Predictable Prospecting's Podcast: Recent Episodes
Marylou Tyler
Tired of wondering where your next lead will come from? What if you had a reliable, and predictable, source of new potential customers coming into your sales funnel each month? This is Predictable Prospecting and here I'll show you how some of the best sales leaders in the industry are creating consistent, and measurable procedures to bring in fresh, qualified leads to their sales funnels each and every month.
Contact management matters, maybe more than you already know. Today’s guest knows it, which is why he goes out of his way to learn and understand even more about the business he’s in on a regular basis. Today, you’ll hear about Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of Nimble. Listen in to learn more about his history, what Nimble does and how it can help, and some of the many things that Jon knows about CRM and content management.
Episode Highlights:
- History of CRM and contact management
- How long Jon has been running Nimble
- Nimble’s relationship with Microsoft
- Where sales professionals are today
- Tools and processes for building relationships
- Why you need a process for serving others
- Nimble’s discount code: JON40
- How a Twitter comment shifted into LinkedIn, email, and Jon’s calendar
- Working on staying top of mind to prospects, customers, and influencers
Resources:
Jon Ferrara
Nimble
Word of mouth recommendation has always been an important part of sales. Testimonials are vital. So of course, if you can find a way to leverage customer testimonials in your sales process, you can sell more effectively and close faster. Sam Shepler’s company helps you do just that. Sam is the founder and CEO of Testimonial Hero, and in today’s episode, you’ll learn more about that company and what they do. Listen in to learn why Sam decided to start Testimonial Hero, why video testimonials are so important, and what the Testimonial Hero process is like.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Sam decided to start a company dedicated to testimonials
- What Sam was doing before Testimonial Hero
- Why Sam specializes in video testimonials
- How COVID changed things for Sam’s company
- What the process is like after testimonials are sent in
- What kicks a service like Sam’s into high gear
- Who can benefit from Sam’s service
- The specific benefits of video
- The process and timeline for Sam’s team
- How listeners can learn more about Testimonial Hero
Resources:
Sam Shepler
Testimonial Hero
Compelling presentations are always difficult to create, but they’re an essential part of sales. And now there’s something that can help you organize and curate your various slides and get them ready to become a compelling presentation. Today you’re going to hear from James Ontra, the creator of the presentation management platform and communication strategy hub Shufflrr. Learn how Shufflr works, the different ways that it can help, and what inspired James to create Shufflrr in the first place.
Episode Highlights:
- Whether presentation management is a part of pitch decks
- How things are changing with COVID and how Shufflrr helps
- Why people need a library of slides
- How the speaker notes work
- Getting metrics from slide usage
- How to get started with curating slides
- James’s favorite onboarding experience
- Whether marketing drives the collection of assets
- Getting copies of a presentation
- What inspired James to develop Shufflrr
- How to check out Shufflrr
Resources:
James Ontra
Shufflrr
What do farming and sales have to do with each other, and why would you want to read a sales book written like an almanac? Today’s guest has thoughts about the connections between harvesting and sales, which is why he wrote the book Revenue Harvest: A Sales Leader’s Guide for Planning the Perfect Year. Listen in to hear more about Nigel’s work, where he gets started with his clients, and why he decided to write his book the way that he did.
Episode Highlights:
- What Nigel does
- What equity-backed means to Nigel
- Nigel’s international clients
- Where Nigel gets started with advising companies
- How well the companies that Nigel works with know their audiences
- How long Nigel works with clients
- What prompted Nigel to put sales advice into a book that reads like an almanac
- The problem with taking a short-term view
- Where to find Nigel online
- Nigel’s six-step hiring process
Resources:
Nigel Green
Revenue Harvest
In an environment where many, if not most, businesses are suffering, how does a company grow by 300% during a pandemic? Today’s guest made it happen, and he wrote a book about it. Listen in to today’s episode to hear Marylou interview Brandon Bornancin, the entrepreneur who founded Seamless.AI and the author of the soon-to-be-released book Whatever It Takes: Master the Habits to Transform Your Business, Relationships, and Life. Listen in to hear Brandon discuss what happened to prompt him to write his book, how his company grew during the pandemic, and why it’s important to go all out for success.
Episode Highlights:
- Brandon’s book
- What happened to Brandon that resulted in him writing his book
- What Brandon’s company did to grow 300% in a pandemic
- The daily and weekly rhythms Brandon’s company used to enact their pandemic plan
- The okay-hour system
- Going all out for success
Resources:
Brandon Bornancin
Whatever It Takes: Master the Habits to Transform Your Business, Relationships, and Life
What is the best way to align sales and marketing for revenue growth? Today’s guest has answers. Darrell Amy is the author of the book The Revenue Growth Engine: How to Align Sales and Marketing to Accelerate Growth. Listen in to hear what Darrell has to say about the importance of processes, the power of interest, and the messaging of sales and marketing alignment.
Episode Highlights:
- What got Darrell interested in writing a book
- The alignment between marking and sales and revenue growth
- The revenue growth engine processes
- The core numbers a business needs to know
- The power of interest
- The messaging of marketing and sales alignment
- How to get a focused message in a large company
- The step by step process outlined in Darrell’s book
- The tools available on Darrell’s website
Resources:
Revenue Growth Engine
Text “revenue” to 21000
What’s the best way to sell services? How does selling services differ from selling products? How can you convince a prospect that a particular professional service is right for them? Today’s guest is Liston Witherill, and his message is: serve, don’t sell. Listen in to hear what Liston has to say about what “serve, don’t sell” means, what the success path for selling services is, and the four steps that he recommends.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Liston got into professional services
- The success path for selling services
- What “serve, don’t sell” means
- Understanding that you’re adding value
- Drawing the map
- Understanding clients’ motivation
- Helping people make decisions
- Showing what’s possible
- Which slides should be in your slide deck
- Asking questions that demonstrate that you understand the prospect’s problem
- Case studies and testimonials
- What’s in Liston’s training
Resources:
Serve Don’t Sell
Modern Sales Podcast
What is authentic persuasion? How do you build a rapport with a prospect? What does empathy have to do with making a sale? These are some of the questions that today’s guest will answer. Jason Cutter is the founder and CEO of Cutter Consulting Group and the author of the book Selling With Authentic Persuasion: Transform from Order Taker to Quota Breaker. Listen in to today’s episode to hear Jason talk about his book, the persuasion framework, and how to blend urgency, empathy, and rapport when talking to a prospect.
Episode Highlights:
- How Jason came up with the title of his book
- Where to start becoming more authentic and persuasive
- How you add value in sales
- Where Jason was before he got into sales
- The sales success fundamentals that every sales conversation has to have
- The persuasion framework
- Methods for building rapport
- Active listening
- Blending urgency with rapport and empathy
- Finding out why the person wants to buy
- How intangibles factor into the sale
- What authenticity and persuasion have to do with the referral process
- Where listeners can learn more about Jason
Resources:
Jason Cutter
Cutter Consulting Group
Selling With Authentic Persuasion: Transform from Order Taker to Quota Breaker
What do you know about team selling? What are the advantages to approaching sales from a team position? In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Trish Bertuzzi, founder and CEO of The Bridge Group and author of The Sales Development Playbook. Listen in to hear what Trish has to say about what team selling models look like, what the benefits of the team selling approaches are, and how you can start thinking about team selling as an option in your business.
Episode Highlights:
- What team selling means
- What a team selling model looks like
- Hybrid roles
- How to start looking at team selling as an option
- Different versions of team selling
- Developing a team sales strategy that makes sense for you
- What account hierarchy looks like
- The continuity of team selling
- What you can learn from being part of a team
- Why you need to think differently about your selling model
- Where sales goes from here
Resources:
Trish Bertuzzi
The Bridge Group
Following up is a vital part of the sales process that is often overlooked. Are you following up when you should be? What are the best strategies for following up? What method of follow up is most popular – and is the most popular method really the best method? To learn more, listen to today’s episode in which you’ll hear from Jeff Shore, who’s recently released a book geared toward giving you the information that you need to know about the importance of and best practices for follow up.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Jeff wrote his new book, Follow Up and Close the Sale
- How the book is organized
- What follow up isn’t
- What follow up is for
- How follow up shows customers how much we care
- The strategy of follow up
- Why email shouldn’t be the number one method of follow up
- Jeff’s definition of the lead conversion hour
- How to get immersed in the follow up process
- The story of Bill Porter
- The knee of the curve
Resources:
Follow Up and Close the Sale: Make Easy (and Effective) Follow-Up Your Winning Habit
Over the years, it’s become more and more obvious that the subscription model is a viable business model for any number of products and services. How can you develop a membership mindset? What can successful subscription models teach you about sales? Today’s guest is the expert on the subject. Listen in to hear from Robbie Kellman Baxter, author of The Membership Economy and the new book The Forever Transaction. In today’s episode, Robbie discusses her background and qualification, what she knows about cultivating good customers, and what listeners can do to get started on a membership mindset.
Episode Highlights:
- How Robbie came to be an expert in her subject
- Parallels to the SAAS world in Robbie’s process
- B to C companies vs B to B companies
- How Robbie decided to write her book
- Where to get started with a membership mindset
- Indicators of good customers
- Putting customers on a path to success
- Whether surveys important at looking at where clients are
- Top three things listeners can do to get started
- The difference between customer support and customer success
Resources:
Robbie Kellman Baxter
The Forever Transaction
Sales is more than numbers, quotas, and commissions, but it can be easy to lose sight of the value that you can bring to others through sales. Today’s guest is here to talk about going beyond the numbers and embracing service through sales.
Clancy Clark is the author of a book called Selling by Serving: Find Fulfillment in Your Career and Sell More Than You Ever Thought Possible. He’s also the author behind a method that he uses for selling and speaking and coaching that teaches about how to have a more fulfilling sales career. Listen in to hear what Clancy has to say about the steps of his method, the role of empathy in sales, and how listeners can learn how to apply Clancy’s methods.
Episode Highlights:
- How intuition and being human are the precursors for Clancy’s book
- How Clancy was able to create a series of steps for selling by serving
- Whether the steps should be followed in a particular order
- How empathy on the part of salespeople will factor into sales post-Covid-19
- Looking at sales as a way of helping people
- Sincerity in sales
- The ways that listeners can learn about how to apply Clancy’s steps in their practice
- Method vs. Mastery
Resources:
Clancy Clark
Succeeding at the top of the funnel requires some out-of-the-box thinking, and that’s what today’s guest has skill and experience with. Max Traylor offers his clients productized consulting services and is the author of a new book called Agency Survival Guide. In today’s episode, Max discusses the impetus for the book, how he got into productized consulting, and why he uses the agency framing to talk about his clients.
Episode Highlights:
- The impetus for Max’s book
- How Max first started to get residual passive income
- Blending consistency and customizability
- What Max discovered interviewing people on his podcast
- Separating strategy from implementation
- Three stages to residual income
- Why Max uses the agency framing
- The importance of a healthy balance in clients
- How Max plans to socialize the book
- Where listeners can find Max’s book
Resources:
Max Traylor
As you start to think about what marketing and sales might look like in a post-COVID-19 world, it’s worth considering how you can be more prepared for another similar type of event. We’ve seen that the world can change overnight, and that often means changing your message, strategy, and even the channels that you use to communicate with your contacts.
Kendra Lee is the founder and President of KLA Group out of Denver. Today, she joins the podcast to talk about the habits, workflows, tools, and other things that you can do on a daily basis that would prepare you for some event like this.
Episode Highlights:
- What type of work Kendra does with clients
- Why the work that Kendra does is important
- Leveraging the different technologies and channels available to you when you need to shift your message
- How the personas change when the message or channel changes
- What to do when you lose a channel or it becomes less effective
- Thinking strategically about the conversations that you need to have
- Involvement in the nurture sequence side of things
- Supporting sales reps
- Kendra’s favorite spots in the bottom of the funnel
- Kendra’s upcoming goals
Resources:
KLA Group
Whether you’re new to sales or you’ve been in the game for a while and you’re looking for a way to achieve sales mastery, today’s guest has some ideas for you Simon Portwain is the author of a new book, Sales Icon: Selling in the Shadows.
Simon joins the podcast today to talk about some of the ideas that he covers in his book. Listen in to hear what he has to say about sales momentum, developing a sales journey plan, and transitioners for salespeople.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Simon was motivated to write this book
- What sales momentum is
- The framework around sales momentum
- How sales journey plans develop
- Where sales journey plans start
- What influences sales activity
- How momentum and journey are linked to transitioners
- Finding your success formula
Resources:
Simon Portwain
Sales Icon: Selling in the Shadows – Amazon
Sales Icon: Selling in the Shadows – Barnes and Noble
Email Simon: simon@sales-icon.com
Is selling just a job, or is it a lifestyle? Is it possible that people normally seen as innovators are really just masters of sales? These are some of the topics addressed by today’s guest. Michael Hageloh is the author of the book Live from Cupertino. Michael spent 22 years working with Apple, then turned his attention to working with entrepreneurial startups. Listen to today’s episode to hear what Michael has to say about applying strategy to process, the importance of practice, and how practice applies to the concepts that Michael explains in his book.
Episode Highlights:
- Where Michael’s work fits in along the pipeline
- Applying strategy to process
- How practice applies to the concepts in Michael’s book
- How to put together a conversation to practice the conversation
- Selling as a lifestyle
- Disruptive revolution
- Building connections that lead to relationships
- Understanding the outlier
- How goals are one part of a system
Resources:
Live from Cupertino
How are C-Suite buyers different from the typical inbound lead buyers? How is the conversation different with these different types of buyers? Today’s guest is Skip Miller, sales training expert, President of M3 Learning, and author. In today’s episode, Skip discusses ideas from his new book Selling Above and Below the Line: Convince the C-Suite. Win Over Management. Secure the Sale. Listen in to learn more about the difference between above the line and below the lines sales, tools you can use to create an above the line narrative, and what to focus in in above the line conversations.
Episode Highlights:
- Whether an SDR is naturally inclined to prefer inbound
- The different languages above and below the line
- Different value propositions for buyers above and below the line
- Tools to create an above the line narrative
- Whether inbounds are typically above or below the line
- Use cases where getting people to go above shortens the lag of time
- What above the line conversations focus on
- When to discuss what the new normal will look like
- Understanding above the line energy
- The ratio of questions in above the line conversations
- Call planning
- Importance of understanding both above the line and below the line conversations
Resources:
Skip Miller
M3 Learning
Selling Above and Below the Line
Can daily meditations help you develop your brand or find your purpose? To talk about that, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing joins the podcast today. Listen in to hear what John has to say about his new book, why he was interested in putting out a book on daily meditations, and what John learned while he worked on putting the book together.
Episode Highlights:
- How long John has been running Duct Tape Marketing
- John’s new book
- What got John interested in putting out a book on daily meditations
- The self-reliant part of John’s meditation book
- Similarities between this and previous cycles in history
- How John’s book could help entrepreneurs develop their brand or purpose
- What John learned while putting his book together
- John’s thoughts on the human condition
- How recent college grads could benefit from John’s book
- The daily rhythm of John’s book
- What a passage from John’s book is like
Resources:
Duct Tape Marketing
The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business
Podcasting is still a new and growing medium, but it has a lot of exciting potential as a sales tool, among other things. Today’s guest, Matt Johnson, is the founder of a podcasting production agency and he has explored some interesting ways to use the medium that may be valuable to sales professionals. Listen in to hear about Matt’s LinkedIn script, his strategy using podcasting, and the results rates that he’s seen from his methods.
Episode Highlights:
- What Matt does and who he serves
- How Matt’s LinkedIn script works
- Matt’s response rates, and how they compare to the average
- The overall reaction to Matt’s lead generation
- Matt’s overall strategy
- Developing relationships with people in different parts of the sales process
- How podcasting relates to problem solving and expertise
- Where to start in podcasting
- Where to look for podcasts that are a potential fit
- Goals for beginning podcast hosts and guests
Resources:
Pursuing Results
How to Get Featured
While the importance of diversity is stressed in many industries today, other fields are still known for being “old boys clubs” – and sales is one of those fields. Today’s guest is here to talk about diversity in the sales and marketing industry and what has and hasn’t changed for women in those fields.
Natalie Severino is the Vice President of Marketing at Chorus.ai. Listen to the conversation to hear what Natalie has to say about the research studying differences between men and women in sales, how men and women respond differently to job descriptions and requirements, and what people in leadership can do to bring in more women.
Episode Highlights:
- What’s changing for women in sales and marketing
- What the research says about the difference between the ways men and women sell
- Reasons why women might outperform men in sales
- Building rapport and establishing status
- How the language in job descriptions affects female candidates
- The difference between how men and women respond to job requirements
- How marketing and sales differ in terms of diversity
- What leadership can do to bring in more women
- Women’s groups that listeners can attend
Resources:
Natalie Severino
Women Sales Pros
Girls Club
Who is the right person to talk to when you want to advance a prospect through the pipeline? When is the right time to talk to that person, and how should you do it? Today’s guest has some ideas.
Joining the podcast today is Tukan Das, CEO of a company called LeadSift. Tukan is here to talk about whether or not you really can predict who is ready to buy, what a good work flow is, and how you work those leads so that you can increase the yield and lower the time it takes to get from the initial conversation to close.
Episode Highlights:
- The statistics mentioned on LeadSift’s website
- Why Tuakan started the LeadSift tool
- Gauging intent data
- Hyper personalizing sales conversations
- Building an ideal signal profile
- The steps toward scaling
- How soon to jump into the middle term
- What comes after the middle term
- An exciting customer story
- How the audience can connect with Tukan
Resources:
Tukan Das
Email: tdas@leadsift.com
Free Tool to Automate Research for prospecting
LeadSift HomePage
Google Alerts
Twitter Search
LinkedInSales Navigator
BuiltWith
BuiltWith Toolbar
Alexa Ranking
SEMRush
Should you consider podcasting as part of your multi-touch campaigns? Can podcasting improve your sales numbers, and can you use your sales skills to make a quality podcast – or use podcasting to hone your sales skills? Today’s guest is here to discuss how sales professionals could be using podcasts.
Michael Greenberg is the CEO of Call for Content, a podcasting agency that makes it easy for businesses and organizations to develop podcasts. Listen to the interview to hear what Michael has to say about strategies for using podcasts to drive sales, routines and duration options for beginning podcasters, and the importance of consistency in podcasting.
Episode Highlights:
- Whether podcasting is on the radar for sales executives
- Success rates using podcasting strategies
- Inviting prospects onto the podcast as experts
- What sales executives can talk about on a podcast
- Typical rhythms of salespeople starting a podcast
- Building camaraderie through podcasts
- Coordinating guest posts with your social media
- Using podcast agencies
- Podcast duration guidelines
- What kind of research goes into a 30-minute podcast
- Consistency in podcasting
- Next steps for salespeople who are interested in podcasting
- Podcasts as an opportunity for role-playing
Resources:
Michael Greenberg
Call for Content
The B2B Podcast Playbook
Is the funnel model fundamentally flawed? If so, how do salespeople approach that problem in a new and different way? Today’s guest will help explain why it may be helpful to think about the funnel in a different way.
Carman Pirie is the Co-Founder of Kula Partners, which is currently handling mostly manufacturing clients. Carman is working on turning the funnel sideways – but what does that mean? Listen in to find out, as Carman discusses why he’s excited about his work, how to get companies to think in a way that emphasizes personalization, and how to get past resistance to sales’ involvement in building campaigns.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Carman got excited about the work that he does
- How Carman is turning the funnel sideways
- Carman’s process for starting conversations
- How to get companies to think in a more personalized way
- How to get past resistance to letting sales build campaigns
- What changes in marketing when dealing with a smaller number of accounts
- Starting the engagement process
- Direct mail segmentation
- How firms get started with Kula Partners
Resources:
Carman Pirie
Kula Partners
How do you set up a pipeline that leverages all types of channels and technology, but also keeps that human spirit alive? Today’s guest will help answer that question and others.
Joining the podcast today is Jonathan Soares. Jonathan is the founder and CEO of Agency Labs and has a background in both technology and consumer sales. He’s been at this for 15 years and he covers the entire pipeline. Listen in to hear.
Episode Highlights:
- Jonathan’s background and how he got to his current position
- How to leverage cold calling with newer technology and how that can advance prospects through the pipeline
- What a typical warm introduction looks like and what technologies to use
- How many opportunities can be generated from Jonathan’s process
- Different roles within the funnel
- Influencer mapping
- How the GDPR affects Jonathan’s work
- How to get started leveraging LinkedIn
Resources:
Jonathan Soares
Email: jonathan@agencylabs.com
Can you get better performance from your team just by asking questions? Asking the right questions can build and strengthen your management coaching skills and allow your team to perform at their highest levels. Today’s guest will explain how the ability to ask the right questions can help you tap into the human potential of your team.
Chick Herbert is a Des Moines executive who’s come up with a process that he calls question-centric coaching. Listen in to hear what Chick has to say about pinpointing where people on your team are struggling, asking the right questions, and motivating your team.
Episode Highlights:
- Chick’s background
- Chick’s working relationship with Brad Williams
- Pinpointing where people are struggling
- Asking questions that get people to contemplate their own struggles and behavior
- The frustration of witnessing ineffective leaders
- What about Chick’s process motivates people
- Tracking progress
- Whether styles of coaching differ based on sales roles
- Extending knowledge to other team members
- What to do when you’re not used to asking questions
- How to use silence
- The value of preparation
- Truth and ground truth
Resources:
Chick Herbert
It Begs the Question
Chick on Twitter
Email Chick: Chick.Herbert2@gmail.com
How does trust between team members translate to better communication and higher performance? And how can you translate your trust-building skills to your sales calls in order to build rapport quickly?
To explore these questions and more, Jason Treu joins today’s podcast episode. Jason is an executive coach who works with teams to help them build trust and communication skills and increase performance. He’s also the author of the book Social Wealth. Listen in to hear what Jason has to say about the top issues in the sales industry today, how to turn a team into a cohesive unit, and how to build rapport in the first few minutes of a phone call.
Episode Highlights:
- The top issues Jason sees in the industry today
- The importance of hiring
- Whether any type of team can be turned into a cohesive team
- Where to start in building a trust mindset
- The trust-building process
- Building rapport in the first few minutes of a call
- Jason’s book, Social Wealth: How to Build Extraordinary Relationships By Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Lead and Network
- What can be done to start getting teams to high performance
Resources:
Jason Treu
Social Wealth: How to Build Extraordinary Relationships By Transforming the Way We Live, Love, Lead and Network
How are you using technology to boost your sales prowess? Is there more that you could be doing? Do you like your CRM, and if not, how would you improve it? Today’s interview may give you some ideas.
