How to Sell Podcast: Make How You Sell, Why You Win

Luigi Prestinenzi Host
00:00
Welcome to another episode of the Scalable Growth Podcast. I'm your host, luigi Preston-Enzi, and as always, I'm pumped, honoured and excited that you have joined us for what will be a milestone episode. Let me talk you through why this is a milestone episode in a moment, but just want to say, if you're a first-time listener, thanks for showing up. We hope you take away some actionable insights that will help you in your journey in being the very best sales professional you can be. And if you're a long-time listener, thank you for always showing up and supporting our show. I remember starting this podcast quite a few years ago just with the view of helping others and I didn't realise that this process, this journey, would actually help me, and it's helped me become a better sales professional and it's definitely helped me in my journey. So I just want to say thank you very much. Now, why is this a milestone episode? So I just got back from the US. I was travelling across the US on a really awesome trip working with some clients, attended a conference, and met a lot of different people. But over the past month we've been playing around with some ideas on how we can evolve this podcast, how we can take this podcast and help sales professionals to be the very best they can be. And what really came about talking to because I went to a conference and I got to speak to so many different CFOs and chief business officers was really interesting hearing, because I was talking to them about how they go through the process of buying and what's the process they take the decision-making process, how do they get involved in the process. And I thought to myself, what if we actually change the dynamic of the podcast to really focus and interview buyers and start asking buyers questions about how they buy and then flip the episode so that we can talk about how to sell to the way a person buys? And that's why this is a milestone, because this will be the final episode of the SalesIQ slash Scalable Growth podcast. I remember starting again, starting years and years ago. We're over 210 episodes. We've interviewed people from all over the world, we've travelled all around the world with this episode as well and we've had some major, major milestones.
02:01
But there is going to be a big change in the way that we produce this podcast and also the content that we'll create on the back of each podcast. So we're going to migrate this to the how to sell podcast and, as I mentioned, we will be interviewing different buyers, cfos, chief marketing officers, sales enablement professionals, people from various roles and with a real focus on understanding the process they go through, how they get consensus in the boardroom, how do they work through the challenging aspect of getting people to come on a change journey, what do they do when they get resistance. These are the things that we're going to cover off and these are the things that we're going to ask buyers and then we'll talk to people about how do we sell to that particular buyer persona and then, at the end of a segment, at the end of interviewing a bunch of people in a particular role, we'll actually create mini playbooks and content pieces so that you can take the learnings and implement it in your role. So we are really trying to evolve this podcast. It's not just a podcast episode but there are strong content pillars that sit behind it that you can take and put into action. So, I'm really excited about the change that we're making to this podcast. It's an evolution and I want to continue to evolve and evolve this podcast and evolve the content that we're creating.
03:31
And again, let me just take you back because I did attend. It was awesome. You know, I love travelling. I love travelling because it allows you to meet people from different areas of the world, different walks of life. But I did attend a conference and met a lot of different people and the majority of the people attending were CFOs. And it's really interesting because the feedback that I heard about the challenges that CFOs are going through at the moment is that the market is not in the healthiest of conditions and they're seeing some changes, some trends. There's some data showing that the next 12 months could be very difficult for businesses all over the world right Now.
04:06
I'm not trying to create a negative sentiment for this episode, but that is the general feeling that Times are getting tough. Things aren't going the way they expected to. They're coming at the back of COVID. A lot of changes are happening and CFOs are saying that they're getting involved in the decision-making process more than ever before. They're putting more scrutiny, they're conducting more due diligence, they're asking some key questions and what was really interesting and what really provided the level of encouragement is that they didn't say they're going to stop spending money. They're just like we absolutely need to spend money. It's, it's. We know that, especially when times are tough, they've got to invest, they've got to make some strategic investments, but what they are doing they're conducting more due diligence when the business case is being put forward for the company to make any investment.
