Mike Montague, Sandler Training – InnovaBuzz 222
Mike Montague, Sandler Training
In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Mike Montague, who is the VP of Online Learning at Sandler Training. Mike and I connected through Seth Godin’s marketing community and I’m really looking forward to this chat today. He is also host of the How to Succeed Podcast and co-author of the book “LinkedIn the Sandler Way”.
In our discussion, Mike talked to me about:
- The three biggest limiting beliefs about sales and how to overcome them,
- The importance of qualifying hard first – determine if the person you are speaking with is your ideal client, and
- How closing the sale is all about the relationship you’ve built from the beginning and the information you’ve provided.
Listen to the podcast to find out more.
Listen to the Podcast
Successful sales people spend more time listening than talking. They get paid more for the information that they gather than the information they give or present to people. @MikeDMontague on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To Tweet
Show Notes from this episode with Mike Montague of Sandler Training
Key points and takeaways from this episode include:
- Use sales, marketing, and product, all at the same time to grow your business faster.
- Sales is a weird profession. If you do it right, you don’t see it.
- The most successful sales professionals are not the pushy ones. They are the ones who ask really good questions, who listen, and help people get to the right answers.
- Successful salespeople spend more time listening than talking. They get paid more for the information that they gather than the information they give or present to people.
- Your job in sales is not to convince people to buy. It is to qualify prospects for need and fit as to whether they have the money and the decision-making ability to buy your product and whether it is the right thing that they should do or not.
- Understanding that whole dynamic of the pain, solution, budget-making, and decision-making authority is where professional salespeople really bring value. It is all about figuring out how to match all these complicated moving parts to associate a solution in the simplest and easiest way possible for you and to the person buying.
- You will never know when you are going to find the right person so your no.1 job as a sales professional is to identify all those characteristics of the right client.
- If you are going to fight then fight upfront. Ask all of those questions up front rather than spending too much time guessing what the prospect wants. Ask those questions and prescribe one right solution in the end that they wouldn’t have any objection to.
- Ask the prospect what they are expecting first before presenting or sending over a proposal. Ask them what they are expecting before you give the answer.
- Discounting is a two-headed problem. First, it offends our prospects. Second, it ruins your business.
- The way to run a profitable business and love what you do for a living is to work with people who appreciate your value and will not be discounting your stuff all the time.
- Being excited and passionate about delivering your product or service and having that room and profit margins to go the extra mile for your clients are what grows a business.
- The moment you fire a client who’s not profitable saves you a ton of time that you can reinvest into somebody who does appreciate your service.
- A really profitable well-run company sends away more people than those it allows to come in.
- It is way more profitable to keep a client than it is to go find a new one.
Your job in sales is not to convince people to buy. It is to qualify prospects for need and fit. @MikeDMontague on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To Tweet
The Buzz – Our Innovation Round
Here are Mike’s’ answers to the questions of our Innovation round. Listen to the interview to get the full scoop.
- #1 thing to be more innovative – Give yourself room and space to be more innovative. It is when you give yourself that space to think, create, and do something better that innovation happens.
- Best thing for new ideas – Try a whole lot of stuff and be comfortable with failure. Nobody comes up with a brilliant innovative idea on the first try. As long as you don’t quit and you keep finding out new ways to make it work, that’s where innovation comes from.
- Favourite tool for innovation – Evernote, Podcasts, Podcast Addict
- Keep project / client on track – Check in and see how things are going before somebody else does. Be proactive instead of reactive.
- Differentiate – Be yourself and understand what your value is. Stop chasing your competitors. Don’t be a follower. Be a leader.
To Be a Leader
If you are going to be good then be good at it. Spend all of the time investing in your product or service and making it as good as humanly possible. It takes time, effort, dedication to be the best at your craft. If you’re going to do something, be good at it. As soon as you find what your core value is, go all in on that.
Reach Out
You can reach out and thank Mike through LinkedIn and on Twitter.
Suggested Guest
Mike suggested we have a conversation with Seth Godin on a future InnovaBuzz Podcast. So Seth, keep an eye on your inbox for an invitation from us to the InnovaBuzz podcast, courtesy of Mike Montague.
Links
- Website – Mike Montague
- Website – Sandler Training
- Twitter – @MikeDMontague
- How to Succeed Podcast
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Cool things about Mike
- He designed over 200 websites and blogs including several of the most visited sites in Kansas City.
- He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communication from Park University and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
- He’s also known as “Romeo” from Mix 93.3 and 105.1 Jack FM.