Story-telling Framework to Use in Sales
Humans love stories. We spend insane amounts of time consuming stories through TV, movies, reading, music, and other channels.
Since we’re wired to consume information through stories, why do we often sell with rigid data and boring facts?
The most helpful sales books teach sales fundamentals through stories (e.g., The Qualified Sales Leader).
I’ve found that my best-performing content is when I teach through a story.
Unsurprisingly, the best sellers have learned to sell through storytelling.
The “8 Slide Rule” in Sales Presentations
Chances are, I would hate your slide presentations, but it’s not your fault.
Most presentations suck because you have a massive slide portfolio to pull from focused on custom fonts/branding rather than what your customers want to discuss.
This week, I’m going to help you cut your presentations down to no more than eight slides that won’t bore your buyers.
Here are my rules for slide inclusion and elimination:
Deal Stalling Late: Unsure How It Fits in Their Environment
There are four main causes for deals stalling in sales. Hypothetical solutions can get you far in the sales process.
This week we’ll examine the risk that it’s unclear how your solution would work in your buyer’s environment.
Deal Stalling: Not tied to exec priority
Promising deals stalling late in the process is one of the most frustrating outcomes for a seller.
You can have a champion, multiple great meetings, earn access to the economic buyer, and lose after the final presentation.
If you find yourself losing at this stage, one (or more) of these is likely happening:
3 Steps to Double Your Win Rate
Let’s talk about how to leverage previous users to accelerate multi-threading and win more deals.
Smart AEs leverage previous champions and enjoy 114% higher win rates (solid).
Genius AEs leverage previous champions to multi-thread and enjoy a 215% higher win rate (phenomenal).
Here’s how to be a genius:
Discovery + Demo in 30 Minutes
I was recently asked if I had a framework to introduce the company, run discovery, and demo in a 30 min call.
I love this question because sometimes our buyers need us to be able to help them evaluate fast. We don’t have time for a drawn out discovery process followed by an hour long demo just for the buyer to understand our offering.
Here’s the framework I provided:
Balancing showing too much vs too little in demos
One of the most challenging balances in sales: showing too little of your solution vs. showing too much.
If you simply meet buyer requirements, you’ll lose to a lower cost competitor.
This sounds like:
“You had everything we need but we found it all somewhere else for less.”
If you sell more than they need, you’ll lose for being too fancy.
Your buyer will say:
How High Cost Beats Low Cost (and vice versa)
Competitive industries are saturated with high-cost and low-cost providers.
Regardless of where your solution fits on the cost spectrum, you can win more than your fair share by understanding how to sell against competitors with a different approach.
How to Engage Executives in B2B Tech Sales
You are constantly being told to “sell higher” and involve economic buyers/execs in your deals.
It’s not an easy request for your champion – they risk their reputation when they connect you with an executive.
Here is a three step framework to build their confidence enough to schedule the exec meeting:
Capture (and keep) you buyer’s attention in software demos
This week we are breaking down how to capture (and keep) your buyer’s attention by bucketing your demo into three categories.
Here’s how you can improve your demos by bucketing each feature you show into these three categories: