Breaking Sales Barriers and Winning: Samantha McKenna
Samantha McKenna, Founder #samsales Consulting discusses how to build better business relationships and win more sales deals
How did you get into sales?
This was not something that I dreamed about as a six-year-old. But I will say, I'm the daughter of entrepreneurs, seeing them both in their respective roles, watching them sell and negotiate and delight clients was always something that was just neat, plus the competitive nature of sales. I was offered a job as an account manager, and I thought urgh sales. I actually turned the job down, and they convinced me to take it.
I negotiated for a whopping $5,000 more salary and thought I was the most amazing negotiator on the planet back then. What I loved about that job was what changed my lens about what sales is; that it's helping people. They're not talking to and taking a call with you for their health or because they're bored. They're here with a challenge to solve, and they want to understand how you can help them. That's what lit my heart about sales.
What is your greatest personal sales story?
I took over a team as a leader. When I took over that team, I said, let's think about what are the accounts that you guys are trying to get into that you haven't been able to craft. So one of my reports said that it's a massive financial institution, a data analytics company called Morningstar, not the fake meat company, but the financial institution. And she said I've never been able to get in there.
The first thing I did as a leader was to look into the account to see do I know anybody that works there, and I didn't, but I knew people who knew people that worked there. I started to look and say, Who do I know? I found that somebody in my network, a comedian in LA, knew our key decision maker. They were connected to our key decision maker, and they were both from Chicago, and I was like, well, there's got to be a connection here.
The rep said, “Good luck. We've been trying to get to this guy for two and a half years he will not respond. He opens up our emails, no response”.
So I reached out to the person that I knew - the comedian, and said, “Do you happen to know this gentleman? And he responded and said, “I'm sitting in his cousin's kitchen having brunch right now. What's up?” And I was like, “We need him to take a meeting. Can you help us?” So my friend reached out, and the gentleman responded and said these people have been after me forever. I have zero interest in changing jobs and changing providers for this. I will take a meeting with them for you if it gets them off my back.” And we're like, “Yes, all the yesses”.
We took the meeting. I was on it. My rep was, and she pulled show me you know me: Tell me about yourself. Tell me what's going on. His response was, “My partner and I have just adopted a baby, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate parenthood”. They spoke the entire time about being parents, tips, advice, and thoughts like that. There was absolutely no discussion about work. At the end of the call, he said, “We haven't even discussed your platform. Let's have another call”.
She spent the entire 30 minutes building that relationship. It went to the next call, and it ended up getting us in less than 12 months a record-breaking multi-year deal with that company.
Thinking about this from a leadership perspective, how can you support your teams and dig in? Think about what your top 10 tier one accounts are, and get in the trenches with your people. That is our job. The second thing is to think about relationships. If she had just said let me tell you about our platform for 30 minutes, he would have had no interest in moving forward - thanks for the time. Please don't email me again. But instead, we invested in that person, and the first challenge of that person wasn't work. It was how the hell do I manage to keep a newborn alive?
“How to build better relationships? Just give a shit about the people that you’re selling to. Take your selfish ego and needs out of the way and just say, ‘what’s going on in your world? How can I help you’. That’ll make all the difference. I have no passion for this clearly!”
What is one good piece of advice you can give to sales reps?
One good piece of advice that I can give you is - especially for anyone that's reading that is selling and b2b SaaS, sales, b2b SaaS technology companies - make sure you make the investment and figure out how to use LinkedIn. We have plenty of organized coaching sessions and we have tons of content that we can give you on that. It is phenomenal for exposure. It really is the way to build these business relationships. Get on LinkedIn, start to build your brand, especially for reps that eventually want to be leaders, especially for top performing reps that want to be recruited away for lots of money, especially for people that would ultimately like to start their businesses. You have to start there.
