Sales, especially in the B2B world can unlock opportunities that you never thought possible. However, there is still tremendous potential to make it a great career path and generate predictable revenue for the organization.
Really enjoyed my conversation with Josh Wagner, host of the podcast Love Selling, Hate Sales podcast and Co-Founder & Partner at In Revenue Capital.
#sales #b2b #growth #selling #revenue #career
Selling can be a challenging profession, and many salespeople experience burnout and frustration over time. However, there are ways to love selling again and break the cycle of poor sales leadership, low morale, and high turnover. In this article, we will explore different types of selling environments, the cycle of poor sales leadership, the key to sales, self-awareness, niche wins, and getting smarter about targeting.
Sales environments can be divided into several types, each with its own set of challenges and opportunities. For example, selling to small businesses requires a different approach than selling to large corporations. The former may prioritize personal relationships, while the latter may prioritize a rigorous sales process. Similarly, selling to B2B customers is different from selling to B2C customers, as the former often involves multiple stakeholders and longer sales cycles. Knowing the type of environment you are selling in can help you tailor your approach and develop the right skills.
One of the most significant challenges in sales is the cycle of poor sales leadership. Many salespeople complain about tasks like pipeline reports or updating the CRM, but when they become leaders themselves, they end up doing the same thing. This creates a cycle of poor sales leadership, where salespeople become disengaged and demotivated, leading to poor performance and high turnover. Breaking this cycle requires a shift in mindset and a commitment to developing better leadership skills.
Self-awareness is the key to a successful career in sales. Knowing where you win the most and who you can serve the best is critical to developing a successful go-to-market strategy. It's essential to understand your strengths and weaknesses as a salesperson and to develop a sales process that plays to your strengths. For example, if you excel at building personal relationships, focus on building those relationships with potential customers. If you are great at developing value propositions, focus on creating compelling messaging that resonates with your target audience.
Self-awareness is not just important for individual salespeople, but also for sales teams as a whole. Hiring salespeople who are self-aware and can play to their strengths is critical to building a successful team. A team of self-aware salespeople can work together to develop a sales process that leverages everyone's strengths and creates a cohesive go-to-market strategy. Additionally, understanding the self-awareness of potential customers can help you tailor your messaging and approach to better resonate with them.
The first step in any go-to-market plan is figuring out what niche you serve best and doubling down on that. Many salespeople make the mistake of trying to be everything to everyone, which results in a diluted value proposition and lack of focus. By identifying your niche, you can develop a deep understanding of your target market, their pain points, and their needs. This enables you to create a more compelling value proposition that resonates with potential customers and helps you stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Targeting the wrong accounts can entirely destroy your go-to-market plan, depending on the maturity of your organization. Therefore, it's essential to get smarter about targeting and focus on the accounts that are most likely to result in successful sales. This requires a deep understanding of your target market, their needs, and their buying behavior. Additionally, leveraging technology like predictive analytics and AI can help you identify the accounts that are most likely to convert and develop a more targeted approach to sales.
In conclusion, loving selling again and breaking the cycle of poor sales leadership requires a shift in mindset and a commitment to developing better sales skills. By understanding the type of selling environment you are working in, developing self-awareness, focusing on niche, and targeting right market accounts will set your sales career and sales organization apart.
Founder & Host @ GTM.news
Taylor has lived and breathed B2B marketing & go-to-market strategies for over 10 years at boot-scrapped & growth stage businesses. He thrives on building amazing customers experiences through what he calls the Selfless Advantage. This approach is an unconditional approach to marketing that helps people & positions your business as the obvious choice. He is the Founder & CEO of Potential Opportunity.
Partner
Josh Wagner is a sales, marketing and channel leader who has spent 20 years selling to and through strategic partners and helping start-ups scale from $0 - $20MM.
A co-founder of PaperStreet Production company, he led strategic partnerships responsible for 90% of the company’s revenue. As the head of sales and marketing at Resolutions, he built strategic vertical partnerships with SMEs to build niched e-learning solutions, transforming the company’s GTM model. Most recently, as the head of enterprise sales at LeadMD, a leading performance marketing consultancy, he ran a lean and impactful team of 3 which sold over $100MM in professional services to and through the marketing and sales tech ecosystem, which led to an exit in 2021.
Today Josh is the Co-Founder and Partner at In Revenue Capital, where he provides GTM operator expertise to support growth stage founders. Josh believes that ecosystem led growth is the “cheat code” to revenue, enabling leaders to tap into one to many partner relationships to create more scale with fewer resources.
Josh also serves as an advisory board member at CRE OneSource, he built their GTM playbook from scratch and works with the team weekly to iterate on the approach and drive revenue. He also hosts the Love Selling Hate Sales Podcast which has over 100 episodes focused on the ins and outs of being a world class seller.
Josh and his wife Meghan have three children who keep them busy with school, sports and extracurricular activities. When not in revenue, Josh can be found in his sanctuary (his home gym… Read More