Lindsey Liranzo is a master when it comes to growth and development.
When she’s not putting her skills to the test with clients, she’s growing and developing her own career as a sales leader.
From teaching English in Thailand, then working in the finance department at NASA, to now serving as the Director of Online Sales and Sales Development at one of the most richly valued tech companies in the world, Lindsey has distilled the key ingredients necessary to scale a successful leadership role.
Listen to this episode of Hey Salespeople to learn more about Lindsey’s journey as a sales leader at Zoom (and why teachers make great salespeople).
Listen here, and keep reading for some of the highlights from this episode below.
Relationship Building
Jeremey: When you said that a lot of things come in as relationship builders, what is that? How do you identify that they’re more in relationship building mode than in challenger mode? What is it that they’re doing that signals that to you?
Lindsey: I think it just goes back to just being like a consultant to that rep. You know, here’s what our product will give you. But I’m here to just sell it to you, and you tell me if it’s right.
They don’t want to push the customer to say like, “Hey, this is why it is a fit. This is what you’ve told me. And this is how that aligns with what I’m hearing and what we do.”
So, they really want to keep that relationship strong and hope that if they build a tight relationship and build advocates that they will win. At the end of the day, when you’re just consultative, you’re not pushing the customer to think, right? And to think about your product.
So, it just seems to be the easiest one to grow on because most salespeople are relationship builders at heart.
We all love to talk to people. We love to listen and build relationships. That’s just how I’ve seen a lot of new sales reps come in.
Coaching Reps into Challenger Mode
Jeremey: Without naming a name, can you think in your mind of a new sales rep who came in as a relationship builder that you coached into challenger mode? How did you coach them? And how did you get them to make that transition?
Lindsey: Especially in sales development, and having a velocity sales team, I have a lot of people who are newer to sales who might come from a more customer service background.
This woman that I’m thinking of, in particular, she had a very strong customer service background. She was great with people. So, she was great at talking and listening. She was a great active listener, which was amazing. She really just needed to build on that active listening skill.
She could listen and she could repeat back what the customer was saying really well, but that’s about where it ended. And then it would just turn directly into like, “Okay, well, let me tell you what Zoom can offer you.” Then everything that she had listened to prior and had written down in a lot of cases, or just remembered, she didn’t go back and leverage later when the customer went to push back.
We spent a lot of time listening to her calls, talking through, okay, you’ve heard them say “X” then you went into the Zoom pitch and they came back and basically recanted what they had already said and said they didn’t need Zoom, because you had told them that that was more money.
Just making that identifier between like, okay I heard the customer say that, let me now go back and push them and say, “Hey, well, that’s what you told me. Tell me what I’m missing here.” Right?
Capitalizing on that strong understanding of the customer’s business because she absolutely loved that piece.
We love to hear all the free users that come in and people who just absolutely love Zoom and their passion for it. So, if we can understand the customer’s business, we can excitedly tell them, this is why Zoom is going to be great for you.
And not feeling like you’re going to lose that deal just because you made them a little uncomfortable.
THERE’S A LOT MORE AFTER THIS! Listen to the full podcast for more.
If you have a passion for the art and the science of sales, are looking to further your career, or just want to hear some great, practical tips, ‘Hey Salespeople’ is the podcast for you. Subscribe so you can follow along as Jeremey interviews the brightest minds in modern sales to bring you immediately actionable advice. Listen and subscribe here.
