The Sales Evangelist

Shoan's mission is to help every person on the planet that has a powerful and compelling message, to overcome their challenges with getting their material out “there” and broadcast their voice with confidence, courage, and fearless determination in order to connect with the Social Media World and impact their audience with next-level engagement.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

A brief summary of this episodeMentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Tom Abbott is the founder and Managing Director of SOCO Sales Training. He has delivered hundreds of motivational sales keynotes, kickoffs, presentations and workshops in over 20 countries and is a pioneer of optimising the sales processes of organizations worldwide. He is the author of the sales books The SOHO Solution and Social Selling, the host of the Selling in Asia podcast and is the architect of SOCO Academy an award winning e-learning platform helping thousands of small business owners and sales professionals optimise their sales performance. And here are links to resources Tom shared in the episode: SOCO Sales Training Website https://www.socoselling.com Free copy of ’Social Selling’ book by Tom Abbott: https://bit.ly/SOCOevangelizers Connect with Tom on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/socoselling/ Facebook Soco Selling Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/socosellingMentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Tom Whalen is a career Inside Sales professional and has been leading sales teams since 2000. As a leader, coach, and mentor, Tom has trained countless sales professionals for industry leading organizations such as: Hewlett-Packard, American Express, Key Corp and McKesson Corporation. Tom has built successful sales teams from scratch, scaled new organizations, turned struggling departments around, and integrated several acquisitions. Tom’s passion for developing talent, winning new business and moving the inside sales profession forward has been instrumental in the growth of the companies he’s worked for as well as the clients they serve. When Tom isn’t growing sales organizations, he loves taking wife Suzanne and two daughters Casey and Sydney to Disneyworld and is a zealous fan of all things wrestling.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

A brief summary of this episodeMentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

John Voris educates about the very things that make us tick, the roots that make for success or failure in our work, relationships and personal well-being. John is a philosopher, writer and a psychological researcher. John earned his degree from the University of California with a degree in Philosophy. “Discover the Power That Drives Your Personality” is the result of over 20 years of application and another 16 years of research. By applying European discoveries into field application involving hundreds of sales prospects, John invented a groundbreaking approach to personal inquiry that revealed a person’s life motivation and authentic design far beyond sales. He discovered that our drive for personal Happiness, Meaning, Purpose and Harmony manifest the hidden power beneath our observed personalityMentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

How to Double Your Cold-Calling Contacts Cold-calling has always been part of the sales process. Many salespeople can struggle with this aspect of the job but it’s a critical part of gaining new prospects. The more you call, the greater the odds that they will turn into great leads. David Walter ran a call center for thirteen years and is currently a coach. He is also the author of the book, The Million Dollar Rebuttal and Stratospheric Lead Generation Secrets. David also worked with the American Bank i, and then helped his father sell million-dollar HVAC equipment. The recession then hit, however, and David had to look for another job. David reads a lot as part of his training and personal development. He credits his exposure to quality books as being a catalyst to the life he has today. With the culmination of his experience and knowledge, David has been able to revolutionize the concept of cold-calling from the ground up. Mistakes salespeople make David did training with SDRs in Plano and made a video series to help them learn more about cold-calling. When they were doing their calls, however, they were just calling the wrong numbers and weren’t getting anywhere. They weren’t able to make any useful contacts. Based on a study, 70% of contact information is incorrect and 55% of the people you call may not be available to talk to. These “dead” numbers can eat up a sales rep’s valuable hours. However, David assures us all is not lost. During David’s years in the call center he was always on the hunt for the perfect list. The lists were supposed to be verified but he found that it wasn’t the case. He learned his lesson and decided to release the idea of a perfect list. Instead, he opted for a basic format with the names of the companies and put it in a simple CRM like Crmble. He also developed a script that he still uses to get “gatekeepers” to provide needed information. He did this by listening to natural calls and getting back to the basics. For example, David used to work with a distributorship and it involved him answering calls. He noticed that if a person just used a first name when asking for a contact, the caller sounded more confident and there was an air of authority and familiarity that he’d immediately respond to. David realized he could use this “first name” technique to qualify contacts. Ask the basic questions first David also observed that people often have an easier time if you ease them into answering a series of questions.Confirming an address is an easy way to get someone to open up. Ask your way into more information little by little. David will typically start at LinkedIn when qualifying a new company. Oftentimes, LinkedIn has the most updated information about the company name and can access a list of employees to know who he should call. Cold-calling is not a numbers game Many sales people perceive cold-calling as the hardest part of the job. In truth, cold-calling can be at the same level as other activities if looked at in the right way. With anything worth doing, it may seem hard at first but with practice and the right instruction, it becomes easier. In Will Smith’s movie, The Pursuit of Happiness, Will’s character didn’t call his list from top to bottom. What he did was skip names and call randomly. While Walter Ribbon didn’t buy from Will, he got invited to a game where Will Smith was able to build a network with important people. Just know that if your goal is to make an appointment with 15 people, you need to call at least 40 people. Qualifying your data Qualifying data is important so sales people aren’t wasting their time. The key to cold-calling is to keep calling the companies at least three to four times a day within 3-4 days. Sales reps hesitate to do this because they’re afraid of burning the list but if you do it the right way,this can be avoided. The way not to burn your list is to make your calls short and as natural as possible. In addition to using the first name method, don’t leave a voicemail. Leaving a voicemail can be the cause of burning a list. Keep your call short and sweet and change your opening with each call. The other strategy David uses is, “Hey, I’m calling for Donald but he’s probably gone for the day.” David mimics a negative attitude that most gatekeepers have and uses it to position them to offer something positive. They will often want to counteract the negativity. Give that chill attitude David also discovered that the less you seem to care, the more people will give you what you need. You don’t want to sound desperate over the phone. With a more laid back attitude you will be more likely to talk to the person you want to talk to. Prospects may not have needs Most prospects don’t actually believe they need to change. Looking for prospects who know their needs can be like looking for a needle in a haystack yet this is what salespeople are looking for. What can you do as a sales rep? You can realize they are not saying No, they’re saying that the

How To Get Cold Prospects To Genuinely Listen Every call to a prospect provides an opportunity to get a sale. Your job is to move the odds in your favor and you do this about strategizing the right approach in that initial call. With the right preparation, your prospects will genuinely want to listen to what you have to say. About 25% of the phone calls you make are answered by the person you are reaching out to. Now that you have them on the phone, however, what do you say to maintain their interest? In cold-calling, every second matters, every word matters. In this episode, Donald will offer tips on how to excel in cold-calling by grabbing your prospects’ attention, and eventually make an appointment and hopefully, a sale. Grab your prospects’ interest Cold-calling can be difficult and when you let your nerves get the best of you you can end up rambling. Before you know it, they’ve hung up on you. You need to do what you can to ensure the call is successful and a lot of that success is going to be based on how you prepare long before the call happens. If you are getting to talk to people only 25% of the time, the other 75% of your time is spent going straight to voicemail so don’t waste that opportunity! You can still leave an interesting message for them to listen to. Donald learned that there are two things people want to know - your identity and purpose. Human beings have a primal need to know if someone is friend or foe. Prospects can get very defensive the moment they perceive they are part of a cold call. As a salesperson himself, Donald is one who listens and engages in conversation and sometimes, he provides tips as well. Donal would always give them the benefit of the doubt but he is more the exception than the rule. Putting yourself in their shoes When making cold calls, put yourself in their shoes. Think about what might be on their minds at that moment. If they don’t know you, the person answering the phone will wonder who you are and why you’re calling. In this scenario, Donald employs the POR strategy or Point of Reference. Everyone you’re calling will automatically distinguish and categorize you as either a friend or a foe depending on your initial statement. Your job is to give them a point of reference to extend the conversation. Using a referral One way to provide a point of reference is a referral. For example, Donald wants to call an organization about sales training. In that first call, he’ll ask to speak to someone in the finance department. Once he’s connected he then asks that person who is in charge of their sales training. Once he’s given the name, he asks this initial contact if it’s okay to use their name as a reference. Let’s say Donald is prospecting Dave Smith. After he calls finance, he calls Dave saying, “Hey Dave, Megan from Finance told me to connect with you about sales training.” Dave will now give Donald the time because he knows Megan, Donald’s point of reference. Dave from sales training is now willing to listen to Donald and hear his proposal. Connecting via LinkedIn Another point of reference you can use is by initially connecting to your prospect through LinkedIn or some other platform before you make the first call. You can send them an email or private message. Once this is done, you can open the call with, “Hey Linda, we connected on LinkedIn last week...” This prompts Linda to look at her messages to find you and if your message is well done, your odds are much better that Linda will take the time to listen to you. Donald had this experience recently. He connected with a prospect on LinkedIn and shared her content because it resonated with him. When Donald made the phone call to her, he was able to mention that particular reference of him sharing the post. They had a good dialogue and their conversation went on for some time. Through LinkedIn profiles, you can find several other points of reference as well: company content, interests, hobbies, books they are reading - you can use all these things to build common ground. The challenge Think about three different points of reference you can use in your outreach. Introduce yourself and then drop your point of reference. “How To Get Cold Prospects To Genuinely Listen” episode resources Share your points of reference with Donald. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble now for free at www.crmble.com/tse. This episode is also partially brought to you by Thought Pattern for High-Performance Sales Professionals. It’s a newer course and partnership with the Pacific Insititute. This course is also brought to you in part by T

How To Lead A Team of SDRs and BDRs During Challenging Times These recent times have been tough for sales leaders. There’s a lot to be done, but if you have a team of SDRs and BDRs in these challenging times, you can still guide them toward success. Let’s talk about that in this episode. Asa Hochhauser has been in sales for 15 years primarily leading startups, both as an individual contributor and as a sales manager. He is currently busy helping sales enterprises, from small to mid-market businesses, and he is leading a sales academy where they are experiencing a lot of growth as people look for more training. Challenges in leading a team Keeping the team motivated is often the biggest challenge a sales manager can face. It’s difficult to keep up team spirit and focus on helping other companies. It’s also equally challenging to ensure that the SDRs and BDRs are doing the right thing when it comes to disseminating information and providing value. Sometimes, salespeople are so focused on learning about the product their attention is diverted away from solving buyer problems. Planning ahead As Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Sending emails and calling on a daily basis is still a priority but these activities have to be modified to accommodate the change brought about by the improvement of technology and computers. Asa always encourages his team to spend time understanding their ideal customers or buyers and segmenting them. Asa is also seeing to it that they are keeping their outbound in motion and encourages his team to plan for the next day. These are all done based on marketing-generated outbound. Asa’s team understands that when they plan ahead they’re not wasting valuable time that can be used on making actual contacts. They come to the office prepared with the set of activities that ensures productive time in the office. Leads coming in For Asa’s team, their marketing-generated leads are coming in based on events or content that people are engaging with. They also have a list from Discover.org based on the content they’re creating. Platforms like LinkedIn, CRM, and SalesForce have also been effective tools. There are a lot of ways that businesses can get their list of prospects but Asa cautions that these platforms can also become a distraction. This is why planning is imperative. Your team will know which platform they should focus on but don’t spend so much time there that they move away from the business of selling. This was a lesson that Asa learned from his first sales experience. Activity is important and planning, even more. Hustle despite the challenges BDRs and SDRs should always incorporate channels where their buyers are. As sales reps, we should be leading with value and empathy when reaching out to potential buyers. It’s not about asking them for appointments right out of the gate. In today’s market, conversations are started by providing the insight and value that will be helpful to the buyer. For Asa’s team, their approach is to personalize contact based on the prospect they are trying to connect with. For example, they might send a helpful article highlighting ideas in the article that the buyer needs. This empathetic approach is all the more important with heightened isolation. Their approach has been adapted to focus more on the challenge brought about by the pandemic. SDRs and BDRs would do well to focus on the needs that their clients and prospects are facing and learn more about their problems. Do this well before you mention your company’s name or product so you can personalize your solutions. Personalization is so important in today’s climate. The human touch is more important than ever. Be genuine and let your personality shine. #SaleInTimeofCOVID Improving personalization BDRs and SDRs need to spend time doing their research. It’s important you understand the company you are trying to approach. Start by going to the bio profile or the company profile to know the people you want to talk to. Read what your buyers are reading. This common ground goes a long way in making a connection. Another way to improve personalization is by providing solutions for pain points. Just ensure your messaging is centered on the person you’re talking to. Having a genuine approach is effective and so important. Even in these hard times, be grateful you are still a sales rep and a member of a team. This means you still have a job and with that, you have an opportunity to make a difference. “How To Lead A Team of SDRs and BDRs During Challenging Times” episode resources Reach out to Asa Hochhauser via his LinkedIn. If you enjoyed this episode, drop us a comment below! If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello tha

Building Good Habits In Sales Salespeople need to build good habits to excel in their careers and close more deals. There is an abundance of training materials, books, and seminars to become the salespeople we want to be. In this episode, we will talk about moving from being a salesperson to becoming a sales professional. Mark Evans has been a salesperson all his life, starting with his parents’ small business, practicing being a salesperson. After finishing college, he got back into sales. Now, Mark has a sales consultancy where he helps companies build their sales playbook. He teaches disciplined actions that can be used daily. These actions focus on the craft of selling long before the first meeting. This is the respect prospects deserve. Respecting the prospects The key differential between salespeople and being a sales professional is the level they hone their craft and prepare for each meeting. A true sales professional won’t practice in front of their prospects. Sales professionals are intrigued by perfecting their craft. They are disciplined in their approach and practice their questions so that when it’s game time, they are at their best. They’ve put in the practice. There’s a difference between a salesperson and a sales professional. The difference is practice and craft. #SalesProfessional Level of preparation The chef at a restaurant shows up hours before the kitchen opens to ensure everything is prepped, fresh, and prepared properly. They do this to offer their best to the customers. The same should be true in sales. Even before you see your customer, do your research, identify your ideal customer, and understand the most current problems they’re facing. Have empathy for their circumstances and be ready with solutions. That level of preparation will uplevel you from salesperson to sales professional. Facing the challenge Yes, preparation takes time and effort. Mark employs a strategy with his clients called The Triangle: Three people come together for a meeting and take turns role playing as the salesperson, the prospect, and the observer. As they take turns they practice various sales scenarios and objections while offering feedback. Sales managers can help foster a culture of excellence by allowing time for practice and taking action toward sales goals. Building good habits Building good habits can be a challenge and with so many people working from home, there are even more distractions: Social media, household chores, binge TV, family, etc. For Mark, the first thing that’s necessary for building good habits is your end goal in mind. Setting your big goals As a sales professional, it would be beneficial to set five big goals and keep them with you. Your big goals can be a combination of personal goals, professional goals, and family goals. When you have your big goals, break them down into actionable chunks that you can achieve by month, by week, by day, and even smaller as it’s helpful for focus. Accountability It is also good to have some level of accountability. You need to develop a scorecard for yourself to keep track of your progress. One tool that Mark suggests is writing out a check to an organization you don’t support. Give it to a friend who will deposit the check if you don’t achieve the goal in the time you’ve allotted. This can help you get laser focused. Be honest with yourself It’s imperative salespeople are honest, especially to themselves. Examine whether or not you are truly willing to make the changes that are necessary to get to your goals. Are your goals big enough to make you change? Ask yourself what it’s going to take you for you to make a phone call when you don’t want to. Set a goal that inspires you and inspires the people around you. Take action everyday Take daily action that will move you into daily habits. Mark suggests for salespeople to do The Power Hour. This is 60 minutes you dedicate to your goals. (If you can do more than one power hour, great, just work for 50 minutes and take a break or enjoy a reward for 10 minutes.) For salespeople, this 60 minutes could mean picking up the phone and prospecting. Just do it sooner than later because it’s a great launch to your day. Team meetings Sales managers, team meetings are important but consider setting aside one day a week where there are no meetings. Dedicate this day to allowing your team to concentrate on their projects and clients. “Building Good Habits In Sales” episode resources Work the power hour and really concentrate on your goals. You can also check out Mark’s book called Raise Your Standards: The Definitive Guide to Building Seven-Figure Sales. Reach out to Mark Evans via his LinkedIn or his website. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads wi

How To Generate Interest In Lost Opportunities Every so often, a prior interest doesn’t end with a good close. Sometimes, there are lost opportunities. As a salesperson, how do you generate interest in lost opportunities? Today’s episode will talk about how you can turn “trash” to treasure! Have you experienced winning a deal that came from a lost opportunity? How did you do it? Leave a comment below! Defining lost opportunity Imagine this sales scenario: You are moving through the sales process with a new prospect and he/she is very excited to work with you. For some reason, however, before you get a chance to close the prospect loses interest. You’re not alone. A study from HubSpot shows that almost half the deals are lost due to budget and the other half is because of timing. Other reasons for a loss of interest are as follows are because of the lack of the prospect’s authority, no time to review or wanting more time to review the deal, and lack of urgency. Your deal became a back-burner item and it just fizzled out. Being diligent, you reach out multiple times but eventually decide that you can’t waste anymore time and move on. At that point, you label the deal as a lost opportunity and end it. Think about all those deals and lost opportunities. Could there be treasure in that trash? YES! There is. A lost opportunity One company thought The Sales Evangelist was a lost opportunity. Donald’s sales team had used a particular software and actually liked it. With changes happening in the TSE organization and the pandemic,however, they didn’t get to use the software as much and canceled the service. In this case, Donald was already a customer but canceled the service to focus resources on more immediate needs. Due to Covid-19, the software company wasn’t doing too well. Luckily, one member of their team figured out a way to move through it by looking at the list of people who had canceled their subscription. The company figured these cancelations were customers who, at one point, saw the value of their product. They asked themselves how they could re-generate interest and get these customers back. Donald was one of the customers they reached out to. In one of Donald’s previous podcasts, he talked about making an offer so good, the prospects can’t refuse. Through that email, Donald got an offer he couldn’t refuse. The software hadn’t been overly expensive when he was their customer, costing $50/month, but the email invited Donald to come back at 50% off, $25/month, for 6 months. Donald was happy to accept the offer. Had the software company focused on looking for new business alone, they would have had to educate new clients about their software and convince people to use their software. It would have been a much harder uphill battle. Instead, they had the wisdom to focus on the people who had already shown some loyalty. While it took some work to bring these customers back, it was far less than what it would have taken to look for new clients altogether. Generate more deals Visit your CRM and look out for lost opportunities. Do your research and understand why they became lost opportunities. It is best if you know why they dropped your service and address the reasons why these customers dropped their accounts. There are many different ways you can spark their interest again: Offer a smaller package with an opportunity to scale up in the coming months. Offer a service or solution that will help them solve a new or current problem. Offer smaller modules. All you need to do is be creative to ensure that you are offering great customer service while reinvigorating your accounts. It’s easier to reinvigorate customers who’ve left you than it is to train a new customer. #SalesCustomer Understand the timing Remember that 25% of deals fall away due to bad timing and reasons will vary.As a salesperson, you want to be sensitive to the reasons why the timing might be wrong. Look at accounts at least three months after they decide to drop the service. This is generally enough time for your clients to self-correct any issues that may have prevented them from working with you further. Urgency When you offer a discounted deal, let the prospect know it is only good for a limited amount of time to create some urgency. Even if your customers aren’t ready to sign on again, at least you’ve been able to touch base and get your company in front of them. Salespeople should be looking at the next deal but in times like these, it’s great to revisit previous accounts as well. Get ready to go on a treasure hunt! “How To Generate Interest In Lost Opportunities” episode resources If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data

