Full Transcript below. Here you can find the condensed show notes.
Intro:
You’re listening to the Sales Success Stories Podcast where we deconstruct world class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1sales.wpengine.com – here’s your host, Scott Ingram.
Scott Ingram:
Today on the Sales Success Stories Podcast, my guest is Claire Philliskirk. Claire is a digital consultant at O2 Telefonica, where she’s never missed a target, and was recently named the 2016 Best Woman in Technology sales Europe at the Women in Sales Awards. Welcome to the show Claire.
Claire Philliskirk:
Hi Scott, thank you very much. I’m so grateful to be here.
Scott Ingram:
I’m glad you’re here too. So if this is the first time you’re listening to the show, then you should know that these conversations can be quite lengthy, but rather than starting with a lot of background, instead we try to get right into the good stuff so you can take something tangible away from just the first ten minutes of conversation. And we do that consistently with all of our episodes, so if you want to check out some previous shows and just listen to the first few minutes, you can use that to help you decide which if these conversations you really want to dig deeply into.
So Claire, with that – what are the top three things that you believe have made you such an amazing seller?
Claire Philliskirk:
[00:01:21] There are so many different attributes of a great salesperson, but if I had to boil it down to three specific things, first of all I would have to say dedication to learning. I think we’re really lucky as salespeople that we work in a really fast-paced environment, but also we need to constantly educate ourselves. Whether that’s learning about new products, whether it’s learning about new processes – even learning about a customer, what their plans or strategies are, so I think dedication is learning is definitely up there.
Scott Ingram:
And what is that for you? Do you carve out time to dig into the learning? What are the sources that you use? How do you apply that?
Claire Philliskirk:
Absolutely, and I think I’m really lucky where I work as well, my boss says to us on a Friday: This is your day to learn really. And also I make a point of an evening to spend an hour where either I’m researching new products or I’m reading articles – I’m a real avid fan of social selling as well. So if I see an article on LinkedIn that looks interesting, I’ll just save it for later. Or if I’ve spoken to a customer and they’ve told me about a product maybe I don’t know about, because technology is moving so fast isn’t it? Industry, everyday something else, news coming along. So I kind of make a note of things that I want to educate myself on, but I always make a note even of an evening for an hour to just read through some articles or watch some videos online.
Scott Ingram:
[00:03:17] That’s fantastic. So dedication to learning is the first thing – what’s number two for you?
Claire Philliskirk:
The second one for me has got to be empathy. So to be a really good salesperson, you’ve got to have that, you’ve got to be in touch with the emotional side of selling, you’ve got to have some empathy. And I think that I actually listened to a Ted Talk recently, and the guy was talking about the givers and the takers, where the givers are real empathetic people and they understand – so I think empathy is a really big one as well.
Scott Ingram:
I wonder if that Ted Talk was… was that Adam Grant?
Claire Philliskirk:
Yeah, it was! It was fantastic.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, that’s well worth checking out – he’s done a lot of research around this idea of giving, and there are some really interesting insights going on there. And then what’s the third thing after learning and being empathetic?
Claire Philliskirk:
The third for me – and you know what, it took me quite a few years to kind of realize I had this – I’ve got a real passion for sales, a real passion for the profession. And I kind of fell into sales, it wasn’t my desire, it wasn’t what I set out to do. And I’ve recently written an article entitled: When I grow pup I want to be in sales – said no-one ever. Because no-one grows up and says do you know what? I want to be a salesperson.
But when you really look at the profession itself, and it’s such a diverse profession, you’ve got to really care about what you’re doing and have real passion for what you do. Anyone starting out a career today, looking for any advice on what to do, I would absolutely advise a profession in sales. I am passionate about it.
Scott Ingram:
[00:05:22] And is it just the field and the role? Or is it your product, or all of the above? How do you think about that passion and how it contributes to your success?
Claire Philliskirk:
It’s got to be a mixture of things. I have a keen interest in technology, and I’m lucky that I sell technology into businesses as part of my role. So the products definitely, that definitely makes a difference. But I think also it depends on how you look at the role. So I don’t go out to work and in front of customers and think – right, I’m going to sell the customer this product today.
I guess I kind of take a step back and think right, what am I going to achieve by selling this? How am I going to help the customer? Whether it’s making them work more effectively, whether it’s helping them hit their targets. And I think another level for me, I also work in a team of 8 people, and I take it upon myself to employ that leadership or mentor role, and I love to share with my colleagues what it is I do. You can get so much from sales, whether you learn about new products, whether you’re mentoring or coaching people and helping them, giving them the tips of the trade that have worked well for you. But essentially helping the customer as well and building that relationship.
Scott Ingram:
[00:06:51] And I wonder if you think that that process actually is a contributor to your success, if you’re taking the time out to teach the rest of your team what’s working in your environment – does that help reinforce those things that you’re doing well? Do you use that as a tool to improve yourself?
Claire Philliskirk:
Yeah, absolutely. And I also use it as a tool to prove that it works. You might deploy a certain methodology or a certain process and it works for a couple of customers, and I think to get that real reinforcement that it is working, what better to do than tell somebody else about it and see it in action with them and see the results there.
