“The other part of this that’s really important is that you give back. So if you’re selling and you’re already implemented and they come to you, be a resource for them.” – David Weiss in today’s Tip 1596
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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 Past is Prologue Play. Yeah, pretty fancy name. I don’t know why I did all these fancy names for these. But anyways, all right. So in this one, and the problem we’re trying to solve with this play is that, how often have you been involved in deals and really wanted to understand how the heck does this company get anything done? How do they buy? How have other reps gotten things across the line? It’s so common, because it’s like, what is this buying process actually going to look like? And that’s where we’re trying to solve with this play.
So this play to me is all about networking, strategic relationships, understanding how this company has purchased things in the past, and not just from our internal resources that we can always ask that from, but from externally, from other sellers. So I don’t know how often you do this, but I always had relationships with companies that were in the same category as mine, but adjacent. In other words, if you’re selling outreach as an example, you may want to have friends at SalesForce and SixSense. Those are both sales platforms that sell to similar buyers.
Imagine if you could tap into their, and you know they’ve bought those solutions, imagine if you could tap into their sellers and be like, hey, who did you work with? Who ended up signing off on it? How long did it take? What were the key reasons that they bought? What roadblocks or challenges did you face? How did you overcome them? Do you have any relationships? This is also great when you combine it with a strategic implementation play around the concept of, hey, if I can combine your tech and my tech, now one plus one equals three.
So that’s another one of the reasons I always created strategic partnerships was once I saw that, oh, wait, every company I try and sell to is either thinking about buying this or has already implemented that. Man, I want to go form relationships with sellers at that organization and trade information and trade leads and create partnerships. And so that’s what this play is all about. This play is about going to the market, finding a partnership manager inside of a product that that company has already purchased that is complementary, reaching out to them and say, hey, I’m in a sales process with so-and-so at this organization you’ve sold to them, love to understand more about that sales process and see if we can strengthen the narrative and work together.
And you’ll be amazed about how often people are willing to have conversations with you, and you get that partnership manager, introduced to the AEs, or you find the AE on your own, and you just ask them those strategic questions and you build relationships. This has absolutely helped me understand. And the old saying, buyers are lies. It’s amazing the parallel in sales processes that I found like, oh, they said that to you too. Oh, they played that game with you too. Oh, this thing happened. Companies run the same plays, have the same issues. The same things come up in multiple deal cycles across every different product. None of us are really that unique. So this is a great way to gain that additional insight.
The other part of this that’s really important is that you give back. So if you’re selling and you’re already implemented and they come to you, be a resource for them. And also if you are running a deal and you hear that person’s competitor, involve them, scratch their back. It’s amazing how small of a world it is and how much those things come from a circle.
So again, this is the past is prolog play. And if you like this, 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 it on my LinkedIn profile. So if I can ever help you with anything, feel free to reach out. Thanks again.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with David and to his entire playbook, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1596. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!