Sales is a number-driven business. And if you want to win over your customers, you need to put in a lot of time, energy, and effort. But the only thing that will set you apart from your competitors is going the extra mile.
In this episode of the Sales Hacker podcast, our host Colin Campbell welcomes Rex Biberston, the principal at No Fluff Selling. They talk about the importance of relevance and resonance, why you need to start with the fundamentals first, and how to stand out in the crowd.
Guest-at-a-Glance
Name: Rex Biberston
What he does: He’s the principal at No Fluff Selling.
Company: No Fluff Selling
Noteworthy: Rex is a 2x SDR agency owner and has built sales teams and processes for over 100 early-stage companies. In 2017, he co-authored the best-selling book, Outbound Sales, No Fluff. When he’s not helping his three kids with homework or spending time with his wife, he’s working hard to grow his sales operations agency and build a sales coaching firm for founder-led sales teams.
Where to find Rex: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ Personalization is all about relevance and resonance.
Personalization makes all the difference in sales, and the way to your customers’ hearts is through relevant content that resonates. Rex explains, “It’s not about laziness; it’s just about relevance and resonance. So relevance is like, ‘Why me? Why me now? Why am I the right person to receive your message?’ So relevance could be you’re at a company that uses a competitive product or uses a product we integrate with. Actually, I was working with an SDR team the other day. That was the case. They were building a campaign around, ‘Hey, these data architects have in their LinkedIn profile the use of this particular tool that they’re experts in. And if they’re using that tool at their current company, that means they care about this particular facet of data management, which means they’re an ideal customer for us.’”
⚡ Start with the fundamentals.
While it’s true that you should test different tactics in your sales approach, you should first master the fundamentals. Rex says, “It just feels like everything is important, and we can’t get back to the fundamentals because we don’t really have that framework to reference. And so that’s why when Ryan and I wrote the book, that was our only goal — to say, ‘For outbound sales, here are the fundamentals.’ When I work with clients and when my team works with clients, all we focus on is the fundamentals. You want to get to that third-tier, super fancy, advanced knowledge and testing playground, figure out what works in the modern market? Well, you’ve got to start with good behaviors and habits. You have to build up some solid sales skills, and then we can start playing around with the what-ifs.”
⚡ Do one thing extra if you want to stand out in sales.
Going the extra mile in sales will always make a difference. Rex explains, “The bar is so low in sales because there is no entry requirement to the sales profession. […] The bar is so low; all you have to do is one thing extra. You’re going to send that lazy follow-up email; send it as a video, okay? You don’t have to come up with a super creative idea; just send it as a video. You’re going to send them that LinkedIn message; send it as an audio message. Do just one little thing, and I cannot tell you how much that improves the receptivity, how likely they are to respond — just because you stood out a little bit by doing the thing that is obviously right in front of you. [It’s just] 10 seconds more effort, 30 seconds, maybe five minutes more effort.”
Episode Highlights
Artificial intelligence is good at personalization but not at figuring out what is relevant to and resonates with the buyer
“AI can do a lot of what a human can do in terms of this kind of personalization, but the relevance and truly resonating with that buyer persona, you’ve got to have a lot of context. You’ve got to know a lot about the pains, the problems, what are the downstream effects of those problems.”
Your outreach strategy depends on your prospects’ behaviors
“I think it really depends on your comfort level with the channel. And I would say more important than all of our individual behaviors and preferences is where do your buyers spend time. So if I’m selling to marketers, I’m hitting them up with email. I probably won’t call them nearly as frequently as I’ll email them, but if I’m selling to a VP of sales, or let’s say I’m selling to the industry of real estate, I’m hitting them on the phone all day. I’ll call them three times as much as I’ll email them because I know they’re not sitting at their desk.”
Look for the low-hanging fruit
“I think my very first true sales manager — I was selling alarms door-to-door — and he taught me it’s a lot easier to switch over somebody who already has an alarm than it is to go to someone who’s never bought an alarm and get them to pay 50 bucks a month. And I spent most of my first year switching over, and I was the top rookie in the whole company. So I’d say the best advice, look for that low-hanging fruit, man. Don’t go pushing the rock up the hill every single day. Try and find that first, and then go push the rock.”
