Would you get your spouse a sales job?

Published: Wed, 11/16/22

November 16, 2022

TOGETHER WITH

Welcome back. Here’s hoping that none of you had your money invested with FTX, which collapsed last week in spectacular fashion. If so, then you better hit the phones hard today, but only after you finish reading this newsletter. In this week’s issue, we’ll look at how millennials are changing sales, share a Sales Fail about liking things on LinkedIn, and give some advice to a sales rep whose husband wants her to get him a job. Let’s go.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

Using the word “discount” decreases the odds of successfully closing a sale by 17%.

Source: Gong

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner, got his start in sales, selling trash bags (?) door-to-door so he could save up enough money to buy himself sneakers. Well, he recently shared the story of his first job, along with the 14-second pitch he used to bring in business. It’s not exactly game-changing, but it shows that even as a kid, Cuban had hustle. You can read about it here.
Everything in the news has been so serious lately – layoffs, elections, and a stock market that looks like a rollercoaster. That’s why this video of a door-to-door salesman slipping off his prospect’s stairs is just what the doctor ordered. Break the doom-and-gloom monotony and watch the short clip here.

FEATURE

blackandbrightph/Shutterstock.com

How Millennials Are Changing Sales

It seems that the days of closing deals over a cigar in a smoky back room or out on the back nine are coming to a close. Now, deals are being discussed over email, video calls, and even via texts (btw: we need a deal-closing emoji like yesterday).

According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, millennials, who are now the largest share of the U.S. workforce, now also hold the most decision-making roles in corporate buying. Millennials have already changed the workforce permanently in two ways: by creating more open work cultures, and by using the internet to do most of their product research and purchasing.

So how are millennials changing sales? Well, cold calls now often become texts. And those texts aren’t so cold either. Many millennial buyers do a great deal of online research before ever contacting a company about buying their product. In fact, at least half of business-to-business directors recently surveyed by Forrester said they usually researched the supplier’s company and reviews from other clients before even arranging a meeting.

Dale Taormino, a veteran saleswoman, says the way she pitches buyers has changed a lot throughout her career. Instead of cold calling and wooing executives, now, she operates like “more of a quarterback,” coordinating large teams of people on both the seller’s and buyer’s sides.

“The profile of who’s going to be successful in sales and what kind of skill set or acumen they have has definitely changed,” Ms. Taormino, vice president of sales at Chicago-based Vistex Inc., told The Wall Street Journal.

The method for building a funnel of prospective clients has essentially reversed, she says. Both parties go into negotiations with much more information and research than they’d have before. Many prospects find Vistex and its software products through online research and only then do they contact Vistex. Marketing and sales work together at many companies to discover what prospective buyers are looking for. Therefore, when Vistex does contact buyers first, they too are armed with knowledge.

“The way these buyers want to buy is now creating pretty significant challenges for selling organizations,” Mary Shea, who leads sales-technology research at sales-software company Outreach.io., told The Wall Street Journal.

Stephen Pacinelli is chief marketing officer at video-messaging service BombBomb. As a Gen Xer, he too has seen the changes in the sales industry over the years. When he started his sales career selling software in 2000, he was showing up unannounced at company offices with baked goods in hand. Now, his company is hosting virtual events where peers across the industry can learn from one another and share experiences, rather than be pitched BombBomb’s products. “That openness is more unique to millennials,” Pacinelli told The Wall Street Journal. “You have to be the antithesis of a webinar.”

TOGETHER WITH GONG

Gong analyzed hundreds of thousands of sales emails. Their AI-analysis revealed 39 persuasion techniques which they used to create these sales email templates. Get the cheat sheet and within seconds you’ll learn:

Power words: Use these 3 words as often as possible to boost your win rates. [see: email #1]
Fatal errors: Win rates drop an astounding 80% when salespeople make this crucial mistake. [see: email #5]
How to ask: For active opportunities, this type of call-to-action outperforms every other type of CTA. [see: email #6]

Plus 36 more persuasion techniques, clearly presented alongside 11 ready-to-use templates. Get the 11 Proven Sales Emails, Explained right here.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

QUIZ

In the 1987 movie Baby Boom, which product does the main character decide to sell?

A. Organic baby food
B. Baby strollers
C. Baby diapers
D. Software-as-a-service

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

I still can’t believe this actually happened to me but it really did. I sell SaaS (Account Executive) and most of our target customers are smaller startups. In some ways, this is good, because I’ve found it easier to get through to decision makers, but in some ways (as you’re about to find out) it can actually be bad.

So last year, when everybody was raising their big funding rounds, there was a company that I was pitching. They had just raised a nice seed round, and our product was a pretty good fit for them. I got through to the cofounder, who seemed nice enough but definitely took himself pretty seriously, and things were moving along. Great, right?

Well, at the same time I was pitching this company, I stumbled across one of their competitors. This happens a lot when you’re selling to early stage companies – you discover similar companies who might want to use your product too. It actually tends to work out quite well in a lot of cases.

So, like I usually do, I started interacting with both of these companies (which compete with each other) on LinkedIn. I wasn’t going over the top or anything, I was just liking their posts and commenting a few words on any big announcement. No big deal, right?

Well, I got an email from the first guy I talked to (the cofounder who took himself pretty seriously) which said that they were in direct competition with the other company, and that by “promoting them” (all I did was like a few posts), I was costing them money, so therefore, they wouldn’t be able to do any business with me or my firm “ever again.”

I honestly could not believe it – this had never, ever been a problem before. I think that cofounder is going to have a hard time succeeding in business if he’s that thin-skinned. But it’s still a Sales Fail!

Anonymous Location withheld

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: LinkedIn Poll -- November 2022

WORTH A PEEK

Sales books! Some of us can’t get enough. If you’re looking for a nice list of the 35 best sales books to read in 2022, Close has put together a solid lineup, which includes some best-sellers, and others you might not have seen before. You can check out the whole list here.

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

I’ve worked in sales for years. I absolutely love it and I couldn't picture myself doing anything else. I’ve been with the same company for about three years now, and recently got promoted to Director of Sales (Yay!). The company I work for is a 1500 person company, so it's definitely not small.

Here is the (really bizarre) problem: my husband, who is a wonderful man, also works in sales, but he’s really unhappy with his company. He complains about it constantly, and it’s been getting worse and worse for the last year or so. It’s almost unbearable to listen to now.

He’s interviewed at other places, and gotten a few offers, but there’s always something that he doesn’t like – the comp plan, the person he’ll be reporting to, the product, etc. Long story short, he hasn’t accepted anything yet, and now he wants me to get him an interview at my company.

He brought it up once a few months ago, and I kind of ignored it, but now he’s bringing it up constantly and asking me to get him in the door. I don’t think I can keep putting it off anymore.

The truth is I don’t want him working at my company. Not only is my job my personal domain, but it would also mean that not only would we live together, we’d be working together too. And I would not want to deal with the office politics of having a spouse who works with me. I can handle stress, but I can’t handle that type of stress.

How can I let him down without having him resent me? Should I lie? Or should I just be upfront about my reservations. Help!?

Reluctant on the East Coast

Dear Reluctant,

Well, this is definitely one we didn’t expect, but that doesn’t mean we won’t give it a try!

We definitely don’t blame you for wanting to keep work and home separate. After all, we usually go to one in order to get away from the other, and vice versa. So don’t feel like a terrible person for wanting your space.

What can you do?

Lying is a bad idea. It could backfire and create a whole host of problems that you might not even be considering.

The best thing to do is to tell the truth, in a kind and gentle way. Explain that you think there are too many things that could go wrong, and that you want this one part of your life to remain separate and that it’s very important to you.

And then, offer to use your big network (and the networks of people you know) to help him land a job that he’ll want. Offer to sit down and help him come up with a plan of attack. And remind him that you think he’s a “wonderful” person, as you said.

Honesty is almost always the best policy, especially when it comes to difficult conversations. If your husband understands how important this is to you, then he’s very likely to drop his requests. Good luck!

Quiz Answer: A - organic baby food

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Today's email was written by Ken Kupchik, Erica Furgiuele, Steve Rado, and Emily Hill.

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