Scott Ingram:
So in other words, it’s really helping to expand your sample size, right? Maybe you’ve run three experiments, you’ve tried this a couple times with a couple different clients and it seems to be working, but then by sharing it with the rest of the team you get 10 or 20 more data points and know if this is the thing that’s working or maybe it’s something else.
Claire Philliskirk:
That’s it, and that’s another really important thing. We never really reflect and take stock on what we’ve done. We might take five minutes and think, wow – I’ve been really successful this course, I’ve made a lot of sales, I’ve sold a lot of this product – and what we really need to make time to do is sit back and look at why. What worked? What didn’t work?
There’s so much data out there at our fingertips, we need to be looking at the data as well, and trying to analyze those trends and taking forward the ones that work and showing other people as well.
Scott Ingram:
[00:08:47] Exciting stuff. Before I start to dig deeper into my conversation with Claire, I wanted to quickly suggest that you set yourself up with a free account on Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform that uses AI to find actionable insights on your prospects and customers without all the groundwork. Sign up for Nudge to start building real relationships with your buyers. Just type top1sales.wpengine.com/nudge and get started today, and we would both appreciate you doing that.
So Claire, talk about your role today and how you got to number one?
Claire Philliskirk:
As you mentioned Scott, I’m a digital consultant at 02. It’s probably good if I go back and explain why i took on the role. As a business we’d gone through kind of a transformation, and really wanted to change the way that we worked. So instead of being a sole telecoms provider, we wanted to help businesses along that digital journey, so I thought that’s amazing, that’s so exciting – I want to help do that and act in that consultative capacity to say, where are you at the moment in the journey, and here’s where you maybe need to get to, what are you thinking of, just helping customers.
So I’ve got at the moment 16 business customers and they range in size, complete different industries right from ecommerce through to haulage, and they’re based up and down the UK, all over the world really, global businesses. Some of them have over 2000 employees, some of them have 50 employees.
And what’s really great about the role is that nobody’s the same, and I like to see myself as an extension to their business. I don’t want my customers to look at me and think, oh, it’s Claire from O2, just another supplier; we just want to get the cheapest deal. I want them to look at me as in that advisor capacity. And to have the opportunity to do that was what really attracted me to the business and to really dig deep and help those businesses out.
So I guess it’s an account management type role, but my job is to talk to my customers about all of the technology we have and understand where that can fit in with their business strategy.
Scott Ingram:
[00:11:37] Excellent. And can you quantify your results for us, exactly how well have you done?
Claire Philliskirk:
Last year was a fantastic year for me if I split it into the two financial halves. So in H1 last year, I hit 227% of target, and then in H2 last year I hit 526% of target. And as part of the H2 last year, landed a deal which was recognized as one of the directors at O2 as the most significant deal they’d ever seen in midmarket. So quantity it in terms of figures, I was obviously really pleased with the results last year.
Scott Ingram:
That’s fantastic. And talk about that deal – how did that get started, what made that possible and helped you create the most significant deal that the company’s seen?
Claire Philliskirk:
I was thinking about this before, because I obviously knew I was coming on the show, I figured that specific deal would come up in conversation – and I thought it wasn’t something that just happened overnight. The actual deal itself took about ten months end to end, and if I was to look back and try and identify those kind of points or those elements of it that helped land it and made it a successful deal – the one thing I would say is, it’s so important when you’re selling a large solution to a company to make sure the right stakeholders are involved.
So I uncovered an opportunity really early on, and then a lot of the time in sales you end up doing all this legwork at the frontend, and then one or two months down the line you think you know what? I’m not talking to the right people here! And as well as talking to the right people, making sure that you get buy-in from every single department in the business. Because the chances are, and I speak to a lot of IT departments and IT directors, CEO’s – but actually this solution will also tick some boxes for HR, for finance, for operations – and really making sure that you involve everybody that this is possibly going to benefit.
So that was a big thing for me. And I learned a lesson, because halfway through speaking to customer about that deal, I kind of felt like I’d hit a brick wall. I found this great opportunity, and I had all these great stakeholders involved, and then I felt like I’d hit a brick wall. I had to go away and say to myself, what’s going on Claire? And I traced my steps back – and the customer was saying something to me and do you know what? I wasn’t really listening. Or it was one of those cases where you just hear what you want to hear, and I thought I was really close to closing the deal, but actually the customer had brought something up that I kind of pushed to the side and I didn’t realize at the time how important that was to them.
And in the end, I went back to them and just held my hands up and said, I didn’t listen to you. I know we’ve got this issue which may seem small to me, which is quite big to you that we need to get past first before we move on to the next stage. And so just being really open and honest and having that transparency with the customer was what really contributed to clinching the deal in the end. And building the relationships, it wasn’t something that just happened overnight, it’s something that you’ve got to be persistent and persevere and engage in the right behaviors and it will pay off in the end. And it sure did!
