Michael Griego.

Modernselling.com talks to Silicon Valley high-achiever. MICHAEL GRIEGO.

A veteran of 20 years in Silicon Valley, Michael Griego is one of those salespeople who seems to have really cracked it right from the start.

A high-achiever from the word go, the former IBM sales star cut his teeth selling books door-to-door in order to pay his way through college. In the summer holidays from his English literature degree at Occidental College, Griego learnt his trade knocking on doors at the rate of 60 a day, six days a week. 

‘It really taught me about sales,’ he declares. ‘It was definitely tough.

‘We hit the first door at 8 am in the morning and we’d leave the last house at 9.30 at night. It was a brutal job!’

Eventually he was put in charge of a team, a position Griego which says helped him to get into Stanford and then go on to earn his MBA. Now president and founder of Silicon Valley-based sales training, consulting and management services firm MXL Partners, Griego has had a successful sales and management career with firms like IBM, StorageTek, Gartner Group, Intelliquest and Active Decisions.

100% Club

At IBM the high attainment continued as Griego hit quota in his first two years in order to make the 100% Club.

So what is the secret of his success? Griego attributes this to ‘good fundamentals’, which he is planning to share with readers in an upcoming webinar. Sponsored by ModernSelling.com and Citrix Online, on 4 Keys to an Effective Sales Pitch takes place on Thursday 13 May at 3pm and is free to readers.

Griego is now a popular sales trainer, sales process consultant and keynote speaker for companies internationally and has recently written a book which has fulfilled a lifelong ambition and combines his talents for English and sales. (He’s also an accomplished guitar player – Ed.) 42 Rules to Increase Sales Effectiveness is the ‘culmination of a lot of experience’ and aims to provide the ‘keys to sales excellence in today’s challenging world.

Top three sales tips

What then are Griego’s top three sales tips he would offer to newcomers to the world of sales?

1. It’s not about you! He warns selfish-thinking or impatient salespeople that success comes by being part of a team or a company. ‘You should focus on making your numbers.’
2. It’s not about your products! ‘Not everybody wants to hear about your products,’ he reminds us. In particular, he advises against simply diving into a product pitch before fully qualifying the prospect.
3. It’s all about the customer! ‘I learned that at IBM,’ declares Griego. The company is not only world-class in terms of manufacturing, engineering and services but also world-class when it comes to sales and marketing. The customer was number one; sales was king; they understood that sales was critical.’

Happily for Griego, he spent the first 12 years of his career with organisations that understood this philosophy, although subsequently he encountered companies that were more technology or analyst-driven.

Griego has conducted training and consulting services for a wide range of companies such as Nokia, Postini, Xerox PARC, InfoSys, Sun Microsystems, Logitech, IDC and Frost & Sullivan to name just a few of the many. He also strays outside the world of hi-tech, working with the likes of Silicon Valley Bank and Deloitte-Touche, and has been a lecturer at San Jose State University, UC Santa Cruz Extension, and a guest speaker at the Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Buyers

He acknowledges that buyers are fundamentally changing the sales map for organisations. His approach is to encourage salespeople to understand the how the buyers buy and then to map the sales process onto the buying process.

‘I emphasise the buying process. At the rep level, I really encourage reps to understand how the buyers buy.

Today, the customers are so knowledgeable; they’re very savvy whether they’re from purchasing, finance or IT.’

Buyers do not suffer fools, Griego reminds us. Young salespeople often get their head handed to them because they ‘come across as very naive with their little scripts’. His advice to salespeople is to do your homework and understand how people buy; he recommends asking plenty of questions so you understand the issues, challenges and problems.

Sales 2.0

These days, though, it is getting more and more difficult even to speak to a buyer. Griego admits to finding the whole Sales 2.0 development fascinating. While acknowledging the obvious benefit of any new sales tools, he underlines the back-to-basics-approach they can help engender in sales. He emphasises a blending of the fundamentals with the technology of the modern era.

‘I don’t see salespeople going out of style,’ he tells ModernSelling.com.

Griego views the new social networking tools like LinkedIn as a ‘dream world for a salesperson’ with their facility to provide the necessary introductions and contacts.

‘However, you still need to execute appropriate sales technique; you’ve got to be effective.’

Michaal Griego: salespeople not out of style,

He also admits that many organisations can have problems using a traditional mix of phone-based lead generation and field salespeople but attributes this to the company’s not having thought through and executed the process properly.

‘That does work and it will continue to work. Many people do this and it doesn’t work because they haven’t put it all together correctly,’ he stresses.

Sharpen your game

Griego says he spends a lot of time training salespeople who have not had the opportunity of coming up through the traditionally excellent sales schools of companies like IBM, Xerox or ATT.

‘There’s a big difference between a 38-year-old salesperson and a 28-year-old salesperson,’ he says.

‘However, even good old salespeople get sloppy and start winging it,’ Griego warns. ‘In the new era, people have to be better than that and constantly sharpen their game.’

And he takes people back to the three fundamentals he discusses in his book, reminding salespeople that it is all about perspective, ie seeing things from the customer’s point of view.

‘It’s not about you; it’s not about your product; it’s all about the customer.

Please click on 4 Keys to an Effective Sales Pitch to register for the free webinar. It takes place on Thursday 13 May at 3pm.

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