“We teach something called blank slate. And blank slate simply means no expectations, no assumptions.” – Jim Camp in today’s Tip 1604

What’s your thought about this?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Jim!

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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 Jim Camp. Jim is a former VP of Sales, and is now an owner and coach with Camp Negotiations. His coaching expertise is in sales, negotiations, and leadership. Jim has also served as a military pilot and is retiring as a Major General from the United States Air Force. Here he is:

Jim Camp: Hi, everyone, Jim Camp. I hope you’ll agree with me that there’s a lot of really good selling systems out there, and I hope you have one in place that helps you stay focused, keeps you on track during your preparation, execution, and even the debriefing of your sales negotiation process.

In addition to the sales arena, there are many careers out there that require really solid emotional control. If you think about medicine, aviation, the military, even first responders. Ultimate emotional control comes from having a system in place. In order for that system to be valid, it must be derived from laws, rules, and in the sales world, a deep understanding of human behavior and how people make decisions.

Regardless of the careers that I mentioned, and regardless of your level of experience in any career, any arena, especially the sales arena, one of the big things that’s going to derail our success, especially controlling emotions, are our assumptions, expectations, things we think that are going to happen that don’t.

Here’s a tip for you in sales negotiations.

Before your next call, email, or meeting, simply write down a list of all of your assumptions and all the expectations that you carry into that deal. For example, you may think you know who the decision-makers are with your opponent, but really how well do you understand your client’s decision-making? Who else should you include? Are you assuming or do you actually know firsthand how they’re going to make a decision?

Or another example, you just had a great meeting and feel really good about the next steps, and you think you know what should happen next, but have you clearly negotiated exactly what the next steps are with your opponent?

Unfortunately, when we discover something we did not expect, or we make assumptions and overlook something that can actually be very important, if you think about those other careers I mentioned, imagine the results. And if you get derailed and caught off guard, emotions are definitely going to be impacted.

So the bottom line is this for today’s tip. We teach something called blank slate. And blank slate simply means no expectations, no assumptions. Hope you enjoyed this. See you next time.

Scott Ingram: To get your hands on a free download with the 4 Reasons People Say No from Jim and Camp Negotiation, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1609. Once you’ve been over there, be sure to come right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“For me, these are things like exercising, journaling, and working through my morning productivity process to set up my day.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 1608

Do you have your own routines?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I thought I’d talk about something that I’m working on that might be helpful for you as well, and that is rebuilding routines.

Now that my kids are back in school and we’re about to start a new fresh month, this is the perfect time to look at your routines.

I’m a morning person, so I’m really focused on my morning routine, but if you’re a night owl, you might want to spend a little more time working on your routines in the evening.

I’m taking into account my natural rhythms and when I wake up, while also being mindful of when I need to leave to take my youngest daughter to school.

Of course, some elements of your routine are just going to be things you need to fit in, like taking a shower for example, but I’m spending the most time looking at the things that are going to set me up for success through the rest of the day.

What are the things for you that if you got them done first thing in the morning, you almost can’t help but to have a great day from there?

For me, these are things like exercising, journaling, and working through my morning productivity process to set up my day.

Finally, here’s a little bonus tip. I know that I do my best work in the morning and if I schedule meetings too early in my day it can throw things off, so I’ve started blocking my calendar until 10:30am with a simple note that says “Ask before booking.” That way the time doesn’t show as available if somebody uses my scheduling link, and my colleagues know that they can book time with me for critical items, I just want them to ask me so I can make sure it’s a client meeting that’s really worth potentially disrupting my flow.

Hope that helps. Have a great day selling!

“Gratitude helps you enjoy the process, the day-to-day nuances, not just focus on the goal and how you’re getting there.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1607

How do you express your gratitude?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

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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 Meshell Baker, our favorite sales confidence igniter and authentic selling crusader. Here she is:

Meshell Baker: Hello. Today, I’m going to share with you how appreciation amplifies achievements. First, I want to share with you the definition of appreciation. It’s recognition and enjoyment of good qualities of someone or something. It’s also gratitude. It’s also a full understanding of a situation, and it’s an increase in monetary value. Appreciate is one of those wonderful English language words that has multiple definitions, and yet all the meanings can help you amplify your sales success.

