Augmenting > Automating | The Transaction Ep. 4

We’ve got a great episode with John Barrows for you and so much more!

The Transaction

Apr 04, 2024

Welcome to this edition of The Transaction Newsletter! We’ve got a great episode for you and so much more.

Here’s what’s on deck this week:

The “Go Big or Go Home” event strategy
The early stage mega-deal: is it the best thing for your business?
What Craig’s Reading
Latest Episode: Back to The Fundamentals of Sales with John Barrows

Did someone forward you this newsletter? I’m sorry about that, but since you’re here, you might as well subscribe…

The “Go Big or Go Home” event strategy

Maria Pergolino: "At the end of the trade show attendees are going to remember 1-2 experiences, your job is to be one of them". Yes, people are going back to physical events but you can’t just post up a booth and expect success. The Mac Reddin episode “The Power of Chicken Wings” has been a reminder/inspiration that you have to think big. Here is another one I love - when Salesloft hired a Marc Benioff impersonator at Dreamforce.

The early stage mega-deal: is it the best thing for your business?

David Politis also brings this up in his Start Up Founder Startup Guide - taking the big enterprise deal is not as obvious of a no-brainer as it seems. In this LinkedIn post, Scott Albro lays out the plus and minuses including his personal experiences. The answer? “It depends.”

What Craig’s Reading

Burn Book by Kara Swisher. It’s a New York Times bestseller so I don’t really have to say “it’s a great book” but it is. Kara shares insight into her life in tech and her interactions with the famous tech leaders of our time. Easy read - one flight to NYC and you are done.

Latest Episode: Back to The Fundamentals of Sales with John Barrows - Episode 4

Joining Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson is John Barrows, the CEO of JB Sales and Author of I Want To Be In Sales When I Grow Up. John outlines what led to the current poor performance amongst sales reps and what leaders can do about it to increase performance today and in the long run. They also get into why buyers dread demos, whether marketers should control all of the messaging from sales, and how smart sellers will approach incorporating AI into their workflows.

Also, Craig tells a story about sending around a slide deck and Matt showcases the latest improvement to the production value of the show: the Clapper.

Takeaways:

Sales success is more achievable through repeatable processes than through unreliable shortcuts.
Encourage personalized and relevant outreach: Teach sales reps to conduct thorough research before outreach, making every interaction as relevant and personalized as possible.
Highlight the importance of business understanding: Sales reps must develop a deeper grasp of the customer's business landscape, priorities, and challenges for more effective positioning of solutions.
Use AI to augment human efforts in sales, especially for research and personalization, but don’t try to automate humans out of the process. Augmenting > Automating

Chapters:

00:00 - Matt Applauds Today’s Guest
02:59 - The Golden Age of Sales and Its Pitfalls
10:38 - The Role of Hard Work in Sales Success
22:56 - Fixing The Crisis in Sales
31:32 - Applying Design Thinking to Sales
36:59 - Demystifying the Dreaded Demo
44:29 - The Impact of Research and Preparation
47:24 - The Role of Experience and Empathy in Sales
51:37 - Addressing the Generational Shift in Sales Practices

Quote of the Show:

“The quantity game is over” - John Barrows

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