Optimize Your Digital Sales Process for Teams

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my name is Coco Sexton I do appreciate you taking the time today to join us at the digital growth con conference I my voice is going to be going in and out so please apologize for that but I am joined today with two amazing speakers and today we're going to talk about the skills of the modern sales team so first I want to get a quick introduction from Tim Tim tell us a little bit about yourself and let the audience know what you do thanks Coco hey welcome everybody my name is Tim wakil based here in Dallas Texas today I apologize that we don't have a video feed working but I'm sales trainer a keynote speaker an executive presentation coach and with that I'd like to kick it up to Omaha Nebraska and introduce the third member of the panel mark hunter mark hey thanks Tim my name is mark hunter known as the sales hunter do my work and all really helping companies and people find better prospects that they can close at full price wrote the book right there high profit prospecting do a lot of speaking a lot of training a lot of consulting all over the world so hey I'll kick it back to Coca who is in Germany yes I am in Germany today I have no idea what time it is it anywhere in the world at the moment except for where i'm at right now so again thank you both for taking the time out of your day to be a part of this session we've got a ton of questions and for all of you that are viewing in there is a chat box in I believe it's in the lower right-hand corner of your screens if you have any questions that you want to ask us feel free to type those in and we'll get to those if there's anything that we talked about that you want to get into more detail about feel free just to put those into the box below and we'll make sure that we answer all of them so first off one of the questions that kept coming up is you know both of you mark and Tim you you work with numerous companies helping them with their sales strategies as you're talking to these companies how does collaboration between the teams and other departments within those companies which does that really matter so I'll jump in first I think it matters a tremendous amount Coca I mean a real real simple example is let's just take a look at you know the difference between sales and marketing very very simple example if they're not working hand-in-glove when it comes to your story in other words what's your message what's your narrative what's your elevator pitch right the guys in marketing you know they got they come up with their own little message they throw it over the transom the guys and sales get it they don't buy into it they don't believe it and then they start bastardizing it and that's kind of the beginning of the end and so I see that is you know these are these are some of the lowest hanging fruits that oftentimes need to be addressed with inside of organizations I'm working with they all jump in and add to two things that first of all sales has got to be driving the bus you know what one of the problems we get mixed up on is when marketing starts to drive the bus and it's not the bash marketing I spend many many years on the marketing side of the fence but sales ultimately owns the relationship with the customer and that means sales has really got to drive the bus and and that means marketing it doesn't excuse marketing they're very involved but there's another piece in there and that's the subject matter experts you know one of the things that the internet does is bring a tremendous amount of knowledge and insight to the customer allowing them to make the decision before we were to get involved which means salespeople have to be more willing to bring in other subject matter experts into the sales call process why because it allows them to distinguish a difference and create a tangible need that goes beyond what a customer may be able to find on the internet or a competitor can bring to the table well that raises a another media question like wow what is that process of bringing in a new subject matter expert they can in your in your experience how does that happen well I think you got to know that you're bringing in the subject matter expert only when there's value to be added I see too many salespeople gee let's create a carpool call you know let's let's bring three four people in on the sales call that doesn't do any bit of good at all what the sales person has to do is say what is the what is what is the value does this person can bring and then they got to leverage it by making sure and this is whether it be on a conference call a video call in person whatever that the customer has their subject matter extra involved what it does is it allows the sales person to really vault the selling process to the next level what does it do allow you to close not only that sale but undoubtedly create more opportunities for additional sales outstanding yeah I do agree with it and I'm glad that you you got into more detail on that what are the key data points that both of you find you know that a sales person should be looking for when they're generating these new deals assault jump in first coke I you know I there's there's probably literally dozens of key data points but but way too often I see sales people today really getting bogged down in the bits bytes and bandwidth they're they're more interested in the what then the why I'm in kind of and it kind of goes back to play a little bit on what Mark was just talking about you know this whole thing about subject matter experts I love chemise but the problem which means is usually the subject is your product or service and until we learn that you know the subject matter should not be product or service the subject matter should really be a business result and that the key data point should not be around bits bytes and bandwidth it should not be about the what it should be about the why that's when we're going to really start moving away from being a peddler and you know for lack of a better term really trying to position ourselves