The Life-Long Customer

"My favorite quote that stuck with me ever since I really got into this business was from Simon Sinek.

He's always said people don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it. Let that kind of sink in. I share that with everybody I work with, why do you, what do you do what you do? 

Customers don't just want to buy a product. They want to buy the reason that you're doing it, the purpose. Stay authentic and who you are and what you do, because that really does matter. It mattered to those customers that day that I took them on the tour.

 They had bought from us in the past, but now they're one of our top customers. It wasn't because I took them on an apple tour by any means. It was because they got to truly hear about Bell Harvest and Michigan Fresh and why we do what we do and why I'm even here.

 If you can continuously prove that to your customers, what your purpose is and what you believe in, they're going to stay with you. They're going to know very clearly who your company is."

- Angela Sommers, Director of Marketing, Belle Harvest

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“One in particular it's one of my very favorite sales stories. It actually happened fairly early on in my career and it's just burned into my brain. 

I live in Colorado. I was down in Texas doing a lot of traveling and it was December. It was about this time of year.

I had a meeting that didn't go well. And I wasn't going to make my sale. 

I went down there to really work through some stuff and wasn't going to make my sale. So I was heading back to the airport. It was later in the day. And I got a call from one of our marketing people.

She said she had a lead that just came in, somebody that was really anxious to talk to us and they were in Dallas. 

And so I thought I was this close to saying, no, I'll just call him, make it another day. But I called them and it was just the nicest woman. She understood my situation, but she was like, I've got everybody here.

Can you come by right now? Everybody's ready. And she did. 

I walked into the room and there were 10 people ready to meet. And I was able to push out my flight to the next flight. 

So I left late that night instead. Long story short, it ended up being the biggest sale of my career to that point.

And yeah, it really is. And I just, I love that story because, like I said, I was. So close to just saying I'll call tomorrow or I'll do something to do it set it up for after the first of the year. 

But they bought like really fast and it pushed me over my quota and it's just one of my favorite stories.”

- Ken Ballard, VP of Sales, Xyleme

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"I've seen a lot of sales professionals get their canned presentation and they want to hit every point to make sure that they communicate everything you guys have to provide. 

I've scrapped that. I'm jokingly the queen of the 17-minute pitch because. I listen to what their problem is. I listen to what solution they're looking for and I can hear what their pain points are.

I only address those pain points. I don't need them to know about something that we offer that they're never going to care about. 

Every single sales professional, especially this year, but always, has to listen.

What do you need? There's no bigger turn off when you're being sold and someone's trying to talk to you about something you could care less about. 

You're like, I don't have time for this. That's not what I asked for. That is my greatest advice is to listen. Start off every sales call with that question...

What is it that I can help you with today? 

A lot of sales professionals are doing that... here's how I can help you today. 

I'm not sure that's the best solution right now. 

We really need to hear how people are struggling and what it is. That's in my industry in any industry,  what is your pain point? How can I help you?"

- Vicki Dean, Vice President, The Santa Fe Group

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“I start my day with a free flow writing. So I asked myself a question every morning and it's only five-minute exercise. 

I tap it at five minutes, but to actually put pen to paper, not on the keyboard, I take five minutes before I start my day and really answer one simple question is how am I going to approve upon yesterday?

I could answer it in a multitude of different directions. 

It could be purely a professional one going to be a better leader. Can I be a better coach for my team? 

How are we going to make my customers better? It could be a personal one I'm not going to work out more.

 It could be, how do I be a better husband, better father.  It's a five-minute question that I write down.

Rather than tasks that I'm crossing out for the day, I actually set my mindset to try to do something in that arena.  

It forces me to actually make those small changes. Then at the end of the day, I reflect on that, making sure that I did do something and improve my ways of working.

The writing triggers my actions and then the reflection actually makes me a better person.”

- Bryan Danek, Sales Director Smart Materials, Croda

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"I think everybody goes through seasons in their career where they study different things and they learn and they innovate and we tried to do that.

The one thing that's always been consistent though, having knowledge and now at face value, I think that's a very simple thing to say, but knowledge, not only about what you do, but about business in general, do you understand a general ledger book, how to read it?