How to Network Your Way into Value Building your network is an important step in being a success in sales. With a good network, you’re able to network your value. Curt Tueffert is the Vice President of sales development for a large industrial distributor in Houston, Texas. The company was founded in 1908 is now a multinational publicly traded company with over 200 outside sales. Curt’s job is to manage a small group responsible for developing sales training, sales leadership, and vision casting for the rest of the team. Curt is also a sales instructor at the University of Houston, an author of two books, and travels across the United States trying to coach people in getting better at sales. He teaches that sales is a work in progress and no two sales are the same. Each sale needs to be approached with curiosity to discover what is needed to build relationships. Defining networking and value Curt points out that networking isn’t about the people you know, it’s about the people who know you. You can know 10 people but it’s more important to have 100 people who know you and see you as a source and resource of value. Customers and prospects are the ones who define your value in sales. You expand your network by constant communication and the cadence in which you release information they feel is valuable. This is especially true at this time where we have new rules of engagement in 2020. Now that you have time, this is a great opportunity to enhance and increase your network. Network your way into value Curt shares three ways you can network your way into value: Create an organizational chart by knowing who is connected to who in the organization. Who knows you? Increase your influence quotient. These elements affect your ability to influence other people using the research you’ve uncovered, and how you barter your information in exchange for information they can provide in turn. This is what networking is all about. The organization chart Let’s look at a company that has multiple branches of influence. When you build your organizational chart, you may start with one person but you need to know who is above them and below them, who their peers are, and the chain of command. Ideally, you want to know who is two levels up, two levels across, and two levels deep. Why so much effort? Let’s use “Greg” as an example. Greg is the person you talk to in the organization and he’s in purchasing, maintenance or the engineer. In the entire organization, you only know Greg, not his peers, the people they report to, or who their leaders are. In the event of lay-off or acquisition where Greg gets replaced, without an organizational chart, that account is lost to you. You need to know who else you can talk to. Salespeople tend to move through the path of least resistance, going to the nicest people or those who accept the gifts. There’s got to be a deeper knowledge of the accounts you’re working with. If you don’t know all the other players, you’ll be cut out of the loop if the organizational chart changes. However, if you have taken the time to know Greg, you know that Greg’s boss is Lisa and Lisa’s boss is David. The fact that David knows you will allow you to present your value proposition up your organization chart, across your organization chart, and down your organizational chart. When your number one contact gets promoted up or out of the company, continue to update that network. It is detrimental for a salesperson to not have an organization chart for his top 10 accounts since these accounts typically represent 90% of your W2. If you lose one of your accounts, you may decrease your W2 by 42%, all because you didn’t take the time to do the heavy lifting on the front end. Building the connection Building the connection then and now is different. Your job as a salesperson is to become a detective through social media and to build those relationships in person. If you want to network for value, you’ve got to really know the interests of the people in your organizational chart. When you offer value, you don’t have to track people down. People will come looking for you. It’s not about the people you know but the people who know you You can add value by connecting the people who know you to one another. This is beckoning to your network. What makes people run is illustrated in the book called Appreciation Marketing: How to Achieve Greatness Through Gratitude written by Tommy Hyatt and Curtis Lewsey talks about networking. The book uses the illustration of seven creatures, one of which is the vulture who just perches waiting to suck the life out of people at a social networking event. Another is the narcissist who is only waiting to tell people what they do. Both of these sellers make it all about them. Spend time on social media platforms such as LinkedIn learning about the people in your circles. Be curious about them and collect information that can show you how to add value through their interests. Once you’ve built that rel

How To Partner With Resellers To Experienced Repeatable Sales Growth Sales is not just about growing your customer base but also about partnerships with a variety of people. If you want repeatable sales growth, these partnerships include businesses, other salespeople, and resellers. Todd Rychecky is the VP of Sales Americas in Latin America and has been with the company for the past 12 and a half years. Todd got into sales in 1991, when he was studying was pre-med in college but didn’t get in. As a result, he joined the sales force when he was 23 years old and made a huge move from Nebraska to Dallas where he worked for Whitmire Distribution, a drug wholesale company. Later on, the company was acquired by Cardinal Health and Todd continued to work for them, traveling by car, calling on hospital pharmacies, home infusion, retails stores, and retail chains. Todd never imagined he’d be in sales but his college roommate was very passionate about becoming a salesman and Todd was intrigued by someone who knew they wanted to be in sales. When Todd started his career, he had the chance to work for a sales manager who he still says is one of the best salesmen he’s ever seen. They traveled from hospital to hospital and Todd clearly remembers his sales manager’s sense of urgency. In addition to that, he was also knowledgeable and credible and always conducted business with a big smile on his face. With this complete package, Todd saw it was hard for anyone to say no. Starting the sales journey Once Todd was on his own, he made his first road trip in a new company car, a car phone that cost 75 cents a minute, and an AT&T calling card. Back then, you could cold call the pharmaceutical companies without setting up an appointment, especially true in rural areas. Fast forward to today and Todd is running the Sales for the Americas. What has contributed to his success is that working for OpenGear, a startup in Australia. They originally had five employees so initially, Todd had to do everything himself, handling inbound calls and the online chat. He knew that the company needed to win new customers so he was able to practice a variety of styles and approaches in every task and through each customer. People would often be impressed when they found out they were speaking to the VP of Sales. What they didn’t know was it was just Todd. Todd’s focus is now on the sales team, the partner channels, executing the sales playbook, their selling strategies, and scaling new talents and resources. Create your playbook The first thing you need in order to win is a playbook that you know how to execute. Todd loves to use basketball as an illustration. When you have the ball and there are four guys standing under the basket with their hands open wide, you need to pass the ball. Teammates are important to win the game and it’s also important to stay in your lane. If your job is calling end-users then you call on the end-users. If your job is channel management, then manage the channel. If everyone on the team can execute a playbook then you and the team will win regardless of what you’re selling. Accountability is critical as well because if team members are not accountable, then nothing gets accomplished. Without accountability, it's difficult to count on one another. Building the right culture Everyone on the team should understand the culture and help to support it. Sales leaders must take the lead in building a good culture within the sales team. Other members will eventually see the benefits of having a good culture and follow from the sales leader setting an example. The goal of a sales leader is to create an environment that makes the team want to follow. Communication is critical to building a good culture within a team. Todd and his team are using phone calls, email, texting, and setting up Zoom meetings. Despite the pandemic, there really is no excuse for you not to be able to communicate with the rest of your team. Buyer’s journey Todd has noticed a change in the buyer’s journey, especially from today’s technology. Because of the internet, buyers are already 60% of the way to making their decision by the time they get to you. Open Gear is today’s number one brand in its industry. That means they already have 50% of the market share. People who come to buy, already know their name, they know the company’s good track record, and they’ve already checked the competition. Usually, their buyers have already made the decision and want to move on to the next step. As the sales advisor, meet your customer where they are. If they’re already 60% of the way to buying then help them with the last 40% of the journey by tailoring presentations to where they are. For example, if Todd sees the buyer is almost ready to buy, he asks about their budget so he knows the appropriate products to suggest. There’s no hit and run in sales A common mistake that salespeople make is they win a deal and cut loose. They move on to look for the next win too soon

5 Ways New Sellers Can Sell Like Pros New sellers struggle because they lack the skills and experience to ask well-crafted questions and build rapport with prospects. In this episode, Tony Morris talks about the five ways that new sellers can sell like pros. Tony Morris is a speaker for sales conferences around the globe, and an author of several books, a podcaster, and an entrepreneur who runs a sales training business called Tony Morris International. The 80/20 Law Tony believes that sales reps should apply the 80/20 Rule. This means salespeople should listen 80% of the time and speak 20% of the time. As Tony points out, we have two ears and one mouth so we should use them in that order. Unfortunately, most salespeople are in fact doing 80/20 but they’re doing it the wrong way round. The first tip for new sellers is to get the customer or prospect to talk more than you. People generally love to talk about themselves. When you encourage your prospect to talk more, it allows them to become comfortable. As they talk, you’re able to learn more and build rapport quicker. You do this by asking the right questions and listening with the objective to learn and understand. Asking the right questions Many people ask the wrong questions. These questions can be answered with yes or no, they don’t provide a lot of insight into the prospect’s journey before meeting with you, and they aren’t personal. Alternatively, Tony calls the right questions “killer questions.” One example of a killer question is, “What’s the best that you’ve seen so far?” The answer to this question allows you to understand more about what the prospect is looking for, what they’ve seen in your competition, and how you can offer better. Ask questions that are open, will provoke conversation, and will allow you to share the info your prospect needs. #EffectiveQuestions Sales managers can encourage asking skills in a team meeting. Start by allowing each person to come up with a topic and then the team has to practice asking open-ended questions about that topic. Going through this process trains the brain to become comfortable asking these questions. The more you do it, the more natural and habitual it becomes. Through this exercise, you’re learning how to hold a conversation, not an interrogation. When you’re comfortable as a sales rep, it allows room for your prospects to get comfortable as well. Different types of questions Tag on questions that allow you to go deeper into the answers. Statement questions help deeper engagement. Replay questions demonstrate that you are listening. Treat people how they want to be treated It’s true that The Golden Rule states we should treat people how we want to be treated but in sales, it’s more important to lean into The Platinum rule, treating people how they want to be treated. You can’t respond to your clients the same way because they all have different perspectives on how that should look. Your job as a salesperson is to pay attention to the clues your client provides about how they want to be treated and respond effectively. Be interested, not interesting Top salespeople are genuinely curious and are sincerely interested in their prospects. Your job is not to sell, but to serve. It’s your job to help a customer buy what is appropriate to their needs. This isn’t just about the quick sale and then moving on to the next prospect. Being genuinely interested will transform regular customers into raving fans who will be the ambassadors that recommend you to their friends, family, and colleagues. Sales managers can help their team practice being curious by getting into the habit of asking their sales reps to share three things about their potential clients that can’t be easily researched. They will only be able to give detailed and personal information about their prospective clients if they have been genuinely curious. Be The Challenger Being The Challenger comes from the book The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon. This book challenged Tony’s perspective of sales. Before reading the book, Tony thought that sales were about relationships. However, this book proved that the most successful salespeople are able to share insights to make their prospects think differently. Tony illustrates The Challenger by sharing a story about how he met with a client and questioned their process. It made the client uncomfortable and he wondered why Tony was asking. Tony responded that the client could greatly improve current practices and proceeded to offer the prospect multiple solutions. The client loved it! Tony challenged the process that they’d been using for years and was able to provide a fresh perspective that served the needs of his client. Don’t be afraid of challenging the process as long as you can back it up, share value and offer insights to make your prospect think differently, and in their favor. Using The Challenger method helped Tony stand out from the competition. Do t

5 Things I Learn About Sales Doing 1,300 Episodes It’s been a long and amazing journey for The Sales Evangelist. Content creation and podcasting have been the core of TSE and after 1,300 episodes, there are several lessons that Donald has learned. This episode will be about all the top lessons that have come from producing The Sales Evangelist since starting seven years ago. TSE has now been able to reach halfway around the world and has been mentioned and recognized in some of the most recognized business publications such as Entrepreneur and Forbes. We all have moments in our lives where we give up an idea. Donald is grateful that he didn’t give up on podcasting even though he came close. Having TSE has allowed him to serve people in sales and by doing so they are better able to navigate the struggles they face in their industry. He summarizes these top lessons in Five Sales Principles: You can’t sell higher than your level of belief. Nothing happens until you prospect. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Zig when everyone is zagging. Swing for the fences. You can’t sell any higher than your level of belief Henry Ford has a very famous quote: “If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right.” Wayne Gretzky said it this way: “You miss 100% of the shots that you do not take.” These words all point to the first principle. Donald started this podcast with a desire that later turned into a belief. He began the podcast in April 2013 but realized early on that it was difficult. Luckily, Jared, one of Donald’s friends, invited Donald to his podcast. That experience made Donald believe that he could do podcasts as well and served to remind him how much he loved talking to people himself. In sales, you cannot succeed until you believe it. The same is true in life. You need to visualize your success. In sales, visualize your success before it even happens. Believe that you can get into pitch with people, close a deal, and be a great seller. Your belief will cause you to act, lead you down a path of opportunities, and open up a social circle of the people you need to be exposed to. Donald suggests that when you go out to a prospect, believe you will contact someone. That belief and action will lead you to the inevitable success that you desire. Nothing happens until you prospect Nothing ever happens until you prospect. The TSE podcasts have invited many successful people to interview and one of the common traits among these successful people is that they took action. This is true for prospecting. Nothing happens until you do something. Donald was working with a client who just released a program; however, it turned out that people didn’t know about her new program. Even when she announced it to her community, no one actually knew of it. Donald suggested she reach out to her community and to talk to them. It wasn’t until this client started to prospect and call people that she was able to meet her goals. She was actually able to close a deal. This happened because she asked! Too often, sales reps get timid and get worried that people will get mad at them. There’s no truth in that. The more time that we spend on calling and prospecting people, the more that we’re going to see success. Even an hour or two of dedicated time for prospecting will give you success. Prospecting is not just jumping back and forth doing research. Prospecting is making phone calls, reaching out to people on LinkedIn, or sending out emails to people two hours per day, uninterrupted. Whether you are prospecting in person or calling a client, set a goal, and follow-through. Send out personalized emails in your dedicated prospecting time every day to see success. Spending 2 hours of dedicated time prospecting correctly guarantees success. #SalesProspecting Value is in the eye of the beholder A sales rep cannot dictate what value is. The buyer must be the one to dictate, validate, or believe that your product or service is valuable. You start the conversation by personalizing your message. Too many people make their initial contacts too generic. We generalize value propositions to all prospects without any reflection about the prospects’ current situation, needs, and what they might see as valuable. This lack of understanding hinders salespeople from having a breakthrough moment. If you sell a product by focusing on yourself, then your buyers are going to push you away. Instead, sell a product because the buyer understands you are offering a solution to their problem. That’s when it becomes valuable. You need to look for the problem and position your product as the solution to their problems. It comes down to personalization, listening, and asking effective questions. Taking the time to do the research will prove invaluable. The blind side challenge In the world of football, a quarterback always has a support system that looks after his blindside. In sales, the prospects are the quarterback and the sales reps are the sup

Keys to Making the Sales Process ENJOYABLE for You and the Customer The sales process is a journey that can vary in the amount of time invested. Regardless of how long it takes, it’s within your control to make it enjoyable for you and the customer! Tasha Smith is with Emerge Sales Training and they help entrepreneurs become great at selling. Their goal is to make the journey enjoyable for both the sellers and their customers. Tasha’s company wants to ensure that the selling experience is in line with the sellers’ values and personalities. They offer one-on-one coaching with entrepreneurs to figure out what their best offers are, how to unlock their superpowers, and how they can communicate in an honorable way. They call it good human sales. Unfortunately, not all salespeople are selling with the buyers’ best intentions. Some are tricking them into a one-sided experience where they win and the buyers don’t. However, when you’re selling for the benefit of the consumer, then you elevate the transaction for you and them. Leveling the playing field As a salesperson, ask yourself this question, “What is it about the sales process that makes it unenjoyable?” When Tasha coaches a new client, they start with the opposite of what they want to create and then reverse engineer the process backwards. There are several reasons why a sales transaction can be unenjoyable: The customer feels like there’s going to be a bait and switch. The customer feels the pressure to buy. The decision to move forward feels confusing and overwhelming. The process is boring. The customer has to work really hard at connecting the dots. Your job as the salesperson is to keep these things from happening and making it a great experience for the customer. If it’s great for the customer, it’s great for you. When you stick with your morals and beliefs during selling, you and the buyer both win. #SalesWin Tasha has some tips on how to make the sales process enjoyable. To begin, we need to make our sales process customer-centric. The goal is to have high conversion but in a way that feels more effortless because you’re both having fun. The dictionary’s definition of “close” is “unite.” We need to start thinking about what our customers would prefer the interaction to look like. If they like how the conversation goes, then they are more likely to engage and convert higher. Customers are more responsive if they see you as a stable individual, trustworthy individual who offers hope. Set up an appointment Setting up an appointment is a very common step in the sales process but the details can often be overlooked. Salespeople can get caught up in closing with speed because they don’t want to lose a sale. The downside to this is that we can overwhelm a potential customer or miss critical details. Our sales process should be more consent-based. We need to ask our customers if they would be interested in meeting, if our product sounds helpful, and if they’d be open to moving toward a solution to their problems. We need to go beyond just pulling out our appointment book and filling a time slot. Putting in a little extra effort is a great step in earning your customer’s trust. Your job as a salesperson is to guide them and to give them the control to purchase. Giving someone the choice to say no makes them feel better and they are more likely to stick around until the end of the sales process. This simple shift can send a closing percentage through the roof because you’ve removed the stress from the customer. Restate the agenda Let your customer know how much time you’re expecting to be with them and stick to it unless the customer wants to talk longer. Make sure you ask your customer if the amount of time is acceptable. Let your customer know you’ll be talking about your company and going over your most popular packages and offerings. If the customers like what you have to say, they are likely going to move forward through the sales process but assure them they get to make that decision in their time frame. . By this point, you’ve eliminated the fear of risk for your customer. Through this process you’ve offered trust, compassion, stability, and hope which are all qualities people are looking for in a transaction. Sales reps don’t just sell products. You’re leaders and problem solvers. Discovery process The discovery process can feel like an interrogation and that leads to an unenjoyable experience. Even when it’s a well-meaning person who is trying to get to know you, it feels like whatever they ask is going to be used as ammunition. Many sales trainers even call discovery questions “bullets in the gun.” Who wants to do business on the receiving end of that? Sales reps need to remember that the purpose of discovery questions is to personalize the experience for the customer. We need to be able to connect the dots for the customer and to make it easy for them to see how the transaction works. Make sure the questions are first and foremost clarifying for the

