Member Page – 2017 Sales Acceleration Calls

Additional Content

2016 Sales Acceleration Calls: Archive

Startup Selling Facebook Group

Our Podcast on iTunes – Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci

Workshop Presentations & Webinar Recordings

Sales Acceleration Call Archive:

Sales Acceleration Call 12/12/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

3:25: Identifying Target Customer Types

Sales Acceleration Call 12/5/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE PT1 REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE PT2 REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PT1 REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PT2 REPLAY]

Sales Acceleration Call 12/5/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Notes:
Updates on Friday’s (12/8) Client Event
-The agenda
-How the day will run
-How to plan if you are attending online

Discussed:
-Good management books
-Using Hot Potato in Conversation

Resources:

Building Your Close Plan Worksheet:

Building Your Sales Map: 

Sales Acceleration Call 12/1/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Notes:

Wins/Learnings

00:35 – Danielle @ MotionHall went from an initial LinkedIn inquiry to demo in 1 week

01:44 – Speedment landed a new paid pilot with a client that’s been tracking them for 2 years!

04:10 – Campbell made some big steps forward using the Confirm-Ask-Explore meeting framework to uncover next steps in a big enterprise opportunity.

07:00 – From Post pilot plan submission to getting approved – what to do when you’re stalled

– Using the “Fall on My Sword” strategy to clarify/reconnect

– Provide a way to communicate the value proposition to the CEO/Economic Buyer

– Be confident in the transition to hopping on the phone regarding the confusing/mission information

19:00 – Restarting the conversation with a sales lead that’s gone dark

– Change the course of the conversation from a “sales track” to a “technical track” using casting → Get them back to their “Safe Zone” of communication

– If no word, then deploy the 9-word email

– Put the person in a marketing drip or send another email a week later with a news article, blog post, or white paper

29:00- Fund-Raising & Venture Capital – strategies, stories and considerations

– Ask: What’s our runway?

– Ask: Do we have access to investors now?

– Identify potential, or real, resistance points for future investors and breaking it down by crafting the right story

– Create a deadline for yourself to make a decision with the information available at that time – i.e. raise, don’t raise, wait

***Note: The Tuesday AM Sales Acceleration Calls have been changed from 7AM to 8AM Pacific Time through the end of 2017.

Sales Acceleration Call 11/28/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Sales Acceleration Call 11/28/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

with your sales opportunities

– Ask: “What happens next?” to identify next steps in the process
– Ask: “Can you think of any reason why you would NOT be able to go
forward.”
– Create pricing models that reduce risk for local managers, and enables
you to cross the “Penny Gap.”

Sales Acceleration Call 11/21/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Sales Acceleration Call 11/21/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Sales Acceleration Call 11/14/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Notes:

.20: How Do I Create Successful Client On-boarding
1- Teach people what they need to know as soon as possible with the on-boarding process
2- Look at different ways you can do that
3- Keep it a balance of low friction, high value

23:10: Converting Late Stage Deals
1- Keep it a balance of low friction, high value
2- Smoothly go from sales conversation to implementation conversation

40:00: Launching a Content Selling Strategy
Sketch out the process to ensure it is clear for you and the team:
1- Think of it like a launch strategy
2- Build out steps in the process
3- Identify the cadence as in terms of when and how you will reach out

54:14: How to Migrate From Pilot to Integration:
– Use pilot extension to further integrate with customer

Resources:

Map Close Plan Worksheet

Sales Acceleration Call 11/14/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Notes:
2:20: Maintaining Momentum Late in the Sale
1- How does it work? — The how does it work meeting; to create more questions and conversation
2- The 9 word email
3- Continuing to qualify your sales opportunity throughout the entire sales process

Sales Acceleration Call 11/07/2017  PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE REPLAY]

Situation Slide Template

Prepping for the Big Meeting Training (Member site login):

How To “Hot Potato” with prospects

Podcast: “How to Run Your Sales Meetings”

Sales Acceleration Call 10/31/17 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

12:00 – Whether or Not to Bid on an RFP

1. Identify how rigid RFP requirements are
2. Decide if capabilities match
3. Be willing to walk away
[Sidenote: Anne’s advice – A case where she had to walk away. “Rejection is Protection”. “Whatever you put in your petri dish will grow”]

21:12 – Building Out a Q4 Outbound Sales Initiative
1. Have a clear model for how product matches market need
2. If possible, create content piece, such as Whitepaper

30:56 – Getting Through Contract Process with New Customer
1. Use (when possible) customer’s contract
2. Ask about Master Services Agreement
3. Ask for help from business sponsor

***Note: Starting on November 7th, the AM Sales Acceleration Calls will be moved from 7AM to 8AM Pacific Time through the end of 2017.

Sales Acceleration Call 10/31/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

Notes:
5:35 Putting Together an Effective Outbound Prospect Campaign

Sales Acceleration Call 10/24/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

Notes:

4:35 Topic one: How do we generate effective leads for a new market segment
Steps:
1. Leveraging Linkedin to establish connection
2. Conversation finding way to add value to connection
3. Once value is established you’ve earned the right for a sales conversion

17:38 Topic two: Live event lead follow up
1. Engage in conversation first
2. Look for need via hot potato
3. Drive your leads to a value event

30:30 Topic Three: What to do when a good sales opp dies
1. Look for alternative paths back to the sale
2. Restate the problem and value creation
3. Always get executives involved in the sale

46:00 Topic Four: Working on value proposition
1. Don’t expect the customer to see the value
2. Create a clear message of action and output
Measure
Analyze
Act

1:05:08 Topic Five: Setting up pilot programs
1. Identifying clear metrics and outcomes
2. Building a program you can sell
3. Establish total value of the pilot you are running

Sales Acceleration Call 10/24/17 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

Friday, 10/13/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

2:50 -Topic one: How to sell when a customer did not go forward

Take away:
1.) Competitive intelligence about alternative solution
2.) Look forward in all of your conversations for new problems
3.) Focus on pilot results
4.) Leverage in order to get meeting with CIO; identity 2-3 places on how to get an intro with business unit
5.) Think AND not OR; Use this and US to solve the problem 100%

15:30 Topic two: How do we show and coach our clients which solution to take

Key scenario is to have them come to the conclusion on their own and not that we are pushing

1- If you feel push back it is because we pushed, let’s not push
2-Think about ways customer can come to the conclusion on their own
3-Get Practical – go through options with pros & cons, collaborate

26:18 Topic three: How to onboard your first sales rep? What to watch for with an external sales team?

How to train them better than I am?

1.) Document; email templates, slides, recordings, transcribed
2.) Training; Shadowing.listen, roleplay
3.) Lead calls with you there
4.) Let them run with it & record & playback to see if anything is missing

Do this a few times

How do I make sure they have an incentive?

Start lower, step up

47:15 Topic 4: LinkedIn Connections: once people accept, what should I follow up with?

3 steps:
1-Connect
2- conversation
3- conversion

Take it from the technical connection to a personal conversation and add value.

Quickly reply back and create a conversation with something personable and not salesy

1:01:35 Topic 5: How to manage the last stages or steps of a sale? How to get this approved?

1-Don’t push
2-New information you could provide that would be useful to make the final decision
3-Make yourself useful

Trust in the process that you have done all of the things you needed to do up to that point

Tuesday, 10/10/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

3:00- Stephane nailed down TWO NEW SALES – one new and one renewal
-Using personalized LinkedIn outreach
-Focus the outreach on the outcome for mission achievement (It’s the “why”)
-Reaching out to 2nd degree connections on LinkedIn via InMail is not as effective as
first connecting with someone with a personal message, and then inviting them to an event

19:25 Main Topic- How to leverage e-books as part of a content selling strategy
-How is the content different than other content available
-How to implement it
-How to implement it in the next two months…How is the message useful and different
-Engage your prospect as opposed to blasting emails and whitepapers

33:00 Main Topic-Leveraging new LinkedIn Contacts
-Techniques for targeting high level CEOs and executives
-High value low-friction

34:00 Takeaway- Connection, conversation, then conversion
-Hot buttons
Hot Potato…Short personal messages
-SPEAR (Short, Personalized, Expect A Reply)

41:00 Establishing your company’s value proposition
-Use external data to validate a problem

56:00 Topic is collecting leads at a live event
-Physical card with heavy cardstock
-Two options
a. Call
b. High value low-risk offer and bring a copy of the offered item

59:00 Overcoming product objections
-Isolate questions or feature requests
-Create a plan to discover more on building out feature sets
-Product requests…Is this an “and” or an “or”

Tuesday, 10/10/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

5:00 Topic #1 Going from selling your prospect to building out a workforce implementation plan. Categorize all questions and objections into 3 categories
-Pre-launch
-Launch and rollout
-Results

27:25 Summary/Recap…Migrating from selling to a work plan implementation plan
-Categorize
-Treat each question as a to-do
-Answer questions and close the “loop”

41:00 Honing the pitch
-Where to focus
-Breaking down the numbers

56:30 Summary/Recap… Topic #2 Cold call outreach script
-Establish clear value to communicate
-Intro Identify 3 quick yes questions
-Value…Discuss results not product -Take the path of least resistance

