Sell as You Are

How to harness your unique qualities to find more success in sales.

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Written by
Dailius Wilson
Dec. 2020

Introduction

If you interview the top sales trainers at any of the world’s largest companies they’d all say the same thing. Their goal is not to turn everyone into the same, robotic, prototypical sales rep.

Rather their goal is more to allow the individual strengths of each seller to shine, whilst giving them a repeatable, measurable method for success.

All organisations can train you on their method but only you can unlock the secrets of what you do well in a deal & how to do these things more frequently as you move up in your career.

This book is designed to give you some clues as to how you can take the best elements of yourself and harness them to wow prospects, find new territories and to become a person who people come to over others to have their business needs solved.

We don’t want you to change. We just want you to find out what you do well & do more of it. We want you to “sell as you are” - from the couch, from the beach, in a suit or in shorts. Harness what makes you - “you” to find more success in sales.

This book will help you do that.

Dailius Wilson
VP Sales & Growth
GetAccept

Articulate and define why you are here

We spend so much time in sales training talking about and learning the company pitch - but so rarely talk about how we can define our personal pitch when we meet new prospects.

What is a personal pitch?

A personal pitch is a summary statement which defines the motivation for us doing what we do everyday. Essentially, at the end of hearing this statement people should be well on the way to understanding who you are and what you stand for.

This ideally should cover:

• Why we are in the role/why we took the job?
• Why we are passionate about the space?
• What do we love about sales?
• Touch on our ethics/morality

The personal pitch should be well thought out, persuasive and part of our regular sales motion so we can ensure that all prospects can quickly orientate with our core values. Have a look at my personal pitch below and try to create your own. You can then share this audibly in meetings or include it as one of the fist materials you send when connecting with new opportunities.

Dailius’ Personal Pitch:

I loved GetAccept so much that after one demo I went around my finance department and bought the product with my own credit card. After two years as a customer, I became close friends with the founders - one of whom fell ill and asked me to lead sales and marketing. I am dedicated to helping people see sales as a respected profession and my goal would be for you to feel this about me in all of our interactions together going forward.

Look for trends in your own historical performance data and double down on deals you love

Have you ever felt like you have particular success with a prospect in a certain industry, role or executive background? Your instincts are probably not wrong!

Your background and interests can often serve as a subconscious advantage over people in your own team and sales reps working at competitor companies. For instance, I have found particular success working with startups growing from 50-500 people, as I have been in four of these businesses as a sales leader. Can you think of any common denominators in the deals you have won in the past?

Go through your past closed won/lost deals and look for things like:

• Deal size and Industry
• Types and number of stakeholders engaged in the deal
• Priority features/demands of the customer
• Geographical location of the prospect
• Nature of the lead (inbound/outbound)
• Things you shared in common with the primary prospec

You may find that both your closed won and closed lost opportunities share patterns which you can then look for in your current deals. Again back to my example above, I have a large success rate in the 50-500 employee size bracket, but in smaller deals I have struggled to gain traction the limited time I have in the week.

Once you find some things that appear to work for you - work with management by presenting these findings and asking for an adjustment of your allocated territory. Even better, if you have a free-for-all system for outbound opportunities go about selecting companies similar to the ones you have closed.

Things stalling? Don’t be afraid to share the truth via direct questions

When we don’t hear from a prospect for sometime or we don’t get any meaningful updates, several things can happen.

Some of us “panic” at the lack of clear direction and begin to over communicate, making us seem desperate and harming our chances of securing a closed won opportunity.

Sometimes we might “not want to seem rude” by respecting the time and internal process of the prospect to arrive at an outcome that is right for them. The downside of this strategy is that if we wait too long we could be caught napping with the deal slipping through our fingers.

By embracing your true self, a winning middle ground is to ask direct questions, which gives both parties a clear sense of where things are at. Sometimes the truths we seek in our mind, shouldn’t be kept to ourselves with our prospects empathising with our position in the deals once enough rapport has been built.

For example, good questions include:

• What are the steps from here to arrive at your decision?
• What could I do to make us the number 1 option?
• What stands between now and finalizing this partnership ?
• I’d love to win your business, what am I missing ?

By asking a question that aims to reveal some of the “hidden” or less obvious feelings of the prospect, you can set yourself up for greater success.

Marketing case studies are one thing, showcase your own

In all sales conversations, every vendor will claim they can solve the pains of the prospect in the best way possible.