Three Things I Learn From Jordan's Last Dance To Dominate Sales Donald Kelly’s knowledge has come from a variety of sources -- books, podcasts, training, sales seminars, documentaries, and more recently, the docuseries, Michael Jordan’s Last Dance. The natural seller in Donald caught key principles from the series that will help salespeople to dominate sales. The Last Dance is a docuseries featuring the last year Michael Jordan was with the Chicago Bulls. It’s a revealing 10-part series that shows why Michael Jordan is one of the best basketball players of all time. As Donald watched, he could see the lessons that are revealed are applicable to Donald in every role: as a father, a husband, a business owner, and as a sales professional. Here are the top takeaways for Donald from the Last Dance series: Have a win-at-all-cost mentality You need a mindset and belief system of success Be a perfectionist in the details Win-at-all-cost mentality To Michael Jordan, a win-at-all-cost mentality, meant he didn’t let it enter his mind that he could miss a shot. His only focus was getting the ball into the basket every time. While he did miss shots in the span of his career, he was able to make critical shots because it didn’t occur to him that he wouldn’t. If you want to achieve greatness, this is the mentality you need to master. Within ethical and legal boundaries, what are you willing to do? Will you dare to believe you can’t miss a shot? Michael Jordan was willing to put in the work. His mindset allowed him to give his best and practice hard. He was willing to work longer than anyone else, learn from the best, and he could adapt to new strategies in order to take him to greater heights of success. How does this apply to sales? More often than not, sales reps desire success but don’t truly believe that they can achieve their goals. Not everyone does what it takes to achieve the success they want. If you want to be the best in the team and excel in sales, however, then you may have to reevaluate the level of effort you’re willing to show up for. Thoroughly understand the products and services you’re selling, understand the profile of your client and know how to find them. Make it your goal to study the clients’ industry, learn the trends, and know what’s going on in the industry, making sure that you are updated with the trade policies. Don’t stop learning even when you think you’ve been taught everything you need to know. There have been many good basketball players over the years but only a few of them turned great because so many settled. Shaquille O’Neal was a good player who could have been great but he’s admitted to being lazy. He could have become one of the best in the history of basketball but he limited his efforts. Jordan aspired to be the greatest and he was willing to do whatever it took. . As a salesperson or a business owner, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to make sure you close the deal. This may include traveling long distances or working hours that don’t fit into a normal day. Do this with Jordan’s mindset: You’re going to make every shot. Even if you don’t, with a great mindset, you’ve shifted the odds in your favor. Mindset of success Michael Jordan has a mindset of success and this reflects a high level of toughness. He let this mindset dictate his level of fitness and gameplay, leading to multiple championships. He was able to overcome his opponents and defeat them. As a salesperson If you want to be the best, mental toughness is also needed in sales. Jordan didn’t win every game he played. In sales, you won’t land every presentation or close every deal. A tough mindset allows you to show up even when you’ve experienced defeat. Don’t worry about the losses. Let it be an opportunity to think of all the ways you can improve. A great mindset doesn’t blame others but focuses on how you can show up better next time. Turning the wheel Do not let the lost deal affect your next call and don’t let negativity become part of the conversation. It’s a slippery slope when you allow interactions with new clients to be influenced by previous losses, especially when you blame others for losing a deal. Instead of pointing fingers, re-evaluate and assess how you can do better next time. Jordan was also keen on learning from other players. Who is the best in your industry? These are the people you want to learn from them and emulate. If you can’t find a person, seek out the books that resonate with you. Just keep learning. Aim for perfection Look for perfection in the details. Evaluate your calls, look at how you describe your products, and think about how you phrase a message. Other areas to consider include: How you write and send emails Look at how you take notes and recap How are you writing and updating the CRM Are you engaged on LinkedIn All these little details will help you in the long run. Do whatever it takes, have a strong mindset, and be perfect in the details. #TheLastDance Paying the cost

How to Land Your First Sales Job With No Previous Experience A loaded resume is important to many employers but when you’re brand new, how do you land your first sales job without any experience? In this episode, we’re going to learn how to jump the line even before your first close. Mitchell Earl had his life planned out; however, a year into college, everything changed for him. He got involved in a startup that took off in his sophomore year of college. It started with a small team over the course of three years, the company grew to thousands of people. Working for the startup early on allowed him to work many different positions within the company. Mitchell eventually met the founder of Praxis and quickly became a valuable member of the team. Mitchell is now the COO. Praxis helps people take the first steps into the real world whether their clients are fresh out of high school, college, or they’ve left school before graduation. The goal is to help them begin their first careers, many of which are in sales. Starting your career fresh from school Sales is one of the entry points where people care less about credentials and more about someone’s ability to learn quickly, be coachable, and handle rejection. Before you set out, know what you want. For new graduates, you’ve already chosen a path and that’s great. Oftentimes, however, people get stuck because they can’t figure out what it is they want to do next. Show your value One of the best ways to impress a potential employer is to show how you can be valuable to the company. As a salesperson, an important skill is to be able to capture someone's attention.. To do that, you need to stop doing what everyone else is doing. Stand out by differentiating yourself. Once you’ve gotten their attention, secure your place by continuing to prove your value. To do this, Mitchell uses a personal pitch deck and a project. For example, you can do preliminary research by going to a company’s website. Figuring out who their buyers are and how you can participate in problem solving. Build your prospects list and with all this information, document your methodology so it’s duplicatable. A pitch deck explains who you are, why you love their company, and how you can help with the problems. This is where you get the opportunity to present thoughtful solutions that show how you can be of value to the company. It should reflect that you know who their customers are. Taking this level of care in your presentation will help you stand out from others. Keeping their focus Employers will look at your experience. That’s a given. When you haven’t gotten the chance to build your experience, however, be prepared for questions regarding the value you bring without any back up to your claims. Remember, when you don’t have the experience, effort is your best friend. Let your interviewer know you are willing to show up earlier or stay later than everybody else.. They need to understand you are willing to perfect your craft and learn quickly. Give them all the reasons they need to give you a shot. Also remember everything is up for negotiation. Don’t assume that the rules of the job exclude you because the moment you do, you remove a way to create that opportunity for yourself. Address your weaknesses head on In an interview it’s typical to be asked about your weaknesses. The best thing to do is to attack your weakness head-on before they even ask. Address the elephant in the room immediately and build trust at the same time. Part of what makes a great salesperson is the ability to handle objections. As you talk about your weaknesses, you’re also able to share how you’ve overcome these low points. Being able to talk about your weaknesses and the way you’ve moved through them shows potential employers you have self-awareness and grit. This also helps you control the narrative. Don’t let the first no stop you. Handle those objections. This is what salespeople do. #HandleObjection More tips from Mitchell It may be that you don’t get hired on your first interview. That’s okay. Give yourself the best chance by going back to Mitchell’s tips. Build a portfolio of sales projects, build your prospecting lists, and look at different ways you can approach a variety of companies. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for a referral from a company who doesn’t hire you. They may know another company who is looking for someone exactly like you. Just don’t let the first no stop you. Handle those objections. This is what salespeople do. “How to Land Your First Sales Job Even With No Experience” episode resources Connect with Mitchell Earl via his LinkedIn account and Twitter. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, syn

How To Build Your Career In Sales The road to building a career in sales may be difficult but certainly not impossible, especially if you have a great road map, the right character, and key people in your life who help you move forward. In this episode, we’ll outline what these may look like. At 22 years old, Mary Grothe started with a Fortune 1000 payroll and HR company. She became an administrative assistant supporting eight salespeople and the number one sales manager in the country. Within a couple of months, she realized she wanted a spot on the mid-market sales team. She asked her sales manager what she needed to accomplish in order to be considered for the position when it became available. For two years, she worked hard and became number one in her role. Looking back to heer first phone call, she was like any other sales rep, very nervous, and was sweating hard, but she also had a strong desire to surpass all expectations. She certainly accomplished what she set out to do. Mary eventually took on an equity position as a VP in Sales and Marketing. They rebuilt the company’s revenue engine and quadrupled its revenue in seven months. She liked the thrill of growing a business and as she thought of setting out on her own, her entrepreneurial spirit was ignited. As a result, Mary started her first consulting firm called Butterly Creative in 2011. As a young entrepreneur, she was trying to figure out how to maneuver through pricing her services while maintaining the energy she needed. There were a lot of rookie mistakes in the beginning, so she eventually stepped away from the company. After she gave birth, her passion for the business came back again and she now helps build revenue for larger companies. For the new salespeople Mary Grother has these suggestions for new graduates who are just starting out their careers in sales: There are multiple types of sales roles A new salesperson doesn’t have to automatically choose to go to a BDR/SDR position. There are so many types of sales positions in business development roles. It is important to understand these roles because each salesperson has the opportunity to match who they are as a person to the type of selling they want to do. Doing something that is more in line with who they are will likely influence their performance and sales roles in a positive way. Understand the equations Part of the reason why Mary became the number one sales rep in such a short time is she knew how to play the game. She knew her playbook and was aware that if she worked at it every single day, she would have success. Most sales reps don’t know what’s expected of them so they don’t have the framework to succeed. Communicating to your leadership team about our future goals You need to talk to your leadership team about the progression of your current role, what is needed to meet certain goals, the positions you aspire to attain, and discuss how you are going to get there. Your leadership has to know, so they won’t be in the dark, and they are prepared to receive you when new positions open up. Common roles in sales Your role in sales will be dictated by the kind of company you will work for and what they sell. Is the company selling a physical product that you can touch or technology, or a service? Service vs product selling Mary has observed that service sales are harder to sell because unlike products, you can’t touch it and you can’t see it. It’s hard to compare side by side to a competitive option. It’s different from a product sale because most people can wrap their heads around a product much easier. Services also can have a want vs. a need. Transactional vs big-ticket price As a salesperson, you need to look at who is buying the product. Is it more of a transactional, high volume sale where you talk to 10 - 30 different buyers within a day or is it a deal that could take up six months to close?. You just have to know where your preferences are. Mary likes selling big-ticket items because she enjoys complex sales. She doesn’t mind if it’s selling a service; she just loves the challenge of multiple buyers. Sales reps need to understand the type of selling method that fits them. As a sales rep, you need to look at who you are as a person and how your choice is aligned with your goals. You want to take it a notch further. What part of the sales cycle do you want to be a part of? The third thing to consider is where your role lies in the sales cycle. Some salespeople are hunters and love the outbound. With these salespeople, they love starting conversations but they may not be detail-oriented and able to go through a whole three-month sales cycle. Discovery, demo, proposal, and closing may not be their strengths. Others may be on the opposite side of the spectrum and maybe more comfortable working with people they know when it’s time to demo, present solutions, offering renewals, and upselling. Many new salespeople, especially fresh out of college, are put in the outbound whe

Mindset vs. Skill Set - Which Is More Important In Sales? As a salesperson, which do you think is more important, a mindset or a skill set? What are the differences between the two? In this episode, Donald will explore the value of both. Defining mindset and skill set Mindset is your established attitude or beliefs. Mindset has two parts - a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset settles into what is working and doesn’t change. A growth mindset can see the opportunities to improve. A skill set, on the other hand, is your range of ability. What training and skills have you mastered to be able to execute the work you need to do well in your business? Donald Experiences the Difference Between Mindset and Skill Set A salesperson should have both a great mindset and the relevant skill set. When Donald was a young man his friend’s father, who was like a second dad, gave him the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He read it and internalized the information so he believed he would succeed in his goals. As a result, when Donald started in sales, he was a ball of energy. He watched all the movies and rolled out his B2C experience fresh from college. He was working, setting up appointments and he felt good that he could take all the ideas he’d learned and bring them into professional selling. His mindset was propelling him forward. Things got a little bit difficult when Donald entered the B2B world. He had the growth mindset but he didn’t have the skill set to go with it. One of the companies he worked for had him knocking on doors and handing out business cards. This was something that Donald did not see as professional selling. Without the proper skill set, Donald felt he was just going around in circles. He eventually moved on to another company and there he got the skill set training he needed. There, he learned how to Use the phone to prospect Make a proper cold call Use LinkedIn Go to networking events Ask effective questions Challenge a prospect about their beliefs to get to better solutions. After gaining such valuable skill sets and merging them with his growth mindset, Donald started to see amazing transformation and acceleration. He started to produce well. As Donald started to grow, he noticed that colleagues that were decades his senior were remaining at the same level they’d been for years, even with much more experience. The reason? Donald’s teammates had a lot of skill set but with even all their knowledge it was impossible for them to grow beyond their mindset. As a result, they missed out on the opportunities that Donald was able to enjoy. It was Donald’s mindset that helped him excel and perform well. Bringing Skill Set and Mindset Together Donald was different from stagnant colleagues in that he was able to take advantage of social selling, he could see fresh opportunities, and he was eager to prospect. With the proper growth mindset and proper skill set, he was able to excel as a sales representative. Do you see why both are so critical? Having a great skill set does not guarantee success if you don’t have the mindset that will push you through the glass ceilings you can set for yourself. Donald suggests taking time every single day to improve and sharpen and expand your beliefs. Listen to motivational videos, repeat your affirmations and goals, and get around like-minded people who can help you build up a positive mindset. Read the books that will help you get that growth mindset. One of Donald’s favorite books is The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho, a book that will help you open your mind to your potential. Build a great library One of the best ways to support your business is by getting real about what skill sets you need to acquire and pursue that knowledge through books. Take a look at your prospecting, social, or closing skills. Do you know how to ask effective questions? Take time each day to build these skills and launch your day even better than you did the day before. Sales books are always there to help you improve and Donald has some suggestions to start your library if you haven’t already. One of Donald’s favorite authors is Mike Weinberg, who provides a lot of great content and value about sales management and simplifying sales. Kevin Kruse’s book entitled, 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management: The Productivity Habits of 7 Billionaires, 13 Olympic Athletes, 29 Straight-A students, and 239 Entrepreneurs discusses planning and time management. There are many great authors who have amazing books in a voice that will be perfect for you. If you want to turn your commute, down time, or workout into a university, download books using Audible and listen to the books if that’s more convenient. No more excuses. Which is more important, Mindset or Skill Set? Of course, both are important but if Donald had to pick just one,he’d pick mindset. He understands that a person with the proper growth mindset can be taught the proper skill set. A person who is able to s

How To Easily Track Your Leads From Prospect Status To Closing the Deal Salespeople track leads from prospect status to closing the deal because that’s how the sales process flows. But how can we keep the information organized so we take action in a way that’s best for a potential client? For the last six years, Toni Panea has focused on his role as a sales engineer. Before that, he was running a real estate business and wanted to track all his leads and how they flowed through his business. He wanted to organize information in a way that let him know how many clients he had when the next appointments should be, and how to prepare for meetings. However, when Toni looked for apps and software that could help, he found there were no available tools that existed. When Toni realized this was a critical need that was missing, he filled the void himself by creating his current business, Crmble. This business would provide what he’d been looking for and it’s helping others as well. Tips on tracking your leads Salespeople should ask themselves if they have a system that tracks the status of leads, including names, contact data, notes about meetings, etc. Toni recommends using available tools like the Trello app where you can see the status of your leads and add alarms. Many salespeople use Excel as Donald did, but Trello offers more organizational opportunities. Trello allows you to track more information relevant to your business and sales team. The power-up Crmble is a power-up of Trello. Using the existing Trello platform, Crmble is a plug-in that can be layered to provide notification capabilities specifically for sales. With Crmble, you are also able to connect to third-party services such as Facebook and Google Forms. Others will be added in the near future. A feature in Crmble is connecting salespeople to Google Contact to better access a data link from your Trello cards when someone is calling. As soon as you finish the conversation, you can go to your Trello card and update an alarm for the next steps. You can close confidently knowing you won’t forget future steps. This plugin is a bridge that lets Crmble capabilities stream into that of Trello functionalities. For example, Crmble also has reporting capabilities where sales reps can see the number of leads they have in every touchpoint for their sales funnel. There’s also a report on the number of leads converted to sales before leading into the sales funnel. Sales reps are also able to see the percentage of wins, percentage of losses, a report on where the leads are coming from, and the number of leads you get per day. This is a valuable feature when you need to know how your ads are performing. Crmble is easy to use and very simple to understand. There’s no need to learn how to code or compute. With Crmble it helps your CRM become even more effective and user friendly. Otherwise, a system that is overly complicated may never get used. Every CRM user needs to be able to work a system without losing important information. #CRM How Crmble was named Toni’s wife named Crmble. She has been very supportive from the very beginning and recognized that CRM needed to be in the name to make it easily identifiable. Because this was not a platform that was created from scratch, they are a “crumble” for an existing tool, Trello, that is already considered the best in the world when it comes to project management. They turned this project management platform into a CRM. It’s basically a crumble of many existing tools like Facebook, Google Forms, Google Contacts, and Google Drive, for example, and what you can get from Trello itself. For the new salespeople For new salespeople, Toni suggests that you speak to people with similar jobs. Talk to your friends, teammates, and colleagues who are dealing with the same issues that you do, and get fresh ideas about how they’re facing and addressing their problems. When you are just starting, it’s important to know the status of your sales funnel because this status can change a lot. You need to be able to track your leads to be aware of the variety of situations that may affect the sales flow. Discover the kinds of leads you have, where they came from, and their status to know how they need to be prioritized. This information is essential to design an appropriate sales funnel to ultimately close. CRM users need to find a balance between not working for the system and not losing track of important information. Sales leaders want to be careful of making the CRM so complicated that salespeople won’t want to use it. This is what makes Crmble different from other CRM software. It makes the process so easy. “How To Easily Track Your Leads From Prospect To Close Deal” episode resources Visit Crmble and try the software for free! You can also connect with Toni on LinkedIn to know more about the Trello power-up plugin. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, In

Learn To Prospect Like An Expert With Steve Kloyda Prospecting isn’t to be taken lightly and there are skills needed before you can prospect well. In this episode, Steve Kloyda helps us figure out how to prospect like an expert. Steve Kloyda has been creating unique selling experiences for over 30 years and has been able to transform the lives of countless salespeople. In addition to facilitating thousands of workshops across the country, he personally made more than 25,000 sales and prospecting calls, listened to and analyzed more than 25,000 sales calls, and facilitated over 6,000 one-on-one coaching sessions. He has clearly earned the title expert! Steve’s insights have provided clients with a powerful learning experience for anyone who wants to transform their sales and dramatically grow their business. His aim is to help salespeople attract more prospects, retain more clients, and drive more sales. Steve also remembers unforgettable customer service. One of his coolest sales experiences was at Hilton Head several years ago when it was suggested to him and his wife to go to the Pink House for dinner. It was indeed an old pink house converted into a restaurant and by dessert, his wife just wanted fresh fruit but it wasn’t on the menu. Steve made his request and though it wasn’t a dessert they offered the waiter came back 10 minutes later with a plate of fresh fruits so beautifully arranged it reminded Steve of a work of art. To top it all off, they didn’t even charge them when they were billed! The Pink House went above and beyond all their expectations. When was the last time you went out of your way for a customer? Steve as the prospecting expert Steve started his company, Telemasters, in 1990. He built the company over 18 years and they specialized in creating a unique process for salespeople to prospect. From that point until 2005, the primary tools for prospecting were basically telephone and email. When 2006 came around, social media including LinkedIn started to look like a great platform to prospect. Steve went on an online class with Carrie Wilkerson, The Barefoot Executive, and what she asked him hit him: What are you really passionate about? What are you really good at? Steve has always been good at opening doors and prospecting. To see how many people were looking up topics related to prospecting, he did a Google search and learned that tips, strategies, and ideas were a hot topic. People are searching for these topics about 200 to 300,000 times a month. He decided to sell his Telemaster brand and changed the name into what it is today, the Prospecting Expert. Claiming it You can’t call yourself an expert unless you’ve walked that path and Steve has certainly walked them all. Today, he is helping salespeople attract more prospects and drive more sales as he provides a clear path for sales and prospecting success. The basics of prospecting The definition of prospecting is “in search of or to labor for.” As sales reps, we are looking for people who are going to purchase our product or service. We’re also searching for new customers and new businesses through our existing customers. Let’s look at Hector the Prospector as an example. During the California Gold Rush, he found a nugget of gold but he didn’t stop to turn in that one gold nugget. He continued to prospect until the stream dried up and then he looked for another stream. All successful salespeople never ever stop prospecting. #SalesProspecting The organic process Prospecting should be an organic process that starts with identifying who your target audience is. One of the mistakes salespeople make is that they don’t know who they should be selling to and are prospecting people who don’t have the ability to say yes. It really comes down to knowing where your prospects hang out, whether that be online or offline, and identifying ways to approach them naturally. Prospecting methods over the years Prospecting methods have changed dramatically over the years. In the 1980s, they had the telephone and snail-mail. There was no voice mail or email. In 2003-2004, social media started gaining popularity, especially platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Steve got the first taste of Twitter in 2008 and he immediately disliked it. He thought Facebook was for kids and with the addition of LinkedIn and Youtube, social platforms were coming from all directions. Steve soon realized that these tools were becoming an important point of contact in the sales process. Some salespeople, however, started to hide behind the technology and they have bought into the notion that somehow Twitter is going to help them sell. These tools can certainly be used to connect, educate, and engage with your target audience but ultimately, a phone call or meeting will have to happen. People can’t forget how to engage. The way Steve uses social media is with his Instant Sales Nuggets and twice a day, he posts a tip on Twitter. He also knows how to ask his network great questions.