more as a partner so it's not so much about a certain box or a certain service or a certain solution as much as hey guys what's going on ok not I understand what's going on why is this a problem why is it important to you who else is it at risk here what's at stake what happens if we don't fix it I think those are the kinds of conversations I'd love to see more of you know I'm gonna run with that for a second because one of the questions I challenge sales it if you're a sales manager I'll say hey one of things you want to be asking your salespeople how many questions did they ask on the last sales call and again whether it be on a phone call video call in person even in an email how many questions did you ask you know what's interesting is just what you said Tim we get caught up in the bits and the bites it still is really h2h I mean selling is not b2b or b2c it's HDH it's human to human and what does that allow us to do it allows us to really get questions being asked because that's the value we we bring to the table I really could care less how many people I have at the top of the funnel I don't know how many people are coming out of the bottom of the funnel that's the measurement I want to go after and so I'll take back Coca you need to jump into but because I know you got a lot of experience here so to Mark's point you know as salespeople you bring value one of two ways either you know all the answers or you know the right questions and and I'll guarantee it you don't know all the answers and and so what I see happening a lot and you know I'm gonna raise my hand and I'm going to tell you I'm guilty of this as well step one is we're not spending enough time pre-call planning I think often times you know we think that by going faster we're going to be more productive and so we don't spend that time before each and every call to mark point whether face-to-face over the phone video chat we don't spend enough time pre-call planning that's the first sin and then the second sin is the amount of time that we do spend pre-call planning most of that is focused on what am I going to say versus what am I going to ask and and and you know that the conversation just launches in the traditional show up and throw up spray and pray you've heard a million times and I physically watch customers and prospects just start to shut down and I get it because when a sales rep calls on me and makes it all about them I start to shut down I mean go to a restaurant tonight and walk up to a stranger and introduce yourself and make it all about you they'll start to shut down I mean this is just human interaction 101 and oftentimes I think we're just not focused on the right result we're not focused on the right message and we get we get lost in the weeds so you know we were kind of going down this path of data and really what I'm hearing is that in most cases it they the data really doesn't matter as much as as the the what the business result is that you're looking for so using those data points that right well I'll say the data it you know that's very important but what do I do with it that that's really what's important just to collect data just to measure data without having a reason for it then it then it truly is a waste of time it marks spot on I mean I could send you a spreadsheet of all of my business metrics and I can invite you to try to sell me you're not going to be very successful I mean I got rows and columns of data there's there's more data than we could possibly get to you gotta know what date is important why it's important and why we're trying to change that data and to me I mean that gets back Coker that's that's why we're in this job is we're worried we're trying to figure out what the story is you know no child says mommy take me upstairs and share some data with me everybody wants the story what's the story behind the data and once we get the story once we get the why behind the what once we get the emotion man now we're just have I my experience we're just having a completely different conversation that's a that's amazing analogy of mom come up and tell me a story about data so yeah what the kind of riffing off of that for a second who should own that story you know if if sales is driving the bus you mean in my eyes my opinion would be that marketing is helping Kellogg story because they're the ones that you know that's their skill set but should salespeople be developing that story on their own I think marketing needs to really contribute to the story but sales is going to be the one that's going to put the final spin on it for that individual customer you know that's you know that the customization the tailoring that's going to be the sales marketing they can do a great they can create the story very well but here's the key thing the story has got to be volved the questions it's got to be the questions and Coca the the stories I see though that's why so I spent a good bit of time doing this executive presentation stuff and I'll challenge everybody just listening today open up your last deck I'm going to play the great Karnak open up your last customer deck and I'll guarantee you that probably I shouldn't say probably if I'm going to guarantee okay to you that sixty percent the first 15 slides are all about you and what you do oh and show me that map with all the little little red dots on it where your cities are on love that one that makes me want to buy I will promise you that sixty percent of the intro of your deck is all about you and and i have preached this from on high it's not it's not you know the story has to go like this it's it's it's kind of like what what's the first part of the story what is the problem what is the situation what is the opportunity the second part of the story needs to be why you know what why are we gonna why we going to do something about this and then the third part of the story is well this is why I'm the right person and it gets back to the you know it's the emergency room analogy you know if you went into an emergency room right Coco you've lost your voice and so if you find that