Cerebral Selling

JANUARY 6, 2023

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.

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Prospecting Meeting Pitch CRM 191

Cerebral Selling

DECEMBER 2, 2022

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

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Growth Teamwork Sales Meeting 130

Cerebral Selling

OCTOBER 30, 2022

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.

Quota 213

Quota Intrinsic Sales Negotiate 213

Cerebral Selling

SEPTEMBER 27, 2022

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

Objection handling 207

Objection handling Sales Construction Growth 207

Cerebral Selling

SEPTEMBER 19, 2022

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.

Sell 147

Sell Cold Call Territory Up-sell 147

Cerebral Selling

SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

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?

Customers 193

Customers Objectives and Key Results Objection handling Drivers/motivators 193

Cerebral Selling

AUGUST 30, 2022

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.

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High impact Up-sell Networking Sell 234

Cerebral Selling

AUGUST 8, 2022

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.

Sales 199

Sales Contract Clients Quota 199

Cerebral Selling

JUNE 28, 2022

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.

Negotiate 223

Negotiate Commission Quota Price 223

Cerebral Selling

FEBRUARY 21, 2022

“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.

Price 211

Price Represent Up-sell Launch 211

Cerebral Selling

DECEMBER 20, 2021

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.

Negotiate 173

Negotiate Entertainment Represent Price 173

Cerebral Selling

DECEMBER 10, 2021

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.

Pitch 157

Pitch Launch Drivers/motivators Up-sell 157

Cerebral Selling

AUGUST 16, 2021

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.

Customers 249

Customers Government Sales Support Education 249

Cerebral Selling

MARCH 30, 2020

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.

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Represent Pitch Presentation Sell 130

Cerebral Selling

APRIL 20, 2020

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.

Real Estate 162

Real Estate Pitch Networking Manufacturing 162

Cerebral Selling

MAY 4, 2020

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.

Sell 130

Sell Objectives and Key Results E-commerce Pipeline 130

Cerebral Selling

JULY 13, 2020

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!

Pitch 145

Pitch Intrinsic Construction Price 145

Cerebral Selling

OCTOBER 5, 2020

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.

Drivers/motivators 130

Drivers/motivators Manufacturing Entertainment High impact 130

Cerebral Selling

JANUARY 18, 2021

“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.

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Objection handling Negotiate Strategize Presentation 178

Cerebral Selling

FEBRUARY 16, 2021

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.

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Sell Gambling Manufacturing Up-sell 163

Cerebral Selling

FEBRUARY 22, 2021

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.

Process 208

Process Customers Objectives and Key Results Clients 208

Cerebral Selling

APRIL 6, 2021

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

Sell 136

Sell Objection handling Hospitality Pitch 136

Cerebral Selling

JUNE 28, 2021

“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?

Customers 194

Customers Follow-up Start-ups Up-sell 194