Summary:
Thinking smart or being one step ahead of your competitor is a prerequisite to attracting and retaining customers. But how does one think and act smart in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing market? Today’s Sales Development Podcast guest, David Priemer, VP of Sales at Influitive, attempts to answer this question by providing various tips and tricks to better our outreach efforts.
David talks about achieving balance between data and our instincts in our sales efforts and explains why we need to focus our energy on managerial training. He also explains why our messaging needs to be bold, educational and polarizing in order to pique the interest of potential prospects. Tune-in to learn how you can effectively change your outreach efforts for the better!
3 Key Points:
1.Think smart when attracting a customer; relying on age-old techniques will not help you to crack through the defenses of a prospect.
2.Your sales messaging should be bold, polarizing and educational.
3.The experience that the customer has with your company is your product.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:16 – Introduction to the Sales Development Podcast
- 00:22 – Introducing David to the show
- 01:56 – David has been in sales for 20 years now, but he started his career as a research scientist
- 02:20 – A sales engineer for a company that went public three years after David joined
- 02:58 – Sales is a system; there are reasons why people buy things and reasons why they don’t
- 03:37 – Is currently working on his fourth startup; the third startup he was a part of was acquired bySalesforce in 2012
- 04:55 – Has a PASSION for constant iterative learning that is demanded of anyone in the world of sales
- 06:15 – Sales is the harmonization of data, but there is a huge human component to it that cannot be overlooked
- 06:45 – Sales leaders are those who others want to fight to work with
- 07:37 – At the end of the day, we are selling to people and selling ultimately boils down to emotions
- 08:34 – Emotional needs have to be satisfied in order to do business; until AI capabilities are further enhanced these nuanced interactions need to be carried out by salespeople
- 09:29 – Salespeople need to cultivate resilience and conviction to taste success
- 11:26 – Over-reliance on gut instinct and proven tactics can be problematic; sales is an evolving game and it is imperative to give data its due importance
- 12:13 – We do not spend enough time training new managers, so managers tend to rely on age-old techniques
- 13:29 – The number ONE reason why people leave jobs is because of a poor relationship with their manager; cost of a failed manager is 4x that of their direct report
- 15:35 – Need to UNLOCK the effort that most people have but don’t tap into
- 16:07 – Leadership is the key which can enable you to unlock this effort
- 18:02 – Check out David’s blog post titled, “Salespeople: Here is Why Prospects Ignore Your Outreach”
- 18:50 – Ironic that we use BDRs for lead generation efforts, though we do not like to be prospected by BDRs from other organizations
- 20:02 – Think SMART while designing your outreach efforts
- 20:02 – Data driven sales management is passé
- 22:06 – Using the same sales script and doing what everyone else is doing results in LOW VALUE
- 22:49 – Use the latest tools to crack through defenses
- 24:13 – Sales reps need to remember that the attention of a prospect is taken up by a million different things
- 25:29 – The prospect needs to STOP what they are doing to concentrate on your pitch
- 26:45 – Difficult for a prospect to give 10-15 minutes of valuable time to a sales rep who sounds no different than the rest; showing value is critical to retain the interest of the prospect
- 28:11- Most of us appreciate the concept of value, but do not practice it in our outreach efforts
- 28:21 – Implementation of a system leads to creativity and prevents sales reps from just sleepwalking through the day
- 29:05 – The best MESSAGING is bold, polarizing and educational
- 29:37 – Messaging should be easy for people to decipher without spending a lot of time
- 31:01 – A message should be simple and yet, pierce through
- 31:40 – An educational message will resonate with your prospect and result in reciprocity
- 32:29 – Add value early and often
- 33:08 – Send articles relevant to the customer’s business and do not ask for anything until much later in the outreach process
- 34:03 – Invite prospects to high value events where CEOs get a chance to talk to peers
- 35:03 – People are conditioned to respond well to gifts
- 36:16 – David quotes Gary Vaynerchuk: “It is 80% value that you are putting out in the marketplace”
- 37:01 – The experience that the customer has with your company is your product
- 37:50 – The best compliment a salesperson can receive from a customer is being hired by them
- 40:06 – The faster we learn, the better we will be able to meet the changing needs of the customer; “Cerebral Selling” is all about learning fast and delivering an amazing customer experience
- 41:23 – Access David’s content and podcast on his website
- 42:15 – Check out the amazing case studies on the Influitive website
- 42:53 – Sales is ultimately about TRUST; the quicker a prospect can trust you, the faster he can make a decision
- 43:45 – Going into the future, trust is going to shift from businesses to individuals
Resources Mentioned:
- Influitive – Company where David is VP of sales
- Cerebral Selling – David’s website
- “Salespeople: Here is why Prospects Ignore your Outreach” – David’s article published in the SalesForce blog
