Andy Paul's Blog, page 17

681: Sales Enablement for Today’s Seller with Pieterjan Bouten

Pieterjan Bouten, Co-founder and CEO of Showpad, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 

Buyers are empowered, creating the biggest challenge for the seller of today, which is how to add value for the buyer. Andy calls readiness, relevance, and resilience the three traits sellers need to be successful in sales.
PJ (Pieterjan) discusses the coming together of marketing, sales, and IT departments and their digital strategy. PJ often asks CEOs how they equip their salespeople to become more relevant.
Most sales tools are not built with the sales rep or the buyer in mind. Showpad delivers seller experiences, linking presentation with AI for a better buyer experience.
Sales enablement uses content, coaching, and training, and technology to fit the buyer journey. The buyer experience is essential in the purchase decision.
Start with the buyer to discover the level of technology you need to use to connect with them. Put that into the perspective of marketing and sales and apply the technology to deliver the buyer experience.
PJ discusses Showpad. It combines content, readiness, and engagement. Engagement tools facilitate interaction, creating a collaborative environment with your buyer.
Showpad considers the use case of the sales rep — their selling channels and whether they sell in the field or inside. Personalization only happens with a personal touch; an email works if it adds authentic value.
Sales is a team sport. You need to build connections within your own organization as well as with your buyers. Use sales engineers and other officers to help build your buyer connections with value.
Reps need to learn the content and not rely on its availability with only a vague knowledge of it. Sales reps need to be trained and coached on the content they need for their buyers. Showpad acquired LearnCore for this.
Education helps salespeople be smarter about sales. Reps tend to sell to the metrics rather than striving to be the best version possible of themselves. Sales reps leverage their networks and use data to become trusted partners.
Activity alone does not bring the desired results. The personal connection builds relationships that yield results. When reps understand how value ties into engagement, they have a better vision of their job.
PJ talks about a sales experience in Bosnia, where the buyer spoke for an hour about their needs before PJ talked to provide value relative to those needs. PJ had accompanied a new sales rep who asked good questions.

CONTACT PIETERJAN BOUTEN

Contact Pieterjan: Pj@Showpad.com

Twitter: @Pieterjan

Website: Showpad.com

 

 

#680: How are you different? with Lee Salz

Lee Salz, Founder and CEO of Sales Architects and author of the new book Sales Differentiation: 19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want, joins me again on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

How do your prospects feel when you claim to be the best and have the best product and service? How do you differentiate yourself with meaning? Buyers try to commoditize, which is a battle that sellers can’t win.
Can you translate your passion for your differentiators into the buyer’s passion for your differentiators?
Lee explains that positioning questions are always open-ended questions designed to help someone think differently about the solutions you offer.
You have expertise in your solutions. The way to convey that expertise is not to lecture to your buyers. Lee gives a positioning question example for garbage removers.
Position questions help people think differently about their problems. You introduce the buyer in a creative way to something they didn’t know. Lee gives a five-step process in his book for developing positioning questions.
First, ask why this particular differentiator matters to a buyer. Second, in B2B, each buyer cares about different factors. Ask which audience cares about this differentiator?
Third, ask when this differentiator matters to this audience. Fourth, based on those points, develop a positioning question mapped to that differentiator. Fifth, ask yourself what you will share about that positioning question.
Differentiators involve a degree of difference — not uniqueness. Everything is copied too quickly for something to be unique. Forget the unique selling proposition. Work with your degrees of difference.
Personal value differentiation is every salesperson’s opportunity to provide meaningful value beyond what their company brings to bear. Expertise allows you to counsel people so they make informed buying decisions.
Business acumen allows you to talk the buyer’s language. Give the buyer the ability to see you as a resource in their business. Being responsive and anticipating needs gets you in when the buyer needs you. Act as an account manager.
Lee suggests using the internet and industry associations to develop expertise on trends for your buyers. Your prospects will also teach you. Build relationships. Have experts on hand to refer to your clients as they may need.
How can SDRs differentiate themselves? Lee relates it to a crime theory. Search for evidence of things that are going on inside a company, inside their competitors, and in trends in the industry. Use evidence to solve problems.

679: Mindset — The First Pillar of Business Success, with Joe Dalton

Joe Dalton, a world-class sales training expert and podcast host, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The topic is mindset. Joe teaches clients the three pillars of business success — mindset, marketing, and sales. Joe explains each pillar. He sees mindset as a differentiator.
Mindset is your view of yourself. Joe contrasts people who make millions with those who do less, given the same hours in a day. What is the difference?
Andy comments that we are not all the same. We need to learn to be the best version of ourselves while appreciating our differences. Joe says we all have doubts, fears, and aspirations. Joe starts each day with gratitude.
A survey of Americans 65 and older found their biggest regret was they worried too much. Joe would like to get people to stop worrying so much. An Irish survey found that people under 20 wanted to know their life’s purpose.
Researchers from Yale and Stanford studied people motivated by passion vs. people who had a growth mindset. The fixed-mindset, passionate people were less motivated to learn new things and accept ambiguity.
A good sales rep is resilient and thrives in ambiguity. Entrepreneurs have to have grit when they are sure they are going to succeed even though everyone thinks they are mad. It takes years to succeed.
Money is not the primary motivator for really successful people. Really successful people know the rewards will come if they do challenging work that’s fulfilling to them.
Joe works all night, into the early hours when he has passion and drive about a project. He only stops because he knows he has to get up in the morning.
Understand whom you serve and what you sell, not just how much money you want to make. Reps need to know that their job is not to sell. It’s to connect and engage with a person and inspire them to take action.
Salespeople should start with rapport and then create curiosity before fact-finding. Know the problems you are trying to solve, the value you offer, and how you serve the buyer. Buyers want to engage with the seller.
In 10 years, selling will look completely different. Inbound  is no reason to stop calling out, according to Joe. Andy finds companies are returning to outbound sales.
Ireland is a big network where everyone knows everyone. There are 4.5 million in Ireland, while there are 70 million Irish worldwide, with 35 million in America. LinkedIn has really taken off in Ireland.
Joe’s podcast is also on the radio in Australia. His podcast was inspired by Accelerate! and Joe was thrilled when Andy was his guest.

678: Sales Success Factors & Trust and Authenticity

John Asher, CEO of Asher Strategies, keynote speaker and best-selling author and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: John Asher

The five factors for success in sales are product knowledge, sales aptitude, sales skills, motivation, and sales process. Out of 25 million salespeople selling B2B or B2G in the U.S., five million are elite and they master these factors.
Most buyers want to deal with a subject matter expert with deep product knowledge. Product knowledge gives power to sales reps and value to buyers. A sales engineer may accompany a rep to provide depth.
The closest thing to a human is a video. People would rather see a video or hear a podcast than read a website. Our brain comprehends video 60,000 times faster than reading, John says. Books are best for deep knowledge.
Sales aptitude is natural sales talent. Aptitude accounts for 50% of sales results. The other four factors account for the other 50%. John notes there are 21 professional aptitude assessments and he has taken them all.
John covers a few sales skills: focus on a few top opportunities; do great research on the buyer, the company and industry; get yourself an inside coach; build rapport; ask questions and listen to understand.
A forum between neuroscientists from 70 countries developed insights into human relations, including building rapport. Asher Strategies has applied this knowledge to techniques for closing sales faster.
There are six stimuli affecting buyer decision-making. There are about 50 cognitive biases that apply to sales. Know the stimuli and the biases. The first stimulus is personal needs. Have buyers talk about themselves.
Asher Strategies provides training to teach these techniques. One bias is to start by complimenting the buyer on their company, product, or service.
John discusses the reciprocity bias as applied to sales. Buyers usually respond to a compliment with value. At a trade show, if you take the ‘prop’ at a booth, your probability of listening to their pitch goes way up.
The sales process is up to the company. John gives an example of a misstep that hinders rather than helps. Andy talks about metrics that force all reps into the same mold. The best reps break the rules.
Asher Strategies teaches ten skills that form the start of a process. There is a science and an art to sales. Andy would like managers to be better with people than with metrics. Elite sales reps have one metric — results.

