The Most Common (and costly) Discovery Mistake
The most common mistake I see in discovery is mistaking a negative current state for a negative consequence. Today, I’ll share how to avoid it.
How to Uncover the Real “Current State” (and its blockers) During Discovery
In this post, you’ll learn how to discover the true Current State of your prospect and their business – and find out their true problems.
How to Start Meaningful Discovery in Less than Five Minutes
I’ve spent several hours working with our enablement, marketing, and operations teams to create a “First Meeting Deck” to drive meaningful, value-based conversations early in the sales process. In this post, I’ll walk you through the outcomes (and example questions) that may help you improve your ability to quickly engage in deep discovery.
Identifying Urgency in B2B Sales Deals
Sellers are frequently taught to help their buyer “quantify” their problem or pain as a way to increase urgency early in the deal cycle.
A few problems with this:
1) It’s nearly impossible to increase urgency
Try as we might, we aren’t changing our buyer’s priorities. Instead, we should map to them.
2) “How much is this problem costing you” sounds incredibly salesy
Your buyer knows you just want this number to convince them your solution is cheap in comparison to their pain.
Three Steps to Build A Champion in Your B2B Sales Deals
In my years selling, I’ve tried to accelerate deals in many ways.
Nothing I’ve tried has ever worked as well as having a true champion sprinting through walls to get the deal done.
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:
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:
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: