The Salesman.com Podcast

We all know the stereotype of the dodgy used car salesman. But contrary to popular belief, sales isn't about tricking people into buying. Instead, it's about giving customers the solution to their problem (whether they know they have the problem or not). The tricky part for salespeople is finding out if their solution is a good fit for their buyer's needs. Is that buyer actually struggling with a problem you can solve? Do their needs align with what you can provide? Are they equipped with the resources to use your solution correctly? Discovery calls are designed to provide this invaluable information and more. With this discovery info, you can better qualify leads, craft the perfect sales pitch and close more deals. This guide will help you uncover your buyer's actual needs and home in on their underlying business problem with a simple step-by-step sales process. We'll be looking at nine open-ended discovery questions along with 12 powerful follow-up questions. What Are Discovery Questions? Discovery questions are the questions you ask sales leads during a discovery call. Of course, you've likely already learned a bit about the prospect before jumping on the phone. But your discovery call will help you fill in the details about their situation and create a clearer picture of their needs. The answers to your discovery questions let you determine several things. If your product offering can solve the needs of a sales lead. If you can deliver your product within the buyer's constraints (i.e., timeline, budget, etc.). The best way to pitch your product. If the prospect's answers line up well during your discovery call, then they'll move on to the next phase of the sales process. If not, you can redirect them through another nurturing campaign. Or they'll drop out from your sales funnel entirely. So, what makes a sales discovery question effective at uncovering your sales lead's genuine business problems? Principles of Great Sales Discovery Questions The types of discovery questions (and how you ask them) determine the quality of the information you extract on your call. With the right discovery call questions, you can get to the heart of your prospect's needs. The wrong one? You may lose the buyer's trust and sink the deal entirely. So, what do great sales discovery calls look like? They're Open-Ended – Avoiding “yes or no's” gets the sales lead talking and lets them avoid feeling “trapped” into an answer. They're Informed – Do your research beforehand. Novice-level questions torpedo your credibility in an instant. But informed ones prove you're a professional worthy of trust. They Move the Needle – Each question you ask should always take you one step closer to qualifying or disqualifying. They allow sales reps to dig deeper and move the entire sales process forward. There's value in building rapport, but time is precious. So don't waste it on filler. Try to keep questions in line with proven frameworks like MEDDPICC. They're Ripe for Follow-Up Questions – A discovery call should be a conversation, not an interrogation for your prospect. They should add value to the potential buyer. Asking relevant follow-up questions lets you naturally uncover pain points and hints for creating a perfectly catered sales pitch. Plus, it helps build rapport which will help your deals close faster. 9 Qualifying Discovery Questions for Sales Asking the right discovery call questions is key to uncovering the information you need to create an irresistible sales pitch. So lets get practical. Below are nine discovery questions you should always use on your discovery calls. You'll also find 12 follow-up questions you can use to extract even more valuable info. 1. “Tell Me About Your Company & Your Role” Once you've broken the ice, it's time for some sales discovery. This question lets the potential buyer take the lead and ease into the conversation at their own pace. Best of all, people love talking about themselves. So they'll often be excited to share. Besides building rapport, you'll also be uncovering hints about the prospective buyer. Hints like do they have decision-making power in this deal? What areas of the business do they oversee? And what difficulties have they been hitting recently? Great Follow-Up Question: “What specific metrics are you responsible for?” – Perfect for aligning your pitch to what's specifically essential to their role. Plus, it may help uncover their decision-making power along the way. 2. “Tell Me About Your Upcoming Goals” This question is an excellent lead-in to get more information specifically related to the prospects business needs. It's a fundamental discovery call question. For example, are they looking for a way to save on costs? Streamline their processes? Boost their customer satisfaction? Plus, the open-endedness of it keeps the conversation moving forward without sounding pushy. Great Follow-Up Question:  “What is your timeline for achieving those goals?” – The buyer's answer to this question lets you determine if the implementation for your product matches up with their timeline needs.   3. “What's Keeping You From Achieving These Goals?” It may be vague. But by keeping things general, you'll be able to extract which problems are the most pressing for the decision maker. Along the way, you can determine if they're struggling in areas related to your product offerings. This question also leads the buyer into a “challenge-oriented” state of mind. The more concrete those challenges become in their heads, the more valuable your product will seem if it can solve them and the more likely you'll be to move forward in the sales process. Great Follow-Up Question:  “Why are you having those problems?” – The answer here helps identify if their current solution is working and if yours can help. 4. “What Happens if These Problems Go Unresolved?” Setting up the “what if” scenario should be a go-to in your sales toolbox when talking with the decision maker. It solidifies the risks involved in letting this problem go. It underscores the challenges the prospect is facing. And if the consequences are dire, it makes your solution to their problem that much more appealing. Beyond that, this question also lets you gauge the buyer's urgency, whether you need to increase that urgency in your final pitch and their real pain points. Great Follow-Up Question:  “What would success look like exactly?” – This follow-up helps you determine if their expectations are realistic and if you can help—both vital for deciding whether to qualify or disqualify. 5. “Who Else Is Involved in Choosing a Solution?” One of the essential aspects of any qualification framework is determining the authority of your contact. Do they have decision-making power? Or are they just the gatekeeper who reports back to the actual authority? Rather than asking, “Who's really in charge here?” this question lets you uncover that information without eroding the rapport with your current contact. Great Follow-Up Questions:  “Do you already have specific criteria crafted for choosing a solution” – The holy grail of qualifying and disqualifying information. Some buyers won't give up these criteria willingly. But if you've built up a great rapport, you may be able to get access. “Who created those criteria?” – A subtle hint at who the decision-makers are. 6. “If We Can Find the Right Solution for Your Problem, What Will It Take To Implement The Solution?” The point of this question is three-fold. First, this question gives you a clearer idea of the process ahead. What steps will we need to go through to get the deal approved? Which departments will it have to pass through beforehand? The info here will help you nail down a timeline and hint at their authority. Second, it further connects your product to the idea of solving their underlying problem. And that makes it easier for them to get to “yes.” And lastly, using the vital “we” language puts you and the buyer on the same team and boosts rapport. Great Follow-Up Questions:  “What are the main hurdles you see for a smooth implementation?” – This further clarifies the last question and gives you an idea of the potential challenges involved ahead, not just the decision-making process. “What are your other options for solving this problem?” – This question reveals your competitors or whether the buyer is considering putting the project off. Either way, it'll give you specifics to leverage in your pitch. 7. “What Is Your Implementation Timeline?” Now we're a bit more in the nitty-gritty. And by this point, you'll have built up a strong rapport, so tackling these details should be acceptable. How much time do we really have here? And is it even feasible? Here you'll want to be checking for realistic expectations and disqualifying information, too. If the prospects current solution isn't driving some serious pain points, then now is the time to end the discovery call and move on. Great Follow-Up Question:  “Are you ready to begin solving this today?” – How urgently are they ready to fix this problem? Ideally, you'll want them to be excited about the solution. And if they aren't, it's your job to build that excitement. 8. “What Is Your Approximate Budget?” Discussing monetary terms can always be tricky. So be sure to leave this question for later in the discovery conversation. Keeping figures ballpark is a great way to soften the blow, too. That being said, enquiring about the budget is a necessity. If they can't afford the project, then this deal is a non-starter. Great Follow-Up Question:  “Is the budget owner an ‘executive sponsor'?” – Are there any senior-level employees directly involved? If so, will you be speaking with them too? 9. “How Will This Make Your Life Better?” Last but not least, it's essential to wrap up your conversations by helping your sales lead envision their future specifically. Will they have more time on their hands? Can they finally start attracting their ideal audience? Will their department be able to boost their efficiency and meet lofty goals? Get the buyer to think about those benefits. Doing so makes your solution more appealing. It also motivates your sales lead to sell your product more passionately to other stakeholders. Great Follow-Up Question:  “How can I help make this easy?” – This final question lets the buyer ask you questions and request more information if needed. Plus, it's a great way to continue building rapport. Learn To Ask the Right Questions A strategic discovery call does more than just let you see if a sales lead is a good fit for your business. It also allows you to uncover valuable information that can be used to deliver a spot-on sales pitch. For you, that means higher close rates and better commissions. If you're getting on plenty of sales calls with leads but still struggling to understand what their business problems are, asking these nine discovery questions will help.

Look, I’m a busy guy. I run a sales training company, produce hours of content each week, run 15-20 weekly training calls, and single-handedly sell 7-figures worth of enterprise level training packages. But I also take my dog on long walks every day. I practice drums each morning for an hour. And my family life is full and fulfilling. It’s true you don’t have time to do it ALL in sales. But if you prioritize your time for maximum productivity like I do, you can still be highly successful in B2B sales while living your best life. Here’s how. 1. Reverse Engineering So much time is wasted on tasks that don’t do a damn thing to help you reach your goals. It’s a problem that comes from having the wrong perspective. Instead of looking forwards to decide what needs to be done to reach your destination, look backwards. Imagine what you want, typically it’s going to be a financial goal. From there, start moving backwards in time. What do you have to do each year that’ll build up to that goal? What about each month? Each day? Say you want to earn an extra $50k this year. Let’s start there. $50k in commissions equals an extra 30 closed deals. For every closed deal, there are 24 discovery calls that don’t work out. Which means you need 750 discovery calls in a year or about 190 per quarter, 63 per month, and around 15 per week. And with those numbers in mind, you’ve got EXACTLY the work you need to do each day to reach your goal. 2. Time Blocking Next up is time blocking. This is one of my favorites. I’ve even talked about it before. Essentially, you need to start scheduling your important tasks. Don’t just have a mental to-do list that you’re crossing off throughout the day. Instead, put all the tasks you need to have done into your calendar. But here’s the most important part—you have to stick to those times. Don’t spend a second more or a second less on the tasks that you schedule. If you waver even just a little from those scheduled times, tasks will start to bleed over into others. And the entire system falls apart. So schedule it. And stick to it like hell. 3. Paper To-Do Keeping a paper list with you at all times makes it easy to add to it and cross things out throughout the day, no matter where you are. Feel free to plug them all into a digital list at the end of the day to keep things organized. I do the same thing with the app Things on iOS. But there’s something so viscerally satisfying about crossing tasks off one by one. 4. Phone Pruning This one’s going to hurt. But trust me, it’s worth it. Get rid of the distractions on your phone. Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn even. If you’re spending non-work time on it, nix it. Now, there are some features out there that make it 10X easier to concentrate while at work. I use the Focus feature on iOS all the time. But eliminating ANY temptation whatsoever is a powerful way to keep your eye on the ball at all times. 5. The Pomodoro Technique This technique is surprisingly effective for how simple it really is. Next time you’ve got a task you don’t want to be doing, say cold calling or updating your CRM, commit yourself to it for 25 minutes. That’s it. And then schedule a five minute break. When you structure your entire day with this technique, something pretty amazing happens—you stop wanting to stop. I’ve found the hardest thing for me is simply getting started on a task. After that part’s over, my momentum usually just keeps me going and going. With this technique, you’re making the biggest barrier (getting started) easier to overcome. After all, it’s just 25 minutes! 6. Parkinson’s Law I like this one a lot because it’s so unintuitive. Parkinson’s Law basically states that the time it takes to finish a task depends on how much time you allot to doing it. So if you’re giving yourself three hours to perform some menial task that should only take one hour, it’s still going to take three hours to do. The moral of the story here is that you should experiment with harsher self-imposed deadlines. Sure what you produce might not be quite as polished, but you’ve now bought yourself time to polish and refine the finished product, rather than being in a rush to finish it last minute. 7. Continuous Structure Technique seven, continuous structure. How often do you find yourself struggling to be productive after a lazy weekend? All the time, right? Well the problem is, you’ve only got one brain. And when your habits and your thoughts are one way at the office and the complete opposite at home, making the switch between the two can be damn difficult. So instead of trying to keep the two separate, try using the same techniques in both. If you find for example that time blocking is doing wonders in the office, try doing it for date night with your partner each week. Fight to protect it like you would a massive client meeting. You may be surprised how well these techniques work in both worlds. 8. The Power of “No” And eight, the power of no. Stop being so nice. Just stop it. Agreeing to every demand, every unreasonable meeting time, every covering of someone else’s blunder—it’s sucking the energy right out of you. Even worse, it’s letting colleagues, clients, and yes, bosses, know that it’s 100% a-okay to walk all over you. Listen, you’ve only got one life. And if you want to make your goal omelet, you’re gonna have to break a few eggs. Start getting comfortable with saying no more often. Saying “no” gives clear boundaries. It stops clients walking all over you. And saying it just a few times a day will free up hours and hours of time each week. Time you can spend on more important things like I don’t know, say doing what you want. So say no. There’s no way you’ll regret it. How much you can get done each day comes down to time management. And if you want to get better at using your time more wisely, use these eight techniques…

Only 19% of sales close, so you can have lots of selling conversations and the best closing skills but still not win new business consistently. That's because there is more to closing a sale than asking for the business. Not all prospects are a good fit for your product or service. And if your potential buyer isn't ready to make a purchase, then your odds of successfully closing the deal is dead. That's why you need to recognize your prospects' buying signals. But this isn't only about identifying when your leads are ready to buy your product or service. These signs occur throughout the buyer's journey. So, you need to watch and listen for buying signals during prospecting calls, discovery calls, demos, and every other prospect engagement. This includes phone calls, emails, social media interactions, data within your sales tools and video calls. But what are buying signals? Definition of the term ‘buying signals' Buying signals are verbal and non-verbal cues, signs, or indicators that tell you when the lead is either ready to buy or interested in moving forward in their buying process. You will often see buying signals from your prospect when a lead schedules a discovery call or when an opportunity responds to an email you've sent requesting additional information. In both cases, the prospect is giving buying signals indicating their interest in moving forward even though they aren't ready to become customers yet, by signing on the dotted line. Buying signals are like road signs, helping you recognize how to proceed with each prospect. A lack of buying signals might even mean not advancing them through the sales process. Why are buying signals essential to recognize? Spotting these buying signals is more critical than ever because sales reps are getting less time with prospects. For example, B2B buyers currently spend only 17% of their time meeting with potential suppliers. And if the prospect is considering multiple solutions, your time with this potential customer drops to as little as 4-5% of the time it takes for them to make a buying decision. This lack of face time with your leads gives you less time to pick up on indicators that the lead is interested in buying or moving forward with the sales process. So, it's essential that you learn to quickly recognize buying signals as they happen so you can respond appropriately. Reading the prospect's buying signals can also save you time by allowing you to disqualify potential customers too. You want to disqualify potential buyers because you don't want to spend precious selling time with prospects who aren't a good fit for your product. They are less likely to close or may take longer to close and are more likely to be dissatisfied or churn. Churn is when a customer cancels their subscription to your product after a short period or chooses not to renew. Ultimately, by spending your time with highly qualified leads who will most benefit from your solution, you significantly increase your close rate. What are buying signals in sales? Buying signals can be verbal or non-verbal, and some are more subtle than others, but with practice, you can learn to recognize all the different buying signals communicated by your prospects. Here are some examples of positive buying signals or signs when a prospect is interested in buying from you: Non-verbal buying signals: Nodding, direct eye contact, and paying attention during your conversation or presentation. This is a sign the lead is interested. If you can't see the other person, listen carefully to determine if they are fully engaged in the conversation. Smiling and appearing excited about your product or service is undoubtedly a positive sign. If you cannot see the person, you can listen for a positive tone in their voice. Involving others on the buying committee in meetings, calls or email communications indicates the prospect is seriously considering taking the next step in the buying process. Responding quickly to email communications shows the prospect is interested in continuing the conversation with you. Quality of email responses is a buying signal, too, since a prospects willingness to provide detailed and timely responses to email inquiries reveals their level of interest in advancing through the buying process. Open Communication buying signals: Openly discussing the needs, challenges, and problems the lead want to solve shows that the prospect is intent on finding out if your product is the best solution. Telling you about problems or issues with their current vendor is a transparent buying signal from your sales lead revealing that they are unhappy with the solution they are using. This enables you to learn more about the potential customer's preferences. Sharing their goals, ideal end-state, or desired results is also an indicator that the prospect wants to give you the information needed to determine if your product or service will meet their needs. Expresses an interest in future communications like scheduling another meeting, a discovery call, demo, or proposal. Or if the potential buyer asks when they will hear from you again. This is a buying sign demonstrating the prospect's interest in advancing the buying process. Repeating or confirming attractive benefits indicates what the prospect is most excited about or interested in. Questions that are a buying signal: Asking questions during a demo or presentation instead of waiting until the end is a sure sign the buyer is interested in learning more about your product or service and its ability to meet their needs. When the lead asks questions like “how quick can we get started” you know you're close to getting a contract signed. Questions about payment methods are a strong indicators the lead is close to making a buying decision. The lead being proactive about the price means your deals are on track. Prospects picturing themselves using your product or service is a strong buying signal. This is seen when potential customers ask questions in terms of ‘When I use the product, will…?' or ‘How quickly will I see an improvement?' or ‘Will I see X that quickly too?' Asking about delivery, installation, or on-boarding procedures and timing are strong buying signals since the prospect is wondering how soon they can benefit from your solution. Requesting general pricing information is a buying signal that shows a prospect is interested. Requests that are buying signals: Wants to know more about your company. A request from the prospect indicates they like your solution and are trying to determine your company's longevity or its financial stability. Requesting case studies or research reports by a prospect in a complex sale shows how interested they are in your product or service Asking to speak with existing customers demonstrates that the prospective customer has a strong interest in moving forward Asking to try the product before they buy is a strong buying signal. Prospects who are interested in taking the time to try a product during a free trial are seriously considering buying. If you offer a free trial, be sure to check in with the prospect at previously agreed-upon intervals to ensure everything is going smoothly. Requesting a quote is a buying signal, but it's essential to present the pricing to the prospect, so you have the opportunity to get feedback from the potential customer. And, in this case, you want to be sure you are presenting to the decision-maker. Otherwise, you may never find out where you stand in comparison to competitors. Examples of negative buying signals or signs when a potential buyer is not interested in buying from you: Unresponsive or reluctant to schedule time to learn more. When a prospect won't respond to your social media, email or phone messages, or they are hesitant to schedule another call after initially speaking with you, is a clear sign the buyer isn't interested. Indicating they are still looking into other options may mean the prospect isn't interested. Or, at the very least, it means ‘not now.' Reluctance to talk about their needs, challenges or goals is a sign the prospect isn't presently interested in learning more about your solution. Unwilling to share their budget may be a sign that there isn't a need currently, the prospect isn't interested, or there isn't sufficient funding available to make a deal happen. Hesitant to identify or introduce the decision-making is a negative indicator since initial contacts are often not making the final buying decision. If you can't find out who is making the final decision at the prospect's company, you are wasting your time. Telling you, they are not interested is a sure sign that this prospect will not become a customer… at least not now. How to get better at spotting buying signals An excellent way to develop your ability to recognize buying signals is to record your phone and video calls. Then review each call to see which buying signals were displayed by the prospect. Next, identify the ones you didn't recognize in real-time during the live call, so you don't miss them next time around. Doing this consistently will help you hear and see buying signs more quickly until it becomes automatic. Conclusion Even the most skilled reps don't close every prospect. It doesn't matter how well your sales and marketing team have done, the buyers purchasing intent is down to you to understand. But the better you get at recognizing buying signals, the more time you'll end up spending with highly qualified prospects. This increases the percentage of prospects that you close. And it prevents you from wasting valuable selling time with leads who aren't a good fit for your product or service. This makes it easier to hit or exceed your quota targets and increases your number of sales. So, learn to identify buying signals, revisit all your calls to figure out which signs you missed, and you'll soon become proficient at knowing when to progress the sale to a close.

