The Sales Evangelist

Where there is no vision the people perish, and that’s especially true in sales. Because we aren’t constructing physical structures like houses or sidewalks, the game of sales is largely mental, and it requires a visionary mindset. The book Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, now available as a free download, addresses the importance of vision and what can happen when you don’t have an eye on the future. VISION FOR SALESPEOPLE Vision demands that we look beyond the work that we’re doing today. It demands that we look into the future, perhaps to the end of the quarter or the end of the year. In some cases, we’ll look to the end of five or 10 years. Without vision, you won’t progress and you won’t grow. We may imagine the worst-case scenario, and then we find ourselves in a loop, playing it over and over in our heads. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps shared his strategy of playing a “tape” of a perfect race in his head. His coach encouraged him to imagine how it would feel to win, the accomplishment he’d experience, and then think about that over and over. POSITIVE LOOP Michael had a positive loop playing in his head, so even when he found himself making bad decisions, he was able to get back on track quickly. He had a tenacious drive to succeed. I worked with a guy once who always saw life through a negative lens. He could turn the very best outcomes into negative scenarios. If he won the lottery, he’d likely complain about driving to Tallahassee to claim his prize, or about the fact that he had to pay taxes on his winnings. You may work with people like this. Avoid getting pulled into their negative mindset. When you spend large amounts of time around these people, you may allow their negativity to creep into your thinking. CHANGE YOUR FOCUS Emerson said that whatever we persist in doing becomes easier. I refer to this quote all the time because it’s true that our mindset affects our outcome. If you are focused on negativity, you’ll more readily see negative outcomes. If you focus on the fact that you’re going to set an appointment, you’re going to capitalize on an opportunity. You’re going to reach your commission and create power to accomplish those things. When I spent too much time around my negative coworker, I spent less time on the phone and less time doing email outreach. When I changed my focus to positive things, prospects were more willing to listen to me because I was the catalyst. I still had negative experiences, of course, but there were fewer of them. GET RID OF NEGATIVE When I was a young seller, I didn’t speak up to my negative coworker because I didn’t want to cause a rift between us. If I could go back, I would push back against the negative thinking. I would share positive thoughts and read encouraging books. I would either seek to change my coworker’s attitude or repel him because he knew I wasn’t going to listen. Be honest about the fact that you’re trying to focus on positive things. IMAGINE THE WINS When you achieve your daily goals, what will it feel like? What will you say to convince those people to close? Practice seeing how that will look. Take charge of your life. Read encouraging books. Refuse to let other people affect your personal vision. You’re listening to this podcast, and that’s a great start. COMMAND YOUR DESTINY Take charge of your future. For the team at The Sales Evangelist, 2018 was our best year ever. My 2019 vision is to double the numbers we had in 2018 and c continue to increase our customers and grow our podcast. I had a vision last year of writing for Hubspot and we’re doing that. I envisioned being mentioned by Inc. magazine, and TSE was just mentioned as one of the top podcasts to fuel company growth. My vision helped me connect with the right people so that I found positive opportunities. Create positive vision for yourself. “NO VISION” EPISODE RESOURCES This episode is brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, personalized CRM that gives you the confidence to improve your business and increase profits. To get a demonstration of maximizer, go to the sales evangelists.com/maximizer. Click on the link to get a free demo of what Maximizer CRM can do for you. It integrates your marketing campaign as well as your CRM, and it works whether you’re a small organization or a large one. This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. They are offering a 14-day free trial, and half off your subscription when you use the code Donald at checkout. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Previously known as TS

Failures can be crippling if we allow them to be, but when we have the proper guidance, we can learn how to turn failure into success. Airica Kraehmer of Gracious Care Recovery shares her own story here and reminds us that we can turn our weaknesses into our strengths. MENTAL TOUGHNESS Airica’s story doesn’t directly involve sales, but it does involve difficulty and mental toughness. She started working as a model in the fashion industry and she had a dream to succeed there. She realized that the fashion industry demands that you be your own product and that you bring your A-game all the time. She called it cut-throat. As a result, there’s room for exploitation. Airica found herself the victim of human trafficking because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wrote down her story, and when she finished her book, she looked for outlets that would help her share it. She figured telling her story would help her move beyond the struggle. She became an international best-selling author, and it taught her that she could rise above the low points in life. SEEKING A CHALLENGE After she moved to Florida, Airica realized that the state was number two in the country in terms of human trafficking, tied with Houston. After the upcoming Super Bowl, Florida is projected to move into the number one spot due to the large influx of people. Hearing stories of other victims made her realize that she was part of something bigger. She realized that the process would repeat if she didn’t do something to help. She reminded herself that there were as many good people in the world as there were bad people. REJECTION Nobody wanted to talk about trafficking, so she kept encountering closed doors. She compares it to cold calling for sellers. [07:23] Though people cared about it, they didn’t feel like they could speak out about it. She kept knocking on doors, and eventually, she found Gracious Care Recovery. There were survivors there who recognized the need for people to speak out. Her message to sellers, then, is to keep knocking on doors. Despite the fact that she was addressing an impossibly hard topic, she found people who would engage. Get in the other person’s mindset. We each have different experiences, and we’re each traveling a different journey. That means we each have different ideas. That can be a powerful tool as long as we remember that the effort isn’t all about us. It’s about who we can help and who we can serve. Keep in mind that the prospect isn’t rejecting you. It simply isn’t the right time for your prospect. PERSISTENCE If you’re a sales manager who is motivating a team to overcome rejection, teach your team members to practice persistence. Be persistent, but be kind. Be willing to invest the time to build trust. Sales is a numbers game to some degree, and you have to keep reaching out in order to achieve results. Especially now that we find ourselves at the beginning of a new year, you have to keep knocking in order to hit your targets. OVERCOMING FAILURE Airica compares her personal experience to bankruptcy. It was the ultimate low. She had nothing left. And she knew it would take years to recover. She learned that you have to leave behind the things that don’t serve you well and that you shouldn’t focus too much on the why. It’s ok, for example, to ask why something happened, but refuse to stay focused on it. Instead, look to the future and ask yourself what you can do to address what happened. Ask yourself the following questions: Who am I serving? What is my purpose? What’s my goal? Once you’ve identified those things, align your morals and values with your goals. Tackle one goal at a time. Small goals will accumulate quickly and result in large accomplishments. “HOW TO TURN FAILURE INTO SUCCESS” EPISODE RESOURCES You can connect with Airica at [email protected] and grab a copy of her book, Models Stop Traffic: How to Dodge Enslavement in Pursuit of Your Dream to Become the Next Top Model. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and sha

Behind the scenes at The Sales Evangelist, we're working to increase organic engagement and interact with our audience, and we've discovered a powerful way to develop new leads through Instagram. According to Jaeden Schafer, Instagram typically accounts for about 10 percent more organic engagement than Facebook, so it's a great place to gain a new audience and develop new leads. Who can benefit? [Tweet "Every business, whether it's B2B or B2C, can benefit from Instagram as long as they know how to use it. #Prospecting"] When Instagram initially launched, its goal was to share nice looking pictures. If you're following that original idea, your company will likely benefit from it. [02:16] But what if you're a refrigeration repair company? How do you post compelling pictures of refrigerators? Posting photos of refrigerators all day won't really prompt much growth. So if, for example, you own a refrigeration company in Miami, post pictures of the area you serve with information about the services you provide. Target people who are the customer persona you're trying to attract. It basically just needs to be pretty. Mistakes on Instagram Many people will offer the same tips for setting up an Instagram account: Choose good photos Find out what your customers want Then they expect people to just show up. If the engagement doesn't happen, they just let the page die, which is the worst possible thing you can do on social media. Since social media is about social proof, outdated accounts are worthless. [05:13] When people want to buy something online, they often check online to make sure that the social media accounts are updated. If they aren't, they might assume you'll be unresponsive. Plan to post at least once a week if you want to appear actively engaged. If you're trying to grow, you should post every day. If you find yourself thinking that you don't have the team or the resources to post every single day, remember that there are tools available to help you. Later.com is a scheduling tool that will let you schedule 30 posts for free. You can schedule a new post every day that will keep you active and growing. Instagram tactics Though Instagram is a great place to find new leads, sellers will also want to move those leads from interested to purchasing. Avoid letting your account just sit. Instead, use your account to find new leads. You can do that with targeted Instagram ads or automation. Better yet, use your account to like and comment on people's posts that are in your target audience. [07:53] Consider the food truck business that launched an Instagram page and then shared images of the food it would serve. On launch day, the owners went to its main competitors' page and they liked and followed 1,000 of their followers. They repeated that activity every two days for a different food truck. It grabbed attention because those people would see the business name on their phone as someone who liked their photos and followed their accounts. It's a phenomenal strategy, especially for companies that are just starting. Transition For B2B companies, it's important to understand how the transition will look after you follow new prospects on Instagram. How do you move them to your website or prompt them to download something? When a user sees that you liked some of his photos and followed him, then he'll likely click on your account name to check out your Instagram account. Your account bio will act a little like a splash page or a sales pitch. [10:34] Make sure your bio includes your website, and make sure it really clearly outlines what you do and what your call-to-action is. Direct them to your website or your podcast. Image quality For sales reps who might be wondering what kind of content to post, let's use an example of The Sales Evangelist to talk about what that might look like. For a service-based business, people tend to limit their thinking about the kind of images to post. Choose high-quality images that look really good. [11:53] If you don't have a high-quality camera, it's ok. Start with websites that offer free, copyright-free images, like unsplash.com. Type in your keyword and find hundreds of high-quality photos related to your niche. High-quality photos will make your account look very professional. Include your own "flavor" that meshes with the way you pitch, but make sure that the people who follow your account feel like they are getting some kind of value out of it. Some organizations use inspirational quotes or even tips such as how to care for your a/c unit. Choose information that will give something back to your audience. [13:45] You can use entire blog posts as an Instagram caption. In short, be there, post information your customers want, and do it consistently. Videos Videos have a much higher likelihood of going viral. Jaeden reports that an account he manages might get 400-700 likes, while a video on the same account might get 1,000-14,000 views. [15:31] As a result, videos are a really good

