Juan Medina

Has seen too many “self-taught” Gap Sellers

@ ASalesGrowth Company

For example–here’s where sales leaders go wrong: they ask every employee to read a sales bestseller when what they *actually need* is to implement a sales methodology into the day-to-day operations + execution of their department.

Even more distilled: they assume that belief creates execution.

Here’s the low-down…

By reading and doing your genuine best to apply “Gap Selling” you can easily double your sales. Simply a fact–and it applies to a total beginner to sales just as much as a 24-year sales leader who has managed millions, if not billions of bookings.

But if you are that sales leader, Gap Selling is way more likely to fail to double your sales. In fact–the Gap Selling methodology and your journey into embracing sales as the art of diagnosing + addressing business problems is more likely to distract you from the problems biting your sales department.

Let me explain….

Thousands of sales departments today are underperforming. Among those underperformers, if we were to ask them, “what sales methodology have you implemented in your organization to hit your targets?” They might say, MEDDIC, or they might say SPIN, or Gap Selling, or they might say, “we let different teams and reps sell whatever how ever they like.”

The funny part is–92% of those departments who “practice” methodology X operate exactly the same as departments who practice no methodology at all.

We know because we interview one and two levels down from the VP of Sales to their managers–and here’s the explanations we get:

Really?

Your team will report economic buyer and not a real champion up to you in executive deal reviews–but when you’re not around they’ll do whatever the hell they want?

What if I told you that 80% of the sales departments who say “we’re a MEDDIC/Sandler/Gap team” actually play out exactly like the spaghetti on the wall I just shared?

And the last person to know, of course–you, the sales executive.

Because….

The Higher Your Role–the Greater the DISTANCE

Between You and Your SALES PROBLEMS

Consider the implications.

You are simultaneously the person responsible for all or so much of the sales of many people–and also the person in worst position to get your hands on exactly what’s biting those people whose sales you are supposed to nourish.

You may read Gap Selling–and even apply its simple principles into action in your selling and management (not easy–Gap Selling is notoriously difficult)…

But what makes you think it’s possible–by indirect influence–to apply these principles on behalf of your sales reps and sales managers?

And, assume that your managers and reps somehow all do apply Gap Selling personally… how do they evolve into a Gap Selling organization where individuals hold each other accountable and rely on the simple principles to multiply their efforts (and sales)?

Even through all that–what if they forget after 6 months? What about new hires?

These are operations-hurdles. When sales teams don’t address these problems, they can miss quota/have no pipeline/churn customers not just through one fiscal year, but through multiple generations of new hires and sales leadership. 

Operations-Problems requires Operations-Solutions… which is why we do Gap Sales Training.

For all CROs cited above–they faced organizational-gaps that could be resolved only with an organizational-fix, which for them, was our training.

Most companies we speak to are not a fit for our training.

So for you, we need to start at 0–do you even have an organizational gap, what are the problems causing it, and are they worth fixing?

Our Discovery Audits not only walk you through that–they allow you to “measure up” what a mature trained Gap Selling process looks and feels like.

If you’re anything like our clients–who implemented that matured trained Gap Selling process for themselves—it will reveal business problems that need your attention ASAP.

What kind of problems exactly?

I just opened one of our reps’ Salesforce instance–they write this all down. Here’s just one example.

From the Detailed  Notes of Christion Embury’s Salesforce…

• Problems, Long Sales Cycles + Poor Conversion— “goal is 15k / month in MRR – is an upsell piece – last month they hit 12.5k – CS/AM side AE Side – 2/3 in ramp Last month had 2/7 hit quota – were at 74% last month (varying because they’re tiering up) 28.5k target hit 24.5k sales cycle length 25 days avg – would like to see it at 15-18, to him a 25 day is poor sales execution and discovery”
• Root Causes– “Went through a reshuffle in terms of strategy and the way they’re operating as a biz – Running much more lean and efficient model – running as a break even company – layoffs happened beg of year this year has been volatile – rough patch – had some layoffs – contract seats, spend reduction, churn + organic churn Not as much as they’d like in discovery – probably the weakest thing for them right now – If they’re talking about how deep they get – Very rare for them to understand their prospects’ business and the business problem to solve and the value of it – They’ll discover there’s an issue and what it is (if they get there) Two main problems in the product/business – 1. is urgency, processes are not urgent a lot of the time 2. Other is horizontal platform whenever you try to answer the problem of what problem are you solving – What is the platform doing, for most customers, and then the vertical build and what’s the thing that you built on the platform – Basically the other AE ramp time can be really challenging with all of those factors because of all the diff industries, use cases, etc. – take long to Where they’re comfortable selling.”
• Impact– “Haven’t been able to grow the team and grow revenue to the point they need – Series B is not on the horizon – Lost access to capital & resources (VC money) due to lack of growth“

There’s hundreds more opportunities like these in our CRM–dense with problems, problem metrics, root causes, business impact and more…. otherwise it’s not an opportunity.

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