In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andy Whyte dissects each step in the MEDDIC process and explains how B2B sales professionals can leverage the framework to both progress and close more sales. Andy is the author of MEDDIC: The Ultimate Guide and an expert on using MEDDIC in the complex sale You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Andy Whyte Author: MEDDIC: The Ultimate Guide Resources: Book: MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale Andy on LinkedIn MEDDICC.com Book: The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results Book: The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation Transcript Will Barron: Coming up on today's episode of the Salesman Podcast.   Andy Whyte: I think the thing is this, a lot of… MEDDICC is probably the most widely used methodology or framework or whatever you want to call it, in enterprise sales. What you find is that everyone has a different word for it. As a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really is going to dictate how successful you are and that's time.   Andy Whyte: The paper process is the one that will have the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will. Because once you're a vendor of choice, once you're past selling and you're into closing, it's the paper process that takes the time and…   Will Barron: Hello, Sales nation. My name is Will Barron and I'm the host of the Salesman Podcast, the world's most downloaded B2B sales show. On today's episode, we have an absolute legend. We have Andy Whyte. He is the author of the book MEDDICC. You can find at meddicc.com, which is M-E-D-D-I-C-C.com.   Will Barron: On today's episode, unsurprisingly, we're talking about MEDDICC as a framework and how it can help you close more complex and enterprise-level sales. Everything we talk about in this episode is available in the show notes over at salesman.org. With that said, let's jump right into it. Andy, welcome to the Salesmen Podcast.   Andy Whyte: Thank you, Will. It's awesome to be here. As I've mentioned to you before, I'm a big fan. I've been watching the shows. Thank you for having me on.   Andy’s Definition of MEDDICC · [01:30]   Will Barron: I appreciate it. I'm excited to have you on. On this episode, we're going to get into MEDDICC. We're going to hopefully break down the analogy and go through each of these sections the best we can in the time that we have. But Andy, how do you describe MEDDICC? Would you say it's a sales methodology or do you have a better way or a different way of describing what it is?   Andy Whyte: Yeah, great question. I think the thing is this, a lot of… MEDDICC, is probably the most widely used methodology or framework or whatever you want to call it in enterprise sales. What you find is that everyone has a different word for it. I personally, don't really mind what you call it, whether you call it a framework or a methodology. The only caveat I have around that is that one of the beautiful things about MEDDICC is it works with any other sales methodology. It plays very, very nicely.   “At its core MEDDICC is, I would say, a qualification framework. It helps people to qualify, should I be in this deal? And if I should be, what should I be doing to ensure I'm going to win it?” – Andy Whyte · [02:28]    Andy Whyte: In fact, I think it enhances other methodology. Whether you use something like Sandler or Challenger Sale or any one of the many great methodologies that are out there, it kind of can work very well with MEDDICC. But at its core MEDDICC is, I would say, a qualification framework. It helps people to qualify should I be in this deal? And if I should be, what should I be doing to ensure I'm going to win it?   Why is The Sales Qualification Process So Important? · [02:47]   Will Barron: For someone who is perhaps less familiar with a complex sale or high value deal size sale, why is the qualification process so important? Just to set up the rest of our conversation here.   “As a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really, it's going to dictate how successful you are and that's time. If you are a salesperson who is running around chasing after every single opportunity you have without kind of putting yourself on the front foot by identifying what your chances are of winning, then you're going to spread yourself very, very thin.” – Andy Whyte · [02:53]    Andy Whyte: Yeah. Good. Good question. So as a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really, it's going to dictate how successful you are and that's time. If you are a salesperson who is running around chasing after every single opportunity you have without kind of putting yourself on the front foot by identifying what your chances are of winning, then you're going to spread yourself very, very thin.   “Not all good salespeople are good forecasters, but all good forecasters are good salespeople.” – Andy Whyte · [03:21]    Andy Whyte: I have this saying which is that not all good salespeople are good forecasters, but all good forecasters are good salespeople. If you're a sales leader and if you're talking about, as we all do, to aspire to the very best jobs in sales, what sales leaders of the best jobs out there are looking for is they're looking for somebody who can accurately forecast, who can say, “I've got this deal and I'm going to win it and it's going to close on this date.” So it can be forecasted out.   Andy Whyte: And if you are a salesperson that can do that, then you will always have the best job. You will always work for the best companies. But the key to being able to answer those questions and forecast accurately is being able to qualify your pipeline.   Will Barron: I love it. I love it. Just a personal anecdote from my side, 99% of the friction I've had with sales managers and sales leadership in the past when I was working in sales was the fact that I would always hit target, I'd always do pretty well, not the best, but I'd always do pretty well. But there was no forecasting.   Will Barron: It would always look like it would just flukally, I had to close one big deal a year that would crush it 80% or 20% of the target and get me beyond my 80% mark. It looks like it comes in flukally. It doesn't go in flukally. It came on the back of hard work but because I wasn't using a methodology or a system like MEDDICC as well as what I should have been to qualify, I just got managers on my back all the time and that made the last part of my final sales job, it a bit of a mess and a bit of a pain.   Andy Breaks Down the MEDDICC Framework · [05:02]   Will Barron: There's definitely value in this, not just in getting more deals done but from having a better relationship with your internal stakeholders as well. So without Andy, breakdown MEDDICC. Give us the high level of what the acronym stands for and then we can perhaps go through each step as best we can with the time that we have.   Andy Whyte: Of course, yeah. To do that, if I may, I'll just take us back in time a little bit to where MEDDICC was formed because it beautifully explains why MEDDICC exists. MEDDICC was created by a guy called Dick Dunkel in the '90s. I think it was 1995 in a company called PTC, Parametric Technology Corporation.   Andy Whyte: They were a big, big organisation, over 1,000 salespeople. They had this challenge where they started to plateau, they were starting to lose sales people. It was kind of that sort of growing pain at that size issue. The sales leader at the time, a guy called John McMahon, who is by the way, the pound for pound, the greatest sales leader of all time. This guy is the Maradona of sales leadership, the [inaudible 00:05:57] of sales leadership, he's the guy, greatest of all time.   Andy Whyte: He pulled the guy called Dick Dunkel, as I mentioned, out of the field, who was a great, great salesperson. He said, “Dick, we need more people like you basically. We need you to train the sales team to be like you.” And so he was doing that and if you can imagine, there's a thousand salespeople, that's lots of different teams and regions.   Andy Whyte: What Dick was doing was travelling around meeting the teams. He ran this exercise, which I think is brilliant, which he still runs today, by the way, where he asked three key questions. Number one, why do we win deals? Number two, why do we lose deals? And number three, why do deals slip? What he noticed by asking those questions to multiple different teams with those six elements that were the same everywhere he went, they were six common elements of the reasons why if they had these elements in strength, they would win. If they didn't have them and they were weak on them, they would lose or the deal would slip.   Andy Whyte: And of course, you can guess where I'm going with this. Those elements became MEDDICC and the astute of the audience amongst us that would have read the show notes or looked at the title or seen my book will see that there's two Cs in my MEDDICC. That totals to seven letters, not six letters and you're absolutely right. It initially started with MEDDICC with one C, there's now two Cs. There's sometimes even a P and other letters in it.   Andy Whyte: But I'll get into what it stands for now, if you like. The first letter is M and it stands for metrics. The high level version of this is I like to say, imagine yourself six months from now, sat down having a quarterly business review with your customer. You've won the deal, what would be the KPIs in which you're measuring the success of your solution with them? Those, whatever the answers to those are, it maybe improvements in conversion rate, it maybe efficiency improvements or anything depending on what the value is of what you sell, those are the metrics.   Andy Whyte: The idea is you want to find those as early as possible in the deal through good discovery and kind of make them the headlines of your deal. That's the metrics. Of course, we can get into more detail on all of these as we go, if it helps you.   Will Barron: Sure. Let's go each of them as quick as we can and then we'll dive into them. Because I don't think we have time to go into all of them. We'll perhaps pick on the ones that you feel most salespeople get wrong most often.   Andy Whyte: Beautiful. Let's do that. The second letter is E, and it stands for economic buyer. This is the person who has the overall authority in your deal. This person can say no when others say yes and yes will never say no. They can create budget out of thin air. These are generally senior people.   Andy Whyte: Then you've got the decision criteria. Now this one's really kind of easy, because it's kind of the clues in the name, it's the criteria in which the customer is going to base the decision. Very easy in a RFP, this one. It's like what are the things they're scoring you against? It can be more holistic things like partnerships and your roadmap or whether they like you even you as a company. And then the second D is decision process. This is really how are they going to make their decision? What's the process they're going to go in? What authorizations? What stakeholders? All that sort of stuff.   Andy Whyte: And as I mentioned before, there's sometimes a P which stands for paper process, which is really just the contract, the NDA right through to getting stuff signed. And then this is an interesting one, we should definitely dive more into. It's I. It initially stood for identify the pain. I actually say there's three Is: identify the pain, indicate the pain and then implicate the pain. So we can perhaps go back into that one a bit more detail.   Andy Whyte: And then you have the most important of all, the greatest CROs I've spoken to about MEDDICC will tell you this and that's champion. No champion, no deal. Big champion, big deal. And we can talk more about champions because I think it's probably the most used term to describe a customer, but it's also the most incorrectly used term.   Andy Whyte: And then the last C which I have on my book, which is commonly implemented as well stands for competition. Now, everyone listened to this goes, “Oh, you don't need to explain that one, Andy.” But actually, it's a commonly misunderstood one because most people think of the competition as your rival solution, the other company out there that you normally don't like them and they're worse than you, of course and they're selling the same thing as you are, maybe a bit different. Obviously not as good as what most salespeople would say.   “Competition in today's world where our customers have so much options and so much opportunity, is any one person or thing that is vying for the same budget or resources that you are.” – Andy White · [10:28]    Andy Whyte: Now, the catch here is actually the competition. In today's world, where our customers have so much options and so much opportunity is any one person or thing that is vying for the same budget or resources that you are. That could be both or it could be three things, it could be the rival solution, it could be the customer themselves looking at what you do and saying, “Well, we can build that ourselves.” Or it could be something that's does a similar thing to what you do but a completely different solution or platform or something like that that could still the people that are going to implement your solution or steal the budget for it. That's it. That's MEDDICC in probably three or four minutes.   Andy Describes the KPIs That Can Potentially Help in Identifying and Solving Customer Pain Points · [11:05]    Will Barron: Perfect. Well, let's start at the top here because I feel like metrics are something that often get forgotten. We as salespeople will often go into a room virtually now I guess, these days, sit down with people and go, “Hey, you have this problem, we have this solution. You've got some budget, we've got something to suck the budget away from you.” I find typically there's not a lot of discussion of what does success look like for you.   Will Barron: Do you care to solve this problem or not? Just because you've got this problem, oversells it. Or the place is on fire constantly. Everything is falling apart behind the scenes. But I don't care to solve all the issues because they don't drive revenue, for example. So with that said, what would be an example of a KPI of success if we're selling to the enterprise or we're trying to do a large deal here. What kind of KPIs would we be trying to pull out from the potential buyer?   Andy Whyte: Sure. Well, I predominantly have worked in marketing technology, which is a good place to use as an example, because unlike so many other technologies out there, we are all consumers. We're generally always being marketed to, so we can kind of relate to these things. And I like to… In fact, the sales MEDDICC group who are a consultancy that implement MEDDICC, they break metrics into two: metrics ones and metric twos.   “What happens so much for salespeople today, is they spot an opportunity, whether it's inbound or outbound and they know they can help a company and at the first chance they get, before they've even joined the Zoom call, they're straight away telling the customer about how ugly their baby is.” – Andy White · [12:31]    Andy Whyte: This is really, really key. Because what happens so much for salespeople today, is they spot an opportunity, whether it's inbound or outbound and they know they can help a company and at the first chance they get, their laptop lid, before it's even up, before they've even joined the Zoom, they're straightaway telling the customer about how ugly their baby is. They come on and they go, “Will, my solution, you… When you email me, you don't personalise it or whatever the value is and it's horrible and look at your competitor. They're so much better than you. You suck basically.”   Andy Whyte: And the customer's going, “Thanks a lot. I don't really… Do I really want to introduce you to my boss, because you just told me I suck and now my boss will think I suck as well.” But that's the common mistake we do. And we even do it in outreach, we show like bad examples.   Andy Whyte: What the difference between metrics ones and metric twos are as metrics ones are where you research the customer ahead of your meeting and you think about your existing customers and the value you provide to them and you think about, “Well, which of my existing customers have relevant value to the customer I'm about to go and see?” And so when I sit in front of you as a person in a marketing department, for example, I can say, “Hey, I work for X company. Here is the value that I provide to my customers. Here's an example of a customer that before working with me had these problems.   Andy Whyte: And now since working with me and my solution, they've not got these problems. Look how great it looks. By the way, these are the metrics, these are the things that they're getting, the areas of value. Their conversion rate has gone up or their checkout-dropout has fallen off,” or whatever those metrics therefore become.   Andy Whyte: What that will do is build trust, which is very hard to do in today's world in COVID times. It will help build trust and value and the customer is more likely to open up to what you want them to be able to do, so you can do good discovery and find the metrics twos, which is the metrics that are specific to their needs.   Andy Whyte: Now, they could be exactly the same as the metric ones if they were a close enough company, but the idea is you almost have to use the metric ones to unlock the metrics twos and then you can really, really personalise what value you're going to bring.   The Crucial Customer Metrics Salespeople Need to Monitor When Identifying Buyer Goals and Areas of Improvement · [14:51]   Will Barron: Is the end goal here Andy to get a one singular holy grail metric that the company is working for? Or can it be just as effective to say, “We can potentially fix/solve, improve one, two, three, four, five different things.” Is one way better or should we focus on one or go for multiple?   Andy Whyte: It's a great question. There isn't a single answer to that. And so it really is going to come down to the opportunity itself. I'll give an example of that based on something that I think everyone will know. I used to work for the leading social media software provider. In that example, I could be talking to, let's say, Unilever, a gigantic company. They could be spending an absolute fortune on Facebook advertising for Lynx Aftershave or something like that. So my metrics to them might be, “Well, I can help you identify more people that are likely to buy Lynx by using our data platform and our services.”   Andy Whyte: That's a metric, that's going to not only increase their goal of getting more people to engage with Lynx, but it's going to save them money. So there's one metric, increased revenue on the end, metric number two, it's going to decrease their ad spend, it's going to give them more bang for their buck, basically.   “Metrics depend on who you're talking to, who you're selling to and what their needs are.” – Andy White · [16:26]    Andy Whyte: But then over here, you could have another metric completely separate, which is to say, “Hey, what happens if an intern goes rogue on your Facebook page and just starts causing havoc?” Well, that would be an entirely different metric from these sort of revenue metrics. Then all of a sudden, it's like a brand risk and it could affect the share price. It depends on who you're talking to, who you're selling to and what their needs are. It could just be one, but it could be many.   How to Identify and Engage with The economic buyer · [16:40]    Will Barron: Okay, perfect. You've transitioned perfectly to the second part here of MEDDICC, the economic buyer. Does the economic buyer when we're talking about people, does the economic buyer have to be our champion? Can we just know, identify who the economic buyer is and be cordial and polite to them or do we actually need to engage with them and kind of build a relationship with them directly?   “According to data from iSEEit, 80% of deals that were won had engagements with the economic buyer. 80% of deals that were lost or slipped didn't have engagement with the economic buyer.” – Andy Whyte · [17:12]    Andy Whyte: I have a really good answer for this one and it's data backed, which I'm sure you will like. There's a SaaS company called [inaudible 00:17:11] and they provide MEDDICC software. It helps implement MEDDICC into Salesforce. They were able to analyse the data of won deals and lost deals. Here's the stat. 80% of deals that were won had engagements with the… Sorry, it's over 80%. I can't remember the exact figures but had engagement with the economic buyer.   “If you want to be successful, consistently successful, you absolutely have to be engaged with the economic buyer. I would be as bold as saying that if you aren't engaged with the economic buyer, then you are order taking, not selling.” – Andy Whyte · [17:42]    Andy Whyte: 80% of deals that were lost or slipped didn't have engagement with the economic buyer. That's the data backed to answer your question. The economic buyer is not the same person as a champion. It's someone more senior than the champion. You absolutely, if you want to be successful, consistently successful, you absolutely have to be engaged with the economic buyer. I would be as bold as saying that if you aren't engaged with the economic buyer, then you are order taking, not selling.   Will Barron: Sure. Let me give a anecdote here without giving too much away. Let's say salesman.org is looking at partnering with a big CRM company right now and there's discussions ongoing in the background. When the show goes out, it'll all be signed, sealed, and delivered hopefully. So let's say that this is the case. Hopefully, this is being addressed to the audience and make it real for them as well.   How Salespeople Can Engage The Economic Buyer and Close More Deals By Adding Value to The Conversation · [18:55]   Will Barron: So I have daily conversations with a champion within the organisation. I could probably ring the economic buyer, the CMO of the entire organisation and he'll probably answer my call and have a chat with me. But there's not much value I don't think I could give him that otherwise couldn't be just passed through their own internal chain of command.   Will Barron: How do I engage with that CMO without pestering them, without communicating with them unnecessary information that they can just get from their own team? What value can I add to that individual to increase the level of engagement so that I can spend with them?   Andy Whyte: Yeah, great question. You're a bit of a unique case to the answer to this. If I may, I will broaden out the answer because I don't think too many managing directors of the company would be in this sort of situation where they're doing a sponsorship deal. Let's imagine that you the… You're a middle manager or something like that or not middle manager, you're middle ranking in this.   Andy Whyte: Now, what you most likely have and what most people listen to this podcast will have whether they are individual contributors, sales leaders, is they'll have a boss or maybe a few bosses above them. This is multi-level selling 101. It's not necessarily your job, Will, as the salesperson to contact the economic buyer. It's your boss's job. And they should do that early on. Now this is a really, really, really good tip and this is not one of my tips.   “The idea should be that you should, before you've even had the first meeting with a potential customer, you should get your boss to write to the person's boss that you're going to meet.” – Andy Whyte · [20:02]    Andy Whyte: The idea should be that you should, before you've even had the first meeting with a potential customer, you should get your boss to write to the person's boss that you're going to meet. There is no ask here. It's very straightforward. You simply just write to them and say, “Hi, Sara. I'm Andy. It sounds like our teams are meeting next week to talk about these things. I'm really, really excited by it. We're really excited to talk to you because we've helped companies just like you do A, B and C areas of value. I didn't have any ask at the moment, but I just wanted to open this line of communication to you just in case you had anything you want to talk to me about.”   Andy Whyte: Now, chances are you will get a reply if you've teed it up. But that's it. If you set the bar, then you can constantly re-engage those things, add value, ask questions and that sort of thing. Yeah, but it's a good question. A lot of people… If it was easy to contact the economic buyer, everyone would do it and that's why it's such a awesome thing to have as a focus because the more you do it, the better you're going to be.   Will Barron: Sure. That makes total sense. It's almost a level of professionalism and the fact that we're taking this deal so seriously that we're willing to have our higher ups are not ours. And then myself included, those [inaudible 00:21:17] sales people, pestering people higher up the food chain. So that makes total sense and especially if we're dealing with the enterprise.   Will Barron: I think that… I'm hesitant to use this word, but I feel like that's the appropriate thing to do, isn't it?   Andy Whyte: Yes. Yes, it is absolutely right.   The Difference Between the Decision Criteria and the Decision Process in MEDDICC · [21:33]    Will Barron: Cool. Okay. Well, let's move on to decision criteria again. Tell me your thoughts on how separate the decision criteria is versus the decision process. Are these… I know in the acronym MEDDICC, they're separate elements but should these be… Are they related or should they be kept in separate silos?   Andy Whyte: Yeah, people quite often try and push them together and I think that's… Those would be people that haven't had a great implementation of MEDDICC because they are very, very different, even though they're both kind of got the same D in them. The reason why it's the decision process itself is really about how are they going to make their decision? What is the process? Who are the people involved? And so that's over there and then the decision criteria is what are they going to make their decision based upon?   “What the best salespeople do is they uncover the decision criteria. Now, you know as well as I do, quite often buyers, they won't have a decision criteria. They know they want something, so it's your job because then you can become the trusted advisor and you can craft the decision criteria for the customer.” – Andy Whyte · [22:30]    Andy Whyte: Now, this is a really good one to dig into, because it's the one that can really be a game changer for salespeople. What the best salespeople do is they will uncover the decision criteria. Now, you know as well as I do, quite often buyers, they won't have a decision criteria. They know they want something [inaudible 00:22:41], they won't have it. So it's your job. And that's actually a good thing, by the way, because then you can become the trusted advisor and you can craft the decision criteria for the customer.   Andy Whyte: So you can do some discovery and find out what they need. And of course, the elite salespeople will be including their own unique capabilities as decision criteria. They'll have a meeting, they'll do some great discovery, they'll get what they think is the decision criteria and then they'll follow up after the meeting and say, “Have I heard this, right? It sounds like this is your decision criteria.” You can even be as bold as calling it that and put all the things you think that they're making a decision on and then include…   Andy Whyte: And also, it sounded like whatever solution you're going to go for, it absolutely must have these things which will be your decision criteria, which is bad news for your competition, especially if they don't have those features, functionality or they're weaker in that area. You can really set yourself up for success. This is something I noticed from watching a few of your former guests that when we talk about procurement, everyone's sort of, “Oh no, procurement.” And they shudder and they think that's a terrible thing.   Andy Whyte: Now, I feel like if we were to talk to procurement people and tell them that we do that and the reasons why, there'll be very offended because most procurement professionals I know, they would be offended because they'll say, “No, no, we are just trying to find the best value for our company. We're not just trying to get the best price. We're trying to find the best value.”   Andy Whyte: Now, if you imagine that scene, when you go into what is effectively a negotiation for a procurement. We never just go in there to have a cup of tea with them. They're always going to do something. And you go in and they do that classic, “Will, I'm looking at your training package here. You're twice the price of the other quote we've had.”   Andy Whyte: Now, most sellers at that point, they'll get into sort of, “But mine's got the videos in it,” or this or that. But if you've really nailed the decision criteria, then you'll be able to say, “Cool, okay.” What you're saying is if you've not got the budget for this or you've got to isolate the objection, they'd be, “No, you just seem expensive.” And you say, “Okay. Well, we could make it cheaper. If you're looking for cheaper, we could take these things out but it sounded like you needed those things.” And those are obviously the things you've put in the decision criteria that are unique to your solution.   Andy Whyte: And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden the dynamic changes because the procurement person can clearly see based on the criteria of what they need, only you can provide it and you've actually obviously set that up and it's just a really smart way. That obviously works not just with procurement, but with anyone you're having a conversation with around the decision criteria.   Will Barron: I've shared this anecdote on the show before. I won't share it in full. But we used to do this selling medical devices here in the wonderful UK to the NHS. There's only really two endoscopic camera systems… Probably in the market, there was only two that surgeons want to use. I worked for both companies and so I'd just do the opposite both times.   Will Barron: Basically, HD cameras had just come in to the marketplace. One company used interlaced footage, which really made very little difference. But in fast movement when the camera's inside the patient, perhaps it looks smoother and better. And then the other brand used non-interlaced footage, which on a static camera perhaps looked better. Not really much difference between the two in all honesty when you're inside a patient and you're performing your procedure, the last thing you really care about is how the lines are drawn on the screen at 60 frames per second.   Will Barron: Well, we used to use this as… Well, I used to use this as leverage with procurement. I'd asked them, “What are you looking for? This, this and this?” A lot of the times, they didn't know what they were looking for. I would always spend the extra hour of procurement, I'd always spend that extra bit of time trying to almost provide a bit of a service to help them make a good decision.   Will Barron: Sometimes it was us, sometimes it wasn't us. But whenever we got to an RFP or request for proposal stage of the buying process, which we'll come on to in a second, the decision process, it always included whatever company I worked for the appropriate must have interlaced footage or must not have interlaced footage, immediately locking out the competition and 99 times out of 100, we'd win those deals.   How Salespeople Can Influence The Procurement Officer’s Decision Criteria · [27:06]   Will Barron: I feel like we're only touching the surface of each of these steps here, Andy, but there's a lot of strategy that can come on the back of this that can… A little bit of work up front can really pay dividends towards the end of the sales process, can it?   “I always liken sales to sports because it's a performance activity.” – Andy Whyte · [27:21]    Andy Whyte: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's the most beautiful… I always liken sales to sports because it's a performance activity. There was things that… Imagine that 30 yard out free kick that Ronaldo takes and he calls into the top right hand corner. What you've talked about there is the sales equivalent of that.   “When you are able to influence the decision criteria of an RFP, that's elite selling.” – Andy Whyte · [27:35]    Andy Whyte: When you are able to influence the criteria of an RFP, the decision criteria of an RFP, that's elite selling that is. Everyone can do it. But if you just need to lean in and make sure you kind of really focus on building that decision criteria.   Will Barron: Yeah. This is a stupid way of describing it. I can't think of off the top my head a better way of describing it. I think it's just big boy selling. It's selling in the big leagues. It's what you do, adding strategy to a longer term enterprise sale or didn't have to be enterprise sale. But when you have a methodology and a strategy and you stick to it and you refine it and you learn an A/B test from your customers, what works, what doesn't work.   Customer Relationships Versus Selling Strategies · [28:20]    Will Barron: In my mind, that's the difference between a sales professional and then you have other salespeople who are trying to blag it and use quick wit and banter and even trying to leverage relationships more than strategy. I feel like nine times out of 10 again, I'm not the greatest salesperson, I'm pretty good, but I will wipe the floor was someone who comes in thinking that they can blag it with just a few levels of strategy every single time.   Andy Whyte: Yeah, yeah. I used to play football as an amateur. In the changing room, we used to have this quote above the wall that said, “Hard work always beat talent when talent doesn't work hard.” That said, with something like MEDDICC, if you embrace it, it's a blueprint for success. It really is.   Why Is It Important That Salespeople Know How The Buyer Makes Purchasing Decisions? · [29:11]    Will Barron: For sure. Okay, so we've touched on decision criteria. Let's touch on decision process now. We've kind of alluded to it slightly in that last point. But why is it important that we… It's a stupid question to ask but why is it important that we know how the buyer makes purchasing decisions? Sorry, or the process of of choosing, I guess.   Andy Whyte: Yeah, sure. Well, it's that classic thing of we've all been in those deals where we thought that we're doing great and all of a sudden, [inaudible 00:29:35]. “Well hang, what happened there?” And it's those seven other stakeholders that we never knew were involved in the process. That's not because we…   Andy Whyte: That's not because they're weird, it's just that companies… We always think as salespeople, we get up in the morning and all we do is sell and depending on how complex the sales we have, we could even have a one deal a quarter we're working on. And so that's what we think about, but the companies we're selling to, we're just not even probably 5% of their day. And so there's always going to be stakeholders and they're going to rely on other people that maybe are close to the process.   “If you don't understand your decision process and your paper process, you have no chance of forecasting accurately.” – Andy Whyte · [30:33]   Andy Whyte: And so you need to know who those people are, you need to know how they're evaluating who those people are. There's almost two stages. There's the validation side of the decision process, where they're kind of figuring out what they need and who to trust for it. And then there's like the authorization side of things where it's about now we're into procurement process, legal side of things and all. Going back to what I said at the top about forecasting, if you don't understand your decision process and your paper process, you have no chance of forecasting accurately. You really, really don't. Yeah, that's why it's so important.   Why It’s Not Inappropriate to Ask Your Clients Their Buyer’s Decision Process · [30:50]   Will Barron: Just to double down on this for a second, it's more than appropriate, especially with procurement, to ask what your decision process is, right? It's not an unreasonable question to ask, especially in a larger deal size.   Andy Whyte: Correct. I tell you, I had an anecdote this week from a gentleman called [inaudible 00:31:06] in Germany, he's a top MEDDICC consultant there. He told me that the head of procurement at Siemens who are obviously a gazillion dollar company told him that he prefers to buy from companies that use MEDDICC because they go to him and his team and they're looking for the right things. They're professional and they're trying to run an efficient process from both sides. Yeah. Absolutely right.   Will Barron: Perfect. Okay. Paper process, an extra P. MEDDPICC with a…   Andy Whyte: MEDDPICC, yeah.   Will Barron: Is that what it gets [inaudible 00:31:41].   Andy Whyte: Yeah, yeah. And it's so funny people get so so precious over whether it's MEDDICC, one C, two Cs, Ps and that sort of stuff. I'm just like look into them all and find the one that works best for you. Because they all have their pros and cons.   Will Barron: Sure.   Andy Whyte: But yeah, MEDDPICC is similar to the decision process. But it's that… All the things that can happen, especially today with the cloud, as in the world I sold the technology sales, you've got data privacy, user privacy, you've got infrastructure security, you've got lawyers, you've got a gazillion different contracts and everything.   Andy Whyte: That's what it comes down to. It's not just that. It's like who's signing it? Who has to approve it before it's signed? What if someone goes on holiday? And so it's really just keeping on top of those things. What can go wrong here and how am I going to mediate that if it happens? It's a really straightforward one, but it's a really important one.   Will Barron: Crazy important. Doubling down on this analogy here of me selling medical devices, but if we ever wanted… Surgeons would always want the camera systems to be able to put data on the hospital network so that they open a computer in a different room and they get all the files and the images and the videos from the procedure in there all nicely and all wrapped up in a bow.   Will Barron: Very rare were we able to actually integrate that because as soon as we get anywhere near one of these cameras stats with an ethernet cable, IT come running in the room, bashing heads and waving keyboards to attack people because they know that as soon as it gets plugged in, they've got a responsibility to maintain it, to maintain the licences and there's obviously additional costs and paperwork that go along with that.   Andy Describes How Salespeople Can Avoid Some Existing Pain Points To Avoid Making the Deal Complex and Help Close the Deals Faster · [33:14]   Will Barron: So this point for us, it was almost our job to avoid existing and this sounds counterintuitive, but to almost do as limited integration as what we possibly could, that the end user was happy so that we didn't have to involve other people, because then the deal would never get done because it would become too complex. So it can work both ways. Can it, right?   “The paper process is the one that has the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will.” – Andy Whyte · [33:36]    Andy Whyte: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, the paper process is the one that have the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will. Because once you really… Once your vendor of choice and once your past selling and your into closing, it's the paper process that takes the time and whether it's understanding if the company you're selling to has internal or external legal counsel, I straightaway… If I'm looking at a deal in my team and someone's forecasting a deal within a month and we haven't got legals, then we find out they've got an external legal team, forget it. You're going to see more reding on that contract than anything at all. It'll look like your background.   Implicating Versus Identifying Customer Pain Points · [34:35]   Will Barron: Okay. Well, so from then on, and let's rattle through these last three. I'm going to put you on the spot. I'd love to have you back on to perhaps get into one or two of these in detail in a future episode. Let's rattle through the last three of these now. Just because of time constraints. Or implicating pain. You mentioned that there's potentially three Is that we could stick on this one.   “Identifying the pain is what you can almost not fail to do if you're a salesperson today. You talk to a customer and you find some pain.” – Andy Whyte · [34:45]   Andy Whyte: Yes. I'll give you the really short version. Identifying the pain is what you can almost not fail to do if you're a salesperson today. You talk to a customer and you find some pain and what the average sales person will do will accelerate into their sales point, their PowerPoint presentations, “Hey, I found some pain. Let me tell you how I solve it.” That's not great. That's pretty poor selling.   Andy Whyte: The next level up, which is what the majority in certainly in my world events price sales do, which is they indicate the pain. They find some pain, they go, “Okay, how much of that is a pain and how much is it costing you?”   Andy Whyte: And then they'll indicate back to the customer by a business case or an ROI or something like that. “It's costing you 2 million a year,” and the customer feels, “Well, that's a little bit more painful than seeing your slide deck. But it's okay, I'll take that into account.”   “Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it's like, I've found some pain, I've quantified it, but now I'm going to really make you feel it.” – Andy Whyte · [35:38]    Andy Whyte: Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it's like, I've found some pain, I've quantified it, but now I'm going to really make you feel it. So via a really smart discovery where I'm asking you what the implications of the pain, how much is it costing you and just digging deeper, SPIN Selling basically.   Andy Whyte: Digging deeper and deeper and deeper to the point where it sort of starts as, “That's not great.” But at the end of the discovery session, I've dug in so deep to it, you're just like, “Will, can we just forget about this and just get the contracts done already because I really need to solve this?” It's not easy to do. It takes a lot of skill and discovery. But the sellers that can do it will always overachieve on that quote, because they're the ones that are really bring the pain up and they'll sell more higher value deals because of it.   How to Strategically Implicate a Customer’s Pain Points · [36:19]   Will Barron: Sure. Again, just continue this analogy for me. Tell me if I'm right or wrong here. But a lot of this would be, well, we want these cameras, because we will be able to do the procedures quicker. So then I would start to lay on top, well, you're using a standard definition screen camera system right now, a high definition camera system. Maybe you're going to have better patient outcomes and it's difficult to quantify. So now I bring a surgeon in that will… “Are you going to perform better?” Because the surgeons want the latest toys.   Will Barron: So they'll agree with whatever what kind of pitch it to a CFO in the NHS. We're bringing them in, “Hey, do you think you'll be able to perform a safer procedure and reduce the chances of the NHS get sued? Any kind of patient problems on the back of this?” And of course, they say yes. And they go on board. And there'll be two or three other things that we would layer on top of that. Would that be on the right tracks of this I here?   Andy Whyte: That's it. It's exactly it. Yeah. And it's that thing around with the example there, it's like the implicating the pain would be really digging into, in the case of the surgeon, I'll be digging into the feelings they have of what if something… How many bad issues going wrong will this solve and how many, like you said better outcome for patients. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the space to know what they were treating, what they're solving. But if I did, I'd be like scratching on that little wound a little bit, so to speak, to try and really open it up so that it…   Andy Whyte: [inaudible 00:37:46] Yeah, actually, this is a really big problem. And I need to solve this immediately, if not sooner. That's kind of the trick.   Will Barron: Because we tie into the… And this sounds manipulative post mortem. But during the conversation, it's not manipulative. You're asking questions and they're giving you answers that they feel are appropriate. I wouldn't feel like maybe you could do this in a manipulative way if you chose to. But I would only be asking, I'd be asking relatively open-ended questions so they could choose not to give me the response I was looking for.   Will Barron: But you get to the point where you'd be talking about their careers and how many legal actions can you have against you before the general medical council in the UK go, “Hey, there's a problem here.” A lot of that can be tied to very literally just being able to see better on a screen. Maybe I'm in a good position here or I was in a good position, because that's an obvious wave of add an implication and maybe a software product would be more difficult to add this. Maybe that's a conversation for another time. Next, go on to champion.   Andy Whyte: Champion.   Who is a Sales Champion? · [38:45]    Will Barron: Do we have a champion? Do we have multiple champions? Are the different levels of champion? Do we need a champion and do we need to identify the person who's going to kibosh the whole thing and the enemy? How does this framework work in regards to all that?   Andy Whyte: Yeah, great, great way of phrasing it. You can have more than one champion for sure. But the most important thing with a champion is that it's a qualified champion. In MEDDICC, there's three qualifying criteria. And these are really, really important. It's okay if you haven't qualified this, it doesn't mean you need to rule out talking to this person but before calling them a champion, you have to have these things, three things.   Andy Whyte: Number one, power and influence. Okay, it's not rank. It's just when they speak, when they say something, do people listen. The second is they have to have a mutual win with you. They want to… There has to be something in it for them, your success needs to equal their success. The third is they have to be selling on your behalf. You can't be there all the time. There's going to be lots of conversations when you're not there and they need to be selling in your behalf. And what that means is when somebody says, “Well, I think we can build this ourselves,” or, “I like the competition or whatever it is,” they stand up and step up for you.   Andy Whyte: Obviously, these three qualifying criteria, some are easier than others. You can see power and influence in a meeting, see if their people listen to them. You can kind of talk to them about your mutual win. The one around selling for you, the real easy hack here to understand if they talk to you to say, “Hey Jess, surely you've been talking about this project internally?” “Oh, yes, yes, we have.” “Has there been anyone that's not been in favour of our solution?” “Oh, yeah. There's Steve. He didn't like it.” “What did Steve say?” “Oh, well. Steve told me this.”   Andy Whyte: So first one, tick. Jess has told you what Steve said. That's a good sign. The real ultimate test is, “And what did you say to Steve?” She says, “Well, I told Steve and I made sure everyone else knew that Steve was wrong as well.” That's the champion. That's the first part. You've got your champion. And you can have more of those than you want. But it's really important you have a proper champion, rather than thinking just everyone likes me. “Everyone likes me.” That's no good.   Andy Whyte: The next one is the competition's champion, your counter champion, if you like. Now, it really comes down to who has the stronger champion, right. And if you find out that your competition has a stronger champion, you've got two choices, you either build up your champion to be stronger, you've got to train them, you've got to support the order, give them the talk track or you've got to find another champion because whoever has the strongest champion will win. It's basically the law.   How To Identify and Nature Your Sales Champion · [41:36]   Will Barron: I feel like I could ask you 15 questions here. I guess the most important thing here to understand for the audience, I don't know if there's data on this, I'm asking you anecdotally, do these champions come about because they like the salesperson or the people in the organisation personally?   Will Barron: Is this all based on relationships or is this typically because the champion knows that your product or service is the correct thing and they're excited to get it implemented?   “The best champions actually often don't have to like you.” – Andy Whyte · [41:53]    Andy Whyte: Yeah, brilliant question. Absolutely astounding. Because this is the thing. The best champions actually often don't have to like you. In fact, they can be a bit of a pain in your ass. They can. And so, yeah, that's the thing. The Challenger Sale is the book that gets talked about all the time and rightly, it's a good book. But the followup book, The Challenger Customer, for me, is a better book. And in that book, it talks about the difference…   “The different types of buyers. And actually, the one that's your friend is actually not as good as the person that the persona that is actually just wants the best for their company.” – Andy Whyte · [42:39]    Andy Whyte: And I think one of the reasons why it doesn't get as much hype, by the way is because people think it's for customer success people or something, it's about customers, but it's actually talking about the person you're selling to. And it's saying that where there's challenge of salespeople, there's also challenge of buyers. It should be called The Challenger Buyer. They should bring me up. They can have that one for free. But that's it. What they talk about is the different types of buyer. And actually, the one that's like, your friend is actually not as good as the person that the persona that is actually just wants the best for their company.   Andy Whyte: They don't care if it's you, they don't care if your logo is blue or red or what you do, they just want to get the best and that's that. Yeah, you almost actually just want… I'd rather have that champion because they definitely have more power and influence because people are like, “Well, it's really hard to impress that person.” So if you've impressed that person, it's worth more than the person that seems like everybody.   Which One is More Important: Customer Relationships or Understanding the Buyer and Delivering Value? · [43:15]    Will Barron: Yeah. We'll come on to a competition in a second but just to drill this home. How important are relationships versus how important is it to understand the buyer and just deliver value to them as a whole, across the whole like in the MEDDICC methodology?   “As a salesperson, you don't necessarily have to be liked. In fact, sometimes it can be a bit of a hindrance.” – Andy Whyte · [43:55]    Andy Whyte: Yeah. Well, here's a probably an unpopular opinion. Everywhere I've worked, there's always been a successful sales person who I thought, I won't say what I thought, but you just think, “I don't like that person. They don't seem to…” I know it's not me. I know they're like that with their customers, but they're still wildly successful. That, to me, proves that you don't necessarily have to be liked. In fact, sometimes it can be a bit of a hindrance. If you just want people to like you… Earlier in my career, that was me. I was scared of asking the difficult questions and all that sort of stuff. So that the more outcome driven sellers, I think are the better ones. I have a really nice analogy for how I think salespeople should be. We should never be apologetic, we shouldn't be, “Thank you so much for your time.” You, yourself as a great example of this, you were selling technology that literally helped save people's lives.   “They should be calling you up and clearing their calendar to talk to you. If you don't feel like that about the product you're selling, then you're probably in the wrong job.” – Andy Whyte · [44:27]    Andy Whyte: They should be calling you up and clearing their calendar to talk to you. If you don't feel like that about the product you're selling, then you're probably in the wrong job. And so this is the analogy, this is the mindset. There's a film called Limitless, I don't know if you've seen it. It's got Bradley Cooper. It's one of my favourite films. But for those that haven't seen, it's basically about a pill that says we use 6% of our brain. The pill unlocks 100% of our brain power. So you can learn a language in like an hour or something like that, learn Kung Fu in an hour.   Andy Whyte: If you were a salesperson of an FDA approved pill that did that, how would you be as a salesperson? You would be so confident. You wouldn't let anyone waste your time. If we take that mindset into sales, that's how we should be. There's two things that will happen. People won't waste your time, but also people are like one, “This guy seems very busy. I better make the most of his time before he goes on to the next person.” And that's kind of the mindset, I think we should have.   Will Barron: For sure. That film, the NZT or B or whatever it's called-   Andy Whyte: NZT.   Will Barron: Is based on a drug called modafinil.   Andy Whyte: Let me write that down.   Will Barron: We're going off topic here. It's a narcoleptic drug, but people do use it as a smart drug. I've experimented with it in the past and it's not your… You barely notice it. What it does for me though, what it does in general, is why people use it as a smart drug, it removes that little bit of voice at the back your head when you go. “God, I was doing my accounting today. I've got to do this VAT return.” That little bit of voice doesn't exist, and you literally just sit down and do the work.   Will Barron: So it doesn't turn you into an incredible author and a superstar kind of ladies man like it does in that film. I just thought it would be funny to mention, there are literally people selling that drug right now who are probably going… They're probably on the drug as well. They're probably going, “Yeah, I appreciate what you're saying here, Andy.”   Andy Whyte: I didn't know that. I didn't know that.   Competitors In and Out of an Organisation You’re Trying To Sell To · [46:22]    Will Barron: Well, there we go. Final thing here, competition. So you touched on at the top of the show, the fact that this isn't just our direct competitors, it's anyone who can take a budget. Is there anything else that we need to add to that to make that clear in the audience's minds?   “By the way, if a salesperson ever says, “There's no competition here,” they're either lying or they're not close enough to the deal.” – Andy Whyte · [46:54]    Andy Whyte: No, I think that's it. It's anyone that can take not just the budget, but the resource as well. If your solution requires expertise or people to help implement it, then that can be a thing as well. That's a really, really important one. Because people just go… By the way, if a salesperson ever says, “There's no competition here,” they're either lying or they're not close enough to the deal.   Will Barron: For sure. Okay. So just to wrap up then, I've got one final question that I ask everyone that comes on the how.   Andy Whyte: Okay.   Andy Reveals the Steps Most People Get Wrong in the MEDDICC Methodology · [46:05]   Will Barron: Well, before that, out of these one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight steps, if we include some of the extra ones, what do people get wrong the most? What's the biggest hurdle for salespeople? What if you could wave a magic wand and fix one of them would solve kind of 60-80% of your clients' issues?   “Stop calling coaches, stop calling the person that talks to you the most your champion. Test them, test them and test them. That's the one. When you have a champion, you know very, very quickly how you're going to win and if you're going to win.” – Andy Whyte · [47:34]    Andy Whyte: Yeah, the one that people get wrong the most is their definition of metrics. But the one that will have the biggest impact of getting right is the qualifying criteria of the champion. Stop calling coaches, stop calling the person that talks to you the most your champion. Test them, test them and test them. That's the one. When you have a champion and you know very, very quickly how you're going to win and if you're going to win.   Will Barron: Is that because people don't have a champion or is that because there's a champion there and we haven't identified them?   “If you're in the right deal and you've got the best value to offer, then the champion will be there. You just need to find them.” – Andy Whyte · [48:04]    Andy Whyte: Well, I guess this comes back to qualification. If you're in the right deal and you've got the best value to offer, then the champion will be there. You just need to find them.   Will Barron: Sure.   Andy Whyte: And you've got to look high, low and wide for them. That's what salespeople are afraid to. It's hard. You upset people when you go high and wide and you go around people and you need to be kind of really confident in what you're doing. And here's the thing, if somebody is blocking you from talking to someone else that's going to progress your deal, they're not a champion. They failed the qualification of your success is their success. Yeah, you've got to get high and wide.   Andy’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Get Better at Selling · [48:40]   Will Barron: Love it. That makes total sense. Okay, Andy. Well, with that, final question, mate, that is given to everyone who comes on the show. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you'd give him to help him become better at selling?   Andy Whyte: What a great one. Listen to the Salesman Podcast.   Will Barron: Nothing to do with the podcast and nothing to do with MEDDICC either.   Andy Whyte: Well, this is genuinely what I would say is I would tell myself to ensure that I qualify out of deals more quickly. This is what I'd say. I guarantee the audience listening to this right now, ask yourself, have you or anybody you know ever regretted qualifying out of a deal? Have you ever qualified out and walked away and gone, “You know what? I could have won that one.” It never happens and here's the real goal of this.   Andy Whyte: If you were to be qualifying out of a deal that you really should be winning, the customer will tell you. They'll say, “No, Will. Will, Will, Will, Will, Will! Stick with me here mate. We're onto something here. I know we're difficult to work with or I know I made it seem like I wasn't interested but I really am.” And so best case scenario, the customer starts paving because they've made you feel like you should qualify out or second best case scenario, it's not even a bad scenario. You save yourself a load of time and heartache by chasing [inaudible 00:49:51].   Will Barron: I love that. I've had customers come back to me and apologise and they were trying to get a discount, they were trying to do this, they're trying to do that. Sometimes, they're just buying time. You feel like they're fobbing you off, but they're just buy in time because they know the budget is coming in six months and they're too nervous to tell you that they're embarrassed about it for whatever reason.   Parting Thoughts: Andy’s Book and How to Contact Him · [50:10]   Will Barron: I love that. No one's ever said that on the show before, Andy. That's really insightful. I appreciate that mate. With that, tell us where we can find out more about you and then where we can find the book as well.   Andy Whyte: Yeah, thank you. Well, the book is on Amazon. It's MEDDICC with two Cs, Andy Whyte is W-H-Y-T-E. The reason why I sort of laugh is because I found myself between two of the most unfortunate kind of ointments on the Amazon results page.   Andy Whyte: Don't buy those or you can if you need them, no judgement . It's MEDDICC, it's on Amazon. You can find me at meddicc.com, M-E-D-D-I-C-C.com. Actually just to be awkward, my social profiles are @meddpicc on Twitter and on Instagram.   Will Barron: Perfect. Well, I'll link to all of that in the show notes for this episode over at salesman.org. With that, Andy, I want to thank you for your time. I would love to have you back on to perhaps dive into two or three of these in more detail in the future. With that one, thank you again for joining us on Salesman Podcast.   Andy Whyte: Thank you. It's been great, Will.

Few things strike fear into the heart of sales reps quite like cold calling. Do you know where that fear comes from? A lack of control. The more control we have over any situation, the less afraid we’ll be. Same goes for cold calling. So if you want to eliminate cold calling fears FOR GOOD, you just need a simple process or framework to follow so you know what to do at each step of the call. That’s where control comes from. And that’s what we’re talking about today. The first step of the Cold Calling 101 is… 1. Confirm Confirm you’re speaking to the RIGHT person. And that means the decision maker. You want to be speaking directly with whoever decides whether to buy. Because otherwise, you’ll be dealing with a gatekeeper who then has to go convince their boss to make the purchase. And along the way, your product’s value will likely be diluted. So what does that sound like in practice? “Hi, Will Barron from Salesman.org. Who’s in charge of sales training at X? Scenario 1: “That’s me.” — Move on to the next step Scenario 2: “That’s Barry.” — Now we need to get in touch with Barry. “Ok thanks. Could you connect me with him? Can I tell them that you referred me?” 2.  Break This step is all about breaking the prospect out of their status quo, i.e. being comfortable with the solution they’re using right now. So ask them how their current solution is working out. As it turns out, most people will tell you there’s some kind of problem. Things could always be cheaper, faster, more effective. So pop the question, like this: “OK great, how are you training your sales reps right now?” No matter what their response is, it’s important to still move on to the next step. Even if they tell you they’ve already got a solution that’s working great, still push forward to 3. Value This is when you give a short snippet of the value you can offer. Don’t go too crazy on the details here. Just hit the biggest problem and the most important way what you’re selling solves it. One sentence should do the trick. Now remember, you’ve got to push through to this step, regardless of whether they seem pleased or not with their current provider. Buyers will be open to new solutions more often than you might expect. And if they push back, you only have three more sentences to get through (15 seconds max). Now let’s look at what a value statement looks like in practice. “We help salespeople find and close more sales in the next 30 days or your money back.” See? Quick, succinct, and hit’s all the main points. Doesn’t have to be more complicated than that. 4. Tie-In Here’s where you tie in the value of your product to what the prospect is going through. How can you help? What kinds of benefits that matter to THEM can they expect to see from working with you? And more than anything else, why the hell should they care? Here’s what it might look like in our scenarios. Scenario 1: “It seems like you’re not happy with your current sales training solution. Would it make sense to see if we can solve this problem for you?” Scenario 2: “Would it make sense to see if we can turbocharge your current solution so you can train more effective sales reps more quickly?”  Once you bridge this gap, you can move on to the all-important final step… 5. Close This is where the rubber meets the road ladies and gentlemen. Where everything you’ve done until now combines into the sweet success of a “yes” or the bitter pill of the “no”. It’s time to make the ask. Now of course the goal here isn’t to make the SALE. Because no one in their right mind is going to agree to buying after a thirty second conversation. Instead, your aim is just to set up a sales meeting. Schedule a call. That’s it. So what does that look like? “Ok great, it looks like we might be able to help. Does it make sense to jump on a quick 10-minute call tomorrow to discuss?” Bam, simple as that. Now the nature of cold calling here means you’re likely to get a “no”, even if you’ve done everything right. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. Instead, give them your contact info and ask for theirs as well. You can then plug them into your nurture sequences so that if something DOES change on their end, you’ll be the ones at the top of their mind. And if you get a “yes” out of it all, well then mark your calendar because you just scored a sales call with a brand new lead. Congrats!

Do you want to become a legend in your industry? How would that affect your sales performance? What would your day look like if you had inbound leads hitting your inbox rather than having to cold call until your fingers bleed from dialing? On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Shama Hyder shares a bunch of personal branding examples and a step by step process to getting known in your industry Sharma is known as the “Zen Master of Marketing” by Entrepreneur Magazine and the “Millennial Master of the Universe” by Fast Company. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Shama Hyder Zen Master of Marketing Resources: FREE SalesSchool Workshop – Start HOT Calling To Remove The Fear And Failure From Cold Calling ShamaHyder.com @Shama Shama on Linkedin Book: The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue Transcript Shama Hyder: So I think as any good salesperson will tell you, especially in the B2B world, relationships are everything. So the first thing that you have to keep in mind, especially with something like personal branding, is that you're going to have to look at the ROI in both quantitative and qualitative ways. It's not necessarily about how many people can you get in front of, it's how are you viewed by that audience? Are you another salesperson? Are you a respected resource? Are you someone they feel looks out and has their best interests in mind?   Will Barron: Hello sales nation, I'm Will Barron, host of the Salesman Podcast. The world's biggest B2B sales show where we help you not just take your target, but really thrive in sales. If you enjoy this content, make sure you click subscribe. And with all that said, let's meet today's guest.   Shama Hyder: Hey, this is Shama Hyder founder and CEO of Zen Media.   Will Barron: In this episode, we're diving into personal brand in sales. Why it's important, how to measure it, how to leverage it the best you possibly can, and the first thing you should do after consuming this content to make a real impact on LinkedIn in front of your potential customers. Let's jump in.   How to Analyze the Size and Depth of Your Personal Brand · [01:12]   Will Barron: Before we dive into the how of building a personal brand. How do we, if we even can, how do we measure our progress with it? Is it the number of Twitter followers we have? Or for a B2B sales professional, is there a better way to measure the personal brand that we have in perhaps within our vertical?   Shama Hyder: So I think as any good salesperson will tell you, especially in the B2B world, relationships are everything. So the first thing that you have to keep in mind, especially with something like personal branding, is that you are going to have to look at the ROI in both quantitative and qualitative ways.   Shama Hyder: So the qualitative is that really important, hard to put numbers on at times, but just as important. So, it's your reputation, it's how someone says, “oh, you are everywhere”, or “I've heard of your company before”. Anybody who's been in sales knows the difference when they call someone and they get hung up on versus, “oh, I've heard of you guys”. And that's the game changer. When someone says, “I've heard of you”, and you have that instant credibility, your reputation precedes you. And I think that's what you're really looking for when you build a brand where you've already have that credibility, you have that respect, and you have that time. So if you get their time and you've got their attention, then you're one step closer to actually closing the sale.   The Benefits of Being Super Specific with the Type of Audience You Want Be In Front Of · [02:27]    Will Barron: I think you just touched on something here and I think you consciously did this of being everywhere. And I think this is the salesperson's biggest competitive advantage versus the marketing team or other development teams in that, my background in medical device sales, there was only 16 urologists here in Yorkshire here in the UK that I needed to be in front of. If they all bought something from me every year, I'd smash my target, which was a couple of million quid. It's not that difficult to be everywhere in front of 16 people, versus a CEO of an organisation, your customers, you're trying to be in front of thousands of people. So how can we leverage this fact that we only need to be in front of a handful of people rather than tens of thousands? How can we leverage that as sales people versus perhaps how a marketer would?   “It's depth rather than breadth. And that is also something to be said about your personal brand. It's not a popularity contest. It's not how many people know you. It's what the people that you are trying to get in front of think of you. How are you creating resonance and relevance with that group?” – Shama Hyder · [03:17]   Shama Hyder: Sure. So it's not necessarily about amplification all the time. And what I mean by that is it's not necessarily about how many people can you get in front of. Which of course, if you have a niche audience, that's not really the case. It's how are you viewed by that audience? Are you another salesperson? Are you a respected resource? Are you someone they feel looks out and has their best interests in mind? Are you someone they feel like keeps up with the industry, that cares about their patients, their practise. I think it's conveying all of this information. So it's depth rather than breadth. And that is also something to be said about your personal brand. It's not a popularity contest. It's not how many people know you. It's what the people that you are trying to get in front of think of you. How are you creating resonance and relevance with that group?   Who Decides How You Are Perceived in Your Industry? · [04:03]    Will Barron: Before we've picked up the phone, perhaps they've Googled us before we've outreached to them, or perhaps we have outreached to them and we're in the process of booking call and they've Googled us. Who decides that initial perception of whether you are an industry thought leader, whether you are to be trusted? Is it the content that we put out? We'll touch on content in a second. Or is it how they interpret the content? If that makes sense. Who's in control of that initial, oh, that seems like a reasonable person to chat to.   Shama Hyder: So it's a combination of things, . And here's the crazy thing. We often think it's one person it's not always one person. Especially if you look at B2B tech sales, what a lot of research shows is that it's a group decision making process now more than ever before. And so it's not always one person who says, “aha, I think X, Y, Z.” I think about, like I do keynotes all over the world and more and more, my bookings are by younger millennials, people who are not necessarily in decision making positions, and roles in their company, but they've read my books, they've followed for a while. And they're the ones that bring me to their bosses and they're “we got to get her in.” And so you've got to be able to realise that it's not a one track, you have this one person you need to influence. You also have to influence this sphere of people that influence their decisions.   Shama Hyder: And what you're really looking for is content, but also consistency in that content. And that's the other mistake so many people make, especially salespeople, which is funny because sales is all about multi-touch, multi-point we all know this. And so it's funny because it's not about one tweet, one LinkedIn post. It's what you do consistently over time. And I feel like consistency is such an unsexy word. People don't like it. It's the cousin of prudence, . Nobody wants to hear the word consistency. But it's absolutely crucial when you're building brand and you're trying to build that trust and credibility and shorten your sales cycle.   Shama Hyder: So for B2B folks, they say, that's the best thing you can do as you build these profiles, as you build this presence, you are going to shorten that sales cycle considerably. That doesn't mean you can be shortsighted about it because it does take time, but where something might have taken eight months, a year, can be a lot shorter because they already trust you. They already think that you are the best of the best.   How to Build a Personal Brand in B2B Sales · [06:56]    Will Barron: For sure. I think it immediately separates you from the competition. If you're known, liked, and trusted within an industry, if you just do a couple of talks a year. I used to do it all the time to surgeons. I'd get up on stage and explain kind of the future of endoscopy, the different equipment that we're using. I worked for the two biggest competitors in the industry, so it'd be kind of a vendor agnostic. But I'd get people come and talk to me after the fact, and they'd very often become customers kind of a year or so down the line. So with that said, is there a series of things that B2B salespeople should be doing to build a personal brand? And then we can kind of dive into the nitty gritty of practically what they should be doing day in, day out. For example, context, speaking, are there any real high leverage items that people or activities people should be doing to build their personal brand in a specific vertical?   “The highest leverage thing that you can do to build your personal brand regardless of vertical, is perhaps the most important and the most overlooked, which is ask yourself why and what are you trying to accomplish?” – Shama Hyder · [07:13]   Shama Hyder: The highest leverage thing that you can do to build your personal brand regardless of vertical, is perhaps the most important and the most overlooked, which is ask yourself why and what are you trying to accomplish? And I know this seems like a simple question, but it's amazing how many people dive in because they think that's what they're supposed to be doing without really saying, what's the goal? Am I looking to shorten that sales cycle? Am I looking to build trust? Am I looking to just get visible? Maybe my target market doesn't even know who I am. I don't even exist. What does that look like? And I think then the question becomes, and again, this is so important, how do I add value to my target market?   Shama Hyder: This is the big difference I think between sales from yesteryear and sales now. Perhaps it's always been this way, but that it's highlighted so much more now, how can you add value to your given audience? Absolutely crucial in sales. And most people never ask themselves that. If you asked yourself that, get on stage, you would talk about these vendor agnostic solutions that there might have been, but you're really trying to educate and you're providing value. So whether that's through the stage, whether that's through online, that's the key. What is it that your audience is hungry for?   Shama Hyder: And I'll go a little deeper into this Will, if you don't mind, because I think this might be helpful for your audience listening. So many people don't know this, but I did my thesis on Twitter when it had about 2000 users. Yeah, so it's crazy, long time ago, about 10 years now, today, of course, Twitter has 375 million users.   “Why do people use social media? And I think this is an important question to answer because before you can try to figure out how to use it,  you have to understand what drives people to use it.” – Shama Hyder · [08:55]    Shama Hyder: So very different landscape. One of the things that I looked at in my academic research for grad school was why do people use social media? And I think this is an important question to answer because before you can try to figure out how to use it, think you have to understand what drives people. Like as sales people, we're all about the motivation. What is the motivation? So when I looked at that, my hypothesis was that we use it to connect with each other, to have that sense of community, but I was wrong. The primary reason people use social media is to showcase their own identity. Okay. And I know it might sound narcissistic first glance, or, oh my God the world is a giant selfie.   Shama Hyder: But if you stop and think about it, you realise that's how we've always become who we are. It's the feedback we get, who we are, and we adapt to fit our community and so forth. Identity is a very changing thing. But translate this to sales and marketing, and what this means is it used to be so much about what does your brand say about you? Like we've all been these branding exercises for a company perhaps, or we're looking at, what does our brand stand for? Who do we want to be? What do we… We've all been there, but what this research shows us is the right question to be asking isn't what does our brand say about us? The right question to be asking is what does doing business with us, allow our customers to say about their personal brand?   How Your Personal Brand Affects the People That Choose to do Business with You · [10:10]    Will Barron: What would be an example of that in the B2B space?   “If someone chooses to do work with your company, they're doing it not because of what your company is, but what it allows them to say about themselves.” – Shama Hyder · [10:28]    Shama Hyder: So if someone chooses to do work with your company, they're doing it not because of what your company is, but what it allows them to say about themselves. And so I'll give an example. We've done projects with McKinzie. They're a client, McKinzie Consulting. And so if you look at those guys, when people hire them, for business issues, big challenges, when the fortune 100 go to them for different things, they're going to them because it allows them to say, “we care about strategy and we're going to look for one of the best in the industry to help us”. It allows them to say about their brand. When a CEO hires a business coach, they're hiring someone because it says, “I care about my leadership. I care about my career. I care about this.” When people come to us for marketing and new media, and how do we how do we stay relevant and make sense in the digital age, what they're saying is “I want to be innovative. So I'm working with you”, and that's very important when you're in sales to try to figure out how can you help support your customer's goals?   Shama Hyder: And I'll give you another great example. So Chase Business is one of our clients. We've got this amazing campaign with them right now called a Chase Bizmobile that has been going all across America. It's literally like an amazing trailer, for lack of a better word, but it's really outfitted cool. We help design, put it together, we got some great partners we're working with to roll that out. But the whole point was chase business, it's a bank, Chase is a bank they're in the banking business. But what they had to stop and ask themselves were “what does that mean for our customers?” And their customers are interested in their business. So Chase looked at it and said, “how do we help support our customers businesses?” Being, “yes we're their banking partner, but we want to be their business partner”. And so great kind of example of that, of where this Bizmobile that's going around, has expert advisors. We actually do a lot of these sessions for them on marketing, on technology, helping business owners, who are their customers, reach their goals.   Shama Hyder: And so it's so easy, especially when you're in sales to get siloed. Like I am selling this one thing without saying, what is the goal of my customer, my client? What are you trying to do? And when you step back a little bit, it's amazing, think about the relationships that we have with someone when they say, “you know what, my product's not right for you. This is who you need to talk to”, or “you're just not ready for this yet. But let me tell you exactly what you need.” It's amazing when someone steps back and has true empathy for their customer, their client, and with that empathy helps them solve the greater issue. It may not be what they're looking for from you right now, but I promise you they'll think of you. They will turn to you. You will have their trust for when you need it.   Will Barron: I'm going to give the audience a sneak peek here, and then we'll pull it back to the conversation because I've been following your Instagram, or the business' Instagram profile. So I've seen your Chase bus. And it's very similar to something that I want to do. I'm trying to work with a couple of the audience will… the biggest brands in the sales industry are kind of back and forth in negotiations over this. I really want to get a VW camper van and turn it into an interview, essentially, studio and drive around the UK and Europe interviewing business leaders and sales experts. So that's a sneak peek for the audience that might crop up before the end of the year. And I saw what you were doing on the Instagram profile. I was like, “yes, this is very similar, this is what I want to do moving forward”. So I'm glad we're on the same wavelength with that, but-   Shama Hyder: Yeah, let us know if you need help designing it and getting it out there. So yeah, it's been such a fun campaign and that's a fabulous idea. And see the right brand partner, for example, Will, the person that partners with you on that or says, we want to sponsor this. They'll be really smart because their audience, who they want to get in front of is who's listening to this podcast. They're professionals, they already trust you, they enjoy the content, they trust that you're bringing good resources to them. So it's already a very natural fit and connection. And if they're smart, they're going to leverage that. So much of this becomes about making those connections and sales not being sort of a blunt force instrument, but really being fine tuned, looking for influencers who already have that trust, who have that credibility and then making smart partnerships and leveraging that to grow your brand further.   Will Barron: Well, I'm going to take that clip where you said it was a smart move and show it to these organisations I work with. So thank you for that. That was awesome.   Understanding What Your Customer Really Needs · [15:05]    Will Barron: But going back to the branding element of this, and kind of what we're talking about is high level. This is what an organisation could perhaps do. How do we narrow this down for an individual? And I had one idea that popped in my head as, you were talking Shama, of perhaps if we don't do a deal with someone without mentioning any names, that's a small blog post of, I couldn't work with this person because of X, Y, Z. I encourage them to look at 1, 2, 3. That's a nice little blog post that can be then shared around within your little niche, within your vertical. And I imagine if you did clearly, there's elements of being able to write and other things here, which we can perhaps drill down into a little bit deeper on the content creation front.   Will Barron: But something like that builds trust, it shows that you're at least an expert in your product and the competitors as well. Is that something that we should be aiming for? Bits of content like this, that take a one-on-one conversation that salespeople have all the time, but then perhaps add a bit of scale to it, because 30 people can see it, 40 people can see it.   Shama Hyder: Absolutely. If you are an individual, you also have this distinct advantage because you can step back and say, “what does my client really need?” And not just right now, but overall.   Shama Hyder: So I'll give you a very simple example. Let's say you're in B2B sales for technology, for IT. Very common, you sell IT and you usually sell it to companies, startups that are growing really fast. Okay. I'm just making this up. So let's say your audience is startups that are scaling really fast and you give them IT infrastructure, great. You know, already that those startups are facing much greater challenges than just IT. It's not so much a stretch to put together a guidebook, a resource that says here's what working with so many startups that are scaling fast has taught us that we've been able to curate all this information and here's a directory of resources.   