Strategic planning isn’t only for entrepreneurs: Shane Spiers says sales reps must know where they are headed and what the team’s common purpose is. Strategic planning helps sales reps work better as part of a team and achieve more. Originally from New Zealand, Shane now calls the UK home. It is where his career has grown to what it is today. His record is dominated by leading and scaling 7, 8 and 9-figure rapid growth companies, mostly in real estate, construction, and service-based businesses. Shane created Summit Leader to help 7-figure entrepreneurs scale with an 8-figure growth model. His focus is helping businesses scale from entrepreneurial to managed growth. [00:29] Approximately 96% of businesses earn less than $1 million in revenue. Of the 4% that make it past a million, only 10% make it to $10 million. With only .4% of businesses reaching the $10 million mark, Shane hopes to have an impact by producing more 8-figure businesses. [01:20] A COMMON GOAL As a business moves from entrepreneurial to managed growth, the management, leadership, and logistical challenges become quite different. The startup ways of working can hinder a business rather than advance it. Shane has been down the path many times before. He understands the importance of including sales reps in the process of strategic planning to grow a company. Whether you are a business owner, team leader, or part of a team, it is important to understand what the company stands for and what it believes in. It is important to know the common goal and your purpose in achieving it. A team without priorities, or with different views, cannot work well together. [02:23] STRATEGIC THINKING AND EXECUTION Before you can plan where you will be in the long term, you must make decisions about who you are and what you stand for. Decide how you will differentiate yourself from the competition. In the sales world, particularly, be very clear about who comprises your target market. Know who your ideal customers are, where they are, and what is important to them. It starts with upfront thinking. Know where you want to go and make a plan to get there. Establish your guiding principles first. Build your core. When businesses fail to clearly define their values, it trickles down into the sales force. [03:35] Think about your core as the provider of stability, power, and control that will support growth. Without a strong core, you risk instability from cultural challenges, loss of focus, disengagement, and a lack of heart. An organization or team that is weak will struggle. The core values are what you will do – and won’t do – to get what you want. They are the timeless, fundamental principles that define a company’s culture. It is the first step in strategic planning because it sets your purpose. It is the root of your business. Once you are clear about the Why of your company, you can work on the How. Where do you want to be in two, three or even ten years? What you do want to achieve? [05:50] A PART OF THE WHOLE No matter how large or small your role, you are contributing to the larger story. Consider the time when President Kennedy visited NASA and struck up a conversation with one of the janitors. When asked what he was doing, the janitor replied that he was helping to put a man on the moon. And he certainly was. When your entire team embraces the attitude and belief system of the organization, incredible things can happen. #belief CLICK TO TWEET [08:26] Strategy follows when you direct your attention and decisions to how you will differentiate yourself from the competition. Shane believes that decisions about how to best plan and strategize come easier to companies that establish their core principles first. It is easier to make a decision when you know what you stand for. [09:41] One common problem among fast-growing organizations is that they simply have too many priorities. In an attempt to cover all their bases, they lose focus. A long list of objectives combined with a scarcity of time, energy, and resources results in mediocre accomplishments. There is a failure to accomplish what matters most. If everything is important then nothing is. Growth and scaling are about taking one significant step at a time, checking the data and adjusting accordingly. [10:40] ESTABLISH A RHYTHM Once your core is established and you are clear about your long-term focus, it is time to prioritize. Break the ten-year plan out into a three-year plan, into a one-year plan, a 90-day plan, etc. Create routine, focus, and discipline. Don’t become overwhelmed by the monumental task of the long-term goal. Set bite-sized goals instead. Focus on the 3-5 things that will move you forward as a team. Get into the habit of celebrating success every 90 days. To build and maintain momentum, plan for more meetings or a daily check-in. Discuss administrative and tactical issues, provide updates, and take advantage of unforeseen opportunities. Review progress on a weekly basis. Use the collecti

Eric Graf, CEO of Flockgen, explains how mid-market businesses can trade relationships with one another to expand service offerings and lower customer acquisition. As sales reps, we need to make appointments and we need to make sales but often times, we don’t know how to find the best people. Typically, we develop a prospect list and a sales pitch and bring on a marketing team. It becomes the core business. Eric cites this as a common problem that negatively affects business with regard to customer acquisition. At Flockgen, clients are able to increase their bottom line because the cost of customer acquisition is spread among the partners. Expanding beyond the core Mid-market companies can expand the conversation with their customers beyond just the core aspects. When they do, they will realize that the prospect of monetizing exists in multiple areas which are often overlooked. At Flockgen, the cost of customer acquisition is spread across multiple services far beyond what mid-market companies might do in the core. As an example: There are already a number of partners with great businesses that sell telecom products. Some have had the same product for the past ten years, but their sales reps can’t talk to the customers beyond the core even if they wanted to. They don’t have anything else to present to those customers. [00:53] Flockgen offers an alternative solution. They can drive revenue with those relationships around completely different products and services. Ones that have nothing to do with telecom. They leverage those relationships to introduce new products and services in a way that doesn’t require a lot of cost because they already have hundreds of partners that offer many different things. [02:46] Such a partnership allows you to do more in one place instead of finding a partner with many companies on your own. By focusing on the ways mid-market companies work together to become stronger and build revenue, everybody wins. Creating a well-oiled referral process Referrals are a natural part of sales. They drive revenue and create business. Flockgen partners with people they know and trust. Using the telecom example again, suppose you have a salesperson selling phone systems all day long. As a partner with Flockgen, the salesperson could also talk with customers about sustainability, controlling costs, or operations. He has a credible way to have that conversation because Eric and his team have provided him with content and talking points. He doesn't have to be an expert in the field. Instead, he just has to be able to access the interest in the client. [04:16] The Flockgen Difference The Flockgen concept developed organically. Eric spent the last ten years working in the energy industry where he saw a lot of disruption. There were many new companies with new services and new products, and declining costs all around. Previously, Eric was in the telecom world, which he views as a more mature industry in terms of sales and marketing. Everyone knows each other and works with a collaborative spirit despite competition. Actual channels exist that allow people to team up and co-market. Eric hoped to build similar channels in the energy industry by borrowing the ideas that worked for telecom. Educating their partners is a key. How does referral marketing work? What are the pros and cons? [05:32] Rightsizing the program and menu for each of their individual partners is what sets Eric and his team apart. No two businesses are the same, even if they do the same thing. What works for one might not work for the other, or for their sales team. Matching capabilities Flockgen matches capabilities in an intelligent way with their partner sales team so that everyone feels comfortable and credible when having conversations. It allows them to drive relationships further. [06:31] Establishing bilateral relationships with their partners is crucial to the success of every party. Each can refer business to the other by promoting services up and down their respective networks. One partner could be driving revenue one day and receiving referrals the next day from others in the network who are doing the same thing. Getting started is easy. It is just a matter of understanding what you do, what a new customer base would mean to you, and what services you offer. Flockgen makes sure everyone in your organization is on the same page. [Tweet "You can’t grow a company alone. Sharing a pool of clients is essential. It saves money and time to partner and share opportunities. #ClientAcquisition"] If you are a large company, then you already have the business development teams and the corporate development teams in place to establish relationships. But it can be difficult to keep those relationships fresh. [09:29] Eric’s approach is for everyone to meet in the middle to allow collaboration and to set clear terms with one another. He believes that despite doing well at the start, many businesses that focus on partnering and collaboratin

Josh Cunningham, founder and CEO of rokrbox, fast-tracked his entrepreneurial career by helping to solve a recurring problem for real estate clients and learning an important lesson along the way: Don’t trick them. Josh first stumbled upon the ISA, or Inside Sales Agent, role in real estate while attending seminars with Vyral Marketing founder and CEO Frank Klesitz. Vyral Marketing works with top agents to create content and to get referrals and repeat business. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Many top professional teams buy real estates leads online, but their agents don’t always do a good job of following up on them. Like any good entrepreneur, when Josh heard a lot of people complaining about a common frustration, he decided to solve the problem. [00:39] He started rokrbox. A rocker box is a gold mining tool used in the 19th century to separate the sand and gravel from the gold. Likewise, rokrbox takes your real estate leads and separates the tire-kickers and time wasters from the motivated buyers and sellers. [01:26] TAPPING INTO THE STUDENT MARKET Rokrbox is strategically located directly across from the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas. Many sharp and enthusiastic young professionals go there looking to grow their skills. Josh provides them with the opportunity to develop real-world sales skills, CRM skills, and pipeline management skills. All of his student-employees typically graduate with multiple job offers from some type of sales professional career. [02:21] Since starting in 2013, rokrbox has worked over a million internet leads, hired over 250 ISAs, and trained them to move forward in their careers. Looking back, Josh believes that scalability was his biggest sales-related struggle. He knew he could do the job but wasn’t sure if he could train others to do it. When he first started hiring college students, he realized a lot of the same struggles that most people run into when building any sales team. SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS His first mistake was in not clearly setting expectations for the new hires. The job posting on the Texas A&M website was too vague. It wasn’t clear that a new hire could expect to make a ton of phone calls a day, could expect to be rejected all day, etc. It was just too ambiguous. As a result, a new hire might go through the entire interview process and personality assessment only to quit almost immediately after starting the job. One young man, in particular, spent over 15 minutes learning the types of calls to make, the technology/scripts/dialogue used and the likelihood of repeated rejection. He excused himself to use the restroom and never came back. [04:28] Josh blames himself. He had failed to set expectations and to make clear to potential hires what they were getting into. He felt as if he had tricked people into taking the job which is not how to start a sales organization on the right foot. OBSERVATION As a result, rokrbox implemented observation into the business. Now, they invite promising applicants back to pair up with a senior rep as part of the interview process. They spend a full hour learning what to expect on a shift – from the technology to the daily team huddle, to the reports and the metrics. They are encouraged to ask questions. It is their chance to interview the business. At the conclusion of their observation session, applicants are asked to send an email to explain how they would fit into the rokrbox culture. It has been amazing to see the persuasive essays they receive. [05:43] ESSAYS Josh enjoys hearing people explain why they want to be a part of the organization more than having them sneak away on a bathroom break, never to return. He highly recommends showing potential hires exactly what they can expect. Show them what it is like to be on the phone or knocking on doors. Be totally straightforward from the very beginning. The people who realize the opportunity in what you offer are the people you want to hire. #NewHire CLICK TO TWEET Josh believes that when building a culture worthy of your organization, it is likely that you will strongly attract the right people and strongly repel the wrong ones. And certainly, not everyone who attends an observation responds. The work and the pace intimidate some people. [07:30] But he wouldn’t change a thing. Rockrbox invests a lot of one-on-one training in every new employee before they are ready to do the job. Twenty hours on the new hire combined with 20 hours of the trainer’s time: Forty hours is a huge investment if someone might either bomb or quit. TRANSPARENCY It is definitely better to be transparent and upfront. Anything less is simply a waste of everyone’s time. Have a collection of people that are all driven and motivated, in a cohesive unit, and headed in the same direction. A team that supports and enjoys each other becomes a better team because of it. It’s the most harmonious thing you can do with any business. Know the culture you want to create and then protect it. Invite ot