Now, I want you to also hear some of the synonyms of appreciation, which are acknowledgement, recognition, thanks, grace, gratefulness, praise, responsibility, responsiveness, thanksgiving. These are words that when you utilize them in your relationships, in the way you’re communicating with your prospects, your buyers, your colleagues, your sales team, it will amplify every activity that you are doing to generate more sales. I don’t know if you realize this, but everything you appreciate appreciates. What that basically means that anything, this is a person, a plant, an animal, a relationship, everything in life we appreciate will appreciate. So what that means, it will generate greater outcomes.

Zig Ziglar said it best, gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for. Understanding that it generates a human connection. It encourages you towards even more collaborative relationships. That’s basically what a sale process is. It’s you collaborating with a buyer. It is so important to give appreciation because it enhances a self-esteem for both you, the giver, and your clients, the receivers. It benefits you every day throughout the year.

Let me give you a couple of key points.

A positive focus. When you focus on the fact that you have enough to succeed, that there’s nothing that you’re missing in your tools and even in who you are, you will begin to see more creative solutions. It puts you on a path to see the opportunity instead of the obstacle, to see the possibility instead of the problem, and to see the fact that you can create anything and turn it in your favor. When you practice gratitude, you, the sales leader, can make the best out of the worst moments and situations. It helps you to be people first.

Understanding rather than thinking about your sale as a quota, as a means for you to make money, you consider the actual people that you’re calling on, that you’re speaking for, and you’re grateful for the opportunity to leave another human being better off for the relationship that you are.

Trust me, when people feel better off for having been with you, they tell other people. They also tell other people when they’ve had an icky sales experience. So be the person that leads people better off and you will watch your sales success multiply. It takes time, but it will happen.

Then I want to tell you about momentum. Being a successful B2B salesperson requires patience and stamina. It requires nurturing that lead even when you don’t think that lead is going to close. It requires you staying positively focused on the possibility, even when they look like or have decided that no is not what they want. Remember, no means not now. It doesn’t mean not never. Make it your mission to focus on gratitude as much as you can in your sales position because then you’ll only position your sofa success by making the day-to-day experience more enjoyable.

Gratitude helps you enjoy the process, the day-to-day nuances, not just focus on the goal and how you’re getting there. And I’ll close with this. Oprah Winfrey says, If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. And if you look at what you don’t have, you’ll never have enough. Appreciate amplifies your accomplishments. Have a great day selling.

Scott Ingram: To show Meshell some appreciation for helping us start each and every week off right, connect with her on LinkedIn and drop her a note. You’ll find links and a transcript at DailySales.Tips/1607. Once. you’ve been over there, be sure to come right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“When ultimately they go have those conversations, they hear good things. And if you’ve done that and your competition hasn’t, you have a significant leg up on them.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 1606

What’s your thought about this play?

Join the conversation below and learn more about David!

DealDoc App
The Sales Tactician’s Playbook
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The Sales Collective
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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 David Weiss. David is the Chief Revenue Officer of the Sales Collective and founder of DealDoc. Here he is:

David Weiss: Hello, everyone. This is David Weiss, Chief Revenue Officer of the Sales Collective and Founder of DealDoc, your app for deal coaching. On today’s tip, we will be talking about The Surround The Castle Play. So I really, really like this play, and it’s helped me a ton throughout my career. So the whole idea was surrounding the castle. When you’re trying to get to champions, when you’re trying to get to economic buyers, when you’re trying to influence a decision in your direction, that’s what this play is for.

So think about any decision being made. What people are often going to do is they’re going to read some news, talk to some friends, look on some reviews, maybe talk to peers of theirs inside the organization, maybe talk to some references outside the organization. They are going to go do their homework on you. And what you’re trying to do with this play is show up wherever they’re about to turn. You’ve surrounded them. So no matter where they turn, they’re hearing good things and seeing good things.

