If you don't put something urgent and provocative in front of the buyer in the first 90 seconds of your call, your buyer will step into the vacuum and fill it themselves. They'll fill it with rote questions, flawed categorization, indifference, false objections, a recitation of numerical parameters or something worse. I'll leave you with a tip to help you fill the void. Make this the first sentence of your next sales meeting: "We've looked at your business, and there's one big issue we don't think you recognize. And if it's not addressed, you'll be missing a huge opportunity."
You know what we could use more of in digital sales? Cause and effect. Intentionality. Some good old fashioned I did this and then they did that. Instead -- too often -- sellers go through the motions of the capabilities presentation or the big idea pitch and then expect - OK, maybe hope - that an approval or an insertion order materializes somewhere down the line. What's missing are the numbers on the yardstick... the measurable, incremental answers and victories that get us from here to the sale. As a result, sellers assign far too much value (and time and resources) to the presentation and not nearly enough to running a great pipeline.
A sales call or meeting is like a drive on the highway. The two most critical moments - the only ones that matter, really - are the on-ramp and the off-ramp. Survive these and the rest of the trip will take care of itself. The answer is surprisingly simple. Have a plan and practice it. Open your calls quickly and decisively. Close them slowly and thoughtfully. And watch your numbers improve.
Today's buyers have more ways to keep us away than ever before. If you've been lucky enough or diligent enough (or if your product is good enough) to have earned an in-person meeting or a scheduled phone appointment, it probably means you've got some kind of shot. Why waste it with lazy, ineffective language that lets the air out of the room?
Don't manage results. Manage excellence. You don't control whether your team gets the business, but you absolutely control whether they deserve it. Focus on deserving it and you'll be leading a team centered on excellence. The results will follow.
While I always write The Drift from a very personal point of view, over the last 18 years I've perhaps only used this space three times to speak about something truly personal. This is one of those rare…
I believe that values are the ultimate platform on which satisfying careers, good businesses and great lives are built. I also believe that there is no team too small or too temporary to benefit from a strong culture.
Accountable direct response ad sellers would often say "Selling is like shaving: if you don't do some of it every day, you're a bum." It was a handy way for DR sellers to contrast their work with that…
We don't ask a firm closing question because we expect the customer to say yes. We ask it because we want to get to all the other questions... the ones that qualify the opportunity... that help us understand the decision process... that identify other decision makers... and that give insights into the opinions and motivations of the person across the desk. There's always one more question to ask. The quality and value of your sales calls depends on how they end. That's why they call it closing.
The belief and the feelings of confidence and well-being don't precede the action... they are brought on by the action. Sales reps don't do better work because they are more confident. They are more confident because they do better work.
Most of us in sales are running over-programmed sales calls in which every pause, every quiet second, is something to be filled and patched over like so many cracks in a leaky boat. We believe that there is just so much to say and explain that to waste even a second means perhaps missing the one point or feature that might create the magic moment. But it's a fool's errand: the magic moments were there all along... we just talked over them. Those empty seconds of silence are actually filled with anticipation, consideration, curiosity. They are the wellsprings of customer collaboration and commitment to the idea. But as the seller you have to do more than just listen. You have to program these white space moments into your sales calls.
Gallup has done years of research on employee engagement, and it's not what you think. The majority of employees are actually not engaged with their companies or their teams. Engaged employees talk about their team using the word we, and talk about their work at the company in future tense. Engagement is not something you hire; it's something you - the manager - creates.
