Andy Paul's Blog, page 3

Your Success is Tied to Your Character

Sales is a competitive profession.

Your success is defined by your ability to consistently understand what’s most important to your buyers and then helping them achieve their desired outcomes.

You win as a result of the behaviors and habits that comprise who you are. And the sum of those habits represent your character; the intellectual and moral attributes that uniquely define who you are as a person.

Character. Now that’s a loaded word. In fact, it’s a word that doesn’t get much attention in the sales world. However, it should.

If we acknowledge that sales fundamentally is still a people business, in which purchase decisions are heavily influenced by the human connection between sellers and buyers, then character should be at the top of the list of the qualities we screen for in hiring sales people.

Yet, I’ve only witnessed a handful of companies purposefully make hiring decisions on the basis of character. Oh sure, you get the obligatory “he seems like a solid person” comments. But that’s about it. *(See below for interview questions on character.)

So, why is character so important?

To explain this I’m going to defer to one of my boyhood heroes, Vince Lombardi. Lombardi was the iconic coach and master motivator of the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s when they dominated the NFL (and were victorious in the first two Super Bowls.)

Growing up in Wisconsin during that time I collected inspirational Lombardi quotes. One of my favorites, which I frequently cite is…

“The man on top of the mountain didn’t fall there.”

That’s all about character.

Work hard.

Learn and improve.

Be patient and persistent.

Fight to achieve your goals.

This is Part 1 of a 3 part series on Character in Sales.

Next week I’ll be covering Why Winning is a Habit.

Make sure you don’t miss it by following me on LinkedIn and subscribing to this newsletter.

Good Selling,

Andy

P.S. Have you pre-ordered my new book SELL WITHOUT SELLING OUT yet? If the above resonates, you’ll love this book.

It’s a road-tested framework for seizing control of how you sell by rejecting the outdated sales behaviors that buyers hate. Grab your copy today and claim your exclusive pre-order bonuses, like…

– Access to an Exclusive Launch Event: Join our invitation-only, “Sell Without Selling Out” virtual launch event on March 8. Event will include a presentation on the 4 pillars of Selling In, a live Q&A session, and surprise guests!

– Free Invite to my 5-Week Selling In Challenge: Join successful sellers from all over the world who are taking the Selling In Challenge—one interactive challenge delivered via email each week to kickstart your implementation of Selling In.

– Free Copy of my Selling In Implementation Playbook: A step by step guide for taking the Selling In principles off the page and putting them into practice, delivered digitally on March 1.

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Why I Was Almost Fired

I was almost fired 2 weeks into my first sales job.

The reason?

I wasn’t “salesy” enough.

The sales training manager told my boss I should be fired because I was “too analytical” and not salesy enough.

His verdict was that I’d never make it in sales.

Yet, years later, I’m still here.

Having a fulfilling and financially rewarding sales career.

I’ve sold everything.

Women’s shoes.

Computers to SMBs.

Subscription services to F500s.

Complex communications systems to global enterprises.

I closed hundreds of millions of dollars in products and services.

And it’s not because I figured out how to be “salesy”.

Instead, I constantly experimented to develop my own buyer-centric human-first sales process that’s enabled me to largely control my own destiny.

And you can too…

Change is overdue in our profession.

Two things have become clear:

1. Buyers are tired of the outdated salesy behaviors of sellers.

2. Sellers are tired of feeling forced to act in ways that don’t align with who they are.

It’s all reflected in poor buying experiences that result in low win rates, extended deal cycles, and low quota attainment.

That’s what inspired me to write my new book (available for pre-order now): Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on your Own Terms.

This is not another work of fiction about how you can morph overnight into a sales superstar.

There’s none of that magical thinking here.

This is about making the choice to turn your back on the legacy, salesy behaviors that are so embedded in modern sales.

And, instead, learning how to become the very best sales version of you.

Want to read the book before anyone else??

As one of my loyal newsletter subscribers, you have a special opportunity.

I want to invite you first to join the Sell Without Selling Out Launch Team.

Join and get exclusive early access to a digital copy of the book. For free.

But, besides early access and my gratitude, what’s in this for you?

What do you get for being a part of this team?

Well, first off, you’ll get this awesome free t-shirt.

But, maybe most importantly, you get access to a series of 5 coaching events, hosted by me, over the next 2 months.

