E78 | The Secrets Of The Mega Deal with Jamal Reimer
By day, this week’s guest on Mind Your F**king Business, Jamal Reimer, works for Oracle as an enterprise SaaS rep, helping pharma R&D squeeze every drop of value from their clinical data. By night (and at weekends), he coaches the CEOs of late stage startups land mega deals that will change the course of their business’s growth.
It’s not Jamal’s work at Oracle that Dom talks to him about today – although they touch on it briefly as it explains why he’s so well placed to coach CEOs:
“I’m an intentional individual contributor. I’ve been selling for almost 20 years, and I’ve made the choice that I love what I do. I love being in the field, in the foxhole, doing the work with the customer through hard times and great times. And it’s never appealed to me to go into management … but I certainly work with executives on both sides, at the table every day.”
It’s what he does in his spare time that Dom discusses. Because in his spare time Jamal coaches CEOs and individual sellers, helping them change their mindset and put in place a structure in their organisations which allows their businesses to land their first mega deal – the deals that will change the trajectory of their business’s growth.
So if you’re a CEO wondering how to get away from the run rate and make mega deals that will transform the growth of your organisation, then this conversation is definitely one you want to listen to.
On today’s podcast:
- Why Jamal made the choice to stay in sales
- The steps to conducting mega deals
- How to use CEOs to hunt deals
- Why Jamal teaches how to shift your mindset on his course
- Why you should chase mega deals (as well as small and medium deals too)
- Jamal’s thoughts on close rates
How to land mega deals with Jamal Reimer
Jamal Reimer is an enterprise SaaS rep during the day, but coaches CEOs and individual sellers during his spare time on the secrets of the mega deal.
So what is the mega deal and how can every organisation change the trajectory of their growth by landing one?
“The anatomy of the mega deal in my view is first find the highest value possible that your widget can offer. Go find the right person internally to make the pitch, and then [have them] pitch as high as possible as early as possible… larger deals get done faster with appropriate executive engagement.”
The steps to snaring mega deals (with your current products)
Both Jamal and Dom have seen their clients increase the deals they’re closing each month exponentially, “last year they [clients] were doing £10,000 a month. Now they’re not happy unless the deals are £100,000 a month”.
You don’t need to sell new products, that’s not what this is about, this mega deal is about selling the things that you already sell, just bundled up slightly differently, and to a bigger customer.
According to Jamal, first get the team to think about the product – what is it, what are the features, the functions etc, what is the potential impact of the product on the audience i.e. the customers?
And remember, you’re not just selling your product, you need to be laser focused on the problem you’re solving for your customers, or the opportunity you’re providing them when they purchase your product. However it’s not just the sales people’s insights you need here.
You need to know how the whole team views the product, from the bottom to the very top. And then if you hope to land bigger fish, you need everyone to know what the C-level insight of the product is, because that’s the insight you ultimately give to customers.
Once you understand this insight, you then find the right person to pitch the product to the customers.
But how do you know who the right person is to pitch your products? Simple.
Use human nature to leverage your brand
“The model that we use is very much as basic human nature – birds of a feather flock together. When you look at someone in society, we do a quick check and we try to assess and put people in boxes right away to categorise who we’re dealing with.”
This understanding of human nature applies to the world of business too. We either see someone as a peer, as a superior, or as a subordinate, in terms of whatever rank hierarchy we’re dealing with in the business world.
So use the highest level person in your organisation to reach out to your audience, or target company, or prospect, and the chances are it’ll increase the likelihood of a response.
Don’t make mega deals your sole focus
But don’t focus all your energy on landing mega deals. Go after a few, but remember, while you’re out there hunting them, you need to sustain the business with low hanging fruit.
“The indigenous tribes hunting whales, they had to have meat in the boat while they were out there hunting the whales. So it’s not like you’re only hunting whales and nothing else. It’s a percentage of your portfolio. You need that recurring revenue too, but 25-35% of your time, could absolutely be going towards much higher value opportunities.”
And remember, securing a mega deal isn’t just about working through steps or a process, you need to shift your mindset too:
“So what we teach in the course is a shift in mindset. From trying to use a fishing pole to catch a fish, to doing that activity a completely different way, with the desired outcome of hunting whales. You can’t hunt whales with a fishing pole.”