The Salesman.com Podcast

There are few professions that match the high risk, high reward stakes of sales. For some, this is the best way to earning true financial freedom. But for others, it’s never going to be that perfect fit. Today we’re talking about the real pros and cons of working in sales. The euphoric ups, the devastating downs, and everything in between. So if you’re thinking about joining the sales industry or just wondering if this is your right profession, this is the guide for you. Now, let’s face it—not everyone’s cut out for sales. Ambition, confidence, self-discipline, and not to mention plenty of grit—they’re all required if you want to make it in this industry. And even if you do have all the right qualities, long hours, difficult quotas, and a high-stress environment are typically a given. But few other professions carry the enormous benefits of killing it in sales. And if you’re the right type of person, no other career will give you the same fulfillment and control over your on-the-job success. The trick is knowing what to expect in this job beforehand. That way, you can make an informed decision about if this is the right job for you. And that’s what I’m here for. Today we’re looking at the true upsides and downsides of being a sales pro. No lies and half-truths. No BS. And no holds barred. So first off, let’s start with the pros of working in sales. By far one of the biggest benefits is… Pro: It’s the Quickest Way to Become a Millionaire The money. Yep, sales can be lucrative. Incredibly lucrative if you’ve got the talent. And when you do have that talent and, of course, a proven sales system, hitting your quotas and raking in massive commissions isn’t all that difficult. As author and business founder Kent Billingsley told me in our interview: “Sales is one of the professions where you can make an embarrassing amount of money and have so little responsibility.” See, with traditional professions, your salary is capped. Sure, you may get bonuses and raises every few years. But no matter how hard you work, your end-of-year pay doesn’t change much. But with the commissions in sales, your earning potential is unlimited. And best of all, your pay is based on your own abilities. So you are in control here, not your employer. And that’s incredibly empowering. Pro: Much Less Risk Than Starting a Business It’s much less risky than starting a business yourself. Entrepreneurship can be exciting. But it’s also risky. About 20% of new businesses fail during their first two years. 45% go under in less than five years. And just 35% of all businesses survive past ten years. You may make it past that point. But realistically speaking, the odds are against you. When you work in sales, however, there are two threats to your livelihood—getting fired or your employer going under. And both are far less likely to occur than a startup failing. Pro: Easier to Land Clients Than Going Solo It’s easier to bring on new clients compared to if you were running your own business. When you start your own business, you’re starting from ground zero. You’ve got to prove to potential clients that you’re worth trusting. And only then will they entertain the idea of buying from you. That can end up taking years or even decades to do. But if you’re in a sales position at another company, you can “borrow trust” from your organization. You are a representative of a business with a proven track record, a history of clients served, and a reputation of its own. Your own trustworthiness will impact your performance, of course. But it’s ten times easier to close if you’re working for an established brand than if you tried going it alone. Now, the final benefit we’re talking about today is… Pro: Job Security (If You’re Good) Job security… if you know what you’re doing. If you’ve got the skills, you can rest easy knowing you’ll always be employable. Businesses are in dire need of capable sales reps these days. And while new technologies are threatening other professions, buyers will always want to speak with a real person before spending tens of thousands of dollars. Even if you do lose your position, you’ll always be able to quickly find a new one. You just need to make sure you’ve developed the skills necessary to make yourself marketable. Skills like those taught in the Selling Made Simple Academy. Alright, so now that we’ve tackled the perks, let’s look at the difficulties. Now quick heads up, we’re only going to look at a few downsides here. But these negatives can be absolute dealbreakers for certain types of people. So with that, downside number one is… Con: You Have to Learn to Live With Rejection You have to learn to live with rejection. Rejection, sadly, is a given in sales. It just is. So if you’re someone who can’t handle rejection or lets it get under your skin, sales might not be the job for you. But you also have to be able to learn from that rejection. Speaker, author, mentor, and sales legend Harvey J Eisenstadt put it best when he told me

Sales manager pushing you for more cold outreach to hit your quota? Not so fast. If you really want to start killing it, you need to shift away from new clients. And towards the ones you have now with upselling. In fact, done right, upselling your current customers can on average increase your sales revenue by 67%! That’s the difference between Pirus and Porsche at the end of the year when you take home your commission bonus. unanswered emails. And eventually, eventually, all that effort could lead to a new buyer or two. Emphasis on the “could” here. Even still, you’ve got to wade through a lot of crap to get there. But filling your pipeline with new buyers isn’t the only way to do business. In fact, focusing on maximizing value with your existing clients can make your life a hell of a lot easier. And today, we’re talking about using upselling to do just that. Sound good? Then let’s do it. Why Upsell? Why should upsell in the first place? You’ve already clinched the deal. So what’s the point of pushing things even further? Well, there are four benefits in particular here… 1. It’s Easier It’s easier than focusing on new buyers. With new buyers, you’ve got to go through the pains of establishing trust. But with existing ones (or those who have already committed to the sale), that trust is already there. Here’s a stat to prove my point. According to Marketing Metrics, you have just a 5 to 20% probability of successfully selling to a new prospect in most industries. 5 to 20%. If you’re selling to an existing customer though, that probability jumps to 60 to 70%. That’s an enormous increase! So if you want to make your job selling easier, go with the existing customers. Next… 2. It Drives More Revenue It drives more revenue. Customers spend more with the brands they’ve bought from before. To put a number on it, repeat customers spend 67% more on purchases than new customers. That’s two-thirds more! Just think what a 67% increase in earned revenue would mean for your commissions. 3. It Instills Greater Loyalty Upselling also instills greater loyalty. When you’ve already proven you can deliver real value, your past customers are 10X more likely to continue buying from you. After all, why go through all the hassle of finding a new vendor when you’ve already shown you’ve got the right stuff? Now, there are clearly some very real benefits to upselling. But how do you do it? That’s where… The Proven Product Upselling Framework The Proven Product Upselling Framework comes in. This framework is exactly what I teach in the Selling Made Simple Academy. And it’s made up of four steps. I go into these steps in great detail inside the academy. But for today’s video, let’s go through a quick overview of each step so you can start upselling right away. 1. Document Results Step one, gather the numbers. If you want to show a current customer that a new product has value, you’ve got to have the numbers to back it up. When it comes to new vs. current accounts, it’s all about how you treat the status quo. For instance, with new accounts, you want to attack the status quo. Productivity could be better. Efficiency could be better. Bottom-line earnings could be better. But with current accounts, you’re actually attacking and defending the status quo. You’re defending it because you don’t want clients to head to your competitor. And you’re attacking it so you can convince them to upgrade to your premium product. There are a couple of ways you can do both at once. But the best I’ve found is by sending them a value-rich quarterly report. Now, you can check out an example of this quarterly report in the blog post found in the description of this video. But in this report, you should include the following: 1. Your Earned Results Your earned results. 2. Review of Previous Buying Process A quick review of the previous buying process that reconfirms the client did their due diligence choosing you. 3. Sharing of New Industry Insights Sharing of new industry insights to provide extra value. 4. Detailed Competitor Improvements Detailed competitor improvements, highlighting new changes in your industry competitors. 5. Your Own Detailed Improvements Your own detailed improvements, including new features you’ve been developing and how they compare to your competitor’s. 6. howing the Cost of Change A section summarizing the cost of changing considering everything discussed so far. This is also a great place to start introducing your upsell products. 2. Review Changing Needs Highlighting their changing needs. Every business grows. And as it does, needs change. It’s a part of life. But your job is to identify those changing needs and show how your upsell product addresses those needs. It’s time to put your research skills to work here. As the more nuanced and specific you can get, the better. If you can pinpoint some of the biggest pain points and growth opportunities your client is facing, you can leverage them to better sell your premium product. Usi

Most salespeople barely hit quota. And I admit, that used to be me too. It wasn’t until I started doing one very unexpected thing that my income started to explode… I got unreasonable. And today’s video is all about why you too need to start acting a little less reasonably. Now, I’m 35. I’ve lived a solid ⅓ of my life already. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over my career in sales, it’s that you don’t have time to waste if you want to reach any reasonable level of success. Like, none. No kidding. Success at anything, anything, takes a decade at a minimum. Tough to hear, right? It’s sad but it’s true. And the longer you commit to doing the same thing everyone else is doing, following the same rules, living up to the same expectations, and being the same unremarkable, everyday sales rep, the less time you have to become truly successful. If you want to bust out from the pack, you’ve got to be different. You’ve got to defy the norms holding everyone else back. And you’ve got to start being unreasonable. Today we’re talking about 5 ways to start busting expectations and living a little less reasonably. And once you do follow them, you can thank me a decade from now when you’ve become the person you always dreamed of being. 1) Get Busy Get busy. This one’s a tough one to swallow. But as hard as it is to hear it, you’re going to have to work harder. Yeah yeah, there’s the typical 9 to 5. And a lot of people—the majority of people—clock out and forget about their job. That’s the reasonable approach. But if you want any chance of wild success, you’ve got to put in the hours. Now don’t worry—eventually you’ll be able to cut back. After you’ve built a solid foundation for yourself. But in the beginning, you need time to test what works. To see what doesn’t. And to find your process and path to success. So buckle up. No one ever said success was easy. 2) Get Lazy Threw you for a loop there, didn’t I? “Will, isn’t that the exact opposite of what you just said?” Well hold on a sec. After you put in the work, it’s time to get strategically lazy. As soon as you start seeing results, the next step is to double down on the pieces that give you the best results. Find the 20% of effort that is getting you 80% of the results and double down. Are 95% of leads coming from emails 5 and 6 of your 3-month outreach? Chop off the rest and build out from those. Are 4 out of 5 of your clients just one business sector? Start putting all your efforts there instead. And once you’ve started seeing your results level off, it’s time to restart the process. Find the 20% within that, and then the 20% in that, again and again. The more you refine, the more you can start making tiny changes and seeing huge results. 3) Get Mean Now, you’ve heard the saying “You are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with”? Well, there’s science to back this up too. Did you know most people earn between +/- 20% of what their parents earn? Or that with the right people in your circle, you’re scientifically proven to have more self-control, make wiser investments, and even feel less stress? Your social and professional circle matters. It matters a hell of a lot. And if you want to be successful, you need to ditch people who aren’t progressing at the same speed you are. Yep, they’ll probably be pissed. Yep, they’ll say you’re being unreasonable. And they’re right—you are. But that’s a good thing. 4) Get Zen Get zen. No matter what your spiritual leanings are, there’s something incredibly valuable behind the Buddhist way of living. And that’s minimalism. The better you are at incorporating minimalism, the more successful you’re going to be. Now I’m not saying you should live in a white room with a mattress on the floor and no cutlery… Instead think about this definition of minimalism – #container-bottom { width:100%; overflow: hidden; margin-top:20px; } #one-bottom { width:10%; float:left; padding:5px; } #two-bottom { width:90%; float:right; padding:3px; } @media only screen and (max-width: 767px) { #one-bottom { display: block; float: none; width: 100%; padding: 0px 0; } #two-bottom { display: block; float: none; width: 100%; padding-bottom:0px; padding-left:0px; padding-right:0px; } } Expert Note: “Remove anything that doesn’t help you become the person that you want to be” Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org I did this recently. I stopped recording This Week In Sales, the weekly podcast that I did with sales legend Victor Antonio. It was a great idea at first. But eventually, I realized it wasn’t helping me live the life I wanted to live. So even though I enjoyed doing it, Victor and I decided it was time to call it a day. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. Doing so has freed up a massive amount of time and headspace for me to take on exciting new projects. And I regret nothing. 5) Get Strong Not physically strong. Though there are definitely benefits to that too. But rather, socially strong. Mentally strong. By

64% of sales professionals are scared of picking up the phone and calling prospects cold. And if you’re like so many other reps out there, you’re not a fan of cold calling either. But in today’s video, we’re looking at why cold calling has reps shaking in their boots. And most importantly, how you can kick that fear right where the sun don’t shine. Now, like I said, nearly 2 out of 3 reps hate cold calling—64% in fact according to our SalesCode Assessment. But what’s really going on here? Why is this simple practice so damn scary? Well, it all boils down to biology. As social animals, we’re built to crave the approval of our peers. And if we don’t get that approval and are rejected, it’s painful. No really, we feel rejection in the same exact spot of the brain that process physical pain. And as anyone who’s cold called knows, rejection happens quite a bit. So it makes sense we’d be anxious about it. Now, the trick is finding ways to overcome that biological fear of rejection. Ways of rewiring the brain to make cold calling less scary. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. With these four techniques, you can say so long to cold calling fears. And start finding more buyers so you can close more deals. It’s as simple as that. 1) Make Fear Your Friend We all get nervous sometimes. Whether we’re jumping out of a plane or just trying a new restaurant, a little bit of anxiety is natural when facing the unknown. It’s what you do with that fear that makes a difference. One thing I’ve found incredibly helpful for overcoming fear is immerse myself in it. You know, really feel the sensations it causes. The racing heart, the sweaty palms. Once that’s done, it’s time for a bit of mental gymnastics. Instead of thinking of these sensations as fear, I relabel them as excitement. See, biologically, fear and excitement are incredibly similar. They both are meant to prepare your body and mind for action. And the symptoms—rush of adrenaline, increased heart rate—are the same. So instead of seeing this as fear, flip it. Think of it as excitement. And then use that reframing to help you act. This will let you stay consistent with your cold calling. And who knows, you may even start looking forward to it! 2) Rethink Your Coping Behaviors Now, this one comes directly from our Social Anxiety Framework from the Selling Made Simple Academy. So if you want an even deeper dive, be sure to head to Salesman.org and get signed up. But just as a brief overview, if you want to eliminate cold calling anxiety, you need to start with your coping behaviors. To explain, anxiety is caused by getting caught in a cycle, a loop. First, there’s an inciting event that triggers your anxiety response. Then you use ineffective coping behaviors to treat that anxiety. Maybe you hide in the bathroom to avoid cold calling. Or you pick up the phone and pretend to dial numbers. No matter what that coping behavior is, it eventually has consequences. You fall behind on your numbers. Your boss finds out. Whatever. And once that happens, your anxiety sparks up again, restarting the whole cycle over again. But you can in fact break this cycle. All you have to do is change your coping behaviors. There are two coping behaviors I’ve found are super helpful. A) Shift Your Attention Shifting your attention. When you’re anxious, the more focused you are on your inward feelings, the worse things get. So next time you feel yourself starting to panic, try shifting your focus to something else. Concentrate on your environment around you. What do you see? What do you smell and hear? Think about the people you’re interacting with. What are they thinking and feeling? The more you take the spotlight off yourself, the calmer you’ll be. B) Get Curious Getting curious. Whenever I feel anxiety starting to creep in, I consciously force myself to get extremely curious. When you force yourself to be incredibly curious, there is little processing room or overhead left in your brain for it to focus inward on your own anxiety. And so, rather than getting caught up in your own thoughts, you become completely immersed in the person in front of you. How can you give them value, help them through a situation, or better your relationship? What are the pain points they’re experiencing right now? How would solving them help? Best of all, getting curious makes you feel better and lets your buyer know you’re focused on them. And typically, they’ll appreciate the attention. 3) The Bodybuilder Mindset Sales is a numbers game. And getting good at sales is too. The more you commit to doing the hard work, putting in those reps, the easier things will get. It’ll be tough at first, I know. Just like your first day ever in the gym is going to leave you crushed. But every time after that, you’re going to be stronger than the day before. So instead of giving up after a bad call, commit to getting the reps done. 40, 70, 100 calls—whatever. Just make sure you do it every day. You’ll find your groo

I hate to break it to you, but if your leads aren’t buying, the problem isn’t with them. It’s with you. In today’s video, we’re looking at 5 reasons your leads just won’t bite. And 5 things you can do to fix it. Now, one of the most important lessons you’re ever going to learn in this business is the value of self-sufficiency. Best-selling author Nina Purewal told me once… “One of the big things in sales is you can't control how people are going to react to you. You can only control what you put out there.” SP #697 – Let That Sh*t Go And Reduce Your Sales Stress Nina Purewal You’re going to run into a lot of different people over the course of your career. Some of them will be a match. And some of them won’t. But for those that are and still aren’t buying, the problem is you. Agh, hurts doesn’t it? Well don’t worry—there are steps you can take to fix those problems. And that’s what we’re looking at today. 5 reasons people aren’t buying from you and 5 solutions. So let’s start with a big one… 1. They’re Only Halfway There Now, in B2B sales, a lot of the decision making depends on logic. Does this product meet our requirements? Is the price within our budget? Can we implement on our schedule? But if you’re only appealing to the logic side of things, you’re missing out on a super valuable opportunity. Because in reality, most sales actually start with emotion. The buyer makes an emotional commitment to buy first and then justifies with logic. Maybe that emotion is that they want to be respected by their colleagues. Or they’re looking for ways to catch the eye of the C-suite. No matter what they’re after, the emotion, the feel, comes first. And when you appeal to that emotional side, you’re setting yourself up for a win. But there’s more. If you’re only using logic in your pitches, it actually makes it easier for the buyer to dismiss taking action. “We’ll circle back to this next year once the economy settles down,” they’ll say. But if you can attach emotion to the purchase too, it’s like tying down a boat with two ropes instead of one. Once the storm comes, you’ll be less likely to lose it to sea. So be sure you’re hitting those emotional pain points too, not just the logical ones. 2. They’re Unqualified A hard truth of sales is that most of the leads you talk to just aren’t qualified. Sure, they’ll give you their time. Maybe they’ve even come through your funnel as an inbound lead so you think they’re a fit. But once you get several steps into the sales process, you’ll realize that every interaction up till now has been a huge waste of time. It’s frustrating, I know. But if you do a bit more work qualifying upfront, you can avoid that hassle altogether. Now, the Selling Made Simple Academy’s Sales Diagnosis Framework explores how to cover all your bases while qualifying leads. So if you’re interested, I’d suggest enrolling today. But as a quick overview, you need to be assessing leads for: Pain. Are they in pain? Is their issue actually a problem? Time. What’s their timeline? Are they thinking today? This quarter? Or in the next few years? Fit. Are they a fit for what you’re selling? Can you really fix this buyer’s problem? Return. Does the value of your solution outweigh the difficulties of implementing it? Will they see a reasonable return? Process. Is your buyer willing to adapt to your process? Will they put in the time, say, training to get the most value out of your product? Budget. Can they afford it? Champion. Is there someone else that you should be talking to that will champion this deal? And last… Agreement. Did they give you their verbal commitment to work together if you can solve their problem? Again, if you’re interested in learning more about this framework, head to Salesman.org today and enroll. 3. They Don’t Trust You Simple question for you here—if you got a phone call one day and surprise! It was you on the other end pitching your product, would you trust yourself? I mean really trust yourself? There’s a lot of hot air and shady tactics in some circles of sales. And if you’re using exaggeration or outright lies with your buyers, that needs to stop today. Because that kind of crap is devastating your trust value. But if not, the problem might just be that you don’t have enough social proof on your side. So to build up that trust, there are a few things you can do. A) Borrow Trust Borrow trust from your company. Provide buyers with case studies, testimonials, and endorsements your company’s earned in the past. B) Bolster Your Reputation Bolster your reputation by building an expansive professional network. And start producing valuable thought leadership content. C) Share Insights Share insights rather than cold spamming. People respond to value, not pestering. If you can do all that, you’ll be 10X more likely to win the trust of your buyers. 4. They’re Being Held Back They’re being held back by the most notorious barriers to implementation ever—the status quo. Sometimes the burden of g