tomorrow morning you wake up and you're really ill and you've got to go to the emergency room in the morning do you want that attending physician to come in and pitch you on him you know show up and say hey listen before we before we get to you let me tell you a little bit about where I studied where I in turn here's where I got my undergrad I don't care if you're right you want to know hey what the hell is wrong with me you want to know the what then the second thing you're going to want to know is how once you know what's wrong with me how you gonna make me better and the last but not least it's like well why are you the right doctor and quite frankly I think of a sales rep and a marketing organization does a great job of figuring out what's wrong and how they're going to fix it the why doesn't become important because you are now in their space hey I'm going to run with that a step further here's a line I like to use the best presentation ever made is the presentation never given skip the presentation it's all about a discussion anchored with questions ditto outstanding Tim you know you and I had a chance to chat a little bit before the session and you had mentioned that there is this demand gen report that you are familiar with and ing to that report it was I think I have a written down here ninety-five percent of buyers choose a solution provider to provide them with ample content that helps them navigate through this stage of the buying process and yet most sales people seem to struggle with delivering that value so what are some of those obstacles preventing reps from creating more meaningful conversations since we're in this Commerce this idea of storytelling so great question coke and it's going to sound like a broken record but i think what prevents us from creating more meaningful conversations is that we're talking too much and we're not listening enough you know the ninety-five percent of buyers choose a solution because the rep provided them with ample content to navigate through a change the buying process you know most reps show up and they're not really worried about the buying process they're focused too much on their selling process and I've never understood that we as an organization we're going to sign a selling process and I'm going to ask you mr. proster prospect to kind of you're going to dance to my band I just think it works a hell of a lot better when you say you know look how you guys got a buying process and if you do help me understand what that looks like and if you don't have a buying process if it's okay i'll share with you what other clients in the situation have used as a buying process but i want to dance to your band i want to listen to your music um you know I'm a simple guy I just think it's a heck of a lot easier to pull rope than it is to push a rope and if you're not creating that kind of meaningful conversation you're going to feel like you're pushing a rope you know that comes back to this whole piece that really what our objective is to get the customer to invest you know I look at it is I don't want to be selling and I don't want the customer to buy what I do want is I want them to invest because they're seeing a outcome a value that they're going to achieve and the investment they're going to make with me is purely to allow them to achieve that outcome but I don't know what that outcome is until I get into that dialogue that deep deep dive with them and I think Tim you are spot on we got to sit back and just add you know you know what's interesting is the best questions are the short questions why I'll give me another example I love that and I love when I'm in a sales call in a sales situation where where the salesperson asks the customer question and the customer can't answer it and the salesperson can't answer it to me that's a great situation what does that do it creats dialogue creats discussion to me that's perfect that's going to allow us to get to a much deeper level with every customer yeah because then you're ultimately solving a problem together as opposed to you know just trying to solve a solution that they may not even know about well I you know you know I know you've seen that a lot coca I mean you you see that a lot and the customers you work with well and then it goes back guys and he helped I think I think the viewers are going to smile but think of the questions that are getting a stirring sales calls who's involved in the decision-making process what what's the budget look like how sooner you are you looking to make a change asking those kinds of questions may have value for you the sales person they have absolutely zero value for the prospect they have zero value for the customer customer already knows his stuff and quite frankly when a sales rep starts asking me those kinds of questions it feels like he's just going to try to sell me something he's going to use that data to manipulate me to do something I don't want to do so instead asking these mind-numbing questions about you know need budget time frame and fit why don't we ask some thought-provoking questions why don't we ask questions nobody else in our industry is asking and to Mark's point ask questions that the customer says damn you know what that's about we I don't know nobody's never asked us that before we'll have to get back to you on that when you start creating that kind of positive tension um you're absolutely going to blow away the last guy that just stopped by to check in I love to check in that's that's my all time favorite of audio when we talk about like add behaviors of sales people that check in is the one that is my go-to every time oh no please you mean I shouldn't be putting that at the top of all my prospecting emails oh boy what have I been doing wrong oh well yeah you know see typically though guys let me take it to rev 2 dot oh I typically just check-in because I want to know what keeps them up at night and I find that to be a winning combination today I'm glad your camera does not work haha me too it's awesome uh-huh yo mark I'm question for you so you know how do sales people