Shama Hyder: Of course, you can have your IT, but maybe they need other things with HR. Maybe they need other things with finding good talent. And so maybe this is a resource book that helps them get where they need to go. And you're a part of that puzzle. But the more you can step back from “what's in it for me?”, and look into “how can I help them with the bigger picture?”, that's really where you're going to get the most bang for your buck.   Will Barron: That makes total sense. And for me, medical device sales, I would put together and I carry out my own iPad. The corporate iPad that could never be touched or changed. I carry around my own iPad as well. And I had basically pinched a load of slides from the previous organisation I worked for, I re-rendered them with my own backgrounds and stuff. And the new call stats, corporate backgrounds from the new company I worked at and it had all our products, competitor products, the differences, the changes, the balances between the weight of the different elements of them. These are all like glass optical lenses that would go inside people. And surgeons loved it. And there was always a fine line to balance on because corporately they hated it, they didn't allow it, they told me off many times, but I kept doing it because it closed deals. People enjoyed it. And it was a reason, an opportunity to spend time with someone. And because it had not just our equipment in it, which the corporate one did, it had everything in it, people loved it.   How to Use Video Content as Your Competitive Advantage in Sales · [18:32]    Will Barron: And so again, positioned you as a somewhat of an expert in the field. If you've got all this information about the competitors, and then they're just trying to pitch their own products, whereas you are kind of going across the board with this. But Shama for someone who can't… I'm an okay writer, I'm not a fantastic writer, I'm okay. From years of practise now doing the podcast and the blog content. For someone who sucks at writing, but, and there's a stereotype here perhaps, is somewhat chatty, somewhat charismatic, how does video play into all of this and how can video be a competitive advantage over someone who's just writing blog posts?   “64% of people will finish watching up to a 30 minute commercial video clip versus 24% that'll finish reading an article.” – Shama Hyder · [19:13]    Shama Hyder: Yeah. So video's fantastic. I think sometimes the challenges with the opposite where you couldn't do video, but you're a good writer, you have to find the medium that makes sense for you. But video I'm so thrilled about because I've been gung ho on this for a long time. And if you look at the stats, they're so compelling, 64% of people will finish watching up to a 30 minute commercial video clip versus 24% that'll finish reading an article. That's staggering. And of course, some of some people on here might be like, “oh, but I love to read.” Yeah, but you are not your audience. I read these novels, like 800 page Diana Gabaldon books, I love it. But not everyone is that way. And the truth is, think about everyone on here listening, has at some point watched an infomercial and could not change the channel until someone else walked in the room and they said, “what are you doing?What are you watching?” And then they're like, “I don't know. But these knives though!” or, “Wow, Oxy really does get it clean!”   Shama Hyder: I mean, we've all been there where we've been completely mesmerised or transfixed by something by video and it's human. It's human. So video was such an amazing tool. I'm very excited with what LinkedIn is doing with video right now. So LinkedIn to me is like a B2B salesperson's best friend. What an amazing platform. You can reach people, you can have valuable conversation, for nurturing, attraction, all those things, I love LinkedIn. And now with LinkedIn video, it's such a no brainer. So if you are in B2B sales and you haven't played with that yet, I highly recommend it because like all things, it will reach saturation and we will lose visibility.   Shama Hyder: And I'll give you an example. This is the stuff I love talking about marketing, technology, so forth. I keynote somewhere, I do a quick video after, whatnot. I'm always sharing this information. Sharing these videos on YouTube, for example, just randomly might get like 4,000, 5,000 views. It's nothing crazy to write home about, but sharing that same video on LinkedIn very quick on my iPhone, shoot it, edit it, quick post, that maybe five minutes, maybe less, five minutes is kind of long. Usually mine are about two to three minutes. Will average a quarter million views within 48 hours and 10% engagement. So very high targeted audience, very engaged. And I find that fascinating, so I'm so gung ho about video. I think anyone who feels comfortable on camera should absolutely go for it. And the only way you learn is by doing, your first videos may be utter BS, but as you do [inaudible 00:21:37]   Will Barron: Will be BS, right. It will a hundred percent be terrible. There's zero doubt in my mind, or I'm sure yours that everyone's first video after watching this is going to be absolutely atrocious, right?   Shama Hyder: I cringe at mine. I mean, Will, when I started doing videos and I look back and I'm like, “what was I thinking?” Like I have my dog in my lap like I thought that was cute. I didn't know. It was really funny. So I look back and I'm like “ah, face Palm, these are so bad.” But I wouldn't be as comfortable as I am on camera doing the things that I'm doing if I hadn't gone through that process. Like there's not a shortcut through that. I do think you can have natural inclinations. Like I enjoy public speaking, I enjoy sharing my passions, so I have natural inclinations for that, but I definitely was not as good of a speaker or doing media interviews and stuff as I am now, because it was 10 years ago, that's a lot of practise show after show. So many things, and that's how you get better. But I am such a firm believer in video, highly think it's the highest ROI right now, especially if you're looking at LinkedIn.   Want to Create Your First Video For LinkedIn, Here’s a Topic Idea For You · [22:50]    Will Barron: Perfect. And I want to offer the audience a challenge here, Shama, what should be the video that after listening to this, and most people listen to this, either driving the car or jogging, so please do it when you get to your office and please don't do it on the treadmill. Cause that's asking for a broken hip, what should the first video that they should be uploading be? What should the title be? What should the subject be? And I guess what's the generic kind of video that the audience should put out there, just to get the first one done, just to get it out?   Shama Hyder: And if you do decide to stop what you're doing right now and take a funny video, please send it to Will and I, tag us, we love it. Don't hurt yourself, but I'm always up for a good laugh. So it's very simple, great question Will, very simple challenge. If everyone listening says “I want to do this, I don't really know like how to start”, start with the most simple thing possible, which is, I'll give you two prompts. You can choose one or the other. You can either do what I wish every single one of my clients knew. And you could do that so quickly because I promise if I asked almost anyone on this podcast, what's the one thing you wish your clients knew, you'd have an answer, whatever that was. Like “do this early and do this before you actually need it”. Or whatever it may be, or “don't listen to X, Y, Z”. So what is that?   Shama Hyder: My second prompt would be share what is it that you have learned as a professional? What's the one thing that you really distilled in all your years? And it may be that relationships matter, it may be that having a good mentor at work, whatever it is, share something that's valuable. And again, you'll notice it has nothing to do with your industry particularly. But these are two really good starting points. And you can choose either/or.   Will Barron: Yeah. And that's almost a full podcast, video, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn series there of, every week what's the one thing I wish my clients knew this week? Or what's the one thing I've learned this week, that could help my clients? That's super simple. And if you've connected with the right people on LinkedIn and hopefully you've messaged them, you've not just spammed them a bunch of connection requests, you've gone back and forth with them. The engagement there is going to bring that up in the feed. And if they're on LinkedIn regularly, you are going to be top of mind constantly. Even if they don't watch the video, they're going to see your face, right. And how powerful is that?   Shama Hyder: Yeah. And I it's funny I do these videos and people tell me all the time when I run into them, they're like, “oh my God, I've seen your videos like 15 times, they pop up” and the thing is you have to play to algorithms, and right now LinkedIn is giving preferential treatment to video. So absolutely ride that wave.   Things That Can Negatively Affect Your Personal Brand · [25:20]    Will Barron: Perfect. So a couple more things I want to ask you before we kind of wrap up here, Shama, and the first one, and this is something I'm trying to ask people more often, is there anything that you've done that has negatively affected your personal branding over the past few years? Is there anything that stood out, maybe it's a cautionary tale or maybe it was just something that didn't really massively, significantly impact it, but would be interesting for the audience?   Shama Hyder: Yeah. You know, I would say the biggest thing again, what I said is the opposite of, it's not staying consistent. So what's funny, like even on Instagram, and my team really gets on me about this because I'm so sometimes busy doing, that they're like “you got to share, share, share, share.” So now I've gotten better and I send my team things because we're creating so much content all the time. But documenting that process I think is important. And so times where I've seen that dip is when I have not been consistent in sharing my stories and continuously building that brand.   “We live in such a fast paced world that you have to stay consistent to stay top of mind. And as we know, so much of the game of sales is staying top of mind.” – Shama Hyder · [26:48]    Shama Hyder: And it's so funny you say personal brand and the perception is like a celebrity or building a brand for the sake of building a brand. But really when I say personal brand, I'm much more mean like your reputation, the value you're bringing, the community you're building. Even, when I go a couple of weeks without sharing something and I do then, my community says, “oh my God, where have you been?” So I'm like “oh, okay”. So it's funny, we live in such a fast paced world that you have to stay consistent to stay top of mind. And as we know, so much of the game is staying top of mind.   Being Personal Versus Professional In Your LinkedIn Videos · [27:35]   Will Barron: And people are interested in you as well, right. And tell me if I'm totally wrong here, I think that's still important in B2B sales. So this is clearly a business to business audience that I've built here. You know, probably 20 odd thousand people will listen to this audio anywhere from, well, we've had anywhere from kind of a thousand to a hundred thousand people will watch the YouTube video depending on the YouTube algorithm.   Will Barron: People ask me, as much as questions I get asked about sales or how I should do this, or I want get a promotion. I get asked about this car, this GTR that I'm aspiring to own in the future. People seem to be just as bothered about my buying ridiculous things that are total waste of money, as they are with improving the sales skills, which is why they're watching the show in the first place. So how much of a personal element should we be adding to all this, versus being the stereotype of a dude in a badly fitting suit stood there of his video going buy my products because you know, the great, how much of it should be? How, how much of ourselves should we be injecting into all of this?   Shama Hyder: Yeah. So it's really funny that you say that. And yes, people are extremely curious about my life. In fact, some of the Google auto searches that auto correct with my name are hilarious and I won't even go into them. But it's so funny. And to me, it's not about how much of your personal life are you sharing, it's more about how relevant can you be to your audience? I don't think me sharing what I'm having for dinner is necessarily relevant to my audience. So I don't share it. I will say that being said, of course, all B2B sales is also B2B to C, which is we're human. And so even when you're selling to a business, you are selling to a human being, and I think that's such an important distinction.   Shama Hyder: So many times we say, “oh, it's B2B, it's different than B2C”. Yes and no, because at the end of the day, you're still buying from people you trust, you still want that experience. I do think it's important to be personable. I do think it's important to be transparent. I do think it's important to be honest, that means saying, sorry when you're sorry. That means saying thank you so much when you feel gratitude. That means letting people in a little bit so they know that you're human, that you have a family that you care about certain things that you care about your community. And that makes people want to do business with you more. I love supporting small businesses for example, or I love supporting people that I know have a greater mission or vision.   Shama Hyder: Of course we're human, we're attracted to that. So I think that's important, but people will always be curious about a million things. And I do walk that line finely because I do think about, is that relevant? Is that going to help them succeed in the digital age, because that's what I'm all about, that's my brand. And here's the craziest thing that I actually was just giving a keynote yesterday. Was it yesterday? Two days ago? Oh my God. I go through so many time zones, I have a hard time keeping up.   Shama Hyder: So I was talking to this group, also B2B. And I told them that the biggest shift that I have seen in the last few years in B2B is that the bar is now so much higher. And what I mean by that is in B2B. And I'm sure like being in medical sales, you can attest to this. The bar was so much lower, for example, if you had a website, it was awesome because all your competitors still had old school catalogues. But you had a website, so you were winning. Now, it's funny though, because your buyer, your B2B buyer is no longer comparing you to your competitors and saying, “well, they got catalogues, but at least this guy's got a website.” What they're looking at is “I just had this amazing experience at the Apple Store. Now I'm buying this. And I expect that same experience”.   “The expectations for B2B buyers are no longer different, they're higher. They don't care if you're better than your second rate competitors. What they care about is, “I just had Amazon experience. I just had the Apple experience. I just had a Zappos experience. This is the experience I expect across the board.” And so that means that you really have to take a look at how you sell and how you market and how you stand out because your competition is no longer just other B2B companies.” – Shama Hyder · [31:07]    Shama Hyder: That level of expectation, and that frictionless ness that we, as connected consumers and my team at Zen Media does a lot of research around the connected consumer, and what that really means. I mean, it's technically all of us. How we buy, how we make decisions, B2B or B2C, how do you stay relevant? But what I find fascinating is this, the expectations for B2B buyers are no longer different, they're higher. They don't care if you're better than your second rate competitors. What they care about is, “I just had Amazon experience. I just had the Apple experience. I just had Zappos experience. This is the experience I expect across the board.” And so that means there have to be some very deep cultural shifts. You really have to take a look at how you sell and how you market and how you stand out because your competition is no longer just other B2B companies.   Will Barron: It's funny you should say this, and we'll wrap up with this and I've got two points I don't want to gloss over. You mentioned them, which I think are really valuable for Sales Nation, everyone listening. But funny you should mention catalogues, the last company I worked for, to get a online version of the catalogue, you had to go through this massive rigmarole of who you are, what you're doing, and then they would only send you a PDF of one particular part of the catalogue. They wouldn't send you the whole thing because heaven forbid the competitor might get a hold of it. And this was three years ago or three and a half years ago, this wasn't 20 years ago or whenever the internet was created 1994, 96, when they would to send a catalogue that size would be a logistical problem through the terrible dial up that everyone had.   Will Barron: This was literally three and a half, four years ago. They would not give out a PDF version of the catalogue, because they were concerned that the competitor would have it. Everyone knew in the back of my car, my company car, I had a catalogue from each of the competitor companies and I was just a rep. So you, the corporation must have had them as well. It was ridiculous. But two things you mentioned here. One, if you're doing video content, if you doing any content really, having a set of rules in place I think is important. And I do this to kind of not have a blurred line between the content I put out with the podcast, with the sales school, which is coming soon and everything else.   Will Barron: For example, my girlfriend's a doctor. I never mention her name, where she works, anything like that because she asked me not to. I don't really record any content outside of the studio, the office or any live events that we do with the sales and podcast live. I don't really record content when I'm in the car or around where we live or if I'm out walking or running or anything like that. So I keep all that to myself. So having a set of rules I think is perhaps useful for the audience and paradoxically, it'll help you create more content faster if you've got a set of rules to go against.   Will Barron: And the other thing, and I'm conscious of time so we won't dive into it, but having some kind of mission or goal or something in your personal life that you're aiming towards, where you're trying to create business, create value, earn commissions because you want to do X, Y, and Z. I think is super powerful to include into your, your videos, your content, wherever you're doing your personal brand. And it makes you more human. So one of my passions is educating people about science and get people excited about science. We've got a whole other podcast that does that very thing. And I kind of intertwine the two here because people then will be asking me, “well, what about the other podcast? Oh, I love science as well”. And it kind of makes me more human and builds a deeper relationship with those individuals who listen to the B2B sales stuff.   Shama’s Advice to Her Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [34:10]    Will Barron: And with all that said, woo, I feel like I need a breath after rabbiting through all that. I just don't want to gloss over them. The excellent points you made Shama. I just wanted to kind of double down on them. I've got one final question to ask everyone that comes on the show. Your answer cannot be personal branding because this is probably part of it. So anything other than personal branding, but if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you'd give her to help her become better at selling?   Shama Hyder: You know, as cliched as it is, and I'd heard this when I was younger, I don't think I fully understood it until more recently. And that is the value of relationships. And I think you hear that and you think ah, yes, like meet people, get to know what they need. But what I mean by that is like today, if you look at the clients that we work with, there are people and human beings I have such high respect for. I hold them in such high esteem, and I think that is a relationship, right. There is a depth there. I love these people outside of work, and the way you do this is you invest. You get to learn about their families, you get to learn about what motivates them, what they care about.   Shama Hyder: And I think when I was younger, I heard that and saw it more superficially. I understood what that meant as my family and people closest to me. I didn't know what that translated to in the broader sense of that true word. Or I heard the very bro version of wine and dine. And I was like, “what's that?” It just felt still very, to me, kind of manipulative in a way, like you have an agenda. You're driven in that way. Well, today, what I have an understanding of now is it's not about an agenda. It's genuinely having that empathy and caring about someone and knowing where they're coming from and connecting on that deeper level. And then if you end up doing business, great.   “Throughout history, whoever controlled information had power because access to information was limited. So if you had information, you had an advantage. Well, the internet changed all of that. Now everybody has information. That's no longer the differentiator. So the differentiator becomes who can then best take that information and distill it in a way that turns knowledge into wisdom, that takes data and turns it into insight.” – Shama Hyder · [36:38]    Shama Hyder: And I think coming from that place has really shifted my perception and my view of work. And I will say this Will, to add to your point where you were talking about, I think this is so crucial for B2B folks in general, we no longer live in the information age. And what's fascinating is what you said, so many B2B companies, and I hear this all the time, especially from younger folks who are like, “my boss doesn't want me to share, because they're afraid our competitors will know.” I'm like “news flash, they already know.” So throughout history, I think what was fascinating was whoever controlled information had power. The church, for example, I mean anybody who controlled information had power because access to information was limited. So if you had information, you had an advantage.   Shama Hyder: Well, the internet changed all of that. Now everybody has information. That's no longer the differentiator. So the differentiator becomes who can then best take that information and distil it in a way that turns knowledge into wisdom? That takes data and turns it into insight?   Shama Hyder: And what you're doing with this podcast here is a great example. There is so much stuff on sales and B2B sales. It is mind boggling. But the reason you have millions of people listening and downloading this is because you are able to create that filter. You're able to ask the right questions, bring on guests. I mean, I know you let them so thoroughly. It's taken us a while to even get to this point, which is awesome. But see, so you have power because you are a curator, you are a filter. So as we talk about B2B and you wrap up about personal branding, it's how can you as a salesperson be that filter for your customers. And they're so hungry for that. Everyone has information, the key to winning now and in the future, is how can you create context and be relevant?   Parting Thoughts · [38:01]   Will Barron: [inaudible 00:38:07]   Shama Hyder: We work with clients around the globe. You can check us out at zenmedia.com. And of course my personal site, ShamaHyder.com. I'm on all the social platforms. So feel free to pick your poison and I'm happy to connect.   Will Barron: [inaudible 00:38:25].   Shama Hyder: My pleasure, Will. Thanks so much.  

