SalesEngagement.com: Recent Episodes
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What is the ONE playbook that will help my team drive predictable & repeatable pipeline, once and for all? Aiming to answer that question, Becc Holland & Scott Barker deliver an answer on the one overarching playbook that can create predictable & repeatable pipeline for Sales teams of ALL sizes, SDR teams at ALL stages, and ALL based on data!
The post Episode 324: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Sales Plays appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
Join us as we hear from Jamal Reimer, Owner at Outseller Consulting, and Andrew Mewborn, Sr. Account Executive at Outreach. When your goal is multi-threading into enterprise accounts, keep these big-picture items in mind: discovering stakeholder priorities, tailoring demo conversations, reading and analyzing reports and calls, and avoiding common multi-threading mistakes.
The post Episode 323: Hunting Whales? How to Multi-Thread into Enterprise Deals appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
Join us as we discuss with, Scott Ingram, Account Director at Relationship One: how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for the people you want to attract, the difference between soliciting and connecting with people on LinkedIn, and the value of experimentation on LinkedIn.
The post Episode 322: Finding Sales Success on LinkedIn: 108 Tips from 36 “LinkedIn Sales Stars” appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
Join us as we discuss with Becc Holland, CEO & Founder at Flip the Script: why you should get monomaniacal about timing, what three metrics to use to know your buyer, and how pattern interrupts can help you build human connection.
The post Episode 321: 7 Steps to a Great Cold Call appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
In this episode, we speak with Ryan Gibson, Manager of Sales Development at Outreach.io, Jason Prindle, Director of Inside Sales and Global Sales Development at BigID, and Taylor Jones, Business Development Manager at SalesForce, about unicorn companies and how they perform better than others.
The post Episode 320: How to Instill Unicorn Company Best Practices into Your Organization appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
On this episode of the Sales Engagement podcast, we’re talking with a panel of sales professionals from all across the industry, all about enablement, connection, and what it takes to deepen relationships.
The post Episode 319: Be Legendary by Making Great Enablement Plays appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
On this episode of Sales Engagement, we gathered some of the best and brightest minds in the industry, from all different backgrounds and walks of life, to have a robust discussion all about finding your voice as a woman in sales.
The post Episode 318: Find Your Voice as a Woman in Sales appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
In this episode, I speak with Kimberly Morgan, VP, US Sales at K3 Business Technologies, about her trajectory as a female sales leader.
The post Episode 317: Finding Your Voice in Sales appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
In this episode, I speak with Lucrezia Keane, SVP Sales Excellence at GWI, about what their new sales excellence function has achieved and where it’s going next.
The post Episode 316: Building Out Your Sales Excellence Function appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
In this episode, I interview Peter Lipton, Director, Global Head of Sales - Technology & Alliances at JDX Consulting, about the differences between outsourcing and enhancing a BDR/SDR team.
The post Episode 315: Your BDR/SDR Teams: Outsource or Enhance? appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
Today, we hear from Shauna Cour, Vice President of Employer Sales at Ovia Health, and Jerice O'Malley, Head of Business Development and Sales at Amplify Consulting Partners Inc., about what it means to create a space for difficult conversations, build up psychological safety, and eliminate silence culture.
The post Bonus Episode: Setting Professional Boundaries & Using Empathy as a Superpower appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder The four stages of sales enablement maturity are these: none, random, formal, and adaptive.
If you haven’t made it to the formal stage yet, you won’t be able to reach an adaptive level of sales enablement maturity.
In this episode, I interview Mike Kunkle, VP, Sales Effectiveness Services at SPARXiQ, about the principles in his book, The Building Blocks of Sales Enablement, as well as actionable tactics for moving toward the formal level and beyond.
Join us as we discuss:
- Taking on a holistic approach to enablement
- What a mature model really means
- The steps in the gap analysis prioritization approach
- Why buyer acumen should underlie your entire strategy
- A sales process methodology aligned with the buyer journey
A Holistic Approach to Sales Enablement The real world of enablement today is a bell curve.
On the far right, there’s a percentage of people who are hitting the ball out of the park. Just crushing it. They’re doing great work, and delivering huge results.
On the far left side of the curve, there are the people who don’t really have clear methods or systems. They’re struggling to produce results. They’re operating on the “random acts of enablement” mindset.
But in the middle of the curve, you have the majority of people. They’re seeing some success, but they’re not where they want to be. They’re not “killing it,” but they’re not “struggling” either.
In the middle Mike’s book provides a framework for those in the middle of the curve.
It’s different from the traditional approach to enablement, where most companies operate today. It provides that framework and roadmap for how to get to a point where you’re truly impacting results for the sales leaders in your org.
It’s All About Buyer Acumen We’ve all heard the term “business acumen,” but Mike and his team advocate for a strong and solid “buyer acumen.”
What is buyer acumen?
Buyer acumen is all about understanding your buyers. There’s often a massive gap between what we know that we should do and what we actually do.
If you don’t have a solid grasp on buyer acumen, you’re allowing a huge gap to set up shop in your organization.
A lot of organizations fall into this trap. They don’t have the knowledge, or an intimate understanding of their buyers, and so all of their downstream operations like messaging or methodology suffers as a result.
Align with the Buyer Journey If you’re a sales leader who has inherited a sales org, you may be asking yourself, “How do I get started on this shift to being buyer-focused? Where do I start? How do I prioritize my time?”
The answer, at least according to Mike, may frustrate some of our listeners.
It depends.
If you asked someone how to get to the Empire State Building, the first question they’d need to know is where you are now. Because the answer will differ if you’re already in New York versus if you’re in Seattle.
But the bottom line is that you have to start with the buyers in your market first.
