“A word of caution is that most companies don’t have a lot of items in the strategic category. If they would, they would have run into serious issues by now, so don’t assume too quickly you’re in the strategic category.” – Mark Schenkius in today’s Tip 629

Why buyers behave the way they do? 

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

ROI 10
The Other Side of Sales
Mark Schenkius on LinkedIn
601: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Kraljic Matrix Series Part 1)
608: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Part 2 – Routine Items)
615: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Part 3 – Leverage)
622: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Part 4 – Bottleneck Items)

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Mark Schenkius is back to conclude his 5 part series. Mark is the founder of ROI 10 where he helps sales professionals get better at dealing with buyers, and he’s also the author of “The Other Side of Sales,” where he shares his perspective after 15 years in procurement. Here he is:

Mark Schenkius: Hi everyone, I’m back with part five of Kraljic’s purchasing portfolio matrix. If you haven’t been following along, you’re going to have to go back and binge a couple of great sales tips from the last couple of weeks. So far, we’ve covered the framework as well as 3 of the 4 quadrants of the matrix.

Today, we’ll cover the 4th and final quadrant: “Strategic items”

When we have a high supplier risk and high-profit impact items, we talk about strategic items. An example of this could be a patented material a buyer needs to source that is absolutely critical to their product. They basically have nowhere else to go and without it, They would not be able to sell their products anymore impacting profits significantly.

The purchasing approach for a buyer would be to form a strategic alliance with this particular supplier. This means looking at both product and process innovation as well as agreeing on a long-term commitment that is mutually beneficial.

These types of relationships consume a lot of a buyer’s time and they require a very specific skillset because connections need to be built at every level in both organizations.

So, what does his mean for you as a sales professional?

Well, firstly, you have finally secured the attention of a buyer. Well done!

Secondly, an immediate thought could be to exploit the situation considering the customer is dependent on you. However, be careful here. Since the product or service you provide is so critical to the operating model of the customer, you could easily push them into bankruptcy if you overplay your hand. And that probably isn’t your intention neither.

Instead, by intensifying co-operation, you can build a sustainable long-term business model that is valuable to the both of you. If you make sure the buyer doesn’t want to go somewhere else, you have no risk at all losing this business now or in the future.

A word of caution is that most companies don’t have a lot of items in the strategic category. If they would, they would have run into serious issues by now, so don’t assume too quickly you’re in the strategic category.

That’s it for Kraljic’ purchasing portfolio matrix. Hopefully, it will benefit your current and future dealings with buyers.

Happy negotiations everyone!

Scott Ingram: For more about Mark and his book “The Other Side of Sales,” click over to DailySales.Tips/629 and we’ll have everything for you there including direct links to all of the other tips in this series.

Then be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Focus on building habits instead of visualizing a lofty goal.” – Jeroen Corthout in today’s Tip 628

How do you focus on your work? 

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Remote Sales: How to Sell Successfully From Wherever You Are
What is a Sales Pipeline? How do I Build an Unbeatable One?
Sales Quotas: How to Make your Sales More Predictable
Why You Want an Easy to Use CRM for Your Small Business
Salesflare

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Jeroen Corthout. Jeroen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Salesflare, an intelligent CRM built for SMBs selling B2B that’s most popular with agencies and fast-growing tech companies. Here he is:

Jeroen Corthout: Common logic is you set a goal and then you work towards that to reach it. That’s how almost everyone managers, salespeople, all of us think success has made you visualize an ambitious yet achievable number as your goal. And then you start working hard to achieve it.

Truth is humans don’t work that way. We’re not robots. We don’t have infinite discipline and we often have to scramble very last minute to achieve the goal we put forward at the start of the year, because you know, I’ve got in the way of our plans, but how then do we make things happen? If setting goals doesn’t work, how can we humans still achieve greatness? What should we focus our minds on instant? The answer is actually rather simple. It’s the consistent effort to reach that goal.

So little example, if your sales target is 1 million per year, then depending on your business, that might mean closing 24 deals of 42 K in the year, which amounts to 2 per month, 24 divided by 12 is 2.

And if your close rate is about 10%, then that means generating 20 new leads per month, which then if you look at it is about 1 per working day. Now that’s something much more tangible we can commit to. This starts sounding much, much easier. All we need to focus on in the morning actually is starting with getting that one new lead in the pipeline and then work the deals are already in our pipeline. So that in about every two weeks, one of our deals in the pipeline is closed.