Tracking your performance and setting measurable goals will help you perform better as a sales rep. We can optimize our performance if we calculate our daily output to help us fine-tune our work. Sales professionals are competitive creatures by nature, whether we're competing against others or against ourselves. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates. Potential I participated in a leadership retreat in college and the speaker asked me to participate in a demonstration by jumping as far as I could. She then measured the distance and asked me to jump again to see if I could beat my original effort. Turns out I did, because I had a measurable goal. If I hadn't measured my first attempt, I wouldn't have known whether my second attempt was better. As a sales professional, you'll benefit if you measure your activity on a daily basis. [03:42] Optimization You're probably already planning some of your work: prospecting, phone calls, LinkedIn contacts, and those efforts are all great. But in order to optimize, now you must measure those efforts. If you're making phone calls, what are you measuring? Are you measuring the number of calls? Are you measuring the number of appointments you're setting based upon phone calls? Start writing down and measuring your key indicators. [04:14] If you're measuring LinkedIn activity, what are you measuring? Are you measuring the number of connections you can make? Are you measuring the people who replay to your conversations? Develop key indicators or key performance metrics that you can measure on a daily basis. Trends When you measure those numbers, you'll begin to notice trends. You might notice that you set more appointments on Wednesday and Thursday than on Monday and Friday. You may discover that you successfully connect with more people on LinkedIn on Tuesdays. [04:51] This effort may sound like a lot of work, and some of you may think you can't possibly find the time. Realize that top performers in every industry are measuring and optimizing their efforts. That's how they improve. Coaching That's also where coaching comes into play. Now imagine you're measuring these numbers and your performances while you're being coached. You're going to quickly discover that you're improving quickly. The problem is that we often get comfortable with our performance level. We settle for an acceptable amount of production and we accept it as our best. You may recognize this mindset as, "This is how I've prospected for years, so I'm going to stick with this format." [05:57] Challenge that thinking. Perhaps you'll work with a manager or a sales leader or even the CEO. Accountability will make you even more effective. Strategy When I'm collaborating or sharing with someone else, I may discover different strategies that are working for other sellers. The danger is in thinking that you can't learn from others or believing that you already have all the answers. You won't increase or improve or progress. When I started writing down day-to-day performance, I wasn't competing against my team. I was competing against my previous performance. I started closing more deals because I listened to my podcast guests and got beyond my weaknesses. Then, I read books and got better insights. Really, though, I improved simply because I was conscious of my efforts. [08:36] This year was our best ever, and we haven't even fully optimized our tracking and measuring. Tracking your performance makes a huge difference. Planning Send me an email if you'd like to see what I'm doing and how I'm scheduling my day. I use a planner and a Gmail calendar. I list tasks and color code them to differentiate different activities. If you're wondering, I use green for money-generating activities. I use a different color for admin tasks so I can visually see how my day looks. At the end of the day I ask myself four questions: Did I meet my goals today? What could I have done differently? What was my biggest win today? How will tomorrow look? I'm no genius, but it's working for me, and I want to challenge you to do it as well. "Tracking Your Performance" episode resources This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler's League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time

In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk about how to take advantage of the power of chat when growing your business. Many organizations have struggled to capitalize on the power of chat, but Amir and Tom share the struggles they’ve had using chat and how we can overcome them. Tom Jenkins and Amir Reiter help companies scale their workforce without having to get offices, pay insurance and taxes, or worry about hiring and training. Instead, they offer technology and strategy. At CloudTask, they provide sales development reps, they manage account executives convenient and they manage the customer success/account reps responsible for renewals and upselling to existing customers. They comprise one office. If someone wants to hire five sales reps, five account executives or five support reps, they will all be in office and managed so that the customer gets what they want – representation and results. By specializing in sales, customer success and customer support, CloudTask is the best of the breed. [00:51] THE POWER OF CHAT One of the biggest issues is a lack of clearly defined ownership. If you look at our partners at Drift.com for instance, their ability to work as a bot or as a human can confuse whether chat is owned by marketing or by sales. Marketing is typically used to drive traffic to forms, to blogs and to sign-ups. As such, marketing tends to prefer automation. Sales, however, relies on people first, so deciding who owns chat is often a hurdle. Failure to assign ownership then creates a failure to act or a failure to implement correctly. [02:19] We manage a lot of cloud chat programs and have noticed that many people view chat as just another tool for the reps to use in addition to calling, emailing, LinkedIn, etc. Rather, with a high volume of web traffic, chat is a key tool in the generation of qualified leads. In fact, because chat allows you to respond quickly with the right answers and in the right way, it can be your number one lead generation tool. [03:17] QUALIFY LEADS People today want answers now. They expect to be able to go onto a website and to be able to chat. It has worked well in the B2C world but is really moving quickly into the B2B world as well. We are finding that an MQL (marketing qualified lead) or SQL (sales qualified lead) that chats with a member of the sales team is 2-3 times more likely to close versus one that goes through the process of filling out a form. It makes sense. A form is stationary and available to anybody. With chat, you are able to quickly let people qualify themselves with a friendly discussion. For example, suppose someone wants to hire a sales rep. Within a few moments, we can discuss salaries and budgets and determine right away if it is something to pursue, or not. [04:54] CHAT CONVERSATION Chat does not replace cold calling or emailing but it does allow the person who visits your website to have a conversation with you and determine for themselves if they want to move forward. The desire to engage is up to the visitor. As the sales rep, you increase the level of engagement with your replies. Consider “I’m here to help sales leaders every day, how can I help you?” instead of “How are you?” People want to work with companies that can fix their problems. Target the message to visitors as much as you can in order to increase engagement with them. You will receive visitors who want to know more about the topic rather than starting from scratch. You don’t want to write too much in a chat forum, of course. Start by keeping the conversation focused on the problems you are trying to solve for your prospects. [06:48] The initial engagement is absolutely key but response time is just as essential. Buyers are conducting research and they want answers. Failure to respond within one minute, despite having the best response in the world, exponentially decreases the likelihood of obtaining a qualified lead. #saleschat CLICK TO TWEET It is imperative to be super sharp and to answer quickly. [08:10] PIQUE CURIOSITY When you give visitors the information they want to the questions they ask, they begin to ask the more sales-related questions themselves. Knowing how to give people the right amount of information so as to pique their curiosity without being overly aggressive is a skill. For example, the best way to answer many of the questions about a technology product is with a demo. An aggressive tactic might be “this is the best product and it will solve all your problems.” “We want you to get your eyes on this to see what you think about it” is a better approach, however. It allows the buyer to have ownership in the decision. Chat also identifies return visitors so that you don’t have to start all over from the beginning each time. [09:42] SALES OR MARKETING When Sales and Marketing are aligned as a team with the common goal of getting customers, ownership is less important. When Sales and Marketing are not aligned, better results occur when chat ownership is wi

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk with Kris Nelson, head of sales for CoSchedule.com, about how businesses can move from "click, try, buy" to having a full-fledged sales team. CoSchedule is a SaaS-based marketing platform that helps marketers to stay organized through a combination of content calendar, a product, project management solutions and execution via social campaigns and email campaigns. CoSchedule took the time to focus on true growth and the company has seen tremendous results. Prior to reaching that point, however, the business, which began as a "click, try and buy," didn’t even have a sales team. When "click, try, and buy" works Initially, they released the product as a straightforward "click, try and buy," product because it made sense at the time. They also designed it for small teams and individuals. The level of product and the price point didn’t really dictate a need for a dedicated sales team. [01:26] As the product progressed and became more complicated, however, it became apparent that they needed a sales team to help the clients really understand how CoSchedule could benefit them. It was simply a natural progression to establish a sales force as the product grew and the price point increased, especially with some of the advanced plans. They moved away from the "click, try and buy," and toward a professional marketing team and into a standard sales cycle. [03:17] Bringing whiskey to a Kool-Aid party I’ve always thought it was a waste of time and resources to have the sales reps focus on low-end sales, think $15 a month kind of stuff because customers don’t need help making a decision at the price point. Higher end products are different. Companies who ask customers to pay more become more concerned with the quality of the product, and that's when you need a sales team. It is truly an overkill to engage someone in a formalized, professional sales cycle at some of the lower price points. At the higher price points, it makes total sense. You have to be sure you are asking the right questions of the organization to make sure your product is a fit. The sale is nice but long-term happy customers are the true goal. [04:25] Move toward a sales force Kris credits CEO and co-founder of CoSchedule, Garrett Moon, as the person who helped take the company where it is today. It began with a series of phone calls to prospects to see if the market was viable and to see if it made sense to move the price point. Once that was established as true, Moon hired more people, including Kris, and the sales process was on its way. [05:58] Kris says that CoSchedule is still an extremely heavy inbound model. They still decide the best fit for each client, whether that be the "click, try and buy," model for the lower level plans, or working with a sales rep for the higher level plans. Kris really had to learn and understand the buying process of the companies that use CoSchedule to determine how many real touch points would be needed from a sales standpoint to be effective. Three-call process CoSchedule has a three-call process in place now. The first, known as the discovery call, allows the sales team to learn more about the client’s business, teach them about CoSchedule and then try to determine at a really high level if there is a potential business fit. If everything matches from a budget standpoint and a use case standpoint, they move forward with the second call. The second call is a full-scale demonstration of the product. It provides a great chance for the client to invite all their team members who might use the tool. Kris and his team go through the product with a fine-toothed comb and answer any questions. During this timeframe, they give the potential clients access to a free trial of CoSchedule; a chance to kick the tires. If the team is still checking the right boxes by the end they move into the pricing discussion. [07:28] CoSchedule provides a great tool for marketing organizations and other small organizations to all get on the same page. Their customers often refer to CoSchedule as the single source of truth for all their marketing efforts. Whether it's a social media campaign, or a large trade show event, or a podcast, CoSchedule acts as the organization hub for everything. [08:55] Although they designed CoSchedule with a marketing focus, Kris believes it is also beneficial from an internal project management standpoint. It puts a formal process in place. All the checklist items and all the behind-the-scenes items that go into a large-scale effort are put into a central location with CoSchedule. It unites everyone involved with the effort on the same page. Everyone can see what works well, what needs more work, and where the team must focus to get the product out the door. [09:53] Building a sales team Growing a sales team, of course, presents a challenge because there are as many different ways that salespeople sell and lots of ways that people sell effectively. Kris works to u