The best way to gain credibility is to showcase similar projects where your company excelled in solving similar problems. This allows you to build trust and showcase that you are a tried and tested solution. On the surface, quoting customer names, sharing reviews or sending case studies can serve to build this momentum, but this doesn’t actually sell “You” or build momentum as to why “You” are the one to deliver this solution.

In addition - I’d also recommend asking your closed won deals to review your product on an online website and ask them to kindly mention you and why you were helpful in the deal. You can then use this testimony in active deals to infuse your story naturally into the sales message. I recommend TrustRadius as a strong site given their focus on long, authentic reviews and G2.com given their market reach at present.

A strategy you can try is combining these marketing, company level content with your own personal assets, stories and customer testimonials talking about why you are the person for the job. A great site which can help you do this is Bravado.co which allows you to build an online collection of testimonials focusing on you.

How can you change the sales process with more of “me”

Put yourselves in the shoes of your prospects. Most people in the world are not commuting to offices but taking 6-8 hours of meetings a day, virtually.

That means staring at a screen, consuming countless hours of content - most of which they can hardly remember! Add to this, the pain of buying a good or service. The same discovery questions. The same slide deck presentations. The same demos where they have to sit and watch for 30 minutes before asking a question. What you need to do is ask yourself, ”How can I break the monotony of everyday business transactions by using one of my biggest assets, me?”

Here are a few examples of things you can do to add a spark back into the lives of your customers:

• Approach every meeting with energy - most people are lacking their own energy and are facing some tough conditions in the world right now. Your aim should be to make them feel like you were the most happy and positive person they’ve spoken to all week. • Do your research on them at a personal and corporate level and aim to surprise - what facts can you uncover about projects they might be working on, things they might be interested in, plans they have for the future? • Make sure they attend the meeting with a creative video reminder - send them something ahead of time mentioning why you are looking forward to meeting and three reasons why they should attend. • Don’t show, allow them to do - many of us make the mistake of harnessing boring old slide decks or a collaborative document or giving them screen control so they can interact with the demo environment.

Build your personal brand on Linkedin

The best part about building a following on LinkedIn is the sales you can make without even trying.

Imagine yourself as the sales rep in this story. You put in seven meetings to secure a $100k deal only to have the deal fall through because the budget can’t be approved. You add the contact on LinkedIn and for the next 12 months post helpful content, showcase wonderful moments from your life and take the time to read what the prospect has also achieved in the same period.

Suddenly out of nowhere you receive a direct message from the prospect, telling you that they aren’t happy and want to finally take the leap to buy your solution. LinkedIn is the world’s largest free lead nurturing system!

In order to build some momentum on LinkedIn - these are some golden rules to consider:

• Be Known for One Topic - pick one topic or one topic area and stick to it. New prospects and old prospects will begin to think of you and eventually come to you when they have a need for advice. • Post at least once a day, at either 8:30am or 10am - you want to be able to consistently reach people in a similar time window before they have their first meeting of the day and before/after they process the majority of their email. • Mix the personal with the professional - showcase your life events, important milestones, hobbies and interests; your job is to seem human and not a robot! • Link with everyone you speak to with a personalized invite - don’t miss any opportunities you will regret it in the future when you see a person change roles who you remember but somehow forgot to connect with.

Embrace the element of surprise

Unforgettable calls rarely occur due to the topics of conversation but because of breathtaking events.

Being interrupted by a fire alarm. Calling a prospect on the golf course in the middle of the shot. How can you create that unforgettable moment that gives you the ability to be unforgettable - “Hey, remember that time I first cold called you and you were about to walk down the aisle to get married - talk about timing!”

An example from my personal sales career was when I called a prospect, only to sadly hear that he just got divorced. Having had a similar experience, the following months I shared helpful content, I had used myself when dealing with my own personal losses. The prospect said they found what I had sent to be very respectful and useful, and eventually we had an opportunity to discuss business on mutually beneficial terms. The question is how can you create that moment when sitting behind a laptop.

Here are some ideas:

• Create a funny or humorous background for your videos and calls. • Wear an outfit or embrace something that makes you distinguishable - for me it has been my Australian “akubra” hat. • Take or make the calls from exotic locations to serve as a talking point. • Host a call with someone they know and record a video of them being mentioned - then use this in your outreach or play it during your meeting.