The Power of Stakeholders (Don’t Rush to Demo)

Jen Ferguson shares a tip about the Power of Stakeholders with Scott Ingram and Daily Sales Tips. Understanding all of the variables and people involved will set you up for success in your Buyer Journey.

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Jen Ferguson. Jen is a results-driven business leader with 2 decades of experience in sales, marketing, and leadership. She is recognized as one of LinkedIn’s Top 100 Sales Stars. As the Founder of Sales 911, she helps organizations shift to become more revenue-focused in their initiatives and optimizes the customer lifecycle. Here she is:

Jen Ferguson: My tip is about the power of stakeholders. So when discovery, everyone wants to rush to demo. Your prospects want to rush the demo. Sometimes you want to rush to demo because you get all excited. And you’re like Tommy boy in the diner and he loves his little sale and he pecks it and you know, loves on it until he kills it because he rushed to demo without knowing everything he needs to know. You want to get them to demo fast. There’s no doubt about that, but you also want to understand all of the variables. And so sometimes you need to slow down to speed up. So understanding the impact is so important, not just for the person you’re speaking to, but for all the key players that are going to be impacted by this change. How much that pain costs at a deeper level for each department, each stakeholder, all of the contributors who are going to be part of this decision process,  nobody buys anything in a vacuum anymore.

So understanding all the variables is super important, taking that opportunity to be curious and explain why you want to make sure you understand all the variables. Believe it or not, setting expectations is comforting as long as you tell them why. Tell them the next step is interviewing stakeholders to understand the impact to the organization, to make sure that all of the stakeholders will get value out of making the change. Sometimes in discovery, you can win or lose if you don’t have a complete picture. So slow down to speed up. Follow me on LinkedIn for sales tips, motivation, real talk, and being a woman in sales. and then just sometimes funny stuff. So hope this was useful. Take care.

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Jen and to learn more about Sales 911, just click over to DailySales.Tips/563 and we’ll have everything for you there.

Have feedback for Daily Sales Tips: Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: scott@top1.fm