Eat Their Lunch
I have followed Anthony Iannarino for at least 7 years. His blog (thesalesblog.com) and podcast (In The Arena) are both fantastic. As you may remember, we had Anthony on this podcast in January of 2018. He was fantastic! In fact, it is one of our top 5 episodes of all time (by number of downloads.) In my opinion, this episode is even better!
In this episode Anthony unpacks his latest book Eat Their Lunch. The book is centered around competitive displacement. If you are in sales, you undoubtedly know how hard it can be to move the incumbent solution provider out. You also know that to achieve your goals you will need to take business from competitors. Anthony shows us exactly how to swim in a “red ocean.”
Every week I implore you to take notes. PLEASE get out something to write on and something to write with before you hit play. (Unless you have all the business you could ever need.)
Things Anthony And I Talked About
- Anthony’s formative years
- He grew up in rough circumstances/neighborhood
- Had to learn to manage people with words instead of my physical confrontation
- Started working full-time (40-50 hour/week) at 13 years old
- At 15 started cold calling for Muscular Dystrophy
- Moved to LA to front a rock and roll band (I’ve seen the pictures.)
- He never doubted his ability to succeed after his decision to enter the sales profession
- It’s harder than ever to displace competitors
- People are much more content with the status quo
- Businesses make decision by consensus
- The mind shift change of calling on the CEO of the problem
- Who is the highest level of person who cares?
- Don’t limit your choices
- There are many ways to get into the building
- Leting go of limiting beliefs about competitors.
- Can’t change what the competitor is doing
- Have to just outsell them
- Taking money out of an investment never makes it better
- Go to the companies that already purchase your types of products and move them
- How to make the intangibles, tangible
- You must translate the economic value though the relational value
- All the value is in the application of the intangibles
- The 4 levels of value creation – entering from the right
- To become a trusted advisor you must:
- Have trust
- Have advice
- Help your clients see around corners
- Help the client implement change before change is necessary
- We often forget that sales is a competition
- What to do when there is a 3rd party between you and your dream client
- How to be a “combative diplomat”
- How to insulate current clients from being displaced
- Commitment to execute
- Moving from value creation, to value creation, to value creation…
- Purpose and meaning come from the pursuit of goals, not obtaining them
- “I’m allowed to have off days. I’m not allowed to have days off.”
- The afterlife definitely has pizza and dogs!
Anthony's Billboard: Do good work
The Books We Talked About
As always: Click on the cover below to learn more or purchase through Amazon.
Steel My Soldiers’ Heart – Colonel David H Hackworth
The Lucifer Principle – Howard Bloom
Anything by Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, or Peter Drucker
Spin Selling – Neil Rackman
Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play – Mahan Khalsa, Randy Illig
Eat Their Lunch – Anthony Iannarino
Where To Connect With Anthony
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