Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:
Would you say that the business acumen and the financial acumen was more relevant and more valuable than the sales skills that he developed. No question. You know and I say that because after a while like you know usually for us your point of contact is an I.T. manager I.T. director and you’re sort of in this middle management space right of technology owners is what I would call them. And so just being able to have this business finance you know experience and skill set, you know really help when you get to the decision makers, right when you get to a repeat or c-level. You know point of contact or relationship that you have to build. You know they’re not focused on a lot of that day to day tactical execution like someone in the middle management space might be you know. So having this other set of skills around just having a business conversation, especially understanding financials knowing and learning how the Microsoft sales cycle works is for a lot of my customers like nothing nothing moved until the CFO put a signature on it. And so being able to just know like when I got in a conversation with you know with a CFO or a CEO whatever the case may be is knowing that I’m coming in with their sort of their lens or their perspective spending time with you know like CEOs before or CFOs. I know what you are ready to talk about like I’m ready for what you’re going to say. And then I also before the meeting I’m able to really prep and make sure I have deliverables to that to the customer at that level. That makes sense and that they’re going to be able to digest you know make a decision off of at the end of the day which is yes or no. I just want to get them to go forward or not. And so you know I definitely think the blend of the business and the finance skills you know coupled with you know being able to sell which is it. You got to do that too. But before that you have to be able to disarm them and make them you know credibility built with them like you do. No you know you do know what you’re talking about. You know and you know Microsoft and you know are our investments. OK so now what’s the recommendation.
If you’d like to share this clip (please do!) you’ll have the most sharing options available on the YouTube clip itself.
- 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”
- “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
- Sales: Do you really want to do this?
- 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