“You want to get the objections out now, all of them, that you’ve got the time to overcome them.” – Shari Levitin in today’s Tip 1509

Do you ask tough questions?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Shari!

Take the Quiz
Shari Levitin Virtual Training
Shari Levitin on LinkedIn
Heart and Sell: 10 Universal Truths Every Salesperson Needs to Know
The Sales Development Playbook Book

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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 Shari Levitin. Shari helps sales teams bridge the gap between beating quota and selling with an authentic, heartfelt approach. LinkedIn recognized her as a Top Ten Voice in Sales and Salesforce distinguished her as a Top 20 Global Sales Expert. Here she is:

Shari Levitin: You’ve got to ask the tough questions. Not just the rapport-building questions, but questions like, why are you looking to us? Why don’t you just do this yourself? Why wouldn’t you go to somebody else? Why are you interested in us? Get the objections out now and don’t be afraid. When the customer seems interested, ask those skinny branch questions. I say it to my customers all the time. I’ll say, How come you want to outsource your training? You’ve got a large company. Why wouldn’t you just do it internally? Now you may say, that’s a nutty question. They’re going to give you an objection. I want the objection. I once heard it this way. No, doesn’t get any “no-ier” than no. You want to get the objections out now, all of them, that you’ve got the time to overcome them.

Scott Ingram: For links to plenty more from Shari, including the video version of this tip, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1509. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“At the top of the U is really where you prepare the conversation and you start positive always. You always want to start positive, always want to end positive.” – Jacquelyn Nicholson in today’s Tip 1507

How do you navigate difficult conversations?

Join the conversation below and check out the full conversation with Jacquelyn!

Jacquelyn Nicholson on LinkedIn
Jacquelyn Nicholson on Sales Success Stories Interview
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I’ve got a clip from my most recent conversation on the Sales Success Stories podcast with Jacquelyn Nicholson, an incredibly dedicated member of the Sales Success Community and the top sales performer at Leadspace. Here she is with a dose of brilliance:

Jacquelyn Nicholson: So the way to navigate a difficult conversation, and hopefully it’s something you have time to prepare for, because nobody likes to have a difficult conversation in a moment where you’re completely set back on your heels. But if you’re set back on your heels, you can always ask for time saying things like, Gosh, that is a really interesting question, or that’s a really interesting observation. I haven’t really thought about that. I’d like to take some time to think about that. Why don’t we get together? What does early next week look like for you? So giving yourself some time to prepare, some time to take thought, because what we often do in difficult situations is we react as opposed to respond, and you always want to give yourself time to respond. So if you can buy yourself some time, either in the moment to ask a question back to the person or to buy yourself some time in terms of hours or days, that’s always a positive thing to do when you’re having a difficult conversation that’s just presented itself and you’ve got nothing. That’s the first thing.

So when you have time to prepare, I’d like to visualize a capital U on a piece of paper. So you draw a capital U starting at the top on the left and you go down to the bottom and you come back up to the right side. And so at the top of the U is really where you prepare the conversation and you start positive always. You always want to start positive, always want to end positive. You start really positive. Let’s say it’s a question about territories or accounts, assignments, or things like that. So you can say, you always want to start very positive, and primarily you want to be positive about yourself. So you were my boss and we were having a conversation about a difficult situation with an account assignment, let’s say. So I say, Scott, you know I pride myself on being a team player. I’ve overperformed here. You know how much I value my teammates and the work that we all do here, and I just really appreciate your leadership. And then we want to pivot to the heart of the matter. So that’s how I’d role-play the beginning is something very positive about me, about our relationship, about our working environment. Then I need to pivot to the heart of the matter. I feel like there’s been some shady stuff happening on an account assignment. I want to pivot, not with a, Hey, Scott, you know how much I value our relationship, but… Because nobody remembers all the good stuff you just said when you pivot with the but. So we pivot with my concern is, or the thing I’ve been thinking about, something like that. So I could say to you all those positive things and say, My concern is, we’re either an organization that has rules of engagement when it comes to accounts and territories or we’re not. And you’re going to probably say to me, Well, what are you talking about? So there’s probably some curiosity I’ve developed by saying something like that. And I could say, Well, I have a concern because I saw that this deal closed and based on our terms of engagement and the rules that we have in the company, subsidiaries are to be assigned to the person who has the parent account. I really hesitated to come to you because I feel like I’m in a bad position either way here because I’m either damned if I do, I’m damned if I don’t. And so there I was, I dropped a little thing on the table that’s, you know, you’re like, What do you mean? What are you talking about?

