The Adapter’s Advantage: Tiffani Bova on Finding Your Superpower
Welcome to The Adapter’s Advantage: Breakthrough Moments that Lead to Success.
In episode 45, global growth and innovation evangelist Tiffani Bova shares the fastest way to get customers to love your brand, why technology is a seller’s best partner, the secret of the experience equation, and how to figure out your superpower.
Listen and Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn
Managers have to change the way they manage, and sellers have to trust the fact that technology is their partner. It’s the best teammate they have. And if a seller gets beat, I guarantee you [it’s going to be] by someone who uses technology better than them.
Tiffani Bova is the global growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business. Tiffani has been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers and is a welcomed guest on Bloomberg, BNN, Cheddar, MSNBC, and Yahoo Finance, among others.
Tiffani was named one of Inc. Magazine’s 37 Sales Experts You Need to Follow on Twitter, a LinkedIn Top Sales Expert to follow in 2018, 2019 and 2020, a Top 100 Women in Tech, a Brand Quarterly Magazine Top 50 Marketing Thought Leader, and one of the most Powerful and Influential Women in California according to the National Diversity Council.
Listen as Tiffani discusses how employee satisfaction is key to a company’s success, the importance of trust in the manager/seller relationship, whether pre-pandemic customer meetings are returning, the most important skill sellers need today, and more.
Episode 45: Finding Your Superpower | Tiffani Bova
Listen and Subscribe Now: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn
From This Episode
Host Mark Magnacca: “What do you think about returning to the pre-pandemic practice of salespeople getting on a plane to go meet with a prospective customer? Or do we keep things virtual?”
Tiffani Bova: “It’s going to fall somewhere in between. It depends on who the customer is. It depends on what the opportunity is. It depends on what the situation is. You need to determine those thresholds and why.
“Not every meeting for an hour across the country is valuable. That’s where we have an opportunity to change.
“Say, for example, my manager says, ‘You’re not going from Boston to Los Angeles for a one-hour meeting.’
“But then I say, ‘Well, hold on. The customer is putting together their entire executive team, and they are going to give me one hour. And two of our competitors are also getting an hour with them. If we don’t show up, we are really putting ourselves as a disadvantage.’
“Then my manager says, ‘Go – absolutely.’
“That’s what I mean versus a hard ‘do not get on that plane.’
“Now, if it’s just [my contact] and he has up to an hour to meet but it might be only a half hour, could we meet first via video? We’ve proven over the last 18 months we can establish relationships virtually.
“There is value and benefit in this hybrid way of doing meetings. But having that autonomy and flexibility to say, ‘I don’t need to get on that plane. I could do it this way.’ And then for other meetings, say, ‘I need to get on that plane. I need to do it that way. Do you trust me to make that decision? Or do I have to go through all this process of getting approval?’
“There is the ability for [managers] to give some trust back [to sellers]—trust that I’m going to travel when I know it makes the most sense and I’m not going to when it doesn’t.”
About The Adapter’s Advantage
Our podcast features leaders from sales, training, and industry who share their personal journeys of transformation and how they are adapting to an ever-changing environment. As your host, I’ll introduce you to some of the most interesting and inspiring people I’ve met over the last twenty years.
The conversations dive into the ups and downs of their journey. Our guests focus on inflection points—the aha moments that, in retrospect, had a critical impact on their success. These interviews will leave you with practical, real-world advice that you can apply to your life.
Subscribe Today
Don’t miss an episode. The Adapter’s Advantage is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and TuneIn.
