Bill McDermott: The famous CEO Who Started as a Xerox Sales rep

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Good Morning! A new report revealed that Wells Fargo is losing nearly $10M per month on their Bilt Rent credit card, which allows renters to pay rent without landlord fees. They overestimated how many users would carry a balance, which means they’re losing money on most users. At least it's not as bad as that time they made sales reps open fake accounts to hit their quotas. 🙂 

In today’s Follow Up:

• Sales lessons from Bill McDermott 💰️ 

• Sales email tip of the day 🧠 

• Sales news around the internet 🗞️ 

• Sales jobs, job market & a meme 😂 

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Sales Lessons From Bill McDermott

Bill McDermott looks exactly like what you’d picture a celebrity-ish tech CEO who’s worth 100’s of millions to look like.

He’s most well known for his role as CEO of SAP from 2010 to 2019, and currently serves as the CEO of ServiceNow.

In 2021, Bill was the 3rd highest paid CEO of an S&P 500 company, yet that’s not even the most interesting thing about him.

Bill’s come-up story is movie-worthy, starting in high school when he convinced a deli shop owner to sell him the shop for $7K and then turned it into a successful business, which he used to pay his way through college.

After college, Bill cut his teeth in sales at Xerox, where he worked his way up from an entry level sales rep to the company's youngest division president.

Throughout his career, Bill has been responsible for billions in sales, and became an elite level salesman and sales manager.

So we spent our weekend diving into Bill’s greatest sales lessons to find the 3 you need to know about.

Let's take a look 👇

1. It’s About Them, Not You 🫵 

Bill is known for his empathetic leadership style. He aims to understand people on a human level - whether they’re employees, customers, or partners.

In sales, empathy is his secret weapon.

He aims to bring the conversation to a human level, rather than simply business talk.

• How can you make their lives better?

• What do they care about, and why do they care about it?

When you put yourself in your customers' shoes and feel their pains, you can communicate how your product will make their lives better.

People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

2. The Right Side of The Brain 🧠 

Bill says the golden rule of sales is the 80-20 rule.

80% listening, 20% talking.

Use your right side of the brain (aka, the imagination side) to pull out your curiosity, and ask curious questions that aren’t scripted.

By exercising the right side of your brain in your sales process, you’ll also start using more imagination and storytelling. When done correctly, your prospects will see themselves in the stories you’re telling and want to work with you to solve their problem.

3. Dream Bigger and Execute Bigger ⚒️ 

Contrary to what you might believe, dreaming bigger can sometimes be easier than being modest.

When you dream big and tell the story of a grand vision, you can hire better talent, create a culture of top performers, and hit goals that seem impossible.

But big goals only work when you pair them with elite execution.

Bill told the story of when he was at SAP and projected growth at 10X what they’d done in the past. Most of his teammates thought he was crazy, so he pitched a sales plan that would get them there and rallied his team to get excited about it.

Rather than playing cheerleader for his team to go out and win the big deals, he put himself in the war room with the top sales reps to review the deals and push them in any way he could. SAP ended up hitting that 10X growth goal which gave his team even more confidence in their abilities.

As Bill says...

Bonus: Reward Yourself 🏆

In 2022 McDermott bought a $43M mansion on Laguna Beach after earning more than $165M in 2021.

The Follow Up can neither confirm nor deny if buying a Mansion on the beach will make you a better salesperson.

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Sales Around The Web 🗞️ 

📊 The #1 priority for GTM strategies this year is improving data quality, followed by integrating new technology, and trying out new tactics.

🎬️ The real story of Chris Gardner, the famous salesman played by Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness.

👀 Why the cost of a sales team generally doubles as a company scales.

😂 This sales rep has officially become the ‘class clown’ in their office.

⏲️ Sales Managers discuss whether they work less than they did when they were sales reps.

Checking In On The Job Market

Fully remote… with 1 day in the office. 🤔 

Sales Meme of the Day