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Clip: Learning Sales from Being a Buyer

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

A lot of times I would sit there like I mentioned to you I’d sit in these presentations just thinking oh my god do you even know what Johnson and Johnson does? Do you know we make? Do you care why we want to do this? And that’s when I sort of a light came on and I said you know I would be really good at selling. But by gosh I am not going to sell this way. So you learn firsthand everything not to do? In a way you know I did meet some wonderful people along the way. And when you ask me this question I thought back about those business solutions I chose to buy and they were the people that came in and really cared what the implications were for us. They cared about what was important. They made it easy to buy from them and they made it simple for for me and the team to understand. And they provided just everything as part of the solution that was important to us. And that’s. And they really understood the deadlines they understood what was frustrating for us they understood the budget limitations we had they understood why we were doing this project in the first place and how new it was to a fantastic company that’s not necessarily always the first to embrace technology. So that’s who we chose to do business with that those were the people that really made it simple and that’s it that really affected me as I became a seller.

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Clip: Asking So What Sales Questions

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

I think it really depends on the situation. But there are a few good ones so you can ask. I used to work for this gentleman who asked the best questions that I called skin crawling questions their the questions that make the prospective person you know prospective customers say oh gosh I didn’t think of that. So a lot of times it could be. So what happens if you don’t solve this problem so once you’ve uncovered the problem so. So what are the consequences so what happens if we don’t address this that your open ended questions are the most important. Of course I should’ve started with that. You know don’t ask something that’s yes or no if you can help yourself. A lot of times you’ll need to know those things but asking an open ended question can be really valuable in terms of your success in terms of what people will reveal and then going a level deeper. So a lot of times you know if they raise an objection you can sort of soften that and come back with you know a question that’s a little bit challenging or that might uncover more information and just don’t be happy with the first question and the first answer I think is the way I do it.

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Clip: So What? What’s in it for the person you’re selling to?

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

And then the last thing for me comes from the genesis of my career where I wasn’t always selling. Before this I used to be the person sitting across from you Mr. Seller to buy something. And for me it came down to something I call so what. So I would sit there and I would listen to these vendors coming in to talk to me endlessly and it was really to the point where I was sitting there you know as they blathered on and on and on about how fantastic their product or their service was and I was thinking. So what? Do you even know what I do? Do you even know what’s important to me? And so for me I find that that’s a really a deadly mistake that sales professionals can make is going on and on. And so I try to always think about what is the so what are the what’s in it for me factor for the prospective customer as well.

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Clip: Trong Nguyen – Sales Success Challenge

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

What I’d challenge our listeners do is kind of think about three things. First treat sales as a craft an art right. I treat it as a craft and art and every day I think about how do I hone this craft how do I make myself better at it. You’re an artist. You know actors do it. Athletes do it. The highest level performers do it. They treat whatever it is their specialty is as really an art and craft. And I want all of our listeners your listeners Scott to kind of treat sales as a craft because I did. The second thing that I would challenge them to do is think about how you can make a difference with your customers because it really starts with that. When you can make a massive difference with your customers that’s how you win. Right. So think about how do you kind of build those blocks to get there. And the last thing is never stop learning always be a sponge. I go try learn something new every day I’m reading something all the time. I’m learning from people of different mediums but never stop learning because that’s how you truly get better.

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Clip: Recovering from Sales Failure

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

I would tell you as many successes that I’ve had I’ve had just as many failures and I’ve lost just as many deals. I’ve had a bunch of relationships with customers kind of go in the tank as well. And you know after something like that what I would tell you is just you need to go through the grieving process right. Like give yourself enough time to kind of go through it but go through it quickly and learn from that mistake. Take some notes on it and then just move forward. That’s what I normally do.

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Clip: The Impact of a Great Boss on Sales Success

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

In general sales is hard enough as it is. You know you’ve been around sales a long time I’ve been around sales a long time. When you when you’ve had a great boss it’s so motivating. It’s so invigorating and you know you go out and you kill it and that your great boss makes you that much better because they push you to the edge. Right. Having a bad boss I think is so energy draining. And we only have so much energy where you know you’re better spent using the energy kind of driving the deals with the customers developing the customer relationships versus kind of expending that energy on you know trying to kind of work with your boss or your internal issues that you’ve got to deal with. So I think the it could be hugely impactful for you if you don’t have a great boss.

