Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:
I did it was I would then go back to my customer without them knowing I was sitting on their call on their earnings call and that I could help tie that into a business conversation and to human conversation. Look let’s just not talk technology because that’s what they’re expecting a Microsoft sales rep to come do is let me just fire away at all the new cool things that we did there or that we have released. And let’s talk to you OK before we get to the technology investment there has to be some business reason or anticipated outcome that you want whether it’s for your internal customers in your company or it’s the true end user which is why anybody is in any of our any of our customers are really investigate in technology, is to make their solutions better for their customers. And so when I was able to do that humanize the technology and using that kind of data. I was able to opened up a lot of doors and shows some different you know expertise you know that helped build that trust. When a customer is looking at me or listening to me talk about their business versus talking about the technology investment that they have with Microsoft. So it helped me really transition from a seller to a you know more of an adviser or a really true partner.
If you’d like to share this clip (please do!) you’ll have the most sharing options available on the YouTube clip itself.
- Managing leadership expectations around admin work and sales forecasting
- Building relationships in inside sales “I humanized everything”
- Learning about business, entrepreneurship and finance to win in sales
- “I’m going to do whatever it takes for my customer to be successful”
- Business acumen and financial acumen are more important than sales skills especially at the c-level
- “At the end of the day a great seller doesn’t always sell”
- Building trust and influence by telling a customer “No”
- “#1 comes with a price”
- Getting out of the data and just having conversations to build pipeline
- “I would spend about 4-5 hours a day just talking to customers”
- Effectively introducing yourself to existing customers as their new account manager
- Phil’s toolkit for managing a territory of 168 accounts
- Using gratitude to stay sane “given the stress that sellers have”
- Keeping a clean email inbox
- Staying focused on the results and on selling time
- After a call, when the information is freshest, go document it
- “I had one day every week where I didn’t talk to existing customers” Going after all new customers
- The mentality that it takes to get to #1
- Having a quarterback mentality “I wanted to put in 150% so that way at least I hit quota”
- Leading the team as an individual contributor
- From Top Account Manager to Sales Enablement at Microsoft
- Sales: Do you really want to do this?
- How are you going to differentiate yourself from the millions of other sellers?
- “Think about that territory or book of business as your own business”
- You should enjoy it with a passion or you should do something else because you won’t be successful