Tuesday, 8/22/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learning
– Accomplishinged first week of 100 Day Sales Plan
– Supporting customers all over the world

6:22 Conference Outreach
– Get in touch with conference organizer and get the attendee list
– Write shome short posts on social media to promote/talk about event
– Follow attendees on social media so they recognize you when you reach out

21:58 Build Out Implimentation plan
– Not just the what but the why
– Treat document like powerpoint

30:10 Building Case Studies
– Keep short
– Record the interview
– Give topics you will cover not the questions

Friday, 8/18/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– 100 days sales plan up and running
– Split the projects of the 100 day plan into week sprints

5:00 Time Management & Sales Project Planning
– Block out time everyone knows about
– Reducing time
– Hold period after each meeting

27:34 Building A Customer Success & Onboarding Plan
– Focus on valuable team and users
– Getting started self service videos and articles and live trainings
– Communicate with users

43:00 Building Your Authority Voice Implementation Plan
– Figure out how you want to share with your market
– Genius Model

Convert Contracts Into Leads
– Create offers
– Test in batches with the list you have
– Assess pull through rate using scarcity

Tuesday, 8/15/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– More output with less input
– Big meeting to launch a pilot

5:30 In person meeting AND Qualification call
– Thinking about presenting sponsor with options
– Be optimistic with this response
– Use call to qualify the customer

22:15 Building your Prefect Prospect Profile
– Problem identification
– Customer interview
– Signals that identify them as PPP

35:23 Get Back Momuntum After Contract Has Stalled
– Fill in gap to help be consultant
– Offer a pilot to help now to create leverage
– Have a plan in place in case they decided not to go through

Friday, 8/11/2017 

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

1:03 Wins and Learnings
– Teams had their meetings to focus 100 Day Sales Plans and are ready to start

6:00 Bulk Pricing
– Weighing pros and cons
– Offering some kind of discount
– Introducing success fees

18:05 Building Your 100-Day Sales Plan Projects

28:33 Quick Tips on Soft Contracts
– Send a quick message after meeting
– Future pacing
– Everyone is clear on the bridge

32:17 Planning a Live Event to Leverage your Authority Voice
– Follow up with those who have AND haven’t accepted the invite
– Work on the agenda for the day
– Figure out your call to action

48:18 Developing a Partnership Strategy
– Take control of the meeting
– Identify if they are customer, partner, promoter, investor
– Qualifying them and give them the open loop to be a partner

Tuesday, 8/8/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings

2:05 Building Your Outbound Message Strategy
– Brainstorm the top problems and frustrations
– Name and own the problem
– Research on clients to support claims

27:14 Building a Client Upsell & Coss-Sell Campaign
– Results, Reality, Resistance/Roadblock
– Educate Support team on all service to discuss with clients
– Every two weeks send out email campaign to clients to educate them on other services

42:45 Time Management & Company Operations
– Have a master list
– Outsource those tasks that you don’t like to do, aren’t good at, etc
– Time block projects
– Hire project manager to delegate tasks to different people

Tuesday, 8/8/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– The importance of knowing your Buyer Types for every sale
– Ask “What happens next?” to gain visibility and build a “soft contract” with your Prospect.
– Octane got verbal on a pilot for Anheuser-Busch
– Kanopi with $160k in new business since working in the Startup Selling Program!

10:45 Setting Up Pilot Programs
– Analysis of user basis and their usage
– Transition from free to paid

30:00 How to Run Your Sales Calls
– Structure results reality roadblock to stretch the gap
– Give them plan of what they need, not how to do it
– Scale the calls

53:30 Prepping for an Onsite Meeting
– Coach and rehearse “wrong” topics
– Be clear on the agenda and the outcome
– Address what happens next

Penny Gap Article

Buyer Analysis Worksheet

Tuesday, 8/1/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Conference Selling Strategy: Post-Event Pull
– Sooner rather than later
– Hot Leads – send out email
– Follow up with calls and casting

9:40 Partner Selling Strategy
– Set aside time to ask questions – Needs assessment
– Don’t show product too soon
– Schedule demo

27:35 Account Management and Client Communication
– Stay involved in the entire process
– Check in with customer
– Align new plan with client services

43:10 Restarting Conversation After the 9 Word Email
– Connect on LinkedIn
– Send an article that is relevant to person and business

Tuesday, 8/1/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
-Getting referrals and lauching webinars/meetings

5:15 Introducting the 100 Day Plan to Selling Success

8:03 Organizing a Live Sales and Marketing Event
– Have a long and short version of an invitation email
– Explore MeetUp and how to customize the event
– Sell first then build the product

25:21 Marketing Your Sales and Marketing Webinar
– Use as a opportunity to tests emails
– Clean leads
– Have landing page is up and ready to invite people pre webinar

The Right Way to Set up your Partnership, Reseller & Affiliate Strategy: An Interview with Jen Spencer

Complete Webinar Playbook

Friday, 7/28/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Closed a major deal

Tuesday, 7/25/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Had some major wins and it is only Tuesday!

Tuesday, 7/25/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Booking meeting with potential clients and starting new strategies!

5:54 Training Sales Team for Qualification Calls
– Document steps of the pre meeting
– Book prep meeting the new sales person
– Role play and evaluate

17:12 Motivating Stalled Deals
– Ask more questions to get more clear answers
– Bring in CEO or COO of your company into the meeting
– Set terms earlier

40:35 Sales Call Prep Strategy – Pre Sales Meeting to Remote Meeting
– Email sequence – confirmation, bullet points, homework

Friday, 7/21/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Closing deals, finding what the clients want, and scheduling meeting from the teams this week! Keep it up!

4:40 Customer Success and Upselling
– Strategy Session
— Confirm, Ask, Explore
— Stretch the Gap – Map it out
— What do you clients need right now?

25:55 Building Your Free Trail/Proof of Concept
– Be clear on an outcome
– Make client feel like it’s a collabrative effort
– Document the process

47:15 Resetting Outbound Campagin
– Don’t assume it’s not a valid strategy
– Talk to your customers
– Be clear to get them to want to take action

Tuesday, 7/18/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Making great progress with clients and meeting deadlines from all teams.

3:40 Dealing with Reference Requests
– Use “Yes, and…” – Agree and then ask for something in return. Make this is the very last step in the purchasing process.
– Or… Give case study at the beginning of sales process or hold off until the end
– Figure out questions they want to get answered to give them the best reference

26:10 Leveraging Live Events for Lead Development
– Specific target market and message
– Okay to disqualify people just give them other resources that will serve them better

41:55 Up-selling a Pilot that Didn’t Go as Planned
– Get customer feedback first before presuming the pilot did not go well.
– Developing alternative plans ie. a second pilot, isolate and re-pilot just the trouble spot

54:30 Pricing Principles: Building the Business Case
– Converting tactical number into financial numbers
– Be clear where they want to go and the tomorrow problem
– Be the expert on their problem

Tuesday, 7/18/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Call Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings
– Lots of good work from the teams on adding new leads to the top of the sales funnel.

7:40 – Post-Proposal: Maintaining Momentum & Stalled Deal Strategies
– Before sending proposal, ask: What happens next?
– Talk to the right Buyer Types involved with the sales
– Avoid “Proposal.” Think “Work Plan” instead

32:00 – Handling “The product doesn’t work for me” Objection
– Ask: “What would we need to do to make you feel more comfortable with moving forward?”
– Be open moving the finish line and extend the goal if needs be
– Create a plan with them

40:40 – Leading the “Just following up” call
– Confirm: with that we know
– Ask: questions
– Explore: open loops

51:03 Moving an apprehensive decision-maker to a decision
– What do you need to see?
– Fall back payment plan
– Commercial, Technology, On-boarding – Sales map – Sort out and isolate questions

Tuesday, 7/11/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Summary:

0:00 Wins and Learnings

3:15 Post Outreach Next Steps
-Switch your approach around
-Weekly meeting to go over objectives
-Look into CRM software
-Track opens on email

19:15 Meeting with IT Decision Maker
-Bring up the high level issue
-Script out the hard conversation
-Be confident, have them be transparent with the problem so you can help

37:00 How to Switch Up Your Strategy for Email Campaigns
-Asking a question to start a hot potato sequence
-Is the message the right message?

45:50 Next Step after QVQ – Pick Up Phone
-Email, phone call, email
-Reference emails in the call and follow up with an email
-Catches them off guard

48:10 Cold Email Stragety and Response Rates
-Haven’t opened? FWD the message back to them
-Have opened? Follow up with phone call
-No response? Try reaching out on LinkedIn

53:55 Converting Interested People Into Profitable Sales
-Make information audit invisible – still giving prospect of why to buy
-Optimize the sales process by demonstrating value

1:06:40 Product Launch
-Stage Launch – Stagger the dates
-Test one variable at a time (price, automations)
-Engage with customers during the trail period (automated or manual)
-Repurpose information audit into the prodcut itselft

Tuesday, 7/11/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO CALL]

Summary:

0:00 Welcome and Wins

2:00 Specific Pricing and Getting More Information
-Get clear on the problem
-Know their current situation
-Run systems diagnostic and factor all the costs to figure out pricing (contract, installation, support, etc)

Once you give the proposal, ask these questions:
-What happens next?
-Is there a vendor management checklist for requirements?
-Why would you NOT want to go forward at this time?

