30-second read
Sales trainings emphasize techniques. But in real life, rarely do those techniques ever play out. IRL isn’t the sales-buyer role-play exercise you did in the breakout session.
So much of closing deals is simply—and quite literally—providing a specific solution to a specific need at the right time at a price that fits the buyer's budget. AKA, things that are completely out of the seller's control.
If you’ve done the pre-selling stuff well, sales is pretty straightforward. (Generally speaking.)
This leads me to believe that deep product knowledge + domain expertise is responsible for closing more pipeline than any sales training ever will. And therefore, the focus of any GTM team should be almost entirely on identifying and monitoring intent—not on the latest and greatest selling techniques.
If your buyer has the right level of intent when they enter your sales process, and you have the right people on your team shepherding the conversation through (domain experts and product experts), the rest of the story typically takes care of itself.
High-intent demand gen is not reserved for Marketing. If you can establish the right prompts and intent signals, cold outreach from your Sales team can also produce high-intent buyer conversations. It just takes discipline and a steadfast commitment to quality over quantity.
In practice, this means that you only reach out to people who show intent signals. This will drop your outreach volume and scale considerably. This should also shorten sales cycles, increase win rates, and provide a much more productive experience for your buyers and sellers. (Happy experiences.)
P.S. In my role, I’m tactically both a marketer and a seller. I’m looking at this from all angles.