I help founders who sell, but aren't "sales"people. Are you open to one hyper actionable sales tip per week, useful for your very next sales meeting and consumable in 4 minutes or less?
107: Trust Your Gut
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Hey, 👋 Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 2 minutes. When it comes to an individual salesperson, any statistic-based advice is almost meaningless to you, so let the noise pass you by. Instead, learn by doing. Today we’ll cover:
Storytime About once a month, a seller I coach asks me for evidence on why I recommend a certain technique or why I recommend avoiding it. Often, they’ve done a quick Google or asked Chat about the topic, and the answer was the opposite of what I said. And I always tell them the same thing: Everything you see online (or in AI models) is based on statistical analysis and macro trends. That’s a scientific approach to sales. And that works for megacorporations and sales directors, but at the individual level, sales is an art. When Gong tells you: After analysing 2.3 million sales calls, that science says the best opening line is “Hey Name, how are you?” Does that really pass the gut check…? Of course, that opening line works when used in sales. You know who it works best on? Past clients, repeat customers, and anyone with a pre-existing relationship, i.e., not the deals that most sellers work on. Let’s flip this around to talk about the individual. For something to be statistically significant, there have to be thousands, or more, samples. At the absolute most, you’re probably having 783 sales meetings a year (3 meetings a day, 261 working days), which is starting to reach statistically significant numbers. But I’d guess it’s a lot less for those reading this newsletter. And that’s perfectly acceptable. Some of the most elite enterprise sellers I know close between 0-3 deals a YEAR and they’re absolute elite. So when my coachees ask me why I recommend, or don’t recommend, something, it’s always based on my gut and experience because sales is an art for the individual. And that those coachees need to listen to their gut more often. Relatively reliable sources If you insist on looking at statistics, here are a few sources I would (mostly) trust - given without additional context or qualifiers. And in no particular order:
How to Listen If you’re reading this and wondering, “Yeah, interesting, but how do I actually listen to (or trust) my gut instinct?” It’s super simple (not easy). Read, listen, watch, and consume as much as you want. Less is often more; hence, I say as much as you want, not as much as you can. (An elite seller I worked with in the 2010s never read anything about sales in his entire career, but that’s a story for another day.) Then, no matter how much you consume, make one change every day (or every sales meeting if you’re doing less than one a day). If you like the change, keep it for the next day or meeting. If you don’t like the change, stop doing it. If you start today and make just one change per working day, you’ll run ~200 experiments this year. Which means you’ll have made at least 50 absolute humdingers, and at least 50 solid changes (the other 100 will be somewhere in the middle). So by the end of the year, you’ll know what good and bad feel like. Either way, stop relying on statistics to save you; start trusting your gut. Until next week, PS Did someone forward you this email, and it seems like something you want more of: Link to subscribe​ PPS You can find the back catalogue here, all 100+ newsletters: https://thesalesmastermind.kit.com/​ |
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I help founders who sell, but aren't "sales"people. Are you open to one hyper actionable sales tip per week, useful for your very next sales meeting and consumable in 4 minutes or less?
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