Brian Shea

We continually find executive impact and high returns by beginning the GTM plan by documenting the firm's "north star" on a one-page document. Essential info includes the agreed-upon mission/vision statement, value prop, EOY goals, 3-year goals, KPIs, strategic priorities (no more than 5), defined target markets, channel partners or contract vehicles, and key decision-making buyer personas. This document is the anchoring resource for functional planning AND provides governance for the leadership team on what they must work on and what they can say "no" to. Ensures a fully aligned executive team that informs the execution path, strategy, and tactics.

In B2B sales, the first step is committing to a customer centric sales strategy. Once the team stacks hands on this approach, gathering key buyer intelligence is the next mission. This intelligence will eventually be mapped by buying stage to provide a visualization of the jobs buyers are completing. Begin with gaining an understanding of each customers needs and identify decision makers & influencers. Document the role each buying influence has in your strategy and what's important to them in this role. Next is aligning sales and marketing efforts to optimize touchpoints and enable personalized, role specific engagement that builds credibility AND relationships. Each journey map allows you to gather data on each interaction

The critical questions uncover business impact needs of the decision maker and their key influencers. The decision maker, often referred to as the Economic Buyer, has all the power to say "yes".....or "no". The economic buyer cares and solving a business problem. Yes, the questions should be open-ended, but these questions should be crafted to uncover implications of action/inaction and needs payoffs.

The shift in modern selling is not delivering a product demo, but solutioning for solving business problems. So what's the difference? Buyers today, especially CFO's, are looking for ROI (return on investment). Product demos focused on delivering a feature dump are not purchased. Instead, sellers need to convey a financial acumen by connecting every solution capability to solving or impacting the customer's business. Years ago, I wanted to approve the purchase of a $300,000 sales tech license platform, but put off the purchase for a year because the seller was solely focused on a feature dump.

As a sales performance coach, the two most frequent mistake made by sales organizations are: 1) Not engaging with the buyer who has the authority to spend money on your proposal. 2) Not using customer identifiers as the gates within a sales process. We've all heard about sellers who have "happy ears", but unless the buyer takes action, words alone are not a reason to believe the sale is progressing.

Rule #1 for sellers. Its not about you, or your product, or your company, or your founders history. As a modern seller, your mission is to solve a business problem for your prospect. Be cautious selling from your inventory of case studies or testimonials if you haven't shown the buyer that you can solve THEIR problem. Just because someone else bought from you isn't a compelling reason for new buyers to care. Be the business problem solver. That's expertise buyers will pay for