I recently read “The Challenger Sale” and it was a pretty great book. It’s not a long read and they put a lot of research into the book.
I want to talk about a few insights from the book I stress as a sales manager.
You must constantly train your reps/yourself.
Training results will surprise you based on skill.
Training is not only crucial for better results, it gives hope. Hope brings a good mindset and pride. Everybody in sales needs a healthy dose of pride.
Training results will vary for everyone. The bottom 20% probably won’t get better because they need to be fired.
The Top 10% are generally hitting stride so well and ahead of you half the time. The sales elite know when they fuck up and what they need to train.
The other 70% will benefit greatly from a morale boost or advice. People want to be trained and feel their leader is competent.
Humans suck at multitasking, so focus on one skill at a time to maximize your results. Keep it simple stupid.
Nobody wants the golf coach who tells them to fix 15 things all at once.
The 14 Basics
What you need to break down one day at a time:
Eye Contact
Pitch wording/enunciation
Body Language (Shoulders to feet)
Smiling as well as knowing when to seem “bored” (This flows in with managing energy levels, since the physical movements actually affect your brain chemistry)
Listening
Using silence/pauses
Knowing all customer objections/questions
Making every pitch a win (Even if you don’t get a sale, getting info that will help with the next sale.)
Tie downs
Potent questions (Finding the root of their pain)
Targeting your ideal CX
Closes
Flash Rolls (Saying how you would solve a technical problem quickly to show you’re an expert.)
Referrals
These aren’t necessarily ranked in order of importance. Body language is king of course. Also, it’s not what you say, but how you say it.
I can get away with saying a lot of shit new guys can’t because I say it with confidence and a smile on my face. This is a superpower.
So when starting in sales, always focus on learning the script exactly. Then you can quit thinking about what to say and focus on your body language/tonality.
Once you have that down, you can optimize the words of the script.
I’m diving into all of these in the paid section. Comment with your biggest struggles!