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we're talking to Kathleen Hessert and Krista Jasso about the newest generation and how to adjust your sales process when selling Gen Z. Kathleen launched a project called We R Gen Z because she saw a lack of information about the newest generation because the marketplace was completely focused on millennials. Her organization conducts original research with a bank of 1,000 teens on a monthly basis to understand Gen Z. Krista -- a member of Gen Z herself -- works as the social media coordinator and intern coordinator for We R Gen Z and she believes that her generation will take the world by storm. Massive spending Gen Z spends $44 billion a year in the U.S. and influences $600 billion when it comes to household spending. It's vital for the marketplace to understand that Gen Z will make up 40 percent of the U.S. population and 37 percent of the global population by the year 2020. [3;47] Organizations that exclude them will be behind in their sales efforts, and they may never catch up. Mistakes selling Gen Z Sellers often talk down to Gen Z and the generation sees it. Gen Z has what Krista calls a "strong BS filter," and they see right through lack of authenticity. The generation values authentic, genuine behavior. Gen Z is turned off by fake, flashy marketing, instead choosing brands that are transparent about what they value and believe. [6:50] Gen Z cares about who is behind the product as well as the product or service itself. They care about what top executives are saying about topics such as politics and the environment. They include countless outside factors in their decision-making and if a brand doesn't match what they are looking for, they won't support it. Gen Z trends We R Gen Z hosts a trends panel that evaluates what's hot and what's not for the generation. Organizations should understand that Gen Z are the next creators and innovators. Those companies need the young people of Gen Z more than the young people need their products or services. They will buy or shun organizations based on their values and their passion. When Nike included Colin Kaepernick in its commercials, one member of We R Gen Z put all his Adidas clothes away and wore only Nike for two weeks to honor the decision made by the company. [10:19] The founder of Tom's Shoes gave $5 million to anti-gun-violence in response to a school shooting in California, marking the largest corporate donation ever to this particular issue. The decision resonated with Gen Z. Business is more than money, especially for Gen Z. Older marketers can miss this if they try throwing more money at the marketing effort. Instead, marketers should look at the lifetime value of a Gen Z customer, which is a lot higher than the lifetime value of an older customer who has been with the company for a number of years. [12:13] Digital natives Managers must remember that Gen Z asks why. Previous generations were taught not to question authority, but Gen Z asks why, not to be disrespectful, but to understand the reasoning behind decisions. The generation is curious and they want to understand motivations. Gen Z is also the first generation to be true digital natives. They grew up in a world where the Internet was prolific. When they seek information, their first source is Google and their second is Instagram. [14:29] They tend to seek a wide range of different perspectives on a topic. If someone tells them one thing, Gen Z tends to seek other voices before making decisions because they are used to this expansive focus. Gen Z and video Gen Z responds better to video than past generations. Primarily, the generation watches YouTube and Netflix more than they watch regular television. Many of them learn new things like how to play instruments simply by watching YouTube videos. [16:39] Companies can't take traditional routes when selling Gen Z. We R Gen Z's research shows that 48 percent of respondents said that social media influences their purchases most. Big sales are next because the generation is more frugal than its predecessors and they are watching their dollars more carefully. Companies have to be on social media, present it in an awesome way, and be there for the right reasons at the right time. They've seen all kinds of incredible creativity and they expect it cool and different and new each time they interact with a brand. [20:45] Reaching Gen Z Brands must actually engage with this generation on social media. Consumers are looking to see that brands are liking comments and responding to comments. They must show that they are authentic and real. They must also understand that 64 percent of Gen Z will buy things via smartphones. Most of Gen Z will look to reviews before buying and that they will sometimes buy a product because their friends vouch for it. That suggestion will carry more weight than any marketing campaign. [24:41] Other findings are that 65 percent won't use voice tech such as Siri and Alexa to buy, thoug

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we discuss time management and how daily planning can help you be more effective in your role as a seller. It seems like there is never enough time in the day to get things done. We need an extra day in the week or at least an extra hour a day. I was always so busy that it felt like I didn’t even have time to sit down to read a book. Even knowing how important personal development was, I always managed to put it off. Then, I took a vacation. It is amazing how much you can do when you are in the air for five hours with limited distraction. So what changed? What happened? The amount of time I had certainly didn’t change. My focus did. The concept of daily planning How many times have you been told to try daily planning? Now, how many times have you actually done it? [02:04] If you are the modern seller that I know you are, you are distracted. Reading proposals, talking to customers, going to meetings, checking email ... These are all distractions. Every time an email pings your phone, you are pulled in a different direction. Everyone - from internal teams to clients to prospects to friends - is vying for your time and attention. As a result, important things fall through the cracks. You finish at the end of each day and find yourself wondering if you accomplished anything at all. It all goes back to the very powerful principle of being acted upon as opposed to acting. [02:59] Essentialism Thinking back to a previous episode when we spoke to Greg McKeown about his book Essentialism, I’m reminded that we can’t have priorities. The plural of the word ‘priority’ shouldn’t even exist. There can only be one priority. Essentialism means to focus on the essentials. As a seller, your most important task is to bring in new customers and close deals. So, what activities will lead you to that result? Until you understand what you need to do as a seller, you will not be able to stay focused. You will always be acted upon. Sure, there will always be important distractions but oftentimes they are not the activities that you need to do to accomplish your goal. [04:46] To help you stay focused and have the time to do the things that matter the most, I want you to think about these three questions: Will the activity move me toward my essential goal of helping people make a decision and close a deal? Do I have to do it? Is this a task that no one else can do? Does it have to be done right now? If the activity doesn’t tie into your goal or responsibility, don’t do it. Set your focus Let’s suppose you’ve set a goal to prospect for 30 minutes a day. It is certainly a step towards achieving your goal, so it needs to be done. But do you have to do it yourself? Or could you pass some of it off to an internal sales team? Or to someone on Fiverr.com? Suppose you get a call from your boss and she needs a report. Does she need it right now? Is there someone on your team that can take care of it for you? If you are the only one who can do it, can you move it to the end of the day so as not to take away from your prime working time? When you focus on the essential things, the distractions fall away. The things that used to pull you away move out of focus. [05:41] I recommend taking an hour each week to plan for the upcoming week. Be sure you are fully vetted and ready so that you can avoid those distractions. What are the important tasks ahead? Schedule everything out. Set time for social media, time for prospecting, time for appointments ... You can even set time to receive emails using Boomerang, or Google, so that you aren’t pinged throughout the entire day. [08:46] You are acting rather than being acted upon. Once you have the weekly focus set, spend a few minutes at the end of each day to make any necessary adjustments. You will already know what you will do the next day as soon as you arrive at the office. This makes life so much more productive! Plan your day Taking the time to plan your day will save you time. Forget about your friends' Instagram posts. Focus instead on the things that will help you grow your business, grow your pipeline and have a killer year. [11:45] Make the effort. If it sounds like too much work, then by all means - go back to winging it. But if you do, promise me that you will compare your results to the person who is not winging it. How much more productive are they? Are they hitting their goals? Are they working with less stress, fewer headaches, and less frustration? Probably. I share this with you because I’ve been there. I know it works and I’ve seen the huge difference it can make. Try it. Give it a month. I don’t think you will regret it. "Daily Planning" episode resources If you have additional questions or want more insight, email me at [email protected]. I may not answer it right away (because I'm scheduling my time) but I'll get back to you as soon as possible. This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension fo

Today we talk to Meridith Powell about driving sales in the 4th quarter and how organizations can drive success from the selling side as well as the leadership side. Meridith was voted one of the top 15 business growth experts to watch, largely because she is passionate about helping clients learn strategies to succeed in any economy. 4th quarter complications Meridith calls the 4th quarter of the year her favorite because typically organizations have relaxed a bit and let their guards down. That presents an opportunity for other organizations to put on what she calls a full-court press while everyone else has relaxed. Everyone takes their foot off the gas at the end of the year. They've been working hard all year, and they have achieved decent numbers, so they aren't worried about driving sales in the 4th quarter. They are tired, and when Thanksgiving rolls around, it's followed soon after by Christmas. The cold weather makes it an easy time to be a bit lazier. She calls it the perfect storm of sales laziness. You must keep selling during the 4th quarter to keep that quarter strong. Additionally, though, sales has a lag time. The sales you make in the 4th quarter will determine how well your 1st quarter goes. If you don't invest energy into 4th quarter sales, you'll establish a self-fulfilling prophecy for the 1st quarter and you'll be behind all year long. Begin in October It's never too late to salvage the 4th quarter. [Tweet "Embrace the 4th quarter as an opportunity. Shift your paradigm and recognize that this isn't the time to stop selling; it's the time to start selling. #4thquartersales"] Proceed carefully, though. There's a lot happening in the 4th quarter and your clients and prospects have to-do lists of their own. Establish a plan, and identify a sales leader who will focus on driving sales in the 4th quarter. Even if you don't have one, determine who you need to connect with during the 4th quarter. List your top clients, your best prospects, and those who could be doing more business with you. Once you have that list, design the touches. Focus on thanking them for an amazing year and let them know you'll get in touch with them at the first of the year to establish a plan for the next year. Plan for sales in January If you want your January to be productive, you must lay the groundwork in December by booking appointments. By connecting with people at the end of the year and again in January, you keep yourself visible with your most important customers. As a bonus, you're likely to find organizations that need to dump money before the end of the year to avoid paying taxes. For those customers who haven't yet committed, you've taken one more step to move forward at a time when everyone else is resting. 4th quarter trouble If you haven't hit your numbers by the start of the 4th quarter, you're likely in trouble. Desperation sets in and you make decisions you wouldn't otherwise make. Meridith said that when she consults teams, she often finds that 4th quarter is their greatest struggle. She insists that buyers can smell desperation and they aren't interested in working with desperate sellers. When your 4th quarter strategy focuses on thanking them for their business and coordinating for the 1st quarter of the following year, you lose the smell of desperation and you end up making deals. You're also setting yourself up strong for the new year so that next year's 4th quarter won't end badly. Give up the day If you're listening to this episode and you haven't hit your numbers for the year, let it go. Think of it as cheating on a diet and realize that you'll do better next time. If you push hard to make your numbers now, you may get there, but you'll likely drive your customers away. Instead, focus on staying visible and starting 2019 really strong. You'll maintain your credibility and you'll keep your focus on the buyer instead of focusing on yourself. You can't play basketball by focusing entirely on the scoreboard. You have to look at the ball. You must keep your focus on the prospect. Take responsibility The reality for sales leaders is the same for sellers. If your team hasn't hit its goal by the 4th quarter, you don't want to give up the lifetime cycle of a client in an effort to make last-minute sales. Take responsibility for the fact that your team didn't hit the goals. As a leader, you have total responsibility for those goals. You must give them the strategy, the plan, and the accountability to achieve their numbers in the next year. Begin with an autopsy of the things that prevented you from hitting your numbers. Resolve to learn from your mistakes, and do it as a team. Determine the things you did really well, and try to identify where you lost deals. Meridith calls it seeds, weeds, and needs. Seeds are those things we need to keep doing in order to drive growth. Weeds are the things that weigh us down and get in our way. Needs are the things we need to be doing that we aren't currently doin