How Do I Stand Out From The Competition? Are there still ways salespeople can stand out from the competition? This is an age-old question that was posed by a recent college graduate. If so, how? In this episode, Donald will share four ways he’s learned, through his personal and professional experience, to stand out from your competition: Be persistent Personalize Use your CRM and bring value Have energy and drive Be persistent Studies have shown that many sales reps give up making contact after one or two attempts. In reality, it takes 8 - 12 points of contact before a potential prospect may respond. If you want to stand out from your competition, be consistent and persistent. Of course, this doesn’t mean sitting and calling eight times in a row within a day. You have to ensure you have an organizational flow process. This is the process that moves through the buyer’s journey to get to the interest and awareness phase within the organization. Use an omni channel approach when strategically making multiple contacts with prospects. The buyers are not camping out in one location. Many salespeople think the only way you can get in touch with a prospect is through phone calls and emails. With this digital world there are multiple platforms to utilize, like LinkedIn. Don’t just hop from profile to profile but truly invest your time engaging with people you’re already connecting with. Some suggested steps include the following: Call Send an email Reach out on LinkedIn and connect Follow them on LinkedIn Follow their company Give them a second phone call Send a gift through physical mail Send them a gift through digital mail,like a gift card You can modify these steps based on how you choose to reach out to your prospects. The important thing is getting beyond the first two tries. Always Personalize Donald uses some important strategies when it comes to personalizing a message. One of the most important elements in a message is to use their name. No one wants a generic message. Make use of a personalized message and let them know you’ve looked at the problems their company is facing. Address these issues in your message and bring some value that ties to their concerns. Provide a solution specific to their challenges. A great way to personalize a message is by sending a video. This way, a potential client can see your personality before they ever get to meet you in person. Personalize your message! Your first impression is not the time to be lazy. #SalesImpression Bring in value and use your CRM Another way to bring value is to go back to your CRM. If your company doesn’t have a CRM, you can visit Crmble. It’s an awesome tool that companies can use for free but upgrades are available. If you already have CRM already, go back to the very beginning and see what problems you were addressing then. Check out if it was a decent sale and read through a thread that might give you some current insight. While it may take some work, you'll be armed with the knowledge of the issues these customers were facing and be able to apply current solutions now and into their future. Energy and the drive Whether you are a seasoned salesperson or a new graduate, another way to stand out from the competition is to know that you are awesome! Your clients have the chance to get YOU - your passion, your desire, your work ethic … only you can bring that. Know that you are your own best asset. “How Do I Stand Out From All The Competition?” episode resources Donald is currently working on his new book, Sell it Like a Mango. In the book, Donald has written about his experience in Jamaica, seeing people sell the same exact product and seeing some have greater success than others. You’ll learn what made them stand out in Sell it Like a Mango. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble for free now at www.crmble.com/tse. This course is also brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day fr

How To Leverage LinkedIn For Better Networking LinkedIn is an important social platform for people looking to broaden their network. In this episode, Bobbie Foedisch will be talking about how to leverage LinkedIn for better networking. Bobbie Foedisch is the founding partner and Chief Social Selling Officer at All About Leverage. The company develops social selling, lead generation, and networking processes. Bobbie has been in the business development space for most of her career. She’s seen the power of leveraging social media and now, along with her team, they have cultivated a lead-generation process that they offer to their clients as a voluntary benefit business. LinkedIn now has over 413 million users and they are growing daily. This makes LinkedIn a perfect platform for you and your business. You can use it to leverage your online and offline marketing presence. Use LinkedIn Strategies available One of the best ways to start your LinkedIn experience is by using a picture of yourself as your profile photo. It’s tempting to use a company logo but people don’t develop a relationship with a logo the way they want to connect with people. When selecting a picture make sure the photo looks like you and you look professional. This is your first impression so make the most of this opportunity by having a great headshot. Customize your message and be yourself The message is an important part of your LinkedIn profile as it shows effort on your part. Don’t make it a generic. Show your personality and let people know you care. Be yourself so people get a true sense of who you’d be face to face. Build your network right away The purpose of LinkedIn is to grow networking opportunities so be confident in building right away. Have a purpose to connect and know the worth of your business. Look for the people you can partner with or who will benefit from your service or product. They are waiting to be found. The social selling process It’s important to have your own social selling process. Here’s a process that Bobbie suggests: Put your content out there You need content that will resonate with your network but be sure to tie it back to your subject, job, or area of expertise. Before you begin, assess how you are going to create your content. Will you create your own or curate your content? Either way, your content should be interesting or relevant to your audience. Start the conversation As a thought leader, begin conversations that are compelling and will allow conversations to occur. Post these “ice breakers” on LinkedIn network groups, Twitter, and add them to your company page on Facebook. Time your posts well Do your research about what days and times to post on the social platform you’re trying to engage with so you have maximum exposure. This will help ensure you are reaching at least 60% of your network. Join groups for content and networking LinkedIn groups allow you to reach beyond your network. Having the right content can help you leverage the groups for face-to-face networking events. You can search LinkedIn groups for the niche that reflects your target audience. Search for specific details such as company name, job titles, geographic locations, and other details that will help you narrow down the search. You can then offer your message to the group. Advanced save and purchase Make use of LinkedIn’s lead generation. Do this by saving your purchase based on your ideal client profile. LinkedIn will automatically send you a lead generation list every week. Leverage your first degree connection Learn to leverage your network. Look at your connections and narrow them down to exactly who you want to reach. Meet with your different referral partners weekly and aim for an average of five introductions. Statistics show that this type of warm lead generation has a 60% conversion rate. The following features on LinkedIn will help you broaden your reach: Thought leadership Content marketing Face-to-face networking Online and offline social activity Reaching people in your community and across the world Effective cold-calling Even with everyone using social media as a way to connect, there is still a lot of value in cold calling. Bobbie suggests the following to be more effective: Narrow down the list Monitor recent activity and comment on the things you care about Engage with people and create opportunities for conversations. Move from connecting online to connecting offline LinkedIn is more effective the more you use it. Be visible on the platform and allow people to get to know you each day. Your LinkedIn profile is the first thing that pops up when somebody searches your name so make a great first impression. Match the sales process to the buying process if you want to be successful. Focus on people who are interested. Sales is no longer just about selling but guiding people through their needs and being there with a solution. “How To Leveraging LinkedIn For Better Networking” episode resources As a salesperson,

How To Overcome Your Fear of Selling During Challenging Times Fear can be common for salespeople regardless of where you are in your career. The fear of rejection can paralyze us and impact our performance. In the current climate of a pandemic, one fear that salespeople are dealing with is that customers won’t be interested in what we have to offer. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to overcome fear of selling during challenging times. Nina Cooke works with entrepreneurs, their coaches, consultants, and sales specialists. Her task is to help them overcome their fear in order to get them to move toward sales conversations. Nina helps salespeople overcome their negative thoughts and the lies people tell themselves. Nina’s goal is for her clients to see how powerful and magnificent they can be as they run their business. The origin of fear The origin of a lot of our fears occur in childhood. We were all born with a blank slate and then picked up the programming of other people over time. From a very young age, we start to take in information and make assessments about our world and the people in our life as we observe activities and conversations around us. These observations can heavily influence how we view our place in this world. If we see others are fearful, for example, we tend to take on that fear and it can take a grip into adulthood. Another example of a child making assumptions about their environment may come from their parent not playing with them, even though they promised. As this child starts to see this as a trend, they begin to wonder why the play isn’t happening. Is it because they aren’t important enough? “I’m not important enough” is now a limiting belief they take into adulthood. As their belief takes hold, they begin to collect evidence to prove it’s true: Someone wasn’t listening to you while you were talking because you weren’t important. You spoke up in a group and no one listened because you weren’t important. Parents didn’t take notice of you but focused on your siblings because you weren’t important. We build meaning around events and then live our lives as if these beliefs were fact. These limiting beliefs become a crippling way of thinking, especially if it keeps you from seeing your full potential. Change of mindset We’ve got to be careful about settling because of a limited mindset. Changing your mindset is necessary to redirect your path. These limitations are keeping you from reaching out to people during a pandemic: -“People aren’t interested in what I have to offer.” -”They don’t have the budget for my products.” These are concerns but they’re not necessarily the reality. How do we know this? Because other salespeople are thriving. If they can do it, you can too. One of Nina’s clients set a goal to have six new clients/customers in the month of April and while she wasn’t able to lock in all six, she was able to get five new customers! If we continue to reason our way out of growing our business, we won’t have a business to return to when this pandemic is over. We have to carry on taking action by knowing our value and realizing that there are people who need what we have to offer. There are people who are willing to invest in the solutions to their problems. Breaking away from the negative influences It’s very easy to be influenced by the negativity around us but know that you have a choice in how you think. You can’t stop someone else’s negative outlook but there is always a choice to buy or not. Reset your habits of thinking toward hope and optimism. Accept only the mindset that will prompt you to take action. Other people around you may have a bleak outlook about conducting business but don’t take that on. People are still purchasing! The more people you contact, the more people will know you are ready to do business but you have to call for them to know. If you can keep a resilient mindset, then you’ll be okay, even when people say no, because it’s one step closer to yes. Perseverance through challenging times is going to take effort but it will put you ahead of the people who don’t even try. Know your value and stay active. It isn’t personal when someone says no. Their “no” means they are not ready to purchase but they are not rejecting you. Just allow your customer to guide the sales cycle and be available when they’re ready to go. Transforming the mind Before you change your mind, it’s first important to know your goals. Let’s say for example that your goal is to generate 30,000 a month as your income. What thinking is stopping you from achieving that? Nina helps you figure out your limiting beliefs. After rating your limiting beliefs from a 1-10 scale, she takes you through a simple process to remove that block from your subconscious once and for all. The biggest limiting belief Nina’s clients are currently experiencing is, “It’s inappropriate to make offers right now because people can’t afford me.” This belief is keeping you from people who need your product or

What I Wish I Knew Before Going Into Sales To benefit the many new graduates and new sellers entering the sales arena, I’ve spent time thinking about the things I wish I knew before going into sales. This episode goes out to my buddy Isaac, who is just entering sales, as well as the other new graduates and new sellers. Many sellers have initial experiences that leave them wondering if they made the right career choice. This month on The Sales Evangelist, we’re focusing on the class of 2020, but our messages will resonate with those who are entering the sales world for the first time as well as veterans who have been selling for a while. Believe in yourself and starve your doubts Mindset is incredibly important, but I didn’t understand that initially. I remember watching movies like Boiler Room that portrayed a charismatic sales rep who would sweet-talk buyers and say anything necessary to land a sale. I figured sales was entirely about skillset. When I came into sales, though, I realized that mindset is probably 70 percent of the effort. Unlike football, which requires learning physical tasks, sales is largely mental. Are you self-conscious about your ability to find prospects? Are you worried about people saying no to you? Do you believe in your product or service? All of these things tie back to your mindset and your belief, and you have to begin with a belief that you’re going to succeed. Believe that what you’re doing matters, and believe that you’re going to succeed. I give credit to my buddy Jared Easley whose podcast Starve the Doubts first introduced me to the idea of dealing with doubt and worry. Feeling overwhelmed by doubts can cause you to wonder whether you’re cut out for sales, so you must avoid the temptation to fuel your doubts. There’s a Native American proverb that says that we each have two wolves within us: a good one and an evil one. Whichever wolf we feed most often will survive. You can feed the doubt or feed the belief in success. Create a proper mindset, develop some goals, and determine how you will overcome your existing belief system. Sales is not about winning or losing Movies like Boiler Room perpetuate the idea that in any transaction, the seller is the winner and the buyer is the loser since the seller got money and the buyer got hustled. I wish I had understood that better before I got into professional selling. When I started selling B2B, I realized that I was engaging with very intelligent people. These were smart executives who weren’t going to be tricked or bamboozled. I wish I had realized this when I started selling. I realized after studying The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People that our job as sellers is to create a situation in which both parties win. We should create relationships in which both parties will benefit because the seller will close the deal and the buyer will solve a problem. Because the buyer needs our expertise, we’ll provide it and help them overcome a challenge. Once that happens, he’ll richly compensate us for our diligence and support. Sales is about helping the buyer identify a solution to a problem and then persuade himself that your organization offers the best solution. You must be ethical. You must deliver the things you promise to deliver in order to avoid customer churn. When you lead with the belief that your goal is to help solve problems, you’ll create raving fans in your customers. Focus on how you can help. Become an expert at asking effective questions When I started out in sales, I thought that sellers did all the talking. I was surprised to find that many of the successful sellers are like Dr. Phil: they ask effective questions. Sellers who do this build rapport, and they are able to gather all the information they need to solve problems. And when you master the art of asking effective questions and doing follow up, your customers will tell you everything. Consider a situation where you ask the buyer why his company is considering making a change right now. Some sellers would stop with that question, but sales pros will go deeper. “Why haven’t you been able to solve this problem in the past?” “If your current vendor is working well, why are you considering a move to another?” I’ve spent too much time pitching my company’s great track record and providing information that my buyer didn’t really want to hear. By asking better questions and probing, I was able to gain true understanding and help my customers solve problems, which helped us close deals faster. Don’t take rejection personally Your customers will not wake up this morning planning to reject sales reps today. They won’t conjure negative ideas about you or your product. Most likely, when you call, they won’t be ready to talk. Give them a call back. Don’t take it personally if they reject you the first time. If you take these things personally, it can negatively impact your future phone calls. I wish I had known when I first started selling that rejection wasn’t personal.

Why Giving Your Prospects An Out Upfront Will Help You Win In The End Sometimes we need to lose a customer before they become a client. In the current climate of a pandemic it’s important that we give a client an out in order to be sensitive to their struggles but we still want them to know we’re open for business, right? How are these two needs served in the way we communicate? Jeff Kosser is the CEO and the founder of Zebrafi. The company is often known for its top-selling book, Selling Zebra, seeing the Zebra as the perfect prospect. The company’s philosophy is pretty straightforward. When people see Zebras, regardless of where that might be, they always know what it is. The simplicity and the purity of this fact is the philosophy behind what keeps their business running. Jeff Koser has also built a software business based on software-guided selling. It’s a tool that guides B2B salespeople through the best practices of how to communicate and collaborate with the prospects and customers to ensure both parties arrive at a mutually beneficial place. Selling in the present situation It’s imperative that salespeople be sensitive to the current world situation. Jeff’s goal sales goal is lofty, as he wants to change the way people sell throughout the world. However, to be able to do that, we first have to recognize who we are as salespeople, what we are as a business, and what we’re selling. Our business may not represent something that is a priority for people right now, and that’s okay, but as we seek to keep our businesses going, we need to diversify our approach. Jeff Koser believes that we must approach every sales situation, whether it’s prospects or customers, with language that gives them an out. When you want to keep in touch with your customers or prospects by email, for example, genuinely ask about the safety of their family and their employees. Not just in a way that allows you to check off the “sincerity box” but in a way that your customer knows you are there for THEM. Be respectful about how you reach out to them and acknowledge they may have very different priorities by the time you contact them. Let them know that if the timing is right, you want to help, but regardless the relationship is the priority and you will come alongside their needs on their terms. What our business represents may not be a priority for everyone right now. We are approaching every sales situation with a simple out. #SalesApproach Respectful selling Jeff recently received 149 email messages in his spam folder within a 24-hour period. Due to automation and account-based marketing, there are several tools that can come with good messaging but unfortunately, even good messages are getting buried just from the sheer volume. There will always be those companies, however, that believe talking about the product at the very beginning of the message is the best way to begin an email. During a pandemic, when people are struggling, this isn’t the best approach. Making sensitivity and respect a priority in your communication will preserve the dignity of your business, and your prospect’s. Doing otherwise could tarnish your personal brand or that of your company’s. Despite the volume of spam email Jeff received, he opened a few of the emails with the more interesting subject lines. The most annoying emails came from companies that introduced their products as soon as he opened the message without any reference to the struggles going on in the world that we are in right now. Other emails that were only slightly better began with, “Hope you’re well and healthy…” before launching into the product information. Both approaches are typically ineffective but they’re even more inappropriate in the current climate. What you can do To improve their approach, salespeople can do more research. First, they should know if their company fits the priority and needs of their prospects and customers. Jeff Koser recommends salespeople know the following before pursuing contact: That their product or service can help solve their prospect’s current problems. They’re talking to the decision makers. How much value needs to be created within the prospect’s timeline. Jeff’s current clients take this advice to heart. Some of Jeff’s clients also seek his help because they’re preparing to launch well once this pandemic is over and they want to be able to reposition their businesses to accommodate future needs. One of the things Jeff recommends is to talk with their clients’ customers. Doing this allows them to ask their clients’ customers what problems have been solved by buying their clients’ solutions. This method allows them to see their client through the eyes of existing or former customers. The customers’ words are always going to be more powerful than any marketing department. Additional information is gathered by talking to the executives who are the decision makers for the customer solution. Selling to the executives In the world of sales, the person w

The Sales Manager's Guide To Greatness! You may have been a top salesperson, and still continue to be, but that doesn’t always qualify you to be a top sales manager. Both have very different skill sets and require mastery in very different skills. Kevin F. Davis is the author of the book The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness: Ten Essential Strategies for Leading your Team to the Top. Kevin started his career in sales at an entry level position and worked hard to become a general manager. His new role gave him the opportunity to train and coach 250 sales people and directly manage the sales team and sales managers. He also founded TopLine Leadership, Inc. where they have offered sales coaching and leadership workshops to corporate clients and groups of sales managers for the last 27 years. Other books Kevin has written include Getting into your Customer’s Head and Slow Down, Sell Faster. On writing the book There aren’t a lot of books written about how to effectively manage sales people so Kevin wrote his books to help fill this void in the marketplace and to offer support that was sorely lacking. Research has shown that up to 80% of all sales managers in North America don’t get the training they need in order to be successful. Their company may not have a budget for it or they offer management training that is too general to solve the specific problems of their sales managers. Not enough time Managers have to spend the majority of their work day answering emails, dealing with interruptions, going to meetings, and answering questions from their sales team. With this constant activity, they are too overwhelmed the distractions to coach their salespeople. The self-serving bias Most salespeople think they’re better than they actually are. We tend to overestimate our capabilities and underestimate our weaknesses. The result is a sales team who think they’re better than they are and don’t fully appreciate the mistakes they may be making. Because they aren’t being coached, they don’t know they’re making mistakes and end up perpetuating existing problems. Unfortunately, salespeople are getting a lot less feedback from overtaxed sales managers. Because they are so busy, managers tend to wait for a sales rep to come and ask questions instead of being proactive. An opportunity to coach comes from approaching the sales team with critical questions throughout the entire sales process. Kevin points out that the salespeople on the team who appear to be the least needy are probably the people who need coaching the most. Great salespeople don’t always make great sales managers. #SalesTruths According to Kevin, a great sales rep who has mastered their sales role inhibits that individual’s success as a sales manager. As sellers, we love to take charge of a situation and work it through to have a successful outcome. Once you become a sales manager it can be tempting to jump into a conversation a sales rep is having with their client. This can send a message to the team you don’t trust their process and destroys an opportunity for valuable coaching following that meeting. Kevin further added that the sales people who report to you are your Number One customers so you should care about how to make them the most effective they can be. From being task-oriented to people-oriented One attribute of a great sales leader is recognizing the importance of sharing time between tasks and coaching their team. Sales managers need to be able to focus on their salespeople and connect on a professional and personal basis. As a sales manager, it’s your job to ensure that your salespeople are with you and they know what the team is trying to accomplish. While it’s good to be task-oriented, it’s equally important to be people-focused. Kevin mentioned the valuable lessons he learned from the story of Beth Comstock (now the vice-chairman at General Electric) about how important it is to focus on people and not just be a task-master. Understand the buying cycle The sales forecast is a misnomer. The sales forecast should be a buying forecast. It is important to understand the customer’s buying process to maximize the sale. Sales managers need to be able to recognize when a buyer is purchasing differently from the way the sales rep is trying to sell. Oftentimes sales reps sell faster than the customer wants to buy. The buying process focuses on improving the accuracy of the forecasts instead of depending on the guesswork of sales. The key to this is by asking the right questions. One example would be to ask the sales rep, What are the buying criteria in order of priority? When a sales manager asks the right questions, the sales rep knows what to ask the customer. Managing sales people requires a completely different set of skills from selling. If you’re looking to get promoted, set a goal to become as masterful at leadership as you are selling. “The Sales Manager's Guide To Greatness!” episode resources Connect with Kevin Davis via his website and you

