Mastering the Fundamentals of Enterprise Sales - Dan Cutler - Head of Sales, Enterprise at Google Cloud

Mastering the Fundamentals - Dan Cutler

Summary

• You can't be a one trick pony. 0:00

  • You can't be a one-trick pony. People that are good for 10 years are the people that are malleable and flexible.

  • The fundamentals of enterprise selling.

• Why fundamentals are so important? 1:34

  • Why fundamentals are so important to him and why they are important to his listeners.

  • Why not having a good understanding of the fundamentals or not mastering the fundamentals can negatively impact his career and career.

• The importance of understanding the how. 4:12

  • The why is critical, but the how becomes more critical the larger the company you deal with. The first person to talk to is the same person that can make a decision.

  • The two reasons that someone would buy something, to save money or to make money.

  • He had worked with the pharmaceutical industry in a previous life. He knew that there was a funded initiative to push mobile technology to sellers.

  • He latched on to one of the company's largest initiatives, and because he was able to marry it with one of their initiatives, he found success.

• Qualification and qualification of information. 9:36

  • Every interaction is an opportunity to qualify and to share information to provide technical resources to share pricing without deeply qualifying why that information is being asked for.

  • Pricing is the currency.

  • The knee-jerk reaction to asking for a demo, and why it is a waste of time.

  • The importance of understanding what the demo would look like to custom tailor it.

• It’s okay to say no when you’re wrong about something. 12:55

  • Why it is so hard for sellers to have pushback with their prospects or customers, and why it is okay to say no sometimes.

  • Why fundamentals are so important.

  • How elite sellers get to the right people, or how an average seller struggles with spending time with the wrong person.

  • How the great ones navigate the internal hierarchy and the political structure of who is the right person to make a decision.

• How to become multi-threaded. 18:10

  • Becoming multi-threaded is a multi-party game. If you're playing one on one, you should pursue three on three.

  • How to navigate through the hundreds of salespeople trying to get time from you.

• The importance of understanding the personal win. 20:13

  • Getting to the personal win behind a potential champion and what is driving them to bring you on board.

  • The balance of going in with a personal win vs professional win.

  • The best sales reps have figured out a way to extract information that they probably shouldn't have, and sometimes they uncover that there is a motivation for that individual.

• What is in it for finance? 23:23

  • Finance provides unique discounts, tweaks to the licensing model, understanding things that are scalable or not scalable, and empathy both externally and internally.

  • Non-negotiable or things that reps can't do from a fundamental perspective.

  • The ones that fail are the ones that sort of give up the goods without getting them in return.

  • Every engagement is an opportunity to qualify and leverage in your hands.

• The importance of fundamentals. 27:42

  • Fundamentals are like reading a children's book. Listeners can learn a lot from them.

  • This is a stressful time for all of us right now in the market.

• How would you define an elite seller? 29:32

  • Make sure that you partner with your sales organization and your leadership team and your entire company to help you accomplish your goals.

  • What Michael Jordan defines as an elite seller.

  • Best sellers are malleable and can keep up with the times, but also not be a one trick pony.

  • Focus on the fundamentals, the why, how and the people.