Patrick bestows us with some "out of the box" advice in addition to opening our eyes to a new perspective of sales. The 3 pieces of advice that he assures will differentiate a salesperson are:
To begin with number one, Patrick explains how it is no longer efficient enough for sales leaders to say, "yes, we do a demo training and my team is equipped and they are good salesmen". You must craft your niche and evangelize your company's category. Patrick believes in finding out and building the company's internal pillars, or values before going into the market. Questions he suggests asking internally are: How do we treat our clients? How do we treat our Account Executive's? How do we create a niche?
The next piece of advice is to make sure you are continuously trying to improve each day. One way to do this is by using LinkedIn and other social media platforms in order to break the ice between the salesperson and the potential customer. He suggests going online and answering questions you ask yourself such as, "What do you think? What're your problems? What're your customer's problems? What are you solving? What is your domain expertise? What are stories of different trends or things you've seen fail?". These questions will help you build thought leadership because every client that researches you can then look through and find your gems of good ideas. You can then actually have the potential customer read what you are thinking by posts on LinkedIn before the meeting takes place, which ultimately builds a familiarity upfront. This gives you a deal cycle that that's highly flexible, which is vital since the sales cycle is no longer linear.
Lastly, creativity, boldness, and the unexpected are far better client experiences than a filled request for proposal document or lengthy custom demo. Also, if you understand your company's positioning, your client's business, your product's vision, and your mind – you won't face competition. Patrick advises you to be bold and just trying everything possible, he says, "if you fail, you fail, nobody will actually see it, but the upside is unlimited. So I would recommend just try it, do it".
Patrick's bottom line is, your job is not just to show up and present software, your job is an integral role in the sales cycle. You must think and act out of the box in order to differentiate yourself and sway away from being "just the norm".