 

Second guest: Bridget Gleason

Andy has been busy with the launch of the Sales House. Sales House helps reps who want to take the next step in their career and know they need to advance. Sales House has hundreds of hours of content in 22 sales categories.
The topics for this episode are trust and authenticity. Authenticity means to be who you are and to be congruent with your core. Rule-breakers take authenticity all the way, even against the prescribed processes.
Pleasing everyone is exhausting. Channel your energy into the task at hand as you would do it, not as you think someone expects you to do it. It is becoming harder to express authenticity within strict sales processes.
Bridget recalls the conformity of Xerox where she started. Her methods were tightly prescribed tightly. However, she was less confined than today’s reps. Bridget notes some reps are lost in a startup without processes.
In the early days of startups, they need to hire people who think for themselves because the process is not yet defined.
Bridget does not tie processes to inauthenticity. Andy sees a tendency for sales reps to be scripted. The more specific the script the less authenticity comes through. This leads to interactions that customers do not value.
Authenticity comes in by how you relate to the customer. Don’t let the process win.
Bridget compares learning sales to learning the basics of music before learning the improvisation.
Andy sees the ‘how’ of selling being taught and the ‘why’ of selling being ignored. Educating about the ‘why’ is why Andy proceeded to create the Sales House. Assuming you are in sales, you need basics that support your growth.
Someone asked Andy recently what is the best first question to use with a buyer. You could write volumes on it, and it would be different for everybody. Your questions need to relate both to you and to the buyer.
Andy asks himself what he could do better the next time. He even applies this to swimming. Successful people are practice constantly in the basics. There is always more. Having the mindset of a learner is a great gift.
Andy considers that Motives, Integrity, Competence, and Execution (MICE) are four pillars to build trust. Using acronyms help Andy remember things.

678: Sales Success Factors with John Asher | Trust and Authenticity with Bridget Gleason

John Asher, CEO of Asher Strategies, keynote speaker and best-selling author and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 

First guest: John Asher

 

The five factors for success in sales are product knowledge, sales aptitude, sales skills, motivation, and sales process. Out of 25 million salespeople selling B2B or B2G in the U.S., five million are elite and they master these factors.
Most buyers want to deal with a subject matter expert with deep product knowledge. Product knowledge gives power to sales reps and value to buyers. A sales engineer may accompany a rep to provide depth.
The closest thing to a human is a video. People would rather see a video or hear a podcast than read a website. Our brain comprehends video 60,000 times faster than reading, John says. Books are best for deep knowledge.
Sales aptitude is natural sales talent. Aptitude accounts for 50% of sales results. The other four factors account for the other 50%. John notes there are 21 professional aptitude assessments and he has taken them all.
John covers a few sales skills: focus on a few top opportunities; do great research on the buyer, the company and industry; get yourself an inside coach; build rapport; ask questions and listen to understand.
A forum between neuroscientists from 70 countries developed insights into human relations, including building rapport. Asher Strategies has applied this knowledge to techniques for closing sales faster.
There are six stimuli affecting buyer decision-making. There are about 50 cognitive biases that apply to sales. Know the stimuli and the biases. The first stimulus is personal needs. Have buyers talk about themselves.
Asher Strategies provides training to teach these techniques. One bias is to start by complimenting the buyer on their company, product, or service.
John discusses the reciprocity bias as applied to sales. Buyers usually respond to a compliment with value. At a trade show, if you take the ‘prop’ at a booth, your probability of listening to their pitch goes way up.
The sales process is up to the company. John gives an example of a misstep that hinders rather than helps. Andy talks about metrics that force all reps into the same mold. The best reps break the rules.
Asher Strategies teaches ten skills that form the start of a process. There is a science and an art to sales. Andy would like managers to be better with people than with metrics. Elite sales reps have one metric — results.

CONTACT JOHN ASHER

Contact John:

Website: AsherStrategies.com

 

Second guest: Bridget Gleason

 

Andy has been busy with the launch of the Sales House. Sales House helps reps who want to take the next step in their career and know they need to advance. Sales House has hundreds of hours of content in 22 sales categories.
The topics for this episode are trust and authenticity. Authenticity means to be who you are and to be congruent with your core. Rule-breakers take authenticity all the way, even against the prescribed processes.
Pleasing everyone is exhausting. Channel your energy into the task at hand as you would do it, not as you think someone expects you to do it. It is becoming harder to express authenticity within strict sales processes.
Bridget recalls the conformity of Xerox where she started. Her methods were tightly prescribed tightly. However, she was less confined than today’s reps. Bridget notes some reps are lost in a startup without processes.
In the early days of startups, they need to hire people who think for themselves because the process is not yet defined.
Bridget does not tie processes to inauthenticity. Andy sees a tendency for sales reps to be scripted. The more specific the script the less authenticity comes through. This leads to interactions that customers do not value.
Authenticity comes in by how you relate to the customer. Don’t let the process win.
Bridget compares learning sales to learning the basics of music before learning the improvisation.
Andy sees the ‘how’ of selling being taught and the ‘why’ of selling being ignored. Educating about the ‘why’ is why Andy proceeded to create the Sales House. Assuming you are in sales, you need basics that support your growth.
Someone asked Andy recently what is the best first question to use with a buyer. You could write volumes on it, and it would be different for everybody. Your questions need to relate both to you and to the buyer.
Andy asks himself what he could do better the next time. He even applies this to swimming. Successful people are practice constantly in the basics. There is always more. Having the mindset of a learner is a great gift.
Andy considers that Motives, Integrity, Competence, and Execution (MICE) are four pillars to build trust. Using acronyms help Andy remember things.

CONTACT BRIDGET GLEASON

Contact Bridget: Bridget@Logz.io

Website: Logz.io

677: Differences Between Management and Leadership and more with Naphtali Hoff

Naphtali Hoff, the author of Becoming the New Boss: The New Leader’s Guide to Sustained Success, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 

How do we make our sales teams smarter and better? There’s a difference between educating and training. Managers seem to be in the training camp, while leaders are more visionary and think about education reps.
Naphtali wrote on this and cited Warren Bennis on the distinctions between leadership and management. The manager administers and the leader innovates. Leaders are critical in moving organizations forward.
Administering ensures that existing processes get done. Innovating fundamentally looks differently at what you have and provides a vision of creating something new that goes in the same general direction but is improved.
Training is about understanding a process and doing it. Education is about giving foundational pieces and parameters and skills to develop to accomplish the goal with some leeway and potential for a fresh perspective.
When scaling, don’t look at all the things you will do for all the customers. Think about what you will do for a specific customer. How do I make this work for this person?
If leaders get employee engagement, employees give so much more. Andy brings it back to investing in people through education, even to set aside time for a corporate book club. Engagement is really high. There is time for it.
Naphtali educates institutions for professional development. He sees companies focus more and more on soft skills such as connecting. This especially appeals to Millennials. Facilitate the growth of everyone.
Nothing happens until you have a working relationship with a buyer. Pick up the phone, meet people and engage with them. Messaging is not good enough. Buyers want to deal with reps they trust. Use Zoom if you can’t meet.
Anthony Bourdain once said what he does is not complicated. He shows up and he shows an interest in another person. If you do that, they’ll open up and interesting things happen.
Curiosity about the other person connects you and provides a language to solve issues. Naphtali cites Dale Carnegie on being a great conversationalist. Andy cites Mark Roberge on asking as many questions as you can.
We are selling to people, not to personas. Learn about them as a person, to know what is important from them. Andy tells how he sold to a customer who wouldn’t buy until Andy asked him about his photos of the children.
Andy asks salespeople if they’ve read a book on sales in the last month. Naphtali uses Audible and on his commutes. Thomas Huxley once said to learn something about everything and everything about something.

