Sales Game Changers | Tips from Successful Sales Leaders

This is episode 396. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. CHRIS' TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Set goals, define a plan and write it down. Develop personal and professional goals and make sure they're not in conflict, and be honest in your self-evaluation. Because if they're in conflict, nothing else is going to work. Then, have someone you trust – a friend, a colleague, a mentor, a supervisor – review it and help you hold to it. Throughout my career, I've had some really good leaders that have helped me with this. Write it down, where are you in the plan? Validate it and make sure that you're sufficiently outside of your comfort zone. It's always easy to do what you're really good at, but it's much harder to do things that you're not good at and be honest with that. If you write it down and hold yourself to it, then you'll get there. Write down, again, the intermediate objectives and tactics to reach those goals. Step by step, put a timeline on it. Say, what do I want to achieve both for myself and for the company and the timeline that I want to deliver it?"

This is episode 395. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. NYLA BETH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I like the acronym Be bold, B-O-L-D. It stands for be future-focused. What's coming for your customers and what is your company looking to do? Those two parallel paths, be future-focused and look out for what's on the horizon. The second is orient around outcomes. You heard me mention that word, outcomes a lot, so the O in bold, orient around those. Don't think of sales as the goal is the deal closed, think of it as that end outcome that you want your final customer and your company to achieve. Then the L is really learn about your company. I spend a lot of time in corporate strategy and people say, "What's our strategy again?" Engage and ask. If you don't know who your corporate strategy leaders are, if you don't know what your corporate strategy goals and objectives are, ask, and really learn and make sure you understand it because it's important to what you're communicating to your customers. The D in bold is data, and data comes from everywhere. It doesn't just come from our marketing leads, our inbounds and our outbounds. Be the sensor, drive yourself with data by paying attention to what's happening into your surroundings and what's happening in your customer's arena and bring that together. I'm very confident that if you can follow that and be BOLD, that everyone here is going to definitely be able to continue down their successful path.

This is episode 394. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. AMY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "The book is called The Leader You Want to Be so I hope everyone takes a moment to pause and think about who is that leader and person you want to be. It's really powerful to take stock and remember who's the authentic leader that you are, what are the values that drive you, what are the principles that guide your interactions with yourself, your teams your customers? Then what are the experiences and skills that you bring to bear and that you've really cultivated and could continue forward?"

This is episode 393. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MATT'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Be optimistic. Nobody likes working for pessimist people. Stay curious, operate with urgency, fall through on what you promise the customer. Be thoughtful, lead with empathy and do it with a smile on your face and good things will come." PAT'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "This is specifically directed for young folks. Ignore on job resumes prior experience requirements, 20 years as a salesperson to apply for this job. Put yourself out there, tell these hiring managers you already have your PhD, that means you're poor, you're hungry, you're driven. You will do whatever it takes to get the mission done and drive success for your team and for the customers."

This is episode 392. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SHANNON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Look at the people that you know that may not play in the same space but are well respected and participate in an economic development authority or a citizen's board of some sort, or a relevant not-for-profit board. Get in touch with them and connect and just make it a conversation about what you're seeing and how you're reacting to the changes over the past year. I was really amazed and so appreciative that I had that support system and was able to provide that for others."

This is episode 391. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Ron is the author of "The Velocity Mindset." RON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Stay with your heart. Your heart knows where you need to go so let your heart drive your destiny. Not your mind, because your mind is filled with your limiting thoughts, your stories and all the other stuff we put there. Let your heart drive your destiny."

This is episode 390. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SANDY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Have a bias for action. One of the riddles I like to talk about is if you look at a pond and lily pads on the pond, if lily pads double every day – so today you have three lily pads, that means tomorrow there'll be six – at what day would the lily pad be half-full if on day 60 the pond is full? Of course, it's 59 because on day 59 the pond's half-full, on day 60, the pond is full. I use that analogy because that's the speed at which the world works today. Everything is moving quick, so you've got to have that bias for action in what you're doing. Bias for action in getting back to your customers, talking about value, introducing new technology. If you wait, you're going to be sitting there, you're going to think the pond is half-full and you're going to wake up the next day and the pond is full. It's going to be too late. If I have to say one thing, it would be commit yourself to have a bias for action with your customers, and that'll make you a more valuable salesperson."

