The Qualified Sales Leader. Proven Lessons from a Five-Time CRO. John McMahon

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What do I love about: The Qualified Sales Leader?

I love the applicability of the book. The writer is straight to the point, providing practical tips and relevant context and justification. I also love that the book is easy to read and digest.

What do I not love about: The Qualified Sales Leader?

Zilch

Who should read: The Qualified Sales Leader?

Anyone looking to be a more effective sales person. The truth is in todays corporate world we are all salesmen and so we need to continue to enrich our toolkit.

Who should not read: The Qualified Sales Leader?

If you do not care about sales or influence. Then you can skip this.

Notes about The Qualified Sales Leader?

• Measurements is the first step that leads to control and eventually improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. And if you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.
• If a customer doesn’t understand the business value of a subscription product, the customer won’t renew their annual subscription.
• I quickly realized that I was paid to recruit, train, develop my people to maximize sales and so they could eventually take my place when I get promoted.
• The essence of profound insight is simplicity.
• To beat others: Recruit only A players, provide excellent onboarding and training, develop rep skills through on-the-job coaching to make them productive immediately.
• Character is the difference maker. If their mother and father couldn’t change them by age twenty years old, then you can’t change them.
• If the coach kept telling you how you are doing it all wrong on every swing, you’d start to think that you are not meant to play the game of golf.
• Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
• Personal wins to motivate a champion: recognition, control, productivity, promotion, status.
• A coach can’t be a champion because they don’t influence others or have access to the Economic buyer. But a champion could also be a coach because they could coach you and give you inside information.
• The roots of a truly positive workplace culture lie in helping people win and achieve their personal goals.
• Inaction as a leader creates a culture where non-performers know there is no penalty for mediocrity and the A-list players are disgusted by their leaders inaction to hold people accountable.
• Holding a rep accountable for non-performance can be as simple as taking some territory or accounts away.
• Always ask if we hired the wrong person or as leaders if we failed to develop our people.
• Discipline is doing what you hate to do but doing it like you love it.
• Help enough people get what they want and I will get what I want.
• Evaluate people based on COMPTETENCE and COMMITMENT
  • COMPETENCE: speak to their head
  • COMMITMENT: speak to their heart

The Basics of Selling

Basic 1: A common vocabulary

Basic 2: Listening

• Listen with the intent to understand- not the intent to reply
• Ineffective listening generates ineffective questions

Basic 3: Be Here

Basic 4: Intuition

• Listen to understand, listen to feel, listen to sense. Don’t listen to talk
• Your intuition needs a clear, open mind. It wont work if it’s competing with other distracting thoughts, fears, or prejudices of your own past experiences

Basic 5: Self Awareness

Basic 6: Transformational Mindset

Basic 7: Do not be a glorified scorekeeper

• People don’t leave companies, they leave managers

Basic 8: Intentional Outcomes

Basic 9: Keep it simple

Basic 10: Urgent Curiosity

• Why wait until tomorrow if you can know now.
• Time is the enemy

The B2B Sales Process

1. Discovery
   • Customers buy products based on the value they perceive they will receive, not price.
   • You get relegated to whom you sound like. So if you only speak technical product terms as you get higher in an organization. You will get relegated down the organization to the level you sound like.
   • Every company has fires, most of which they can live with. If you want to sell high in an organization, get above the noise.
   • Common pain areas to look out for: Regulation, competition, security, productivity/cost/quality, reputation
   • Discovery Logic
     • Find pains
     • Pain finds champions (Champions always have org influence. They may or may not have authority)
     • Champions get you to the economic buyer
     • The economic buyer has access to major funds
     • Sell big deals
   • Discovery Questions: Why, When, How, Who, What
2. Scoping
   • In the cost justification, the customers’ gain must be significantly larger than the customers’ pain.
   • PoC is pointless. Your product works. You are not trying to prove the concept of your technology functioning. You are trying to prove that your product capabilities deliver business value to the customer for their specific use case.
   • Executives are not interested in our product features and functions. They want to solve major business issues.
   • There is no sale when you identify and quantify pain. There is only a sale when you create an urgency to move from current state of pain to a positive future outcome
   • A scoping journey generates 3 documents;
     • A cost justification with as-is and to-be metrics
     • A PoV plan that directly correlates to the PoV criteria and preliminary cost justification
     • A preliminary pricing proposal which is a price quote based upon the preliminary cost justification
   • Scoping Logic
     • Found business pain creates opportunity.
     • Quantified business pain drives higher price points.
     • Implicated business pain drives urgency
     • Business pain and urgency finds business champions.
     • Business champions get you to the economic buyer.
     • The economic buyer has access to major funds
     • You sell big deals based on value
3. Economic Buyer Meeting
   • The Economic Buyer (EB) is the person with the discretionary use of funds.
   • Be someone who helps them run their business. Don’t explain business issues they already know. Instead, inform them about a business issue they didn’t consider. Explain the things they have not thought of that directly affect what their business could be doing.
   • High level agenda for the Economic Buyer Meeting
     • As-is vs.To-be
     • Pain discovery statement
     • Quantified pain statement
     • Implications of not solving the pain
     • Business outcome statement
     • Required capabilities and differentiators
     • Decision criteria for the validation event
     • Preliminary ROI
     • Customer Success Story
   • Questions economic buyer falls under;
     • Muchness: how much does it cost or will it save
     • Soonness: how soon to implement and see value
     • Sureness: cost justification, references
     • Easyness: easy to implement and people to learn
4. Validation Event
   • The PoV validates your solution capabilities, solve their pain and substantiates the metrics in your cost justification
5. Business Case and Final Proposal
   • This is the value realization document. It should include;
     • corporate objectives,
     • strategic initiatives,
     • business problem or opportunity,
     • description of as-is and to-be,
     • how solution delivers business outcome,
     • final cost justification.
   • You also need to present an implementation plan. Implementation plan decreases risk and increases the odds of achieving the success outlined in the business case.
6. Negotiate and Close
   • In many organizations, procurement is measured and obtains a bonus on their ability to discount the pricing proposal you as the sales rep gave to the business.
   • Procurement techniques but remain calm;
     • The pissed off for no apparent reason approach
     • The take it or leave it offer
     • The you need us more than we needs you brush off
     • The we love you charade
     • The no budget bust
     • The good guy/bad guy setup
     • The disappearing friend act
     • The shame game
     • The one more thing strategy
     • The have a heart scheme
     • The its over gambit

Analyzing Sales Effectiveness using MEDDPICC (a qualification framework)

• Metrics: The quantification of pain and solution
• Economic Buyer
• Decision Criteria: Solution capabilities to solve the pain
• Decision Process: Specific people, event and time frame the customer will use to evaluate several products and select a solution
• Identify the Pain or Initiative- why do THEY HAVE TO buy, from us and now
• Paper Process: step by step process the buyer organizations uses to produce a purchase order.
• Champion: to have an internal salesperson, gives access to the economic buyer and control the deal.
• Competition:
  • It is important to be intimate with how your competitors sell against you. That will allow you to educate your champion. Inform them on how to handle competitive traps and typical objections originating from the competition.
  • Another way to counter a competitive Champion is to find multiple Champions, both wide and high in the account to counter a competitor’s Champion’s influence