Why Every Seller Needs To Create An Ideal Sales Profile It is imperative for all businesses, no matter the size, to be able to describe their target customer. It is equally important for businesses to create an ideal sales profile. This will help you identify the right hire for your sales team. In this episode, Donald will talk about the importance of defining the ideal sales profile in detail. Oftentimes, as salespeople, we start our days with a list of things we want to accomplish in our day. By the end of the day, however, we realize we didn’t get to do what we set out to do. As a result, you come up with excuses for why you didn't get your tasks completed. You can avoid that by creating the ideal sales profile. This is about the picture you’ve set in your mind about how you will conduct yourself in each activity throughout the day, long before they happen. Visualize your success The greatest swimmer of all time, Michael Phelps’ was taught by his coach about playing tapes to watch his performance.. His coach told him to visualize the perfect race and all the details surrounding those moments. His job was to play in his mind every scenario that could occur: What does the audience look like, what is the feel of the water temperature, how does he feel mentally and emotionally? He would visualize his win over and over again until eventually he knew exactly what to do to win the race. He visualized it before it happened. The greatest people in their careers and fields have all visualised their success long before they ever got there. That’s exactly what you need to do - visualize your success before it happens. In a sales situation, salespeople can get distracted because more often than not, we focus on external factors. We spend hours, days, and even weeks coming up with the ideal customer profile. Your task now is to create the mental tape of your ideal sales profile succeeding in every scenario. The ideal seller Who is the ideal seller? The ideal seller is you, at your best, able to sell in every possible scenario. It’s about more than what it looks like to execute a sale, it’s about what the seller can do under various situations. In 2008, Michael Phelps was competing in Beijing and while in the water, his goggles broke but this didn’t stop him. He still won. How was he able to pull through? He had already visualized himself winning the competition with broken goggles. Michael Phelps had already created his ideal swimmer profile, planned out what he’d do in a variety of adverse circumstances and saw himself win anyway. His preparedness enabled him to perform without skipping a beat. What does your ideal seller look like? It’s you selling within the different scenarios you’ve already seen in your mind. #SalesProfile Envision yourself It helps to see yourself accomplish everything on your to do list. If you have made up your mind to make phone calls at a certain time of day, then ensure you’ll do what you have planned no matter what other schedules will pop up. If you planned on making phone calls at 2 PM, then make the calls and prospect. Envision yourself sitting in your chair, making calls, and think about what you’ll do if you’re faced with any distractions. Let it play out in your mind until you’re positioned to get back on the calls. This will help you to know what to do and say in order to take control of the situation. If you don’t, you have a greater probability of getting pulled away from the task at hand. You can apply the same visualization technique to negative conversations. Some clients will not be receptive to your offer but you can envision how you’ll handle these scenarios beforehand and prepare what you’ll say. You don’t need to have all possibilities covered but you can have a better idea of how you’ll respond for a greater success rate. Envision yourself to be a seller who hits quota Envision yourself to do prospecting everyday Envision yourself to perform well under pressure Play the situation in your head You may have created a habit of doing a different activity when you’re supposed to be prospecting but habits can be replaced with some creative visualization. Believe that you will prospect at a set time and stick to it. If you’re playing a tape in your mind of being distracted, replace it with focus and execution. If you make prospecting a new habit and stick to it, your mind will replace the old tape and success will be the new norm. Your mind will recognize these habits as something you do on a regular basis. As a result, you’ll have the energy and the capacity to perform your goals. The key is that long before the habit is formed, play the tape over and over again in your head until your brain believes it. Once that happens, the actions will start to match until it’s truth. Just make sure that as you release the negative scenarios you’re replacing them with your best actions. If you don’t, your mind will fall back into old habits of thinking. Get those new habits locked in! The i

We all experience pain and grief and in these seasons, we can feel depths of emotion that are hard to resolve. How does unresolved grief affect your sales potential? Let’s learn about dealing with unresolved grief today with Herdyne Mercier. Herdyne Mercier is the Chief Grief Crusader and host of Redefining Grief Podcast with Herdyne Mercier. Her job is to create safe spaces so that broken hearts can be seen, heard, and validated. The process helps you get unstuck from your unresolved grief and get you to a place of purposeful living. Redefining grief Herdyne defines grief as experiencing any kind of loss. This isn’t limited to losing a loved one to death. Grief can also be felt when you move to a new place, experience job loss, go through divorce, or when filing for bankruptcy. Herdyne had the exact feeling when along with her husband, they filed for bankruptcy back in 2007/2008. The real estate market crashed and they couldn’t sell their home. Her husband, James Mercier, could not find a job with a Master’s Degree. Herdyne had to become the main provider for the family while James delivered newspapers and sushi. As a new mother, she grieved having only thirteen days to spend with her newborn son before she realized she had to go back to work. As James adjusted to being a stay-at-home father, he too grieved as a man because of the job he’d lost. The grief almost cost them their marriage when Herdyne told her husband that she needed a divorce but James, in his wisdom, suggested they go to counseling together instead. The process of overcoming her own grief helped her create a brand that represents a woman who had forgotten to put on her MASK (an acronym we’ll explain) but is now healed. In her healing, she is now able to serve others. Days of grieving Many are grieving loss due to the pandemic. People have lost their jobs and some have lost the people they love from this illness. We have all lost something in this pandemic and are trying to figure out how to navigate this new normal. There’s a lot of frustration and pain in the process. The first step is to not compare your grief story to someone else’s. We may feel that our loss is greater than others but in truth, we can’t actually quantify loss. Our culture does not teach us how to deal with loss. Instead, we focus on aiming for the top and shooting for number one. We want the biggest house and the nicest car, but we aren’t told what to do with our emotions. We’re not guided toward healing when loss occurs. This is nobody’s fault - not your parents, not your grandparents, or any other people around you. Circumstances are what they are; however,Herdyne teaches to be still and know your purpose. How do you go about doing that? The truth and connection anchor Emotional anchors will set you free. The first, is truth. Be honest about your grief. The next anchor is connection. Look for that person in whom you can confide and be totally transparent. One of the biggest myths a griever has to overcome is the belief they have to do it alone. Overcoming your truth They say time heals all wounds but Herdyne doesn’t believe this to be true. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. While time may pass on, you can remain emotionally stuck. Some also believe that keeping yourself busy will help you forget your grief, that if you stay busy, the grief will eventually fade. The truth is, grief won’t just disappear. Left unchecked, it will manifest in other ways. These alternatives are just pacifying and soothing behaviours. Giving a hungry baby a pacifier only means you’ve helped to delay, but not address, the real problem of hunger. In the same vein, you need to heal and not just soothe by taking time for yourself, finding a community, possibly hiring a grief coach or a therapist, and finding a wisdom circle. Seeking wisdom in your situation is how you’ll see the beauty of restoration. The restoration anchor is the phase where you’ve already managed your grief and taken care of the pain and the loss. Your grief Everyone’s grief journey is different, so we can’t compare or police anyone’s journey. We all have our own time frame and can even experience grief flare-ups. Anchor into your truth, your sadness, and your heartache. In seeking the wisdom within your situation, you can begin healing the grief. #Healing The importance of dealing with your truth Oftentimes, people can be tempted to “go with the flow” in order to ignore the pain. For example, you may be hurt because your friend wasn’t there when you needed him/her. Instead of talking it out, you decide to get on with your life to get over it. You think you’re okay until your friend calls and you don’t answer your phone. Because you didn’t address the root cause of your pain, your feelings haven’t been resolved. The first step toward healing is to seek wisdom. Herdyn has many free resources about how you can find wisdom. This resource has 61 different ways you experience grief and how you can deal with each one. Once you know how

Why Your Brain Lies To You: Cash Is NOT The Best Motivator Although money is one of the indicators of growth and success, it’s not necessarily the best motivator when it comes to incentivizing a sales team. Tim Houlihan and Dr. Kurt Nelson are consultants who have spent more than 20 years working with companies to design incentives that will increase productivity within sales teams. Just a few years ago, they started a podcast that provides practical applications in the real world. One of their topics, motivation through incentivizing, is especially helpful for sales managers. People tend to make decisions based on an emotional gut response, even though we mistakenly think these choices are made based on rational thought. Emotion and motivation come from the same root making it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Money has less of an emotional connection than we realize and because motivation is tied to our emotions, money can be a poor incentive for a sales team. Human beings as emotional creatures Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for his idea about the one thinking vs two thinking, an automatic response versus one's cognitive reflective thinking. Human beings respond quickly to a number of situations because that’s how we survive. The brain takes only 3% of our body weight but it consumes 20% of the energy used. The brain then tries to conserve energy with the speed of decision making. When we make emotion-based decisions, non-rational judgements are made. The illusion of motivation Because we think we know our own motivation, we think we can analyze what motivates others. While we can be sympathetic, knowing what others think has too many variables for us to make a consistent, accurate assessment. If we focus on someone’s emotions, instead of assuming what they’re thinking, it is far more effective to ask directly. Cash is a required component Cash isn’t bad as an inventive. It’s a required component in any business and it’s needed to pay the bills, mortgage, buy food, go on vacation etc. However, once those needs are met, incentives that are more material or experiential in nature move people into greater effort. Tim did research with Dan Ariely from Duke University, the author of the book called Predictably Irrational. For their study, Tim and Dan took several call center reps and broke them into four groups, each getting a different reward. They found that the people who were rewarded with prizes such as bicycles, cockpots, and other non-cash items performed 30% higher than their counterparts who received cash. Motivation and Emotion When we evaluate the value of an incentive, a cash reward is easily calculated against the effort it takes to get it. When a non-cash reward is offered, it’s harder to estimate. The thought process then goes to the level of desire for the prize and the motivation becomes emotion-based rather than calculative. The Four Drive Model, developed by Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria, illustrates the different ways people can be motivated. The four drive models: Acquire and achieve: Reward System Bonding and belonging: Organization’s Culture Challenge and creating: Job and Organizational Structure Defending and defining: Vision/Reputation and their Performance Management System Competition as a motivator When Tim begins his lectures, he asks the students to raise their hands as high as they can. He then asks them to raise their hands even more. About 30-40% of them will continue to stretch a bit more which means they weren’t raising their hands as high as they could. They always had a little incremental effort reserved. Tim would then say that whomever raised his/her hand the highest would get the candy bar in he was holding. Invariably, there would be people who stood on their chairs to get the candybar. In this scenario, the motivation wasn’t the prize. It was the competition. The same is true for the sales reps. Tim and Kurt often hear sales reps say that their whole lives revolve around money. Was this true? Tim and Kurt decided to team up with a global automobile manufacturer in Saudi Arabia to test the dealer owners. These were extraordinarily wealthy men so cash was not a good incentive. Instead, they were offered lunch with Nelson Mandela who was still alive then and living in South Africa. They then added another element of competition and told them they would get to land their private jets at the Johannesburg Airport in the order that they finish the contest. The team set up a big tent on the tarmac and received them as they landed. Each owner in the competition worked extra hard to not be the last one to land. They didn’t need more money but they sold more cars in order to achieve something that would elevate them above their peers, a prize they couldn’t get on their own. The hedonic component The hedonic component speaks to a prize being perceived as a luxury.. When we get cash, we tend to assign its function such as education, bills, mortgage, and oth

Building A Successful SDR Team From The Ground Up The sales team is the backbone of a business. It’s composed of both SDRs and BDRs, both working to make sure the business is thriving through a steady flow of consumers. For this episode, we’ll discuss SDRs and how you can build a successful SDR team. Kyle Coleman started his career in B2B tech in 2012 at an advertising agency in San Francisco. He supported clients such as Dell, VMWare and other large companies; however, Kyle eventually realized that advertising wasn’t where he wanted to continue his career. In a timely move, he was able to pursue an exciting new position in sales and marketing with a start-up called Looker, a data analytics company based in Santa Cruz. Kyle was recruited and became a member of the Looker team in 2013. He stayed with Looker for six years and was able to experience firsthand the growth of the company from six people to roughly eight-hundred sales reps and 100,000 ARR to over 100 million in ARR. In 2019, Kyle made the move to Clari. Growing the team As a startup company, oftentimes it’s hard to know what really needs to be done. In the beginning, there can be a lot of trial and error. Sometimes you have to try different options to know what works and what doesn’t. Kyle has observed many startup companies are reluctant to bring on an SDR function because they think it’s too soon; however, as the SDR for Looker in its earliest days, Kyle knows firsthand that it’s never too soon. He wasn’t just getting coffee and making sure that everyone was fired up. His main role was to partner with marketing. The SDR team became a three-person team in the first 12 months and it allowed their marketing leaders to test messaging in a variety of ways. They had the ability to use the tools to get in front of the right people from great companies and be the feedback loop for their marketing team. The SDR team wasn’t just adding value in setting up appointments, they were also adding value on the marketing side. It helped them understand what they needed to do to differentiate themselves as sales reps in the market. They proved their value early and it was one of the reasons why success resulted in more successes. The impact was felt from the top-of-the-funnel column to the thought leadership marketing. The SDR team gave their company a solid start by offering insights about how to get to the right people faster. The sales process was different back in Kyle’s time with Looker. The email market then wasn’t as saturated as it is now and their root force also helped in getting a lot of messaging out in the market. Their aggressive SDR method made them stand out compared to other SDR teams of that time. However, regardless of the changes in the sales process now, outbounding for companies in its early stages is critical to understand the company’s ICP, the personas, and the kind of messaging that should be delivered to the market. Make the first right hire A startup company has to make the right hires from the beginning. The ideal candidate has a little bit of experience but not so much he has forgotten how to actually do the work. The first hire should also be someone who is willing to take risks and to own success as readily as he owns his failures. Hire someone who is hyper, driven, and motivated. You can give them space to practice their own methodologies but also make sure to give them a support structure that allows them to fail with management ready to help with adjustments. You need somebody who is 100% dedicated to the cause, one who can communicate verbally and in writing, and someone who wants to help you achieve your company’s mission and vision. Step 1: Describe your Ideal Customer Profile Knowing your ideal customer profile will help define the right hire. While working at Looker, Kyle looked at the company’s number of employees and its funding. The ICP in Clari is much tighter due to the specifics around the tech stack. Ultimately, you want companies matched with similar personas. Step 2: Work with the product marketing team The product marketing team writes wonderful blog posts, white books, and e-books so don’t box them into just writing outbound emails. Blog posts and outbound emails are two different skill sets. Hire a person who knows how to write outbound emails. These emails need to contain a call-to-action, personalization, and all the related content that comes from your SDR. It’s good for SDRs to get their leads from LinkedIn. It has the most trust-worthy data and is always up-to-date. There are other additional tools that can be used as well such as ZoomInfo, LeadIQ, and Seamless.ai to get contact information.. Cold-calling may be an old method but it’s still mission critical. Getting on the phone is how you get to hear a Yes or a No. Sometimes, it also depends on the personas. People who are more technical tend to stay away from phones. However, if you are connecting to salespeople who can talk about anything, then cold calli

What You Believe Is What You Will Achieve It’s imperative for salespeople to maintain a positive outlook to make it through this season of unforeseen circumstances. Perception and belief is going to play a big part in how we navigate the unknown so believe that success is still achievable. Donald believes it’s possible and shares his thoughts about how to make it happen and what could potentially hold us back. In this episode Donald will be discussing limiting beliefs. These beliefs, ideas, and philosophies can come from many influences including a boss, team members, family, and many others. Sometimes, because we’re listening to all these outside influences, we fail to see that everything we hear here doesn’t always reflect the truth. Your actions may reflect what you’ve been told but they don’t always lead to success. We have to be careful of following so blindly that we are no longer true to ourselves. Let’s go back to the beginning Donald started out his sales career in business development, selling software with zero knowledge about how to sell to corporations. He didn’t know what you weren’t supposed to do. Despite the lack of experience, however, Donald still saw success but there was still so much he needed to learn. Donald’s performance started to decline when he got wrapped up in all the training and advice people were trying to offer him. He was told when to call and when not to call, how he should conduct his business, and on and on. He did what he was told but eventually stopped doing the activity as it rang true for him. Stand for your beliefs Donald shares the story of a gentleman named Cliff Young, a 61 year old Australian farmer. Mr Young accomplished an amazing feat which was winning a 544 mile race. He wasn’t an experienced runner but heard about the marathon and decided he wanted to participate. Leading up to the race, Mr. Young didn't eat the proper diet, he didn't have the proper training, and he didn’t have the right clothing or shoes. Cliff Young just showed up at the marathon looking like the farmer he was and was ready to race. When people asked Mr. Young why he was racing, he told them he’d always wanted to run a race but there had never been a perfect time. That year, at 61 years old, he was finally ready to go. Cliff Young didn’t know that in ultramarathons runners would typically run for 18 hours and then sleep for six hours. When Cliff Young started to run, it was called the Cliff Young shuffle because he literally just shuffled as he ran. While others were taking their breaks, Cliff Young kept on running. He ran for five and a half days straight and won the race. At 61 years of age, he wasn’t tainted by the beliefs and ideas of the “experts.” He did what he thought was the proper way of doing things and took action. This strong mentality helped him win. Roger Bannister showed the same spirit. He didn’t listen to the leading medical experts of his time who said he wouldn’t be able to break the four-minute mile. They all thought that if you ran for four minutes straight, the heart would explode. Roger proved them wrong. Don’t get wrapped up in others’ beliefs We have to be careful that in listening to others, we’re taking on their own limiting beliefs. As a salesperson, it is your job to sift through all the opinions and only take action based on what works for you. Donald’s coach told him he’d get a lot of advice from all the people he would encounter. This group would even include people he loved, respected, and cared about. Despite these relationships, however, the advice offered needed to be treated the same way you’d shop for food at a grocery store. Examine each one and see if it’s something you’re going to put in your own cart. If not, it’s okay to put it back on the shelf. When someone offers advice it’s okay to take the time to see if it’s something that resonates with who you are. If so, use it and apply it. If not, no further action needs to be taken. Do what’s right for you. Do better in sales Oprah Winfrey said, “You don’t become what you want, you get what you believe.” Belief is an important concept. Let’s consider two definitions. First: Belief is an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Second: Belief is trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. Without belief, trust, and confidence in yourself, you can easily be swayed by others. If your belief system determines your success and sales, you need to make absolutely sure that what you are absorbing into your belief system is worthy of your goals. If you see yourself as a sales rep who is never going to hit 100% it is more likely you will consistently fall short. You won’t push yourself for more because you have already limited yourself. On the other hand, if you believe you can do more to increase your commission, you give yourself a better chance of hitting those goals. If you want your actions to be more in line with your goals, consider waking up earlier, reading more books,

