Sales 101: Givers Gain

I have had the pleasure of dealing with a truly masterful sales executive this month. I want to share with you what they did. Maybe you’ll be as impressed as I was. Perhaps you’ll try these ideas yourself as you try to shake up Q2.

I was at a trade show last month where I had a conversation with someone in a large group about how I wanted to use a specific, inexpensive cloud-based solution, but we didn’t think it would work for us based on a few challenges. I didn’t think anything of the conversation, there were a half dozen CSPs standing around our table. One person emailed me the very next day saying he had spent a few hours after we parted considering how we might use the solution, would I like to take a look?

We spent a few hours talking about my business that day, and then we both went back to our respective breakouts. He asked for my business, I said I preferred to deal locally. However, I remained really impressed with the fact that someone would take time out of a busy conference schedule to solve the problem of some random person they had just met over a beer.

A week later, he emailed me with another idea. We chatted, and he asked for my business. I said no, I wasn’t ready to make a change. He did, however, leave me a with a nagging feeling that things could definitely be better.

A week later, a call with a suggestion for a product we might want to explore that would solve another problem I had identified. Finally, I agreed to meet with him to discuss our larger technology challenges — and as a completely cloud-based operation we have many — and needless to say what started out as five seats of a five dollar solution has turned in to a rather large quote.

So, what’s the takeaway?

Carrie Simpson is founder and CEO of Managed Sales Pros.