👩🏻‍🏫 Krysten Conner’s Post

5 of the worst questions I've ever asked on Discovery call: 5/ Are you the Decision Maker? 4/ What keeps you up at night? 3/ So, what do you guys do? 2/ Where are you located? 1/ What's your Budget? Why they're bad: 5/ Puts them in a weird spot - who wants to admit it if they don't have power? 4/ Cliche. And asks them to educate us. We should come with a POV. 3/ Google-able. Easily. Makes us look lazy. 2/ See above. 1/ Too soon. Plus if the pain is big enough, they'll find budget. If you've asked these questions too, don't be too hard on yourself. We all have to learn. Many times, it's the hard way. What cringe-y questions did I miss? What's the worst question you've asked? p.s. You can get a pdf of the best Discovery questions I've collected over 11+ years in sales (and exactly How, Why & When to use them) ⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://bit.ly/3PdHiEG

I've had MANY extremely embarrassing moments in my sales career. Here are the top 3, in no particular order: --> I joined a team Zoom meeting with the camera on AS I WAS GETTING MY HAIR DONE. My head was like 70% foil at that point. (Context is that I was traveling like 80% of the time and frequently had to join team meetings remotely & while multi-tasking ... in airports, etc. But this one was the most... memorable.) --> I got into the wrong car while running late for an onsite. My boss (whose car I was supposed to be getting into), was directly behind us & saw everything. --> I left my work laptop on a plane and almost got tackled by a TSA agent when I tried to re-board the plane to go get it. If anyone saw that security camera footage 😆 So, if you've had a heckuva week, just know that there's very little you can't recover from. And if you've got some equally embarrassing stories, please do share. We could all use a laugh on a Friday.

If we don't know this 1 thing about our Buyers, we could be doing everything else right, and still lose deals without knowing why. Here it is--> Are our Buyers early adopters ('innovators'), or are they late adopters ('skeptics')? 🛑 I lost a lot of money trying to sell to skeptics the way I sold to innovators. I was scaring them. Ooops. Here's why: 🧐 Innovators think possibility. Skeptics think risk. ⏳ Innovators like to be the first. Skeptics like to see proof. 📊 Innovators want to democratize data. Skeptics want to lock it all down. There’s a LOT of success to be had in selling to Skeptics (financial services, public sector, health care, etc.). We just can’t treat them like Innovators. Skeptics do NOT want to go first. They want to see the proof from multiple Buyers who look as MUCH like them as possible. (Industry, size, region of the country, etc.) Use customer stories, Forbes/HBR articles and 3rd party reviews in your decks. And here's a BIG lesson I learned the hard way.... If you're at an early-stage startup & stay there 3-5 years, you'll go from talking with mostly Innovators to mostly Late Majority/Skeptics. It'll catch you by surprise if you're not expecting it. (And Innovator/Skeptic are not my terms/labels. These come from tech adoption studies - see the bell curve, etc. No offense meant here. I'm just the messenger 🙃) PS - For more help moving deals forward, join over 5,000 sellers getting free resources and my weekly newsletter. Sign up at krystenconner.com

After 11 years in sales, I've got good news for anyone who gets "Happy Ears" a lot. (btw, I spent the early years of my sales career battling that same thing) Luckily, a mentor shared their secret with me. Here it is: 3 questions + 1 rule for all Opportunities The Three Questions --> Why Anything --> Why Now --> Why Us The One Rule --> NONE of the answers can mention any of your product's features as the reason You can ONLY mention a product feature IF you know the outcome it creates or prevents. For a past deal at UserGems 💎 - this sounded like: --> WHY ANYTHING: Pipeline creation is strategic initiative #1 for Exec Buyer (RVP Sales) in 2024. They have an aggressive goal: 17% YoY increase --> WHY NOW: UserGems can be implemented in under 60 days (feature), which means there's still time to impact H2 pipe, and even H2 revenue (impact). --> WHY US: RVP knows that her biggest competitor started with UserGems last year & they are losing more deals than ever to this competitor. And the RVP's team has seen only 6% increase in ARR and 19% renewal churn. This is the data she's presenting to CFO as proof that 1) the strategy works & 2) there's a high risk of doing nothing. If we can't answer the 3 Why's - with metrics We need to quickly dive deeper with Discovery - or move on If we show our pipeline some tough love now, we can prevent a lot of pain from Happy Ears in the future.