up their game if the customer already knows what they want to buy well that comes back to just being able to be confident enough to be asking more questions you know we've been going we've been going down this going down this trail but you know I I always say the two money words I want the customer to say great question because when that customer says great question what does that do that forces them to go back and get dialogue from other people you to get the more died that to me I if all I'm doing is bringing customers stuff that they can find out on the internet boy am I sitting there wasting my time I mean think about that I there's no reason for me to be there I got to be asking deeper deeper questions but I'll tell you what sales people don't go down that road until they're confident they're confident that that it's okay if I don't know everything but what does it do it allows me the ability to have a follow-up conversation with you yeah I mean besides the questions piece you know my mantra the way that I was raised in sales was this idea that you have to lead with insights so he says we kind of danced around this concept of you can't be the same sales guy checking in or sounding like every other sales person that's just trying to pitch you know bits and bytes as you as you would put it but you have to be able to come to the table with an insight or a layer of insights that explain something to this buyer that they are not paying attention to because they're usually in their own bubble you know if it's you know a in my world and HootSuite now like the idea that we can go to a telco company and say here's what's going on with your business well there's a good chance they may already know this right because they're monitoring their own health but they don't know what the competitive landscape looks like because that's something that most companies get are having issues with so if we lead with those insights and we say here's how you are and here's how the five people around you are doing and this is how we can help you achieve whatever that goal is of beating these guys out that usually gets people to answer questions and a much more manner because they they know they need to get you know above their competitors you know you just mentioned something there coconut was so powerful you know you talking with telcos because really where we bring the value is when we begin to really look at our customers customer you know telcos they look at others but who are their customers where are they going that's rude to me when I'm in that level of discussion then I'm bring a real value my customers and coke I just want to go back and kind of highlight what you just said because I think it's very powerful I wouldn't want people to listen to this session and feel that the answer is just asking questions I mean that's a very very powerful skill but it's probably just one leg of the three-legged stool to your point Koki you got it if you don't start with some sort of insights you know you're not leading with any kind of credibility at all so when you show up and go hey listen I mean if you just look at how you know watch watch watch the new shows on Sundays right they never just ask a question there's always context Ron hey given the current situation here and what's going on there we've noticed this and so I'd like to ask you the following question just by putting that context just by wrapping and insights it makes it makes you smarter and it makes the question easier for me to answer and then the third leg of the stool which we haven't touched on is this ability to listen and to listen to understand versus what we all tend to do or at least what I tend to do I don't listen to understand I'm listening to interrupt because I'm like dude take a breath because the minute you take a breath I'm going to blow you away with something really funny or something really insightful and as reps we got to stop spilling all our candy in the lobby listen be comfortable with silence and really challenge yourself to understand what's being said versus trying to just jump back in with new insights yeah I think you know the idea of listening as a salesperson is it is probably one of the most under taught values or processes in any sales training that I've ever been accustomed to is that the idea that you have to be able to listen because that's where you're going to find out what you really should be talking about it happen near enough and it's not just in sales coca I think I think it's in life come on you know it's it's a skill that I tried got adult kids and that's something I tried to teach them and it's hard because we're all distracted we all have short attention spans and quite frankly at the end of the day the most fascinating person in the room is yourself and then you got a game I feel that way you got to get over yourself because until you get over yourself you're you're you're gonna be pushing a rope again yeah we got a question from the from the viewers so we'll ask the question what what would we would be the best starting point for sales leaders to enable a customer-centric sales process at scale mr. hunter I'm going to kick this to you yeah you know what I always start off with is what's happened what what is the critical issue in the industry just like what you said Tim in terms of new shows they always have a question but they frame it what I like doing is at the top of the funnel I'm gonna I'm going to pose to this prospect what is this industry issue that I can share that I've got some insights on and I'm gaining their opinion and I found it does two things one first of all you got to know something about the industry you're calling in to be it tells the person you're calling and however you're calling them however you reaching out to maybe by way a social media it may be and I just did this the other day I did there was a person i was trying to reach i sent them a linkedin message shared with them an insight regarding an industry and asked for their opinion what did it do i got a great response and i'm in a great dialogue with it