“If you really want to create something that lasts generations, you have to help inspire the next generation, and they create something great” – Kobe Bryant in today’s Tip 379

How do you inspire the next generation?

Join the conversation below and check that full clip from Kobe!

Kobe Bryant on CNBC
377: Because of 4am

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today is Super Bowl Sunday and I probably should be doing some type of super bowl related tip, but I’m just not that into it this year. As long as the red team wins I’ll be good. Instead, I’m going to wrap up my mini-series tribute to Kobe Bryant that I started in tip# 377. One of the main reasons I wanted to do this is because of how important legacy clearly was to Kobe. He talked about it a lot, and I can’t tell you how much I connected with this quote. This comes from a part of a short segment that Kobe did on CNBC and I’ll have a link to the full clip for you at DailySales.Tips/379 Here’s what he said:

Kobe Bryant: “Playing basketball, the focus is always on winning. Winning championships, winning championships, winning championships. Now, championships come and go. There’s going to be another team that wins another championship, another player that wins another MVP award. But if you really want to create something that lasts generations, you have to help inspire the next generation, and they create something great, and then that generation will inspire the one behind them, right? And that’s when you create something forever. And that’s what’s most beautiful.”

Scott Ingram: Again I really can’t tell you how much this resonated with me as I think about the Sales Success Community. In fact, let me take this same idea and apply it to sales and see if it resonates with you: Being in sales, the focus is always on winning. Winning deals, winning deals, winning deals. Now deals come and go. There’s going to be another competitor that wins another deal, another seller that gets to the top of the leaderboard. But if you really want to create something that lasts generations, you have to help inspire the next generation, and they create something great, and then that generation will inspire the one behind them, right? And that’s when you create something forever. And that’s what’s most beautiful.

Kobe clearly inspired the next generation in so many ways. I hope you and I can work together through this show and this community to inspire the next generation of true sales professionals.

Thanks for listening and come back tomorrow for a great sales tip.

“You have to ask. I’ll just do that. I’ll just ask questions and I want to know more about how they build their businesses and how they run their companies and how they see the world.” – Kobe Bryant in today’s Tip 378

How do you cold call?

Join the conversation below and check the link to that article.

This 1 Quote From Kobe Bryant Is All You Need to Know About His Success
377: Because of 4am

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: Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. This is part two of a little three-part tribute to Kobe Bryant that I started yesterday in tip #377. Unfortunately, I don’t have the audio of this, but the crazy thing is I didn’t even have to look for this quote. It was sitting right in the middle of an article that I had pulled up. There’s a link to the article at DailySales.Tips/378 titled: “This 1 Quote from Kobe Bryant is All You Need to Know About His Success” and the quote is this:

“I’ll just cold call people, absolutely. I’ll just cold call people and pick their brain about stuff. Some of the questions that I’ll ask will seem really, really simple and stupid, quite honestly, for them. But if I don’t know, I don’t know. You have to ask. I’ll just do that. I’ll just ask questions and I want to know more about how they build their businesses and how they run their companies and how they see the world.”

There’s been a lot written about Kobe’s Mamba mentality, but this is pretty epic. This might just be the greatest cold calling mentality I’ve ever heard. Of course, it’s probably a little easier to get people like Oprah Winfrey and Jony Ive to take your call when your name is Kobe Bryant, but I think the lesson stands. Here it is one more time:

“I’ll just cold call people, absolutely. I’ll just cold call people and pick their brain about stuff. Some of the questions that I’ll ask will seem really, really simple and stupid, quite honestly, for them. But if I don’t know, I don’t know. You have to ask. I’ll just do that. I’ll just ask questions and I want to know more about how they build their businesses and how they run their companies and how they see the world.”

Tomorrow I’ll share one last clip from Kobe about Legacy that just absolutely speaks to me and I hope it speaks to you.

Come on back tomorrow to hear that. Thanks for listening!

“We’re up here because we had a dream and let nothing stand in our way. If anything tried to bring us down, we used it to make us stronger. We were never satisfied, never finished, we’ll never be retired.” –  Kobe Bryant in today’s Tip 377

Rest In Peace Kobe!

Join the conversation below and check my LinkedIn post.

