Episode 137: Chris McNeill - Solving the Sales Puzzle Through Strategic Focus

Chris McNeill is the top Enterprise Sales Executive at Infinite Convergence Solutions, an organization that provides innovative messaging and mobility solutions and next-generation wireless communication technologies to mobile operators and enterprises. Chris is an incredibly considerate and empathetic sales professional who always puts his customers first and places a tremendous amount of value on the customer relationship. In his order of operations, it goes: customer, company, Chris; meaning that, in everything he does, Chris puts the customer and the company before himself. Chris is a big fan of puzzles and likes to keep things interesting. In fact, part of the reason he entered sales as a profession was because he wanted to conquer the challenge of selling.

In this episode, Chris reflects on his sales origin story and provides detailed insights into how he’s been able to achieve such tremendous success. He shares the three things that he attributes most to his success, including the value he places on customer relationships, delivering on his commitments, and always seeking to become a better version of himself. Chris hates complacency and is always looking for that next big challenge. It’s just simply how he’s wired. Chris takes the audience through a typical day in the life, from his early mornings playing with his dogs and mapping his day out to his time blocking process and his unique alarm clock that alerts him when it’s time to stop working for the day. Chris expounds on what motivates and drives him and speaks to the commitment he made to himself the day he decided to pursue sales.

Chris is also strategic in everything he does, which is a crucial component to his sales success. Chris learned early on about the 80/20 Rule and chooses to dedicate most of his focus to the aspects of his job that yield the best results and highest ROI. Finally, Chris issues an actionable challenge to the audience. He challenges you to go through your calendar and make sure every meeting has an agenda that’s clear on what will be covered and what’s in it for your prospect. Make sure it’s from the prospect’s perspective and that it is respectful, clear, and concise. Then, get confirmations the day before those meetings; it’s a simple way to make sure your meetings hold and drastically increase your chances at closing. Chris highly encourages listeners to reach out with questions or just to simply engage in a conversation!

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott takes a moment to thank today’s sponsors RevenueGrid, QuotaPath & Vidyard
00:40 – Scott introduces today’s guest, Chris McNeill
01:23 – The top three things Chris attributes to his success
01:52 – Number One: The value he places on customer relationships
03:06 – Number Two: Delivering on his commitments
04:36 – Number Three: Always seeking a better version of himself
06:07 – Chris’ role at Infinite Convergence Solutions
08:14 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, RevenueGrid
08:43 – Chris’ sales origin story
12:52 – Chris quantifies his sales results
13:47 – Scott takes a moment to thank another one of today’s sponsors, QuotaPath
14:23 – What Chis would do differently if given the chance
16:18 – The importance of building a network
20:06 – How Chris became an involved member of the Sales Success Community
25:04 – Scott takes a moment to issue an actionable challenge for listeners to try Vidyard, the final (and longest-tenured) sponsor of today’s episode
25:54 – Chris’ favorite sales story
29:40 – The amount of painstaking work that goes into each deal
34:39 – Chris’ proudest accomplishment
36:44 – The most challenging part of Chris’ role
37:52 – Chris takes the audience through a typical day in the life
42:12 – The core components that make up a textbook Chris McNeill meeting agenda
44:35 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Chris consumes
48:05 – Chris’ tech stack
50:20 – Blocking time to process and debrief each conversation
52:22 – Chris’ sales philosophy
54:20 – NOTE, explained
56:18 – Chris’ sales style
57:27 – What motivates and drives Chris
58:22 – One of Chris’ beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
59:03 – An average sales professional’s belief that Chris thinks is crazy
1:00:49 – Advice Chris would give to an upstart sales professional
1:02:33 – Advice Chris would give to his younger self
1:04:17 – Final words of wisdom from Chris
1:05:20 – Chris issues an actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“What I think has helped me succeed is just following through. When I keep it simple and follow-through, especially for my customers, then it doesn’t matter if my process isn’t perfect. As long as I’m delivering on those commitments and consistently executing along the way, it seems to work out in the end.” (04:01)

“The number one piece of advice that I give anybody in any profession is to build a network. Spend time and invest some time in building a network of colleagues and professionals outside of your company because you can learn so much from them.” (16:18)

“Being a strategic seller is vastly different from when I started in channel sales.” (30:18)

“I subscribe to all of them and none of them. I think that sellers are here to help solve problems. My philosophy is that I’m here to help others. That is my philosophy as a seller. I help my customers find solutions. I help my company find customers. And I help the people downstream of me find success in their jobs.” (52:29)

“What I love about selling is every conversation is a brand-new puzzle. Every opportunity is a new puzzle. And so, I’m not likely to get bored.” (58:04)

Sponsors Mentioned:

Revenue Grid
QuotaPath
Vidyard

Episode 137: Chris McNeill – Solving the Sales Puzzle Through Strategic Focus

What We Covered:

Tweetables:

Links Mentioned:

Sponsors Mentioned: