Before I mastered sales strategy, being in a rock band taught me the power of discipline, feedback, and performance review—principles every sales pro needs now.
How a Rock Band Rehearsal Strategy Translates to B2B Sales Success
When I was 17, I started a rock-n-roll band. Even at that age, I forced my band to rehearse every day for four hours, but my bandmates were more interested in going out to the clubs. Because I wanted us to succeed, I forbade anyone in the band from missing practice. If you have seen the movie This Is Spinal Tap, that was our experience. One drummer had a drinking problem, so he was out. For one performance, another drummer was so wasted he fell over his drum kit. That event ended early. Over time, we became a headliner in the best club in Columbus, Ohio.
Eventually, one version of the band decided that if any single member knew a song, every other member had to learn it. By the end of the summer, we knew around 500 songs, including many that I didn't like. People would yell the names of the songs they wanted to hear, and we could play almost anything. Every weekend, we played four sets on Friday night and another four sets on Saturday night. After each gig, we talked about what worked, what didn't work, and if the planned setlist was in the best order.
Once we got rid of the alcohol, we became professional. When we approached our music from this new perspective, we elevated our performance. By practicing our craft and learning more songs, we could connect with our audience and keep them coming back. This was important because the only way we could headline week after week was by developing a relationship with the crowd.
Our post-gig debrief was an important tool to evaluate our performance, talk about what the audience wanted, and make adjustments to put on an even better show next time. By acting like professional musicians instead of a garage band, we could develop our shows to support our strategy. And we put specific practices in place to make sure we could continue to deliver for our audience, ourselves, and the clubs that booked us.
Sales Call Debriefing and Performance Review Strategy for B2B Revenue Growth
As salespeople, you and I only win deals when we provide our clients with the conversation they need—making this the same conversation we need. If you want to win more deals, you need to assess your performance after every conversation. Every person who masters their domain reviews their performance to eliminate sources of underperformance. In the case of sales, failing to provide the right leads to lost deals, missed revenue, and the disappearance of what might have been a large commission.
Many salespeople become so focused on what to do and say, they don’t consider what they should remove from their conversation. Think about it this way, if our band played songs that the audience didn’t care about—or even disliked—we would not have been able to succeed. By playing songs nobody wanted, we would miss our chance to instead perform the ones people were asking for. The sales conversation works the same way. If you are talking about things your client finds irrelevant or unhelpful, you waste their time and yours. To connect with your client, you must prepare to give them the information they need and want as they face a strategic decision. You cannot do this if you’re spending the meeting talking about other things.
Here is a list of things you may want to remove from your sales conversation:
- Questions you should know the answers to. When you fail to research the company and their industry, you waste everyone’s time and show that you are lazy. To prove you belong in the room where leaders are making a rare, strategic decision requires preparation. Before you ask your client a question, look for the answer on their website, company reports, and industry publications. If you don’t do the work, the client will find someone who will. Lazy salespeople cannot help with the important outcomes they need.
- Rapport building in your opening. When you open the conversation with 30 minutes of chitchat, you prove that you are self-oriented and unserious. Your client is not trying to make new friends; they are trying to find someone who can help them improve their results. Get to the important topics right away—an executive briefing is a great way to direct the early part of the conversation. After you’ve covered the relevant information and answered the client’s questions, if your contact is still with you, you may work on rapport building. It's best to let this develop naturally, which will happen when you prove yourself to be a valuable advisor.
- Leading or close-ended questions: Most salespeople know that open-ended questions are necessary for discovery. They help you learn about your client, but they also help the client explore something about themselves. Too often salespeople ask questions that point the client to a certain answer. This is bad form. You want your contact to blurt out, "That is a great question." Formulate questions so your contacts give you more information than they give to your competitors.
- Pitching way too early. If you start a conversation about your company, your clients, or your solution, you are pitching too early. Timing is everything, and if you get it wrong, you risk alienating your client or failing to get the right proposal in front of the right people. Begin your conversation with insights about the industry and deep questions that get at the root causes of the client’s problem. At the very end of the conversation, you can talk about your company, your solution, and your other clients.
- Client-led conversation. In today's B2B landscape, your clients and mine need an expert and authority. If they knew how to fix their problem, they wouldn’t need you to talk them through it. When you sit down with your client, build the conversation around what you know that the client does not. Good salespeople and advisors lead their clients through an analysis of their problem and potential solutions. Allowing the client to lead is a poor approach because they cannot find a path that leads to the outcomes they need. When you defer to the contact, you harm their results and yours.
There are many ways to improve your sales conversation, and reviewing your performance is the best place to start. What could you remove that would improve your conversation? When you strip out anything that fails to create value for the client, what relevant insights can you add?
The strategies in Elite Sales Strategies can help you understand how to use a modern sales methodology to give your clients the conversations they need.
