As I get further into “The Sales Development Playbook”, I’m learning so much more about the process of creating a well oiled sales team. Inbound sales, Outbound sales, Allbound sales… You’re probably thinking, “Oh, Jordan… you’re so smart and you make it sound so easy. Why don’t you just start you’re own sales company??” Ha Ha Ha. That’s not what I’m saying!
I’m saying this to show you the value that this book can bring to all organizations! Bertuzzi breaks it down and she breaks it down really well!
“The first rule of sales development is no fighting in front of the kids.”[note]Page 26[/note]
It pretty true within any company and with any position. No arguing about processes in front of your employees. Feuds between different managers will pull employees apart if they’re there to see it. Management has to be on the same page or else you’re just wasting time. Have you ever had two managers and they both tell you something different? It’s frustrating because you want to make sure you’re doing your job but at the same time you know you’re going to make one of them upset because you’re following the other ones orders.
Great reminders are on every page throughout this book! Most of them are sales development related… given the title of the book. But I truly believe that you need to
“Make sure your team members know that they’re contributing from the get-go. They have a tough job and suffer massive rejection every day.”[note]Page 28[/note]
If you’re in sales, you know exactly what I’m talking about! EVERYDAY… rejection. If you’re not… you still deserve the reinforcement that you’re contributing. Celebrate the small wins. Maybe your employee conducts a great interview, finishes writing an article, leads a meeting, adds value to a meeting, learns a new concept, learn something new… whatever it is, let them know they’re contributing! You’d be amazed what people are willing to do when they get recognized.
On the sales side of things… we usually have a good idea of whom we’re approaching. We know what type of accounts and we know who we need to talk to.
“Sell to everyone; Close no one”[note]Page 37[/note]
In the process of learning how to work smarter, you need to know who is more likely to buy from you. If you spend too much time trying to close someone that isn’t going to buy, you’re just spinning your wheels. Spinning your wheels doesn’t help you exceed your quota. Bertuzzi does an incredible job segmenting prospects into different brackets. She calls this the
“The ABCDs
- A: A-list
- B: Bread & Butter
- C: Compelling Events
- D: Dead Ends”[note]Page 38[/note]
It’s pretty simple once you’re able to separate your prospect into these categories. Let’s start backwards… Dead Ends… Don’t bother wasting too much of your time on this group. You’re thinking, “Well Jordan, I’m an incredible sales person and can sell anyone.” Great, prove me wrong. If they’ve been using a provider for 30 years and send out an RFP for your product… you’re going to be column fodder. It doesn’t matter what you sell or how well you sell it, they’ll always stay with that provider.
I saw this A LOT while at Cornerstone. A prospect had used SAP for 30 years and they want to see what else is out there. The rep is excited because they have a chance to hit their number with one sale… It was a dead end and they wasted countless hours trying to sell the team on our product. It sucks because we all think we’re the best, but in reality, you lost before you started. It’s our job to not even get hung up on those.
When compelling events take place, it’s usually a great opportunity to introduce your product! New c-level team, new decision makers, current product breaks, customer service sucks, lawsuit, bad quarter and new laws are all something that can compel someone to do something. New laws is a huge one in my market! Be the first vendor to reach out to a prospect educating them on the law changes and you have given yourself a good chance to win their business.
Let’s say gluten-free bread and butter… I’m allergic to bread. This is where you can really thrive! These are your go-to accounts. Depending on what you sell, these accounts are what your current user base is made up of. I can’t tell you who your gluten-free bread and butter account are, so make sure you know!
The A-list is a dream come true. These are the accounts you’d die to do business with. You’ve got something they need but they don’t know it yet. They’ll change the direction for your company and your career.
A lot of things in sales are driven by data. There is so much stinking data out there being collected, it’d blow your mind if you knew what was being collected.
“… if you can invest $1 in improving processes or improving data, I’d choose data ll day every day.”[note]Page 49[/note]
Data literally makes the world go round! The better data you have, the better you are able to plan out your day, week, month, quarter and year. My current CRM has the capability to keep data on EVERYTHING! Guess what… when I run a report on something super specific, I get results. Those results help me close deals.
I loudly echo Bertuzzi and have to add that you need good/great data!
There’s more to come from me about:
The Sales Development Playbook | Trish Bertuzzi
Get “The Sales Development Playbook” on Amazon.