So the way you do this is you need to be thoughtful about the organization. What shared investors do we have? What shared pieces of tech, like I talked about in a different play, that they’ve implemented tech in the same category so that they would know about you? What connections exist in their organization with previous clients of yours that they may try and get inside information on? What communities or inside resources would they look at? When they go to G2 or other ratings, what are they going to find? When they talk to analysts, what are they going to hear? So you want to think about all those types of things, and then essentially create alignment.

So before you ask a champion for a meeting, or before you get to the economic buyer and asking for a decision, you’ve talked to their team. You’ve maybe prepared some of this material in advance and shared it with them. You’ve contributed in being positive members of communities that your buyers would likely show up in. You have aligned appropriate case studies. You’ve found people in their organization that used to work at companies that you had deployed and successfully in the past that you know that they would turn to. You’ve purposely aligned influencers and other folks like that, that are proactively reaching out to them. You’ve figured out who mutual investors might be, and you’ve already had conversations with them. It’s all of that stuff you’ve surrounded them. You’ve surrounded them directly with information you’re providing to them indirectly through being a community leader and through influencing people that you know they’ll turn to. So when ultimately they go have those conversations, they hear good things. And if you’ve done that and your competition hasn’t, you have a significant leg up on them.

So that, again, is called The Surround The Castle Play. If you like this, you can find 78 other plays inside the Sales Technicians Playbook, which exists inside of DealDoc. You can also find a link on my LinkedIn profile. So thanks again. And if I can help with anything, feel free to reach out.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with David, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1606. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Your top-of-funnel is probably not growing as much because you’re not focused as much on driving new users, new use cases to come in. And that’s why I think a lot of people always get stuck” – Mark Roberge & Oliver Jay in today’s Tip 1605

What’s your thought about this?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Mark and Oliver!

The Science of Scaling Podcast
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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 a new podcast called The Science of Scaling. It’s hosted by Mark Roberge – who you might know as the founding CRO at HubSpot, co-founder of Stage 2 Capital, or as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Each episode of The Science of Scaling gets super tactical on how to scale your sales and revenue. And episodes feature this really unique, “stop the tape” feature where Mark literally pauses the interview to jump in with a deeper breakdown of the different points being made by the guest. You’ll hear that happen here as he talks with Oliver Jay, the former CRO at Asana:

Oliver Jay: A lot of PLG companies get confused on what it takes to be an enterprise company. And the confusion comes in step one, founder-management team realized, well, we got so many users, we got so many businesses. Wow, there’s a couple of big enterprises that want to pay us a lot of money. And all we need to do is… There’s a lot we need to do, but it’s really around the security, permissions, data residency, all that stuff. It’s going to be a multi-year process, but it’s worthwhile to take because, gosh, we already have these enterprises that are validating that as long as we build the security stuff, they’re going to come.

So what happens in the next couple of years is they spend so much time building permissions and audit logs, stuff like that. Super interesting. And guess what? You convert. You convert those enterprises that are already using a lot of your free product, and they’re like, Yeah, great. And so now you have a couple of 500K deals, maybe even over a million dollars. And that’s awesome. And then they get into something I call the PLG trap. One day they wake up and they realize, Well, I got all the security stuff and I’ve converted all these enterprises onto my security at my enterprise product, which charges a lot more. But why is my pipeline suddenly dry? And what happened? What you realize is you can build all these security features, but you’re actually only appealing to the few enterprises that already have a lot of organic usage of your product. What about all those other companies that haven’t even gotten your product hasn’t gone viral internally yet.

Your security features don’t appeal to them because you’re irrelevant in the organization. And this is what happens a lot. And I think a lot of companies, you can leverage the security play for a very long time to get to a couple hundred million and you go public. And then suddenly you really decelerate because you focus so much on security. Now, your top-of-funnel is probably not growing as much because you’re not focused as much on driving new users, new use cases to come in. And that’s why I think a lot of people always get stuck, I call it in this PLG trap.

