7 Minutes to Better Selling Podcast - S2 - Ep. 10

Hey, welcome everybody to season two of the seven minutes of better selling podcast

I'm your host, Colin Lake. He has 25 years of sales and marketing experience

So Matthew, I am thrilled that we're spending some time together. And in particular, like with your background and how you get to where you are

all of that stuff seems like it's a really, really good connection point. So welcome. Thank you, Colin

I really appreciate the opportunity to spend time with you and your team. And if your listeners don't know, happy birthday to you

I understand today's your birthday, so congratulations. Looking forward to digging into the topic

Yeah, that's great. All right, so Matthew, let me ask you this. How do you get to, you spend a lot of time selling

You've got a major role for a major organization that does great things for other organizations

So how do you get to where you are today? I'd love to tell you it's a very conventional straight path, but it's been anything but that for sure

I did not graduate college in what I would consider to be a sales type pathway or a technology pathway

but over the past 25 years have kind of ingrained myself into that role and function

not only as a doer, but over time getting into a leadership capacity where I'm helping to educate

and develop the growth of salespeople in our organization. So it started out completely outside of technology

I had worked in advertising, did a couple of years there, worked in New York, came back, got into

selling advertising, and through selling advertising for the local Philadelphia Inquirer, got introduced to a technology staffing firm

I was selling to. They flipped tables and offered me a job, and I was interested

And it's kind of like wildfire from there. I spent a lot of time in solutions selling and then have kind of promoted myself through You brought up a great topic in your introduction about loving what you do versus doing what you do And in sales I find that you know we a little bipolar sometimes and I don mean that in a negative way

Just, you know, we love the job when it's going well and, you know, we hate the job when it's not going well

Awesome. Great description, great layout. Let me ask you this. Were you always a people person

Like, is that, is that like how you grew up in life? you always love that communication piece

I don't know that I, it was smart enough at the time younger to realize it

but a lot of people used to tell me I'd either be a lawyer or a salesperson. And, you know, I think my emotional intelligence is higher than my real intanguels

Yeah, so lawyer just wasn't going to work. So I look at it from a win-win situation, right

I mean, at the end of the day, you're either win-lose or win-win. When lose situations for salespeople are just awful to be involved in because your client sees you as a commodity, not as a solutions provider

Now, in some businesses, it's a commodity-driven business, but even in those commodity-driven businesses, there are benefits and features that each company offers to their customers that help differentiate them from their competitors

And I think being able to understand where those features and benefits really pull on the heartstrings of your client or your customer

that's what's going to enable you to understand how to best help them. Let me ask you this

So you've mentioned this a couple of times, a couple different ways

You said you have a punch list of questions you ask. Yes

Are your clients always willing to answer those questions? Sometimes a salesperson comes in and says, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions to figure out what your problems are so I can solve them

In other words, I'm going to give you my product that solves every problem you have no matter what you are

the old, you know, every, I'm a hammer and everything looks like a nail

Right Do they do they answer those questions or do you think you have a special sauce that enables them to ask that Should me answer those questions That a really good question And I would be lying to if I told you every customer gave me every piece of information I ever wanted every time I ask it

That's not true. Right. There are certain assumptions that I'm making because I do my research

So most of the companies have a website, some sort of public data. They post out their most recent news

So those are the types of things as, you know, your traditional brass tax as a sales professional

that you should be doing for every customer engagement, you know, find out what is the situation

that they're dealing with. I truly go in and tell them, listen, I don't have any intention of you buying today or buying

ever, but I'm interested in learning what your challenges are. I'm a heavily connected individual in this space, not only for what I provide in software

development and IT consulting, but I am connected with other individuals because of my networking

efforts that if I don't provide the solution, I know somebody that will

Yeah, that's great. One thing I want to make sure it does not get lost in that thought that you shared is the research

Like if, yeah, like this solution selling thing is a well-discussed, well-thought-through conversation

Like, ask lots of questions that helps identify problems. Once you identify problems, then you can offer solutions

That's been discussed. But if you do the research coming into it, then your questions can be more pointed and more sincere

So I love that. So I'm going to ask you to what we're getting long and a tooth here for our short calls. So in terms of wrap up, this will be your being your ending thought for the folks today. So one of the hardest people to sell is ourselves. In other words, we have to convince ourselves to go do something at a really high level or a higher level than everyone else who's selling the stuff that we have is. So how do you do that or how do you suggest the people that you lead to do that to their best

That a great question Yeah Eliminate the fear in your mind everything that you that is an emotion that is an obstacle to executing on an action is self in your own mind

When you start to look at it from a lens of the person or persons you're selling to are humans

They have the same challenges daily that you do. I like to use the example of a young sales person

I can't call the CIO, Chief Information Officer. That person knows so much more than I do

And I'm like, sure, they've built a career. they've done that and you rightfully should respect that. But that doesn't mean that you can't have a

one-on-one conversation with them to pitch what your opportunity or your solution is. For young

salespeople or people transitioning into sales, just remember, you know, most people buy just like you

buy. Even though it's not their money, they do protect that budget because it's their responsibility

They're accountable for how that budget spent. So they need to have the valid information to make sure

that that's a good decision. But also, too, is customers are looking for value. And value may be a

discount or it may be other services that are surrounding your initial solution. But you really need

to dig in and ask those questions about what's important to you. We call it with them

Yeah, that's great. I forget it's one of the philosophers who said it. You know what, like

Aristotle or something like that, like a real big one is we experience like 90% of the fear in

our minds. In other words, 90% of the fear lives here, not in actuality. So it's a great thought

and a couple of great takeaways. So Matthew, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much

for spending time. And thanks for sharing. I have four or five big takeaways, which we do a recap

call. You'll get brought up again on some of these things. So we've done a great job and we're grateful

for it. So good selling everyone. Really appreciate it. Have a great day