These exclusive sessions are designed to help you achieve a deeper understanding of how to Sell In and create the positive buying experiences that lead to higher win rates.

Plus, so much more. Like an exclusive Slack community and access to 1:1 coaching.

All you have to do is buy one copy of the book ($16.95 on Amazon) and promise to leave a review.

That’s it.

Then go to the Sell Without Selling Out Launch Team page.

The launch team is limited to the first 100 salespeople who join.

Don’t wait!

Join me to make 2022 the best sales year of your life.

Andy

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Selling Out is Killing Your Bottom Line

In my new book, titled (not surprisingly) Sell Without Selling Out, I describe how the behaviors of sellers fall into one of two categories.

The first is Selling Out.

The other is Selling In.

Why is this important?

Because ‘Selling Out’ explains why your sales performance isn’t meeting expectations.

It all starts with the buying experience.

Studies have found that more than 50% of a buyer’s purchase decision is based upon their buying experience with a seller.

That’s their experience with you, personally.

Or (if you’re a sales or revenue leader) that’s the buyer’s experience with the customer facing people on your revenue team. Or, with the sellers employed by your channel partners.

As Maya Angelou said:

“…people will forget what you said; people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

It’s a measure of the quality of the human interactions sellers have with buyers.

It doesn’t matter what you believe your sellers are doing.

It only matters how the buyers perceive and experience the actions of your sellers. (Have you recently surveyed your buyers about this?)

What Are the Downstream Impacts from Selling Out?

Selling Out degrades your brand equity. A sales interaction is one of the primary ways buyers experience your brand.

Selling Out creates a negative first impression with a buyer that can be hard to overcome.

Selling Out creates a poor buying experience. In a Jobs to be Done context, your buyers basically are “hiring” your sellers to help them better understand the challenges they have to address and the desired outcomes they can achieve by doing so.

Selling Out makes the buying journey about your objectives, not the buyers’.

Selling Out stretches out decision cycles. Sellers in this mode struggle to gain a true understanding of the things that are most important to the buyer. If buyers have unanswered questions, they won’t exit to the next stage of their buying process. So, things get stretched… And when opportunities flounder with unanswered questions it creates uncertainty in the minds of buyers, often leading to an increase in the dread “No Decision” decision.

You can see where this is headed.

A poor buying experience leads to lower win rates.

If buyers feel that they are the target of your salesy-ness vs a partner in trying to find a solution that enables them to achieve certain goals, then they’re more likely to choose a competitor.

The end result of the poor buying experiences created by Selling Out are lower win rates leading to low quota attainment and missed revenue targets.

Which often leads sales managers to ratchet up the pressure to take sales actions that are… Selling Out.

And the cycle continues.

Want to break out of the vicious cycle that is Selling Out?

Come back for next week’s newsletter, where i’ll talk all things Selling In.

And in the meantime, get a head start by reading the first chapter of Sell Without Selling Out (You can do that here).

P.S. Here’s Some Random Wisdom to Make You ThinkThought #1:

“I firmly believe that to presume what cannot be measured is not very important is tantamount to blindness…we place far too much trust in numbers. Numbers are not reality. At best, they are a pale reflection of reality. At worst, they’re a gross distortion of the truths we seek to measure.”

John C Bogle. Founder and former CEO of The Vanguard Group.

Thought #2:

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence – it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”

Peter Drucker, The Father of Modern Management

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Sell Without Selling Out

PUSHY.

SELF-INTERESTED.

LAZY.

UNTRUSTWORTHY.

CLUELESS.

This is what buyers are saying about us as sellers. 

Is it unfair?

Of course. 

But this reputation didn’t materialize out of thin air. 

THERE IS A BETTER WAY.

SELL WITHOUT SELLING OUT is the title of my latest book. It’s my statement about how selling needs to change; and how sellers need to adopt a modern way of selling in order to help their buyers achieve the outcomes that are most important to them.

Since I’m asking you to invest your time and attention with me, I believe it’s essential that you know what I stand for.

And, therefore, get a sense of what you are going to learn from these newsletters.

So, here’s what I believe…

I believe humans are irreplaceable in B2B selling. 

Sales is a human business and we must become much better at selling to humans.

I believe buyers still want and need the assistance of sellers. 