Don’t know what you’re doing in sales? You’ll be living paycheck to paycheck. Knocking it out of the park? You could earn your first million in just a few years time. So what separates the two? Well, it turns out it’s just five simple strategies. Yep, just five! And those five strategies are exactly what we’re talking about today. Now, maybe my favorite thing about being in the sales industry is your earning potential is directly tied to your abilities. If you rock at what you do, you can literally make millions in this career. But if you’re not so great, well… it can really be tough to make a decent living. If you find yourself in the latter camp, don’t worry—all hope’s not lost. There are some very simple changes you can make to massively boost your chances of success in this industry. And today, we’re talking about five of the best ones I’ve found. So listen up, stay tuned, and get ready to take your selling power to the next level. 1) Have a Simple Sales Process Feeling overwhelmed every day? Lost? Like you’re working your butt off but never really going anywhere? It’s because you don’t have an effective and defined sales process. Now, I’ve covered what a winning sales process looks like in videos before. But just as a quick overview, your sales process should look something like this: A) Understand the Market You’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t understand your buyers and your solution. And that means… Honing your value proposition and tailoring it to your ideal buyer. Understanding your buyer’s journey. And nailing down the numbers. Sales is a numbers game. And the better you are at tracking and playing to those numbers, the more money you’ll stand to make. B) Get in Front of Buyers Get in front of buyers. What methods are you using to get in touch with prospects? If you’re doing things right, your outreach should include not just cold email and cold calling, but also a healthy dose of social selling on platforms like LinkedIn. You’ll also need to fine-tune your sales cadences so you’re reaching out to buyers at the right time and keeping them interested. C) Explain the Value Explaining the value. The best outreach campaigns in the world won’t do a thing if you can’t effectively communicate your product’s value. That means mastering your discovery call, delivering effective demos, upselling and closing like a pro, and knowing how to takeover competitor clients. And that leads us neatly into selling strategy number 2… 2) Become a Master Implementer Knowing how to sell doesn’t—excuse the French—mean a damn thing if you don’t implement it. High performers are master implementers. They have the skills, mindset, and traits needed to kill it day in and day out. And if you don’t cultivate those traits yourself, it’s going to be tough to get a leg up in this business. Wondering how you stack up? Take our Sales Code Assessment to see if you’ve got what it takes or if you need a bit of work. 3) Simplify EVERYTHING Humans are naturally drawn to the path of least resistance. But for some reason, we don’t apply that inclination to our sales processes. And that means we’re working harder than we need to be. So instead of falling into that trap, find the 20% of your sales process that delivers 80% of the results. And once you do, cut the rest of it. Let me show you what I mean. If the majority of your sales leads are coming from just one channel, double down on that channel and ignore the others. If two of your emails in your 30-day sales cadence lead to most of your calls booked, get rid of everything else. The more you simplify your process, the more time you can spend on closing deals and bringing in more, better prospects. Alright so the next strategy I hinted at earlier. It addresses a major myth that’s continually holding sales reps back from achieving killer numbers and crushing their quotas month after month. 4) The 20-Mile March Now, does this sound like you? Last month you were king of the world when it came to your numbers. But this month, you’re behind. Way behind. So you make up for the dip by hitting it hard. You’re prospecting like crazy. You’re sending hundreds of emails a day. And you’re cold calling so much your ears are starting to hurt from being pressed against the phone for so long. Each month is a new battle. And the rollercoaster ups and downs never seem to stop. Sound familiar? If so, don’t worry, we’ve all been there. But the truth of the matter is sales doesn’t have to be like that. Bit of a shocker, huh? Instead, you can follow what’s known as the 20 Mile March concept. This concept, created by business authors Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, centers on consistency. In their book, they found that the leading enterprises, the ones that performed ten times better, than the competition, valued consistency above all else. And the more consistent you can be in sales, think prospecting every single day from 8 to 10, the more successful you’re bound to be. The secret isn’t innovatio

Leads are the lifeblood of any business. And if you’re in sales, bringing them in isn’t just important. It’s your whole job! But what is B2B lead generation and why is it so essential? We’re tackling all that and more today. And be sure to stick around because we’re also going to talk about how you can finally stop chasing those leads and bring them to your door instead. Leads come in, they learn about your products, and you show them why what you have to offer is the perfect solution to their problems. But bringing those leads in is easier said than done. In fact, HubSpot found that a whopping 61% of sales professionals think lead generation is their biggest challenge. Bigger than staying motivated. Bigger than beating out the competition. And bigger even than closing—yep, seriously. What Is B2B Lead Generation? Essentially, B2B lead generation is a business’s ability to identify and attract customers that are a good fit for the products or services. These businesses sell primarily to other businesses rather than consumers—hence the B2B. Qualify Leads One, qualify leads. Because not everyone is going to be a good fit for what you’re selling. And… Drive Action Get those leads to take action and start moving them through the sales process. Now that leads us up to the next question… Where Does Lead Gen Fit in the Sales Funnel? As you might’ve already guessed, lead generation starts at the very tip top of the sales funnel. If you don’t know, the sales funnel looks a bit like this: Prospects move through awareness, discovery, evaluation, and intent before making a purchase decision. And as they move through each stage, they learn more about their problem, your solutions, and how they’ll help your prospect better their business. Now funnels will differ slightly among industries, with some stages being longer or shorter than others. But when it comes to lead generation, it’s always at the very very top. Your company reaches out to leads, qualify them, and guide them through the other stages of the funnel. Makes sense, right? For many companies, marketing handles a lot of the outreach. But if you’re a savvy and success-minded sales rep, you need to be engaging in plenty of lead generation yourself too. Okay okay, but important question here… Why Is B2B Lead Generation Important? Why do you need to be adding to your workload by reaching out to new leads? Can’t marketing handle it? Well, there are two big benefits to making lead gen a priority in your daily to-do task list. It Generates New Leads Duh—it generates new leads. In addition to the leads sent to you by marketing, you’re adding a new stream of potential sales. It fills your funnel and gives you a better chance at hitting your targets and making more money. Another incredibly important benefit is that… It Gives You Control It puts the control in your hands. You are in control of the sales process. You are the driver of whether you’re coming out ahead this month or falling behind. And you get to make sure your prospects are getting the attention, information, and guidance they need throughout the buyer’s journey rather than relying on someone else to create a good first impression. The power is in your hands. And that alone is reason enough to start your own B2B lead generation efforts. Now let’s talk a bit about terminology. SQl vs. MQL—What’s the Difference? If you’ve spent any time in sales you’ve likely heard the terms “SQL” and “MQL” thrown around before. So SQL vs. MQL, what’s the difference? Marketing Qualified Leads These are the leads that marketing has flagged as going through the initial stages of qualification. Maybe they downloaded a content offer or reached out to the marketing team. Basically, they’ve showed a little bit of interest in what it is you’re selling. And as such, they haven’t yet gone through all the necessary qualification standards to determine if they’re a perfect fit for your company. Sales Qualified Leads Sales qualified leads. These are leads your sales team has determined are worth pursuing. And they’re typically a bit better qualified for the products or services you’re selling. That’s because you or another rep has confirmed that they’re interested, or at least gotten more buy-in than a simple download or a question sent to marketing. SQLs are the ideal. And when you as a sales rep engage in B2B lead gen, your goal is to create more SQLs—individuals that are a good fit for your products, have shown interest, and are likely to end their journey by buying your product. So the question is… How Do We Create SQL’s? How do we create SQL’s? What can we do to fill our pipeline with leads that are more qualified, more likely to buy, and less likely to eat up all our time? Well, there are two ways. We Qualify MQL’s One, we qualify MQL’s. Taking MQLs on hook line and sinker without further qualification is a recipe for disaster. While some qualification has already taken place, it often isn’t enough to determine if a lead is actually

You can’t expect to get far in sales if you aren’t at least a little skilled at crafting cold emails. So, what gets your prospects to click? How do you create subject lines that consistently earn solid open rates? And what do you need to include in your body copy to drive action? That’s exactly what we’re talking about today—how to cold email clients. And along the way, we’ll look at some of the best cold email templates I’ve used with spectacular results. Now, email—it’s how business gets done these days. Of course, cold calling still has a place in any sales rep’s cadences. And social selling is on the up and up, especially if you’re particularly savvy on platforms like LinkedIn. The problem is, effective cold emails are notoriously hard to craft. With the massive amount of junk mail, spam, and otherwise useless crap that fills our inboxes every day, it can be tough to make sure your email stands out from the crowd. So, what does it take to craft cold emails that earn opens and drive action? What does a great cold email look like? And what are some winning templates you can start using today? Don’t worry—we’re covering all this and more right now. 1: Get Their Attention Perhaps the most important step of any cold email outreach campaign is to first get your prospect’s attention with a great subject line. Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. On the one hand, you can get your market’s attention through gimmicks. Stupid things. Extreme things. These can grab the eye of your buyer. But this tactic comes with the tradeoff of reducing confidence in your abilities as a solution provider—no one wants to buy from a clown. The other technique is to grab attention while still remaining professional. This, of course, takes a bit more tact to pull off correctly. But when done well, it accomplishes the dual effect of building both intrigue and trust. So what are some subject line structures that get attention while still maintaining trust? Well, there are four in particular that I use… A) Direct Subject Lines Direct headlines state the sales proposition directly. No wordplay. No hidden meanings. And no fancy bits stuck on the end. Just straight-to-the-point zero BS. A direct subject line might look like this: “The world’s fastest CRM tool – 20% off today” B) News Subject Lines This is a great option if you have an update about your product or service. It could be the introduction of a new product, a change in the law or legislation that affects your customers using your product, or something else newsworthy that’s along these lines. It could even be industry news like a company merger or emerging competitor. A winning news subject line looks as simple as this: “X law has moved on. Have you?” C) “How To” Subject Lines The words “how-to” are magic in email subject lines. “How to” headlines offer the promise of solid information, sound advice, and solutions to problems. And prospects find them especially clickworthy when they talk about a problem they’re facing at the moment. This subject line might look like this: “How to reduce your ad spend in 14 days” D) Question Subject Lines Careful here— To be effective, question headlines must include a question that the person receiving the email will either empathize with or would love to see answered. A solid one may be: “Is [X] costing you more than it should?” Now that you’ve got them opening your email, it’s time to build the emails body. 2: Story email structure How can you actually help? What can you offer to solve your buyer’s problems? And why should they spend their valuable time hearing what you have to say? Whereas the attention-getter mainly happens in the subject line, this step of the framework should be handled in the body of your cold email. It takes a bit longer to really flesh out, so a mere seven words—the ideal subject line length—isn’t going to do this step justice. Now, one of the best ways to demonstrate that need is by using… The Story Telling Framework The goal of the story telling framework is to… Highly their Current Reality – Acknowledge where the prospect is now. Show their Future Reality – Show them where they could be. Give the Reality Bridge – Identify the steps they need to take to get there, a.k.a. the “Reality Bridge.” Here’s what that might look like in practice. Hi [NAME], I recently worked with [NAME], he is in the [INDUSTRY] like you. Traditional salespeople had failed [NAME]. Here is his story – [LINK TO INSIGHT POST] He went from zero motivation, to proactively racing to get to his desk each morning to prospect. All by implementing proven frameworks to relieve the pressure of choice from his job. Does it make sense to jump on a quick call to see if you can use these frameworks too? Cheers, Will Current reality / Desired future reality / Reality bridge See how that all works? Here we have the current reality, the desired future reality, and the reality bridge, all within just a few lines. It’s simple

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Chris Beall explains the exact process to start a successful cold call and the mindset you need to be in to make it stick. Chris has led software start-ups as a founder or early-stage developer for the last 30 years. He is currently CEO of ConnectAndSell, and hosts a podcast which you can find at MarketDominanceGuys.com. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Chris Beall CEO of Connect And Sell Resources: Connectandsell.com Marketdominanceguys.com Chris on LinkedIn Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Book: Sell without Selling Out Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's show, we're looking at the psychology of the perfect cold call with our guest Chris Beall. Chris has led software startups as a founder or early stage developer for the last 30 years. He's currently the CEO of ConnectAndSell and host a podcast, which you can find over at marketdominanceguys.com with that, Chris, welcome to the show.   Chris Beall: Hey Will, great to be here.   Cold Calling is Alive Again · [00:30]   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on mate. So this is a, I think I'm going totally sidetracked from what I was going to talk about. We'll go down a different avenue for 30 seconds and then we'll get it back onto the psychology of the cold call, but it seems like it was in fashion two or three years ago, whether it's on social media, whether it's sales training, whatever it is to start to say, cold calling is nonsense, cold calling no longer works. People don't want to be cold called and obviously cold calling is effective when used in the right way, which we'll talk about in this show, but have you found that these conversations and these premises and these debates of whether cold calling is effective or not, it's kind of died down over the last 12 months. I really feel like that narrative has almost disappeared.   Chris Beall: Yeah, I think it has. Email is the thing that's gotten hammered over the last 12 months because COVID came along and I think the rational response to it was, well, let's send a million emails and the problem is a million emails create a lot of noise. And I think that's really what has driven a resurgence of interest in having conversations.   Most Salespeople Don’t Cold Call Because They Like Hiding Behind Emails · [01:34]   Will Barron: I agree. I agree. I feel like it's almost, well, it's not almost, it's definitely easier to spam crappy emails and hide behind your inbox than it is to do the hard work of using ConnectAndSell to make the [inaudible 00:01:47] easier I guess. But the actual calls itself is somewhat labour intensive. If you're doing it correctly, I think it's fair to say is brain intensive. You having to think, you're having to engage your conversational skills, you're having to do a little bit of work there as well. So I think it's people have leveraged some of these automated tools to hide behind email, whereas you can't really hide behind a cold call. Can you?   “Gresham's law of business communications says that bad money drives out good money. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency.” – Chris Beal · [02:17]   Chris Beall: No, you can't. It's kind of interesting, I call it Gresham's law of business communications, Gresham's law, most people probably don't know it. Hopefully they don't, but it says bad money drives out good. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency. And so I think that's, it's not so much hard work with ConnectAndSells an example, it's easy. You push a button and talk to somebody. How hard is that? But it's hard to bring yourself to push the button and that's rational because you're at that moment agreeing with yourself that you're going to ambu

Don’t be fooled—excelling in sales isn’t about having the right talents. Instead, it takes work to develop the skills you need to crush it. In this video, I’m taking you through the four most important skills in sales that, once developed, will skyrocket you to an entirely new realm of success. Now before we get started, tell me, does this sound familiar? “He’s a born salesman.” “She’s truly a natural.” “What I wouldn’t give for their talents.” If you’ve been on a sales floor for more than a year, you’ve probably heard one of these phrases uttered around the cubicles. Someone, usually a high performer, makes their job look easy. Hitting their numbers, bringing on new buyers like ants to a picnic. And they rarely, if ever, look like they’re even breaking a sweat. As a result, their colleagues think they’ve got some god-given talent. That they’re a natural sales rep. But the truth is, that’s bullshit. Sure, some people are born with a leg up over others. But to be truly successful in sales, you’ve got to be a master of four skills. And sorry to break it to you, these aren’t skills you’re born with. They’ve got to be developed. The natural-born sales rep myth is a crock. And if you really, I mean really want to push your earning potential, excel professionally, and become the best damn sales rep you can be, then you’ve got to get great at these four sales skills. 1. Understanding the Market You can’t even hope to achieve any sort of sales success without first understanding your market. Who are you selling to? What pain points are they experiencing? And how can you best cater your messaging to start speaking their language? Understanding the market is foundational. And to do it correctly, you need to have a hold on two things in particular: the buyer’s journey and value proposition. A) Buyer’s Journey So, let’s first talk about the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is essentially the steps your buyer will take on their way to purchasing your product. A high-level look at a buyer’s journey would look like this: The Awareness stage comes first, and this is when the buyer is first learning about their problem. Next up is Consideration where they’re weighing the pros and cons of different solutions. And finally is Decision, where (surprise, surprise) they’re finally making their decision. Now, each market is going to have a slightly different buyer’s journey. And each buyer is going to make their way through that journey a little bit differently. It’s your job to understand that unique buyer’s journey and guide prospects through it effectively. Now there’s a lot more to learn here, but one of the best tips I have for this is making it about the prospect. Jeff Koser, CEO at Selling to Zebras, explained the benefit to me in an interview: “They don't care about your product, they care about themselves. And they have to. It's their job. That's why there's such a fundamental difference between the buying journey that a prospect wants to go down versus a sales cycle that most salespeople try to conduct. And by shifting to pain, business issues, and value, you're actually making more of the shift to the buyer's journey that they want to participate in.” B) Value Proposition But not just any value proposition. One that’s built based on your buyer’s unique needs, pain points, and end goals. A value proposition, as you likely know, is what sets your product apart from the competition—what makes buying from you so much more beneficial than buying from the other guys. There’s a lot of research that goes into crafting the right value proposition—the wording, the delivery, the specific perks and features. And when you master how to deliver yours, you’re going to find it far easier to attract the right buyers and turn them into enthusiastic customers. 2. Getting in Front of Buyers A perfect product and a perfect pitch only get you so far. To truly succeed in sales, you need to know how to bring in buyers. Because if you can’t, you’ll be selling a perfect product to… well, no one. Getting in front of buyers requires adept skills in two areas in particular—sales cadences and cold outreach. C) Cadences When it comes down to it, sales is a numbers game. For every X prospects you reach out to, Y will actually be interested in your product. And the better you are at fine-tuning your equations to maximize interested prospects, the more successful you’ll be in this position. The trick is knowing how and when to reach out to prospects. On the one hand, you’ll be able to fine-tune your cadences over months and years of experience. What techniques work? What schedule amplifies response rates? But on the other, you can also take a page or two from the books of other sales professionals through training courses. Industries usually differ a bit in buyers’ journeys but when to reach out to them tends to be the same in every business. So be cognizant of that when you’re looking for ways to up your sales game. Another invaluable skill in gett

Asking the right questions builds rapport, influences buyers, and seals deals like gangbusters. But asking the wrong questions is sinking your sales numbers like a 20-ton anchor. In this video, we look at five stupid sales questions that are costing you sales and cutting your chances of closing off at the knees. Now, qualifying leads and closing prospects are without a doubt two of the hardest parts of being a sales rep. Do you agree? If so, you’re in good company. HubSpot found that 61% of reps reported lead qualification was their biggest challenge and 36% said it was closing. But part of the difficulty in both cases is not knowing the right questions to ask. Questions let you identify whether your prospect’s problem is one you can solve. They uncover hidden motivations that’ll help you craft a perfect pitch. And they aid in spotting who’s an ideal client and who is going to be a major pain in the ass. But the problem is asking the wrong questions leads to sunk sales. Bad questions make you look like an idiot, a conman, or just a waste of your lead’s time. And even if you have the most groundbreaking, world-shatteringly amazing product in the universe, a single crappy question in your process will leave you struggling to meet your goals every month. But don’t worry, I’m going to help you avoid that completely by pointing out these five worst questions you can ask in sales. Now, I’m also working on a follow-up video where I tackle the five most powerful sales questions successful reps ask buyers. So be sure to subscribe and keep an eye on this channel so you don’t miss it. But for now, let’s get into the bad questions you should avoid asking prospects with every fiber of your being. Here we go! 1: “Can I Give You My Pitch?” Just hearing this one should make your neck hairs stand on end. First off, don’t call it a pitch for god’s sake. Nobody actually wants to be pitched, especially when it comes to sales. But beyond that, the very structure of this question is setting you up for a troublesome power dynamic. Can you see why? You’re asking for permission here. Doing so pushes the psychology and dynamic of the conversation towards the lead having all the power. They are the ones granting you permission. They are the ones who are so generously donating you their time. In reality, the best sales relationships stem from a place of equality. You are bringing real, tangible value to the table. And the buyer is exchanging that value for money. So don’t ever, ever forget—you and the buyer are equals. So remember to act like it 2: “Can You Tell Me About What You Do?” This one’s a bit tricky, partly because so many people ask this question, especially online. And it’s easy to see why—it’s seen as a solid conversation starter. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? The problem here is this question is a real value suck. You are getting all the benefit here. And though people do like talking about their business, their time is also precious. They likely don’t want to spend it on explaining their job. On top of all that, asking the question also indicates one huge red flag—you didn’t do your research beforehand. Instead, take a minute to look up their profession beforehand. And glean insights about their day-to-day from other value-based questions like the ones we’ll be talking about in our later video—don’t forget to subscribe for those by the way! 3: “But…?” That’s it. One little word. But using that little word in sales conversations can lead to big consequences. Simply put, this word is the start of an argument. And that’s tough. Because it’s a verbal slip so tiny that most reps don’t give saying it another thought. But the word by its very nature is meant to draw contrast. It’s acknowledging your buyer’s previous point and saying, “Here’s why you’re wrong.” In the heat of sales, emotions can run high. And when you’re talking money specifically, both reps and buyers are going to be quicker to react than in normal talks. So rather than test the limits with this word, try to cut it from your vocabulary entirely. Instead, acknowledge their point and just move on to your point without drawing a contrast. 4: “So You’re Saying You Can’t Afford This?” Even in the more logic-based world of B2B sales, emotions like pride can still factor into making deals. And when you frame the question like this—where you’re attributing the low budget to the buyer themselves—it’s going to get them to go on the defensive. And to an even larger point, insulting the company as a whole—even if it is just implied—is never a good way to do business. Instead, try using subtler language when trying to determine if price is the biggest obstacle. Ask, “Is price your biggest sticking point here?” or “Do you currently have the budget for this?” But remember, there’s always money to be found in large companies. Usually it just comes down to an issue of budget reallocation. 5: “When Should I Call You Back to Follow Up?” This one again comes d