Salespeople Have a Love/Hate Relationship With CRMs Almost everyone is using CRM in their businesses for its efficiency in data collection. But truth be told, many salespeople have a love and hate relationship with CRM. CRMs are a great way to hold data but it doesn’t offer solutions on how to utilize this data in a way that reflects real time engagement with customers. Kevin Knieriem is the Chief Revenue Officer at Clari, a revenue platform for companies in Toronto. He’s been with the company for 15 months and he’s had a background in enterprise software for over 25 years. He started his software sales career with Siebel System, the first enterprise CRM and from there, Kevin spent 11 years at SAP and due to an acquisition, also spent time with Oracle. What is a CRM? CRMs are a place for account, contact, and opportunity information to be stored. These are major components to track sales so it has been the primary revenue solution for companies for the last 25 years. Keeping your CRM up to date is important so the organization understands the health of its revenue. Starting with Siebel Systems, Kevin hasn’t seen much change in CRMs. It still has the same basic model for accounting opportunities. It’s a place where sales reps can post information but it doesn’t provide any feedback about how to utilize the data. It takes a lot of maintenance to update a CRM but we use it anyway. Unlike SaaS or subscription, CRM doesn’t allow you to track the continuous journey of the customers. The limitations of CRM Adobe is a company that runs on subscription.Let’s say for example that an Adobe seller is selling a marketing automation solution, Marketo Acquisition. A client who buys the service and wishes to expand will have to get another subscription over time. Even though the data is present, the activity that is involved over the time of a subscription doesn’t get tracked by the CRM. The challenge for reps and the sales leader using the CRM tool is that it doesn’t give you the real-time feedback that is needed to run the business as efficiently or effectively as they could. It turns into a circular problem because the data give no feedback to the sales rep about how to move forward, but when the manager is approached for coaching, they are still looking at the same data with no additional insight. Layers of managers get involved in analyzing the data and by the time a solution is created, the data is from the past and no longer applies. It doesn’t take into account the customer’s journey and sales cycle. You can’t really make good decisions using data that may no longer be relevant. Sales reps are Franchisees Kevin suggests that sellers be looked at as individual franchisees. This positions each sales rep to utilize the resources of their company to best execute the business. Nothing happens unless you make it happen. I think companies need to help arm their sales and revenue organizations with solutions that help them in this modern time of transparency. #SalesHelp Using Clari Clari is a revenue platform. Sales reps need to spend the majority of their time selling and not just inputting data. This is how Clari can help. There are tools now that allow auto-capturing the context of CRM data and combining that context with the database. This means activity around the data can be analyzed and as a result, better decisions and interactions can occur. When an automation process is in place, more critical questions can be answered: How engaged is the customer? Are they engaging with you or with your marketing machine? Is your top-of-funnel nurturing the sales process? Do your ABM campaigns work? The answer to these questions will give you the idea a better understanding of how healthy opportunities really are. The single most important skill for any company to have is its ability to forecast. The forecast directly impacts the operating plan of the company. The single most important function of a company is the ability to sell. Typically, the biggest expense of any company is its sales force. Because of this there has to be a consistent process surrounding sales. Kevin’s job for Clari is to remove barriers, give sales reps the clarity they need for their business, and to help sales reps be as productive as possible. The Challenges Faced by Sales Reps A big challenge sales reps face is meeting with their managers. It can feel more like an interrogation than a coaching session. It’s equally unpleasant for managers who may have a difficult time relaying the opportunities to their team. When a meeting can be used more as a training tool, the whole dynamic can change for both the sales team and the sales leader. The art of selling has changed over the years because of the available data today and the fluidity of a customer’s journey. The sales reps have to evolve as well. For example, sales reps now can make meetings via Zoom. As a result they need to show their faces, they can’t multi-task, and they can’t hide their emotions. The

How BDRS and SDR Should Use LinkedIn During COVID19! The coronavirus pandemic has taken the world by storm. Many industries have been affected, even sales. How do you keep selling at this time? One of the ways is via LinkedIn. This episode will talk about how BDRs and SDRs can use the LinkedIn platform amid Covid-19. Amanda Statton was raised in Virginia Beach and moved to Tampa about a year ago to work for BlueGrace Logistics. She started sales four years ago and she loves it. Jason Behnke is originally from Chicago and came down to Tampa to study at the University of Tampa. Right after college, he worked in sports and event sponsorship and eventually found his way to BlueGrace Logistics. Selling in time of Covid-19 The pandemic has touched every industry. Several manufacturing companies have shut down. People have been working from home for several weeks now but for sales and logistics, an opportunity has been created to transport products and to get help to those in need. While Amanda and Jason are still working the same jobs, how they approach a potential customer has changed. They are focused on building relationships, even more than ever before. These are hard times so they do what they can to reach out, see how they can help and make themselves available. BlueGrace Logistics partners with companies and learns about their supply chain. They look for ways to help them save money and drive out costs within their network. Before Covid-19, Amanda opened a conversation by saying, ‘Hey, I would love to learn more about your supply chain. I want to see if we can help you save money to drive out costs within your network and really get a better understanding of what you’re doing today.’ With Covid-19, the question has changed from wanting to know about a company’s strategies to asking how the company is doing amid the pandemic and how it has impacted their organization. With that information she can then evaluate how her company can help lessen any negative impact. The focus is now helping their current clients ride the road to recovery and offering advice to prospects within the same industry who may be dealing with the same situations. Responding to inquiries People respond to these inquiries in different ways. Some people are very open to having a conversation and understand everyone is in this together. There are others who are frustrated and wonder out loud why they’re still being asked sales questions even under these current circumstances. Prospecting today Salespeople are still prospecting, even today. Amanda and Jason still conduct meetings from phone calls, emails, and LinkedIn outreach. They stick to these basic three because this is how people are still operating. There’s still a need to work on multiple channels to target prospects. Amanda is also getting a number of responses and traffic from the links that she’s sending over email. She’s still seeing activity in clicks-to-links in emails and LinkedIn so these are the people she’ll be reaching out to in the future. People are not as receptive with the direct approach but people are still looking for authenticity. They just want the conversation at a slower pace. This means getting to know the person on a personal level. It’s important for empathy to be the driver from beginning to end and plan to follow up. Make sure you are leaving on a good note. There are various apps that you can use to keep up with the prospects including Sales Navigator but a simple , “Hey, how are you?” works equally well. If you send out a birthday card, include a personal note. Doing this can open a dialogue and will remind the prospects there is a relationship they can look forward to. Sharing content Like other small businesses, BlueGrace Logistics is also sharing content with manufacturing companies who are shipping right now. They are acting as a resource for these companies and put up collated information and content for industries. Their service helps their client evaluate their circumstances and adjust their business strategies as needed. Get into casual conversations People are staying in their homes more so prospects are more open to talking on the phone during odd hours. With most people working at home, it gives sales reps a variety of opportunities to have more casual conversations. We call this an omnichannel approach which means we can be everywhere and can talk to people at different times. Although this has always been the goal, we need to do it even more so today. Facing the objection Not everyone is receptive to a sales call these days and will react negatively to the approach no matter how it’s done. They may wonder why you’re reaching out during a pandemic. Amanda coached her team to honestly tell them the truth when this objection comes up. She reminded them to tell their client they’re interested in knowing how this pandemic has affected them so they can help ease their challenges. BlueGrace Logistics has a very long sales cycle that can take anywh

How To Identify, Recruit, And Train A Diverse Sales Team That Sells Your company’s hiring process must have key steps and criteria for hiring a sales team that will consistently maximize profit. They should be able to identify, recruit and train a diverse sales team that will push the business forward. For the last five years Amos Schwartzfarb has been the managing director at Techstars in Austin, Texas and is now running his fifth program for Techstars. In the mid 90s, prior to his job in Austin, Amos led an early-stage sales organization and just late last year, he published a book called Sell More Faster. Hiring the right people When hiring, Amos believes that many founders and CEOs often look for the characteristics they think a salesperson should have, even before they’re able to answer three important questions. He refers to them as W3: Who is your customer? This identifies the people who are actually buying your products, considering every detail. What is their title? What type of organization do they work for? What is that particular individual’s role? What are they buying from you? What are the exact products they are buying from you? Is it the product itself? The results of the service? Are they trying to create a margin of time? Why does the customer buy that from you? Why are they going to you instead of your competitor? What is it about your brand that causes your customer to choose you? The answers to these three main questions will help you define the profile of the sales people you want to hire. Your future team will have to have an understanding of these elements in order to connect with these customers. The natural salespeopleThere are some people who are born with the natural skills of connecting with prospects and closing with clients. Because it’s innate to them, they can’t articulate it to others. These natural salespeople tend to thrive in a company that looks at the W3. Once they have a clear understanding of their customer they are able to adjust as needed. Looking for the right customers This may sound easy but looking for the right customers can be hard work. What Amos tells his clients is to start with the narrowest and most specific definition of who their ideal customer is. While it’s okay to have a general idea, the more specific the better. It is this niche group that is typically going to purchase from you almost every time. When you identify the attributes of your target customer, it will also be easier for you to spot the potential customers who may still be on the peripheral. You can broaden your base by just replacing one attribute with another. Before you know, you see new potential clients. This can be a hard process but worth it if time and effort are applied. What you’re selling vs what they’re buying As a business owner and sales leader, you need to know the difference between what you sell and what someone is buying. Let’s take Google as an example. Google sells a lot of things including product, advertising, buying leads, and more. Not every customer needs every product or service. Customers purchase from Google based on the product they’re providing specifically for their needs. Amos realized there is a difference in, ‘what you do versus what do you do for me.’ Making that shift is what resonates for most people who are busy taking cold calls/warm calls. The detail is worth the attention. Why do they buy from you The reason a client buys from you may not be obvious to the buyer so you need to ask the right questions in order for them to get to the answer. You do that by giving them a way to measure the value of their purchases. For example, you may discover that they make purchases based on what saves them money. If that’s the case, engage them in a conversation about how your product or service could help them save even more money. Why does it matter to the individual buyer When you find the values that move your customer to make a purchase it’s easier to duplicate what is most important to their purchasing decisions. Treat your potential clients as people, not as transactions, and they’ll treat you the same. #SalesTips Be your company’s first salesperson In a company’s early stages, the founder/CEO should be the first sales person. Regardless of your background, whether you grew up in sales or not, the W3 should resonate with the head of the company before they start looking for other people to help grow the business. Once they’ve seen that the profile of the sales team can be duplicated, then repeatability in the hiring process can be executed. This process creates a competitive sales team. Diversity in the sales team is also a great asset. It helps bring a variety of experiences into the company and the more diverse the environment is, the more your company will be able to maximize the sales potential. Visualize your sales process Before you begin hiring, it is imperative you learn your sales process, map it out and execute well. It might have several steps b

How To Build A Sales Engine That Will Land Massive Deals – Repeatedly Every sales person wants to build a sales engine that will land them improve their business, earn massive deals, and generate future sales. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to move toward these goals. Lisa Magnuson’s whole career has been in sales, specifically in sales management and sales leadership. Sales has always been Lisa’s passion and getting into Clorox, which is used in homes and businesses around the world, is where she experienced closing big deals. The struggles in generating sales There are several struggles companies face when trying to generate sales. During a crisis, the most difficult phase of the sales cycle is prospecting which is hard enough without added pressures. During a time when everyone is already cautious you have to be careful about coming off as self-serving. Just conducting regular business can isolate potential clients. This is a concern that is applicable for both BDRs and SDRs. No one is exempted. Lisa is an expert when it comes to knowing the right strategies you can use to prepare your team to get through a crisis. There are mindsets you can incorporate in your process to make sure you hit the ground running when we get back to the new normal. Building your sales engine Regardless of who you are, we were all left feeling that elements of our lives were cut short. This pandemic has affected all of us and we are trying to figure out how to pivot and thrive amid the challenge. The best way to do that is to serve and offer a hand to someone else. The focus should be to keep the dialogue going. All the stages in the prospecting process are important. The mantra for this time is “lead with your heart, then offer a hand”. That’s how you build your sales engine. That “hand” may look like a valuable idea you got from one of your customers or clients and you’re able to pass it on to others.. You need to keep it simple and interesting for your clients. You can drop a message inviting your prospects to a virtual coffee and talk about the idea that may resonate to them and you go from there. There are also other things that you can do to land opportunities that are worth five times more than your normal contract size. Do more soft prospecting Sending an email template to people you have never met before is hard prospecting. Soft prospecting is sending out emails to the people you know and already have a personal connection with. Take the time to reach out and ask how they’re doing. Once you know the kind of help they need, you can lend a hand by sharing what is working for your other clients. Give them an opportunity to receive this information to see if it resonates with their goals. When soft prospecting, just remember: Lead with your heart Offer a hand Relate to their sales challenges Give them a possible solution Offer to engage in a way that make sense Maintain your sales engine Because of the coronavirus, many sales people are having to deal with the disappointment of cancellation and postponement. We may not be landing the deals we thought we would but this doesn’t mean we should stop the push to find new opportunities. Lisa’s new book, The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals Repeatedly, talks about sixteen plays to build those 5X deals, many of which can be done right now. Scoring your opportunities You can continue scoring your opportunities without any customer interaction. Decide on the characteristics of your big deals and score them. Gather your account team together and work on a strategy. This is the time to do research. If you want the big deals, there is a need to do more than the usual. Part of the strategy for growth is relationship mapping. Know the key decision makers and players who will be involved in the deal and make soft connections with them. Use LinkedIn and other social media to find the common connections. You can set yourself up for the big deals right now by investing your time in making those connections and building your network. The 4 parts to Lisa’s book include: The sales leader Methodology Execution Culture Sales leader Lisa’s book is primarily for sales leaders and account quarterbacks. Sales leaders take the lead in looking out for the big deals. Big deals can be messy and they don’t follow your normal sales process. A leader and quarterback knows how and when to move forwards and backwards as needed. The sales team needs direction. The sales leader’s role is to tie all the information together to ensure that the message and goal is clear for everyone. Develop your methodology Sales people may have a distaste for methodology and process but these are important resources for a sales team to embrace. Your methodology is your company’s way of going after the big deals and these include: Identifying the deal Scoring the deal Relationship mapping Doing a SWOT analysis Building a strategy Doing a competitive analysis Creating the blocks Your methodology plays a big

I'm Afraid of Losing My Sales Job Everywhere you look, people are affected by circumstances that could not have been foreseen just a couple of months ago. Due to this upheaval, some people are losing their jobs. Is the fear of losing your sales position an added concern for you as well? In this episode, Donald offers some encouragement. Everyone agrees it’s a hard time. This quarantine is unprecedented in most of our lifetimes and The Sales Evangelist is here for you and Donald has been getting a number of questions about what to do in the event of job loss. Sales reps from all over the world are concerned and are afraid of losing their jobs. The harsh reality is that in this season, many will lose their positions while companies rally to stay afloat. Donald has been there. He had just graduated from college and was working for a small company when everyone was called to the conference room by the CEO and the executive team. Once gathered, they were told that the company was closing its doors that day. The reality didn’t sink in for Donald right away. He had a difficult time processing what he was hearing and as he listened, it started to sink in that he had just gotten an apartment and had his own bills to pay. Needless to say, he was freaking out. Life goes on Under these circumstances it’s natural to feel stress and anxiety. It was an unfortunate situation that Donald was in and felt the full weight of it. However, he eventually learned that life goes on. Things got better. They will for you too. There’s going to be a brighter day and things will work out for you and your family. It may be hard to see past this time of isolation and you may worry about how you can earn for your family and loved ones. Don’t overthink things. There will be a path that will make itself clear to you. The circumstances surrounding COVID-19 is new to all of us, but most of us have experienced an unexpected job loss. Stressing about it, worrying about it, and beating yourself up because you lost your job won’t bring the work back. This isn’t your fault. You are awesome Having a job in the first place means you have what it takes to bring value to a company. This illustrates you have something in you that will provide opportunities. Even if that job is put on hold for now, your value remains and the next company will benefit. Hopefully current employers are researching and taking full advantage of the governmental relief that is being offered in order to keep teams together. These opportunities are meant to help us. Another door will open When one door closes, another door opens. It may sound cliche but it’s true. You can expedite that by building your network and community. These relationships tend to look out for one another. When Donald lost his job, he used his free time to build his network. He connected with people on LinkedIn and he brought value to other people. Through his presence on LinkedIn, one of his competitors saw what happened to Donald and reached out. He was told of another opportunity and was able to benefit from that connection. If you are released from your job use the time wisely until the next job. Learn new skills, read more books, and continue to add value to yourself. Be valuable to others by serving them in their needs. Build that network. Connect with people and figure out creative ways you can build value. No matter what happens, you will always have your personal brand. It’s something you can take wherever you are in this world. Make sure you’re ready when things get better. “I'm Afraid of Losing My Sales Job” episode resources Remember you don’t have to carry this burden on your own. There are people out there who are willing to help you and guide you, like Donald. Find them, connect with them, and build value with them. If you are interested in more sales stories, connect with Donald. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago |

How To Evaluate The Efficacy of SaaS Programs That Your Sales Team Subscribes To Is your SaaS program effective? Is it making you money or costing you more than your return? Ankesh Kumar is with a company called Let’s Chat and the company focuses on personalization outreach to make sure your dollars are being spent well. Let’s Chat helps a conversation run smoother. It does this by providing a co-extension that identifies LinkedIn topics that are of interest to your clients, it gives suggestions about how to break the ice, and generally makes it easier for sales reps to speak with their prospects in a more personal way. Let’s Chat also looks into social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and others to identify the person or client sales reps are going to talk to. It’s important for first meetings to be friendly, without crossing the line. Let’s Chat also uses its AI capabilities to prioritize the data based on the time spent on a particular topic, the frequency looking at topics and the topics a client might want to expand on. Evaluating your SaaS program There are various tools that a sales team can use to evaluate their SaaS program, the amount depending on the size of the organization. Ankesh’s company ensures their app works with the company’s current workload. There are many competing platforms like CRM, other sales engagement platforms, and sales outreach. With so many to choose from, there comes an added concern that incorporating all these different platforms may change the workflow of the sales team. You want to make sure that your team isn’t managing so many tools that their time isn’t spent on actual sales. Salesforce slows down the process Ankesh shares how products such as Salesforce can actually slow down the sales process. Salesforce adds data to the system record. It tracks activity so everyone can see how clients are interacting with the information, from receiving the proposal to what executive levels are looking at what was sent. As a result, there can be an imbalance between how much time a sales rep spends on Salesforce data and how much time is spent actually interacting with a client and making a sale. Ankesh’s company uses a plugin tool for LinkedIn because that’s where people are and the most actual interaction can take place. . Maintain your team’s efficiency By Ankesh’s estimation it’s not the cost of the software that can impact a company’s budget but the time a sales rep spends on specific software. The CRM budget can vary but the value of return is the added value the software brings to the workflow process. Ankesh cautions about adding additional software and plugins without regularly checking whether or not this software is benefiting the sales force and ultimately, the company. One thing he suggests, when you’re considering new software, is assigning some of your sales reps to be beta testers before you go company-wide. Be unique By now, almost all sales people and their clients know the process of prospecting by email. Even before a company sends that second or third email, they can almost predict the content of ensuing correspondence. As a sales rep, you need to be unique and stand out from the crowd. Instead of sending 10 predictable touch emails, do something different. Use snail mail and send along a little something they can use, like a $5 Starbucks gift card. Once received, you already have one foot in the door before you connect the second time. Personalization can work but it’s also a lot more time-consuming. Salespeople need to understand that what works now may not work in the next 2-3 years. The industries are changing and our approach to clients and prospects will change too. Emails that work Ankesh says that there are three buckets of personalization that work when writing emails: business, professional, personal. Look for ways to connect in these areas and your customer will know you’ve taken a professional interest to reach out in a personal way. “How To Evaluate The Efficacy of SaaS Programs That Your Sales Team Subscribes To” episode resources Be social when you’re dealing with your customers and clients. Work smart and take the time to personalize your communication. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald about it. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to. You can also read more about sal

