Digital transformation in sales for corporations

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[Music] everything a lot of people are talking about artificial intelligence and this digital transformation within the sales function which naturally leads to a question around is the sales function going away and yes technology is beginning to take a much different role within the sales function I'm not so much more rural but a different and what that forces us all to do is really look at the value that we ask to the sales process with our customers in our everyday interactions and I don't believe that salespeople are going away because of artificial intelligence but I do believe that salespeople are required to adjust their approaches to accommodate transactional selling attitudes and approaches that will most likely be assumed by artificial intelligence and that digital transformation but what technology is also bringing salespeople and sales professionals is new insights into the way they do their jobs such as the behaviors that are getting optimal results the types of quantitative and qualitative behaviors that when executed day to day help salespeople build that one-to-one relationship with their clients and increase their overall effectiveness and the question they should be asking themselves is how do I make myself indispensable how do I make myself somebody who can't possibly be taken over by artificial intelligence or some digital process what customers are not interested in is the pro forma script driven cold call that many reps still do as evidenced by my voice mailbox each and every day what they are appreciative of is a thoughtful well-planned constructive conversation that exhibits not only a little bit of knowledge and expertise but also a genuine curiosity about the client and what motivates them and what Matt and then possibly finding a way to align your services and products to what matters most today and technology in that digital transformation has empowered salespeople to really understand their prospects before they pick up that phone about what not only where they work and how long they've been there in their job title but also their motivations their interests their company's overall strategy and their quarterly or yearly goals but what I find a little bit less obvious and really be the key to really effective authentic salesmanship comes in the old books around a persuasion things like I'm Neil Vincent Perl and some of the things that he has done around not selling as much as just general human interactions motivations the way they think also Dale Carnegie I know that it's uh it's at this point cliche and everybody at some point has read out of win friends and influence people but I tell you there is no book that I go back to more I learned that early on in my career with one of the sales reps who was my mentor in a prior world and it was amazing how automatic and casual every interaction seemed with his customers and it wasn't as if he just fell out of bed and started doing this stuff there was a science behind it there was calculation behind it and there was a tremendous amount of preparation behind it customers in watt candor and they appreciate candor and you're able to give that to them and it goes both ways you know again that's that's the glue that holds these relationships together for the long term it's the best way to separate yourself and your company from you know the hundreds and hundreds of companies out there that are trying to do the same thing you know we had one sale that was quite recent that was incredibly complicated it was it was the largest sale in the company's history and it emerged out of nowhere the sales cycle was incredibly compressed and it was very high pressure we were able to get exposure to a lot of very high level people at this company a fortune 500 firm very quickly and it was established the whole relationship as quick as it started it was established on the premise of we have a real problem solved we don't want to waste time so let's be as direct as possible that wasn't just them to us but it was us to them as well so that's the foot that we started on and it was remarkable because with that spirit we were able to make a tremendous amount of headway on an incredibly complicated deal with I say three or four different business groups within the span of I would say 120 days and we were able to close and we've actually almost finished implementing this client in record time and it was the most the phrase I use would be frictionless it was the most frictionless sale cycle that I've been part of as well as one of the most consequential for the company and for us individually as well giving FC is very critical of yourself you have to always be worried about your state in your job in your career and in many ways early on in your life you can never feel like anything is stable so that insecurity in self-assessment and asking yourself every day what happens if I get fired or what happens in my league what happens to this company if the answer and your gut is you know and they'll be just fine it means you should probably step your game up if the answer is you know what I've done my best best of luck to the company but I think they'll struggle that means you're headed in the right direction so you always want to be challenging yourself to ask yourself why should this company keep me another day why should this company see value in me what am i doing that nobody else can do and if the answer is nothing and you got to reach a little bit further always volunteering to put yourself in uncomfortable situations seek them out but the best at inner game and that confident that you want to cultivate when you're younger comes entirely from putting yourself in uncomfortable positions that can mean volunteering for new projects that you're not really sure if you'll be successful for or making a leap from one company to the next or one industry to the next without safety net without really knowing how it's going to end up but you'll you're confident that you'll figure it out and you'll learn a lot in the process learn new things get better every day as a mantra we use here at Gryphon everybody we asked our customers to do that we asked ourselves to do that and we have all of our colleagues to just continuously try to get better and professionally the best thing you can do to make yourself indispensable is by always being curious always finding things to learn always looking for ways to keep your profession and career and day-to-day interesting and engaging because there's such a whole world out there you can learn in the sales discipline across every facet of life and the better you get at the true salesmanship guess what the better you get at life and the better you get with your personal relationships and your relationship with your kids because these principles are universal and they don't live exclusively in the sales silo so those are my big three be self critical and honest with yourself and where you are and what you need to do always be looking for opportunities to take yourself out of your comfort zone and always be curious and never stop learning and helping yourself get better and better [Music]