Today’s guest is Jordan Stupar, the founder and CEO of Sales Domination. Sales Domination is a company that provides CRM and technology tools to individuals as well as small, medium, and large companies. Listen in as Jordan talks about his company, his background, and how he thinks technology is affecting the sales landscape.
Episode Highlights:
- What Jordan’s company does
- Jordan’s background
- Which areas of technology Jordan focuses on
- Technological enhancements that can be used to improve meaningful sales conversations
- Using data to improve workflow
- How technology is improving analytics
- How analytics can suggest next steps
Resources:
Jordan Stupar
Sales Domination
Jordan on Instagram
What do you do when you connect with a warm lead, but they don’t seem receptive? What’s the difference between adding value for a prospect and actually helping that prospect? These are some of the questions that today’s guest will help answer.
Joining the podcast today is Michael Pedone from SalesBuzz. Michael is an advocate for sales skills and SalesBuzz is an online sales training site that provides helpful information for sales professionals that can help take you from the top of the funnel all the way to the close. Listen to today’s episode to hear what Michael has to say about common mistakes people make with important sales skills, the definition of a cold call, and connecting through LinkedIn.
Episode Highlights:
- The most impactful sales skill that Michael sees people bungle
- The definition of a cold call
- Throwing out the “easy” button
- Why you shouldn’t remind a warm lead that they filled out a form
- Approaching leads with the intent to help
- The difference between adding value and helping
- The cadence that works best in a selling situation and how to blend it with different modalities
- Connecting through LinkedIn
- How often you should be prospecting
- Why people should really want to be in sales
Resources:
SalesBuzz
Michael Pedone
Just the idea of prospecting can be stressful. Calling strangers can take a real toll on you, and it’s easy to get discouraged and believe that prospecting isn’t right for you. But within a predictable framework, prospecting doesn’t have to be so difficult. That’s part of what today’s guest is here to talk about.
Joining the podcast today is Jason Bay. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Founding Officer of Blissful Prospecting, a company that works with clients to create a predictable prospecting system. Listen in to hear what Jason has to say about how he got into prospecting, his approach to creating personas, and how to address common errors in messaging.
Episode Highlights:
- What prompted Jason’s interest in prospecting
- Mixing modalities
- How much time Jason spends in the planning stages with clients to develop messaging
- Jason’s approach to personas
- The ideal client profile identifier
- Applying the research to one-person consulting businesses
- Errors in messaging that Jason sees frequently
- Jason’s REPLY method
- Incorporating personalization in messaging
Resources:
Jason Bay
Blissful Prospecting
Selling Above and Below the Line
Free Guide to Getting Started with Video Prospecting
The experience of being a customer has changed rapidly just over the past few decades. But while the customer experience has changed, has it improved? Is there room for further improvement?
Today’s guest is Ian Moyse of Natterbox. He joins the podcast today to talk about disruptions in the customer experience, how customer experience is changing, and why it matters. Listen in to hear what Ian has to say about where this kind of disruption has the biggest impact, how buyer personas can improve the customer experience, and how customer experience impacts revenue and customer loyalty.
Episode Highlights:
- How disruptors are changing the customer experience
- Where disruption is having the biggest impact
- When consumers prefer to interact with a human rather than a machine
- Using buyer personas to optimize the customer experience
- When it’s important to communicate via phone rather than email or chat
- Analyzing how customer experience impacts loyalty and revenue
Resources:
Ian Moyse
Ian on Twitter
Natterbox
You may recognize today’s guest from previous episodes of this podcast. Max Altschuler is the CEO and Founder of SalesHacker Inc. and the VP of Marketing at Outreach.io. Max is also one of the co-authors of a new book, Sales Engagement: How The World's Fastest Growing Companies are Modernizing Sales Through Humanization at Scale 1st Edition
In today’s conversation, Max talks about his new book, what inspired him to get involved with it, and what teachings in the book are most useful for sales professionals. Listen in to hear Max’s ideas on how sales and marketing to work together, how to use sales engagement strategies in closing, and what Max sees changing in the near future.
Episode Highlights:
- What made Max decide to get involved with this new book
- What teachings in the book are most impactful for sales professionals trying to start and close conversations with people they don’t know
- Max’s definition of sales engagement
- Which channels sales can use to better coordinate with marketing
- How do sales methods of advancing prospects in the pipeline align with marketing
- How sales engagement principles can be applicable to closing
- Changes in how CRMs are being used
- What Max sees changing in 2020
Resources:
Max Altschuler
SalesHacker Inc.
Outreach
Sales Engagement: How The World's Fastest Growing Companies are Modernizing Sales Through Humanization at Scale
Today’s guest comes from the marketing side of the business. And while that may be an unusual choice for this podcast, what Chris Dayley has to say about digital marketing can be useful for prospectors as well.
Chris is a digital marketing entrepreneur, speaker, and neuromarketer. He is also the VP of testing and site optimization at Disruptive Advertising in Utah. He’s skilled at helping people understand the impact of website landing pages, testing, analytics, and psychology. Listen to the episode to hear what Chris has to say about how his work related to outbound sales and different ways to use data, metrics, and testing.
Episode Highlights:
- How Chris’s work fits into an outbound, targeted approach
- What Chris is doing with analytics
- Using data to refine the pitch
- Metrics that can help prepare for contacting prospects
- How Chris uses testing
- Technology used for testing in sales
- How best practices can vary from company to company, even within the same industry
Resources:
Chris Dayley
Chris on Twitter
Disruptive Advertising Blog
Even with all of the social media and automated sales tools available, a one-on-one conversation over the telephone can still be a powerful selling tool, especially among consumers that value authenticity. The resurgence of the telephone call is one of the things that today’s guest talks about in this episode.
Mark Hunter is an author, speaker, coach, and consultant, as well as the Co-Founder of the Outbound Conference. Listen to the episode to hear what Mark has to say about what’s new in prospecting, the difference between informed calling and col calling, and how to get into the prospecting mindset.
Episode Highlights:
- What’s new in prospecting
- Why the telephone is making a resurgence and what Millennials have to do with it
- Informed calling vs. cold calling
- The place of automated follow-up systems in prospecting
- Positive feedback that Mark has gotten about his book
- Using social media for prep work
- How to get into the prospecting mindset
- The Outbound Conference
Resources:
Mark Hunter
The Sales Hunter
High-Profit Prospecting
Outbound Conference
In any field, one thing that you can be sure of is that things will eventually change. This is as true in sales as it is in any other industry, and it’s important to be able to keep up with the changes as the come. That leads to the question: can the ability to change be taught? Today’s guest thinks that the answer is yes.
Brian Keller is the Director of Sales Training at McKesson. He joins the podcast today to talk about his sales training workshops and the importance of learning about change in the sales field. Listen to the episode to hear what Brian has to say about why change matters for sales executives, how to connect data with the real life experience of salespeople on the ground, and how Brian’s students apply what he teaches.
Episode Highlights:
- Why change is important for sales executives
- Whether change can be taught
- How to connect the data to real life experiences in the sales field
- Whether tenure has an impact on whether or not to engage in change
- Tools Brian uses to get students to apply what he teaches
- What goes into planning a training workshop
- How the salespeople that Brian trains share their success stories
- The motivation for formalized training at McKesson
Resources:
Brian Keller
Your prospects encounter many salespeople in all areas of their lives. It’s easy for salespeople and their products and services to begin to blend together. In order to make your sale, you’ll need to convince them that there are reasons why they should choose what you’re selling over what other people are selling. How can you do that? By making sure that you can stand out from the others. You have to differentiate yourself and your product.
Today’s guest has written a book that can help you understand sales differentiation and how to use differentiation to make your sales. Lee Salz is a sales management strategist and the CEO of Sales Architects. He’s also a keynote speaker, author, and consultant. Lee joins the podcast today to talk about his most recent bestselling book, Sales Differentiation. Listen in to hear what Lee has to say about why describing your product as “the best” is ineffective, how to help buyers make informed buying decisions, and how to identify the things that differentiate your product from others.
Episode Highlights:
- What happens when you describe your service, product, or company as “the best”
- Why saying that your product is the best doesn’t help to differentiate you from other salespeople
- Whether buyers are really as educated as you may think
- Helping buyers make informed decisions
- Two parts to sales differentiation
- Five steps to profiling your sales differentiation
- Exercises that can help you identify your sales differentiation
- Your biggest competitor
- Customer service and account management
- Pre-call research
- Why the way you sell is also a differentiator
Resources:
Lee Salz
Sales Architects
Sales Differentation
Visit this page to register for the Sales Differentiation Minute video series
Do you know what the four levels of value are, or how you can win clients over from your competitors by creating more value for your clients? Today’s guest didn’t just write the book on that subject, he actually wrote three books on the subject.
Anthony Iannarino is the author of The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, The Lost Art of Closing, and his latest book, Eat Their Lunch. These books are a trilogy of useful information for salespeople. Listen to the episode to hear how Anthony suggests using these books, why he believes it’s important to separate service and product, and how to apply his four levels of value to different stakeholders.
Episode Highlights:
- Anthony’s books
- Separating service and product
- Winning clients by creating greater value than competitors
- The four levels of value
- How the four levels of value apply to the different stakeholders
- Winning with the intangibles
Resources:
Anthony Iannarino
The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need
The Lost Art of Closing
Eat Their Lunch
The way that we utilize data can make all of the difference when it comes to sales. It’s more important to make quality connections and have meaningful conversations with prospects than to contact a large quantity of prospects on a superficial level. Utilizing data in the right way can help you make those quality connections.
Today’s guest is Matt Amundson, the VP of marketing for EverString. Listen to today’s episode to learn more about what EverString does and what Matt has to say about how data can be used to help prospectors learn more about their prospects and make conversations more meaningful.
Episode Highlights:
- What EverString does
- How EverString’s processes work
- How companies that engage with EverString have their data together
- How EverString handles different parts of the pipeline
- Whether EverString improves forecasting
- Why a meeting may not turn into an opportunity
- Using technology as an aid rather than a replacement
Resources:
Matt Amundson
EverString
Email Matt at: matt@everstring.com
Content creators know that video is a powerful tool for delivering a message, and that means that it can also be a powerful tool in the world of sales. Learning how to use video effectively can be a helpful skill in all parts of the funnel.
Today’s guest is Daniel Crouch, Enterprise Account Executive at Videolicious. In today’s episode, Daniel will talk about using video, not just at the top of the funnel, but also after you get your foot in the door. Listen to the episode to hear what Daniel has to say about how and why he started using video, how to use videos for pre- and post-meeting contacts, and how to get started learning to use video effectively in your own sales process.
Episode Highlights:
- Daniel’s background in sales
- How Daniel got started using video in prospecting
- How Daniel uses pre-meeting videos
- How Daniel’s videos are structured
- Avoiding excess words and keeping videos short
- Using a script or teleprompter to stay on point
- How to write copy to use as a video script
- Post-meeting videos
- The main purpose of using video for closing
- Getting started learning how to use video
Resources:
Daniel Crouch
Videolicious
If you work the top of the funnel, it’s easy to believe that you don’t need to build a deep rapport with your prospects. Once you get your foot in the door, your job is to hand them off to another representative, so building more than a superficial relationship may seem unnecessary. However, today’s guest believes that sales is all about the human connection, no matter where you are in the sales process.
David Fisher is a coach, speaker, and the author of a number of books. In today’s episode, David is discussing his book called Hyper-Connected Selling: Winning More Business by Leveraging Digital Influence and Creating Human Connection. Listen to the conversation to hear about why David believes that human connection matters at all parts of the funnel, how to build rapport in just a minute or two, and why face-to-face communication matters so much.
Episode Highlights:
- Whether the human connection is necessary at all stages of the pipeline
- Why the human connection matters even at the top of the funnel
- How you can build rapport in just one or two minutes
- How you can build on your own natural traits
- The importance of face-to-face communication
- How to get started practicing the concepts in David’s book
Resources:
David Fisher's Predictable Prospecting Landing Page
Hyper-Connected Selling
David on LinkedIn
David on Twitter
The goal of the prospector is to generate good leads and close sales, and sometimes it’s worth seeking out options from someone who operates differently than the way that you do in order to improve your techniques.
Today’s guest is Peter Lang, CEO and founder of the Uhuru Network Uhuru is a company that drives client success by increasing monthly leads, generating site visitors and more. Listen to the episode to hear more about how Peter’s company works, what the onboarding process looks like for Uhuru’s clients, and how the GDPR affects Peter’s business.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Peter was interested in offering agency instead of in-house
- The typical onboarding process for Peter’s clients
- How the selection of accounts works
- How to add value while disqualifying at the same time
- Why providing value by giving away something that other companies charge for is a way to stay competitive
- How the GDPR affects Peter’s model in other countries
- The steps it takes to close the data range
Resources:
Peter Lang
Uhuru Network
Peter’s Email: plang@uhurunetwork.com
When you want to know how to sell effectively at the executive level, you need expert training and stories that sell. Today’s guest has been called Australia’s leading Authority on “C” Level sales. Steve Hall has sold to executives in more than 20 countries. He is a writer and speaker who focuses on executive sales. He also owns the Executive Sales Coaching LinkedIn group.
Steve Hall is Managing Director of Executive Sales Coaching Australia and joint founder of Executive Sales Forum International. Steve joins the podcast today to talk about how to use story when you’re talking to decision-makers and how you can tell an effective story in less time – sometimes in just a few words. Listen to the episode to hear what Steve has to say about developing stories, finding the information that you need when you talk to clients, and his Executive Sales Forum International.
Episode Highlights:
- How Steve uses story when he speaks to decision-makers
- How it can be helpful to tell a story in only a few words
- How to get enough time with a prospect to tell your story properly
- The juxtaposition between what is and what should be in your story
- What Steve uses to help find information that helps in talking to clients
- Steve’s thoughts on how new salespeople just out of college are assigned
- How much product knowledge is necessary to get in the door
- Steve’s Executive Sales Forum International
Resources:
Steve Hall
Executive Sales Forum International
Everybody has a story. In fact, everybody has a number of different stories, and one way or another, most people wind up sharing their stories with other people at some point. Stories help us relate to others and make connections as well as illustrate important points. And if you work in sales, you can use your stories to help you connect with prospects and close deals. Today’s guest has literally written the book on how salespeople should use stories.
Mike Adams is an engineer-turned-salesperson from Australia. He’s also the author of the book Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell, a book that’s designed to help those in sales discover the power of stories, what kinds of stories are important in sales, and how you can use stories to help you close. Listen to the episode to hear more about Mike’s background, why he wrote the book and arranged it the way that he did, and how stories can help you connect with your prospects.
Episode Highlights:
- How Mike got into sales
- Mikes book, and why he chose seven as the number of stories to tell
- What kinds of stories are important in sales
- The different ways that different stories help you connect with clients
- Why Mike organized his book the way that he did
- Which stories can help salespeople close a deal
Resources:
Mike Adams
Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell
Sales automation tools can help at all kinds of different places in the funnel. Prospect.io is a sales automation platform that helps you start conversations and improve sales teams productivity. Today’s guests, Forster Perelsztejn and Iulian Boia are Prospect’s Head of Acquisition and Head of Customer Success respectively. They’re joining today’s episode from Brussels.
Listen to today’s episode to learn more about Prospect.io, who they serve, and how their platform works. Forster and Iulian talk about their roles at Prospect, patterns in customer pain points, how onboarding works, and how the GDPR is affecting their work and platform.
Episode Highlights:
- Forster and Iulian’s roles at Prospect
- How Forster and Iulian’s roles at Prospect are aligned
- How customer pain points change or don’t change depending on where they are in the funnel
- How to order customer conversations based on experience with previous customers’ pain points
- The market that Prospect serves
- Prospect’s onboarding procedure
- What kind of work Prospect is doing with telephone numbers in light of the GDPR
- How Prospect is using analytics with their data
- Testing smaller samples sizes before moving onto larger audiences
Resources:
Prospect.io
Forster Perelsztejn
Iulian Boia
Making a sale is rarely a one-and-done encounter. Instead, it’s an ongoing process and a series of conversations, sometimes with multiple different people. In order to sell effectively, you need to be able to keep up with important details about each prospect, including what your last conversation entailed and when is the best time to schedule the next call or email. This can be a daunting task, but tools that allow you to streamline the process can help.
Outreach.io is one of those tools. Outreach is designed to help salespeople remember critical details and schedule ongoing conversations. Today’s guest is Nick Hart, the customer success manager at Outreach.io. Listen to the episode to hear what Nick has to say about what’s happening at Outreach and what he thinks about things like email personalization, referral strategies, and building and testing your processes before you implement new sales tools.
Episode Highlights:
- New things that are happening at Outreach.io
- Key things to look at for people who are looking for a solution like Outreach
- Understanding the different personas that you may be selling to
- How to approach sales from different channels
- Email personalization
- Referrals, and the benefits of a top-down referral approach
- Why it’s important to test and experiment with your processes
- The importance of providing value with each interaction
- Why you need to build the processes that work for you before implementing a new tool
- Why understanding and mastering tech tools for sales is going to be more important as time goes on
- How marketing professionals can help pave the way for the sales team
Resources:
Nick Hart
Outreach
It may be possible to use manipulative sales techniques to sell people things that they don’t really want or need. But do you really want to do that, and is it really a good strategy in the long run? Today’s guest talks about the importance of centering the customer’s needs, even if that means passing up an immediate sale, and how that strategy can pay off in the long run.
Andrew Priestly is a business coach, chairman of the Children’s Trust, a publisher, and an author. In today’s episode, he talks about his background in teaching and then real estate sales, his psychology training, and how all of that got him to where he is today. Listen to the episode to hear what Andrew say about sales tactics, the impact of the internet, the importance of personal relationships, and his new book that features contributions from experts in the sales field.
Episode Highlights:
- Andrew’s background in real estate sales
- How Andrew started researching sales tactics and where they came from
- How the internet has affected the sales world
- The impact of Facebook
- The importance of personal conversations in selling
- Andrew’s book
- How Andrew went about getting contributors for his book
- The feedback Andrew is getting from his book’s readers
- The psychology of sales
- Why Andrew believes in the using sales tactics responsibly
- Why building relationships matters in sales
Resources:
Andrew Priestly
Sales Genius 1: 20 top sales professionals share their sales secrets
Today’s guest is someone that you’ve heard on the podcast before. Donato Diorio joined us on a previous episode to talk about the virtue of voicemail and how to handle voicemail properly. Today he’s with us to talk about a different subject.
Donato is the founder and principal consultant at a company called DataZ, and today he’s going to talk about data. Listen to the episode to hear what Donato has to say about what led him to put together a strategy for assessments, where the data that he uses comes from, and the importance of considering sentiment in data assessment.
Episode Highlights:
- What got Donato interested in putting together a strategy for assessment
- What led Donato to build the systems and frameworks at DataZ
- How Donato differentiates between different roles
- How Donato can quickly assess the health of the pipeline based on the data
- Where Donato’s data comes from
- How sentiment factors into Donato’s work
- How to get a data assessment from Donato
- How Donato’s services can help clients in specialized industries
Resources:
Donato Diorio
DataZ
Prospecting involves more than just one conversation. It’s a series of conversations, and as the prospector, it’s up to you to keep the interactions going. This can result in a lot of work. You need to remember when the last time was that you talked to a particular prospect, work out when the next good time to contact them will be, and figure out what to say – and you have to repeat this process for multiple prospects. Luckily, there are tools that can help streamline this process for you.
Today’s guest is Nick Hart, a strategic customer service manager for Outreach.io. Outreach is a tool that performs much of the work for you. It can help you plan your follow-up conversations, make sure that the correct messages are being delivered at the right times and to the right people, and prevent you from forgetting or delaying crucial follow-ups. Listen the episode to hear Nick explain what Outreach does, how to use different types of messaging, and what types of email statistics Nick sees on a regular basis.
Episode Highlights:
- What Outreach does
- How Outreach helps salespeople get the right message across at the right time
- The importance of being both efficient and effective
- How certain types of messaging can help prospects see salespeople as real people, which can make prospects more responsive
- How asking permission can be a form of a call to action
- How to slow down and space out value ads across multiple emails
- The importance of crafting different messages for different personas
- Statistics for email open rates, reply rates, and bounce rates
Resources:
Nick Hart
Outreach
Email Nick at: nick.hart@outreach.io
When you’re prospecting, having just a little bit of information can be the key to getting your foot in the door and growing your pipeline. Timing your call or email just right or having the perfect conversation starter can make all the difference when it comes to making a sale. If you know that the company you’re looking at has just launched a new project that can benefit from the products you sell or is getting ready to evaluate solutions for the type of service you’re selling, you’re better able to strike while the iron is hot.
Today’s guest is Alex Greer, the founder and CEO of Signal HQ. Signal is a type of technology that you can use to help you get the kind of information that you need to make your sales pitch more effective and help you strategize more easily. Listen the episode to hear Alex explain what Signal HQ does and how it can help with sales.
Episode Highlights:
- What Alex did before becoming the founder and CEO of Signal HQ
- What Signal HQ does
- Why Alex started Signal HQ
- Which types of signals Alex’s company focuses on, and which types of signals might also get focus as time goes on
- How Signal HQ can help prospectors prioritize and make the most effective decisions about how to use their time
- Why sales teams are slower than other departments to pick up on some newer technologies that can help them sell more effectively
- How the data provided by Signal HQ can help sales people start conversations with prospects
Resources:
Alex Greer
Signal HQ
Great sales people and effective sales processes are pivotal for any organization to make money. But for startups, it can be difficult to transition from founder-led sales to establishing a good sales team and putting the structure in place for effective sales processes. This can cause some serious disruption in an otherwise good business. Today’s guests understand this problem and know how to address it.
Rex Biberston and Kevin Hopp of help organizations build internal sales teams with their company, The Sales Developers. Although outsourcing is a small part of what they do, they built the company with the intent of giving companies the systems, and processes, and methodologies needed to improve their own sales companies. Listen to the episode to hear what Rex and Kevin have to say about what they do, tools that they use to improve efficiency and messaging, and what it’s like to be a millennial in sales.
