Search

Subscribe Now

Join Us:

Home Events Magazine Support

An Insider’s View - A Sales Mastery Interview withPatti Elliott, CSO of YaptaBy Mary Poul, publisher of Sales Mastery magazine

by Mary Poul

RSS Print

She busts every myth of the egocentric, hard-charging senior executive. She setsthe model for the high performance sales executive: customers are eager to dobusiness with her and employees seek out opportunities to work for her again.

As the co-founder of the TAS Group and founder of Certified Selling, she can certainly run circlesaround any executive when it comes to employing the best sales processes. In fact, she won aGalaxy Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence for pivoting a global corporation froma channel-based selling strategy to a direct sales model with great success. She did it again atExpedia, taking them from a B-to-C selling structure and pivoting into a B-to-B organization.

What revealed Patti as the ultimate sales professional is her response to the accolades andaccomplishments, “It feels good promotionally, but it’s a bit embarrassing to be honest with you.I’ve always felt it was about the team. I keep trying to pull them on the stage with me becausethey are the ones who really make it happen out there. I don’t like all the glory. It’s really about theteam.”

Be a Leader People Love to FollowHer grounded perspective and focus on who she is serving was a common theme throughout ourinterview. I asked her about the many sales reps that have followed her to new companies in hercareer and how she developed the leadership style that made people want to follow her. Pattiresponded,

LinkedIn Tweet Email Facebook ShareThis

An Insider’s View - A Sales Mastery Interview with Patti Elliott... http://salesmasterymag.com/an-insider’s-view/

1 of 4 2/13/15, 12:38 PM

“I never really thought about it before, but I do have some great friendships and successes withcolleagues. I think my style just comes from a true desire to help others succeed and to dowhatever I can to help them. That may be to work with marketing, to create the perfect pitch thatearns them a big commission, to talk them down from the ledge and remind them this isn’t heartsurgery. We will get over the losses and we’re going to learn from this and grow from it. I’vealways been a true believer that people come first. I get a kick out of seeing them happy andsmiling and buying new cars and going on trips. I think our job as a leader is to give them thevision and to keep them motivated because it is a roller coaster ride. Some days we are at the topof the roller coaster and winning and some days we are at the bottom. That sums it up. I love thehunt too. I love the win, but not as much as I like when I help others to win. Isn’t that funny? Itcomes from being in with the troops forever. It’s more rewarding.”

How a CSO Sells to Other ExecsIn her leadership role at Executive Conversations, Patti helped client companies master theexecutive conversation and negotiation. We discussed the mindset that leads to successfulexecutive selling and how she now coaches her global sales team at Yapta.

“I learned a lot with Executive Conversations about how to get sales teams into the right mindsetto talk with an executive. A CEO is just another human being. Everybody imagines this grumpyold man in a blue suit sitting on the 70th floor of a New York tower with five assistants. That’s notthe case with 99% of them. Most of them are just like your next door neighbor or your Dad or yourboss. So the first thing I do is to motivate the team to get over being afraid and just get out thereand try it.

The second thing is how you do your homework. Read about the company, their financials, thepress releases, understand their industry. All of this gets you into the mindset of that executive.What is keeping them up at night? What problems are they dealing with and how can yourproduct and services help them.

From there you design your first 20 second conversation with that executive. I have all kinds oftricks for practicing. When you go in and meet the CEO, you can now come from caring aboutthem and what’s important to them. If you have something that can really make it happen forthem, your conversation starts from there. It’s all about your first two minutes with them.

When people sense that you have something to help them, the door opens even wider for them tointroduce you to the other departments. All of that starts from the hard work of studying theirannual report and trying to determine what their problems are. Your research also goes intopreparing the bullet points of your negotiation as well.”

Knowing readers would be curious about her secrets for preparing her executive conversation, Iasked.

“You want to know my secret? Okay - I study, often for an hour or two, about their financials, theirpress releases, their LinkedIn profile. I get a feel for who they are. Then I write a couple ofsentences as my introduction. Before I call them, I use my voice mail or the voice memo app onmy iPhone. I record my opening and then I listen to it. I practice that first 20 seconds or so. Andusually my first time I think, “Oh my gosh, you need to sound a little bit more relaxed or this worddoesn’t fit.” Then I rewrite it again and I’ll do that probably 10 to 20 times.

It works for me and for a lot of my team members who I’ve taught this little secret to. When theywalk into the CEO’s office, they might not use every single word that they wrote, but they are socomfortable opening up the dialogue and using what they practiced - it works like magic everytime. It brings you confidence. You can look at them in the eye, you know what you want to say,you know the curiosity you want to create with them. And the best words to hear from thatexecutive are, “Tell me more. I want to hear more.” Give them a little bit in your intro, don’t givethem a lot.”

Negotiate Like a CSOFor some, the only thing more intimidating than trying to get an audience with a CEO isnegotiating with one. The hours of preparation Patti recommends don’t just go into her executiveintroduction, it also feeds into her negotiation style.

The methodology I use comes from Think! Inc. Basically, on one page, you map out your dealfrom your customer’s side and from your side. You design how you could work with the customeras three different proposals. And you present each of them to the customer. What happens is thecustomer starts taking what they like from each of them and creating their own win-win.

