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Clarity

James Michael

San Diego, CA

Sales Leader and Disrupter. Team builder, data-driven, and connoisseur of modern sales best practices.

I can help your sales organization by coaching on the sales process, methodology and building key data metrics to grow and scale your business. Let's build a tailored sales machine for your business so you can grow and hit your goals.

**DISCLAIMER - I DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY**

I structure my Clarity calls a little bit differently than everyone else. To maximize our time and your money, I ask for your questions before our call so I can carefully think about your unique business situation and provide thoughtful feedback and suggestions. I hope you appreciate this approach.

$3.33/min

19 Calls

7 Reviews

29 minutes
Avg. call

Sales Sales Management Training Contract Negotiation B2B Account Management Sales Trainings Consultative Selling K-12 Sales Skills Training

Call me to talk about

Sales Coaching and Sales Strategy

I have experience training sales reps on how to sell saas and I have coached industry best practices. If your sales team is holding meetings with potential clients, I can help structure your meetings to maximize the value on both sides of the contract.

Answers 19
Reviews 7

Answers

James Michael answered

How do we get our clients to give us a personal introduction to other people who are capable of becoming clients?

What kind of product are you offering? The answer to your question differs based on your customers and potential customers. If you're in a more B2C format and selling to individuals, the process would differ than a traditional B2B.
A few basic ideas:
I would build a creative referral program that gives them something when they refer you to new or prospective clients. We have given a credit towards our customers software renewal, future discounts or simple things like a Starbucks gift card and a nice thank you note. If most of your customers are local, sponsor an event and ask them to bring their friends. Would love to hear more about your business and what you're currently doing to see if I could help.

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New Business Development

James Michael answered

Where can I find commission based sales reps?

Fully commission based or are you doing salary plus commission? Would also be curious about the product you are selling, how long the sales cycle is, how complicated the sales process is and what skills are necessary to sell your product. If the answers are are quick, easy and few, then maybe college campuses are a good place to start but if it's more complicated then you will need to post jobs on indeed or craigslist. Let's connect as I have hired a lot of sales people and chat through your business model and the reliance on your sales team.

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Sales

Web Design & Development

James Michael answered

Should I charge for a pilot project?

It totally depends on where you are in the product life cycle. Of course you want to get paid but you also need success stories and objective information about your product and how to improve it, especially if it's a newer product. You could always limit the pilot to 60 days and charge for professional services up front and then get the subscription after the pilot if it goes well as an alternative. I think you need to evaluate long term value of the customer - will they be with you for 6 months or 10 years? What's the difference if you start off in a pilot without a large sum of money exchanged if the relationship lasts over multiple years and they generate referral business for you that exponentially increases. Have some other ideas that could be helpful if you want to chat through it.

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Early-stage Startups

Private Pilot

Commercial Pilot

James Michael answered

Meeting with a very senior executive.

I think you want to go into this meeting with the expectation that you are there to continue to build the existing relationship you have and that you would like to gain any tips or tricks he might have as you are launching your business. Maybe the ask in this situation is around if he can be a referral for you when you met the right client or maybe you ask if his team could to give your software a try for a few months for more feedback. I wouldn't try to sell this guy quite yet. Let it happen organically as a result of him trusting you and trying to help you.

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Sales

Sales Management

Sales Process

James Michael answered

How would you sell a governance and compliance solution? Our solution helps with improving governance during the change management process?

Hi, this is definitely in my wheel house. I sell to schools and school districts with a lot of red tape. We need to get their buy in and learn about their processes so we can offer the complete solution. Often times there are multiple layers that are involved in making the decision and asking questions around that will help confirm your assumptions.

There are a variety of ways to go about this and you could start with auditors who are directly impacted by your solution and gain their trust by asking them questions about their current processes. When you know what their problems are you can show them your solution with your product. The goal here is to really understand how the business operates so when you get a chance to meet with the ultimate decision maker such as a CIO/CFO/Business Owner, you can effectively and efficiency present your solutions totally tailored to their specific business, speaking their language which results in a compelling reason to do business with you. Win!