Friday, 7/7/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

0:30: Wins & Learnings

7:00: Prospecting: Restarting Conversations with Previous Sales Leads
– Multi-touch communication strategy
– Casting: Look to have someone else from company get engaged ie. have your co-founder, CTO or CEO also contact the lead
– Give yourself permission to follow up in each communication. I.e. “PS If I don’t hear back from you in a couple of days, I’ll give you a quick call…”
– Think: WIIFT – What’s in it for them?

26:40: Reporting & Analysis on Outreach Campaigns
-Plug-ins like ToutApp, Yesware, Sidekick through Hubspot
-Make it a priority by setting up Sales Operations meeting each week with yourself/team
-Doing the reporting – setting it up in Hubspot and pulling report onto Google Sheets
-Actually doing the tracking

37:45: Startup Viability
-Sell first, worry about investment later
-Look to know within the company you’re selling to – Do they already have a system in place to nurture startups?
-Treat selling and investment separately within the same company

ToutApp

Yesware

Sidekick from Hubspot

Wednesday, 7/5/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

2:50: Wins & Learnings

6:00: Time Management: Balancing Prospecting with Pipeline Management
-Quality over quantity with outreach, always – Send email, follow up with a call
-Plug-ins to Gmail for tracking: Sidekick through Hubspot, Tout App, Yesware
-Pick time/day for sales sprint – Prospecting, pipeline, contract
-Build out templates for outreach emails
-Consider the time exchange. I.e. One 2-hour work sprint = 20 contacts. If you’re working eight (8) active Pipeline deals, that’s only 15 minutes lost per active deal to potentially source the next new deal.

27:20: Conversations to Conversions
-Qualifying a lead as opposed to them qualifying us out
-If something is working, don’t change it
-Look for confirmation bias
-Send less information early – Keep calls short and move to the next step as quickly as possible

37:00: Sales Qualification Call Role Play
-Always begin with knowing: Do we have their attention?
-Situation first, then Stretch the Gap.
– Ask: Where do you want to be? What’s missing? What do you need right now?

50:30: Sales Qualification Role Play: Setting up the next step in the sale
-This is where to set up next conversation/pilot
-Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast
-Get context to know if you can even help them

55:00: Sales Qualification Role Play: Wrap Up
-Stretching the gap – Reveals what they want to buy
-Ask the urgency
-Assigning different kinds of nouns or names to gaps or needs – ie. The DIY Trap

Member Site Worksheet Index

Startup Selling Qualification Call Worksheet

Explainer Video for Qualification Worksheet

ToutApp

Yesware

Sidekick from Hubspot

Friday, 6/30/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

3:30 Wins and Learnings

7:10 How to Deliver Topic Proposal in a Highly Competitive Situation
-Review the proposal over the phone
-Offer pricing prepay annual vs monthly
-Offer pilot option and set a launch date

25:00 Running Your Outbound Sales Calls
-Acknowledge value statement in early stage to peak interest
-Map out possible outcomes for prospective leads
-Use leverage from previous successes

38:00 Creating Urgency
-What is their biggest problem ?
-Frame the conversation around that problem
-Give their problem a name

Pilot Program Builder

XMind

ZingTree

Tuesday, 6/27/2017 PM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

0:00 Welcome and Wins

2:20 Sponsorships vs Booths at Conference
-What do you get out of being a sponsor?
-How to get your idea clients interested at a booth
-Is the cost per lead worth the money

25:00 Little Responses From Email Outreach
-Assess the common challenges across potential clients
-Assure them of your solution to their challenges
-Change and test email templates and track the open rates

46:45 How to Create Authority in Your Field
-Identify the Three Problems: Said Problem, Unsaid Problem, and Unknown Problem
-Hold an event to have their full attention at once

55:55 Follow up with a Warm Lead that Went cold with a Phone Call

Setting Up Conference Sales Meetings

Conference Tips and Ideas to Get More from Your Industry Conferences

Conference Playbook

Cardinal Rules of Cold Emailing

Tuesday, 6/27/2017 AM

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL REPLAY]

0:00 Wins and Learnings

1:50 Follow Up After Webinar
-Make sure everyone who signed up is on your email list
-Follow up with non-attendees and ask if they listened to the recording
-Follow up with attendees and ask what they learned

14:45 Handling “Hot Leads” That Want To Take Action Fast
-Explain value of the product
-Trust the process
-Slow and smooth

33:35 Techniques for Leading Live Demos
-Stand up to show authority
-Sit down and close screen to seem approachable
-If you need note cards, use note cards

43:30 Working with Multiple Points of Contact from the Same Big Company
-Ask a consultant if the two departments talk with each other
-Do what feels right
-If you make the deal, everyone will be talking to each other

Friday, 6/23/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH CALL RELAY]

0:00 Welcome

3:00 Leverage Referrals for Sales
-Build a model
-Build a campaign for your reach outs
-Treat campaign as sales pitch – Have a separate pipeline for partners

15:40 Handling Early Objections
-Wait for demos
-Get client excited about the product
-Save technical details for the proposal

40:50 Time Struction for Email Campaigns

42:55 Make Hot Potato Emails More Conversational
-Short Answer Questions
-Have a Softener

Hot Potato Sequence Video

Hot Potato Email Example

Tuesday PM 6/22/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 Outbound Email Strategies
– 5 Cs to Lead Conversation: Conversation, Challenge, Cost, Control, Conversion
– QVQ Model for Cold emails: Question-Value-Question
– Hot Potato Sequence (a.k.a. Prospect Ping-Pong)

15:00 – Handling Inbound Pricing Requests

23:00 – Selling Pilots vs Free Trials vs Full Implementation
– Soft Contracts
– Peeling back the offer
– Importance of PAID Pilots: Accountability, Urgency, Control

Recap from Full-Day Intensive

Hot Potato Sequence Video

Hot Potato Email

Podcast – Converting Free Trials, Soft Contracts 

Tuesday PM 6/6/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:
– The Two-Hour Sales Day is working for Mike @ Fract. Discipline is freedom.
– Focus on Now, now. Worry about Later, later.

5:00 – Handling Due Diligence requests as a startup, ie. Financial statements, company viability questions

11:00 – Working internal referrals within large companies

17:30 – Using Information Audits & Diagnostics with Prospects
– Transitioning Discovery calls into Pilot Program Opportunities
– Setting up Pilot Program Success Metrics

43:00 – Content Selling Strategy
– Building a cadence to invite attendees
– Communicating pre- and post-event with attendees
– Think: Sign Up, Warm Up, Pay Up

Complete Webinar Playbook

Five Risks of Using a Startup As Your Vendor

10 Questions to Ask Before Using a Startup

Friday 6/2/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Wins & Learnings:
– Say “Yes, and” when a prospect proposes a next step that’s not 100% in your Sales Map. Instead of saying “no!,” say “Yes, and to help us get the most from that meeting, lets…”
– Big Client Meeting Success: Keeping the focus on the client, and that you are the prize.
– Organizing an “Information Audit” for serious prospects.

9:00 – Time Management: Blocking your weeks into Prospecting, Pipeline and Sales Meeting Preparation work.

16:00 – Using Soft Contracts & giving yourself permission to follow up

20:00 – Pilot Programs: Building a prospect-specific program focused on Problem, People, Pay-Off, and Plan.

39:00 – Using Conference Calls as a Content Selling Strategy

Tuesday PM, 5/30/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

https://vimeo.com/219877855

Wins & Learnings:
– Austin @ SM – Full slate of qualification calls this week
– Ben @ Loops extending from Pilot to Full customer
– Katie – Pipeline growing. Need to make time for outbound

6:00 – Conference Selling Strategy
– Booth vs no Booth
– Think of sponsorships as “cost per lead”
– Fill a meeting “dance card” and don’t worry about where to meet
– TaskRabbit can be a resource for an Executive Assistant if you set up a meeting room

15:00 – Stonewalled pre- and post-Demo
– Configure your product demos “we need this from you to demo…”
– Situation Slide at the start of the meeting to level set
– Future pace with “Next Steps” at the start of the meeting
– This is a MUTUAL qualification

32:00 – Running The Big Meeting
– Requiring interaction early in the meeting
– Less about you, all about them
– Using the Seating Chart approach – “What’s one question or outcome you’d like to get from our time together?”
– Situation Slide

40:00 – Using Industry Webinars for outbound selling

46:00 – “We want to set up a demo in a month…”
– Say “Yes and…” then use the time to do needs analysis
– Partner with your Product Champion/POC – “We need to…”

52:00 – Qualifying a Lead in the The Big Meeting

Product Demo Prep Worksheet

Situation Slide Template

10 Questions to Ask Before Your Product Demo

10 Ways to Get Your Customers Talking During Product Demos

Prepping For The Big Meeting

Prepping for the Big Meeting (Training Series, Member Site Login Required)

Building Your Conference Selling Strategy (Training Series, Member Site Login Required)

Tuesday AM, 5/30/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Friday, 5/26/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

1:00 – Ramping up Outbound Email Strategy
– Quick ideas on list-building
– Best & Reasonable Outcomes
– Think: Low friction, high value
– Email structure & template

8:00 – Content Selling & Converting Sales Leads into Sales Conversations
– Leveraging recent conference attendance/magazine publication
– “Which of these best matches you…?”

