Partners in Excellence

APRIL 3, 2024

We constantly seek shortcuts, things that enable us to avoid doing the work critical to creating and sustaining performance. We constantly experiment with different shortcuts, trying to figure out how to make them work for us (apparently they worked for others). And the answers ChatGPT gives us are the same it gives everyone else.

Scale 107

Scale Energy Construction Advertising 107

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 2, 2024

” Covey writes about the importance of having a destination or a goal, Knowing what we are trying to achieve forces us to focus on the things critical to achieving the goal. Success to them, is not about product selection, but about doing the right thing for themselves and their organization. As a result, we have a giant dilemma.

Customer 111

Customer Maximizer Closing Objections 111

Understanding the Sales Force

MARCH 25, 2024

Despite half of the tables being vacant, he said they would be unable to seat us because they were sold out. He came over, said he was happy to see us, and asked what the problem was. I said, “I guess you’re too busy to accommodate us…” and he said, “Nonsense.

Decision Maker 182

Decision Maker Hotels Cancellation Travel 182

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 18, 2024

One of the sellers asked a question about dealing with customer questions and queries about the products, particularly deeply technical questions. Customers asking us about the product capabilities, drilling deeply into what the products and solutions do. But are they asking us the right questions?

Customer 119

Customer Revelation Buying Cycle Lead Rank 119

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 17, 2024

We are trying to get our customers to change from the current products or services they are using, to our products and services. We want the customer to recognize and exploit a new opportunity, which mandates the use of our products and services. It is impossible for us to grow our business.

Lead Rank 109

Lead Rank Analysis Incentives Incentive 109

The Pipeline

OCTOBER 4, 2021

I would assume the assumption is that they currently are only able to much less, making your product desirable. We first have to create desire, and we have to move away from our product, and look down the journey. People hope (yuck), that their product will help the prospect understand why the CHANGE. A Better Path.

Data 368

Data Objections ACT Lead Rank 368

SBI Growth

SEPTEMBER 5, 2018

Joining us on hbspt.cta.load(23541, '39dd4f48-b0ca-486a-9fa5-4e1fb27489aa', {}); is Christopher Bray, the Senior Vice President and GM for Cylance, a provider of artificial intelligence and real threat prevention. Christopher has launched products across multiple organizations, and is a top revenue.

Marketing 209

Marketing Revenue Banking B2C 209

No More Cold Calling

DECEMBER 21, 2023

After all, who knows the value of your products and services more than the people who are already paying for them? Read “ The Irrefutable Referral Business Case ”) Sales Tech That Doesn’t Work Digital communication only takes us so far … period. Technology should enable us and make us more productive, and most of the time it does.

Referrals 156

Referrals Social Media Cold Calling Sales Qualified Lead 156

The Sales Heretic

MAY 13, 2020

They give us opportunities to showcase how wonderful our product or service is. Stories and case studies are powerful sales tools. They provide proof of our abilities and enable our prospects to see themselves benefitting just as our previous customers have. There’s just one problem with them. Everyone’s stories are the same.

Case Study 375

Case Study Prospecting Study Benefit 375

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 8, 2024

It’s our mindless focus on volumes/velocity and pitching our products through endless sequences. Amazon and others taught us this over the past decades, and many transactional products are better purchased with no seller involvement. It’s better for customers and it’s better for us.

Top of Funnel 107

Top of Funnel Face-to-face Data Buying Cycle 107

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

The majority of our sales engagement strategies involve us in only the very latest stages of our customers’ buying journeys. They have done all that work long before they engage us. We train our people in our products and their superiority. Our content focuses on product capability and differentiation.

Competition 107

Competition Customer Buying Cycle Vendor 107

Force Management

JANUARY 4, 2024

Our hosts John Kaplan and John McMahon welcomed over 50 guests whose conversations covered topics like product-led growth, selling to champions and C-level decision-makers, growing your personal sales career and making great sales hires. Today, we're sharing our top 10 most-listened podcasts of the year.

Hiring 125

Hiring Decision Maker Revenue LinkedIn 125

Zoominfo

OCTOBER 10, 2023

I’ve used it to close significant new business deals within my region. I rate the product highly and have seen valuable improvements in their global data coverage. Leveraging this network helped us verify and add significant volumes of B2B data to our platform quickly, cost-effectively, and in full compliance with GDPR.

Data 261

Data Ideal Customer Profile Policies Networking 261

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 24, 2024

The customer has gone through their change/problem solving process, basically made their decision and are looking choosing between alternative products. We compete against the products and their pricing, having little understanding of why they need to buy in the first place. The discussion becomes all about pricing and discounting.

Discount 77

Discount Proposal Objections Positioning 77

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 1, 2024

They have gone through the work of defining the problem, defining what they want to achieve, getting funding, identifying the risks, looking for solutions… And then they talk to us. The majority of them never get to engaging us because for various reasons they have given up, or have gotten diverted. What should we be doing?”

Trade Show 77

Trade Show Conference Segment Groups 77

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2024

Each of us experiences the same thing, grumbling at the terrible quality outreach. Then, too many of us turn around and inflict bad outbound prospecting on our own victims. 100% of the prospecting messages I see are product focused. How does it impact us? Nothing focuses on our priorities and our company.

Face-to-face 92

Face-to-face Buying Cycle Outbound B2B 92

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 11, 2024

There are hacks piled on top of other hacks–I suppose helping us become even more efficient. Undistinguished, absent of any insight, blah… In fairness, these tools tell us this. They tell us the limitations of their data bases. Our playbooks and tools are already focused on helping us understand these things.