Among all the challenges sales reps face day in and day out, closing is often said to be the hardest to manage. And it’s true—being an effective closer is key to killing it in this industry. But there’s more to closing than most reps think. And there are ways to make closing easier, more effective, and less of a stressful debacle. Today we’re covering how to stop selling and start closing. It’s just one more invaluable sales skill that, once mastered, will secure your success throughout your entire career. Now, let’s get real here. For a lot of reps, asking for the sale sucks. Most Sellers Hate Closing Think about it for a sec—how do you feel about it? If you’re like nearly forty percent of reps out there, it’s probably the hardest part of your job. The stress, the awkwardness, the potential for weeks of work going down the drain if you’re hit with a “No.” Ugh. But the problem is a lot of reps go about this stage all wrong. They try to close on leads at the end of the sales process rather than throughout it. They’re trying to say all the magic words to get their buyer onboard without checking in at each stage of their journey. They’re selling when they should be closing. And closing continuously. Now don’t worry—if this is all sounding a bit out-there and you aren’t sure what this looks like in practice, I’ve got your back. This blog dives into exactly how to start continuously closing in the real world. Before we get into the how of continuously closing, let’s first look at the why. Why should you switch up your closing process at all? Well, there are three reasons in particular. First… A) It Keeps Everyone on Track There’s often a disconnect between buyers and sellers on exactly where they’re at in the sales process. Are they highly motivated to purchase, even before the day’s out? Or are they just testing the waters? And what comes next if they agree to a call? When you close continuously, everyone knows where they are, what stage is next, and what’s to come later. B) No Value Is Delivered With Maybes A sale has value when your buyer agrees to a purchase—duh, that’s the point. But it also has value with a “no.” After all, a no means you get a better idea of the buyer’s objections. Whether or not they’re truly qualified. And, of course, a no also frees up your time to concentrate on other, better leads. But maybes are time-wasters. They suck up hours of the day, even weeks in some industries. And if by the end of it all there’s no deal, that’s just energy that could be spent elsewhere. But when you’re continuously closing, you’re sussing out exactly where the buyer stands. Forcing a yes or no. And eliminating maybes altogether. C) When You Close, You Win Confused leads don’t buy. They string you along for ages and, eventually, drop you like a bad habit. And when you aren’t closing throughout the sales process, your prospects won’t know exactly what step of the sales process they’re in. They’ll be confused. But when you practice continuous closing, you avoid that confusion altogether. And in the end, that means you win. So now, let’s dive into the how of it all. How do you stop selling and start closing? Well, the first step is to… 1) Always-Be-Closing Always be closing. Yeah yeah, we’ve all heard the famous line before. “A, always. B, be. C, closing”… “coffee is for closers”… what rep with an ounce of cinematic taste hasn’t seen Glengarry Glenn Ross at least three times? But what does the ABC of selling look like in practice? For one thing, you should always be closing at minimum at the end of every interaction. Friendly interaction with a new lead? Schedule a discovery call before the convo’s done. Just finished a discovery call? Close the next step by booking a demo. Demo gone great? Set up a time to chat about sales objections and the finer details. Do not—I repeat—do not leave it to the prospect to take the lead here. If you let them get out of a conversation without booking the next step, you’ve just plummeted the chances of moving forward tenfold. Now, you should also be closing within the conversation, not just at the end. Here’s what that might look like in practice. You may say… “So it seems like you’re interested in X feature. Does it make sense that I show you how it’ll interface with your business?” Or maybe… “Does it make sense that [objection] isn’t a concern anymore?” When you close within conversations, you’re gaining mini commitments along the way that keep everyone on the same page and boost rapport at the same time. And in fact, these examples bring us nicely to our next point because they use a very key piece of language. Did you catch it? This simple phrase is vital to the last point we’re talking about today… 2) The Closing Framework The Closing Framework makes closing continuously or “micro closing” incredibly simple. All you have to do is ask… “Does it make sense to…” That’s it. “Does it make sense to… get on the phone and see if we’re a fit.” “Does it make sense to set up an in-pe

As a sales rep, it’s your job to convince the buyer that you’ve got the solution to their problems. But how exactly do you get a sales lead from the point of zero product awareness to enthusiastic buyer? Today we’re talking about perhaps the most foundational of all sales techniques—how to convince a customer to buy from you. And stay tuned. We have a lot more to talk about than you might think! Selling Mind Control The crooked smile. The slicked-back hair. The patchy sports coat. We’ve all seen the old caricature of a sales rep before. You know the type—the one who’d step over their own mother just to close a deal. They’re one part charmer and two parts swindler. But we in the sales industry know that grifting a lead into buying a shoddy product is worse than just bad business. It poisons your reputation. Kills any chance at repeat customers. And decimates your earning potential. Instead, a truly successful sales rep knows value-based selling is the way to go. This form of selling prioritizes the buyer's needs. And instead of pitching them on a product at every stage of the buyer’s journey, this type of rep does their best to offer value stage by stage. They assess the situation, identify the problem, determine if they have a solution, and then (and only then) will they start closing the deal. But even after picking out the perfect solution, they still need to convince the buyer they have exactly what they’ve been looking for. Now, there are plenty of ways to approach this pivotal moment, the pitch. Some dig deep into emotions, others focus purely on logic. But over my career, I’ve found that a mix of the two is by far the most effective. Today, I’m showing you my proven four-step process for convincing customers to buy from you. And with it, you’ll be able to turn even the toughest sells into enthusiastic brand evangelists in no time flat. Ready? Let’s do this. 1: Understand Where The Buyer Is If you’ve been doing things right up until this point—you know, researching the business, investigating pain points, asking about past solutions they’ve used, etc.—then you should already have a pretty good idea of the problem your buyer is facing. What you need to do here is call it out. Call out the, say, inefficient teams they’ve been dealing with. Or the frustrating accounting system that no one quite understands. Or a lack of engaged customers. Bring it all up in the pitch with your buyer. Get them to think, “This guy really understands what I’m going through.” But don’t stop there. The trick is not to just point out the pain. But to take it one step further by getting the lead to feel that pain. Founder of the MEDDICC sales framework Andy Whyte put it to me like this in our interview: “Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it's like, I've found some pain, I've quantified it, but now I'm going to really make you feel it.” How are those problems impacting their work-life? Their opportunities for advancement? Their respect they get around the office? What are those pains doing to hurt their reputation? Their finances? Their sense of fulfillment? Hit those points and hit them hard. 2: Point Out the Barriers Similar to picking out the pain points, this step also builds rapport and gets the buyer thinking, “Man, he knows his stuff!” What is it that’s holding the buyer back from solving this problem on their own? In most cases, the barriers fall into four different categories: Selection overwhelm, confirmation bias, blowback risk, and cost of change. Let’s take a look at each. A) Selection Overwhelm Now, selection overwhelm is a big one. In almost any industry, you’re going to have competitors. And sometimes, it’ll be a lot of competitors. If a prospect hasn’t solved their problem yet because they see so many potential solutions but don’t know which to choose, that’s selection overwhelm. Your job up to this point should have been to differentiate your product enough to make it clear why you stand out from the rest. B) Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias. This bias is essentially our tendency to stick with our past decisions and look past its faults rather than work with something new. C) Blowback Risk Blowback risk, which is the risk of your potential buyer looking stupid if things don’t work out. The solution to this barrier is your brand, reputation, reviews, case studies, etc. D) Cost of Change Cost of change. Now there will always be costs to implementing a new solution. But if you can make your buyer’s job as easy as possible, say by providing complimentary training or free support for a year, then you can help them overcome this barrier. So during your pitch, you should pick out which barrier your prospect has been hitting in the past. And then later in step #4, we’re going to loop back and show them how you tear that barrier down. 3: Paint a Picture of Where They Want to Be What does life look like after your buyer’s found the right solution? Are they more productive? Is thei

Communication—it’s a delicate art when talking with potential buyers. Ask the right questions, you’re driving enthusiasm and closing successfully. But ask the wrong ones and you’re sabotaging deals and looking like a fool doing it. That’s why in this video, we’re covering the 5 most powerful sales questions. From discovery calls a d demos to closing like a champ, these questions are guaranteed to skyrocket your numbers and catapult you well past your quotas. Best Selling Questions, Ever Now before we get started, think about it for a sec—are you asking prospects the right questions? I’m not just talking about when you first connect or on discovery calls here. But instead, the right questions throughout the entire sales process. See, asking bad questions sinks sales. It makes you look like an idiot. It scares off picture-perfect buyers. And it leaves leads thinking, “Why would I ever want to work with that guy?” Now, I covered the top five sales-sinking questions in a previous video. And if you haven’t already seen it, go give it a look when you finish this video. But what are the good questions? The ones that dig into the heart of your buyer’s pain points? That uncover the real problems they’re facing? That are built to quickly qualify prospects while driving enthusiasm, building rapport, and nudging the right leads ever closer to saying “YES!”? That’s exactly what I’m covering in today’s video. So if you’re ready to start asking the right questions throughout your sales process, let’s jump right in. Now, first up, like I said, is perhaps the most powerful sales question you can ever learn. And you’ll be surprised at just how simple it is. 1) “Does It Make Sense to…?” That’s it? That’s it! “Does it make sense to…?” This questions is straight out of the Closing Framework from inside Selling Made Simple Academy. What’s so great about this question is that it makes selling a collaborative process. Rather than going for a hard push to buy or even to set up a call, you’re getting input from the buyer. Are they ready to move forward? And if not, you get the opportunity to ask, “What’s holding you back?” You can then deal with any objections or sticking points directly rather than uncover them further down the sales process. Now, this question isn’t just for when it comes time to close the deal. Instead, it can be used throughout the entire process. From setting up discovery calls and demos to getting into pricing and going over the finer details. The point here is that this question… Relieves buyer pressure and lets them know you aren’t going to hit them with aggressive sales tactics… Keeps them updated on where you’re at in the sales process and which steps are next. And it… Forces the buyer to think logically about whether they’re a fit or if they have objections. I’m going to be going into greater detail on how this question works in an upcoming video. So if you haven’t already, hit that subscribe button now so you don’t miss it. Now, let’s look at the next set of powerful questions. These next four questions come directly from The Diagnose Framework, which is particularly perfect for discovery calls, demos, sales calls, and everything in between. And we’re going to start with this question… 2) “What’s Stopping You From Solving This Issue Yourself?” There are two benefits specifically to asking this question. On the one hand, you’re qualifying the prospect. If they can solve the problem themselves, then they’re not going to value your solution as much as it deserves. And that can cause issues down the road. On top of that, this question will also uncover any hidden obstacles that make it clear this lead just isn’t a fit. But secondly, this question makes the value that you offer real. What’s holding you back from solving this issue? Well we can overcome that obstacle. And we can provide tangible, often quantifiable value that you can’t get on your own. Qualifying power with a hint of driving enthusiasm. Perfect. 3) “When Do You Want to Solve This Pain?” Timeline is such an important part of the qualification process. Do they need their problem solved sooner than you’re able to roll out your solution? If so, this isn’t a good fit. And conversely, are they looking to solve this problem two, three years down the line? If that’s the case, they likely aren’t motivated enough to draw up a contract now, and they may just be fishing for information (let marketing handle that). But this question also opens up the conversation on what the buyer should expect too. How long does your solution take to implement? What’s the onboarding and training process like? And is that within their time window? If not, they can self-qualify themselves out, making things easier on you today. 4) “What Is Your Motivation to Make This Happen?” Now, this one is especially clever in my opinion. Because beyond just learning more about what factors are driving your prospect’s decision-making, this one question also does wonders for connecting w

We’ve all seen the glamorous toys rich people buy—the luxury cars, the decked-out jewelry, the quintuple decker yachts. But what about the things rich people buy to grow their wealth? To become richer? That’s what we’re looking at today—the top 6 things rich people buy that poor people don’t. And if you’re looking for a way to invest in yourself, you’d better stick around. Get Rich Quick? Wealth is a funny thing. Some people are born into it. Others fall ass-backward into millions. And some people, on paper, look like they should be rich someday… but end up paupered, penniless, and pissed at the world around them. Making and spending money wisely is tricky. And a misunderstanding about what you should and shouldn’t be buying to grow your wealth is one of the biggest differences between the rich and the poor. Which investments pay off? What purchases lay the groundwork for future success? And how can you tell the difference between an asset that expands your financial empire and one that brings it crashing down? These aren’t easy questions. Hell, if they were, everyone would be rolling in dough. But today, we’re pulling back the curtain and looking at six things in particular rich people buy and poor people don’t. From physical items to organizations and yep, even ideas, we’re tackling it all. Now, let’s give it a look. 1: Training The best asset you’ll ever have is your own abilities. And the more you invest in bettering yourself—we’re talking mind, body, and spirit here—the better earning potential you’ll have. Reading and consuming valuable, educational material is key here. The most successful people, for example, consume books and audiobooks ravenously. And if you’re not reading at least 10 pages a day, sorry to say it, you’re simply not doing enough. But books and written content are just the start. And you can only learn so much by reading the static words on a page. That’s why rich people also tend to invest in training programs. Ones that provide interactive deep dives into the topics. Ones that cover skills and strategies using different media like whiteboards and video. And ones that give you the opportunity to engage with (and pick the brains of) real-life experts. It's that type of learning experience that I modeled the Selling Made Simple Academy after. All-in-one sales training, in-depth mentoring, proven success—it’s got it all. And on top of all that, if you can sell, you can do anything. So developing this invaluable skill should be at the top of your list. 2: Businesses Now don’t worry, this one isn’t as out of reach as you might think. One of the best ways of expanding wealth is by purchasing a successful business. Businesses are revenue-generating machines. And with a business that’s already well-managed, you don’t have to put in any work to keep them earning money while you sleep. It’s why business acquisition is one of the go-to investments for people with lots of money to burn. But for those with a little less expendable income, there’s always investing in the stock market. Buying shares in companies with strong track records can dramatically scale your wealth if you’ve got an eye for the market. And with the right investments, you can create a surprisingly substantial passive income stream from dividends alone. 3: Audience Whether you’re selling physical products or services, there’s one thing that’s common across any industry—people. You need people to buy what you’re selling if you want to make a profit. And the savviest professionals know that spending their money on increasing their audience is a fantastic way to boost future income. Now, you can’t directly buy sales opportunities (at least not ones that’ll actually pan out). But what you can do is invest in indirectly increasing your audience. For example, you can purchase equipment that’ll increase the production value of your webinars. You can invest in marketing your upcoming event. You can hire on help for producing valuable and educational content you use to grow your LinkedIn network. There are tons of ways for you to invest in growing your audience. And the more you do, the more you’ll be growing your earning potential. 4: Precious Metals The markets these days are a bit, shall we say… sporadic. With everything going on in the world around us, your portfolio could be bringing in a return of 5% one day and getting hit with a 10% loss the next. That’s why so many of the wealthy invest in precious metals that hold their value. These are super stable investments, unlike erratic Bitcoin or NFTs. When the market goes down, their value stays steady as a rock because they have actual, physical value. Sure, clever investors still hang on to some super risky stocks and assets in case they pay off. But the majority of their portfolios are super safe to offset the downsides of riskier investments. 5: Intellectual Property Rich people grow their wealth by owning a variety of ideas, systems, or other protected IPs. This could include i

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Jon Picoult explains how to turn your customers into raving, lifelong fans and what effect this has on the number of deals you'll close this year. Jon is the founder of Watermark Consulting and author of “From Impressed To Obsessed”. Coming soon. .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Jon Picoult Author: From Impressed To Obsessed Transcript: Coming soon.

Success isn’t fated. It’s forged. You just have to have the right qualities to make that success a reality. Using data from more than 10,000 participants who’ve taken our SalesCode assessment, this video covers 15 traits of particularly high performers. And best of all, you can cultivate and develop each of these traits yourself. Are you built to win? We first created the SalesCode assessment as a learning tool for future-minded reps. What were their strengths? Where could they use some improvement? And what did they need to focus on to take their sales skills to the next level? Since its initial launch, more than 10,000 sales professionals have completed the assessment. And while it’s definitely served its original purpose, this enormous chunk of data also opened up the door to something unexpected. With it, we could actually identify the key traits that high performers had in common. Now, there were some outliers of course. But in general, the best of the best outperformed the average rabble on each of these 15 traits. And these weren’t “born with it or without it traits” either. They were skills, mindsets, and processes that anyone could cultivate. From the awkward first-year intern to the seasoned professional looking to climb the corporate ladder. So today, I thought I’d share those 15 traits we discovered after analyzing our SalesCode assessment data. And hopefully, doing so will give you a clearer roadmap to which skills you can cultivate to boost your sales success. Sound good? Let’s jump in. I’ve organized the 15 qualities into 3 distinct trait types—beliefs, actions, and sales skills. And the first trait type we’re talking about is… A) Beliefs Beliefs. These are the ideas and qualities that underpin everything these individuals do, how they look at the world (and themselves) as a whole. And trait number one is… Comfortable Talking About Money Businesses run on money. And high performers recognized that conversations about money are a given in sales. Rather than clamming up, beating around the bush, or getting defensive, these individuals approached money conversations like just any other step in the sales process Extroverted They’re energized by conversations. And they’re curious about other people. While this one can be hard to “learn” on your own, there are plenty of strategies introverts can take to increase their extroversion too. The point is, a “people person” tended to fare better in sales than those who abhorred social contact. Optimistic Outlook They have an optimistic outlook on life. While high performers weren’t necessarily blinded by their optimism, they did tend to see the silver linings and hope for the best. Optimism in sales is crucial because it keeps you energized to go out there, do the hard work of prospecting, and stick to your cadences. It also has the added benefit of building rapport and enthusiasm in buyers too. Solid Self-Esteem It takes a lot of confidence to approach a cold prospect. And it takes a healthy self-esteem to withstand the hangups and no’s of those who aren’t interested. The best performing reps need to have a solid self-worth to excel in this industry. Personal Accountability They hold themselves accountable. High performers know that they make their own success. They make mistakes, sure. Who doesn’t? But they take ownership of those mistakes. And they know that doing so is the only way to learn and get better at what they do. B) Actions Actions. What do these successful people do? How do they spend their time? And how do they handle interacting with others? The first trait here is… NOT a people pleaser There are some industries where it pays to be a suckup. Sales is not one of them. High performers know how to get on a buyer’s good side. But they also know when to push an issue and give an assertive “no.” When it comes to sales, nice guys finish last. High emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence is a rep’s ability to 1.) control their own emotions and 2.) respond effectively to the emotions of others. High emotional intelligence makes it easier to manage buyers, connect with prospects, and build rapport. And no surprise here—high performers had more developed emotional intelligence skills too. Assertive Knowing what needs to be done and executing on that knowledge is the best way to close deals and avoid future hassles. In the world of sales, being assertive means being able to bring up issues before they turn into serious problems, turning down buyers that aren’t a great fit, and, of course, asking for the sale. It’s no wonder this is one of the most common qualities among high performers. Strong goal setting Sales is a numbers game. And the better you are at setting, tracking, and achieving those goals on time, the more of a high performer you’ll be. Productivity Success in sales isn’t for the lazy. You need to be self-disciplined enough to hit the ground running every day and keep that momentum going and going. High performers will be pros