oday on The Sales Evangelist, we're going to talk about the fear of prospecting, how your coworkers often contribute to it, and how you can overcome your fear of rejection. Fear of rejection often keeps salespeople from going after potential deals, but it doesn't have to be this way. Intimidation If you're a new rep and your teammates warn you to stay away from a certain account, it can cause you to fear to reach out at all. In our case, a seller named Rick found himself in this exact situation. He believed so strongly in what he had to offer that he actually went to visit the client. [3:07] He spoke to the prospect's receptionist and he left information with her that she could pass on to the VP of the company. Several days passed and he didn't hear from the receptionist or the VP. Fortunately, his confidence outweighed his fear of rejection. He called the prospect at 7:30 a.m. and was able to talk to the exec because the receptionist wasn't there yet. Eventually, he closed the deal that his coworkers said couldn't be closed. His co-workers could have solved the problem as well, but they allowed the warnings and stories to intimidate. They never reached out to him. TSE Certified Sales Training In our TSE Certified Sales Training program, the first lesson we teach is how to prospect like an evangelist. The first thing we discuss is how to overcome the fear of rejection. [4:58] Fear results when we believe that someone is going to cause us harm or pain. But how does that belief come into existence? Because we were taught or coached to be fearful of the word no. When we were kids, we didn't fear being told no. But as we got older, we became conditioned to the idea that no is bad. Knowing the problems Rick did believe that he could be rejected, but he had a greater belief that he could solve a problem for the prospect. In many cases, because we don't understand what the prospect's challenges are, we have little confidence in our ability to solve problems for him. [6:57] To overcome fear, you must develop confidence in what you have to offer. The more times you successfully solve problems for comp0anies, the more confident you'll become. [Tweet "That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not because the nature of the thing changes, but our ability to do it changes. #BuildConfidence"] If you make enough calls, speak with enough prospects, and solve enough problems, you can become more confident. Getting better If you could listen to your very first cold call, you'd probably cringe because it sounds so awful. But imagine if you gave up after that very first cold call. Imagine if you gave up the first time someone yelled at you. [8:14] You'd never be where you are right now. Instead, because you kept doing it, you became confident. If you listen to the very first episodes of this podcast, you might think I should have gotten more training before I started. Now, 985 episodes later, we're still creating episodes. Imagine all the money we've generated, the business opportunities we've created, and the salespeople we've helped over the years. You must have a belief that is stronger than fear. [9:30] Gain that by doing things over and over again. Also, gather as much intel as you possibly can about your prospect's problem. "Fear of Prospecting" episode resources If this episode was helpful to you, share it with someone else who can benefit from it. Help them overcome their fear of rejection. The TSE Certified Sales Training program targets new and struggling salespeople working for small to midsize companies. The sales training course will help you plan your day, understand prospecting, build value, and convert more customers. You can work through the course alone or as part of a group of 25 people. Click here to learn more or to register for the next course. This episode is brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We'll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler's League to focus on prospecting. We'll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we'll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. Check out our new semester of The Sales Evangelist Hustler's League. We're taking applications for the semester beginning in January, and we can only take a limited number of people. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherev

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to Matt Hernandez about the changes in the marketplace, and how the ability to find local partners has helped him drive more revenue for the businesses he serves. In his work with small-to-medium businesses, Matt has worked to figure out new ways to deal with leads because people have become more resistant to cold calling. He believes that, although cold-calling can work, it must exist in the right circumstances. The key is better lead intelligence. Hire the right people Matt doesn't struggle with recruiting or interviewing salespeople. The key, he says, is to be very upfront about the challenges of the role and hire the right type of people. Hire open-minded people who aren't super particular about their activities and who often aren't as needy. [7:15] They'll be more coachable. Also be very honest about the type of role you're hiring for, the challenges it will present, but also the benefits of the role as well. Moving away from cold leads In the past, sellers would have a name and a phone number and they could attack each cold lead with different opens or different hooks. Now, he says, people are numb to that approach. Instead, his company looked to generate inbound leads and lukewarm leads. Matt's company uses a program called "Local Partners" that pays contractors to feed them warm or hot leads from local areas. He pointed out that using pure commission models doesn't change your cost structure. [9:14] He does acknowledge that you must make sure the payment is in line with the revenue goals. You must make sure your customer acquisition costs aren't too high. Big revenue increases Matt's company has seen strong results from the move away from cold calling. He estimates that the effort now accounts for 5 to 15 percent of their deals. He predicts that this kind of effort would likely work in a variety of industries. Companies just have to be creative to figure out how to scale in a cost-effective way. Buying leads can be very expensive, but a pay-for-results model can work if the infrastructure is set up properly. [11:10] Partnerships model Begin by listing as on Craigslist in the cities you're interested in. State what you're offering and decide ahead of time how much you can afford to pay. Decide how much you'd be willing to pay someone if they were to generate meetings or contracts. For longer sales cycles, you might have to pay per demo. [12:09] In shorter sales cycles, you pay based upon generating contracts. In your ad, provide a range of income that interested parties could generate per month. Then you could interview over the phone or in person or over video. The effort is super cheap, super easy and really scrappy. Be willing to pivot Be creative. Sales requires consistency and training and the right effort for the right amount of time. Without it, you'll never see meaningful results or data you can measure. [14:54] Seek objective advice and make sure you're giving your new ideas time to work. If things aren't going the way you want despite your effort, don't be afraid to pivot and try new approaches. Be willing to try something different. The marketplace changes rapidly, and technology does, too. You have to be willing to adapt. Fivestars Local businesses are the best candidates to benefit from Fivestars because they are traditionally underserved in their marketing efforts. They often face huge competition from groups of businesses that pool their resources. [15:59] Think of a small coffee shop competing against Starbucks, who has millions of dollars to spend on advertising. Fivestars has created a software that costs pennies on the dollar because the cost is spread across 10,000 merchants. It's an incredible solution for anyone who owns a local business with a physical location. "Find Local Partners" episode resources Connect with Matt via email at [email protected]. If you need a way to get more customers in the door, Fivestars works with more than 40 million consumers who use the platform. This episode is brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, a personalized and robust CRM with the capability to organize your company and effectively line up not only your sales but your client’s success. Go to TheSalesEvangelist.com/maximizer for a free demonstration. We are also brought to you by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. It has changed the way we prospect. Take advantage of the risk-free trial they offer specifically for the TSE community. First three months at half-price? You can’t beat that! To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher or wherever you enjoy fine podcasts. And be sure to subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends! Audio provided by Free SFX and Benso

n today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, I talk to Todd Earwood about the adage that we need not reinvent the wheel, but Todd is doing just that. Todd famously cold-called the CEO of a billion dollar company for 43 straight days until he finally got the interview, and then the job. He began his career in software. It wasn’t until he was making the rounds to thank investors for the success of his latest software endeavor that he realized that marketing was his real niche. As Todd explains it, one of the investors simply asked Todd what his future plans were, which seemed like such a silly question at the question. Software was all he had ever done. But the investor went on to say that marketing and sales were really the special skills he saw in Todd. Todd reluctantly agreed and MoneyPath began. [00:54] Clear the path to purchases through quality marketing AtMoneyPath, Todd and his group of marketers ‘clear the path to purchases.’ It is their tagline because they are dedicated to helping sales. In the marketing world of pretty pictures and shiny objects, the reality is that without the lifeblood of qualified leads coming into the sales team, good things are not going to happen. Budgets will be cut and people will lose their jobs. But if you can master the marketing side of things, then the company grows. Everybody is happy and everybody wins. In the software environment, Todd was willing to experiment and fail. He looked beyond the traditional social channels, the paid media and the heavy use of emails. To begin, Todd and his team did an email research project where they opted into the funnels of the top 300 SAS software companies to see what those companies would do with a cold lead. The number one email topic returned to Todd’s team was about content. The second topic was webinars and that is when things really began to change. Now instead of writing six blog posts a week, Todd and his team create one great webinar every 15 days. Before long, they had created a massive educational series with more and more content. Reinventing the webinar to keep listeners engaged The old model is clearly broken because nobody really gets excited about ‘this week’s webinar’. People sign up but they don’t attend. Todd and his team wanted to change that. [03:38] There is a poor functionality with the current webinar system. It fails to keep the listeners engaged. Even when the topic sounds interesting, we never get around to actually listening to it, or to listening to it wholeheartedly. Todd realized that the engagement model needed to change. It needed to become interesting and engaging. There is just too much information and too many ways to deliver it. As a marketer, you are vying for the attention of the clients so you have to do something different. As Todd explains, unless you hire Kevin Hart or Adele, it is too hard for one person to carry 30-60-90 minutes of content. So at Webinar Works, they always have at least two speakers: a host and a thought leader. Bringing in leads The host facilitates all the basics and keeps it moving. The host will almost immediately facilitate a poll to grab people’s attention and get them actively participating with the webinar. Todd has seen up to 60% of the attendees join in because their webinars break the expectation of ‘another crappy webinar’ from the very start. The thought leader for each webinar is the expert on the subject. They aren’t there to read their own bio or tell the listeners how great they are. The thought leaders are there to educate and to share their wisdom. [06:44] The ultimate purpose of the webinar, aside from providing information to the listeners, is to obtain information from those listeners at the end in the form of a segmentation poll which generates qualified, high intent leads. This could be something as simple as asking the listeners to select the one issue addressed in the webinar that best fits their organization. With that information, the sales rep now has a tracking mechanism that tells him which listeners actually listened to the entire webinar, as well as which listeners requested assistance. That is way better than cold calling 2,000 people. [10:21] Leads delivered by the webinar The Webinar was interesting but I want to do more research. This is not a hot lead. It is a cool lead that needs some nurturing before it goes to the sales team. I really enjoyed the webinar but I need to refer any decision to my colleague. With this response, the sales rep knows the problem is there and the interest is there but that more research is needed to move into the right part of the organization. I want to learn more! This is the hot lead button that should be flagged as a real person with interest. [11:11] Beginning of the sales process The live webinar event may be over but the sales work is not done. As a marketer, Todd can help you divide that 42-minute webinar into three or five smaller clips so when a listener has a problem or a question, you will be ab

