Sales Lessons On Repeat - The 411, October 6th
Plus, common discovery mistakes and good discovery questions to ask.
Hey sellas,
Sales content can be pretty repetitive. Same tactics. Same strategies. Different day.
This can be annoying, especially when some influencer or thought leader tries to coin some new term and pretend they invented something that’s really been around forever.
The basics of sales, the fundamentals, don’t change.
But it’s worth noting that repetition is a key part of learning.
If you were a lucky kid, like I was, you had a parent or teacher or coach, who would always say the same things over and over again. My dad would always say, ”Life is about balance.” At the time, I found it annoying. Thirty years later, I’m grateful he said it so often. Because that’s what made it stick. That’s why his words still echo in between my ears as I strive to find balance in every of my life.
In the same way, hearing the same sales lessons, from different people, in different contexts, said in slightly different ways, week after week, can be incredibly beneficial.
It makes the ideas stickier. It helps them sink in. It helps you understand them more deeply, grasp them more unconsciously.
Repetition is part of mastering the game.
This week’s edition is brought to you by Vidyard. Record and send sales videos to connect with prospects, convert opportunities and close deals—for free.
Four Links
1. Stop Using ROI Language in Cold Emails
Gong ran the numbers and found that bold promises about 10Xing this and cutting that by 50%, aren’t effective.
“Using ROI language in cold emails decreases success rates by 15%.”
Josh Braun talks about this a lot. Big stats come off as hypey and hard to believe.
Better to be humble. Better to try to incite curiosity, not disbelief.
In this short LinkedIn post, Keenan rhymes off the most common discovery mistakes he sees reps making, including:
Started trying to sell or talk about their product before they found a problem
Try to tell me (the buyer) what my problem was
Didn't understand what problem they were looking for
Cut me off or interrupted me
DIDN'T LISTEN TO MY ANSWERS
Couldn't ask more than 5-6 questions before they had to talk about their product
Ask questions irrelevant to the issues their product or service addressed
Asked me (the buyer) to self diagnose
AND the worst, they almost all asked the dumbest question of all in a discovery: "If I could do abc and deliver xyz, would that be of value to you? Ugh!
Guilty of any?
3. 13 Great Discovery Questions
A theme in Keenan’s list is a lack of good question asking. This Refract blog post suggests some good discovery questions that might help, including:
Tell me more about that?
Why is that important to you?
Can I ask you a difficult question?
What’s stopped you from solving this previously?
Who else cares about (solving problem/opportunity revealed)?
Better discovery starts with better questions.
4. 20 Ways to Keep a Remote Sales Team Engaged
Engaged sales teams sell better. But keeping everyone engaged while working from home can be tough.
In this post, Spencer Grover, Senior Product Marketing Manager at LevelJump, throws down twenty suggestions. Some of my faves:
Get everyone on video. “Video chatting is among the best and easiest ways to stay connected among remote teams.”
“Let your team members work whenever best suits them and focus on outcomes over inputs”
Create knowledge sharing opportunities for your sales folks to share stories and insights they’ve picked up through conversations
Hold employee wellness sessions (yoga, meditation, etc.)
Try using a tool called Donut to encourage more interactions
One Tactic to Try
Customer ghosting you? Prospect fall off the face of the earth? Try using John Barrow’s line, “Did I lose you?”
If you’ve already gone through your cadence and reached out multiple times, he recommends replying to the string of emails with a new subject line that just says, “Did I lose you?” And that’s it. Leave the body blank.
He says it works well for getting replies because it’s real and direct. “The more real and transparent you are with them, the more real and transparent they will be with you.”
7 Freshly Picked Postings From the Past 7 Days
One Quote to Live By
“When it comes to relationships, think about conversing not converting.” - Amy Volas, Founder & CEO of Avenue Talent Partners
I’ve really been enjoying Amy’s newsletter lately. This week she wrote about the importance of building strong, loyal, trusting relationships.
And how do you do that?
You focus on having good conversations. You make people feel heard. You show people you care.
Now you know,
Steele