Scott Ingram:
[00:16:14] That’s great. So what I heard, and correct me if I’m wrong – the first thing was you went very wide. You found a lot of stakeholders and figured out how your solution was going to impact all of these different individuals and departments. And then just a little bit of being aware and self-diagnosing that you hadn’t done the best job of listening and being transparent. Once you recognized that issue to circle back and address that, I’m sure what was perceived as either a very large risk for the client, and that ultimately laid the rest of the path for you to get there.
Claire Philliskirk:
Exactly. It’s being aware of those risks and not ignoring them. To me, the seller, it may not even look like a risk or it may be a really small one, but if the customer’s got that in their head, however small it is, you’ve got to overcome that risk or it’s just not going to move forward.
So being really honest with yourself, having that self-realization definitely helps when it comes to big deals like that.
Scott Ingram:
So Claire, you wrote that post on LinkedIn about nobody thinking as a kid that they want to grow up and be in sales – so how did you get here?
Claire Philliskirk:
Growing up I always wanted to be a lawyer, and it wasn’t because I’d watched Suits or anything like that, it was because I perceived that to be an exciting job and I thought I’d get paid loads of money, and I figured I’d get to use my brain and I wanted to go to University. So that’s what I did, I did my exams; I went on to do my law degree. But I think whilst I was doing my law degree, I actually helped a friend set up a business and she saw a gap in the construction industry and traditionally in the UK construction businesses are a little archaic in the way they operate?
And I think she saw a gap, and she said we could be helping these guys sell, because most of the people we dealt with, it was just a handshake on the building site and that was it. But they knew they had to change something, and so she set up her own business and I was doing my law degree, and I said to her – I’m studying, this is my dream, this is what I want to do. I was working part-time for my friend in this construction business and our job was to generate leads and sales for different companies in the construction industry.
So I think of that as my first real taste of sales. And I loved it; I was meeting lots of different customers, putting different strategies in place, as she brought in new starters I was training those guys up. But I always had it in my head that I wanted to be a lawyer. And so when I finished my studies and got a job at a law firm, a really innovative law firm actually and I was lucky because not only could I get exposure to the legal side of things, they also sold technology.
So I went into the law firm with this view of becoming a lawyer, shadowed some of the lawyers and dabbled in a bit of legal work. And I thought, you know what I don’t think this is what I really want to do. I had to sit down and think – what do you enjoy doing? What makes you tick? When you get home at night, what do you look back on in your day and think, I’ve really enjoyed that?
And it always came back to the sales piece. And I ended up in a role at the law firm that didn’t have a sales title actually. I ended up managing the team, but part of the role was to sell the technology platform, and I absolutely loved it. I think I knew then that was what I wanted to do. It was I guess my love for sales and then technology, and it just came together at the law firm. And I ended up working at a global bank there which an amazing experience, then moved on to carry on with the sales in my job today.
But I’ve done it on and off, I do say that we are all salespeople, and I don’t think we realize that we’re selling sometimes, since the age of 21 I’ve always been a salesperson.
Scott Ingram:
[00:21:43] And talk about… obviously most of the listeners to the podcast are in sales, ut maybe they want to expose their kids to this and have them think about the potential of sales, and I know that’s something you are passionate about. How would you articulate what it’s about? I think there are so many misconceptions, when we think oh I would never want to go into sales because it’s something… and they’re thinking of some stereotype that’s not at all accurate. How would you articulate what it’s really about to somebody that’s young, thinking about what they want to be when they grow up?
Claire Philliskirk:
You’re so right, because I’ve experienced it firsthand. I’ll never forget my daughter saying to me when I said I worked in sales. She said – I’m not telling my friends that, your job in the law firm sounded so much better. [laughs] And I thought, maybe I just need to tell my daughter exactly what it is I do.
I think in order to articulate the profession it goes back to my passion for the profession. Sales is at the helm of every single person’s business out there. You need to interact with so many different functions of the business and you need to know so much detail to work in sales. You need to know what makes the business money, where the highest profit margins are, what are the products, you need to liaise with senior stakeholders at that level.
You also need to be a really good collaborator, and I make a point of saying it, because there’s a stereotype of salespeople that all they do is party. And yeah, we do – we work hard and we play hard. But I make this comment about bringing the right people to the party, and if you’re selling something, especially if it’s a pretty complex solution and it’s a slow burner and a real consultative sale – you’ve got to bring the right people to that party, and that takes skill. And not just with the customer, but internally in your business. The skills that you need to be a successful salesperson are on par with the skills that you might need to be a CEO.
Most businesses I guarantee, I have read a statistic somewhere, I think about 80% of CEO’s out there were once in sales, whether they were head of sales in that business or head of sales elsewhere. But it just goes to show.
Scott Ingram:
[00:24:49] And it’s one of those things I think sort of forces you to learn and grow probably faster than almost any other profession, and I tell people it’s the best way to really understand something is either to do it, but there’s a really long learning curve from a professional education perspective; or you could sell it.