I like to empower the person I am meeting with to get me another meeting with the decision maker by using what I call a deal one-pager which is basically an executive summary the person I met with can pass on to the decision maker to then meet with me to discuss what I found when I met with the employee.

Let me know if you would like to see a copy of this or would like help with what I wrote above.

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Sales Management

Direct Sales

Sales Process

James Michael answered

Where can I sell refurbished laptops for re-use?

Did you try amazon or ebay? Seems like a natural place to start...

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New Business Development

Revenue & Profit Growth

Sales

James Michael answered

How can I take my skills and experience in product development and turn them into a compelling offering to sell as a consultant?

Go with your 2 best skills and find customers that you can immediately impact by one or two of those skills. Once you get in the door and make an impact you can then "cross-sell" some of your other skills and continue to bill out your time. Try to identify customers that might need, for example, lamp or api help (assuming many do) and start small to then grow your consultative skill sets to other areas of the customer's business. I made it sound easy as pie but narrow your focus and get your hands dirty!

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Software Engineering

Consulting

Career Advising

James Michael answered

How long should I wait to follow-up after a potential business partnership meeting?

Definitely time to start pushing them for the next meeting. There are a few tactical you could use but next time, remember to always set up the next meeting before you leave and push the people you are meeting with you to put the next meeting in their calendars. If you're working with C-level people, go and chat with their assistants which might also be your play here. See if you can connect with their assistants to get 15 minutes for a status update call with your decision makers.

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Business Development

New Business Development

Partnerships

James Michael answered

What are strategies to get ahold of the decision makers behind corporate speakers and training programs at large companies?

You need to be very specific in how you clearly convey the value of what you provide and how it can impact their position and company. As written below, LinkedIn will help you identify but then you need to start your outreach. I have a "prospecting" approach that uses email, phone and mailers (yes mailers) along with specific time intervals that has proved to be successful in building awareness and getting in front of decision makers. If you would like to see it, please let me know.

Above all, you need to have some grit and simply just start your conversations. If you believe in yourself and your product, it will come through in your conversations and people will be drawn to speaking with you.

Good luck!

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B2B Marketing

Cold Calling

Sales

James Michael answered

What is the best tool for pre-hire, sales representative personality testing?

I would be curious to know why you feel it is important to use personality testing. I have hired over 20 sales reps and I have never used any testing. I have conversations with my hires because that is going to tell me more about their personality any day than a test. Plus you might eliminate someone because of a test score that could be a great fit for your organization. I have a pretty strong process for hiring sales people and could share with you my steps and even the questions if you would like.

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Hiring

Sales Management

Human Resources

James Michael answered

How can I achieve product sales for my SAAS Microsoft-based product?

Do you have a network of these individuals who would utlimately make the sale for you? If you have connections, you could offer demos or some type of product evaluation so you could get some success stories to help you leverage the product.

Whenever you pitch to these people, always remember, "what's in it for me" - me, being the account managers. Without the account managers clearly understanding the benefits, you'll never get them to sell for you.

I have some other ideas around strategy here if you would like to chat.

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Sales

SaaS

SaaS Sales

Reviews

James obviously knows his stuff, but it's his calm attitude that hooks you. He's not showy, not boastful but clear and helpful.

Lance Johnson Source: Clarity

This was an excellent call. Within a few minutes, we had a lot of clarity around the concerned issues.

I appreciate the call and James' expertise. Thank you!

Source: Clarity

James had great advice on how to build out our B2B marketing strategy.

Ty Shaikh Source: Clarity

Very helpful, thanks James!

brandon stapper Source: Clarity

High quality advice delivered in an easy to execute format. James has experience with many different sales teams and offers clear/concise instructions.
Schedule him, you'll be glad you did!

Kyle Comino Source: Clarity

James gave me valuable info to move me in the right direction

jeremy c Source: Clarity

Great call, he was quick and concise about the plan to land a sales conversation that we can implement right away and even emailed us his templates. Looking forward to putting it to work!

Mike & Rick Tielemans Source: Clarity

Member since April 2015