“What's my motivation?” Expert Note: “By a massive long shot, salespeople's biggest pain point is a lack of motivation” Kim Walsh Salesman Podcast Clichéd as it is, this question still resonates today. And not just with actors. But with retail workers, executives, laborers—with everyone. For sales reps, in particular, keeping up their sales motivation day after day is often a struggle. Boredom, anxiety, hopelessness, and downright depression can all be expected in the face of a too-far-off sales goal. And for some, the harder they seem to work, the less they seem to earn. If this sounds all too familiar, don't worry: You're not alone. But luckily, there's a way out. It just takes a bit of strategic work on your part. This guide shows you how to overcome a lack of sales motivation using a proven 5-point framework. And with it, you can boost your numbers, blow past your goals, and achieve more success as a sales rep. The Secret to Sales Motivation (Forget The Stupid Sales Quotes) Sales motivation is a tricky beast. On the one hand, it can inspire you to take on new challenges. On the other hand, it can give you the energy you need to truly test your limits. And it can be the impetus to winning record-level sales. But there's a dark side to motivation, too. If you rely solely on motivation to get things done, you're only setting yourself up for failure. For example, on high motivation days, you may feel bulletproof. You're packing your pipeline full of prospects, piquing the interest of leads, and closing deals like a boss. But on the bad days, you're erasing all of that progress. As a result, you're missing out on perfect closing opportunities, forgetting to follow up, and letting ideal buyers slip through your fingers again and again. So, how do you keep the sales motivation going? How can you wake up energized, enthusiastic, and eager to achieve every day? You can't. Surprised? Don't be. We are all human. We are all prone to having good days and bad ones. And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you snake oil. Instead, you need discipline.  “Motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing. That's the Law of Consistency. It doesn't matter how talented you are. It doesn't matter how many opportunities you receive. If you want to grow, consistency is key.” – John C. Maxwell You don't need a sales rep motivation magic pill (because it doesn't exist). Instead, you need a system that takes motivation out of the equation entirely. And you need a way to succeed day in and day out—on the good days and the bad. And that's where the Selling By the Numbers 5-Point Framework comes in. The Selling By the Numbers Framework The Selling By the Numbers Framework is a simple yet effective way to take progressive steps towards meeting your goals every single day. It's numbers-focused, yes. But it's not overly technical. And don't be fooled here—this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, the Selling By the Numbers Framework is a way of reverse-engineering your goals so you can better understand the steps you need to take to achieve them. The best thing about the Selling By the Numbers Framework helps boost your sales motivation when followed correctly. It'll also improve your performance, focus, help you beat fear and win more business. Here's how. A) Single Path to Success A significant factor in feeling unmotivated in a sales position is not knowing whether the steps you're taking actually lead towards a win. Maybe right now, you're “winging it”—you're reaching out to prospects when it feels right, switching up your cadences on a day-by-day basis, and trying out different approaches whenever you read about them. This attitude to setting goals isn't going to help you crush your performance targets. While there's value in experimentation, this haphazard approach doesn't let you determine what's working and what isn't. And as a result, you're left wondering what you did wrong when you haven't met your quota for the month. The Selling By the Numbers Framework gives you clear, weekly (and even daily) goals so you can quickly know when you're winning and when you're failing. And that clarity will keep you pushing forward. B) Easy to Communicate The framework is also simple to understand and break down for others. But how does that keep you motivated? On the one hand, the simplicity makes it a snap to keep sales managers and other members of your sales team onboard. A clear and quantitative end goal, regular waypoints to track progress, a focused roadmap you can refer to daily—it's a dream for the higher-ups. And the more your supervisors get behind a plan, the easier it is for you to stay on track. Beyond that, the framework's simplicity also makes it great for teaching to the rest of your sales team. With more hands-on deck, you can continually refine the process to make it even more effective. C) Forces You to Decide What You Want This one's important. Money isn't everything. It's important, sure. And having a lot of it is certainly a reasonable goal. But feeling satisfied in sales doesn't always have to be about reeling in a massive paycheck and owning ever crazy resources. This framework forces you to decide what's important to you. For example, are you looking for a way to finance a new home purchase? Do you want to demonstrate consistency and reliability to help accelerate your career? Are you trying to find a better work-life balance? Maybe you want to work in sales, win the incentives and release the pressure by semi-retiring at 40 rather than 70. I encourage you to forget the motivational sales quotes as you go through this framework and really focus on what you want to achieve in your career. By setting precise goals and following the plan each day, you can rest assured you're continually working towards those goals. D) Walk Away When You Want Last but not least, the Selling By the Numbers Framework gives you more control over lead management. How many times have you had to deal with a pain-in-the-butt buyer? They're sucking up all your time. They're rude. And to be perfectly honest, they're probably leading you on a wild goose chase. With this framework, you can easily refer to your plan, see if you need that buyer to hit your numbers, and if not, walk away from all the trouble. And that kind of freedom is inspirational in and of itself. The Downside of Not Selling By the Numbers Beyond those benefits, there are also plenty of downsides to not selling by the numbers. Here are just a few of the biggest. A) You Don't Know What Works When you don't follow a clearly defined framework, you're working from instinct rather than hard data. Sure, some salespeople get lucky. Maybe they catch a windfall client out of nowhere. And perhaps they succeed against all odds using a slapdash approach. But without a step-by-step plan, you can't collect the data points to see what's working and what isn't. That means you can't refine your process. You can't replicate great results. And you can't know for sure you're on the path to success. B) Relying on the Unreliable To people outside of your profession, sales is all about charisma. It's about charm, magnetism, and talking your way into a deal. But as a salesperson yourself, you know the gift of gab can only get you so far. A master charmer can certainly seduce some buyers into eating into their budget. But more often than not (and especially in the B2B space), a salesman that relies entirely on their charisma is a salesman that doesn't consistently hit their numbers. With the Selling By the Numbers Framework, you're putting in the work every day. And that means you don't have to bet the farm on charming your buyer into a sale. C) Stuck in the “Work Harder” Trap Finally, the framework lets you break free from the “work harder” trap. Researching and trying new sales approaches every week is hard. Guessing at what went right (and what made you fail) is hard. Working overtime again and again to make your number is hard. Convincing your manager that next month will be different is hard. This framework gives you a simpler, clearer path to consistent success. No guesswork. And no more working harder, just smarter. Breaking Down the Selling By the Numbers Framework So, what is the Selling By the Numbers Framework? Essentially, this framework starts from the end and moves backward to define how to get there. It does so in just five steps: Define Your Wants Set Your Income Goal Determine Your Starting Point Establish Your Waypoints Create Your One-Page Plan Now let's dive a bit deeper into each step. 1) Define Your Wants Part of what makes this framework so effective is the fact that you're beginning with the end—what you want to achieve—and reverse engineers those results. So let's start there. What do you want? The simplicity of the question is deceptive, though. “More money,” for example, is a goal. But it's not an end goal because it doesn't get to the WHY of it all. Do you want more money to fund your child's college? Do you want more money so you can be in a similar income range as your social circle? Is it all about getting that shiny new Corvette? There are two things important here. Dig Deep – Find out what's truly important to you. What do you want to achieve this year? What do you want to buy, to be, to do, or to have? Make It Concrete – The only way this framework is effective is if you can work back from a solid, non-abstract goal. Defining your ultimate goal and keeping it front of your mind is key to staying motivated. Perhaps Jarrod Glandt, President of Grand Cardone Enterprises, put it best in our interview: Expert Note: “That doesn't mean you have to have a million-dollar goal, but you have to figure out what's important to you, and you have to figure out a way to drive towards that every day. Otherwise, you will end up lacking purpose and lacking drive and lacking motivation, and then you're just going to be unhappy.” Jarrod Glandt Sales Leadership Show 2) Set Your Income Goal Next, it's time to set your yearly income goal. Working backward from the want you defined in the previous step, determine how much income you'll need to make to achieve that want. This step is pretty easy if it's a tangible good that you're after (like a car). But, first, find out how much extra income you'll need to afford that good comfortably and tack it onto your current income. For wants that you don't need to be fulfilled right away (like saving for your child's college), determine how much you'd like to save per year by working backward. For example, if you want to send your child to an Ivy League school, you can expect to pay about $225,000 in tuition. Over 15 years, you'd have to save an additional $15,000 per year. If your want is to be offered a promotion, you'll have to do a bit more thinking. Maybe becoming lead sales rep for 3 years running is the ticket to getting noticed at work. In that case, the goal is to bring in more sales than other reps on your team. 3) Determine Your Starting Point The next step is to take stock of where you're starting from. This, again, is simple—where are you now compared to your income goal? No need to overcomplicate things right now. Just take what you've earned already and subtract it from the final goal. After that, you'll also want to take into account the givens this year. Do you have returning customers that are going to be a consistent source of recurring revenue? Are you midway through a sure-thing deal and are just waiting to collect your commission? Are you going to be losing a longtime customer? Think about what is already scheduled for this year that's going to impact your income and build that into the difference you calculated earlier. 4) Establish Your Waypoints This is where things get slightly more complicated. Now it's time to build out the quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily waypoints you need to hit to earn your income goal and achieve your final want. Try to make these waypoints as specific as you can using data from your customer relationship management (CRM) tool—more on that later. Look at historical tables to find out precisely how many touchpoints it took to close a successful sale. For instance, your data might look something like this: Sales target = $15,000 Average dollar value of closed deals = $1,000 Calls made = 2400 Decision makers spoken to = 480 Discovery calls scheduled = 120 Demos scheduled = 60 Proposals given = 30 Closed deals = 15 Then, break down that data into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and perhaps daily goals. Using the data above, your goals might look like this: *Note: As your timeline gets shorter (e.g., daily goals), the math doesn't always translate perfectly. As such, you may want to reserve more time-intensive plans for longer timelines (e.g., closing deals on a monthly rather than weekly basis).  Quarterly Calls made = 600 Decision makers spoken to = 120 Discovery calls scheduled = 30 Demos scheduled = 15 Proposals given = 8 Closed deals = 4 Monthly Calls made = 200 Decision makers spoken to = 40 Discovery calls scheduled = 10 Demos scheduled = 5 Proposals given = 3 Closed deals = 2 Weekly Calls made = 48 Decision makers spoken to = 10 Discovery calls scheduled = 3 Demos scheduled = 2 Daily Calls made = 10 Decision makers spoken to = 2 Discovery calls scheduled = 1 5) Create Your One-Page Plan Last but certainly not least, you need to create a one-page plan outlining the entire framework. Important: this is not meant to be exhaustive. Don't treat this one-pager like the single note-card you could bring to class—crammed from edge to edge with information. Instead, this is the boiled-down version that hits the core of each step. Yours might look something like this. My One-Page Plan Want: To have enough money saved up over 15 years to pay for Molly's tuition in full.  Income Goal: $150,000 per year Starting Point: $130,000 + $5,000 recurring yearly revenue (additional $15,000 per year needed) My Waypoints: Quarterly Calls made = 600 Decision makers spoken to = 120 Discovery calls scheduled = 30 Demos scheduled = 15 Proposals given = 8 Closed deals = 4 Monthly Calls made = 200 Decision makers spoken to = 40 Discovery calls scheduled = 10 Demos scheduled = 5 Proposals given = 3 Closed deals = 2 Weekly Calls made = 48 Decision makers spoken to = 10 Discovery calls scheduled = 3 Demos scheduled = 2 Daily Calls made = 10 Decision makers spoken to = 2 Discovery calls scheduled = 1 Time to Execute: What You Need to Know to Get Started Now that you have a better understanding of the sales motivation framework let's dive a bit deeper into the details. What kind of information will you need to establish your waypoints? What research will you have to do on your accounts before getting started? And what considerations do you need to include in your calculations? The specifics will vary among industries and positions. But below are some of the most common pieces of information you'll need to consider along the way. A) Your List of Prospects How many prospects do you currently have in your pipeline? How many do you need to hit your goals according to your conversion rates? You'll need to consider this information when building out your daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly strategies. According to HubSpot, more than 40% of salespeople say prospecting is the most challenging part of the sales process. So be sure to factor extra time into your days for it. B) Average Account/Order Size How big is your average account or order size? And how much will you be pocketing as a commission? Obviously, larger average order sizes mean you'll have to close fewer deals to reach your income goal. But you may have to spend more time on nurturing along the way too. C) Average Touchpoints/Time to Close Sale Is your sales cycle long and complicated? Does closing the sale from start to finish take days, weeks, or even months? How many times do you need to talk to a prospect before they're ready to sign on as a client? This is another important consideration when building out your milestones. Most CRMs should make this info readily available too. HubSpot reports that most B2B prospects will need about eight touchpoints before a sale. But every business is different, so be sure to calculate yours rather than just relying on industry averages. D) Average Number of Sales Closed vs. Touchpoints Started Piggybacking off the last point, you'll also need to calculate your close rates compared to the number of touchpoints started. This stat will be helpful in determining where you start hitting diminishing returns with your touchpoints. For example, you may find that most prospects will need six touchpoints before a sale. But do an additional two touchpoints increase the odds of closing? Or is it just wasting your time? Understanding this information will help you plan out your daily goals and what's needed to close a sale most effectively. E) The Gap This is essentially the third step of the framework. How far are you right now from reaching your income goal? How many accounts will you have to close on to achieve that goal? How many new accounts will you have to bring on according to your conversion rate? And how many calls, emails, and messages will you need to make to sign those accounts? F) Is This Even Possible? This is vital—is this even possible? Take a quick look at your team's sales history. How many clients do you bring on per year? How does your goal compare to that average? Ambition can be a great driving force. But goals so lofty that they're unrealistic aren't helping anyone. In fact, they'll likely only end in disappointment. So be sure your goals are ambitious, just not foolhardy. G) Determine Your Waypoints With all the information you've gathered, it's time to build out your waypoints. It's essential to be exacting here. And during your calculations, be sure to factor in vacations, holidays, sick days, and other time off work like seminars. H) Create Your One Sheet & Follow Religiously Finally, you've got all the information you need to create your one-page plan. It should include each step of the framework: Your Ultimate Want Your Income Goal Your Starting Point + Your Gap Your Detailed Waypoints Take this one-page plan, print it out, and place it in your workspace so it's always visible. The power of this plan is that you can refer to it whenever you want. So the more front-and-center, the better. Wrap Up Maintaining sales motivation is one of the biggest hurdles sales reps like you will face. Some days you may wake up energized and ready to take on the world. But on others, you may feel like Sisyphus stuck rolling the metaphorical boulder up a never-ending mountain. That's why it's so important to take motivation out of the picture using the Selling By the Numbers Framework. With this framework, you can rest easy knowing you're making strides towards your goals every single day, even on your worst days. And ultimately, it's what you need to be happier, more successful, and more motivated as a salesperson. As sales coach Beth Benatti Kennedy put it in our interview: Expert Note: “Resilience is actually moving forward. It's dealing with those challenges but being able to say I have the toolkit, so I can move forward. [Resilient salespeople] not only handle the challenges, but they also hit their numbers, and they also have very high career satisfaction.” Beth Benatti Kennedy Salesman Podcast  