This is episode 389. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ALEXINE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Get really involved in some of these community-based learning efforts. Clubhouse is a really cool channel for you to be able to learn not just about sales process, there's so many different groups and communities. There's Clubhouse, there's Thursday Night Sales, there's all of these Slack communities, Revenue Collective, all of them. You can connect with so many different salespeople, sales leaders and talk about some of these topics together. My recommendation would be go outside of your company. I think it's really important to have these conversations internally, but more so, what are other companies doing? Always having an ear to the ground of what's going on with other organizations and with other salespeople. I think that is the way forward and I'm a huge proponent of that."

This is episode 388. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. JEFF'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Let the personalization drive the nature of the call. You can look at a follow-up call based on saying, "Here's what I have to say, isn't it cool?" or I can look at it and say, "Here's who this human being is and what their needs are." But the more personalized you can make your follow-up, the more effective your follow-up is going to be. I'm not suggesting there isn't a place for having something on the shelf that you can deliver, but before you make that follow-up call, look at your notes and find that sense of personal connection. This ties into a mindset that you want to carry through, every single conversation sets up the next conversation and every conversation starts by reframing back to the last conversation. If you're in your sales call, do not end that sales call unless you're already getting the check. Don't end that sales call without making an appointment for the next call. Then when you make that appointment, what do you say? "Back here we talked about this." The more personal I can make that "this", the better off we're going to be. The more personalized your follow-up is, the more effective your follow-up is going to be.

This is episode 387. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ANTHONY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I am a big believer in being your authentic self, because I truly believe you get the best out of yourself when you're being authentic. I'm going to leave everyone with a little exercise that I've used in the past that has worked very, very well. I've used it personally, I've shared it with all of my sales professionals and sales reps around the world. That is, what's your MVP? What's your mission? What I mean by mission is what drives you. What's your vision, what you aspire to be? Then, what's your purpose? What guides you? That's going to be the homework for my sales professionals. Go figure out what's your mission, your vision and your purpose. Once you do that, you can be the best you can be and you can be authentic and be the best at who you are."

This is episode 386. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SHANNON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Grit is critical to our success, every single one of our successes. At the same time, understand that it's not a sustainable operating mode. Remember, we're talking about our own hearts, and the hearts of others. That means you've got to take care of yourself, in order to be able to have the strength to employ that grit. What I would say is the piece that you put into practice today is find ways to really go deep and drill down on those parts of The Grit Factor. You want to give yourself the space to do that work, and then give yourself the space to turn off that computer and turn off the cell phone and go spend time with your family. Go outside and move your body, and drink water and eat your vegetables. It really is about taking care of yourself so that you can not only take care of others, but then also go do that hard work that requires that grit. That is that balance that requires boundaries and thoughtful applications. I think we're pushing ourselves pretty hard right now and it's not sustainable unless you put some boundaries on it."

This is episode 385. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. This episode was sponsored by Cox Business. JAMY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Sales professionals fail when they make it about themselves. The more that you can make it about what is best for the customer and how you can meet their needs, the better you'll be. I see too many salespeople trying to make a sale by just giving the, "This is what you got to do because I want you to do it." It's all coming from my standpoint, my point of view, my perspective when the reality is people rarely are going to buy from me just because it's going to help me out. It doesn't matter if you're selling computer parts, airplane parts or you're selling an 18-year-old on why they need to come to your college. If you just give your sales pitch, no matter how great it is, that person must leave the interaction feeling better about themselves."

This is episode 384. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Gv's TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Have more patience with yourself, give yourself permission to try and experiment and play. Do it with compassion. Do not beat yourself up. We are our own worst enemies. If we took this voice that lives in our head and if we manifested them out, and we sat them in front of us and we acted like they were our best friend, that voice in our head is a crap talker all day long. We would never want to hang out with that person. He is not our friend, he's not my friend. The more we can improve the self-care and the self-talk to more positive versus negative, the better off we're going to be. So patience, permission and compassion. That's what I would leave you with."

This is episode 383. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. EDMOUND'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Think about the margins. That's something that's not really a step but an example of what I'm talking about, if you're making cold calls, what time of day are you calling? What's the time that people are going to typically pick up the phone versus times that they don't? Make sure you push calls into that time. If it's a 5% difference and that increases your chances that you're going to get somebody 5% in the long run and it increases your sales, there's margins like that all across the board throughout the sales process. Whether it's email, whether it's social, whether it's how you present, how you frame things, how you say things. There's all kinds of things that you can take advantage of. Just think about little areas like that where you can get better."

This is episode 382. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. WESLEYNE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Manage up. When you're trying to grow your career to get to the next step, when you're trying to show your boss that you are the right person for this job, they need to know that you're a strategic thinker, so stop being so much of a tactical manager and start being a strategic manager by managing up."

This is episode 381. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. JP DAVITT: "Speak from the heart. Allow your spirit to speak through you. Everyone has their own internal vibration and your vibration resonates in your communication, your tone, your nonverbal and even your endurance. Everyone knows as a salesperson how important endurance is. Meditate on speaking with a pure heart and speak it into existence the same way you do your sales goals. Post on your mirror, use the secret to manifest your goals. The more you can speak freely and with a pure heart, the more opportunities that will appear clearly that were meant just for you. The reward for speaking with a pure heart is the physical, financial and emotional freedom." GREGG KIRK: "Joseph Campbell has a famous quote, "Follow your bliss." Follow your passion. The best thing you can do is follow what sets you on fire so that your work is not work, it comes easy and it's easy to do. That's basically what I did. If you're chasing money, that's all you're going to get." TANYA HOEBEL: "With whatever you do in your life, you need to be passionate about. You can't really sell something if you don't believe in the product. For instance, if I sold cars, my why would be because I want to protect other families from having one of their loved ones be involved in such a horrific accident. That would be my why, so you can protect every human driving so that their loved ones don't ever get that phone call. That would be your reason to do what you're doing and it's so important to have the why and be passionate about it."

This is episode 380. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SHAWN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "When you think about value, think about it in the form of a pyramid. There's five different levels of value that we can share with any buyer. Information value simplifies the research, value that helps them determine what they need to determine. Fundamental value is really value itself that ultimately satisfies the basic expectations that the buyers have. There's unique value, that's value that sets you apart from the competition. There's individual value which is the value that satisfies the individual that you're dealing with so you have to pose some questions and be able to understand what they value in order to respond to that and offer that kind of value. Then there's monetary value which is about the return on investment."

This is episode 379. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. GAY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Take 10 seconds and give yourself 10 seconds of pure appreciation for everything you are and everything you are not. Just 10 seconds of pure appreciation of yourself. It's an essential nutrient. We don't need a whole lot of it, but if you don't give yourself just a little bit of it, you're not going to feel centered all the time. So take a couple of breaths and give yourself 10 seconds of solid, loving appreciation. Then go do that with a few other people you care about today, and watch the magic unfold."

This is episode 378. Red the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MARIBETH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Have your value proposition, video it and make sure it is the best, most crisp value proposition that you believe is a home run. If you don't believe it's a home run yet, do it again and video yourself until you have what you think is the home run. Most people won't take this action step, they'll say, "I don't need to do that" but the best will, because that's how you get better. If you really want to get better, that's how you do it."

This is episode 377. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TODD'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "It's all about getting a lead and pursuing that lead. If you're a seller and you've got good relationships, I'd call your best customer and ask for a referral. Think about who we sell to, it doesn't matter. We sell to investment bankers, that investment banker knows other investment bankers. That other head of corporate development knows other people. You're probably going to get a really warm introduction if you've done your job and been responsive and covered that account. I would call your best customer and ask them to give you a lead to the best prospect and here's the beauty, it might not be in your patch. But what a wonderful cultural moment that would be when you get to swivel in your chair hopefully one of these days and go to the cube next to you or whatever, or pick up the phone across the country and say, "I've got a lead for you."

This is episode 376. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. NICOLE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "The most impactful thing that any of us can do is really understand ourselves, and be able to articulate that really clearly to others. Spend some time getting really deep around what it is that both you're really good at, and energizes you. I would highly recommend looking into Marcus Buckingham's Strengths-based Leadership. He has a lot of guidance around how to do that analysis. Think about your best day at work. What were you doing on that day? Were you talking to large groups of people? Were you working quietly? Were you doing deep analysis? Was it public speaking? Get really, really clear about what it is that you enjoy doing what you want to do, and use that as a guideline.It's often more important what we don't do with our time, because that's what dictates how much time we have to do the things that we want to do. RILEY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Don't be afraid to tell people what you want and put it out there. It sounds a little a little silly like put it out in the universe and then it'll come, but there is truth in it. If you want to go into leadership, start telling people that that's a goal for you. Ask for mentors to help you in that direction. Be clear about your expectations. Women are special in this industry, and we are an asset to our employers and so we're allowed to have that moment."

