Briana Stimmler is the top Solutions Advisor in the top Unmanaged Accounts Team within the SMB segment at Microsoft out of Fargo, North Dakota. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Briana is a helper by nature; she wants to help her customers solve whatever pain points they may be facing. She is a driven, competitive, life-long learner looking to guide her customers by presenting them with tips, solutions, and best practices.
In this episode, Briana and Scott talk about Briana’s sales origin story and how she networked her way into her current role at Microsoft. Briana reveals why Microsoft is such a nurturing place to work and shares best practices she’s learned for prospecting and asking the right, specific questions. In addition to her favorite sales story, Briana talks about her ‘favorite failure,’ a term one of her colleagues came up with in order to keep everyone motivated to embrace and learn from failure rather than try to avoid it. She also shares the three things she most attributes to her success. These include consistency, networking, and following through.
Briana expounds on her interesting role at Microsoft and speaks to the many challenges that she faces on a daily basis. She talks about what keeps her motivated and driven to achieve more and more every day. Briana dives deep into her prospecting process and how she approaches the conversations she has with customers in order to maximize the sale. Briana takes the audience through a typical day in the life, from her 7:30 am wake up to time blocking her mornings and rounding out her day with customer calls, prospecting, and working diligently to complete the remaining tasks on her to-do list for the day. Finally, Briana issues an actionable challenge to the audience. She urges them to go through their current pipelines and have that touchpoint with every opportunity/account to catch up with them, get updates or qualify them. As much as a lot of us are scared of disqualifying, that can help you then have time to go get another sale.
What We Covered:
00:01 – Scott takes a moment to thank today’s sponsors QuotaPath, Skipio, and RevenueGrid
00:41 – Scott introduces today’s guest, Briana Stimmler
01:02 – The top three things Briana attributes to her success
01:20 – Number One: Consistency
01:41 – Number Two: Utilizing her Network
02:08 – Number Three: Following Through
02:51 – Briana expounds on her role at Microsoft
04:48 – Briana quantifies her sales results
06:01 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, QuotaPath
06:34 – Briana speaks to the number of accounts she works on in a given year
07:09 – Briana’s prospecting process and how she builds a consistent pipeline
08:14 – How Briana approaches customer outreach
11:15 – Scott thanks another of today’s sponsors, Skipio
11:52 – Briana’s sales origin story
16:56 – Briana shares her ‘favorite failure’
18:30 – Scott thanks the final sponsor of today’s episode, Revenue Grid
19:06 – How Briana networked her way into her current role at Microsoft
20:38 – Why Briana wouldn’t do anything differently in her career if given the chance
22:22 – Briana speaks to why Microsoft is such a nurturing place to work
25:07 – Briana’s favorite sales story
27:11 – The most challenging part of Briana’s role
28:22 – How Briana balances it all
30:12 – Briana takes the audience through a typical day
36:29 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Briana’s success
38:46 – Briana’s tech stack
39:28 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Briana consumes
41:50 – Briana’s sales philosophy and style
43:32 – What motivates and drives Briana
44:41 – Briana’s future plans with her husband
45:31 – One of Briana’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
47:21 – An average sales professional’s belief that Briana thinks is crazy
48:15 – Briana shares her trick for prioritizing customers based on opportunity
49:34 – How Briana is structuring conversations with her customers
51:43 – Other practices Briana has curated to build her process
53:06 – The most important lessons Briana has learned throughout her career
53:55 – Advice Briana would give to an upstart sales professional
54:37 – Advice Briana would give to struggling sales professionals looking to reach that next level
56:29 – How to specifically ask to shadow calls
57:50 – Briana’s favorite learning from a recent call she shadowed and what she’s now doing differently
59:33 – What Briana would want to know about top sellers in other industries
1:01:36 – Briana issues an actionable challenge to the audience
Tweetables:
“My goal is typically to have between eight and ten touchpoints within two weeks.” (10:06)
“I think the piece that I reflect on and would hope to learn faster within my career is really find a place to work that respects you and that values what you do and where your strengths are.” (21:12)
“Making sure that customers understand where you can help is going to help you be successful. I always tell coworkers that I hold information hostage. So, if a customer of mine fills out a bookings form and wants to talk about dynamics, for example, I will introduce myself to the customer and I will talk about every other product that I can get credit for. I will get information about everything.” (37:49)
“My first manager at Microsoft would say this often, ‘Control the controllables.’ Control what you can control day-to-day. Try not to get too ruffled by all the changes that affect your day-to-day. There are so many different priorities at Microsoft, but the North Star are your customers and the sales goals that you have.” (53:23)
Links Mentioned:
[email protected]
2021 Sales Success Summit
Briana Stimmler on LinkedIn
Outlook
OneNote
Todoist