Maddy Jackson, an accomplished Account Executive with experience at Webflow, SafeGraph, and Procore Technologies, shares her expertise in sales tactics. She illustrates the significance of discovery calls and offers strategies to uncover client pain points. Maddy emphasizes tackling both hard metrics and soft impacts to accelerate deal cycles. She also suggests methods to engage hesitant prospects and how to handle being ghosted by potential clients. Her actionable insights aim to enhance communication and drive successful sales outcomes.
Establishing backstop meetings during the sales process helps maintain momentum and ensures that deals don't lose traction or go cold.
By asking insightful questions during discovery, sales reps can uncover deeper prospect needs and articulate the broader implications of their challenges.
Deep dives
Setting Backstop Meetings for Urgency
Establishing backstop meetings is crucial in maintaining momentum during the sales process. By suggesting a follow-up meeting before the end of a current discussion, sales representatives can create a sense of urgency around scheduling and decision-making. If there are delays in confirming the next steps or if a prospect conveys uncertainty, throwing a calendar invite can prompt a response that either schedules the next meeting or reopens communication. This tactic helps prevent being left in limbo, ensuring that the deal does not lose traction.
Elevating Impact Questions
Asking more insightful and layered questions during discovery can significantly enhance a sales rep's understanding of a prospect's needs. Instead of focusing merely on surface-level challenges, representatives should probe deeper to identify what problems might be critical for the prospect six months down the line and their potential ripple effects. By framing questions around future regrets or missed opportunities, reps can guide prospects toward realizing the broader implications of their challenges. This approach not only uncovers more substantial issues but also lays the groundwork for a compelling business case later in the sales cycle.
Cold Calling to Build Groundswell
Cold calling into active opportunities can effectively accelerate the sales cycle by building groundswell among end users. Rather than a traditional approach focused solely on decision-makers, where pushback is common, reaching out to those who will actually use the product can foster enthusiasm and support for the solution being offered. For instance, a representative might ask a marketing leader for permission to engage content marketers early in the process, leveraging their feedback to strengthen the business case. This strategy not only increases buy-in but also cultivates multiple touchpoints within an organization, increasing the likelihood of closing the deal.
Understanding and Communicating Impact
Articulating the impact of issues faced by prospects is essential in building a convincing business case. Reps should quantify not just the immediate costs associated with a challenge but also explore secondary impacts, such as project delays or resource reallocation that could affect larger business initiatives. By using specific metrics like hours spent and potential revenue losses, they can create a strong narrative that resonates with both the immediate and long-term goals of the prospect's organization. This comprehensive approach encourages prospects to acknowledge their pain points and highlights the value of the proposed solution in a way that aligns with their strategic objectives.