Episode 019 Lisa D Magnuson: Why You Must Get Fanatical About Pre-Call Planning

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Scale Your Sales Podcast

Business


Have you ever thought how can I win 5 x deals repeatedly? Well, today I have Lisa D Magnuson, the author of four books on sales. Her latest book 'The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals Repeatedly' published, Nov. 2019 To 5X your deals, Lisa says, the good news is that there is a formula to secure 5x your normal contract size.  When you are talking 5x deals it requires different work to your normal deal.  It can be time-consuming, messy and convoluted but worth it! First, you must score your top opportunities that lend themselves to bigger opportunities. It is not just based on revenue, but of strategic opportunity or geographical or marquee name.  Then ask: What is the appetite of the account team to do the necessary work? Where would the account team score the customer's commitment to go through the purchasing journey and do you have access to those people? War room helps clients score their opportunities, in one example a client realised they did not have access that the opportunity of securing 5x was reduced.  Lisa said, it took nine months, but it was a 5x deal in the end. The reason Lisa said she wrote, The TOP Seller Advantage, was that account team would work so hard to get the executive sponsor, high five the success of the meeting and not nurture the relationship and have to start again when it came time to secure another deal.  This did not cultivate the executive relationship because the executive is not going to remember them, the research surveyed answers from executives:  Why would you take a meeting with a salesperson? What would have to occur during the meeting to feel it was worth the meeting? Why would cause you to leave the door open to future meetings? To keep all the people moving forward and with relevant insight, you must be organised to march down the executive path, regular account strategy session, pre-call planning and research on the company and executive.  This takes: Sales Leadership - to commit to organise lead and inspire. Sales Methodology – what’s are way what are the steps and system Sales Execution – you must have the account planning session and pre-call research Sales Culture – How do you create a company culture that prioritises the short term of long term result Lisa agrees the sales culture must start at the top, with the CEO, but the person that executes the work must be the sales leader.  There are strategies to engage the cross-functional executive team, anyone who is going to impact the 5x deal. The account team gets it right if it is diverse on who to call, when and what to talk about the competitive blocks and the competitive map.  The account team must be diverse said Lisa, backed by a strong quarterback with backup up from a strong sales leader. In 2014, conducting research for her book, Lisa interviewed VP of sales and realised they were all male, she was astonished the efforts she had to go through to ensure she achieves a diversity of views at the VP Sales level, concluding we still have a long way to go. Pre-call planning is the way to increase sales and close more deals, emphasizing the are stats that it takes 16 attempts to get a meeting, so you must be prepared if you are to increase your success rate. Lisa has kindly offered listeners her pre-call download here: https://toplinesales.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/toplinesales @lisa_magnuson