15:00 – Reframing the Customer’s Problem in Your Sales Process
– “If you’re solving this problem, you should be thinking about…”

Tuesday PM, 5/23/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Using “Yes and…” to maintain control of the sale

11:00 – Pilot Program: Dealing with “Scope Creep” and resetting expectations

27:00 – Partnership Strategy: Dealing with radio silence from key decision-makers; Maintaining communicating with senior executives

36:00 – Using Pilot Programs, even with Partner Programs

40:00 – Decision-time: Dealing with “buyer resistance” at the end of the sales process

Tuesday AM, 5/23/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Cold-Calling Strategies – Asking Confirming Questions to begin your call script

16:00 – Adding Stepping Stones between Demo Calls & Pilot Program Starts

24:00 – Preparing for “The Big Meeting”
– How to run long meetings (1-2 hours) with several key executives and decision-makers early in the sales process
– Using Models to identify key business needs

42:00 – Channel & Partnership Strategies

55:00 – Sales Management
– Distributing leads
– Organizing team-driven systems to remove the management interaction

Wednesday, 5/17/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

07:00 – Wins & Learnings
– Getting a call-back from that prospect from four months ago that lead to a sale…
– Learning from what made it possible
– Reframing the customer problem

11:00 – How to create predictability in Pilot Program conversions

17:00 – Implementation Planning

25:00 – Pricing model discussion (term length, price per user vs group pricing)

Establishing Pilot Programs [Member site}

Implementation Plan Worksheet Template

Pilot Program Builder Worksheet

Tuesday, 5/16/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Customer Success: Building a Transition Plan among team members

Three key elements to a successful Customer Success Strategy:

1. Build a Plan and Onboarding Checklist for your customers, and refer to it constantly from day to day and week to week
2. Show Value every step of the way. Create a 3-slide deck to share with your key POCs: What you did last week, what’s ahead, and where you need help
3. Over Communicate: Tell customers what you’re going to do, when you’re doing it, and recap when a task is done.

19:00 – Security Audits, Due Diligence Procurement & Vendor Management
– Deep dive into the specific documents needed for your customers Vendor Management team, ie. SOC-2 audit, ISO 14011 certification, Penetration Testing
– Using this step to future pace your customers, and identify if you’re working with a decision-maker.

38:00 – Hiring & Firing on your team, and when to outsource tasks vs when to hire internally.

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Importance of a “low friction” Call-to-Action in your public presentations to collect leads
– Click here for a Case Study
– Take a Diagnostic
– Read our white paper

6:00 – Managing Sales Development Rep (SDR) Work
– Building out daily output and tasks
– Working in sprints
– Measure results
– Hiring a Sales Development Rep (SDR)
– Part-time vs Full-time
– Hourly vs Project fee

21:00 – Content Selling Strategy
– Filling up a Conference Call to show your Authority Voice
– Pre-event emails and notifications to improve “show up” and participation rates

The Startup Selling Webinar Playbook

Tuesday PM, 5/9/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

3:00 – Wins & Learnings: Getting movement on a big pilot customer

4:00 – Hiring a Sales Development Rep
– Building out a plan-of-action
– Organizing lists
– Hot Potato/Prospect Ping Pong

20:00 – Refilling the Sales Pipeline
– Reengaging with past lists
– Focusing on client problems

12-day call/touch schedule for SDR work

Prospect Ping-Pong

Tuesday AM, 5/9/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPLAY]

(time stamps approximate)
0:00 – Wins * Learnings
– Identifying red flags and alerts when you have a bad buyer/buyer zombie/gatekeeper
– Moving deals through the pipeline

8:00 – Multi-touch strategy to fill Conference Call (Content Selling )
– Using LinkedIn, Email, Phone
– Building an Outbound touch strategy

7:22 – Stalled Deal Strategy for both an early-stage/Qualification call and late stage sales opportunity

7:37 – Building Your Sales Map
– Identifying the gap in your sales process
– Maintaining control of the sale
– Showing Demos only AFTER Needs Analysis
– Separate out “budget vs time” objections
– Setting up Pilot Programs
– Using the Situation Slide

12-day call/touch schedule for SDR work

Situation Slide Template for Product Demos

Prepping for the Big Demo/Meeting Training [Member site]

Friday, 5/5/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

(time stamps approximate)
0:00 – Wins & Learnings
– Mike @ Fract kicked a$$ with his new pitch presentation focusing on the audience problems first, then showing the most important parts of the product.
– Becky & team upsold to current clients, brought in a $10k/month deal and are having a HUGE month

7:00 – Filling a Conference Call (Content Selling Strategy)
– Email messages
– Contact lists – first degree connections, marketing lists vs cold outreach
– Using Gmail’s Mail Merge

27:00 – Partnerships & Partnering with Consulting Companies

34:00 – Focusing your company’s sales efforts

38:00 – Partnerships & Partnering with Product Companies

45:00 – Using Live Events (webinar, conference calls, Content Selling) to engage your list and find leads

#snapshot

Tuesday PM, 5/2/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Build Your Conference Selling Strategy

Tuesday AM, 5/2/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

(time stamps approximate)
0:00 – Wins & Learnings
– “No” means “Not right now.” Lyle @ LinkSquares closed a deal he sourced. Was a previously Closed-Lost that he reopened. Customer IT team had been wrapped up in another project, and customer was hiring.
– Conference Calls as Content Selling – Becky @iBec sent 5 invites for a conference call, with 2 replies already.
– Morgan @ MilkCrate found a new niche (non-profits) with funding and use cases.

07:00 – Organizing Leads in CRM
– Creating sub-groups/buckets
– Developing a task list to outsource lead management
– Using Jing/Screencast to explain virtual assistant jobs

28:00 – CRM capabilities and organization

32:00 – Event Marketing Strategy
– What to do 3-2-1 week before and 1-2-3 weeks after your event i.e. webinar, trade show booth, conference call

47:00 – Taking action vs Procrastinating, and how to reward yourself for a job well done

Email tracking apps: Yesware, ToutApp

Webinar Promotion & Management (member site)

LinkedIn + HubSpot CRM integration

Zapier – Check this site for LinkedIn integration into your CRM

Wednesday AM, 4/19/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

2:30 – Wins & Learnings
– Sales cycles vs buying cycles
– Dropping “Value bombs” with your prospects during the sales process

9:00 – When to send pricing guidance to a prospect – before or after a “Big Demo/Meeting”
– Show value first, then show pricing

15:50 – Managing your sales meeting
– Making time with decision-makers to discuss pricing
– Using Situation Slides
– “Casting” – everyone on your team has a role

26:30 – Customer Retention Rates
– Churn Rate: http://sixteenventures.com/saas-churn-rate

30:00 – Building Customer Success tasks: Job and Roles & Responsibility
– Scheduling a Customer Success Hour

38:00 – Managing an initial outbound contact/sales strategy
– Using email vs LinkedIn vs both and when/how
– Time management and work sprints
– Using a part-time salesperson
– Building templates
– LinkedIn Connection Requests vs InMails

57:30 – More on Pricing
– Using market caps in establishing value creation with your prospect

1:03 – Starting an Outbound Selling Strategy

Lincoln Murphy on Customer Churn

Lincoln Murphy Podcast Interview

Sell First, Market Later

Tuesday PM, 4/18/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

2:00 Wins & Learnings
– Withholding price when someone asks for it
– How to avoid “send me a one-pager”
– Using scarcity on a Pilot Program to motivate a prospect to take action

10:15 – Working through a Gatekeeper – “Send me some literature”
– Using LinkedIn to find more contacts
– Hosting a “special conference call/mini-presentation” to attract the right people at your target client

22:00 – Going from Free Trial to Large Sale
– Building steps to go from

35:00 – “Should we change our Pricing Model for a new client?”
– Flat fee vs success fee pricing
– Creating pricing structures that provide customer downside protection, while giving you upside in the case of customer success

49:30 – Using Partners to help you sell to a Prospect

Tuesday PM, 4/11/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – When to talk “price” with a prospect
– Establish a 3 -part Pricing Framework. ie. 1) Data Conversation, 2) Platform Fee, 3) Configurations
– Rolling smoothly from Demos to Work Plans

20:35 – New Customer Training Process

33:30 – Conference/Booth/Event Strategy
– Think: Outcome, Outliers, Outside, Outreach, Outbound
– See the “Conference Selling Strategy” Training

43:00 – Running Your Demo Meeting & Rolling into Next Steps
– Using Implementation Planning as “open loops”
– The RIGHT way to run a demo

The Big Meeting/Demo Training Series

Situation Slide

Build Your Conference Selling Strategy

Tuesday AM, 4/11/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

02:00 – Pricing Large Enterprise Deals
-Identify, clearly, customer problem and pain to establish value
-Considering “Switching Costs”
-Phased implementations

Defining the Customer Problem, then moving to Implementation Planning

Step 1: Establish Decision Criteria based on your expertise. What are the client costs of NOT solving the problem, or solving with manual processes, consultants or some other traditional manner?