The Sales Process Stages As you focus on aligning your sales process methodology to the buyer journey, it’s important to recognize the different stages that the sales process goes through.
First stage The first stage is alignment with your buyer acumen. Getting everybody on the same page in understanding deeply what your customers are wanting and expecting from you.
Next stages Then every stage of a process has objectives, or what you’re hoping to accomplish in that stage. The tasks to be done. The things that need to be checked off in order to move forward and accomplish your objectives.
Last stage And finally, you’ve got exit criteria.
What does each decision maker need to see, hear, or feel in order to feel confident in moving forward to the next stage with you?
If you get the right processes that’s aligned to your buyer’s journey, and you get the methodology that’s buyer centric, it will help your customer to achieve the things that matter to them, and you will execute well.
You’ll blow the doors off of the whole thing.
And that’s how you radically improve sales effectiveness.
Want to hear more from Mike? Make sure you listen to the whole episode.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The post Episode 314: Delivering Results: Building Up Your Sales Enablement Function appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder You have a big problem if your VP of Sales is the best salesperson in the company. Their job is actually to help make their teams better than they ever were as individual contributors.
Today, we hear from Wesley Ulysse, Vice President of Sales, North America at Red Points, about an alternative leadership style driven by open-mindedness, patience, inclusivity, vulnerability, and dynamism.
Let’s dive into why open-mindedness can be the biggest leadership challenge, the reason your VP of Sales shouldn’t be the top seller, how an open-minded manager interviews and hires, and the most important quality a manager can have.
Leaders who are open-minded Wesley comes from a nontraditional sales background (he called himself an unhappy accountant for the New York City Ballet).
As a person with an immigrant background, he believed that he needed to become a doctor, lawyer, or businessman — without necessarily understanding what the business role would require.
Inclusive hiring Open-mindedness starts with hiring. When you’re not necessarily hiring the quintessential salesperson or team member, your goal is to have the patience to find the right fit.
When hiring, Wesley looks more at people’s qualities and goals for growth and less at whether they appear to be the proverbial perfect salesperson since he didn’t fit that mold, either.
Inclusive environment Beyond hiring, an open-minded leader also ensures that the team environment remains inclusive.
That comes with open dialogue.
“People need to feel as if they can express their concerns. But more importantly, when they do that, they need to see the impact,” Wesley explained.
Team members care about how their suggestions are acted on! An open-minded leader invites team members to build a business alongside them.
The true role of a sales leader News flash: Sales leaders who think they should be the best salesperson in the company are wrong.
In fact, it’s a huge problem if the VP of Sales is the top seller. “My job is supposed to be helping those get better than I ever was and helping build careers,” Wesley said.
- Ask your team for advice. You don’t have all the answers.
- Listen to gain perspective. This is what sales is about, after all.
- Lean on your team. They can help you identify your blind spots.
Here’s a real-life example of Wesley’s leadership:
His team comes to him and asks what they should do in a given situation. Wesley answers with his thoughts, of course, but then turns the question right back around.
What do you think you should do? Very often, his team has ideas or suggestions that are better than his.
“I try to empower my team to trust their gut and be confident in their approaches,” he added.
Managing without categorizing Another example Wesley gave had to do with the origin of his own leadership style. In his first month as an SDR, his manager sought him out for a conversation because, frankly, he was failing.
She asked him what he needed, and he said he needed to be left alone to figure things out.
And — get this! — she left him alone, and he figured things out.
Wesley’s manager didn’t categorize him one way or another. She didn’t tell him what he had to do but rather asked him how he wanted to fulfill the role.
Everyone is different and deserves to be managed individually.
“I like to remain dynamic. I like to remain open-minded, but also let people figure it out and be themselves in the role, not necessarily follow a formula. That really shaped my management style,” Wesley said.
In a practical application of this idea, whenever Wesley shares resources like email templates, he encourages his team to make it their own, to deviate from the norm, and to stand out.
Vulnerable leadership The most important quality a manager can have is vulnerability, according to Wesley.
Too often lacking in traditional management, vulnerability means:
- Telling your team you appreciate their effort
- Sharing your struggles and challenges
- Setting your decisions in the bigger picture of the organization
- Being curious and humble in asking questions
- Making everyone feel included
“I’m on my own journey as well,” Wesley said.
Hiring & team spirit Two of the challenges facing sales leaders in the short term are definitely hiring through the talent shortage and the perhaps more unexpected team spirit.
Growing and maintaining team spirit in a hybrid environment, particularly in sales, which is traditionally such a money-driven, individualistic professional.
Wesley, however, wants to foster a team spirit despite working from home and work/life balance challenges because togetherness matters to us as human beings.
A new hire talks to everyone else on the team more than to Wesley because he wants to create an inclusive environment for them to grow together and to show them that their most important relationships are not with their boss but with each other.
Get in touch with Wesley on LinkedIn.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The post Bonus Episode: An Alternative Leadership Style That Embraces Difference appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder There’s no one size fits all when it comes to setting your team up for success—however, there’s much you can do to build and support a development-focused environment.
We were joined by James Buckley, Director of Business Development at Attest, to discuss how he motivates, trains, and connects with his SDRs.
Join us as we discuss:
- Encouraging SDR development
- How having a growth mindset improves your team
- Why setting customized KPIs is critical
- The importance of comprehensive onboarding material
Encouraging SDR Development The eye for development is at the center of solid team management and worthwhile goals. Anyone starting in their career is looking for quality experiences to expand their horizons and improve their performance–however, it’s rarely too late to start investing in development.
That kind of environment comes from hands-on encouragement across the board.
“You should start to get an insight into what people are doing, and what they’re actually understanding, learning, from a purely self-development aspect,” said James.
What are they holding themselves accountable to?
Get to know your team, find out their goals, ask questions—James recommended Mindset by Carol Dweck for inspiration around what to ask.
The simplest-–though not always easy—way to develop a dynamite team is through genuine investment.
How having a growth mindset improves your team The growth mindset starts with leadership. A team that’s growing is a team that’s thriving; I’m not just talking about size and numbers. As encouragement supports improvement, guidance and leading by example bodes well for curating a growth mindset.
“I like to sit them down to understand their goals,” said James, “and ask what they actually want to achieve. What are their motivators?”
That’s how you can get everyone pointing towards the stars.
Look for opportunities to support initiatives Development should feed into growth, aligned with actionable, measurable goals that bring increased confidence and performance.
If they have a financial goal, such as buying a house, look at their numbers and help them make a plan.
Maybe they want to improve their cold calls or email strategies. What would help them get there?
Why setting customized KPIs is critical Drawing from your own experiences is all well and good, but remember that there’s no one size fits all for growth and development. That’s why customized initiatives and performance indicators are keys to consistent progress.
“KPIs are obviously important in an SDR team, but creating KPIs that are specific to that individual is really important too,” said James, weighing the value of customization.
There are going to be those who aren’t as driven about their careers—that’s okay! Show them they have options to grow if/when they’re interested.
- Remember no single path works for everyone.
- Find the motivators, the gas on the fire, the spark that gets people excited to work on their KPIs and crush their bottom lines.
- Leave room for those still catching up to the growth mindset.
The importance of comprehensive onboarding material When it comes to onboarding, James doesn’t kid around. “I like to think of that as a way to set someone up to be an SDR, who has never done the job before. And cover everything from how to make a cold call, how to send a personalized email, to how to use the software we’ve got.” he explained.
He’s built an extensive onboarding course that is made to bring a new hire up to speed in a structured and proven way.
“On top of that,” James continued, “we have ongoing coaching for managers and we have an outsourced SDR coach.”
Setting managers and team members up for success through comprehensive coaching should be the norm. How can you implement comprehensive training into your company?
When it comes down to it, as James said, all we can really do is try and influence people’s behaviors—rather than instill—because you can’t physically make someone change.
Show the possibilities. If they resonate with a similar vision, or discover a better way of moving forward, then you can put two and two together and make an improved reality.
James’ 3 takeaways * Get to know the people you’re working with and apply what you learn to their initiatives.
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Read Mindset by Carol Dweck for inspiration around getting to know your team.
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Remember that there’s no one size fits all when it comes to advice, solutions, and development.
You can connect with James about SDR development on LinkedIn.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The post Bonus Episode: Tips and Tricks to Boost Your Development appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder Whether by fear of change or ignorance of opportunity, automation isn’t always top of mind for many organizations. But, when speed is the name of the game, you can’t afford to not have an eye out at all times for ways to automate your business.
Still not convinced? We speak with an expert of automation, David Gauld, Sales Operations Lead at CTS. He walks us through his strategies and why fixing time sinks may be the single most important thing you can do to enable your teams.
We talk all about:
- Tips for companies moving into the glow-up stage
- How to have data-driven conversations within your organization
- Creating more productivity through the work week with mindset shift
- Understanding why to prioritize automation
Tips for the Glow-Up Stage As a company moves into the glow-up stage, there are ample opportunities to succeed. There are also ample opportunities to fail. So how can you ensure that yours is a story of success? David had a couple of tips for our listeners.
The first is to understand that data has ultimate authority.
You have to get comfortable with challenging your own opinions and assumptions, because data doesn’t care how you feel. You can be as emotional and fuzzy as you want about things, but at the end of the day, the data doesn’t lie.
The second piece is that MVP is always good enough.
So many companies let perfect be the enemy of good. They want to wait until a product reaches absolute perfection before they release it. But if you build something and it’s viable, put it out. Get it into people’s hands.
Why Embrace Automation While it may seem like we’ve come a long way, people are still hesitant about automation. Hollywood has convinced us that we’re headed towards an autonomous society where humans are out of work and everything is done by machines.
And while we certainly do appreciate the automation of a lot of things, there’s no reason to think that the world is in the hands of the machines.
For David, it’s all about giving people back their time. After all, time is the most valuable commodity on earth. We can’t earn more of it, we can’t make more of it. We have what we have, and that’s it. So any creation that can give people back time is worth exploring.
Particularly when you can free your customers up so that they can focus on THEIR customers. If you can save hundreds of hours of manual process work by automation, it’s not only going to free people up to focus on the customer, which in turn will drive more revenue, but people are going to be happier, more engaged, and more productive.
Making Life Better While it may seem cliche, David really does view his role as one where he can make people’s lives better.
The most dangerous thing in the world is “this is how we’ve always done it,” because it causes laziness. It allows people to be complacent and docile while shying away from transformational change. And yes, change can be uncomfortable, but it can take you places you never dreamed.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
Listening on a desktop & can’t see the links? Just search for Sales Engagement in your favorite podcast player.
The post Episode 313: Saving 200 Hours w/ A Button Change: A Conversation Around Automation appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder An assumption that management often has about SDRs is that the role is simply filled by junior sales reps. Not so — not if it’s done right!
Today we are joined by Nissim Yves Ohayon, Director, Global Business Development at OCTOPAI, to talk about elevating the SDR role to its proper function.
Join us as we discuss:
- Management’s assumptions about SDRs
- What SDRs actually do for sales reps
- Peer to peer learning strategies
- Helping SDRs develop a career progression
Want to make SDR more than a stepping stone? Let’s dig in!
Assumptions and perceptions of SDR SDR roles can be exciting. They’re usually not, but that’s because we think about them wrong. We label them “junior sales roles” or “stepping stones.” In fact, SDRs have a super important function in the sales process.
Nissim knows this because he’s spent a career in sales and enterprise sales, mostly around SaaS. He was one of the first to embrace the remote selling model in Israel.
Only recently, however, did he assume an SDR leadership role.
That career move might seem a little backwards. Normally, people go into SDR because they see it as the easiest pathway into sales.
That approach makes sense. An SDR position can be a great stepping stone, but it can be much, much more than that.
More than a stepping stone Filling the top of the funnel is actually a really important job.
Account executives work with what’s in the funnel. Without someone feeding in those new leads, they’ve got nothing. Often, however, account executives are disconnected from their lead sources.
Consequently, they need SDRs.
If you are an SDR, don’t rely on blind automation and walk away. Instead, manage a robust pool of leads in a meaningful way.
An SDR’s actual job description Management’s Perception — SDRs are just junior sales reps who do the easy stuff.
Reality — Calling people who’ve inquired about your solution and attempting to get a meeting is anything but easy!
The first part of an SDR’s job description is to handle rejection well. If you want that role, grow rhino-thick skin. You’ll need it.
As an SDR, you’re going to be sitting at your desk, making call after call, and hearing no after no. You still have to smile.
At the same time, you can’t just throw stuff against the wall and hope something sticks. Don’t qualify every conceivable lead. That actually hurts the rep. Do the legwork, set reasonable standards, and qualify good quality meetings.
“I would prefer to get one of the few calls scheduled by the guy who does his homework very, very carefully,” Nissim said. “And I know that’s going to be a qualified call. I know that I’m going to invest that time into the meeting, and I’m going to do some research in advance.”
What if you’re not a traditional sales pro?
Introversion Conventional wisdom says salespeople are loud, energetic extraverts who consume every room they enter.
Nissim says he’s an introvert.
Maybe introversion is more common in sales than most people think. If that’s you, Nassim recommends reading the book Quiet by Susan Cain, which offers perspective on how introverts contribute to society in a way that can change the world.
Peer-to-Peer learning How can you foster peer-to-peer learning among SDRs when your team is working remotely?
Even if things open up more — as they have in Israel where Nassim lives — work-from-home is here to stay. It offers plenty of benefits, but it comes with drawbacks, too. Bouncing ideas off each other, listening to one another, and creating camaraderie from a shared world — these all get lost in this new environment.
You can solve this problem with a few key interventions:
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Maximize communication technology.
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- Nissim uses Teams. There’s also Slack, WhatsApp, and other tools. Whatever you choose, share information with each other on a regular basis.
- Share a hack.
- Every Monday morning, Nissim asks each member of his meeting to share a life hack they came up with.
- For example, “Here’s what I do when a customer says X.”
- Listen to podcasts.
- Lots of great sales material is out there.
- Don’t forget ebooks and audio books.
Developing an SDR career Most people in SDR don’t want to move to accounting or customer success. They’re aiming for an account executive sales role.
If that’s you…
Here’s how Nissim suggests you manage your career to get what you want:
- Invest in yourself. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you to sign up for a course. Just do it.
- Work more closely with marketing. You’ll start to understand the campaigns that produce the best leads.
- UP your game.
Always be a student.
Learn.
Lead.
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount
- Quiet by Susan Cain
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Bonus Episode: Elevating the SDR Role appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder Enablement requires an iterative mindset.
We’ll build what we need today, and if what we need is different tomorrow, we’ll change. Enablement isn’t set in stone; rather, it’s always evolving.
In this episode, I interview Christi Loucks, Head of Revenue Enablement & Operations at SecZetta Inc., about building an enablement team from scratch and the overlap between enablement and operations.
Join us as we discuss:
- How building programs snowballs into enablement
- Prioritizing time and attention when running multiple departments
- Keeping an iterative mindset (and overcoming perfectionism)
- What enablement and operations have in common
How building programs snowballs into enablement Building programs, like successful customer or employee onboarding programs, gets you noticed far and wide within an organizational context.
Each time you build a program, it lands you on another team’s radar.
This is exactly what happened to Christi, and she used every opportunity to serve every team in the business and its partnership landscape.
Prioritizing time and attention when running multiple departments After starting with SecZetta, Christi found herself on the first rung of a new ladder.
While she runs multiple initiatives across departments and partner entities, she uses the quadrant system to prioritize her tasks. Looking at the combinations of urgency and importance (they are in fact different), she flexes and gets the right things done at the right time.
Her North Star at all times is what holds the highest impact on sales velocity.
At SecZetta, she first focused on hiring, onboarding, and early stage sales enablement. Now she actively works on creating structures and processes to take that to the next level.
Keeping an iterative mindset (and overcoming perfectionism) Especially when working in a high-growth tech business, it’s important to be agile. Apart from the formalization of agile workplaces, as an individual you need to be agile in the sense that you can flex and pivot according to dynamic variables and priorities.
No two days are guaranteed to be the same and so no two days should get a rubber-stamp approach when you’re in enablement. It’s a highly iterative process to achieve momentum and ongoing success.
The key is to not reinvent things every day. Christi starts by looking at what already exists and builds upon that as much as she possibly can. It is efficient, it is sufficiently contextualized, and it can move the needle substantially in limited amounts of time.
What enablement and operations have in common It’s important to keep people engaged and to be memorable. Christi has gone to great lengths to achieve this, including showing up to training in a lobster costume (we bet that team will never forget it!).
Enablement and operations both focus on sales productivity and deal velocity.
Enablement and operations are team sports. Talking about things from the top, down, isn’t enough. Techniques need to be applied in order to determine whether a concept or process is actually successful.
For example, Christi might be working on an onboarding program. She rolls it out, but she depends on operations to produce the data which she can analyze, to understand whether or not that onboarding program is effective.
Breaking down silos Another reason that Christi believes there’s an increasingly blurry line between enablement and operations is that both functions are expanding. Businesses are no longer labeling rigid silos like they once used to.
As much as sales teams continue to focus on sales, there’s an integrated and shared focus across all functions, driven by the key objective to grow revenue.
There is so much that goes into it when you look at revenue holistically:
- Indirect deals
- Channel sales
- Implementation services
- Retention and renewals
- Customer service
- Training
Each of these functions can and should be contributing to the company’s overall revenue.
This is why enablement and operations are being strung together and blended more and more in today’s business environment. It’s not to say that these functions will be fully amalgamated, but they will continue to become more aligned over time.
Get in touch with Christi on LinkedIn.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Episode 312: Tips for Developing a Sales Enablement Program appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder It’s much harder to connect with someone and read someone virtually (though part of that is because we are just lazy at it). Yet virtual communication and engagement for brands is more important today than ever before.
In this episode, we interview Robin Bartlett, Commercial Director at The Social Element, about building trust in a virtual environment using social channels.
Listen as we discuss:
- The very first step is responding to customers
- Being genuine and providing value — especially when no sale is on the horizon
- The importance of referrals in meeting people online
- Robin’s team-wide strategy for building an online presence
- What’s changed lately in online communication strategies
How to miss the trick on value A lot of brands miss this trick. They use social media as a broadcast channel, which works as any other media channel does. With social, however, you have the opportunity to accomplish so much more.
If you can reach people — not just build awareness, but actually engage with them — then the value of your campaigns goes through the roof.
For the social part of your sales cycle, you have to reach people. You have to be present. You have to represent your company, your work, and your values on social media to get in front of people and connect with them.
Sounds tough? It should because it is.
Engagement requires investment. You need social media experts, community managers, and others who will find opportunities to engage.
How to build trust with social media The way to use social media correctly is to be genuine.
“I work for a social media agency,” Robin said. “My clients are marketing directors, CMOs, and other executives in big companies. It’s hard to connect with people. If you’re doing some sort of sales line, frankly, it’s almost impossible.”
The key is to be genuine. Think about what value you can give people.
If you can present people with real value, they may sit through your message or chat with you despite the 30 other things pulling at their attention right then.
Just say “No!” to cold approaches I don’t believe in cold outreach. I believe in conversations.
On LinkedIn, having conversations means building a network, talking to people, getting introductions to other people, and always, always offering value. If you can’t say something valuable, don’t say anything at all. You’ll actually push people away if you try it.
Now, how do you build a network?
Tip # 1 — Know your prospects. According to Robin, doing a little personalization research upfront goes a long, long way. That’s how you know who you’re talking to and what they are looking to get out of the conversation.
Tip #2 — Get referrals. Robin rarely approaches people without a referral especially at the C-level because those people don’t listen to cold approaches no matter what you say. What they listen to is what they already trust.
Know yourself; know your team It’s hard to read and connect with someone virtually, harder than it is in real life. And honestly, people are starting to get lazy about it. They’re not engaging on phone calls or giving their full attention in Zoom meetings these days.
From a practical standpoint, one good tip is to imagine that you’re talking in a physical room and use your hands as you express yourself. Your computer’s camera will pick up that movement, which will bring people back to what you’re saying.
Another good trick is to be short and sweet. People don’t have the patience for an hour-long meeting.
But most important…
Understand yourself, and understand other people.
DISC The tool Robin uses to understand people is called DISC. It’s similar to Myers Briggs and several other personality tools. Robin invests in a consultant who provides regular training for the team on DISC personality profiles.
Through the DISC training, the team learns how to understand the personality types of the people they’re selling to. Armed with that information, they can adjust their communication style to suit the hearer.
For example, if you’re talking to someone who loves details, you don’t want to give them a cursory summary. They’re not going to buy from you. On the other hand, if you are talking to someone who wants you to get to the point right now, you will lose them on page one of your three-page case study.
Advice for the future of online communication Choose your stars. That is, pick people who are naturally good at networking, already have a network, and have something to say.
Your marketing and PR teams can support those stars. If your stars are as good as you say, they probably don’t have time to write and publish articles. That’s where your team comes in.
Your marketing pros can research different topics and work with a star to author a post. It’s important that your star posts it from their personal account but clearly tags the social element (the company) with them as the author.
Final word of advice: Success in social comes down to building personal networks.
Get in touch with Robin on LinkedIn.
Check out these resources we mentioned:
- The Naked Salesman by Trent Leyshan
- Rachel Boothroyd Training & Coaching
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Episode 311: Social Selling & Building Relationships Online appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder If you’re looking for the latest trends in the market but don’t want to be late to the game, your best option? Look at the data outliers.
Data has become integral to the future success of a business. If your organization hasn’t made a place for it in the boardroom, today is a good day to start.
We speak with Sameer Rahman, Director of Insight at The Royal Mint. He’s here to talk us through data’s importance and where it’s headed next.
We talk all about:
- The modernization of data over time
- What data in the boardroom looks like & its impact on future success
- The best tools to leverage data
The modernization of data over time Technology has changed a lot in the past two decades. Think back to the capabilities of your desktop computer from the 90’s compared to the simplest tasks you can perform on your smartphone today. The same can be said for data.
Already understood as a valued asset, data has rapidly become a tool of the utmost importance for companies—often leveraging the data to grow revenue. And, as we’ve all worked our way through the COVID-19 pandemic, how we view data has changed even more.
All of a sudden, predictive forecasting has become crucial to everyone’s lives.
This is what Sameer refers to as the modernization of data: How data is driving decision making at the highest levels, impacting every individual within the country.
Offensive & defensive modernization Reflecting this trend of data use, Sameer has seen data used by businesses internally, but breaks down how it’s used into two categories: Offensive and defensive.
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Defensive: Making sure the data structure and data management is correct so that it can enable the organization.
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Offensive: Proactively recommending new products, business ideas, and innovation in order to find the outliers that will shape the market of tomorrow.
Sameer’s suggestion for the data scientists and analysts of today would be to get into the defensive, but to be confident enough to drive the business strategy through the offensive approach.
What data in the boardroom looks like & its impact on future success When the question is asked in marketing: Who owns the consumer? The answer is everyone.
Asking the same question around data, you’ll get the same answer. So, while many companies are taking the right steps by integrating positions like the Chief Information Officer, it won’t be enough to take full advantage of the data.
Sameer suggests every executive in the boardroom must have a deep understanding of the importance of data if the entire mindset is to change:
- The HR director needs to know the employee data.
- Finance forecasting is always crucial.
- The CEO needs to be a cheerleader for the entire organization; they can only do that with a total understanding of the data.
Impact on scaling Imagine an automotive parts business looking to expand. However, they’ve overlooked the data suggesting that their customers aren’t buying more parts from them after an initial purchase. Turns out that their parts were breaking down months after purchase.
But, because they only received the occasional complaint, they weren’t able to locate the true issue before it became much larger. The goal to expand is now put on hold until the pressing issue is taken care of.
Looking through a data lens will always be beneficial to a business.
The best tools to leverage data In the same way that you cannot hire one person to handle your data so that it truly enables your business, the data tools aren’t what make Sameer and The Royal Mint stand out. It’s the mindset that moves through the organization that allows the data to be extracted and analyzed.
For Sameer and the team, once a job is finished, they take a few days to think about the outputs, give tangible recommendations to the business, and suggest next steps.
So, while the tools are important, and similar to those used by most companies to collect data, it’s the steps taken after that data is collected that make the difference.
Get in touch with Sameer on LinkedIn
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Episode 310: A Guide To Using Data in the Boardroom appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder Being customer-centric is a discipline. Yes, all companies say they are customer-obsessed, but few actually employ the discipline to allow customer-centricity to permeate the whole company.
In this episode, I speak with Jennifer Davis, CMO at Learfield IMG College, about the discipline needed to become customer-centric.
Join us as we discuss:
- How companies can stop diminishing what makes them great
- The discipline of customer centricity
- Leadership that stays customer obsessed
- Personal resource management: time and attention
- Discipline, communication, and goal setting
Ready to learn the secrets of customer kung fu? Let’s dive in!
Driven to build better businesses As anyone who’s been in the trenches at a small company knows, you have to wear a lot of hats.
Right out of college, Jennifer was both lucky and talented enough to land an internship and then an entry-level job with a bold new software startup.
She dove into the then-nascent art of channel marketing, wrote code, developed products, spent time in sales, and quickly developed a passion to be an excellent business leader.
Harvard educated and armed with an MBA from Pepperdine, Jennifer is also the author of Well Made Decisions, her intimate guide to the best practices for decisive implementation.
The common thread From SMBs to hyper-growth global behemoths like Intel and Honeywell, Jennifer realized that no matter the industry, the most basic element of success is a good dose of customer obsession.
Being laser-focused on CX will help your company emphasize what makes it stand out instead of getting bogged down in an unproductive mindset. Embracing your strengths is crucial.
Marketing, media, and customer centricity With today’s martech stack, your marketing department is for all intents and purposes now an in-house media production company.
It’s a fascinating transformation. “’I’ve never quite had all of these tools, all of these toys and capabilities available to me as a B2B marketer,” says Jennifer. At Learfield, they’re providing content thought leadership to key stakeholders with an omnichannel approach.
There are a lot of parallels between producing successful media and launching an outstanding marketing campaign — messaging, creating content and assets, distribution, and finding the right audiences.
Obsession The future belongs to forward thinking organizations with fully customer-driven marketing.
Every company might claim that they’re obsessed with their customer experience, but few actually walk the walk.
Nobody wants to fail a product launch or repel consumers with messaging that misses the mark. But as Jennifer points out, it happens every day due to a lack of understanding and discipline.
Create the solution What does it take to achieve this master-level customer concentration?
While at Amazon, Jennifer adopted their infamous working backwards method. If you’re not familiar, here it is in a nutshell:
- Start by writing a detailed press release from the future for your new product.
- This is your chance to leverage your data in harmony with the needs of your ideal customers.
- Describe the problem it solves and the benefits it creates.
- Include an elevator pitch from leadership on why the product was developed and what you hope to achieve.
- Present a call to action — how easy is it to fully integrate your product?
- Evaluate your viability.
- Create a quote from your ideal customer.
- Sum up your goals from their perspective.
With this approach, you’re “creating the solution in the shape of the customer’s needs,” rather than scrambling for a market share that’s not quite the right fit.
Jennifer encourages leaders at every level to become deeply familiar with the mechanisms, processes, and focus needed to become worthy of investment.
Don’t try to do everything — do the thing that matters most.
Maximizing your resources One of your most crucial duties as an executive is to deftly manage your team’s time and assets.
You can’t do that unless you’ve mastered the ins and outs of your own calendar, and have a finely tuned sense of where to direct your energies.
