Don't let this torch your business

Happy Fourth of July to all of you in the US 🇺🇸 

But now it’s the 5th… and it is time to close deals and get ahead of this quarter’s sales quotas. We teach you three sales challenges, how you can rise above them, and how a major tech giant did the same.

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👇 Today’s Briefing

• Insight: Conquering the Top 3 Sales Challenges 💪

• Story: Don’t Let THIS Torch Your Business 🔥

• Action: Map Your Customer's Journey Like a Boss 🗺️

INSIGHT

Conquering the Top 3 Sales Challenges 💪

As a veteran in the world of sales, I've identified the three most critical challenges that salespeople face today:

1. Not getting enough leads: Sales people often struggle with generating a sufficient number of quality leads. It’s not just about having leads, but having the right type of leads in your pipeline.

2. Lack of a coherent strategy: You should know how to properly assess if the lead is qualified and how to take someone from a low level of certainty to being highly certain that you, your product, and your company are the right choice for them.

3. Not closing enough deals: The final major struggle is not being able to close deals at a high enough rate. This relates to the ability to increase one's closing percentage and convert qualified leads into actual sales.

These barriers, if not confronted with the determination of a cock-blocked frat boy, can blue-ball your success.

Here’s how IBM conquered all three…

STORY

Don’t Let This Torch Your Business: The IBM Story 🔥

Between 1990 and 1993, IBM went from having its most profitable year to losing $16 Billion dollars, thanks to a rapidly changing computer industry.

Lou Gerstner joined as CEO in 1993, becoming the first outsider to lead the company. He spotted the top 3 sales problems, worked his ass off, and eventually solved them all. Here’s how:

Problem 1: IBM was struggling to generate quality leads in the changing tech landscape.

Solution 1: IBM pivoted from selling hardware to offering solutions, targeting C-level executives instead of IT managers.

Under Lou Gerstner's leadership, IBM transformed its approach to address declining lead quality in the tech industry. The company shifted from selling hardware to offering comprehensive business solutions, targeting C-level executives instead of IT managers.

This pivot required retraining sales teams, developing industry-specific expertise, and restructuring around solutions rather than products. By emphasizing integrated services and positioning itself as a strategic partner, IBM successfully generated higher-quality leads and reinvented itself for the evolving business technology landscape.

Problem 2: IBM's sales force was fragmented, with no unified approach.

Solution 2: Gerstner implemented the “One IBM Initiative," unifying the sales strategy to focus on solutions rather than products.

Gerstner declared to the board, "From now on, we're not selling products. We're selling IBM." To execute this vision, he invested heavily in retraining the sales force, equipping them to articulate the value of integrated solutions effectively.

This unified approach aimed to guide prospects from uncertainty to confidence in IBM's offerings, positioning the company as a holistic solution provider rather than a mere product vendor.

Problem 3: IBM's close rates were plummeting.

Solution 3: Gerstner revamped sales culture and compensation to reward solution-based over product-based sales.

This motivates salespeople to understand customer needs and provide tailored solutions, significantly boosting close rates. Little does Lou know, addressing these three challenges will launch IBM from suspected tech dinosaur to king of the IT services world.

The company goes on to become a global leader in business solutions and cloud computing.

Not only did he diagnose the problems, but he executed quickly on them:

"Execution is really the critical part of a successful strategy. Getting it done, getting it done right, getting it done better than the next person is far more important than dreaming up new visions of the future.”

Key takeaway: Under Gerstner's leadership, IBM returned to profitability by 1995 and transformed into a leader in IT services, addressing key challenges in lead generation, sales strategy, and closing deals.

ACTION

Optimize Your Sales Compensation Strategy💰

Transform your sales compensation structure to drive performance and align with your solution-based approach. Here's how:

1. Design a Comprehensive Compensation Package: Develop a multi-tiered system more stacked than Pamela Anderson, featuring a base salary that doesn't suck, and long-term incentives linked to customer retention.

2. Implement Team-Based Incentives: Create shared goals and offer group bonuses to foster collaboration. Develop an inter-departmental profit-sharing model for large, complex deals to encourage cross-functional teamwork.

3. Introduce a "Solution Innovation" Program: Launch a quarterly contest rewarding teams for developing innovative, high-value solutions. Offer prizes big enough to make a stripper consider a career change.

4. Enhance Peer Recognition: Set up a system where they can pat each other on the back without HR getting involved. Incentivize knowledge sharing and mentoring to build a stronger, more skilled sales force.

5. Refine Performance Metrics: Balance your compensation plan with both financial and strategic KPIs. Ensure your metrics capture the full value of solution-based sales, including long-term customer value and market penetration.

A well-crafted strategy will motivate your team to excel in solution selling, driving growth like they're in a stolen Ferrari.

Memes of the Week 🤣 

Bite-Sized Reads 📚

[Read] Lou Gerstner: “It isn’t a question of whether elephants can prevail over ants. It’s a question of whether a particular elephant can dance. If it can, the ants must leave the dance floor.”

[Read] Jordan Belfort: “You must take immediate of control the sale.”

[Read] Harvard Business Review: “How did a company that had lagged behind every computer trend since the mainframe catch the Internet wave—a wave that even Bill Gates and Microsoft originally missed?”

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Publisher: Jordan Belfort

Editors in Chief: Brock Swinson and Davis Richardson

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly for educational purposes and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.