How To Build Rapport By Asking Directed, Relevant Questions For many salespeople, building rapport is a skill that needs to be learned. It’s not always easy for sales reps to build relationships with potential or existing clients. Asking direct and relevant questions is a great launch fine-tuning the art of building rapport. In this episode we learn more about how to do this well. Andrew Sletter has been in the same company, the Window and Door Store for 10 years. Their company sells windows and doors with a focus on in-home sales. They work directly with the consumer and are with their customers for every step of the process, including installation. The company’s office is located in Bismarck, North Dakota and they handle the North Dakota and Western Minnesota market. The salesman’s profile Andrew doesn’t see himself as a true salesman. He believes that many salespeople are doing themselves a disservice by trying to fit into a particular profile. Andrew isn’t an influencer or a promoter. Based on his DISC personality profile, he is more of the perfectionist individual. In his career, he’s seen all different types of personalities become successful in sales. Many sales reps feel the pressure to become somebody they’re not but as a sales manager, Andrew knows salespeople just need to be true to who they are and learn the skills needed to have a great career. Though Andrew didn’t set out to become a sales leader, he honed his skills to become successful. Daniel Pink, the author of the book To Sell is Human, writes that surprisingly, the best sales people aren’t the extroverts or the introverts. It's the ambiverts that make it to the top of the chain. Why? The ambiverts tend to have the characteristics of boths and it serves them well. If you aren’t an ambivert, though, take heart. Andrew knows anyone who can hold a conversation with somebody has what it takes to become a great salesperson. Building the trust An important skill that salespeople need to have is the ability to know when and if a product or service is a good fit for a potential client. With direct-to-consumer businesses this is especially important. Building trust and rapport in the early stages of inquiry will help with this evaluation. If done correctly, not only will this prospect become a new client, there is an opportunity to develop the relationship into a life-long customer. Building rapport is about having trust between two people. If a salesperson states their product is the best in the industry, but hasn’t built trust, the consumer can determine very quickly they don’t want to work with that individual. The consumer today is very savvy. They’ve usually done the research even before approaching the salesperson. They already know about the product and the industry and will purchase with the sales rep who aligns with their value system. It is up to the salesperson to uncover those values in order to close the sale. Building Rapport Rapport is more than just value-based selling. For Andrew, it’s also about authentic selling. The number one deciding factor of whether or not a consumer is going to purchase is the credibility of the salesperson. Credibility and rapport first, product or service second. It’s the job of the salesperson to uncover the prospect’s values because if the values aren’t in alignment, the ability to close is greatly diminished. Selling to the modern consumer requires wisdom and discovery. The sales goal has to be secondary to the customer’s needs. The credibility of the salesperson is #1 priority whether or not people buy. #SalesCredibility Discovering the value From the beginning a salesperson needs to have a conversation with the prospect. Allow them to tell their story because it’s their story that needs to be heard. Be ready with a set of questions to ask to every client. Ask directed and relevant questions. What are their fears, concerns, projections? This exchange helps the salesperson determine the client’s motivation and it gives the consumer the confidence their needs are being heard. When values align, the closing rate increases dramatically. Keep building rapport through the pandemic Building rapport is especially critical in the season we’re in, when people are dealing with so much uncertainty. Clients need to feel they’re part of a conversation and a team. As salespeople, we support our families by helping our clients solve their problems. We’re all consumers. Let’s be the people we’d want to purchase from ourselves. “How To Build Rapport By Asking Directed, Relevant Questions” episode resources Don’t rush the process. Too often a salesperson tries to determine the outcome of the sales without first building trust. Put in the time and ask direct and relevant questions. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald about it. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Tra

I'm Succeeding As An SDR But I Don't Think I Will When I Become An AE A change in work setting is a challenging thing since one has to adjust with the new operations and work process. Did you just move from an SDR position to an AE position and you’re feeling lost? Don’t worry. You’ve come to the right podcast episode. This heading is a question Donald saw posted on Reddit by a sales rep who is worried about his change in roles. The idea of becoming an AE scared him because he wasn't confident that he had the skills to become successful and build value. Making the transition This individual has been in the SDR industry for nine months and is concerned that his success isn't because of his sales skills but because of his ability to think outside the box. He thinks he’s terrible on the phone and feels that he lacks the ability to connect with clients. He finds it hard to drive business solutions and when he makes the transition to becoming an AE, he’s concerned his lack of experience and skill will get him into trouble. Although he’s been effective at finding people, building value, and closing skills as an SDR, he didn't see these abilities as a win because he was evaluating himself based on how he rated his interpersonal relationships skills and his ability to generate opportunities.You may have felt like this too. So, how do you make the transition to this new position? The Impostor SyndromeImpostor Syndrome is also known as head trash. These are the things that we tell ourselves until we start believing them, even when those things are not true. The mind isn’t capable of separating reality from fiction so “what the mind conceives, the mind believes.” When we were kids, we could convince ourselves that there was a monster in the closet. The same is true with head trash. When you tell yourself you don’t have certain abilities, traits, or skills, your mind will believe it and you will find yourself acting accordingly. As a result, you may start messing up your phone calls, stop reaching out on LinkedIn, and you’re not going to take action, all because your body has already started believing the lie. Overcoming your head trash Shift your head trash to confidence and self-affirmation. Say positive things to yourself again and again and rewrite the program. Stop telling yourself you’re going to fail. The mind is very powerful. Start telling it exactly how great you are. Your body will follow. This is the first step in doing better. Now, just because you tell yourself that you’re a good sales rep, it doesn’t mean you will become a great sales rep immediately. The next step is to take action by starting to read books, listening to podcasts, going to training, practicing, and studying industry information. The impostor syndrome is a common trait in many salespeople, especially those who are just starting. As a beginner in sales, how do you bring value to the table? You may be better in some aspects than others. You may read more books,be more tech savvy, or have more experience. Holding onto the positives, and seeing good results from your current skill set, will help you get past your head trash. Change your belief system Changing your belief system will help you adjust your actions and the way you perform. People have a certain swagger and confidence when they feel good about themselves and others can see that. They will see that you’re bringing your best to the table. The person we discussed from Reddit has to change his belief system. He thought he didn’t have ample skills to help him become an executive. He forgot one of the most important things a sales rep must learn is how to solve problems and he knows how to do this! He’s already doing the toughest tasks in the sales process, prospecting and closing deals. When a salesperson shifts to an account executive role, he will still have ways to solve problems. A sales rep builds value by learning how to ask effective questions. You don’t even have to be versed on the industry, at least at the beginning. Nobody is versed in every industry when they first start. If you are selling something you don’t have experience with then study and get trade magazines. Learn about some of the content and that your prospects are studying for their business. Once you become versed about the industry, and understand the operations of the business, you will be able to solve problems better. Keep learning and solving problems Spend time learning the business and look at the deals. Figure out the initial reasons why people signed up for your services and products. Review pain points and check out websites to learn more about clients. Doing your part will help you feel more comfortable in moving forward. To move you toward success, listening and asking effective questions is key. A confident problem solver isn’t afraid of digging deep and asking critical questions. He knows how to be direct and to the point without being offensive. For example, instead of letting the client close th

How To Get More Proposals Signed Faster With Pandadoc Have you heard about PandaDoc and how it can help you get more proposals signed faster? If you definitely want to learn more from this podcast. This episode will talk about PandaDoc and how you can use it to improve your sales journey. Nate Gilmore is the chief revenue officer at PandaDoc and his job is to grow the company. It is their goal to help small businesses increase their sales and revenues. He has spent almost 20 years in the small business industry and most of those years were in software. The idea of proposals Salespeople can send out proposals and not get a reply for days or even weeks. This experience is a common challenge for many sales reps. Salespeople need to understand that the entire workflow of the business depends on how well they’ve gotten to know the customer. Having insight into how their organization works, their timeline, and what their needs are will improve the content of what you send and get the right data to send out. PandaDoc makes each stage of getting information to your client much easier. Creating your proposal PandaDoc has created a template that pulls in customer data from your CRM which makes the workflow much more efficient. If you don’t have a CRM, the template will do it for you. With the customer data within the template, you now have a customized proposal that was done in less time. PandaDoc saves you time in creating the proposals since it already has a template that sales reps can work with right away. Sending your proposal When you send your proposal depends on the workflow and process of your company. You may have to send it to someone internally first or you may be able to send it to your client immediately. Once sent, the speed in which your proposal works lies with your customer. The right time to use the proposal Sales reps can use the proposals in two ways: in the pitch or the marketing. When someone receives a proposal that’s been generated through PandaDoc, sales reps can see when the document is opened. The best time to send a proposal is after the discovery phase when the customer has consented to receive the information and is looking for it. At this point, you know someone who is interested and could potentially champion your product in front of decision makers. If possible, embed demos in the proposals to make it more effective and customized. Proposals generated by PandaDoc offer these types of unique features so every client feels they are receiving a document made especially for them. Every step is part of the sales process and it’s the responsibility of each salesperson to do discovery ahead of time in order to make the process as efficient as possible. Discovery should reveal the needs of your customers and let your customer know they are being heard. PandaDoc has your client relationship in mind with their customizable templates. The program revolves around the workflow of a salesperson so they are able to personalize their proposals based on the client’s specific information. Driving the sale through PandaDocs have a number of tools to help sales people make their sales goals. Your proposal is a document you can view at each step of the process. Once sent, sales reps can see who is checking it and when. It helps the rep and the client connect by helping them understand what the client needs. If you see that your client has forwarded the proposal to someone else, you can check where it’s hung up or when they are ready to move forward with the deal. This allows the sales rep to see what’s happening at each stage. Following up with your client is an important part of the sales process. It’s critical to know if you are dealing with the decision maker or with an internal champion. Once you know, you know how to follow up. Look at the length of your sales cycle. If you want to grow the velocity, reduce the steps. #SalesTips How does PandaDocs work? Most of PandaDoc’s clients use the program to reduce the length of the sales cycle in order to drive toward revenue faster. The program simplifies the workflow to move from sign to pay at a higher velocity. “How To Get More Proposals Signed Faster With Pandadoc” episode resources If you want to grow the velocity of your sales cycle and evolve your business, you can try visiting Pandadocs. You can also check out Nate’s LinkedIn. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald about it. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and rati

How To Become A Warrior Seller During The Coronavirus Outbreak The world has been taken aback by the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses, regardless of industry, have been affected. As a salesperson, how do you become a warrior during the coronavirus outbreak? Jason Forrest works for a company called FPG which stands for Forrest Performance Group and one of their programs is Warrior Selling. There are four different levels of a sales professional. The first level is the follower. They give all the permission to the customer. The customer dictates what to do, how to act, and tells the salesperson when they’re going to buy. The next level is the helper, who has the sole intention of helping people and serving their customers. Leader is the third level. They are the people you follow to a place you wouldn’t go on your own. The last level is the warrior. The warriors are advocates for the product and service they sell. This salesperson believes, supports, and advocates for their products and services. In addition to that, the warriors protect their customers’ best interest. In today’s market, we need more warriors to protect the customers and the organization. People are afraid and the warriors help protect their customers from fear. Without leaders, fear can overcome customers and it can eventually kill the organization. Warriors know their customers so well they know what is needed. A warrior and con artist may have the same skill set but what sets apart the sales warrior is intention. They protect their customers through their service or product. Knowing the warrior seller A warrior has to get their messaging right for their customer and should be able to answer these questions: Why should people buy from you today? What will your products and services immediately do for them? How will your products and services benefit them at this moment? How will your products and services eliminate their present pain points? Once they find the answer to those questions, they need to be able to share the message with the people they serve. A warrior is defined by me as an advocate for their product and service they sell and at the same time, they're a protector of the customer's best interest. #SalesWarrior Salespeople procrastinate for several reasons. The first is that they’re not clear about what they’re trying to accomplish. The second, is that they don’t know why they’re doing what they do.Their why has to be strong enough to get through tough days. The why has to be greater than the sacrifices they have to make to do the job of a salesperson. Third, once the why is discovered, a salesperson has to figure out how. The how includes your cross pattern strategy. What are you going to say to give them certainty and how do you want them to feel once they get off the phone with you? The last reason why people procrastinate is their “leash mentality,” the restriction in someone’s thoughts that keeps them from doing what needs to be done. Remove your leash A leash is like a dog collar in that it can prevent you from moving forward and can hold you back. The present mind is the best mind because it keeps you focused on the task at hand. In sports, trash talk occurs because it is a means for one player to distract another player. If done well, it can throw that player off their game. However, as a salesperson, the trash talk doesn’t come from other people but from inside their own head. Jason came up with the concept of performance formula: P(erformance) = K(nowledge) - L(eash). Performance is what a person does and what we see them do. Knowledge is what we’ve told them to do. They have a process for making a sale and they have brand knowledge. To get a performance you have to remove the leash from the knowledge. This is the resistance that keeps them from using the knowledge they have, the things that keep them from taking action. Kinds of Leashes Jason addresses four types of leash mentalities in his book: Self-image An example of the self-image leash is the perception the salesperson has of herself that she doesn’t know the right words to say to convince a prospect to buy. In order to remove this leash, you have to have the confidence that you will be able to convey to others why your product or service is valuable. Story The story is anything external from us. It’s when you tell yourself that people are still waiting for things to settle down before they start buying and purchasing again. This is just a story, especially when there’s no evidence to support that claim. Reluctance Reluctance is a situational fear and it may come from not wanting to sound pushy and insensitive. The coronavirus outbreak will impact 2020 projections - it will either lower the sales forecast or be seen as an opportunity to steal market share from the competition. The truth is, if you’re not going to make any changes to get ahead of this, then it could lead to long-term challenges and impede the growth of your company. Taking action now can remove t

What Is The Difference Between An SDR and BDR? The next 20 episodes will focus on the conversations about BDRs and SDRs. We will be talking about tips, strategies, and ideas about how businesses can prospect better and connect with potential clients. Today’s episode will discuss the differences between a BDR and SDR in terms of what they do, how they do it, and how they earn. In the previous episode, Donald was joined by his sales coaching client, Scott Romney. They talked about how businesses can realign and adjust their message to create offers that are irresistible for the prospects, even in a time of crisis. Our level of empathy must increase as we look for ways to understand where people are coming from. Strategies are needed that will help organizations overcome the crisis that many industries are facing in this season. Scott talked about being mindful and sensitive while thinking of opportunities where salespeople can be leaders to their prospects, especially now. Set your goal. How many appointments will you make today? #SalesGoals SDRs and BDRs A BDR is a business development rep and an SDR is a sales development rep. Prior to predictable revenue, their job was to qualify and set appointments for outside sales reps; however, over the past 20 years, the definitions have evolved. Even before these BDRS and SDRs came to exist, there were only sales reps and everyone was responsible for every stage of the selling process. Being a salesman for an organization meant that you were responsible for finding your own leads and nurturing those leads. Your job included going to trade shows and cultivating accounts. Eventually, sales managers realized that if you break down these processes you get to have more functionality and you can have experts in the different parts of the sales process. The inside sales team As a result, the inside sales team was created to do the research, generate lists, and find the people. Their job is to update the CRM and become an assistant to the account executives. Over the years, their job extended to setting the appointment and qualifying the leads. Aaron Ross was working with SalesForce when he realized these functions could be broken down further. There are now inbound people who are responsible for the inbound leads, the leads that are coming in via your websites or those who are calling your business phone number. The outbound team are the people who go after the potential client list and send them emails. They are the ones who are reaching out to clients. BDR and SDR can be used interchangeably but based on the definition given by Salesforce, the BDRs are focused on prospecting for outbound leads while the SDRs are focused on qualifying inbound marketing leads. The SDRs The SDR doesn’t have to do the hard work of finding leads. Instead of looking for people, the SDRs job is to qualify the inbound leads, follow up with them, and make sure they’ve been qualified for an appointment. They may get a little less in commission than the BDRs because BDRs are tasked with looking for cold leads and turning them into warm leads. Some companies start their salespeople as an SDR because it’s easier. This role helps to train sales reps how to ask the right questions and it offers a transition to becoming a BDR and then to an account executive. The BDRs For Donald, the business development role is one of the hardest of the sales roles. It’s their job to look for people and find new business. While they may meet many people, not all of them will convert. Only a few will decide to make a purchase because not everyone is ready. At any given time, only 3% of people are ready to make a purchasing decision. If you look at it from a business perspective, the BDRs role is to look for that 3% wherever they may be and convince them to purchase. Part of the BDRs job is to educate prospects and get them interested in wanting to do business. A talented business development rep builds relationships, connects with people, and shares with enough value so when a client is ready, that prospect will come back. The tenure for a business development rep lasts around 14 months and after that, they usually transition to become an account executive, or take an entirely different route. The same is true for an SDR, who can also get a promotion. Both of these roles have about 14-18 month terms. The length of time is influenced by the depth of training. This is where The Sales Evangelist comes in. We help sales reps ramp quicker and perform much faster. If it takes a sales rep to improve his rate in three month, the TSE training will help you do that in two months. The training will help sales reps become more effective at a much faster rate. The secret to success Like any other sales roles, the secret to success is to think of it like it's your own business. The structure of your day is critical. You need to make sure you understand the purpose of having a plan so you know who you are going after, who your targets