This is episode 375. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MERIDITH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Really do the work day in and day out to start to view uncertainty as opportunity. Start to think of yourself as somebody who runs to the sound of the gunfire and takes action. If you do that, everything else is going to fall in place. Really focus and believe your job is to help others move through that uncertainty. If you help others move through that uncertainty, you are going to move through it flawlessly."

This is episode 374. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. DG'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Evolve. We all have to evolve, the world is evolving, it's changing on a regular basis. How can you refresh what you're doing? If you want to avoid burnout and you want to avoid getting into that paralysis state, constantly change your game. If you do that, you're going to like your job a lot more, you're going to like your interactions with customers a lot more and you'll thrive and survive." ALEX'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Be humble, keep evolving and get 1% better every day. Just take a little bit of time every day to try to make yourself a little bit better and don't forget that. Be humble, because we've all been bounced around this year and had to look ourselves in the mirror. I tell myself that every day, try to do that and I tell my reps that a lot."

This is episode 373. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. LORI'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "To figure out the content to create, keep a list of the questions that people ask you. If you're hesitant or not sure what to write about, the next question that either a client or prospective client asks you, it's a great starting point for you to take that and turn it into a piece of content that you share it on LinkedIn, or write a blog post or something along those lines. It's a great starting point. Another tip I would say is just go in your sent email. You've likely answered some of these questions in an email already. You've already got half of that post written then for you [laughs].

This is episode 372. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TONYA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Get curious. Step outside of your assumptions and what you believe to be true. Ask some really great questions of your customers, of your team, of your spouse [laughs]. Just get curious and open your mind and learn what other people have to contribute, because it's there."

This is episode 371. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MARK'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Write down every single one of your accounts, everything that's taking your attention, everything that's important. I say write them down, don't put them in a spreadsheet, don't look in your CRM. Write them all down, rate them 1 through 10. If you've got some 10s, that's awesome, put them off to the side. Now look at anything that's a 1 through 5, get it off your plate. Now look at the 7s, 8s and 9s. Your accounts are the same way when they talk about investment. They say don't fall in love with a stock. Buy and sell when it's the time to buy and sell. Same thing with your accounts, you have accounts that you love the people, you have accounts that you just know are going to crack. If you can't make it a 10, you put that off to the side and look at it later. Now look at your list of 10s and take some time with it and get creative, get innovative, figure out ways that you haven't been able to look at it before and go there. Now look at those 10s. When you're done with that 10 list, now you can go back to the other list and see what you can elevate."

This is episode 370. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. GREG'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "You're the culmination of all the decisions that you've made. Using a baseball analogy, if you struck out, maybe you decided you didn't practice enough. If you weren't in the right place to catch that flyball, maybe you didn't think about how to plan before that play happened to think about what could happen. If you don't like something, just change it. Just go and do it. In saying that, it's recognition that the most precious asset that we all have is time. You can't waste it, you've got to do all the hard things. Go put all of those things on your calendar now!"

This is episode 369. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TIFFANY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Have the confidence to put yourself out there. If you aren't in the game, you can't get selected. You can't sit on the sidelines, and this is not just for women in sales. These are things I tell my closest friends or people that come to me for advice. Remember, you have all of your successes backing you up. You wouldn't have come this far if you weren't that person. Put yourself out there for opportunities. Even if you're not selected, you're going to learn a lot. You're going to get the feedback and the next time around, you're going to be better positioned. It all starts with you putting yourself out there."

This is episode 368. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TIM'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I'm going to give you an acronym: MMA. Everyone thinks MMA, mission, metrics and action. Always know, what is the mission I'm trying to support? What are the metrics that get me there? And what are the next action steps that I have to take?

This is episode 367. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ERICH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Go through your current client list and see if there's anything else on the pipeline with them. Ask them, who else, where else, what else? That's the easiest opportunity to uncover deals today, is to go through the people who know, trust and love you today. If they can't do business with you today, they know someone who does. That would be the first thing I would have you do today." EILEEN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "You don't have to be the smartest person in the room, you need to be able to bring the right people to bear."

