“My product can change your life.”
It’s a promise that countless potential customers hear on a daily basis — and often one that holds merit like water in a colander. It’s not that the product in question isn’t groundbreaking, innovative or helpful. It’s that salespeople often waste essential time launching into prewritten scripts instead of drawing a prospect in through personalization, belief in their product’s potential, and genuine curiosity to help the person on the other side of the phone.
In fact, 86 percent of customers reported that they were more likely to make a purchase when a salesperson had clearly done their research prior to their pitch, according to a study conducted by Vonage. Still, 60 percent of people from the same study believed that in most cases, little to no preparation had been done before reaching out. The reason? Trying to reach quotas rather than solutions.
“A good salesperson doesn’t just want to sell — they want to sell something that delivers for customers,” said Randi Lynn Veenstra, senior managing director of sales at Ontra. “We have a 95-percent retention rate for our sales closers because they pitch a service and product line that they know and believe provides value.”
After all, in order to claim that your product is life-changing, it pays to know about the life of the person you’re selling it to. That’s why Built In San Francisco caught up with Veenstra and three other local sales experts to learn why their product is worth the pitch — and which critical skills they believe every salesperson should possess.
What about Grammarly’s product or service makes it great for pitching to prospects?
In my opinion, Grammarly is one of the most loved tech brands around. It’s exciting to facilitate a discovery call when the prospect already knows about Grammarly or uses the product, and they’re now looking to purchase on behalf of their entire team or organization.
Grammarly is also relatable on a personal level. We can all use help improving our written communication, and with Grammarly, it’s easy to show prospects how they can empower employees to communicate more effectively. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of opportunity to sell a product that helps improve lives and drive business value, and this rare combination is a key differentiator in what makes our product great to pitch.
Being able to create a compelling story focused on each individual prospect’s needs is key.”
What are the most important skills required for selling Grammarly’s product or service?
The ability to create and tell a compelling story to demonstrate business value to prospects is important at Grammarly. When selling Grammarly Business, our team guides prospects on how our product can help based on their specific pain points. Being able to create a compelling story focused on each individual prospect’s needs is key.
Another part of storytelling is helping the prospect see the long-term vision. For example, prospects may initially want to purchase our product for a specific team or department, but we should be demonstrating how Grammarly can expand and bring value to the whole organization. Building a long-term vision into your storytelling is a crucial part of selling and expanding Grammarly Business into organizations.
What about Ontra’s product or service makes it great for pitching to prospects?
Ontra’s mission is to free businesses from routine documents and other high-volume legal agreements so they can focus on the higher-value aspects of their roles. It’s a service and product combination that reduces cost, increases the quality of work, reduces risk and improves team productivity.
Our sales team intimately knows the challenges internal counsels face because nearly all of them were lawyers prior to joining Ontra. They know what it’s like to experience too much work, too little time and very often, too few resources. When our reps say they feel the prospect’s pain, they mean it. What brings it full circle is the ability to see the lifecycle of the client relationship. From working hand-in-hand with the account management team to ensure consistent and efficient delivery of services, to seeing prospect feedback reflected in the product roadmap, they have faith that our team is doing all we can to ensure value year over year.
When our reps say they feel the prospect’s pain, they mean it.”
What are the most important skills required for selling Ontra’s product or service?
There are the classic traits that all salespeople must hold: being assertive, well-spoken, resilient, persistent and a good listener. Beyond those classic traits, though, all salespeople must live out three of our team’s five values in order to find success.
The first value is results. Many have heard the adage “work smarter, not harder.” While I’d say it’s a combination of the two, it’s true that to reach the top in sales, you have to focus your attention on the right personas and the right ideal customer profiles (ICPs). Beyond that, you must also appropriately qualify opportunities and prioritize productivity over activity.
The second is accountability. At the end of the day, sales is about doing what salespeople do best — selling. But on our team, we approach selling through a “one team, one dream” lens. We are constantly working to follow through on commitments to ourselves and others by maintaining the perspective of joint goals.
The third value is continuous improvement. Two skills that are overlooked in sales are the need to be creative and curious. We are selling in a constantly evolving market, so we must take on the challenge of innovating on the way we work, the product we deliver and the way we sell it.
What about Sendbird’s product or service makes it great for pitching to prospects?
Communication is at the heart of any good relationship. Sendbird’s products make it easier for companies to better communicate with their users, or help our client’s users communicate with each other. Depending on the use case, Sendbird’s products help doctors and patients connect leading to better patient outcomes, delivery workers and customers communicate leading to a better customer experience, or gamers really engage with each other.
The bottom line: Sendbird’s products facilitate and foster human connection, which ultimately helps companies to achieve or exceed their metrics targets and ensure positive business outcomes.
Curiosity helps establish a win-win relationship.”
What are the most important skills required for selling Sendbird’s product or service?
In one word: curiosity. A Sendbird salesperson has to be curious about the client’s pain points and how best Sendbird’s products can help address them. Curiosity helps establish a win-win relationship: The customer understands how Sendbird can solve their problems, and Sendbird can win business and solve customer issues.
What about CodeSignal’s product or service makes it great for pitching to prospects?
CodeSignal has been thoughtfully designed to be an end-to-end technical recruiting solution, improving the experience of candidates, recruiting and hiring teams. Our product solves a genuine pain point in technical hiring by making it a necessity rather than a luxury for industry teams.
Technical hiring can be difficult and time-consuming, so our products make the process more efficient while helping our customers to reduce bias in their interview processes to go beyond resumes. We are a mission-driven company: Our customers relate to our mission and are inspired to bring skill-based hiring to their own workplaces as well.
Reps should have excellent problem-solving skills, as it’s important for them to be consultative and act as trusted advisors to our customers.”
What are the most important skills required for selling CodeSignal’s product or service?
A successful sales representative at CodeSignal is deeply curious and can drive an ongoing discovery process by taking the time to genuinely understand our customer’s pain points throughout the entire customer journey. These reps should have excellent problem-solving skills, as it’s important for them to be consultative and act as trusted advisors to our customers.
CodeSignal sales professionals should have experience working complex sales involving multiple stakeholders with related — but individually distinct — problems to solve, and be capable of driving alignment for a multi-threaded deal. Additionally, those who have experience working with a technically complex product are typically a great fit to sell our product.