[email protected]
Sales Success Stories Podcast
Sales Success Stories Book – 60 Stories from 20 Top 1% Sales Professionals
2020 Sales Success Summit
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. Over the next three days, I wanted to do a little mini-series in honor of Kobe Bryant. For whatever reason, I seem to be taking the loss of this great man harder than the loss of just about any other person I didn’t actually know. Maybe it’s because we’re the same age, but really I think it’s because without this accident I have to imagine that he hadn’t even made it to the halftime of his life. I certainly hope I haven’t even gotten to the halftime of my life. Being cut off like that when you know that he wasn’t just sitting back and relaxing after retiring from Basketball. He was going to create an even bigger legacy, and legacy was definitely a big deal for Kobe. He talked about it a lot, so I wanted to do what I could do to memorialize just some of the contributions he made to inspire so many of us. Starting with this short speech that he gave after receiving the ESPYS Icon Award along with Peyton Manning and Abby Wambach:

Kobe Bryant: Thank you. It’s amazing to be standing here alongside Abby and Peyton. And Abby decided to retire after a compelling world cup victory. Peyton hung up his cleats after yet another Superbowl win. And so for me, I tend to do things a little differently. So a felt impressive 17 for 65 seasons will be a bold statement to wrap up a 20-year career. In all seriousness, I have a lot of respect for these two. And we grew up in our sports together and I know the sacrifices that went along with standing here today and we’re not on the stage just because of talent or ability. We’re up here because of 4:00 AM we’re up here because of 2 days or 5 days. We’re up here because we had a dream and let nothing stand in our way. If anything tried to bring us down, we used it to make a stronger. We were never satisfied, never finished, we’ll never be retired. My high school English teacher, Ms. Fisk, I actually paid attention one time in class and she said you had this beautiful quote: “Rest at the end, not in the middle.” And I took that to heart. I believe there’s time for resting at the end. But for me, that time is not now. Thank you for this tremendous honor and for acknowledging my basketball career, but I’m far from dumb. My next dream is to be honored one day for inspiring the next generation of athletes to have a dream sacrifice for it and never, ever rest in the middle. Thank you to my wonderful family, wife …

Scott Ingram: I’ll say the same thing now, that I wrote in the LinkedIn post the day after his passing, after getting up at 4-am in his honor: Your end came way too soon Kobe. May you Rest In Peace.

Now stay tuned tomorrow for I kid you not, Kobe Bryant on cold calling. Thanks for listening.

“Think about the intention that needs to be put into that effort. It’s not the effort alone that’s going to get it done. It’s what you mean to accomplish with that effort that is going to get you to where you need to be.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 376

Are you making sales calls or are you trying to make sales?

Join the conversation below and let us know your answer!

Jeff Bajorek Website
Jeff’Bajorek on LinkedIn
Jeff’Bajorek on YouTube
Jeff Bajorek on Twitter
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. Today Jeff Bajorek is back with something else to get you thinking. Here he is:

Jeff Bajorek: Let me ask you a question. What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to get work done? Are you just trying to do work? Or worse or you’re trying to do something going through the motions, doing something that looks like work so you can say you did work so you can just get home and get on with the rest of your life.

There’s a big difference and even if you’re following orders, even if you are doing something that looks like you’re working, even if you’re actually meeting some of the KPI’s and the metrics that you’re being asked to meet, that doesn’t mean that you’re bringing everything you need to bring with you in order to get work done.

My daughter’s playing the violin. My son is actually practicing the recorder right now so you can see or you can, well, you can imagine what it sounds like. And around my house in the late afternoons during the week. And my daughter had a complaint, she was very frustrated. She said, “I want to quit the violin. I’m playing in class and I don’t sound as good as everybody else. I’m playing the same notes that they are. I’m doing the same things that they’re doing, but I sound terribly. I want to get rid of this. I want to quit.” And we will let her quit. But I know she’s practicing too. But I also know my little girl and I love her, but she’s not putting your whole heart and soul into that instrument. And that is the difference between her sounding the way she wishes she would sound and her sounding the way she does right now.