Today on The Sales Evangelist we’ll talk about planning and setting effective goals. It’s that time of year again where we find ourselves contemplating our achievements over the past 12 months. Some of us reached our sales goals and some of us did not, but we can all benefit from reflecting on what worked well, and what did not work at all. HAVE A PLAN There’s a difference between setting goals by ‘throwing a dart at the goal wall’ versus setting goals based on the experiences that we are guided towards by the people we meet. It is the difference between having hope and having a plan. [03:27] A ‘throw a dart’ goal is as simple as choosing a random number – say $80,000 for example – and then setting that as your commission goal. But why that number? Are you simply hoping to make $80K, or do you have an actual plan in place to achieve it? I hope I lose 10lbs next year, I hope I win the lottery, I hope we get out of work early… Those are all just hopes because there is no plan in place to accomplish any of it. You have no control over the outcome. Goals, however, are fact-based. Let’s consider again the idea of earning $80K in commissions. If you made $40K last year and you know you want to push yourself more next year, does doubling your income seem realistic? Or is a goal of $60-65K more reasonable? [04:16] UNREALISTIC GOALS The problem with repeatedly setting goals that are not based on fact is the likelihood of failing to meet them. It becomes a vicious cycle. We fall short of our goal, we feel deflated as a result, and we stop trying. This contradicts Grant Cardone’s 10x Concept but hear me out. Let’s say I went to my manager and told him that I am going to try to get a million dollars in revenue for the year. We put that idea in motion and plan around it despite that, in reality, my highest revenue ever was $50K. It’s just not going to happen because it is an unrealistic goal from the start. [05:10] So what steps can you take to ensure that your goal is both realistic but also pushes you to achieve more? I have five that I want you to consider. [06:50] REASONABLE AND ACHIEVABLE GOALS Learn from the experience of others. Talk with your teammates that have done well or talk with your manager. Find out what goals they set when they were new to the business. What steps did they take? What is a reasonable goal in their opinion? Put your goal in writing. Once you have decided on a reasonable goal, write it down and put it where you can see it. Studies have proven that goals that are written down are more likely to be achieved because there is a confidence that comes from taking that first step. Focus on fewer goals. This may sound counterproductive but do you really have the time and energy to reach your sales goals, be the top seller, get 10 new clients every week, go to the gym every day, travel the world and achieve those lofty 10x goals? Wouldn’t it make more sense to break it down into fewer achievable goals instead? Your goal needs to be measurable and specific. Suppose, after talking with your teammates, you’ve set a realistic goal of $50K. The next step in achieving that goal is to decide how, specifically, you will achieve it. Break it down. How many new clients, for example, would you need to achieve the $50K? If gaining eight new clients is possible based on previous experience, then a goal of 10 new clients is not so far-fetched. [09:06] [12:21] Divide the goal into manageable pieces. The beauty of the book The Twelve Week Year is that it breaks the entire year down into 12-week increments so that you can take your goal and divide it into quarterly goals. How many appointments, how many new clients, how many presentations etc. do you need, on a quarterly basis, to stay on track? Put those calculations into your calendar and work toward them on a regular basis. It really helped me to achieve my goals because it is so manageable. I can focus on what I need to do each day or each week to achieve my end goal instead of just hoping that it magically comes together at that end. A quarterly focus on a realistic goal enables you to turn the process into a habit. Once you have the system down, you can replicate it over and over again. You are going to see measurable and amazing results. [09:57] We’ve had our best year yet at The Sales Evangelist and I want to make sure you can do the same. I’ve been in your shoes and I really enjoy helping new sellers however I can. We are already planning for next year by taking a look at what we’ve accomplished this year and what we hope to accomplish moving forward. I hope that today’s podcast will help you do the same. “GOALS” EPISODE RESOURCES Get a free download of the Twelve Week Year, as well as a 30-day free trial of the audible version, at audible trial.com/TSE. Check out our Facebook group, The Sales Evangelizers. It is for sellers all over the world to share insights, ideas, ask questions, and so forth. If you are not pleased with your CRM or think it could be f

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we’re going to hear from David DeRam, CEO and co-founder of Greenlight Guru, about the “it” factor, and how it can change the culture in any organization. CULTURE At Greenlight Guru, David and his team spend a lot of time focusing on culture. He calls the company culture unique, but he says that culture doesn’t fall down on you like rain. You don’t experience culture; you participate in it. Leaders can think about culture and work to create culture, but leaders can’t execute culture. It’s like a plant that will grow the way that it grows, and if everyone isn’t on board with the culture, the culture won’t grow the way leaders want it to. [4:51] As a result, David’s team looks to everyone on the team to get involved and participate in the culture. Culture drives results. It impacts every single nook and cranny of your business. #WorkCulture CLICK TO TWEET People will work how they feel, and if they feel great, they’ll bring an entirely different energy to their efforts. PROFESSION David’s team intentionally calls work your profession. He points to the fact that the leaders in every industry, (think Tiger Woods, Warren Buffet, Jimi Hendrix) have devoted themselves to their work. Their work is their profession. [6:35] Listeners of this podcast have devoted their lives to sales and it’s their profession. Your profession isn’t just what you do; it’s what you believe. David’s team has worked to bring all of those aspects into the culture. Companies tend to focus on results, and by focusing on results you can miss the one thing you desire the most, which is the people, culture, and execution. “IT” FACTOR David became immediately aware of the “it” factor when he subbed as a coach for a little league baseball team. As soon as he encountered the players on the team, he could tell who the natural athletes were. They moved naturally. They were confident. The true players were like fish in water. David took the lessons he learned from that sports experience and moved them into his business. He prioritizes where people aim in order to find leaders. Setting the bar high for yourself can create a lot of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. People with the “it” factor know how to set the bar high because they understand that the vision they create is more exciting than the fear they experience as a result of setting it there. [9:46] You can feel the “it” factor when you meet people. They have reached high levels in everything they’ve done and they have a lot of swagger. They’ve survived a lot of hardship. ALLIGATOR BLOOD One of the company’s core values is something it calls “alligator blood,” which refers to those people who are resistant to the endless psychological blows, and competitive enough to keep pounding away on others when they are ahead. Not everyone is wired that way. You can coach it and build it, but when you find the “it” factor, you’re in the right place. The people who love the struggle and who set the bar really high for themselves exude an energy that spreads to the people around them. [12:21] TEACHING CULTURE David’s team focuses on the medical device industry. It’s a tough industry with a complicated product and a complicated regulatory environment, and the rules are constantly changing. Instead of spending time talking about how hard the work is, the company focuses on true quality and being great. They take a one-game-at-a-time mentality, knowing that you can’t win the Super Bowl in week 1. [17:09] Because the team understands that there’s a long way to go, it’s able to focus on execution. David’s hiring process strives to bring people to the team who naturally fit that culture. Some personalities might work really well in other industries, but not in David’s industry. It’s not in the company’s DNA to have a bad actor in the company. The best way to destroy a company is from the inside. The same is true of building it. David’s team measures its success partly by whether the entire team is living the core values. CULTURE SHIFT If you discover that your culture isn’t exactly where you’d like it to be, begin inside the organization. [19:50] People who have had to perform in the past and really put themselves out there for the good of the team (like authors, musicians, and athletes) often make great recruits. If a person doesn’t fit your core values, no matter how talented he is, you will have to unravel a huge mess if you hire him. RAISING THE LEVEL OF PLAY People with the “it” factor have a combination of God-given ability, work ethic, fun, and what David calls bounce. [20:57] They win battles, they win games, they overcome odds, they win championships, and along the way, they raise the energy and the level of play for the people around them. The team gets better, and the players respond and get better. When that happens, you’ve got something really special. “IT FACTOR” EPISODE RESOURCES David’s team is always hiring people who want to play at the highest level.

I received an email the other day from a sales rep that I found so annoying that I am dedicating this entire episode to the ways you can avoid making the same mistakes with your emails. This episode will give you ideas to make sure your emails grab your prospect’s attention so that he will reply instead of deleting your email. ANNOYING EMAILS The annoying email I received began, “Hello there.” Who is ‘there’? Do they not even know my name? I’ve done 1000+ episodes. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, and my name is easy to find. The lack of effort on the part of the sender was evident from the very start. It is almost an insult. And it didn’t improve from there as the body of the email in no way addressed my type of business or my needs. It was simply an email blast. It was, quite frankly, a waste of everyone’s time. The days of sending out crappy emails are long gone. You want your emails to encourage a reply, to start the kind of engaging conversation that will lead to a sale now, or in the future. It needs to open the door for continued discussions. [01:49] ENGAGING EMAILS Using the email I received as an example, how easy would it have been for the sales rep to look me up on LinkedIn, or on my website? Or why not call and try to find out the best point of contact for the email? Furthermore, nothing about the email had anything to do with sales. At all. It was a vague and generic email that didn’t even refer to me as a person. There was no personal connection, so why would I want to continue that conversation? Here’s what I recommend instead: Make sure the subject line is catchy. It is the first thing they will read and frankly, it might be the last thing they bother to read, so make it good. “Donald, I saw this on your website and thought it might help” is a fine example. They know my name, they know I have a website, they looked at my website … I am going to open that email. [05:11] Next, begin your email by immediately referencing the thought contained in the subject line. Don’t tell them your name, or your company name because they don’t need it right now. It can all be found later in the signature block at the end. Don’t even worry about saying hello – just dive into the issue. BE DIRECT “Donald, I noticed on your sales page that it wasn’t loading properly at the end. This could be caused by X or Y. I would love to talk with you about how we’ve helped other podcasters fix it….” That difference makes all the difference! It is simple and easy to read. It provides insight and ideas, informs me of a potential problem and offers a clear step to solve it. Instead of the overused and generic “We can help you save money/get more leads,” the email is specific and offers value to the targeted business. [06:41] Another example of a good email: “I notice you have regular postings for new sales reps and we recently conducted a study with software companies like yours and found three critical reasons that prevent sales reps from succeeding… bullet point 1, 2, 3… Would you care to take a look at the full report?” [07:40] The goal of that email is to grab the reader’s attention, to focus on their problem of high turnover and to speak specifically to that need. Now compare that email to one that simply reads “Hey, are you hiring? Check out our new program.” One email is clearly tailored to the reader and provides relative and pertinent information, while the other certainly does not. FOCUS ON IDEAL CLIENTS To be able to personalize your emails, I recommend the age-old principle of creating a list of 50 or 100 dream clients to focus on for a week or two at a time depending on your cadence process. That focus will allow you the time to do a little research, to learn about their specific industry and to understand typical problems they might have. [09:13] You might try to connect with them on LinkedIn, engage with them there and later send an email that ties directly to that LinkedIn conversation. “It was great connecting with you on LinkedIn…” You are now someone the reader is already acquainted with so you’ll increase the likelihood of a favorable response to your email. THE TSE CERTIFIED SALES TRAINING PROGRAM These are all core fundamental principles of effective emails that we cover in greater detail in the three main courses of our new TSE Certified Sales Training Program. [10:24] The first course, Prospect Like an Evangelist, teaches sales reps how to find, attract and engage the ideal customer for their company. We talk about how to use the phone and emails. We also address how to create a flow process and how to utilize social media and mailings to grab their attention. The second semester focuses on Creating Irresistible Value – the middle of the sales process. How can we master the fundamentals of discovering what matters most to our buyers and how can we turn their interest into an appointment? We will discuss ways to have deeper discussions with our clients so they can make effective and informed decisions. The thir

