How to Sell Bigger Deals to Bigger Customers w/ Barbara Weaver Smith [Episode 257]

Join us as Barbara and I discuss how companies of all sizes can compete for and win orders with global companies.

I’m happy to have Barbara Weaver Smith join me again on the program. She is co-author of the best-selling book Whale Hunting, founder and CEO of The Whale Hunters, and now author of the new book, Whale Hunting With Global Accounts: Four Critical Sales Strategies to Win Customers.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Can $10-$20 million revenue companies afford to sell to customers globally? Barbara provides examples of how a company’s work can apply worldwide.

The advice Barbara provides to companies making the critical decision to pursue international business.

The U.S. has embraced inside selling faster than most companies. Barbara describes how companies can use inside sales to help capture global customers.

How business cultures outside the U.S. are changing rapidly and what this means for building relationships.

The importance of focus in expanding the the geographic scope of your sales efforts.

How you can know as much or more about your customers as your larger, more experienced competitors.

Barbara explains the Global Whale Hunting processes outlined in the book and shows the limitations of your sales process in selling large deals.

Barbara describes why you need to have a technology-driven account plan (and how to develop one.)

MORE ABOUT BARBARA WEAVER SMITH

Is it easier to teach a non-sales technical person how to sell, or to teach a salesperson how to sell technically?

It depends on who is the more curious person. Probably, it’s easier to teach the salesperson to sell technically.

If you could change one thing about your business self, what would it be?

I would have to learn to simplify the way I talk about things!

What’s one non-business book that every salesperson should read?

The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner

When you have to get away from it all, where to you go?

My backyard to the pool!