Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:
The first thing I really ask people to ask themselves is “Do you really want to do this?” And the reason why I start that way because it’s usually don’t as close in it questions like that. But at the end of the day it’s, you need to know if you really want to do it. And reason why is because it you know we just talked to this right. There’s a lot that comes of being an account manager or going into sales in general. That is not the same as some other roles or professions. And you know there’s just there’s things that are taxing on especially if you’re looking at being in that 1 percent you know that there’s just more that you have to do whether seen or unseen that gets you to that point. And so you have to really want that right. It’s just like if you want to be a professional athlete like that 2 percent of a population do you really want that? And do you want what comes with it. It’s not even do you want it, of course you want it. It’s like you want what comes with it. So that’s it. That’s like my first question that lead them to advises.
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- Managing leadership expectations around admin work and sales forecasting
- Having a business conversation based on earnings calls
- Building relationships in inside sales “I humanized everything”
- Learning about business, entrepreneurship and finance to win in sales
- “I’m going to do whatever it takes for my customer to be successful”
- Business acumen and financial acumen are more important than sales skills especially at the c-level
- “At the end of the day a great seller doesn’t always sell”
- Building trust and influence by telling a customer “No”
- “#1 comes with a price”
- Getting out of the data and just having conversations to build pipeline
- “I would spend about 4-5 hours a day just talking to customers”
- Effectively introducing yourself to existing customers as their new account manager
- Phil’s toolkit for managing a territory of 168 accounts
- Using gratitude to stay sane “given the stress that sellers have”
- Keeping a clean email inbox
- Staying focused on the results and on selling time
- After a call, when the information is freshest, go document it
- “I had one day every week where I didn’t talk to existing customers” Going after all new customers
- The mentality that it takes to get to #1
- Having a quarterback mentality “I wanted to put in 150% so that way at least I hit quota”
- Leading the team as an individual contributor
- From Top Account Manager to Sales Enablement at Microsoft
- How are you going to differentiate yourself from the millions of other sellers?
- “Think about that territory or book of business as your own business”
- You should enjoy it with a passion or you should do something else because you won’t be successful