A lot of sales reps I work with have been caught in the time/money trap – what they make is DIRECTLY tied to how much they work. But the great thing about sales is you can create a “flywheel” system that SCALES UP your ability to earn without requiring more of your time. And if you put in a bit of effort, your flywheel system will pay off BIG TIME. What Is The Flywheel? Let’s talk about what a flywheel is. Literally speaking, a flywheel is a heavy wheel that, when turned, continues revolving over and over again thanks to its size and momentum. Think of the Price is Right. You know the big, heavy wheel at the end that keeps spinning and spinning? Like that. Now what does this have to do with sales? Well when you first start out in this job, it takes a LOT of effort to get things rolling. Making those first few sales, building up your network from scratch, getting into the groove with your processes—it’s a ton of work. But once you DO start making progress, your flywheel starts spinning on its own momentum. And that means: You can ask for referrals People in the industry already know you before you even reach out Your sales process gets refined and improved You can farm/upsell current customers rather than having to do lots of cold outreach Simply put, everything gets easier. You don’t have to work as hard to see results. And that means less effort for better outcomes. The flywheel does all the work for you. How Do You Get Your Flywheel Moving? How do you get your flywheel moving? And just as importantly, how do you get it moving faster? Well we’ve got three strategies covering just that. And we’ll start with… 1. Impetus As the old saying goes… “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.”  Procrastination is wasted time. And the sooner you start doing something, anything for your future, the more that investment is going to pay off. On top of that, it takes a LOT longer than you think to build a successful business or brand—7 to 15 years according to some experts. Do you want to be raking in the spoils of your success when you’re 35 or would you rather be on your way to 60? If you’re looking for low-risk, high-reward things you can start doing TODAY to get things spinning, start spending more time with social selling. Interact with industry experts on LinkedIn. Connect with others you’ve met or talked to over email. Start building insightful, valuable content of your own. But no matter WHAT you do, just do SOMETHING. 2. Focus I’ve seen so many reps fall victim to having too many irons in the fire. It seems like a good idea at first, right? Diversify your approach. Casting a wider net yields more fish. Yada yada. But what they don’t tell you is that you have a limit to the amount of energy you can spend. There are only so many hours in a day. You only have so much work you can do before you snap. And life, at least one worth living, isn’t just about the work. So what you need to be doing is focusing your flywheel. Stop spending time and energy on the tasks that don’t drive results. Don’t send in that RFP for a deal you’re never going to get. Cut out the in-person meetings that you’re always ditched on. Find what ISN’T WORKING. And get rid of it. On the other side of that, double down on what IS working. Find the one channel that’s driving the most sales, whether it’s cold outreach, upselling current customers, targeting inbound leads—whatever. And then hit that channel HARD. Get good at it. Like really good. And spend the majority of your efforts on knocking that channel out of the park. Once you start seeing some really killer success here, only then should you think about getting your other flywheels going. 3. Scale Your time is best spent on the activities that scale your earnings, that multiply your value without multiplying your work. These are the activities that you can perform across your clients without having to deal with any guesswork. For example, how are you following up with first-touch leads? Are you just emailing them randomly whenever they pop into your head? Or are you following a strategic cadence that’s proven effective? The second option is of course going to be the best. When you follow a system, a framework, you don’t have to spend time guessing, hemming and hawing. Instead, you just follow the steps, 1…2…3…4… And because it’s so systematized, you can knock out MORE follow up work in LESS time than if you handled things randomly. The hard part is knowing where to start with cadences. But not to worry, I’ve got you there too. This is one of the starter cadences you’ll find in the Selling Made Simple Academy. Feel free to use it as a jumping off point for your leads too. Day 1 – Connect on LinkedIn Day 3 – Email – Case study for a related business using your product Day 10 – Email – Link to a “how-to” blog post that focuses on a common problem in their industry and how your product can help solve it Day 12 – Call > Voicemail to explain that you’ll send an email > Email link to another case study and reference your call in the email Day 14 – Email – Provide some hard data on the buyer’s problem that they might find useful Day 20 – Email – Straight forward ask for a meeting Day 25 – Call > Voicemail > Email asking for a meeting No one ever said sales is easy, especially when you’re first starting out. But when you create a flywheel sales system, you make selling 10X simpler by being able to earn referrals, build trust at a distance, refine your process, and upsell current customers.

​In sales, no two scenarios, and neither two customers are alike. So sales professionals have to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of what a client wants. The best way to do this is by asking the right questions—questions that help salespeople build a strong rapport with sales prospects. Following the SPIN sales methodology can be a good step in the direction where you can use sales questions with the most impact, easily overcome objections, and close more sales. What Is SPIN Selling? The SPIN sales technique makes it easier for sales reps to close deals. It identifies the core stages of questioning that a salesperson must go through to convert a prospect. Neil Rackham introduced the sales training methodology in his 1988 book titled SPIN Selling. Based on data collected from 12 years of research and 35,000 sales calls (!), he outlined a framework for developing and timing structured questions sales reps should ask to close a deal. The SPIN acronym represents four categories: Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-Payoff. Here's a breakdown of each category, along with SPIN selling method you can use to learn more about your target customer, build trust, and eventually close the deal. 1) Situation This stage of the sales process is all about gathering information. You ask situation questions during the opening stage of a sale to better understand the prospect's current situation. The purpose here is to understand the prospect and their exact situation (hence the name) and whether it aligns with your offering. Situation Questions: How do you achieve X? What process does your organization use for X? What is your role at the organization? Do you have a person responsible for X on your team? What do you currently use for X? Why did you choose these tools and how often do you use them? Do you have a solid strategy in place for X? 2) Problem The problem stage of your sales call involves identifying pains and problems that the prospect experiences. Questions here are asked during the investigation stage to probe the prospect's frustration and pain points. You want to bring the prospect into an awareness that they have a problem or highlight the problems they need to solve. Once you know the problems and issues, you'll use them later to drive the sale forward. Problem Questions: What's the biggest challenge you face with X? How much time do you spend on X? How much money are you paying for your tools to do X? What are the common points of failure for this process? Are you happy with your current vendor? Is your current product always reliable? How many people are currently working on X in your organization? 3) Implication Implication involves underscoring why the prospect should focus on solving their problems. In addition, these questions highlight the potential impact of the discovered issues and issues that aren't addressed. Your purpose here is to relate the prospect's frustrations with the previous stage's problems when demonstrating the value of your product or offer. Implication Questions: How much money and time did you lose during your last outage? If it wasn't for (challenge), how much time do you think you would have saved? What happened the last time X failed? How does (problem or issue) affect your KPIs? How do your team members feel about your current tool? Are you happy with the efficiency of this process? 4) Need-Payoff This stage is all about leading B2B sales prospects to your desired conclusions on their own instead of you telling them how your product or service can address their pain points. In the closing phase of the sale, you ask the prospect how important or urgent it is for them to solve the problem or issue and hand and tie the light on the benefit of solving it. You want the prospect to consider how valuable a real solution to their pain points would be. Need-Payoff Questions: Do you think your team members would be more productive if they had more time? How can you simplify X? What do you think will make a good tool for your organization? Would your team like a tool that does X, Y, and Z? If you find out that you can double your productivity by switching products, would you? What do you think your team needs to succeed? How productive do you think your organization would become if you gave your team the right tools? Understanding the 4 Main Stages of SPIN Selling Rackham and his team also details the four main stages of the SPIN selling method in his book. Let's take a look to get a better understanding of the sales process methodology. Stage 1: Opening The opening stage involves introducing yourself to your prospect. This should be a warm, polite, and gradual process instead of you immediately rushing into a sales pitch about why your product is the best on the market. Stop talking about your features and benefits. Stop being the traditional sales pest. You don't want to overwhelm or annoy your prospect; focus on establishing rapport and trust. Stage 2: Investigating Once you successfully engage your prospect in a conversation, you can start investigating. Focus on the common customer needs. Ask the SPIN selling questions you just learnt. Your chances of selling your product or offering to a prospect you don't know are slim to none. It's a hard fact. You don't know what your prospect wants, needs, what they are willing to pay, and other critical questions that can help you tailor your sales pitch according to them. So how can you make them see value in your product? That's why the investigation stage is all about discovery and asking questions that can help you learn more about your prospect. Getting this right will guide you on the remaining steps of the sales funnel. Stage 3: Demonstrating Capability At this stage we're accelerating through the buying process, you've established trust with your prospect and know about their needs, preferences, and likes and dislikes. Next, you start demonstrating the main capabilities of your product, where you highlight your offering's best features, advantages, and benefits. When dealing with end-users, you want to focus on the descriptive elements of your product that make it functional and unique. On the other hand, emphasize your product's advantages and how it's better than what your rivals offer when talking to decision-makers. Decision-makers are more interested in benefits and the overall value provided by a solution. Stage 4: Obtaining Commitment In the obtaining commitment stage of SPIN selling, you want to overcome objections and get your prospects to commit to a purchase. Objections fall into one of two categories: value or capability objections. While value objections stem from the prospect's belief that your product isn't worth their money and won't guarantee a stable ROI, capability objections stem from a premise that your product isn't going to help them solve the biggest problem. Both objections won't bode well for your deal if you don't eliminate them effectively. Under the SPIN methodology, the best way to deal with objections is to prevent them from arising in the first place. Then, by asking the right questions, you can get the prospect to see your product's value on their own. Additional Tips to Succeed at SPIN Selling According to Neil Rackham, “the best selling isn't at all about your products and what you can offer. It's very much about the customers and their needs. ” Keeping this in mind in your sales training, here are a few additional tips to help you master the SPIN sales methodology: A) Get Specific The best SPIN selling questions aren't too generic or vague. You want to be as specific as you can and avoid beating around the bush. For example: Bad Sales Question: What would your team members do if they had more time? Good Sales Question: How do you think your team members would perform if they got six extra hours every week? Get it? B) Customize Questions—But Don't Go Overboard Your SPIN selling questions should be customized for the specific prospect you're having a conversation with. As mentioned, no two prospects are the same. If you ask everyone the same set of questions, it'll only come off as insincere and monotonous. It's why SPIN Selling emphasizes getting to know your customer before pitching your product or service. While you want to ask thoughtful questions, asking more questions isn't necessarily better. The best tactic is to adopt a minimalistic approach, so the entire selling process is efficient and valuable for your prospects. Ask a select few questions at a time—and make sure they count. C) Listen and Adapt When questioning prospects, you want their answers to fuel your approach. In addition, you want to use them to learn more about your prospect and improve yourself. Think about how you can incorporate the information into your next sales call. It's also good to consider whether you're getting any customer feedback that can help you sell more effectively to other people. D) Demonstrate Expertise and Authority What makes you an expert in handling your prospects' pain points? How can you ensure the client sees your expertise without deviating from the process? Figuring out the answer to these questions is critical to establishing your credibility, which, in turn, will help you close deals faster and more effectively. Play to your strengths, but always keep your prospect's requirements a top priority. Become better at selling! Empower yourself with SPIN Selling knowledge, and improve your close rates right away.

Being productive is a major pain point in sales. I should know—I used to be lazy, procrastinate, and flake out all the time. But today I run a 7-figure sales training company, produce TONS of quality content, and still have time for coaching calls, hobbies, and a family life. How? I’m tyrannical about how I plan and execute my days. Here’s how I do it. 1. “Does it Make the Boat Go Faster” Only do “what makes the boat go faster.” There was a rowing team in Great Britain that had a big audacious goal—they wanted to win the Olympics in two years. And to achieve that goal, they did something a bit unorthodox. They relentlessly asked themselves, “Does this make the boat go faster?” It wasn’t just equipment they scrutinized. Though they tore that apart too. No, it was training, strategy, mentality, sleep schedules, nutrition, motivation. Everything that came into play was examined and evaluated. And if it didn’t make the boat go faster, guess what? They got rid of it. At the end of two years, they had a completely redesigned team… and a gold medal. If you want to be ultra productive and close more deals, you need to focus on what makes the boat go faster. Prospecting leads to sales. Gossipy emails don’t. Building your network makes the boat go faster. Facebook posts don’t. Get relentless with it. Because if it doesn’t make the boat go faster, you shouldn’t be doing it. 2. Time Block Organization is the heart of productivity. And when it comes to how you complete your mission-critical tasks, it should be no different. That’s where time blocking comes in. Rather than getting to the real impactful tasks whenever you can, start scheduling them directly into your calendar. But be deliberate here. Choose times and windows that you KNOW are realistic and that you can stick to. Because to maximize your productivity, you need to stick to those timelines like your life depended on it. No handling other little tasks while you work on a big one. No spending an extra half an hour of unscheduled time on it. No fudging the numbers. Work on the SINGLE task from start time to finish time. No more, no less. Time blocking requires discipline. A hell of a lot of it. But when you get the system down, you’ll find yourself finishing big tasks faster and fitting more of them into your day. 3. Capture Tasks We’ve all found ourselves realizing something important needs to be done only to forget about it completely by the end of the day. And by the time you realize it, it’s way too late to do anything about it. That’s why it’s so important to have a task-capturing system. Now we at the Selling Made Simple Academy actually have a whole system dedicated to this. It’s called the Bucket Productivity Framework. And if you’re interested in learning more about it, head over to the link in the notes. But for now, here’s a quick overview. You essentially want to capture tasks that come up throughout the day on a pad of paper you keep with you at all times. Then once your day is almost through, take a minute or two to go through your list and define the next steps for each task. This will make it 20X easier to do later. After that, you’re going to organize each task into one of four buckets: Urgent & Important, Not Urgent & Important, Urgent & Not Important, and Not Urgent & Not Important. The Urgent & Important tasks you’ll handle yourself first thing tomorrow. The Not Urgent & Important ones can wait. But for the Urgent & Not Important, you should delegate to someone else. And for the final bucket, Not Urgent & Not Important, just don’t do them. They don’t matter! Again, there’s a lot more to be said about this system. So if you want to learn more, be sure to click over to the full explainer in the show notes. 4. Use the Power of “NO” So much of your productivity losses are tied up in performing meaningless tasks you get assigned by others. A pointless meeting you agreed to attend, a 20-minute coffee break with a colleague when you should be on the phones, an hour-long video call when a simple email would do. There’s so much time wasted on unnecessary engagements, especially when the information you need from it can be covered a simpler, faster way. Worst of all, a lot of the time you don’t even enjoy these engagements! So to recap, you’re: Barely getting anything out of it. Wasting time you could be spending on driving sales. Hating being there anyway. Rather than put yourself through that, get more comfortable saying no. “No” might seem like it’s costing you something when you say it. But the opportunity cost of saying “yes” to something that doesn’t move the boat forward is far higher. 5. Sprint AND Marathon And finally there’s understanding the concept of the sprint AND the marathon. On the sprint side of things, you should always be moving relentlessly towards completing something. Sprint to finish this video. Sprint to create the best YouTube channel for B2B sales reps. Sprint to retire early. Whatever it is you’re doing with your life, always have a goal. And always look for ways to achieve it faster. On the other side of things, you need to understand your limits. That’s where the marathon comes in. If you burn the candle at both ends for too long, it’s going to lead to burnout, exhaustion, and other life priorities that don’t get the attention they need. The solution here is what’s called The 20 Mile March. It’s a concept developed in the book Great by Choice by Jim Collins. It describes how enterprises that last the longest tend to self-impose a rigorous performance mark that they hit with amazing consistency. In the book, Collins equates it to hiking across the United States by marching 20 miles a day, every day. No more, no less. You don’t go further on great days. And you don’t go less on terrible ones. And at the end, the 20 mile marcher will ALWAYS beat out the opportunist that does the opposite. The march imposes order amidst disorder, discipline amidst chaos, and consistency amidst uncertainty. So chase down your goals relentlessly. But keep things to a reasonable limit. And remember that consistency always drives the best results.