I’ve sincerely cherished the opportunity to share my insights with you through the CxO Sales Playbook newsletter.

The feedback, communications, and discussions we’ve had have been incredibly illuminating, and it brings me great joy to witness each of you notch up more victories.

Here, I’ve consolidated 3 key concepts I’ve covered over the past few weeks that can have an exponential impact on your sales performance and culture.

If this resonates with you, Subscribe to the CXO Sales Playbook Newsletter. 

Every week, I’ll share 1 actionable tip to get your sales teams to over-deliver and quickly move deals over the line even in a slow economy. 

Let’s dive in,

1. Cultivating a Customer-Centric Culture

In a significant number of organizations, the corporate machinery has grown overly intricate, internal and incestuous. 

Excessive processes, controls, compliance checks, and layers of approval have turned businesses to become more inward-focused, often at the expense of their customers.

A future-ready sales organization needs to pivot away from this model and invest in building a customer-centric culture. 

This implies a shift from an internal, process and compliance-driven focus to one that emphasizes creating memorable customer experiences. 

To accomplish this, companies must develop keen insights into their customers’ risks and aspirations, their competition’s strategies and weaknesses, and internal factors like cross-group collaboration and empowerment.

2.  A Framework for Powerful & Persuasive Client Conversation

The sophistication of the Universal Preparation framework lies in its simplicity.

Every powerful customer meeting is 3 parts preparation, 1 part execution. 

When you think about preparation, we use the UPF to break it down into 5 essential components:

What do they have “too much” of?

It’s crucial for you to identify the excesses in your customer’s current scenario.

What do they have “too little” of?

Is there a deficiency in teaming that is creating silos? Is there too little confidence within the leadership to embark on a large-scale digital transformation?

What should “go up” for them? 

Here is where you identify the KPIs and new growth benchmarks.

What should “come down” for them?

This component involves identifying what needs to be reduced or eliminated.

What should “accelerate” for them?

Finally, identify the areas where speed is of the essence.

This is useful not only in sales, but this structure is also a powerful exercise for self-awareness and evaluation.

3.  2 Feedback Models to Cultivate a High-Performance Sales Culture

Feedback is crucial for growth and improvement, but many people have not been taught how to provide or receive feedback effectively.

There are 2 primary models to provide feedback: 

#1. O-I-R (Observation, Impact, and Reinforcement/Redirection)

Here is an example, 

Situation: A Meeting with a Client.

I observed that you asked a number of powerful questions to the customer during the meeting. 

The impact that it had is that it made the customer think, and that framed us as a partner. I could see their respect for you went up. 

Please build on top of this behavior because it’s going to be a game-changer. 

#2. S-B-I (Situation, Behavior, Impact)

Here is an example,

Situation: Discussion with clients

Behavior: You talked a lot and didn’t give the client a chance to speak.

Impact: It shut down the customer. 

“What could you do differently for you to practice brevity to get more customer engagement?”

Try both models and identify which one resonates most with your team members. 

It’s your responsibility as a manager to provide what we call actionable and precise feedback.

These 3 insights from the CxO playbook can have a multiplier effect on your pipeline, team effectiveness, and win rate. 

Was it helpful?

If this resonates with you, 

Subscribe to the CXO Sales Playbook Newsletter. 

Every week, I’ll share 1 actionable tip to get your sales teams to overdeliver and quickly move deals over the line even in a slow economy.