EP003 – Sales Fundamentals for IT and Tech Businesses with Gavin Page of Excelerate360 and Ian Luckett

In this episode, I had the privilege to interview Gavin Page of Excelerate360 Ltd. He is an experienced sales and marketing leader, and runs a leading UK outsourced sales and lead generation company. He also works with VCs and Incubators advising start-ups and mid-tier software and technology companies on scaling sales operations. Furthermore, Gavin has a track record in creating new strategic revenue opportunities, developing sales teams into new markets, restructuring sales teams for revenue growth and regularly exceeding those targets. Today, you will learn how to resonate with your target market better, how to sell more products, services and solutions. In This show we talked about: That Sales is all about building relationships, trust and having a fair exchange of service and a solution. Thus, it all boils down to understanding your target market and what problem you actually solve. Gavin then shared that  first, you must ask these questions yourself; Are you ready for the market or is the market ready for you? What are the things you need to do to understand your Market? How Market Analysis can help you identify your potential customers? We then went on to explain that  for you to understand your own Market Analysis further, you need to start with again, 3  basic questions; What clients might buy from you today? What vertical Market do they fit in? Where have I had that success before and why? Then once you have these questions answered, you need to start looking for what  relevant actions you need to focus on and  analyse where those customers are coming from. The best and easiest way to do this Analysis is; To go out and talk to the customers and understand why they bought from you in the first place. Secondly, talk to new prospects and just get on the phone get to understand more about their market. Understand whether or not there is an opportunity and If we are offering this out, what would they expect to see in return. Then you can start to analyse: Is the Market ready for my product? Is my product even ready for the market in your chosen vertical field? Other than the Market analysis, Ian and Gavin also talked about the important element that people need to know about in terms of Sales Process. How does it work and why it is so important to enable you to scale your business. We then discussed Lead Generation and understanding your target audience (an avatar or persona) and knowing their personas, as they fondly call it, and all to  understand their pain points. Speaking of which, Gavin also talked about the Pain chain - One person's problem/issue could potentially be the the reason for another person's problem/issue. This can then cascade to cause many challenged in business. Ian also then discussed the 2 areas around who you are actually selling to: Are you selling to individual business owners? Are you selling to a larger group and middle management within a larger organisation.? Finally we shared some key topics such as what you need to do with your CONTENT and how it works to build relationships, your USP and more importantly how to stand out from your competition,in which according to Gavin you have to deliver great customer service and really understand their  need and your competition. The best way for you to stand out is to be PREPARED at all times most specially during product presentation. Always remember when you present a proposal it's always about them and not about you...Focus on the value and the proposition on how to meet the customer's requirement. ITS Quick Fire Round If you were to 'bottle' one part of your business journey and sell it, what would that be and why? Spend more time eating my own dog food. Most of the time, we always tell everyone else how to do it but sometimes you have to do a bit  of looking inwards  yourself. What is your biggest learning/regret and advice to listeners when scaling their business. FIRE people faster Getting external input from other Experts, Coaches and people who have done before. What is your favourite App on your phone and Why? Wordscapes. Guest Details To contact Gavin Page, visit his website at www.excelerate360.com or contact him through his email at [email protected]. Links and Resources If you are looking to scale your IT / Tech Consultancy Business and don't know where to start, then check out our IT Experts Growth Academy Group on LinkedIn - a collaborative and safe environment to learn the foundations to IT and Tech Business Growth - click here to request access - https://goo.gl/weymKj You can also download the e-book by clicking this link - http://tiny.cc/ITE-Ebook19 Quotes Sales is all about building relationships, trust and having a fair exchange of service and a solution. Thus, it all boils down to understanding your target Market. – Ian Luckett Focus heavily on the value and the proposition on how to meet your customer's requirements. – Gavin Page