How to Get to A Yes: Straight up Advice from a Sales Veteran

Earlier in the year, we started the journey of interviewing sales leaders nationwide about practical sales advice and lessons learned. It has been rewarding at so many levels to connect with great leaders and to share their wisdom with you. Thank you for taking time to read these blogs and for your input and feedback!

Meet Alan: 20+ years in inside and outside sales roles. Smart, funny, passionate, lifelong learner, customer-focused, and a straight forward kind of person! I enjoyed every bit of our conversation.

Best Practices

Be persistent. “I grew up in an inside sales model. I’ve always been very persistent in my selling and prospecting campaigns. It takes so many touches to get a reply and many more to get that meeting. You need to set up time during the day, during the week to prospect! You also need to be methodical around the type of communications and campaigns you are sending to your target accounts. If you do enough due diligence and drive the communications around the prospects’ business needs, eventually something will stick, and it’s going to peak their interest, and they’re going to accept your phone call or return your emails. Being persistent is also about using different vehicles to reach out. If you don’t have their number, go old school and pick up the phone and call the main switchboard, hit the directory, and you’re going to be routed to that person’s voice message or assistant. This is a starting point!”

Understand each key player’s role in the sales cycle. “Identify who are the coaches, champions, and economic buyers in your opportunities and selling motions. By definition, coaches can give you information, but they have minimal influence. Champions not only give you information, but also influence the organization’s decision-making process. They can share some internal details, and they can help sell your solution within the organization when you can’t sell it yourself.

“At the end of the day though, the economic buyer is the one that can execute the release of funds against the project. However, more often than not, lots of sales reps focus on coaches and champions—both are critical to the selling motion—but nothing is done unless you talk to the economic buyer. You need to qualify the opportunity with them, share the project requirement, and show the value your solution can bring to solve their business problems.

“Most importantly, you need to get to the economic buyer early on in the sales cycle! To do that, ask straight forward pointed questions, such as: ‘Who signs off on this project and can get us a PO? If you can’t sign off on this and get a PO cut, who do we need to talk to, and what can I do to help you get us there?’” Another great way to get to the economic buyer and also test if your contact is a coach or champion is to ask them to get you a meeting with the economic buyer. If they can do this, then there is a good chance you have a champion. If they can’t, you are probably working with a coach.”

Be disruptive. “A sales rep that is disruptive is typically a sales rep that is successful. Now, there is good disruption and bad disruption, and you need to recognize which is which. Many times, when a sales rep gets involved in the sales cycle, somebody else is already there. They have already painted a vision of how to solve the problem, and that vision may not map directly to the capabilities that you are representing. In this case, you have to be a bit disruptive and debate the requirements that are necessary for the organization, or you may add requirements that you believe are necessary to help them reach the desired state. Ask the question: ‘Have you thought about that…?’ Don’t be afraid to engage in a healthy debate that is a win-win to both you and the customer!”

Develop a framework that is buyer focused. “Take time to learn as much as you can about the account, pains, and needs. Lead with the client’s world and initiatives before you say anything about your offering. Sales reps love to walk in, greet the customer and immediately get into ‘who our company is and what we do.’ Stop! Step back and start with understanding the buyer!”

Lessons Learned

Recognize who you’re dealing with and what their power is. “It’s a hard lesson! And, we all know the negative impact of that (e.g., poor forecasting accuracy, opportunity cost, etc.). Remember, there are lots of people who can say no. You need to identify the person who can say yes, the person who can actually make a change in the organization, has the power to cut the PO, and has a need for your offering. Until you have that discussion and connect with that individual, forecasting and close rate is going to be iffy.”

Know your competition. “Everything might sound great, but you can easily be flanked by the competition. You always need to be checking with your prospect, communicating and understanding what’s happening with the account, as well as understanding what strategies your competition is deploying. How are they positioning themselves? How are they positioning themselves against you? If you don’t understand your competitors’ offering as close as you can to yours, you’re going to learn a couple of hard lessons. I’ve personally seen this before, and it HURTS!”

Advice for Individuals Starting in Sales

Be yourself. “I’ve often told people internally and externally, ‘If you ask me a question, I’m going to answer it honestly. You may or may not like the answer.’ I’m very much myself. Now, do I know how to position things in a better light? Absolutely, but there isn’t a lot of fluff. That’s my style, and it has worked for me! If you stay the course and you are authentic, you will gain the trust and credibility from people you’re dealing with.”

Get back to basics. “There are lots of noise and lots of technology around communications. One advice is for reps to go back to basics. Pick up the phone and craft a message that shows the impact you can drive to the organization. Take a second or two to think what the message is going to be based on what you know about the individual and the account. Be methodical and persistent. Don’t be afraid to be different!”

Advice for a Person Promoted to First Line Sales Manager

Don’t expect your reps to be like you. “They are all individuals, and they all have different styles. And while there are absolutely key fundamental steps that have to occur, allow the individual to bring their own uniqueness! When I got into sales leadership, I quickly recognized that no one is going to be exactly like Alan. They’re going to do some things like me, and they’re going to do some things that are totally different. Because each person is unique, they require different types of mentoring and coaching all around a core framework of being successful. Embrace that!”

Let them fail. “The only way anyone learns anything is by trial and error and failing. As leaders, we have the tendency to want to jump in and save our reps. You need to sit on your hands, let them go through the process, and then coach them.”

Influence change at your organization. “Put yourself in a position that influences organizational change to the better. I run across lots of sales leaders that are hesitant to do that. You don’t need to be a Debbie Downer! You need to come to the table with ideas and reasons why change must happen. In my experience, the supporting organizations (e.g., marketing, engineering, product management, product marketing, etc.) love the feedback because it makes their offerings better and that translates into better customer experience and improved sale.”

Thank you, Alan, for your time and for the great advice. It’s clear that you practice what you preach and have a passion to this profession! I enjoyed our conversation immensely.

Rana Salman runs Salman Consulting, LLC., focusing on partnering with sales and sales enablement leaders to achieve outcomes through strategy, process, and neuroscience sales leadership coaching. You can reach her at rana.salman@salmanconsulting.com . Follow us on Twitter