Ideal Customer Profile 108

Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face Engineering Industry 108

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 4, 2023

His research showed those being customer focused outperformed those being more product focused by more than 2-1. The customer/problem focused sellers always out perform the product focused sellers—enormously! Yet, virtually everything we see people doing is product focused. Performance and productivity is plummeting.

Customer 105

Customer Scale Buying Cycle Discount 105

Membrain

MARCH 3, 2024

Ever wondered how a deep belief in your product can solidify customer trust? Our guests Sean O'Shaughnessey , CEO of New Sales Expert and Kevin Lawson , President of Lighthouse Sales Advisors , join us to share their insights into the transformative power of genuine conviction and rapport in sales.

Sales 84

Sales Customer 84

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 1, 2024

(Hold your noses as you read… ) The thousands of outreaches inflicted on all of us, “Let me tell you about how great we are and all the impressive brands that have bought from us… ” Add to those, thousands more, “Let me tell you about our products and how great they are, when can we schedule a demo?”

Ideal Customer Profile 73

Ideal Customer Profile Face-to-face Social Media Up-Sell 73

SMEI

APRIL 23, 2024

In the world of sales, it’s a common misconception that a great product is enough to guarantee success. ” reminds us, building a better mousetrap doesn’t necessarily mean the world will beat a path to your door. As the excerpt from “Open the Mind and Close the Sale: The secret to success in Selling!”

Training 97

Training Guarantee Competition Closing 97

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 10, 2023

Not quoting Brent directly, he raised an issue of: Why are we so obsessed about what customers think of us and our products? collectively, we obsess on our products, goals, and success. As a result, we get constantly reinforcing behaviors that focus on us. Would that make them more interested in engaging us?

Customer 101

Customer Energy Closing Company 101

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 22, 2024

When I talk to leaders about their GTM strategies, the focus is on products and presenting the capabilities of products. People respond, “They run IT, they manage sales, they design new products, they are marketing people…” But then when I ask, “What’s that mean?

Customer 101

Customer Face-to-face Enterprise Enterprise 101

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

We think our customer care about us–they obsess about our companies, our products, and how great we are. There were the logo slides, the Gartner magic quadrant slides, a slide dedicated to the greatness of each of their key product groups, and so forth. The first 15 pages, were all about the technology company.

Engineering 108

Engineering Up-Sell Lead Rank Lead Scoring 108

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

We are driven to pitch our products and solutions. Our questioning and discovery strategies each have an agenda, we seek answers that enable us to pitch. We have presentations focusing on us, our products, our companies and how great we are. We have closing strategies focused on getting the order.

Customer 111

Customer Discount Negotiation ROI 111

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 19, 2023

.” For decades, we have thought about our value proposition in the context of our products/solutions. We would go through endless detail about the unique and differentiated capabilities of our products and solutions. And in areas where we may have temporary uniqueness, competitors are quick to copy or “one-up” us.

Face-to-face 117

Face-to-face Report ROI Research 117

John Barrows

AUGUST 20, 2021

Doug Landis, Growth Partner at Emcap, joins John this week to discuss the shifting roles of sales due to product-led growth and how companies can adjust in order to evolve. Join us next time! If you have some feedback for us, connect with us on LinkedIn. If you made it this far, you’re the best.

Social Media 185

Social Media Intent LinkedIn Media 185

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 27, 2023

What are we learning that enables us to change and grow? Some will say, “But Dave, our product is different and better. Is it only about our products? Is that what makes us better? We mistake doing more, or following the same growth strategies, or by focusing on our products as the way we get better.

Comparison 103

Comparison Strategy Customer Company 103

Hubspot Sales

MARCH 5, 2024

Focus on The Right Audience From the get-go, Beatriz wanted to build SUMA for the “200% generation” – young US Latinos. But youths are the driving force for the group’s financial growth, and 74% of US Latinos under 34 years old (Millennials or younger) are actually born here, and proficient in English. Community before product.

Company 87

Company Education Media Demographics 87

Sales Hacker

DECEMBER 8, 2023

Likewise, the new products you launch do not determine your success. Today, we’re diving straight into the details with product marketing leaders. On the menu: less ‘obvious’ tactical tips on how these experts have aced the art of nailing a product launch – from pre-launch, to launch-day, to post-launch. Start early!

Scale 99

Scale Conference Distribution Exercises 99

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 26, 2023

We seek, overtly, to pitch our offerings and products to prospects and customers. Over time, the term evolved further to refer to the act of promoting or advertising a product or service, as in making a sales pitch. Pitching prevents us from engaging in collaborative conversations. It is one way!

ACT 111

ACT Advertising Advertising Promotion 111

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 27, 2024

I wanted to learn about the impact of declining response time on productivity (I was trying to sell a massive computer system to the credit card processing operations of my customer). second change in response time impacted productivity. And they can’t–and ChatGPT is honest enough to warn us about that.

Face-to-face 116

Face-to-face Journal Research Tools 116

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 26, 2023

We tend to differentiate on what is important to us, rather than what is important to the customer. Distinctiveness is something that makes us stand out. Think, for instance, of companies, brands, or even products that stand out, that are distinctive. While, to some degree, their products/brand make them stand out.

Banking 101

Banking Comparison Retail Trends 101