So are you making sales calls or are you trying to make sales? Are you doing work or are you getting, are you, are you trying to get work done? You’re trying to accomplish things or are you trying to do things that look like work? Where’s your heart? Are you into this? Think about the outcome you’re trying to create for your customers, for yourself. And then think about what actually needs to be done. Think about the intention that needs to be put into that effort. It’s not the effort alone that’s going to get it done. It’s what you mean to accomplish with that effort that is going to get you to where you need to be.

That’s the question you have to ask yourself. It’s sometimes a difficult question to answer, when you answer it the right way, the way you know it needs to be answered. It is amazing what will happen. Try it. Let me know how it works for you and I’ll talk to you then.

Scott Ingram: You can let Jeff know how it’s working for you. Just email him: [email protected] Seriously! Jeff and I love hearing from you. Of course, you’ll also find links to all things Jeff Bajorek, including the video version of this tip and a transcript at DailySales.Tips/376

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

“This is what I called the protect the brand where I have leadership, cross-functional and peers. And when I plan to spend time with them, not only hearing about them but also sharing some of the things I’m going to” – Mike Dudgeon in today’s Tip 375

How do you treat your sales career?

Join the conversation below and check his presentation on the Sales Success Stories podcast!

Treat Your Sales Career Like a Franchise Owner – Mike Dudgeon (Sales Success Summit Presentation)
Mike Dudgeon On Sales Success Stories Interview
Mike Dudgeon on LinkedIn
2020 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. Today I wanted to share a clip with you from Mike Dudgeon’s presentation at the 2018 Sales Success Summit titled: Treat Your Sales Career Like a Franchise Owner. Mike today is the Director of Key Accounts at LinkedIn, but back when I interviewed him for the very first episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast. He was the number one Global Account Executive at LinkedIn. Here’s the excerpt:

Mike Dudgeon: So one of the big things I see within the sales team and what I tried to do a lot of as a seller, again, this is your investment. You want to see it go in a good way is as sellers we tend to take a lot and not give back a lot. So maybe a good example the other day where Pete just joined us from the management team but his wife essentially called him out where she says, “Would you talk to your client the same way you’re talking to me right now?” And what that means I like you give all your good to all your clients, but when you come home you give me the bat. And so we see that a lot with our AEs where we give and we give and we give to our clients because that’s what drives the short term revenue.

But keep in mind there’s people on the other side of the equation when you come back into the office. But also as you take more resources out, you got to bring some more stuff in because that’s what keeps us sustainable. If we don’t, it’s going to start to taper off. And again, going back to transformation is we’re Jeff talked about, it’s paramount. We create this whole experience for people where we’re transforming them, that they want to give back into the organization. And I’ve had the experience where people don’t give back to the organization. I’ve seen where they do. It creates the business because everyone’s providing more value back into the business. And so over time, as an AE, I’ve created products of creative processes. I’ve created training, I’ve created events and all hopes of making it scalable to help someone else. More people are now doing that in return for me and the people on my team.

This is something I created with another team number, which out of everything I created is something I’m a bit more proud of is this was a something we are doing for relationships matter, which is one of our key values and we created a board of directors, which essentially is like; who’s on your board of directors that’s going to help you get to your goals and how are you going to help them in return? And so it was an educational sheet but also a worksheet for people to use and we had everyone from individual contributors all the way up to the executive ranks, rethinking about who’s on my board of directors. And so the ask is to make sure you’re contributing back into the business. So protect your brand, this is a lesson that I learned again was raised in Indiana on a farm and it was always talk of your actions should speak of you. You shouldn’t speak of yourself. Well, the world’s changed a little bit.

What I’ve learned is you have to do it in your most authentic self and not be someone just jumping around saying like, look what I did. But you do need to make people aware of the value you’re bringing into the organization also to your clients because no one will recognize it. See, being in the leadership position now, I talk about this a lot because you’re taking a lot of information from a lot of different places. Unless you’re sharing, people aren’t going to know. And so this is what was again I’m not like I’m a planner, but I use the planning so I have a ton of freedom. My wife will tell you like on the weekends I’m like a total, just like, all right, let’s just go to the beach. But like Monday through Friday, I want to crank. And so I have these things, a process and I just knock it out. I knock it out early in my process. And so this is what I call the protect the brand where I have leadership, cross-functional and peers. And when I plan to spend time with them, not only hearing about them, but also sharing some of the things I’m going to, because I’m looking for people to jump on board and some of the ideas and the things I’m working on, but I’m also looking to kind of, not self-promote, but make them aware that I can provide value to them when needed.

