The Sales Evangelist

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, our host, Donald Kelly is joined by Rob Ashton to discuss the power of writing and three things that you need to understand to convert more prospects when writing emails. Reading is not speaking We are born with structures for speaking, but writing takes years of dedicated practice in order to rewire the brain. Because reading is so complicated we don’t do it in real-time. Our eyes skip through the page and our brains fill in the rest. Reading is much more complicated than we realize. Writing is not great for everything You really need to put yourself in the shoes of the prospect. Think about how interested they are in this, how much they know already, what is their priority, and when was the last time we talked about this. Writing is not good for emotive issues. Our brains are not computers and writing is not data transfer We often believe that emails should be short bullet points, but it is not always the case. As human beings we think in narrative and bullet points are not good at communicating nuance and risk losing control of the narrative. Remember that you are building a relationship and you have to assume sending a bulleted list will not build relationships. Episode Resources Check out Rob’s website at robashton.com This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio is provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald talks with the head of sales at Transcend, Mike Orlick. They discuss the importance of use cases, how to effectively utilize them, and how to better provide value to your clients. What is a use case and how do you utilize it?? A use case comes down to the business outcome and what they mean for your client. Mike suggests getting quotes from previous clients who have had success with your product and then targeting similar individuals in your ICP. This helps to validate your product. You can utilize use cases when new protocols impact your industry. When you understand a prospect's situation they are more likely to trust you with a solution. Become an investigator and problem solver You get into enterprise sales by going deep and helping companies improve their business. When you join an organization that has already started to prove use cases, you can go in with a use case and become a trusted advisor to a company by asking the right questions and truly wanting to solve their problem. How can you start utilizing use cases? Map out what your product does, what it solves for, and who it solves those problems for. If you already have customers, interview them to find out why they brought you in and what problem you are solving for them. Mike’s last piece of advice Be genuine and have a real interest in uncovering and solving business problems. To hear more from Mike, connect with him on LinkedIn and visit transcend.io This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio is provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, our host, Donald Kelly, talks with Matt Dixon about how top performers overcome customer indecision. At the beginning of the pandemic, sales went entirely virtual overnight. Matt, and his team, studied 2.5 million recorded sales calls to answer the questions: what possesses a customer to go through an entire sales process and then not follow through, and what do the best salespeople do to avoid that happening to them? The answer is the JOLT effect. What do most salespeople do when customers get cold feet? Many salespeople are taught that the reason this happens is that you haven’t beaten their status quo. They dial up the FOMO. Matt found that this increases the odds that the customer will do nothing. Two reasons that the deal could be lost to no decision The customer still feels the pull of the status quo and they believe what they are currently doing is good enough. They don’t see that switching to your product is a better alternative. They are indecisive about changing the status quo. They don’t know what to pick, they feel a lack of information, or they feel like they won’t get what they are paying for. How do you overcome customer indecisiveness? The JOLT effect During Matt's study, he found that there are four behaviors that high performers use to get customers unstuck. The acronym JOLT. Judging the level of indecision. The best salespeople use a technique of pings and echoes. Offering a recommendation. If everything looks good, then doing nothing seems like the best option. The best salespeople narrow the options and then recommend to the customer what they believe would be best. Limiting the exploration. When the customer asks for more information it may feel like the customer is making progress. Beyond a certain point, the customer is engaging in analysis paralysis. To limit their exploration you need them to trust you and consider you the expert. Taking risks off the table. Manage expectations early on and then give them a safety net. Episode Resources To learn more amount Matt’s company visit dcminsights.com To learn more about the Jolt effect visit the Jolteffect.com This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio is provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Right now, more so than ever, it is critical for salespeople to learn how to navigate in a tight economy. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, our host, Donald Kelly, talks with the co-founder of DocSend, Russ Heddleston, about how to listen more, use the prospect's language, and how do ONE thing well for them. Why won’t order-takers survive in a tight economy? Over the last few years, more and more order-taking roles are being pushed to automation. The role of the salesperson is changing because of the amount of competition and vendors. What can we do? Be curious and listen more Your first job is to listen and understand why you are having a conversation and how you can help your customer. Look up who you are talking to ahead of time. Russ says that very few of the salespeople he talks to have done their research ahead of time. The process will move faster if you are more patient on your first calls. Bridge the gap between value and the company's goals Companies have been through the ringer in the past year, so have empathy for your prospect. Your best bet to get them to buy is to understand their business. Understand what they are trying to solve so that you can become a partner to them. Use their own language The person you are talking to is not the only person involved in the buying decision. Even if you convince them, they need to convince everyone else in the company. To help your champion save time, recognize their language and use it so that they can turn around and explain it to their company. If you are not versed in their industry, talk to product marketing and your support team, then document it for the next person. Do ONE thing well for them Make it simple, not complicated, for why they should buy. Take all the value propositions your product has and boil it down to one thing. The discovery is key in this process so you know what is important to them. Episode resources Connect with Russ on Twitter and Linkedin. Check out DocSend here. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

If you are a BDR, SDR, or AE you are going to benefit from today’s podcast. In today’s show, Donald talks with Jenner Smith about three ways to train and ramp your team in half the time. What problems arise when training a sales team? Productivity. Jennifer says that it is all about spending as much time as possible doing the thing that drives the most impact. Scale yourself Scaling yourself is all about figuring out the core things you are good at and spending as much time on them. Take the other tasks that are filling your time and reduce them, automate them, or delegate them. Jennifer challenges you to track how many interruptions you have and the time you spend doing various tasks on an average day. They add up. Get people the things they need Get information to the right people at the right time so that they can be effective with their time. Scale your best rep Have your best reps, the folks who have been there a while and know what they are doing, record how they do what they do. Share this information with the rest of your reps so that they can learn from the information and knowledge that makes your best rep really good. If all the reps are able to share with each other what is working, everyone will learn together to create a rapid learning machine. Last advice from Jennifer Anything that you are doing that is not talking to a customer, ask yourself “Could I scale this in a particular way?” To connect with Jennifer connect with her on LinkedIn and check out scribehow.com. Use promo code “The Sales Evangelist” for a discount on the paid service. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald talks with Greg Nutter about three critical pillars of effective selling. Greg has been a consultant for 17 years and is the author of his book P3 Selling. Three areas that B2B salespeople need to understand Problem Understand the problem, influence the perception of those problems, and message back to those problems about how well their solution addresses it. Greg sees salespeople constantly talking about the product. Without the context of the problem, a customer wanting to solve any discussion around product features makes no sense. Businesses don’t buy products, they buy solutions to problems. How can you identify the problem? Ask questions to your customers. People Understand who is impacted by those problems, their perspective, and their decision influence. Over the last 10 years, we have gone from 3 or 4 people involved in a B2B purchase, to 10 to 15. Try to understand everyone's perspective so that you can message them. “The race doesn’t always go to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s how you bet.” If you cover more people you are more likely to win. Process Understand what the buying process looks like, where the prospect is in the process, and how you are positioned in that buying process. What matters most is what the prospect is doing. Are they looking for information? Do they understand the importance of making a change? An individual process is where they go through their own steps to determine if they want to buy your product. The compliance process is when the subject matter experts are brought in to weigh in on whether or not it is a good decision. Understand what the process is and where the individuals are because that determines what you need to do to go to the next stage. Become an expert on the buying process to guide your customers and be a consultant. Last piece of advice from Greg Become a problem solver, not a product pusher. To hear more from Greg, buy his book and connect with him on LinkedIn This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The sales process seems to be getting more difficult and if you don’t know what you are doing it can be scary. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald talks with salespeople Ari and Kristen about how to overcome the fear of cold calling. What makes cold calling scary? No being prepared to have conversations with high-level executives and to overcome their objections. If you learn what the prospect is selling and who they are selling to you will have a better chance. The fear of sounding stupid. If you haven’t done your research you will sound like you don’t know what you are talking about. The conversation will be more organic and authentic if you have done research beforehand. The fear of hearing no. Once you accept that a majority of the people you call are going to say no, it is easier to handle it. Reframe your thinking and realize that the prospects who say no aren’t the ones you are looking for. How do you effectively do research and still maintain volume? As you get better at research, you can do it a lot faster. With experience, you can see common trends in each industry. Have an understanding of what their business is going through, even if you are totally off, a good senior-level leader will appreciate the fact that you did research. Focus on what they sell, who they sell it to, and how they sell it. You don’t need to read an entire annual report to understand what they do. Use all resources available to you including job descriptions. What advice do Ari and Kristen have for BDRs who are scared You won’t get over the fear of making calls by not making calls. Make as many calls as you can and learn from your mistakes. Practice with a team lead, manager, or AE. Record your role plays and have your manager review them. Let yourself be vulnerable and let yourself make mistakes. No question is a dumb question, if you are having trouble ask for help. To hear more from Ari and Kristen, connect with them on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

What are things you can do to improve the handoff to your AE? On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald talks with high school teacher turned salesperson Taylor Clawson about how to improve the handoff from SDR to AE. What problem does ineffective communication bring? Deals collapse because they make the environment seem unprofessional and give the impression that you are not knowledgeable. Why do SDRs have bad handoffs? Depending on where you work, SDRs can get paid on how many appointments they set up. If processes aren’t in place for SDRs to hand off qualified prospects, deals fall apart. Taylor believes it stems from the organization and what process they have in place for SDRs. What qualifying questions does Taylor have in place? Truly understanding their needs. That is an ambiguous but important question. What is their timeline? Taylor says that the more information the better. What is their personality like, what are they expecting, who is going to be on the call, and what is their style? What can an SDR do to ensure a smooth handoff? Make sure that everything is as detailed as possible in the CRM. In Taylor’s organization, the SDR calls the prospect the day before the demo to confirm and ask final qualifying questions. It’s important to build trust with your SDRs and have a relationship with them. Taylor’s SDRs give her feedback and she gives them feedback as well. Taylor’s last piece of advice Build trust with one another. For more content from Taylor, connect with her on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

As a BDR, nothing is more frustrating than doing all the work to book a demo and the prospect doesn’t show up. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist Donald talks with Nicolas Sosa, an automation specialist at IBM, about how to make sure you book demos that actually show up. Why don’t people show up? There are things that you can control, and things that you simply cannot control. You cannot control if someone shows up or not. Focus on the right authority If you are not speaking to the decision maker, or the champion (a person heavily involved in the decision-making process), it is really hard to progress that call. As a BDR, you need to make sure you are talking to the right people. Gatekeepers do a very good job at gatekeeping, try building a relationship with them. Be transparent with the gatekeepers. Make sure you understand the reason they are showing up Walk away with very specific challenges and pain points - wanting to make more money isn’t a good enough reason. Knowing why the prospects are showing up shortens the sales cycle. Communicate with your AE so that you know what they are expecting. Don’t promise the prospect a solution to all of their problems. Try using the words “if” and “qualify”. As a BDR, you don’t need to close the deal, you are just closing time. Accept the invite right away When you are closing time, make it very clear what kind of meeting it will be, then make sure that you stamp the time on their calendar. Send them a calendar invite and make sure that they accept it. The simple things are where the money is at. If you see this as pushy, you aren’t understanding the value of the product. For more content from Nicolas, connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

No matter what you’re doing right now, cold outreach should be a part of everyone's game. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald talks with Tanner Stewart, an account executive at Home Care Plus, about three tips he has for every BDR doing cold calls. Biggest challenges sellers face when it comes to cold outreach? Know which people to call in the first place. If you’re calling hundreds of the wrong people every day, you can be a great seller and have little success. Focus on the right people and the right message. 3 things every BDR must master when doing cold calls Be a human, treat your prospects like humans When you ask someone how they are, you have to actually mean it. Be genuinely interested in them. If a prospect asks you how you are, be genuine and vulnerable. This helps them bring their guard down. Instead of starting a call by saying “here's what we are doing and here’s how we can help you with” start with, “I've been talking to some folks, and here are trends I am seeing in the industry, are you seeing this as well?” Be present when making calls and when they do answer, don’t be afraid of the interaction or being genuine. Product selling vs. solution selling Avoid the temptation to dive deep into your product. It’s not bad to want to give them information about your product but think about relating what you tell them back to what they have told you about their challenges. Care enough about the prospect to alleviate their pain points. Asking questions and knowing when to ask them Instead of diving into your product, ask them a question. You can ask them if what they are doing is working for them. Little follow-up questions help you dig deeper. A great question is “Can you tell me a little more about that?” Once you’ve booked the demo, don’t be afraid to ask a few more questions to figure out what they are hoping for. One major piece of advice from Tanner Don’t be afraid to be yourself. As scary as someone’s title may be, deep down they are also human. Be yourself and Enjoy it! For more content from Tanner, connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a

Sales and marketing have the same goal: to close more deals to make their organization more revenue. The relationship between sales and marketing professionals can be a powerful tool if connected properly. However, meaningful and practical connections are often lost between the two. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CMO at Allego, Wayne St. Amand, to learn deal-closing content strategies to help marketing and sales professionals become more aligned in their goals. Three things to do less of as sellers and marketers: Don’t allow the relationship between sales and marketing to be treated like a drive-thru window. Salespeople ask for marketing collateral, create it, and the seller moves on. Stop guessing what sales needs; the departments should co-create materials together. Don’t focus exclusively on top-of-funnel activities because interacting with all sales funnel stages allows the most opportunities to develop and move forward. Creating can be asynchronous; marketing can review recordings of sales calls to determine additional materials that might be needed. Guessing is the enemy of sales: However, there is a difference between guessing and making assumptions; assumptions are a necessary tool (that should be verified and refined whenever possible.) Three things to do more as sellers and marketers: Treat your sales enablement process as the final mile between sellers and success. Create as much common ground as possible while speaking the same language. Mirror the speech patterns of the people working with you to create an atmosphere that best pushes forward. Have more direct interactions with your market. Prospective, current, and past customers have a lot to teach the organization. Wayne’s final piece of advice? Excellence doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The ultimate answer and best version of achievement happen when you can learn, teach, and work with the people and groups around you. To get in contact with Wayne, find him on LinkedIn or visit allego.com for more company content. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. The sales landscape is totally changing. The way that we are selling is out of line with the way our prospects are buying. You need to adapt to succeed. Imagine if you could use data that could give you insights into when somebody is ready and the challenges they are facing so you can fine-tune your message specifically toward them. Deep Sales, a part of the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, can help you do just that. Check it out yourself and get a 60-day free trial at Linkedin.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Calendly. The power of scheduling automation has never been more critical than it is today. Your sales team needs a solution to easily meet with prospects at the right time, every time. With calendly, you can turn more meetings into revenue, accelerate your sales cycle, and increase your win rate when you choose to use calendly to automate your scheduling. Finish the year strong and request a demo of calendly today at Calendly.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

As technology, tools, and culture evolve, sales strategies evolve alongside them. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the Director of Integrated Marketing at LinkedIn Sales Solutions, Garnor Morantes, to learn about “deep selling” - a powerful new way to connect and build sales-enabling relationships. Being loud and clear about the messaging is the best way to make new sales. Since the pandemic, email outreach has gone up by 50%. However, responses have declined by 30%. Buyers are getting more bombarded with messaging from sellers, so what are his insights? It’s a growing problem. Nearly 60% of the buyer journey is sent without the salesperson, meaning the buyer is researching and looking into solutions before contacting a seller. B2B selling is in a crisis. Buyers don’t want it because of the increased amount of sales without a seller. They can do information, talk to colleagues, or read online reviews, testimonials, and demos to see if it's right for them. Insights from the buyers help a seller determine who, where, and when is the right time to talk to a potential buyer. What is deep sales? It boils down to a new category of sales intelligence - a technology based on actionable insights like deeper account insights, relationship intelligence, and more robust buyer intent data. Those three types of intelligence make up the concept of deep sales. Spending time understanding the buyer’s journey and filling out changes in the hiring process can make up company funding. Shedding light on the best way to maximize and be a top seller is to use deep sales. Some of the software out there is a part of it - interactions on the platform. Intent-based solutions are essential. Deriving benefits from a deep sales strategy: LinkedIn launched content about utilizing Sales Navigator to refocus outreach efforts based on user intent. For individual contributors, look at the signals and technology that will get better and smarter as they evolve. Encourage your sales leaders to research the future of sales and selling, because changes are coming. For more content from Garnor, connect with him on LinkedIn. Visit the LinkedIn Sales Navigator website to learn more about the deep sales process and how you can implement it in your own organization. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

To some people, building outreach sequences for prospects is easy. However, for most people, that isn’t the case. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the co-creator of the Money Sequence, Miranda Morrison, to explain how she built a sequence that doubled engagement upon implementation. Sequencing, especially in tech sales, is critical. Before the money sequence, Miranda’s company had email segmentation for many audiences depending on their interests, position, and what information would be most pertinent to them. What made it successful was the combination of ‘spray and pray’ with highly personalized and individualized approaches. Personalizing later in the sequence (by reference to an article or important piece) shows a degree of research that is most effective without spending too much time. Personalization at scale is the best approach. However, there are times a more personalized email is more appropriate, which is often later in the sales cycle. What metrics were they focused on? The goal for each SDR was to book ten meetings each month, and Miranda found that short and sweet messaging was well-opened but infrequently responded to. Moving to a more personalized sequence later in the cycle resulted in a larger shift. After converting to the money sequence, Miranda adjusted her copy to be more bulleted and more personalized that presented the same information, but the tone as a whole was catered more toward the job title of the prospect. The Money Sequence - 18 steps over 28 days: Always start with a phone call and ensure you have the correct phone number. Call and email on day one. Day Two - Phone call again Day Four - Phone call with an email. With this email, Miranda utilizes Drift for videos. Putting a face to a name is the best way to separate yourself from the pack in an email format. In her video, she gave insight into what the platform looked like so the prospect wasn’t entering a meeting completely blind. If there isn’t an opportunity for personalization, the video still serves as a source of information that people would open. Steps 5-8 are phone calls and a LinkedIn request On Day 10, she manually replies on the same thread as her video message. Step 11 (Day 13) - Another phone call Her other best email? Coffee on me. Coffee chat sessions with ideal clients offering a gift card in exchange for taking a look. Miranda’s advice to someone scared of reaching out and facing rejection? She used to be terrified of it. But most of the time, the people you’re contacting are used to it and know what’s happening. If you provide genuine value, there is nothing wrong with how you reach out. Maybe the money sequence isn’t perfect for your industry. If not, find what works and stick with it. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio is provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

