“Follow the right rules to get things through the process.” – Lisa Palmer in today’s Tip 577
How are you thinking about them as you’re structuring your pursuit?
Join the conversation below and go check the full interview with Lisa!
Lisa Palmer on LinkedIn
Lisa Palmer on Sales Success Stories Interview
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today over on the Sales Success Stories podcast we just released interview episode number 100, and it’s maybe one of the best ever especially if you’re in enterprise sales or managing really complex deals. The full interview is just shy of 2 hours, but here’s just a 3-minute taste of my conversation with Lisa Palmer who in Q2 alone helped to close $44M in business. Here it is:
Lisa Palmer: When I first got into selling, I had spent a great deal of my career on the buyer side. So I’ve been in technology my entire career, and I was on the tech side and sat in that buyer’s chair many, many times. And what I knew from sitting in, in that chair is that the buying process was very purchasing oriented it was make all the right steps, follow the right rules to get things through the process. What surprised me when I got onto the sales side of the table was how much time I had to spend internally convincing and getting buy-in from those insides of my organization. Then that was actually quite a surprise to me. I thought that it was going to be this very staid process, like what I had experienced when I was on the buyer side of the table. And that is not the case. These complex selling environments require a tremendous amount of internal management of expectations of resources, and frankly, politically making sure that you are staying in alignment with what your internal organization is trying to achieve at the same time that you’re having just as complex the conversations with all of the moving parts on the buyer side.
Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I have to imagine that the time that you spent in the buyer’s seat has informed a lot of your ability to focus on the client, focus on the prospect. What does that look like? Like how are you thinking about them as you’re structuring your pursuit?
Lisa Palmer: First I’m incredibly empathetic having sat in their chair. One of the things I think that we overlook from a selling perspective is the risk that these individuals space in their daily pursuits. There are so many individuals who are not looking for those buyers to be successful, and if they fail the odds of them losing their employment, and certainly in today’s time, spacing a pandemic if they fail the results of that are painful, right? They will literally lose their jobs over it. Where we might fail in a pursuit. And certainly, that’s going to be disappointing and there will be repercussions for it. The buyers are actually at really significant risk. And so I am super empathetic to what they face and the challenges that they face. They’re also very operationally focused, whether they want to be, or not operations consume a tremendous amount of their time and we have to help them. We have to arm them with information that makes them look at the things that are visionary and strategic and give them talk tracks so that they are able to perform not only operationally, but we’re helping them to be successful, to get their heads up, to look forward and to really be visionaries in their organization. And if you’re a strong selling partner, you’re helping them to do that.
Scott Ingram: Hopefully you’re already subscribed to the Sales Success Stories podcast, and I really hope you’ll take the time to listen to the top1.fm/100full interview. It truly is something special. The quickest way to get there outside of your favorite podcast player is by clicking over to top1.fm/100.
Normally I would say come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip, and of course, that’s what we’ll have for you, but I’ll forgive you if you get wrapped up in that episode and it takes an extra day or two for you to come back here. Thanks for listening!