Inside Sales Telesales Tips Blog

Want a $100 million deal? Here's how to do it.

  

  

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Mark Mantel is a salesperson that attended my inside sales training course a few years ago, and earlier this year, he closed a $100 million dollar transaction. I asked him what sales techniques he used that most contributed to his success in this transaction, and here's what he told me. It's slightly longer than two pages, but well worth reading. Do you think you might want to replicate some of them? Here's what he says:

Hi Geoff,

The best place to start for me is philosophy before getting into "blocking and tackling drills." I know that I have to stay humble, or nothing good will happen that day. Staying humble means that I do not know more than anyone else. If I have that understanding odds are better that I will focus on the prospect/customer as opposed to myself. Conversation flows better, and my ego is not in the way. This actually leads to a very interesting dynamic...a customer's ego can close a sale. Ego can be an individual dynamic or a group energy. People like to be experts and leaders, and they talk more when they feel you consider them one.

The 5 practices you list are an excellent guideline for each day:

• Contact skills. If you can't reach a real person, you can't ask qualification questions, or make a sale. This element focuses primarily on contacting people high on the decision chain.
• Questioning skills. How do you ask every question you'll need to ask in order to fully qualify the prospect, and do it in 10 minutes or fewer? And how do you do it on the first call? This is the essential skillset needed to determine your prospect's business need, and return-on-investment requirements.
• Closing skills. No trickery here. We teach you to frame the solution to make functional and economic sense within the technology and business mindset of the prospect.
• Constructing skills. In enterprise selling, understanding, then charting both the decision, and the sign-off chains of command is critical to the business at hand, and future business as well. We teach you to ask the questions that will enable you to draw a line from your contact directly up to the CEO, and be able to identify everyone in that chain.
• Objection handling skills. Superior questioning skills are the critical element to understanding roadblocks the prospect may unveil during the closing process. Here, we'll discuss the most common objections, and provide specific answered customized to your company's solution.
• When working large sales contact skills take on a dynamic that can be complicated. There are politics, budgets, previous employers, other divisions, and so much more. Understanding how to get to the right people, then when and when NOT TO put them together is an art.

Sales do not succeed if questioning is not a part of my vocabulary. If I am speaking I am buying, if they are speaking...

It is my experience that closing can go significantly faster if people focus on getting basic information early... Requirements, Scope, Decision Process, Time Line, Business Consequences, and Budget. If this information is gathered accurately and early, closing falls into place much easier.

Constructing skills are essential in high dollar value sales. A simple example from your training is the #0 on voicemail....still use it today.

Objection handling skills are a high priority. How many people that you know list all objections they get, then chart out answers? If all the employees were required to handle each objection with the exact same answer think of how powerful that would be? Our group did that for the launch of this product. Additionally, we all agreed to do the first hour of every meeting the exact same way...sure does help when you have to jump a plane and fill in for a colleague. A succinct and strong message universally is powerful.

I guess my response to you is that I stick to the basics. Some additional things:

• Read about your industry...research, breakthroughs, competitors, etc....become an expert.
• Read! It helps to keep the vocabulary sharp.
• Always attend sales training...every year set a calendar and do it!
• Present to colleagues regularly.
• Keep in touch with people in the industry.
• Keep your enemies close.
• Talk with customers on a regular basis to learn their perspective on you, the product, competitors, etc.

     - Mark

P.S.  On that concept, $100,000,000 sales do not happen individually. Large teams with many individual contributions close sales of that size. I was a part of a team. Some titles involved in my large sale:

• VP of Sales
• Sales
• Research
• President of Division
• Network Specialist
• Product Development
• Publishing
• Project Management

OK, it's Geoff here, again. So that's the story of Mark's big sale, and how he and his team accomplished it. He's very good about spreading the credit around his company, too, which is one of the superior team communication skills he has as well. Because he credits others, I'll bet everyone in his company loves working with him. All of you can take Mark's example, use the sales techniques he recommends, and go out and develop an enterprise transaction like this yourself. And you can: Another rep I trained got a $1 million commission check one day. He celebrated by buying himself a motorcycle and traveling around North America for a year. And when he returned, his company welcomed him back! So break your own personal transaction size record this year, use these sales techniques, and add them to your Best Practices playbook.