In our 34th episode of #NutsAboutSales, we had a chat with John Judge, Sales Leader at Crayon.
Watch it now to hear why he had to apologize to the CEO of HP Mark Hurd, why it’s crucial to focus on prospecting, and his superstitions before closing a deal.
Watch the video or read the transcripts below:
What’s your name and where do you work?
My name is John Judge and I work for a company by the name of Crayon.
What’s your most embarrassing sales story?
We were on a conference call with the CEO of HP and when we were asked to leave the call, my reps and I proceeded to high-five each other. And we looked down and we saw that the phone was off the hook and the entire executive staff at HP literally heard us celebrate how dominant we were.
We got a laugh out of Mark Hurd and his entire executive staff. But there was a moment there we were thinking we are all going to get fired.
What’s your biggest tip when demoing?
Be good, be quick, and be gone.
What’s your best sales tip?
Multithread your deal. Be talking to at least 4 different people in your account at all times. If you do that, your close rates will double. For some of my reps, our close rates triple.
Get really good at talking to a lot of different people. You get more engaged customers, and if deals get stuck you have a lot of ways to get it unstuck.
What’s your sales style?
The most important meetings you can have with a prospect are at the beginning of the sales cycle.
So my sales style leans very heavily on prospecting and discovery.
What’s your golden rule in sales?
Active listening. Your prospect says something, if you don’t understand exactly what they said and why they said it, you need to stop and go, “Excuse me, why did you say that? Can you tell me more? Can you elaborate on that point a little bit further?”
Do you have any superstitions before closing a deal?
When senior management or people outside the sales organization are already counting the deal as done.
Until we have a contract you don’t get to talk about this deal.
Sell me a walnut!
I hear you are a great fan of Waldorf salads. I believe you’re missing something.
I have walnuts that will round out your Waldorf salad beautifully. How many would you like?
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