123: Todd Bermont – Cognitive Selling

Guest: Todd Bermont

Guest Bio:

Houston‐based, High Technology Sales and Business Development Leader with over 30 years of sales management, business development, and sales experience in Data Center Design/Build, IT, Mission‐Critical Power Infrastructure (UPS, PDU, and Solar), Professional Services, and SaaS. Recruited and hired six times by former colleagues. Sales management accomplishments include achieving record sales and profit each year for the first three full years as VP of Sales for Solarcraft and growing the OEM division of APC from $10 Million to over $100 million in four years. As Director of Business Development/Marketing for Lee Technologies, helped the company grow from $55 Million in sales to over $100 Million in two years. Having conducted business in over 20 countries, noted accomplishments include: winning several multi‐million‐dollar, new business clients, authoring numerous books, being featured on TV (CNN, FOX, & CBS) and in print (Fox Business, Forbes, and 7x24), and speaking at AFCOM Data Center World.

Key Points:

Sales Success and Key Strategies:

• Team Composition: Hiring the right people is crucial. Todd emphasizes that success is built on a solid team and that turnover, while challenging, is part of finding the right fit.
• Focus on Leverage: Rather than pursuing small sales, the team focuses on targeting decision-makers who can purchase in larger volumes. This approach maximizes the return on each sales effort.
• Sales from Existing Customers: Todd highlights the importance of expanding within current accounts. Selling more to existing clients, especially those already approved as vendors, often leads to significantly higher revenue.
• Customized Compensation Plans: Salespeople's compensation plans are customized to what motivates them most, ensuring a higher level of ownership and motivation. Incentives, or "kickers," are tied to specific achievements like securing large deals or meeting quarterly revenue goals.

Hiring and Firing:

• Todd stresses the importance of not tolerating poor performance. He follows a principle similar to his day trading experience: when something isn't working, cut your losses quickly.
• Key indicators in hiring include assessing how candidates perform during the interview process (e.g., their sales skills and engagement). He has learned the importance of listening to his gut during interviews and avoiding the temptation to forgive red flags due to strong referrals.
• New hires are expected to produce meaningful sales activity (quotes, meetings) early on. Lack of activity often signals that someone isn't putting in the effort.

Sales Culture:

• Coaching and Continuous Improvement: Todd sees sales as a mental game, emphasizing the need for salespeople to believe in the product they are selling. His book, Cognitive Selling, focuses on how mental preparedness and belief in the product are key to success.
• Salespeople must be coachable and open to learning. Todd also emphasizes creating a strong sales strategy and requires new hires to submit a 90-day business plan to outline how they will succeed.

Key Insights:

• Sales growth at Solarcraft was driven by having the right people, focusing on large deals, and working to grow revenue within existing accounts.
• The importance of an effective, tailored compensation plan cannot be overstated—when salespeople have ownership over their earnings structure, their performance improves.
• Todd believes in leading by example and insists that salespeople who don't believe in what they're selling won't be successful.

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