This is the magic of focusing your daily sales practice on input level sales quarter, rather than output level sales quota you’re eyeing. We break down a big goal into an achievable goal to reach every day of every week so that we can do consistent efforts to crush your targets. And this actually applies to everything we do in life. If you want to run a marathon, then just go for run, a few set days per week, and increased the amount of time you spend. If you want to read more books, then just set aside a short moment every day to read and read a bit longer. If you’re enjoying it, you’ll get there.

Focus on building habits instead of visualizing a lofty goal. Control the input rather than obsessing about the output or as the is set to the hair slow and steady wins the race.

Scott Ingram: For more about Jeroen, and links to the Salesflare blog, as well as the Salesflare website where you can set up a free trial, just click over to DailySales.Tips/628

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip! Thanks for listening!

“Don’t let any situation or person de-value your worth and confidence in sales is one of the most underrated qualities or things that you need to possess in order to succeed and to succeed consistently.” – Amanda Peer in today’s Tip 627

How do you sell yourself?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

[email protected]
Amanda Peer on LinkedIn
Amanda’s Bravado Client Portfolio
452: Resume Hacking
Submit a Sales Tip

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Amanda Peer is back. Amanda is now the VP of Sales at XIX.ai where she’s building the sales process for a facial recognition startup that’s developing responsible AI. Here she is:

Amanda Peer: My sales tip today is about the value and importance of selling yourself. So the last time I was featured on Daily Sales Tips, I spoke about resume hacking, explaining the importance of writing a resume to be read by robots and not by human beings. I think that I’m going to stick with the career theme here and discuss the next step of the process and your sales interview once it’s scheduled on the calendar.

So you literally are in a position to be judged. Interviews are just sessions to judge you, and you could put nicer words on that or label it something differently or quote-unquote, see if someone’s a fit, but it’s all tied to judgment. And that’s the perception of whether or not you’re right for the role, quote-unquote culture fit. I hate that term by the way. I’ll speak to that another time.

But I have interviewed probably more than anyone. I know I’ve been infamous for job-hopping over the years. And you know, as salespeople, I think that it’s pretty common for out of any department. Ours is the highest turnover that sales reps tend to make the most moves, whether those are decided by us or by companies.

And you know, one thing that I’ve realized in having to sell myself, having to do it constantly is that situational circumstance, like a circumstances, sometimes dictates the level of confidence you have in selling yourself as a product. When tons of recruiters are reaching out and you’re happily employed. It’s like all of these great companies are reaching out to you. And if you take an interview, you’re super confident. You don’t really care if you get a job there because you’re probably not going to take it. You’re passively looking, whatever the case is.

And for some reason, you’re 10 times more attractive to a recruiter. But if we look at a situation where you’re actively looking for a new sales role, whether that is because you’re unhappy in your current company, or because you got let go from a job and that happens. It could really have a lot of impact on how we feel about ourselves. And it doesn’t help to have judgment session interviews where recruiters are asking you, “Oh, well, you know, why did you decide to leave? Or why are you looking to make a move?” And you have to kind of refine your pitch over time in order to get it right.

The one thing that I have realized is, why am I like trying to come up with the right things to say, there is no right thing to say. The right thing to do is to sell yourself and stand your ground and don’t feel like pressured by a situation to feel like you’re undeserving of something or that your value has decreased. When selling a product at a company, they always say you don’t sell the product, but the solution that definitely holds some truth to it, but you can’t sell a solution to a customer without first selling yourself.

So whether you’re speaking to a recruiter, whether you’re speaking to a customer or prospect, or whether you’re just in your personal life, navigating any adversity or difficult situation, realize that you need to have your own back and you need to stand your ground with confidence. And in doing that, you automatically set yourself up for success in a way that no matter the outcome, you know, that you’re proud of what you did.

So sell yourself, fake a team makes it until you actually believe it. And great things will come. Don’t let any situation or person de-value your worth and confidence in sales is one of the most underrated, I guess, qualities or things that you need to possess in order to succeed and to succeed consistently. So you’re all amazing at what you do. Act like it and believe it. That’s it.

Scott Ingram: Amanda let me know that she’s not quite ready to build her team yet, but would welcome your resume if you’re interested. If you’ll click over to DailySales.Tips/627 we’ll have links to her LinkedIn profile, her Bravado Client Portfolio and her email address where you can send your resume.

Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“We become what we think and if you don’t believe that you can achieve something, if you don’t believe that you can win a race, you will never win it. You must believe first.” – Andy Jaffke in today’s Tip 626

Do you believe?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Andy!

Teams Win Championships
Andy Jaffke on Linkedin
Top3Planner
Be Yourself: Your Success Guide for Your Life. Achieve Your Goals. Experience true Happiness

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Teradata’s Andy Jaffke in Spain. Andy is also leading a new book project titled: “Teams Win Championships – How to create and lead high-performance Sales Teams.” I’ll tell you more about that after we hear from Andy:

Andy Jaffke: Good morning everyone! This is Andy Jaffke and this is a message for my team at Teradata. It’s also a message for my good friends. It’s a message from my family, and it’s a message for everyone out there who in touch with me and who knows me. It’s about where we are and where we’re heading.

So, first of all, I would like to thank everyone for this fantastic support over the past, more than six months, since March 9th, I have not been working at an office. I have been working at home. We are five people. It was challenging. It is still changing. I’m still sitting here in my home office. Now, at least I have a good chair and a good microphone, so I can talk to you. Really, I wanted to help you understand what’s going on in my head. And I also wanted to understand you. How do you feel? What are your fears? What are your worries?

First of all, I wanted to talk about change and I wanted to talk about COVID. But from a perspective of change. If you look at your life, life is constant change. Every second, our body changes. We become older, we get older and we change. And what is true for all of us that sooner or later we run into crisis. Is it COVID? Is it cancer? Is it another disease? Is it an accident? It doesn’t matter. We will all run into issues and a bigger or smaller crisis over the lifetime and what we have to do every time that happens to us, we have to think about what we can do. How can we react to what happens to us?

So the key thing is not what happens to us. The key thing is how to react. The key thing is how you think after what happened to you. So if COVID hits us, that is something you can change. COVID is there to stay until at least 2022, we have to face it. So the only thing you can do is to start a thing, how you can adapt to this. What is in your hands at your reach, direct reach? You can either be one of these guys was just becoming depressed and dragging down people around you or can be that person that sees the silver lining of the cloud. And is that light that others need to see the positive and see the opportunity that is available for everyone. There are always opportunities, but you have to see them if you have to want to see them. You don’t remember maybe the quote of Henry Ford has said, “Either, you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right.“

So basically we are what we think. We become what we think and if you don’t believe that you can achieve something, if you don’t believe that you can win a race, you will never win it. You must believe first. If you believe you can achieve.

Thank you very much. Wish you all the best and think about next time something happens to you. What you can do, how you can react to this.  I wish you a great weekend. Bye-bye.

Scott Ingram: For more about Andy, where you can connect with him on LinkedIn, and learn more about his “Teams Win Championships” project and his Top3Planner, just click over to DailySales.Tips/626 and we’ll have all of that for you there.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“If you show up that way and align the leadership style to what the person needs in that task, in that moment, you will have tremendous success.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 625

How about you? Are you a master of the task?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

PsychAndSales Podcast
David Weiss on LinkedIn
Ehrin Weiss on LinkedIn
611: Sales Leadership Tips (Part 1 of 3)
618: Sales Leadership Tips (Part 2 of 3)

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today David Weiss from Outreach is back to finish his sales leadership series. Here he is:

David Weiss: Good morning everyone out there and the Sales Success Community. David Weiss coming at you with another tip of the day. So this is the third tip in the Leadership Series. The first one was all about you and your person against their quota and their business. The other one is leveraging a strengths-based approach for coaching. And then the last one is all around situational leadership. So I’m a believer that if you do these three things, you will have better results and happier people.

So situational leadership is a concept created by Ken Blanchard. So check Ken out and it is all about understanding where a person is across four different levels on any given task. So the thought is you have the four levels are, you’ve never done the task before. You’ve done the task but in a limited amount. You have done the task successfully multiple times but maybe need some help. And you are a master at the task. You could teach it, you could write books on it. You know it. You’ve done it. You’ve executed on it.

Alright, so let’s kind of talk about the styles. Before you ask anyone to do anything in the business that you need, that has an outcome tied to it that you need them to do. You need to think about, “Okay. Where does someone sit on their experience level with the task I’m asking them to do and the way I just mentioned.” So if someone is, has never done a task before you want to be highly directive, here’s how you do it. Here’s when you do it. Here’s everything you need to go do it. Now. You don’t get a say in it, just go do it.