Here are 2 ways to "test" our potential Champions early in the sales cycle. They're simple - and frequently overlooked. --> Ask our champion to kick off the call --> See if our champion assigns next steps Here's one way that can sound: "Emily, when we do the demo for the group on Wednesday, can I ask you to kick off that call? Nothing formal needed. Just letting folks know the value you've seen so far and why you asked them to join. And if you could quickly let them know your objective for the call. (To get a preliminary view on if this will improve the team's current process, etc.) That's it! Sound ok?" We also want to get them thinking about what comes next. And who should do what. Sounds like: "Emily, one more thing. Most of our clients have told us it's easiest to hand out assignments and schedule the next meeting before we get off the call. Saves everyone 20 emails. Could you be in charge of matching specific next steps to specific people? Whatever you'd like completed before the next meeting. (If it is no one’s baby, it is an orphan.) And then I'll make sure we get a next meeting date on the books before the call ends." They way they respond to these 2 questions will tell us a lot: --> Do they see enough Value to keep the evaluation going? --> Do they have enough Power to be a champion (or are they more of a coach)? WARNING: We gotta discuss these ahead of time with our potential champions. We can't blindside them with this. And if they balk at this, we probably haven't found the right champion. And no champion, no deal. How do you like to find Champions? How do you sort out Champions from coaches and fans?

I ended 1 quarter at 30% of my quota. I've ended quarters at 267% and 465% of my number. I followed my same sales process each time. I didn't change. Just the roller coaster of sales comes for us all. Easy for me to say that now. At the time, the 30% finish set off a bit of an existential crisis. Had I somehow forgotten how to sell? Had I never been good? Had I just gotten lucky? After the shock wore off, the determination set in. I got knocked down, but I refused to stay down. If this quarter was rough for you, you're not alone. You are more than your number. Your results don't define you. Feel the feelings. Then decide your next moves. PS - if you got hit with a PIP, you're not alone there either. So many sellers in the last few weeks have told me their orgs are getting way more aggressive with PIPs. The 5 things you should do immediately if you get put on a PIP will be in my newsletter this week. You can join 5,000 sellers & get a copy here: https://bit.ly/3zmWYjV

4 things I hate about being in sales: 1 ) Managers who value "activity" vs. metrics that actually matter.... wake up & smell the change - it's 2024, not 2018 2) Being pressured by 'leadership' to push for an EOQ deal - when that timeline is for us, not the Buyer 3) Old / icky slide decks that start with an "About Us" slide - no one gives a sh*t 4) The 'dark side of the moon': DocuSign sent but no one's responding What should #5 be?

That feeling when you reach out to your past Champion and instantly add $1,004,400 to your pipeline 👀 Old mindset: "Our customers are loyal. They come back to us when they change jobs." New Reality: 91% of past Buyers don't reach out to past vendors when they switch companies. ‼️ That's the data from the UserGems 💎 study of 5,000 deals. Buyers who haven't worked with us are highly risk-averse. Even more so in this market. Those deals move slowwww. Past Buyers are LESS risk averse. They already know / like / trust us. And they may be in new jobs - or gotten promoted! - and able to buy again. For an easy way to start reaching out to them, here are 7 pre-built playbooks: bit.ly/3Msx2pV

Going on maternity / paternity leave is not "underperformance." And it's absolutely not a reason to be put on a PIP. And yet... I've talked to 3 sellers in the past 2 weeks (AEs and SDR/BDRs) who were consistently exceeding quota before mat/pat leave ... and are now on PIPs for 'underperforming'. Because they got no quota relief when they became new parents. It's disgusting and infuriating. And also short sighted. Even if you toss out the moral issue, from a financial perspective, it's real dumb. You have someone who's made you money for the past year (or more), and you're going to push them out? And go through the cost (and risk) of hiring someone else, just hoping they'll be as talented / driven / consistent as the person you're letting go? Can someone explain that math to me? If you're a seller who's been placed on a PIP due to parental leave, DM me. I'll do what I can to help. And if you've seen a company who's doing parental leave well - especially for salespeople, shout them out. Always love to highlight teams and leaders who are treating people right. We have to do better as an industry - let's highlight some bright spots who are leading the way.