Darius Lahoutifard Talks About How the World of Sales Has Evolved Over the Years

Recent years have seen a dramatic shift in sales activity as businesses adapted to meet the challenges posed by a more competitive market in which supply far outstrips demand. As a result, there has been a shift in the norm on how salespeople allocate their time and energy between generating new business and sustaining existing clientele. In addition, as a result of the changing and more complex requirements of the market, sales tactics have developed.
How salespeople allocate the time they have to cultivate their activity is one of the most significant shifts that have taken place in recent times. In the not-too-distant past, sales associates invested much time in personal customer visits, an activity now widely acknowledged as crucial to a salesperson’s success.
However, modern sales representatives are expected to spend more time on administrative tasks that are not directly related to making sales. From the outset, this may look unprofessional and like a strategy to tank a company’s revenue. The results of the top sellers, however, show that this trend is true even as they spend less and less time on sales activities.
When it comes to time management, how do today’s most successful salespeople operate? First, the time invested in the sale has been reallocated. One positive result is reduced time spent on activities like presenting to potential clients, negotiating, and concluding deals. In contrast, this period has been devoted to planning these sales presentations in conjunction with sales managers, subject matter experts, and other industry professionals.
Consequently, sales can be maintained or increased by refocusing efforts; this is true even though fewer activities dedicated to the sale as such are taken. A lot of time is also devoted to planning activities like developing sales strategies, eliminating unsuitable leads, analyzing customer feedback, teaching buyers how to make the most of the items and services on offer, etc.
The time management and work habits of sales representatives have, in effect, completely reimagined the sales process. Thus, the trend has shifted from sellers prioritizing customer volume in the hopes of closing more transactions to sellers prioritizing detailed preparation of their commercial operations to raise the guarantees of success significantly. In light of this, we can see that what initially seemed like a backward step for businesses is now an absolute must for every enterprise that intends to promote its wares successfully.
Qualification is a crucial part of any sales process. Something crucial that won’t be taught in any MBA program or by any standard business coach. Failure to do so or improper execution results in lost time and diminished sales output. In this regard, Darius Lahoutifard published a book that will teach you why and, more importantly, how to qualify business prospects.
Darius Lahoutifard’s goal is to increase the number of salespeople worldwide with access to cutting-edge sales techniques. For a couple of decades, MEDDIC was solely taught in private conference rooms to the small number of sales teams at a high cost — the old way. MEDDIC Academy is changing that with a pioneering PTC sales leader, Darius, who was instrumental in developing the MEDDIC sales process.
He also created MEDDIC Academy, the first online venue for the qualification process. In-depth information about the M.E.D.D.I.C. (sometimes called MEDDPICC) sales strategy is provided in this book. It is not a book of theoretical principles or academic study but a collection of tried-and-true implementation methods with tasty-sounding dishes.
Over the past few years, businesses of all sizes have turned to Lahoutifard for assistance in improving the performance of their underachieving sales force. However, the symptoms described by these businesses vary from one to another. Some can’t make ends meet because of revenue problems. Others have voiced concerns about the lack of consistency in estimates, citing examples of negotiations being delayed from one quarter to the next before being lost or abandoned in subsequent periods.
Many companies’ top executives have seen their bottom lines take serious damage due to inefficient sales teams that include an abnormally high number of personnel in the sales force who are not responsible for achieving their quotas. According to Darius, these manifestations are all signs of the same disease: an incapacity to qualify. To help sales teams succeed in sales qualification, “Always Be Qualifying” aka MEDDIC-The-Book, is written to give them helpful and actionable knowledge. Always Be Qualifying became “AMAZON Best-Selling New Release” aka “Hot New Release” in several categories, for the first 2 weeks following the launch.
Moreover, since most sales teams implement structures such as SDRs or BDRs to qualify leads for Account Managers, there is a widespread but mistaken belief that the qualified leads then become the responsibility of the inside sales or field sales teams to nurture a sale or loss.
In many cases, the problem is with maintaining qualifications. The qualification phase of the sales process does not have two possible outcomes. It’s a frame of mind and a way of life that should be maintained from the initial phone conversation to the last sale.