The next is coaching. So someone has done the task a few times before, but you know, they’re learning to be good. That’s “Hey, remember, last time I asked you to do this, what did I ask you to do? Okay. What questions do you have? Okay. What is your plan? Okay.” Now let me tweak a little bit of it and go do it.

The next level is the person who’s done it multiple times before some steps need some help. That’s when you just say to them, “Hey, remember the last few times you’ve done it. You’ve done a great job. Really appreciate that. What is your plan for getting it done this time? Okay. I like the plan.” If you need to help them tweak it or shape it, do it, but otherwise just let them go execute.

Then you have your masters, your masters all you tell them to do is here’s the expectation. Here’s when I need it done by you, don’t ask them their plan. You don’t ask them anything. You don’t spend a lot of time on it. You just tell them where to go and what you want done and they go do it. Think like the Navy seals, Navy seals aren’t going to tell you their plan. You’re going to say, “Go take that mountain.” And the Navy seals we’re just going to go take the mountain. That’s because they’re masters.

So think through this, because what I often see is people have a singular leadership style and they edit often falls into realms. They’re either highly directive all the time to everybody, no matter what. And your people who are really good at things are going to hate you. Like, I mean, literally hate you. When people take a directive style to me on tasks that I literally have written books on, I get pretty pissed off. Like it just doesn’t feel good. Cause I’m like, dude, I actually probably know how to do this better than you. The other leadership styles, they delegate too much. They delegate to people who have no idea what they’re doing. We’re only a little bit of idea that what they’re doing and they don’t give enough direction. And the people they’re just lost. They’re like, I don’t know what to do. Okay. I guess I’ll just try and figure it out. And then the results aren’t there. And then the person gets all mad and they don’t do a good job in the middle.

So when you really need to do is truly assess me as a leader, what am I asking someone to go do? And then truly assess where they are in their personal development, on those things. And then show up as the leader they need for the task you’re asking them to do. And as a tip, everybody is different and there you are at a different development level across all tasks. And there could be 50 plus tasks that you ask someone to do in business. So you’ve gotta be thoughtful about this, but if you show up that way and align the leadership style to what the person needs in that task, in that moment, you will have tremendous success, respect from people. They will feel heard. They will feel loved. They will feel understood and you will get better results. So thanks for listening and as always reach out to me, if I can help anything. Take care.

Scott Ingram: We’ll have those links for you to reach out to David over at DailySales.Tips/625. You should also check out the podcast he hosts with his wife Ehrin, who is a Psychologist, called PsychAndSales, and of course, we’ll have that link for you there as well.

Once you’ve checked that out. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“I’m looking forward to a crazy productive week in service to the sales community. I hope you have a great week as well.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 624

Join the conversation below and go check out the links!

5 Creative Prospecting Examples that Worked in the Real World
Fast Forward: Selling with video in the virtual world
Designing the Ultimate 2021 Sales Kickoff
Sales Success Peer Group
Sales Success Summit

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. I’m taking the next week and half off from my day job to finish preparing for and then to host the 2020 Sales Success Summit, and that’s giving me some extra time this week to take part in a number of webinars and online discussions that you might find value in and be interested in attending. You’ll find links to all of them at DailySales.Tips/624:

On Tuesday a 1 o’clock central on the Sales Experts Channel, I’ll be hosting a webinar titled 5 Creative Prospecting Examples that Worked in the Real World. I think this might just be my best and most entertaining webinar to date, and I’m going to cram everything into 30 minutes or less.

On Wednesday at 10 am central I get to kick-off Vidyard’s Fast Forward Summit in a panel with Nikki Ivey, John Barrows and Lisa Palmer called Selling in the Virtual World: What’s Changed and how to Adapt to Stay Ahead.

On Thursday you’ll find me on Sales Hacker at 1 o’clock central talking about designing better SKOs or Sales KickOffs if you’re not familiar with the acronym. I’ll be sharing some of the behind the scenes of what’s going on with the Sales Success Summit in that session and how sales leaders can learn from some of those ideas to prepare to deliver their annual sales meetings virtually next year.

And finally, I’ll be joining Lisa Peskin, the CEO of Business Development University on Friday for one of her Sales Success Peer Group sessions at 11 am central.

Again I’ll have links each of those sessions if you’d like to join me at DailySales.Tips/624. We’ll also work on keeping those links updates so if you’re not able to register in advance and join live, you can at least get access to the recordings for those that will be available afterwards.