 

Contact Naphtali:

Website: NaphtaliShore.com

676: Decision-making Shortcuts with Jeff Shore

Jeff Shore, Founder and President of Shore Consulting, Inc. joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The topic is decision-making. Decisions take a lot of brain power. We constantly rely on heuristics (mental shortcuts). Research from Duke shows that about 50% of our actions are habit-based. That saves much energy.
When we consider buying, we run a mental simulation of what it would be like to own and use and we decide quickly, based on how we feel in the simulation.
Jeff gives the example of a purchasing manager dealing with a salesperson. When they ask themselves, ‘How do I feel?’, the answer comes from the gut, not from the conscious brain. This is true for all decisions.
A study by Antonio Damasio tested persons with brain damage in the emotion control center. The persons struggled to make decisions. Jeff notes the case of Phineas Gage. Emotions guide everything.
Andy presents a case study of a large important sale of his. Emotion closed the deal. Logical selling does not reach out to trust and confidence. Andy refers to the research of Paul C. Nutt on two-step decisions.
When prospects make the ‘go/no-go’ decision, they have a leader in mind. You want to be that leader. A key decision shortcut is easy equals right. The easier something is to grasp, the righter it feels. Complex equals wrong.
Jeff’s next shortcut is likability. How much I like you leads to how much I trust you. More so if I think you like me. That’s how con men succeed.
Relationships are extremely important. The customer wants to like us before trusting us and buying from us. Andy wants there to be more education in these soft skills. A relationship is won or lost in the first interaction.
Another shortcut is price equals quality. Connect your value to your price. It is hard to be vested emotionally when you don’t know the price. Introduce price and value early and show why. Andy qualifies prospects on value.
If you don’t defend your price, you’re not defending your quality. Another shortcut is discount equals distress. Discounting is a manager’s fault. Don’t allow a discount. You are not a commodity.
Value purity means people make a decision when they believe the price is both fair and final. If you quickly offer discounts, the price isn’t final and probably isn’t fair.
The last shortcut is speed equals caring. It means you are handling the request and that you care about that customer. Andy advances speed into responsiveness. It locks people into doing business with you.

 

675: The Salesperson Paradox & Optimizing Daily Routines

Doug Vigliotti, bestselling author of The Salesperson Paradox: A Strikingly Simple Way to Provide Solutions Your Customers Can’t Say No To, podcast host, and sales strategist and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Doug Vigliotti

Pepe’s Pizza Original Tomato Pie is the pizza to beat. Doug gets it in New Haven, CT. Doug compares the basic simplicity of the pizza to today’s topic.
The salesperson paradox directs performance. To improve selling performance you have to move away from selling into helping. It is centered on the customer. Doug contrasts that with self-centeredness.
Humans are innately self-centered but focusing on your own needs doesn’t serve the customer. Helping needs to be your first goal. The successful sales path is: help the customer, then make quota, then make money.
The customer holds all the cards. Doug wrote his book to help salespeople understand how they can create solutions that the customer will want to buy, rather than trying to sell something to the customer.
Doug introduces the CRINGE solution covered in his book. A customer would cringe to say no to it. The solution is rooted in strategy, not tactics. Ask yourself the right questions before you get in front of the customer.
C = Customer first. Does the customer feel they’ve won by using your product? Word-of-mouth drives business. Lengthen customer contact by many touch points before and after a purchase. Clarify your product features.
Disarm any competitive disadvantages by making them clear before the transaction to avoid buyer’s remorse. Prevent bad sales. It builds trust. Why do 50% to 80% of the deals in a pipeline end up making no decision?
Quantify the buyer’s desired outcome and qualify your product as a solution to get them there. That process qualifies a buyer.
When we fail to communicate, engage, and build a relationship of trust we get no decision from the customer. Eliminate tension in the relationship. Join their team. Get buy-in from the customer on the sales process.
Honesty, listening, being a resource, delivering on your word, are Doug’s four pillars of trust-building. Andy compares them to those of Stephen M.R. Covey — transparency, integrity, competence, and execution.
Doug reveals his book genre preferences — psychology and non-fiction.
“In life, you should try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”

