Seek First to Understand (Mark Fetner - Vice President, Key Accounts Program @ Workday)

Podcast Summary:

• Seek first to understand your audience. 0:00

  • Understanding success and what success looks like.

  • Seek first to understand before going into sales.

  • Best practices that will last for a long time.

  • Seeking first to understand.

• Why is seek first to understand so important? 3:04

  • Emotional intelligence and seeking first to understand.

  • The seven habits of successful salespeople

  • The first meeting might be uncomfortable because its untraditional

• Don’t go down the rabbit hole on one item. 8:24

  • Solving specific problems for the customer.

  • Starting at c level with a value proposition.

• What else do you need to do to be successful? 11:07

  • Keep repeating the list of items to get access to information.

  • Being solution resistant.

  • How mark trains his team to not go down the rabbit hole.

  • The Hans model.

• Seek first to understand before you advocate for your product. 15:44

  • Early in the process, understand success.

  • Prioritize what's the impact of resolving the problem

  • Seek first to understand, scout, soldier mindset

• Building durable champions that will last. 22:31

  • The crucible, where things get hot and challenging.

  • Prepare yourself for the end when it becomes about risk and cost.

  • Building trust.

• Selling to a customer’s intent. 25:50

  • Why hope is not a strategy.

  • The importance of building a stakeholder base.

  • Be solution-resistant, intent-resistant and design thinking.

• How do you measure success? 29:48

  • Roses, Buds, Thorns

  • How to have hard conversations in a soft way

• Lead with your heart and your heart. 35:21

  • Why 30 minutes is the right amount of time for a meeting.

  • The importance of intent over everything else.

• Focusing on the roses and thorns. 38:21

  • Being 100% focused on their success creates a human conversation.

  • Daniel pink, sell as human.

  • What the CFO is missing in the list.

• How do you define an elite seller? 42:55

  • Tiger woods and tom brady.

  • Mark is able to command the resources of the organization.

  • Being intentional over technique.