I’m looking forward to a crazy productive week in service to the sales community. I hope you have a great week as well.

Now be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Whether you want to or not make sure it’s something that you like, make sure it’s something that you feel reflects your capabilities, your talents, and what you want to stand for.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 623

Are you trying to build a personal brand or a following?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Rethink The Way You Sell: When It Goes Sideways
Rethink The Way You Sell Community
Jeff’Bajorek on LinkedIn
The Why And The Buy Podcast

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. It’s Saturday, so it must be time for some Jeff Bajorek. Here he is:

Jeff Bajorek: So are you trying to build a personal brand or a following? Do you know the difference? Look, everybody’s got a personal brand. You have one, whether you like it or not, whether you’re intentionally trying to create one, or if you stumble upon it. You have a personal brand. You are known for something you are known as something. And hopefully, you’re taking steps to being known as someone worth talking to with something worth talking about. Hopefully, your digital footprint is a favorable one for you.

Now, friends of mine like Dwan Brown and Evan Kelsey have tremendous personal brands. They post things regularly. They put themselves out there. They talk about things that are important to talk about, but they’re not chasing followers because they know that their personal brand exists for when people find them.

Now you’ve got other people that you’ve heard on this show. People like Dale Dupree, people like Sarah Brazier, who are going out of their way with their tremendous personal brands. Let me make that clear. And they’re building a following. They’re trying to evangelize things to people. They’re trying to get people, pay attention to them because their career goals are helped. They’re assisted. They’re aided by people, a lot of people paying attention to them.

Now there’s nothing wrong with either approach. And actually, you have to have a really strong personal brand before you can build a following, but I’m want to ask you right now, are you pursuing a following without any clear reason for how that following can help you?

Because there are a lot of people out there with a lot of followers and it can make it look very tempting for you to chase those followers. But you have to ask yourself, this is where the discipline comes in. You have to ask yourself if those followers are really going to help you, or if you can wait for them to find you and actually spend that time, invest those resources in doing your job.

Look, a personal brand, I’ve said this before. I’ll say it again. I said it just two minutes ago. A personal brand is necessary. You have one, whether you want to or not make sure it’s something that you like, make sure it’s something that you feel reflects your capabilities, your talents, and what you want to stand for. A following may not serve you, but may very well distract you from the most important work that you need to get done.

So ask yourself, what are you trying to do here? And are your actions online to develop whatever personal brand you have? Are they really serving you or should you really be doing something else?

Scott Ingram: For more about Jeff and the video version of this tip, just click over to DailySales.Tips/623.

Once you’ve visited that page and added to Jeff’s following, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Don’t listen to what a buyer tells you. Instead, look for your own facts by making a list of who your real competitors are.” – Mark Schenkius in today’s Tip 622

Why buyers behave the way they do?

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

ROI 10
The Other Side of Sales
Mark Schenkius on LinkedIn
601: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Kraljic Matrix Series Part 1)
608: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Part 2 – Routine Items)
615: Why Buyers Behave The Way They Do (Part 3 – Leverage)

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Mark Schenkius is back with another installment in his series. Mark is the founder of ROI 10 where he helps sales professionals get better at dealing with buyers, and he’s also the author of “The Other Side of Sales,” where he shares his perspective after 15 years in procurement. Here he is:

Mark Schenkius: What’s going on Daily Sales Tips Community. I’m Mark Schenkius and I’m back with Part 4 of Kraljic Purchasing Portfolio Matrix. So far, we’ve covered a high-level overview of the framework, and we’ve talked in more detail about routine and leverage items. If you need to get caught up, check back in on tips 601, 608, and 615.

Today, we move to bottleneck items. This quadrant is actually the flip side of leverage. Risk is high, but profitability is low. Here the strength is in your hands. The market consists of one of a few suppliers that can behave monopolistically to force prices upward. Even though these items have a limited impact upon company profitability, they still demand a high level of intention from buyers. And trust me, they don’t like to spend time here since all they do is manage risks and not deliver real monetary value, which is usually what they think they’re paid for.

A great example of this is a small piece of specialist software. It’s difficult to source elsewhere. However, financial impact is typically low.

For buyers who are interested in changing the status quo. The strategic approach they could take is twofold.

1. To find or develop alternative suppliers.
2. Simplify it as specification, which essentially creates opportunities for other suppliers to step in.