For many people, entering the sales profession can seem overwhelming. What are the right strategies, tactics, and mindset to do the best job possible? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the Account Executive at Challenger, Brendan Kelly, to learn his takeaways and thoughts after working in sales for six months. Before starting his job, Brendan assumed he would just make phone calls every day. However, he soon realized high activity isn’t the long-term solution; it’s a burn-out-inducing, needle-in-a-haystack mentality. Instead, who, when, and why he reaches out to prospects is far more important. Intention and consistency are what yield success for new sellers. He learned to keep it simple. The person on the other end appreciates the authenticity. Whether he gets the meeting or not, the person should have a positive experience from the discussion. The intention is to get the win, and a win doesn’t always equal a meeting. Business acumen Brendan didn’t know: A lot of acronyms and the specifics of what stakeholder titles mean were confusing. It takes time and curiosity to learn it all. It won’t happen overnight, and it’ll take effort to learn the ins and outs of a job title. To learn, get in situations where it comes up and have the confidence to ask someone what it means. It’s as simple as searching it on Google and writing it down to remember later. Prioritize the learning and schedule time to devote to complex topics to better understand them. Sales is collaborative. It isn’t the cutthroat environment he thought it was going to be. While you need a level of self-motivation to thrive and succeed, it isn’t a process done alone. Since day one, Brendan was able to rely on his Account Executive for advice and to help him hone his craft. When everyone works together to reach their quotas, everyone is happier and more successful. Brendan’s final piece of advice? Volume doesn’t solve all your issues. Being intentional about your efforts is a better long-term plan for success. For more content and information from Brendan, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit challengerinc.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The best-sellers aren’t always the most charismatic, understanding, or intelligent. Sometimes, all it takes is an organized, structured, and productive day. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by tech sales Account Executive William Padilla to learn how he structures his day to make sales, make connections, and impact his work. Many old-school sales organizations are built on price. However, with tech sales, a single deal can require an 8-month process of creating the relationship first. BDRs might only have 6-8 qualified demos each month, but creating that number of opportunities requires much more leg work behind the scenes. Planning and prepping your day: Don’t go into your day winging what you plan to do. For example, Will realized he was too distracted and hit his metrics only by scrambling on a Friday afternoon. He decided to structure his day, achieving all his late-stage interactions in the morning to reserve his afternoons entirely for prospecting. He’s not more talented than the next seller; he’s more structured. Your mindset creates the structure needed to foster more sales. BDR roles are fairly science-based because it’s focused on hitting metrics and quotas. When Will needed to book eight demos per month, he quickly realized that not every cold call was a qualified demo. He would make sure to have at minimum four cold calls set up each week with qualified leads. What every demo number you need to hit, book double to ensure enough opportunities to reach your quota. Implement the 5x5 rule - don’t log off for the day unless you have five new companies to prospect and five contacts within each company. Be like Batman and Robin; work with your AE: As a BDR, understand that your account executive is your teammate. So sometimes, it helps to be friends. By creating a working relationship with your AE, you increase the chance for both of you to succeed (because your success largely depends on one another.) For more content and information from Will, follow him on social media: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-padilla Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sellthatsaas This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

For many sellers, there’s too much to do in too little time. So how can we find the extra time in our day to accomplish everything we want? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by author, speaker, and the founder of The Free Mama, Lauren Golden, to understand how we can implement time management strategies to get more done in less time. Productivity is only so much of time management; busy work is a significant problem. Being “busy” doesn’t always mean you’re “producing.” There are many ways to feel busy without actually doing anything beneficial. Preparing for your next day at the end of the current day is a great way to ensure you stay on track and focused on what moves your bottom line. Never begin work before understanding what needs to be done. Implementing the Daily Five: It’s not about doing everything on your to-do list; it’s about accomplishing the major, most needle-moving activity you can. For sales professionals, the needle-moving business is closing deals, especially if the contact is a latter-stage sales prospect. Self-sabotaging is a frequent element at play in prioritizing. Often, the most challenging task is the one that will make you the most productive. Be clear on your goal; if you aren’t sure of your goal, you won’t know how to prioritize. Don’t fall victim to others’ priorities: Put your needs first. Consider blocking time for self-care, errands, and family time, so you don’t allow other people to schedule time with you at those intervals. Discover what you’re currently doing that can be cut or approached differently to create more time in your day. Lauren’s advice for people looking to adopt a more time-managemental mindset: There’s always more work to be done, so create boundaries that prevent you from pushing all the time. It doesn’t require special tools to take control of your time, but it requires a level of discipline that will only grow through practice. For more content from Lauren, connect with her and The Free Mama on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Tik Tok. Visit her website, www.thefreemama.com, to access the free downloadable worksheet to help you discover your own Daily five. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Cold emails are a hallmark of modern selling, yet many salespeople don’t include the correct information to yield the right results. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by content expert and sales professional Luke Charlton to learn how sellers can write better cold emails to see more success. How can sellers write better emails? When you start sending people new information, many notice the open rate drop markedly after a few weeks. People lose interest. That led Luke to question what media kept people’s attention - streaming, social media, film, and television. He realized that to get people to read his emails, he needed to make them more entertaining. Luke’s three tips for better email writing: When you tell a story, it doesn’t necessarily have to be personal. Instead, it could be something that sparks emotion in you. What’s the lesson of the story? Whether it’s about sales, dating, or how to pick something for dinner, there should be a derived lesson from the story. Once the lesson is explained, it’s easy to transition to the close. In the close, you pitch or offer whatever the email's goal is to get more people involved. Entertaining emails receive higher engagement because people look forward to reading them. The more you email, the more money you’ll make. If you send pitch-heavy emails that aren’t entertaining, you’ll likely have many people unsubscribe. But by creating fun emails people want to read, they’ll look forward to a daily email. The typical rules of sales emails don’t apply if the email is entertaining enough. People are willing to read longer content and paragraphs rather than skim bullet points if they feel moved to continue reading. However, that only happens if you properly captivate them. To learn more from Luke, visit 9emailoffers.com or the15minuteclientworkshop.com for content and information about successful email marketing. You can also join his private community for free training at thehermithole.com or connect with him on LinkedIn for regular content. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Stories are a part of the sales process, but there are better strategies and tools to help sellers refine their storytelling abilities. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by sales speaker and managing partner of Amp, Todd Mitchem, to learn how he utilizes storytelling to make more sales. What’s wrong with storytellers today? Sellers tell stories thinking they should be solely personal anecdotes before the work conversation begins. In actuality, the most powerful stories are upfront with a purpose that launches into the pitch, intro, or discussion. Second common mistake? Not setting up the story. Sellers either set up too much or don’t set up enough to give the listener the correct amount of information to engage properly. Three elements of a sales story: Set up the customer's struggle, allowing them to see how the story relates to them. Dictate the solution and derive benefits or successes from implementing the seller’s product or service. Explain what the story means to the prospect - why should they care? A story’s impact is only as good as the person telling it: The best salespeople are the ones who care about (or at least respect) what they’re selling. The story has to be honest to be impactful. While it doesn’t have to be your story, it should be genuine. Great storytellers practice their craft; a salesperson can’t expect to nail it just by winging it during meetings. If done right and truthful, storytelling is the most powerful element to any sales process. Lead with what matters: Think from the perspective of the prospect; why does the sale or the pitch matter to them? They don’t care how many sales you’ve done or how close you are to hitting a quota. Todd’s final takeaway? Take your ego out of the sale, and you’ll find more success. Instead, focus on what you do differently and stand with that. To learn more from Todd, email him directly at [email protected]. If you reach out, he’ll send you a free learning PDF to research and learn more about today’s discussion. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Video content is a powerful tool to help any seller accomplish their selling goals. However, it’s only powerful when executed and distributed properly. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by digital marketing professional and owner of KickStart Dental, Chris Pistorius, to learn how any seller can capitalize on video production to garner prospects’ attention. What are things people get wrong with video production? There isn’t a process in place. He uses Lucidchart, a mind-mapping software that helps chart the process and gather steps for a seller to visualize. Map it out and have a plan, but continue with the understanding that it will likely change. Have your Dream 100 - the list of one hundred targets you’d like to acquire as clients. Get a CRM system that fits our needs. Chris uses Pipedrive, but Salesforce and other top CRM systems are viable options depending on your volume and process. Maintain consistent communication: GoHighLevel is a tool built for marketing agencies that set up automated email sequences depending on the receiver’s responses (or lack thereof.) Use a variety of channels to interact with prospects. Send an email offering a unique video email to each prospect offers an individualized follow-up that can be made once someone has expressed interest. In your video content, magnify the existing pain points the prospect has to validate their belief in the pain point and encourage them to use you to solve that pain. Use platforms like Loom to screen-share and personalize the video content sent to prospects. Chris’s major takeaway? Done is better than perfect. If you take too much time perfecting your studio or finding the ideal tools, you’ll never get it done. Once you put a plan in place and track your progress toward your goals, you’ll find opportunities between what you’re doing and what you need to do. Visit Chris’s website at kickstartdental.com for a free strategy session (P.S. you don’t need to be a dentist.) This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Whether you’re a sales professional or work in another industry, hearing the word ‘no’ can get anyone in a negative mindset. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Harry Spaight, a sales coach and consultant who wants to help every salesperson overcome their fears to find sales success. Why does discouragement affect us so badly? As sellers, we frequently take rejections personally. Even if the sale is rejected for a myriad of reasons, the seller will still assume they are the reason the prospect is not interested in the sale. We make offers through options, just like a fine-dining server. Each time a server makes an option, they expect a rejection. If professional offers can get into the same mindset, we can lead with service in mind. If someone doesn’t want your offer, think about what other options might impact their business or be helpful to their work. Sales is a place of service. There are so many choices with what you’re selling. Make it easy for a buyer to work with you and you’ll find sales naturally coming your way. Help buyers quantify their pains. Don’t encourage someone to purchase your product if the pain is not enough to justify the purchase - it results in remorse for the product. People will solve their problems one way or another. If you can provide benefits in addition to a solution, you’ll give long-term value the buyer can’t supply themselves. Sales isn’t a numbers game; it’s a skills game. If you believe sales is a numbers game, you do a poor job with the person in front of you to get to the easy yes. Dig deep and find the prospect’s challenges to determine if they’re a viable candidate for the product. There are numbers tied to sales that are important. However, the numbers shouldn’t be at the expense of the conversations with the prospects in front of you. Hary’s major takeaway? Serve the person across from you, and good things will happen. His book, Selling with Dignity, and his podcast, Sales Made Easy, discuss the standards of selling with service in mind. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Anyone in sales sends emails. (If you don’t, we’re a bit concerned.) But how can you go about sending emails effectively that generate results? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald discusses five things you need to be aware of to send an effective email. You don’t need to tell them your name. Your email is full of precious information, and emails already have the ‘from’ section, email domain, and signature. AKA, the prospect already knows who you are! While you might want to explain on a phone call, it is repeated information in an email. Explain a relationship or medium the prospect can refer back to. The point of reference connects you to the prospect. For example, did you meet them through LinkedIn, or did a mutual connection refer you? State this existing relationship to build pre-existing rapport with the prospect. If no relationship exists, tie your outreach to the organization’s goals or content the company posted online. State the use case. Give the prospect a reason to continue reading. Provide the use case quickly in the email, or you risk turning the prospect off before they understand what value you can offer. Don’t put things that trigger the spam filter. The fewer links in your email signature, the less likely it will trigger a spam filter. Research what elements of an email contribute to a spam filter, and rewrite or restructure your emails to avoid those pitfalls. Have just one call to action. People are busy. If you ask the prospect for multiple different things, they’re less likely to fulfill any of those actions. Make it simple to give people an easy way to respond and move further into the pipeline. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

