Bill Sanders is the CEO of Mobus Inc. and the author of Creative Conflict: A Practical Guide for Business Negotiators. He talks about negotiating as more of a creative process compared to how we normally perceive it.

Bill shares his perspective on the fact that negotiation is simply something most people don't enjoy. It's tense and conflict is almost always present. He also talks about the negotiating continuum and how sellers can go about each step in the process.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Striking a balance between competition and cooperation - Bill: "Competition is always going to be there. Whether it's just between the two of us or from outside forces that are forcing us to compete in some way. Our take on negotiating is fairly simple. You do have to be able to defend your interest in a competitive negotiation."

Sometimes it can get so tense you'll have to leave the room - Bill: "A lot of being a good negotiator is being able to live with the tension and conflict. Not to be combative about it, but be pleasant about it, keep the tension and keep the conflict there and keep the discussion going until better ideas can surface."

Find out more about Bill in the links below:

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Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

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Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna are Co-Founders of DCM Insights and also Co-Authors of The Jolt Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision. Even when a customer thinks your solution is great, they could still worry about messing up the purchase.

Matt and Ted share their insights on the 3 things customers are afraid of messing up that lead to a no-decision. They also discuss the status quo being an influential factor in the whole process. The duo then share advice on limiting the overindulgence of customer information requests.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

"No decision" is the decision to stick with the status quo - Matt: "Challengers are actually very good at showing the customer the pain of same is actually worse than the pain of change. They're very good at breaking the hold that the status quo has on the customer and we know that hold is very powerful."

Indecision is a very human problem and it isn't a new thing - Ted: "I think the question is how have we dealt with it. It existed in the mind of buyers but sellers more often than not would misinterpret that as always a status quo problem where we have one hammer and every problem is a nail that I'm just looking to keep going back to."

Connect with Matt and Ted in the links below:

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Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

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Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

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AJ Bruno is the Founder and CEO of QuotaPath. Incentive compensation is a hot topic but the fact remains that comp plans have barely changed in a hundred years. There needs to be a discussion on other ways to fairly measure the value of a seller's contribution to the outcome of a sale.

AJ shares his perspective on the circumstances when paying commission makes sense, as well as when it doesn't. Quota has become a lazy thing when it is arbitrary without factoring in a seller's aspirations, when sales leaders are not trained to handle it correctly, and when technology is not used to better serve customers.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Create a comp plan based on value contribution - AJ: "If you're just putting together a comp plan because, well, that's just what sales teams do, then you're probably not looking at it correctly. However, if you're looking at the role and what that person does and their valuable contribution, and you're doing a little bit of experimenting and testing all the way, what you will find, because there's lots of studies on this that sales folks that put down their goals, that write down their goals, will have a more productive outcome. The challenge is you can't replace those goal settings with just a comp plan."

Provide clarity on the goals of the quota - AJ: "I do believe the goal of the quota and the target is really to create that aligned methodology, that A to Z selling, so that you know that productive person that you had, you know if they go through these checklist items, and this is how they sell, this is what their output will be at the end of any given period."

Connect with AJ through the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajbruno3/

More on Andy:

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Get Andy's new book "Sell Without Selling Out" on Amazon

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Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

Scratchpad | The fastest way to update Salesforce, take sales notes and stay on top of to-dos | Scratchpad.com

Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

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Nigel Green is the Founder of Business of Primary Care, CRO of Affirm Health, and the host of the Revenue Harvest Podcast. Companies that want to grow from 10 to 50 million in annual revenue need to effectively hire salespeople.

The team that got you to $10 million might look different to make it to 30 or even 50 million. Nigel discusses the biggest obstacles in hiring sellers and the biggest mistakes leaders make during the hiring process.

He also shares his 6 steps for selecting the right candidates, which measure culture fit just as much as competency, and gives actionable tips to ask out-of-the-box questions that reveal the character traits that you are looking for.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Hiring based on fit is essential to build a top-performing sales team - Nigel: "I break it down into 3 Cs. So you've got competency, which is the stuff that they've used to done. Are they technically sound? Can they orchestrate a demo? Can they use technology? Do they understand the tech stack? Can they ask the right questions? All that's competency. And you have to be competent at that."

"But here's the catch and here's where a lot of leaders get wrong. They spend too much time on that and not enough of, do we have common ground? Do we have shared passions? Do they care about what this business does for our customers? Are they bought into how our company is uniquely positioned to solve a problem?"

