Today, we have a special guest Mary Grothe. Mary is the CEO of her firm, Sales BQ, and has a driving goal to help CEOs avoid the cost of bad sales hires. Mary focuses on helping salespeople reach new levels of profitability, and ultimately, be the best in sales. In episode 517 of the Sell or Die Podcast, Mary is sharing her top tips on how you can be the best salesperson out there and how she got to where she is today.
But before we dive right in, let us introduce ourselves in case this is your first visit. Welcome to the Sell or Die Podcast. We’re your hosts, Jeffrey & Jen Gitomer. Between the two of us, we’ve written the books The Little Red Book of Selling, Sales in a New York Minute, plus 15 other best-selling books. We’ve also created the 7 figure sales formula program and the Breakthrough Business Babe Community.
Sell or Die is for sales professionals, sales managers, entrepreneurs, and business owners who want to sell more at full price, earn loyalty, and have an unlimited stream of referrals. Every single episode will give you real-world, easy-to-implement solutions so that you can get your calls returned, your proposals read and acted on while creating relationships that you can take to the bank.
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Check out the points below to learn more about how you can be the best in sales. And for even more details on each point, listen to ALL of episode 517 of the Sell or Die Podcast on your preferred streaming platform!
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Mary started as an admin and supported a mid-market sales team, she just happened to report to the number one sales manager in the country. This guy was brilliant, had a huge heart, and within two years Mary got to study her favorites in sales, such as Brian Tracy, Dale Carnegie, this gave her a great foundational understanding of how to be the best in sales. Fast forward two years, Mary stepped fully into a sales role and, truthfully, was scared to death. After watching people sell and after she absorbed as much knowledge as she could, it was time to try her hand at selling. The first time she picked up the phone, she remembers the fear and anxiety that washed over her, like it was yesterday. Mary’s sales manager instructed her to call ten clients and ask them three questions.
Mary realized she had to get out of her head and focus on how to solve problems and set the stage. She started telemarketing and setting up sales meetings, and she realized sales were uncomfortable. However, she liked being a complex problem solver. Bottom line is that Mary always showed up differently than everyone on her team, she was hungry and wanted to win. There’s a component of the high performing salesperson, which she refers to as BQ, the Behavioral Quotient. This is a get-up and go attitude, you do whatever it takes ethically to succeed. Sales are fun, it’s not a job. It’s a thrill because you do all the right things to get a yes and the client loves you. For Mary, that’s what drove her to get to where she is and still drives her to this day.
In Mary’s first year of sales she had a quota of $150,000, she sold $758,000. Mary knew about halfway through the year she was trending, she had a decision she could pull her foot off the gas and take some vacation time, OR she could work harder. She thought about what she could accomplish in a year, if she’d accomplished so much in six months? Mary turned up her efforts into her sales even more. At the time, Mary didn’t know the characteristics inside herself that took it to get there. She began mapping out the sales process, methodology, and systems she built to hold herself accountable. Mary realized that sales just came naturally to her and she loved it.
Mary describes the everyday excitement and how she can’t wait to have sales conversations. That’s the fueling source. She developed a playbook that helped a ton of people perform exponentially better. This opened the door for Mary to offer even more to potential clients wanting to learn her sales process. People started flying out to see Mary in Denver and shadow her work. To her surprise, most salespeople couldn’t last a full day. They wanted to know when they’d have breaks and stop to eat lunch. Mary didn’t resonate with that and found that the common habits within those salespeople were things she didn’t do, including scrolling on social media throughout the day. Ultimately, the strongest characteristics to be the best in sales comes down to passion, enthusiasm, and conviction fueled by doing whatever it takes to win. However, you can’t teach people that, that’s something that must come from within.
Mary explains BQ by first familiarizing us with the concept of IQ, EQ, and BQ. All three are required to be great in sales, but what she found is that without BQ, even if you have the other two, you can’t be successful. IQ is your intellectual intelligence, your knowledge set. EQ, emotional intelligence, is emotional self-awareness and being able to identify the emotions of others. Thirdly we have BQ, behavioral intelligence. This is all about the execution. In sales, we must be organized with a plan on how to show up.
Mary had one of the highest close rates in the company but that came with being prepared, doing her research, walking into her meeting with confidence and leaving with no room for them to consider the competition. It’s to set yourself apart. With the BQ, there are a thousand things to do and execute every day. If you don’t have the BQ component, what are you doing? It’s like having a great product and marketing service but if you don’t execute, you simply will not make sales.
You have to have intelligence, emotion, and behave in the right way. You can’t just go out and take a job in sales just to make money, those people fail every single time. Plus, if you don’t love what you do, you rise to mediocre every time. Mary got to where she is today by embodying the qualities of intelligence, being emotionally attached to what she does, and behaving like a winner. What happened, as a result, is earning a lot of money and finding tremendous success.
To hear more about Mary’s story and how you can be the best in sales, don’t forget to tune in to episode 517 of the Sell or Die Podcast.
Thank you so much for listening to Sell or Die! We hope that this episode has helped you to transform the way you think, given you new ideas, and provided a new perspective on the sales and business challenges you face every day so that you can win the customer to the bank.
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Known as the King of Sales, Jeffrey Gitomer is the Author of 16 best-selling books including the Little Red Book of Selling, the Sales Bible, and his newest book Get Sh*t Done. In 2008, he was inducted in the Speakers Hall of Fame – the highest award in the speaking industry. His world-class list of clients include companies from Fortune 500 companies around the world. His digital Learning academy and signature course, The Seven-Figure Sales Formula, offers individuals and teams real-world sales strategies they can implement immediately.
Jen Gitomer gained her prowess in NYC as both a salesperson and award-winning sales leader for a Fortune 500 company. She is the best-selling Author of Sales in a New York Minute, CEO and Founder of Breakthrough Business Babe and a master business growth coach.
Jeffrey and Jen thank you, Diehard, for helping Sell Or Die achieve more than 2 million downloads!