When it comes to improving sales, all it might take to reach your goals is a shift in mindset. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Justin Cunningham to learn how any sales professional can stand out, transform, and optimize their mindset for better performance. You won’t be able to sell until you believe you can sell. Adjust your beliefs. Try integrating a value-based reframe - People will form their beliefs after an experience. During your next relationship or interaction, you’ll subconsciously look for those same affirming beliefs to support your existing notion. Decide that you want something better and find evidence to support that new belief. Set yourself apart to win larger-scale accounts: Learn what they’re passionate about and what drives their bottom line to integrate a plan framed directly to them. A gatekeeper will pass individualized materials and information to a decision-maker rather than a mass-sent supply of information. Don’t act like an employee; act like a business partner. When you focus on creating unique connections, relationships, and moments with others, you’ll realize you’re far more critical than a cog in the business machine. If you try something new, what’s the worst that can happen? Propose new growth ideas and ways to improve your organization; if that is considered negative, it likely isn’t the best environment for you. How leadership empowers their teams: Most people are completely underutilized. People are motivated by many different things, and determining your team’s perspectives and mindset can be a powerful way to unify positions toward a common goal. Ask yourself and your team if your current actions are contributing to the company goal. If not, change your behavior. Justin’s final takeaway? Believe that your radical insights are worth sharing. Don’t be afraid to tell your ideas to those around you. Read Clicking by Faith Popcorn for more ideas about this topic, and visit ishiftresults.com to connect and interact with Justin. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

It’s an all-too-common sales tactic to reduce your price to drive more sales. However, it can be easy to reduce our worth far below the time, energy, and thought it takes to provide the service we have. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by professional sales coach Steve Brossman to uncover his secrets to creating sales without lowering your worth. The three levels of influence: Imposed: Present and pitch information to the client to make an informed buying decision Collaborative - When the client is involved, they invest to co-create a solution. Self-influence - With the right connections and collaboration, the buyer knows you’ll deliver more than whatever money you charge. Shift your sales mentality: Instead of portraying selling as taking from buyers; shift your perspective. Instead, think of it as giving greater value than what they’re willing to invest. Create information and relationships through your videos, content, and messages to potential buyers. Come with high energy. Build the buying energy, not just the sharing of information. Steve’s four-letter framework to sell anything: D - Data, demonstrate, and deliver information. N - Narrative. Use a narrative to frame the solution, whether it’s a quick story about how you’ve used it or a case study. Q - Quantifiable results. Those results are significantly greater than the investment to deliver C - Confirm and continue with the sale. Steve’s major takeaway? Collaborate, don’t convince. You’ll never win the sale with just a pitch and close; it takes collaboration, research, and work to make the close. For more information and content from Steve, email him at [email protected]. For TSE listeners, Steve is also offering a free back pocket guide (How to Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul), available at stevebrossman.com/bpg. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Working in sales becomes drastically easier when we have a mindset and behavior that encourages our best work. But how can we curb limiting beliefs to develop a consistent and positive change in behavior? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by speaker, author, and podcast host Heather O’Neill to discuss how sales leaders can inspire change in their mindset for performance growth. Our existing beliefs can hold us back: Our perceptions about the profession, money, or industry can all hold us back from our full potential. More importantly, our beliefs about ourselves can have the same impact - the idea that we don’t have enough experience, work, or ability to get the job done. These limiting beliefs often aren’t true and are inspired by what others tell us, not necessarily what we believe. Your brain doesn’t know what’s true and what isn’t - it’ll believe whatever is easier. If you tell yourself you’re a confident speaker, you’ll be more confident with it. (And yes, the reverse is also true.) It comes down to where you choose to direct your energy. Both bad and good things happen every day - choose where you focus. Shaping positive beliefs: When we become aware of our negative beliefs (and choose to let go of them), we generate the space for more positivity to ward off those prior beliefs. Shift to the opposite (and then dive deeper) to uncover a more nuanced perception. Surround yourself with successful people further in their careers. We inadvertently hold ourselves back when those around us want the people around us to stay the same. Removing negative ideals: Negative generational beliefs are often passed down, whether through family, friends, and coworkers. Generational beliefs are often negative and are based on prior misconceptions that lead to biases. We get beliefs from everyone around us and any external situation. But if we’re on guard for it, we can stop ourselves from prescribing. Heather’s final takeaway? You have more power over this than you might believe. When you control your beliefs, you’ll experience more freedom and joy. For more information and content from Heather, connect with her on LinkedIn or visit her website at heatherhansenoneill.com. Tune into her podcast, From Fear to Fire, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever podcasts can be found. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Even the best sellers must overcome the feeling of burnout at one point or another. But how can we maintain performance while finding time for our physical and mental health? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Chris Prangley to discuss his own experience with burnout and how any seller can maintain success and momentum in their careers. Making good money can also come with stress: Review your ‘why’ to maintain motivation toward your financial goals or realign with your company mission and personal goals. If you don’t maintain your health and well-being, you’ll eventually burn out. How do you determine why you do what you do? Making a certain amount of money is a great goal, but it is not a ‘why.’ Instead, it should be more profound and connected to who you are. You'll find the most success at the intersection of your why and the company’s mission. Try journaling about your traits and values to determine what you care about and continue to explore that. Look for the niche that excites you. What about the company or industry intrigues, inspires, and motivates you to sell it? Five things sellers can do to get recharged and handle burnout: Get out of the country at least once per year. Depart your normal and discover new cultures. The power of massage is incredible. Sitting at a desk all day can lead to tension and stress you don’t realize is present. Work out or exercise early in the morning; you’ll have more energy and be more productive. End your day with journaling, praying, or just expressing gratitude for what’s happening in your life. When you have an exhausting day, turn on your favorite song and spend a few minutes dancing. Find the things that work for you because we’re all different, and different things will recharge us. Chris’s major takeaway? Know that it’s okay to feel overwhelmed. But there are amazing tools you can use to continue reaching your goals. Check out Chris’s book, Tech Sales Warrior, available on Amazon and connect with him on LinkedIn or his company website at techsaleswarrior.com/. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Sales isn’t rocket science. However, we want to cover our bases just in case. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by former NASA flight control engineer and CEO of ElevenPoint2, Kristin Taraszewski, to learn how sales organizations can adequately train their employees with technical knowledge to close more sales. Many sellers require technical training to sell their products, and that training has become more scarce. In 2021 alone, 39% of all salespeople switched jobs. Unfortunately, that shift led to a huge need for training that hasn’t been fulfilled. It’s difficult to keep up with the rapid changes of the world as quickly as the solution is needed. Many companies don’t have a definitive onboarding and training program beyond a few online courses. It’s expensive to pull salespeople out of the field to train, and lecture-based training historically has a 10% retention rate, making it challenging to implement successfully. Give sellers a clear map. When training sellers, a clear pathway with clear direction is necessary to help people succeed and thrive. You can’t shortcut the learning map. Ask your technical team, sales team, and other necessary departments to determine what information is critical for the seller to know. Then, devise and implement a plan that teaches those elements. Think in the context of the customer. Teaching and training should be integrated. Learning one segment of the process at a time, like tech or applications, is not as helpful as full exposure. To get your foot in the door, a seller needs to prove they have something the buyer requires that solves a problem they experience. Utilize gamification to build successful programs: Training should be individualized as much as possible to help the people retain the information in the best way for them. To implement gamification, replicate the scenario a salesperson might experience while training. Get the trainee to explain the technical aspects, starting from the macro level and refining into finer details. Without a way for sellers to get better at their jobs, a company will begin to stagnate. Implementing strategies and tools to increase learning knowledge is synergistic for all levels of an organization. For more content and information from Christina and her company, visit their website at elevenpoint2.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Your personal brand and image impact everything about your sales process. Creating and maintaining a professional self-care routine is necessary to put your best foot forward to make the most money and foster the most connections. In today’s episode of the Sales Evangelist, Donald shares some quick tips for any seller to improve their confidence and build a personal brand that reflects the hard work you do each day. Sometimes, we neglect the emotional for the physical: Sure, scoring that meeting or closing the deal can be nice. However, it’s not as nice when it comes at a cost for our own physical and emotional needs as human beings. The Sales Evangelist is launching a course to build your professional self-care routine; check out the information here: thesalesevangelist.com/free-sales-training Build a positive attitude and confidence: One of the biggest things to help you be more effective is confidence. Even if you don’t know a lot about the industry or individual, learn the company basics. Research the company to have more poignant discussions about the material to drive confidence. If you are genuinely interested in the conversation with the potential buyer, you’ll inherently come across as more confident and competent in the conversation. Dress to the customer’s needs: If you’re meeting with an executive or higher-level individual, dress to their level. Leave the hoodie at home and wear what instills confidence in yourself and the buyer. Especially if you work from home, dressing professionally will make an impact where lower dress scales are more common. Your personal brand is critical: Pay attention to how you project yourself online and on social media. Amid a potential recession and the Great Resignation, ensure your content, language, and tone are transferable wherever you want to go. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill. Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by frequent guest and CEO of Sales Gravy, Jeb Blount, to discuss an important (and often avoided) topic: selling a price increase to clients. The price increase conversation is awkward, especially if you’ve never done it before. A seller’s main priority is to get the increase without losing the customer or order. Increases are good for the health of an organization. They’re essential to ensure you get the resources to sell more deals, help prevent layoffs, and service quality initiatives. Understand what kind of price increase is occurring: Defensive increases are smaller and leveraged across the entire company. In addition, having a relationship with the customer makes discussing a price increase easier. The status quo means it takes a lot of work for a buyer to leave - many customers are likely to stay with you despite the price increase. Popular narratives sellers can use to discuss: In an inflationary period with supply chain issues, price increases constitute an economic fairness narrative. Costs have risen, impacting your ability to serve customers. Future value narratives occur when you add features, services, and additional expertise that justify the price increase. Project-based narrative - To successfully meet a particular benchmark, timeline, or quota, you need additional funding. Weave narratives together to weave a custom reason for your client - it should be whatever best helps them explain the increase. Connect with Jeb on LinkedIn for more content and information. You can find his new book, Selling the Price Increase, on Amazon, and a free downloadable companion guide at salesgravy.com/resources. Finally, tune in to his podcast, the Sales Gravy Podcast, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Many buyers see sellers as a commodity. While the goal of every seller is to close more deals, how are you supposed to do that without being memorable to the buyer? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by a sales coach and expert, Casey Jacox, to learn how sellers can stand out and be memorable to their prospects. Sellers are under a lot of pressure: Whether that pressure is to hit KPIs, increase quarterly figures, or just contribute to company growth, sellers have a lot to worry about. However, sales leaders are unlikely o slow down and contribute to sellers’ foundational skills (AKA building relationships.) The ultimate goal? To make internal and external connections that help sellers improve their close rate while enjoying their position more than before. Six things sellers can do to be more memorable: Bring a positive attitude to your team Manage expectations of your team and prospects Understand the difference between listening and hearing Document and record interactions, goals, and data to inform your questions Let your authentic self shine Relationships take time Have a boomerang mindset. Think about ways to be nice and positive to those around you - set the precedent for communication. Give what someone asks for, and communicate with stakeholders if something might prevent you from reaching a certain benchmark or KPI. For more content and information from Casey, tune in to his podcast, The Quarterback DadCast, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere else podcasts can be found. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. This episode is brought to you in part by the Outbound 2022 Sales Conference. Are you looking to learn actionable and practical ways to improve your sales performance? Do you or your team want to experience a fantastic professional development opportunity full of expert and high-quality speakers ready to help you reach your sales quotas? Attend this year’s Outbound Conference! Visit outboundconference.com to learn more, and use code MANGO10 at checkout to take a portion of your final ticket price. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The modern seller is exceptional in their industry and knows what to do to add value to prospects, keep a full pipeline, and close more deals. But how exactly can we be modern sellers? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by sales consultant Amy Franko to discuss what she believes makes modern sellers stand out in today’s market. The modern seller excels in three things: Their value is an essential part of the conversation; they look to be a part of the equation that closes a deal. They are seen as difference makers in the eyes of their clients and others in the industry. Prospects and buyers believe modern sellers have a competitive advantage over the other sellers in the industry. Anyone can be a modern seller: Understand the makeup of your territory and what you’ve been assigned to sell. Then, take a strategic view of what makes up your territory. Determine if you have a business plan for your inventory, revenue, and profit. The hallmark of a modern seller is the ability to take something complex and boil it down to something simple. Set goals and milestones that indicate if you’re on the right trajectory. Understand your ideal client profile and know what is important to the people you pursue. Focus on building relationships. Once you clearly understand your verticals, you can focus on building relationships with decision-makers. Connect with one or two people a week to something of potential value to them, whether that’s introducing them to another contact or sharing articles and information. Read Amy’s book, The Modern Seller, to dive into the five capabilities any sales professional should build in themselves and their teams. For more information and content from Amy, connect with her on LinkedIn or visit amyfranko.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Creating and maintaining a full and robust pipeline of high-quality leads and sales is dramatically easier when utilizing a trust-based sales strategy. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by professional sales coach Chris Morrison to understand how making yourself irreplaceable is the key to securing more high-quality clients. Why be irreplaceable? The name gives it away, but memorizing a sales script isn’t a scalable long-term solution to making more money. To make yourself irreplaceable, you have to make yourself known. Command trust as a trusted advisor to those around you, whether coworkers, managers, or customers. Have a following or community of people who take your word as trusted advice. Many sales reps get comfortable and fall into repetition. Understand that salespeople have two battles to fight - one with prospects and one with their company. Building trust with clients: The two most common outreach methods are still phone and email. However, understanding the best way to get the client persona from Point A to Point B will make outbound messaging drastically more successful. If a lead is unsure about an immediate purchase, ask to share insights with them over the next 12 months. Whether it’s emails, discord, or a Facebook group, nurturing the leads through a series of problem-solving content based on their root issues will foster that trust. Some sellers think they don’t have time to nurture potential buyers: People talk and interact. Even if someone isn’t willing to buy now, they might buy later or can help refer your company to other clients down the line. Build the skill of trust because it’s a skill you’ll need for the rest of your life. Chris’s final takeaway? Lean into the trust-based pipeline, because not enough people put effort into creating great leads. It all depends on the effort and energy you’re willing to channel into your work to create the best results. For more great content and resources from Chris, connect with him on LinkedIn or join his Facebook Group. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Believe it or not, changing your sales communication strategy can be all you need to close more sales! In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CEO and Founder of Ajax Union, Joe Apfelbaum, to learn how he changed his sales approach to land more deals with larger accounts. Break into larger accounts without wasting too much time: Everyone says to go on LinkedIn, but many people don’t understand how to use LinkedIn effectively. Anyone will see through a counterfeit pitch, even if it's just a mutual connection request. Don’t waste time talking to unqualified leads by creating a strategy to guide your connection requests. Know the buyer, their issues, and their goals to sell effectively. Features tell, stories sell. Become a storyteller to motivate and inspire people to create positive interactions on LinkedIn. Coaching without permission is criticism, so build rapport (through storytelling) to build the relationship beforehand. When you get a referral, the buyer or prospect doesn’t go to the company's LinkedIn page; they go to yours. Keeping your own page updated is critical to a good interaction. Get familiar with the contact by reading their posts and looking through their content on other platforms to see what you can mention. To the sellers who say they don’t have the time: It’s much easier to ask a friend for an appointment than a stranger. Build relationships, and you’ll have a perspective of abundance. Set a goal for how many conversations you want per week or month. Start with the end in mind. Joe’s secret? Exposure, credibility, and direct messaging. LinkedIn has a high organic reach, so post engaging content that grows your personal brand. When interacting with others, discuss something of interest and don’t jump into a sales pitch. Connect with Joe on LinkedIn for more great content, insights, and information. To find more than 200 pages of sales insights and the key to building lasting sales relationships, read Joe’s book High Energy Networking, available on Amazon. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Some salespeople say LinkedIn doesn’t work for their industry. But LinkedIn is effective! (Chances are, you’re simply not using the platform correctly!) In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald explains the different LinkedIn features available to help make anyone a LinkedIn success. Connect with Donald on LinkedIn to share what features are effective for you that everyone should know! Name Pronunciation By enabling pronunciation on your LinkedIn profile, people can listen to you explaining how to say your name. While simple, this powerful tool will foster better communication and greetings, especially when utilizing cold outreach in the sales process. If your name is easily pronounceable, it’s still a quick intro to your personality and how you approach greetings. Utilizing video in messaging: The video introduction feature on LinkedIn is an opportunity for a more in-depth look at who you are, what you do, and what motivates your professional pursuits. Engage your audience, direct them to a website, or add a CTA urging people to sign up for your latest class. When messaging potential leads, supplying video explainers or commentary will build rapport and make you appear more trustworthy than a text message. Utilizing voice in messaging: Recording audio messages is a mobile-only feature that allows you to quickly add an audio component to a message. This is an opportunity to explain your actions, engage your audience, or connect and build rapport. Actually posting content. LinkedIn has close to 800 million active users, but only 2% of users post content regularly. Posting content is one of the most underutilized yet obvious strategies to drive lead growth and offer value to others. If directing people to a website off of LinkedIn, try linking the site in the comments instead of the actual post to generate more impressions. The people who view your profile: Linkedin allows you to see who viewed your profile. While not everyone might apply, this is an excellent database of names to start connecting with potential leads. They clicked on your profile for a reason; you or the other person will benefit from the interaction! This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