— Thomas Huxley

Contact Douglas: Doug@GroundUpSales.com

Website: DouglasVigliotti.com

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

Bridget has returned to running after a two-week break for her surgery. She has never taken a break so long from running.
Andy has launched The Sales House to communicate with his audience by daily emails. He’s getting a lot of feedback on morning routines. Bridget does not log her runs. She uses her running time to listen to podcasts.
Bridget wakes up enthusiastically at 4:00 a.m. She needs no alarm. She has her coffee, reads the NY Times and writes in her journal. She runs and showers. She is in the office by 6:30 or 6:45 a.m. ready to face the world.
Andy bikes, runs or swims every morning. He is up at 5:30 a.m. without an alarm. He reads to scan the news as a necessary part of being in society. Then he exercises.
Habits and routines are as important in sales as they are in your morning at home. Habits save energy from deciding what’s next. Bridget’s routine is a daily message to herself that she is a person who sets a goal and does it.
Why would someone stop short of hitting their goal? She had this discussion with a sales manager earlier today. Block time for your routine every day — even in the snow. Block out time to meet your goals every day.
Andy used airline points to go to Palm Desert. Many other people took advantage of the low rates there. The average temperature was 106F. It was like an oven. Andy ran on the treadmill. He did a bike ride with his wife.
Selling is about relationships and conversations. It requires tuning in by reading the news and having a range of experiences you can build on. It’s like improv. Your prospect is likely to open up and share things.
The best first question Andy uses is “Where are you from?” Maybe you know something about their hometown. Be informed.

Contact Bridget: Bridget@Logz.io

Website: Logz.io

675: The Salesperson Paradox with Doug Vigliotti | Optimizing Daily Routines with Bridget Gleason

Doug Vigliotti, bestselling author of The Salesperson Paradox: A Strikingly Simple Way to Provide Solutions Your Customers Can’t Say No To, podcast host, and sales strategist and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Doug Vigliotti

Pepe’s Pizza Original Tomato Pie is the pizza to beat. Doug gets it in New Haven, CT. Doug compares the basic simplicity of the pizza to today’s topic.
The salesperson paradox directs performance. To improve selling performance you have to move away from selling into helping. It is centered on the customer. Doug contrasts that with self-centeredness.
Humans are innately self-centered but focusing on your own needs doesn’t serve the customer. Helping needs to be your first goal. The successful sales path is: help the customer, then make quota, then make money.
The customer holds all the cards. Doug wrote his book to help salespeople understand how they can create solutions that the customer will want to buy, rather than trying to sell something to the customer.
Doug introduces the CRINGE solution covered in his book. A customer would cringe to say no to it. The solution is rooted in strategy, not tactics. Ask yourself the right questions before you get in front of the customer.
C = Customer first. Does the customer feel they’ve won by using your product? Word-of-mouth drives business. Lengthen customer contact by many touch points before and after a purchase. Clarify your product features.
Disarm any competitive disadvantages by making them clear before the transaction to avoid buyer’s remorse. Prevent bad sales. It builds trust. Why do 50% to 80% of the deals in a pipeline end up making no decision?
Quantify the buyer’s desired outcome and qualify your product as a solution to get them there. That process qualifies a buyer.
When we fail to communicate, engage, and build a relationship of trust we get no decision from the customer. Eliminate tension in the relationship. Join their team. Get buy-in from the customer on the sales process.
Honesty, listening, being a resource, delivering on your word, are Doug’s four pillars of trust-building. Andy compares them to those of Stephen M.R. Covey — transparency, integrity, competence, and execution.
Doug reveals his book genre preferences — psychology and non-fiction.
“In life, you should try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”

— Thomas Huxley

Contact Douglas: Doug@GroundUpSales.com

Website: DouglasVigliotti.com

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

Bridget has returned to running after a two-week break for her surgery. She has never taken a break so long from running.
Andy has launched The Sales House to communicate with his audience by daily emails. He’s getting a lot of feedback on morning routines. Bridget does not log her runs. She uses her running time to listen to podcasts.
Bridget wakes up enthusiastically at 4:00 a.m. She needs no alarm. She has her coffee, reads the NY Times and writes in her journal. She runs and showers. She is in the office by 6:30 or 6:45 a.m. ready to face the world.
Andy bikes, runs or swims every morning. He is up at 5:30 a.m. without an alarm. He reads to scan the news as a necessary part of being in society. Then he exercises.
Habits and routines are as important in sales as they are in your morning at home. Habits save energy from deciding what’s next. Bridget’s routine is a daily message to herself that she is a person who sets a goal and does it.
Why would someone stop short of hitting their goal? She had this discussion with a sales manager earlier today. Block time for your routine every day — even in the snow. Block out time to meet your goals every day.
Andy used airline points to go to Palm Desert. Many other people took advantage of the low rates there. The average temperature was 106F. It was like an oven. Andy ran on the treadmill. He did a bike ride with his wife.
Selling is about relationships and conversations. It requires tuning in by reading the news and having a range of experiences you can build on. It’s like improv. Your prospect is likely to open up and share things.
The best first question Andy uses is “Where are you from?” Maybe you know something about their hometown. Be informed.