If you have a good handle on what you’re doing, sales can end up being an incredibly lucrative career. But how do you get started? How do you get your foot in the door? What a lot of people don’t know is that you don’t have to have direct sales experience to land a quality sales rep position. All you have to do is follow the four tips in this video on how to get a sales job with zero experience under your belt. Your Dream Sales Job You need to master a lot of different skills to excel at sales. On the technical side of things, managing a wide range of sales enablement technologies is key to closing more deals in less time. CRMs, prospecting tools, video conferencing and demo software—these are all par for the course in lots of sales positions. But the technical stuff can all be learned on the job. The other skills, the soft skills, the people skills, and the self-discipline—these are the real underpinnings of sales success. And if you can cultivate these skills before landing your first sales role, you’re going to move up the ladder and boost your earning potential much quicker. Best of all, you don’t have to have a background in sales to get into the industry. All you need is a bit of tenacity, some hard work, and a strategic approach to impressing employers. In this video, I’m pointing out four ways you can get your foot in the sales door without having any experience in the biz. This video is meant specifically for newcomers to the field. But even seasoned reps can apply these principles (especially numbers three and four) in order to advance their careers even further. Alright, enough chit-chat. Let’s dive into the four tips. 1: Show How Your Existing Skills Are Applicable First up is showing how your existing skills are applicable. No one is a completely blank slate. And you might be surprised just how much your past experiences, both professional and personal, can go a long way towards making you seem more hirable for a sales role. For example, have you ever worked in retail? If so, you’ve probably had to deal with lots of face-to-face customers, both friendly and off-putting. To be successful in a position like that, you’ve got to have some decent people skills and at least some degree of emotional intelligence. Both these qualities can do wonders for improving your ability to sell on the job. Or maybe a past employer offered a service that required a lot of door-to-door cold calling. A summer job like this is great for building up resilience to rejection, which happens quite a bit in sales. Put these experiences and skills on your resume. A knowledgeable sales manager will understand just how valuable they can be. Tip number two is where the real hard work begins… 2: Be Happy to Work From the Bottom Up Be happy to work from the bottom up. Sales isn’t like other departments. If you’re in HR or IT, for example, climbing the corporate ladder is all about seniority. Who’s been there the longest? And have they put in enough time in the department to warrant a raise? With sales though, a lot of your progression speed depends on skills. What do your numbers look like? How hungry are you? And how well can you do your job? That’s why it’s so important to be willing to work from the bottom up. Even if you start in a regular old sales development role, with enough hard work on your part, you can be in a surprisingly decent account executive role in as little as six months. And that’s when you can really start scaling your income. So don’t brush off the “lower” roles—they can be a fantastic launchpad for the rest of your career. 3: Increase Your Visibility Increasing your visibility. Salespeople need to be seen as subject matter experts if they’re ever going to win big. And that means putting out plenty of thought leadership content to demonstrate that expertise. Platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter are great for this. The better your content is, the more it’ll get shown to potential buyers in your chosen industry. And you can use those connections as leverage when applying for a sales position. For instance, say you’ve been writing valuable content about accounting software, and you’ve built up a strong following because accountants find your content educational. If you then reach out to an accounting software’s hiring manager and show them how thousands of their customers actually follow you on LinkedIn, there’s no way they’re not going to at least sit down with you for a conversation. Social selling these days holds some serious weight. And the more visible you are to the right people, the better positioned you’ll be to land a quality sales job. 4: Jump Into Quality Training Jump into sales training. And not just any training. But quality training. If you want to kill it in sales, you’ve got to be always improving. And that means digging in, developing new skills, and refining the ones you’ve got. Now, there are a fair amount of sales training programs out there. But they’re not all made equal. And some are g

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Brant Pinvidic explains how to structure the first 3 minutes of your sales presentation so you can say less and get more from your sales pitch. Brant has over 20 years of experience in creating, and directing TV shows and movies. In this time Brant has developed some of the most advanced pitch and presentation techniques that he now teaches to people from all walks of life. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Brant Pinvidic Pitch Presentation Expert Resources: Brantpinvidic.com Brant on LinkedIn Book: The 3-Minute Rule: Say Less to Get More from Any Pitch or Presentation Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of The Salesman Podcast. On today's show, we're looking at how you can say less and get more from your sales pitches. Today's guest is Brant Pinvidic and Brant has spent over 20 years in creating, directing TV shows and movies.   Will Barron: In his time, Brant has spent, he has developed some of the most advanced pitch and presentation techniques. And now teaches this to people in all walks of life. His book, Three Minute Rule, Say Less and Get More From Any Sales Pitch Presentation. We'll link that in the show notes. It's available on Amazon and everywhere else. And with that, Brant, welcome to the show.   Brant Pinvidic: Here I am. Here I am. That's a great intro. I should bring you with me on the road.   Will Barron: I don't know about that. My intros are somewhat sloppy, but we try and do this as live as possible with the audience now. It's just a [inaudible 00:00:44].   Brant Pinvidic: I like it.   Will Barron: Right.   Brant Pinvidic: Yeah.   Will Barron: Good man. All right. Well, let's jump into it. Let me give you a bit of a scenario here. As we get into this idea, which is totally in line, you may be familiar with this, you may not be. Totally in line with what we do over at Salesman.org, which is our branding is making selling simple. So I think we're going to be on the same wavelength for a lot of this stuff, right?   You Only Have 7 Seconds To Grab Your Prospects Attention During a Sales Outreach · [01:03]   Will Barron: But let's say Sam the salesperson, he has now earned the sales presentation. He's done his cold calls. He's done his call emails. He's in the room, so to speak. So the prospect is even just like a little bit interested in hearing what they've got to say, because they wouldn't share their time with them otherwise.   Will Barron: With that said, Brant, how long does Sam have to really grab the attention of the person in the room that he's presenting to? Is this like two seconds? Seven seconds? Or have we got a little bit longer to really grab the attention of the prospect?   Brant Pinvidic: Yeah, listen, I would say in a fun soundbite is to say you have 10 seconds to get the attention. But if someone's giving you an opportunity, getting their attention isn't important as getting them the information. If you're advertising it in your marketing and that kind of stuff, the cold calls, you have very little bit to get their attention. But that's a whole other world.   “The science says that people will say and come up with a yes or a no in their mind incredibly quickly, within 10 seconds of meeting you.” – Brant Pinvidic · [02:07]   Brant Pinvidic: The world that I really deal with is that you have an opportunity to present your business product or service to somebody and you want them to say yes. That is the goal. And the truth is the science of it is that people will say and come up with a yes and no in their mind incredibly quickly. Within 10 seconds, they'll usually start with a yes or no.   Brant Pinvidic: And then if they've said, “No, I don't think this is right for me.” Then your job is to try to overcome that, which is a very unpleasant place to be. So really the science behind what the three minute rule does for you, is it helps you to elongate that process so that they're not saying yes or no in their mind, until at least you get in the valuable information.   Brant Pinvidic: And if you do it right, and if you do it perfectly, and you lead people with proper storytelling, you could extend that to three minutes. Where now they've got all

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andy Paul explains why you should stop trying to trick your prospects and why you should focus on winning more sales. Andy is the host of the “Sales Enablement with Andy Paul” podcast and author of “Sell Without Selling Out: A Guide to Success on Your Own Terms”. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Andy Paul Sales Enablement Expert Resources: Andy on LinkedIn Book: Sell Without Selling Out Andypaul.com Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's show we'll look at why you need to stop persuading if you want to win more sales. And today's guest is Andy Paul. Andy is the host of the Sales Enablement With Andy Paul podcast, and author of Sell Without Selling Out, A Guide To Success On Your Own Terms. And with that, Andy, welcome back again to the show.   Andy Paul: Will, thank you for having me.   Will Barron: You're more than welcome, sir. I'm glad to have you back on. We just had a nice tune wag before we click record. Tonnes of value in that conversation…   Andy Paul: We did. We did.   Stop Persuading Prospects · [00:30]   Will Barron: … so I appreciate that mate. But, let's get into the topic. Let's not diddy daddle too much. Let me ask you this mate, we're going to talk about how not persuading prospects, this is going to seem a bit backwards to the audience until it kind of pans out. We're going to talk about how not persuading prospects is going to win us more deals. But, isn't the whole point of working in sales, being a salesperson, to persuade a prospect, to make a purchasing decision, so that we get some nice commission checks in our back pocket at the end of the quarter?   “I don't believe that our job fundamentally as the sales people is to persuade someone to purchase our product. I think that our job as sellers is to listen to our buyers, to understand what are the most important things to them, both in terms of the challenges they face and the outcomes they want to achieve, and then help them get that. And I think that when you have that mindset and that perspective, what your job is, you use a different set of actions to get to the end result.” – Andy Paul · [01:07]   Andy Paul: Well, we certainly want the commission checks. The question is how do we get there? Right? So yeah, no, I don't believe that our job fundamentally as the sales people is to persuade someone to purchase our product. I think that our job as sellers is to listen to our buyers, to understand what are the most important things to them, both in terms of the challenges they face and the outcomes they want to achieve, and then help them get that. And I think that when you have that mindset and that perspective, what your job is, you use a different set of actions to get to the end result.   Why Salespeople Stubbornly Continue Trying to Persuade Prospects · [01:40]   Will Barron: And that makes total sense, right? Everyone who's listening to the show right now, Andy, have just gone, “Yeah, of course.” But why is that common sense, but it doesn't get implemented? It doesn't happen for a lot of sales people that way.   Andy Paul: Well, I think a couple things. One is, I think people come into the profession with this idea of how they have to act to be a salesperson, which they picked up through maybe people that they know that are in sales, but certainly through popular culture, and so on. The way sales people are persuaded, or excuse me, portrayed for ages. But then most importantly, it's really how sellers are socialised and educated about what their jobs are. And in most cases they are told, “This is your job. Your job is go and persuade someone to buy your product.” And it's like, all right, well, you can push. But, the alternative is, maybe I can exhibit some leadership and inspire the buyer and influence the choices and trade offs the buyer makes, and achieve the same result perhaps with greater predictability and in less time.   Will Barron: So, the audience will know this by now, we do this show as live as we possibly can. I'm choking, choking on air, literally as I-   Andy Paul: You're choked up by what I just told you. Yes, I know.   Will Barro

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andrew Bolton explains what a copywriter is and how the art of copywriting can make you a much better seller. Andrew has been a copywriter for 12 years. He’s worked with some big brands and plenty of tiny ones too. He teaches copywriting on the Creative Advertising & Creative Writing courses at the University of Lincoln and is the author of bestselling book ‘Copywriting Is: 30-or-so thoughts on thinking like a copywriter’. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Andrew Bolton Experienced Copywriter Resources Andrew’s LinkedIn Book: Copywriting Is…: 30-or-so thoughts on thinking like a copywriter Book: On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction Book: Read Me: 10 Lessons for Writing Great Copy Book: A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at how you can sell like a copywriter. Today's guest is Andrew Boulton. Andrew's been a copywriter for 12 years. He's worked with some big brands and plenty of tiny ones as well. He teaches copywriting on the creative advertising and creative writing courses at the University of Lincoln. And he is the author of the best selling book, Copywriting Is…: 30-or-So Thoughts on Thinking Like a Copywriter. With that, Andrew, welcome to the show.   Andrew Boulton: Hello, thanks for having me.   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on mate. Copywriting is something that is top of mind for me at the moment as sales people move from, I guess, 20 years ago before I was in sales. I imagine you could knock on doors, you could pick up the phone, you could… The gift of the gab and a bit of a silver tongue probably open up quite a few doors, whereas the world we live in now, whether you are emailing, texting, creating content, whatever it is to get attention in the marketplace, clearly copywriting fit into all of this.   What is Copywriting and How Can We Use It To Improve Our Sales Processes? · [01:05]   Will Barron: So with that said, though, I think there's going to be at least a few members of the audience, Andrew, that are unfamiliar with the term. Can you tell us just to get us started what copywriting is, if there's a definition of this, and then I guess what the goal of copywriting is for a salesperson, someone who needs to generate meetings and get deals done.   Andrew Boulton: Yeah, of course. I think there's probably going to be more than a few people who aren't necessarily immediately familiar or very familiar with the term. And you mentioned at the start, I teach on a creative advertising course and a creative writing course, people who are very much young people who are primed to kind of go into those careers where copywriting is a very big part of kind of the industry and very few of those students know what copywriting is.   “Copywriting is simply using words to drive action.” – Andrew Boulton · [02:10]   Andrew Boulton: So sadly, I think it's one of those things that sort of slips under the radar. I think in essence, if you ask me to kind of summarise what it is, it's the business of kind of communicating about your brand, communicating about your product, ultimately trying to persuade your audience to do the thing you want them to do. It is kind of using words to drive action.   Andrew Boulton: So regardless of what your business is or what your brand is or how you think or what you think kind of the big drivers and the big sort of pullers are within those organisations, words, and copy and your messaging and how you present yourselves and how you kind of communicate, what makes you good and sort of worthwhile comes down to copywriting. Whether you're currently using a copywriter or not, copywriting is kind of one of those big pillars that props up the effectiveness of how your business speaks to the people that you want to turn into customers and keep as customers.   The Art and Science of Copywriting · [02:50]   Will Barron: For sure. Okay. So when we talk about persuading in sales, there is this constant battle. And I'm flipping on this. I go from one side to another. I've got a background in science, I've got a degree in chemistry, I'm a public scientist. So if there

Selling is all about communicating value. And if you can’t communicate your product’s value, your potential buyers sure as hell aren’t going to be itching to work with you. Mastering an elevator pitch is one of the most effective ways to quickly and effectively pique your prospect’s interest and set the foundation for a successful sale. And crafting your elevator pitch is exactly what we’re talking about today. The Pitch More than most professions, sales reps know that time is precious. And everyone—whether it’s a secretary, executive, career buyer, or even coffee deliverer—everyone takes how they spend their time seriously. If you’ve ever cold-called, you know what I’m talking about. Have you ever been through a morning of cold calling where you haven’t been hung up on? Someone who doesn’t see the value of your pitch won’t even waste their time letting you finish. Now for sales, that presents a bit of a conundrum. How the heck do you communicate your product or service’s value with such a small sliver of your prospect’s time? That’s where the elevator pitch comes in. The elevator pitch is meant to quickly and effectively tell your prospects what it is you do and how you solve their problems. But a well-crafted elevator pitch isn’t just helpful when you’re stuck in a room with someone for 20 or 30 seconds. It can also boost your cold-calling success rates, refine your messaging for follow-up emails and meetings, or even inform your final pitch strategy when it comes time to close. So, what does a great elevator pitch look like? Well, let’s jump in and see. 1: The Clean Open Now, the very first step of an elevator pitch is to map out your opening. This step is all about being clear and straight to the point. So be sure to cut the crap, nix the industry jargon, and toss aside any and all buzzwords here. Essentially, you want to create a single sentence that tells your prospect what you do, who you can help, and how you can help. To accomplish that, all you have to do is follow a simple yet incredibly effective formula… “I Help X Do Y By Z.” For me and the Selling Made Simple Academy, mine would look something like – “I help sales professionals find and win more outbound sales using simple selling frameworks and one-on-one mentorship. We’re trusted by 2,000+ students.” That’s it. And anyone can use this formula. “I help small businesses stay compliant and reduce their liability by providing accredited and experienced tax consultation.” “I help dog owners’ pets look their best by offering boutique grooming services.” See how easy that is? When you start with a clear, value-driven statement using this formula, you’re setting the stage for prospects to better understand and internalize the next step… 2: The Story Stories aren’t just for passing the time during your off-hours or putting the little ones to sleep. They’re actually powerful selling tools. See, humans are hard-wired for stories. The earliest evidence that we’re storytellers goes back tens of thousands of years. And studies have shown that messages wrapped in a well-constructed story are more likely to be understood, recalled, and internalized. That’s why the next step in your pitch is to tell your prospect a story about a past customer you helped. Nothing too long-winded, of course. Just enough to get your prospect thinking about how you can accomplish the same results for them too. Now, a few guiding principles here. A) Cater the Story to Your Prospect Cater the story to your prospect. The more relevant the story is, ideally in the same industry, the more it’s going to resonate with your prospect. B) Explain Their Reality Explain the reality that the hero of your story currently lives in. Tie it into the world of the person who is receiving your elevator pitch. C) Identify & Agitate the Pain Identify and agitate the pain. In the story, describe a problem a past client had that’s similar to your prospect. Inefficient team? Unmet sales goals? Whatever it is, it should cause your prospect’s ears to perk up. “Hey, that’s what I’m dealing with.” Research here is helpful. But if you haven’t had the time and this is a fresh contact, you can touch on problems that are common throughout the industry too. After that, dig into the pain points of the problem. Is it bruising their reputation? Are they missing out on promotions because of it? This “twisting of the knife” so to speak really helps the prospect connect with the subject in the story and makes the effect more powerful. D) Point Out Success Barriers Point out success barriers. What stopped the customer from taking action once they decided to solve the problem? Was it an overwhelming number of possible solutions? Cost of change? The risk of the solution not working out? Touch on these barriers too. And if possible, focus specifically on ones you know the prospect has dealt with in the past. E) Illuminate the End Result & Connect the Gap Illuminating the end result and connecting the gap. How did the stor

Questions asked: Should I join a company as an inbound SDR? They say I can make it to AE within 6 months if I hit my quota of 5 meetings booked a week. How do I get over being nervous on cold calls? I come across as anxious and I think that is being passed onto the person who I'm calling. I'm using the same script as everyone else but not getting good results. I need to decide between a series of prospecting tools I've been trialing. I know you've promoted Lusha and Uplead but I also trialed Seamless and Apollo. In your experience which one is more worth it? Looking to get 100+ leads a day. I've an interview coming up and I've been told there will be questions about time management. How do I answer these questions? I want to join Selling Made Simple Academy. Why do I have to book a call? Can I not just sign up? Have you/your team tried using video calls in cold emails? Do they help improve response rate like they claim? What was the biggest sales commission deal that you got? Thanks for all the content! I'm starting a new sales job tomorrow. Any tips?    

Kim Arnold is a communication consultant, author and helps organisations avoid the wasted time and effort associated with poor communication. Her bestselling book, ‘Email Attraction’ has been featured in Forbes, the Financial Times and on BBC Radio. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Kim shares insights into how the top salespeople get their emails opened, read, and answered. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Kim Arnold Communications Expert Resources: Kim’s LinkedIn Kimarnold.co.uk Book: Email Attraction: Get What You Want Every Time You Hit Send Book: On Writing Well Transcript Will Barron: Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast.   Will Barron: On today's episode, we'll look at how you can get your sales emails opened, read, and answered. And today's guest is Kim Arnold. Kim is a communications consultant, author, and helps organisations avoid the wasted time and associated effort with poor communication.   Will Barron: Her bestselling book, Email Attraction, has been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, on BBC Radio, a bunch of other places as well. And with that, Kim, welcome to the show.   Kim Arnold: Thanks so much, Will. Great to be here.   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on. Okay. This is clearly an important topic for the modern B2B sale professional. Maybe 20 years, they could have got away with just having a gift of the gab, silver tongue, just calling people and breaking through, but clearly, email is incredibly important right now. It's typically the first step into getting a conversation going with a potential customer.   Whose Fault is it When a Salesperson Doesn’t Get an Email Response? · [01:50]   Will Barron: So, with that said, let's set up the rest of the conversation here, whose fault is it, Kim, whose fault is it, right, when a salesperson, Sam, the salesperson, sends an email and gets no response? Is it the buyer's fault for just being too busy for ignoring Sam for being rude, or is it maybe Sam's fault for sending an email that just sucked and didn't elicit a response in the first place?   Kim Arnold: Well, sorry, Sam, I'm afraid, it's your fault. It really is. Yeah, we are busy. We are overwhelmed at the moment. Our inboxes are groaning, and what we do is filter. We look through our inboxes and we look and we see what is going to give me the quickest value in my inbox. And we start there. Or what's the most urgent, what's going to get me promoted, what's going to win me more business, what's going to make my day brighter. And if he doesn't tick any of those boxes, then, I'm afraid it's gone.   Kim Arnold: And actually, I was talking to a sales guy at a conference recently I was speaking at, and he said exactly what you've just outlined. He said, we're so good in person, we're charming. We're great at networking, we're brilliant in meetings, but these days, we can't even get clients on the phone, let alone, try and get them face to face. So you're having to do everything through email.   Kim Arnold: And he was just saying, I can't communicate any of my personality, my charisma, my charm, all of stuff that works for me in person. I can't get it down on an email, and that is a big problem.   Will Barron: So, I'm doing a bunch of work. A lot of our content goes on YouTube, and I'm working with a consultant in the YouTube space, a big YouTuber, to help us with our content. And he keeps telling me that I'm not riding this line of click bait close enough in titles, in thumbnails, in begin of introductions. And so… And I'll come back to email in a second, but it seems like the people, when people get into the content, they really enjoy it.   Email Subject Lines and Why They’re the Key to Getting Your Emails Read · [03:02]   Will Barron: But getting that initial click through rate is something that we struggle with, and we need to work on. How do sales people beat the scanning of a prospect's email when they get up in the morning or at lunchtime, how do they beat that filter where the prospect's probably just, at this point in 2022, we call this deleting emails without even reading them? How do they break through that filter without leaning into a clickbaity subject line? Or is that what we need to do at this p

So many sales reps today underutilize the power of the well-run discovery call. With the right discovery call framework, you can qualify your leads, gather invaluable intel, and position yourself as a trustworthy authority—all in a single phone call. Today I’m showing you how to structure your discovery calls so you can reap all these benefits and more. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this proven 8-step framework. Because it’s going to save you tons of time and make your sales job infinitely easier. The Perfect Discovery Call How many times have you spent hours, days, or even weeks of hard work with a potential buyer, only to find out they were never a fit for your product in the first place? Don’t worry, you aren’t alone. As much as 67% of lost sales are the result of sales reps not properly qualifying their leads. And more than a third of reps just like you say qualifying and prospecting were the biggest challenges of their roles. In fact, I brought up this problem in particular in a recent interview. “If you are sick of being rejected, if you're sick of people ghosting you, if you're sick of people not replying to your messages, improve your qualification at the top of the sales process, and you'll eliminate a lot of that at the far end of it.” Will Barron, SS #019 Qualification matters. When you do it right, you’re saving yourself tons of headaches, hassles, and lost time down the road. And the discovery call is without a doubt the best opportunity to qualify leads. Over the years, I’ve developed an 8-point framework for running strategic discovery calls with my potential clients. And that’s exactly what I’m sharing with you today. Plus, I’m covering very specific questions along the way that you should ask prospects that cover each issue without scaring them off. Ready to go? Let’s get into it. To get the most value out of your discovery call as possible, you’re going to qualify potential leads according to eight issues throughout the meeting. The first issue is… 1) Are They In Pain? Are they in pain? Is their issue actually a problem? And most importantly, is the buyer in “pain” because of that problem? The buyers you want to work with are feeling the hurt from their problem. And as a result, they’re going to be highly motivated to find the right solution, which is exactly what you want. Questions you can ask that get to the heart of this issue include… “You booked this call with me today, what led to getting this call booked in?” And… “What’s stopping you from solving this issue yourself?” 2) What Is Their Timeline? Not all problem and solution timelines are going to line up. One of your primary concerns when qualifying prospects is what their timeline is for when they need their problem solved. Are they thinking today? This quarter? Or in the next few years? The right answer for your industry will depend entirely on your unique business and solution. But in general, you should only be working with buyers that are interested in solving the problem sooner rather than later. To determine their timeline, ask a question like… “When do you want to solve this pain?” Straightforward, right? This question doesn’t mince words. And as a result, the answer gives you a clear, no-bullshit timeline that the buyer is hoping to solve their problem. 3) Can I Fix This Problem? Time for an honesty check ladies and gentlemen. There’s no perfect product or service for everyone. And saying otherwise is just playing into the public’s idea of sales reps being con men. Instead, it’s your job to think of yourself as someone who offers value. So don’t waste time with buyers that’ll be dissatisfied with what your product can offer. Two questions in particular to ask yourself, not the buyer, are… “Do I have the solution for this buyer’s problem?” Be honest here. Does your solution actually solve the buyer’s problem? Or is it more of a bandaid? Also… “Do they really need this solution?” Is there a better solution they can implement on their own? Is yours really necessary? If not and the sale goes through, the buyer will likely resent you once they find out they could have easily solved the problem themselves. And that means negative reviews, zero loyalty, and no earned referrals. 4) Is The Solution Worth The Trouble? There are downsides to any new solution. Buyers need to change vendors, hire new staff, train on novel systems, or fight for a change to the budget. The question is, is the value your solution provides worth that discomfort? How much will they have to change to accommodate it? And when all is said and done, will they look back on the investment as a good purchase or one that ate up too many resources? Going through this calculation upfront is a must during the qualification of sales leads. Questions to ask here include… “How would things be different if we solved this for you?” “What is your motivation to make this happen?” “If we took your business from $X to $Y, how would that change things?” 5) Do They Accept You

Len Herstein is a Keynote Speaker, Author, Marketing Strategist and a Reserve Sheriff's Deputy. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Len taps into his brand marketing and law enforcement experience to reveal the most dangerous threat to your sales success. He also shares strategies to help you achieve, cherish, and protect success in both life and business You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Business Strategy Expert Resources: Len’s LinkedIn Lenherstein.com Book: Be Vigilant!: Strategies to Stop Complacency, Improve Performance, and Safeguard Success. Your Business and Relationships Depend on It. Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at the most dangerous threat to your sales success, and today's guest is Len Herstein. Len's 30 plus years in business, brand marketing and law enforcement led to his book, Be Vigilant!, where he provides a roadmap for individuals to stop complacency, improve performance, and safeguard the success that they've worked so hard to achieve. We want to touch on all this in today's episode. And with that, Len, welcome to the show.   Len Herstein: Thanks, Will. Good to be here. Thanks for having me.   The Most Dangerous Threat to Highly Successful Salespeople · [00:50]   Will Barron: You are more than welcome, sir. We were just talking football before we clicked record. Don't say who you support, mate, because you might get a load of hate after this episode, and maybe a few polite emails on the back of that as well, but I appreciate you, mate. So with that said, I know the answer to this question because we've done a bit of prep for the interview, but the audience probably don't, and I'm in so much agreement with you here. I think this is a really exciting topic. With that said, Len, what is the most dangerous threat, not just to salespeople, but to perhaps highly successful salespeople?   “Success is not the end goal, keeping it is.” – Len Herstein · [01:38]   Len Herstein: Yeah. The thing that I think is one of the most dangerous threats is complacency, is the idea that as we get more successful, we develop an overconfidence, a self-satisfaction, even potentially a smugness that makes us unaware of potential threats. And when we become unaware of potential threats, when we fail to see the warning signs, when we fail to see the things that we're doing that make us vulnerable, that is when our success becomes at risk. What I always tell people is success is not the end goal, keeping it is.   Understanding the Risk of Complacency in Sales · [01:43]   Will Barron: And is this something that all successful fo people fall into, or is this a trap that can be averted? Do we have to learn this lesson via the school of hard knocks or is keynote speaking, the events that you do, reading the book, and the coaching that you do, is that capable of getting us through this?   Len Herstein: Yeah, so that's exactly… The book is set up to give a us strategies that we can employ today that will help us identify complacency and fight it. And so one of the things, when we talk about complacency, that people get confused about is kind of what complacency is, first of all. And I think a lot of people would equate it with laziness. And really complacency is not laziness, it's what I talked about, is that unawareness of threats because of our overconfidence.   Len Herstein: And then the next step is people start worrying well, what's the opposite of complacency, isn't it like paranoia? Because that doesn't sound fun. I don't want to be paranoid. But the actual answer is that the opposite and the antidote to complacency is vigilance. And the difference is that paranoia is based in fear and vigilance is based in awareness. And so this is what the book is. And when I go talk to people and when I consult with people, it's all about helping them develop the strategies that enable them to become more aware, to become more intentional, to become more in a moment so that they don't get caught by surprise due to their complacency.   Complacency and Why It’s a Threat to All Types of Salespeople · [03:14]   Will Barron: Is this just for, obviously our audience are mainly salespeople, there'

Do you want to be rich someday? Of course you do. Who doesn’t? But if you’re in sales, you’re in a particularly great position to grow your wealth—if you play your cards right, that is. More on that in a few minutes. In this post, I’m revealing the 3 best habits of rich people. Habits that you can learn for yourself. And habits that will put you well on your way to true financial freedom. Rich habits One of the hardest pills to swallow about success is that it isn’t quick. Striking it rich betting on the newest cryptocurrency? Winning the lotto? These cases are rare. And the majority of the wealthy built their fortunes over time. Lots of time. The difference between those who become rich and those who don’t is how they spend that time. Because in reality, that’s the only thing anyone has real control over. Now, we’d like to think we’re in control of what we do each day. And think about it—don’t you feel that way? Like you’re in the driver’s seat? But in fact, we’re actually slaves to one thing that rules us all… our habits. Our habits control how we spend our days. They dictate our feelings. Our motivations. Our productivity. Do we work towards building a brighter future? Or do we put off tasks and give in to that warm call of the couch instead? Over time, these daily accomplishments (controlled by our habits) build on each other to determine our future. Indy 500 and Formula 1 Legend Derek Daly said it best when he told me, “You will not decide your future. You'll decide your habits. And your habits will then in turn, decide your future. Are your habits aligned with your own personal goals or stretch goals?” But there’s a problem here. We tend to forget what we’ve done in the past. So we end up not tying that past effort to the present, to what we’re achieving today. Think of it like this: The solution to this problem is identifying the right habits and implementing them NOW so you can reap the rewards LATER. And that’s exactly what we’re doing today. Alright, alright. Enough background. Let’s get into the real meat and talk about the 3 best habits of rich people you need to copy. Habit #1: Track Your Progress People don’t stumble into becoming a success. They aim for it. So in order for you to achieve that same kind of success, you need to… A) Set Goals Set goals. What exactly do you want to achieve? Is it to climb the corporate ladder? Accumulate enough wealth to retire early? Or just get some extra dough to send your kids to college? Try to make each goal SMART: Specific Measurable Actionable Relevant Time-Based The more exact you can make your goals, the easier it’ll be for you to work your way towards them. B) Determine Milestones What are the steps you need to take to achieve each goal? And what do you need to accomplish in order to take each step? If for example your goal is to make $1 million in commissions this year, you can break that goal down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and even daily targets. How many deals do you have to close each quarter to stay on track?? How many cold emails and calls do you have to make each week to hit those monthly goals? When you break your larger goals down into smaller, daily tasks, you can tell in an instant if you are running behind or ahead of the game. So set those larger goals, break them down into milestones and smaller tasks, and then track your progress towards completing each. Habit #2: Pay Your Future Self First For this one, it helps to think of yourself as two distinct people. There’s present you—that’s the you watching this video here right now. And then there’s future you—that’s the you in a day, a month, a year, a decade. What you want to do is take a fixed percentage of your monthly income and invest it towards your future self. I don’t care if it was a great month. And I don’t care if it was a terrible month. What matters here is you’re paying forward your hard-earned dough so that future you’s life will be just a little bit easier. Now, I’m not talking about buying that car. Or taking that vacation. Because really, that’s investing in present you. And once you spend that cash, it instantly becomes dead money. But when you invest in your future you, it’s living money. Money that pays out dividends. And money that earns a return, getting you closer to real financial freedom. Some examples of what you can do to pay your future self include: Investing in the Stock Market Maxing Out Your 401(k) Contribution Saving for a New House Taking a Sales Skills Workshop Habit #3: Continuous Self-Improvement Continuous and relentless self-improvement. Nobody, and I mean nobody, starts off from square one with all the skills they need to make millions. It just doesn’t happen. Instead, you’ve got to consistently expand your skillset. You’ve got to improve the skills you already have today. And you have to become better than you ever thought you could be. Now, I teased this a bit before but in sales, we’re particularly lucky because the improvements we need to ma

Fred Copestake is the Founder of Brindis and author of ‘Selling Through Partnering Skills' & ‘Hybrid Selling'. In today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast, Fred shares strategies around how you can smash your sales quota and unleash your full potential by becoming a hybrid seller. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Fred Copestake Hybrid Selling Expert Resources: Fred’s LinkedIn The Sales Today Podcast Book: Hybrid Selling: How salespeople can use a complete approach to drive opportunities in the new world of sales Rocky – AI Mindset & Self-Improvement digital coach in your pocket. Transcript Will Barron: Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the salesman podcast. On today's show we're going to look into how to become a hybrid salesperson. And today's guest is the man Fred Copestake. Fred is the founder of Brindis Sales Training and author of the Hybrid Selling book and Selling Through Partnering Skills. And we're going to talk about both these on today's episode. With that, Fred, welcome to the show.   Fred Copestake: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me. Real pleasure.   What is Hybrid Selling? · [00:35]   Will Barron: You're more than welcome. I'm glad to have you on, mate. Okay. I can feel you've got a strong energy. I can feel you're excited mate, to be on the show, so hopefully we can continue this with some questions from my side. But with that, I'm going to give you a terrible question. It's a lazy question, but I think it's a good starting point to set up the rest of the show. You probably answered this question a million times before. And so I feel bad for throwing it at you, but what the heck is hybrid selling? Someone who's unfamiliar with that term, there's tens of thousands people listen to this. What is hybrid selling Fred?   Fred Copestake: Well, my usual lazy answer is what do you think it is? But actually, no, let's go with that if you don't mind. If you could give me what you think it is without going into too much thought, then we can take it from there.   Will Barron: Well, I'm not assuming because I know what it is because I've read the book. But coming from an assumptive standpoint I would say it's selling both old ways of phones and emails, and the new ways of leveraging Zoom, leveraging the newer buyer journey where the buyer is focused on consumer content, engaging with salespeople like [inaudible 00:01:32] on the process. It's focusing on a new exchange of value where the buyer has access to information where they didn't have it in the past, and they perhaps want salespeople to help them out with different things. How does that fit?   Fred Copestake: Yeah. No, very good. Very good sir, yes. You clearly have read it. No. No. A lot of people will tend to say is, “Oh. It's when we've got to do stuff using different techniques,” or, “We've got to do stuff like using video and sending video and this kind of stuff,” so working virtually. And my answer will tend to be well you, “Well, that's virtual selling then isn't it? That's already got a name. That is a thing.” So for me, it's something slightly different where hybrid's about a mix. And so it's a mix of approaches, it's a mixture of things that we need to do to make sure that we are bang up to date and we're going to do things that make a difference for the customer. And come seeing a lot of good stuff that's gone on before, and some of those newer things to deal with the way that people are thinking, because people are thinking differently as well now. So it's a blend. It's a mixed approach.   Hybrid Selling 101: The Things Today’s Buyer Expects From the Modern-Day Salesperson · [02:28]   Will Barron: How are people thinking differently from the perspective of we're hopefully on the far end of this global pandemic, there's other things going on in the world which we won't talk about this second because, well, by the time the show goes out who knows what's happened in that area of the world. So we'll miss that but it's post pandemic. What the buyers want different from salespeople, how do salespeople need to engage differently with buyers? And how do we get more deals done use this hybrid approach?   Fred Copestake: Okay. So I mean first thing, I

Bob Wheeler is a Financial Expert, Motivator, Author of The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Bob offers a simple and effective framework for creating a healthy relationship with money and explains how emotions trigger our financial decisions. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Bob Wheeler Financial Expert and Best-Selling Author Resources: Bob’s LinkedIn Themoneynerve.com Book: The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Book: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Values, and Spiritual Growth Money You Should Ask Podcast Transcript Will Barron: Hi, I'm Will. Welcome to the Salesman podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at how you can improve your relationships with money. Our guest is Bob Wheeler. Bob is the author of The Money Nerve. He helps people conquer their money shame and avoid making poor financial decisions by teaching them how emotions can dictate our choices. And with that Bob, welcome to the show.   Bob Wheeler: Thanks a lot, Will, great to be here.   What’s Your Relationship with Money? · [01:00]   Will Barron: Great job. This is one of those topics that we've had over experts on to talk about in the past, but it's so important for salespeople to have a healthy relationship with money so that they can have success. Then also, hopefully we can transition to this towards the end of the show, it's important for salespeople to be able to communicate effectively without emotional baggage when they're talking about their prospect's money, whether it's the actual ownership of cash from the prospect itself or the money that they are, I guess, the company they're representing called that they're trying to exchange value or services or products for. People get weird about money pretty quick. Let me ask you this Bob, to get us started, is it likely, in your experience, right, that a majority of the listeners listening to the podcast right now, tens of thousands of salespeople, small business owners and everyone else in between, is it likely that they all have a pretty good relationship with money or is it more likely that we're all a little bit messed up on this subject?   Bob Wheeler: Well, unfortunately, I would have to say we're probably all a little messed up on this subject. It just, but that's not a bad thing as long as we get conscious about it, but most of us are working from some unconscious beliefs and money blocks.   Money, Emotions, and Why Our Relationship with Money is So Messed Up · [01:40]   Will Barron: Why is that? If we could start from, if we can pull it all back and start from the beginning, right, are we born, as humans, just with money being a relatively new concept? I don't know how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years old cash in an exchange of value via a, like a stones, gold, paper notes, whatever it is now, our brain's just not wired who understand it and we add weird emotions to it? Is it our childhood upbringing? Is it the media? What causes us to be all maybe slightly messed up with our emotions of money?   Bob Wheeler: I mean, it might be all of that, but unfortunately, and I'm not blaming parents here. I'm not blaming the parents, but we are part of our upbringing. A lot of our decisions, a lot of our beliefs, a lot of our rules got formed when we were four or five and six years old. If we were shamed about money, if we watched our parents fight about money, if we were told we were greedy or if we were generous, we started to take all that on at four, five and six, and then we never update the information. We just keep working with it as we go into adulthood. We're still operating with that information we got at four or five and six, which may or may not be helpful or true.   Understanding Our Subconscious Beliefs About Money · [03:00]   Will Barron: Is this because it's all based in our subconscious? Because it seems like if someone has an issue of money, and I'm thinking of a specific friend of mine, right, who is just a, excuse, my French, just a cheap bastard, right? He doesn't want to spend money. He doesn't really want to earn money. If there's money and he is bank account, he wants to get rid of it as quick as

One of the most impactful realizations I made early on in sales is that closing deals isn’t just about the numbers. You also need to tap into the psychology of your prospect and get buy-in on a fundamental, biological level. That’s why today we’re looking at the psychology of selling—5 steps to selling that actually work. You’re going to love seeing your close rates skyrocket after incorporating these steps into your pitch. The Numbers Objection How many times during a sales call have you heard, “Let me check the numbers and get back to you.” Or “The numbers just don’t work on our end.” Numbers, numbers, numbers—most reps think closing sales in the B2B biz all comes down to the numbers. Does your product make logical sense for the buyer? What a lot of sales professionals miss out on though is the emotional aspect of a deal. Sure, there’s still a big place for logic in sales. But when it comes down to it, we make decisions based on emotions. President and CEO of Whetstone Adrian Davis broke it down for me like this in our interview: “Fundamentally, we make decisions emotionally, and if all we're doing is spouting features and benefits, we're really engaging the logical part of the brain. The logical part of the brain does not make decisions. It analyses and captures information to weigh pros and cons, but decisions are made emotionally” The question is, how can you appeal to the psychology of your buyer to better sell your product? What tactics can you leverage to boost your selling power tenfold? And what framework can you use to consistently and effectively tap into the psychology of sales? That’s exactly what I’m covering today. This five-step method is based on the Storytelling Framework from inside the Selling Made Simple Academy, but more on that in a sec. Right now, let’s jump into the steps. 1: Help Your Buyer Understand Their Current Reality The very first step to tapping into the psychology of selling is helping your buyer understand their current reality. What is the biggest problem your prospect faces today? Is it a stall in business growth in recent months? A team not working as efficiently as they should? Have they hit a success roadblock that they just can’t overcome? Summarize their unique pains and verbally confirm those pains with the buyer. This gives them the opportunity to correct or clarify what you understand as their biggest problem. Beyond that, it also immediately puts you and the buyer on the same team—you are both trying to solve that problem. And you’re also scoring points for showing you understand what they’re going through. 2: Make Them Feel the Pain of That Reality Next up is making them feel the pain of that current reality. This step is also known as “agitating” the pain in copywriting terms. And it’s an essential step to engaging the emotions of the prospect. So ask yourself—what are the consequences of this pain? Who do they look stupid in front of because of that pain or problem? Who is judging them? And what’s really, truly on the line if that problem goes unsolved? Acknowledge these consequences with the buyer. Bring them up. And let them know you understand the stakes of the decision. And don’t just stick to monetary consequences here. Reputation, career advancement, bragging rights, and much more besides money are motivating factors for making business decisions too. Now that you’ve identified and agitated the pain points, it’s time to move on to step #3… 3: Outline What’s Stopping Them From Moving Forward Outlining the current barriers that are stopping them from moving forward. In most cases, these barriers fall into one or more of five specific categories. Step #3 involves pointing out which of these barriers your buyer is currently facing. I go into greater detail about these five forces in the Storytelling Framework from the Selling Made Simple Academy. But for now, the five barriers are: A) Selection Overwhelm Selection overwhelm. The buyer has a problem and knows there are solutions. But there are too many choices. And it’s tough to know which is the best. This is a great opportunity for you to remind the buyer of your unique value proposition. B) Confirmation Bias Confirmation bias. This is the mind’s tendency to stick to our previous decisions and defend them wholeheartedly. Pointing out this bias alone is enough to make a buyer more seriously consider switching solutions. C) Blowback Risk Is your buyer afraid of looking like an idiot after switching to a new solution that doesn’t work out? You can address this success blocker in particular by pointing to your brand’s reputation and success stories. D) Initial Cost of Change Initial cost of change. Is your buyer being held back by the thought of fighting for the budget or spending the time needed to implement your product? This blocker is best dealt with by providing your prospect with the resources they need to reduce those costs of change. Onboarding support, cost analyses, C-suite targeted product breakdo

In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Dr. Robert Glover explains what a covert contract is and why “nice guy syndrome” is killing your ability to get deals done. Robert, an entrepreneur, writer, coach, public speaker and the author of three bestselling books. He is also recognized as the leading authority on tackling the “Nice Guy Syndrome”. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Dr. Robert Glover Best-Selling Author and Psychology Guru Resources: Dr.Glover.com Dr. Glover on LinkedIn Book: No More Mr. Nice Guy Book: Dating Essentials for Men: The Only Dating Guide You Will Ever Need Book: The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be talking how covert contracts kill your sales effectiveness and today's guest is Dr. Robert Glover. Robert is a entrepreneur, writer, coach, and public speaker, and is the author of three bestselling books. Robert is recognised as the leading authority on nice guy syndrome, which I'm sure we're going to cover in this episode and with that, Robert, welcome to the show.   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, thank you for the invitation.   The Recovering Nice Guy · [00:36]   Will Barron: You more than welcome, sir. Just before we click record, I've read all your books. I'm a huge fan. Is there a way to describe someone who was a nice guy, who had nice guy syndrome and now no longer, well, hopefully no longer suffers for it. You can diagnose me in this episode mate and give me some feedback. Is there a way to refer to someone who is through some of these pain points?   Dr. Robert Glover: Well, I refer to myself as a recovering nice guy because I started working on this stuff in myself before I knew it was nice guy syndrome, about 25 years ago. And what's interesting to me is that layers keep peeling off of this whole nice guy thing and mine show up mostly in relationship, but I see it in work and everywhere else as well. So what I found about any, I believe nice guy syndrome, a lot of it is due to maybe partly natural temperament and partly due who internalised conditioning in childhood.   Dr. Robert Glover: So that means is pretty deep into our emotional operating system. So I've noticed that the anxiety or shame I tend to associate with nice guy syndrome still arises from time to time, but I notice it quicker, I can soothe myself, I can take action, I can move forward. So as I refer to myself as a recovering nice guy, if you like that term, you can use it, it just means that you notice this stuff a lot quicker, and it doesn't seem to take control of your life, especially in those unconscious hidden ways that you're not aware of what's driving the bus of your life.   What is The Nice Guy Syndrome and Are You Suffering From It? · [02:01]   Will Barron: Sure. Okay. So I want to get into covert contracts. I mean, this is really valuable for the salespeople listening to this. I used to do this and put my prospects on a pedestal. I would have covert contracts with these individuals that they didn't know about. We'll touch on that in a second, but we've mentioned nice guy syndrome here. Can you give us a definition of what it is and I guess how we would know. Is there a test? Is there a way to know whether we are afflicted with it myself and the listeners right now?   Dr. Robert Glover: Yeah. Nice guy syndrome, and I'm going to reference this primarily towards men, because that's what my book was written towards, but it also affects women as well. There's lots of nice girls out there. And my view of the nice guy is that at a very early age, as a person that internalised an inaccurate belief about themselves in the world and that inaccurate belief is that if I want to be loved and liked to get my needs met, I have to become what I think other people want me to be, because I'm not okay just as I am. And I have to hide anything about me that might trigger or get a negative response from other people.   Dr. Robert Glover: So nice guys then are out there trying to be good, trying to please people, trying to avoid conflict, trying to look like a decent human being, they're generous, they're giving, they're caring and all thi

The absolute best way to excel in sales is by following a proven system that delivers consistently great results. And today, I’m breaking down the ONLY sales system you need to know to be a roaring success in this industry. In fact, it’s the same system we’ve used to help well over 2,000 sales professionals maximize their on-the-job effectiveness, blow past their previous income goals, and achieve real, lasting sales success. The System Let’s start with a question… When’s the last time you were sitting at your desk, wondering “What do I do now?” Now don’t misunderstand me here—sales is busy. Busy as all hell in fact. You’ve got product demos, client questions, cold outreach, quotas—and on top of it all, a sales manager breathing down your neck. But all this stress and business, it doesn’t really mean you’re productive. You feel busy, sure. But when people don’t have a proven sales system to follow, they tend to… flail. Less gets done around the office. Opportunities go overlooked. And unmet quotas fly by month after month with little improvement. You’re still stressed, of course. But even still, you aren’t able to make any real, lasting progress. And those feelings of stagnation, of plateauing, are the first signs of burnout. Mental health advocate and Founder of UNCrushed Time Clarke once told me in an interview, “I do research around a survey with B2B sales professionals, and of those, 67% of the respondents strongly agreed that they are currently close to burnout or experiencing burnout.” 67% of sales reps feel this way! And the problem in most cases is not having a cohesive system for driving consistent results and becoming a better, more effective salesperson. It’s this problem in particular that we’ve solved for over 2,000 reps with our Selling Made Simple system. And it’s this proven system I’m covering in this video. Now, let’s get into the ONLY sales system you’ll ever need to know. Like I said, this is the exact system we cover in the Selling Made Simply training. And it’s made up of four equally important steps… 1: Understand Your Market First up is understanding your market. Before you can even hope to close a sale, you have to know who you’re selling to. And that means understanding three things in particular. A) Honing Your Value Proposition First is getting intimately familiar with your value proposition and tailoring it to your ideal buyer. What are the unique problems your prospects are facing? What solutions have they already tried to solve those problems? The more you understand about your customer, the better position you’ll be in to cater your value proposition to their distinct needs. B) Understanding Your Buyer’s Journey Next up is understanding your buyer’s journey. Prospects move through very specific steps on their way to buying your product. From awareness and consideration to purchase and re-purchase. Guiding prospects through each of these steps effectively means knowing what information to deliver and when to deliver it. C) Nailing Down the Numbers Finally, there’s playing the numbers game. How many prospects do you have to reach out to in order to book a single discovery call? How many of those turn into a qualified lead? And how many of those are going to actually become a buyer? Sales is, in fact, a numbers game. And the better you get at tracking and playing to those numbers, the better you’ll become at meeting goals and closing deals consistently. The next step in this sales system is getting in front of your buyers. 2: Get In Front of Buyers Getting in front of buyers. Sales don’t happen in a vacuum. Buyers are busy. And to close deals, you need to do the hard work to connect with prospects regularly and strategically. For most reps, that means reaching out in three different ways: A) Cold Email First is cold email. Email has a potential ROI of 44:1—that’s 4,400%! The trick is understanding how to wield this outreach method effectively. Subject lines, send times, body copy, value-adds—they’re all vital for cold emails that get responses from hot prospects. So do your homework before hitting “Send”! B) Cold Calling Then there’s cold calling. I know—the bane of every sales rep’s existence, right? But you don’t have to be fearful of cold calling. With the right game plan and the right intentions, you can turn awkward calls into value-adding conversations. C) Social Selling LinkedIn in particular is one of the best social platforms to demonstrate your knowledge, build a following, and connect with potential leads. Effective social selling isn’t just a powerful supplement to cold emailing and cold calling either. Instead, it actually lets you generate leads while you sleep. Now, for each of these outreach methods, you also need to develop strategic sales cadences. D) Sales Cadences Cadences are sequences of touchpoints you make with prospects. When to make them. How to make them. And what to say at each touchpoint. Think of it like an outreach roadmap—all you have to do is fol

In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andy Whyte explains what salespeople commonly get wrong about sales qualification. Andy is the founder of MEDDICC.com and the author of “MEDDICC’ the book. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Andy Whyte Author of MEDDICC Resources: Andy on LinkedIn The MEDDPICC Masterclass MEDDIC Academy on YouTube Book: MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode we're looking at what salespeople get wrong about sales qualification. Our guest is Andy Whyte. Andy is the founder of medic.com and author of MEDDICC the book. Andy has been on the show before. He's a legend. I'm excited to speak with you. Andy, welcome back to the show.   Andy Whyte: I thank you so so much. Well, it's great to be back on the show once again. I had so much great feedback from people who were your audience from last time. So it was a joy to be invited back on. Thank you very much.   What is Sales Qualification? · [00:36]   Will Barron: You are more than welcome. I'm glad to hear that feedback. So let's not mess around. Give us, if you can, a definition, a one line of what sales qualification is. The audience should know this, but just in case they don't and then we're going to get into what people are getting wrong in this space.   “For me, qualification is about identifying with your prospect, with your prospective customer whether there is enough value that you can provide to them, whether they have enough pain or goals they're striving to achieve that your solution can help them to achieve. If the value in that is large enough for it to be worth your while and their while, that is for me what qualification is all about.” – Andy Whyte · [00:57]   Andy Whyte: It's a big question because I think as you kind of hinted there, people get this wrong a lot and I think there's a few reasons for that, which we can definitely get into. But for me what qualification is, is about identifying with your prospect, with your prospective customer whether there is enough value that you can provide to them, whether they have enough pain or goals they're striving to achieve that your solution can help them to achieve.   Andy Whyte: If the value in that is large enough for it to be worth your while and there while because we're asking them to invest their time, their energy, their expertise, just as much as we're asking ourselves to invest with them, is there enough value in that to make it worth my while and the customer's world? That is for me what qualification is all about.   “Sales, when done correctly, should be in exchange of value between a salesperson and a buyer.” – Will Barron · [01:44]   Will Barron: Do you blow people's minds when you frame it up that, Andy, of sales went done correctly should be in exchange of value between a salesperson and a buyer, right? It should be an adult conversation. And if we're in a position where we've got to suck up to potential customers as salespeople we ever sell in a crappy product, we've approached the conversation the wrong way from the outset or they're just not qualified. Do you find the people go like a light bulb clicks on when you frame it up that we're exchanging value and solving a pain as opposed to just talking to features and benefits?   Andy Whyte: Yeah. I do. But I think it's one of those things that seems very obvious when you say it, but when people are actually in the moment it's less visible to them for them to see it. And if you think about what you just described there as a sort of the negative approach that we have in our industry, where we frequently have where we are almost apologetic for being salespeople, when we approach sales with that mindset of thank you very much for your time, it's a great pleasure to meet you, I'll be very, very brief or get into it, all that kind of mindset, but that reverberates with the customer and then they therefore perceive you that way.   “When you engage with a customer almost apologetically, they straight away subconsciously or consciously sort of lower their perception of the value that you are going to bring to the table. Because the opposite of t

Josh Braun helps salespeople book more meetings and reduce the chance of getting ghosted without them having to sell their soul. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Josh Braun explains his simple step-by-step framework for successful cold calling and rejection minimization. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Josh Braun Sales Training Expert Resources: Joshbraun.com Josh’s LinkedIn Joshbraun.com/shop Stop Cold Calling | Get Guaranteed Phone Ready Leads Transcript Will Barron: Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to The Salesman Podcast. On today's episode we're looking at how to cold call effectively. Today's guest is Josh Braun. Josh helps sales people book more meetings and reduce the chances of getting ghosted without you having to sell your soul. Josh has been on the show a bunch of times and there's a total value that's going to come at you in this episode, sales nation, and with that, Josh, welcome to the podcast.   Josh Braun: Will, thanks for having me back. You are an energetic guy. I'm always pumped up at the beginning of that intro. I feel like I want to run a marathon, but I'll sit here and we'll do the podcast.   Will Barron: So here's a question for you to pull the curtain back for the audience. Am I substantially more animated doing that intro than in the 10 minutes we chatted before the show? Is there a dramatic difference between the real Will and podcast Will?   Josh Braun: Podcast Will and the real Will are similar.   Will Barron: Well there you go.   Josh Braun: They are similar. They're energetic, and positive, and you want more of them.   Is Cold Calling Still Effective in 2022? · [01:10]   Will Barron: I don't know about that, especially not in this space. Maybe one Will per industry might be an appropriate number of us too before we just take over the planet. So with that, Josh, we'll jump into cold calling, and I want to dive into process, what we should be doing, in a second, but let's set up the topic here with somewhat of a cliché question that get gets asked every year, and we all know the answer to it because it's going to be a short episode if the answer is no. But is there still opportunity for straight up cold calling in 2022 as we record this, or do we need to use social selling, and cadences, and emails, and meeting people, knocking on doors to set up a cold call? Can we have success just picking up the phone and cold calling people right now in 2022?   “If the person that you're trying to get in front of has a phone number, then cold calling is a channel that can be effective for starting conversations with people. But can also be an ineffective channel depending on how you're making a cold call. All channels can be effective or ineffective. Emails can be really effective or ineffective. A movie can be amazing, but it could also bore you to tears. So it's never the medium really, it's how you're executing the medium, and if in fact that person can be contacted with that medium.” – Josh Braun · [01:40]   Josh Braun: So if the person that you're trying to get in front of has a phone number, then cold calling is a channel that can be effective for starting conversations with people, but can also be an ineffective channel depending on how you're making a cold call. All channels can be effective or ineffective. Emails can be really effective or ineffective. Movie can be amazing, but it could also bore you to tears. So it's never the medium really, it's how you're executing the medium, and if in fact that person can be contacted with that medium. So if that person can be contacted and you are proficient or good, and we're going to talk about that on this podcast, then the phone is a good tool that you have in your toolbox. Is it the only tool that you have in your toolbox? No. It is one of many tools that you have in your toolbox for stacking the odds in your favour for starting a conversation with someone that you want to get in front of.   The Effectiveness of Using Cold Calls as the First Line of Contact During a Cold Outreach · [01:30]   Will Barron: If we are pretty confident in our data and we've got a phone number, obviously ringing someone up can be the quickest way to go from A to B, ask a few questions, book that meeting, get it formally in th

Do you know why your prospects buy? In this post I’m going to explain why your prospects buy products by sharing the 5 step value ladder. The Value Ladder There are only 5 levels of value that you can offer a potential customer. When you offer your customers levels 1,2 or 3 of value you are replaceable. They do not care about you. Your customers will screw you over whenever they can. At levels 4 and 5 of the value ladder however, which I’ll show you in a minute, your prospects will be begging you to work with them. At level 5 the customer will give you every single penny they have, to keep doing business with you. They will beg you for your product! So would you like to be in the position of having your customers begging to give you money, rather than you begging them? Then let's start at level 1 on the value ladder. Level 1 – Meet specifications The first level on the value ladder is when you meet the specifications laid out by your prospect. This is where a prospect is looking for X feature and by chance your product happens to have this feature. Unfortunately, there is nothing to differentiate you from your competition at this level and so wining this type of business comes down to dumb luck most of the time. Trying to hit a sales target when you’re only providing level 1 value is like putting the lottery on and then standing outside their offices, with your hand out, hoping that you win the jackpot. So let's move up the value ladder, to level two. Level two is where you provide a good product to the customer. Level 2 – Good product This is the level of value that everyone thinks they’re sat at. Everyone thinks that their products are great but, in most markets, again everyone’s products are pretty good and so there is very little differentiation. And so again… winning business here usually comes down to dumb luck and the ability to follow up with a prospect often until they relent and give you their money. That’s a tough way to sell each day, right? Level three is when things start to change. Level three is when we start to remove luck from our selling environment and replace it with hustle. We’re at a level 3 of value when we provide a customised service. Level 3 – Customised service This is where we start to differentiate ourselves in the mind of the buyer. This is when they start to say “Oh, Salesman.org is more expensive than reading a few sales books but the training is personalised for me and so I don’t mind paying more”. So, how many times have you battled with prospects on price? They’ll bring up your competitors. They’ll say “I ain't signing no contracts” at the last minute to force you to discount… I’ve been there and it sucks. That pain starts to disappear at level three on the value ladder as in the mind of the buyer, you’re now different to all of the other that are companies pitching them. You now, finally have an advantage. But things really start to fall into the sellers favour though when we get to level four which is reliance. Level 4 – Reliance When you get to this level of the value ladder the buyer-seller dynamic changes. This usually happens in one of two ways – A) Built on top of your product A current customer builds part of their business on top of your product. For example lots of companies use Salesforce.com to store customer data and then build their own marketing and sales systems on top of their platform. If you’re Salesforce.com in this situation you know that there would be so much damn pain for their customer to move to someone else that they’ve basically got the contracts locked in until their customer goes bust. At this point it’d be easier to stop Donald Trump saying stupid things than it would be for a competitor to break into your account and displace you. B) They NEED you for growth Alternatively, you can reach the reliance level of the value ladder by selling into a new organisation, when they need your product so desperately to grow, that without you, their business is likely going to fail. An example of this would be selling financial services to a startup who needs the influx of capital otherwise their business is going to die. This again makes them reliant on you. Again, at this point, the buyer wants to work with you, as much as you want the commissions of working with them. The final level, the God tier of value in B2B sales is level 5, multiple reliance. Level 5 – Multiple reliance This is where I’d aim to be with my medical device customers when I sold surgical camera systems. Sure it’d be great to have 10 operating rooms in general surgery using our equipment. But then when gynecology and urology also become reliant on your equipment and support something magical starts happening… You find yourself having meetings with the CFO of the hospital, rather than department managers. You find yourself in the middle of conversations about expanding the hospital and their potential equipment needs, rather than hearing about an influx o

Jason Bay is the Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting. He’s on a mission to help reps and sales teams turn complete strangers into paying customers. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Jason explains what is and what isn’t working in the world of cold email sales outreach in 2022. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Jason Bay Chief Prospecting Officer Resources: Blissfulprospecting.com Jason’s LinkedIn BombBomb – Video messaging platform Transcript Will Barron: Hi, I'm Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're diving into successful cold email trends for 2022. And our guest is Jason Bay. Jason is the chief prospecting officer over at Blissful Prospecting. He's on a mission to help reps and sales teams turn complete strangers into paying customers. And with that, Jason, welcome to the show.   Jason Bay: I'm excited to be back, Will.   Will Barron: I'm excited to have you back on, mate.   Jason Bay: We were just talking. It's been a couple of years since we jammed last on a podcast, so I'm looking forward to being back.   Will Barron: A couple of years. You are perfectly suited for this topic of cold email, cold outreach. Perhaps we'll touch on other areas of cold outreach as well. We'll dive into some trends.   Will Barron: It'd be interesting to see the difference between what worked last time we spoke and then what's perhaps working in the marketplace right now in, what? We're in February 2022 as we record this. So let's start by setting some benchmarks.   The Average Cold Email Response Rate in 2022 · [01:00]   Will Barron: We want to measure our cold outreach. We want to see if we're having success or not. I don't know if you've got finite numbers on this. If not, the gist of things will be more than appropriate. Jason, what is an average cold email response/reply rate in 2022? And then what should we be aiming for? How do we know if we're having success?   Jason Bay: Yeah. It's really hard to find good data on this actually. Clearbit's got some stuff that you could take a look at. I've noticed a downward trajectory in the data in the last two or three years.   Jason Bay: So Clearbit's data says less than a 1% reply rate to a cold email. And you think about that, and I don't know about you, that's a lot of work to get a response. You've got to send a hundred emails out to get a response. That's a lot of work.   Jason Bay: Right now with Outreach, Salesloft, any of the traditional sales engagement vendors, they're all seeing a very similar pattern of that reply rate going down. Now, what is good? Depends. It depends on what you're selling, the transaction size, how many meetings that you need to get, the level of personalization.   Jason Bay: And to give you a range here, if you were selling enterprise, let's say, some of my clients, and they're selling, let's say, a customer experience or employee experience solution into a large company where the deal size might be 500,000-plus at a minimum size, I'm going to expect 10% to 20% reply rates on those emails because I'm working 20 accounts at a time.   Jason Bay: And I'm taking the time to actually look for triggers in the company, I'm researching the individual. Maybe I'm listening to a podcast interview with them. I would expect the reply rates to be much higher on those and meeting volume to be much lower in that case.   Jason Bay: And at the very other end of the spectrum, you have people selling stuff that's very transactional, very SMB type of thing. And if what you're selling has at least a 10,000 to 12,000-plus US dollar… I don't know what that translates into to the rest of the world's currencies.   Will Barron: Don't worry. Everyone talks in dollars on the… I'm a British company. We sell our product in dollars. That's where the world's at, I think.   “If what you're selling has at least $10,000 or $12,000 annual contract value, it's worth doing a little bit of customization on the emails. But you're not going to spend an hour researching someone to sell them something that's a thousand bucks a month. You don't have the time to do that.” – Jason Bay · [03:03]   Jason Bay: Okay. If it's at least $10,000 or $12,000 annual contract value, it