In pretty much any team dynamic, some will perform at their best and some less than up-to-par. So how can we utilize our tech stack to help low-performers blossom into the great sellers we know they can be? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CEO of Logik.io, Chris Shutts, to understand how to best manage and create strong sales teams. It’s commonplace for new sellers to struggle in complex industries. There’s often a massive difference between an experienced rep and a new hire, beyond what experience alone can account for in productivity and time-to-value ratio. Logik.io helps standardize sellers’ effectiveness to help everyone reach quotas and KPIs. Buyers are becoming very particular in the way they interact with tools. In B2B transactions, people put up with complications. However, that impatience found in B2C transactions are moving into B2B. If your company can respond faster, your margin will grow. Technology helps guide the user. With Logik.io, they want feedback from the sales team to iterate and make it ideal for the users. A $6 billion tech company client self-implemented the platform, and they were a nuanced company with a complex product. With Logik.io, they created a migration path to download data from one tool and upload it into Logik, moving hundreds of models. Because they have so many models, they wanted configuration inside their CPQ tools, primarily Salesforce, and in e-commerce applications. With this platform, any seller can utilize those configurations to help seamlessly provide clients the same value and options. Indicators that mean you might need a tool like Logik.io: All companies want to grow and make transactions more efficient. The problem with existing configuration engines is that they don’t support an omnichannel experience either. From a cost efficiency standpoint, consolidating multiple engines into one for product data maintenance is a great way to reduce administrative workload. Speed of market and new product introductions. Logik.io requires a short window of implementation, helping companies deliver accessible channels quickly. Chris’s final takeaway? There’s a shift in the market, and buyers and sellers are becoming more particular. Sellers want to sell solutions, not bundles of parts. This combination makes Logic an awesome differentiator, and it can help other companies differentiate and compete with others For more information and content, connect with Chris by visiting Logik.io or sending an email at [email protected]. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Believe it or not, anyone can go from small-scale deals to multi-million dollar closes. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by sales and mindset coach Cheryl Parks to discuss how she gets the right people in the conversation to close large-scale deals. Believe in your own story: You don’t need to be the best salesperson; you need to be the best thing your customers dictate. If you don’t know the answer to something, toss the answer to someone else. Be honest and approach situations as needed. Starting the conversation with larger accounts: In today’s environment, there are so many more opportunities. Sales is a treasure hunt, not a linear scenario. The insights you provide to a CEO or CFO mean more than just sending a case study or book; be the extra set of eyes and ears that provide concise thoughts. Large deals don’t happen overnight - you need to have conversations, talk to new people, and determine where they spend their time. Go to the companies you are loyal to, because you’ll be more excited about it. Initial messaging outreach: Cheryl teaches the heart-centered framework, and one of the “h”’s is human-to-human contact. Don’t be a robot. Instead, be authentic and show passion for your work to trigger meetings and events that push prospects further into the pipeline. Relationships come from serving and providing value for the prospect. The buyer wants to support the organization and demonstrate competence. What can you provide to help them achieve their own goals and company goals? Smaller organizations tend to be more agile, adaptable, and long-term. So larger-scale companies can and do work with companies that might be smaller than themselves. How can we make large deals work? Determine their desired outcome, streamline customer experiences, and create specific and actionable reporting. Throughout her deal, Cheryl based who would be in the meeting depending on who was in their meeting, but remembering there might be more people who need to be in the room. Cheryl’s parting advice? You’re living in your story, but change what story you tell yourself. Write affirmations to speak your future into existence. Walk yourself out of your shortcomings to go beyond your comfort zone. For more information, content, and advice from Cheryl, visit her website thesalesgrowth.com or connect with her on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Unsurprisingly, most people work to get paid (a wild concept, I know.) Despite that, navigating and creating a proper pay scale for sales teams is a seemingly complex and difficult process. How can we create a pay scale that works for the organization and the workers themselves? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CRO of LinkSquares, Steve Travaglini, to discuss what he does to strike a balance between these two sides. Salary open for negotiation in sales roles doesn’t make sense. If you have two people doing the exact same job, they should be paid the same. Pay isn’t the way to motivate people. If you pay people differently, that will eventually get out and will result in a lack of trust in the organization. Base salaries should be standard across a job title, but allow the variable income (i.e. commission) to determine how much a seller’s skills allow them to make. There should be no questions or ambiguous items when an employee signs a compensation agreement. Set the rules before you play the game. What items do sellers find annoying in the compensation package? Having different salaries but the same amount of experience should be a nonstarter. Structure annual bonuses around the hiring period, not the calendar year to give everyone an equal chance of reaching that quota. Implement rewards and compensations beyond strictly monetary like parental leave, benefits, and even stocks or an owner’s portion of the company to keep employees satisfied. Consider advertising jobs based on income; it shouldn’t be the taboo topic that it is currently. Steve’s average retention v. other tech companies: Typically tech companies aim to be in the 50-75% range of employee This year, Steve’s company is around 80% retention and historically around 70%. They take risks on sellers with no experience or without the 5-6 years of closing experience, people expect to see. It all comes down to the product and the company; you can be great at your craft, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be world-class at every company. Steve’s final takeaway? Don’t forget what it’s like to be the rep. Listen to the account executives and those around you; put together a benefits package you would’ve appreciated if you were in their role. To get in contact with Steve, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit Linksquares.com to view available job openings (but he always enjoys a custom LinkedIn DM.) This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Sellers often look for the newest tool, software, or strategy to find success and increase performance. However, improving the core elements of sales is often overlooked. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Dan Zavorotny, the co-founder and COO of Nurtisense, to learn what elements every great sales team should integrate into their culture. Flexibility Culturally, you have to portray the values that work for your company. However, they might not fit other people. People operate differently. If you are a self-motivated individual and you know what will make you perform your best, you should have the flexibility to do that. People who like flexibility can find a balance in life that drives people’s ability to perform at their best time rather than the company’s best time. Transparency Many employers sell potential employees on the dream of working with the company rather than the reality. Being straightforward with the reality of working with the company saves time interviewing, onboarding, and training because turnover will drastically decrease. Maintaining transparency after the hiring process and providing precise methods for improvement will make employees more comfortable asking how they are performing. Metrics Metrics shouldn’t be arbitrary or difficult to measure - they should be specific and actionable metric that allows people to know how they can best move forward and accomplish new goals. It’s easy to get busy with busy work, but this often has little impact on the organization. Before starting an activity, determine the baseline you’re starting with and what you’ll consider a success. Without that baseline, how can you determine if the work was worthwhile? Bonus: Sleep and Nutrition When sellers get a good night’s sleep, they perform better. Their expressions, body language, and enunciation are dramatically better when well-rested. Sleep is derived from your nutrition, meaning the better your diet, the better your sleep will be. To learn more about Dan and his work, visit Nutrisense’s blog, and connect with him on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