Hesitations about a candidate during a reference call is a red flag - Nigel: "If there is any pause, it's a no. Even if it's a yes, if there's any pause, in my mind, I'm trying to walk myself out of a no. If it's a very quick, hey, Nigel, absolutely, I'd hire this person right now."

"If it's huh, well, yeah... I'm talking myself out of a no. What I've learned is that if it really is a yes, there's no hesitation in that reference whatsoever. They say absolutely, real talk, I will hire that person."

Connect with Nigel and get the Hiring Salespeople Course in the links below:

More on Andy:

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Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

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Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

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The voice of the customer is essential to developing a customer-centric experience. In this episode, Mallory Lee (VP of RevOps at Nylas) returns to discuss how to use the voice of the customer data to align company results. This data can show you where your customers are experiencing pain so you can build solutions accordingly.

Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn:

Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io)

Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io)

And our Special Guest:

Mallory Lee (VP, Revenue Operations, Nylas)

Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

Sales Enablement Podcast

Selling with Purpose Podcast

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*If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.

Jennifer Allen is formerly Chief Evangelist of Challenger and now Head of Community Growth at Lavender. She's joining me today, along with my occasional co-host, Howard Brown, founder and CEO of Revenue.io. Jennifer discusses the psychology of no-decision and why buyers who choose the status quo are actually making a decision, just not the one you want. She also gives an introduction to the Challenger Sale and the 5 sales mindsets they discovered, as well as gives tips on what sellers can do to ensure a buyer actually makes a buying decision. Jennifer also talks about The Challenger Loop to get quick feedback from the customer about what went right and wrong in the deal.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

A better product does NOT convince a buyer to make a decision- Jennifer: "[Better] is my least favorite word in sales now because I think it's the number one word that led to a lot of my status quo, no decision deals because what I failed to realize is people don't always want better. Like, good, in most cases, especially in markets like this, is damn good enough."

Show the buyer the cost of action - Jennifer: "One of the most eye-opening experiences is my job as a seller is not to show why it's better. My job is to show the cost of an action. What is the cost of the status quo before I ever start going off about what I have to offer and what that looks like."

ROI is not compelling enough to move away from the status quo - Jennifer: "I would talk about here's the ROI of changing; it's 15 times ROI. Guess who else is saying that? Every other vendor competing for that dollar. It means almost nothing.

And I'm not saying there's not a time and place for ROI, but compelling a business to exit the status quo is incredibly difficult. And just like the doctor's example, they need to feel that the risk of staying the same is actually far greater than the risk of change."

Find out more about Jennifer in the link(s) below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferallen1121/

More on Andy:

Connect on LinkedIn

Get Andy's new book "Sell Without Selling Out" on Amazon

Learn more at AndyPaul.com

Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

Scratchpad | The fastest way to update Salesforce, take sales notes, and stay on top of to-dos | Scratchpad.com

Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

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Brit Bartolini is a Senior Enterprise Account Executive at Blueboard. She shares her initial reluctance to enter sales due to negative stereotypes, and her subsequent surprise that sales are actually a transfer of enthusiasm through storytelling.

She also digs into how it is to sell to sales and HR leaders and how recognition and incentives keep sellers motivated and fresh. Brit talks about using the 5 love languages in her selling and how stories about experiences create a bond in a primarily online sales culture. 

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Give sellers experiences to recognize their hard work - Brit: "I'm going to take away that justifiability factor. Go do something nice for yourself because you pushed harder, you went above and beyond, and then come back and tell us that story because that story, as we know in sales, has a ripple effect. It makes people care, it makes people feel connected. It motivates others."

Cash is not the incentive to a winning sales culture - Brit: "When we're thinking about sales culture, especially as we turn our attention to a remote world, how are we building that connection? Cash isn't going to do that. If I sit in my room and feel isolated all day long making cold calls, and then my boss is like here's a $50 gift card for hitting your cold calling goals this quarter, yay? But I don't even know half of my team."

Find out more about Brit and Blueboard in the links below:

More on Andy:

Connect on LinkedIn

Get Andy's new book "Sell Without Selling Out" on Amazon

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Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

Scratchpad | The fastest way to update Salesforce, take sales notes, and stay on top of to-dos | Scratchpad.com

Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

Sales Enablement Podcast

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Lee Salz is a sales management strategist and author of several books including Sell Different! and Sales Differentiation which helps sellers win more deals at the prices they want. Lee discusses why this is important especially when the differences between your product and the competitor's product are very slim.