And I think the process of selling it, because you interact with so many different people and you see it from so many different angles, and you have to learn very rapidly everything, because you can’t be credible if you don’t understand. So it just sort of pushes you to accelerate that learning curve, and it’s something that I’ve applied to a lot of things. There have been a few things that I’ve been very keenly interested in – much like you, I love technology. Well one of the ways that I could learn technology is I could do it, but that’s kind of lifelong, you have to sit behind a keyboard [laughs] and stop having fun and get very narrowly focused – or think about it more broadly. Interesting stuff.
Claire Philliskirk:
We are in the perfect position to learn, going back to the technology side. Yeah, I’m interested in software and artificial intelligence and automation, and sure I could sit there and do the developer type stuff, but actually I’m learning so much more by selling that stuff. But also by going out and doing my own research. We’re in a great position and it’s my job!
Scott Ingram:
Since you’ve been in more traditional sales roles, where have you found the most challenge or the most struggle?
Claire Philliskirk:
I would have to say since I’ve been in the more traditional roles, is that part I talked about before in terms of bringing the right stakeholders to the table. That’s not an easy thing to do. There’s an element of persuasion, influence to even get that person to accept a call or a meeting with you. You’ve got a lot of legwork to do before they even will come to the table.
So I think that’s been a challenge, and one of the ways I’ve overcome that over the last 12 months – and I’ve shared this with my team – I am a prolific user of social media and LinkedIn, and I use it so much in my role to engage with those senior stakeholders, and it works.
Scott Ingram:
[00:27:53] Talk about that a little bit more, how specifically are you leveraging that? Because I think that’s an area that everyone can always do better at, getting those stakeholders to the table whether it’s a brand new account or more people in an account you’re already engaged with.
Claire Philliskirk:
Not that some of the traditional methods don’t work, because I’m still a big fan of picking up the phone, I don’t think salespeople do that enough these days; but sending an email to somebody – we all know we get hundreds of emails a day, you kind of just skip through it all, we delete it. But I think with social media especially LinkedIn for business, it’s kind of a new thing for a lot of senior stakeholders out there. But also sharing content – one thing I find really successful, I’ll just give you an example. I had a customer that works in the ecommerce and retail business, and I was really struggling to get a hold of the IT director.
And I thought to myself, what would interest me, what could one of my suppliers do that would prick me into thinking I want to talk to that person? And so I did some research into their industry and I found some really good articles. And I went onto LinkedIn and I sent the value article, and I just said: been researching a bit about your industry, I found this, I thought you might find it really interesting. And you know what? It worked. And it’s taking that interest and kind of going that little bit further to say I’ve got your back here, I want to help you out. Be proactive and say this is what’s happening in the industry if you didn’t already know, here it is. And he really appreciated that, and that was the start of a really good relationship for me.
Scott Ingram:
And I think that ties back so well to your second point earlier around empathy – it sounds like you really put yourself in the shoes of this person, in this role, in this company – what would I care most about? What would I be interested in? And then you really went to go seek that out, and that opened the door, now you’ve got a relationship, now you’ve got a conversation that leads to many more things.
Claire Philliskirk:
That’s it. To emphasize there, I couldn’t do that with every single person, but it goes back to the empathy thing, understanding what makes them tick, that’s exactly what it is.
Scott Ingram:
And are there other tools that you use to understand that ticking sound? [laughs] It sounds like you use a lot of LinkedIn-
Claire Philliskirk:
Stalking them on LinkedIn? [laughs] professional stalking?
Scott Ingram:
Beyond what I like to call social stalking, are there other things that you do to get in their head and understand what’s making them tick?
Claire Philliskirk:
Going right the way back to basics, understanding what their strategy is as a business. And it may be as simple as going on their website and looking at their annual report or just looking at some of the newsfeeds on there, looking at the company Twitter, just taking an interest and being on the same page as them.
Scott Ingram:
Sure, makes a lot of sense. So Claire, let’s switch gears a little bit. Do you have a specific morning routine you follow? When do you get up, how does your day start?
Claire Philliskirk:
This is the dreaded question for me – my mornings are like absolute chaos. I don’t get up every morning and ten miles or anything – I’d love to, but I guess no one day is the same for me. I could be out on the road, or at the office, I’m in meetings or I’m working from home – and I guess the only morning routine I have because I’ve got two children is we absolutely have to sit down together for a few minutes and we have to talk. No phones, no iPads, no technology, we have to talk. And that’s kind of a life routine I guess.
Not to say I don’t have any routine in my life at all, I guess a couple of things that I like to do. I’ll always make a list before I go to sleep of the top things I need to do that next day, because if I’ve written it down and it’s gone from my mind I can get a good night’s sleep and nothing’s going to keep me awake at night because I know it’s on the list and I’ll deal with it in the morning or the next day.
I guess a couple of other routine things I could mention… I’m a real strong believer that you need to nurture and look after your mind. So I always make a point of doing yoga twice a week, just two one-hour sessions and I just feel like I’m giving my mind a bit of a break, that relaxation. And I make a point of educating myself every day for an hour at least, whether reading an article or even just sitting down with some of the solutions specialists at our business and saying I really want to know more about this.