Episode Highlights:
- Kevin’s and Rex’s company, The Sales Developers, and how they got started
- How The Sales Developers help their clients by giving them the tools they need to build internal sales organizations
- The gap between the startup phase of a company and the time when the company is a fully-formed organization, and how that affects sales
- How Kevin’s background showed him the difficulty of scaling a sales team inside of a startup
- How The Sales Developers can make sales people more effective by improving the company’s sales processes
- Tools that can help companies handle both full and part-time prospecting
- Why the number of conversations is more important than the number of dials per day in sales
- How salespeople can focus on the things that are going to bring them closest to revenue
- The Sales Developers’ Message Builder tool and how it can improve sales messaging
- The book Rex co-authored, Outbound Sales, No Fluff
- How getting the messaging right affects the closing ratio
- Why Rex mentioned that he and co-author Ryan Reisert were millennials in their book
Resources:
The Sales Developers
Rex Biberston
Kevin Hopp
Marketing and sales may intersect more than you previously thought. In fact, there are good reasons why sales should have some involvement in designing marketing for a product or service – after all, it’s the sales team that ultimately has to convince their prospects to buy, so it makes sense for sales to have some input into the marketing process.
Today’s guest is Sean Campbell, CEO of Cascade Insights, a B2B market research firm. Sean is also the host of his own podcast, called B2B Revealed. In today’s episode, Sean brings his perspective from the marketing side of things to talk about what’s going on in sales. Listen to what Sean has to say about some sales terms that you may not have heard yet, how saying “no” can actually help you sell, and why the sales team should be involved in the marketing process.
Episode Highlights:
- What Sean’s research firm does and how he got into it
- New sales and marketing terminology
- Why it’s important for companies to define boundaries
- How saying “no” can help you sell
- Why sales needs to be involved in marketing
- The importance of choosing the right people for a sales research study
- How the GDPR is affecting email lists
- The reason why salespeople should send more tailored messages in narrower channels
- Why you need to have a waterfall
- How to stack good habits
Resources
Sean Campbell
Cascade Insights
Email Sean at sean@cascadeinsights.com
Social interaction is part of the business of selling. In the past, salespeople often met with prospects face-to-face and spent time with them in their homes or in social settings. In today’s sales environment, many of these in-person interactions have been replaced by online interactions on social media sites. However, these digital interactions are just as important as the in-person interactions that they’ve replaced.
Today’s guest is Jon Ferrara. Jon is the founder and CEO of Nimble, a contact management solution that enhances basic contact information with richly detailed social information that helps you gain new insights about people in your network. This can help you deepen your social media relationships. Listen to the episode to hear what Jon has to say about the importance of social interactions in business, how Nimble can improve those interactions, and what role artificial intelligence plays in Nimble. You’ll also get a special offer from Jon.
Episode Highlights:
- What made Jon want to start Nimble
- The importance of the social aspect of prospecting and business
- How to scale social media interactions
- How Nimble works
- What an effective curation methodology looks like
- Tools that can help curate content and engage prospects in conversation
- How Nimble is reimagining CRM and what it looks like to use Nimble
- How artificial intelligence factors into Nimble
- Why AI can automate processes but not replace human beings
- A special offer from Jon
Resources:
Jon Ferrara
Email Jon at: Jon@nimble.com
Nimble
Special Offer: Sign up for the Nimble free trial. Before the end of the 2-week free trial, enter promo code JON40 to get 40% off Nimble for the first 3 months.
In a world powered by social media, social selling is a crucial aspect of sales. Social media allows salespeople to interact with prospects in a way that provides real value for those prospects. You can answer questions and offer useful content in a way that not only shows the prospect why they want to buy, but also why they would want to do business with you personally. Social selling allows you to create more loyal, engaged customers.
Today’s guest is Brynne Tillman. She’s an authority on social selling and the author of the book The LinkedIn Sales Playbook: A Tactical Guide to Social Selling. Listen to the episode to learn more about how social selling can be used to bring more predictability and reliability to your sales pipeline.
Episode Highlights:
- How Brynne’s book lays out the step-by-step social selling process for LinkedIn
- The four major pieces of social selling
- How to take your LinkedIn profile from resume to resource
- When to connect with and message prospects on LinkedIn
- How you can use LinkedIn to identify and target connections of your connections
- How to set goals for social selling on LinkedIn
- Metrics that can help track the success of social sales
- What a typical scenario for onboarding of social selling environment for sales looks like
- Brynne’s work with Vangreso, and how she got started with that team
Resources:
Brynne Tillman
The LinkedIn Sales Playbook: A Tactical Guide to Social Selling
Vengreso
How can you keep yourself at the top of your prospects’ and clients’ minds? LinkedIn is a powerful tool that can help you do just that, but only if you know how to use it. Unfortunately, LinkedIn can also be confusing and changeable, and even if you have a LinkedIn profile, you may not know how to leverage it to get the most out of it.
Today’s guest is Viveka von Rosen. Viveka is an author, speaker, and LinkedIn expert. She’s also a CVO & Co-founder of Vangreso, a digital sales solution provider that works with people to help create their personal brand online and create content for sales. Listen to the episode to learn more about what Vangreso has to offer, as well as what Viveka has to say about the benefits of LinkedIn, the challenges of using LinkedIn more effectively, and what you should do to turn your LinkedIn profile into a useful resource.
Episode Highlights:
- Viveka’s company and what they do
- The benefits that Viveka sees in LinkedIn
- The challenges of using LinkedIn
- Where to start learning how to use LinkedIn
- How LinkedIn can help you establish your brand within your company
- The importance of consistency when using LinkedIn
- Why it’s important to make your LinkedIn profile into a useful resource
- How creating a LinkedIn community to share content can drive visibility
- The importance of engaging with people who engage with the content on your LinkedIn feed
- How to use LinkedIn’s analytics
- How LinkedIn allows you to monitor and take advantage of opportunities presented when prospects move from one company to another
- What to do after creating a client-facing LinkedIn profile
Resources:
Viveka von Rosen
Vengreso
Email Viveka at: viveka@vengreso.com
With artificial intelligence becoming more and more able to take over parts of the sales process, how can you make sure that you stand out as a salesperson? Your own personality can give something to the sales process that robots can’t.
In today’s episode, I’ll talk to Shawn Karol Sandy and Dianna Geairn of the SellOut Show about the importance of bringing personality into the sales process. Listen to the episode to hear what Shawn and Dianna have to say about the approach they recommend for sales conversations, how to experiment with sales scripts, and why you should try recording or videotaping yourself and listening to how you sound during a sales conversation.
Episode Highlights:
- Shawn’s and Dianna’s backgrounds
- How Shawn and Dianna decided to start The SellOut Show
- Why Shawn and Dianna take a less-structured approach to sales conversations
- Where personality comes into the sales process
- The recipe for bringing personality into the top of the funnel
- Experimenting with sales scripts or templates
- How sales and marketing can work more closely together
- Why you should record and listen to yourself
- The importance of practicing sales skills
Resources:
Shawn Karol Sandy
Dianna Geairn
The SellOut Show
The Irreverent Sales Girl
The Selling Agency
Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be make a pitch on ABC’s Shark Tank? Today’s guest has been there and done that, and in today’s episode, she’ll share some of what she learned in the process.
Today’s guest is Michelle Weinstein. She is the entrepreneur behind The Pitch Queen, and she’s successfully raised money and landed contracts with companies like Costco and The Vitamin Shoppe. She has 20 years of experience in sales to draw on, and of course, she was featured on Shark Tank. Listen to the episode to hear more about that experience, as well as Michelle’s thoughts on the importance of continued learning, the value of persistence, and what it means to be “professionally annoying.”
Episode Highlights:
- How Michelle got started in sales
- How continued learning can help salespeople improve
- Michelle’s Shark Tank experience and how she prepared for it
- How Michelle’s experience on Shark Tank figures into her work on The Pitch Queen
- How persistence can add value in a sales context
- How cold outreach can not only offer solutions to problems, but also let prospects know that they have a problem in the first place
- Actionable steps that prospectors can take to improve their sales pitches
Resources:
Michelle Weinstein
The Pitch Queen
Five-Step Pitch Queen system
Success Unfiltered
All sales start with a conversation, whether that happens over the phone, in person, or through email or direct mail. When it’s your job to start the conversation that will lead to a sale, you definitely want to begin with the right words. Today’s guest knows a lot about which words will best help you approach those conversations.
Phil M. Jones is a professional sales coach and speaker. He’s also an author whose books Exactly What to Say and Exactly How to Sell provide the phrases and frameworks that can help demystify the sales process and increase confidence and sales success. Listen to the episode to hear what Phil has to say about the importance of word choice, the steps between a conversation and a sale, and the best kind of framework for a cold call.
Episode Highlights:
- The worst time to think about what you’re going to say
- The importance of word choice
- How Phil came up with the phrases in his book Exactly What to Say
- How the phrases from Phil’s book can be applied in both spoken and written conversations
- The steps between a conversation and a sale
- Sales scenarios where Phil’s phrases and formulas can be applied
- Why you should avoid asking if now is a good time to talk when calling prospects
- How to get to the heart of the conversation right from the start
- Why it helps to have a framework for sales conversations
- Why you should schedule a next action before you hang up the phone
- The framework that works best for a cold call
- Why it’s important to practice these conversational frameworks
Resources:
Phil M. Jones
Phil’s Website
Exactly What to Say
Exactly How to Sell
Phil’s You Tube Channel
In sales, perfecting your process can be the key to making more sales. But how do you find the right process? When do you know that you’ve hit on a process that works, and what do you need to do to customize it or improve on it for your situation?
Today’s guest is Scott Leese. Scott is the Senior Vice President of Sales at Qualia, a settlement platform for real estate professionals. Scott has also written a book about the sales process. Scott has an interesting background even before he got into sales, and this helps inform his success in the field and interest in process. Listen to the episode to hear Scott describe his history and talk about how he settled on a sales process, why he believes in the importance of delegating, and how to handle stress and pressure in a sales leadership role.
Episode Highlights:
- Scott’s background and how he got into sales
- How Scott settled on a process that worked for him
- Why it’s important to educate a prospect on the problem before selling them on a solution
- Why Scott thinks it’s important to get good at delegating
- How to handle pressure and stress when you’re in a sales leadership role
- Scott’s upcoming conference in Costa Rica
- The top challenges that startups face
- Scott’s thoughts on outsourcing the startup phase of a company or part of the sales funnel
- The Addiction Model Framework
Resources:
Scott Leese
Qualia
Addicted to the Process
The 2018 Surf and Sales Summit
It’s easy to be suspicious or hesitant about the rapid advances in technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. Many people worry about being replaced in their jobs by some type of technology, and for prospectors, the idea of artificial intelligence can seem like a direct threat to their jobs. But it turns out, AI is not the threat to prospecting jobs that it might seem. In fact, AI can actually be used to improve prospectors chances of getting great leads and closing deals.
Today’s guest is Robert Käll, the CEO and cofounder of a company called Cien. Cien produces an AI-powered sales productivity app. Far from taking opportunities away from prospectors, Robert explains how Cien can be used to empower prospectors and help them increase their opportunities and ability to close deals. Listen to the episode to hear what Robert has to say about AI and how it figures into the future of prospecting.
Episode Highlights:
- Robert’s company, Cien, and how it got its name
- Why advanced AI technology doesn’t mean the end of prospecting
- How AI can affect pipeline quality
- How AI can be applied to the problem of incomplete or low-quality data
- The implications of using AI to help differentiate between good leads and bad leads
- How AI can help underperforming reps increase their sales
- The importance of routing tasks to people based on who can make the most out of that particular task
- Why it’s important to understand why some deals close and others don’t
- Why you shouldn’t assume that there’s a one-size-fits-all formula for closing deals
- How Robert’s app works with Salesforce
Resources:
Robert Käll
Robert Käll on Twitter
Cien
What skills and attributes make for a good prospector? When companies are looking to hire prospectors, what traits are they looking for? Today’s guest has a good idea, and has had great success in hiring and training for his business.
Phill Keene is the Director of Sales at Costello. Over the course of his career, he’s had the opportunity to get familiar with every part of the pipeline. Listen to the episode to hear Phill talk about the importance of self-learning, how pattern recognition relates to business, and the hiring process that Phill uses to bring on new prospectors at his own company.
Episode Highlights:
- How Costello got its name
- How to get people to put time into mastering prospecting techniques
- The importance of being a motivated self-learner in prospecting
- The skills that a good prospector needs to have
- How pattern recognition can help in prospecting
- Phill’s success rate for hiring prospectors
- Phill’s hiring process
- How Phill determines which person gets hired for which role
- Phill’s process for onboarding
Resources:
Phill Keene
Costello
Phill’s Email: phill@ncostello.com
The sales machine is constantly changing, which means that sales professionals need to be constantly learning to keep up with the changing environment, especially at the top of the funnel. Today’s guest is an authority on sales training with some interesting insights on the education side of selling.
David Priemer is the Founder and Chief Sales Scientist of the sales training company Cerebral Selling. Listen to the episode to hear what David has to say about what he calls the “sea of sameness” and how sales professionals can differentiate themselves in that sea.
Episode Highlights:
- The state of selling on the education side of things, and the difficulty of differentiating useful information when so much information is available
- David’s advice for people who are looking for useful ways to differentiate information
- How to demonstrate overt benefit
- How the exclusionary principle can be applied at the top of the funnel
- The importance of understanding human behavior in sales
- Why messaging and delivery mechanism are two of the most important things for sales professionals to understand
- How to mobilize authentic voices in the sales cycle
- How to showcase value in a delivery mechanism
- The importance of engaging customers in your messaging synthesis
Resources:
David Priemer
Cerebral Selling
For prospectors, referrals are important. When you’re a business developer, it’s helpful if you can engage clients to the point that they’re willing to refer another business to you.
Today’s guest is Brandon Bruce, the COO and Co-founder of Cirrus Insight. In today’s episode, Bruce will be talking about the top of the funnel. Listen to the episode to hear what Brandon has to say about referrals and about the tips, techniques, and strategies that he’s using in his own company that may also be useful for you.
Episode Highlights:
- Brandon’s unusual height
- Brandon’s company, Cirrus Insight, and what they do
- What Brandon has found does and doesn’t work when it comes to prospecting
- When is the best time to bring up the topic of referrals with a client
- Incentives that can encourage clients to make referrals
- How making a job fun can help build energy and get people excited
- How customer feedback can lead to great ideas for improvements
- How to use personalization in prospecting
- The small batch approach, and how new technologies have improved it
Resources:
Brandon Bruce
Cirrus Insight
brandon@cirrusinsight.com
There are a lot of different things that you can try when you need to make more sales. But one of the most effective things that you can do to become a great salesperson is work on your leadership skills.
Today’s guest is Deb Calvert, President of People First Productivity Solutions. In today’s episode, she’ll be talking about her new book, Stop Selling and Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen. Listen to the episode to hear what she has to say about what buyers really want and how sellers can make sure that they deliver, and stay tuned for a special offer at the end.
Episode Highlights:
- Deb’s interest in doing real research into what buyers really want, and how that led to her new book
- The surprises that Deb found in the course of researching her book
- The importance of sellers establishing credibility with buyers by doing what they say they will do
- The backstory on the co-authors that Deb worked with when writing her new book
- The 30 behaviors that buyers respond to when sellers adopt them
- How the behaviors Deb describes in her book apply in different stages of the funnel
- Deb’s Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership that sellers can apply in their relationships with buyers
- How leadership behaviors can help sellers stand out from the crowd
- Deb’s online e-learning course, and a special offer for podcast listeners
Resources:
Deb Calvert
People First Productivity Solutions
Stop Selling and Start Leading
For free access to Deb’s online e-learning training course, Workplace Conversations, email a receipt for Stop Selling and Start Leading to Deb at deb.calvert@peoplefirstps.com
You may not think of yourself a performer, but prospecting and performing have some important things in common. In both cases, it’s important to get yourself noticed and stand out from the crowd. Today’s guest is an expert in the art of getting yourself noticed.
Tsufit is a former lawyer who left the legal profession in order to become a performer. She has performed as a singer and a comedian, in the theater and on television. Now she is an author, speaker, and PR and marketing coach. Listen to the episode to hear what Tsufit has to say about getting noticed, attracting people, and the importance of a good story.
Episode Highlights:
- Tsufit’s legal background and how it informed her work as a performer
- Where to start with getting noticed
- How communicating one-on-one differs from communicating with a room full of people
- The importance of being able to tell a story that interests people
- How to catch people’s interest during the first 30 seconds of speaking to them
- Why you should start in the middle of a story, rather than the beginning
- How Tsufit’s methods can work for enterprise sales
- The power of an authentic voice
- How you can create dramatic moments by doing the unexpected
- Why tone matters, especially when speaking over the phone
- Tsufit’s free tip series
- How a well-crafted email can make a big difference
Resources:
Tsufit
Tsufit’s Website
Step into the Spotlight
Spotlight Secrets: Free Tip Series
Step into the Spotlight: LinkedIn Group
My guest today is Matt Benati, the CEO, and co-founder of LeadGnome. As salespeople, we tend to focus on the perfect pitch, the hottest leads, and the smartest marketing strategies. With all this noise and bustle we forget that there is an existing client base that needs just as much attention as a new client. The best way to keep the lines of communication open with an existing client is to use automated systems.
LeadGnome is an automated email system that collects data from email replies. The information it provides allows companies to clean out contact lists and remind clients of changing contact information. Matt gives us an in-the-trenches look at automated systems. He also shares why he started LeadGnome and why automation is an important component of the future of sales.
Episode highlights:
- How LeadGnome came to be.
- How automated messages help a business keep clients informed.
- The useful information automated messages provide.
- Automation’s role in bringing marketing and sales together.
- Building an influence map and how automation makes that easier.
- The service LeadGnome provides to their clients.
- When to implement an automated system in your business.
Resources:
LeadGnome
Matt Benati’s email
It’s important for prospectors to understand the entire funnel, not just the top and middle of the funnel. Today’s guest has a breadth of knowledge for the entire funnel and a particular focus on frontline sales, leadership, and managers.
Dave A. Brock is the CEO of Partners in EXCELLENCE, a California-based consulting organization that focuses on helping clients develop and execute business, sales, marketing, customer service, and new product strategies. Dave is also the author of Sales Manager Survival Guide. Listen to the episode to hear what David has to say about frontline sales.
Episode Highlights:
How Dave got started in the area of sales performance
How too many apps and tools can be detrimental to sales performance
Why the sales manager needs to be part of the plan when implementing a new tool
A sales manager’s role, and how that can be leveraged to maximize the performance of each sales person.
The qualities that make a great sales manager
The importance of determining a process that works before bringing in automation tools
Why it’s necessary to focus on fundamentals and the ideal customer profile
Dave’s new book, Sales Executive Survival Guide, coming out in May
Resources:
David Brock
Dave on Twitter
Partners in EXCELLENCE
Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog
Sales Manager Survival Guide: Lessons From Sales' Front Lines
A 5-minute quick listen on the 2 universal mistakes we make when holding conversations with buyers.
Being an entrepreneur doesn’t always stop with creating one successful business. Some entrepreneurs make a business out of creating different businesses. Today’s guest is a serial entrepreneur that creates businesses and sells them.
Mansour Salame is an engineer by training, and he is currently the CEO and founder of a company called FrontSpin. However, Mansour says that he doesn’t think of himself as an engineer or a salesperson so much as he thinks of himself as a person who can find value for customers and clients. Listen in to this interesting interview to hear Mansour’s insights about growth and scaling.
Episode Highlights:
- Mansour’s first job out of college as a project manager, and how that led to his introduction to sales and startups
- The importance of understanding a client’s needs in detail
- How to put a process in place that you can scale to the level of growth that you’re at
- How process can be divided into two categories: search mode and scaling mode
- How Mansour is scaling processes at his current company now
- The importance of improving and tweaking the process to make it more successful, even when in scaling mode
- Why considering the customer’s process is necessary when creating your own processes
- How measuring metrics and benchmarks fit into both search and scaling modes
- How scaling without first figuring out the process can lead to low morale and other problems
- How sales messaging needs to change as you scale
- How a trend toward personalization affects production and scalability
Resources:
Mansour Salame
FrontSpin
When it comes to sales having the right team in place makes all the difference in the world. Today’s guest is someone who understands how to create and build a team with the right people. He understands building a brand and creating and nourishing the company to scale.
Today’s guest is Paul Fifield the chief revenue officer for UNiDAYS a student affinity network that connects verified global students with relevant brands and services. Paul and I go way back. We’ve known each other for years and worked together in the early days. This is a great episode where we talk about how to grow a team and to build a team that consists of the right people.
Episode Highlights:
- When Paul first arrived in New York, he read Marylou’s book and then hired her as a consultant.
- The importance of hiring. A brilliant process won’t work without the right people.
- If you’ve hired great, people you can actually get a lot wrong in your business and still be okay.
- Getting the right people into your business that are brilliant when it comes to your business.
- As businesses scale, the early processes will break and need to be refined.
- Having a hiring process and predicting who will be successful in your business by using systems.
- Paul talks about some of the things you should look for when creating a business development team. You need people who can create great emails and have writing skills.
- These people also have to have great phone skills and be articulate.
- To save time, and find the right fit design your entire hiring process to look for the skills.
- By doing this you can probably discount 75% of your applicants.
- Also have a voice call and set up a scoring system look for things like voice clarity and vocabulary, plus the energy levels of the person.
- What you’re hirers are in-role, check to see if you got your testing right.
- Paul’s current business is focusing on generation Z. They engage with all types of different brands who want to reach this demographic.
- Paul believes in splitting roles to create predictability.
- Initiating conversations, tone of voice, and not “being in sales”.
- Paul has a two-week training class for his new hires. He also tells a funny story about how one of his new hires prospected Jeff Bezos.
- When your team isn’t too big you can scale fast.
Resources:
- Paul Fifield on LinkedIn
- UNiDAYS
- UNiDAYS Corporate Site
- UNiDAYS Recruiting Video
- Paul Fifield Of Ceros - Does "Predictable Revenue" Work?
- VP Sales North America Job Description Video
- Senior Account Executive Job Description Video
- Sales Development Representative Job Video
- Predictable Revenue
- From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue
- How Google Works
- Sales Acceleration Formula
- HubSpot
- Reed Hastings
- Jeff Bezos
Troy Kirby is a sports business consultant who builds relationships and revenue for sports organizations. He is the owner of Tao of Sports where he consults for B2B vendors, professional teams, and college athletic departments. He also hosts the Tao of Sports podcast.