Lee explains that how you sell is equally important as what you sell, if not more so. He shares how to sell to decision influencers, as well as the reasons why top sellers put their buyer's needs before their own. Lee also digs into the buying experience and how to ask horizontal and vertical questions during discovery.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

Create a matrix of outcomes to guide discovery meetings - Lee: "You reverse engineer the meeting and you start by asking yourself this question, 'It was a great meeting if I accomplished what?' Identify the outcomes that would make for a great discovery meeting. And if you think of it in terms of a matrix, the left-hand column, here are the desired outcomes."

"The subsequent columns are, what am I going to ask? What am I going to say? What am I gonna do before, during, and after the meeting to achieve each one of those desired outcomes? So what questions am I gonna ask? Only the ones that correlate with the outcomes on my list."

Horizontal and vertical questions for discovery - Lee: "Horizontal questions parallel the scanning process. They're scan questions, they're superficial questions to acquire some data points. But that's what the dentist is doing when he is going tooth by tooth, he's scanning. But then when the hook sticks, that's when the analysis happens and we don't do that enough. And that's what I refer to as vertical questions. Getting a complete picture, a 360-degree picture of that particular data point. A lot of times I see salespeople ask questions for one reason. You know what that is, Andy? To have something to write down."

Skills practice may seem like a drag but it is necessary - Lee: "Love me on payday. Love me when you make President's Club just like mom and dad made you eat your vegetables. That's what sales management needs to do with their salespeople and make sure skill practice is happening religiously."

Find out more about Lee and get his books in the links below:

More on Andy:

Connect on LinkedIn

Get Andy's new book "Sell Without Selling Out" on Amazon

Learn more at AndyPaul.com

Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

Scratchpad | The fastest way to update Salesforce, take sales notes, and stay on top of to-dos | Scratchpad.com

Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

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RevOps Podcast

Daniella Bellaire is the CRO at Diversio. There has been much progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), but the real work is just about to get started. Storytelling is a powerful tool for sharing this message and Daniella shares how they use storytelling for Diversio's go-to-market.

Daniella digs into the challenges of making DEI a priority in companies, as well as its tendency to shake up the very culture of organizations. Andy and Daniella also talk about how DEI is actually good for business and how encouraging diversity creates better retention and job satisfaction overall.

HIGHLIGHT QUOTES

DEI is inevitable as a new generation starts taking over - Daniella: "You think about what's happening in the workforce... as boomers retire, who's coming in to fill these jobs? Who's coming in as top talent in the organization? Who is now going to be coming into these leadership roles over the next 5, 6, or 10 years? That's a generation that cares about equity and inclusion and diversity in the workplace."

Diverse teams produce better overall results - Daniella: "Teams that are more diverse, much higher likelihood to understand the target market and the demographics of who they're selling to. There's so many ways you can slice this. Companies that are more diverse are paying more fairly or are retaining higher levels of talent than ever before. Increased job satisfaction and increased performance overall."

Find out more about Daniella in the links below:

More on Andy:

Connect on LinkedIn

Get Andy's new book "Sell Without Selling Out" on Amazon

Learn more at AndyPaul.com

Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Unlock exponential growth with an AI-powered RevOps platform | Revenue.io

Scratchpad | The fastest way to update Salesforce, take sales notes, and stay on top of to-dos | Scratchpad.com

Blueboard | World’s leading experiential rewards & recognition platform | Blueboard.com

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

Sales Enablement Podcast

Selling with Purpose Podcast

RevOps Podcast

Is RevOps just Sales Ops 2.0? According to Mallory Lee, VP of RevOps at Nylas, simply renaming Sales Ops to RevOps isn't the right way to do it. Coming from a marketing background with a tight focus on Sales-Marketing alignment, Mallory knows what it takes to create a successful RevOps function that does what it's supposed to do. She shares how RevOps can help tell an objective, data-driven story about the value of what different teams are working on.

Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn:

Alastair Woolcock (CRO, Revenue.io)

Howard Brown (CEO, Revenue.io)

And our Special Guest:

Mallory Lee (VP, Revenue Operations, Nylas)

Sponsored by:

Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance

Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe:

Sales Enablement Podcast

Selling with Purpose Podcast

RevOps Podcast

*If you'd like to ask the guys a question that could get answered on the show, call our new message line at (323) 540-4777. Just leave your name, where you're from, and your question and we'll do our best to answer it on an upcoming episode.