So I don’t have any specific morning routine because it’s pretty manic in our house in the morning! But that’s just a few things I make a point of doing every week.
Scott Ingram:
[00:34:35] Before I harass you a little bit more on the habits and routines, I’ve got a bit of a little bonus for our listeners. My friend Craig Rosenberg who many people know as the funnelholic is getting ready to host the second annual TOPO summit in San Francisco on April 12th and 13th, and what makes that event really unique is all the presenters are actual practitioners, much like this show.
So I’ll be there, I would love to connect with you in person and you can get all the details at top1fm/topo. We also have a ticket to the event that we’re going to give away in our Sales Success Community on February 24th, so if you’re not already in the community you can get over to top1sales.wpengine.com, get on the mailing list, that automatically prompts an invite to that community and you can find the TOPO challenge from there.
So Claire, I have a feeling – I’m trying to become a psychic, that’s the next thing I’m working on – [laughter] are you a night owl?
Claire Philliskirk:
Yip!
Scott Ingram:
Here’s what I’m finding, and maybe I’m going to have to switch up the way that I ask this question – the night owl folks, they do not have morning routines! Morning is chaos, morning is hell – but I would guess then that you have more a structured evening routine in the way that you approach things. And you talked about that list, getting everything out of your head, preparing for the next day.
Are there other things that you’re doing in the evening to set yourself up for success.
Claire Philliskirk:
I don’t watch much TV but I do like to read. So of an evening, and I’ve got a few books that I’ve read a lot of times and I’ll go back to. And I always record, just on my phone and my notes, what I’ve done in the day. What’s been good, what’s been bad, what I’ve enjoyed and sometimes it’s just one or two sentences. But I think that’s really important, to reflect on the day. So I’ll read some articles, I’ll write a couple of sentences in my notes about what I’ve done that day, what’s been great, what maybe hasn’t – and I’ll make that list when I eventually go to sleep, it might be a bit later, it’s off my mind, and sometimes I’ll read a book as well.
And it doesn’t happen that often, I’m a very positive person, but if I’ve had a day where i think I’m not feeling that positive today, one book that I absolutely swear by is a book called Taming Tigers by Jim Lawless. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?
Scott Ingram:
I haven’t!
Claire Philliskirk:
Oh it’s fantastic. And even if I just read a few pages from that book, it brings me back up and then I wake up the next day raring to go!
Scott Ingram:
That’s awesome. So you’re doing a little bit of a journaling exercise, do you use that in other way? Like do you go back and review that? How do you use that?
Claire Philliskirk:
I actually don’t, but I guess I should practice what I preach – because I said earlier about looking back on things that worked and didn’t work in sales, we should always revisit that. I guess for me the reason I do it is it kind of gets it off my chest and then it also makes me realize how I’m feeling and what I may need or not need to do in order to bring yourself back up to that positive state of mind.
Scott Ingram:
[00:38:50] So it’s almost more of a self-awareness exercise, it’s helping you understand here’s what’s going on, here’s what I’m seeing and so you’re getting that benefit right then.
Claire Philliskirk:
And also it does set me up for the next day. If something’s not gone well, and I always reflect on any meeting I’ve had with a customer, and I’m very much a go with your instinct kind of girl, go with your gut – and if something just didn’t feel right, I’ll reflect on it later on in the day and think what was it? And then I’ll go back to it, maybe later the next day – and I think that’s also important.
Scott Ingram:
And obviously, it’s come up a lot, the education and the learning is really important to you. What does your information diet look like? Are there places that you’re going to most consistently to get that learning? Is it books, is it articles, is it podcasts, what are those sources for you?
Claire Philliskirk:
I read a lot of articles on LinkedIn and also on Twitter. I’ve got the Ted Talks app on my phone and I listen to those, I’ve got a really great friend that works in learning development and she often sends me links. In fact she sent me a link earlier from Brendon Burchard and I love his work. His work’s really good.
And going onto the whole learning and my information diary, I guess I do spend a fair bit of time in the car, and I like to listen to music in the car, but I’ll listen to some motivational talks and maybe some audiobooks in the car as well just so I know that I’m making use of that time. And when it comes to books, I love reading the inspirational books and self-help books, if I could pick a few that I absolutely swear by, because some of them do have the same content, but I think you can pick certain things from them and take away those things.
So I mentioned Taming Tigers by Jim Lawless, and it’s absolutely amazing, he talks about being really bold and taking risks, but calculated risks, and I always refer back to that book. And another book by a guy Pat Divilly, he wrote a book called Upgrade your Life. And then not a book, but actually something that somebody recommended to me recently because I’ve got a bit of an over-reactive brain, I don’t know if that’s a salesperson trait, but I have. I have all these ideas going around, all these things I want to do and actually I need some kind of structure to that. So a friend of mine recently recommended a goal-mapping website, it’s by a guy called Brian Mayne. So you go on, it’s free, and you fill out this goal mapping, you put some pictures on as well so you can really visualize it, and you look at it every day and you add to it. You say how am I going to get there, and who do I need to help me get there – that’s a brilliant tool as well. I think those things are really important.