We have a really interesting conversation on today’s show. Troy comes from the world of sports, and he is an expert in sports sales. He is going to share some of his great stories in the area of sales, education, where he came from, and what he was trained for. He is also going to share his sales experience from the perspective of focusing on engaging people and getting them to come to his events.
Episode Highlights:
- When people give you time and opportunity it is a gift, and you need to give back.
- Stand up comedy and open mic night helped Troy become relatable.
- If you have a speaking opportunity. Go and screw up. The whole idea is to get practice relating to people.
- Listen to other people and be interested in what they do. Build a relationship that way.
- People want to do business with people who listen to them not talk at them.
- Change your mindset and have a yes mentality.
- Troy ended up having a great conversation interviewing the Octomom and allowing her to talk more and treating her with equity and respect.
- Qualifying people by how much money they have, yet they might be a great source of referrals.
- If someone tells you not to do something, they probably don’t know what they are talking about.
- Troy is known in the sports industry as the sales ticket guy.
- Take an active investment in other people, but also take a chance on yourself.
- Play the long game and really knock the cover off the ball. Plan for the long term.
- Do the work in advance and build your contact over time. Don’t use other people as an excuse for not achieving.
- How we are overly entertained. Put the time in your business, and it will yield out so much more.
- The importance of the daily commitment to the process. It takes time to build relationships and work and work that system.
- Thinking outside of the box and getting people to come to your events. Troy shares his red turf story where the turf could be seen from space.
- You have to be able to tell a story, sell a narrative, and believe in yourself. Take risks and don’t be threatened by what you are doing.
Resources:
- TAO of Sports
- Troy Kirby on LinkedIn
- @SportsTao on Twitter
- Robert Cialdini
- Matt Harper
Shimon Lazarov the CEO of LiveCoach is here today to talk about you as a person. I focus on sales and spend a lot of time focused on the ins and outs of the sales process, but the person behind the sales matters too. Shimon is here to shed some light on coaching and the importance of having a coach.
Coaching can increase productivity, success, and life satisfaction. Ongoing coaching is usually more useful than a one-time coaching session. Finding and connecting with the right coach for you isn’t that easy. Shimon created LiveCoach to connect coaches and clients through an easy to use online platform.
Episode Highlights:
- Business coaching versus life coaching. People work with coaches to accomplish something that they don’t know how to do or to be held accountable, so that they follow through or to aspire to new horizons.
- People usually prefer a coach over a peer to help them be held accountable.
- Some people only need specific help for one thing. Other people want accountability or they want their life to be better.
- There is a link between something in life bothering people and their work success and productivity.
- Personal and professional success are interrelated.
- How coaches have neutral objectivity and your best interest in mind.
- The more neutral a coach is the better and more effective that coach will be.
- The LiveCoach platform can help you find a coach by describing your situation or you can be matched through their algorithms.
- You can talk to several coaches for free to help find the best coach fit for you.
- When you start talking to people, you will be surprised by the amount of insights that you will get.
- Shimon suggests talking to as many coaches as you can.
- Many coaches do a questionnaire or a review as prep work. Some part of the initial work will be reflection about what you want to achieve and gaining clarity.
Resources:
- LiveCoach
- Shimon Lazarov
Carson V. Heady is an author and sales leader that I am really excited about talking to. He is in the trenches when it comes to sales. He is there digging in the dirt making sure that those sales are happening. I asked him to come on the show is because he is diving into an becoming an expert at social selling.
When it comes to prospecting, we are habit machines that block out times to do single tasks, and we get stuck when it comes to integrating all of the social tasks into our process. Carson is going to talk about best practices around integrating social into the sales process and specifically the prospecting side of things.
Episode Highlights:
- How social selling is bubbling up as something that we should pay attention to.
- Sales is still a relationship game, but social will enable us to build relationships and stay top of mind.
- How platforms have caught on and integrated into people’s day.
- These platform enable us to target specific areas and when people make changes.
- We can keep at the pulse of what is going on.
- It also enables to continue the post sales relationship.
- Display etiquette and be succinct and state your desired value that you are bringing.
- It comes down to adding value.
- How social selling allows us to do a lot of experimentation.
- These social tools can help us take the cold out of cold calling and introducing ourselves in a relatively passive way.
- Consistently reaching out to 5 to 10 people a day and stacking it into your daily routine.
- How it takes a long time to craft and cultivate social relationships, but the returns are unbelievable.
- Gearing messages for your audience and understanding what is working and what is not.
- The stuff that works can be transferred over to your email sequences.
- Assimilate social selling into your evolving sales process.
- Finding the right tools that will work specifically for you and using them to be more effective.
- Begin with the end in mind. What your goal is? Social selling is a wonderful way to share and connect with people.
Resources:
- Birth of a Salesman (The Salesman Against the World) (Volume 1)
- Birth of a Salesman: Ultimate Edition
- Carson V. Heady on LinkedIn
- @cvheady007 on Twitter
- Crowdfire
The telephone is a vital instrument for us to use when having sales conversations. Telephone sales expert Art Sobczak is here today to share some of his amazing telephone sales knowledge. I consider Art Sobczak a mentor. I have been following him since 1985. He is the president of Business by Phone and the author of books like Smart Calling, Sell More in Less Time, and Telephone Tips that Sell. He is an expert in utilizing the phone for sales conversations.
Art shares how selling is the greatest profession in the world, and how he wakes up everyday knowing that there are people out there that he can serve in this profession. A lot has changed over the years, but people still buy from people, and aside from face-to-face, voice-to-voice is the best way to sell to those people. This is a great conversation, and Art shares tips and selling knowledge from his 35 years of selling experience.
Episode Highlights:
- Art wakes up everyday knowing that there are people out there waiting to be served.
- Making a difference through the greatest profession in the world which is sales.
- How a lot has changed over the years, but people still buy from humans and the most effective way to sell is by speaking with people.
- Other than face to face, the best way to sell is voice to voice.
- How sales enablement tools can be distracting if not used correctly or effectively.
- The importance of examining what your sales process looks like and who you are selling to.
- How using the phone is a permission based tool that can cut through a lot of the clutter.
- How fear of the phone stems from a lack of knowledge.
- The importance of having relevant and targeted messaging.
- Different calls require varying degrees of preparation and research.
- The problems of disguising call avoidance as research.
- When you get voicemail, your purpose is to leave a question in that person's mind.
- The importance of call quality and investing in good equipment.
Resources:
- Business by Phone
- Smart Calling
- Books by Art Sobczak
Henry Schuck is the Co-Founder and CEO of DiscoverOrg a platform for finding, connecting, and selling to more prospects using a accurate high-quality contact database. The company was founded in 2007, and Henry has led it through rapid growth going from the original three employees to over 500 today.
Henry is the list expert, so put your seatbelts on. We have a great conversation about lists. In this episode, he shares the story of how he and a friend founded DiscoverOrg and how they grew the company. They even had to refine their product to meet their own sales needs. Once they got the process down, their sales numbers went through the roof.
Episode Highlights:
- DiscoverOrg is a sales intelligence tool that profiles who's who in about 175,000 corporations.
- They use a mix of proprietary technology and a team of 300 human researchers.
- Maintaining the data is one of the most difficult aspects.
- It takes 70 hours to count to a million. They profile almost 3 million contacts across their database.
- Henry has been in this space for more than half of his life. He began with a small intelligence company called iProfile.
- Then he went to law school.
- In 2007, Henry and a friend from iProfile started DiscoverOrg and grew it organically.
- They were missing projections by 6 million dollars in 2010. They started thinking about how to plug that hole.
- Working backwards to reach a goal. They found the resources they needed, but they needed to build the list datasets for themselves.
- They realized they needed a team of English speaking humans to solve their information gap in their lists.
- They would score fits on a scale of 1 through 5 using what they called fit rank. Then they would have the human team build out the lists of the companies that fit.
- Knowing what companies and people to talk to and their contact information and what tools they use and then target the approach to them.
- Once they got the processes into place to deliver high quality information, they blew their sales numbers out.
- The biggest lever you have to pull is the data you feed your SDR team allowing them to focus on messaging and follow up.
- You want your datatool to cleanse and maintain the numbers, emails, and contact info.
- This is an investment that pays off through everything in your organization.
- They looked at performance metrics to see how many calls needed to be made to hit sales numbers and then worked backwards to provide that amount of contacts.
- If a company doesn’t respond, you still continue to call them. They are still in your market. Organization priorities are constantly changing.
- List fatigue and a 30% attrition rate. Refreshing the lists is absolutely critical.
Resources:
- DiscoverOrg
- henry.schuck@discoverorg.com
- 360-783-6800
- Henry Schuck on LinkedIn
- @HenryLSchuck on Twitter
- Salesforce
- Marketo
- HubSpot
- Pardot
- Outreach
- SalesLoft
- PersistIQ
- Yesware
- Steven Covey
Mario Martinez Jr. is the CEO and founder of a fantastic company called Vengreso. They are a B2B digital sales transformation company and they do their magic through content marketing, social selling, and a variety of things. Mario spent 82 consecutive quarters in B2B sales and leadership roles growing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually.
Mario is one of 19 sales influencers invited to appear in the Salesforce documentary film "The Story of Sales" to be launched in 2018. He is recognized as the Number 1 Top Sales Performance Guru in the world, named 2018's Top 10 Sales Influencers by The Modern Sales Magazine, and in 2017 he was named the Top 25 Inside Sales Professional and the 6th Most Influential Social Selling Leader globally.
As a renowned digital sales evangelist, Mario teaches marketing and sales professionals how to develop an engaging personal brand to attract today's modern buyer using the digital sales ecosystem. Mario is the host of the popular Selling With Social Podcast. He's been featured in Forbes, INC., the Examiner.com and is a contributor to the Huffington Post. He's a highly sought-after Keynote Speaker with brands such as LinkedIn, SAP, and Cisco. He is also known to open a keynote with a Salsa dance.
Episode Highlights:
- Social versus digital and how social selling to engage, build relationships, and create conversations will just become selling.
- Digital is just using your online presence to establish and create a personal and professional presence.
- It’s about discovering a platform to engage with your clients.
- After engaging with clients, we need to connect with them to sell to them.
- Feeding your network isn’t just putting content in your feed, it is also providing customized information to individual prospects and clients.
- It’s also a good idea to automate what you can.
- The sales job is to prospect one-on-one. Marketing is one to many.
- The five steps to digital selling. Have the right brand. Correctly initiate, engage, and maintain a relationship. Do the research and use tools to effectively connect with buyers. Feed your network regularly. Measure your prospecting success through the number of conversations you have.
- The two, three, and four-week meeting request rule: “Here are three dates and times that work for me.” Also look for when in the day the buyer likes to meet.
- Asking for a 30 minute as opposed to a 15 minute appointment.
- The sole purpose of identifying whether a prospect has a problem that you can solve.
- Three by three rule. Research the person, the company, and get to know the prospect a bit before the meeting. Find three things in three minutes to incorporate into the conversation that show that you did your homework.
Resources:
- Vengreso Home Page
- Vengreso Personal Branding
- Vengreso Content Sharing
- Mario Martinez Jr on LinkedIn
- Vengreso on YouTube
- @M_3jr on Twitter
Account based marketing or ABM is an alternative to B2B. It’s a strategy where an individual account is treated as its own market of one. Brandon Redlinger manages growth at Engagio which provides software products for account based marketing and account based sales.
Brandon is going to share his experiences and strategies working in this funnel. I’m hoping that you will come away with some key takeaways and educational points that you can apply right away. Brandon also shares how account based everything may be more appropriate because bigger companies are now pushing account based success in all aspects of sales and marketing.
Episode Highlights:
- The account based approach is strategic marketing that is personal and relevant coordinated between different functions.
- It can be used in the top of the funnel to open doors or lower in the funnel for account expansion, upsells, and more.
- This concept is similar to strategic selling targeted at a smaller set of accounts but at bigger deals.
- Technology is enabling marketing to help sales open doors by using intelligence, predictive modeling, and engagement scoring.
- Casting a wide net with marketing, inbound, content, demand generation, and ABM.
- How account based marketing helps in all five levels of awareness.
- Large companies have global accounts with many divisions. This is why working with relationships within the accounts is important.
- How engagio allows tracking with a different customer touchpoints like SalesForce, Marketo, your CRM, or Google Apps.
- The importance of retention and how many VCs are looking at these numbers over growth numbers.
- How a lot of people will jump into ABM and get it wrong. How important it is to look at if it is right for you and fits within your business model.
- The importance of not executing before you have a plan.
- The co-founder of Engagio was actually the co-founder of Marketo, and he left because he feels that account based marketing is the future of B2B.
Resources:
- Engagio
- Engagio on Facebook
- @Engagio on Twitter
- Brandon Redlinger on LinkedIn
- Brandon@Engagio.com
- The Clear & Complete Guide to Account Based Marketing
- Salesforce
- Marketo
Having issues with mindset and skill set can amplify issues that we may have at the top of the sales funnel. Will Barron the host of The Salesman Podcast is here today to talk about mindset. He has so many skills and there are so many topics that we can talk about, but I wanted to hone in on mindset because having the right mindset can amplify our sales success.
Will has interviewed so many people and has had so many conversations that he brings a wealth of knowledge to the show. The Salesman Podcast is the most downloaded award winning B2B sales show on iTunes. The reason Will started his podcast was because he was hitting his sales marks, but he wanted to go beyond that and smash it. Now he shares some of his deep dive sales knowledge with us here today.
Episode Highlights:
- How Will has personally beat his chronic procrastination through habits.
- His biggest sales mind hack was actually understanding why he wanted to work in sales in the first place.
- He worked in sales because he wanted to save up cash to start a business.
- Once he made this plan he worked harder, put his head down, and got things done.
- Having an end goal can be an underrated sales tool.
- How he started asking the questions of what he wanted to achieve through his sales work throughout his life and minimize regrets.
- Projecting your future happiness and asking if what you are doing now will lead to your happiness.
- Marginally acceptable goals, acceptable goals, and whoopie goals!
- Focusing on blocking out time for productive single focused goals.
- Will’s passion is getting people excited about science. His motivation for doing the sales podcast is leading to his goal of starting his new Excited About Science podcast.
- He wants to break the mundaneness of life by giving people fun facts about science every morning.
- Will shares his routine and how he timeblocks and protects himself from distractions. Then it is habit and process.
- How getting a 25 minute pomodoro task done helps to build momentum.
- It is easier to carry on with the work then to change the task.
- Start in small blocks and work your way up. Start with 25 minutes and work up.
- Being specific with our goals and making sure you physically have the time to fill in the slots or else you have to be more efficient.
- Use trial and error to move your blocks around until you find the best nuggets of time to get stuff done.
- It’s about highest impact and lowest effort.
- Working the way your prospects work to have those conversations.
Resources:
- Awaken the Giant Within
- The Pomodoro Technique
- Marinara Timer
- The Salesman Podcast
- Will Barron on LinkedIn
The top of the funnel and improving, augmenting, and optimizing the ability to start conversations with whales on a consistent basis for higher revenue and a higher lifetime value is at the top of most listeners minds. Hardy Kalisher is the Executive Director of Parallel Path out of Boulder, CO. He is here today to talk about more of the marketing side of things.
His focus is generating awareness and serving up those great opportunities for us. Parallel Path is a digital marketing agency, and Hardy shares his strategies for getting quality responses to bubble up to the top, so that we can get these potential clients into the pipeline and start those all important conversations.
Episode Highlights:
- How sports create a certain amount of discipline and focus.
- Getting too many minow leads that are muddying up the pipeline.
- How digital marketing is best implemented on the outreach side of things.
- How sales and marketing are both working towards the same goal of growth.
- Foundationally building a data collection infrastructure for marketing to feed the funnel so that the sales team can engage.
- Optimizing the marketing for a sales funnel that creates revenue.
- Optimizing for campaigns that actually close deals.
- Parallel Path has a proprietary solution structure that closes that loop.
- Holding on to clients by making relationships last and closing the loop end-to-end and continuing to optimize.
- Finding the lifetime value of customers.
- Finding a cost per lead threshold that makes sense.
- Creating solutions for sales and marketing people to work together to create the golden leads.
- Having a checklist that leaves no stone unturned.
- Working on process for efficiency and effectiveness even though each deployment will be custom.
- From data collection to implementation in three weeks. Challenges are related to allocated sales and marketing resources.
- The unlimited potential of the future state of digital and marketing.
Resources:
- Parallel Path
- HKalisher@ParallelPath.com
- Parallel Path on LinkedIn
- Parallel Path on Facebook
George Bronten the founder and CEO of Membrain is here today to talk about sales effectiveness and how to drive winning behaviors. Membrain is a sales effectiveness platform that helps complex B2B sales. There goals are to make it easy to execute your process, enable your team, coach effectively, and optimize your strategy.
George is a lifelong entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. Because of the Internet and global competition, George knew the sales process needed to evolve. It is his vision to increase sales effectiveness using modern SaaS technology.
Episode Highlights:
- After failing to build a successful sales team. George realized that he had some wrong assumptions.
- George started Membrain to create a way of working and selling that gives a strategy for sales people to use.
- Everything needs to be centered around the buyer.
- How can we differentiate when everything looks the same.
- How we sell is going to be even more important in the future.
- Having a buyer centered strategy that is centered around the buyer.
- Making sure everyone has the skillset to execute things properly.
- Then empowering everyone with the processes to be successful.
- The huge importance of management and being a better coach.
- Sales people having multiple roles and problems that arise around that.
- Focus first by starting with the clients.
- Reducing the number of mistakes made and having technical people and sales people onboard with new technology.
- Getting the right people onboard in the right stage of the process. Systemizing this process.
- The importance of milestones and points of interest in a checklist. Go down the checklist in relevance of the goal.
- Autonomy and resistance to a checklist.
- How the sales process is dynamic and needs to be flexible.
- The process is living, lean, and constantly getting adjusted. The importance of analytics.
- Start planning what area of the pipeline you can address in the first quarter.
Resources:
- Checklist Manifesto
- Membrain
- George@Membrain.com
- @georgebronten on Twitter
- George Bronten on LinkedIn
Jamie Crosbie is here today to talk about the top of the funnel. Jamie has experience all the way through the funnel and knows a lot about the pipeline. For the show, I asked her to focus on the top of the funnel, but if you like her processes and workflows by all means get in touch with her because she has a lot to share.
Jamie has over 20 years of experience in sales leadership and the talent acquisition industry. She founded ProActivate over 13 years ago. ProActivate partners globally with forward thinking leaders of organizations to achieve their revenue goals. We provide the top-shelf sales talent you need to amplify your message, leverage your position, and expand your base. Our unique model is the next generation of sales talent acquisition. We qualify talent through an in-depth, precise methodology based on behavioral modeling, digging deep into both skill-set, mindset and simulation evaluations. This allows us to offer only the most qualified sales professionals for your continuing strong growth.
Jamie is a certified speaker in The High Performance Mindset ® system, a revolutionary model that is elevating the performance of professionals ranging from athletes to executives to sales leaders. During these trainings she shares both the science and working tools that you can use immediately to enhance performance both for yourself and your team members. It's proven that human performance is limited not primarily by skills and knowledge, but by the nature of our thinking, our mental preparation for success and the environment within which we choose to operate.
Episode Highlights:
- The passion behind ProActivate is to help organizations achieve revenue goals, increase productivity, and maximize talent and performance.
- They help replace C players with A players and build talent to help organizations create a peak performance culture.
- They mostly focus on the people piece, but skillset, mindset, and toolset enable people to be successful.
- How mindset is a peak interest of students.
- The importance of mindset for any industry. We have 60,000 thoughts everyday and 80% are negative. The impact on a sales person who deals with rejection is huge.
- How engaging in higher level thinking enables us to perform at higher levels.
- How habits are something that you do. Moving from discipline and sheer will to habits of work processes.
- Hiring the best and upgrading the rest.
- How the workshop has a step-by-step framework for developing mindset skills in a tangible way.
- How rewarding it is to unleash someone’s mindset to the highest level.
- For the next year, write down your goals and know your bigger why behind them.
Resources:
- ProActivate
- The Power of 2 - Exponential Sales Leadership
- @jmcrosbie on Twitter
- Jamie Crosbie on LinkedIn
- JCrosbie@ProActivate.net
- (214)720-9922
Process and metrics are so important, but there is a whole other side to selling. In this episode, I have a conversation with sales expert Mark SA Smith. We talk about selling professionally and being authentic. We talk about polishing the saw not only with systems and frameworks, but when it comes to the conversational side and speaking from the heart.
Mark shares stories of exceptional sales professionals. Ones who have skills like caring about their customers success, having foresight, choosing who you do business with, and being pragmatic. He talks about the importance of trust, and how the number one salesperson is usually the most trusted salesperson. We also talk about the importance of customer motivation and more.
Episode Highlights:
- How life can be easier when you are in build mode because you have a path planned out.
- Moving from knowing what’s next to being OK with uncertainty.
- Having a growth mindset and progressing in a way that is comfortable for you.
- How life is a series of challenges and triumphs.
- How the person who signs the checks is the person who actually closes the sale.
- Being a trusted partner as opposed to a sales person.
- Creating customer success through foresight. Making a mutually profitable transaction.
- Characteristics of a closer are caring about customer success, having foresight, picking your customers, and being pragmatic.
- Working consistently instead of working hard.
- The importance of trust and relationships with customers.
- The product line is only 10% of the sales equation. Most sales people focus on the product. Focus on helping the customer relationship instead.
- FAB charts or features and advantages. Attempting to map product to customer motivation. It should be mapping motivation to product.
- Stop pitching and start asking questions and listening.
- Offering permission to defer helps with building relationship.
- Where the empathy comes into play and being open.
Resources:
- Bo Burlingham
- Mark SA Smith LinkedIn
- Selling Disruption Show
- Dress for Success
If you are trying to figure out what to do next when it comes to starting new business and getting doors opened with high level decision makers. This show is for you. My guest today is Caryn Kopp of Kopp Consulting. Caryn’s business is all about opening doors and meeting with the right decision makers. If you aren’t talking to the right person it is impossible to close the deal.