What are Jennifer’s top three diamonds for our listeners?
- Match your attention to your discipline through taking time to write out your strategy.
- Never forget the importance of communication — internal, external, and vertically throughout your organization.
- Rewarding cross-functional alignment depends on common goals and incentives.
Thoughtful discussions and wise decision making requires investing in trust and clarity. Intentionality is key.
Check out this resource we mentioned:
- Well-Made Decisions by Jennifer Davis
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Bonus Episode: A Healthy Dose of Customer Obsession appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder The great resignation.
We’ve all heard about it. In the United States, COVID-19 has led to what’s been dubbed “The Great Resignation.” According to recent research by Microsoft, more than 40% of the global workforce are considering leaving their employers this year.
That’s a lot of talent walking out the door. So how do you keep that talent? How do you invest in your workforce so that they won’t want to leave? It’s like that Richard Branson quote: “Train people well enough so that they can leave. Treat them well enough that they don’t want to.”
On the Sales Engagement podcast, we sat down with Jerice O’Malley, Head of Business Development & Sales at Amplify Consulting Partners Inc, to talk all about:
- The Great Resignation and how she’s seen it impact the consulting world
- Advice for managers who are looking to retain their top talent
- Why people follow leaders from company to company
- Why people are staying at jobs for less and less time these days
Dispatches from the war for talent We should have predicted this. People were getting antsy being cooped up at home. Once vaccines appeared and rules relaxed, everyone was eager to start making changes. Put all that in a blender and you get “The Great Resignation.”
But we shouldn’t act like this is something 100% new to us. The war for talent is always happening for sales.
For Jerice, who works at a consulting firm, people’s ideas are what makes her team succeed. She has to build an environment where ideas — and the people who have them — can flourish.
That means she’s always thinking about how to keep her people. While Jerice is fortunate that some people on her immediate team followed her to Amplify from their previous company, she still has to consider what makes people stay.
Generally speaking, no one stays forever. Everybody is shortening their duration with their employers. Two key points, however, seem to interrupt the in-and-out employee cycle — values alignment and fair compensation.
Jerice is seeing boomerangs Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you know the job market is… well, the word insane comes to mind… right now. Jerice says people on her team are getting offers from everybody in the market.
The thing is, these offers usually come with fabulous price tags attached — huge compensation packages, starting bonuses, big base salaries, and commissions that are to die for.
No wonder people are snapping up these offers. Here’s the thing, though, you can afford to make these big payouts in year one, but what about years two, three, four, and five? Can these companies continue to fork out huge sums of money to retain talent once they’ve acquired it? Are expectations simply starting too high?
Jerice says her consulting group has definitely seen more churn, but she’s also seeing a boomerang. People are coming back.
Align your values to your people, and offer fair compensation. You might not keep everyone, but you could see a lot of folks return.
Why people follow leaders from company to company This was the most exciting part of the whole conversation: how do you get people to stick with you when you move to a new company?
Jerice had a couple of team members who followed her from her last company. Why do people show that kind of loyalty?
Four reasons: personal, professional, financial, and motivational.
Let’s talk personal. As a leader, you have to care about people’s non-career aspirations. Maybe they want to relocate, maybe family life is complicated, or maybe they have some goal you can’t even imagine. Know what that dream is, support it, and help them achieve their goals.
Now, let’s talk professional. You’ll need to improve your management skills. For instance, you might need to get better at leading a remote team. You may just get 30 minutes or an hour a week to connect with these folks. Learn to use that time to its maximum potential.
Next, we should hone in on compensation. No matter how much you want to pay someone, you’re going to hit a ceiling at some point. The important thing to note here is that you need to know what industry standards are offering — whether that’s full compensation, salary, or job title.
(Here’s where connecting with your employees comes in again.)
Find out what drives your team members and try to find alignment with industry standards. Most team members are driven by one thing. That could be job title, compensation, work life balance, or something else. You’ll only know what that driving factor is if you take the time to find out.
Finally, Jerice emphasized advocacy. If you brought someone onto your team, advocate for them. If they want something, is it possible to go to bat for them?
That kind of treatment leads to people enjoying their time with you. Whenever they do decide to leave, they’ll make a peaceful exit. Maybe they’ll even work with YOU at your next company.
Advice for managers who want to retain top talent It’s simple.
Find the right leader.
Find the right team.
…Because no one person moves a company forward.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The post Episode 309: The Great Resignation: Retaining Your Top Talent appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder Aligning the entire sale cycle doesn’t happen overnight — it certainly doesn’t happen without a framework in place. With so many methodologies to choose from, how can you know which ones best fit your organization?
We speak with Natalia Markulincova, Global Business Development Manager at Leapwork. She walks us through Leapwork’s sales methodologies alignment and their hyper personalized approach to global cultures.
We talk all about:
- A global point of view of strong sales processes married to methodologies
- Methodology impact on the team compared to previous initiatives
- How Leapwork built such a strong culture with empowered, motivated employees
- Mitigating SDR burnout risk and fostering retainment
Let’s dive into sales methodology alignment.
A global point of view of strong sales processes married to methodologies Natalia made three key points here:
Key Point #1: The team knows what to expect. They’re set up for a sale because each channel has a process. Natalia says Leapwork is shooting out emails, calling people on the phone, and (especially important after COVID) using social selling. The multi-channel approach works.
Key Point #2: The company has a specific framework for actually qualifying deals throughout the whole sales cycle. A lot of very good technologies are out there, but technology really just works when you have a methodology to go with it. Test your methodology. Make sure everyone in the channel speaks the same language. Get aligned. Then focus on your technology.