The interesting bit is that buyers normally behave reactively as opposed to proactively, but regards to bottleneck items. They tend to address issues when they appear rather than deal with them upfront. And that creates opportunities for you.

So what does this mean exactly for you as a sales professional?

Well, in simple words, you have an opportunity to exploit the customer or buyer since you have nowhere else to go.

The only caveat here is that once a buyer feels that their backs are against the wall, they will look for ways to get out.

So the trick here is to use your preferential status just enough not to frustrate the buyer.

Now, one thing to watch for is that buyers will never ever tell you that you’re a bottleneck supplier to them. Since it’s weakened stand negotiation position.

So don’t listen to what a buyer tells you. Instead, look for your own facts by making a list of who your real competitors are.

If you can’t think of any, there’s a good chance. You’re a bottleneck supplier. Happy negotiations everyone.

Scott Ingram: For more about Mark and his book “The Other Side of Sales,” click over to DailySales.Tips/622 and we’ll have everything for you there including a transcript of his tip.

Then make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss the rest of Mark’s series with the final installment coming next Friday. You should also come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Knowing your “Why” and having a personal mission statement are really important.” – Ian Koniak in today’s Tip 621

Do you know your “Why?”

Join the conversation below and learn more about Ian.

Ian Koniak on LinkedIn
Ian’s YouTube Channel
Ian Koniak on Sales Success Stories Interview
Salesforce Website

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from the newest episode on the Sales Success Stories podcast that we released this week featuring Ian Koniak. Ian is one of the topmost consistent enterprise sellers at Salesforce and I honestly struggled to narrow it down to just a couple of clips for you because there is so much good stuff in this conversation. Here’s another one:

Ian Koniak: I think, like knowing your “Why” and having a personal mission statement are really important, just in general. Like one thing I’ve done every year as I recalibrate my why. So I get my ex-girlfriend to the US and then it’s like, Okay, what now? Why do I need to make this much money now? Why do I need to be successful now? And if you don’t have like a real like front and center reason as to why you need to do what you need to do a lot of times the grind is it feels like a grind and it’s really hard.

So for me, I’m constantly recalibrating my why not just in the beginning of the year, but during the year as well.

So for me now, you know, my why is bigger than just me. It’s about continuing to show that this way of selling that’s external customer-focused actually is more effective than the traditional way of selling, which is me-centric versus customer-centric.

And it’s really to practice what I’m preaching. And in terms of building up my training and coaching business, really getting firsthand experiencing, managing, and growing the largest accounts in the world for Salesforce, which is like the major league selling.

So I have needed to constantly recalibrate because, you know, I want to run my business full time and it’s, you know, like I said, if I’m just thinking, Oh, I should be doing something else, then it really is going to be hard.

So you really have to like to be all in on what you’re doing, wherever you go, there you are. So, one thing I’d say is like, you’ve got to embrace where you are and make the most of it.

Scott Ingram: Did you refer a Moana song?

Ian Koniak: Is that a Moana song, where you are?

Scott Ingram: Something like that.

Ian Koniak: Is it?

Scott Ingram: We were just watching some Disney plus I swear to God, that’s a Moana song. Sorry, I didn’t mean to derail you there.

Ian Koniak: It might’ve been. And if I did say it, then it’s understandable since I have a little boy that actually likes that movie.

Scott Ingram: We’ll look it up to show notes if it is.

Ian Koniak: At least it’s not frozen. So he’s not saying singing, “Let it go” or whatever that song is. So we digress. But what I’m trying to say is like, you could always look for greener pasture elsewhere, but where you are, you need to like really be grounded and establish your footing because that’s the challenge at hand. If you’re always looking for something else, you’re never going to appreciate the current state and the present challenge at hand. And I just feel like that’s been the story of my life. I’m always like, “Oh, I need to go to a different company or I need to go to a higher position. I need a different territory or different manager.” And it’s like until I realized that like, it was me that I was running away from and that I needed to ground myself in my core value, my mission, my identity, and really have that sense of like identity. That’s like, I am somebody who strives to make the most of every day to constantly be better today than I was in yesterday to give, to serve.

Knowing my values is been something that like writing out your “why” and your reasons in your values and what you want in life. If you can do that consistently man, the work’s gonna feel easy because you know why you’re doing it.

And so many people skip that step. You know, they have these goals and they’re purely financial, but you know, that can only take you so far. You gotta like be working towards, a better version of yourself and you got to work towards, I think making an impact and being a good person, being a better person than you were yesterday. And working on yourself is equally as important as working on your business.

