Champion Criteria + Clay Saving me HOURS a week

I didn't believe it till I saw it.

John Barrows
May 11, 2024

Helping elevate the people and profession of Sales by sharing authentic conversations, practical tips, expert advice, relevant tech and real-world lessons from my experience selling every day. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday.

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It isn’t getting any easier out there.

I’ve never been in a Sales environment where more deals slip and/or die even after seemingly doing everything right.

My updates this week are about me trying to deal with the exact same challenges so many of you are right now.

As always, let’s get better together and make it happen!

SALES FROM THE STREETS: Practicing what I preach (kind of)

TACTICAL TIPS: Define the word “Champion”

SALES TECH AND TOOLS: Clay for the win! (I am saving 10 hours a week in prep alone)

SALES FROM THE STREETS

Practicing what I preach (kind of)

I’ve been working on this huge deal for the past few months and thought I had it closed until the contract was pushed a few times and now I think I’m in trouble.

This is for a large rollout of my Negotiations training which is one of my favorite trainings to deliver.

For context, my Negotiation training is about creating a customized give/get JB Scorecard that you can use to objectively measure the health of any deal in your pipeline at any time. (sign up for my membership if you want to see how it works - use code ‘Newsletter’ for a 25% discount)

So, after going through a 3-month buying/selling process with this client and checking off most of the boxes (I thought) I got the verbal and sent over the contract.

I have an 80%+ close rate once it goes to the Contract stage so I was feeling pretty good about this one.

Then I got the “we need more time” email from my main point of contact who said the executive team wanted some additional ROI information before moving forward.

Yikes. That’s not a good sign.

My Champion reassured me that we were still good to go.

Then the next “we need more time” email came because the contract was going through the procurement process and they needed to set me up as a vendor which was taking longer than expected.

Doh! I should have addressed the procurement process earlier.

I got one more update letting me know we were going to miss the deadline for when they wanted to schedule the training so we would have to push it to next month.

I have a 3-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on a lot of things. If it happens once, no problem. If it happens twice, I start to get concerned and adjust my approach. If it happens three times I know I’m in trouble.

This was the third strike so I decided to look back through my notes and reflect on the deal.

As much as I try to practice what I preach with my training, I’m just like every other rep who gets busy and sometimes misses a few steps.

I try to use my own JB Scorecard on all my large deals but for some reason, I hadn’t been keeping it updated for this deal along the way. I have plenty of excuses based on how busy I am right now but that’s exactly what they are - excuses.

I decided to look back through the deal and update the ‘score.’ I realized I was in more trouble than I thought. The ‘score of the deal was 181 (gives) to 94 (gets). Obviously, the goal is to keep the score as equal as possible and this was far from it.

The scorecard highlighted that I missed a few key ‘gets’ that are usually key indicators of whether or not the deal will close.

Knowing I was in trouble I decided to take a chance.

I did a video screen share of the Scorecard I was using on the deal with this client as an example of my Negotiation training and how by using the Scorecard I knew I was in trouble.

It was a risk because it highlighted how I missed a few steps throughout the negotiation process. That’s not exactly great to admit when you’re trying to instill confidence in someone investing in your training.

With that, I’ve always lived in the world of reality, not the overpromised “sales pitch” or some hypothetical scenario. This is a real example of the real value of my training that I hope they can appreciate.

Stay tuned to the newsletter for more updates on this deal and whether or not I’m able to close it.

Wish me luck 🙂

TACTICAL TIPS

Define the word “Champion”

If you read the Sales From The Streets example above you saw me mention my “Champion.”

I hesitated to even use the word because I think “Champion” is one of the most overused words in Sales.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is critically important to find and develop multiple Champions throughout the sales process.

However, I think we need to make sure we all know what we’re talking about when we use the word Champion.

Most people use the word Champion because it makes them feel good even saying it. That “feeling” doesn’t usually pay the bills though.

I typically find there are two other types of people who most reps confuse as Champions.

Fans
- People who love our solution but have almost zero influence on the decision
Coaches
- People who help us through the process and tell us what we need to know but say things like “you didn’t hear it from me but…”

These are good people to know and engage with during the sales process for different reasons but they are not Champions.

Champions get shit done.

We don’t all have to have the same definition for a Champion but your organization and management team better have a clear understanding of what it means for you.

Your Tactical Tip for this week is to meet with your team and write out the characteristics of what Champion looks like for you and your org.

Here are some characteristics to get you started:

They can steal budget but don’t necessarily have to be the budget holder
They are part of the executive decision-making team or at least have a seat at the table when the decision is being made
They break the rules
They are focused on fixing the problem for the business, not just themselves
They can tell you what the real impact of the problem is
They are one of the people most affected by the problem
They can walk you through the details of what they’ve purchased before and know how they got it done

Create your checklist and look for these characteristics and actions next time you engage with whoever you think is your Champion.

SALES TECH/TOOLS -

Clay for the win!

I try to do 30 minutes of high-quality prospecting every morning to one of my Tier 1 accounts.

Here’s a LinkedIn post I did a while back showing the process I go through. (again, if you want training on this feel free to sign up for my membership. The price is $419 and includes everything but will be going up soon)

If you watch the video, you’ll see I don’t automate anything and only use LinkedIn and Google Docs.

I want to show people that you don’t need all these crazy tools and tech to be effective and consistent with high-quality prospecting.

That’s until I found out about Clay.com

Clay automates my research process and gives me the exact info I need to create highly tailored messaging.

It’s taken my research from 10-15 minutes down to 1 (I'm not even exaggerating this #).

Check out the video I made on How I Prospect Into My Tier 1 Accounts Using Clay. It will be the best 6 minutes you spend on YouTube this weekend.

I’m here to share the love.

If you want a copy of the table/access from the video above and want to save HOURS of prep time then go to this LI post and comment “Clay”.

We’ll make sure that you get all the info you need to get your setup done correctly.

For those of you who are already game to try Clay - use this link - and you’ll get bonus credits for signing up through this newsletter.

What boggles my mind is that this is only 1 of the many things that Clay can do. I’m working with their team to figure out how else I can save time or get more out of my effort.

I’ll be sharing all of my learnings here so stay tuned for more!

ADDITIONAL WAYS YOU CAN LEVEL UP YOUR SALES GAME

The JB Sales Membership is where you’ll get access to my live training, workshops, AMAs and OnDemand catalog so you can level up your sales skills every day! 2000+ Sales pros have already joined. Are you next?
The industry-leading Make it Happen Monday Podcast where you’ll get insights and inspiration from some of the most interesting and influential people in the world of Sales and business. (this is where you’ll hear the Guy Kawasaki episode on May XYZ)
The JB Sales YouTube channel with practical tips that you can apply immediately to drive results along with interviews and content that is guaranteed to get you to think differently.

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