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Welcome to the Sales Transformation Podcast, the definitive stop for leaders driving change in the sales world. Hosted by Collin Mitchell, we dive deep into the minds of Founders, CEOs, VPs of Sales, and Sales Development Leaders from trailblazing startups to industry-leading public companies.
Our mission is simple: to illuminate the path to extraordinary sales leadership. We explore a broad spectrum of sales territories, from the intricacies of Founder Led Sales and Outbound Sales to the transformative potential of Technology in Sales and Social Selling. Whether it's mastering your CRM, optimizing conversions, scaling sales teams, or engineering a complete Sales Transformation, our conversations are set to challenge the status quo and redefine sales success.
With a new content every day of the week, we bring you unfiltered interviews with the luminaries of sales, people who have not just succeeded but transformed the way we think about sales. Collin Mitchell also shares sharp, tactical sales tips every week, packing decades of sales wisdom into bite-sized insights.
So, if you're ready to rewrite the sales rulebook and learn from the best in the business, the Sales Transformation Podcast is your ticket. Write us a review, share the show, and join us on this journey of sales evolution. Let's transform the way we sell, together!
Get ready for an insightful episode on sales transformation and the importance of lifelong learning. Host Colin Mitchell interviews sales expert Mark Cox, who shares his journey from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset. So sit back, relax, and get ready to elevate your sales techniques with this thought provoking episode. Let's dive in. Colin, take it away.
Collin Mitchell:Very excited to have Mark Cox on today. Mark has been fortunate enough to have sold, structured, and negotiated some of the largest single sales transactions in North America, including a $1,000,000,000 transaction with a top ten US bank. Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Cox:Thank you very much, Colin. I'm a real fan of the show, so thanks for having me.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. Appreciate that. Just before we, you know, get into the topic here that we we planned out for today, why don't you tell us what is your biggest sales transformation?
Mark Cox:Well, you know, I was in my late twenties. I had a little bit of success in professional selling up to that stage of the game. And I think if you think of Carol Dweck in growth mindset, I was sort of plateauing in this place where I thought I bit of a fixed mindset about selling. And I thought my success was kinda driven by some core attributes that were inherent to me. So what I actually did, Colin, was I booked in for an executive MBA.
Mark Cox:I thought I'd spend a couple of years and go get an MBA. And then maybe when I came back, I'd have that financial acumen to get to the CEO level, or maybe be a CFO and do some other things. And, you know, the there was the transformation was really twofold. One, once I really started doing a deep dive on business using the business case method made famous by Harvard, I realized that sales is the most important function in any business. So the more education I got, the more I realized where I'd naturally grown up in professional sales.
Mark Cox:It was the only thing I really wanted to do. The second thing it did for me, it really awakened my curiosity in this growth mindset. So it it retriggered for me this lifelong learner approach, kind of a learn it all versus a know it all. And I have this voracious appetite for learning. And that was really transformational for me professionally in sales, but also personally.
Mark Cox:And frankly, it's one of the reasons I love your podcast. In a very short period of time, I can get some great tips and education, and you've you've had so many great ones. So that's the sales transformation for me, just this awakening to become this lifelong learner, and the the journey's continued for the last 20 years.
Collin Mitchell:Yeah. I love that. It's funny. I was listening to a podcast this morning, at the gym, and it was very much focused on, you know, sales leaders needing to be a learn it all rather than a know it all. Yeah.
Collin Mitchell:And I think that that's a, you know, a very interesting thing for for people to consider because often specifically in sales leadership, they think they need to be a know it all, but they don't.
Mark Cox:Oh, man. What a great point you bring up. By the way, I feel terrible today. I didn't get to the gym before this podcast, So I'm envious of you already. But but, you know, I think it's a real challenge for sales leaders today, Colin.
Mark Cox:And, you know, we've always said that being a sales leader or a CRO is probably the toughest job around the executive table because you've got the 3 most demanding stakeholders in business. You've got clients, which are super important. Of course, they're the most important stakeholder, but they're so demanding. I've got my sales team, which takes a lot of attention and care and feeding. And then on top of that, I'm reporting into the executive team or a board.
Mark Cox:And I'm the only one around that table as the CRO whose scorecard is public domain. Everybody knows the scorecard. I don't know the scorecard of my teammates, the head of IT, the head of product, the head of marketing. It's not quite so obvious what their scorecard is. So it's a really tough job But for some reason, most sales leaders today feel like they have to go it alone.