This is a conversation we need to have. Cold outreach is one of the core tenants of successful sellers, right? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the founder of Blueprint, Jordan Crawford, to discuss why there might be a better strategy. Every job Jordan has, he’s either been fired from, or the company went under. He ultimately found his place helping startups scale and grow for long-term success, and it was through this endeavor he found a better methodology than personalized cold outreach. The ‘spray-and-pray’ method was the initial online sales foray. However, that soon led the way to personalized outreach. So, is a new method taking the lead? Personalization has its uses, and there are times it is still functional. However, there are some where it isn’t. Personalization helps grab a prospect’s attention. But as a B2B seller, you should only want their attention if their company has a problem your solution can help solve. If you aren’t making a commercial transaction, personalization can have great power. Sellers can’t test personalization systematically; you must have a way to process the data that is useful to prospects and act on it. Invest in data that leads to understanding product-market fit that solves your customers' core problems. Personalize based on problems, not on the person: Once the potential problems are identified, sellers can sift through potential prospects and interact with them based on those problems the prospect (or their company) might be facing. We’re in the world of tactics. But if you lead with insight based on a prospect’s problem, you’ll be successful. How can a sales team can implement this strategy: Determine what channels and messaging work for your company. Do a bottom-up analysis to understand everything about the consumer and who you’re selling to. Only after this point should you go to market. Score existing customers by a ‘rubric’ of your ideal customer. If they are a rough match, you’ll know you’ve achieved a more scalable business. You must determine the data sources to find the consumers struggling with the products you solve. Jordan’s final takeaway? If you’re in the sales system, spend time with customer success to determine what consumers already know. Because if you know what they know, you can build models that find more organizations like them. For more content from Jordan, connect with him on LinkedIn or email him at [email protected]. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Not all companies are created equal. Five key differentiators separate the cream of the crop for sales and sale-focused companies. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald discusses the five key components that successful sales-focused companies have in common. Everyone in the organization is selling. This doesn’t mean every position in the company is a salesperson; we still need our accountants and other critical roles. Instead, this means that the employees believe in the organization's mission, and they sell the organization because of its powerful mission. Adjust your focus and mission to ensure it is clear and something everyone can get behind. Salespeople are treated as the best in the company. Salespeople are the front line of the people giving money to your company. Salespeople are crucial to bringing money into the organization. If you treat your sellers poorly, you’ll have high turnover (and thus lower sales.) The key? Treat sellers like they’re needed and appreciated. (And you should probably apply that mentality to every role in your company.) Sales education is provided to sales professionals You want your sellers to spread the word about your company's mission. Infuse your salespeople with the greatest of the organization. Provide books, seminars, and boot camps to help provide the techniques sellers need to thrive in their roles. These salespeople will stay with you because you’re providing value to them. The Sales Evangelist has training programs you can use to help your sellers master their profession. Sellers are challenged to become better. Top organizations challenge sellers to be accountable for their work. The best sellers are the ones who consistently set new goals and hit new quotas. Look for ways to be better, and you’ll constantly raise the bar to make more money for yourself and your company. You have the right KPIs in place that encourages you to grow. KPIs should not focus exclusively on the end result. While outcome-based KPIs are useful, the best companies understand which other metrics best drive results. Leading indicators make better KPIs because sellers have direct control over how they can fulfill the actions associated with them. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Closing your next sales deal can be as easy as eight steps! In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the founder and owner of Closers.io, Cole Gordon, to discuss his eight-step process to close every deal you have (or at least come close.) Cole’s beginning sales experience was not what he expected: Cole’s original sales team was exceptional. However, their end-of-sale closing conversations were not what he expected. He realized that every sale depends on meeting the beliefs of the buyer before you pitch them on the deal, and they'll create an objection-less close themselves. Cole's eight-step plan is based on the relief ladder concept but applied specifically to sales. Step 1: Pain There are two problems: actual pains and unfulfilled desires. The prospect might not have pain, but there’s a gap between where they are now and where they want to be. Establish the pain; because all sales are conducted based on solving a problem. The following six steps are all predicated on the initial determinant of pain. Step 2: Doubt The prospect must believe there’s an inability to fix the problem or that the product or service will make the solution happen more efficiently. To establish doubt, make the buyer believe your route is more efficient or profitable than if they were to handle it themself. Step 3: Cost Anything that results in a delay of a decision is likely because of cost. The buyer should believe that staying where they are now is less profitable than purchasing your product or service. Step 4: Desire Fixing the problem will yield a payoff, and you can only get through these steps if you’re aware of the problem. It’s not enough to understand the surface desire - the seller should know the vision and goal beyond the sales goal. Step 5: Support Stakeholders around the decision should support solving the problem. This doesn’t necessarily mean they need to support you at this stage, but they should at least support investing in fixing the problem. Step 6: Money The buyer must have the physical resources to fix the problem. If the buyer doesn’t have the budget to pay for your solution, they just aren’t a viable prospect. Step 7: Willingness Once you’re established that a prospect has the finances to purchase your solution, determine that they’re willing to allocate that amount to acquire your solution. Even if a prospect has the money, they might not consider the problem enough of an issue to warrant spending a certain amount of money on it. Step 8: Trust Trust in the company is important, but rust in the methodology is even more important. You must be able to explain your solution and why your solution will work for them. If they’ve used a similar method in the past (but to no avail), you must be able to identify why that didn’t work, and how your methodology is different. Once you’ve educated the prospect on a differentiator, you’re going to solidify the trust and encourage the prospect to work with you. Cole’s major takeaway? There are two parts to winning a sale: optimizing your energy and optimizing the mechanics. If you can master both aspects of the sale, you’ll be ready to win. To see more of what Cole does, visit his company website at Closers.io. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scr

When you have the intention to change your sales approach, the behavior follows suit. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Scott Savage, Managing Director at Franklin Covey, to learn how sellers can increase their close rate by winning more deals. Salespeople tend to think we close more than we do. In actuality, the close right is only around 17%. But imagine what it could be if that close rate were higher. Why are win rates so low? Many would say the pandemic, but it’s not one sole factor. 42% of the time, decision-makers could not tell the difference between vendors. Sellers almost always think they're different. But it doesn’t matter how different you are if the buyer cannot differentiate between sellers. Talk less, question more: Executives and other buyers judge sellers based on their questions, not necessarily their answers. Clients don’t want sellers to just talk at them; they want a discussion to know their problems are being addressed. It’s not that a seller is disliked, but rather that the meeting didn’t progress with the buyer’s needs in mind. RDM is Scott’s strategy to close more sales: Relevant, distinct, and memorable: For relevant, ask yourself what the client truly cares about. What do they wish to buy or add to their current company? Distinct is explaining how they will be dramatically better because of what you can bring to the table. People make decisions based on differences, not similarities. People want compelling contrast. Juxtapose those distinct differences by making those differences easy to share and difficult to forget. Start with the end in mind. Establish objectives for each meeting to help guide interactions toward those pre-established checkpoints. Ensure your close rate is open: we get too focused on ourselves, and our intention is based on the sale, not the best decision. To stand out, take the RDM strategy. Next, understand what’s essential to each decision-maker to get everyone on board. Many people can veto a deal. But, if you know each stakeholder and help them improve, you’ll altogether avoid that issue. Your biggest competitor isn’t other companies; it’s the status quo. Be interesting and stand out to convince each decision-maker to choose you. Scott’s final takeaway? Most sellers think they’re better than they are. Establish what makes you better and convince buyers of that factor. If you can set yourself apart, you’ll close more deals. For more content from Scott, connect with him on LinkedIn or visit franklincovey.com/sds to pre-order his book, Strikingly Different Selling. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemango

Most modern sales methodologies focus on building rapport and trust with the prospect; challenging the prospect’s beliefs to make better deals is a hallmark of that perspective. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the Chief Evangelist of Challenger, Jennifer Allen, to discuss her company’s methodology that drives relationships with their prospects and customers. Jennifer started as an entry-level seller in account management: A relationship-builder through and through, she worked hard to gain client trust. (Which worked well for a long time.) During the 2008 recession, her peers and customers laid off teams and cut back budgets; that’s when her corporate exec board launched a report detailing what maintains relationships with customers. Jennifer was shocked to see none of her current sales components in that report. What worked once now no longer works. Why focus on the relationship side? Jennifer never wanted to be one of those salespeople, but it was also how she was coached - she mirrored the behavior of her managers and peers. She was taught to ease tension with the buyer. However, constructive tension is crucial to teaching a prospect a risk (and why they need to act on that risk.) When you have a problem and go to the bar, the bartender makes you feel good in the moment, but then you wake up with a hangover and the same problem. Conversely, working towards a productive goal helps make strides toward solving the problem. It’s all about your relationships with the people around you. Implementing the challenger sale for success: Jennifer transitioned from a relationship-building to a challenger by reading The Challenger Sale. Her first interpretation after reading the book? Tell prospects everything they were doing wrong. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t work that well. She failed to engage in a two-way dialogue and didn’t offer a space for the prospect to interact and engage. The takeaway? You have to earn the privilege to say they’re doing something wrong. Have an observation about the company, look for something the company is trying to achieve and determine the company’s end-state goal. If it’s a public company, see if they’re trying to acquire AI or how they’re trying to grow. Express curiosity in the end goal. Have something of value to share, whether right or wrong. Either way, it’s something to think about. If it’s a private company, look to the CEO’s LinkedIn page or an exec’s podcast and see if they convey any information. Bringing something of value to the prospect throughout the sales experience is a compelling reason for the prospect to work with you. Stop using sales buzz words and figure out how you can bring something to the table. Jennifer’s major takeaway? Keep a log of what each company is missing, and what happened to make you realize that particular thing was lacking. As you grow that log, you’ll have an easier time when identifying other companies. For more content from Jennifer, connect with her on LinkedIn and listen to her podcast, Winning the Challenger Sale, on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our

Marketing and sales alignment is pivotal in the modern era of sales, and building credibility and rapport in your communication for all departments is essential. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CMO of Growth Stage Marketing, Mark Donnigan, to discuss his take on building rapport while unifying departmental collaboration. Good CMOs think about marketing campaigns. Great CMOs bring value to the enterprise. Between the evolution of technology and the pandemic, sales has completely transformed. Buyers no longer attend trade shows to talk with peers; they organize entirely through online forums. Buyers are 50% or more through the buying process before reaching out to their first vendor. A seller’s job is no longer to get the first meeting; it’s to state the problem that the solution solves while differentiating from competitors. CMO turnover is almost exclusively because they repeatedly try the old playbook rather than embrace these new changes. Credibility plays into rapport building: There’s one thing sellers can do at all times - add value to their network through social channels. Nobody wants to be sold to, so content shouldn’t be explicitly sales-focused. Instead, create helpful content the audience will read. People are drawn to others who make intelligent observations about a problem or solution. Add value to customers as someone who can bring thoughtful insights to the industry - that’s the open door in the modern sales landscape. Only 2% of LinkedIn users post content, so seeing thoughtful and relevant content from a person on the platform makes an impression on anyone. Create your own opportunities by providing internal and external value. Too many executives see themselves as professional managers, but that position is a commodity. However, when you can add insight to a large enterprise organization, you become a lot harder to replace. The new Rolodex isn’t names and addresses; it’s the community that forms around the network. People who like, respect, and are engaged with your content are more valuable than a simple name and number registry. Create a network that respects your insights and content. There are plenty of other competitors who are just as competent and insightful. However, nobody knows it because they don’t post. Mark’s final takeaway? Focus on the seller - find every possible way to add value to those in the ecosystem around you. Visit his company website at growthstage.marketing and connect with Mark on LinkedIn for more interesting and insightful content. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to

An alignment between sales and marketing inspires the competitive collaboration needed to develop consistent business growth that is scalable across the departments of the organization. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist Donald is joined by Gregg Ames, CCO of Act-On Marketing Automation, to discuss his take on building a proper sales and marketing alignment. Great solutions occur when sales and marketing stop acting as separate processes. Companies start fragmented. Sales and marketing do their things, but unifying the entire sales funnel leads to a guide for better messaging. People process information with technology, and that behavior has not shifted. That processing starts with an integrated flow between departments. Every company has good salespeople. But, when equipped with marketing to canvas a broader market, brings more high-quality leads to allow a focus on later-stage selling. Sellers are (historically) not great at generating demand. Getting marketing to take this role will bring more revenue to the organization How sellers can help with the alignment: Many have seen some semblance of a unified sales and marketing process, and whether it’s through your ideal profile or not, you need to create feedback loops. People need to drive communication upstream; you can’t have the left and right hands be completely uncoordinated. Receiving constructive feedback is necessary to properly learn from past mistakes. However, it’s also critical for the company to invest in the seller’s knowledge. Everything starts with a proper ICP. If marketing’s leads aren’t the right fit and converting sales, the team needs to reiterate their messaging or scoring methodology to avoid false positives from proliferating. Three implementation times for inter-departmental unification: When driving sales and marketing alignment, be prepared to plan and evolve your program. You have to access where you are in the organization and understand how it might change in the future. Leveraging data is paramount to a successful program. Marketing is no longer just art; it’s art and science. Leverage data to build a repeatable process that decisions are based on. Determine where deals stall, and where wins are created - when you integrate the marketing stacks in the conversation, there’s data about site intent, nurture potential, and A/B testing to quality people more quickly. If you look at these elements, you’ll be successful. Create feedback loops, which can be small email or slack technologies, or well-structured interval meetings between relevant parties. AE working for an organization - how to implement? We’re chasing numbers, so it’s important to measure good metrics to hit the proper revenue targets. However, we’re not as comfortable talking with our teams and having earnest discussions about the high-level air cover or ABM strategies that should be the next customers. Initiate dialogues with peers to at least establish a strategy that will move the organization closer to the desired outcomes. Gregg’s final takeaway? Embrace your marketing team, because it’s much easier to win as a team when sales and marketing are properly aligned. Email Gregg at [email protected] or connect with him on LinkedIn for more interesting and relevant sales content. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digi

Selling is constantly evolving. There are techniques and strategies you should implement today to set a precedent for long-term success for those looking to thrive in enterprise selling. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Vice President and lead trainer at Empire Selling Jesse Rothstein to discuss his tips to modernize enterprise selling. Modern challenges in the enterprise selling environment: A considerable challenge is the continued expansion and growth of organizations making decisions with a committee or group model. More people involved in the decision make it harder to track, maintain, and influence necessary stakeholders. Because committees complete research before reaching out to salespeople, it’s more difficult for the seller to show a differentiation point. 75% of people are groups and committees are prepared to make a decision before they contact a seller. Three core pillars to modernize sales selling strategy: Build your digital brand. Sellers understand that their digital brand is what buyers will evaluate as they undergo their research. Your network is imperative. It’s not what you know but who you know. Leveraging your network to get into new organizations and make additional connections helps create a stronger sales strategy. Content: Do you have a thought-out, pragmatic, and consistent strategy for sharing content? Buyers want to know your opinion, your industry, and even who you are as a person. Creating a digital brand: Acknowledge that selling is digitally-focused. A few decades ago, your brand was done by the initial physical impression. And while those days aren’t over, they are less frequent. If you’re a seller who doesn't buy into digital branding, that’s akin to showing up to a meeting in your pajamas. Or with bad breath. Allocate time to determine every point your digital brand touches, consider owning the domain rights to your first and last name, and build out the social profiles that might be involved in a conversation. Utilize your network: It’s always easier to get business from people you currently do or have done business with. Modern sellers can (and should) spend more time with this audience - those via referral. It’s an outbound sales skill that doesn’t get measured or chartered as outbound work. It’s no longer as direct as asking for referrals - it’s sharing content and using LinkedIn to get an intro or mention rather than an all-out referral. Build a content strategy: Most sellers do not have a consistent content strategy - just by doing that; you’re differentiating yourself. Get conversations started that are around you, your company, and your industry. Before the internet, we’d go to trade shows, public forums, and live demos to hand out flyers, brochures, and demonstrations. Today, you just need an internet connection to make it happen. It’s not about creating everything from scratch, but instead taking content, distributing, and creating it to form an opinion. To start, set a calendar appointment for a quiet time and develop a content sharing strategy. Once allocated, choose a free scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your content. Contact Jesse on LinkedIn, visit empireselling.com, and read his book Carry that Quota on Amazon for more great content and information. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. A