So my concern is like, Look, I didn’t do anything to win this deal. I’m not looking to take anything away from anybody. But if I don’t speak up for myself, I’m screwed. So I’m in a bad position. I either look like I’m looking for something I didn’t deserve or earn, or I’m whining or worse, I’m just complaining and not coming to you with a solution. But if I don’t say anything, I’m not fighting for myself. And so it gives the person you’re talking to about this very difficult conversation because something like this is extremely difficult conversation for a salesperson to have with their manager or somebody that’s in sales ops. And so usually at that point in a difficult conversation like this, the person is going to say, Well, what do you think is fair? What are you looking for? And in this scenario, this is actually a real thing that happened to me. I’d say, What I would actually ask for in this situation, if you think it’s fair, is I’m not looking to take credit away from anybody else, but I do think that it would be a fair thing to give me quota retirement for the deal that should have been assigned to me, that I should have worked, and it was really done in a shady way. But whatever you think, I’m open to suggestions, open to talk about this.

And so after that, it’s time to end on a very positive note. So the way you pivot in a conversation like that is to say, I really appreciate your time. I know these conversations are hard to have, but I think that our relationship is in a better, more trusting place. And as iron sharpens iron, so another man sharpens another. And so I feel like we’ve grown from this situation. And I really appreciate you hearing me out. And regardless of what happens, I’m here for the team and I really appreciate you listening. So that’s an example of the U.

Scott Ingram: For my full conversation with Jacquelyn including the incredible story of how she literally almost died on a sales call, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1507 and we’ll have links for you there. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“There’s a lot more that scarcity does for businesses in a positive way, which helps drive revenue and it helps build that customer loyalty and it builds those deep relationships with customers.” – Mindy Weinstein in today’s Tip 1506

What’s your thought about this?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Mindy!

Mindy Weinstein Website
The Power of Scarcity Book
Mindy Weinstein 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 Mindy Weinstein. Mindy is the author of The Power of Scarcity: Leveraging Urgency and Demand to Influence Customer Decisions. Mindy has trained thousands of marketing and sales professionals from organizations of all sizes, including Facebook, The Weather Channel, and World Fuel Services. She also has a Ph.D. in general psychology. Here she is:

Mindy Weinstein: If you have ever waited in line at a popular restaurant or purchased something because there were only five left, or here’s one more, purchased toilet paper during the pandemic and purchased it in bulk because you’re worried about it running out. Well, then you experience scarcity. And most of us, when we think about scarcity, we think about it in a negative way. But really, if a business uses it in a creative and ethical manner, can actually do some positive things for customers. And I’ll give you an example of a couple of them. But do know all of this is based on psychological research. Plus, businesses are doing this right now.

So number one, scarcity can actually build communities. When there’s scarcity messages that are showing that something’s in limited supply or exclusive and a customer is able to purchase that software or that product or that service for their business, well, they’re going to automatically feel special. They’re going to feel a sense of belonging that they are now part of the group. They are part of this group of customers who are able to experience these great products or services. But at the same time, community can also be built if there’s any exclusivity.

And here’s what I mean by that. A lot of businesses have found success by doing VIP events where they invite their top-tier customers to come and enjoy some type of event or activity. Great way to build that community. And exclusivity is actually scarcity because it’s a restriction of some sort and people feel special. Harry and David does that. They actually have the best of the best communities for their customers. And what they did is they built subcommunities out of their huge database of customers, and they offer these subcommunities top products. And now that is a B2C example, but it happens in the B2B world as well.

And secondly, the other thing that scarcity can do, which is definitely positive, is deepen customer relationships. Customers rely on businesses to inform them if there’s any shortage or if something is only going to be around for a limited time period. So communicating scarcity is so important for businesses. It actually builds that trust with customers and it builds that loyalty.

So here’s an example, letting customers know that this particular item has just been restocked. Well, that’s a scarcity signal and it actually builds that relationship because it’s informing the customer. Notating that something is a best seller or most popular also deepens that relationship because it actually helps the customer take a mental shortcut and recognize that, oh, this particular product or service is in high demand and must be pretty good. So it actually helps customers through that decision-making process and again deepens those customer relationships.

So notifying customers about scarcity, whether it’s the limited time scarcity or it’s demand-related scarcity or supply-related scarcity, all of those things go a long way with customers. And these are just two examples. There’s a lot more that scarcity does for businesses in a positive way, which helps drive revenue and it helps build that customer loyalty and it builds those deep relationships with customers. There is power in scarcity.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Mindy and to her book, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1506. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“The application of knowledge is the power.” – Meshell Baker in today’s Tip 1505

Are you knowledgeable?