What buyers are rejecting are self-centered, salesy sellers that are solely focused on what the buyer can do for them; in other words, sellers that don’t add value and waste their time.

I believe pushy, salesy behaviors are learned, not innate. 

They’re behaviors that sellers acquire from sales training and bad sales bosses.

And now it is time to change the game.

It is time to reject negative sales behaviors that don’t serve the best interests of buyers or sellers.  

Buyers resist them. Sellers hate doing them. They don’t enable sellers to become the best version of themselves. They don’t help sellers help their buyers.

It is time to redefine the job of sellers to align with the goals of buyers.  

The job of sellers is not to persuade a prospect to buy their product. The job of a seller is to use connection, curiosity, understanding and generosity to determine what is most important to a buyer and then help them get it.

It is time to replace outdated rewards systems that incentivize salesy and limit growth. 

Sales-centric, quota-based incentive systems are ineffective relics of a past era. Incentives should be based on how well sellers are helping buyers achieve the outcomes that are most important to them.

It’s time to… SELL WITHOUT SELLING OUT.

If you are aligned with these principles, the first step is make your voice heard by signing the Selling In Manifesto here.

Share it with your colleagues, friends and bosses so they can add their voices to the movement.

#DeathToSalesy

What we do, as sellers, isn’t complicated.

Being human is the shortest path to helping your buyers get what is most important to them.

Sell Without Selling Out is about making the choice to turn your back on the cringe-worthy, salesy behaviors that are embedded in modern sales.

It’s about saying goodbye to tired scripts and pushy pitches, opting instead to embrace the innate human behaviors of connection, curiosity, understanding and generosity.

Who is Sell Without Selling Out For?

If you want to learn how to align how you sell with how your buyers want to buy, while staying true to yourself and creating success on your own terms this is for you.

If you’re a seller who wants to consistently:

Increase their win rates by creating positive buying experiencesExceed their quota and feel good about how they do itShorten decision cycles

Or if you’re a sales leader who wants to consistently:

Shatter revenue goals with modern human-first sales behaviorsCreate a people-first, accountability-based sales cultureCultivate high-producing sellers committed

Until next time, Good Selling everyone.

Andy

P.S. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Sell Without Selling Out newsletter, where over the next few months I’ll be breaking down exactly HOW TO achieve sales success without compromising your values.

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780: How Modern Day Ride-Alongs Build Successful Sales Teams, with Antonio Garrido

Antonio Garrido is CEO of Sandler Training in Miami and author of a new book titled, The 21st-Century Ride-Along: How Sales Leaders Can Develop Their Teams in Real-Time Sales Calls.

Listen and learn why ride-alongs are a powerful yet underutilized development tool in the sales leader’s toolkit. We’ll get specific on how sales managers can plan and execute a successful ride-along, why they’ll need to allow their reps to fail, and how to not fall victim to The Lone Ranger-Syndrome.

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779: Sales Excellence and Major Account Selling, with Ben Cohen

Meet Ben Cohen, Head of Sales Excellence and Marketing (North America and South America) for HELLA. If you’re not familiar, HELLA is a $10 billion German enterprise with nearly 40,000 employees serving the automotive industry worldwide.

In this episode, Ben joins me to talk about how to effectively transition major account sellers (who historically have nurtured critical strategic relationships with face-to-face selling) to virtual and remote sellers. We’ll then dig into how Ben and HELLA define sales excellence and how they measure success.

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778: Wait, I’m the Boss?!? A Guide for New Managers, with Peter Economy

INC Magazine management columnist and author of the new book “Wait, I’m the Boss: The Essential Guide for New Managers to Succeed from Day One,” Peter Economy joins me to talk about why leaders can’t wait on their company to train and enable them to be a good manager.

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777: Sales Manager 2020 Survival Guide, with Dave Brock

Author of the excellent book Sales Manager Survival Guide and a self-described ruthless pragmatist, Dave Brock helps us make sense of the current era from the front-line sales manager perspective.

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What’s your Sales Expiration Date?

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776: Remote Work and Building a Culture of Sales Performance

Laura “LG” Guerra (Senior Sales Director at ringDNA) stops by to discuss how to effectively manage sales development teams in this new, and rapidly evolving, era of remote work.

Listen and learn how to build a culture of performance, accountability, and team spirit in a remote sales team.

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