with this person all by way of linkedin messaging so I it to me it demonstrates value to the to the prospect to the customer Tim well and as I look at this and I've had a chance to think about this I think mark answers sparta spot-on but but coca and and mark you know when i look at this you know so build let's just try to put this in action so i'd say hey bill so when you say customer-centric sales process what does that mean to you what does that look to you when you say you want to make it at scale tell me what the scale mean just because to scale me 333 hundred or three thousand why are you trying to accomplish that bill what's at risk why are you trying to what are you trying to move forward you know so it's really trying to understand why in the world is Bill asking us this question and what do all these words inside his question mean because I mean that's a wonderful question but if you ask 10 liters what does a customer-centric sales process look like you're going to get 10 different answers and so it goes back to Bill you know we gotta dive deeper man tell me more about why you're asking what's going on what do these words mean to you and it's engaging at that deeper level and that then segues perfectly into another question is you know for you Tim is this idea of you know you know being obsessed with our customers is often talked about it's one of those things that you know the customer centric sale but it's not always implemented so you know what gets in the way of that and what are some of those practical tips on how we can start focusing that energy for sales organization so what gets in the way he's been getting away for thousands of years it's ego and pride and you know it we've talked about it and it's worth continuing to talk about it's not about us it's got to be about them quit talking about you start learning about them if you want to truly be obsessed with your customers then think about high school you know you were what you were obsessed with little little Suzie and you wanted to take her to the prom you know how would you go about being obsessed with somebody you wouldn't you wouldn't lead with you go you wouldn't lead with pride you wouldn't leave with how brilliant you were you know you'd put those things aside and you would try to connect on a more meaningful level and you'd be willing to listen you'd be willing to probe and you'd be comfortable silence then I think these are the kinds of just blocking and tackling skills that that were not really teaching our reps reinforcing our reps encourage our reps to engage with and I mean that's just my opinion I don't have any research to back that up but thousands of sales calls every year that's what I'm seeing in the trenches well now i'm gonna i'm going to add to that that really this is where the data the power of the internet and social media and all of these tools really come into play are we leveraged in it re leveraging them in a manner I mean in my own company we have various tools in place that allow us to very much monitor what's happening with very specific customers that we're either doing business with or prospects that we're chasing what does that allow us to do it allows me to have a much more intelligent phone call with them when i call them up it allows me to send a much more engaging email it just allows it allows my salesperson have much better dialogue it's it's using those tools and resources out there because at the end of the day I think the number one resource were challenged with is our our own time and I've got to leverage every tool possible to help me use my time effectively yes so the I have a follow-up question to that but you know what I want to kind of transition off what you just said and I've been saying you know for a while now that as a sales person you need to provide value in excess of whatever it is you're asking for in return if you're selling a ten-thousand-dollar product you need to be able to provide value to that buyer that is 50 60 70 thousand dollars worth where they feel like they're getting us this product for a steal right you know in the end that resonates because sales people get that like they have to add value but they're not practicing that when it comes to asking for people's time and before you can ask for 15-20 minutes on the phone or even a personal meeting with somebody you have to be able to provide value in excess of whatever it is that person is going to be getting out of that meeting so that when you say hey do you have 15 minutes to get on the phone they're gonna be raising your hands saying yes I'll give you a half an hour and you know I think that you know it's it's it's not a trait that can I guess necessarily be taught overnight but I do believe it can be taught to teach sales people how to basically become magnets for by providing a ton of value I think it's you're onto something air Coco one of the very first sales manager so I had years ago trap me with you know you your customers value you and it's like oh yeah my customers loved me I'm I'm a great sales rep and he said how many of your customers would be willing to pay you to make a sales call on and I was like why would they pay me to make a sales call and it's like well because if you were truly valuable your customers would be willing to cut you a check to come spend time with you and so to your point you know it's all part of the dance and so as you're approaching a new customer if it's if it's hey I'm checking in had like 10 minutes on your calendar to talk all about me we and us hey we've got this new widget hey would you be willing to jump on a screen share no no what we need to be doing when we're romancing the customer is hey here's some industry insights I'm here some case studies here's some other success stories this is what we're seeing in other companies like yours it's providing those insights it's fighting that experience and expertise that eventually my experience is that prospect says you know damn this coca guy he's you know he's got his thumb on what's going on it might be worth been in 10 minutes because you're