Notes on The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon

A teammate recommended to me the book The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO by John McMahon. I recently finished it and loved it; I immediately consider it in my top 3 sales books I've ever read.

The introductory chapters resonated a lot with me as I saw myself in the pages of the book having made all the same mistakes as the protagonists. Even though I had familiarity with MEDDPICC (after having reading Always Be Qualifying), I learned a ton more from this new book and especially around running a proper enterprise sales process.

I highly recommend this book to anyone running truly complex enterprise sales. Below are my main notes and takeaways.

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​Part 1 qbr

Intro
Forecast Review with honesty
Reps stretch the truth
Need customer to understand the business value
Sales training
Process training
Qualification methodology
Simplicity from focusing on the fundamentals
Basics
Common vocabulary 
listening
Be here and present
Intuition
Self-awareness
Transformational mindset
Don’t be glorified scorekeepers
Intentional outcomes
Keep it simple
Urgent curiosity
Sales process benefits

Part 3 B2B sales process

7 sales process example
Discovery
Find pain
Pain finds champions
Champions get you to economic buyer
Economic buyer has access to major discretionary funds
Sell big deals
Discovery is not selling or discussing your product. It’s searching for pain
Questioning, listening, confirming, feeling and sensing 
Scoping
Economic buyer meeting
Validation event
Business case and proposal
Negotiation and Close

POC win rates

Ramifications of skipping steps

Slow down to go fast

Get above the noise to real pain
Revenue, profitability, risk
Regulatory compliance
Competitive edge
Security 
Productivity, cost, quality
Reputation improvements

21 scoping
Understand in detail as is current state and to be desired future state
Before and after metrics present cost justification 
Proof of value not POC
POV plan and pricing proposal
Understand the business implications of not solving the pain

22 box up

23 target customers
List your product differentiators and which defensible 
List pain points those solve, current workarounds 
Map pain points to specific use cases
Quantify the business benefits of solving those pain points in each use case, how does it increase revenue or decrease cost or risk or improve productivity 
List the negative consequences of customers not solving the pain points, who or what else suffers if pain not alleviated 
Discover companies and industries that have those pains
List specific personas that own those use cases, what are their job performance measures 
Prioritize companies and industries based upon highest customer value

24 propensity to buy and sales complexity
Propensity to buy
Industry regulations
Pending events
People they’re hiring
Other tech they use
Sales complexity
Multiple deciders
Multiple locations
Multiple stages
Accessibility to c suite
Lengthy pov requirements
Compliance requirements
Lengthy legal and procurement 

25 leading the witness
Get the witness to admit to things and guide their answers 
Create fear
Quantify and implicate pain
Create urgency do customer changes their priorities

26
Key metric for sales leader is bookings
Productivity drivers
Ramp time for new rep, usually 6 months
Recruit only A players
Provide excellent onboarding training 
Develop rep skills through on the job coaching
Average sales productivity of sales force
Constant ongoing training and skill development
Match skills of reps to target accounts
Maintain consistent pipeline of qualified prospects
Monitor deal advancement issues
Rep attrition, usually 20%
Recruit A players
Understand each rep strengths and weaknesses
Coach them to help them personally grow
Know when to manage and when to lead
Recruiting A players only
Knowledge 
What to do
Skills
How to do it
Assign reps to target accounts that match their knowledge and skills based on the sales complexity of those accounts
Characteristics
Character traits embedded and not changeable
Difference maker
Intelligence
PhD: persistence, heart, desire
Coachability and adaptability
Integrity, honest and moral principles 
Curiosity 
Execution experience
Resume hasn’t been certified by third party 
Ask probing questions to discover reality
Golf coach
Identify only one skill to focus on developing at a time
Inspiring, developing, inspecting

27 with the sales reps
Immediately debrief after sales call with what went well or badly and next steps

28 finding champions
Power chart: people with access to economic buyer who have influence; influence vs authority quad chart
People with no influence can be coaches but not champions
Finding champions
Who has recently been promoting
Who is working on critical challenges
Who made the last purchase for the company
Operations people

29 why would someone be your champion
They have personal aspirations and getting personal wins
Recognition
Control
Productivity
Promotion
Status

30 earning trust
Sales rep must be prepared
Must be authentic
Be selfless
Confirm understanding of customer
Asking, messaging, confirming
Trust value: business value, performance value, experience value
Solving business problem
Will company perform on delivering the solution
How’s the experience of dealing with the sales person

31 educating the champion 
Educate them on common objections
Explain how implementation works
Set up meetings with your execs and reference customers
Educate champ to be internal sales rep

32 testing the champion
Ask different levels of questions to test their knowledge
How are items purchased at your company
Evaluation process
Who made the last few major purchases
Can they explain the implications of not solving the pain
How does competition provide business value
How does your solution provide value
Ask them facilitate intros to other departments and arrange more demos
Share product eval docs
Call customer reference
Sponsor meeting with economic buyer
Create POV criteria
Introduce to legal and procurement contacts
Help craft cost justification 
Incorporate key differentiators into POV criteria 
Tell them your boss wants you to walk away because they’ll never buy and ask them what you should do or tell boss

33 how do you know you have a champion
When you have control
Collaborate well and exchange info
Test the champion’s knowledge of cost justification 
Their actions are proactive
They call you to discuss competition’s proposals

34 difference between coach and champion 
Coaches look through small eyes of technical details 
Champions look through large eyes of big company measures and how your solution can improve those
Champions talk about higher business issues, not features
Coaches provide info but never take action. Champions take action. 

