212: Four Critical Aspects of Modern Sales | Master Sales Series

Live from Croatia, join George for the final episode of the Master Sales Series.

As a send-off, George leaves listeners with 4 key takeaways that salespeople need to internalize if they truly want to conquer in the modern sales landscape.

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The 4 Aspects of Modern Sales

It is the Master Sales Training Series of the Conquer Local podcast. My name is George Leith. We are about to put the wraps on these episodes. You know, we really appreciate the feedback that we’ve been getting from people, listeners. And that’s where this series came from was listeners saying, “You know, just give us a number of episodes that just will help us be better salespeople.” Or, “If I hire a brand new salesperson, give me a list of podcasts that I could just have them listen to that’ll set the stage and instill some traits and some things that they should be looking at.” So, we’re going to do a bit of a wrap up on the Master Sales Training Series when we return after these messages from the Conquer Local podcast.

It is the wrap up edition of the Master Sales Series. My name is George Leith. Thanks for joining us on the Conquer Local podcast. Actually, coming to you from beautiful Dubrovnik, Croatia. We’re recording some episodes in Europe over the next month or so. Anyways, really appreciate the feedback that we’ve been getting on the Master Sales Training Series and what I wanted to do was just a bit of an overview of some of the lessons.

1. Passion & Product Knowledge

Now, we had the travel piece, and we had the sales hangover piece, and we had the how to give a great presentation, and how to develop an elevator pitch, and how to overcome customers’ fear. But I wanted to do a bit of an overview of what I believe sales is in today’s day and age. And I think that what you need to do is be super passionate about your solution, and whatever it is that you’re selling. And I don’t really care what it is. You need to be super passionate about it. You need to really understand it. You need to become an expert in product knowledge.

I remember in some of my early days when I was in the radio business, I got to know auto dealers really well. Of course, auto dealers are some of the biggest customers in the radio space, and what I really admired about auto dealers and that organization is, you know, the way that they built the structure. Like, the product knowledge that is delivered by those auto makers, where they know that they’ve got a salesforce in every one of the auto dealerships and it’s all video-based and, you know, you ever have the opportunity to hire somebody from auto, they’re very, very well-trained. Or they just, you can’t earn a living if you’re not. You really need to understand the product, especially in today’s day and age.

I remember even in the early 90s, you know, they really understood the product knowledge. So I think that, you know, there’s a lesson in that, that we really need to understand our product. You can’t bullshit your way around it anymore. It has to be fact-based. You have to really be up on the product. It’s important, because your prospect could do more research than they’ve ever been able to do. So, you know, that’s the first thing. We really need to understand the product, and we need to be passionate about the product.

2. A Love for the Customer’s Problems

And then the next thing is we need to really fall in love with our customers’ problems. You know, you need to be passionate about your product, but what you really need to do is understand your customers’ problems. I remember hearing a recent QBR, I was in New York City dealing with a customer. We locked ourselves in a board room for three or four hours. I prepared some things. But we just sat there and brainstormed around ways that we could help that organization generate more revenue. And that really was the purpose of the meeting, it was to do a recap of the things that we were doing, what was working, what wasn’t. And then take a good hard look at how we might be able to generate some more revenue for them and help them drive their goals and reach those goals. And also to understand what the goals of the organization were, because from time to time, goals will change. So, you may have a goal at the beginning of the year, and then as the year progresses you might have to change those goals, so that it’s really important to know that.

But it was interesting, the client said to me about halfway through, he said, “Boy, I wish that other people would have this type of a conversation.” Because it was more based on, you know, solving their problems and really understanding where things sat in their business, and then we were able to brainstorm a number of opportunities and how we might be able to help them grow their revenue. So, you know, that’s one piece, is you really need to become a student and ask those questions. So I want that to ring so that everybody understands that’s a really important piece of the puzzle is being a student of the customer, and always seeking to understand and understanding how that business may be changing and what their goals may be changing.

3. A Networking Mindset

The next thing is that we really need to be working with our organizations, and looking for those networking opportunities. You know, some of the biggest new deals that I have brought on board in the last six, eight months came from recommendations of other people. I still like doing cold calls, because it’s actually kinda fun and I like doing cold outreach every once in a while. But it really is those recommendations from existing customers. And don’t be afraid to ask for some. I think sometimes salespeople are a little bit shy and they don’t want to ask for those recommendations, but I think it’s important to do that.

I also think that it’s important to have reference customers that you could just, on the drop of a hat, give their phone number or their LinkedIn and say, “Reach out to this person and they’ll say some good things about me and tell you that, you know, we deliver on our promises.” I think that that’s quite important. Sometimes, people refer to it as case studies. Yeah, you gotta have those case studies. They’re really important, but having a live human being that will reference you is really important.

4. Professionalism

The other thing that I did wanna touch on in the Master Sales Training is just being that professional, and, you know, really owning what we do and loving our career. I’ve said a number of years ago, very famously, that I’ll never have business development on my business card. I am a salesperson. I make no apologies about it, and I see sales as helping customers, for profit. And if you do that, if you make that your goal of helping customers, but, you know, there’s no reason we can’t be professionals about this. No reason that we can’t master our craft. There’s no reason that we can’t be expert presenters. There’s no reason we can’t deliver or overdeliver on our promises. There’s no reason that we can’t have those reference customers that just love us. Like, that is what I mean by being a pro. You know, dress the part, be a professional, and overdeliver every single time for your clients.

And sometimes the ability to overdeliver comes with saying no. We can’t do all things for all people. What we need to do is really focus on the things that we’re good at. I’ve been doing some reading here recently around, you know, working with your strengths. We wanna be well-rounded, and we look at the things that we’re bad at and we’re, like, “Oh, I could do some things to improve those things.” What if we actually doubled down on the things that we’re good at? You know, saying no and really focusing on the things that you’re good at is also part of that being a professional.

Conclusion

We appreciate all the comments we’ve had about the Master Sales Series. And we are about to embark upon another series here in the Conquer Local podcast where we’re really going to dig in to the digital marketing stack, because I believe it is a game-changer for businesses. I was recently on holiday in Thailand and we were looking for a restaurant to go to. You know, we found a restaurant finally online, we went to it, it was fantastic. But, you know, there weren’t those recommendations, we weren’t able to find the right information about it. We just kind of tripped across it. And I’m sitting there thinking, “God, if we could just help this business, we could probably double their business.”

So, we’re gonna really dig in to the digital marketing stack. I’ve lined up a number of experts for each piece of the stack, and that is coming up on the next series on the Conquer Local podcast. Reach out to us on LinkedIn. We’d love to have you join us. You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook. My name is George Leith. Make sure that you tell your friends to subscribe. We got some great episodes coming up.

Thanks for joining us for the Master Sales Training Series. We’ve really had a lot of fun putting those episodes together. I will see you when I see you.