Do you understand your position in the industry? Most importantly, do you understand your customer's position? And their goals and what they're trying to achieve. We want to make sure that we're touching all of that so that we can at the end of the day, provide the best piece of equipment possible, but more importantly, make that experience from beginning to end as enjoyable as possible so that what they're getting really ends up being what it was in their mind to begin with.

And I think that is the most important thing for us is knowledge in, in making sure I feel what your investors are looking to you for. I need to know, I need to understand, we need to understand what you're trying to accomplish them and what you're tasked with. And then if we have that knowledge of the industry, we can be relevant in our messaging and our conversations and ultimately build a better piece of equipment.

- Joe Carlisle, Director of Sales, Paramount Tool

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“The biggest challenge is holding their attention and having that kind of impact. 

So to try to get the audience to engage versus all the distractions that we all have from working from home, noise dogs, kids we're also stuck at home and homeschooling and let's call it the new co-worker of the world. 

AKA your spouse. 

Who's having a remote meeting at the very same time you are in sharing your limited office space.  I'll tell you something we do at Jolt is the sales team has a monthly book club.

We let the sales folks pick the book that we want to review. We've read everything from your strategic selling, and spin selling. good to great, the normal, typical books you'd find in a sales organization. 

One of our guys suggested for our last book club because in school he took a presentation class and he remembered reading a book called the exceptional presenter. 

He had discovered a newer version of this book called the exceptional presenter goes virtual. We did that last week. 

We did our book review in it and had some interesting things to consider as you're hosting a virtual presentation. 

Really boiled down to a lot of planning and recognizing that you're working with a small space in the camera and how do you hold your hands so you don't go out of camera range. 

So there's a lot of really good tidbits of information to help you go virtual.”

- Jeff Pinc, SVP Global Sales & Marketing, Jolt

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"I've had a lot of conversations with younger marketing folks about this is just be who you are.

Don't try to be anybody else.  When I was working at an organization, there were these phenomenal speakers that would do customer presentations. And you'd hear these marketing people go, I'm going to be just like that person. And I would smile and go you're absolutely going to fail because you're not that person.

You don't have that experience. You don't have those stories. So I think the older you get, the more you realize that, you can add value for who you are. You don't have to try to be somebody that you're not, your experiences and the way that you see the world is just as important as the person next to you.

It's a lot easier to be yourself every day than trying to be somebody else. So to give any advice for the younger folks. I would say that, be true to who you are, be, who you are, and know that you can add value exactly the way that you are."

- Katie Ostreko, VP of Sales & Marketing, Quality Edge

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I was a baseball player. 

90% of what I learned in college was on the field with my teammates and 10% was in the classroom. 

I just think, the leadership learnings and the comradery and working through hard times and getting your tail kicked.  

Having to turn around and play again the same guys the next day, and being able to beat them.

There's just so much there and that's really what I carry, leadership hard work grit.  

I saw a really cool Ted talk and I don't remember who the speaker was, but she talked about grit and it's something you can't even really define. 

It's hard to measure...

- Mike Sudbury, Vice President of Sales, Hemp Well

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"If you're confident, it's going to show and it gives them a little bit more ease.  

I've had people walking in the restaurant bar that I worked at and just didn't seem confident.  

I was like, what do I want to buy this?

If you're not confident with it, you don't give me that fuzzy feeling about it. 

That's the big thing, know your product and make sure you know what you're doing as far as what you're trying to sell. 

That will translate into how you approach your sale..."

- Michael Biddick, Sales Director, Saugatuck Brewing Company

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“One strategy that always works. That definitely works for me, but you can try it yourself... 

Is if you repeat the last three words of someone's sentence, they'll want to keep talking. 

And it's just that part of that active listener where you can just keep someone engaged, obviously talking about themselves.

You can always ask someone a question about themselves, but if you just keep them engaged,  people want to be listened to. 

So when I run into people in the community, usually on the weekend with my kids or something.

If I bump into somebody 95% of the time, I'm just listening.”

- Sean Mattson VP of Sales, John McCarter Construction

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