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

1470: The ABC’s of Sales – GRACE
1477: The ABC’s of Sales – HELP
1484: The ABC’s of Sales – IMAGINATION
1498: The ABC’s of Sales – JOURNALING
Meshell Baker on LinkedIn

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 Meshell Baker, the Sales Confidence Igniter, is back with the next installment of her multi-part series. Here she is:

Meshell Baker: Hello and welcome to the ABCs of Sales. Today’s letter is K, and K is for Knowledgeable. There’s a quote by Steve Martin that I heard Oprah say, and it’s around the subject of being so well informed, so learned, so cultivated, and so good that people can’t ignore you and that they are drawn to you for your own enlightenment. And I want to distinguish that having knowledge and being knowledgeable are two very different things.

When you have knowledge, it’s because you’ve gone to school, you’ve learned something, you’ve been taught something, you know a sales process, you know a sales formula, you know a sales script, for example. Now, knowledgeable is the ability to apply what you have learned and to do it in a way that it actually gives you power. It gives you the ability to be present in front of that client to whom you are about to speak to.

This is the challenge. A lot of people know things which makes them knowledgeable. Not everyone knows how to interact with that knowledge so that they can apply it in a very personal, effortless manner. And that’s what makes somebody knowledgeable. It makes somebody so well-informed, learn, cultivated that you can’t ignore them. And that’s what makes a top performer. You can’t ignore top performer in the way they speak about what they know.

So be certain that you are doing things that you are taking your knowledge and you’re applying it. One of the top talents of top performers is that they practice. Repetition is the mother of all success. If you have someone within your organization, role-play, practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more. When you think about athletes like Michael Jordan, the case in point was that he knew that he was incredibly talented. He knew he was a great performer. He knew he was a high scorer. Yet after all of his games, he kept looking at his game tapes. He did not look for what was wrong with him. What he actually looked at was how he could improve. And what he noticed was that he was not a team player. He was not passing the ball. He wanted the ball all to himself. It was all about him. And this is true in sales as well. You cannot achieve incredible sales success on your own. You will need the partnership of your colleagues, of your superiors, your managers, the people in your organization who know other things about customer support and marketing. Ensure that you have surround yourself with other people who are just as knowledgeable in their subject matter that supports you in your sales success and your interaction with those clients.

And here’s just a couple of other areas that being knowledgeable will be power for you, helps you to make well-formed decisions. The more knowledge that you have when you are in those moments and you are searching yourself for things that you think you don’t know or things that you may know. Having had all that knowledge will help you make a better decision instead of guessing, saying things like, I think, I might, or maybe. You actually can speak from a confident place of being knowledgeable. It helps you with critical thinking. So in the moments where things are going wrong or derailing, you’re able to make a better decision. And it helps you with curiosity. People who are knowledgeable actually feel better about asking good questions in the moment. Instead of fearing that someone will know that they don’t know, a knowledgeable person knows that they do know, and they understand that the area of what they don’t know is an area that they want to know. They’re not scared to be uninformed. Their desire is to be more informed. Remember, knowledgeable, the application of knowledge is the power. Have a great day selling.

Scott Ingram: To connect to some more Meshell Baker knowledge, just click click over to DailySales.Tips/1505. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Try to get people to connect with you based on the value you bring. ” – Ryan Caswell in today’s Tip 1504

What’s your thought about this?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Ryan Caswell on YouTube
B2BLeads.com
Ryan Caswell 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 Ryan Caswell. Ryan is the Founder of B2BLeads.com. A company with the sole purpose of helping business-to-business professionals leverage LinkedIn in a way that will consistently provide low cost & quality leads. Here he is:

Ryan Caswell: Hey, how’s it going? I wanted to give you three quick tips on how you can improve your messages on LinkedIn so that you can generate more leads and more sales.

So first tip is try to get people to connect with you based on the value you bring. So rather than reaching out to people and saying, Hey, let’s connect. I’ve seen you’re connected to this person, or, let’s join each other’s network. Try and get your value proposition in front of them so that people are actually connecting with you based on the value that you can bring. Rather than it’s going to make it a lot easier to transition that conversation around the value and the help that you can give them than if you connect with them on false pretenses or if you’re just trying to grow your network. So that’s the first tip.