Scott Ingram: If you want more, just yesterday I actually shared the audio from his full 30-minute presentation on the Sales Success Stories podcast. We’ll have a link to that and to Mike as well as details about the upcoming 2020 Sales Success Summit over at DailySales.Tips/375

Then come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Show them that your outreach was intentional. Do that in the very first sentence of your cold email.” – Jason Bay in today’s Tip 374

Are you showing that your outreach is intentional?

Join the conversation below and subscribe to Jason’s email newsletter!

Blissful Prospecting
Jason Bay on LinkedIn

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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 the Chief Revenue Officer of Blissful Prospecting, Jason Bay. Here he is:

Jason Bay: There’s something that’s really concerning me right now just being on the receiving end of cold emails in LinkedIn messages. And it’s that they’re starting to feel a lot like when someone invites you on Facebook to like their company page, right? If you go into Facebook, a lot of my notifications these days, cause I don’t really spend a lot of time on Facebook, is people that I don’t really know that well inviting me to like their company that I don’t really know anything about. And the problem with these mass invites is they’re really impersonal. So they don’t really make me feel anything, which if you’re prospecting, that’s really bad. You don’t want your prospects to not feel anything. But I ignore these because I know that it doesn’t take much effort to send them out and there’s literally no context.

So when I was running a company called Dinner Dialogues, what we would do is we would host these dinners for groups of 50 to 75 people and it was a networking event for people that are growth-oriented. So when I would invite people, I would send them a private message on Facebook to invite them to the event. I didn’t just invite mass, invite them to the event. I said something like,” Hey, Oh Hey Bali. Don’t know if you’ve seen it on Facebook or not, but we’re throwing this event once a month called Dinner Dialogues. I thought that you would really like it for this reason and you seem to be really into this kind of thing. Is it cool if I send over the event details to you?”

So I’m doing a couple of different things there, right? I am showing the person that my outreach to them was intentional. I’m showing them that I was thinking about them, that I sent this to them on purpose and that’s the lesson for today is be hard to ignore. When you’re prospecting make it intentional. Show the prospect that you were thinking of them. Another way of thinking of this as a prospect the way that you expect to be prospected to. You probably don’t respond to mass blast emails or LinkedIn messages and your prospects aren’t any different from you. So show them that your outreach was intentional. Do that in the very first sentence of your cold email. Do that in the first couple of lines in your cold call, and when you’re sending out LinkedIn messages, do that in the very first sentence of the message and they’ll have a hard time ignoring you.

Scott Ingram: Now more than ever you’re going to want to make sure that you’re both following Jason on LinkedIn and are subscribed to his fantastic email newsletter. I’ll probably tell you why next week, but you may as well do it now and I’ve got links for you at DailySales.Tips/374

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

“Sales is an amazing profession and everyone in it should have an opportunity to grow, develop, and be successful in their career if they’re willing to do the work.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 372

Is the SDR Role a Career Trap?

Join the conversation on LinkedIn and feel free to share your own thoughts!

Scott’s conversation with Darryl Praill on the INSIDE Inside Sales Podcast

Sales Success Stories Podcast
Sales Success Stories Book – 60 Stories from 20 Top 1% Sales Professionals
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’s topic might be a little bit controversial, maybe even a lot controversial, but it’s really been bugging me and I think we need to talk about this based on a variety of messages I’ve received and conversations I’ve had over the last few months. I’m starting to believe that in many cases the SDR role is proving to be a dead-end or a career trap for otherwise talented young sales professionals. The most glaring example came from a conversation I had with a really high performing top sales development rep. He was the number one rep in the organization had been every single month for over a year, and his goal when he started with the company was to move into an AE role. The company promised him at the beginning that after six months of consistent performance that they would build a bridge for him to that a rollover a year later, no bridge, worse yet, he would receive regular calls from recruiters, but as soon as they found out that he had no closing experience, those doors pretty quickly closed, super talented guy, stuck. It’s even worse for the, not quite number one, but above average SDRs who’ve reached out to me as well. Some companies do a great job of grooming these talented young performers into strong AE’s, but sadly those companies are a tiny minority. Far too often I see organizations that treat SDRs as disposable assets. They’re applying a super old school churn and burn type of mentality and in many cases are turning an entire generation off of sales and pushing them into other roles when they’re really totally capable.