This is episode 366. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. JENNIFER'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Get deep with your customers. Understand their strategy, their priorities and figure out how to bring them value. Especially with our government customers. Figure out how you can bring the innovation that they need because we all benefit from that. We're all taxpayers and we want to make sure we get the value for that money. We want to help them be successful and help them in their digital transformation journey."

This is episode 365. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. This show was sponsored by Cox Business. ALICE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "We are making sales harder than it needs to be. Things have changed and will continue to change. We can't keep doing things that fail because it's making us feel bad, and it's part of the languish. We're making our own mood worse because we're piling failure on top of failure on top of failure. The optimal mindset for sales is what do my buyers need from me right now to engage them? How can I be interesting to them? How can I get them interested? How can I intrigue them? That's what we have to do right now."

This is episode 364. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. DOUG'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "People ask me this all the time, how often should I follow up? The answer is until they tell you to stop. As long as you're following up with relevant, interesting things for them, they're not going to view that as a day that oh, my gosh, this person is harassing me or something like that. So if, for example, we were talking about a couple of things. Hey, Fred, I was thinking about you today. I was thinking about that comment you said about Vern, and I just saw this quote that Vern put out. I thought you might like it. That's something relevant that you and I could share."

This is episode 363. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. GIL'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Do the time and task analysis. Log what you're doing every 15 minutes of the day for five days. Then after those five days have expired, tabulate your time into two categories: sales time, non-sales time. What can we do to compress or remove non-sales activities from your calendar, and enhance your available sales time? If you do nothing else, you'll improve your revenue."

This is episode 362. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. BRIAN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "For a technology like AI, salespeople need to find the "angel in the sale." The angel is the person that wears the halo and represents the halo effect of the technology in the environment. If you could find that angel and say, "I'm working with so-and-so over here on their specific problem, but I want you to also be aware that we're looking forward to the results in how much happier your people are when they start using our technology and how it impacts their morale." Finding the angel and thinking about that halo impact, can really help to differentiate the way we're thinking about working with that customer, not just selling to them." VANEET'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Now more than ever, we have tremendous channels available to us to connect and get our messages out. We tend, as sellers, to take that for granted. We have a unique perspective to offer, we see problems in and out at various companies, different industries, various verticals. Leverage that, build a brand for yourself as an expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. Start to post content. Make it so that your prospect has heard of you. They're going to want some degree to impart that knowledge because AI is such an interesting and net new space to some degree in terms of how it's being applied."

This is episode 361. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ERIN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Reach out to someone you haven't talked to recently. Right now. However you prefer to connect. Whether that's a friend from college that you haven't talked to in a while, or a colleague that you used to work with and you don't anymore. I know I did this before, but something happened during the pandemic where I found those conversations to be so meaningful to me. Find someone outside of your normal tribe to bounce ideas off of and just listen to them. See what kind of struggle they're having and finding out that oh, my gosh, it's so similar to mine, even though our paths have not crossed in so long." KRISTEN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Do something for yourself personally, or professionally. Whether it's joining the cohort, such at the IES Women in Sales Leadership Forum or just joining a different group. I think it's really easy. Sometimes it's good to step outside of the traditional things that you do. Take a class, join a group, join the cohort to invest back in yourself. It's something that I need to remind myself and it can really be life changing."

This is episode 360. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Gamea Changers Podcast website. JANET'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "When you're selling, 72% of the people will Google you before they have a conversation with you, both Twitter and LinkedIn pay money to come up to the top of Google. So if you post 3-5 times a week on LinkedIn, all you have to do is share an article and then just use the same post on Twitter just shortened, you will show up on the first page in Google and Twitter. If you have a really common name like John Smith, you're going to want to use a middle initial or use some kind of a John Killer-Seller Smith or whatever you want to use for that moniker, but you will come up first. You can't buy that, it would cost you too much money, LinkedIn and Twitter bought that for you. As a seller, understand that that's the behavior that buyers are having now and use it to your advantage. Get found and you will get sales."