Mark Cox:Sales is a performance art, like being a professional hockey player. Professional hockey players have 9 coaches. They have a head coach, skating coach, shooting coach, fitness coach, strength coach, mindset coach, nutrition coach. So those organizations where they have to have people at peak performance understand it takes a village to elevate performance. And I I think a lot of sales leaders today haven't embraced that.
Collin Mitchell:That's the first time I've heard a hockey analogy. You get a lot of sports analogies for for sales, often, but, that's that's an interesting one. Now before we dig into this a little bit deeper deeper, I think there's probably people that are listening, and they're like, come on. Tell me tell me, Mark, about the biggest deal that you closed. And I think that we've gotta get into that before we get too far along on this sales leadership topic.
Mark Cox:Well, yeah. It was a it was really big deal with a a top top bank in the US. And they're outsourcing deals where you take over people in technology and all of these kinds of things. So they're they're pretty complex deals to sell, and they're very complex deals to negotiate. For the listeners, I'll say a couple of things.
Mark Cox:I was way over my head. So let's just let's just be honest. There's not too many people that can guide anybody through doing deals that size. We've done a couple of $100,000,000 deals, and it was leading up. And the second thing was I was negotiating with professional negotiators.
Mark Cox:So the the client had actually engaged professional negotiators and I certainly was not a professional negotiator at that point in time. So there was this constant feeling of being overwhelmed, to be honest with you, Colin. I had a great team working in all of those kinds of good things. One of the things that was critical to the success of that deal, though, was aligning with the client on the business case and the financial metrics of the deal. And I think this is a real gap in professional selling today.
Mark Cox:We're we're pitching products, but we don't really understand the impact or the value of that offering on the client, and we're not collaborating with them to understand that. There's no chance of negotiating a deal of this size unless both parties had really aligned on, okay, we understand the value offering of the transaction, And we're both agreed on it. We're both working off the same spreadsheet. And then you get into an arm wrestle about who gets what percentage of the value. But you have to be on this baseline of what's the impact.
Mark Cox:And for the listeners today, I'd have you think of all the deals you're working right now. Do you and the client actually align on the financial impact or the return on investment, of this opportunity? Because if you don't, then first of all, you're just gonna get negotiated down on price. And secondly, you probably won't even get a deal done in this economy. So working with them to understand the real financial impact is a critical one.
Mark Cox:And then the second one is, hey. We're all outside our comfort zone at some point in time. And, Collin, I was so far outside of my comfort zone for a year and a half, it wasn't even funny.
Collin Mitchell:Now I'm curious. How long was just in the, you know, time wise, just the negotiation piece with a deal that size?
Mark Cox:It's about 9 months. 9 to 10 months.
Collin Mitchell:Just on negotiation.
Mark Cox:Yeah.
Collin Mitchell:I mean, some people, their entire sales cycle is less than that. Right? But a deal this size I mean, I think that the I'm just curious. How do you have any sort of framework that you followed in order to help them measure that financial impact?
Mark Cox:Oh, absolutely. So so, again, this comes back to to really deal strategy, something I think is critically important. Very early on, you're working with them collaboratively to say, okay. Let's let's understand the net present value of the deal or the payback of the deal or the financial return on the deal. And and so the clients we're all selling to today, they have processes in place to say they've gotta see certain paybacks for the investments depending upon what area of the business you work with.
Mark Cox:And if we're earning the right by adding value and insight and all of those kind of things and collaborating with them, we should all be working off the same spreadsheet. Meaning saying hey, how would you cost justify? You know moving forward with this. Let's take a look and let's work on that together doesn't mean you know when they do that they shouldn't be afraid that hey they're opening the kimono and they're putting all their cards on the table It's just clarifying what the value is gonna be. And once we're aligned on that, first of all, hopefully, that's gonna provide them a compelling reason to move forward with your opportunity But they can always negotiate the percentage of that value down the road So they can ask for a bigger piece and that's really what ends up happening.
Mark Cox:You're just negotiating who gets what piece of the value.
Collin Mitchell:Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. We hope you enjoyed it and that you didn't forget to subscribe and share so that we can help more people transform the way they sell.