Scott Ingram:
[00:42:35] And is that called goal mapping?
Claire Philliskirk:
Yeah, it’s goal mapping online.
Scott Ingram:
Awesome. We’ll include all of this stuff in the show notes, so if you’re in the car listening, you can just go to top1sales.wpengine.com and we’ll have links to everything that Claire has talked about. So Claire, how would you describe your style as a seller?
Claire Philliskirk:
I’m not one to go in for the sale straight away, even if I knew there was a clear opportunity there. Another thing that salespeople need to be, you’ve got to be inquisitive. I like to understand exactly what selling this product is going to do for this customer, and so I do a lot of research on the customer and get as much information as I can out of them.
I don’t how you would describe that style, but it goes back to the consultative selling I think. I think if you do that and you’re really inquisitive then you’ve got a whole heap of information to go with. And some people just naturally spot an opportunity right away anyway. If you’ve got all this information, then you’ll find so much opportunity in that. It’s about the preparation and the pre-work that you do.
Scott Ingram:
And it sounds like that ties to the conversation that I had with Debe Rapson, she talked about using discovery as discovery, so not having that agenda of what am I going to sell and how am I going to position? And instead just saying we’ll get to that, but right now it’s just gathering as much information as you can and understanding and then having an opportunity to consume that. And you came from a law background, so maybe you’re doing, think of it as legal discovery, you’re do legal discovery and then you build a case, and then you pick up the case.
Claire Philliskirk:
Exactly. And just touching upon something you said there about that agenda. I think if you go into any kind of sale or opportunity with a sincere agenda, something good will always come of it. You can still have an agenda, that’s not a problem, but don’t make your agenda I just want to sell something, I just want to make a load of money. There’s got to be some other substance behind it.
Scott Ingram:
[00:45:35] And do you think about that and communicate that to the client? So when you’re setting that meeting or introducing the conversation because you’re going to sit down with somebody for an hour let’s say – do you set that up with them in some way?
Claire Philliskirk:
In terms of setting up the expectations for the meeting?
Scott Ingram:
Yeah exactly.
Claire Philliskirk:
Absolutely. I’ll always have… not in a manipulative way, but I’ll have my own agenda, I’ll know. So before I go into any meeting, I’ll know exactly what I want to find out, and sometimes it may just be as simple as where does the business want to go in the next 12 months. I’ll know in my head the type of information that I want find out, but I think it’s important to manage expectations and say to them, this first meeting I don’t want to talk specific products, I don’t want to talk pricing – what I really want to do is understand what it is you’re trying to achieve. Otherwise you can get into a meeting and they want to jump straight in and talk about price – and you could give them a price and probably sell them something there and then, but that’s not sustainable. Chances are 6, 12 months down the line they’re going to come to you and say that’s not the best product, or when it comes to renewal they’re not going to renew.
Scott Ingram:
[00:47:08] I think that’s the key there, setting that expectation. Because if you go in and you don’t set that, here’s the plan – what they’re then expecting is I want to get a price, I want to know what the products are, I want all these other things, and if that’s not what you want there’s just a disconnect and nobody’s going to get what they want at the end of the day.
Claire Philliskirk:
Yeah. And it doesn’t mean you can never talk about price. You might have ten meetings with the customer, and it gets to that point where you may have been avoiding talking about price because the customer doesn’t want to. So again, just set expectations. So you say to the customer whether it’s over the phone or face to face, I’m going to come in today, we’ve talked about this whole list of products and solutions and what you’re trying to achieve – what I want to understand today is what’s your budget?
And they really appreciate that open and honest stance, and sometimes you have to be a bit bold in sales – well, a lot of the time! But what have I got to lose by going to the customer – if it’s the right time of course, I’m not going to say what’s your budget at the first meeting – but you’ve got nothing to lose. We’ve explored every single option and done that discovery piece, so if it’s the right time, and most successful salespeople know it’s the right time – then you talk about price.
Scott Ingram:
[00:48:43] Claire, is there a particular sales methodology or process that you follow or has informed this style of yours?
Claire Philliskirk:
We do employ a sales methodology called CCV, which is basically Creating Client Value. And it kind of follows four stages. The first stage is the awareness of needs, the discovery piece. And to me, that’s the most important stage.
The second stage would be that alleviation of risk. We talked about risk before, when the customer’s maybe looking at other competitors or they’re weighing up the risks of taking this product. Also a really important phase as well, and you are never going to get to the next stage which is decision, until you’ve alleviated those risks.
And so the next stage is pretty self-explanatory, the decision stage, the customer says yes we want to go with you, great. And then the final stage would be almost the follow-up to the sale, which is super important because then hopefully what that does is it just starts you back on that cycle and you can find another opportunity.
But you absolutely need to follow up with anything that… if it’s a transactional sale it’s completely different, if it’s a solution you absolutely need to follow up with and say this is what we talked about before you bought the product, this is what we said it would achieve, has it achieved that? And then the customer is also reaffirming to you that you’ve done a good job, and that’s satisfying actually.