So I’m going to talk about this from a solutions perspective because well, that’s how I roll. First, we’ll talk about it from an SDRs perspective and then I’ll address sales leaders and other executives. If you’re in an SDR role or are considering an SDR role, look around and get a sense for the reality of the situation. Is there an opportunity in this role for you to develop and grow beyond just prospecting techniques and to move up into another role if that’s what you desire? Have others done it before you or does this company bring in other experienced AEs rather than promoting from within?

If you’re not seeing what you want, it’s time for a really open conversation with your leadership about what you really want to see in your future.

I think the SDR role is going to help you develop some incredibly valuable skills and experience. Prospecting is key to success in virtually any sales role, but it’s a subset of all the sales skills you’re going to need to develop to become a strong full-cycle seller. I’m not sure there’s any benefit to staying in this kind of role for more than say 18 months.

It may make more sense to move down market and find a full cycle sales role selling to smaller companies, ideally with a company that has a really strong training and development program to help you get there. Then over time, you can move upmarket, which seems to be an easier path than trying to go from SDR to AE with no closing experience.

Alternatively, you may love the SDR thing and just want to become a specialist. I think that’s super valuable and I’ll talk about professionalizing the role in the leadership advice section. Look for companies that are taking that kind of approach and are properly compensating their strongest SDRs.

At the end of the day, you have to take ownership of your own development and your own career path. Hopefully, you can turn your boss and your leadership into a mentor and an advocate, but don’t stop there. Find mentors outside of your company who can also guide you and open doors for you.

For the sales leaders. I hope you’ll seriously consider how you’re treating these individuals and what type of culture and reputation you’re creating. Looking at the turnover in your SDR ranks will likely serve as a really strong barometer.

Do you have a well-defined career progression along with written expectations, explaining what’s expected from an achievement and development perspective for an entry-level SDR to move into an AE type of role over time or if you’re not at that kind of size or scale, are you at least being honest in your interviewing process and setting expectations around what these fresh new sales professionals can realistically expect?

I think the biggest challenge here is helping someone take the leap. A great SDR is still going to need to develop a ton of new skills to run a complete sales cycle and we’ll probably have a longer than normal ramp and require more coaching than someone with previous experience. It can be hard to turn off a strong pipeline producer and put them into a role where it might be 6 months or more before they’re fully productive.

That’s why I think we also need to look at professionalizing the role. We’ve got to recognize that there’s a ton of value in high performing SDR that might be generating two or even three times the pipeline than their peers are.

Doesn’t that person deserve to be compensated comparably to a typical age? What do you think? Do you agree with me? Maybe you vehemently disagree. First, I’d encourage you to check out the conversation I had with Darryl Praill on his Inside Inside sales podcast. That episode will be released this evening, and as soon as it’s available, I’ll include a link to it over at DailySales.Tips/372

Then let’s move the conversation to LinkedIn. I’m going to create a post there. We’ll have a link to that post at DailySales.Tips/372 as well.

Sales is an amazing profession and everyone in it should have an opportunity to grow, develop, and be successful in their career if they’re willing to do the work. I hope you agree.

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

“You really can’t control how much time and energy and effort you put into not just the job but also learning more about the job.” – Scott Leese in today’s Tip 371

Through all your years of experience if you could only share one thing, what would that be?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Scott!

Scott Leese on LinkedIn
Scott Leese Consulting, LLC
Surf and Sales
Addicted to the Process: How to Close Transactional Sales with Confidence and Consistency

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 Scott Leese. Scott is a well-established sales leader in the startup community. He now runs Scott Leese Consulting, he’s the founder of Surf & Sales and the author of Addicted to the Process. I asked Scott a series of questions and will be featuring his answers every few weeks or so. The first question I asked was simply “What’s your best tip? Through all your years of experience if you could only share one thing, what would that be?” Here’s what he had to say:

Scott Leese: I think there’s only, so much we can control. The one thing that I would say is you can control your efforts and that oftentimes is the differentiator between, who does well and who doesn’t and who succeeds and who does not. And I know when I was first getting started. I felt like everybody else had more experience and more talent than me. So my only way to gain an edge was to outwork everybody. And I think I worked hard as I could earlier in my career. I would encourage everybody to really focus on that. You really can’t control how much time and energy and effort you put into not just the job but also learning more about the job.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Scott, Scott Leese Consulting, Surf and Sales and his book, just click over to DailySales.Tips/371 and we’ve got everything for you there.