Caryn is also the author of Biz Dev Done Right which is all about uncovering and managing the blind spots in the sales process. When business development is done right there is no limit to what we can do. Caryn is the Chief Door Opener at Kopp consulting, and her service has helped thousands of business owners and salespeople secure meetings with the right people. Today, she shares expert insights into the sales and business development process.
Episode Highlights:
- Her book is an Amazon bestseller and it helps uncover the blind spots that keep sellers from executing as they should.
- It uncovers the strategies and methodology to get the sales success we all deserve.
- It creates a predictable selling machine to get your foot in the door.
- The different types of salespeople that are out there. Farmers who grow the business and hunters who find the business.
- There are many different types of hunters. Closers and those who create new relationships. These are the openers who you want to hire to get business in the door.
- Salespeople are often strong in closing or opening. Kopp Consulting only hires openers.
- They offer outsourced openers with a proven process for creating sales messaging for high level prospects.
- Sometimes salespeople can’t get the meetings because of lack of time.
- Outsourcing to keep the top of the funnel full with new relationships.
- Then the sales people only have to go to meetings and close the sale.
- Getting the relationship open is a very different skill set.
- Having a full top of the funnel is a very efficient process.
- How when working with companies it is the bigger the better. They often work on the whale accounts.
- The client sales cycle may have different lengths, but they all want to keep the top of the funnel full.
- How they have short term and long term ongoing sales client relationships.
- How the right messaging, prospect, and readiness opens the door. This process takes two weeks for Caryn’s team.
- Two week onboarding at the top of the funnel. Launch with messaging and meetings. The handoff once they get the meeting includes remote access email through the client's company. The communication is seamless.
- They send the invite, and the meeting notification, and then an appointment report with the entire background of the meeting and client needs.
Resources:
- Kopp Consulting
- Biz Dev Done Right
- CKopp@KoppConsultingUSA.com
Whatever role you play in a sales position, there are a lot of moving parts and specific challenges involved with your unique role. Today, I talk to an account executive who has held many roles in the sales cycle and is passionate about making life for salespeople easier. We talk about his vast knowledge and lessons learned, along with how his company OppSource has developed a platform to make salespeople more productive.
Today’s guest is Andy Zehren. I met Andy by chance, but discovered that he had so much experience that he would be a perfect guest for the podcast. Andy is an account executive for OppSource a platform that makes B2B sales prospecting and engagement easier. They help find and prioritize prospects and enable one sales rep to do the work of three with their automated touchplans.
Episode Highlights:
- How Andy has held a lot of different roles in sales and he started as an SDR.
- How each different role has had specific challenges.
- Andy works with sales people at OppSource helping them with solutions to be more productive and make their lives better.
- The importance of building relationships and challenges with automation.
- Challenges of spending too much time and energy on a small amount of accounts.
- Working smarter and hyper personalization. Average attempts at cold prospecting used to be four and now it is nine.
- Saving time using a template, but making sure that the person you are reaching out to knows that you are a person reaching out to them.
- The importance of having strong software that helps with followups.
- Making sure that sells people moving is a seamless experience for the company and the prospect.
- How OppSource simplifies the process of preparing for the sales workday using a smart technology solution.
- The importance of finding the most productive call hours.
- Having the ability to reach out to all of the decision makers and strategic selling.
Resources:
- Andy Zehren LinkedIn
- @AZehren Twitter
- OppSource
- Andy.Zehren@OppSource.com
The current trend with sales teams is moving away from generic messages and the batch and blast approach. The method that everyone's talking about and trying to focus on now is personalization. Customized methods can be incredibly difficult for an SDR to create. My guest today is an expert at personalization for sales teams and we discuss challenges and solutions for crafting personalized emails for effective sales.
On today’s show, I am speaking with Kristina McMillan from TOPO a research and advisory firm that focuses exclusively on sales and marketing organizations. They have dedicated practices for sales, sales development, and marketing. The focus is on market research, executive advisory, and the study of high-growth organizations to understand the processes, levers, and best practices that contribute to high growth.
Episode Highlights:
- Challenges with creating personalization at scale and having a repeatable structure that allow customization.
- The four stage messaging framework research, crafting the message, 2-3 touches a week, and using technology to automate.
- Knowing what to look for in the research stage.
- The three steps to crafting a message: setup, engage, and offer.
- The importance of understanding the role of the contact person.
- The offer should draw the client into the conversation to learn how I can help them.
- Using the touch patterns together with the framework. Sequencing and cadencing.
- Touch at least two to three times a week. A frequency that builds familiarity.
- Recognition and having a multifaceted profile for contacting a client.
- The importance of telling stories or having cliffhangers and persuasive copywriting.
- How people will respond when you offer something of value to them.
- Maximizing your return on effort.
Resources:
- TOPO
- Kristina McMillan on LinkedIn
- Kristina McMillan on Twitter @Lifeiterated
- TOPO Blog
- Analyst@TOPOHQ.com
There are a lot of definitions of sales enablement. What is it? How do we do it? Why does it matter? Having a process and mindset that extends across an entire organization can help enable salespeople to be successful. Still, it would help to have a clear plan and goal to get the most impact out of the enablement process.
Today, I have two guests Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey. Cory and Hilmon just happen to know a little bit about sales enablement. They are the authors of The Sales Enablement Playbook and they run ClozeLoop a sales enablement platform. They are based in San Francisco, and this is a fun and lively episode with two guests diving into the topic of sales enablement.
Episode Highlights:
- Cory and Hilmon share their definition of sales enablement and focusing on the prospect.
- How there isn’t a one thing silver bullet type solution to sales enablement.
- Every department needs to contribute to sales enablement.
- Having a mindset based on customer engagement where every team contributes.
- Having the customer conversation at the center of the bullseye. Then as the concentric circles move out there are other team members contributing.
- Understanding your messaging and how it relates to buyer personas.
- Pain points and features and how they relate to customer stories.
- Issues with a disconnect between marketing and sales. Creating micro content for the salespeople.
- The three types of sales conversations: lone wolf, scripting, or finding the sweet spot of the entire team's effort.
- Creating a playbook that allows a natural feedback loop.
- Knowledge management is about the conversations.
Resources:
- ClozeLoop
- The Sales Enablement Playbook
- Cory Bray on LinkedIn
- Hilmon Sorey on LinkedIn
When people in sales hear the word story, they think the focus is on marketing. What if I told you that there was a way for sales executives to use story to frame their sales conversations? Story can be used to explain what a company does, the value they deliver, and how they are different. Story can also be used to begin a conversation, continue a conversation, and feed that all important sales pipeline.
This week’s guest is Jim O’Gara the founder and CEO of Story Dimensions. Jim shares why he began his company. Along with how sales professionals can use story throughout their sales process, and how Story Dimensions can help automate, organize, and publicize the process. Story can be a valuable tool in the sales process, and Jim shows us easy ways to implement story into the process.
Episode Highlights:
- How Story Dimensions came into being and what they offer
- Lack of relevant customer stories and insights in the buying process
- Providing salespeople with a consistent stream of relevant stories
- Tactics for using story in different phases of the buying journey
- Connecting with buyers on a more human level
- Compartmentalizing the most relevant part of content
- Structuring content for salespeople to easily share
- Tracking usage and capturing analytics for matching stories and personas
- Account based selling and meeting with multiple stakeholders
Resources:
- Story Dimensions
- @StoryDimensions on Twitter
- James O’Gara on Twitter @jogara
- James O’Gara on LinkedIn
- Story Dimensions Live Demo
Starting a conversation is the first step in the sales process, and it is also a step that most salespeople would like to be more successful at. There are a lot of channels that can be used to start that all important first conversation, but today we are going to discuss an emerging channel that can generate curiosity and add that personal touch.
Today, I am speaking with Fernando Silva who is a solutions associate at Wistia which is really the same role as a sales development rep or SDR. Wistia is a professional video hosting platform that offers analytics along with video marketing tools. They also offer advanced marketing integrations for video that can help create the ultimate lead nurturing tool. I met Fernando at a conference, and I was intrigued with how he is using video to reach out and start conversations.
Episode Highlights:
- How Marylou tripled her response rates with cold video
- How Wistia targets large and small accounts but they focus on the SMB space
- Fernando works more on the inbound model of contacts who go to the website
- They use free accounts for signups, then they begin outreach with customers who fit their target personas
- SDRs reaching out and introducing themselves with video
- Researching the customer and their website and pointing out tips and suggestions in personalized video
- There is a learning curve to making great video, but Fernando can make about 30 in a 2 hour period
- Putting the word [video] in the subject line
- Touchpoints and replies help nurture the conversation with more embedded video
- The easiest way to get started is with the Soapbox Chrome extension
Resources:
- Wistia
- Soapbox
- mourasilva.fernando@gmail.com
- fsilva@wistia.com
Every business from solo entrepreneurs to small business owners and people working within larger businesses need systems to create consistency, make the work easier, and achieve better results. Today, I speak with Nancy Gaines the CEO and Founder of Gain Advantages on systems and the process of creating systems to free up time and money and create opportunities for businesses of all sizes to scale.
Nancy Gaines has been advising small businesses and Fortune 100 companies on how to increase revenues through proven systems for almost two decades. She is a best-selling author and international keynote speaker. Nancy has been named in the Top 100 Productivity Experts to follow on Twitter and has a global podcast downloaded in over 70 countries. Her main focus is creating business processes with actionable steps so her clients achieve more consistency, ease, and ultimate success.
Episode Highlights:
-
Nancy helps small business owners to scale
-
She creates systems and processes to avoid trading hours for dollars
-
Models for productivity that help us to scale
- Five systems in every business
- Following up with sales, marketing, operations, your team, and money
- Starting with systemizing your biggest pain point
- The 24 hours, 7 days and 30 day method for following up (24,7,30)
- The cold contact email method using video
- Following up with personalized cards and handwritten notes
- Customizing the cadence of follow up for different customers
- Chunking up tasks and doing similar tasks together
- Having a single focus and single task for phone time
- Working for 50 minutes and then taking a 10 minute break
- Taking time to think and ask questions about your business
- Delegating tasks that are below your pay rate
Resources:
- 100 Proven Systems You Need to Boost Results
- Nancy Gaines Website
- IBM
- Ernst & Young
- Soapbox
- Nancy Gaines Show
Building, training, and growing a sales team can be expensive and time consuming. New businesses and especially growing businesses will need a team to move the sales and business process foreword and generate revenue to continue the growth. Our guest today is someone who has come up with a solution to the problem of creating and growing a sales team.
Today, I speak with Stephen Hayes the founder of Inside Sales. Which is a group of on demand sales professionals that assist growing businesses with the sales process and with additional sales team help. This process is cost efficient with ready to go sales professionals that also bring tools, techniques, and technology that can be plugged into a growing business to accelerate the process.
Episode Highlights:
- How companies were struggling with building an inside sales model
- Stephen noticed the need and created the service solution for inside sales help
- They will often augment an existing sales team and help them scale
- They also help businesses that have no team or a sales bottleneck
- Demand generation, lead generation and opportunity generation
- With new companies they help build the entire go to market and playbook
- Importance of having systems in place to measure if the strategy is working
- They only work with products they like and believe in
- How being in too much of a hurry causes false starts and loss of credibility
- Having a full program up and running in 45 days is the timeline
- Sales cycles and learning curves could extend the timeframe
- It’s important to treat SDRs well and keep them motivated
- Tools used are multi touch, multi channel including phone and email and social
- They also have micro and macro events and direct mail
- Customized landing pages and video and animation are also used
- They also focus on great data sources that allow them to work at scale
- Revisiting lost leads
- Rewarding and empowering all representatives
Resources:
- Inside Sales
- Inside Sales Team Careers
Without prospects, there will be no sales. Yet, companies can struggle with incorporating prospecting into the sales process and getting people to balance the time spent prospecting compared with the all important task of closing the deal. This issue can be especially prevalent with leaner bootstrapped companies. Today, we will learn about an innovative method of solving this problem and attracting new sales talent.
Today, I speak with Patrick Rodgers who is VP of Sales at LearnCore a leading sales training and coaching platform that combines technology with people for optimum results. Patrick is leading and building the sales organization for this bootstrapped company. We talk about the idea of prospecting as a sales function and some of the challenges when expecting AEs to close and prospect.
Episode Highlights:
- Challenges of scaling a bootstrapped company
- Difficulty of finding AEs who would go through the entire sales cycle
- Starting a 9 - 12 month sales training focused on prospecting
- Learning the process from start to finish they became top producers
- The program allowed growth acceleration and attracted talent
- Getting a perspective from different sales representatives
- Sales roles in the sales funnel process
- Shadowing into different areas and hitting sales goals
- Opening doors for the team and making it an easier path
- Challenges getting AEs to value the meetings set up by SDRs
- Having a blueprint for AEs so that SDRs and AEs work together
- Moving from sheer will to habit when changing roles
- Breaking down the training perspective into a career path
Resources:
- LearnCore
- Patrick Rodgers on LinkedIn
- Patrick Rodgers on Twitter @P_Rodge
Sometimes old school sales people forget the importance of data. Nothing can help shape and guide the sales process better than having the right types of data. I have a wonderful guest today, who challenges the sales status quo and the ideas of what types of data are important and how to apply that data to the sales process. Then we dig even deeper into the data side of sales.
Jason Vargas works in the trenches as the Managing Director of Sales Development at Datanyze. If you aren’t familiar with Datanyze, you should check them out. Especially, if you are doing business development. They specialize in helping to find data for tracking, analytics, prospecting and more. Jason is on the rocketship of data analysis, and it shows as he shares new insights and more with us.
Episode Highlights:
- Identifying the rights types of companies and accounts to target
- Segmenting by other methods besides demographics
- Leveraging technology data or technographics
- Prioritizing segments by how sophisticated their sales methods are
- Finely tuning who we want to go after and target
- Maximizing everyone’s time by prequalifying accounts
- Focusing on the pre sales conversation instead of finding prospects
- Focus on the first meeting and taking that meeting to close
- Offloading the data finding process including accurate phone numbers
- Customization is important with large companies
- Automation and sales templates can save time with small companies
- Utilizing a database for mass personalization
- Having reps record and transcribe a call to use for an email template
- Hitting send and transforming a prospects day
- Metrics for outbound 20 emails and 20 phone calls
- Focusing on quality over volume
- Patient and persistence persuasion
- Outreach and finding out where people are on the ladder
- Startups should not have sales territories, but account profiles
- Looking outside the box and leveraging technology, process, and people
Resources:
- Datanyze
- Jason on Twitter @jasoncvargas
- Jason@Datanyze.com
- Jason on LinkedIn
- The End of Solution Sales - Harvard Business Review
The number one problem most sales people say they have is lack of pipeline. Yet, lack of pipeline is usually a symptom of other issues. The three key issues that affect lack of pipeline are having the wrong mindset, using the wrong narrative, and executing the wrong activities.
Today, I speak with LinkedIn’s most read author of B2B selling content. Tony Hughes is a sales improvement consultant and bestselling author. His new book Combo Prospecting: The Powerful One-Two Punch That Fills Your Pipeline and Wins Sales is available for pre-order and will be released in January of 2018. In our conversation, we attack the myths around prospecting and lead generation. Tony also shares some wonderful actionable tips that you can implement right away.
Episode Highlights:
- Treating predictable prospecting as a process.
- Separation of roles that actually work in large organizations.
- How sellers need to generate their own pipeline.
- Everyone in the organization needs to be prospecting and looking for referrals.
- Getting to a point where the sales process is a habit.
- After engaging with a client ask for a referral.
- Lead with why the conversation should matter and add value.
- Help, help, help and then ask.
- Ask is this email helping a prospects challenge? If no, don’t send.
- Speak to prospects at the level of a peer.
- Combo sell with phone, email, social, etc. using the right narrative.
- Buyers are interested in what is going on in their industry, provide value.
- Try to reach a range of people within an organization with the right narrative.
- More focus on customer experience and human engagement.
- Embracing technology and the way you sell. Being politely persistent.
Resources:
- Combo Prospecting: The Powerful One-Two Punch That Fills Your Pipeline and Wins Sales
- Tony Hughes on LinkedIn
- Tony’s Keynote Speaker Website
- RSVP Selling
- Tony on Twitter @rsvpselling
- Cracking The Sales Management Code : The Secrets to Measuring and Managing Sales Performance
As an Executive Coach and Consultant, Bryan Franklin has helped multiple businesses pass the one billion mark in revenue. His newest venture, OutboundWorks, is the marriage of the traditional SDR role and the future of sales -- Artificial Intelligence, or as Bryan calls it, Augmented Intelligence. In this episode we’re talking all about using automated tools in the sales process: How to implement them, how they’ll affect relationships with prospects, and what it means for the future of sales.
Episode Highlights:
- Bryan Franklin’s background and coaching track record
- What is Outbound Works?
- The future of selling: Augmented Intelligence and account-based selling
- Automating good habits
- Where does Bryan Franklin sit in the pipeline?
- Bryan’s process for Implementing an automated tool
- Will automation replace outsourcing?
- The future of automation and the phone
- Does automation mean the end of human relationships?
- Working with marketing
- Bryan’s ideal client profiles
Resources:
- OutboundWorks
- Connect with Bryan Franklin by visiting his website, sending him a message on Linkedin, or by following him on Twitter
As we march down the sales pipeline, the more information we have the easier it is to connect the dots in the sales process. Having more information and better data makes us more strategic, scalable, and consistent.
You are going to love today’s podcast because my guest is David Hoffeld, and he is all about the science of selling. He is the author of The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal, and he is the CEO and Chief Sales Trainer of the Hoffeld Group which offers science-backed sales training, coaching, and consulting. We are delighted to have him on our show today, because we love science, data, and research.
Episode Highlights:
- David tried to translate years of research on behavioral science and data into his book
- He became obsessed with science and the sales process and his numbers increased dramatically
- Incremental commitments guide customers through the sales process
- Architecting choices of buyers that will be made contextually
- Heuristics or mental shortcuts our brains make when we make choices
- Six commitments the brain makes for a sale to happen
- Aligning how you sell with how the brain makes buying decisions
- Higher perceived risk with one option as opposed to several options
Resources:
- The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal
- Hoffeld Group
- LinkedIn David Hoffeld
- Twitter @DavidHoffeld
- YouTube Hoffeld Group
As much as every SDR loves using technology and programs to help them connect with prospects, no one likes to spend valuable time filling out endless online forms and getting crushed by an avalanche of pre-set tasks.
Our guest today is Matt Bertuzzi, VP of Sales and Marketing Operations at The Bridge Group and author of Lighting Sales Ops, a book about how to make SalesForce work for you. We’re talking all about the top issues SDRs and managers face when using CRMs like SalesForce, and how you can tweak small points of conflict in the pipeline to reduce friction and close deals.
Episode Highlights:
- What inspired Matt Bertuzzi to write Lightning Sales Ops
- The issue every CRM faces
- Encouraging leaders to lean into new tools and thought processes
- Breaking down the concept of leads versus context and accounts
- How to reduce the amount of effort and friction in the pipeline while maximizing impact
- Eliminating “clicks” and letting the system do the work
Resources:
- SalesLock
- The Success Community
- The ButtonClick Admins
- Lighting Now Group
- Lighting Sales Ops by Matt Bertuzzi
- Follow Matt on Twitter @mattbertuzzi
How many times per day do you pick up your cellphone? We all do it -- mindlessly scrolling through our social media news feeds when we get a free minute, glancing over at every chime and vibration our phone makes throughout the day. While this behavior isn’t unusual, it’s definitely not beneficial. New research has shown that even these small interruptions are adding up to be huge distractions, sucking up tons of valuable time in the workday and leaving us feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
Today’s guest, Jill Konrath, is a recognized sales consultant and speaker whose new book, More Sales, Less Time is all about getting more done in the time that we already have!
Episode Highlights:
- An overview of Jill Konrath’s past books
- What can More Sales, Less Time teach us?
- Fighting distraction: How you can get at least one hour of your day back
- Escaping the email trap
- Taking a break and getting more done
- How to leverage trigger events
Resources:
- Unroll.me
- DiscoverOrg
- InsideView
- Lead411
Books by Jill Konrath:
-
Selling to Big Companies
-
SNAP Selling
-
Agile Selling
-
More Sales, Less Time
Visit Jill’s website for free ebooks and other resources
Our guest today is Alea Homison, Vice President of Sales Strategy at GLG Group. What makes Alea different from some of our other guests is that she is actively working on the frontlines of sales every single day, training members of her team on the newest practices in sales enablement. She’s here today to discuss her work with GLG, her unique 3-stage hiring process for new SDRs, and her advice for curating the best sales environment possible.
Episode Highlights:
- Alea Homison’s role and her unique process for training and new employees
- GLG as a case-study for selling a service
- Sales enablement and the SDR team
- Alea’s 3 stage hiring process
- Creating a positive team culture
- Why daily role-playing with your team is the best thing you can do
- Hyper-personalizing your messaging
- Alea Homison’s top advice for SDR’s beginning to work with sales enablement
Resources:
Connect with Alea Homison on Linkedin or email her at ahomison@glgroup.com
Have you ever said “no” to a client and walked away from a deal? Maybe you knew that your services weren’t a good fit for their pain, or that they weren’t ready to hear the solutions you presented.
In this episode we’re joined by founder and host of SalesTuners, Jim Brown. As a sales coach who specializes in every stage of the sales pipeline, Jim is an expert in client relations. He’s here to discuss his unique method of using upfront contracts: beginning a relationship by telling the client that either party has the right to walk away from the conversation!
Episode Highlights:
- The meaning behind the SalesTuner brand
- Learning through failure
- Qualification versus disqualification
- Creating an “upfront contract” with your prospects
- How to prepare for a team call
- Getting a client to close: Jim’s number one question to ask a client
- Self-diagnosing problem areas
- Funnel math
Resources:
Want more from Jim Brown? Connect with him Linkedin, follow him on Twitter, and check out the SalesTuner podcast!
Download the SalesTuner workbook for free by visiting http://www.salestuners.com/roadmap
Building sales pods is the latest fad to hit sales departments worldwide, but is it really the best way to set up your team? In this episode we’re chatting with Tito Bohrt, CEO of AltiSales and Chief of Sales Staff at AppBuddy, about his unique concept of architecture of the sales organization. Bohrt walks us through his philosophy on POD and round robin factory models of organization, and when the best time to use each is!
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Tito Bohrt
- Defining the POD and the round robin factory models
- When to use each type of organization model
- Client success stories
- When is the best time to implement a new organizational structure?
- Account based selling, prospects, and the POD and farming models
- Being pleasantly persistent
Resources:
- “Sales Pods - Nice in Theory, Not so in Practice” blog post by Tito Bohrt
The tech stack Tito Bohrt uses when building early stage sales teams::
- CRM: Salesforce
- Lead Research: Linkedin Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo and Hunter.io
- Sales Automation: Outreach.io
- Phone system: Outreach.io + Jabra Headset
- Pipeline Management: GridBuddy
- E-Signatures: Rightsignature
Why does he use these products?
- Salesforce: Good to start with this from day 1. There's no better CRM, and switching CRMs later can be costly
- Linkedin Sales Nav: The most up to date employees and titles to help you find Buyer Personas at your ICP
- ZoomInfo: The best source for direct lines, lots of accurate emails as well.
- Hunter.io: Good tech to help you guess emails if you don't find them on ZoomInfo
- Outreach.io: Allows the tracking of all KPIs for SDRs and has the dialer integrated. This is a must have for SDR teams at every B2B company. Very superior to SalesLoft when it comes to analytics and customizations
- Jabra Headset: Likely the best sound quality, but also pricey. If on a budget, any USB headset (even those for gaming) will be good enough.
- GridBuddy: GridBuddy gives you an excel-like interface to make sales reps lives easier and allowing sales leaders to capture all the data they need for accurate forecasts and analyzing KPIs. This is another must have if you are a data-driven company (and you should be).
- Rightsignature: All the e-sig capabilities you need for an affordable price.
Want more from Tito Bohrt? Connect with him on Linkedin or send him an email: tito@altisales.com
How many of us keep track of calls and personas using a process that feels way too complex and doesn’t deliver the desired results? Today we’re joined by Anthony Iannarino, international speaker, sales leader, and best-selling author. His new book, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to sell more and sell better. In this episode we’re talking all about the dangers of automating your sales process, and the research and science that backs up Anthony’s methods for creating an effective and lucrative sales process.
Episode Highlights:
- Understanding sales by using the OODA Loop
- Why successful prospectors have the mindset of a competitor
- When asking for a referral goes wrong: Why we can’t rely on technology to do our work for us
- “Automation is marketing, not selling”: Why you can’t automate intimacy
- Creating value for multiple personas
- Getting into an efficient sales rhythm
Resources:
- The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need by Anthony Iannarino
- Boyd by Robert Coram
- Robin Dunbar’s Research
- Check out Anthony’s website for daily blogs and his YouTube channel for daily videos
- Want to see Anthony speak? Follow his schedule with Outbound Conference
Every SDR gets nervous when picking up the phone to talk to a prospect. We get scared of pushing too hard and getting a rejection, and we worry about offending our prospect or making them uncomfortable. How do you manage your own disruptive emotions so that you have the ability to influence the emotions of other people?
On this episode of Predictable Prospecting we’re joined by Jeb Blount, founder and CEO of Sales Gravy and author of Fanatical Prospecting and a new bestseller: Sales EQ. We’re discussing how to push past the flight or fight response that comes up when talking to clients and how to manage the emotions that make prospecting difficult.
Episode Highlights:
- Jeb Blount’s inspiration for writing Sales EQ
- The fight or flight response in sales
- How to control your own fear and anxiety while on the phone with a prospect
- The Universal Law of Awareness in Sales
- Identifying the different types of intelligence and making them work for you
- Doing qualification the right way
- Walking away from a prospect that doesn’t value your time
- The differences between having discipline and having habits
- Jeb’s steps for continuing your education
Resources:
Books Mentioned:
-
Insight Selling by Mike Schultz and John E. Doerr
-
Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
-
Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Jeb Blount:
-
Fanatical Prospecting
-
Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal
-
Visit SalesGravy for resources from top sales professionals
- Check out Jeb’s personal website for blog posts and other content
- Follow him on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin
As sales professionals we’re often told to smile before speaking to a client so they can hear the friendliness in our voice, but how often are we trained on listening to the body language clues coming from the other side of the phone?
In this episode we’re joined by Nigel Green of Evergreen Consulting, a lifelong student of sales and the psychology of buying and selling. Nigel is an expert when it comes to understanding the power of listening in sales, specifically on the types of language we use while listening and communicating with a prospect.
Episode Highlights:
- Knowing when it’s time to “get serious”: How Nigel Green decided to focus on top of funnel
- Creating a framework for language listening
- Is it possible to read body language over the phone?
- Red Flags: 8 signs that you’re not listening to the prospect correctly
- Nigel’s top three techniques for connecting better with a customer
- Implementing a training and roleplaying schedule for your sales team
- More from Nigel Green
Resources:
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- Ask by Ryan Levesque
- Motivational Interviewing by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick
- Love Nigel’s philosophy on listening and want to learn more? Check out his 8 Ways To Master Client Resistance free PDF! You can also send him an email at nigel@nigelgreen.me
Have you ever taken a personality test to find out more about your strengths and weaknesses? Personality tests like the Myers-Briggs are great for revealing more about our inner selves, but they can also be useful when it comes to connecting with your prospects.
Our guest today is Dr. Diane Hamilton, author, speaker, and Emotional Intelligence expert. We’re talking all about the human side of sales – how to connect with a prospect based on their personality type, doing research before the first conversation, and building up relationships over time.
Episode Highlights:
- How can studying emotional intelligence and the psychology behind communications help us with sales?
- Diane’s method for identifying the personality type of a prospect within seconds
- Using social media research to create a personality profile
- Developing a relationship with a long-term prospect based on common interests
- Preparing for the first call
- Techniques for improving your confidence and tone in conversation
- Diane Hamilton’s radio show
Resources:
- “Your body language shapes who you are” TED Talk by Amy Cuddy
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- It’s Not You, It’s Your Personality by Dr. Diane Hamilton
- Want to hear more from Dr. Diane Hamilton? Visit her website for blog posts, videos, and information about her radio show! You can also connect with her on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter
We hear it over and over -- consumers today are being bombarded with messaging and content from all sides. It’s an information overload, and many businesses are struggling to cut through the clutter and target prospects in a loud and clear way.
Today’s guest is an expert and consultant that helps companies do just that. Jessica Mehring is the CEO of Horizon Peak Consulting and the creator of a unique service called the Content Lab, which trains marketers and content creators on how to craft the perfect messaging. How does she do it? Jessica’s method dives deep into the internal pain of the prospect, and her research-based content strategy strives to display the personality of your business.
Episode Highlights:
- The inspiration behind creating The Content Lab
- Why results are part of Content Lab’s mantra
- Fighting the content fatigue with targeted messaging
- What’s driving good content?
- Jessica’s pre-planning process for content strategy & utilizing the virtual focus group
- Client stories and experiences
- More than what’s on the surface: Digger deeper into prospect pain
- Identifying the important of open and click-through rates
- Following the customer’s emotional journey
- What’s next for Jessica Mehring
Resources:
- Horizon Peak Consulting
- The Content Lab
Prezi is the revolutionary new presentation software that’ll change the way marketing and sales professionals think about making connections with clients. What makes Prezi unique from a standard PowerPoint presentation? Prezi harnesses the power of visual thinking by creating a visual roadmap of the story you want to convey to a viewer. In this interview, we discuss the how and why behind visual thinking, using Prezi to track consumer engagement, and how to begin using Prezi in your workplace.
Episode Highlights:
- Tracking engagement
- How a tool like Prezi can shorten the sales cycle: Conversational Presenting
- Identifying how people think
- Retraining your brain to see the Prezi roadmap
- Customer examples
- Getting started with Prezi
Resources:
- Prezi Customer Stories:
-
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ugq__LYjuU
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIqfbd5o3C0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZErz6VRJduU&feature=youtu.be
As technology becomes a bigger and more necessary tool for doing business, Sales Development Reps who are still in the beginning stages of their career can find it difficult to truly connect with a prospect when using any form of communication other than email. The “human touch” component of sales is absolutely crucial to closing the deal with a client, but can it be taught to a new generation of SDRs?
Our guest today is Andy Paul, Founder of Zero Time Selling and host of the sales strategy podcast Accelerate!. We discuss how buyers form perceptions of SDRs, the importance of first impressions, and Andy’s process for engaging clients and connecting on a more human level.
Episode Highlights:
- Blending sales technology with a human touch
- When does a prospect first form an opinion about you?
- Creating a good first impression even with non-verbal communications
- Lock your cell phone in your desk drawer: Why multi-tasking won’t help you get more done
- Doing prep work for your first verbal conversation with a prospect
- Asking the right questions
- Making yourself different from the competition
- Breaking away from talking about the pain points of the client
- Speaking to the CEO like he’s your peer
- More from Andy Paul
Resources:
-
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
-
The Science of Selling by David Hoffeld
-
Resonate by Nancy Duarte
-
The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
-
Selling Fearlessly by Robert Terson
-
Want more from Andy Paul? Give him a call at (619) 980-4002, send him an email at andy@zerotimeselling.com, or connect with him on Linkedin or Twitter @zerotimeselling
- Check out Andy’s podcast, Accelerate!
In today’s episode we’re chatting with Mark Galloway of Oppsource, a unique sales development software that organizes your sales day, keeps track of your prospects, and outlines a campaign for engaging your top clients in deal-closing conversations. We discuss the inspiration behind Oppsource and how it can help you meaningfully connect with prospects in an increasingly digital world.
Episode Highlights:
- Why sales companies need to put money into mentoring, educating, and supporting their sales reps
- Understanding and implementing discrete account intelligence
- Mark Galloway’s background and Oppsource
- How Oppsource can quadruple your communication with prospects
- SDR touch sequences
- The ideal client
- Personalization versus automating contact with prospects
Resources:
- Oppsource Sales Development Software
Do you clam up when you finally get on the phone with your prospect? Or worse, do you follow a pre-planned script without letting your prospect get a word in edgewise? On this episode of Predictable Prospecting we’re joined by sales expert and host of the iconic Sales Babble Podcast Pat Helmers for a discussion on why listening is the most important part of sales. Pat shares his unique framework for qualifying sales leads, and walks us through his process for having a great conversation with a prospect. This episode is a must-listen!
Episode Highlights:
- Pat Helmer’s biggest qualifying pet peeve
- The SORT questions and the DUM questions: A framework for qualifying
- Why startup companies have a difficult time pitching their product
- How to begin the SORT and DUM process
- Closing the sale
- Letting go of the fear of silence
Resources:
- Pat Helmer’s worksheet for mastering the SORT and DUM framework:
- Sales Babble Podcast
In this episode we’re chatting with William Wickey, an expert in media and content strategy at LeadGenius. LeadGenius recently teamed up with Prezi and Ambition to release their 2017 Trends and Tech Guide for B2B sales and marketing professionals.
William is here to share insider tips and tricks for getting the most out of the information presented in the guide, who it can help, and how to implement these resources throughout your entire organization!
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing William Wickey
- The inspiration behind the ebook and who it can help the most
- How to best use the guide to impact your company positively
- Decoding account-based marketing: More than just a buzzword
- Using the guide to bring every division of an organization together
Resources:
- Download the FREE ebook, The 2017 Trends and Tech Guide for B2B Sales & Marketing
- Check out another free ebook from Lead Genius, Bridging the Gap:The Ultimate Guide To Account Based Marketing & Sales Alignment For Predictable Growth
How many of us actually meet with clients and prospects face-to-face to pitch our products and ideas? In the USA it’s almost unheard of to show up at your client’s door wanting to talk business in person. In Brazil, “neighboorhood selling”, or building relationships with prospects and your network by making in-person connections, is the standard way to do business. In this episode we’re chatting with Victor Bruno, a Brazil-based sales professional and teacher, for a discussion on how to harness the power of social tools and the importance of connecting with your network.
Episode Highlights:Introducing Vitor Bruno
- Using social tools to generate new business
- Selling with pleasure instead of pain
- Adding value and getting referrals
- Why Brazilians prefer face-to-face contact over phone selling
- Victor’s method for mastering social selling
- Advice for sales rookies
Resources:
- First Intent Screencast
- Predictable Prospecting Chapter Three Worksheet
- Want more from Vitor Bruno? Send him an email at chief@milestoneenglishcourse.com, connect with him on Facebook through the Milestone English Page, or send him a text on WhatsApp: +55 (that’s the Brazilian area code) 48 (Santa Catarina area code) 9080341615
Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it can save the sales rep! In this episode we’re joined by Deb Calvert, President of People First Productivity Solutions and an expert on asking the right questions to target buyers at the top of funnel. Deb explains her innovative DISCOVER method for asking questions, why you shouldn’t be afraid of negative feedback, and how to build trust and rapport over email communication.
Episode Highlights:
- How Deb Calvert began a career of questioning
- The D.I.S.C.O.V.E.R model of asking questions
- Asking questions that create value
- Scripts to follow
- Breaking down the acronym
- Leveraging questions with non-voice communications
- The data behind the movement
- Stop selling and start leading
Resources:
- DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected by Deb Calvert
- The Sales Experts Channel - BrightTALK
- People First Productivity Solutions
- Stop Selling and Start Leading
Want to chat with Deb? Email her at: deb.calvert@peoplefirstps.com
Quotes/Tweets:
“Questions are one of the fastest ways to build bonds and create trust and rapport with people” - Deb
“You have to try some things and not be afraid that questions will get negative reactions. They really don’t, not nearly as often as we think they will” - Deb
Did you know that as much as 95% of our decisions are made by the unconscious mind? For a sales professional, this means that nearly all of your selling power needs to be focused on connecting with a prospect on a deeper level than automated emails and trade show booths can provide.
In this episode we’re joined by the “Bruce Lee of Revenue Generation” himself, Erik Luhrs. As an author of the bestselling book Be Do Sale, creator of the GURUS Selling System, and a sought-after speaker and consultant, Erik is an established expert at using Neuro-Linguistic Programming to target the unconscious mind of prospects and create messaging that sets one business apart from the pack. Erik explains the philosophy behind NLP and why it works, his process to becoming the Bruce Lee of the business world, and how anyone can begin using his methodology to boost sales!
Episode Highlights:
- The Bruce Lee of Revenue Generation
- Tweaking Neuro-Linguistic Programming for sales and business: Neuro-Revenue
- Creating behavioral change in a buyer
- Selling to the conscious mind versus the unconscious mind
- How to start using Erik’s method in your business, no matter what your job title is
- Erik Luhrs’ ideal customer
- Stories from the field
- Selling to the “looky loos”
Resources:
- Be Do Sale by Erik Luhrs
- The GURUS Selling System
Quotes/Tweets:
“Sending a buyer 20 automated emails is kind of like trying to beat the person into submission to say ‘Yes’. Even if the person buys, they’re not buying happy. They just succumbed to the pressure” - Erik
“Humans function 99% subconsciously. When you’re trying to talk conscious and logic to people, the subconscious just shoots that stuff right down.” - Erik
“Either you take the path of most resistance, which is how everybody does it, or you take the path of least resistance, you get to the same outcome but one gets you there faster with a lot less expenses because you don’t have to keep posting, paying and praying, and it makes you a lot happier.” - Erik
“Do you truly love what you sell? Do you think it’s really valuable? If you don’t, then get to square one which is find a job selling something you do really believe in.” - Erik
Today’s guest is Patty Laushman, founder of Revenue Catapult and an expert at helping B2B companies create a sales process that puts their products in front of the prospects who need it the most. She’s here today to dispel the myth that salespeople can’t write good messaging, explain how a successful email marketing campaign will have your prospect excited to continue the conversation over the phone, and how she got started in the B2B market. This episode is a must-listen for any sales professional who wants to streamline their email engine and find a process that works!
Episode Highlights:
- Patti’s introduction to working with the top of the sales funnel
- Why salespeople shouldn’t back down from the challenge of writing compelling messages
- Benefits versus features in sales messaging
- “Warming up the chill” using email marketing
Resources:
- Revenue Catapult
- Connect with Patty Laushman on Linkedin
Quotes/Tweets:
“If you are focused on a niche you can craft a compelling message there. As long as the market actually wants to solve that problem.” - Patti
“I can’t write you a compelling story if you don’t have a compelling story” - Patti
“The email engine is a fabulous engine but if you put crap in it, you’re going to get crapped out of it.” - Marylou
There are plenty of different resources available for sales management and sales performance, but few that offer transparency, accountability, recognition for meeting goals, motivation for your team, and development opportunities quite like Ambition. Today we’re joined by Jeremy Boudinet, the Director of Marketing at Ambition and a key player in the AAISP. Jeremy describes how Ambition can be used by your sales team at every point in the pipeline, from connecting with prospect all the way to closing the sale. Sales Managers take note, this is one episode you won’t want to miss!
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Jeremy Boudient and Ambition
- Using Ambition: Marketing and Inbound Development Reps
- Ambition and Account Executives
- Sales management tools and working with the client
- The long-lasting positive results from using Ambition
Resources:
- Don’t miss my new webinar with Jeremy, The Sales Development Accelerator
- The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer
- Check out Ambition and the Ambition blog for more about this product
- Contact Jeremy by emailing him at jeremy.boudinet@ambition.com or by connecting with him on LinkedIn
Quotes/Tweets:
“Benchmarks keep you from being in the eleventh hour, 59th minute, questioning ‘Where am I relative to where I should be?’’ - Mary Lou Tyler
“You want your account managers calling your clients and not emailing them” - Jeremy
We’ve all been there -- you finally get your prospect on the phone, ready to have that conversation you’ve been chasing, and you just can’t manage to get the right message across. Or you’re trying to follow up with a promising lead, but the marketing content on your website just isn’t enough. How do you bridge the gap between sales and marketing? On today’s episode we’re joined by Matt Heinz, president of Heinz Marketing Inc, an expert at using conversation to reduce lag in the pipeline. He’s here to share his philosophy on creating a stronger content strategy and why sales and marketing departments have to redefine their working relationship.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Matt Heinz
- Why are we failing at creating content?
- Building a relationship with prospects
- How to create a better, more effective content strategy and sales process
- Who's responsible for content? Marketing or sales?
- Redefining the goals and responsibilities of marketing
- Identifying the growth
- Process Center marketing
- Putting your sales ego aside
Resources:
- Check out Matt Heinz’s company, Heinz Marketing, and follow them on Twitter
- Email Matt directly at matt@heinzmarketing.com
- Tune in to Sales Pipeline Radio for the latest tips and tricks on building your sales pipeline
Quotes/Tweets:
“There are an awful lot of marketers and salespeople who have great things to say and simply can’t get them across” - Matt
“Good sales is not just about nailing that call and nailing that conversation, it’s about doing that over and over and over again” - Matt
What would you say if someone told you your business could reach $100 million in revenue in just seven years? On this episode we’re joined by Daniel Barber, the VP of Sales at Datanyze. Daniel is an expert on analyzing the data of a business to determine where revenue goals should be set and how best to reach them, and he’s here today to share some of his best tips for 2017 revenue planning with our listeners.
Episode Highlights:
- Exploring the purpose of Datanyze
- 2017 Planning: Why planning around revenue makes the most sense
- The $100 Million Mark
- The future of specialization of the sales development team
- Top indicators of success
Resources:
Get in touch with Daniel Barber by sending him an email at daniel@datanyze.com, following him on Twitter, or connecting with him on LinkedIn
Quotes/Tweets:
“The year of specialization is definitely here”- Daniel
“We discovered a lot of numbers, again, planning is something that it’s like that New Year’s resolution. Unless you actually plan to do it and actually execute on it, it’s just that gym membership that just never really worked.” - David
This week we’re chatting with the Queen of Cold Calling herself, Wendy Weiss. Many of us struggle with using the telephone in a sales world that feels like it’s moved online – it’s hard to get a prospect to pick up the phone, and we’re so out of practice that we fumble with what to say when we finally reach them. It may sound crazy or outdated, but speaking on the telephone is still the most effective way to reach your prospects and have conversations. As a speaker, sales trainer, and author, Wendy has established herself as an expert in utilizing the telephone to connect with prospects and close deal after deal.
Episode Highlights:
- Why the telephone is the best sales tool you’ll ever use
- Overcoming fear of the phone
- Wendy’s steps for creating your ideal sales process
- Creating a sales script that works
- Cold calling in 2017
- The triangulation method for reaching your prospects
More From Wendy Weiss:
-
Check out Wendy’s top-selling books:
-
Cold Calling for Women: Opening Doors and Closing Sales
-
The Sales Winner's Handbook: Essential Scripts and Strategies to Skyrocket Sales Performance
-
Download Wendy’s complimentary eBook for sales managers, A Practical Guide to Getting Sales Teams to Prospect
- Sign up for Prospecting Mastery, Wendy’s live mentoring program for any sales professional who wants to improve their technique
- Visit Wendy on the web, or simply give her a call at (866) 220-4242
Quotes:
“Being on the telephone is the next best thing to being in front of your prospect”- Wendy
“If you need to sell more, you need to use the phone!”- Wendy
“Having a script while phone prospecting enables you to be the very best self that you can possibly be”- Wendy
This week we’re chatting with the CEO of Score More Sales and the president of Women's Sales Pros, Lori Richardson. As an expert in helping people become better leaders, build better sales teams, and ultimately increase company sales, Lori is here to explain the most common environments that breed sales issues and what you as a salesperson deserve from your manager. Lori is also a champion for women in the sales industry, and we discuss her reasons why companies aren’t getting the strong female job candidates they want and need.
Episode Highlights:
- Why Lori Richardson is so passionate about working in sales
- Pinpointing the pain of sales issues in a team
- The top triggers that breed problems in the pipeline
- The metrics of a good salesperson
- Coaching a sales rep
- Why women in sales are the next big thing
- Workplace assessments and coaching
More From Lori Richardson:
- Check out Lori’s company Score More Sales and follow them @scoremoresales on Twitter
- Visit Women Sales Pros on the web and follow @womensalespros on Twitter
- Want to speak directly with Lori? Send her an email at lori@scoremoresales.com
Quotes:
“It takes many ‘whys’ to get to the bottom of things”- Lori
“At the top of the funnel, companies are more alike than not”- Marylou
“You have to have somebody in your corner, specifically your sales manager, and they need to coach you and help you develop professionally”- Lori
“To see leaders who are both men and women, who are different ages, young and old, it’s really important to be able to see that because it helps people to better envision themselves in those position”- Lori
This week we’re chatting with Melinda Emerson, a consultant, author, and speaker otherwise known as “SmallBizLady”. Melinda is America’s #1 Small Business Expert and was selected by Forbes as the #1 Most Influential Woman for Entrepreneurs. Melinda is full of anecdotes, tips, and tricks from her 17-year career working with small businesses, and she’s here to share her expertise on connecting with entrepreneurs and having meaningful conversations.
Episode Highlights:
- The top challenges that Melinda solves for her clients
- 3 reasons why small businesses fail
- “Servicing the market” : Customer service for big corporations and small businesses
- Melinda’s strategies for improving retention
- How big corporations can best connect with small business owners
- Marketing and Sales for small businesses
More From Melinda:
- Follow her on Twitter @SmallBizLady
- Read her book, Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months
- Visit her on the web for consulting and speaking bookings, blog posts, and her store
- Connect with Melinda on Linkedin
- Want to speak with Melinda direct? Email her at melinda@melindaemerson.com
Favorite Quotes:
“Anyone will buy something once, but the goal is to get them to buy over and over again”
“The best way to build a trusting relationship is through communication, especially online”
“There’s 23 million small businesses. There’s only 1800 large ones”
“I believe your business should be working for you”
Many readers have reached out to me wanting to know my favorite parts of my new book, Predictable Prospecting, and my advice for tackling the process I’ve outlined. This week I’m breaking down Predictable Prospecting chapter-by-chapter and picking out the most important concepts you need to know, areas that have been updated since Predictable Revenue came out, and how to get the most from the book in terms of worksheets and add-ons.
Episode Highlights:
- The three key concepts and takeaways from Predictable Revenue that have stood the test of time
- Predictable Prospecting Chapter One: Understanding the SWOT
- Chapter Two: Ideal Account Profile
- Chapter Three: Ideal Prospect Personas
- My new Compel With Content framework for hooking your prospect
- The Levels of Awareness framework
- Chapter Seven: Measuring and Optimizing the Pipeline
- Chapter Eight: Tools of the Trade
- Chapter Nine: Managing a Sales Team
Resources From This Episode:
-
Predictable Revenue
-
Predictable Prospecting
-
Visit maryloutyler.com/swag for links to my webinars, worksheets, and documents discussed in this episode
- Can’t find what you need? Shoot me an email at tyler.marylou@gmail.com with any questions you may have.
Favorite Quotes:
“The Predictable Prospecting process is not something that you learn and then leave. You’re continually improving.”
“The biggest thing I can tell you is that you are all fabulous writers. You have the ability to write the perfect email, an email that’s going to cause people to lean into their computer and be completely excited that you have written to them.”
Today’s guest is Marc McNamara, Chief Enablement Strategist at The Value Shift, a company that presents a unique solution to the sales productivity challenge. We’re here to talk about Marc’s experience with team enablement, how to get the best out of your top-of-funnel conversations, and finding the root of your buyer’s behavior.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Marc McNamara
- What is a Chief Enablement Strategist?
- Understanding buyer behavior
- Generating meaningful conversations
- Finding the next step as a rep: Training and continuing education
- The nuts & bolts of building a repository
- How to track your best conversations
Resources:
Connect with Marc McNamara on LinkedIn, through The Value Shift website, or by emailing him direct at mmcnamara@thevalueshift.com
Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline by Marylou Tyler
Quotes/Tweets:
“Selling is an art and a science”- Marc
“Realize your prospects have a problem that can be solved, and then figure out how to uniquely add value to them.” - Marc
“Salespeople are about helping the customer”- Marc
“People, once they’re trained, will forget it all a week later”-Marylou
How do you become a strong leader? How do you encourage your team to be not just good, but great? My guest today is an expert on managing sales teams and the author of Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers: A Strategic Guide to Creating a Winning Sales Team Through Collaboration. Max Cates is here to discuss why sales managers should focus on continuous improvement, what separates the good managers from the bad, and using the Six Sigma process for eliminating defects and improving your team.
Episode Highlights:
- How Max Cates got started in sales management
- Discussing Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers**
- Why sales superstars make poor managers
- Implementing a tactical plan for your sales team
- The millennial sales team
- Six Sigma for sales
- The McKinsey Issue Tree
- Setting good stretch goals
Resources:
- Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers: A Strategic Guide to Creating a Winning Sales Team Through Collaboration by Max Cates
- Six Sigma
- McKinsey Issue Tree
- Connect with Max Cates on Linkedin
Quotes/Tweets:
“Great salespeople usually make poor managers” - Max
“The lone wolf manager can’t manage a millennial sales team. They like collaboration.” - Max
‘It’s a lot easier to be a successful leader than it is to be a poor manager.”- Max
“Stretch, but don’t overstretch when you’re making goals” - Max
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin – there’s a huge chance that your ideal customer has an account on at least one of them. As our role as business developers continues to evolve, the technologies and techniques we use to connect with prospects has changed as well. My guest today is Kurt Shaver of The Sales Foundry, an expert on leveraging social selling and using Linkedin as part of the sales process. We discuss how to research and connect with prospects on Linkedin, becoming an business expert on your social media platforms, and the essential skills all new sales development reps need to have.
Episode Highlights: * Why is social selling important? * The evolution of Linkedin: Outbound prospecting and inbound marketing * Inbound marketing for the new SDR * Broadcasting and curating * Essential outbound marketing skills for the new SDR * Working in time blocks while prospecting on Linkedin * Researching and using Linkedin as a disqualification machine * What does Kurt Shaver do?
Resources:
Connect with Kurt Shaver on Linkedin, follow him on Twitter, and visit him on the web at The Sales Foundry Quotes/Tweets:
“The primary function of Linkedin is lead generation”- Kurt Shaver
“When everyone is on a social network, each person is essentially a mini marketer”- Kurt
“Your number one priority is to leverage a common connection with your ideal customer”- Kurt
“Ten connections per day, 22 business days per month, means 220 more connections. That’s how you build your network” - Marylou
On this episode, I’m interviewed by my longtime friend and colleague Gabriel Padva. Gabriel is the founder and principal consultant at 30,000 FT Strategies, a company that focuses on helping companies communicate with their prospects. He is also a CRO at Revenue Accelerator Inc. We go in-depth into the role of the sales development rep, including how to hire them, train them, and promote them into upper management positions. We also discuss the do’s and don’ts of cold emailing, my must-have tools, and the best sales advice I’ve ever gotten.
Episode Highlights:
- Marylou’s process for identifying new prospects and driving sales
- Why is sales team specialization important?
- The evolution of the SDR
- Client metrics
- Understanding the ideal account profile
- Building your list
- Is the phone still relevant for the SDR?
- How to work the internal referral system
- Hiring the best SDR: References, interviews, and skill tests
- Critical KPI’s
- The do’s and don’ts of crafting cold messaging
- Must-have technology tools of 2016
- The best sales advice Marylou’s ever gotten
Resources: Gabriel’s question checklist for checking references of potential SDRs
Tool Recommendations: * Outreach.io * Tout * Sales Loft * Marketo
Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline by Marylou Tyler Quotes/Tweets:
“Always be testing, measuring, and pulling out data. Tell the truth.” - Gabriel
“Using the phone in combination with email and social selling is a great way to ‘warm up the chill’ of cold calling” - Marylou
“You are as equally important as the person that you’re trying to convince to try your product or service” - Marylou
Are you catching minnows when you want to be catching whales? Netting the high-value prospects requires engaging many different people in the organization in conversation. In this episode, I’m interviewed by Joseph Dager of the Business901 podcast. We discuss my new book, Predictable Prospecting, why cold calling is the best method of prospecting available for netting those whales, and how to encourage your sales team to embrace the cold calling process.
Episode Highlights:
- Mary Lou Tyler’s background and career path
- How to best use Predictable Prospecting
- Cold calling, personas, and outbound marketing
- Why do salespeople resist the cold calling process?
- Other methods of prospecting
- Leaving voicemails
- Getting past the gatekeeper
- After the sale: Reselling, renewing, and getting referrals
- Warming up the chill: Software recommendations
- How important is a process to a company?
Resources:
Joseph Dager and Business 901
Yesware Outreach.io
Toutapp
SalesLoft
Follow Marylou on Twitter and connect with her on Linkedin
Our guest today is Keenan, who is a sales expert, speaker, and owner of A Sales Guy, a leading sales management consulting company. We discuss his unique process for identifying the problems your business solves, the personal buying motivations of your prospects, and the key exercises and role play scenarios for connecting with your clients.
Episode Highlights:
- How to get your prospects to want to talk to you
- Selling to the current state, the gap, and the future state
- What critical problems does your business solve? Dissecting the product
- The buyer persona versus the personal buying motivation
- What should your first conversation with the buyer be about?
- Keenan’s epiphany moment
- The “wake up the chill” campaign
- Filling up your table
- The mobile dry cleaner: a practical example of Keenan’s philosophy
Resources:
- SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
- Visit Keenan’s website, A Sales Guy, for his blog and more information on booking Keenan as a speaker, consultant, or recruiter
- A Sales Guy Univesity
- Keenan’s Youtube channel
Quotes:
“If you want to get someone to pay attention to you, you have to know something they don’t know. You have to be the expert” - keenan
“The greater the gap, the more value there is to what you’re selling”- Keenan
In this episode of Predictable Prospecting, I’m interviewed by TinderBox on my predictions for the future of the world of sales and sales technology. We also discuss training sales teams to have meaningful conversations with prospects while using sales acceleration technology and the rise of social selling.
Episode Highlights: * What’s going to change in the world of sales in 2017? * Using technology to create meaningful conversation * Client tiers and personalizations * How do you train a sales team to connect with prospects? * Sales and the call center mindset * Social selling * Predictions for the fourth medium of selling
Resources: SalesLoft
Outreach
Inside Sales
Are you running a “one-man show”, where you do absolutely everything yourself – from building the pipeline to closing the sale? How effective is your current system?
On this episode we’re joined by Pleasant Rich, the Director of Enterprise Sales at Outreach, a team-based sales communication platform. We discuss the benefits and challenges of separating roles on the sales team, why you shouldn’t try to fill every role yourself, and how to make the transition between roles as seamless as possible.
Episode Highlights:
- Challenges with having more aware buyers
- Passing the baton from top of funnel, to sales, to close
- Working through the four categories of authority
- SDRs and BDRs
- The evolution of the 15 minute call
- How many opportunities can you really generate?
- Planning, testing, and executing
- Doing every role versus following a separation model: Pleasant’s experience
- Training and roleplaying
- Challenges, tips, and tricks to separating roles
Resources:
Outreach.io
Connect with Pleasant on Linkedin
Quotes/Tweets:
“Salespeople love to close and we love to put out fires and we love to hop on the things that are in front of us”- Pleasant
“Multitasking is common place in every company but it’s never the most effective thing to do.”- Pleasant
“The first opportunity you have to separate sales roles is when you should do it”- Marylou
Plenty of companies struggle with crafting the perfect cold email. It’s either too long, too short, too impersonal, or it just doesn’t connect with your buyer. Identifying what’s missing and how to fix it can seem impossible, but our guest today has the process down to a science.
We’re joined by Bob Kelly, my partner at Strategic Pipeline and contributor to my new book Predictable Prospecting. Bob is a leading chief strategist and sales expert, and an absolute genius at helping clients achieve maximum growth by writing the right messages to the right buyers. We discuss our work with Strategic Pipeline, current trends in account-based selling, and Bob’s best tips for crafting cold emails that engage your buyer. Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Bob Kelly
- Common marketplace trends: Products and ideal customers
- Sales conversations and buyer personas
- How to make the most of the current trends in account-based selling
- Engaging with the ideal contacts in a company: hyper-personalized selling
- Selling to multiple tiered accounts v.s. Selling to core accounts
- Strategic pipeline method
- The major faults of the CRM tool
- Bob Kelly’s top content generation techniques
- Upcoming challenges and predictions for the future
Resources:
Predictable Prospecting: How To Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline by Marylou Tyler Contact Bob Kelly by emailing him direct: bob.kelly@strategicpipeline.com or by visiting the Strategic Pipeline website
Recent studies have shown salespeople fail to make quotas when they don’t have the knowledge of their product to have a value-adding conversation with their clients. Where does this gap come from, and how can we close it to connect with our prospects?
Today’s guest is Max Traylor, a marketing consultant who specializes in sales enablement. We discuss how to best close the gap between marketing and sales, why millennials don’t trust the internet, and how to best personalize your sales content to target the prospects who matter the most.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Max Traylor
- What are the biggest obstacles for sales professionals to overcome?
- The gap between marketing and sales
- Why millennials prefer speaking to sales reps over researching on the Internet
- The technology gap in sales
- Knowledge is power: Learning to close the gaps
- Defining and tweaking the buyer persona
- Personalizing sales content on a small and large scale
- Targeting at the top of the pipeline
- What’s next for Max Traylor?
- Working on three tiers of accounts
Resources:
CSO Insights’ 2015 Sales Management Optimization Study
Visit Max Traylor’s website for blog posts, coaching and advising information, and video content
Email him at max@maxtraylor.com, connect with him on LinkedIn, or follow him on Twitter
Quotes/Tweets:
“Marketing’s number one consumer of their content is the buyer. But in fact there are two important audiences for the content: the buyer and the sales team”- Max
“Millennials don’t trust the Internet. We’re the first generation who grew up with it, and we don’t trust it”- Max
“Conversation is king”- Marylou
“We have a choice of who we sell to. We should put the work in to find out who’s going to be the most profitable and who aligns with our solution” -Max
“Stop going after the minnows. Go after the whales!”- Marylou
On this episode of Predictable Prospecting, we are joined by Mark Hunter, otherwise known as The Sales Hunter, a sales consultant and author of the must-read book, High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results. We discuss some of the top techniques outlined in his book, Mark’s opinion on the best time to call your prospect, and why prospecting is the most entertaining part of the sales process. With his infectious energy and wealth of knowledge, it’s easy to see why Mark Hunter is one of the most sought after sales consultants working today.
Episode Highlights:
- Mark’s motivation behind writing High-Profit Prospecting
- Different prospecting processes for different personas
- Chasing an outcome
- The worst strategy for prospecting
- Top three strategies from High- Profit Prospecting
- Cycling your sales calls
Resources:
-
Predictable Prospecting by Marylou Tyler
-
High Profit Prospecting by Mark Hunter
- Visit Mark Hunter at The Sales Hunter to book him for speaking engagements and read his blog. You can also follow him on Twitter
Tweets/Quotes:
“If you don’t prospect right, you can’t close right”- Mark
“Prospecting is absolutely the most fun part of the selling process for one very simple reason. If you believe that you can help people achieve a level of outcome that they didn’t think was possible, how can you not get excited about that?”- Mark
“The underlying solution for success in prospecting comes down to discipline and focus. If you’re disciplined and you have focus, it’s amazing how successful you’ll be”- Mark
“Bad sales people have skinny kids”- Mark
On this episode, I’m interviewed by Stephan Spencer of Marketing Speak podcast. We discuss the intersection of sales and marketing, the steps to building a successful pipeline, and my favorite marketing initiatives and social proofs. I also give Stephan Spencer tips on how to improve his conversations with prospects, my best book recommendations, and a few of my top coaching practices.
Episode Highlights:
- What’s new in Predictable Prospecting?
- Creating meaningful conversations: Email and voicemail
- Assembling buckets and creating a value grid
- Top account-based marketing initiatives
- Defining the funnel and key metrics
- Fit sequence and nurture sequence
- The Five-Step System
- CRM recommendations
- Top coaching tips
- Book recommendations
- Sales enablement
- Favorite forms of social proof
Resources:
- Predictable Prospecting by Marylou Tyler
- CRM Recommendations:
-
- Microsoft Dynamics
- NetSuite
- Book and Author Recommendations:
-
- Drayton Bird
- Joseph Sugarman
- Denny Hatch
- David Ogilvy
- How to Write a Good Advertisement by Victor Schwab
- Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins
- Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples
- Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz
- Six Principles of Influence by Robert Cialdini
- Visit Marylou Tyler on her website, download a free chapter of her new book at Predictable Prospecting, or connect with her on Linkedin. You can also Tweet her @maryloutyler
Our world today feels smaller than ever, largely due to advancements in communication and technology, making plenty of business owners wonder: Should I expand my services abroad? My guest today is Hans Peter Bech, author of the bestselling book Building Successful Partner Channels and managing partner of TBK Consult, a company that helps IT groups break into foreign markets. We discuss the intense planning and logistics behind expanding a business, how culture impacts sales, and Hans Peter Bech’s suggestions for anyone considering making the jump into a foreign market.
Episode Highlights:
- Who is Hans Peter Bech?
- Why you should take your company global
- Partner channels and foreign markets
- Challenges to expansion for IT companies
- How doing business differs from country to country
- Why planning is essential to expanding your business
- Hans Peter Bech’s top tips for going global
Resources:
-
Predictable Prospecting by Marylou Tyler
-
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder
- Connect with Hans Peter Bech on Linkedin, on the TBK Consult website, or by following him on Twitter
Tweets/Quotes:
“The value of an information technology company that can prove global potential and traction is dramatically higher than an IT company that only operates in a single country” - Hans Peter Bech
“Preparing a business plan is much faster and far less expensive than executing the plan”- HPB
“Understanding local culture is fundamental for designing effective business processes”- Hans Peter Bech
My new book Predictable Prospecting is set to inspire sales teams all over the world to reformat and build their B2B sales pipelines. Curious to know more about the writing process behind the book? This episode features a conversation with Jeremey Donovan, my co-author on Predictable Prospecting, as we discuss our reasoning behind writing the book and what we think sales representatives can get out of our methodology.
Jeremey Donovan is the Head of Sales Strategy at Gerson Lehrman Group. When he isn’t at his day job, you can find Jeremey serving as an adjunct professor at the NYU School of Professional Studies or writing and speaking about Public Speaking - his book How To Deliver a TED Talk topped the bestseller list both domestically and internationally.
Episode Highlights:
- Background : The “Why” behind Predictable Prospecting
- The effect of automation on sales
- Roleplay as a training tool
- Timeblocking in the workday
- The “Keep or Kill” technique
Resources:
Pre-order my new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
Check out Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, the book Marylou and Jeremey agree was fundamental to beginning their sales careers!
Connect with Jeremey Donovan on LinkedIn or through his website, Speaking Sherpa.
Quotes/Tweets:
“Roleplay every day”- Marylou
“If I had to point to a single factor as the key make or break in success - it’s timeblocking”- Jeremey Donovan
“There is no perfect subject line, there is no perfect email…. The thing that matters the most is personalization” - Jeremey Donovan
“Send quality down the pipeline so that the clients that you close bring in the highest revenue potential” - Marylou
Content is what moves a prospect through the sales pipeline. How do you know what content to create and when to deliver it? On this episode I discuss how to use thought stages to plan inbound marketing efforts. I believe that every sales conversation has the potential to provide valuable information. Tracking and using details such as prospect awareness and pain points helps fine tune content and increases conversions.
Episode Highlights:
-
Uncovering personality and pain points of ideal clients
-
How to learn from a “no”
-
The importance of a call to action
-
How to use immediate feedback
-
Identifying where a prospect is on the spectrum of awareness
-
Using thought stages
Quotes/Tweets:
"You owe it to the right markets to really reach and serve them." - Jay
“Ask meaningful questions, not vanity questions.” - Marylou
"All categories of buyers, all stages of buyers, they're not all worth the same." - Jay
On this episode of Predictable Prospecting, Marylou Tyler herself is interviewed by Andy Paul, host of the sales podcast Accelerate.
If you’ve ever wondered about the process of writing Predictable Revenue and Predictable Prospecting, Marylou’s thoughts on the true role of Sales Development Reps, and her top tips for identifying your ideal customer, then this is an episode you don’t want to miss!
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing MaryLou Tyler
- Writing Predictable Revenue with Aaron Ross
- Is Predictable Revenue still relevant?
- Intraday calling and fearing the phone
- The inspiration behind Predictable Prospecting
- Sales Development Reps: usage, burnout, and hand-off points
- Targeting companies with the fastest velocity and highest lifetime value
- Ideal prospect personas within the pipeline
- The five levels of awareness
- Varying methods of outreach
- How Marylou would fix stalled sales fast
- Marylou Tyler’s top attributes
- Must-read books and favorite music
Resources:
- Predictable Prospecting by Marylou Tyler
-
- Send Marylou proof of purchase to get access to her presentation of a completed prospect persona
- Lead Generation for the Complex Sale by Bryan Carroll
- Mark Hunter
- SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
- Getting to ‘Closed’ by Stephen Schiffman
- Visit Marylou Tyler on her website, download a free chapter of her new book at Predictable Prospecting, or connect with her on Linkedin. You can also Tweet her @maryloutyler
On this episode of Predictable Prospecting we’re joined by Jeb Blount, founder and CEO of Sales Gravy and author of Fanatical Prospecting. A leader in Sales Acceleration, Blount’s unique approach to prospecting makes him a sought-after trainer, keynote speaker, and advisor. Join us as we discuss his personal sales philosophies, the lessons he’s learned from advising million-dollar companies, and the techniques you can start using today to strengthen your pipeline and boost your revenue.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Jeb Blount
- Why balanced prospecting is the best technique
- Targeting direct and indirect influencers
- Voicemail as a marketing tool
- Jeb Blount’s method for improving sales
- How sales has changed over time
- Using empathy
- Why smart companies constantly train their employees
Resources:
- Predictable Prospecting by Marylou Tyler
- Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling by Jeb Blount
- Sales Gravy University
- Connect with Jeb Blount on his blog, Twitter, Youtube, personal Facebook, professional Facebook, and Instagram. You can also send him a connection on Linkedin
- Sales Gravy Podcast
- Email Jeb at jeb@salesgravy.com or call him direct 1-888-360-2249
So you’ve read the books and you’ve taken the classes, but something about predictable revenue and prospecting isn’t working for you the way you’d like it to. Maybe you’ve seen some success but it hasn’t been quick enough or at the level you want. Maybe you’re a startup struggling to get the system in motion. Today’s guest has the perfect solution for you! Alicia Anderson provides the key to the process as a prospecting outsourcer. Not to be confused with a lead generation service, Predictable Revenue outsourcing builds custom client target lists, develops the conversation, finds the ideal clients, and is with you every step of the way when building your ideal pipeline.
