Episode 179: It’s About the Customer, It’s Not About You with Andrew Barbuto

Andrew Barbuto has been the number one top sales performer at Basis Technologies for three full years and counting of over one hundred reps, and is the author of a soon-to-be-published ‘Top Sales Producer: How To Crush Your B2B Sales Quota.’ Andrew’s B2B sales book encapsulates the strategies that helped him generate $250MM in digital media revenue. He is a seasoned digital media sales professional with a proven track record of winning new business, driving revenue growth, consistently exceeding sales quotas, and cultivating long-term relationships with agencies and advertisers.

Today, Andrew joins the show to talk about Relationship Selling, his career trajectory, and what motivates him. Andrew expounds on his experience interning with Enterprise Rent-A-Car and their Management Training Program where he learned how much he truly enjoyed Sales and how personable and good he was at it. Andrew takes the audience through a typical day in the life, including his strategy of ‘beating the whistle’ and what that entails.

Andrew shares the top three things he attributes to his success, all of which are customer-centric. These include the laser focus he places on his customers, hard work and doing more for his customers, and showcasing his expertise. He expounds on one of his favorite sales stories, the biggest success of his career and takes a moment to share his philosophy on Sales. Andrew and Scott spend time discussing the art of the conversation, why decks don’t matter as much in today’s sales climate, and the anatomy of a Sales pitch.

Finally, Andrew provides his own actionable challenge to the audience to improve themselves and their results. He challenges listeners to carve out three hours in the coming week and just focus on research and prospects. Look for new prospects to target and don’t do it while doing anything else. Research is a step by itself where you want to expend energy diving deep into these prospects. Andrew can almost guarantee you’ll find two to four more potential prospects that end up being warm leads.

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott thanks today’s sponsor, The 2024 Sales Success Summit
00:39 – Scott welcomes to the show Andrew Barbuto
00:57 – The top three things that Andrew attributes to his success
01:32 – Number One: Laser focus on his customers
02:14 – Number Two: Doing More
03:40 – Number Three: Expertise
05:15 – Relationships & Selling
07:21 – Andrew expounds on his role at Basis Technologies
16:07 – How Andrew splits time working directly with clients and working with his team in service to his clients
19:40 – Andrew quantifies his sales results
26:22 – What Andrew would do differently if given the chance
29:35 – Andrew’s favorite sales story
35:08 – What drives and motivates Andrew
36:50 – Andrew and Scott talk about Andrew’s upcoming book
43:24 – Andrew takes the audience through a typical day in the life
54:50 – Andrew’s ‘crazy person’ list
58:21 – Andrew’s tech stack and information diet
1:10:06 – Moving away from Decks
1:13:52 – Andrew’s sales style and philosophy
1:15:33 – One of Andrew’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:18:05 – An average sales professional’s belief that Andrew thinks is crazy
1:19:35 – Andrew’s preparation process
1:25:24 – One thing Andrew would want to know about top sellers in other organizations
1:33:44 – Andrew issues an actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“Every day I wake up and I think about how I can help my customers be better and do better at their job. And that drives everything that I do.” (01:41)

“I don’t think that relationship selling is dead perse. I think the nature of the relationship is different. So, what it means to have a great relationship with your customer has changed.” (06:04)

“The best conversations that I’ve been on have been the ones where I’ve spoken the least.” (12:45)

“I’m always looking for what’s next because I always want to prove to myself that I can do something.” (35:32)

“The reason why it’s important, I think, to always be adding value to customers or prospects regardless of whether you’re working with them or not is because once those key people leave or come into a new situation, that is an opportunity now that wasn’t an opportunity then.” (1:04:53)

“It’s about your customer; it’s not about you. Everything is about your customer. When you are in a conversation with a prospect, you don’t really matter that much. The only reason you’re in that conversation is to let them know how you can help them with their needs.” (1:14:07)

What We Covered:

Tweetables:

Links Mentioned:

Books Mentioned:

Podcasts Mentioned:

Sponsors Mentioned: