Insights Gained From The Lion of Inbound Sales
I’ve always felt that learning new things is so much easier when the method is presented in a clear, relatable way — especially when it’s delivered in an engaging environment surrounded by like-minded and experienced peers who are in the trenches with you.
As a UX strategist, I’m all about the experience of the people using the products we design — it was very clear that my most recent learning experience was designed with the student experience in mind.
I had the opportunity to participate in Dan Tyre’s Hubspot Agency Partner Pipeline Generation Bootcamp.
Dan is employee #6 at HubSpot, sales director, the senior sales coach at HubSpot, and so much more.
His program is 8 weeks of in-depth content tailored specifically to HubSpot partners interested in learning new skills that will help them connect with more prospects, generate more opportunities and close more deals.
Here are 5 takeaways from my experience in Dan’s Pipeline Generation Bootcamp.
1. Learn What Motivates You & Document It
Motivation comes in various ways for people. Finding out what motivates you, particularly as a salesperson dealing with call after call and not moving the needle.
So how do you get back up once you’ve been knocked down? One way is to remind yourself of your goals, the reasons why you opened your business or the difference you’re trying to make in the world.
Personally, my goals are centered around making a difference in the lives of the people I work with and creating opportunities for people to support their families, reach their goals, and live a fulfilling life.
A few ways I’ve learned to deal when motivation is lacking:
- Making it a competition with yourself and/or your co-workers
- Focusing on the thrill of landing a new deal or increasing the budget of an existing one
- Celebrating the small wins even if they don’t move the needle (it feels good to win at any level)
If you spend as much time as I do focusing on how to improve your skill set and/or your business you’ve probably heard of a vision board, maybe you’ve even created one and tucked it away somewhere. Once you’ve figured out what keeps you motivated, bring it all together on a vision board and put it where you’ll see it every day, throughout the day. Better yet, make it the background of your computer or phone screen, you’ll thank me later.
According to Dan Tyre, "You are what you feed your brain," so feed it well.
2. It’s Easier & Less Scary Than It Looks
The truth is I was hesitant to pick up the phone, but I couldn’t tell you why.
Was it the fear of rejection?... Maybe it was just anxiety?
Whatever it was I had to figure out how to get past it.
And, guess what… it was a lot easier than it looked when I actually jumped in and got it done.
Taking a step back to acknowledge all the technology we have designed to keep us connected, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when pondering how disconnected we’ve become in today’s society. But that’s a conversation for another time.
I’m sure you’re wondering why I mentioned the lack of connection and how it relates to sales?
Well, people want to do business with people and email, texts, and social media messages can’t relay emotion (not even with emoji’s) the way a human voice and a smiling face delivering a personalized message can. Ask Dan and he’ll agree, an empathetic conversation and/or video will always be more effective than an email or text.
3. Get To Know Yourself & Your Prospects Better, Take a Personality Test
Dan Tyre is an advocate of the DISC assessment, which stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. This assessment offers perspective on and identifies how you best interact with others based on the traits of your unique personality. Providing a common understanding of our personalities, the DISC assessment helps improve conflict management, build lasting working relationships and develop stronger sales skills.
Learn more about the DISC Personality Profiles here.
Improve your sales by using personality assessments, such as the DISC, to reveal insights you can use to better understand prospects and tailor your approach when you’re ready to start a conversation. Get it right and they’ll feel like you’re reading their mind. Do it enough and your skills will get stronger, conversations will feel more natural, and you’ll be perceived as an empathetic guide ultimately creating the perfect environment to close more deals.
If you’re wondering how to get these insights on your prospects, there are a few solid AI software options out there that use the DISC to determine personality traits based on publicly available data — we really like Crystal — but please research what’s available and determine what works best for you.
I’ve got to add that I am a true believer in personality tests. In my experience, they provide so much value when attempting to better understand yourself and grow. This is especially true if you find yourself reflecting on past situations and having a hard time pinpointing the “why”.
Do yourself a favor and take as many as you can — find what helps you the best and use them as a tool when hiring new team members, entering new partnerships, and even in your personal relationships. Trust that they’ll help you set your life and your business on the path to success.
4. Never, Ever Pitch
The first rule of inbound sales is… drumroll, please…
Don’t pitch.
The idea behind this concept negates the age-old “always be closing” mindset in favor of the foundational inbound mindset of “always be helping”. This approach seeks to better understand your prospect’s challenges and goals enabling you to provide value that will help them grow their business in the long run.
Adopting an empathetic position lets your prospect know that you are trying to understand their challenges, help them to overcome these challenges and achieve their goals with confidence. This is a key point to building long-lasting rapport and trust during the initial stages of your relationship with new prospects.
Additionally, during this time it’s important to offer your prospect valuable advice that they can implement with relative ease leading to small, yet impactful wins. This tactic is called the “give and get” — the idea is you’ve got to give them something in order to receive something.
These small golden nuggets can lead to big payoffs if your product or service is the right solution for your prospect. This tactic also serves to position you as an authority in your space… muy importante (very important for the non-spanish speakers) if you actually want to advance and close the deal.
5. Tell Prospects They Should Not Do Business With You
Counter-intuitive? Nope.
Let me explain.
By consistently finding reasons for the prospect to not do business with you, you’re encouraging only the best-fit prospects to move forward. This will minimize the chance of spending countless hours engaging with those who are not truly looking to improve their situation and grow.
A big part of providing real value to your prospects is knowing who to engage with and when to refer them to another solution and walk away. Referring them to another solution and walking away serves 2 purposes:
- It will free up time to connect with people who are actively looking for an opportunity to grow and most likely a better fit for your product or service.
- It will show them that you truly care and are acting in their best interest.
A somewhat hidden benefit of this tactic is the application of scarcity — in other words — the less available your solutions are to the masses, the more people will want it. You’re probably already using scarcity in your marketing strategy, but if you’re not, then you should because it works. Scarcity adds an emotional root of desire to your solution, even if your prospect doesn’t want it, they’ll likely work that much harder to get it and maybe, on the rare occasion they’ll qualify themselves as a great fit.
Closing Thoughts
In just a few short years the inbound methodology to marketing, sales, and service has changed the way we do business — adopting this approach has been proven to accelerate growth for brands around the world.
The ability to accurately diagnose the challenges businesses are facing and assess proper fit when entering a new relationship with a prospect means we’re no longer trying to cram a square peg into a round hole with predefined solutions that don’t fit the needs of prospective customers. Having authentic and genuine conversations where prospects feel understood and heard is the real key to accelerated growth for your business and those you can help.
It’s really important to remember that people do business with people. Taking a conversational, human-centered approach and actually listening when engaging with prospects will establish rapport early on and promote deeper, long-lasting relationships that are built on trust with those whom your product or service can really help.
These lessons from Dan’s Pipeline Generation Bootcamp gave us the ability to evaluate our sales process with a mindset focused on helping rather than pitching. The tools that were shared with our group help us truly understand our prospects and assess their needs with intelligence and authenticity in the most human-centered way possible. I hope you see the value in these 5 takeaways and that they inspire you to reevaluate your current sales processes or even better, the way you do business.
And if you’re a fellow lion, please don’t hesitate to connect with me. Go PGB lions!