Alicia Anderson began her career as a fashion merchandiser. After reading Predictable Revenue and training with Aaron and I, Alicia entered the sales world as a B2B sales coach and strategist. As part of her role with Predictable Revenue, Alicia specializes in creating engaging content that encourages the customer to lean into the product.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Alicia Anderson: from fashion to prospecting
- Fast-tracking prospecting
- Handoffs and 3-15 process
- Building a sales stack from an outsourcing perspective
- Coaching
- Levels of email personalization
- The future of Predictable Revenue
Resources:
Predictable Revenue
Connect with Alicia Anderson on LinkedIn or send her an email directly - alicia@carb.io
Many of today’s startups have either time or money, rarely both. That leaves the minimal staff to handle important tasks that are usually completed by a dedicated (educated) team. How does the CEO of a lean startup write compelling sales copy on his own? Joanna Wiebe created Copyhackers to ensure that startups have a place to learn how to communicate with their audience.
Joanna Wiebe is the founder of Copy Hackers; an online resource dedicated to teaching startups how to write compelling web copy. Joanna left a position as a corporate copywriter to pursue her love of helping startups. In addition to informational products for startups the site offers certification courses for copywriters. Joanna loves the hunger of startups and is committed to growing her resource into a multi-million dollar business.
Episode Highlights:
- What were Joanna’s first thoughts about the title of “copywriter”?
- How did Joanna’s education in Humanities influence her teaching?
- When should a startup begin considering copy?
- The emotional “journey” of a/b testing
- How does Joanna keep her skills sharp?
- What does Copyhackers future look like?
Resources:
CopyHackers
CopyHackers for Hire
Airstory
Contact Joanna with questions and feedback at: joanna@copyhackers.com.
Follow Joanna on Twitter
Thanks for listening! (**include Marylou’s contact info, iTunes review link, website, etc.)
For the 21st century professional, an insatiable desire to learn is crucial for staying afloat in an ever-changing market. The face of sales and marketing has seen big changes due to technology, but the constant introduction of new apps and tools can make some sales teams feel overwhelmed by the sheer mass of new information. So how do you build your skillset and education without getting lost? Companies like Sales Hacker Inc. make it easy for sales reps and developers to learn about and take advantage of these tools and techniques by hosting conferences, facilitating workshops, and compiling information for companies big and small.
Jake Spear is a leading sales executive with Sales Hacker Inc. After beginning his career as a management trainee for a semi-trailer leasing company, Jake Spear used his skills in cold calling and prospecting to move into tech sales and bring his experiences to Sales Hacker’s conferences and consulting.
Episode Highlights:
-
Jake Spear’s sales journey
-
Importance of continuing your education
-
Putting the right person in the right sales role
-
Know your audience: non-tech vs tech sales
-
Sales Hacker June 2016 and November 2016 conferences
Resources:
Sales Hacker
Read Sales Hacker Blog Posts & Educational Resources
Request to join the Sales Hacker Linkedin Group
Contact Jake Spear: jake@saleshacker.com
Podcast Listener Discount Code
Advancing the sales process from lead generation until the deal is closed is full of potential hiccups and nuances that many reps struggle to master. Our guest today has over thirty years of experience with qualifying and moving prospects all the way down the pipeline.
Brad Williams is the President of Doextra CRM Solutions, a partner company to Sales Force, that helps businesses implement software and technology to improve the sales cycle. Join us as we discuss the book that influenced both our careers,why CRM won’t help you without a sales system in place, and tips for re-organizing and recognizing dead opportunities in your pipeline.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Brad Williams
- Why we love the Getting to Closed process
- How Doextra uses Getting to Closed to solve dysfunction in sales
- The most common mistake businesses make
- Technology and the “parked” prospect
- Red flag sales skills
- Why active listening and role playing are still the perfect training tools
Resources:
Any questions for today’s guest? Contact Brad Williams by emailing him at bwilliams@doextra.com or by visiting the Doextra website.
Getting to Closed by Stephan Schiffman
Lightning Experience by Salesforce
Kanban Board overview
Keeping the data in your pipeline fresh is crucial for running a productive system, but too many of us allow our data to get old and obsolete, clogging up the pipeline and hurting sales. Technology can help keep your contacts updated, but it’s far from a perfect solution.
My guest today is Donato Diorio,the Co-founder and General Manager of Data Services at RingLead, a company that offers the tools you need for your company’s contacts. We discuss the problem with thinking cold calling or cold emailing is dead, tips for tracking your numbers and pacing your interactions with leads, contacting multiple influencers to move prospects through the cycle, and the culprits that are keeping good sales processes down.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Donato Diorio
- Why email and phone conversations aren’t dead yet
- How a 3x3 approach can boost your outreach
- Data, technology, and outreach
- Bridging the gap between sales and marketing
- Lead generation and data for start-up companies
- Challenges with building buyer personas
- Voicemails
Resources:
Donato Diorio’s Voicemail Webinar
Donato’s blog
Connect with Donato on Linkedin or by emailing him at dd@ringlead.com
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen
It’s easy to send a form email to a new prospect, but the key to building a pipeline is to connect with your prospects by having real conversations over the phone. Genuine moments of connection happen when a consultant truly knows and understands the pain points and persona of the buyer, but this process is much easier said than done.
My guest today is Evan Jones, Head of Business Development at VoxGen. As an expert in lead generation, marketing, and managing accounts, Evan discusses his methods for communicating with prospects, and shares his best advice for generating the leads that matter.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Evan Jones
- Emails, phone calls, and texting - communicating with the prospect
- How to be a consultant with a purpose
- United States versus European prospects
- Owning the buyer persona
- Creating the perfect wrap-up note
- Evan’s top advice for lead generation representatives
Resources:
Connect with Evan on Linkedin, by emailing him at ejones@voxgen.com, or by calling/texting him direct: (813) 453- 7479
The new book from Marylou Tyler, Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline, is available now!
Today’s guest is Steven Wagner, founder and CEO of Sales Ignition, a company that helps sales teams start conversations with their ideal customers for consistent growth. Sales techniques of the past are giving way to new, more efficient predictable prospecting methods. Join us as we discuss Steven’s tips for finding your perfect prospect list, why focusing on the tools in your sales stack is hurting your business, and how to tailor your message to reach the customers you want.
Episode Highlights:
- Steven’s background in software, sales, and outreach
- The death of the trade show
- Why you shouldn’t worry about your sales stack: Tips for the first-time prospector
- Crafting the perfect message
- Steven’s value grid system
Resources:
Value Grid
Contact Steven by emailing steven@sales-ignition.com or by visiting Sales Ignition
Marylou Tyler’s new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline is now available!
While we might all be in different types of sales, we can learn plenty about conversation, influence, and leadership from each other. On today’s episode, Steve Underwood and I discuss all aspects of the sales business, from building a sales pipeline to the power of meditation and gratitude in your daily life.
With a family background in car sales, Steve Underwood began his career in the auto industry before moving into technology sales. Steve is currently the account executive at Workfront, a project management software company, as well as a dedicated podcaster and mentor. In his free time, Steve enjoys learning new languages and hanging out with his family at the beach.
Episode Highlights:
- Steve Underwood’s background and journey
- Efficiency vs Effectiveness
- Distinctive roles in the sales and development teams
- Building a predictable pipeline
- Roleplaying, weekly reviews, and post-mortems
- Handling a loss
- Documenting calls and other data: how to reduce lag
- The power of a positive mindset and meditation
Resources:
Workfront
Visit Kick SaaS Sales, Steve’s podcast and website
The Five Minute Journal - daily gratitude journal
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
The Miracle Morning for Salespeople
Pre-order Marylou Tyler’s new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
Having an impact with your marketing message requires understanding. Your ideal buyer is more than their basic demographics. Our guest Samuel Woods is a growth marketing expert who helps clients experience consistent growth. Clients establish an effective funnel and create powerful campaigns by first gaining a comprehensive understanding of a buyer’s psychographics.
Samuel Woods transitioned from the design world to growth marketing and created an agency specializing in conversion copywriting. Creating copy that converts requires that we move beyond ourselves to connect with our target buyer at every stage of the buying cycle. In addition to providing value it’s increasingly important that every campaign message is crafted with the human in mind. Using a buyer’s language to address concerns is a powerful method that Samuel teaches clients and discusses with us today.
Episode Highlights:
- Why sharing benefits is not enough
- Understanding the language of your ideal buyer
- The importance of rooting your campaign messaging in buyer language
- Samuel’s discovery exercise
- Exploring buyer’s motivations
- Testing to validate message language
- Remaining agile through processes
- Leveraging the power of email by spacing touch points
Resources:
Samuel J Woods
Response Copy
Connect on LinkedIn
Follow Samuel on Twitter
We’re all familiar with the famous proverb: “It takes a village to raise a child!” As more entrepreneurs launch their own startup company, perhaps the phrase should be changed to “It takes a village to make a business!” Community between entrepreneurs has become more important than ever as those with great ideas search for the people who can make their dreams come to life. In today’s episode with market specialist Jorge Soto we discuss the benefits of community, leadership style, and the new markers of success.
Jorge Soto is a self-proclaimed startup fanatic who focuses on inspiring and motivating the new entrepreneur. After leaving Twitter to work as a consultant for Node.io, a new kind of database, Soto launched Sotoventures Media which functions as a community for entrepreneur education. Soto believes in the power of a good leader and strives to encourage startup entrepreneurs and sales reps alike to break their own barriers . In his free time, Jorge enjoys painting and playing guitar.
Episode Highlights:
- Jorge Soto’s journey from Twitter employee to start-up motivator
- Fundamental truth in sales
- How do you become a fantastic leader?
- Inspiring the entrepreneur
- Marylou discusses the process of writing her new book
- Benefits (and struggle) of talking on the phone
- Arming yourself - Getting in the right mindset for sales
Resources:
Sotoventures Media - Jorge's Entrepreneur Community
Node.io
Pre-order Marylou Tyler’s new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
Connect with Jorge Soto on Twitter @sotoventures or by shooting him an email : jorge@sotoventures.com. You can also find him on Linkedin.
Getting a startup tech company off the ground and into the public sphere is no small feat, but having a team of great sales reps makes it infinitely easier. But how do you build a sales team from scratch? Focusing on hiring the doer instead of the thinker is part of creating a team, but the real key lies in hiring sales reps who actually care about the customer base they communicate with. Join me in a conversation with Kevin Chiu as we discuss the secrets to tech startup success.
Kevin Chiu is the manager of Sales and Operations at DigitalOcean, a new cloud infrastructure provider, and is the man behind DigitalOcean’s first ever sales team. Chiu’s tech sales background was built by working with companies such as Greenhouse Software and FiveStars. When he’s not hosting the NYC Sales Hacker meetups or working on his Linkedin page, Kevin enjoys writing blogs and listening to podcasts.
Episode Highlights:
- Background on Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline
- Building a strong team- hiring the builder instead of hiring the architect
- How to find the ideal customer and keep them with your company
- Social Selling
- Selling within the Pipeline
Resources:
DigitalOcean
Influential article from First Round Review
Follow Kevin on Twitter @kvn_chiu or connect with him on Linkedin
Sales Hacker June 2016 conference - Sales Machine Summit
Pre-order Marylou Tyler’s new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
Many sellers have no idea how to begin talking to a new customer. Instead of creating honest dialogue, businesses jump into a sales pitch and lose the trust of the prospect. A good conversation begins by understanding the customer’s pain -- what core problem do they need help solving? Searching for customer feedback and developing dialogue is the first step to creating messages that speak to the heart of what the customer wants, but analyzing and using this data is where businesses stumble. Copy that reassures a customer of the value in your product is key to engaging them on a deeper level.
Jennifer Havice is a copywriter who specializes in helping businesses create meaningful conversations with customers while still maintaining their own brand and personality. Her new book, Finding the Right Message, is aimed at conveying the value of your product by understanding what the customer needs to hear. When she’s not speaking at conferences or writing compelling copy, Jen enjoys horseback riding and eating chocolates.
Episode Highlights:
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Collecting data on customer conversation
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Understanding the customer’s core problem
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How to find places where customers are talking
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Using customer voice research to create a compelling lead
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Analyze your own website
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Create the story that inspires trust between you and the customer
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Conveying value
Resources:
Make Mention Media
Finding The Right Message: How to turn voice of customer research into irresistible website copy
Follow Jen on Twitter
One of the most important factors in building a predictable pipeline is continuing the conversation with prospects. My guest today is Kyle Porter, the founder and CEO of SalesLoft, a company dedicated to turning target accounts into customer accounts.
Kyle is an expert in helping companies integrate new tools and technology in their current systems to begin conversations with the buyers that matter. We discuss how targeting prospects in your market is changing, why and how you should start the conversation at the top of the funnel, and where to begin when developing your sales stack.
Episode Highlights:
- Technology and the salesman: how our industry is changing
- Targeting your prospects
- Connecting with the person who doesn’t sign the check
- Creating frequent touch points with buyers
- Software and technology
- Reducing lag in the pipeline
- Preparing for adding new tools to your process
- Understanding the equation of connection
- Death of the average salesman
Resources:
“Why Software Is Eating The World” article by Marc Andreessen
The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influenster Who Can Multiply Your Results
TOPO
The Sales Development Playbook free download from SalesLoft
Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline by Marylou Tyler
Sales Stack Technology:
SalesLoft
InsideSales
Data.com
Sugar
TinderBox/ Octiv
Adobe Echo Sign
Outreach
Connect with Kyle Porter on Twitter or by emailing him: kyle@salesloft.com
All great sales professionals have one thing in common: they never stop learning. Even the most veteran leaders are looking for educational resources to help them succeed, especially in our current sales industry. How can you stay on top of your game when the sales techniques and technologies you used to trust have become obsolete? Join today’s guest, Max Altschuler, and I for a conversation on resources, sales paths, and community.
Max Altschuler is a speaker, author, and the founder of Sales Hacker, Inc. an educational sales resource. Sales Hacker, Inc. produces the popular website saleshacker.com as well as events and conferences that foster community engagement. Besides his work in the sales industry, Max is also passionate about helping military veterans and animals. He is the co-organizer of PushUpCharity, which has startups competing against each other in a pushup challenge. All proceeds go to charity!
Episode Highlights:
- Sales Hacker: Max’s inspiration for creating the company
- Who can benefit from additional training?
- Getting the most out of new sales technology
- Finding a customer profile & sales stacking
- Following the proven path
Resources:
Sales Hacker
Follow Max on Twitter @MaxAlts
Connect on LinkedIn
Check out Max’s book Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High-Velocity Sales Machine, now updated & revised!
As an expert in sales education, Max Altschuler mentioned a number of different books and software for the sales professional:
Node.io
Crystal Knows
The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
Predictable Revenue by Marylou Tyler and Aaron Ross
The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi
The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge
The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
An effective sales process brings a prospect on as a partner; working together to solve their issue. This ideal situation requires that their expectation is set and they commit to the solution. Today’s guest is Ash Alhashim a self described “marketing oriented sales person” who is an expert in all things sales process. Ash believes that the entire funnel should be connected to motivate those in a nurture cycle and shares his tips with us on how to achieve that.
Ash Alhashim is the founder of Brown Flag Group, a consulting group that helps businesses grow through effective sales and marketing. Besides his own site, Ash also contributes regularly to the Sales Hacker blog and finds time to connect on social media.
Episode Highlights:
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The importance of setting expectation early in buyer cycle
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Ash’s thoughts on linear progression
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Which actions indicate a prospect is ready to move out of nurture
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Behavioral cues that signal readiness to progress through cycle
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Respecting levels of awareness
Resources:
Ash Alhashim’s Website
Brown Flag Group
Sales Hacker Blog
Follow Ash on Twitter
What if a company is great at closing deals, but not so skilled in beginning the conversations with the prospects they need? A predictable pipeline is built on the foundations of habit and consistency, and can take more than a couple of weeks to properly develop. A business that struggles to reach the prospects they need might feel doomed to fall further and further behind their goals, and that’s exactly where today’s guest comes in. Join Stefan Boyle and I for a discussion on how to effectively generate sales leads on your own, and how to know when it’s the right time to hire a professional for the job.
Stefan Boyle is the founder and Managing Director of PrintRepublic, a UK-based online printing business. Boyle is also the force behind Marketing Republic, a B2B Lead Generation Agency that works with companies to bolster high conversion leads. When he’s not at work, Stefan enjoys both reading and writing books.
Episode Highlights:
- Introducing Stefan Boyle
- Crawl, walk, run: generating sales leads
- Starting the conversation and handing it over
- The business of interrupting
- Inbound versus outbound outreach
- Should you outsource prospecting to someone else?
- Time length for prospecting
Resources:
Marketing Republic
Visit Stefan’s website and blog: Outreach Formula 2.0
Check out Stefan’s books : How to Be a Social Media Superstar and From Ordinary To Extraordinary: How I Transformed My Business In 12 Months And How You Can Too!
Connect with Stefan on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter @MKTGRepublic
Pre-order Marylou Tyler’s new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
If a sale requires risking political capital, how do you establish trust? Our guest Mark Kosoglow is an expert in outreach and here to share his success tips. Mark believes that effective outreach requires multiple contacts. These contacts are done through a variety of channels and ultimately lead to a sales pipeline. Today we discuss how to provide high value content during outreach while balancing efficient automation and personalization.
Mark Kosoglow is the VP of Sales at Outreach.io a SaaS tool that empowers sales teams through intelligent automation of outreach processes. Mark believes that it's important to communicate with contacts where they live. Effective contact cannot be limited to one channel or a fully automated sequence. Personalizing content and bumping emails dramatically raises the success rate of outreach. Every line read is a step closer to qualifying a sale.
Episode Highlights:
- Testing to find the right process
- Tiering to determine who is in buying motion
- Using a “bump” to increase replies
- Communicating where they live
- Varying call times to connect via telephone
- Personalizing the sales conversation email
- Using time blocks for efficient calling
Resources:
Connect on LinkedIn
Email Mark at: mark.kosoglow@outreach.io
How do you capture the attention of someone you’ve never met in a way that encourages them to respond? Starting conversations with people we don’t know is the most difficult and the most crucial part of building a successful pipeline, but too many companies see dismal response rates to their cold email templates. Today’s guest holds the secret to creating copy that speaks to the desires, fears, and personalities of your customers to engage them in a whole new way.
Heather R. Morgan is the Founder and CEO of Salesfolk, a company that helps salespeople create compelling cold emails that lead to three times the responses from customers. Heather began her career as an economist working internationally before entering the business development field.
Episode Highlights:
- How Heather Morgan went from sending letters to her favorite children’s book authors to becoming the CEO of Salesfolk
- Preparing for the cold email: doing research on the audience
- Heather’s tricks for writing a personal email to someone you don’t know
- Getting into the mind of your audience & finding the “Dream Customer”
- Crafting a focused email: sequencing and targeting every customer
- The five levels of awareness
- Keeping the element of mystery while being direct
Resources:
Love Heather’s method to cold emailing? Sign up for the Salesfolk Cold Email Mastery Course or contact Salesfolk about consulting.
Connect with Heather on LinkedIn, Tweet to her @HeatherReyhan, or send her an email directly:
heather@salesfolk.com
Why are salespeople depicted as slimy money-grubbers instead of as the brand representatives we know we are? As the industry changes it’s important for the modern sales professional to change with it, abandoning the old idea of building sales and marketing from the inside out in favor of connecting with the buyer’s journey to sell from the outside in.
Today’s episode covers new techniques for sales reps to engage with prospects -- you’ll be surprised at what common mistakes our guest thinks you’re making!
Mark Roberge is a lecturer at the Harvard School of Business and the Chief Revenue Officer at HubSpot. His bestselling book The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million covers his approach to building a sales team and increasing revenue.
Episode Highlights:
- Who is the modern salesperson?
- Buyer behavior & empowerment
- Understanding the buyer journey
- Relationship between sales and marketing within persona development
- Becoming a stronger sales rep: Sales Methodology
- “First in Ten” technique
- Writing data-based emails in a personalized way
- Changing the image of the salesperson
Resources:
Check out Mark Roberge’s bestselling book The Sales Acceleration Formula
Tweet him @markroberge or connect with him on Linkedin
Pre-order my new book Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline , out on August 19th 2016!
Buyers are more than demographic statistics. They have sophisticated needs and are frustrated when companies fail to understand. Effective marketing requires alignment with the entire buying journey.
To achieve this goal many marketers use the information in a buyer persona to guide sales interactions, advertisements, and content. Gaining true insight into the buyer’s journey takes far more than compiling search data.
We will discuss how to create effective buyer personas with today’s guest Adele Revella.
Adele Revella’s mission is to educate marketers about how to harness the power of buyer personas. She’s spent over two decades in marketing perfecting marketing tools such as personas. Her experience led her to develop the Buyer Persona Institute.
With available content, workshops, and the Buyer Persona Masterclass the Institute utilizes the power of buyer interviews to teach modern marketing mastery.
Episode Highlights:
-
Goals of an effective buyer persona
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How to utilize personas for sales funnels & automation
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Is the buyer’s journey a linear process?
-
The fundamental question to ask when creating content
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Why are buyers reducing engagement with marketers?
-
What do studies show about the main buyer influence?
-
Guidelines for discovery interviews
Resources:
Buyer Persona Institute
Buyer Persona Masterclass
Buyer Personas Book
Follow Adele on Twitter
When your goal is to double sales productivity AND increase happiness the insight of a sales strategist is key. Our guest today is Jeremey Donovan the Head of Sales Strategy for the Gerson Lehrman Group.
Jeremey believes that goals in sales and improving staff happiness can be achieved simultaneously. He views his position as that of a service professional with a goal to make the sales staff’s jobs easier.
Jeremey Donovan was once an electrical engineer who moved through many roles to his current position with the Gerson Lehrman Group. His methods include involvement of key sales staff to improve a process before rolling out and split testing emails before templating.
Jeremey strives to make the prospecting process personal by encouraging staff to write with a conversational tone. Providing training to employees is one of his largest priorities when tasked with improving morale; increasing skills to empower.
Episode Highlights:
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*How to “stack the deck” in your favor when introducing new policy*
-
When to ask “Are We A Fit for You?”
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The process for creating an email template
-
Tips for effective emails
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Common requests of sales staff during employee survey
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What skill Jeremey believes is invaluable
-
Jeremey’s biggest tip for increasing prospecting
Resources:
Gerson Lehrman Group
Connect with Jeremey on LinkedIn