So that’s been my like daily habit. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I listen to podcasts regularly. I’m always listening to audible and I’m always trying to better myself by reading and by just developing myself in areas that I lack perfection. And those are a lot of areas. I say that lack perspection. I should say. I work on areas that I know I need improvement on.

Scott Ingram: The rest of this conversation with Ian is in episode 104 of the Sales Success Stories podcast. You can jump over in your podcast player right now, I hope you’ll hit subscribe in the process or click over to top1.fm/104 and you’ll find both the audio and the complete show notes there as well.

Once you’ve checked that out, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!

“Focus on being of service to other people in your life, be it personal, be of service to your family or mentees that you take on.” – Ian Koniak in today’s Tip 620

What is your main focus?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Ian!

Ian Koniak on LinkedIn
Ian’s YouTube Channel
Ian Koniak on Sales Success Stories Interview
Salesforce Website

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from the newest episode on the Sales Success Stories podcast that we released this week featuring Ian Koniak. Ian is one of the topmost consistent enterprise sellers at Salesforce and I honestly struggled to narrow it down to just a couple of clips for you because there is so much good stuff in this conversation. Here’s one:

Ian Koniak: Well in sales lens, what that means is really taking the biggest challenges that a client has and truly helping inspire them to take on those challenges. Helping inspire activating change agents within a company that are full of reasons why they can’t do something and saying, “You know what, that’s all just rhetoric. That’s all just limiting beliefs.” Right?

If I know in my personal life that, you know, you can break through any ceiling possible, you better believe that I’m going to take that same energy and show my clients, you know what? I had other clients that thought the same thing and we helped them overcome these challenges. And so from a sales perspective, it’s really about helping clients, take their most ambitious goals and being an aid in support and a resource for them to achieve those. And what that takes is really putting on your client hat and almost feeling like you’re an employee of the client. Like,” Hey, if I worked for this customer, what would I do?”

And frankly, the only way you can do that is from experience. You cannot, I mean, you’ve been in the marketing automation space for a long time, Scott, I know you worked at Oracle and you know, you work for a partner who helps set that up.

I guarantee you when you first started selling, you know, a lot more now sitting on the implementation side about what it really takes to be successful with software, and it’s not buying the software. There’s news for everyone. It’s actually the resources that they’re going to allocate to make the program successful. It’s also having the right partner that can implement it. It’s also having the right leaders that are sponsoring this, that have support. It’s putting the right team in place.

So there’s so many components that make clients successful. So in a sales perspective, you kind of have to say, “Look, I can sell you the software, but I don’t want to, until I get the right partner in there with you until you have the right focus on this. Until I understand why you really want this, because the worst thing that can happen is that you have shelf or sitting or that you’re, you know, you overspent and you’re not using the feature. So let’s do the diligence upfront and really understand what challenges you have, what the current situation looks like. So that we can focus on what is going to move the needle in your business and make this successful from day one.”

So it means prolonging sales cycles. It means spending a lot more time on discovery, and it really means putting your client on hat on versus your sales hat of trying to slam something. So it’s great. And a lot of times the client will tell me, you know, you know more about my business that I do myself and that’s the best compliment I can get from a client is that I’m that deeply ingrained.

I remember with one of my clients, Berkshire Hathaway home services, they had an office for me set up in their headquarters and they gave me a key card that I can go in because I was there literally three or four days a week. And I was there because I wanted to make sure they were successful and it requires being in front of them. And so that’s really how that translates to sales is if you’re focused on being of service to other people in your life, be it personal, be of service to your family or mentees that you take on. You’re also going to be focusing on being of service to your clients.

And so that was really the biggest shift that I made is I kinda told myself, “Hey, you know, what would you do if you worked for this client?” And when I did that, I came up with a lot of different answers than, you know, “Hey, I need to go sell this so I can hit my quota.” And so that’s been the real, you know, helping clients get what they want has enabled me to get what I want in spaces. And that’s been the biggest way that philosophy and that congruence is translated to client success in sales success. For me, quite frankly, over the past few years, that’s how I’ve done it.

Scott Ingram: The rest of this conversation with Ian is in episode 104 of the Sales Success Stories podcast. You can jump over in your podcast player right now, and I hope you’ll hit subscribe in the process, or click over to top1.fm/104 and you’ll find both the audio and the complete show notes there as well.

Once you’ve checked that out, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!