Contact Bridget: Bridget@Logz.io

Website: Logz.io

674: The State of Sales Enablement with Orrin Broberg

Orrin Broberg, President and CEO of Modus and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Orrin Broberg

Modus is a B2B enterprise digital sales platform for organizing and creating compelling content to create product differentiation and close more sales.
Reps get a professional, easy-to-use mobile app. For administrators, it is a very robust content management system for organizing all kinds of media. Their niche is manufacturers with complex distribution channels.
Modus started as a mobile sales presentation company. Orrin was working with a digital media agency creating rich media presentations for medical device companies when the iPad debuted. Reps started using the iPad.
Companies asked the agency to develop an iPad app for deploying, managing and monitoring rich presentations. That was the birth of Modus. Modus has been enhanced since then.
Andy cites Tamara Schenk, who is astonished at how often the customer is not even mentioned when vendors discuss sales enablement. Effective selling requires aligning sales activities to the customer’s journey.
Orrin thinks sales enablement will divide into sub-disciplines useful for vendors. The Sales Enablement Society defines it as analyzing customer needs and how vendors can support them in buying the service.
We are getting worse at sales, the more technology we add. The problem is that reps talk to clients for only 33% of their work time. Reps need more time.
Reps deal with more information than they need and tools that fall short. Enterprise B2B sales are made in a complex process, face-to-face. Put devices down when you’re talking. Technology does not create trust.
Modus hangs onto marketing qualified leads longer, qualifying them better by points before passing them to a digital sales enablement director to continue discovery.
When a customer goes dark they may be rethinking their organization and how they are going to have to do things to accommodate what they are looking to buy.
Larger companies already have a learning management system and they want to make better use of what they have. They don’t look at Modus as an LMS. Modus integrates marketing automation with CRM.
Modus doesn’t duplicate the capabilities customers have. Modus sales enablement applies AI content management into what their customers are doing on a sales call. Orrin runs through some details of the process that save time.

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

Do salespeople really understand how people make decisions? Sales processes don’t take into account the science behind group decision-making.
Bridget points out that New Sales. Simplified. explains how group decisions are more than the sum of the individuals’ decisions. Andy points out that DiscoverOrg research shows one person’s decision drives the group decision.
We don’t fully understand collective decision-making. We know there are multiple stakeholders. We need to know what’s at the root of the group dynamic.
In Andy’s experience, if you don’t win the individual decisions, your odds of winning the overall decision are very low.
Paul Nutt’s research divides a decision into two steps. The first is a ‘go/no go’ decision about moving forward. The ‘no decision’ decision common in the pipeline is the failure to get the customer committed to that point.
After the customer decides to go forward, then they have to decide on the vendor they will use to help them go forward. If you are the driver for the customer to make a ‘go’ decision, you are in a good position to sell to them.
Bridget says this is one purpose of discovery. If the customer is not in enough ‘pain’ to make a decision, then making a presentation is wasting time. Most salespeople miss qualifying the customer on the value they will get.
Andy lays out the process he used for years in sales. He has sold over half a billion dollars in products and services. His largest sale was $100 million. What he learned was to follow a specific pattern.
What his customers needed was to identify the outcomes they wanted to achieve, and to know what the value would be to them of the vision of the product or service. Andy walked through it with his customers.
Andy knew it was worth his time to work with customers who understood the value of the decision and were committed to moving forward to make a decision. Usually, they would buy from him when they bought.
Managers are putting pressure on salespeople to get more pipeline coverage. Andy believes the more coverage you work with, the less time you have to qualify them fully. Bridget talks about Logz.io experiences.
The real challenge is to get to the level in a customer organization to talk with someone who has the authority to quantify their need, which leads to qualifying them. This takes business understanding, not a list of questions.

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