This is episode 359. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. KD'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "This might be too blunt, but truthfully, I feel most reps don't actually take their careers as serious as they could and should. Most salespeople - and this applies to vets and new reps, put more time and dedication to their high school sport, band or hobby than they have their sales career, period. Point blank, I'm going to call it out. Whatever it is that they're selling, they're selling to HR, they're selling to finance, they don't immerse themselves into where their prospects live. What are the forums the prospects are in? What are the magazines the prospect subscribes to? What are the Google Alerts that would make the prospect's world better? Who are the thought leaders of the prospects? They don't take it seriously. That is where I think most sales reps go wrong. They don't treat it like the career and the gift that it is. Sales is such a gift, I truly believe it's one of the best careers you can have. What other career out there could someone like myself have and to make the money that I make and have the impact that I have other than sales?"

This is episode 358. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ANGELA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Salespeople solve problems for people. If you don't believe in it, and it doesn't fit with your values and what you believe in, your success is going to be hard found. When I find myself being defensive or denying the importance of something, I know something's up. If I start getting defensive, something's wrong that I probably caused. Maybe I need to up my game and get back out there and push a little harder. The defensiveness is my key, that's when I stop and ask myself what's going on. I think you can use that with a team too. If you've got a teammate that you ask about how did the call go, and they get all defensive, when it went bad, they start blaming everybody else. Hey, who owned the call? Let's start figuring out what's going on. That was one of the tricks that I'd kind of come up with, and it's held true for a few years now."

This is episode 357. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MARGIE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Just write down a list right now the names of 10 people that you would love to have a conversation with. Maybe it's a direct sales conversation, maybe it's a relationship you'd like to nurture, maybe you've been wavering on, "I don't know if I should." Just write down your idea list of 10 people that you would really love a conversation with. Then make a point over the next 10 days to reach out to every one of them. The sooner the better, at least one in the next 24 hours and just make that commitment. At the end of the day it's a little bit of a numbers game here, you've got to be in it to win it and you've got to risk the rejection. Put that out there. Obviously 100 would be even better, but I'm just trying to go with something that's doable."

This is episode 356. Read the complete transcription on The Sales Game Changers Podcast website. RODERICK'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "First, get away from being viewed as the fixers of broken things. Sales Enablement is not the junk drawer where you've got a thimble and a spoon, a paper clip and a dirty sock. You have to put together a charter that outlines and defines specifically what your organization is responsible for and what it's not responsible for, and that doesn't mean this is NOT what we do. What it means is this is not the highest level of value that we will bring to the organization. You've got to have that charter, otherwise, you become the fixers of broken things and that junk drawer. Lastly, you cannot HOPE that this is going to work, you can't hope that Sales sees the value. You can't hope that you're going to get the results that you're going to need. You can't hope that you're going to be able to right size your organization and you can't hope that you're going to be viewed as an integral partner internally. Because as my hashtag goes, #HopeIsNotAStrategy.

This is episode 355. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. CAROLINE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I really think it gets down to the person on the other end of the phone always wants to be heard. We as salespeople come armed with a deck and want to bulldoze over them. Take the time just to listen to the other person, let them feel heard, let them feel like you understand where they're coming from. Don't be afraid to be that thought leader and push them into a new direction, push them to what other companies are doing that you deem as the best that are out there. That is the best steward you can be for the company of changing mindset and how you all can support them." NICOLE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Ask your leader and your customer what your reputation is, how are you perceived? That can be a simple one, but it's a hard one. Be ready for the response and have an open heart when you ask it. Go to your leader right now and ask what your reputation is in the company. Go to your top customers right now and ask what your reputation is. Or say, "Why are you still doing business with me?" I think that is probably some of the most valuable information you'll ever get. Feedback is a gift, and if we create that as part of our culture, make it open, make it as a very positive thing in your culture and your team, I think you can really get yourself to the next level."

This is episode 354. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. VIV'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "When you share video posts on LinkedIn, you get engagement there. You get people commenting, and that gives you an opportunity to start a conversation. Video can absolutely help to drive leads back to your website, back to your calendar link. Basically, whatever you want to share with people. And it's a great way to tap into new audiences, especially on LinkedIn. Because think about it, you share a post, it happens to get a lot of visibility. Someone, maybe a POC, a Point of Contact at one of your named accounts sees that video and starts multi-threading it through their buying community. To where you're suddenly in front of, not really, but your video is in front of seven out of the nine members of the buying committee. And that has built that KLT (know, like, trust)."