35 economic buyers need implementation champions
Need to limit the risk of a poor implementation 
Champion reduces risk
Champion provides business justification for renewal

36 the competition’s champion
Prepare our champion for obstacles
Find multiple champions in org

37 economic buyer
The person with discretionary use of the funds
Can reallocate budgets
Can make final decision
EB meeting is go/no go decision
Meet EB prior to POV to finalize decision criteria
Need to find large business pain before
Prepare for the meeting with champion
The meeting usually just ceremonial
Summary of discovery findings
Current state
Negative consequences of that current state
Proposed state
Benefits of the future state
Required capabilities to achieve future state
Customer success stories with quantified before and after
Description of our solution based on the criteria
Confirmation of remaining decision process steps
Explain the things they haven’t thought of that directly affect what their business could be doing 
Position your solution to align with their job performance metrics
Revenues, costs, risks at corporate level
Personal job measures like time to market and employee productivity and application quality 
Speak to EB on their terms, not champion’s terms, usually at executive level 
Questions to ask EB
Where in your priority list does this problem lie
What business measure does this issue most affect
When would you prefer to solve this issue
Would you be willling to allocate budget for example if we could prove through a validation event that we could save you X dollars through a Y investment, would you allocate Y dollars to the budget 
Besides yourself is there anyone else required to approve a purchase of this size
If we are successful in the POV, what are the remaining steps in your decision process
Questions the EB will ask
Muchness
Cost of service
Cost to implement 
How much saved 
Soonness
When can solution be implemented
When will they see ROI
Sureness
How sure that product will work in their environment 
How sure of cost justification 
How many customers can I speak to to make sure implementation will work
Easiness
How easy to implement
How easy for people to learn how to use
Final question to ask EB
Would it be ok to call you only under two conditions: if we find the final business case is materially different than preliminary one after POV and if anyone decides to significantly change our agreed validation criteria 

38 the tree
Always go high in the account
Always get to the CEO
Control of big money lives at top
Need to call in to top from beginning
Speak their language up top: revenue, cost, time to market, risk, productivity, market share

39 sales manager advice
Ask the tough questions early in the quarter
Get comfortable being uncomfortable
Don’t worry about what’s out of your control
Don’t make a decision until you’re ready
Create culture of competence
It’s ok to be unpopular
Train your people
Own your leadership
Competence vs commitment
Speaking to mind vs heart

40 validation event
Must define criteria to align with product strengths
Ensure scoring is weighted in favor of your strengths
Commit with EB that winner will get PO subject only to legal review and price negotiation
Doesn’t occur early in sales process
Not the time to educate the customer
Only perform POV when have confirmed champion who helped frame win criteria, cost justification built where pain far exceeds cost, verified priority budget authority timing and process steps with EB
After POV build summary report and share it with champion

41 business case
Formal presentation of POV results to economic buyer
Gain over pain details
Customer’s internal document not from vendor point of view
Their corporate objectives, the business problem, before and after use case scenarios, final cost justification
Must be quantified value
Business case becomes post implementation baseline for measuring the solution
Focus on proof event and pain of not changing
Have them talk to champion at another company
Present thorough implementation plan
Highlight the resources available to customer to ensure they’re successful 
Sign contract by y date to Reserve resources by x date to train people by z date so system working by y date the economic buyer needed

42 negotiate and close
Procurement
Their job is to decrease your price
If they solicit competitor quotes, they will realize they are late to the game and will try to tell economic buyer to delay so they can run their process and will plant fear and uncertainty about your solution
Strength comes from decision criteria you created and your unique differentiation 
Proof of solving pain in validation event
Trust and relationship with champion and buyer
Procurement techniques
Pissed off for no apparent reason because you did a good job selling to their org
Take it or leave it and demand of crazy discount
You need us more than we need you brush off
We love you charade
No budget bust
Good guy bad guy setup
Disappearing friend act
Shame game
One more thing strategy
Have a heart scheme
It’s over gambit
Remain calm 
Customer has urgency from scoping stage and pain implicated

43 role models
Need to hold players accountable and discipline them
Minimum operating standards as non-negotiables
Understand all individuals on team as individuals but make sure they know the team comes first
Show up on time, be prepared, show respect, consistent effort, forecast updates to crm by fri 5, know product differentiators and answers to common objections, discovery questions, scoping questions 
Reward exceptional performance and hold unacceptable performance accountable
Take territories and accounts away from low performer and give to high performer
Spend more time with performers than non performers
Emotional proprioception: beware of your effect on others

