- So you've got a sales call coming up,
you're part excited
you're part anxious, you're part like
what am I doing?
I remember when we were switching from a self service model
to a sales-driven model at ToutApp.
It was an incredible rush because
on our self-service model
we were selling at $30 a month
and people would just swipe their credit card
without having to talk to anyone,
but on our enterprise model,
our sales-driven model,
we were closing five figure deals, six figure deals.
And as we start to get into those deals,
we've had to do sales calls.
And as we were going into those sales calls
it took us a little bit of time
to really hone in on the process
and make sure we were running our sales calls the right way
to be able to close those kinds of deals.
In this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
the three principles
you absolutely need to know
to run a killer sales call.
Intro.
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What's up everybody?
Welcome to Unstoppable.
I'm TK on this channel,
I help SaaS founders like you
grow your SaaS businesses faster
with an unstoppable strategy.
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if you are part of my SaaS Go-to Market Coaching program,
welcome, it's so awesome to have you here, truly.
All right, so there was this time
where, when we first started ToutApp
we primarily had a self-service business
meaning people will sign up,
start a free trial
and we would run a very specific process
and it would get them to swipe their credit card
at $30 a month.
And then it went to 49 and then went to 79,
and then we were selling at 125.
Anyway, they just swiped their credit card,
there was no sales process involved,
but then we switched.
We switched to more of a sales-driven model
because we realized that we could actually
grow our business faster
through a sales-driven model.
And that's when we started to really dig into sales.
Now you might be wondering,
well, how did you switch?
How'd you know to switch?
I'll give you the quick story
and I'm gonna dig into the three principles
you need to know to run your killer sales calls.
But the way it happened was
we were running our self service business
and this one company, this guy named Daniel Barber
and Andrew Rosenfeld reached out
and they were part of Responsys at the time.
Responsys was a public company
and they reached out and they literally like
I think they were talking to our support person
or something and then they got to me
'cause we had no sales people.
So I guess I took the call
and they're all like, "Hey listen,
we wanna buy ToutApp for our entire team
and it's going to be a sizable size team."
"So it's gonna be like a deal
and we wanna pay up front", and I'm like, "Okay'.
And we had never done anything like that.
And then they were like, "But we have a condition".
I'm like, "Okay, what's the condition?"
They're like, "You cannot sell ToutApp to ExactTarget."
Meaning only we can use it,
you can't sell it to ExactTarget.
ExactTarget was their core competitor to Responsys.
And I'm like,
we had never done anything like that and I'm like,
"No, like we're not doing a non-compete,
we'll sell it to whoever wants to use us
and will pay for it."
"So no, we're not doing that".
And then the call just ended
and I'm like I don't even know, like,
our business is fine with this self-service model.
And five minutes later, the phone rings again
it's Andrew and Daniel again.
And they're like, "Okay, we'll buy it".
"Just don't sell it to them for three months".
And in between that those two calls
we had our internal system,
so people were just signing for trail so,
went into the trail system
just to see if the ExactTarget was starting a trail.
And it turns out they did.
So on the call, the second call, I'm like, "Hey listen guys,
even if I wanted to
I couldn't ExactTarget already trailing the product."
I was like I had no idea they signed up,
beauty of self-service businesses.
And right then and there,
Andrew and Daniel were like, "Okay, we'll buy it".
And they bought
for their entire team and we're like, that's weird.
And that's kinda cool.
We should do more of these kinda deals.
And it had an aha.
We had an aha moment with that because we were like,
Oh we don't have to just wait for one team member to come in
and kinda convert on their own and buy more.
We could just go after these large companies
with large sales teams and sell top down.
And that's when we switched to a sales-driven model
and that drove a significant amount of our growth
in ToutApp.
And then we sold to Marketo.
So that's how that sales model came together.
When we started selling top down
we started to think about,
well, how do we run the sales process?
how do we run the sales calls?
How do we navigate this?
How are we getting the right?
And so a lot of the principles that I teach you,
come from both the self-service side
which is now known as product-led growth
and also a driving sales-driven model
as well cause we had both at ToutApp.
Marketo was much more of a sales-driven model.
There's actually no way you could trail a product.
So anyway, if you wanna run your sales calls
this is what I learned.
I learned these three core principles
to make sure that every sales call
that you were really going into you would crush it.
It would be a killer sales call.
So if you're excited to dig into the three principles
actually know that story time is over,
go and smash our Like button
if you haven't already
and let's go into principle number one.
So principle number one
of running your killer sales call is 'ask the why'.
Now this is a little counterintuitive
cause I know how it is.
When you're going into a sales call, you're super excited.
You're like, you wanna show them
the awesome product that you have.
And you wanna show them how amazing you are.
You wanna show them your sales pitch
you are like we are the best, that was baby TK.
And then I learned the hard way that don't jump into a demo.
Don't jump into a presentation.
Usually just first, just ask why.
here's the thing.
If someone decided to get on a call with you, a sales call
it doesn't matter if you cold call them
or your outbound email them,
when they clicked on an Ad
or they fill out a talk to sales form.
Ultimately there were some rationalization
that happened in this person's head to decide
that, Hey, I'm gonna carve out time out of my day
to meet with the salesperson.
And they know they're meeting with a salesperson
so they know they're gonna get sold to they still did it.
And so the first thing that I learned,
and I even, now we do this in our sales processes as well
is like ask the why, meaning, "Hey
what's the main reason that you prioritize this today?"
Or "Why is this piece of software top of mind?"
"What's going on in your world?"
And you wanna just ask like,
not even like a naive, like, Hey, what are you doing here?
It's more like, Hey, like you prioritize this.
I really value your time.
I know you do too.
Tell me what's going on in your world.
Tell me what's top of mind
that makes X platform a priority right now for you.
And everything changed
once we started doing that because it helped us understand
they would just spill the beans.
They would just tell us all the reasons
why this is a priority.
They weren't,
you know ToutApp was all about generating more pipeline
that would tell us, you know
they weren't hitting their pipeline number
their bigger growth score.
They're hiring more people
or they're building on an SDR team.
They would literally just tell us what their priorities were
without us having to ask a lot of annoying questions.
So rule number one of killer sales call is ask the why
why did they prioritize this?
What's going on in their world?
And you'll get them to spill the beans
and really understand what's going on in their world.
And if they're vague about it
ask some followup questions around, well
what are your big priorities right now,
around X, X being the space that you generally do.
If you're selling CRM software, MarTech software
ask them about their growth number.
If you are selling HR software, ask them how they're hiring.
So you can actually probe a little bit more
before you jump into everything else, okay?
So that's principle number one,
principle number two is
you should actually frame
the opportunity and the transformation.
This is what I call a strategic narrative.
It's also what I call a manifesto.
I talk about this a lot in this channel.
A lot of times I'll talk to founders
And they're like,
Hey we're having these enterprise conversations.
Sometimes they'll come inbound,
but they just drag on forever
and they keep bringing them here.
They've forgotten what they're even here for.
This is why it's super important
that once you understand their why
and what their priorities are
what the big trigger points are.
You should actually tether that
with your strategic narrative and your manifesto.
This is, you know, the big opportunity.
Do you have the big transformation you're bringing in?
That's how it ties into why they need your platform.
If you don't have a strategic narrative yet
if you don't have a manifesto yet
then you should definitely check out this video
where I talk a little bit deeper
on how to actually craft one,
the principles around them
and why you absolutely must have one.
Otherwise your sales process,
your deals will completely go haywire.
So principle number two
is instead of jumping into a demo or just saying,
Hey, we're awesome.
Actually craft the narrative,
frame the opportunity and the transformation
you're gonna bring using the software
that's strategic narrative
and they'll actually help tailor the conversation.
And ideally as you're seeing that,
it will align really well with the why
that they've already highlighted for you.
One of the things that I constantly hear
from clients in my SaaS Go-to Market Program
in my Go-To Market Program makes you go deeper
into how to craft your strategic narrative
and your strategic message.
One of the things I always hear is
once we know we've nailed the narrative when
they come back and they are like you know,
we were using it on a sales call
and people were just like nodding.
The clients were like their customers
like just nodding or like, Oh my God, this is awesome.
That's when you know, you've nailed the narrative.
And when you do that in step number two
after you asked her why,
then you're actually tethered to something,
everyone's on this common purpose.
And they'll help you drive
and navigate that sales conversation
into actual concrete next steps and demos
and everything else.
All right.
I would principle number three,
but before I go into it
let me just pause here for a second.
Are you starting to see the power in this?
Can you start to see by following these two principles
how you can completely transform
how you run your sales calls
and how you can actually go into it
and navigate it in a much more informed fashion.
It's just giving them a demo in seconds.
You wanna buy, right?
It actually helps you up-level your game.
And this is something that we learned the hard way,
through, you know,
we got into sales like kind of accidentally
we were coming from a self-service business
and we have to teach ourselves this.
Can you just see the power of the this?
If you can, can I just get
a yes in the comments below,
I wanna hear from you.
My team loves hearing from you.
We respond to every comment.
So comment below with a yes.
Ask any questions you have so far.
And if you haven't already smashed that Like button,
also if you are thinking through this stuff
on how to design your sales process
how to have a strategic narrative,
how to actually get more of a sales-driven model going,
be sure to check out my SaaS Go-to Market Coaching Program.
In it, we actually help you define your ICP
your strategic message.
I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video,
but let's go to principle number three.
Principle number three is once you've asked the why
you've really understood the customer
and you framed your message around the opportunity
and the transformation, that's the strategic narrative.
Then you wanna get into like, all right
a little bit more detail.
Now here's the thing.
These two thing, if you've got an hour meeting
these two things can easily take up forty-five minutes
if you're having a really quality conversation.
Quality conversations mean
they're talking about why this transformation is important.
Why the strategic narrative makes sense?
They're nodding.
They're like, Oh my God
they're asking questions
and really buying questions at this stage
or engagement corner.
These are not about, you know,
does the product do feature X?
It's never a feature discussion.
It's more of a transformation discussion.
So if you're at the 45 minute mark
and you're kinda like running out of time,
you're better off,
principle number three is
you're better off not going into a demo
but asking about next meeting saying,
"Hey, listen
I think there's a lot of alignment,
would love to set up a demo,
who else should be involved in this process,
in this transformation that we've talked about
so that we can actually dig deeper into the product
and see if there's a fit.
Cause what you don't wanna do
is actually go into a demo and it like runs over.
And then they're like, okay, cool.
I gotta run to my next meeting and have no next steps.
So you wanna always look at the time.
If we're at the 45 minute mark and an hour meeting
then start to think about next meeting and say,
"Hey we'd love to schedule a demo
and show you the platform and how this transformation works.
Who else should be involved?"
Who else part is super important
cause now you start to map out who are the people involved?
Who are the decision makers
or the users,
who's the champion?
They'll help you navigate the rest of your sales process.
Now let's just say you got through ask the why
and the narrative and you still have like 30 minutes to go
then you can get into a demo.
If they're like, "Hey, we wanna see a demo."
Then you can get into a demo.
But remember in this first conversation
especially for most of the sales calls
the more you talk about the transformation
the more you talk about their world
and less about features and more about the change
the more successful your sales process is gonna be.
Now, if you are jumping into a demo
there's a very specific way to actually run a demo.
I did an entire episode on how to craft a killer SaaS demo.
So you can check that out over here.
And that way you can dig into that as well.
You don't have to go right now.
I'll link to the video below.
So to re-cap these are your three principles.
If you're running a,
if you wanna run a killer SaaS sales call
you wanna make sure that you get that next meeting.
And yet your drive to a selling drive.
These incredibly size deals.
That's the whole point of a sales-driven model
instead of a self-service model.
You wanna make sure number one, ask the why.
Number two, you wanna make sure you frame the opportunity.
The link to the manifesto video will be down below.
You wanna make sure you then ask for next steps or a demo
and you wanna make sure you've met your budget for time.
If you wanna do a killer demo
I'll link to that below as well.
So those are my three principles
on having a killer SaaS sales call, super important,
super powerful, follow this method.
It works really well.
Now, you know how to do a skill of sales calls but
if you're trying to figure out what your overall
Go-To Market machine is gonna be.
If you're building that out, if you wanna scale it
if you wanna get your strategic narrative right,
then I invite you to join
my SaaS Guru Market Coaching program.
Inside of the coaching program
I give you a simple step-by-step framework to follow
along with my coaching
to build out your ICP, your strategic narrative
and then run your Go-To Market machine.
So you can actually get these meetings.
You can actually have these sales calls.
You can actually close deals,
and you can also if you wanna have a self-service aspect
of the business have that as well.
If you wanna learn more about it I invite you to join,
it's a simple application process
and then we get on a call
and we actually discuss if we're a good fit.
And then we figure it out, figure it out from there
just go to tkkader.com/gtm, tkkader.com/gtm.
I also link to it below.
If you got value from this video,
be sure to smash our Like button if you haven't already.
If you have a fellow founder
or team member that would get value from this video
salespeople that you know that should watch this video,
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I also drop a video like this
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When you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK, and I'll see you in the next episode.
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