SAP Experts Podcast Episode 59: A Masterclass in Sales (Part 1 of 2)

​Guests: Eric Shaver – Managing Partner, Kensei Partners LLC

Host: Alexander Greb - Customer Advisory Lead S/4HANA, SAP

Today we have something very special for you, because this week and next week, we focus one hundred percent on a practice / a profession, that is playing a huge role in our industry because it’s the one that in a certain way feeds us and is central for the financial success of our enterprise. We are going to talk about sales and how it is done right in the 21 century.

I have the very special privilege to welcome Mr Eric Shaver, Managing Partner of Kensei Partners a prominent sales consultancy firm, who has been a very successful Account Executive himself all of his career and today is advising sales professionals on how to excel at their jobs.

that being said this is what we are going to do in this “Masterclass in Sales”. And since neither Eric’s competence nor his great personality can be squeezed in on Episode only, we did a two-part podcast out of this, so you will get the first part today, and the second part next week, overall three hours of premium content that will help you to become a master seller yourself.

And especially in 2021 it is of utter importance that you reflect heavily on how you do your job. Because as Eric says in past years dumb money forgave bad behaviorisms and bad routines, but dump money has gone away – money has shifted, so have power and control structures. There are different criteria now so the bad news is: your legacy relationships don’t matter anymore. The rush to the cloud does the rest to disrupt your profession. The consequences are severe:

When IT Spends were CAPEX you sold to the IT, since cloud this spend is now OPEX so business departments decide on what happens.

On this first part we talked among many other things about how to approach and sell to business, on what you should build your relationship on and that trusted advisors don’t sell software nor cloud subscriptions

You learn what is the great corrupter of your pipeline, the right way to talk about money, how you qualify properly, the sins of sales and why sales should NOT be the extension of marketing,

Also, why discounts are false friends and kill your success in the long run and how you should correctly handle funding, where and when. And this is just the beginning.

So if you are working in sales or sales supporting roles, buckle up cause this double episode is quite a ride. This is going to be as candid as it can be, here at the SAP Experts Podcast

Follow Alex: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandergreb/

Follow Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshaver/

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Music by Dan Phillipson