Scott Ingram:
[00:50:42] Yeah, absolutely. It obviously lays the groundwork for the trust that you need to go do the next, and hopefully bigger, deal.
Claire Philliskirk:
Exactly. Like you say it lays the foundations for me to then maybe talk to them about another product and they’ll be open to talking about something else if you’ve done a really good job the first time around.
Scott Ingram:
So Claire, I’m curious what your perspective is on the difference between you and your level of success and maybe the average performer in your organization? What do you think is the difference and why you’ve been able to get where you are and they’re not there yet?
Claire Philliskirk:
It could be a number of things, and it will be different things with different people, and I say that only because I’ve observed it firsthand, not just where I am now but in the past. Some people genuinely just do lack the basics like setting expectations, even right down to having a really good agenda in place. I really care about what I do, and I care about the customers – I don’t know how to explain it but I think it’s the empathy, I really do.
Because if I look at over the years, the different salespeople I’ve worked alongside, not to say they’ve not been successful, but they’ve not reached that level. It’s not hard to have a great deal of empathy or emotional intelligence. I think that is definitely a key difference.
Scott Ingram:
It’s so interesting that you say this. One of the things I have been really working to get my head around is obviously women in sales are a minority. But I’m seeing with some level of consistency, obviously the deck is getting stacked a little here because I’ve reached out to a lot of folks that won a woman in sales award. Let’s put that aside, but even before I made that effort, I would say something like half of the organizations I reached out to it seemed like there was a woman who was in the number one spot in that sales organization, and sure as heck they don’t represent 50% of the sales force.
And so I’ve been trying to understand why is it? Why are women so consistently at the top in sales? And at the same time I’d say just anecdotally, I see very few women anywhere near the bottom. And I think so far that it is this empathy. As I talk with these women who are killing it, 527%, that’s impressive. It’s this idea that’s not about them, they’re really focused on the outcome and what their customer is really wanting and trying to achieve, and they are working like heck to help them get there, and then the results just sort of happen, they fall into place. Do you think that’s accurate? Am I missing something?
Claire Philliskirk:
No, I think you’re spot on. And not to disrespect you men out there, but we’re pretty good listeners as well. And I think that’s super important, to be able to listen. And we’re pretty rubbish at about ourselves you know? Because most of the time it’s not really about us, it goes back to that sincere agenda, but I think you’re absolutely right in that if you are looking for that correlation between these women that are super successful and at the top of their game, the empathy aspect has got to play a part in it, definitely.
Scott Ingram:
[00:55:06] And this is kind of a continuation – how do you think about closing a deal?
Claire Philliskirk:
I wouldn’t say I’m absolutely not pushy and say it’s got to be signed by this date, that’s not my approach. I’m pretty certain, I will say to a customer – what date can we expect sign-off on this – but I don’t really push it. I think that the work you’ve done prior to getting that deal signed off pretty much sets you up to get it anyway.
Scott Ingram:
And that aligns with my thinking in general – I think when we create unnatural pressure it screws up the relationship, it messes up the deal, it’s all about the work that you do before that and how you set up that trajectory. And then the deal closing is just a natural next thing that happens, that’s not the big deal. The big deal is now how do we make the customer successful because I don’t think of just that one transaction.
Claire Philliskirk:
I think that’s why I struggle to answer the question, because I don’t think about that aspect of the deal as being the most. It is actually just a natural thing if you do the perform the other stages before that in the right way.
Scott Ingram:
So what are the most important aspects?
Claire Philliskirk:
Absolutely the awareness of needs part, the discovery part.
Scott Ingram:
And how do you think about qualifying in terms of deciding which opportunities you’re going to pursue and those you might chose to walk away from?
Claire Philliskirk:
I think some of them you just go with your instinct – I’m pretty persistent as well, there’s probably not many that I walk away from! [laughs] sometimes I’ll get to a point where I think, this isn’t the right solution for this customer, and actually they’re only going to come back to us in 6 or 12 months’ time and say this doesn’t work. It goes back to engaging in the type of behavior that will give you sustainable results. There are times when you’ve got to say this isn’t right. And I’ve worked with sales people who have said I’ve got a great relationship with these guys, I can sell them anything, even if they didn’t need it – and they probably could. But that’s not… there’s got to be some synergy there. I always see it as whatever it is, it’s got to hit two sweet spots. The customer’s sweet spot, a product or a service that they will genuinely get some benefit from, and when it comes to renewal they will actually renew it – and then it’s got to hit your sweet spot as well. You’ve got to feel confident that what you’ve sold is the right thing and at the same time it will help hit your targets. And as long as your intentions are sincere, you’ll always get the results.
Scott Ingram:
Awesome. Claire let me do something a little bit different with this next section, I’m just going to call it the advice from Claire section – we’ll give you your own column. And I think about this as however you want to tackle it – what advice would you give to somebody who’s starting their sales career, perhaps starting in a new role. What advice would you give to somebody who has been at it a while and is either doing ok, but could be doing better; and somebody at the top who’s crushing it, they’re number one, maybe this is the advice for your sales section! How do you maintain that, how do you continue delivering those results? Make some of those suggestions and give that advice however you want to approach it.