Sales constantly evolves. As technology and tools change, we have new processes and strategies available to us. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we hear from Alex Glenn about the new world for CRM and mirroring pipeline and how it can help us be more effective in our sales processes. Alex runs automateddata.af, a place where customers can grab working automations for their businesses. The platform crowdsources solutions and wraps them up into a usable format for those in sales, marketing, and customer success. DEVELOPING CRM CRM has seen a bit of a shift over the last few years. Instead of being software that costs thousands of dollars and requires a great deal of training, your CRM must be more agile now. [3:51] CRM must work with your existing tools as well as the dashboards you regularly use for work. It must be easily accessible and easily connectable. Most founders are also coming around to the idea that CRM should serve as all-in-one solutions. It’s very convenient for people to access the information they need without having to lead the dashboard they already work in. BEST SOFTWARE POSSIBLE The first issue must be finding the best possible software for each process. [7:46] You want to conduct outreach — either cold emailing, cold calling or LinkedIn prospecting. Then you want to manage that person or that prospect using CRM. You’ll need post-conversion like signup, demos, and other options, and you’ll need nurturing touchpoints like email, and phone calls. Then you’ll need post-sale drips and one-to-one messaging. The problem is that all of that can’t exist in one tool, but several tools are trying to accomplish all or 75 percent of it. The “all-in-ones” represent themselves that way because they cover most of these activities, though many of the components will be somewhat bare bones. [9:20] There are issues with each of them that limit your capabilities. AUTOMATION Customers need to have timely messages that are appropriate for their specific situations. All-in-ones won’t ever be the best solution because they won’t be able to give you everything you need at every step. Google Apps is global now, and many people in the tech and startup scenes are using it because there’s so much collaboration possible. [11:55] But if your cold outreach system isn’t talking to your CRM and talking to your website, then you can cause a lot of confusion because you might be messaging someone in LinkedIn while you’re sending emails at the same time. It can make your efforts seem disorganized. You need a tool that syncs your pipeline stages. (Click here to access the video of Alex navigating some of these tools.) [17:47] BENEFITS This capability allows small organizations to do really effective cold outreach. You may have gotten slapped for cold outreach before because you were sending too many emails or you got blacklisted. That doesn’t mean cold outreach doesn’t work. That may result because you weren’t using the right platform or because your setup was wrong. The second possibility is that you weren’t doing it well. Perhaps you weren’t nurturing them effectively. [33:18] If your pipeline stages aren’t in sync through the different outreach systems or the different tools that you’re using, you could create a poor customer experience. Whether you use a system like this or an all-in-one system together with a cold outreach system, make sure your pipeline stages are clearly outlined. Know what’s going on at each stage. Make sure each tool is being updated based upon where the customer is and how he interacted with your tools. “NEW WORLD FOR CRM AND MIRRORING PIPELINE” EPISODE RESOURCES You can connect with Alex at automated.af and email him at [email protected]. Automated hopes to build out so that it will offer something for everyone. Check out the tools Alex mentioned in the episode: persistiq.com for sales engagement with a clean interface user.com for automation software to track customer engagement useorca.com to find and engage new customers. You can also view the screenshare here. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We’ll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler’s League to focus on prospecting. We’ll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we’ll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. Check out our new semester of The Sales Evangelist Hustler’s League. We’re taking applications for the semester beginning in January, and we can only take a limited number of people. This episode is also brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, personalized CRM that gives you the confidence to improve

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we’ll talk to serial entrepreneur Justin Hartzman about how we can grow a business and why we should do it with the possibility of an acquisition in mind. Justin is the CEO and co-founder of Needls.com, the Internet’s first RoboAgency. It is the easiest and most effective way for small businesses to advertise online and bring in more sales. By answering just six questions, Needls.com knows who you are, who you want to sell to, and what you want to sell. It can create 50-500 ads in real time, deliver them to the network, and show them to your ideal customer. THE BOTTOM LINE OF ANY BUSINESS Some of us seek the independence that comes from being our own boss while others desire flexibility and creative freedom or want to achieve a sense of personal fulfillment. [1:59] The bottom line of starting any business though, as Justin explains, is to earn the financial freedom to live our lives the way we want. A successful business puts more money in our pockets and allows us the time to enjoy it. Trying to start a new business, however, is tricky. While there are more people now looking for opportunities to fund, there are also more people competing for those funds. The common approach is to build the product first. Then you find the money to produce the product next and then sell the product. Justin recommends the complete opposite approach. IF YOU SELL IT, THEY WILL COME. Sales are always first. Find out if people want your product and if they do – sell it to them. With the sales lined up and letters of intent in your hand, it becomes much easier to find people to fund your product. [3:19] For example, Justin’s fiance’ told him that a friend on Facebook was looking for someone to build an iOS app. When that need for an app turned into an immediate $60,000 contract, the light bulb turned on and Needls.com was born. People always have questions and they will always ask other for answers. Justin and his team created a software program to scan their Facebook feeds for specific words that could lead to other sales. [4:32] They soon realized a 300% increase in their business. Those sales gave them the funds they needed to takeNeedls.com where it is today. PLANNING FOR ACQUISITION Ignore those instances when a fledgling business did well and was acquired without planning for it because those are few and far between. Instead, Justin firmly believes that you need to be organized and to plan for an eventual acquisition from Day One. [8:02] Have your data in order from the start because trying to organize it later is not only time-consuming but expensive. Instead, be sure you are incorporated correctly and have a handle on your finances. Build the processes you need and scale your business at the proper cadence. Make sure your books and contracts are in order, your IP is buttoned up and all the proper NDAs are in place. Simply put: Expect to be successful and plan accordingly. ATTRACT ACQUISITION OFFERS Justin’s success has come from partnering with other businesses who can help him as he helps them. [9:01] It all comes back to sales. Sell yourself first. Make yourself useful. Find partners who will benefit from what you have to offer and take advantage of the networking opportunities, learning experiences, and industry insight they provide in return. Then when an acquisition situation arises, you are in place and you are ready. “GROW A BUSINESS RIPE FOR ACQUISITION” EPISODE RESOURCES Justin truly believes that making oneself useful to others is the key to success and, as such, he is always happy to chat or answer your questions. He can be reached at [email protected] you can find him on LinkedIn. He is also offering 35% off his entire platform for a year via needls.com/salesevan and his team is on standby to answer questions and to help you make the most of it. Check out our previous episode about why buying your competition might be a good option for your company. This episode is brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, personalized CRM that gives you the confidence to improve your business and increase profits. To get a demonstration of maximizer, go to the salesevangelists.com/maximizer. Click on the link to get a free demo of what Maximizer CRM can do for you. Maximizer is intuitive, simple, and personable. Maximizer integrates your marketing campaign as well as your CRM. It works whether you’re a small organization or a large one. It works throughout the whole organization and it’s customizable to the way you sell. This episode is also brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. TSE HUSTLER’S LEAGUE We’ll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler’s League to focus on prospecting. We’

Many of the activities in our day don’t actually help us close more deals. We’re busy doing things, but they aren’t moving our deals forward. Today we’ll talk about the things that distract us as sales reps, and how we can stop unnecessary distractions that are actually hindering our efforts. DISTRACTIONS Email is a necessary part of our sales efforts but spending time cleaning up our email isn’t an effective use of our time. If this were a football game, you wouldn’t be in the locker room trying to learn plays. Once the game starts, you’ll spend your time trying to advance the ball and score. So why do we spend our time at work doing things that aren’t conducive to closing deals? [4:30] Very often, we are hesitant to do the things that we really need to do. We don’t want to make cold calls or try to upsell our existing customers. Sellers often want to do things that are easy, so we do things that make us feel accomplished like cleaning our email instead of tackling hard tasks like cold calling and prospecting. #Productivity CLICK TO TWEET RECORD YOUR ACTIVITY Spend an entire week writing down all your activity and the amount of time you spend on it. [5:14] If you go to the kitchen to get a drink, write it down. If you talk with other team members, write that down and record how long it takes. Record all of your activities: email, updating CRM, creating proposals and attending meetings. Write down how long you spend on planning and social media. If you get sidetracked by your cell phone, write it down, and write the time next to it. As you do this over the course of a week, you’ll begin to see trends in your daily activity. ANALYZE YOUR ACTIVITY Now look at your activity and figure out which steps actually contribute to your closing deals. [6:46] Be honest about your activity and look for places that you can use your time better. Could you take a shorter lunch break a couple of days a week to create more time for sales activity? Score every activity on a scale of 1 to 3: 1’s are things that don’t help you close deals, while 3’s are things that contribute greatly to your closings. You can even use a 1 to 5 scale if that works better for you. Find the activities that aren’t helping you close deals and pay attention to the amount of time you spend on those activities. REDIRECT YOUR TIME Once you’ve identified the things that aren’t helping your efforts, figure out how that time spent cleaning out your email can be better used. Over time, these small amounts of time add up to hours that we could be using to focus on something productive. [9:13] Instead of checking ESPN, I could reach out to a prospect on LinkedIn. Eliminate tasks that you don’t need to do. Ask for accountability from your manager or your coworkers. Use apps that prevent you from accessing distracting websites. Intentionally focus on those activities that scored higher on your list. Outsource those activities that bog you down. UNCOMPLICATE THINGS Eliminate things that keep you from being the very best seller you can be. [11:41] Audit your time to see how you’re spending it. Rate your activities and eliminate unnecessary tasks. Hyperfocus on the important activities. This will change your business and your personal life when you implement it. “UNNECESSARY DISTRACTIONS” EPISODE RESOURCES This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We’ll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler’s League to focus on prospecting. We’ll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we’ll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. Check out our new semester of The Sales Evangelist Hustler’s League. We’re taking applications for the semester beginning in January, and we can only take a limited number of people. This episode is also brought to you in part by Maximizer CRM, personalized CRM that gives you the confidence to improve your business and increase profits. To get a demonstration of maximizer, go to the sales evangelists.com/maximizer. Click on the link to get a free demo of what Maximizer CRM can do for you. It integrates your marketing campaign as well as your CRM, and it works whether you’re a small organization or a large one. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode, and share with your friends! Audio pr