Mark Roberge: Kind of blow on my mind, to be honest with you. I’ll be frank. OJ sent me a 15-page paper they wrote about this before this interview, and I thought it was brilliant. I didn’t see this before. I knew that that was the typical playbook, was the best PLG companies, PLG 1.0 was get that down-mile ratio great and get those free users cook in and get the auto monetization humming and get to five million and then build the security features and you get to IPO. But what about after that? What about, is IPO success, or is historic company 20, $50 billion valuation success. That’s how OJ is thinking here. Five billion stuck market cap is not good enough for him. It’s surfaced in this new strategic consideration, which is like, Yeah, fine. You can win a deal when you have users at a company. But at some point that runs out. And so how do you win if there’s no users? That hasn’t been in the PLG playbook. And I think OJ is saying it should, and I agree.

Scott Ingram: You can listen and subscribe to The Science of Scaling now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts and of course, we’ve got those links for you at DailySales.Tips/1605. Once you’ve been over there, be sure to come right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“The best presentation you’ll ever give is the one that your client didn’t see as an actual presentation. You’re just providing solutions to problems they identified.” – Jim Camp in today’s Tip 1604

How about you? Do you over-present?

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

Jim Camp on LinkedIn
Camp Negotiation Systems
4 Reasons People Say No
1599: Start With NO – How to Handle a No
1594: Start With NO – Don’t Chase the Big Fish
1589: Start With NO – Move the Needle

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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 Jim Camp. Jim is a former VP of Sales, and is now an owner and coach with Camp Negotiations. His coaching expertise is in sales, negotiations, and leadership. Jim has also served as a military pilot and is retiring as a Major General from the United States Air Force. Here he is:

Jim Camp: Hi, everybody. Jim Camp. It’s great to be back with you. During our last sales tip, we talked about decision-making and how all decisions are driven by vision. I hope all of you out there in the sales world have a product or service that you deeply believe in, something that you know can make a difference for your client, and that you stand behind it. As a professional, I’m sure you know everything about your product, all the features, all the benefits, all the capabilities. In fact, you probably have a lot of data to reinforce that, hey, there’s a return on investment here and it should make perfect sense to your opponent.

So here’s the problem.

If you present in a scripted way and it comes across that you actually memorize all your features and benefits and you’re too excited to talk about those things, it’s actually going to get in the way of really addressing the challenges that your potential client is trying to overcome. If you’ve hit an impasse or you’re at a stalled-out negotiation, you may be tempted to say, Well, you know what? I forgot to tell them about A, B, and C. They may not care about that. By you putting that information in front of them and you think it’s going to sway their decision and push them towards reaching an agreement, you actually could be creating an objection.

Here’s the tip.

Jim Senior used to say, Never spill your beans in a lobby. What that means is before you present anything, make sure you’re actually answering something and addressing something that’s already been previously identified by your client as being important to them. If you’re at a loss, you’re not sure what you want to do or what direction to go, focus back on their original vision.

For example, here’s four interrogative-type phrases that you can turn into a question with all the top features, benefits, capabilities of your product.

What would the impact be to your organization if we could do this?

How important is this capability?

What’s really the biggest challenge you’re trying to address?

What other concerns do you have at this point about our product or service?

As a rule of thumb, remember, you can’t tell anybody anything, but you can answer a question or a challenge that’s been presented to you. Just make sure that when you’re presenting, you’re presenting to their vision, answering their challenges, and solving their problems, and don’t make assumptions of what’s important to them because that may just push you further away from the deal.

I know it’s hard, but don’t over-present. Ask interrogative-led questions that build vision.

Let me leave you with this. The best presentation you’ll ever give is the one that your client didn’t see as an actual presentation. You’re just providing solutions to problems they identified. We’ll see you next time.

Scott Ingram: To get your hands on a free download with the 4 Reasons People Say No from Jim and Camp Negotiation, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1604. Once you’ve been over there, be sure to come right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“No matter what you’re selling, you better know what you’re talking about, because the people that are buying, they want to talk to somebody who knows what they’re talking about.” – Blair Hamer in today’s Tip 1603

Do you learn your craft?

Join the conversation below and check out the full interview with Blair!

