Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #7: Burning Sales Questions Pt. 2
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott hosts a webinar where participants ask their most burning sales question for both business to customer (B2C) and business to business (B2B or enterprise) markets. This episode is the second half of a Burning Sales Question webinar that SalesQualia hosts regularly. Key areas covered:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
1:50 – The main differences between selling a product versus a service and the benefits and disadvantages of each.
5:15 – The difficulty of selling a service based on money for time versus selling your service on a value for money model.
6:30 – The importance of finding ways to switch from selling a service a service to selling a product and how that change can help you scale your company.
7:30 – Methods for reinvigorating interest in your product when a prospective client starts to lose interest in the sale.
8:40 – How targeting the wrong buyer at a prospective company can cause a sale to stall because your “Company Hero” has been trying to sell your product internally to their own company.
10:50 – The method of triangulating information to help bring a stalled sale from crashing. How identifying the different people at a prospective client that will be involved in the purchasing decision of your product can help you keep interest in the sale and quickly identify stall points.
14:00 – How to use new information about your product to bring disinterested buyers back to the table.
16:55 - How a sales manager or executive handles their team in a world where marketing funnels are becoming more targeted and specific everyday.
18:30 – How to measure success of your sales people by identifying optimal close rates by the end of your sales cycle.
19:00 – How to hold sales people accountable when your sales cycle utilizes well developed marketing funnels that provide them with very developed leads.
20:30 – How to dissect a sales person’s target market to identify outside factors that could be contributing to their lack of success.
21:50 – Using closing techniques versus implementation planning to close a sale with a prospective client and how an implementation plan can help a salesperson identify overlooked factors and people (i.e. technical review, contract phase, payment issues, etc.).
24:00 – How to best compensate a sales person by using different tactics to focus your sales person on the sales model your company employs (i.e. service plans, back end selling, customer retention, etc.).
24:50 – Whatever incentive program you setup is the behavior you will instill in your sales people.
Resources Mentioned or Related to this Podcast
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #6: Burning Sales Questions Answered Pt. 1
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott hosts a webinar where participants ask their most burning sales question for both business to customer (B2C) and business to business (B2B or enterprise) markets. This episode is the first half of a Burning Sales Question webinar that SalesQualia hosts regularly. Key areas covered:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
2:00 – How do you uncover existing pain points with a prospective client?
3:00 – The Who, Why, How method of identifying buyers, markets, and how your product fits their needs.
5:10 – How to use the Challenger Sales Model to approach prospective clients using your own research to identify the pain points of their target market.
8:10 – What are the best sales tactics to compete with super powerful competitors like Facebook, Google, and other large established companies in your industry.
9:40 – How to work alongside established competitors by filling the gaps that their services provide to your prospective clients.
11:38 – How to generate leads for a new niche market that you believe your product would be a good fit for.
13:15 – How running a small experiment on prospective new customers in your target market can help you test value, gain powerful testimonials from a new customer base, and help your company better define your value proposition for new clients.
16:20 – How running small experiments in the enterprise sales world can help you scale from early adopters to the market at large.
17:30 – How to generate sales leads finding all the target companies and their relevant contacts within your target market.
18:10 – How to use industry conferences to generate leads and what to do with all those new leads.
21:00 – Ways to use LinkedIn and Virtual Assistants to make the most out of a conference and, most importantly, your time.
Resources Mentioned or Related to this Podcast
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #5: Setting Up Pilot Programs
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia! Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss how to use pilot projects to sell to big companies as a startup by getting your foot in the door and setting yourself up to understand the logistics of selling to the big boys. Key areas we cover are:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
2:00 – Controlling the success of pilot projects by defining the metrics.
4:20 – Using pilot projects on smaller companies.
5:20 – How pilot projects establish you as a vendor at a large company.
6:20 – Pilot projects as a customer evaluation tool.
9:40 – Pilot projects versus selling the whole suite of features your product offers.
11:40 – Phased rollout of product from the pilot stage to aid with a smoother implementation.
13:00 – Avoiding the pitfalls of selling the entirety of an early stage product.
14:00 – Things to beware when piloting a project within a single department at a company.
15:45 – The benefits of a pilot project putting your company through the Master Services Agreement (MSA) process at a large company.
19:20 – How pilot projects help you understand all the necessary back office processes your company must go through to sell to a large company.
22:20 – The positives and negatives of running a pilot program.
Resources mentioned or related to this podcast
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #4: Leading the Big Meeting
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss the different strategies and tactics to use in a meeting and demo with executives at a prospective client. Key areas covered:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
1:00 – Bringing the wrong people to a meeting: how to properly cast the participants you bring with you.
2:45 – How to start a meeting by utilizing good research ahead of time.
5:20 – Getting background information and vetting out ideas during your informal start.
6:00 – Procedure for taking the start of the meeting from the informal stage to the formal.
7:15 – Don’t give handouts! How to guarantee focus stays on yourself.
8:45 – Successfully demoing a product while maintaining interest from your audience.
9:45 – Establishing that it’s not a demo, it’s a conversation.
10:45 – Using a round robin to find out the ideas and questions your audience want covered.
12:45 – Allocating and prioritizing time on the right people during a meeting.
15:30 – Handling side conversations and avoiding the rabbit hole of impertinent questions.
