How to Sell Outcomes, Not Software with Jeremy Bono, GM/VP Sales at Phenom

In this episode of the Revenue Insights Podcast, host Lee Bierton is joined by Jeremy Bono, GM/VP Sales at Phenom, a purpose-driven organization delivering AI-powered talent experiences to global enterprises.   

In this episode, we discuss the importance of focussing on selling outcomes rather than software. Jeremy takes us through actionable advice to perfecting the discovery aspect of the sales process, teaches us how to multi-thread deals amid the landscape of increasing stakeholder numbers, and shares how Phenom have been increasing quota attainment across the sales team. 

Jeremy Bono is a visionary leader with a record of developing and executing strategies that drive growth and profitability in hyper-competitive markets. As the current GM/VP Sales at Phenom, he is responsible for leading enterprise and industry vertical sales teams. He is further an Executive Member of Pavilion, hosting monthly standup meetings with other members to create a community to share and learn.

• Jeremy Bono on LinkedIn
• How Leaders Lead Podcast
• Pavilion Website
• Book Recommendation – Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent

Time Stamps [will need to be updated once audio is edited]:

• 00:25 – Jeremy’s career story
• 08:20 – The Phenom team 18 months ago versus now
• 11:07 – Achieving success through selling outcomes
• 14:52 – Perfecting the art of discovery
• 19:42 – Multi-threading versus single-threading deals
• 23:52 – Onboarding the high-level executives
• 28:27 – Approaching a more sustainable and predictive selling strategy
• 32:19 – Increasing quota attainment across your sales team
• 37:12 – The characteristics of top performers
• 40:16 – Recommendations for development

Highlights: 

Perfecting the Art of Discovery

The discovery part of the sales process is an art, and you need to nail it. Jeremy’s top advice for this is to forget your product and be curious. You need to identify and discover the problem and how it is impacting a business, then work on understanding their psychology around solving the problem. Once you have done this you can start to introduce your product into the discussions, before digging into the value, identifying the key influencers, and ultimately developing a plan. Ensuring you have a cohesive understanding of each step before moving onto the next ensures you will be driving a good quality cycle.

Multi-Threading Deals

Salespeople commonly struggle with managing more than a few contacts in a process, but the number of stakeholders involved has increased in recent years. Thus, it is important to learn how to engage and manage relationships with multiple stakeholders as part of the buying process. One key piece of advice that Jeremy shares is to establish credibility around your knowledge of the space, then people will naturally want to talk to you, but there are other tactical measures to take, as Jeremy shares in the episode.

Increasing Quota Attainment Across the Sales Team

With recent analysis showing that only 20% of sellers are consistently hitting their quota, it is vital to look into increasing quota attainment across the whole team. Jeremy’s team have begun hiring individuals based on an assessment against the top performer characteristics, which align to their buyers and to the rest of the company. It is imperative to have conviction and clarity around your hiring profile, and not to deviate from it, to increase the success of your team. However, it is also important to encourage a culture that says it is okay to fail as you can learn from it and improve. You never lose if you learn.

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