Step 2: Establish a 2-3 part Pricing Framework. ie. 1) Data Conversation, 2) Platform Fee, 3) Configurations

Step 3: Recommend an “audit” or “work plan” to identify customer needs around your Pricing Framework

Step 4: Build out a Phased Implementation or Pilot to prove out the results for the customer.

36:30 – Running & Implementing Pilots
– The importance of Paid Pilots vs Free Pilots
– Creating scarcity & urgency

50:00 – Qualifying a marginal lead
– Assigning Customer homework
– Required escrow payment

Friday, 4/7/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Notes:

5:00 – Sunk Costs & Marginal Costs vs Marginal Benefit in your sales opportunities

14:00 – Lead Qualification: Identifying Your Buyer Criteria

25:00 – Building a Lead Scorecard for your company

45:00 – Prospect-Partnering Strategy to find & accessing decision-makers

10:22 – Closing the Deal… Final steps from “looks good” to getting started

Tuesday PM, 4/4/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Notes:
3:00 – Customer Success: Implementation & Training
– Building a live training session that achieves the outcomes you need
– Pre-Training and Post-Training Homework

29:00 – Prepping for the Big Meeting
– BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timing to qualify the lead
– Confirm-Ask-Explore Framework for running Sales Meetings
– Taking control and setting meeting objectives

Tuesday AM, 4/4/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Notes:

0:00 – Importance of Sales Meeting structure – leading the meeting so your prospects don’t lead you

4:00 – How to ask urgency and accountability with your prospects

8:00 – Selling to multiple business units at the same Big Company

13:30 – Pricing Pilots, Establishing Value
– Using Price ranges to indicated the amount of unknown information from a prospect.

29:45 – ReQualifying a Prospect that went cold for a few months

Friday 3/31/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Tuesday PM 3/28/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Tuesday AM 3/28/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Notes:

Friday, 3/24/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Tuesday AM, 3/21/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

7:30 – “The prospect is asking for a one-pager”
– Respond with “Yes, and…”
– Set up a follow-up meeting, call, action to stay in control
– Build a script of 3-4 options around “Yes, and…”

11:30 – Sorting Inbound Leads by Quality, and actions to take
– What to do if a phone number is provided
– What to do if a phone number is NOT provided
– Build an email “Hot potato” sequence with email

22:00 – Building an Outbound Campaign
– Using existing leads from inbound campaigns
– Building focuses lists
– Hiring an SDR

29:00 – Reducing Purchasing Friction
– Create micro-commitments for the customer to take
– Remove purchasing obstacles by breaking down implementation, trials, and pilots into small steps

The Startup Selling Podcast, Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci

Tuesday AM, 3/14/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Wins & Learning
– Building Your Sales Map
– Developing a Prospect-Partner Strategy

7:30 – Selling at Conferences & Events
– Conference booth strategy & setting up meetings
– Think: Outcome, Outreach, Outbound

28:00 – Leading Sales Meetings
– Needs Analysis & Needs Assessment
– Mapping Customer Needs to Capabilities
– Using Work Plans & Implementation Plans vs Proposals

39:00 – Customer Post-Sales Implementation
– Billing and Contract Questions
– Using Case Studies and Anecdotes to prove Why Buy metrics

Capabilities Identifier Worksheet

Friday, 3/10/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Topics:
– Lead Management after a live event/speaking road show
– Results from Call-to-Action efforts at a Live Event

Tuesday PM, 3/7/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Setting up Pilot Programs

11:00 – Building a Conference Sales Strategy
– Booth traffic
– Using Facebook Member Groups
– Establishing a Call-to-Action
– Running demos in your booth
– Logistics: Who does what when?

90 Ideas for Conferences

Pilot Program Worksheet

Setting up Pilots (Member Site training)

Podcast re: Pilots

Tuesday AM, 3/7/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

0:00 – Software Pricing strategies
– Looking at Limited vs Full packages
– Dealing with competitors on price, when to discount
– Per User fees

20:00 – Qualifying a new customer opportunity
– Being ruthless about early customers
– Pros and Cons of taking on new customers

37:00 – Pricing pilot programs and early rollouts with large enterprise customers
– Setting expectations with early customers
– Working through questions about your startup’s stability and funding
– Vetting early customers

Article: The Most Surefire Way I’ve Found to Win Enterprise Deals

Friday, 3/3/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

2:00 – Creating action for a stalled deal – “This is important but we’re really busy with something else. We’ll come back to this in three months…”

32:00 – New Customers Implementation – “I’m discovering that our clients aren’t meeting deadlines for pretty low-key asks. Finding that the enthusiastic folks that signed off and bought our product initially aren’t the same folks who are serving as our admins.

“What tactics should I use to ensure they’re taking this as seriously as possible and following up on my requests in a timely fashion?”

52:00 – Pricing Case Study: Simplifying a Pricing Model. Focus price on three components: Platform, Per Users, Professional Services.

7 x 1 Implementation Plan Worksheet

Tuesday AM, 2/28/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Key Topics:
4:45 – Leveraging a trade show/conference booth and speaking
opportunity
33:30 – Building and writing a White Paper

Find an article about how humans have an attention span less than a goldfish here!

For the Conference-related worksheets and playbooks, go to the Member Worksheet Index here, and look for these:

Friday, 2/24/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Key Topics:

7:10 – Building Your Close Plan
14:30 – Using an “Outbound-Inbound Strategy” to your cold calls and outreach
21:15 – Using the Webinar for marketing – blog posts, white papers, and more
24:50 – Building a Webinar to acquire leads
45:00 – Prepping for “The Big Meeting”

Login to the Member site worksheet index here

Search for the worksheets below:
Build Your Close Plan Worksheet
Startup Selling Webinar Builder Worksheet
Startup Selling Webinar Playbook

Prepping for the Big Meeting (Presentation on Member Site)

Tuesday AM, 2/21/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Eldina got Bombardier on board for a trial

4:40 – 25:13 Topic: Getting a meeting with the right contact in a prospective company

• Start by looking at the places you’ve had success – common traits/characteristics
• Define how your product helps the patent attorney
• “Helps reduce cost, helps IP teams show how important they are to the organization – Not sure if it’s a good fit for you, can I ask a few questions to see”

28:50 – Topic: When prospect says they aren’t interested

• “I understand, hear this all the time – working with hundreds of companies (teams), all thought the same thing”
• Feel, felt, found

33:40 – Skipping lower level contacts and going straight for the higher up/boss contact

• “I understand I’m breaking the rules – this is really important to us/you will be doing the same thing you have been”
• Some people won’t like this, and that’s okay
• Sometimes it’s okay to be human, to be vulnerable

Friday, 2/17/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Had the time all to myself today! So… to help you with pushing your projects and work forward, I did a quick review of identifying key tasks and “unstucking” yourself in your work, whether it’s a small project or a big one.

The Startup Selling Unstucking Yourself Worksheet

Tuesday PM, 2/14/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Taj had some new conversations with new potential clients and some close-to-closing deals

3:13 – Topic: How long to keep a secondary potential client on hold when there’s overlap

• Look at upside and downside of talking to two overlapping clients
• What portion of Chase employees would AEO pull in/what percent would Chase do on their own – find overlap
• Roll it out with AEO first, then add another layer of deployment for employees that didn’t engage  

13:50 – Topic: What to do when a potential client sets up a barrier

• Set it up so the client (AEO) isn’t selling your product to Chase – better if you’re there to sell your product
• Leverage your technology to help them land the Chase relationship – incentivise: if Chase funds platform for AEO there’s a special deal

22:20 – Topic: Win/Loss Questions (Exit Interviews)

• Use startup niche to your advantage
  • General business model, does the product meet the problem, what about the product prevented the purchase

27:00 – Question: “How do I change this agenda and game plan in light of two new people coming in [to a meeting]?”

• Using the Situation Slide template
• Email/call the new people: “What would you like to discuss?”

35:00 – 49:00 – Topic: How to keep clients on one pain point during a demo

• Show screenshot addressing critical business issue – important first, then peel back layers – no more than two slides
• Focus on implementation after the meeting, not the decision – give “homework questions”

50:40 – Topic: Longtail Problems

• Decision to buy/not buy comes down to one/two things – focus on key problem or two, go from there
• Five Whys

Prepping for “The Big Meeting” Training Series

Situation Slide for Product Demos

Tuesday AM, 2/14/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

11:00  – 34:40 – Topic: Identifying & selling to each of the “Buyer Types” involved with the sales

• If experience shows that more than one person is involved with the decision, let’s get them involved early and often
• Delay product demos until you and the customer are 100% clear on the Critical Business Issue
• Casting: Using various team members in your company to take roles in the sale – salesperson, technical expert, executive. Have each person talk to the appropriate counterpart so that you are weaving a stronger communication web between the two companies.
• Using the “Why Buy Worksheet”

40:00 – Topic: What to do when an early Discovery call/meeting fails

• Example: Selling to Etsy
• Leverage whatever relationship and outcomes you can from the meeting
• Focus on Problems first, then the Product.

