00:01 Introducing Liz Heiman
00:02 Liz gave us a glimpse of her extraordinary journey with her father, Stephen Heiman, who is a phenomenon in Sales and Marketing. He developed a methodology called “Conceptual SellingÒ”with Robert Miller. The Miller Heiman sales process is based on the concept of the solution as a whole rather than on a specific product or service. (https://lucidchart.com/blog/miller-heiman-sales-process)
03:52 How do you explain the customer journey? What are the things buyers might be looking up at different points during the journey?
04:02 Let’s take a step back and observe how we do the sales process double: usually, we look at our product and analyze the process from our angle. However, in this way, salespeople often overlook or miss what the buyer needs. We need to deliver the right information at the right time and the right customer journey stage.
06:00 What is the business-to-business complex sale?
The buying process has many stakeholders at varying levels of decision-making authority. Most of the time, the person searching for a solution or a product is not the decision-maker. Therefore, we need to address the questions or concerns coming from everyone involved in purchasing the product. As a result, we create content for the people who search and those who have the last word for confirming the sales and buying the product.
Unfortunately, if we do not create content for all of the parties involved in the sales process, we lose them.
08:34 What customers want is to understand their pain points from their point of view.
13:25 Can you explain the importance of empathy in the sales process?
Before talking about empathy, let’s take a step back and focus on the concept of ideal customer /persona creation. As a person who has a background in sales, Liz doesn’t prefer the idea of minimizing customers into personas or profiles. Because there is no ideal situation as described in those persona profiles in the real world. You have many people that you need to communicate within the real world before finalizing the sales. Each one’s needs are different, and each looks at your product from their angle. That means that you have multiple buyers in one organization that you need to reach out to. Liz explains profiles or buyer personas as people who have different relationships to the problem. Numerous people influence the buying decision in varying degrees in an organization.
16:00 This brings us to the concept of account-based selling. Positioning the content in a way that touches every stakeholder’s needs during the sales journey is critical.
17:58 Can you talk about account-based selling?
It is about creating an approach to a problem in an organization addressing the differing needs of various stack stakeholders in a customized way. For example, the tech team might be interested in only how they will integrate the product into the existing platform. On the other hand, the legal team is only interested in whether there is a legal issue with the use of this product. While the CFO gets involved in negotiations on the cost of the product, the CEO would like to see a high return on the investment in that product.
In general Account-Based Marketing is taking care of all the parties in an organization and addressing each party’s issues independently.
23:34 What do you think about Avatars?
The CEO has an avatar, the CFO has an avatar, the Head of marketing has an avatar, or the Legal team has an avatar. We must think of multiple avatars in one organization and know that our relationship will differ depending on which avatar we communicate with. Therefore, we’ll develop different approaches within the same organization. When you’re selling, also assess the impacts of the conjuncture. Economy circumstances, diseases, seasonality, or contemporary trends will impact your performance.
26:40 What are your favorite tools for measuring sales and marketing efficiency ratios?
26:56 Liz has a different strategy. She identifies various avatars for the client and then thinks about where her clients are hanging out.
- Are they podcast listeners?
- Are they Club House users?
- Are they showing up on Tradeshows or Conferences?
- Which social media channels are they using?
Generally, the sales process will be finalized within 6 months, 12 months, or sometimes 5 years. Therefore, you need to justify the amount you’ve spent on company A will generate revenue and profit. Consequently, she focuses on how much they need to pay to finalize a sale. When you know how much does it cost, you can calculate:
- How many leads do you need?
- How many qualified leads do you need?
- How many sales should you make?
Measuring against something will put you in a real place regarding revenue/profit expectations. And you know where to go and how to go. It’s not only profit/loss on a spreadsheet.
31:25 Can you talk a bit about Startups & how startups position themselves?
31:58 First one is startups need to understand the difference between sales and marketing. They confuse the use of social media and content marketing with sales. The first thing to do is ask your friends and family for referrals. Until you come to the growth stage, the quickest way to sell is to sell somebody you referred to. Initiate meaningful conversations with the people you’re referred to and understand their pain points.
- How did they express their problems?
- How did they feel about it?
Talk with people coming up from different departments of the company. At the end of the day, “We are not selling people, but we are helping them solve a problem.”
38:10 What are your expectations for 2022?
It’s going to be a great year. People will still work from home, and selling people will become easier when they feel comfortable in their homes. (No destruction, no commute, etc.)
You can reach out to Liz:
Linkedin:https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizheiman/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/LizRHeiman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/liz.heiman/ Clubhouse:@lizheiman
Web: https://www.regardingsales.com/
BIO
Liz Heiman is the founder and structural thinker behind Regarding Sales LLC, a company focused on building B2B sales operating systems that drive extraordinary growth. Liz uses strategy and process to build a roadmap for success that focus her clients on getting the results they need.
Early in her career, Liz trained some of the world’s powerhouse sales organizations. Using Strategic Selling™ and Conceptual Selling™ she helped them boost sales through enhancement of their sales processes and systems. Now her focus is start-up and mid-sized companies selling into complex environments including medical, government, and enterprise.
While most of Liz’s customers build foundations that help them achieve sustainable year-over-year growth, others have realized exponential growth very quickly, achieving as much as $10 million in one year.
Liz is on a mission to challenge assumptions, build trust, and make founders’ dreams come true.