In sales, facing rejection is part of the game. But just because rejection is a given for salespeople, it doesn’t mean you have to let it drag you down. In this post, I’m sharing 5 ways to overcome rejection that’ll put you in the right mindset to pick yourself up, and put yourself on the path towards blowing past your sales goals. Sales rejection hurts Now, if you’re in any kind of sales role, you know how it feels to be rejected by a prospect It’s happened to me. It’s happened to you. It’s happened to the greats like Ogilvy, Ziglar, Carnegie, even that guy from the ShamWow commercials. Is that surprising? It shouldn’t be. The point is this—even if you’re selling the most amazing, mind-blowing, revolutionary product on the market today, some of your prospects will say “no” when you call or email them. sno. And when that happens, it can be demoralizing. It can sap your motivation to keep making calls. It can throw you off your trajectory towards hitting your goals. And it can ravage the sense of fulfillment you get from connecting people with a product you truly believe in. But the motivation, the drive, the purpose—it can all be restored when you reframe rejection with the five concepts I’m going to share with you in this video. And these aren’t “hacks” or “quick wins” or any other (frankly bullshit) jargon terms. There is no quick fix for this kind of stuff. BUT if you want to take this given of sales and turn it on its head, you can start by internalizing these 5 concepts about rejection. 1: The Prospect Isn’t Rejecting YOU The concept that the prospect isn’t rejecting you personally. They’re rejecting your pitch, product or timing. There’s a reason we started with this one. Because honestly, this is the concept you’re going to easily improve the most from. Concept #4 is similar but more on that in a sec. Now, when you hear that dreaded no, the dial tone, or the deafening silence on the other end of the line, it isn’t necessarily you that the prospect isn’t responding to. It’s what you’re saying that they’ve ignored. There are two main reasons you’re getting a negative response with your cold outreach Reason #1: It’s Your Pitch If your pitch isn’t hitting all the right pain points, then your prospect isn’t going to see the value of your product. The lesson here? Refine the pitch. Dive deeper into who your audience is, what makes them tick, and what problems they’re grappling with. Reason #2: It’s Your Product If after tweaking your pitch you’re still getting too many negative responses, your product just might not be a fit for the market. If that’s the case, it’s time to do some real research and re-evaluate your target audience. 2: Your Prospect’s on Autopilot Next up, it could just be that your prospect is on autopiliot when you try to engage with them. This concept is mostly for cold-call situations, but it can apply to cold emails, social messages, and a slew of other outreach methods too. When you’re reaching out to your prospect, you’re jarring them out of being on autopilot. They’re knee-deep in the numbers, organizing their desktop, or doing one of a million other things that, guess what, have nothing to do with you. When you give them a ring, they’re still in that other mode. And that means they’re going to respond reflexively with a “no” rather than do the work of understanding what you’re trying to tell them. Think of it like this—when you walk into a shop and some spotty teenager stands at the door and asks if you need help, you automatically and instinctively say “no”, right? Same goes with your prospect on a cold call. Again, the buyers state of mind is not your fault. So appreciate this, humbly when you do interrupt your prospects and ask if there’s a better time for a follow up call. 3: You’re Playing a Numbers Game Point number 3, remember that to a certain extent, you’re playing a numbers game. When you get down to it, sales is a numbers game. If you’re doing good work and documenting your wins and losses, you already know that it takes working with on average, say, four prospects before you close on one of them. And if you’re not keeping track of these metrics, I highly recommend starting today. This information on your win/loss ratio tells you that for every perceived failure (a hang-up, a negative response, a no response), you’re actually getting one step closer to closing a deal. So rather than dwelling on the “no”, think of them like the necessary steps to securing a “yes” from a prospect and converting them into a buyer. Now, similar to concept #1 (the prospect isn’t rejecting you personally) is the next concept #4. Both are valuable lessons you can use to learn about your prospect and actually sell them better, later. 4: A “No” Often Means “Not Right Now” A “no” from a prospect when selling to them, often means “not right now.” And in fact, it rarely rarely means “never, forever.” You might have the perfect product, a primo pitch, and a very qualified prospect. But if the timing

Geoff Woods is the Co-Founder & President of ProduKtive, the training company behind The ONE Thing and the host of The ONE Thing podcast. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Geoff explains what it means to actually be productive and how we do more of it. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Geoff Woods Host of The ONE Thing Podcast Resources: Geoff’s LinkedIn The1thing.com Book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results Transcript Will Barron: Hi, I'm Will. And welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at how you can prioritise your time and become effective. Today's guest has been on the show a bunch of times, I've had tremendous value from every time Geoff has been on. Our guest is Geoff Woods. Geoff Woods is the co-founder and president of ProduKtive, the training company behind The ONE Thing and host of The ONE Thing podcast. Geoff, welcome back to the show.   Geoff Woods: Will, great to be here.   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on, mate. Last time, you gave me, and we don't need to do this again because it was a little bit painful, but you gave me a bit of a pain in the arse. A pain in the arse? You gave me a bit of a kick in the arse, which gave me some pain points that I resolved and the business is doing way better on the back of it. So I thank you for that. And for people who are unfamiliar with that previous episode, I'll link it in the show notes of this one over at salesman.org.   The One Thing Preventing Salespeople From Prioritizing Their Time and Becoming Effective Sales Professionals · [00:49]   Will Barron: And with that Geoff, becoming effective, right? Let me phrase it in The ONE Thing kind of language here, what is the one thing out of everything else, what is the one thing that typically holds sales people back from prioritising their time and becoming effective in the marketplace?   Geoff Woods: Feeling like they have too much to do and not enough time. I remember when my full-time job was as a salesperson in corporate sales. You wake up with big goals, you are naturally an ambitious person who not just sets goals, but you go after them with enthusiasm. And it can be really easy to see all the stuff that's on your plate, knowing the number that you got to hit, telling yourself, all the things you got to do to get there. Along the while, you've got all these administrative things you've got to do, you've got all these customer issues you've got to deal with and you can be really busy and look up at the end of the day and genuinely wonder, “What did I get done?”   Are You an Effective Salesperson? Here’s How to Gauge Yourself · [01:55]   Will Barron: Is there a definition, Geoff, of what effective is? Because I feel like if we were having a leadership conversation or you were coming in and coaching an executive team, “Well effectiveness for executives is this, this, and this.” Is there a broad definition of what being effective in a role is? And how does that then apply to sales people?   Geoff Woods: Well, I think we need to start with, what does it mean to be productive?   Will Barron: Sure.   “There's a difference between being busy and being productive. Being busy is just taking a lot of action. Being productive is taking action on the most important things.” – Geoff Woods · [02:15]   Geoff Woods: There's a difference between being busy and being productive. Being busy is just taking a lot of action. Being productive is taking action on the most important things. I think first and foremost, Will, people have to get clear on what matters most. Then once you're clear on what matters most, are you being efficient and effective at doing those things?   “People have to get clear on what matters most and ask themselves if they’re being efficient and effective at doing those things. A simple question you can ask yourself is, “Am I doing the best that I can do? Or am I doing the best that can be done?” – Geoff Woods · [02:26]   Geoff Woods: A simple question you can ask yourself, is, “Am I doing the best that I can do? Or am I doing the best that can be done?” I think a lot of us will rely on our natural abilities, we call it being entrepreneu

Brad Klontz is an expert in financial psychology, financial planning and applied behavioural finance. He’s also the author of “Money Mammoth- harness The Power of Financial Psychology to Evolve Your Money Mindset, Avoid Extinction, and Crush Your Financial Goals” In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Brad explains why we all have weird beliefs around money, why this holds us back, and how to break through and improve our relationship with money. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Brad Klontz Resources: Book: Money Mammoth by Dr. Brad Klontz Dr. Klontz on LinkedIn Discover your Money Scripts here Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will. And welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we are getting into improving our relationship with money, and how that's going to help you in sales and hopefully in your personal life as well. Today's guest is Dr. Brad Klontz.   Will Barron: Brad is an expert in financial psychology, financial product, applied behavioural finance and more. He's also the author of Money Mammoth, Harness The Power Of Financial Psychology To Evolve Your Money Mindset, Avoid Extinction and Crush Your Financial Goals. Brad, welcome to the show.   Brad Klontz: Will, thanks so much for having me.   Here’s Why You Should Be Teaching Your Kids About Money From the Word Go · [00:47]   Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on, mate. The audience will know this. We just had a false start recording the episode. We'll try and keep it as real as we possibly can. So I'm going to ask you the same question that I asked you three seconds ago, Brad. And we'll go for it, but it seems like our relationships with our financials, our relationships with money, this should be something that we teach kids.   Will Barron: This is something that almost every society on earth has to deal with as teenagers, as adults as going into retirement age. Am I off the track here or should all people have learned at least from what we're going to talk about today at a young age, and we seemingly don't?   Brad Klontz: Obviously, I think you're right. Money in the United States is the biggest source of stress in the lives of Americans. The American Psychological Association does a survey on this every single year. And it's upwards around 70, 80% of Americans say it's the biggest source of stress in their lives, but it's not something we talk about it. So in schools here, we don't even teach kids the basics of personal finance, let alone the psychology underneath it.   Brad Klontz: And in the studies we've done, it's the psychology that matters. Like the biggest problems we have are people aren't saving enough for the future, they're spending more than they make. I've yet to find somebody who doesn't know better, who doesn't know that they shouldn't do those things. And so for me, why aren't we doing it? It's all about our psychology around money.   Defining Financial Psychology and Behavioural Finance · [01:58]   Will Barron: So is there a definition of financial psychology or applied behavioural finance? Is there a way to define that before we dive into it and dive into the common sense of this? And then maybe there's some elements of this that aren't common sense that we should be implementing as well?   Brad Klontz: Yeah. I should come up with a really good definition. You're putting me on the spot here. I've based my entire life around this field, but I've never really come up with a good definition. It's basically the intersection of the science of psychology and what we know about human thoughts, behaviours, motivations, emotions, what we know about that and how it relates to our financial life. And more importantly for me, is our financial outcomes. So what are we getting in our financial lives? And if we're not getting what we want, that's where a deep dive into our psychology around money can be extremely helpful.   Will Barron: That makes total sense. Okay, then. So I feel like you've probably been asked this question a million times. So I don't want to dwell on it. And I want to get practical of how we can use or we can improve our psychology of finance and money in the rest of the show.   Who’s to Blame For Our Lack of Financial Understanding? · [03:05]   Will Barron: But whose fau

Andres Lares is the managing partner at Shapiro Negotiations Institute and the author of Persuade – the 4-step Process to Influence People and Decisions. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andres explains his 4-step process to influencing your prospect’s buying decisions. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Andres Lares Negotiations Expert Resources: Andres on LinkedIn The Shapiro Negotiations Institute Book: Persuade: The 4-Step Process to Influence People and Decisions Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're going to be looking at the four-step process to influencing buying decisions. Today's guest is Andres Lares. Andres is the managing partner over at SNI. He's the author of Persuade: The 4-Step Process to Influence People and Decisions. He's been featured in Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Entrepreneur, ABC, Fox, and many other places as well. With that, Andres, welcome to the show.   Andres Lares: Thank you for having me.   Will Barron: More than welcome, sir. You are coming on the show to talk about a topic that we've covered a bazillion gillion times on the past, influence persuasion. I love covering it, because everyone has different insights, different aspects to this. Am I wrong? This is one of the most fascinating topics that two humans can talk about, right?   Andres Lares: I was about to say, you can't cover it enough. It's one of those things that if you think in your professional life and your personal life, you really can't avoid. Negotiating and influencing is something you do all day, every day.   The Art and Science of Influence and Persuasion · [01:00]   Will Barron: For sure. Okay. I want to ask you a really lazy, loaded, leading question, because I think it ties into the content from your business, your training, and the book and stuff as well. I think this'll give us a starting point for the conversation, and we'll see where we go with that. With that, Andres, can the, I'm going to say, the art and the science of influence persuasion really be broken down into just four steps?   Andres Lares: As I think about the answer that, two things come to mind. The first is, I did economics in university. I took a very much, in the economics discipline, really, models are meant to balance giving you something that's practical and actionable and meaningful, but also being simple enough that at the end, you are capturing what you need to capture. Otherwise, very quickly, you get lost in the weeds.   Andres Lares: I think that's the mentality around this four-step process. The second is, it's not necessarily the four steps only to influencing and persuading. It's more the four steps in the decision-making process. As a result, you take advantage of those, and by better understanding those, you're better able to influence and persuade. That's the structure behind it, if you will.   The Four Step Process of Influencing Buying Decisions · [02:00]   Will Barron: Sure. Give us the high-level overview of these four steps. Then, we might not cover them all, but we'll break down some of it, and we'll see if we can leave the audience with some practical steps to improve their ability to influence and persuade.   Andres Lares: Perfect. The four-step process is, and I build this up like Maslow's hierarchy, if you will, for those that have taken psychology 101, in Maslow's hierarchy, it's a pyramid, and the base layer is building credibility. Building credibility, without it, if you think about a commercial that might have a dentist, when they're selling toothpaste, they might have an athlete. Why is that? Because you want to build credibility, you want people to listen.   Andres Lares: It's that base layer. Without it, people, they don't care. There's so much noise out there, that that's what allows us to figure out, is this someone or something I should listen to or not? Credibility.   “People make decisions emotionally, and then they justify rationally. And we can't say that enough because all too often, especially salespeople, are trying to persuade others with logic. “Here's the five reasons you should do this. Here's five of our clients that should make you feel more comfortable.” The reality is, people make

Jeff Bajorek is a sales and prospecting expert who helps B2B sellers rethink the way they sell. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Jeff explains the traits of high performers and how you can become one today. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Jeff Bajorek Sales and Prospecting Expert Resources: Jeff on LinkedIn Jeffbajorek.com Rethink the Way You Sell Podcast Book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results Book: Awaken the Giant Within Book: Finite and Infinite Games Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at the characteristics of top sales performers with my guest, Jeff Bajorek. Jeff is a sales and pro expert who helps B2B sales rethink the way they sell. You can find his new podcast, Rethink The Way You Sell, on everywhere, right, Jeff? And with that, mate, welcome to the show.   Jeff Bajorek: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here again.   Characteristics of a High-Achieving Sales Professional · [00:49]   Will Barron: You're more than welcome. I think this is the fourth time we've had you on. We'll touch on the podcast Rethink The Way You Sell towards the end of the show: where we can find it. I know it's a new and exciting project for you, so I'm happy to get it out there and promote it to our audience. But with that, mate, we're going to touch on this idea of characteristic of top sales performers. And you, when we lined this show up, used the word characteristics. So what does that mean? Is this a personality trait? Is this our DNA? Is this things that we've learned? What defines a characteristic of a salesperson? Then we'll dive into the ones that make the difference when we're all trying to hit quota.   “I think there's a 5% difference between mediocrity and super-stardom. It’s the little things that really make the difference between those top performers and everybody else.” – Jeff Bajorek · [01:05]   Jeff Bajorek: Yeah. I've been saying for years: I think there's a 5% difference between mediocrity and super-stardom, and while there are certainly things that are innate to us that may make us better intuitively at some of these things than others, there's nothing on this list that I don't think anybody can do. We can all be just a little bit better if we have some focus in these areas or for these characteristics. So it's the little things. I'm trying to codify the little things that really make the difference between those top performers and, really, everybody else. And I think it's something, if people want to aspire to it, they can get it.   Can a Person Achieve Sales Success Without the Characteristics of a High-Achieving Salesperson? · [01:51]   Will Barron: Can you have sales success without these characteristics? And I'll give you an example here that I've seen; undoubtedly, you've seen as well. You'll be at a company, whether you're selling there, consulting there, whatever you're doing, sales leadership in their company. And some new kid will come along who doesn't know the product, doesn't know what they're doing, and then they have an amazing first six months and they crush everyone who seemingly does know the product, does have all these characteristics and does know what they're doing. So does that disprove these characteristics, or is it likely that this individual just has a bunch of these characteristics naturally and that's why they crush it?   Jeff Bajorek: Well, it's important, and I'll probably get a bill for this, but my old mentor used to say all the time, “Look, we don't sell in a vacuum.” There are things that happen outside of our control that impact our results all the time. So that fresh-faced kid right out of school comes and has just a tremendous first six months, first year, and rockets to the top of the leaderboard? Yeah, that can happen. That can happen by dumb luck. That can happen by doing the right things, maybe for the wrong reasons or not knowing why he or she should be doing those things.   Jeff Bajorek: But as far as sustained success… Okay, year one was great. What are you going to do when your quota gets jacked up? What are you going to do the year after that? What are you going to do to retain those customers

Tripp Kramer is an author, podcast host, and the owner of Tripp Advice, where he helps shy men from around the world excel in their love lives by showing them how to develop solid-steel confidence. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Trip shares how salespeople can beat rejection and implement a state of unshakable sales confidence. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Tripp Kramer Dating Coach Resources: Book: Magnetic: Cultivate Confidence, Become Rejection-Proof, and Naturally Attract The Women You Desire Book: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance How to Talk to Girls Podcast Tripp on LinkedIn Tripp Advice on YouTube Transcript Will Barron: Hi, I'm Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's show, we're going to talk about how to build unshakable confidence. Today's guest is Tripp Kramer. Tripp is a dating strategist for shy men. He's the author of Magnetic, and he has over 970,000 subscribers on YouTube. He's killing it over there. And with that, Tripp, welcome to the show.   Tripp Kramer: Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. It's always fun to be in a podcast that's not directly related to meeting women and attraction and those things. So it's fun to be here. Thanks for having me.   Will Barron: Dude, this works the other way around. We have so many guests on the show that have nothing to do with sales because sales after six years, 750 episodes is boring as heck. There's only so many ways you can talk about picking up the phone, sending an email, and sales cadences and tools. So I appreciate you coming on the show, mate. Hopefully it'll be fun for you and it'll be, I'm sure, insightful for the audience.   Tripp Kramer: Yeah, absolutely.   Confidence as Described By Tripp Kramer · [01:01]   Will Barron: Just to jump straight into this, we're going to talk about confidence. I like to define things and then we'll make things practical for the audience later on. Do you have a definition of what confidence to you is and how do you define it? I've noticed in another episode of doing podcast, you mentioned the word calmness. How do you define confidence?   “The formula for confidence is competence plus the ability to step into the unknown.” – Tripp Kramer · [01:20]   Tripp Kramer: So I have a formula for it, which is competence plus the ability to step into the unknown. That would be what confidence is. So competence plus the ability to step into the unknown. And so I can break that down even further. Competence just means that you are skilled in something, that you feel good at doing the skill or the action of whatever it is that you're trying to perform, right? That's competence. So you're going to have a feeling of confidence when you are competent in whatever it is. So even that could be with sales, that could be with meeting women, that could be with playing an instrument, whatever it may be. But I also like to add in there the ability to step into the unknown because people who are able to step out of their comfort zone into an unknown space and they do that action regularly, they are someone who has more confidence.   “The people who are able to step out of their comfort zone into an unknown space and they do that action regularly, that’s someone who has more confidence. So that means that if you're always doing things that scare you, that frighten you, that are out of your comfort zone, if you consistently do that, you're actually going to feel more comfortable when you are doing something for the first time.” – Tripp Kramr · [02:04]   Tripp Kramer: So that means that if you're always doing things that scare you, that frighten you, that are out of your comfort zone, if you consistently do that, you're actually going to feel more comfortable when you are doing something for the first time. So when you continuously do new things, you already feel this kind of confidence inside of yourself of like, “Oh, I'm used to this feeling. I know what this is like to do things that scare me.” And so even though it might still scare you to try something new, if you've done this so many times, it's going to be a little bit easier. So I'll give an example of my own life.   Will Barron: Sure.   Tripp Kramer: Is that I have a lot of experienc

George Donovan is the Chief Revenue Officer of Allego, where he’s responsible for achieving the company’s customer acquisition and sales goals. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, George explains what “digital sales rooms” are and how B2B salespeople can use them to influence their buyers' journeys. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - George Donovan Chief Revenue Officer of Allego Resources: Allego: Sales Enablement Platform George on LinkedIn Book: Mastering Virtual Selling: Orchestrating Sales Success Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're answering the question, what is a digital sales room and how can we use them to win more sales? Today's guest is George Donovan. He is a Chief Revenue Officer over Allego.com. He has 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, and operations. And with that, George, welcome to the show.   George Donovan: Thank you, Will. Thrilled to be here.   What is a Digital Sales Room? · [00:30]   Will Barron: I'm excited to have you on mate. So, I'm somewhat familiar with this, but I want to pitch this conversation, especially at the beginning of things, to a place and perhaps position ourselves as the audience who are unfamiliar with this idea of a digital sales room, perhaps it's a knuckle dragging caveman-esque sales person who's only just been pulled away from spamming people on cold calls and is just coming into this idea of content can be really helpful for sales people. So with that, can you give us a brief overview of what a digital sales room is? Then we can dive into the ins and outs of it and perhaps sell the audience on the fact that maybe this is the future of sales.   George Donovan: Right, sure. I think of it as a great way, a technology and a process, that helps close the gap between, and we've heard a lot about this, the buyer's journey versus the seller's process. And how do you map these together and have the prospect feel good about the buying experience and not feel like they're being dragged along by that caveman salesperson, as you say. And I think digital sales rooms are a great way to do that. And what they are is they're a virtual space, it's technology, it's a virtual space that allows customers and salespeople to interact. So, customers can access all the content that they need to provide comfort for them through their buying journey.   George Donovan: It's one place that they can go to for all the exchanges that have happened between the salesperson and the prospect. It could be history of emails, it could be video recordings if you had a recording with the prospect, it could be proposals, spreadsheets, you name it. Anything could be in this digital sales room that customers need along their buying journey. And the nice thing for the customer is they can share it with other people. They can bring other folks on their buying committee into the room, into the digital sales room, to access this content. And then the benefit for the salesperson is they can see the engagement. So they know who's in the sales room, what they're doing, what content is hot and what content is not.   Understanding Digital Sales Rooms From Both the Buyer’s and Seller’s Perspective · [02:30]   Will Barron: What does it look like for someone who's unfamiliar? And perhaps we can throw in some screenshots and a link to product demos and stuff in the [inaudible 00:02:43] to this episode over at salesman.org as well. But what does it look like on a screen? Is this a live Zoom kind of chat room? Or is this a series of content that outlines the buyer's journey? What does this look like, I guess, from the seller's perspective and what does it look from the buyer's perspective as well?   George Donovan: Yeah, good question. It looks the same, Will. It looks the same from the buyer and the seller's perspective. And it's probably not that much different from a B2C buying journey that you've had, where certain B2C companies start to know your preferences. They know what you like, what you might be interested in. So, it's literally a room, a virtual digital room that you go into and there is nice, structured, organised content, and it can be completely customised by the salesperson based on the customer's needs, wants,

Troy Sandidge is an award-winning marketing strategist, the host of the iDigress podcast, and the author of Strategize Up: The Simplified Blueprint to Scaling Your Business. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Troy explains the power of leveraging strategy to win more business and build a bigger life. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Troy Sandidge Award-Winning Marketing Strategist Resources: Troy on LinkedIn The iDigress Podcast Findtroy.com Book: Strategize Up: The Simplified Blueprint to Scaling Your Business Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we're getting into the importance of using strategy in business in today's episode. Today's guest is Troy Sandidge. He's an award-winning marketing strategist, also known as the Strategy Hacker. He's the host of the iDigress podcast and is the author of Strategize Up. You can find out more about Troy over at findtroy.com. And with that, Troy, welcome to the show.   Troy Sandidge: Thank you for having me. I've been dying to get on this show. So it's here. It's happening. It's real.   Will Barron: Good. I'm glad to have you on, mate. I appreciate the energy, the excitement, and I want to get into strategy. Now, over at sales.org in our training programme, I think me and you are on the same wavelength for a lot of this. We call what you might call strategy, frameworks and systems.   Why All Salespeople Need a Well-Structured Sales Strategy · [00:50] Will Barron: So I want to get some definitions of this in a second, but just to lay it up for the audience, to add a bit of context here, in a world where, and this is my experience in sales 10 years ago, in a world where most sales people wake up each morning and they just are a blank slate, they pick up the phone, their laptop, they start to do whatever in that moment, it might possibly at some point, lead to a sale getting closed in the future.   Will Barron: Why should they consider implementing a step-by-step strategy to reach sales success, rather than doing what most sales people do each day, which is just winging it?   Troy Sandidge: Let me just make it very clear for you. When you're just winging it, executing, you don't put the finger out and just say, “At what direction should I go, I want to get to my destination?” You take your phone, plug in the coordinates of where you want to go and it automatically always reroutes you to get you to your destination.   Troy Sandidge: So you can either execute and hope for the best, or you can put your coordinates and your strategy is always evolving, helping you, is literally your GPS to get to your destination.   Troy Sandidge: So I don't know what sales person, frankly, what business person wouldn't choose to use a GPS to get them to their customers, to get them to the bag, to get them to their conversion rate, all the different things, the KPIs that they want, instead of just hoping for the best by just jumping and predicating on when and algorithm and faith to get you there.   Salespeople Know They Need a Strategy But They Just Don’t Follow One · [02:18]   Will Barron: That is obvious, right, Troy? We're not preaching something that is ambiguous or is backwards here. In my experience, so sales people know this, but they don't do it. Is that similar of your experience dealing with, in the world of marketing and business consulting as well?   Troy Sandidge: 100%. I think many times people think strategy slows them down. Strategy is part of the execution process. You need a game plan. You need to build the game plan to know how you're going to win the game.   Troy Sandidge: And I think we have to understand that instead of just gunghoing it and jumping into sales calls, getting the lead numbers up and our conversion rate is really awful, honestly, our open rate is even worse. Let's analyse and figure out who our target audience is. That's part of the work.   “The sales people that are most successful, the businesses that are killing it in the industry or that are killing it in the game are the ones that take strategy as part of the execution process, instead of just executing and hope for the best, and then want to apply strategy after the fact. We need to let stra

On this week in sales we’ll be looking at – The crypto BILLIONAIRE I inadvertently had on the Salesman Podcast… New LinkedIn Sales Navigator updates The labor shortage You'll learn: SALES NEWS: Alleged crypto launderer Heather Morgan led a second life as the world's worst rapper Earlier today, the Department of Justice announced the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, who allegedly attempted to launder more than 25,000 Bitcoins that were stolen as part of the 2016 hack of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. What was unclear to us at the time was that an even greater crime had played out across Morgan's social media pages: her rap career. Heather previously ran https://www.salesfolk.com/ where she helped B2B sales professionals write better outreach emails. https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/razzlekhan-rap-cryptocurrency-012307238.html LinkedIn Rolls Out Sales Navigator Search & CRM Card Updates LinkedIn Sales Solutions announced a slate of updates to the Sales Navigator platform today, including improvements to the Search experience, CRM integrations, and new homepage optimizations. The first update comes in the form of better visualization in the Search experience. Enhanced CRM cards is another update to the CRM integration. These enhanced CRM cards are added to Account Pages and Contact pages, minimizing the need to toggle between platforms. With the Priority Accounts section, you are able to upload accounts that are most important to your business. For example, with so many people shuffling companies or professions, you’re able to keep tabs on when employee or headcount growth. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkedin-sales-navigator-update/437183/#close What Labor Shortage? Technology-Enabled Sales Teams Don’t Miss a Beat A large portion of veteran sales talent is deciding now is a good time to retire. Implementing tech that reduces redundant work and delivers relevant insights is key to achieving growth. For the fourth quarter of 2021, 65% of business economists reported an increase in sales, but 57% reported experiencing labor shortages, according to the National Association for Business Economics January 2022 Business Conditions Survey. In this market, sales leaders are thinking outside of the box for recruitment. They’re hiring more entry-level salespeople, as well as experienced individuals from other unrelated markets and verticals. https://www.mdm.com/blog/tech-operations/technology/what-labor-shortage-tech-enabled-sales-teams-dont-miss-a-beat/ Where Do Salespeople Fit in the Digital World? In-person meetings between customers and salespeople were once at the heart of B2B buying and selling. Now digital communication is embedding itself in every aspect of business. This had led some organizations to look at the future and ask a simple question: Will we still need salespeople? https://hbr.org/2022/01/where-do-salespeople-fit-in-the-digital-world Is It Time To Reassess the WFH and Hybrid Work Movement? A portion of the workforce has unreservedly embraced the WFH movement, while others are looking for office environments to be more functional and enticing. For many WFH employees, commuting hours have now been rolled into working hours; that means many WFH employees are putting in another 10 hours a week. The mental and physical exertion—combined with the relative isolation of home offices—is “taking a toll on people. One answer is an activity-based working (ABW) approach. This means employees having access to a range of technology-enabled work environments to suit the particular activities in which they engage individually and as a team. https://www.cepro.com/business-support/is-it-time-to-reassess-the-wfh-and-hybrid-work-movement/

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Roland T. Rust is a distinguished University Professor, David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing, and author of The Feelings Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Roland explains what the “feelings economy” is and why more artificial intelligence might be a good thing for sales professionals whilst it wrecks other industries. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Roland T. Rust Distinguished University Professor Resources: Roland on LinkedIn Book: The Feeling Economy: How Artificial Intelligence Is Creating the Era of Empathy Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today's episode, we'll be looking at selling with emotion in the feeling economy. Our guest, Roland Rust, is a distinguished university professor at the School of Business at the University of Maryland. He's the author of The Feeling Economy, which we're going to cover in this episode of the show. And with that, Roland, welcome to the Salesman Podcast.   Roland Rust: Oh, thanks very much. Happy to be here.   What is the Feeling Economy? · [00:45]   Will Barron: You are welcome, sir. I'm glad to have you on. I try not to cover it too much before on our pre-call, pre-recording chat, but I think we're on the same wave length with a lot of what we're going to talk about today. So it'll be interesting if there are any points that we do diverge, but I think we're all on the same wavelength with a lot of this. To get us started, this is seemingly a lazy question for an interviewer to ask, Roland, but I'm going to ask you it because I want you to set the scene here. What the heck is the feeling economy?   Roland Rust: Yeah. Okay, very good question. The feeling economy is maybe an unexpected consequence of artificial intelligence, because there have really been a couple of main shifts in technology in the last 150 years. The first was the move toward the thinking economy from the physical economy. So in other words, you had people in the physical economy who were doing things like farming and mining coal and doing physical exertion, and men really dominated at that time. And then around 1900, you really started to see an expansion of the thinking economy, and one of the things that you saw was a very much larger percentage of people became educated, because they had to, to compete in the thinking economy as thinkers. During that time, then women became much more equal. You see many more women in high positions than you did in the 1800s or 1700s.   “The shift that's happening now is from the thinking economy to the feeling economy, and the reason for that is that artificial intelligence is getting good at thinking. And the more thinking artificial intelligence can do, the more humans are pushed into doing things that they can do better than AI. For the most part, that's things like feeling, interpersonal relationships, and to some extent, we're also going to have an advantage on things like common sense and intuition, but even that will probably go away in a little bit of time.” – Roland Rust · [02:05]   Roland Rust: So now the shift that's happening now is from the thinking economy to the feeling economy, and the reason for that is that artificial intelligence is getting good at thinking, and the more thinking artificial intelligence can do, the more humans are pushed into doing things that they're better than AI at. For the most part, that's things like feeling. Feeling, interpersonal relationships, to some extent, for a while, we're going to have an advantage on things like common sense and intuition, but even that will probably go away in a little bit of time. So what our research suggests is that no later than 15 years from now, most jobs will be more feeling jobs than thinking jobs, and that shift is already well underway.   Why Humans Struggle Having Emotional Conversations With AI · [03:10]   Will Barron: Immediately, I've lost all the questions I was going to ask, Roland. We'll drag it back for salespeople and business towards the end of the show. But a couple of things here. When you say salespeople are perhaps, people in general, salespeople in the context of this show, are perhaps better at emotional intelligence, feeling, em

Michael Reddington is a certified forensic interviewer and the president of InQuasive Inc., where he uses his background in forensics and understanding of human behavior to teach businesses how to use the truth to their advantage. On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Michael explains the 6-levels of listening and how they’ll improve your prospecting, discovery and sales calls. You'll learn: .adwrapper { overflow:hidden; transition: background 0.3s, border 0.3s, border-radius 0.3s, box-shadow 0.3s; padding:20px; margin-bottom: 0px;background-color: #FEE6E6;border-radius:20px; margin-bottom:20px; } .adwrapper div { padding: 8px; } #adone { float:left; margin-right:5px; width:430px; } #adtwo { overflow:hidden; } @media screen and (max-width: 400px) { #adone { float: none; margin-right:0; width:auto; border:0; width:100%; } } Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Michael Reddington Certified Forensic Interviewer Resources: Michael’s LinkedIn InQuasive.com Michael’s Email – [email protected]. Transcript Will Barron: Welcome to the Salesman podcast. My name is will, and on today's episode, we're looking at the six levels of listening and how they're going to help you improve the performance of your prospecting discovery and sales calls with buyers. Today's guest is Michael Reddington, his certified forensic interview. He's got a book coming out in the not too distant future, The Disciplined Listening Method. You can find out more about Michael at InQuasive.com. And with that, Michael, welcome back again to the show.   Michael Reddington: It is great to be here again, Will, thank you so much for having me.   Will Barron: You're welcome. I'm glad to have you back on me. Is this the third time you've been on the show?   Michael Reddington: It is, yes. I'm afraid to admit it, because you're going to cap me off, I don't want to stop myself from maybe getting invited back after, but yes, it's the third time.   Are Salespeople Born with the Ability to Really Listen to Prospects and Buyers? · [00:59]   Will Barron: Good man. Well, maybe there's like five or six people have come on three or four times a year. You're in a select group there and it's because of my fan of you and your work, mate. We're going to dive into the six levels of listening. We'll see if we can get through all six. If we don't, that's fine, we'll have you back on in the future to dive into them, but let's start with this, mate. Are we born with the ability, sales people specifically, are born with the ability to really, really listen to our prospects so that we can help them or is this a skill that we need to learn?   Michael Reddington: I'm going to walk the fence a little bit. My official answer is it's a skill we need to learn. My unofficial answer is it is something we're born with, it's something that we typically stray away from. So if I was bold enough, which I guess I have to be, to take us all the way back to being infants, we literally have to be astute observers to everything going on around us, especially with Mommy and Daddy, to understand what they're thinking, what they're feeling. I have a four year old son. So he's right on track to developing his theory of mind, which is essentially understanding what people around us are thinking or feeling at any time, and just over the last couple of months, he started asking, “Daddy, are you mad at me?” which is a funny question to answer to my four year old because I might be, but I don't want to make this situation any worse.   Michael Reddington: So I would contend that, especially as young children, yeah, we have this real curiosity, this real interdependence, we're very much in tune, but then as we grow up and we get distracted and develop our own thought processes and assumptions and such, then it becomes less of a skill that we really focus on.   “Listening is something that we have to intentionally work to develop because so many of our sales conversations involve some level of stress. And as stress mounts, we tend to go to what we know, and generally in the sales profession, what we know best is ourselves, our product, our service. So if I feel like I'm under the gun, the best thing to do is to feel comfortable talking about me and what I'm selling and not listening, which comes back to backfire.” – Michael Reddington · [02:24]   Michael Reddington: So that would lead me to my final answer if you will, that yes, especially in the sales profession, it is something in that we have to intentionally work to develop because so many of the conversations we have involve some level of stress. They should and as stress mounts, we tend to go to what we know, and generally in the sales profession, wha

Quick—what part of your job do you enjoy the least? If you’re like most salespeople, you probably said prospecting. All the cold emails, the endless follow-ups, the calling, and the relentless slog of “no” after “no.” While there’s a time and a place for prospecting, if you’ve already got a long list of current clients, you may be wasting your time on finding new ones. Why? Because you can upsell your current clients to a premium product more easily than you can bring on new customers. And when you do so, you can drive more revenue, greater client loyalty, and higher commissions than going the old prospecting route. This guide shows you how to upsell like a pro. Inside, we’ll look at the massive benefits of upselling as well as The Proven Product Upselling Framework that takes all the “huh?” out of this underutilized sales strategy. What Is Upselling? Upsell Definition: To effectively encourage current clients to purchase a more expensive, upgraded, or superior version of the product they have now. Simple, right? When you convince your current clients to purchase a newer version, you’re offering an upsell, meaning a better version than what they’re using today. This, of course, deviates from the normal routes of prospecting (i.e., attracting new customers) because it focuses on your existing customers. Some examples of upsells include: Higher tier membership offering better support Different models with added features Premium packages with more products included Added product warranties Increased personalization Upselling vs. Cross-Selling Upselling is often confused or conflated with cross-selling. But in fact, the two are slightly different. Let’s take a look at the definition of cross-selling to see how. Cross-Selling Definition: To effectively encourage current clients to purchase an entirely new product, usually on the basis of the product they have now. Rather than getting an upgraded version of a product, they’re getting a new one entirely. Let’s look at an example. Say you’re shopping for organic vitamin C supplements on Amazon. You’ve found a brand with some great reviews, so you decide to purchase from them. But as you’re about to add the supplement to your cart, you notice they offer a higher potency version and decide to upgrade to that version instead. That is an upsell. As you make your way through the checkout process, you’re taken to a “Because You Liked…” page that offers products you may like based on your purchase of the supplement. Products like other supplements, natural teas, and organic skincare products. That is cross-selling. See the difference? Why Upsell At All? Now that we’ve got a better handle on what upselling is (and what it isn’t), the question becomes, “Why do this at all?” I mean, why work on a whole new process to bump your existing clients up to another version? Should you even bother? As you might’ve guessed, the answer is a resounding “Hell yes!” But why? What makes focusing on the upsell sales technique so beneficial for you? There are four main reasons why upselling beats out traditional prospecting. It… Is easier than finding new prospects Drives more revenue Instills greater loyalty Enhances personalization A. Easier Than Finding New Prospects First and foremost, focusing on driving new sales from existing clients is substantially easier than closing deals with new customers. Here are some stats to drive the point home. Prospecting and qualifying leads are the top challenges for at least 1 out of 3 salespeople (HubSpot). You have just a 5 to 20% probability of successfully selling to a new prospect in most industries. If you’re selling to an existing customer, that probability jumps to 60 to 70% (Marketing Metrics). It cost 5X as much to attract a new customer compared to retaining an existing one (Invesp). When you put your efforts into the clients you already have, you’re bound to see more success than blind prospecting. “We all know the stats that show how hard it is to get a new customer compared to keeping your existing ones. So if you show genuine curiosity in how things are going with existing clients, it means you've got to spend less time scrapping about creating content, less time making cold outreach because you're maintaining your existing customer base through being genuine through being passionate about their outcomes, which in result, is going to help you hit your quotas or break your quotas and obviously make more commissions.” – Interview Sam Dunning, Marketing Expert B. Drives More Revenue When you work with existing customers, you’re going to drive more revenue (and earn higher commissions) than seeking out new leads. Let’s look at the numbers. Increasing customer retention by just 5% drives a 25 to 95% increase in profits for businesses (Invesp). Repeat customers spend 67% more on purchases than new customers (BIA). Nearly 2 out of 3 businesses with strong customer loyalty make more money from these customers than it costs to retain them (Aspire

On this week in sales we’ll be looking at; AI on video calls, revenue operation platforms, answering your questions and much more! You'll learn: SALES NEWS: ZoomInfo Expands Global Operations in London ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI), a global leader in modern go-to-market software, data, and intelligence, today announced it has expanded its global operations in London and named Simon McDougall as its first Chief Compliance Officer. “In Q3 2021, the international business at ZoomInfo grew over 80% year over year while our investment in our data assets outside of North America also nearly doubled throughout the year. We’re now in an even better position to build on our momentum there,” said ZoomInfo Founder and CEO Henry Schuck. https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ZOOMINFO-TECHNOLOGIES-INC-107772705/news/ZoomInfo-Expands-Global-Operations-in-London-37586238/ Zoom's venture fund invests in conversational AI platform Second Nature, announced a $12.5 million round of investment to build out their conversational artificial intelligence service. Second Nature's platform uses conversational AI to coach a salesperson and improve selling skills as well as product knowledge. A salesperson in training runs through a simulated sales call with Jenny serving as the customer. The video conversation is recorded and each trainee gets a score on his or her performance with advice on how to improve various elements of the pitch. The Second Nature training platform combines sales training and product marketing education in one place. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-was-my-pitch-jenny-zooms-venture-fund-invests-in-conversational-ai-platform/ Sales Embraces the Experience Economy “Physical retail is going to get more experiential,” says Cate Trotter, head of trends at retail consultancy Insider Trends Trotter sees e-commerce becoming more experiential. “Across the board, there are all these ways that retailers can entertain customers, educate them, tell their stories better. The number of consumers using experiential technology is still relatively small. In the United States, only 1 percent of consumers own VR/AR units, For example, Home Depot offers an AR feature on product detail pages for home decor, furniture, and seasonal decorations; consumers can tap it to see the furnishings in their homes with 3-D augmented reality. Home Depot has seen conversion rates two to three times higher for customers who use the app compared to those who don’t. https://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/Sales-Embraces-the-Experience-Economy-150987.aspx JPMorgan just raised salaries again JPMorgan has upped the ante again for junior bankers. The investment bank is raising its starting salary for analysts to $110,000, after lifting it to $100,000 last year, reports Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources. The increases are being applied internationally, as well as to second- and third-year analysts, associates and employees in the bank’s markets unit. The move follows a similar one by Citigroup earlier this month and underscores budding costs for banks as they compete harder for entry-level workers.