52:00 – Topic: New market/Product Development by customer request

• Before committing to building or expanding your product, get clear on why the customer is interested in the first place
• Ask: “How would we measure success in working together?”

The Why Buy Worksheet

Situation Slide for Product Demos

Friday, 2/10/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

3:30 – Morgan met with the former VP of Business Development for Zoomer about freezing up when she gets to the point about price in a meeting – “I need practice with how to implement these specific question with our clients”

• Start with the customer’s point of view first – “problem before product”
  • How big is the problem?
  • Time series of the problem
• Find a balance between asking questions that will give you a clear view of the situation, and asking questions that are too elementary and frustrating
• Confirm, ask, explore
  • 10% is confirming information you think you know already
  • 30% asking question
  • 60% exploring future state
• Make sure the questions you’re answering don’t have answers that can be found somewhere else – public information, searches, etc
• Always have a “next step” – something specific/tangible
• Don’t treat it like a “checklist”

8:30 – “The next steps with most of our prospects is giving them a price”

• Be careful to not just deliver a proposal – put together a work plan that collaborates with them
  • This is what you’re going to get for the product
  • This is what you get for support
  • This is what the implementation will look like
  • This is how we’re going to prove success
• Not just some number that is relative to nothing, means nothing
• Put together a plan with their help – don’t send them a price in a vacuum

12:10 – “I feel like I really know how to do the first meetings, it’s the next stage once it starts getting more serious when they want a number that I don’t know how to give them one”

• 2nd and 3rd meeting is usually too soon to be giving a number
• Sketch out a meeting ahead of time with how you want it to go, the questions you want to ask – keep control of the process
• In the meeting say “This is the purpose of the meeting, we’re going to cover this and this – is there anything else you’d like to address?” – set the stage, make sure you have the next step arranged
  • “Who else would be involved in this decision-making process?”
• Give yourself a natural flow, don’t treat it as modular

17:30 – “New sales hires”

• Behavioral assessment – Zero Risk tool, allows you to ask the right questions
  • Helps you understand how people behave

18:45 – Question: “What three questions do I need to ask during the Sales VP hire?”

• Think of it as a filtering process
• First ask yourself: What is one or two things you would absolutely want to know about a VP of Sales?  
  • Needs to be a leader
  • Needs to be a hands-on guy
  • Needs to be a mentor to his team
  • Must have experience hiring
• Get a piece of paper and divide it down the middle
  • On one side are questions that are quantitative (size of deals closed, how many people they’ve hired, etc) – Verifiable, once they pass this move onto qualitative
  • Qualitative example: “How would your former team describe your leadership style?” – open-ended, describe it from the perspective of someone else
  • “What was your mentoring or training process?”
  • “What did you do when you hired somebody that wasn’t successful?”
  • “Give me an example of when you didn’t hit quota”
  • “Describe yourself in one word” – this helps see how someone goes through their thinking (do they blurt out, are they thoughtful?)

27:40 – “How to get more efficiency and how to scale”

• You’ve got in your mind all of the characteristics that you want (hands-on, someone that can scale, a leader) – when you ask the question, don’t preface it at all
• Don’t say:” I’m looking for a strong leader. What are some examples of your leadership?”

31:00 – Question: “One of our prospective hires refused to answer our preliminary questions – Should I just write him off?”

• The reason you ask those preliminary questions is to find the people that are serious, so if he didn’t answer the questions, he isn’t serious about the job, he isn’t willing to invest the time

39:00 – Question: “What is it that is going wrong when closing deals?”

• Value – how you’re communicating value and how they’re communicating to you what the real value is
• Goes back to what the fundamental problem is that they’re trying to solve
• Can we articulate/did they articulate to us a problem that’s magnitude is at least 10x what the price is?
• Don’t show the product until you know there is a problem you can solve with it

43:00 – “Have met with the Chamber of Commerce and established that they are a good fit for the product, but is it too soon for a demo?”

• Good news: they’ve got half the puzzle for you (already do virtual volunteering) – you need to know:
  • What do they want to get out of virtual volunteering?
  • How do they measure success?
  • What are their alternatives?
  • How are they going to connect people?
  • Transaction cost for doing it manually rather than automated?

47:00 – “Go back to Problem, not Product”

• Corporate members want this because they want to show higher value to corporate members
• Keep renewals, add new corporations to it
• Corporations have new engagement initiatives
  • Why is it important to have engagement?
  • Does the Chamber of Commerce have a problem with renewals?
  • Are their sections of their memberships where they’re really struggling?
• Want to find the root cause for them wanting to do virtual volunteering
• Look for articles and opinions about the Chamber of Commerce
  • What do their members look like?
  • What percent are small businesses?
  • How do they assess ROI for joining?
• Platform is a way to expand the value for small businesses

52:45 – Question: “Are there some questions that we can drip to the client in preparation for our meeting? Would we do a bit more to get her to articulate pain points?”

• Say: “The team and I are putting together the demo and want to customize it, can we grab 20 minutes to ask a few questions?” – use it as the segway into these needs analysis questions
  • “You mention that you have this virtual volunteering program, why did are you considering this initiative?
• Use the “Five Whys” – find out what the core reason behind her initiative
• Find out who all of the decision makers are, have them in the demo – avoid a single point of failure
• Keep demo short, have recommended step to get more people involved, do a needs analysis with them as well
• Request to talk with all demo attendees in advance
• How far can you get the sales opportunity without showing the product?
• “Thanks for the time earlier this week, it really helps us explain what we do relative to the challenges you’re facing. I had some thoughts that I wanted to run by you after the demo about how we might roll this out with two or three of your chambers”
• “I got your email about the conference, this looks really good I definitely want to consider it – Oh by the way while I’ve got you on the phone I have a few questions”

Implementation Planning: How Will Your Customer Buy from You

Implementation Plan Worksheet 1

Implementation Plan Worksheet 2

Hiring & Managing Teams: How-To on Hiring and Managing Sales Teams

Wednesday, 2/8/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Howard and the team have done some good progress with strategic partners in San Diego
• Agreed to do corporate health and wellbeing challenge with potential big client – will be great networking event

3:50 – 20:00  – “Top 3 actions to get Sidekick prepared for the Health and Wellbeing Event”

• If the goal is to find prospective clients, talk with PR agency about how you can pre-announce the pilot program (available only to 5 leading companies/organizations in California) – press release
• Start with last year’s list of attendees – use Dr. Sam as a leverage point “meet the expert”, strategy session with our Medical Officer about our particular program
  • Make it a short “Town Hall” session for a few times a day – require sign up, set up a “reserve your spot” with Calendly (reduce friction for booking)
  • “If you can’t make one of those times we can schedule a one-on-one meeting”
• What’s the call to action (for booth experience) – what’s something valuable attendees can receive after the conference? Webinar, meetings, etc – contact info is for something useful, not just a demo
• Don’t feel like you have to stay in the booth – go around and talk to people (attendees and vendors)
• Most important question to use at conferences: “What brings you to the conference/event?”

8:30 – “Pricing a Pilot”

• Avoid pricing pilots/seat – make it a set fee
• Put a “wrapper” around the pilot – explain that it’s more than just the platform and the users, you’re getting setup, monitoring, report after, etc

23:35 – 41:45 – “Question about email structuring – What are your best practices?”

• Call to action: ideal is a demo, but a conversation is good
• What is the one question you could ask to filter people into a “yes” or “no” funnel? – “how do you make these decisions now?”
  • Data
  • Cost of technologies presented to CEO
  • Analysis
  • Reporting
  • ROI
  • Budget
• Focus prospecting on companies that you know are doing events
• Short email focuses clearly on getting the answer to the question that matters – around number of conferences/dollars spending on events, “here’s why I’m asking”
  • Send case study, blog post, etc – don’t ask for too much out of the gate, but finishing it with the question: “Can I send you a link to our latest blog/case study?”
  • Next step: “Here’s the link to the post, if you’ve got ten minutes I can tell you more about how we solve these problems” or “We’re getting together a small group of Directors of Marketing to talk through some of the challenges of event ROI, would you like to join that discussion?”