How Do I Sell During The Coronavirus Outbreak? Many industries are affected by the coronavirus pandemic. With that, there are a lot of questions in the sales community about how to move through this season well. How can you sell while everyone is quarantined and practicing social distancing? Scott Romney is a senior account executive at Soci. He loves sales and building relationships. Soci’s goal is to help their clients overcome the challenges that may come from internal alignment or with their local franchise partners. Soci can come in to balance their clients’ social media reviews and do it using just one platform. Facing the challenges Businesses that are sole-ownership need to take special care with protecting their brand. The main challenge that salespeople are facing right now is how to keep doing sales without compromising the health of all involved and their businesses. Most salespeople are now hiding by not calling people or having conversations with their prospects and clients. What these same people need to wake up to, however, is the reality that the economy is not dead. It’s still going and very much alive. We’re not currently in recession and the economy can still pick up once the pandemic is controlled and managed. The economy is not dead. People are still working but they are working differently. #COVID19 Understanding the circumstances is imperative to be able to see the opportunity in times of crisis. We all have defining moments in our careers that can change our mindset. You need to ask yourself what these defining moments mean for you. Looking at the challenge brought about by the coronavirus outbreak, ask yourself how this defining moment can change your outlook as a small business. Look at the efficiency and gaps when implementing new flexible working hours and the critical role that social media plays amid COVID-19. Social media isn’t just all fluff but a real lifeline, especially with staying connected to clients. In every crisis, there’s an opportunity. As salespeople, it’s part of the job to take advantage of the online resources and get to work digitally. This means of communication can help businesses inform, educate, and connect with their clients. Keep working Even with the pandemic, 99% of the world’s population are still working. Salespeople can pick up the phone and build relationships with their prospects despite the change in how we do business. You can connect and build value, helping your clients see you as a thought leader by continuing to offer counsel. There is still an opportunity to help with pain points. It’s time to have a positive side. The nation has faced far greater challenges in the past but they were overcome. As a sales leader, recognize you can come out of this crisis as a leader and not a lagger. Let your prospects know you are working, even in this dire situation, and keep them informed. Make it your goal to build relationships because only a handful of people are currently moving in that direction. Take this as an opportunity to grow the business by leaning into your clients. This is a defining moment you can take advantage of. Just keep working. Change your messaging Before the virus outbreak, Scott called on prospects with the message they were doing a good job but wanted to share information to further improve their standing on social media. The updated message emphasizes that social media is now a lifeline they need to utilize if they aren’t already there. For example, a local fitness gym, All Time Fitness, has jumped into the social media scene. Despite being closed down due to the virus, they are now utilizing social media by sharing some exercise tips people can do at home. They are also using FaceTime and offering a personal coaching session. They realize this is a great time to broaden their client base and have a great opportunity to serve people while they are in quarantine. Businesses can now change their messaging to provide a solution to current pain points. Structure you deal opportunities This is a great time to restructure some of your deals and give clients an enticing deal during this difficult time. Sales leaders may need to look at the red tape and their client’s current pain points to better align with existing needs. Updating agreements may be called for. Some questions you might need to investigate include: Can I offer my clients a different structure? Can I break up payment schedules? Doing this won’t devalue your product. It simply gives you margin to listen to your customers and make adjustments as you’re able. The long-term changes This pandemic will change some companies forever. Businesses will have to make necessary adjustments. The important thing is that you can decide to do something and strategize to gain. “How Do I Sell During The Coronavirus Outbreak? ” episode resources Reach out to Scott Romney via LinkedIn to learn more about Soci, a leading social media management platform to help multi-location businesses. If

How to build a sales engine that will land massive deals – repeatedly A sales engine is a great strategy to increase your number of closed deals. As a sales manager, how do you build a sales engine to land massive deals for your team? Nigel Green works with executive investors and sales leaders of companies to help them scale up faster and smarter. As a sales advisor, he works behind the scenes to ensure that leaders are hitting their targets at the end of the year. Nigel understands that if you don’t relentlessly pursue your craft and coach your team well, you won’t be in the game very long. The revenue harvest Nigel coined the term, Revenue Harvest, in this sales leaders almanac containing the fruits of 15 years of experience. He’s been helping various companies build their sales team faster so investors have a chance to grow their private equity. Sales leaders in this kind of environment need to act fast. When Nigel moved to a farm, an hour outside of the city, he was able to observe the farming community. He realized that leading a sales team was very similar to tending crops. Both can face circumstances that are outside of our control. The farmer knows he’s got to produce a crop but looking at the year, he wonders when it’s going to be too hot or too cold, when it's going to rain, or not. These are elements a farmer can’t control but he can’t be paralyzed by the uncontrollables. He’s got to get to work. In Revenue Harvest, Nigel shows sales leaders how to yield results year-in and year-out that are consistent. Nigel has broken this down into seven principles a sales leader can follow. Create a plan The first principle in the Revenue Harvest helps sales leaders understand what a plan really is and how to do it well. Most sales people don’t have a plan. They’ve been given a plan by their leader but they haven’t pushed back in areas where it’s not realistic. Leaders need buy-in from the influencers on their team and it needs to be implemented in a time period that will be effective, before the first quarter. Sales leaders have a responsibility to not only assign the revenue and targets of the plan to the sales rep, but also to the customers. The plan also has to account for the metrics that are important to the business. Only the sales leader can make sure that everybody on the team is spending their time well and score-carding. The leader needs to incentivize the team in a way that is aligned with the CEO or COO’s goals. Oftentimes, time isn’t a salesperson’s friend but with planning, time can be used more efficiently. Planning for adversity The truth is, most people don’t plan for adversity. We plan the year assuming that everything is going to be perfect. We don’t plan for the person who is going to quit or go on maternity leave and we don’t plan for competitors to launch a new product. Most sales leaders don’t expect adversity but the truth is, it can come when we least expect it. A real plan accounts for adversity. The first step in planning is to ask when the budgest season starts. The budget season is a common language in private equity companies. This season typically falls in September or October. By that time, the heads of the company want to see a completed budget expenses revenue target, if new reps need to be hired, etc.. As a proactive leader, you want to go to the heads of the company to get a sense of what it is they want you to accomplish, what resources they’re going to give you throughout the year, and negotiate if it doesn’t sound feasible. Sales leaders have the responsibility of making sure that adequate resources are in play to hit the numbers. Positioning Positioning is two-fold. Before you finalize the sales plan, identify your sales influencers and run the plan by them. No matter how good a plan seems to be, it’s wise to receive feedback from the members of your sales team who know the climate of the sales team and can offer information about whether or not a plan is viable. No one can predict the future but there are two practices that can help mitigate unforeseen disasters: First, look at what the team has done over the past couple years in detail. If the business is affected by seasonality, it’s important to look at history by weeks, maybe even days. Check the spikes during busy seasons. If you’re in retail, Saturdays and Sundays are huge. Look at what was actually accomplished. You tend to create a better plan when you see the circumstances that have influenced your sales historically. Second, look at the lost selling days. A sales leader needs to figure out how you want to track lost selling days that don’t include national holidays or PTO. An example might be one of your sales team members not being able to meet her customers due to unforeseen circumstances like a snowstorm that shut down all the roads. You need to figure out a mechanism to track these days and start reducing the days you implement into your plan because of these historically lost sales days. Preventing a m

How To Close More Deals Using Videos Throughout The Sales Process Closing deals using videos is now becoming a very effective tool in the sales process. As a salesperson and an entrepreneur, we’ll talk about how you can incorporate videos into your sales goals. Doug Davidoff works with companies in the B2B space around customer acquisition and success programs. They examine a company’s sales structure to figure out how to build it in a way that’s scalable, repeatable, a high probability yield, high-margin, and high-growth. Because of this, a sales team can get more done in less time. The beginning Doug started working for the company when he was just 16 years old, around the same time when he got his driver’s license. Back then, they were focused on traditional sales advisory sales training. For the last seven years, they’ve been looking into the holistic process of customer acquisition. Every three years, they reinvent themselves in an effort to make it easier for companies to work with ease and efficiency. It was difficult when they first started using videos. They were among the first companies who were utilizing this new tech and there were only a handful of examples they could use as reference. Doug came up with the idea of making videos the same way as he made webinars, breaking them down into 3 sections. Next to blogging, it was by far his greatest accidental discovery. If you decide to work with videos, know that it may not yield immediate results. Doug didn’t start with video thinking it would enhance the process. There is a lot of divergence when it comes to what people know about using video, what they are looking for, and what they want to accomplish. Because of this, initial conversations were hard because it was hard to tell a client the specific impact to their sales. Nowadays, with more history, it is easier to see that video is very effective. Creating the videos Doug began creating a 20-minute long video for a presentation and later went to an hour, sometimes longer, as needed. Doug’s colleagues advised that prospects wouldn’t watch videos that were this long but Doug wasn’t to be deterred. As Doug gained a greater skill set and his videos improved, the more the videos were shared among key people within the companies he was targeting. This sharing process enabled Doug’s team to know who the key figures, influencers, and decision makers were within these companies. They began seeing that people were watching their videos even before they got to their kick-off. These prospects were watching and using their videos to socialize and share various ideas. This was how they decided to use their videos in segments that could be dropped in each part of the sales process, from market development to customer acquisition. The video sales process How a customer is moved through the video process largely depends on how the customer finds Doug. The first video is typically post-discovery where they let their prospects watch any number of videos that are connected to solution pages. They’ve also tried running a couple of campaigns where they connect to prospects who are difficult to reach by giving them shorter versions of their videos. They ask these recipients to share their top three biggest challenges and Doug’s team then sends a 2-4 minute video that addresses these challenges. This strategy is used during the pre-discovery and discovery process, needs assessment diagnosis, and so on. Using videos in sales Doug has been told that videos won’t work in sales but he’s proven this isn’t true. If you are a salesperson presenting a topic consistently, you can save time by putting that presentation into a video. If you prefer initial contact to be live, you can still utilize video in the follow-up. Doing a concept video is also encouraged. With great editing, the best thing about video is that you get to be yourself, without mistakes. You can also send the video before the sales call and then ask them what part of the video had the most impact on them. This will give you an idea of what you can do for next steps and you’ll be able to gauge if the video was watched at all. If they did watch the video, the conversation will show you how to prepare for any follow-up conversations. When you offer a video, your prospects are able to watch you at their convenience. It gives them time to think and prepare for your call as well. Prospect conversions using videos Doug doesn’t claim the videos are the only thing that leads to closing a sale but it is a great indicator. Video helps to detect how serious someone is about starting a buying journey. Even when people don’t watch the video, you can do more by investigating further: Maybe they don’t believe the video is working. Maybe their problem isn’t a huge concern. Maybe it’s not a good time/ Maybe they’re in the middle of a crisis that needs to be addressed first. Videos give you information about the buyer. It allows you to gain greater insight and use your time more

How To Find Government Sales Opportunities Without Selling To The Government Salespeople are known for their tenacity and passion to sell but one opportunity that can be overlooked is selling to the government. Jack Siney worked for the Navy on the F18 Fighter Jet Program and after this experience, moved to entrepreneurial companies and tech industries where he worked for public safety agencies. One such agency installed software in laptops that are in police vehicles across the country. Jack may have started in the government but has now been an entrepreneur for the last 25 years helping the government process more efficiently. Challenges in Selling to the Government There is a long list of stereotypes on why doing business with the government isn’t a good idea. Many think that the government is hard to deal with because of all the red tape involved, making the process take a long time. It’s true that in every stereotype, there’s a kernel of truth. However, the government has grown and has modernized. There are now many opportunities that salespeople aren’t taking advantage of because of these misconceoptions. Selling to the government has actually become much more streamlined. Biggest Prospect in the World Government is a great opportunity for salespeople as it’s one of the biggest prospects in the world. Let’s talk about what makes the government a unique prospect. Large and long-lasting contracts Government contracts are typically large and run for multiple years. Putting in the effort in trying to earn a government contract can help stabilize the revenue of your business. The government always pays The government always pays. There’s always a risk in doing business with private companies. There are some who won’t pay for your products or services and will hold up your revenue. However, that’s not true when you sign a contract with the government. Helps recession-proof your business Even when there is a recession, the government will still spend for the things that benefit its citizens. As a result, even if there is a recession, if you have a product that can be used, your company can be better protected. Getting the government contract The government is just like any other prospect. You still need to do the standard prospecting, build relationships, and close deals. Another advantage in working with the government is that there are multiple ways the government makes a purchase. It’s no longer just going over the RFP process, in fact, 80% of the $20 million the government spends per day doesn’t go to an RFP process. Jack helps companies by giving them the data they need to make good decisions about which agencies to pursue and the type of procurement they need to use. As already mentioned, there are nine ways that a government procures things outside the normal bidding process. They are: Sole source. This means that if a company has a patent and can sole source the patent, the government agency can buy the patent. Piggyback. When a company has a government contract, another company/agency can purchase off that contract. Discretionary spending. Every government agency has an amount of money they can spend without having to go through an RFP bidding. It works like a slush fund for an office. P-Card or a purchase card. A lot of people working for the government have a P card (with a limit) assigned to them. When the product or service falls below the P-card limit, then someone can purchase whatever you’re selling up to the limit. Set aside. This is a set aside budget that’s for socio economic classification, regardless of who owns it. It may be a woman-owned, a minority-owned business or an organization for disabled Americans. GSA schedule. General Services Administration State schedule Co-ops Simplified quotes. This is when the government needs an item and they award the contract to the lowest bidder. These are the nine ways a government can make purchases and procurements. The more qualified you are, the more likely you are to avoid the bid via the RFP process. If you qualify on any of the nine ways, the government can just pick your agency and sign the deal with you. What’s the GSA schedule? The GSA at the federal level watches all the government agencies’ purchases. Companies can go through the process of being included in the GSA schedule. For example, several government agencies can purchase computers at different price points despite them being the same model and unit. When this happens, the GSA comes in with a schedule so that new companies with their own pricing can join and offer their products to be put on the schedule. They don’t have to bid an RFP. Get a flagship agency The best way for salespeople to flourish when selling to the government is through a flagship agency. Find out how that agency purchases and then try to work your product into their normal process. Instead of shooting for all agencies, focus on that one that will put in a good word for you to other agencies. In working with the

Rethinking The Way You Do Sales Automation What do you think of sales automation? Is it a go or a no for you? Perhaps it’s time you rethink the way you do sales automation. Gessie Schechinger works for a company called OnCourse, a brand new sales engagement platform. Most of his life, he’d been a professional peddler, jumping from one sales job to another. He started his career in sales with cold calls, went on to a territory sales job, then became an account manager. From there, he got a taste of CRM. Now with his current team, they’re sharing a tool they’ve created that is helpful for salespeople to automate. Their goal is to use the sales professionals’ skill set and automate those skill sets for a more efficient outreach. Selling smart using automation OnCourse is a tool that helps salespeople to automate responsibly. The tool helps to ensure that your emails have accurate presentations, the right address, and all the other information and variables needed for impactful engagement. In addition to that, this tool also looks at when people are going to engage and when they do engage, how long does it take for them to actually engage with the pitch. TAPO is a company that does outreach reporting. They research 280 - 300 large corporations and look at their sales outreach. Using that outreach study report, they can see what methods are effective. Included in the study, is information about how long it takes for a person to engage and from there, how long it takes for them to buy. The report is important especially for service-based businesses and software-based businesses where people tend to communicate in different ways. To figure out the communication channel the clients respond to, you need to make contact in various areas. This is how automation works,as it helps you throw out big nets. The automation is used as a warm-up tool to prepare prospects for engagement and purchase. The automation allows you to create awareness. While your first automated emails are typically deleted, your next emails have a greater chance to get engagement, when they look at your product or services. You have to expect that your first few emails will be deleted. Persistence will put you in a better position down the road. #SalesAutomation LinkedIn outreach The other type of automation is LinkedIn automation. LinkedIn automation and selling is what Gessie refers to as a delicate dance. There are people on LinkedIn who will just connect automatically and immediately throw up their entire value proposition. That may work on some but it’s not typical. People want to use LinkedIn as a networking tool where they can build connections but you have to keep in mind the spirit of the platform, especially if you’re going to use LinkedIn in for sales. It’s true you can speak with your prospects directly and there’s an advantage to seeing titles and experience, but there nuance is needed in the approach. One approach is the 2x2 rule, which means, take two minutes to find two things. Create an interaction and use automation in LinkedIn that will allow you to reach out to 10 - 20 people in a day. Taking the time to learn personal information about your prospects will allow your engagement to have a personal touch. OnCourse against other automation tools There are a number of automation tools available out there that offer many of similar features to one another. OnCourse is unique in the way that it’s built around their clients’ existing successes. The tool takes the business process and amplifies that to make it as configurable as possible. OnCourse is more self-contained than other companies. It has a built-in phone system, a LinkedIn automation, built-in Chrome plugin, built-in texting, and more. The other two reasons that make the tool unique is its ability to niche down and it provides you with outreach education. This tool is especially useful if you have a unique business with solid sales processes. Gessie’s tool allows you to hold information about a client but is also for pipeline management. It studies and understands where you are winning, why and how you can duplicate these efforts. The process is usually: Sending general emails about your company Reach out on LinkedIn Sending follow-up messages Setting up a personal task (i.e. sending a personal message in the middle of email automation) Interact via a phone call “Rethinking The Way You Do Sales Automation” episode resources Learn more about OnCourse or email Gessie Scheginger via his mail [email protected]. If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald about it. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can also call us at (561) 570-5077. We have

Think Like A Large Company CEO Regardless of the size of your company, thinking like the CEO of a larger company will help you better visualize where you are going and how you’re going to get there. Vicki Antonio is a business consultant and life coach. She started working for startup companies when she was just 13 years old. Her experience with startups taught her the pattern of growing pains which she then used when she fell into the real estate industry. Vicki’s work helped her gain a deeper knowledge of the entrepreneurial spirit and gain a business acumen. At one point, she went into upper management and real estate but when the industry came back, she ended up being a business developer for a global real estate franchise. That work allowed her to manage 30 shops where her main role was to develop the shop, make it brand compliant, and develop partnerships with brokers. She was a business coach for these shops and helped these businesses become profitable. All the skills she learned from working came into play. The experience eventually led Vicki to launch her own coaching business. Top problems faced by small businesses FEAR Small businesses must overcome fear. It comes into play when the business has been built to a certain point and then gets stagnant. It can feel like the same fear that parents get when they take their kids to daycare for the first time. There's an apprehension because of the emotional attachment parents have for their child. When a business has to relinquish what it knows, it’s like turning over the reins to someone else. Instead of trusting the people who’ve come to help, these businesses fear them. Even when it’s just a system they need to engage with, fear can be a major hindrance to advancing. CLARITY Entrepreneurs are self-employed salespeople. There are a lot of things that are in play in order for goals to be met. Oftentimes, entrepreneurs don’t have the clarity about what these things are. Sometimes they don’t have enough components to reach the end. Other times, they have too many components and can become confused about which ones to use. Even the best athletes, like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, had coaches. Their coaches gave them a bird’s eye view of the areas that they couldn’t see themselves. Their coaches critiqued them and analyzed what they were doing. They could then help these athletes change little things to help them improve. The same is true in sales. Sales coaches help businesses with the things they need to see. They are the ones who analyze the system they’re currently using, analyze the tools and make sure they are being used correctly. In this stage, it is imperative for the businesses to trust the process. Overcoming fear F.E.A.R. can be seen as an acronym - false evidence appearing real. Sometimes salespeople can get in their own heads. This is the result of not having clarity about the direction they are going or if they are doing things the right way. A lot of times, salespeople are presented and marketed outside of what they know to be right. They are presented with various services that try to rush the process. Trying to rush through, and not developing any real, advancing skill, can keep them from moving forward. Most of Vicki’s clients are already leaders in their fields. They've been accepted by their clients. but they know how difficult the climb has been. It’s when they reach a certain pinnacle that they start to fear: do we trust this new product, this new technique, this new person? Attacking your fear Everyone has a level of fear they aren’t willing to go beyond. There can be a great reward waiting for the risk takers but everyone has to calculate the risk to the place of comfortability and faith. Build the trust The business is an entrepreneur's baby. They’ve put their hearts into it and invested so much. It’s their responsibility to keep it growing and cared for. It gets difficult when someone comes in claiming that they will take care of their business just as well and ensure its growth. Trusting people isn’t an easy thing to do but if you have people who have your same core values, and people who have a successful track record of being able to do what they promised, there’s a better chance to trust when doing business. Getting to know these people and engaging with them will help build trust. It’s important to build relationships, vet who they are, and check their track record. If they were able to do it for themselves and other companies, it is more likely they can do it for you too. Big companies can also prove their credibility to clients with third-party validation in order to encourage use of their services and offerings. Using testimonials and LinkedIn recommendations is another referral opportunity. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to market your services has also proven effective. Clarity Clarity comes with knowing who you’re working with and what they’ve been able to do and it’s also about know