Start Selling w/ No Experience, Territory Mapping, and LinkedIn Outreach

Question 1

When you don’t have any sales related experience -  but strong in data analysis skills - how can you present yourself for an entry level tech sales role?

I speak to quite a few folks who don’t have a traditional sales background but want to get into tech sales.

It’s important to talk about the intangibles you can bring to the table.

1. Self-awareness + coachability - this is the most important quality of a salesperson, in my opinion. Speak about how your experience has enabled you to become self-aware and how you’re on an ongoing journey to learn and get better in your craft
2. Desire to break into tech sales. Have a strong “why”. For example, one of the best definitions of Sales I’ve heard is “serving by solving”. Try tying that into your “why”.
3. Conviction in what you do (and sell). Show them you’ve done the homework and due diligence on the product and competitive market. Speak to the fact that if you have conviction and belief in what you do and sell, it will allow you to succeed (and you’ll enjoy what you do in the end)
4. For you specifically, talk about how you can leverage data to provide insights to your prospects. In a ton of Sales roles you will have to use data and insights to provide a relevant Point of View to your customer.
   
   For example, my previous VP was quite adamant about this. He said a top quality of a seller is to analyze data, make a hypothesis and share with your customer.

We did this at our company. We analyzed customers’  usage of the free version of our product and shared a Point of View. It helped guide a thoughtful and relevant conversation.

Question 2

Salman, I recently joined a company as a Sr.SDR.. Since the product is new to me and I need to ramp up fast, what best practices shall I start in terms of territory mapping and discovery?

I would recommend you put the product to the side and focus on your persona + problems they face.

• Who are the personas / job titles you will be speaking to on a daily basis
• What are the most common problems they face on a daily basis (keep in mind, these are problems, NOT capabilities)

E.g. Capability - centralize siloed customer data in one place

E.g. PROBLEM - customer data is scattered across a dozen different systems and it’s difficult to access

• What’s the typical impact of said problem on the persona, their team and the org
• What are the KPIs and/or metrics these personas are typically measured on

Put this all in a chart for each persona and it will help guide every conversation you have. Whether it’s on your cold call, a cold email or an LI direct message. It’s about speaking your prospects language - which are the problems they are facing on a day to day basis.

That’s what they care about. Not your solution.

Question 3

Any advice on how to get prospects to connect with you on LinkedIn? Messaging tips?

I’d recommend you:

• Engage with their connect if they are posting
• Like their comment here and there if they comment (don’t do it for every comment)
• Visit their profile (they may see you have visited)
• Send them a connection request at some point (either a blank connection request or send them a connection request a day or two after you’ve sent them an email)
• Anthony Natoli has a good tip where you send a personalized Linkedin connection request that says something like, “sent you an email yesterday and just wanted to put a face to the name.”
• When you send a Linkedin DM as part of your multichannel prospecting strategy (because you should engage via phone, email and Linkedin) make sure your DM is short, concise and to the point.
• Ideally DMs should be less than 50 words and should point them to the email you had already sent them
• Remember to share some sort of observation and a problem statement, followed by a thought provoking question or a short value add statement
• Remember the key is to ensure you don’t make your multichannel prospecting strategy annoying… be professionally consistent and persistent, but never annoying

Thanks for tuning in!

Please don’t forget to submit your questions that you want answered.

See you next week!