42:00 – “Do a Facebook Live discussion on this topic”

• This is why I started the company, this is why we built this product
• Here are 2 or 3 key issues that we feel like exist for Directors of Marketing when it comes to event ROI
• “What do you think? How does it affect you? How do you calculate it?” – Create community

43:30 – “Question about email structuring – What are your best practices? – The long email”

• Tell your story, have it transcribed, it becomes a “sales letter” – people respond to stories – “here’s one of the biggest challenges I always had at every position”
• Have a video explaining your story – 2-3 minutes: “this is the problem I’m out to solve, this is why I’m solving it, this is why it’s personal to me”
• Can put a screenshot of the video in email signature and then when people click on it, they are led to the video
• A-B test long vs. short email

51:00 – “Small group of Directors of Marketing”

• Virtual vs. In Person
  • If it’s in person, keep it simple with pizza and wine, keep it a small group at first to test it

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

00:45 – 11:30 – “Struggling with time management: Content selling, thinking about having a webinar – inbounds and generating leads, 60 inbounds and 45 leads”

• Start breaking down the way we get there – if you know you want to get leads, what do you need to have in the webinar itself? Take a part of the tool and show the leads that they will save money by using just this part of the tool – compare it to freeware
• Assume content is good and people learn the usefulness of the tool, what is the call to action? What do you want people to do?
• Think about the easiest step for them that would be simple and useful
• Might be a 15 minutes strategy call to see how they can apply what they just learned in the webinar – not a sales call, more of a learning opportunity
• Write out the script, make it easy for people to book a time, what do you do for the people that decide to join the webinar but not book the time
• Map out the content, build slide deck – break apart the large project into smaller pieces that you can work on for an hour at a time
• What incentive can you give to people to make sure they attend and not just wait for the recording?

12:15 – 20:20 – Reseller Program

• What’s a reasonable outcome that you can expect if you have a successful project – set up 2-3 new resellers?
• Make customer support a key part of your sale
• Best in print? Short How-To videos?
• Top ten FAQs that you get
• Videos that have already done – post job to Upwork for a job to do audio translation, you can get Spanish subtitles done for little cost
• Make sure you’re writing down tasks on your Scrum Board – build tasks, make time, estimate assignments
• First three action steps to get started on this:

1. Estimate the time
2. See if they want to proceed
3. If yes, how can we book these freelancers to translate the materials for Spanish customers?

21:30 – 31:30 – “How the people who are making the decisions about lead certification are not the same people who are making the decisions about MilkCrate.”

• Add that as a metric – add it as a “score”; how much control does a CSR department have?
• If you’re targeting CSR people and the leads people is out of their control, one of the metrics you can make to draw their attention away from leads and to draw their attention to MilkCrate as an action item is to say “How much control do you have in that decision, or in your company being LEED-certified?”
• Icons: Expense, Effort, Control – Red, Yellow, Green – explore more ideas, try finding 5
• Instead of expense, focus on Value Creation – what kind of ROI is there for being a B Corp Certified company, or employee empowerment
• LEED and B Corp are both time-consuming
• Trying to get leverage on content, provide education, help them take action with the things they can control.

32:00 – “Can you send me anything other than your website?” – What is being done with the whitepaper

• Could be a good thing to send that doesn’t make someone feel like they could then explain the company to someone, but is more supplemental
• Establish selves as experts in the field through blog posts and LinkedIn – get people to talk about MilkCrate
• Can use them for cold outreach
• Send ahead of meetings as a “heads up”

34:30 – 55:00 – Comcast – “having issue with Daniel’s idea of what success looks like; how many people are we onboarding, how are we describing that, and the whole money issue”

• The What, Why and How – Make sure he buys into it

1. Scoping out the pilot – pick a day for MilkCrate being on site, to send out the emails, to hang up any posters, hand out fliers. Make a calendar of activities ahead of time. “Here’s how we do pilots, this is why we know it’s successful” – the more structure the better
2. Getting people to use it and be successful – employee engagement
3. Pricing/engagement model – 30 user issue – are there other products that can be used as an example? (Blood Mobile, canned goods around Thanksgiving, etc) – get data from HR
   1. Get the why from him – why 30%?
   2. Get him to reach a new decision based on new information

• What does success look like, what is the roll-out strategy
• Identify pilot group, customize content around goals
• Brief presentation and table set up to ask question
• Send email so they can sign up
• Don’t make the issues about MilkCrate, make it about Comcast (too laborious for them to constantly have to send us users, chaos is created because someone is accidentally opted out for not checking in, etc)
• “Comcast wants to be able to see the metrics – who’s participating, who isn’t – if we swap people out we won’t get a good sample”
• We get more than 30% participation because we do more than just send an email
• Define what an engaged user looks like – bring it back to a story or anecdote; set up the rules of the game so that you win
• Check in with people that haven’t been active, follow-up with incentives, try to get them active

Friday, 2/3/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Taj got into some good conversations – early stage that could turn into something good. They resulted from referrals and from US Chamber Conference*.

6:30 – 19:50 – Question: How do we prevent people from falling out of the pipeline?

• They have similar products, and they think it “checks the box” – they think MicroMentor will take more time than what they have
• Marginal Cost vs. Marginal Benefit argument
• Targeting companies with a volunteer program in place already intentionally or does that just happen?
• More companies have physical volunteering initiative – do they want virtual?
• Is corporate volunteerism the right problem to solve? Is there another problem internally that would enable you to sell this product?
• Lead off with impact it makes on economy rather than the volunteerism piece of it
• What else would you be competing against if you targeted economic impact rather than volunteerism?
• Sometimes instead of buying the product, they’re buying into it by providing grants

20:00 – Question: I would prefer people to be clients, rather than grant providers, but should I position it that way as a second option when I’m in these conversations?”

• There’s a lot to be said about writing a check to clear a conscience – if they’re looking to clear their conscience with a check and they can restrict where that funding goes, it puts you in a great position to implement the solution
• Steps taken to gain funding:

1. Identify the problem – what is the explicit need that these people have?
2. Present the solution
3. Explain how grant money will be utilized

26:00 – Question: What are some ways to accelerate deals already in the pipeline? What active effort can I take for generating new prospects?

• Whiteboard solution (4 boxes):

1. What problem – volunteerism, economic impact, etc. eg: what is the core problem around economic impact? Can go backward and investigate into previous customers and why they agreed to buy (many have clear focus on helping entrepreneurs, supplier diversity, and well established Economic Development Department)
2. Who – companies and people. Is there a way to look at a list of larger companies and check which ones are like IBM and PIMCO, find their “Linda”, their person focused on the same three initiatives
3. Why – why are they going to buy from us? How do they calculate ROI for these initiatives? No one has the budget for another expense, but if they can understand the internal cost-benefit analysis, gives a better argument for why the product is worth it (ask Linda how that function works within IBM)
4. How – implementation

32:45 – 40:00 – Question: “After we get in with a new customer, how can I expedite payment?”

Thought: Where is the first place you could start to find ten companies like IBM and PIMCO to get rolling?

• Start with leads in Salesforce
• LinkedIn prospecting
• Sales Navigator prospecting
• Talked to Linda – solving problems for you, can you think of other companies like you that we should be talking to? Are there specific people? We want to explore this market through a customer development standpoint. What attracted people like you to MicroMentor
• Get some of those in the queue, it’s a shorter sales cycle
• “Rolling out a program in Q2, we have 5 spots and you seem like a perfect fit would you like to try?”
• Find ten for companies like IBM and PIMCO two-week “sprint” with daily goals to move it forward. Get a pipeline building, discover if hypothesis about IBM and PIMCO are correct
• Linda can direct you to resources, conferences, etc

42:00 – Question: “ I just posted an internship position for Business Development; with the priorities we have and the limited bandwidth that we have, where would you suggest we have them focus their time?”

• If you’ve got some leads or people that have come inbound, have the intern do the research around this hypothesis – divide them up based on their personality
• Sort them so that you understand what you have to work with
• Find a way to template it so you can go through Fortune 100 and 500 companies to identify the ones that have significant resources behind the three things on the whiteboard
• Work the referral/introductory channel
• Treat them like a SDR (Sales Development Representative)

48:45 – Recap of The Q Framework and how to use it when analyzing a sales opportunity.

Find a 10-minute Overview of The Q Framework here!

Tuesday, 1/31/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Hasn’t prospected any good new leads, so meetings haven’t been as successful – companies with below 20 patents shouldn’t be called at all, the response time is too low.

6:50 – Question: “What freedom shall the companies have when choosing a time for online meeting?”

• Avoid “feast or famine” – there’s a lot to say about getting into a flow
• If you book 30 minute demos back to back, you could shorten the conversation, but you should still buffer before meetings
• Reduce some of the time – when asking about current solutions that their using and processes, it should be done prior to the demo
• Add intermediate step between initial outbound and demo – when you have more info about their situation it will help, and the demo will be more personalized
• The demo is like a piece of candy – in order to get it, they have to do an initial meeting first
• This allows you to put together the situation slide

28:00 – 1:30:00 – Scott and Morgan work through her sales projects and sales pipeline, and a process to get “unstuck” when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

The Startup Selling “Unstucking” Yourself Worksheet

“Unstuck Yourself Explainer” Video

Friday, 1/27/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Taj relaunched an email marketing campaign – launched an adjacent one more focused on HR recipients
• Lyle had a good Tuesday – work put in the last two weeks paid off this week

3:00 – Question: “I am doing around 150 emails a week right now with a drip and aiming to be at 100 calls a week by next week. Do you think I am setting my goal too high?”

