Podcast episode
Why You’re Losing Deals by Not Picking Up the Phone | Michelle Cecil
30 Minutes to President's Club24 Jun 202536 min
Description
Getting your buyer live on the phone isn’t old school—it’s elite. In this episode, Michelle Cecil, two-time President’s Club winner at Procore, shares how dialing instead of emailing builds trust, collapses timelines, and puts you back in control of your deals. Her approach proves that the phone isn’t dead—it’s your most underused weapon. 🎙 ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS: Don’t negotiate over email — Use a “carrot on a stick” to earn a callback, then close the gap in live conversation where nuance and urgency can thrive. Own the reference process — Prep your prospect and your customer, set the agenda, and run the call. You are the producer—don’t outsource the close. Call before big demos — Reach out to every stakeholder with a simple message: “I want this meeting to be worth your time.” You’ll get more replies than you think. JUST DO THIS: Pick one deal in your pipeline. Find a reason to call your champion today—and do it. MICHELLE’S PATH TO PRESIDENT’S CLUB: Commercial AE: 2X President’s Club winner with 11 consecutive fully ramped quarters at or above quota from day one as an AE. AE to Commercial Manager: Promoted 5 times internally from SDR to Enterprise AE to Manager demonstrating consistent growth, adaptability, and long-term impact. Commercial AE: In 8+ years, missed only 2 quarterly numbers RESOURCES DISCUSSED: Join our weekly newsletter Things you can steal Save $50 on any 30MPC course with code “PODCAST” Free Sales Templates, Scripts and Guides 30MPC Training: 30mpc.com/training JOB LISTINGS Account Executive (Sponsorships) Account Executive (Courses) Content Strategist
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ton of trust that's the most important part we know what we're talking about we know who you know um we're in the neighborhood as well beautiful round us out michelle what's number three eliminate bs rapport people usually don't really want to talk to software salespeople about sports we might like talking about sports especially during football season “We build trust by name dropping current customers that we have that are near them, by letting them know we understand their business, by telling them what we notice about their website or their LinkedIn profile.” really care. So we build trust by letting them know we understand their business and we're taking the meeting seriously. We erode trust by BS rapport.
And shocker, we never heard back from them. So that was it. We gave them a response. We thought they were going to pick one, two, or three option. They didn't. And of course they didn't. They were confused and probably felt confused, felt overwhelmed and backed away because of it. So what we should have done, what I think would have been the right move is to say, “completely understand where you're coming from on this. We've seen customers do one of three things.” When's the best time to walk you through those three options? Me and my team could do today at four, tomorrow at eight. That would have been, I think the perfect response. And I think we would have gotten the deal done. The piece about just picking up the phone and calling them is something that it was a lesson that I had to learn when I was selling ERP systems to law firms, because we
It's not like anyone else's. So this is totally outside of what I would normally do. But normally, have a phone call or a Zoom meeting where you prep them, and then give them notes, like actual notes like you would give an SE or you would give anyone else joining your call where it goes like, hey, these are the things they care about. These are the things to hit on. “These are the experiences I know you've had that they're going to want to ask about.” And then the other thing that I would do that we have to do, and we can't be shy when working with customers and prospects, is we have to have to prep the prospect and just say like, hey, here's how, here are the ways that this customer is similar to you. Here are the ways that this customer is different from you. And is that okay? Or what type of reference do you need?
over email maybe they said they're moving in another direction maybe they pushed out the deal you need to manufacture a reason in their best interest so for example if someone says hey we want to move forward but timing's a little bit off then you might say hey totally get it you “mind if i give you a buzz around 3 p.m i just had a couple ideas on implementation right that's in” their best interest number two when you're managing your references you need to prep both sides that means your customer jump on a call with them and make sure that they know the exact things your prospect is going to ask about and the number two jump on the reference call itself with both your
lighter than scheduling another meeting and one thing that you can do michelle talked about the concept of just picking up the phone and calling customers and finding a reason to go have a conversation and so chances are if you're listening to this episode you have a demo scheduled with multiple people for next week or you've got a pricing conversation that you're in the middle “of pick one of your deals pick up the phone and call a customer with a reason to have a conversation” before your next scheduled meeting you might do that hey i'm preparing your custom demo i want to make sure that we're doing a little bit of prep so this thing really hits the mark or hey i know we're gonna have a pricing conversation later this week or i know we're near the end of this deal i wanted to talk with you about a couple different options so pick one of your deals
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