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Clip: Selling in a Complex Environment is a Team Sport

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

Selling in a complex environment is a team sport. Right. You can’t do it alone. I know in sales there’s a lot of lone wolves out there. There’s a lot of heroes out there where hey I’m going to go do this I’m going to go hunt the whale on my own and you know one or two times out of ten they may be able to do it. But our solutions today in our environment’s so complex that you can’t do it by yourself. You can’t be the expert in everything. And it’s really a team sport and it’s about kind of getting the best out of your teams in every which way that you can. The second we touched on earlier which is communications. You just have to really really there is no such thing as over communicating whether it’s internally with your teams or externally with your customers and clients when you’re leading a big big project. So many things can kind of derail it and get it off the hinges. So really really communicate communicate communicate. And the last thing is always keep a long term perspective. Right. You know some of these big game changing deals take a year or two to go do. Right. It’s not going to be quick. It’s not going to be three four months and you’re in and out and keep the long term perspective with the customers because you build the customer relationships today and they’re happy. They’ll be around with you for the next 20 years. And I’ve seen it happen to me multiple times where customers I’ve dealt with had a great experience great relationship with them. I’m dealing with them. Ten years after.

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Clip: Asking for Sales Mentoring and Coaching

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

I start with what do I actually need to improve on. Like what do I need to do differently. And I find either a skill set that I don’t have and then I go find out you know who are the best mentors potential mentors for those. And I put a list together of three four or five people and then I’d just go ask them. Scott like I’m completely transparent and honest with them and I’ll say hey I have this issue that I really want to try and address. I want to develop this skill set and you are one of the best people I’ve ever seen do this type of stuff. Could you help and coach me through this. Right. And I’d tell you Scott nine out of 10 times when you come to people for help and ask them for help. I’ve not seen them turn me down. Right. Like people in general are really more very willing to help you if you’re honest and you ask for it. And so you know I approach that the same way. When people come to me for help and I’m in a position where I can actually help them I do so because you need to pay it forward.

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Clip: “Mentors have been tremendously impactful” – Trong Nguyen

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

Mentors have been tremendously impactful to my success and I would tell you without them I would not be here today. And when I say mentors I think you need to kind of look at it in two different perspectives. One is you know around you in terms of you know in your company or outside of your company I actually have a whole bunch of different mentors that help me out with a whole bunch of different areas that I want to improve on. And then the other thing that’s just as important is mentors and coaches at your customers. So I actually all my customers that I’ve ever dealt with and worked with I make sure to develop a network of mentors there to help me kind of think through complex issues in terms of how we kind of relationship how we work different issues that come up between our two companies. And I would tell you without their mentorship and guidance we would have never experienced the success we’ve had with all of my clients. So that’s the view that I kind of take to mentoring in terms of how you kind of build it out. I would say mentorship relationships are like any other relationship right. There’s got to be give and take in so it’s great that you’re getting something from these mentors but also think about how you can actually help and impact them as well. What can you give back to them to kind of enrich their life in some way it whether it be business or personal and then it becomes a two way street. And I think those are the best type of mentor mentoring relationships I’ve seen.

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Clip: Building Relationships at the C-Level

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Clip from Episode 25: Trong Nguyen – Enterprise Sales Success at Microsoft & “Winning the Cloud”:

The standard approach that I see out there is you know sales reps will get a meeting with a CIO CFO CMO c-level suite executive and you know they go in there and they’ll say tell me about your problem. Tell me how we can help. Right. Let me tell you a bit about my company. And usually it’s their first and last conversation with that C-suite executive. The approach that I take is what I said before which is triangulating data at the lowest levels and then eventually raising it up to their level and then from there just be completely honest and transparent with them. I remember one time I met with the CFO at this company and I said you know the first thing I said to him is you know I think you have a problem on your business side. And he said well what do you mean. And he was a I think he was expecting me to tell them how. Know the software package or the technology they’d chosen wasn’t really good and that they should actually buy Microsoft’s. And what I told him was I said I think your mergers and acquisitions strategy is flawed and he was totally taken aback. And he said well what do you mean. I said Well here’s how you do it right. So basically what your company does is they go out there acquire a company and they let the company kind of run as is for the next five years. And then in year six you go in and you tell everyone hey listen you know you’re a part of this company you need to kind of change your processes business processes I.T. processes to align to the company. And you know then you spend the next year fighting them because they’re like wait a minute we’ve been here for the last five years what’s changed? Why do we have to change now? And you know by your aid you win the battle now you’ve lost eight years. What I would have done is you know when you buy the company integrate them from day one. Right. So that there is no issue and you fix it immediately. Right. So he was completely taken aback by that. And at that point I’d actually earn his kind of respect. Right. I earned a bit of trust but I parlayed that first meeting into another series of meetings where I earned so much more trust from him so that that’s how I approach the C-suite.

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