• Be careful of wearing yourself out doing cold calls – especially when qualification calls are set up
• 30/day can get tiring – get set up in a rhythm once meetings are set

7:10 – Question: “Cold calling CFOs – what’s a good ‘first line’?”

• Think of it in 3 steps:

1. Confirm – Build trust. Confirm information learned or research already done. You have about 3 seconds. Reference where you found their contact. “I’ve sent a couple of emails, I know how busy you are, I figured it would be easier to pick up the phone.”
2. Ask – Knowing exactly what one or two questions you need to ask to get them interested/respond in a way that would qualify/unqualify them. Value prop.
3. Explore – What’s the next step? Longer call, introduce to correct person.

• Keep it short and succinct
• Divide batch of 150 into 5 batches of 30. Will have to do multi-touch for some. Divide day into thirds – and then spread out the batches over days and time so you can hit them more than once a week. Touch 1 is phone, touch 2 is email, touch 3 is content (webinar, conference, etc) – as an option
• Find a video that explains the batch process here!

17:15 – Question: “Do you even think about conversion rates – should I even be thinking about those? What goal do you set for yourself?”

• Worth paying attention to – if it takes 1000 calls to get one conversion, you may need to reevaluate

21:50 – Question: “We just released an impact report. I want to get this out through as many markets as possible. Any idea on cheap/free ways to push this out to our specific demographic?”

• Find out where the target demographic typically hangs out
• Your current content is data heavy – Could you add video to get it more into the emotional side of things? Add a Skype interview with some of the entrepreneurs explaining life before/after MicroMentor. Video marketing content is through the roof with engagement
• Do targeted Facebook/LinkedIn ads that include the videos
• 3 part video:

1. This is what I was doing before MicroMentor.
2. This is how MicroMentor helped me.
3. This is where my business is now because of them.

• Best channels to release videos: Facebook, repost them to blog, download video from Facebook and upload to YouTube, etc

39:15 – Question: “Coke wants to diversify their supply chain – They want to collaborate and connect with the entrepreneurs in our community. We want to do employee volunteering and they want to focus on diversifying the supply chain – Is there a danger of getting too far out of our wheelhouse?”

• Deliberate Strategy vs. Emergent Strategy – Deliberate: only pursue customers that match our ideal customer profile. Emergent: recognize opportunities and grow to match needs outside of what is considered ideal
• Can let Coke use entrepreneurs that are already using a Coke employee as a volunteer
• Run a pilot – certain employees, certain countries, etc. Targets top 10 areas where you’re looking to diversify, go there and find entrepreneurs that can be set up with a mentor – identify which would be good targets and monitor success

49:00 – Question: “When do we launch our pilot with Comcast and who do we engage? How do we move things forward when they’re hyper-focused on making this perfect?”

• Larger companies all have their checks and balances – the PR side seems more “It is what it is”
• If they want to cherry pick, say: “That’s a great idea, here’s how can we help?”
• Have them document concerns and worries – get them out on the table so that both sides understand
• Who is the Project Manager on their side? Who’s responsible for making sure everything goes well on their end?
• Do a 3 slide report and give it to this person:

1. Here are all the things we did this week.
2. Here are all the things that are coming in the next week.
3. Obstacles or blockers – Where do we need help?

• Go into the meeting with an agenda of:

1. Here is where the project is.
2. Here are the outcomes of the meeting.
3. And here are some questions that we have. Here’s why they’re important.

• The more that you can prep and prime people before a meeting, the better

59:00 – Question: “I’m about to start on a guest post for a local online publication that covers social impact – How can I make it as impactful as possible? Do I explore the topic of how Trump’s administration?”

• Why Donald Trump is the Best Thing for Corporations Worried About Environmental Impact – potential title/theme
• Now more than ever employees are looking for leadership when it comes to environmental impact
• Washington DC be damned – We are going to give you the opportunity to make a change  
• Responsibility, Accountability, and Leadership
• We will all agree to ride our bikes on Fridays, or if we have meetings we only cater with locally sourced food, etc

Tuesday, 1/24/2017

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Wins & Learnings:

• Eldina has set up eight – ten meetings
• Not to overcomplicate the early stages of a sale – don’t get technical too soon

4:00 – Question: “When sending out an invitation for a demo meeting, should you also include some questions to be answered by the customer – hopefully before the meeting?

• Example: Are they using a tool today? How do they manage patent information today?
• Framework for early sales meeting:

1. Confirm – confirming information you already know from previous conversations or is easy to get via company website, a LinkedIn profile, etc. This puts you on a positive path, and then they’re already saying “yes” to things. Builds trust. They will be more open to sharing.
2. Ask – Get new information. Ask about process, how you’re managing IP, etc.
3. Explore – Next steps – which options are available

• Send email that confirms meeting a few days before – ask a few basic questions in this email
• You can template them for each meeting/invite
• Be proactive ahead of the meeting warms people up so you aren’t starting “cold” all over again

12:30 – Question: “What kind of metrics during the trial period could be appropriate? Should the customer keep track of those or, when possible, should we do it? Thinking of ‘productivity’ and ‘effectiveness’.”

• Example of quick win in trial amount of time: Search alerts – competitor patent
• Work hand in hand with client to make sure search alerts are set up properly
• One or two small anecdotes that signal a larger application that would save them time
• Before you start the trial, explain & set up search alert – explain metrics & outcomes – checkpoint: How do the results work for you? Who did you share it with?
• Schedule “check trial” time for the week – check on status of customer’s alerts
• Trial users are looking to confirm, not disprove

25:00 – Avoid never ending trial/pilot

• Soft contract – if you see “x”, the next step is to move forward. Like a “trial close”
• Lead the customer ahead next step or two
• They will have weekly checkpoints during trial period so they don’t go “cold”

32:45 – Question: “What to do when a prospect have conditions like ‘If you add this and this feature then I may be interested’? How to handle this kind of prospects?”

• Example: customer wants more features to “push him over the bar”
• Sometimes it okay to cut off the customer, accept the feedback, and reconnect if the extra features eventually become available
• “This is what the product does today” – We can solve “x” today
• Don’t feel bad about saying “no” to someone who isn’t a good fit

41:00 – Using the “Startup Selling Qualification Call Worksheet” found here: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Startup-Selling-Qualification-Call-Worksheet-1.pdf

42:30 – Summary & Wrap-up

• Develop a nice flow – if you book a week or more out, don’t go silent between now and then. They remember why they’re in there. Send out preliminary questions in reminder. Create conversation. Good reason to put together Situation Slide.
• Free trial vs. Paid pilot – have metrics in place prior to kicking off. 2-3 at the most metrics, this is why they’re measured. Be clear on next steps. “Soft contract” – here’s what you get in the trial, here what to do when you see those things.
• Outlier clients vs. bad product or delivery

Friday, 1/20/17

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

Tuesday PM, 1/17/17

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

• Wins & Learnings:
  • Lyle set his first demo appointments with his work @ LinkSquares
  • Brett closed a couple of new customers and hired Patch’s first sales role
  • Hiring someone willing to take a pay cut because they believe in the mission & vision of the company
  • Raising prices & discussion about the “dead zone” on pricing your product

Tuesday AM, 1/17/17

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE WRAP UP]

Wins:

• Eldina @ IAMIP got going with calls in Week #1 and booked TWO appointments already
• Morgan & MilkCrate hosted a “Pivot Party” and had Comcast (they’re newest customer) announce their partnership. Very cool!

Learnings:

• Just start! Commit to a decision and get started. Let your brain and the opportunity develop from there.
• There are 100 reasons to wait to take action.
• Perfect is the enemy of done

6:30 – Question: “After a demo before leaving the meeting –what are the things we need to decide upon (next steps)?”

• Using Situation Slides
• Setting up permission to ask for the next steps
• Maintaining control and giving customer homework

20:00 – Question: “How to speed up a telephone conversation in order to get a meeting (via telephone or other)?”

• Focus on the outcome you need from the call
• Take questions for the future meeting
• Create time constraints
• Avoiding selling “past the close”

27:00 – Moving a big new lead from early stage sales opportunity to serious conversations

• Identifying the single biggest risk in your sale right now and focusing on that
• Being highly prescriptive with sample accounts & trials
• Future pacing next steps
• Dealing with perceived (and real) risk as a startup selling to a big company

• Prepping for “The Big Demo” – Startup Selling Training Series [member site]: https://salesqualia.com/member-page-big-demo-training-series/

• Situation Slide Template: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Situation-Slide-Template-for-Product-Demos.pptx

• Product Demo Prep Worksheet: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Demo-Prep-Worksheet.pdf

• Prepping for the Big Meeting: https://salesqualia.com/member-page-prepping-for-the-big-meeting/

Friday. 1/13/17

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]

• 2:00 – 39:00 – In this call, Emily and I discuss the importance of Communication and Coordination in establishing team focus, priorities and projects.

Tuesday PM, 1/10/17

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CALL REPLAY]