Today’s guest, Fred Diamond, shares with us how you can think out of the box to get your deals closed. Fred is the co-founder of Institute for Excellence in Sales (IES), an educational platform that promotes best practices, business excellence, and thought leadership through sales training.
Here are the highlights of my conversation with Fred:
Word of the Year for Fred: WILLINGNESS
What are you truly willing to do to achieve what you’re committed to do?
What are you willing to give up?
There’s a huge difference between commitment and your willingness to really do it.
Strategies to Focus on Your Willingness:
- If what you’re doing isn’t working anymore, do what needs to be done and adapt to changes.
Most customers have remote offices now. Think about being present on social media as well as get familiarized with technology and apps that can help you improve your sales.
- Think about how you can be different.
How can you be different now that the customers are in charge.
- Know your customer’s business.
How can you add value to your customer’s business? It’s not just offering your solutions to your customers, but be willing to be there for them.
- Understand your customer’s challenges.
Understand whether customers are really going to buy. Don’t think that just because they click on a link, they’re already going to buy. There needs to be much thought and energy that you need to put into solving your customer’s challenges.
- Be willing to do things that may be uncomfortable for you.
Some prospects take calls on weekends or Sundays, are you willing to call them?
- Focus on prospecting.
Leverage social media to understand your prospects and their challenges. Prospecting the right way is valuable.
The Principle of 58 and 2
There is a greater chance to get into somebody if you get to them 58 minutes after the hour or 2 minutes after the hour.
Fred’s Major Takeaway:
Selling is not just a charisma or about trying to convince someone to buy. The lifeblood of customer success is the ability to sell. Put yourself ahead of the curve to learn and tap into resources to get better and you can get better. Read. Listen to podcasts. Treat sales as a profession and it’s one of the most rewarding professions ever.
Episode Resources:
Connect with Fred Diamond on Twitter @iesbd or send him an email at fdiamond@i4esbd.org or call him at 703-628-6910.
Check out Fred Diamond’s blog on KiteDesk.
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Donald, thanks for the great interview. It was a blast and you did an excellent job with the questions. Love it! Well done and valuable.