19:45 – How to make the transition from demoing your product to moving your sale forward.
22:20 – Dealing with objections and obstacles: knowing when broach them yourself versus letting them occur naturally.
25:30 – What to do when the end of your demo is greeted by silence.
27:45 – How to close out the meeting by maintaining control.
30:45 – Making sure you push the sale forward by establishing action items.
33:40 – Approaching the procurement process and finding out how much interest you’ve actually generated.
37:20 – Number one piece of advice for meetings and demos.
38:40 – Wrap up.
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #3: Preparing for Your First Meeting with a New Prospect
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss different methods to prepare for your first call/meeting with a prospective client and the ways in which you can help keep the momentum moving forward before the meeting takes place. Some key areas discussed are:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
1:30 – Setting up a meeting and the hazards of not engaging during the time leading up to it.
5:30 – Spending weeks of preparation for a meeting with the top exec, only to find out that they don’t know why they are in the meeting (and how to avoid this!).
7:50 – What to do when you don’t have access to a top-level exec before the meeting.
9:00 – Creating a pre-meeting checklist.
10:00 – The importance of short calls before the meeting to help set expectations.
12:00 – How to use your pre-meeting preparation to bring additional buyers into the meeting.
13:45 – What to do when you can’t get the prospect on the phone ahead of the meeting.
15:00 – Techniques for leaving voice mails and emails that improve your response rate.
19:00 – Final preparation going into the big meeting.
20:00 – How to use LinkedIn for pre-meeting research to help you build better relationships faster.
22:00 – How to script out the meeting ahead of time and building in opportunities for questions and conversation.
23:30 – Making sure you allow yourself to find out every meeting participant’s needs so they can be including in the meeting.
25:00 – How to make you meeting not a demo, but a conversation with your product as the backdrop.
26:30 – How to use your meeting preparation to get other people at the prospect company involved and to prevent participants from walking in blind to the meeting.
31:00 – Number one piece of advice for preparing for the big meeting.
33:20 – How pre-calls with different meeting attendees can help you make them look better and the advantages this brings to the sale.
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #2 – “Being a Connector”
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia. Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott (sitting in the lobby of a Marriot at a conference and probably looking slightly crazy for talking to himself) discusses the importance of making yourself a good connection for other people and how building this image of a “Good Connector” can benefit your company. Key areas covered:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
0:30 – The benefits of hearing about a prospects company problems, market issues, and their connections versus only talking about your own product.
1:45 – Hear about an interesting company or team? Pick up the phone and call them!
4:00 – Even when someone is not a good prospect, they can still be helpful for finding the right prospect.
6:30 – Balance between meetings to sell your product and learning more about your market and industry.
8:00 – Creating the image of being a good connection for others.
Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #2: Being a Connector
This SalesCast is brought to you by, well, SalesQualia! Improve Sales Performance with:
In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss the world of business conferences and how to make better use of your time than sitting at your booth scanning the badges of attendees who care more about your free giveaways than your product. Some key topics and practical strategies we discuss are:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
2:30 – Introducing “conference escorts” and what this person does for startup founders & entrepreneurs at conferences and live events.
5:32 – Using multiple people in a meeting to facilitate conversation at a conference meet-and-greet conversation.
7:08 – Roles & casting for meetings. How to position each person on your side in a meeting based on person you’re meeting.
9:00 – Using ambiguity to your advantage. Having the second person on your side as a “wild card” in a meeting to allow for flexibility in the casting for a meeting.
11:18 – Positioning yourself as a business conference escort and setting up meetings for startups.
12:20 – Using “customer development” to your advantage to landing meetings with executives
13:30 – LinkedIn & InMails to set conference appointments
16:00 – Results using LinkedIn & InMails to get 25-40% response rates for conference meeting requests instead of emails.
18:30 – Why using conference escorts might be a good idea for a startup founder/entrepreneur
20:20 – How much time should you plan to spend setting up appointments prior to a conference?
21:30 – Approaches and research for sending effective InMails and appointment requests
24:00 – Helping an outside sales consultant to get up to speed with your product and value proposition
25:30 – Managing responses to meeting requests for conference meetings
26:00 – General time and budget allocation pre and post-conference: Pricing out a conference project with a sales consultant. Setting up incentives and setting baseline expectations.
30:30 – Building a conference escort team: Who do you hire? How do you build a team? What to do if the startup wants to hire a conference escort on a full-time basis?
33:30 – Finding talent to help with customer development at conferences including part-timers and established business veterans.
36:15 – Breaking down the stages of conference meeting development – pre-conference, at the conference, and after the conference.
38:20 – Tips for sending meeting invites for conference meetings. Confirming appointments.
39:30 – Ideas for finding conference [business] escorts
42:00 – Using people only for the conference itself, not pre- and post-conference follow-ups.
44:18 – Post-conference follow-ups: What to do after the meeting? How to pull these meetings through to be real sales leads? Avoiding the dead space after conferences.
47:30 – What to do if you met with someone that isn’t a decision-maker?
50:00 – Revisiting success metrics for conference meetings. Defining a quality meeting with four (4) success metrics.
54:00 – Identifying gatekeepers & heroes versus a true partner at your prospect.
56:00 – Wrap up and summary