“Being able to adapt to those different scenarios, enable the action, take action on those items, for me, has been the key to success. ” – Paul DiVincenzo and Phil Terrill in today’s Tip 1331
How do you build relationships with new accounts?
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Paul DiVincenzo on Sales Success Stories Interview
Paul DiVincenzo on LinkedIn
Phil Terrill on Sales Success Stories Interview
Phil Terrill 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. As I went looking for today’s Throwback Thursday Tips I actually found 2 excerpts that go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly. The first comes from Paul DiVincenzo in episode 40 of the Sales Success Stories podcast who was at Cintas at the time and Phil Terrill in episode 39 who was at Microsoft when we recorded his interview. Listen to these:
Paul DiVincenzo: So I think the top three things for me have been relationships and what I call being battle ready, focus, and mastery. We’ll talk about these and then adaptability in action. So it’s a total of six, but I combine them into three because I think they go together.
So really with relationships and being battle ready, I think this is a core of being successful in sales, and probably more than just that, but in sales specifically, at least, I’ve found being in a couple of different industries, you have to be very quick to build relationships that’s with the customer as well as with internal folks. So whether that’s VPs or people that you need to approve your deals internally, building those relationships quickly and really understanding each element that goes into it is what I call being battle ready, meaning you are prepared to make that deal happen.
And the more you know and the more you truly understand what you’re talking about, that leads me into number two. You’re able to really focus with your customers on what they need. Then you also have a mastery of what you’re talking about that could be anything from the actual product or solution or service you’re providing all the way to internally, whether you’re having a business conversation about how this makes business sense for the company.
And then leading down into number three. So really being adaptable and taking action, things change consistently in business. And so being able to adapt to those different scenarios, enable the action, take action on those items for me, has been the key to success. So running through those in-depth, we can go into them even more. But I think those things are what I keep in the forefront of my mind.
Phil Terrill: A lot of the times, the seller, especially in the inside model or in general, when you send the intro email, you always are saying like new account manager, like new, right? The word new or intro call, or using these like very starter phrases or what I considered at that time or even now, they’re scary, for lack of any other term. Like, this is just simple, it down. It’s very scary for a customer to get an email from a seller or an account manager says, “Hey, I’m your new guy or a new girl.”
And the reason why I preface what I’m going to tell you, the specifics around the messaging is when you get that mail, I’ve done it before because I’ve done some other roles that are more outbound related and it could be a turn off for a lot of customers. They don’t want a new person because it’s their frustration. They had a better relationship regardless of if you do internal handoffs or not, just the way the customer psyche is they’re going to go back to their old person or their partner.
So what I did was I sent these messages of, okay, I’m not going to use the word intro or newer and some of that kind of stuff. And what I did was I said, and I’m saying the word introduced, but I didn’t use the word introduced. I told them this story of look, we just started a new fiscal year. I’m your account manager. I wasn’t even saying I’m your new account manager, I’m your account manager. Here are the things that I have identified that we need to go through based on these compelling events that are coming. And so I would always include the compelling events at Microsoft. Compelling events are end of life, end of support. Those two can coexist the agreement, renewals, anything that was coming from what I would call an internal engagement. So if we’re doing a software asset review. I would use some of these triggers, these compelling events to let them know that I’m very aware of you already.
So I’m not just calling you or emailing you to say hello, right? I really want to say hello and talk and let you know and validate through this email or through this voicemail that hey, I know who you are, I know the business already and I’m ready to talk to you and I have these resources available to get it done.
Scott Ingram: For links to my full conversations with both Paul and Phil, as well as links to their LinkedIn profiles where you can catch up on what they’re up to today, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1331. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!