carried a risk that 0.001% of people who took it will suffer a permanent disability. . How would you feel about getting vaccinated? Setting those feelings aside for a moment, suppose I told you that one out of every 100,000 people like you who get the vaccine will suffer a permanent disability.
If you’re a salesperson, getting customers and prospects to respond to your outreach at the best of times can be challenging. In the past, I’ve spoken about some of the reasons why customers ignore your outreach , not the least of which are generic, drive-by pitches that far too many sellers still seem to use. I’ve also provided some tactical advice on how to get them to pay attention.
In my last two VP of Sales roles, I found a surprising trend. There was a high degree of correlation between my team’s win rates and the amount of time spent in the discovery phase of the sales cycle. In fact, the relationship across dozens of sales reps in different geographies was clear: the more efficiently we moved a customer through the discovery phase, the greater our win rate.
What’s your favorite movie? Chances are when you read that question your mind became both focused and very busy as you searched your data banks for a suitable answer. You were instantly focused, trying to reconcile both factual (which movies have I seen?) and emotional information (how did I feel about them?), if only for a moment. As a heuristic (or mental shortcut), your mind may have even contemplated whether you’ve been asked that question before, and if so, what you said last time!
When it comes to high-impact messages that break through your customer’s armor and motivate them to purchase, the best ones are emotionally-charged. And as I’ve discussed in the past, few types of messages deliver the requisite dose of emotion like polarizing messages do. Polarizing messages are ones where you cast out features, functions, and even benefits, and instead, lead with the customer’s enemy.
“How do you justify forcing small businesses to close while letting big-box stores stay open?”. “Lockdown measures aren’t working! Why should people follow your government’s advice?”. “Why are you putting teachers and students at risk by not mandating smaller class sizes? ”. The pandemic has thrust politicians into the spotlight like never before.
One of the biggest misconceptions sellers have is that customers know exactly what they’re looking for. In a 2019 letter to Amazon shareholders, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos included a short narrative about the success of the Amazon Echo smart-home device, underscoring the importance of taking a leadership role when it comes to ushering customers down the path to their purchase.
In part one of this post, I shared research on how modern sales and marketing organizations can drive revenue growth by being more prescriptive in their selling motions. In other words, by leading their customers through the buying process and reducing distractions and choice, they can make it easier for their customers to buy and reduce feelings of post-purchase regret.
April 7th, 2020. After spending a year and a half writing a book , I never thought it would be released at the fearful onset of a global pandemic. . Customer budgets shifted and evaporated overnight. Key stakeholders changed roles and even companies. And massive shifts occurred in how people and organizations evaluated their investments as they adjusted to the changing landscape. 365 days after the release of Sell The Way You Buy , here are some of my key sales lessons learned from a year of pan
“How much money do you make?” “What’s your personal cell phone number” “How many sexual partners have you had?” If a stranger asked you any of these questions, would you feel comfortable answering them? Likely not. Yet in sales, we ask our reps to go out and ask our customers similarly contentious questions all in the name of moving our deals forward. “What’s your budget for this project?
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