• April 22, 2015

A Marathoner’s Secret Tricks To Winning Sales And Races

What does a career in Sales and Marathon Running have in common? Both require preparation, mental toughness, persistence and can potentially cause extreme nipple chaffing (OK, maybe one of those only applies to marathons…).

Laurie Anglin is an Account Executive for TriNet, a company that provides outsourced HR Services. She works mainly within the technology vertical in the Boston and DC markets. However – when she’s not crushing her quota (with the help of Spiro), she’s a bad ass marathon runner who is constantly winning sales (and races).

She’s run in 6 marathons, and is currently training for her 7th – all while making President’s Club. This is me after a couple hundred feet:

How does she find the time to train and continue winning sales at the same time? Who knows. On top of that, she found the time to sit down with me to talk through her secrets for sales success.

Listen Up

Laurie mentions that when she first began in sales, she found that she was the one doing most of the talking in her meetings. As a new rep, it’s easy to think that you need to be leading every conversation – but don’t let that get in the way of actually listening to a client’s needs.

Laurie was able to learn from her experiences and has her own version of the 80/20 rule – 80% of the talking should be done by the client. The flow of conversation shouldn’t really feel like a sale, it should feel more like an interview. By asking questions and letting the client guide the conversation, you’ll have a better understanding of the customer’s requirements. In other words, don’t sound like a salesperson.

Keep A Healthy Pipeline

It’s a rookie mistake to ignore early stage opportunities to only focus on the ones that are closing soon. If you don’t land those late stage deals, what’s going to happen? You have nothing to fall back on. Leaning on just one big “cash cow” leaves you open to way too much risk if you lose that account.

Laurie is pretty adamant about this – it doesn’t matter how successful you are, sales professionals need to keep a healthy pipeline. Laurie sets a personal standard of keeping her pipeline at five times her goal. This allows her to not only easily make her quota, but sell past it to reap the financial benefits.

How do you keep a healthy pipeline? Give some love to your early stage prospects! Don’t just focus on the guys that are closing in a couple days – make sure you keep in touch with everyone. By doing so a lot less deals will fall through the cracks, and no one can say that you ghosted on them.

Be A Straight Shooter

Being yourself is key when working in sales. You’ll find yourself in trouble if you deviate from who you are and what you know. Laurie has always found it more beneficial to deliver things in a manner that doesn’t sugar coat the truth.

Part of this is also knowing when things just aren’t going to work out.  Forcing a fit when it’s not there never helped anybody. Laurie can remember telling more than one prospect to “move along” when they were not at a place where they truly needed her services.

By shooting it straight you build trust, and when customers trust you they will refer you to their friends! Laurie mentions that being open, she’s landed many a referral.

Learn More

Maybe running isn’t your thing – how about music and sales? Of course, if you’re a sales robot there’s no need for you to be running anywhere.