The Sales Evangelist: Sales Training|Speaking|Business Marketing|Donald Kelly

There’s a huge prospecting opportunity right under your nose, and it’s a LinkedIn gold rush that can help you generate more leads and connect with more people. Even if you have been on LinkedIn since 2016 like I have, it’s possible that you aren’t even scratching the surface of what it’s capable of doing. LinkedIn isn’t paying me to say any of this. I’m telling you because I know how much you can do with LinkedIn and I want you to do big things. STATISTICS My friend Stephen Hart, host of the Trailblazers.FM podcast, shared some statistics with me that made my eyeballs pop. When he appeared on The Sales Evangelist, he shared with us the importance of creating content that connects with your audience. He also emphasized the need to incorporate social selling into your existing efforts. LinkedIn is designed to be more than a host for your resume. It’s created to be a community where people interact. CONTENT The article 48 Eye-Opening LinkedIn Statistics for B2B Marketers in 2019 reports that there are 9 billion

When we convince ourselves that we have nothing more to learn, we fail to ask enough questions and we sometimes even commit sales malpractice. Brian Robinson has been in sales for more than 20 years, but he said that he only thought he knew how to sell while he was in corporate America. He calls his plunge into entrepreneurialism the hardest thing he has ever done, and while it was successful, he said his eyes were opened when he entered the world of "you don't sell, you don't eat." Brian is the author of the book The Selling Formula, which codifies the steps he used to succeed in that venture. Intentional questions Many salespeople do the old "show up and throw up." We're so anxious to get to the presentation that we neglect to ask the very best questions we can ask to uncover the needs. We're seeking sincere engagement from our prospect, so this is the most critical component. Brian noticed that the best physicians diagnose illness with a list of carefully-crafted questions. That information became especial

Sometimes as sales reps we don’t bring enough value to the table and there are 3 crucial signs you need to add more value so you won’t be judged only on price. Dion Travagliante runs Madison One Consulting, a consulting practice where he solves problems for SAS businesses. He said he loves the fact that sellers have latitude in their careers and he loves the chase of finding the potential customer and then uncovering the issue and working to solve it. People have a preconceived notion that sales is just talking with no science, rhyme, or reason behind it, but he calls it a challenging world that you can train yourself to succeed in. COMMODITY Sellers often struggle to stand out against other competitors and they struggle against being viewed as simply a commodity. The key is to become the winner of the account. Dion defines value as improvement in a client or prospect’s individual situation. That centers on solving problems. Any company that is selling something originated around the idea of solving someone e

When your prospects find 100 new email messages waiting for them on Monday morning, if your emails give no value, your prospects will never open them. If there's nothing in the subject line or the first sentence of the message to grab their attention, your prospects will probably never even open the message. Sellers must give thought to what their first sentence is saying to uncover how their emails are performing. Preview Consider your own email inbox. You're busy. You don't have time to read every single email that arrives in your inbox. If you've got 100 new messages waiting, you're not going to read them all. You'll travel the path of least resistance by eliminating as many as possible. Email content The subject line is crucial, so your goal is to minimize it as much as possible. Get to the point quickly with as few words as possible. Make sure the first sentence of your email relates to the subject line and make sure it has nothing to do with you. Avoid statements like "I have something I want to share w

When you interact with your prospects, your goal should be to provide such great value that you leave people better off whether they buy from you or not. We've been talking about value all month, and today hypnotist Jason Linett talks about how people can change their thinking to grow their business. Growth isn't just about your platform but it's largely about how you tell the story to your audience. We often miss the power of a story and its impact on our potential customers. Help prospects win In almost every category, there are others out there who do the same work you do. Storytelling is the one thing that truly sets you apart from the competition so that you're no longer just a commodity. Your customers can go find another business coach or web designer, and even another hypnotist. Jason points out that he didn't get married by approaching a pretty girl at school and announcing that they were going to have children together. Instead, they built a relationship through the natural progression that occurs w

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thesalesevangelist/TSE_1080.mp3" background="blurred_logo" ] Building value is a critical part of any sales process, and the discovery meeting is an important step in that process. How much should you prepare for the discovery meeting beforehand? What should you know? What should you do? The insights I'll share come from the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, designed to help sales reps perform to the best of their ability, find more ideal customers, build strong value, and close more deals. What is discovery? The discovery meeting is an opportunity to learn about the challenge your prospect is facing. It's a chance to go a little more in-depth. It's not necessarily a chance to get all the information about the company or about its history. That's boring for the client who doesn't want to have to educate you. The client is likely meeting with other sellers and they aren't interested in working to educate all of them. Do your research beforehand so your di

Many sellers understand the challenge of using emails to reach out to prospects, but Chad Sanderson tells us that using brief, compelling stories in sales emails can leave a memorable impression on a prospect who is inundated with noise. Chad has worked as a marketer, seller, sales leader, and entrepreneur, so he understands the perspective of everyone listening to this podcast. Email issues Chad points out that most emails suck. We're all connected to our devices and we're constantly inundated with impressions through Facebook messages, videos, emails, LinkedIn requests, and even WhatsApp or Snapchat messages. That doesn't even include impressions you get while watching television. The only way to effectively break through the noise is to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Everything is moving at a ridiculously fast pace, so if you never slow down enough to truly consider the other person, you'll probably fail to truly connect. You must connect with people in a way that's valuable from their perspecti

A sudden influx of new leads seems like a dream come true, but you often have to determine which type of customers are the best in order to assess whether it's really a good thing. If you haven't yet grabbed a copy of The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honest and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results by Todd Caponi, get it before he joins us on the podcast in the near future. In the book, he discusses the three types of buyers. The active buyer The active buyer is looking for a solution. He understands the problem and he wants to solve it. These are your inbound leads. They understand their problem well enough to initiate research to try to find a solution to the problem. They may seek a quote for your product or service, and they are proof that your marketing is working. These buyers are finding your website. These buyers are also more than likely going to commoditize you. They are likely considering three to five different vendors and because they don't have all the details about your

Sellers can guide prospective customers through the purchasing journey by holding prescriptive conversations with buyers.  Tom Pisello launched into the topic of prescriptives because he was a product manager who was launching products in the marketplace, with a sales force that had never engaged these particular customers. In an attempt to help buyers make decisions, he created prescriptive tools that would help customers analyze their existing situation and compare it to the new product. Buyer frustration The B2B purchase decision is more challenging than ever for buyers because there are six to 10 decision makers in every decision. Buyers spend incredible amounts of time on their own gathering, processing, and deconflicting information. And 94 percent of buyers have participated in a buying cycle that just evaporated. Buyers are frustrated. About 84 percent report that the buyers' journey is taking longer than they expected. There's a big opportunity for sellers as well as a challenge for them to overcome:

The trend in sales now is to provide value to your customers, but there must be some kind of exchange in the transaction, so you may find yourself asking, "When should I talk about price?" How do you bring it up? What exactly will you say when it's time to talk about it? Today we're going to share ideas that will help you provide tremendous value and ensure an effective, value-rich conversation for both parties. This is a segment from our TSE Certified Sales Training Program and we're going to share a snippet from one of our training programs and then offer some ideas based upon what you hear. It will let you learn something about selling and offer you an experiment that you can test for yourself. You'll hear the challenges that other sales reps are facing and share with you what has worked for the group members. Taboo We've been taught that it's taboo to talk about money, so many of us shy away from it. New sellers face the biggest challenge, usually because of limiting beliefs. In the past when I was selli

Human behavior plays a huge role in sales and understanding what makes people tick is one of the most important concepts sellers in all industries should seek to learn. Joe Sweeney has worn a variety of different hats over the course of his career, but he loves human behavior and he says it's the key to success in sales. Buyers You must understand why someone would buy your product. Joe's philosophy, as described in his book Networking Is A Contact Sport, is that networking, business, and sales are about giving and serving rather than getting something. People ask about the number one mistake that salespeople make, and it's believing that the process is about us. We think it's about our product. It's not. Joe gives talks all the time and he starts by saying, "You don't sell anything. What we do is help people get what they want." Instead, sellers tend to take the opposite approach and we talk about ourselves and our product. But your buyer doesn't care about that. All he cares about is whether your product c

Sales scripts put sellers inside a box and lock them into selling a certain way, but when you throw away your sales script and do more creative, engaging selling, you'll increase your conversion. Ned Leutz runs two teams for ZoomInfo, a business data and technology company that helps salespeople get in touch faster and drive more meetings and more sales. He'll talk today about throwing away the script in your sales efforts to increase your flexibility and your success. Fast answers People are accustomed to getting fast answers without ever having to engage with a person. By the time the prospect makes contact, the salesperson with a script may prove to be less flexible than the Internet. When that's the case, there's really no need for a salesperson. Ned believes that giving a salesperson a script is the "kiss of death" and that scripts don't drive conversion or sales. Salespeople who are limited by scripts will often fail to connect with the prospect's problem. If the goal is to find mutual challenges that y

Many sellers discover that their perfect pitch is not working because, as they work to build value, they are appealing to logic rather than emotion. We're devoting the whole month to a discussion about building value, and some of today's information comes from the book The Transparency Sale written by Todd Caponey. Todd will visit with us on the podcast in the near future, but today we'll talk about the decision-making process and the role our brains play. Brain power Every day, we engage in activities every day that are so routine that we don't even think about them. When we drive to work, we put a seatbelt on without even thinking about it. When we back the car up, we put our arms over the seat beside us and then look backward. You're able to listen to this podcast while you're driving because you don't even have to think about driving. Todd talks about three levels of the brain, which you may have heard of before. The reptilian part, the limbic part, and the neocortex. The reptilian portion is the core or

Smart sellers can make social media work for them by building a personal brand, giving value, connecting with others, and growing their business. Andy Storch is a consultant and coach who is always learning new things about sales and who loves the freedom that selling provides. Though he says he still has a lot to learn, he has an advantage over many others because he's always trying new things. Because he has the confidence to experiment and discover what works and what doesn't, he has a leg up on a lot of other people. Personal branding Whether you're selling services or products, there are very few things that absolutely distinguish your offerings from other people's. In fact, customers can always find an alternative. In B2B especially, they are buying you. They want to do business with you. Relationships are so important for sellers which is why it's more important than ever to develop a personal brand. You must let people know who you are and create authority. To that end, Andy uses social media to let p

Even if you’ve been selling for years, it’s possible that you’ve overlooked some ideas that will help you perform better, like working to shorten the sales process with video.  Today we’ll discuss some ideas that will help you shorten your sales cycle and some ways to use video to accomplish it. I’ll also share a real-life example from one of my clients to demonstrate how effective it can be. POWER OF VIDEO Video is so simple and so powerful that it’s hard to imagine that some people aren’t taking advantage of it. We’ve talked about it on The Sales Evangelist for months because it’s a powerful tool that’s available to every seller. I recently read a study that showed that 7 out of 10 B2B buyers watch a video somewhere in their buying process. So 70 percent of buyers are watching videos that are usually generated by the marketing department. But why aren’t we in sales using it as well? It’s simpler for the buyer to consume, and it isn’t difficult for us to make them. PREVALENCE OF VIDEO Videos are everywhere a

Many sellers elongate the sales process without even realizing it, and Steven Griffith is here to talk about how to take control of your time and to explain that your time management ideas are wrong. Steven is a performance coach and the author of the book, The Time Cleanse: A Proven System to Eliminate Wasted Time, Realize Your Full Potential, and Reinvest In What Matters Most. He explains how to close the performance gap and get hours back in your day. Performance research Steven discovered about five years ago that all of his performance clients were pointing to the same roadblock to their success: they didn't have enough time. He even discovered that he was feeling the same way. Technology has created more distractions and it prompts us to multi-task all the time. Our lives are moving at an incredible pace and we're all over-stimulated by toxins that steal and hijack our time. Old time management strategies worked when the phone was connected to the wall by a cord. We live by the notion that time is scarc

Selling is honorable, and we should be proud of the work we do because nothing happens until somebody sells something. Today Harry Mazier talks to us about the importance of selling and how every organization must practice the fundamentals of selling in order to do it well.  It begins by understanding the importance of being a sales professional. Relationships The short attention span of today's buyers means that there will always be room for relationships in selling. [Tweet "There's an adage that says that when all things are equal, people want to buy from their friends. And when all things aren't equal, people still want to buy from their friends. So make friends. #RelationshipSelling"] It's perhaps the best sales lesson you'll ever hear. Necessity It sounds basic to say that nothing happens until someone sells something, but it's true that if we don't sell, we won't eat. Sales is the lubricant of our economy. It doesn't matter how good your manufacturing is, how precise your accounting is, how deep your R

If you're giving your customers things that you value instead of focusing on things that your customer needs or wants, you should be aware of the 5 things you get wrong when it comes to building value. We're dedicating the month of April to a discussion of building value, and we're starting with the fundamentals of building value. 1.  We fail to solve the problem. People will only change if they see a distinct need for it, and sometimes our customers don't even recognize that they have a problem. Or, in other instances, they may have found a solution or a band-aid to the problem that seems to be working. People don't fix things that seem to be working. Your job as a seller is to ask the right questions to help them consider or see the importance of addressing their challenge. Once you're able to help them identify the problem, we must provide a clear solution to help them address it. Donald Miller has a wonderful three-step process that lays out exactly how you can move through the process. If the buyer does

Sellers have a bad reputation as people who are artificial and only concerned about themselves, but in order to succeed, you must focus on selling from the heart. Larry Levine has spent 30-something years in the trenches of B2B work, and he recognized some glaring weaknesses in sales teams he worked with. He values authenticity and he points to it as a big disconnect for many sellers. But it isn't just sellers. Think about how many times you've run into a friend you haven't seen in a while, and you toss out the phrase, "we should do lunch." It doesn't usually mean anything other than "I'll see you when I see you." Sellers must pay attention to their words. Use your words The words genuine, authentic, value, and trusted advisor prompt the follow-on question: "What does that mean?" Start by leading an authentic lifestyle. Think about this: When you say you're a salesperson or an SDR, you're already behind the 8-ball already in the minds of your clients and prospects. For every great sales professional, there ar

Sellers are understandably focused on the closing of any deal but it’s important that we keep things in perspective and don’t make the closing an event. The truth is that every transaction has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but we often get so focused on the closing that we unnecessarily freak ourselves out. This conversation comes from our TSE Certified Sales Training Program, our sales coaching program that helps sellers maximize their effectiveness. SALES PROCESS The sales process naturally builds toward a close where the client signs the deal and then everyone celebrates. Our challenge as sellers is to avoid the temptation to make the closing the entire focus of the sale. Focus throughout the sale on building value. Initiate conversations that address your prospects’ challenges and difficulties. Realize that you’ll never get to the closing if you don’t effectively address the buyers’ objections. Help the buyer feel confident in this deal by sharing stories that provide value and dispel your customers’