An Insider’s View - A Sales Mastery Interview with Patti Elliott... http://salesmasterymag.com/an-insider’s-view/

2 of 4 2/13/15, 12:38 PM

Negotiations have so many components beyond price. Sometimes you just need to write down allthat is important to the customer and use the mass leverage in your negotiation.

I like this process because you end up with one sheet of paper with all of the moving parts of yourdeal. You get the customer to start thinking about your deal in multiple layers, not just the price.And you can have a discussion about what the customer is willing to give up for a lower price andwhat is too important to give up. Your customer is a part of the process instead of beingconfrontational in the negotiation process. People think that you have to be on one side of thedesk and they have to be on the other side of the desk and you don’t. You can sit on the sameside with them. Talk about what’s important to them and write it all out. Talk about what’s important to you and write that all out. In the middle is a great deal. I end up having high margindeals because I allow customers to pick and choose.

Negotiation starts with your very first conversation, at the beginning 20 second pitch. When I’mstudying a company, I’m trying to find out their weaknesses, their goals, what they’re striving for inthe next year. My 20 second introduction is about that. I ask 4 or 5 questions to verify what Iresearched is indeed what is happening and then determine how important it is to them achievethose specs. Once I determine how important it is, I bring that up during our negotiation timebecause sometimes it gets lost if I’m handed off to a procurement officer or somebody else. So Iget back in to see that CEO, “Wait a minute we had this conversation and you said it was 90% ofimportance, your top priority in 2015.” I repeat all the things that I can deliver to help with all ofthe things they want. I have that dialogue again, reminding them what was important.

It helps to bring that emotion back into the negotiation conversation. I remind them of what theirneeds are and if they really want to put off addressing some of those needs to get a differentprice. It helps since they’re the ones who stated their needs up front. All I did was ask thequestion to surface what impact this has on their company if I can get them to realize their goalsnext month? When they explain, then it becomes their idea, not your idea.

The Think! Inc. methodology taught me to title each of the three options according to thecustomers needs. You’re showing the customer that you heard them and you’re presenting backto them three different options based on their three business drivers or initiatives for 2015. Eachof those three options are a mixture of your product offering. Every time I’ve done that, they’ll say,“‘No, I really don’t want this third one.” Then we look at which parts of the other two options theylike to come up with a pricing package that your customer likes. And your customer is the onewho designed it. They’re driving that conversation.

It’s fun. It takes the tension out of negotiating. I use the process internally with my team oneverything. It works well. I think everybody wants to win and everybody wants to feel they’vegotten a good deal. By choosing what they want based on what is most important to them, they’vegotten the perfect deal. The price is just a secondary part of that conversation. You focus on theiremotions and what their business needs are first, and then you help with that.”

Overcome Obstacles and Celebrate Like a CSOCertainly someone with the success that Patti has accomplished has dealt with big obstaclesalong the way. And learned to overcome them especially well. When asked about her mindset forovercoming obstacles, again Patti’s perspective as the ultimate sales professional shined through.

My mindset at its core is that I believe my product is going to help my customer. I stay true to mycommunication style. Maybe the deal isn’t going fast enough, or the customer isn’t understandingthe value. I regroup. I review with myself what I’m saying and how I am saying it. What can Ichange? What’s going on in their world that I should know about. Again, the closer you can get tohow customers think, the quicker the sales process goes. Also, if you asked anybody about meyou would hear, I never accept ‘no’.

My rule of thumb is three ‘no’s’ and then I’ll leave you alone for a year. But I’m going to come backbecause I know what I have is going to work for you. Obstacles are usually how yourcommunications are being heard by the customer. If they shut down on me or we run into a roadblock, I generally just pick up a phone and have a heart to heart, “Tell me what’s going on in yourworld. Obviously I didn’t hit the mark here.” Usually those conversations open up a lot moreopportunity to work with the customers, especially if they trust me. They’ll give me some insightinto the political climate or they give me insights into themselves, like maybe they don’t have thesigning authority that I thought.

I have a deal on my desk we just signed - it took 14 months on a process that should probablyhave taken 3 or 4 months. It was a hard one. We had to work through a lot of change

An Insider’s View - A Sales Mastery Interview with Patti Elliott... http://salesmasterymag.com/an-insider’s-view/

3 of 4 2/13/15, 12:38 PM

Privacy Policy Subscribe Now Get the Weekly News

Home Events Magazine Support

Third Mind Strategies LLC

Built with Metro Publisher™

TagsPrice Negotiation

management with the customer. But I kept at it, speaking with more people within the companyand sharing with them the vision of what this is going to do for them. So, I got the deal in 14months. It’s a Fortune 50 company and I got the signed contract today. It was worth it topersevere. I think a lot of times maybe people give up and move on to the next shiny object. I juststay with it.”

Naturally, I asked her, “How are you going to celebrate?”

“Beer - lots and lots of beer. We’re here in Seattle and we’re cheering on the Seahawks. Ouroffice has a keginator. So, beer – that’s how we celebrate.”

By the end of our conversation I had a great understanding why so many of Patti’s employeeswant to follow her as she moves in her career. Her perspective is always to serve – how can shemake her customers’ lives better, and how can she help her sales team keep a healthyperspective and win. Who wouldn’t want to work for a leader like that!

When Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other peopleget what they want,” he was surely referring to Patti Elliott.

An Insider’s View - A Sales Mastery Interview with Patti Elliott... http://salesmasterymag.com/an-insider’s-view/

4 of 4 2/13/15, 12:38 PM