Ditch the Pitch if You Hear No - Belal Batrawy talks to Owler
Belal Batrawy is a sales influencer to follow, his enigmatic and informative posts keep his almost 34,000 followers coming back for more of his amazing sales insight and advice - and we had a chat
Belal Batrawy, Salesforce Top Sales Influencer - Crunchbase Leader to Follow - SalesLoft REVstar - GTM Leader.
The #1 objection people get when cold calling is "I'm not interested." Except it's not an objection, it's a negative review of your pitch. Belal says Ditch the pitch.
We chatted with him to learn more about his sales ethos and what he would look for in a sales team:
What does 'sales' mean to you?
To me, it is literally a mutually beneficial transaction between two parties. More broadly, sales means guiding buyers through the complexity of making a decision. And the keyword is guide, not help. The role of a seller is Merlin, there to give the Knight in Shining Armor a Magical Sword to slay a Dragon. Most sellers try to be heroes, which is totally wrong.
What would you look for in potential hires if you started at a company and could start an entire sales team from scratch?
There are a few great backgrounds: teachers, bartenders, nursing, therapy. The key traits are coachability, constrained creativity, and the ability to explain complex concepts succinctly—also bonus points for a background in writing or psychology.
Is a good salesperson born or taught, and why?
Taught 100%, and it's not even debatable. There's nothing natural about sales. It's not natural to use an awkward silence to keep someone else talking. It's natural to make other people the center of your sentences instead of yourself. It's not natural to hold back on stating an answer while asking multi-layered questions to understand a problem better. You must learn how to use loss aversion instead of gain messaging to be compelling. All this stuff is taught, not natural. I go into it here: (Challenger interview)
During your sales career, what has been your top aha! moment?
When I won my first major deal, I found out they bought for seven reasons. I was only aware of three of them. Mind you, this sales cycle was nearly one year long, and I met with them dozens of times, spoke on the phone with them for hours upon hours, and exchanged hundreds of emails. I had interacted with at least +30 people on the deal.
And yet, after all that effort, info gathering, coordination, and discovery, more than half the buying criteria were never shared. Not because they didn't like or trust me, but because buying is messy. Buyers don't have a universal language to express their needs. They don't know how to measure the effectiveness of tools. Most people aren't professional buyers, which is why you have got to be a professional seller.
Catch Belal's free Mic Drop Method worksheet for cold calling used by +3,000 sales professionals: https://forms.gle/F1M3cQptKqjX9Rvv5 "> Free. (WE LOVE THIS!!)
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