no longer approaching it from I want to sell you something as much as you're approaching it from hey I want to share some insights and then see where the conversation goes from there I'll share I'll share one one more piece it's how many times does the customer ask you the salesperson questions about things that you don't have any knowledge of from a sales standpoint now think about this a customer is not going to ask a salesperson that unless they have a really high degree of confidence and competency in who they are dealing with from a salesperson that's when you say you know what Wow now I've reached that level all right we gotta know one last question from via from the audience here and it's it's from bill what would be the best starting point for sales leaders to enable the customers hold on I just read that one next question what's the role of Education in enabling the shift in mindset for you know this customer centric model well I think edgewood refuse minute so I think the role of education is important bill but you got I think you got to do more than educate I think it's more of an immersion because we all know you know when you sit sales people in a room for eight hours or two days you know not much of that's going to stay and I get that I mean you know if I is going to go take a gulf lesson this weekend I mean if the pro would sit there and talk to me for 58 minutes and then let me hit balls for two I'd get very frustrated I would learn nothing so I think it I think education is part of the building block but I really think we as sales leaders need to look more at immersion and immersion is taking that information taking it into the field getting dirty getting beat up getting bruised and then coming back and learning and making it more of an iterative process versus hey go read this whole book and and now god bless you you got it figured out that that just doesn't work what were ya and I'm here is a culture it has to be the culture of the organization customer-centric that's not giving away the farm but that's customer centric in terms of really understanding everything about why that customer does what they do and how you're going to help them get to the next level I agree i think that reinforcement is one of the things that is overlooked time and time again when it comes to training where you'll hire sales trainer to come in or trainer for anything and you know they spend an hour a couple hours sometimes a full day in a workshop and that's the last you ever hear from them and you know you're not going to retain all that there has to be follow-ups there need to be check ins on a regular basis it needs to be you need to invest in your sales team in a way that is going to put you're playing the long game and we have to play the long game with a with a great trainer or with you know a good coach so to speak you're going to win and I you know I think this idea of let's spend a couple thousand dollars even though you know they're not the you know they're the next here down but this guy's going to come in for a day just get these guys all jazzed up like that that isn't going to answer your questions that isn't going to solve your problems it's going to solve them for maybe a week and after that they're gonna go right back to their old habits it takes reinforcement there's a lot of stuff that needs get built into that I always tell customers Coca there's nothing worse than energized in confidence which runs rampant in this industry drop the microphone yes absolutely so because we're supposed to be talking about you like the modern salesperson you know one thing that I do want to hear from both you is that you because you talked to so many different companies and you are dealing with sales teams across multiple industries in many cases what you know if you're gonna boil down like what does a modern sales team look like now how would you answer that for them for the audience uh you know that's a really good question Coca that's that's actually kind of a thought-provoking question I think modern sales team now this may surprise you probably doesn't look radically different from a modern sales team 10 20 or 30 years ago what I mean by that is I think in sales this is this is again you know the Tim waffle school of thinking in sit to be great at sales I think it's about timeless principles it's about never changing principles we've talked about those today and the sales team that's successful is taking those never changing principles and has successfully learned how to apply them to an ever-changing environment so when I look at the team and the skill set of the team and what's important to them how they engage how they interact I think those things haven't changed what's changed is the access to information which changed is the technology which changed is the complexity which changes the amount of competition we've got which changed is how smart the buyer is before they ever pick up the phone or send us an email so you know the the the playing field has changed but the skills to be good at the game I don't believe have really changed that much in the last 25 years I'll add two quick things the only thing that's changed is the communication tools that we use because it's still one to one and be the added pressure on time everything is scaled just that much faster outstanding great answers from both of you so again mark Tim thank you so much for taking your time out of your day to be on this I know that the team over at sales for life but you know when they're hosting this did growth con and free speaking on this idea you know the skills of the modern sales team so again thank you both for your time and to all of you who attended this you know I hope that these answered some questions if not feel free to connect with any of us I know that between Tim and mark and myself we're very open networkers so you can find us on basically every social channel out there there's follow-up questions feel free to let us know and and we will we will respond to you so with that being said thank you all and have a great rest of your day