Hi Friends,
Here is your end-of-the-week insight into what I see going on in the business world, what I’m thinking about, and what I’m learning about. Forward anything that you feel inspired to share. If this was forwarded to you and you found value, subscribe here for a weekly edition!
The excitement of the new year has given way to the reality that if you want to make 2025 a great year in sales, you have fewer than 11 months to do it! I imagine that is why this week, I had an influx of founders, executives, and sales professionals reach out to discuss their sales skills.
The majority of the conversations were about improving a skill, not all skills, to influence one of the key metrics in sales—sales cycle, win rate, average deal size. I found myself in all conversations discussing how the most important thing that a sales professional can do to influence the three metrics above is to get really good at building trust from the very first interaction.
Duh.
The trust-building framework I gave them was the following:
Preparation
Process
Professional
Perspective
Let’s tackle each of these.
The reality is that most salespeople underprepare. Thus, you can build trust by showing up prepared for the conversation. That means having your s$@! together. Knowing a bit about the person, the company, their industry, and a lot about your product. You should also have your tech tested and ready to go. If you are in person, you should have sent an email to understand parking, security, and tech availability (Wi-Fi password, connections in the room, etc.).
When you begin the meeting, you should be executing a process flawlessly. It should make the prospect feel like you have done it or practiced it a thousand times because of the ease with which you open the meeting (not because it seems robotic). A practiced professional puts prospects (darn, out of p words*) at ease.
* Editor’s note: PEACE! A practiced professional puts prospects at peace!
The preparation and process will give you a leg up on a prospect thinking you are professional, but the reality is, that stuff is easy. Once in the conversation, you need to show command of the material and command of the back and forth. You need to be ready to ask good questions and follow-ups and, more importantly, show that you are listening. Your language needs to reflect that you are locked in.
Finally, you need to have a perspective. What I mean is that you need to be able to articulate why the conversation makes sense for both parties and why it makes sense to continue. Most salespeople assume that after a call, the prospect “gets it.” They don’t tie up the conversation with perspective, and thus, they make the prospect do all the work after the call to connect the dots. This leads to longer sales cycles and lower win rates.
This advice may seem glib, but I promise you that if you embrace it, you will have better outcomes this year. If you want to have a deeper conversation about these concepts, reach out to any of us at Maestro.
What Made Me Laugh
One of my favorite memories of G (my son, for new readers) was when he got what he thought was a bad haircut. After it was done and he got into the car, he started crying. I, embodying my FOTY (Father of the Year) award that was given to me on a t-shirt on Father’s Day, calmly (read: losing my monkey s$@!) told him a haircut was no reason to cry. As I continued to speak to him, more and more calmly (read: completely the opposite of calmly), he finally had enough and said, “Maybe I shouldn’t be crying about my hair, but you know who should? You—you’re not fooling anyone with that combover!” I sat there in stunned silence by his ability to play the dozens! Respect you, man, respect. Anyway, want to laugh at pictures of haircuts we thought were the thing in the 80s and 90s? Check out this tweet.
“And all along, you were right there in front of me.” I am not sure if that is an actual quote from a movie, but if it isn’t, it should be. It would really express the sentiment I felt when I saw this tweet that shows “Pac-Man’s” safe spot. I have played this game for four decades (yikes), and I never knew that this was an actual thing. I thought it was just lucky that the pattern at that particular moment lined up so I didn’t get eaten. Who knew this was a thing????
Potpourri (shoutout to Jeopardy!) is a category that covers a variety of topics.
By this point, you know I love quotes. I am a sucker for an X thread that has a bunch of quotes. I never check the veracity of them if they inspire me. So, without any fact-checking (unless, Rachel, you felt compelled to go check all of these*) I link you to one of my favorite quote threads of the week. Which one is your favorite?
*Editor’s note: “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet just because there is a picture with a quote next to it.” – Abraham Lincoln
Earlier this week, Shaan Puri, in his 5 Tweet Tuesday newsletter, shared the banger below. I wrote the last sentence of the tweet to my son (a perpetual “a ‘B’ is good enough student,” just like his lifelong mediocre student dad.)
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Let me know what you think about this week’s edition of Fuentes Fridays. Which section was your favorite? How can I make this better? Shoot me a message on LinkedIn @willfuentes.
Until next week!
Thanks,