Second tip is single CTA, single call to actions. When you give people too many choices, they’re not going to take any. So make the choices singular. Don’t say, Hey, if you want to do this, do this. If you want to reach out to me, do this. This is my phone number. If you want to call me on a phone, if you want to call me in an email, no one’s going to take it. When you give people too many options, they tend to take no option as opposed to one. The idea is we really need to make it very easy for these people that don’t know us, they don’t trust us yet, to take some initial first step. So just make it really easy. And rather than saying the first step is jump on a call, just try and get some buy into the value or see if they need help around what you offer. So we want to get yes-no answers. So it’s really easy for your prospect to take that first step.

Now, the final step is keep it short, keep it conversational. If you send someone a massive three-paragraph-long sales pitch, they’re not going to read it. These people are busy and they got other things to do and you’re not at the top of their priority list. So keep conversations short, conversational to the point, and then you’ll actually have a chance of people reading the messages and wanting to progress the conversation through to a call and obviously to a sale.

So I hope that helps. Three quick things that you can do with your messages today to start generating more conversations, more relationships, more leads, and more sales on LinkedIn. Hope that helps. My name is Ryan Caswell from B2BLeads.com.

Scott Ingram: For more about Ryan, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1504 and we’ll have those links for you there. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“By doing that early in the process, you have time to make legal, help you build a strategy throughout the buy cycle. And these are things that you can do today.” – Anand Aidasani in today’s Tip 1503

Do you make legal your copilot?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Anand!

LexCheck
Anand Aidasani on LinkedIn
Schedule a demo with LexCheck

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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 Anand Aidasani. Anand is the Chief Revenue Officer of LexCheck and has over 20 years of experience in sales, product, GTM strategy, and finance. Here he is:

Anand Aidasani: Hello, Daily Sales Tips listeners. This is Anand Aidasani with a tip for you that you can take and hopefully speed your sales. One of the hardest things to do in a sales process is to close when legal debt is involved. You lose momentum, deals get a little bit stickier, friction is introduced into the process, and things can go sideways. Or they can take just too long and things change in your organization. Your sponsor gets promoted, the organization cuts budget, some other tool comes out. All of these things create risk in your sales cycle. 9% of all revenue is lost to legal. So how do we make this problem into an asset for us? And what we’re going to do is make legal your copilot. Here’s why you should do this.

First of all, there’s pressure, especially in economic times like the ones we’re entering now, that you need to have three or six times your pipeline coverage to hit your quota. Now, we all know that when this comes down, it’s very difficult to have high-quality pipeline that is truly real. We’re all under pressure to maybe put deals into our pipeline that aren’t as real. However, if you actually use the legal process, specifically start with an NDA, you might actually make things work in your favor.

Here’s why.

First of all, Gartner reports that buying decisions are being pushed to the lowest level of users. These users may not have the authority to buy. They may not have the experience to buy either. However, if they can get an NDA in place, you have strong signal that they have authority or have access to someone who does. So that puts the A in your band process, which I still believe is one of the best qualification processes around.

The second reason you want to do this, and NDAs give you better discovery. Good discovery reveals prospects’ internal pain, problems, and solutions they’re considering. There will be some sensitive items that they will not want to share without an NDA. If you’re good at discovery, odds are by the second call, you’re having a discussion that someone will stop and say, Do we have an NDA in place? So if you can get ahead of that and use that early in your first or second meeting, you could stop losing momentum and maybe catch something you wouldn’t have caught otherwise because that person who disappears because there’s no NDA in place may not be in your next call. So why not grab the intelligence when you’re with them?

Second thing is, NDAs reduce the risk of information being used inappropriately and it lets your prospects open up. That’s another reason discovery is better with a legal document in place such as an NDA.

Now, you want to build rapport with legal. Your side and the other side. If you’re a large company, odds are you’re not going to get the same legal person on every deal. There’s usually a room full of lawyers who are assigned deals as they come in. So you want to get that person assigned early and someone who builds a rapport with the other side’s legal party. If you do this well, you’re going to actually build a nice relationship at the beginning using documents like NDAs, which are low-risk. They’re usually documents that don’t have tension involved, and it allows you and your lawyer to build a relationship with the other side’s lawyer, which you’re going to need later in the cycle when documents get a little bit stickier and issues get a little bit thornier. So let’s get ahead of them now.

Number three, navigating procurement. By getting an NDA in place or any trial agreement even, it usually kicks off the vendor setup process. Now, what this means is later in the sales cycle when you win your deal, you’re not going to lose time setting something up because it’s already done. There’s another advantage here. If your solution is tied with another person’s solution but you’re already set up with the procurement team as a vendor, guess who’s going to win?

