Ep.17: Box.com’s Melanie Wong on Prospecting for Big Customers, the 7-Touch Rule & Working with Aaron Levie.

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In this episode, Scott speaks with special guest Melanie Wong from Box.com about her experience transitioning from being a lawyer into becoming a top prospector for big customers at Box.com. Key areas covered are:

  • Examples of cold calls that turned into big clients by knowing how to find project managers and project engineers.
  • The pitch to start off on a cold call, some patterns to use when cold calling, and some early signals that a deal is going south.
  • What constitutes a hard question to know if prospect is serious about your product and strategies to find additional product champions when yours isn’t pulling the deal through.

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Podcast Notes

02:15 – What Melanie is working on.

04:53 – Law is cool and fun.

06:00 – What was most frustrating making a conversion to get into sales.

09:05 – An example where a cold call, has turned a client into a mega client.

11:30 – How to find these project engineers.

15:00 – The pitch to start off on a cold call.

16:50 – What is the pattern to use.

24:10 – How to start the email, “I’d love to introduce you to our executive team.”

27:17 – The job of an SDR, Sales Development Rep.

28:24 – In that cadence of call, call, email, email, how to craft that out in a way that is effective.

31:21 – What are the early signals that a deal is going south?

34:41 – What constitutes a hard question to know they want to get into this now.

36:44 – The strategy to navigate through trying to find multiple people.

Resources mentioned or related to this podcast

  • DiscoverOrg: Sales and Marketing Intelligence Solutions.
  • Data.com Instant access to millions of top quality company profiles and business contacts and emails all in one place.
  • LinkedIn: World’s Largest Professional Network.
  • Yesware: Prescriptive tools that help sales teams sell smarter.
  • The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help Hardcover – by Amanda Palmer.
  • The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are Paperback – by Brené Brown