Intricate
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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 is a short excerpt from my most recent interview on the Sales Success Stories podcast with Blair Hamer, the top Client Champion at Intricate:

Blair Hamer: Yeah, learn your craft. So no matter what you’re selling, you better know what you’re talking about, because the people that are buying, they want to talk to somebody who knows what they’re talking about. So do the homework, learn your craft, and whatever you’re trying to sell. Yeah, learn the widget, the gadget, and so that when you need to talk about it, the people have faith in you that you’re the right person to talk to. So that’s something I would do. And then from there, once you know your craft and you can speak about it, then strategically network and authentically create friends within your industry and client base. So join different committees. Just network strategically, hit up LinkedIn, get going on there, try to get as much face-to-face as you possibly can, enjoy all the experiences, including the rejections, because you’re going to send messages out, you’re going to reach out, and people are not going to answer. But honestly, think about that from your perspective. Do you answer every person that reaches out to you? I don’t. I try to be nice, but I don’t. And then, yeah, when you do get someone who is truly like a potential client who truly wants to work with you, put in the time, really take the care, really listen to that client, really make it great for that client, because the best way to grow is to get referrals from clients.

Scott Ingram: For a link to my full interview with Blair and to connect with him on LinkedIn, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1603. Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Remember, you have two ears to hear and one mouth to speak. Master your listening, and you will be the master of your sales and your leadership.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1602

Do you master your listening?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Meshell!

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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 Meshell Baker, our favorite sales confidence igniter and authentic selling crusader. Here she is:

Meshell Baker: Hello, and welcome to The Art of Listening. Today we’re going to talk about your ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process of being a top seller and a top leader. You see, when your listening is not effective, you will not have the ability to hear messages. What happens is there’s misunderstandings, there’s miscommunication, and there’s misinterpretation, what leads to a breakdown, so there’s no sale for the sellers, and there’s no great relationship with the leader and their seller. And what happens is there’s a lot of irritation, there’s a lot of frustration, which does not lead to transactions.

Now, Richard Branson frequently was quoted in saying, in less than five words, listen more than you talk. We have two ears to listen and one mouth to speak. So out of these tips, there are seven.

The first one is stop talking. If I can’t say it even more clearly, stop talking. When you are actively listening, you cannot be talking. And when someone immediately starts talking after someone has finished, you have not listened. Anyone who is truly listening will pause and take a beat, and they will actually then start speaking after there is a slight pause.

Two, prepare yourself to listen. Relax. Think about the outcome of this conversation and that it’s going to leave the person that you’re speaking to better for having spoken to you. That requires relaxing because when you are in a sales process or when you’re a leader talking to a seller, you tend to get excited as you listen to them. If you actually built a big vision about your outcomes, you’re going to be easily excitable. So relaxing yourself prior to that conversation will help you have a better outcome of listening throughout it.

Always, number three, put your speaker at ease. The person who’s talking, remember, you want to gesture, you want to encourage them, you want to have physicality so that they know that you’re fully engaged in the listening.

Which leads to number four, remove distractions. If you are on a meeting on your laptop, then you expand the screen so it takes up everything so you do not see your emails or other things or your calendar in the background. Fully engage with eye contact with them. If you’re in person, remove all paper distractions to your phone, turn it off. Let people know that you are all about the conversation and the listening of them.

Five, avoid personal judgment. This is hard. People will say things and statements and words that will trigger you to start to think that they’re wrong. I do it myself and become engaged in the fact that it’s a perspective. You’ve never had this conversation with this person before. This is the first time you’ve ever engaged in this conversation, so there will be something that you will learn or something that you can use, or something that empower a powerful outcome for all involved. Remove the judgment and just listen openly for the opportunity to create and collaborate on something amazing.

Listen to their tone. There are people who use big gestures and words or people who talk quietly. Everybody communicates in a different way. So your ability to see past just the words and look at their tone and to not judge their tone as well as you’re looking at it. I tend to be very loud and verbose and very active in my hand usage and my facial expression, what I’m talking, and other people can have a very deadpan. It does not mean that what they’re saying is less important or vibrant or meaningful than what I’m saying, so be able to listen for the tone, and then you do the follow-up questions to engage and get clarity.

