Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

From the inside perspective right like I’ve done field cells are different when you can go in and actually you know say hello to a person and shake their hands. You know technological play got you those traditional things that sellers do you don’t have. You don’t always have that luxury an inside sales right. And so what I did was like I when I go I use this term a lot. But I humanized everything right. Like I took away that we were on Skype and I turned the video on. And like I did that on all my intro calls. Like all of them. And they were they’re so used to just somebody calling or not calling actually. And what that did was help them say Well there’s actually a person that I know I’ve talked to I can look at his LinkedIn and I’ve seen him blink I’ve seen him smile at me. I seen him laugh you know or whatever the case may be and that was the first step for these for these relationships because they could see me just like I could even if they never turned the video on at least they could see me. And then the second thing I did was I never spent time every single time I talk to the customer always talking about business. And the reason why I did that is you know I learned I learned from you know both my parents and other people around me that have built really great relationships is they really focus on the person and what happens when you know when I did that is or at least learn how to do it. Is focused on my clients is I learned so much about who they were when they were they were focused at. And what was driving him even some of their business decisions. Weirdly enough after getting to know them as a person and then I could then really go deeper with them like I call it like onion chillin’s like I’ve got I’ve already peeled back the the personal layer. And so when we do get you know get to talking about business it’s like people really do business with their friends than people they don’t know.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

I did it was I would then go back to my customer without them knowing I was sitting on their call on their earnings call and that I could help tie that into a business conversation and to human conversation. Look let’s just not talk technology because that’s what they’re expecting a Microsoft sales rep to come do is let me just fire away at all the new cool things that we did there or that we have released. And let’s talk to you OK before we get to the technology investment there has to be some business reason or anticipated outcome that you want whether it’s for your internal customers in your company or it’s the true end user which is why anybody is in any of our any of our customers are really investigate in technology, is to make their solutions better for their customers. And so when I was able to do that humanize the technology and using that kind of data. I was able to opened up a lot of doors and shows some different you know expertise you know that helped build that trust. When a customer is looking at me or listening to me talk about their business versus talking about the technology investment that they have with Microsoft. So it helped me really transition from a seller to a you know more of an adviser or a really true partner.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

You know I had a very transparent conversation both at the time with my sales manager and sales directors and part of the reason why I did that is because I don’t have a traditional sales background. We can talk about that. But the way I did it was look I don’t know these customers you know at all yet you just get we just got our book of business. And what I did was they will just let me do my thing based on my background. You know being around a lot of entrepreneurs and let me figure it out that way. And then while doing that right the admin work out I was like well I was very hygiene oriented so I was when I mean by that is I would go onto our sales tool. And I already knew what they wanted right. I asked them in the beginning what do you really need to go forecast you know to your manager or to your boss and so on and so forth. So that helped me really give them true true clear guidance for me for myself right is to hey. These are the things that you’re focused on. I’m going to make sure that you have this up to date at all times so I don’t have to either sit in multiple meetings with you or you don’t have to come ask me questions about deals or anything that’s going on. You have that access and visibility so that help take away even just the admin work preparing for the forecast. I would just build it into my routine. And so that where the extra conversation and layers were removed. And so that I get more time to spend with my customers or partners.

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