Claire Philliskirk:
[01:00:00] Somebody new to the role, I would say absolutely embrace it, don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’ve spent so many years in my life probably being a bit of a control freak, and because I want to be the best at everything, to ask for help – not now, but say ten years ago – I thought that’s a bit of a weakness. But don’t be scared to ask for help and don’t be scared to reach out to those people that are successful and say help, how do you do it? That’s what I would say to the newbies to the sales profession.
To the sales people that might be struggling a little it, it goes back to what we said before about looking back on what’s worked and what hasn’t and changing the way you do things, because obviously something’s not working if you’re not getting anywhere. So you’ve got to make some type of change, and sometimes that can be as simple as changing your attitude, attitude is so important.
And to lead on to the people that are on top of their game, really successful – I guarantee that the reason they’re there is because of their attitude. That’s the big element of it, you’ve got to believe in yourself and what you can do.
Scott Ingram:
And how do you work on that for yourself? How do you maintain that attitude and that level of belief in yourself?
Claire Philliskirk:
You’ve got to look at what you’ve done and I guess… not congratulate, I was going to say talk to yourself, I do talk to myself quite a lot actually! [laughs] But I think it goes back to my routine. If I feel myself slipping or I’m feeling a bit rubbish at the end of the day then do things or speak to people that are going to bring you back up to that level.
I know if I’ve had a rubbish day and I’m feeling a bit negative, I’ve got three really good friends that I know I’ll call up and they’ll instantly bring me back to that level. And I do it for them as well. I guess it’s all about your lifestyle and that self-worth. Or read a book, reading Taming Tigers!
Scott Ingram:
[01:02:56] I’m looking forward to reading that book, you obviously lean on it a lot, so I’m very curious to see what’s in there. And then Claire, what would you want to know of other top sellers who were in the same position as you – what would you want to know and learn from them?
Claire Philliskirk:
I would want to know what their… when you reach the top, do they think it’s healthy or the right decision to stay there? At what point do they think right, now it’s time to move on? I’m not saying move on company-wise, but they’ve obviously mastered some pretty amazing skills to get to that point, so at what point do they say it’s time to move on to something else now? Or do they just stay there and maintain that successful streak and just stay there?
Scott Ingram:
How do you think about that for yourself?
Claire Philliskirk:
This is why I’m asking the question Scott! Because I don’t know! [laughs]
Scott Ingram:
I know, that’s why I like to turn it around.
Claire Philliskirk:
I think it goes back to what do I get, what motivates me, what can I write down in my little notes at the end of the day and think I felt really good about doing that? I felt really fulfilled? I always, regardless of what role I’m in, I always tend to gravitate towards mental type roles. Because I absolutely love helping other people, and I love to see other people succeed as well, so I think for me I’ll naturally progress into a role, a mentor leadership type role. But I don’t know when, I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing, I still feel like I’ve got stuff to learn and help members of the team.
Scott Ingram:
[01:05:19] So Claire, what I think I’m hearing from you is the question really comes about when you’re not growing or you don’t see the opportunity to either grow or contribute anymore.
Claire Philliskirk:
You’re absolutely right.
Scott Ingram:
So as long as you’re in a position, you might be number one, maybe you’ve been number one for a long time – as long as you feel like I’m still growing and/or still contributing it’s all good, but if one of those things goes away, maybe it’s time to reflect heavily.
Claire Philliskirk:
Definitely, and if I’m in a position where I’m not getting that fulfillment out of it, then it’s time to
Scott Ingram:
Yeah. Claire, who’s the very most successful salesperson that you know personally?
Claire Philliskirk:
Not a traditional salesperson, it’s a bit cliché actually, but I have to say my dad. He’s really good at selling himself, he really is. And he’s an absolutely great person and everyone loves him, he’s very inspirational. And we’re all salespeople.
Scott Ingram:
Absolutely. I love that. So to wrap it up what I try and do is we’ve been talking for well over an hour now and to try and distill this and make it actionable for the person listening to this who is looking to improve themselves, they want to grow, they want to see success in their own sales career – what challenge would you give to them? What is something they can take on over the next week or two weeks that’s going to make a tangible difference for them?
Claire Philliskirk:
I would challenge them to pick a handful of customers, maybe customers they’ve not yet broken into that relationship with, and the same customers that they’ve been successful with, and just ask what they’ve been doing. Because we don’t… I think a lot of the time we do stuff without realizing it, but I think analyze what you’ve been doing, what’s been good, what’s not been good?
And then just do a bit of trial and error. Try and test that with some of the customers and share it, absolutely share the wealth of information that we all have. Help someone else be successful.
Scott Ingram:
What a great challenge, I think that’s my favorite one so far. Claire, this has been fantastic – thank you so much for spending your time with me today.
Claire Philliskirk:
Thank you so much, it’s been amazing.
[music]
Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast – to be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive – subscribe to our newsletter at top1sales.wpengine.com.