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

“If that prospect comes out of that meeting, knowing that they made a decision, even a snap judgment at that moment, that meant 10% would be a game-changer.” – Aaron Bolinger in today’s Tip 370

What are your prescriptions to accelerate your sales cycle?

Join the conversation below and connect with Aaron on LinkedIn!

Aaron Bollinger on LinkedIn
Kronologic

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. Since today’s guest is self introducing, I’ll just let him take it away:

Aaron Bolinger: All right, this is Aaron Bolinger. I’m chief revenue officer and co-founder at Kronologic, that’s kronologic.ai. And my daily sales tip is the power of prescription to accelerate your sales cycle or more colloquially the art of the straw man. So with the amount of noise in the market today, accelerating sales cycles is one of the most valuable things that sellers can use to improve their results. And yet, I consistently see many sales professionals at all different levels, not using the art of the straw man, not doing a lot of prescription early on. And it’s just super, super powerful in moving the deal forward. And so while doing discovery and learning things about your prospect is important, there are many decisions in which thinking of an answer or making a decision is difficult.

And so before you just simply go; Hey, I’m going to ask, you know, all of these questions in discovery and just record all of the answers there are, if you have questions that are key to moving deals forward, consider not asking open-ended questions or even close-ended questions, but actually proposing and prescribing the way that you might handle it and then letting them react to that. It’s just super powerful. I do it all the time. I do it in meetings. So at Kronologic we talk a lot about the average value per meeting. And when you calculate an average value per meeting, you look at the average ACV of a deal and then you look at your average close rate and then you look at your average meeting to opportunity rate.

And so I, at first I would say like; Hey, you know, what is your qualified opportunity to close one conversion rate, like a ballpark. And I notice that people will go; Oh, well it depends why blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it just takes forever to get the answer from them. And I started saying; Okay, then now I need qualified opportunity to come to close one conversion rate. Is that about 20% for you? And then just I get an immediate fire back; 20% no, no, no, we’re a, I wish, I wish we’re actually closer to 12 or actually no. You know what, we actually will do an over 33% you know. And so I get back these very specific answers very quickly. Whenever I prescribe something or put a straw man out there, I also even do it in my proposals. So I’m looking, I’m thinking about proposal right now where I have, you know, I list, here’s the primary use cases of working with Kronologic and then I have a section that says in every proposal that says; What does success look like? And there are absolutely sales cycles where I’ve never able to get a straight answer from them as to specific defined success metrics before we reached the phase where they’re like, I want a proposal, I’m interested.

And so in the proposal itself, I will put, like I’m looking at one right here, increased by more than 10% lead to meeting conversion rate and generate more than a hundred new leads per month from these two lead channels that are currently underutilized. And I did not get those from them, but I’m suggesting them, I’m putting it in paper and then I scheduled a proposal review and when we get the proposal review, instead of taking a long time and creating a bunch of discussions, I’m able to just say; Hey, success metrics, I’ve proposed a 10% increase leads to meeting conversion rate and I’ll figure out really quickly actually that wouldn’t do enough for us or man, that would be a game-changer 10% across the board. Wow. That would change our business. So I just think prescription, even when you don’t, even when it’s scary because you don’t know exactly what to prescribe. Don’t waste time by leaving it open-ended. If that prospect comes out of that meeting, knowing that they made a decision, even a snap judgment at that moment, that meant 10% would be a game-changer. They’re going to remember that when they go back and think about how they’re going to prioritize their budget for their sales tech stack for the year.

So I just highly recommend everybody listening to this. Do a lot of prescriptions to accelerate your sales cycle. Use the art and the power of the straw man, and thanks for listening. Thanks, Scott for having a son. Bye-bye.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Aaron and Kronologic, just click over to DailySales.Tips/370

Then be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip from Scott Leese.