Finally, the fifth reason and the most important one that allows all of this to be practically achievable is today we as business people have tools that allow us to do legal self-service. Commercial contracts are really business agreements. They’re supposed to represent what we want as sellers and buyers to happen in a contract that makes it secure, makes it official. The complexity of documents is hard today. However, tools exist to let you navigate that complexity a little bit earlier. There are also ways that you can actually automate the NDA process almost entirely. By doing that early in the process, you have time to make legal, help you build a strategy throughout the buy cycle. And these are things that you can do today. Thank you very much for listening. I hope this tip has been helpful to you.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Anand and schedule a demo with LexCheck, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1503. Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Whenever you’re going to do something that could require knowledge work, that you have to make assumptions, you can always vet those assumptions by other people and get other perspectives or points of view.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 1502

What’s your thought about this?

Join the conversation below and be sure to connect with Jack on LinkedIn!

Jack Wilson Sales Tips on Spotify
Jack Wilson on LinkedIn
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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, Jack Wilson is back with another timely tip. Here he is:

Jack Wilson: What’s going on, Daily Sales Tips Community? Jack Wilson back with another tip. This week, The Mandalorian Season 3 premiered on Disney Plus live streaming, and I’m a bit of a Star Wars nerd. Not as much as I am a Marvel or superhero nerd, but still, it’s just as good. And in that vein, I want to help you form your Jedi Council.

Now look, I understand that at this point in the Star Wars universe, the Jedi Council is no more, and Luke Skywalker is trying to train the next season or the next generation of Jeddai. So I guess that’s what I’m doing too, by giving you these tips.

What I mean by forming your Jedi Council is whenever you’re going to do something that could require knowledge work, that you have to make assumptions, you can always vet those assumptions by other people and get other perspectives or points of view.

Now, those points of view don’t have to be completely random either. Specifically, in enterprise sales, we often create executive narratives or points of view. One thing that I’ve been trying lately is using a Jedi Council of one enterprise seller that doesn’t work for my company, that’s external, and one buyer that isn’t my buyer.

So for example, I sell into the HR space, I have connected with someone who was a purchaser in the similar role and persona that I’m selling into that I’m actually not trying to sell to, who I can bounce my narratives off of them for clarity. Once you form this Jedi Council, make sure that they understand why you’re networking closely with them and get buy-in for them to help you and then offer to reciprocate in whatever way you can.

Try this the next several times you do things like creating an executive narrative, creating outbound messaging or sequences, or anything else that will be customer or buyer-facing that you’re making assumptions based on research that you can’t yet validate internally. Happy streaming and good luck.

Scott Ingram: To connect with Jack, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1502. After that, you can just continue your binge of great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Notice that failure is going to happen. The suck is going to happen. It’s going to be terrible. It’s not going to feel good in the moment, but in hindsight, you’ll be able to look back and see exactly why that needed to happen because it set you up for your next success.” – Amber Deibert in today’s Tip 1501

How do you reframe failure? 

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Amber Deibert on LinkedIn
Manage Your Mindset
Manage Your Mindset Course
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Get Out Of Your Own Way Newsletter

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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 Amber Deibert. Amber is a Performance Coach for Enterprise sellers. She helps them create the mindset and behaviors needed for success. Here she is:

Amber Deibert: What’s up, everybody? Your friendly neighborhood performance coach, Amber Deibert, over here. Today I want to talk to you about failure. Failure is something that most of us, if we’re normal, there are those of you who are like, Yes, failure sounds amazing. But most of us are like, failure sucks, man. Nobody wants to feel failure. If you’re one of those people, you’re in good company.

Here’s a way that I want to talk with you about reframing failure. So every single thing in nature has cycles of growth and decay. Growth and decay. You can think about a tree. A tree drops all of its leaves, and then those leaves become the foundation for the growth that’s going to happen. All the nutrients from those leaves create the nutrients that the tree needs to grow more.

So failure is a totally normal part of that growth and decay. You’re going to have times where you’re at the bottom of the cycle and it just sucks and you feel like you’re failing. And I want to offer to you that those “failures” are actually the best moments for creating your next level of growth. It’s not until you feel the pain that you’re like, I can’t do this any longer, something’s got to give, that you then are inspired and motivated to go get your next level of growth.

So I want you to think about failure not as this doom and gloom, everybody dies, we’re all homeless, and then we die scenario. I want you to think of failure instead as a breeding ground for the next growth that you’re going to have. And if you look back, you’ll see that all of your major failures ended up creating some amazing growth for you in the end.