This is episode 353. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ALICE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "My #1 tip to salespeople is you are the master of your success, you cannot rely on your sales manager, you have to rely on yourself. What does that mean? It means read everything you can, listen to podcasts like this one, like your listeners are already doing. It might mean get an accountability partner, it might be hire your own coach, that's what you have to do in order to get comfortable with anything, no matter whether you're one month into your sales profession or 33 years into it."

This is episode 352. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. KRISTINA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Subscribe to the Washington Business Journal or the one in your market. To me, this is my business bible. I read it every week and there's just so much information in here. You can write personal letters to people. When I say letters, I mean letters and not emails because emails these days are just stuck in spam blockers. Send personal letters, reach out to these people on LinkedIn. In the back of the magazine, there's a place called People on the Move. Those are people that are very successful that just got promoted. Send them a $50 gift card and your business card. Do you know how many people get back to me and say, "Thanks for the gift card and thanks for reaching out." Don't forget the Washington Business Journal Book of Lists. Every lead you could possibly imagine is in here, and that's how we were able to diversify our markets." VINCE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Do not be afraid of using the phone to reach out and call people. Whether they're customers, connections, friends, or people you haven't talked to in a long time, set time aside every day. Follow up on LinkedIn. Send handwritten notes, express your empathy and the fact that you genuinely care and all these things will repay themselves. You'll not only feel better but you'll make these people feel better too that somebody cared enough to reach out to them."

This is episode 351. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. RACHEL'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "10 things I want you to remember that you can do today that you can also be looking for in other people. I think it will help you remember that you can do so many more things than maybe you're giving yourself credit for and will set you apart from the competition. Being on time. Work ethic. Effort. Your body language. Your energy. Attitude. Passion. Being coachable. Doing extra. Being prepared TWIGS' TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I think as a woman in sales where I have started to feel most comfortable as my professional self is when I stop trying to be anyone else. I think we can embrace life, and I think this pandemic's really forced us to, there's crying babies and barking dogs and we're all people outside of what we wear a blazer to do. Don't be afraid to be silly. This reminds me that I was on a call with a prospect and we had a meeting. She had a screaming crying toddler at home, it happens. We're trying to talk and it's just not working, and we're talking about rescheduling and I put on the Zoom filter that had the silly bunny ears. So I'm now giving a sales pitch with silly bunny ears moving my head back and forth and raising my hands. But at the end of the day, we got the call done and eventually got the sale. For me, it just reinforced that okay, we can have fun, we can do this, I can be myself and still be professional and still be successful.

This is episode 350. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. FRANK'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "The requirements for financial literacy in sales are increasing dramatically. You better be up to speed with those finance issues because those are the questions you're increasingly getting. What you need is what I call managerial finance which is making sure you understand how balance sheets and income statements really work. I also think it is going to be increasingly important to separate signal from noise with data. Right now, what is going on in many sales organizations is this huge proliferation of data that the rep gets lost in, and that the managers tend to focus on what I call interesting but marginal factoids. And increasingly the job of the sales manager is to understand what is that handful of things."

This is episode 349. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. CARSON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I think the only real difference between how I approach social selling and others is that not only do I focus on quality, quantity and consistency, but it's a people and process game. Sales is relationships and probability. If I reach out to more people than anybody else and I do it with the right messaging, I have a higher probability of getting those meetings. And if I can't get the CEO or the CFO meeting right out of the gate, I'll swarm, I'll reach out to every influencer in that relationship and eventually, I'll get to the person that I want. And I use social selling to accomplish that."

Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TAMARA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Don't be afraid to ask someone to mentor or sponsor you. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there, don't be afraid to let people know that you need help. A lot of times people are just afraid to ask so just be organized, document and think about what you need and then ask. Have a specific reason you are looking for them to help because you might be going to the wrong person or they might not have the perfect skill set that you're looking for. You could also consider multiple people."

This is episode 347. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. WES' TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "This is kind of hard, but if you do it, it'll make all the difference. I tell everybody to detach, detach from the outcome. Make sure you're taking the right steps, chunk your time down to 15-minute increments, make sure every 15 minutes you're doin g the right thing. I tell everyone, look at what you do two or three times a day or four or five times a week and have a process for it. If you can, automate it. Figure out what you do repeatedly, and at minimum and then automate it."