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Today’s show featured an interview with Federal News Network sales leader Jeffrey Wolinsky.
Find Jeffrey on LinkedIn.
JEFFREY’S TIP: “The tip is how timing impacts your overall pipeline management. You need to have multiple companies, multiple prospects in all aspects of the sales process because timing is a factor that us on the selling side of the equation can’t impact. Sometimes the timing has to be right for the prospect, even when all of the other aspects of the opportunity are lined up. Use timing in your favor but use timing to drive your pipeline to be more robust so that you can deliver the results that you want.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: Welcome to another episode of the Sales Story and a Tip Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond. Of course. I’m also the host of the Sales Game Changers podcast, and I’m the cofounder of the Institute for Excellence in Sales. Thanks for listening to today’s Sales Story and a Tip. I’m very excited to have my guest, Jeffrey Wolinsky. Jeffrey, give us a brief introduction.
Jeffery Wolinsky: Thank you, Fred. We are an organization that helps people target audience through our news platforms, WTOP and Federal News Network, as well as any audience through our digital agency, 2060 Digital.
Fred Diamond: Very good. You’ve been a guest a couple of times on the Sales Game Changers Podcast. I’m excited to hear your story. So, Jeffrey Wolinsky, tell me a story.
Jeffrey Wolinsky: Our organization has always helped people reach our audience. But several years ago, we started a digital agency helping our clients reach any audience. And initially it was an easy approach to go towards existing customers, to tell them how they could expand their relationships with us.
And so that’s exactly what we did. Went to some of our biggest clients and explained to them how they could expand their relationships with us. There was one specific client that I felt like made massive sense for this, based off of the ideal customer profile that we had for these additional digital targeting capabilities. The customer was somebody who could convert people directly on their website, make sales directly on their website. The customer was somebody that needed help driving people to their website. The customer was somebody that needed help designing and creating a new website, all capabilities that we could deliver for them.
So what did I do?
Use my relationship to immediately set up time to meet with this customer, tell him all about all of the new things that I could do for him. Right away. He was interested, as our Sandler sales professionals would always say, acted enthusiastic about everything and committed to nothing. I felt like I was beating my head against the wall over and over and over again, showing him all of the different ways and all of the different capabilities that I could help him with to drive his key business metrics. But what did he do? He continued to buy the exact same products from me and not make any changes. I didn’t understand this. After several decades that he had been in his position, the board of directors and him came to the agreement that it was time for him to move on.
And new person came in. Literally the day one of the new person coming in, I showed this person that the over one year long process and level of presentations that we had provided, making the case for why they should expand their relationship with us allow us to be the digital provider of choice to help them to drive their business with these key marketing objectives that they had through these new channels that could deliver exactly what they wanted. Instantly, she gave me a green light on the first time that we met. So when I look back at that aspect of it, I did everything that our sales organization asked, I looked at to make sure that dollar potential was there in the company that we were talking to, that there was access to a decision maker, that there was fit between the products that we were offering and what they needed.
And ultimately it came down to needing a new decision maker. Ultimately, this new decision maker was an interim CEO, gave us the green light to start the process of helping their business with these digital marketing capabilities. And the new CEO supercharged that even more, adding additional capabilities that we offered into what they were purchasing from us, ultimately becoming one of our largest partners and somebody that we showed major success with.
This company has had year over year, besting their best, having their best year, and then beating their best year with another best year, year after year after year. And we provided a valuable piece to their success. Felt amazing. And it was a phenomenal success story that internally we trumpeted not only in our regional office, but to other regional offices around the company as the ideal fit for customers that we could help move forward their business objectives with our new offerings and deliver our business plan in the way that we had originally designed it to be when we changed some of the offerings that we were bringing to market. An absolute success all the way around.
Fred Diamond: Yeah, I encourage people to go listen to your Sales Game Changers podcast episode because you talked about the transition that your company was going through. Again, many people knew your company as one of the top radio advertising places in the world, and you were making this transition to offering many, many more things. So it’s a great story, and sometimes you need a little change at the customer to have that opening. It’s a great example of that. Jeffrey, give us a tip that you learned from this story.
Jeffrey Wolinsky: And my tip also starts with a t, and it’s timing. And what I find is that oftentimes salespeople get fixated on an account like I did with this one, and they’re so of the belief that they’re going to change the account’s opinion and convert them into the customer that they want them to be, that they don’t keep their pipeline healthy enough for a situation like this that puzzles them, where their decision maker, for whatever reason or no reason, doesn’t move forward with what they want.
So. the tip is timing and how timing impacts your overall pipeline management. You need to have multiple companies, multiple prospects in all aspects of the sales process because timing is a factor that us on the selling side of the equation can’t impact. Sometimes the timing has to be right for the prospect, even when all of the other aspects of the opportunity are lined up. Timing is the tip. Use timing in your favor, but use timing to drive your pipeline to be more robust so that you can deliver the results that you want.
Fred Diamond: All right, once again, I want to thank Jeffrey Wolinsky for sharing his sales story and for giving us a tip.