So notice that failure is going to happen. The suck is going to happen. It’s going to be terrible. It’s not going to feel good in the moment, but in hindsight, you’ll be able to look back and see exactly why that needed to happen because it set you up for your next success. I hope this is helpful. If we’re not friends on LinkedIn yet, I mean, why aren’t we? Come find me over there, Amber Deibert.

Scott Ingram: For that link to connect with Amber on LinkedIn, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1501 and then, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“If you work on projects of any depth, you got to be pretty good at presenting multiple options, understanding their cash flow requirements, understanding what they prefer, and being open and honest with that.” – Luke Floyd in today’s Tip 1500

What do you do in sales?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Luke!

Luke Floyd on LinkedIn
Unlimiting Beliefs and Owning Your Success
Luke Floyd on Sales Success Stories Interview

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’m going to give this place of honor to Luke Floyd in this 1500th tip. This is an excerpt from my personal favorite presentation at last year’s Sales Success Summit, but there’s so much great content that comes out of that event that the audience ratings determined that it was tied for third. Here’s a portion of Luke’s talk on Unlimiting Beliefs and Owning Your Success:

Luke Floyd: The second one to talk through, my job is to hit quota. So a good way you can tell, if this is you, if you’re an SDR, your job is to book demos. If you’re a new business, your job is to produce revenue out of thin air. If a client won’t buy from me, they’re a waste of time. What this is is a number has been put on you, effectively dehumanizing what you do, removing the human capacity and capability from what you do. And now you look at You equals revenue, client equals revenue or no revenue. What a terrible way to live. So we’re going to test this.

If you’re a SDR, your job is not to book 10 demos a month. Your job is to start impactful conversations. How well you do that translates into how many demos you book them up. If you’re a net new revenue, your job is not to close or hit quota. Your job is to do all of these core competencies and quota is the byproduct. It is the outcome of what you do. So when I think about what I do at Deel, I broker fair value between Deel and clients with potential projects. That’s what I do. In that, all those core competencies I have to be good at.

Quota is a lagging measurement that might or might not be relevant based on how I do my job. So this is what I do. My $1.2 million quota is not what I do. So if you have never taken a chance to do this test, it’s actually really interesting. But if you think about, all right, you’re going to be a seller for the next 5, 10 years, maybe you move in management, whatever it is. What are the core competencies if you want to get better that you want to get 1 % better at every day? Because I promise you getting better at demos really doesn’t matter.

Communication skills, how well you can tell a story across an account, how curious you are to be able to find out and get those interesting details like we were talking yesterday about the procurement, right, with a bonus and all that. How does Lynn even broach the conversation about procurement? She doesn’t treat them like a number. Number one. So you get people to open up. That’s not something that’s going to be taught in a hack or a tip or a trick. That’s not focusing on what email template gets you the most opens. None of that stuff matters. What matters is that you continually develop the core competencies in your field because those things change, but the core competencies won’t. So your ability to start conversations and stand out is a core competency, prospecting.

Communications, how well you send follow-up emails, how well are you recapping their priorities and consistently circulating those priorities across the company. Consensus building, telling the story. I meet with, for example, accounting managers who hate their payroll workflow. It takes them a week at the end of the month. I talk with their CFO. Their CFO does not care about how much time it takes them. Their CFO cares about what could they be doing with that time saved on my strategic initiative. That person doesn’t know that’s what the CFO cares about because that’s like five bosses above. They never talked to the CFO, but I get to. So I get to build consensus across those.

Meeting administration. How to run a good meeting is an art itself. Setting strong agendas, follow-ups, recaps, pre-looks, all that good stuff, and then financial modeling. If you work on projects of any depth, you got to be pretty good at presenting multiple options, understanding their cash flow requirements, understanding what they prefer, and being open and honest with that. So if you can’t tell, what are my core competencies that I work at, you probably think your job is to produce quota. You’re not a number. Your job isn’t to produce a number. Your job is to do this stuff. The number is what happens. And I can tell how well you… Supposedly, we can tell how well you’re doing this stuff by quota and how much you’re closing. So there’s a disconnect there.

Scott Ingram: We just released the full audio from this talk on the Sales Success Stories podcast yesterday, so as always you’ll find links to that, the video version and to connect with Luke at DailySales.Tips/1500, wow, that’s a lot of tips. Keep coming back, because we’ll have another one tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Thanks for listening!