Part 4 analyzing deal progression 

44 analyzing sales process effectiveness 
Qualification methodology works like gps to tell you where you are in the sales process and how to get back on track
Meddpicc as qualification methodology
Metrics
Economic buyer
Decision criteria
Decision process
Identify pain
Paper process
Champion
Competition

45 identity the pain, problem, or initiative
Why do they have to buy
Customer pains
Is the pain above the noise. Is it in technical or business terms
Buyer most impacted by the pain
Who owns the pain and name a specific person
How does this affect their job measures 
Why do they have to buy from us
Decision criteria
Our product differentiators need to map to their decision criteria 
Why do they have to buy now
What critical business measure is hurt by not solving this pain now
Do they have another alternative to solve the pain
Do you know their desired business outcome
Can’t exit discovery stage if haven’t documented all of the above

46 metrics: the quantification of pain and the solution 
Scoping is next stage
Quantification of pain and business benefits
Must be able to describe before and after with numbers
This drives the cost justification and strength later
What are the current KPIs they track
Have you shared the cost justification with the champion and is champion in agreement with each element 
Have they confirmed they need our differentiators

47 decision criteria
The buyer’s shopping list
Required capabilities and future state
Ensure they’re buying what you’re selling by making your differentiators in the decision criteria
Have to control the criteria in writing to control the deal
Champion helps rep control decision criteria
If changes to criteria happen in favor of competition then losing control of the deal
Do product capabilities align to customer pains
Which unique product differentiators are in the decision criteria
Have the criteria changed since the original agreement
When and which changes were inserted into the criteria out of our control
Who is the competition speaking with that has the power to change the criteria

48 decision process
Evaluate products and select solution 
Must know stakeholders for each event
What events will company use to evaluate a solution
Besides champion who else will be involved in each stage
Of those people, who have you met with 1:1
Have any new people entered the process
What time frames associated with each event
Has decision process changed since it was created
Who changed it and was champion and you involved
Is champion helping you control the process
What’s the title of the competition’s champion
Does the POV have defined start and end dates
Which competitors involved in POV
Can we meet with the EB after the POV

49 champions
Deal control
Must have influence and authority and access to EB
Gain access to EB
Internal sales person working on our behalf
Gain control of the deal
Only one of three can be in control: customer, competition, you
Initially customer in control because you need info from them
Later rep in control if did good job early on so they can sell it internally
Pay attention to direction in which info is flowing
Were you told the criteria and process or did you develop it
Did the champion help the rep develop the before and after and cost justification and decision criteria and process and agenda for EB meeting
What is the position of the champion in the power chart
Have you confirmed champion has influence with others
How have you educated and tested your champion 
Who does champion say is the economic buyer
Has manager scheduled meeting for you with EB

50 economic buyer
Person with discretionary use of the funds and can reallocate the budget
Confirm timeframe to purchase
Confirm cost justification, decision process, decision criteria
Confirm purchase approval upon successful completion of validation event
Have you validated the EB with multiple people
When is the EB meeting scheduled
Has champion briefed EB prior to the meeting
Did you confirm disco and scoping findings and three why’s
What is EB’s desired business outcome
Which measure most impacted by pain
Why is this a priority for the buyer
Did the EB agree all vendors must test to same criteria
Can we call the EB if someone tries to change the criteria
Does the EB have authority to make purchase of this size
Did you review cost justification with EB
Sales leader should be in EB meeting with the rep

51 competition
Be paranoid about your competition 
Know which buyer they are talking to
Be sensitive to any changes to decision criteria or process
Know your competitor’s strengths and product differentiators
Know their weaknesses and create traps and objections and fear uncertainty and doubt against them 
Ensure your champion has more influence and is higher up
Find multiple champions high and wide

52 paper process
Signature approval process
People and timeframe involved
Get contacts for legal and procurement from champion
Has champion been involved in purchasing product of this dollar size

53 end of quarter

Part 5 forecasting strategy

54 forecasting
Gauge of qualification
Bant vs meddpicc
Bant ok for economic buyer meeting

55 forecasting and qualification strategy
If rep can’t articulate exact status of deal and answer qual questions fully, push it off the forecast
Manager job is to qualify the deals hard to convince rep which are actually not real deals
Remove deals early in quarter to force rep to reconcile and find other pipeline to make the gap
Reconciliation
Any quota shortfall of any rep needs to have a plan to fix
Quota shortfall should be multiplied by 4 to calculate full pipeline gap amount the rep needs to source and work
Low forecast due to low pipeline sourcing ability
Discipline is doing what you have to do and like it
Pipeline masks all problems
Sales manager should meet the champion of every forecasted deal to ensure the champion is in control
Maniacally qualify forecasted deals in first month of the quarter
The next two months can focus on the reconciliation deals