Identifying & Developing a Champion Buyer with Krysten Conner - Ep. 43

There’s a lot of confusion about how to find the champion of your product within a buying group.

To help sort things out for B2B sellers, we invited Krysten Conner on the show! Krysten is an extraordinary sales coach who is hired by top SaaS revenue organizations to train their sales teams into incredible teams. Krysten has also made a number of courses available for purchase through her website and through pclub.io. Krysten joins co-hosts Matt Amundson and Craig Rosenberg to break down three ways to identify and develop strong champions within the buying group to help you close more deals. Krysten also shares the secrets to mastering multi-threading for sellers and how to maintain deal momentum with prospects so they become customers.

Also, Craig shares the playbook he used to land his first girlfriend, Matt adds an “s” where he shouldn’t have, and Sam the Producer puts his foot squarely into his big mouth.

Critical Takeaways

• There are three ways to proactively discover a champion within a prospect's buying group: 1. Do they do work asynchronous of your meeting with them? 2. Do they bring other people to follow-up meetings? 3. Do they have a point of view on the next steps?
• The first person to reach out or take a meeting with a seller is not necessarily the champion within that organization for your product or service. Don’t make the mistake of assuming they are the champion. Talking with you makes them a contact, not a champion, by default.
• “Typically” is a magic word to use in your sales calls. Buyers are very risk-averse and want to be sure they’re not doing something wrong that will get them fired. By sharing what other buyers “typically” do when it comes to things like next steps, you can give buyers peace of mind. 
• Buyers aren’t experts at buying your product, so you need to teach them and guide them to make the right decision. This process of educating buyers and helping them avoid common pitfalls makes them feel much more comfortable.

Sponsored Segment

Ringmaster Conversational Marketing - The Transaction is sponsored by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through Branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

Interested in becoming a sponsor of The Transaction? Contact thetransaction@samguertin.com

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

03:44 - The "Let Me Help You Get this Car" Story

07:24 - Krysten’s Embarrassing Sales Stories

13:22 - Develop a Champion, Don’t Wait For Them to Show Themselves

18:39 - Examples of Asynchronous Work that Champions will Do

25:58 - Champions will Bring More People to Follow Up Sales Calls

32:36 - Craig Details how he Landed his First Girlfriend

33:35 - Who Should be Doing Asynchronous Work Within The Buying Committee

41:54 - Does Your Buyer have a Point of View on the Next Steps

44:54 - Mass Email Does Not Count as Multi-Threading

51:10 - Who a Champion Is and What They Will Do in The Buying Cycle

Sign up for our Newsletter: https://thetransaction.substack.com/

Epic Quotes

• “ You multi-thread, by single threading.” - Krysten Conner
• “ When I'm sending actually any email, if it's no one's baby, it's an orphan.” - Krysten Conner

Connect with Krysten Conner

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krystenconner/ 
• Website: https://krystenconner.com/ 
• Access the Free Slides Krysten Shared in this Episode: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DOf9bsPh0m7WtQxwhlJfT7Yg22LkD3iukivIk0W1cOA/edit?usp=sharing 

Shoutouts

• Chris Orlob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisorlob/ 
• Chris Orlob's Episode of The Transaction:
• Krysten’s Multi-Threading Course with pclub: https://go.pclub.io/multi-threading-masterclass 
• Mark Kosoglow: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkosoglow/
• Mark Kosoglow's Episode of The Transaction: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/unlocking-sales-success-creativity?r=3iae7z&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
• Scott Barker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
• Scott Barker's Episode of The Transaction: https://open.substack.com/pub/thetransaction/p/selling-like-a-real-human-being-with?r=3iae7z&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false 

Love the show? Give us a shoutout on LinkedIn and tell us what you loved!