And then number seven is listen for ideas, not just words. And this is your ability to, when you’re listening for ideas, you are actively engaging in the follow-up to clarify what was just said. Well, I think I heard you say, or if this is correct, so you are going back and you’re clarifying. Before you make advice or say anything, clarify as much as possible. And the best way to do that is to summarize it by listening for the idea or the key of what they just said and say it back to them and get clarity.

The key to all of this is listening. Remember, you have two ears to hear and one mouth to speak. Master your listening, and you will be the master of your sales and your leadership. Have a great day selling.

Scott Ingram: If you love listening to Meshell, tell her that and subscribe to her newsletter. You’ll find those links at DailySales.Tips/1602. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“You do not build and develop champions in group settings. You do it one on one.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 1601

What’s your thought about this play?

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

DealDoc App
The Sales Tactician’s Playbook
David Weiss on LinkedIn
The Sales Collective
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 tip comes from David Weiss. David is the Chief Revenue Officer of The Sales Collective and founder of DealDoc. Here he is:

David Weiss: Hello everyone. This is David Weiss, Chief Revenue Officer of The Sales Collective and founder of DealDoc. Your app for Deal coaching. On today’s tip, we will be talking about champion building and testing. So look, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a seller, even a leader, use the word champion and actually mean coach, influencer, mobilizer, end user, and someone that just likes them. Please, let’s all get on the same page in sales. This is like one of the, I don’t know if it’s original sins or just like most hotly argued, I don’t know. But so many people get this definition wrong. So let’s please go on the same page.

A champion is defined as someone that has access to the decision-maker. They normally sit. They’re really easy to find because they typically sit one level below the decision-maker. They’re in regular one on ones with them. It’s their boss. They can get you access to them because they’re talking to them constantly. They’re in the room when decisions are being made because that’s the person that they’re going to talk to about decision. That is one of the key things of being a champion. The next, they need to be willing to sell for you when you are not there. And then lastly, and that’s what the rest of this play is about. They need to be tested, they need to be actually shown to be a champion.

So now that we have the definition out of the way, you can first find champions by looking at an org chart and looking for one step below the ultimate decision maker. When they’re showing up in your deals, they’re typically not, and this is the thing that people mess up, they’re typically not the first person to show up in the deal. That’s normally a coach, that’s normally someone, maybe manager, director level, that’s been sent to explore this. Once that person deems relevance or you’ve had a meeting with them and they’re like yes, I need to get my boss involved, or yes, this solves a problem with this, I need to get other stakeholders involved. That’s normally when the champion appears and then once the champion has blessed it, it’s then that the economic buyer will eventually appear. But it normally follows that chain for obvious reasons around business priority and how busy someone is and willingness to waste time on unproven solutions or things like that. Yes, you can have flatter organizations where the champion will be maybe the first person, but it’s often rarer. And that’s one of the things that people mess up is they think the first person they spoke to is always their champion. That’s rarely the case.

So once you identify champion and if you haven’t and you’re dealing with director or manager level. You need to create them. You need to go to the VP level or the person right below the economic buyer and start getting their sponsorship by saying, Hey, I’m talking to so and so, or Hey, can you help me get to so and so? If you’re working with the Manager Director to bring the champion into the conversation, so first is identifying them, then getting their attention, then bringing them in, then getting them excited and what you need to do. And they’ll often show their head at a broader demo. You do not build and develop champions in group settings. You do it one on one. So you then need to follow up with those appropriate individuals afterwards and turn them into champions by understanding their world, their priorities, problems. You solve for them things that they care about, how this impacts them and their broader team, and the goals of the executive that they support. Because they will know those goals and they will be intimately familiar with them because they are charged and accountable to executing and getting them done through the other people in the organization and through the solution you’re ultimately bringing.

So you have that conversation with them and you set up regular meetings with them and you test them by doing things like, hey, help me prep for meetings. Help me understand internal lingo. Help me build this back-of-the-napkin business case into something more. Help me get to an executive sponsor of this. Help me understand your priorities, their priorities, the priorities of all people involved. Let me make sure I’m aligning appropriately to each of them. You’re asking them to provide you who are we competing against, et cetera. You’re asking them to provide you information that they wouldn’t give to other people, and you’re looking for that to consistently happen and for them to show up and again, sell for you when you are not there and be tested with this level of information.