How can you modernize your sales approach to stay up to date on your and your team’s sales approach? In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald kicks off our latest content series centered on modernizing your sales tactics and techniques. In today’s episode, Donald discusses three ways to change your mindset and specific tactics to update your sales strategy. Unite sales and marketing: Traditionally, a seller would fill their pipeline through cold calling, but the process has changed. Account-based selling is the future of sales, prioritizing a unification of data-driven decisions combining sales and marketing. With marketing, they can target accounts with ads, emails, and other collateral to guide people to the sales funnel. Automate selling techniques: Modern selling requires a mixture of automated and personalized messaging. Personalization has two sides: a generic pain focus or a LinkedIn or specified message. The latter is great to supplement and redirect them to generalized personalizations. Outreach, Apollo, and Salesloft are all platforms that can help automate tactics you don’t need to do yourself. Remove outdated tactics: Stop using the tactics modern buyers consider “gimmicky.” Establish yourself as a consultant, not just a seller looking for a commission check. Become a brand authority: When Donald was a full-time sales rep, creating content was the best way to set himself apart. Once he left the company, his brand came with him! Using platforms like LinkedIn or even TikTok to share relevant and engaging content is helpful for prospective buyers, and subsequently you. Use technology: This goes in tandem with automation. However, tools like Fathom helps extrapolate information from sales meetings to improve your meeting skills. Other platforms like LinkedIn Sales Navigator help you make data-driven decisions and find data-driven prospects for your business. Use these tools to help reach new goals! Bonus tip: Use Donald’s sales planner to improve your time and take control of your day! This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Many top sellers using account-based selling are within large tech and SaaS companies. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by sales coach and consultant Ian Koniak to discuss how those large enterprise companies create and coordinate successful sales strategies. Transitioning from transactional to strategic selling: He tried to approach his sales techniques in a more activity-scientific manner instead of qualitative. When Ian transitioned to Salesforce, quantity and hustling didn’t work. It wasn’t practical to get in the door or drive change. Three qualities for top-performing sellers in tech: They’re authentic. People have a bad image of salespeople, but top performers are genuine and there to help their prospects and clients solve a problem. They care for the clients before, during, and after the commission check. They have Integrity for the work. The best sellers help potential clients solve their problems to ensure the client’s long-term success. Differentiating a top seller: Their work habits are different, they’re focused and organized, and they value their time. They determine the different needs and solutions a specific company might have and build relationships across multiple stakeholders to understand those issues. Identify where employees spend their time and how your solutions can apply to them. They understand where the company wants to go, what’s stopping them from getting there, and what they can do about it. It all comes down to focus. The seller knows when to say no, and focuses on strategic accounts and strategic executives within those accounts. They invest their time in the change agents who can make the largest impact within the company. Connect and contact Ian for more content and coaching on LinkedIn, YouTube, and his website untapyoursalespotential.com. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The days of “spray and pray” selling are over. So how can sellers maintain a consistently full pipeline of prospects and leads? Through targeted and account-based selling. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the VP of Sales Management at Crunchbase, Ang McManamon, to discuss how she uses account-based selling in her own work. Why go into account-based selling? A year ago, Ang’s team talked to their best clients and saw an appetite for account-based selling. Prospects would use Crunchbase for funding and capital management news, and people liked the database options for prospecting. There are so many sales tools today, yet finding high-quality accounts and decision-makers is still tricky. Before, there were no strategic ways of looking at accounts and contacts. Now, you can be intentional with your actions. Setting up Crunchbases’s account-based selling: First, figure out the target audience. Companies say they do it, but they frequently don’t get precise enough to best impact the audience. Narrow down organizations by size, but look for people based on many factors. Ang targeted 50 accounts per person on her 35-person team. Then, they researched the messaging, cadence, and outreach that would best apply to those targets. Look at the potential buyer intent. What web pages have they visited on your website? Luckily, Crunchbase has great name recognition. However, prospects often don’t know the specific things they can do with the platform. It takes diligence as a leader to hold sellers accountable. While the account list is a priority, it’s not necessarily a restriction. If the seller isn’t getting anywhere with a target account, they should be able to move on and find new targets. For outbound selling, sellers use Crunchbase to view recommended accounts or new contacts within those accounts. Then, they create an automatic email from Outreach and set up a cadence. Sellers use strategic intent tools to inform them of their best outreach method, and they use Salesforce to track data and activity. Potential problems (and solutions) with ABM: Initially, Ang’s team wasn’t using Crunchbase and wasn’t ‘surrounding’ the sale, interacting with 1-2 people rather than 4-5 who could impact the sale. Incentivizing the sale for larger-scale prospects can help get your foot in the door. Finds reps with a higher sense of ownership when using account-based selling because sellers feel more in control over the process. When working with strategic accounts, win rates increase roughly 48%, but the cycle is slightly longer. It sounds like a great trade-off to us. Ang’s major piece of advice? Account-based is here to stay, and it’s a better and more strategic way to sell your products. It takes time to nail down, but it’s worth it. Visit Crunchbase.com or email [email protected] to see what the Crunchbase platform offers. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more product

Sometimes the best way to close more deals isn’t by adding new people to your pipeline (though that’s always a good thing.) Instead, the best thing is to address the issues that make a deal fail before they fail. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the CEO of Challenger, Andee Harris, to get her take on failed deals and how to address those issues directly with our prospects. Challenger is a sales training company: The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson explains many of the principles Challenger uses in their training. Early sellers might be timid, which usually leads to a failure to recognize when a deal isn’t moving in the right direction. In Andee’s experience, continuous feedback is a great way to course-correct throughout the sales process to tailor the experience and selling strategy to the specific prospect. Passive selling isn’t the best form of selling for either party - taking control of the purchase and helping the buyer buy the product is your job. Three ways to notify deals before they go south: Integrate an avenue for continuous feedback. If a buyer likes you as a sales rep, they’ll want to share methods to improve their experience. Realize that one size doesn't fit all. What works for one client might not work for another. Constantly be learning. Be curious, and look to understand and be self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Andee’s final takeaway? Understand that we’re in a complex selling environment. Multiple factors influence the selling process, but it isn’t impossible to create wins and do phenomenally well. To get in touch with Andee, visit challengerinc.com or connect with Andee on LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Whether you’re the person in charge of leads, a small business owner, or anyone looking to do more business through prospecting (which should be everyone), this episode is for you. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Mike Moll to learn how to attract high-quality leads without ads by using modern techniques and platforms. Sales professionals can’t rely on marketing to supply enough leads. Video outreach is an effective strategy to supply your ideal client. Once you’re connected with someone, you’re guaranteed a 100% delivery rate platform through LinkedIn messaging. Make videos right on the LinkedIn platform. Other options include BombBomb and Loom, but asking a prospect to click a video link might dissuade some from watching. Sending a video far outclasses automated messages. With the pandemic ending in-person conferences, many B2B sellers turned to LinkedIn to conduct business, resulting in a surplus of auto-generated LinkedIn outreach messages. Sending 50 impactful videos will make far greater headway than frustrating people with spammy-sounding auto-generated messages. Sending messages to build connections: There are two big mistakes: forcing yourself as a needed solution to the prospect and removing a prospect’s autonomy in decision-making. Don’t be overly friendly. People buy from people, so if they don’t like you, they will not buy. Start video messages with a “hello” and a quick introduction. Make the intro as quickly as possible to focus instead on addressing their pain points. Consider listing the features of your product, which can continue to discuss the negative results that arise when that solution isn’t present. Mastering the follow-up strategy: Plan one more video or text follow-up. Typically, if someone doesn't respond to either of those, move to email for a 3-5 message campaign. Sending 100 personalized videos per week typically results in booking ten meetings, and when they come on the call, the cadence and familiarity is already present. Mike’s final takeaway? Video doesn’t have to be perfect. Leave in minor mistakes - we’re all human, and those mistakes convey that human element. Don’t make it perfect, just make it! Connect with Mike on Instagram @themikemoll for more content and to stay up-to-date on his pursuits. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn Sales Navigator. The Great Resignation has become the Great Reshuffle, meaning it can be difficult for sales professionals like you to find leads and close deals. Luckily, Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is here for you! Sales Navigator from LinkedIn is the only tool that uses real-time alerts and up-to-date insights to help you know when prospects are ready to buy. And, with over 30 advanced filters, sales professionals can quickly find genuine leads with the intent to purchase. Gain the advantage of accurate, quality lead generation data from LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can get a 60-day free trial of Sales Navigator at www.LinkedIn.com/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This episode is brought to you in part by Closers.io. Closers.io helps sales reps land their dream remote sales gig, where they can set their own hours, work from anywhere, and make six or even multi-6 figures per year. That sure sounds good to us! Committed to helping sales reps make a shift, Closers.io will place you in an available sales role that will increase your commissions and help you live the life you want. Apply for free now at go.closers.io/TSE. This episode is brought to you in part by Scratchpad. Are you tired of a digital workspace cluttered with notes, folders, files, and half-filled spreadsheets? (Not that we’re speaking from personal experience.) Luckily, we’ve found the solution. Scratchpad is the first Revenue Team Workspace specifically designed to adapt to each salesperson’s workflow, so you don’t have to change your habits. Scratchpad creates a streamlined workflow that allows everyone to be a little more productive each day without the hassle of updating a database with whatever info you can find. Get Scratchpad free at Scratchpad.com. As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, perf