Channel Partners Expo keynoters on Day 3 looked at how to sell – and how not to sell – to CIOs.
Matthew Toth of C3 Technology Advisors kicked off the morning session with his “The five best sales tips you’ll ever hear” for trusted advisors (TAs).
Here they are:
- Start with gratitude
- Get rid of distractions
- Put your real background on
- Practice your pitch
- Repeat, repeat, repeat
Let’s drill down on a few.
Gratitude -- Toth said to make a list of people you’re grateful for and get it out once a week. “Put yourself in a mindset of someone who is grateful, because you know what? That’s a better version of you. A grateful version of you is the best version of you,” he said.
No distractions – “Multi-tasking is a myth,” he said. “It's like unicorns and balanced government budgets. They don’t exist.”
Practice, practice, practice – “Practice your pitch,” he said. “Most people's pitches suck. You need to be better at your pitch. Think about this, whether you're Michael Jordan or whether you're the number one golfer the world, Scottie Scheffler, these people practice their craft every single day. The best in our business, in any business, are practicing every day. When is last time you practiced your pitch in front of a CIO?”
Toth wasn’t the only expert to dispense sales advice Wednesday. CIOs Gary Sorrentino of Zoom and Michael Archuleta of Mt. San Rafael Hospital and Clinics looked at sales form the other side in “The top challenges facing today’s leading CIOs” session.
Sorentino had his own rules for TAs who want to sell to him:
- Don’t ask about his business because you should do that research before approaching him.
- Don’t show logo slides because what works for other companies may not work for Zoom.
- No buzzwords.
“Do the work, understand our business,” he said. “Don't talk about UCaaS, CCaaS, those are great keywords, but I can't take you to my business if you’re going to talk like that because my business people are going say ‘Gary, do I need to bring a dictionary, because they're using all these words I don't understand?’
“And learn storytelling. Understand the business, engage us. There's nothing worse than having that sales conversation. Tell a story: ‘Here's what we've done to make other companies successful. Here's the other ways that we're looking at it.’’’
Archuleta had his own set of no-nos.
“Cold calling is the worst,” he said. “Slide shows are also the worst sometimes, and so is word salad, individuals speaking and speaking sometimes really gets annoying.”