How to use Mental Models to Close More Deals, with Sunne Kumaar, Global Vice President of Sales at ServiceNow

In this episode of the Revenue Insights Podcast, host Lee Bierton is joined by Sunne Kumaar, Global Vice President of Sales at ServiceNow. They discuss what a mental model is, how to recognize mental models, and how mental models can be applied to building successful sales teams.

Sunne has held the position of Sales Director at Salesforce and Accenture. Sunne has a wealth of knowledge and experience of international trade. Additionally, he reads widely and keeps up with various commercial and technological trends.

Timestamps:

00:32 – 01:30 – Sunne’s Story

01:57 – 03:52 – What is a mental model?

04:04 – 06:47 – The 5 Whys – and how to use it to get to the root cause

07:08 – 10:12 – How to use the 5 whys in your sales process

10:51 – 16:40 – How ServiceNow used First Principles to trigger 150% YoY growth

18:14 – 26:21 – Using Inversion to prevent deals from slipping or from being lost

27:06 – 28:31 – How to use Inversion sparingly to drive the most value

29:34 – 31:20 – How to recognize mental models and use them in your day-to-day

31:30 – 37:33 – How Occam’s Razor can be used to take a simple approach that works first before building complexity on top that can scale

38:41 – 42:17 – How to find the balance between a simple process that everyone can understand and allowing the emotional art of sales to thrive

42:40 – 45:32 – Sunne’s Book Recommendation: Howard Marks – The Most Important Thing

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