Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

For the over qualification I do with prospects. I do the exact opposite for relationship building. You know you have to understand that there’s not a dollar figure on everyone you meet and that you never know what might lead to what. I remember when I had my own agency one of the smallest deals I ever closed ended up being one of the most valuable I ever closed. I think my monthly recurring revenue was under $100 for this potential client. So literally my smallest client ever and they referred me to my 10 largest accounts within two years and that really opened my eyes to everyone has value in different ways. Whether that’s hey this is the guy I want to go have a beer with or this guy might be a great referral source for me or this person might be a great client some day and really looking at everybody as not you know a dollar sign because really hard sometimes in sales. You’re always looking at that number. How do I get to my quota. How do I how do I get there how do I get there. Well take that away. Take the dollar sign off of everyone’s head and just make solid relationships. You never know who you’re going to meet who they may know who they may introduce you to. Or maybe just create you know a lifelong friend and it doesn’t create any business at all. All those things are fine.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

On the spectrum of introverted versus extroverted I’m definitely on the introverted side. I truly believe that the best enterprise sales people are more on that introverted side. Because you can’t have that ultra extroverted person is super excited to sell you in a seven month sales cycle. You’re just not that excited about everything for seven months. I think being patient and being more strategic and being more introverted actually lends itself much much better to creating those relationships in an enterprise sale. Now that being said there are certain things that I’ve learned along the way and that is you can’t let your ego take a beating and going back to what I said about you’re not understand your true self when you’re selling because sometimes you have to be more on that extroverted side you have to create that energy if it’s not there. And you know another piece I like to think about is putting on your sales armor. So you know wake up every day and put on that uniform of sales and at the end of the day if you got told no 10 out of 10 times take off the sales armor and go be your normal self again and that you know you’re not being told no because of you you’re being told because the persona of you who is the sales person didn’t work out that day and you know really being able to shrug off that and say well hey that didn’t work out today. Let’s let’s throw the armor back on tomorrow and see if it will work better tomorrow. So you know once they learn that you know it really helped with the rejection portion of sales. I think a lot of up and coming sales people end up quitting sales much much too soon because of the rejection piece of it. Nobody bats 1000. You’ve got to think of it in baseball you hit 300 for a career you’re in the hall of fame. So 3 out of 10 is not bad in sales and that’s kind of the same thing.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

The whole used car salesman thing it really just turns me in the wrong way when people think of sales with this negative connotation of things. I don’t understand it completely because I love being sold. My favorite thing is going into a store and you know getting pitched and being sold and I’ll ask immediately are you guys commissioned. Because if you are I love it even more because I know you’re going to work hard for my business. You know if a kid comes to my door and sell chocolates I may or may not buy depending on how good he is but I’ll definitely help him out and tell him some tips on how to sell my neighbors. So I really love sales. I love the strategy behind it the process because I truly believe that a professional salesperson does not believe, should not stay in that same category as a used car salesman and that negative connotation. So that pretty much pisses me off when I when I start to hear that. The greatest thing about working in one the tech industry, but also the sales and marketing industry is that everyone understands how vital sales is. So no we don’t have to deal with that too much. In this world because we’re working with sales teams we’re working with a marketing teams. They understand how sales works and we’re doing the same thing that they wish that their organization was doing. So I love being in this space because that connotation goes away for the most part because it’s very consultative. They understand what we’re there to do when at the same time we’re not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes or sell them something and take it away from him or anything like that. There’s really no bait and switch in this. The proof is in the pudding when it comes to services and consulting.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

I think one of the most valuable things is learning when it’s not a good fit. You know we talked about kind of over qualifying and the last thing you want to do is work with people that you know either are unpleasant or you don’t really want to work with or aren’t going to be true partners for a long term future. So you know telling people no and saying I don’t think we’re going to be a good fit to work together. And these are the reasons why. It’s nothing about you. It’s just these are the reasons why I don’t think we should work together and really challenging that you know some people would say what were you doing you had that fish on the hook why would you throw it back in. That’s the problem it’s just because you’ve got that fish on the hook doesn’t mean it’s going to be a good tasting fish. And again heavy qualification knowing your buyers making sure that you’re not wasting too much time. You’re using your time properly for the right buyers is going to yield way more in the long run than you know a bunch of small fish that didn’t end up turning out being very well. So really challenging not being afraid to say no and not being afraid to be told no goes right along with that as well.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

In sales there’s two things that motivate people and you know I’m I’ve been an athlete my whole life and being at the top you know being the leader in whether that’s a gold medal or winning the championship or whatever that is you know that’s always been my thing and just what is success. And thinking about how do you define what success really means to you and you know that’s the first thing just having that spirit and saying I’m going to put out a plan to do something make it happen. OK I’m going to become number one by doing that. That’s always been on my mind but being in sales I mean let’s be real. Number two is always money as well. So being motivated properly and making sure that you know you really are worth the effort that you put in and sales is one of the only true equalizers I believe in the business world of you get exactly what you put into it. There’s no easy sale. You know I don’t think I’ve ever had something drop in my lap and said Oh here you go. Here’s a sale you know you really have to work into it. So the motivation and that success factor is knowing as hard as I work. The more I strategize the more I stick with my plan. I’m going to be rewarded at the end of the day and you know making sure that one you understand your value and your worth to an organization and then making sure that you’re working for an organization that understands your worth and your value and what you’re putting in to be properly rewarded for that effort. That’s the perfect motivator for any sales person I believe.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

I like to listen to random podcast and one of the things I do a lot is I’ll see an interview or read an article by someone so say it’s Mark Cuban or Richard Branson or someone like that and I’ll actually just go into the podcast app and search for that person and see what other podcasts they’ve been on and listen to an interview by them from a different interview or different perspective. And so instead of really saying OK I want to listen to ten episodes of this podcast I may go listen to two or three about a certain person that I read something about that I like they’re view on something and kind of see how their personality changes as they’re being interviewed by different types of people and different podcast leaders.

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Clip from Episode 27: Selling Professional Services – Reed Clarke of LeadMD:

See if they want to bring in other people into the conversation. The more people you can get from an organization what we’ve learned in these enterprise sales cycles is that no one person ever buys anymore and based on the size of the company or the type of company you’re buying committee could be three people it could be five people it could be seven people and really understanding from day one hey to get this deal done I know I’m going to talk to this manager this director this vice president this c-level executive more than likely they’re all going to have to be in there and you can’t be afraid to say hey does this person need to be involved too? You’re going to show that you have knowledge of their organization. You’re going to show that you’re really understanding everything that’s going on with that organization and being able to show hey I’ve really done my research. You’re not like anybody else. I’m not like anybody else. You know we really were meant to work together and showing hey this person probably needs to be involved and not being scared to ask that question and potentially not moving on without that right person.

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