Tom Latourette: The Secrets Behind High-Performing Salespeople

Conversational Selling

About Tom Latourette: Tom Latourette has been a disciple of the M3 Learning process since 2000 when he was the VP of Sales and Marketing at SBR, Inc. With over 30 years of marketing, sales, and sales management experience, Tom can bring a unique, real-world perspective to your M3 Learning experience. His knowledgeable application of ProActive solutions can greatly impact your productivity as a sales manager or salesperson. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Tom.

In this episode, Nancy and Tom discuss the following:

• The importance of practical, bottom-line sales tools for both sales reps and managers to improve performance
• The importance of understanding what activities top performers do daily to replicate success across the team
• Challenges in managing senior salespeople and the importance of aligning their goals with their personal "why"
• Using proactive solutions, like the COD method (Cause, Outcome, Decide), to guide sales discovery calls effectively
• The value of consultative selling over feature-based selling by focusing on uncovering client needs before pitching solutions

Key Takeaways:

• One of the biggest things is that space of really understanding what creates success in your organization.
• When I'm interviewing salespeople, I watch how they handle the interview because they will interview the same way that they will sell.
• Ask a few good outcome questions and ensure you're finding out their decision-making process.
• We've got to do kind of a yin and yang. Sometimes, we have to answer the question but ensure we're flipping.

"And our answer was, well, Rich always hits his goal. That's what A players do. That's what high performers do. We didn't have to worry about Rich. And he goes, "Great. Great, I get it. But let me ask you guys a question. You're sitting here at this two-day leadership training program. We're going to be talking about a lot of great stuff. But what's Rich doing today? What's he doing to make success happen 12 months from now?" And, Nancy, we couldn't answer that question. We didn't know. We couldn't answer the question. Rich was already a really good salesperson. We didn't know. We didn't feel we could bring anything to the table for him. But what Skip helped us see was that if we couldn't articulate what success looked like, what the steps a successful salesperson was doing daily, then as a leadership team, or even as a company, we couldn't hire more Riches. We couldn't coach the rest of our people to be like Rich. And maybe we were going to lose Rich because he's watching us spend all of our time with our non-performers, trying to help them get better. Right? And that was a big moment. I remember midway through my career, I felt like my mind expanded and really got to that space of "What are things? How do I get my people to do the right things? And what are those things that they need to do? And how do we do more of them?" – TOM

"Ithink, one, you know, probably one of the biggest things we have to do a better job of as leaders, not just of salespeople but leaders of humans, as other people, is. I think sales leaders often don't understand the "why" behind the humans we're working with. One of the questions I like to ask sales leaders I work with is, "Tell me why this person wants to perform better. What are they striving for?" You know, the great thing about Rich was that on January 1st of every year, Rich would take a picture of what he would spend his commission check on at the end of the year. And so, one year, it was a new truck. The next year, it was a hot tub. The year after that, it was a new deck. And so, as Rich's leader, every time I'd work with Rich, I'd go, "Hey Rich, what are we working towards today? What are we working towards this year?" And then I could get alignment on helping him achieve his goals, right? So, I think the first thing, Nancy, is we have to be better humans aligned with our people and understand their "why" better. What is it about this job? What about the goal they're setting for themselves that is important to them? I don't know if that makes sense, and it seems like a soft skill, but I see that too many leaders don't know the answer to that." – TOM

"Think about your relationship with a client much like your relationship on a first date. A first date is not about telling you how great I am; it's about uncovering what you're looking for. The objective of a first date is to determine if a second date makes sense. Then, after a second date, you determine if a third date makes sense, and so on, until a strong relationship is formed. One of the things we talk about is getting salespeople out of the space where they think people want to be educated. People don't want to be educated; they want to be validated. Good discovery is about validating your needs and allowing you to be heard. I think salespeople have to get better at discovery, asking better, deeper questions, and being okay with asking before they tell." – TOM

Connect with Tom Latourette:

• LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-latourette/
• M3 Learning: https://www.m3learning.com/

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