Sales Wisdom Series

Why Leslie Venetz Says You Need to ‘Earn the Right’ to Your Buyers’ Attention

Michaela Mendes

Head of Content & Strategy

Table of contents:

In our first Sales Wisdom Nugget, I was honored to interview Leslie Venetz, experienced sales professional turned successful entrepreneur.

We discussed building her revenue career, why salespeople need to think about their buyers more now than ever before, and why modern B2B buyers are focused on value over everything else.

Here’s my top takeaway from speaking with Leslie on the state of modern sales, and how to get buyers’ attention:

“To win more this year, we need to make it easy and make it worth it.” – Leslie Venetz

This quote perfectly hits on why it’s so critical to have a close partnership between revenue operations and sales professionals.

How to make it easy for your prospects to buy:

Provide a seamless experience with all tools and touchpoints.
Make it effortless to take the next steps.
Do the thinking, preparation, and listening required to help the buyer anticipate and overcome roadblocks in the selling process.

How to make it worth it for your prospects to buy:

Take the time to truly understand the current challenges facing their organization (not just the surface-level stuff anyone can dig up).
Design a way into your solution that solves a specific problem for them and their teams, providing tangible results.
Build a relationship where you give much more than you take and lift up your buyer every chance you get.

Sales can’t do this without solid operations. And a process without an empathetic, strategic salesperson is hollow. It’s the two together that make it work.

Read on to learn more from Leslie:

How has your mindset towards work changed as you've grown your career?

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My identity is closely tied to my career. Early in my career, I might even say my job was my identity or, at least, success at work was how I gauged my worth.

In my early 20s, I had big aspirations to earn a C-suite title before I turned 40 and to make so much money I could swim in it like Scrooge McDuck. I thought that was what success looked like.

By my early 30s, I realized money was important, but I no longer aspired to be rich, but instead was grateful to have financial security. Shortly after, I started to question it all. I started to hate that my identity and sense of worth were so closely tied to my job. I felt a misalignment between the work I was doing and the good I felt called to put into the world.

That questioning of my ambitions led me to launch a passion project with the goal of transforming sales into an inclusive, respected profession. Later, I started creating content on TikTok & LinkedIn to inspire others.

Ultimately, I left corporate America and abandoned my C-suite dreams in order to bet on myself. Now I am a full-time Founder running a 6-figure agency that helps corporate sales teams talk with their buyers instead of at them. I work a 4-day week and give back 10% of my time to help others. My work has never felt so aligned with my values.

What does every revenue professional need to know to win more this year?

Our buyers still want to talk with us, but we have to make it worth it for them.

The sales methodology I teach is part skill set and part mindset. It's called Earn The Right. The idea behind this methodology is that we need to constantly ask ourselves - have I earned the right to make this ask for attention, time, budget etc?

In 2023, revenue professionals need to center their buyers more than we ever have before. In practice, this will look like ditching disingenuous personalization & replacing it with meaningful, relevant outreach.

It means we need to show up prepared to every interaction. And not prepared to talk about our product or service, but prepared to tell the buyer why it matters to them. We need to remove friction from our buying process to ensure we are taking work off our buyer's plates, not piling on more.

To win more this year we need to make it easy and make it worth it.

What do most people believe about sales that you disagree with?

That people buy from people whose personalities they like. It's not completely false, but that cliche doesn't tell the whole story. In B2B, people will not buy from you just because they think you have a great personality. If you have a terrible product, your personality won't matter enough to persuade most B2B buyers.

There is something to be said about people having a tendency to buy from folks who look and think like them. I'm not dismissing the data, but modern buyers "like" sales professionals who deliver valuable insights, lead frictionless buying processes, have the right product/service to meet that particular buyer's needs + show up prepared to explain why that matters to the buyer.