“When you think about your sales calls this way, it will slow you down naturally, and I think you’re going to be more confident and see better results.” – Craig Simons in today’s Tip 1392
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Craig Simons. Craig is a sales-obsessed marketer at Allego, a provider of comprehensive sales enablement solutions. As a self-proclaimed “enlightened marketer,” Craig understands that sales and marketing share a common fate and their strategic alignment is foundational to success. When he can’t sleep, he counts marketing-sourced SQOs instead of sheep. Here he is:
Craig Simons: In partnership with Sales Insights Lab, Allego analyzed nearly 24,000 sales conversations recorded by Allego’s Conversation Intelligence. We compared the calls of top-performing sales reps with those of lower performers. One of the most interesting findings from this study is that top performers speak 6% slower than their peers. And this got me thinking the obvious question, why? Why did top performers talk slower? Perhaps they’re more prepared, they’re more deliberate in their approach, more confident. This would make sense, right? If you’ve done your homework and you know your top track inside and out, you’re going to be calm and relaxed and slower. I think that’s a good theory. But what if that’s not it at all? What if it’s because of some trait that the bottom and average performers possess that make them talk faster?
I know when I’m unprepared or nervous, I tend to talk faster. Maybe because I don’t know the words that are going to come out of my mouth. And the ones that do need context. And then those words need context. And before I know it, I’m just word vomiting without even really breathing. That could be a factor. But then I saw another finding, that the prospects also talk slower when they speak with top performers, they speak 12% slower. So what’s going on here? Are they modeling behavior? Or is there something else going on?
This part of the study blew me away. They looked at conversation switches. How many times has a conversation switch from the seller to the buyer to the buyer to the seller? During a demo presentation, there were 81 and a half switches when it was a top-performing conversation and when it was the peer group 45.7. That’s a 78% difference. Top performers have 78% more conversation switches than average and bottom performers. That is massive. What is going on here? These are totally different conversations here. Top performers have 78% more switches, 78% more back and forth between the buyer and the seller. That is a real conversation happening. A real conversation, what does it require? Right? What does back and forth require is speaking and then listening, active listening. And then for it to go back and forth that many times, not only is there active listening, but then there’s thoughtful responses, right?
And this is going to naturally slow down those conversations because you’re listening and then you’re thoughtfully responding. You’re thinking. You react and responding. You’re not doing a pitch. You’re not doing some monologue, something that you’ve rehearsed. You’re just having a human conversation. So I think when you think about your sales calls this way, it will slow you down naturally, and I think you’re going to be more confident and see better results.
If you want more tips like these research-based tips, we have a webinar coming up next week. We’re going to talk all about this research, all of the findings across all the different criteria that we looked at. It’s really fascinating stuff. And they’re not just going to show you what the study showed us. They’re going to also offer you tips for you to help replicate these behaviors, these stand-up behaviors that top performers show across your team. So join us Thursday, December 8. It’s Deniz Olcay, Director of Product Marketing at Allego, and Marc Wayshak, who’s the Founder at Sales Insights Labs. This is going to be a great one. Hope to see you there.
Scott Ingram: At this point, I’m not at all paranoid about my pacing. For links to connect with Craig, Allego, and their webinar, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1392. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!