Sales leadership · 2 min read

Get Them to 9.5 Before the Demo

The best description of a great sales rep I have is a score, and the three notes that came with it.

In January 2023, one of our salespeople ran a practice pitch for our head of business development. That evening’s daily report gave the score in one line:

Overall 7.5/10, but still needs to work on confidence of screensharing and ask more questions, also needs to schedule next call before letting go.

I replied the same night: get him to 9.5/10 before he does a demo for me.

I sent the same instruction to the salesperson directly. Five days later I was still asking: “Need [him] at 9.5 asap.”

Why the number matters

A 7.5 is not a bad pitch. It is a pitch most prospects would sit through politely. That is the problem with it.

The three notes that came with the score are worth more than the score:

Confidence while screen-sharing. The product is on the screen. If the person driving it hesitates, the buyer notices the hesitation, not the product.
Ask more questions. A pitch that is mostly talking has not found out what the buyer needs.
Book the next call before letting go. A good conversation that ends without a next step is a conversation, not a sale in progress.

None of the three is about talent. Each one can be fixed by doing it again, with someone watching, until it is fixed.

Where the idea comes from

I first encountered the growth-mindset idea for salespeople in Kellogg’s Mastering Sales program. A salesperson with a fixed mindset hears 7.5 as a verdict on who he is. A salesperson with a growth mindset hears it as a list of three things to fix.

I thought enough of that material to hand the course videos to a salesperson joining us in 2021 as part of his training.

The 9.5 is that idea turned into a standard I can check: run the pitch, score it, write down what is missing, run it again.