The last thing you want is to have your sales process abandon by your sellers. We will share with you how to prevent this. Listen to how. Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we're talking with Curt Rapp about how sellers can benefit from the experiences and knowledge of others, and how that knowledge creates shortcuts. Curt works as an independent contractor selling luxury outdoor products to consumers. During the holidays, that means Christmas lights and decorations. During the warmer months, he sells outdoor cooling systems and mosquito control. He has access to marketing collateral like CRM and other resources, but he has to bring purpose and a sense of direction to the process. He has to take ownership in the sales process and get focused. TSE Hustler's League Curt took part in our online coaching program, previously called TSE Hustler's League. He said the most valuable part of the experience was learning from other people's mistakes. Curt calls them shortcuts because he's borrowing knowledge from other people. [03:15] Learning how other people handle the daily dogfight of sales helps him borrow their knowledge the next time he finds himself in a dogfight of his own. In TSE Hustler's League, even as the administrator of the course, I learned shortcuts and other tricks from people in other industries. Silos Salespeople tend to isolate themselves because they focus on the fact that their industries are different from other industries. The truth is that although the sales industries are very different, people who sell cars can learn from people who sell bicycles. Curt said it took him several years to understand that he could learn from other people. Early on, he didn't listen to people or their advice, and he ignored shortcuts that could have helped him be more successful. [05:31] By learning from others, he gets to benefit from new information, and then he gets to share it with other people. [Tweet "Learning new information and sharing it with others means you learn twice: once when you hear it, and again when you teach it to someone else. There's tremendous value in learning from other people. #sharedexperience"] Having a plan Curt said that early in his sales career, he took everything that came his way. He wasn't selective in the choices he made. He saw opportunities all around but he didn't wait for the right opportunities. [07:08] Many of his past mistakes stemmed from dealing with people incorrectly and failing to intentionally set his expectations. As a new seller, he got excited about phone calls and appointments because he didn't have the confidence to expect them to happen. Now, he has the confidence to know that he can set appointments and close deals, and it has changed his focus. Confidence has made everything easier in the sales arena. Also, it's important to be humble enough to acknowledge that you don't have all the answers. Once you do that, you can accept help from other people. Positioned for the future Curt learned from his TSE Hustler's League experience that you must always be learning. He came to sales from an IT background, and he didn't know what he was doing. He had to be humbled, and that happened when he got around other people who were also hungry for knowledge. [10:40] Group training sessions helped Curt in a variety of ways: It gave him situational awareness. When an unfamiliar situation cropped up, he could draw on discussions he had heard other people share about the topic. It improved his skills. Group training improved his accountability. He learned that he couldn't be the guy sitting quietly in the corner of the group. He had to share and contribute something to the group. To quote the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, if you aren't sharpening your saw every day, you'll be passed over. Nothing will be handed to you. Once Curt changed his mindset to understand that he didn't know everything, his situation started to change. The TSE Hustler's League group training helped him shift his mindset to always be learning. Engage with successful people Find people who are successful. Use social media. Use online training. Become aware of all that you can learn and then put yourself in a position to learn something new. Be open to the possibilities. Change your mindset and your mentality. [13:01] Your future may not look the way you think it will, but it will likely be better than you expected. "Shortcuts" episode resources If you'd like to know more about Curt and to find out about the project he's launching in 2019 connect with him at curtisrapp.com and on Instagram @CurtisRapp. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler's League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, I am introducing our new program – the TSE Certified Sales Program. If you are a sales leader in a company – this program is for you. If you are an executive or business owner of a small firm and your sales reps don’t have a process – […] The post TSE 975: TSE Certified Sales Program – What Is It? appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to Chirag Gupta, founder of NoD Coworking, about documenting processes and how it will help your organization become more efficient and more profitable. Chirag has been an entrepreneur since college, and his coworking space in Dallas has achieved profitability, a goal many startups never achieve, largely as […] The post TSE 974: Sales From The Street: “Document Everything” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to content marketing leader Pam Didner about the critical role content plays in sales and the importance of collaborative sales and marketing. Content plays a critical role in educating customers and prospects, making sales enablement a natural extension of content marketing. Pam is the author of Effective […] The post TSE 973: Achieve Sales Growth Through Collaborative Sales And Marketing appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we discuss the value of following every step in the sales process, and how you can prevent your sales team from skipping steps in the process. Sales processes aren’t intended to add burdens to your role as a sales leader, but should actually free you and your team […] The post TSE 972: How To Get Salespeople Not To Skip Steps In The Sales Process appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk with global sales team leader Michael Wills about how to develop a sales process that works. Many sellers have no real sense of direction, but they expect to be successful despite the lack of a plan. Defining a sales process A sales process provides a way […] The post TSE 971: How To Develop A Sales Process That Works appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist Hustler’s League, we’re talking about how you can exert influence into the buying process even when you are too late. TSE Hustler’s League is our online group coaching program that brings together sellers from all industries and all abilities to share ideas. Executives I’m reading a book called […] The post TSE 970: TSE Hustler’s League – “You Are Too Late” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to John Crowley, author of Knuckle Dragging Sales, about the difficulty of sales and a return to simple ideas about selling. John helps sales professionals build a personal brand so they can increase their visibility and their earnings. Knuckle dragging John said he has gotten a […] The post TSE 969: Sales From The Street: “Knuckle Dragging Sales” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to Kory Angeline about the right questions, and how you can help your customers feel comfortable without feeling pushed. No matter what industry you’re in, you’re probably going to find yourself selling. And truthfully, a lot of us aren’t good at it. Kory offers the idea […] The post TSE 968: How To Ask A Potential Customer The Right Questions That Make Them Feel Comfortable And Not Pushed appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

One of our listeners reached out to me the other day about Mark Zuckerberg’s recent quote: “Move fast and break things.” On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we discuss the idea that if you’re not moving fast enough to break things, then you aren’t moving fast enough, and how that statement relates to sales. […] The post TSE 967: How Does The Statement “Unless You Are Breaking Stuff, You Are Not Moving Fast Enough” Apply To Sales? appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, I had the pleasure of speaking once again with Jeffrey Gitomer, The King of Sales, about the Law of Harmonious Attraction. Jeffrey is an author, speaker, and business trainer who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty and personal development. He also hosts the very popular Sell or […] The post TSE 966: The Law of Harmonious Attraction appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of Sales From The Street, we talk to global entrepreneur Doyle Buehler about monetizing your brand. Doyle helps businesses organize their work and their strategies so they can do good work. Many sellers don’t actually own their own businesses but they operate a business within a business. They are intrapreneurs, and many […] The post TSE 964 : Sales From The Street: “Selling And Monetizing Your Brand” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, I talk to Phil Newton about how we can work smart and accomplish more by doing less. It all began with a “sob story of events” when Phil was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, an intestinal disorder with an array of symptoms that prevent him from doing business the […] The post TSE 963: How To Help Business Owners And High Performers Hone In On Their Zone Of Genius, Work Smart And Make More Money appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The political and dating industries share a common goal: to narrow your choices down to the one candidate that makes the most sense for what you want. Particularly in the political arena, the ads target those people who would be most likely to support a particular cause or candidate. On today’s episode of The Sales […] The post TSE 962: What Salespeople Can Learn From The “Political and Dating” Industries appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Processes allow us to work a campaign from end to end. They help us know how to follow up and what to say and how to proceed rather than just shooting from the hip. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Forster Perelsztejn of prospect.io talks about the importance of a campaign for purposes of cold […] The post TSE 961: How Do I Create A Cold Email Outreach Process? appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Most startups never reach the $1 million mark. Roughly 95 percent of startups will never achieve that level of revenue. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we visit with Sangram Vajre, “The Accidental Evangelist,” about what he learned from building a company and how to achieve $1 million. Sangram founded a company called Terminus, […] The post TSE 960: TSE Hustler’s League – “$1 Million” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

When I worked for a corporate organization, I had to call executives and convince them to consider our product. I had no direction for the conversation. Until I got sales training, I didn’t know what to stay to get them to the next step. That map is known as a buying process or a sales process, […] The post TSE 957: Sales Process 101 appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we’re talking to Ralph Welborn, CEO of CapImpact, about ways you can fire up your business ecosystem and grow explosively. Ralph is a co-author of the book Topple: The End of the Firm-Based Strategy and Rise of New Models for Explosive Growth. He refers to himself as a moth to a […] The post TSE 956: How to Fire Up Your Business Ecosystem and Grow Explosively appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

All of us confront fears that hold us back and prevent us from being really successful at sales. One of the biggest is the fear of rejection, and it’s one of the first lessons we’ll review in The Sales Evangelist Hustler’s League when we begin our new semester in January. On today’s episode, we’ll […] The post TSE 955: TSE Hustler’s League – “False Truth” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

When you pursue prospects but don’t get responses, it can be intimidating. We don’t want to lose those prospects, but we don’t know why they aren’t responding. On today’s episode of Sales From The Street, we’re talking about loss aversion, and how it can be scary for sales reps to lose prospects, and also what […] The post TSE 954: Sales From The Street: “Scary Cat” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Video is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, including those of us at the Sales Evangelist. We’re launching a YouTube channel called TSE TV and using Instagram as well. On today’s episode, we’ll talk with Deepak Shukla about the 2-minute video pitch that helps generate warm sales calls. Deepak is the founder of the SEO […] The post TSE 953: The 2-Minute Video Pitch That Helps Me Generate Very Warm Sales Call appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Erroin Martin shares what he has learned about artificial intelligence and how sales professionals can increase sales faster using AI. Martin is the vice president of sales at Conversica, with 20 years of experience in sales. Conversica does conversational artificial intelligence for B2B and B2C. Robots? Artificial intelligence […] The post TSE 951: How To Increase Sales Faster Using AI appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, let’s make the wheel more effective. If something already works, try to improve it rather than starting from scratch. It’s so much more difficult to find new customers than it is to sell to people who are right there in front of you. On today’s episode of […] The post TSE 950: TSE Hustler’s League-“The Upsell” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Everyone has the same amount of available time every day. When people lack the time to systemize their businesses or hire and train new people, it’s because they aren’t using their time in the right way. They aren’t prioritizing the things that are important. On today’s episode, serial entrepreneur Carissa Hill shares how to grow […] The post TSE 949: Sales From The Street – “You Do Have Time” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to Michael Koral about building an empire, and what small businesses need to know about building an empire through effective marketing. Michael is the co-founder of needls.com, a robo-agency that creates targets and optimizes Facebook and Instagram ads for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Small business owner […] The post TSE 948: What Small Businesses Need To Know About Building An Empire Through Effective Marketing appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Bringing a revolutionary new product to market can be difficult, especially if you don’t yet have a community of supporters. Apple did it in 2007 with the iPhone, solving a problem that people weren’t even aware that they had. How can you capture people’s attention if you don’t already have that community? Today on The […] The post TSE 947: How Do You Help Sell or Bring a Brand New Product to Market? appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The buying process has changed, and by the time your prospect gets to you, he has already done a substantial amount of online research. A recent study showed that 68 percent of people in the B2B space believe online information is far more helpful to them than the information they get from salespeople. On today’s episode of […] The post TSE 946: Three Effective Ways To Create Loyalty appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

You cannot oversell to your prospects. We’ve been talking all month about closing, and about what you can do in your closing efforts to give your clients exactly what they want. On today’s episode of TSE Hustler’s League, we’ll discuss how to improve closings and how to avoid overselling. The TSE Hustler’s League is an online […] The post TSE 945: TSE Hustler’s League-“Overselling” appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com