Last thing I’ll say on this, you need to monitor these people closely. And if you notice any change in their temperature, they used to respond to you in 24 hours, now it’s 48. They used to respond to your text, now they don’t. They were showing up to meetings, now they’re not. If you notice any degree of change in their behavior, that should be one of your first red flags in a deal that likely. They are no longer your champion. Your competition has got to them. Priorities have changed. They may be leaving their job. Something has changed, and you need to be all over that trying to figure out what. Awesome. So if you like this play, you can find 78 other plays just like it inside the Sales Tacticians Playbook, which exists inside of DealDoc. You can also find a link to my LinkedIn profile. If I can help you with anything, feel free to reach out.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with David and to his entire playbook, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1601. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“You might have the easiest-to-use product. You might have the best product, but it’s really hard for the customer or buyer to understand that if you’re only relying on a demo.” – Mark Roberge & Stevie Case in today’s Tip 1600

How do you beat your competitors on product demos?

Join the conversation below and go check out the links!

The Science of Scaling Podcast
Mark Roberge on LinkedIn
Stevie Case 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 a new podcast called The Science of Scaling. It’s hosted by Mark Roberge – who you might know as the founding CRO at HubSpot, co-founder of Stage 2 Capital, or as a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. Each episode of The Science of Scaling gets super tactical on how to scale your sales and revenue. And episodes feature this really unique, “stop the tape” feature where Mark literally pauses the interview to jump in with a deeper breakdown of the different points being made by the guest. You’ll hear that happen here as he talks with Stevie Case, The Chief Revenue Officer at Vanta:

Stevie Case: It is shockingly hard to convince buyers even when you have the better product. And we faced that problem because a lot of these competitors came on the scene. They had great marketing. To your point, they had a flashy demo. They really cherry-picked proof points that made it look like they were growing much faster than they really were. The thing we finally landed on that worked was a handheld trial guided by our SEs where we allowed prospects to do a seven-day try it before you buy it with three SE-driven check-ins.

One of the things we knew is that a lot of these competitors did not have the ability to do a trial at all. They had technical blockers, and we used that to sow FUD to say if they won’t let you try their product, what are they actually hiding? It’s all sizzle, but there’s no meat. And then two, if they did in the rare case, let them do a trial, they would see because they spent more time, the depth of product, they would see the quality was better with Vanta. So that move doubled our win rate. So when we run a trial, we went from about a 35-40 % win rate, depending on the month, to more like a 70-80 % win rate. And that was a game-changer for us. It also started to address that issue on our team of confidence, because then they saw when prospects actually try the product, they also tell us ours is better. And so it was this like, Oh, I guess it really is better. We believe now because the prospects are telling us that was a key inflection point.

Mark Roberge: This is a key point to highlight for a variety of reasons. First, yeah, you might have the easiest-to-use product. You might have the best product, but it’s really hard for the customer or buyer to understand that if you’re only relying on a demo. Even though you out-engineered them, they can out-demo you. Relying on a trial really helps to mitigate that risk and align your sales process with your strength. Whether that’s ease of use, best product, best design, whatever. Stevie does a great job here.

The other thing that I want to highlight is how well she and her team are executing the trial. All too often, salespeople think, I put the buyer in the trial. The product is going to sell itself. It doesn’t work that way. Before you put them in the trial, you need to define success. Yeah, we can do a seven-day trial, but what is it that you will see after the seven days that will make you buy this product? And do I have your commitment? That’s a key scaffolding around the trial experience. The other aspect here, the other technique here is what we call a give-get, where we are happy to give things to the buyer, but we need to get things in exchange of equal value. A seven-day trial with all these sales engineers is a big give. The get I could ask back is, do I have access to your CFO to go through an ROI presentation after? Do I have your verbal commitment that you will sign this contract? And Stevie and her sales team are executing these trials exceptionally well.

Scott Ingram: You can listen and subscribe to The Science of Scaling now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts and of course, we’ve got those links for you at DailySales.Tips/1600. Once you’ve been over there, be sure to come right back here for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!