00:12:43 · S2, S3, S4
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00:13:43 · Peter Ahn
[00:13:43] S5: At World, you could ask for the call straight up because you're a PLG company, but you still have to understand what will get them excited to join the call. Right? And typically, it's, you know, something that is a new advancement in the product or sometimes, you know, you know, other incentives. You know, you have to think about adding value before asking for time. Don't try to sell things first. Try to provide value around a pain point you think somebody has. Gain their trust first. So discovering customers, I think, first starts with defining who your customer is. Oftentimes, a lot of founders, they go way too broad, and you can't sell the world if you're a startup. The first thing I I get founders to do is write know, what's the company size that's ideal, what's the title, you know, what is the revenue if that's important, what's the technology that they use. Maybe you find that people who are on AWS are really good for your technology. Write everything down in detail, and then map that to some of the modern tools that are out there today. So everybody's familiar with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Clay.com is a new tool. There's all these platforms where you can actually match your ideal customer profile and look for contacts. And then once you do that, then it's a matter of figuring out from the list of contacts, how do you reach out to them. And that's where kind of my methodology around, like, provide value and then ask for a meeting comes into play. The last thing to keep in mind, I think that's really important, is there's a lot of talk about emailing people. Emailing is getting very, very noisy, so you have to be a lot more intentional about thinking about where are people talking about the problem you solve. Is it a conference? Is it LinkedIn? Is it Reddit? Is it Twitter? Right? So then there's this whole strategy around how are we actually taking a multichannel approach to find people where they're already talking about the problem. Sometimes it could be like a Slack community too. And then from there, you figure out the messaging and get into the execution path. So I think really good tech salespeople are able to convince buyers that their technology is from the future, but can solve problems today in the most effective way. One of the things that is really important to understand in sales, it's a give and take relationship.
00:15:49 · Peter Ahn
If you want your buyer to divulge information that is private to them or that might be sensitive or something that they're uncomfortable sharing, you also need to be able to mirror that and show that. A lot of great salespeople are... This goes back to honesty. They can be very, very honest about their situation and be very open, and that opens up the other side to open up about their own problems too. So that's that's one thing. I'll give you a very tangible example. Let's say I tell a buyer like, hey. I'm a little nervous about this deal because I don't feel like I did a great job with the demo on the last call. Do you feel that's the case? You know, that's very vulnerable. Right? To say that, hey. Like, I didn't do a good job on the sales call. But psychologically, happens is the other side is like, oh, Peter's being very honest and vulnerable. Let me also share with them something that is equal to that level of question or answer or information. So I think that's one thing. The second thing is you have to be a really great listener if you want to be able to mirror people and if you want to be able to understand people. You also need to be able to take answers and follow the breadcrumbs and follow-up with more questions that help you dig in to the root of why people are saying certain things. I think that's the second part. The third part to build trust and EQ is you need to be really, really good at your craft. You need to understand your industry in the space really, really well because in this day and age, people trust experts. You're not gonna be able to hold a conversation with somebody if you're surface level or if you're not able to show that you know what you're talking about or that you're an expert in your field. Those are, like, three tangible things. The other thing I would say about building EQ is you just have to be around people a lot in different environments. So if I were just on Zoom calls all day, like, it probably wouldn't help me with EQ, but I try to meet people for coffee. Like, I try to vary things, you know, like text people, go to bars or dinners with people, and, you know
00:17:44 · S0, S1, S2
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00:18:39 · S2, S3, S4
Ad[00:18:39] S2: You've been asked to run the company's social channels, but company content plays by its own set of rules. It needs a logo in the first three seconds, but it can't feel like an ad. It needs subtitles, except when it doesn't. It needs to run at two times speed and deliver a complex message simply, of course, within nine by 16. Thankfully, your company has Canva, so you can easily edit your video and every version of it. What will you Canva today? Ad[00:19:09] S3: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. Ad[00:19:21] S4: It boosts your job post Ad[00:19:22] S3: to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
00:19:39 · Peter Ahn
[00:19:39] S5: Spend time around people and really understand what makes people tick, what gives them motivation both on the personal and professional side. That's the other thing I think with EQ is if you're in sales, you can't always be talking about your product or business. You have to have a genuine interest in the other person as a person. And if you don't have a genuine interest, that shows. If you're just asking a set of questions about the weather or where they're from or how many kids they have, like, those are very trained. But the question is what do you do with that information, and how do you actually remember people's kids names or remember people's hobbies and ask more about their interests. I think the reason why I was successful at sales is because one, I have a genuine passion for technology and understanding more about the technology than my competition. And then the second thing is I'm a hard worker. You know, Dropbox had ping pong tables, they had a cafeteria, and I never played a game of ping pong at Dropbox. Maybe I did once or twice, but I always pride myself on being the hardest worker in the room, and clients notice that. If you're the fastest person to reply to an email, if you're the fastest person to get back to somebody or find a solution, that is a lot of what customers are looking for because they wanna understand that when there's a problem, you're gonna be there. So the other reason why I was successful in sales is because I took outlier characteristics and what I perceived to be weaknesses of myself and turned them into superpowers. I'll give a very tangible example. English was my second language. Initially, as a kid growing up, I had a stuttering problem. I was not very confident speaking English. But fast forward to today, I teach people how to communicate, and I think I'm more effective at it because I've actually created phrases that help slow down the conversation. So when I need to buy more time to think, I have phrases like, let me think about that, or that's a great question, but I don't know the exact answer right now, or can we go back to what you said in the beginning of the conversation?