Key Point #3: Although it’s a global company, Leapwork takes a hyper personalized approach. In every country, there’s a channel that works better than others. So while you need methodologies and processes, you also have to adjust those methodologies and processes to your unique situation.
Methodology impact on the team compared to previous initiatives When it comes to scaling, culture is huge. Leapwork has scaled from two people to 16, so there are a lot of moving pieces in that company. Add to that, these moving pieces are operating in different locations across the globe.
We asked Natalia: How do you create a diverse culture that works for reps in this environment?
She gave us four tips:
- Stay patient, and help people feel comfortable.
- Focus on getting results. People feel good about that.
- Know what’s going on and what’s working well.
- Encourage your people to give input and constructive feedback.
How Leapwork built such a strong culture with empowered, motivated employees Looking outside your normal bubble will not only increase the diversity of thought within your team but it will also emphasize the different strengths people bring from their previous work experience.
Natalia also recommends hiring people who don’t have experience. If you think they might fit with your team and help drive results, give them a shot.
She told us a story of a teacher who applied a year ago. Leapwork spotted her talent and drive, and after several months, she got promoted to BDR strategic accounts where she’s doing a great job.
COVID’s impact on the workplace is going to force more and more of these situations. Talented people are getting freed up in one field and moving to another.
Beside the aforementioned teacher, Leapwork has hired three people from the tourism industry. They’re also performing really well despite not having the “right” background for the job.
Mitigating SDR burnout risk and fostering retainment Okay, so let’s say you’ve found some baby sharks for your company. They’ve bought into your process. They’re developing well. You see them progressing in their career.
How do you keep these folks motivated?
Natalia outlined a couple of great ways.
First, give people clarity on where they’re going next. What does that career ladder look like for them?
Second, remember that people are individuals and motivate them accordingly.
Leapwork does appraisals with each BDR every six months where they discuss expectations and performance. What’s the real purpose of these? It’s to create a kind of faith in the organization. To find out what motivates them. To reward them with the things they really want.
Natalia concluded our discussion with some of the processes she’s implemented to marry back to sales methodologies in order to drive success.
Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast:
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website.
The post Episode 308: A Guide To Organizational Alignment & Picking the Right Methodology appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
powered by Sounder Houston, we have a problem.
A messaging problem.
So often, it seems like no matter how well you think you’re doing, sales and marketing are speaking two different languages. It’s like they’re two members of the same team, but from different countries. They might be “technically” headed in the same direction, but how much better would life be if they were speaking the same language?
On this episode of the Sales Engagement podcast, we sat down with Edvinas Pozniakas – On-Site SEO Team Lead at NordVPN – for a chat about messaging, consistency, and team alignment.
Some of the the topics we covered:
- Why getting alignment between sales and marketing is key
- Why their organization implemented a “smarketing” team and how yours can too
- The challenges they faced in aligning the two teams
- The top 3 books he recommends for ultimate professional development
The Key: Sales and Marketing Alignment At NordVPN, there’s no sales team over here and marketing team over there with nobody talking to each other. Instead, everybody is responsible for delivering results and onboarding new product users.
One team manages the whole flow.
Sounds great, right?
Now, how does that work in practice?
All the big things are now joint things under both sales and marketing.
The key is alignment. NordVPN created new indicators to understand what was important within this new flow. They figured out what they needed to track, what needed following up on, and where possibilities lay for fresh campaigns.
Finally, NordVPN added a sales operation unit to support sales and marketing.
Facing down the challenges At first, the two teams found it hard to work together because they were used to working separately. Paid marketing, for example, just looked at Google Analytics and then spent money on ads. Now, they have a new goal: don’t just deliver ads; give us good quality leads and do it at scale.
That was a tough shift for them.
Another issue cropped up around feedback. Sales staff members had a hard time giving feedback to the marketing team. As you might expect, the biggest challenges were human challenges — a new team, new responsibilities, and new ownership.
How to Start “Smarketing” Learn more about the client all the time.
At NordVPN, that meant cleaning up their CTAs. In the old days, clients could go to self-checkout or choose to work with the sales team. Each choice offered different flows and different messages.
Streamlining everything made it easier for the customer to navigate, better for the sales team to deliver for the prospect, and more informative about why the customer made the choices they made.
Be smart. Keep learning.
What’s Tough About Aligning Sales and Marketing? NordVPN is fortunate that they aren’t outsourcing marketing or sales. If another company was outsourcing marketing, the shift would be trickier.
The key, though, is consistency.
Your process needs to be the same every day and every week. You can’t interact once a month and expect alignment to happen.
There has to be constant talking, planning, and feedback. Make adjustments to the whole process all the time.
Edvinas recommends learning by doing.
His team drew out the whole process, including each step, the goals for each step, and the measurements for each goal.
From there, the team could see what tools, people, and resources they needed to move forward faster with the implementation.
Top 3 Books for Professional Development Edvinas says three books shaped his thinking and mindset.
The first is Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. It’s about how the manager should have extreme ownership with everything he or she does. No blaming other people; it all depends on you.
His second recommendation is Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella.
Finally, Edvinas recommends The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim. It’s an old book that tells the story of how one company was building an ecommerce department the traditional way, and how they wanted to move to the cloud environment. It gives a lot of good lessons about scaling and project management for the readers to think about.
Edvinas’ Key Takeaways 1. Align marketing with sales. Bring all the big things under a single, integrated team. 2. Learn more about the client all the time. Create a flow that provides you with the most data possible. 3. Constantly communicate. It will help solve your messaging problem.
For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website.
The post Episode 307: Setting a Consistent Messaging Strategy appeared first on SalesEngagement.com.