04:50
They are asking some key questions to that buying committee and what was really interesting to hear is if they couldn't get the right feedback, if the buying committee couldn't answer certain questions at the CFO or other key C-level executives were asking that often that would kill the deal and why. That really sort of had a bit of a harm moment for me Because, again, when we look at things from a sales perspective, when we might be dealing with a champion or maybe a couple of different people and we're arming in with all this information, sometimes we can forget to really help them consider, well, what are the questions that will be asked from the executive team, what could their objections be, what could their fears or concerns be, and how are we enabling our champion and how are we enabling our buying committee to make sure they're giving consideration to what those questions and concerns could be and preparing to give the type of response that's needed to give them the confidence to take action. So again, this is one of the key takeaways that I took from talking to CFOs. The other thing that I took away was, even though they might be looking at a declining market, they are still looking at ways in which they can get more out of their existing relationships. So they're looking at doubling down on key relationships that they have, key vendors and partners, so that they can make better use of those relationships and maximise their return on investment from different partners that they've got within the business. So, again, that was another key takeaway. So, again, why am I encouraged by that? Because if you've got existing partners, if you've got existing clients, then it's a great opportunity to go in there and think about how you can widen and go deeper with the relationship. So they might not be looking to buy more from different vendors, but they are looking to buy more from existing. So that's something to also think about. Which, again, a couple of key aha moments as well.
06:36
Other things that really really resonated is that they did mention that, from a buying perspective, the CFOs chief business officers don't have all the answers. They actually said we don't know everything. We want people to reach out to us and share insight, trends, educate us on what we don't know, help us consider our position and help us see things differently. And again, that was huge because in the world we talk about prospecting and a lot of people are looking to cut corners, a lot of salespeople look to cut corners when it comes to prospecting because they want to do more, they want to use engagement tools, they want to use technology, etc. But On the flip side, what a lot of the CFO said was you know what we can see if we're on an automated list, we can see if it's a generic message and we're getting quite educated in how to manage our inbox to delete that sort of stuff. And again, this was quite a really, really loved hearing what they said, because they did share that they want to hear from salespeople, but it needs to be relevant to them and they are looking at their inbox and looking at the first line and seeing how relevant it is to them and if it's relevant, they're going to open and they're going to read on, but if it's not relevant, they're just going to delete.
07:53
So I was really, really encouraged to hear this type of feedback from buyers and hear that they want people to reach out to them. So from a sales perspective, this should really be encouraging. This should provide us with energy and enthusiasm to go out there and talk to our target market. However, we need to be looking at things from the buyers perspective and this is exactly why we are making this major shift to our podcast because we want to help you, we want to help our audience really understand and look at things from the buyers perspective and think about how can we now shift our messaging, how can we now shift our focus to really position what we do and position how we can help our audience, how we can help our buyers, but from the buyers perspective. So really think about that buyer enablement component, that buyer enablement part of the sales process. So I'm incredibly excited about the big changes that are coming to this podcast.
08:49
I will have a co-host. So when you do dial in for the next episode, when you do hear the first episode from the how to sell podcast, you will have a co-host. So that would be an interesting dynamic. Another learning for me right going from running the podcast myself to having a co-host. So I'm really excited about that.
09:08
You'll see who my co-host is when you jump on to the next episode. But there's going to be a lot of learning for you. There's going to be a lot of incredible content pieces that will come on the back of all of our podcast episodes, and we're also going to have some live events that will coincide with the way we're running the podcast and particular episodes. You know we'll have roundtables, virtual roundtables, with key buyers talking about how they go through that process, again, just to continue to bring those actionable insights that will help you be the very best sales professional you can be. So I'm pumped, I'm excited, I'm continuing this journey with you. So thank you very much for being a part of this journey so far, and what's really exciting is we're only just getting started.

Luigi Prestinenzi Host
09:51
Pardon the interruption, but I have to let you know about this free resource. The GrowForeign newsletter has over 10,000 subscribers that are learning how to sell. Each and every week we send you tips, strategies and also some tools and tech on how to achieve the most out of your sales pipeline. If you're ready to level up, sign up for free at Growthforum/newsletter and get the first issue this week.