Sales Tuners

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**Sales Tuners**

SalesTuners is an interview where I talk with great sales leaders and high performing individual salespeople about the Behaviors, Attitudes, and Techniques that have made them great. Learn more at SalesTuners.com

Latest Episodes:

085: Doug Landis | Enterprise Sales: Painting the Picture of What's Possible Apr 17, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Raise Your Business Acumen: Selling into the C-Suite of enterprise companies is more education than pain-based. They know the problems they have and they're looking for salespeople to rethink what's possible. This has nothing to do with your product features and benefits and everything to do with their business. You need to be able to quickly identify your value and show a direct correlation to their pressing issues.
Define the Trigger Moments of Custom Success: When it comes to customer success, it's not enough to just get your customer to the point of that they can't live without your product. What you need to really dig into is why they can't live without it. What are those trigger moments that get them to go from exploring to needing to not being able to live without it?
Have the Conviction to Say "No": Lose the happy ears. Not everything is a good opportunity for you or your company. Could you potentially lose a deal with this approach? Damn right, you might, but the level of respect you'll gain will trump the potential loss. Knowing your value and the impact it can have on an organization will help you build that confidence.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/doug-landis

Book Recommendation

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

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Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.

084: David Priemer | Standing Out in the Sea of Sameness Apr 10, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Learn How to Learn: When tackling any new topic or initiative the first question you have to ask yourself is "why." The second question should be "how." Using the notion of synthesis, take all the artifacts, insights, and data points you can find from a variety of sources and then apply it to your own situation. This should help you determine at least one hypothesis as a starting point. And for crying out loud, pick up a book and start reading.
Remember Who the Credibility Belongs To: No one cares what you know or what you think. The truth is, prospects are looking for a way to prove salespeople wrong. So, when you don't have credibility, invoke those that do — i.e. your customers or external reports. When you can cite 3rd party research or share stories from successful customers, your story is more likely to stick.
Every Objection Has a Hidden Meaning: Regardless of the type of objection you hear, you have to get to the root cause of the statement. While your prospect may seem to be evoking logic, there is always an underlying emotional reason. Find it and you'll unlock the path to getting a deal done. One good exercise to go through on this is to state the objection and then insert a blank. If your prospect says "it's too expensive," go through all the possible things that could follow that statement to get to the root cause.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/david-priemer

Book Recommendations

The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Jay Papasan
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail--but Some Don't by Nate Silver

Sponsor

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.

083: Mary Jane Copps | Cold Calls: The Psychology Behind the Human Voice Apr 03, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Master the First 20 Seconds: We all get defensive when we receive an unexpected call from someone we don't know. Don't take it personal as it's a cultural issue. However, it is your job to dissolve that defensiveness very quickly. First thing first — remove iffy language. Don't tell them you're "just calling" as if you have nothing better to do. Also, don't ask them how they are. Not only is that a tell tale sign that you're a salesperson, but when a stranger asks about your health, you get even more defensive. You need to quickly get to the reason for your call and then immediately show them how the call is relevant to them. Notice, this has nothing to do with you.
Prepare to Think on Your Feet: I get it. Email is easier because you have time to both think and edit. On the phone, you clearly don't get that luxury. So, be prepared. Obviously, you need to have a couple of open ended questions ready to go, but you also need to know what the 3-4 typical responses are that you're likely to get from the prospect. As you prepare for those responses, now you just need to ask your question and truly listen to the response. And remember, the sound of the human voice contains so much information you're losing by relying on text based communication.
Help Prospects Make Decisions: I've gone against the grain a bit with the notion of decision fatigue from a personal standpoint, but from the point of the prospect I get it. Instead of leaving everything up to them, prompt them by giving them the "next best step." I've found that if I just ask them what to do next, I get delay after delay It usually sounds like, "me think about it" or "let me talk to so and so," but when I give them the next step most people take or the one I believe is right for them, I can move a deal along a lot faster. Realize, you've sold your solution dozens if not hundreds of times, yet this is the first time they've gone through a sales process for your solution.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/mary-jane-copp

Recommendation

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Sponsor

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.

082: Eric Pratt | In the Evolving Buyer's Journey, Don't Assume You're at the Beginning Mar 27, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Buyers Can be Miseducated: While a lot of research can be, and is being, done prior to your first conversation with a buyer, it doesn't mean they know exactly what they've made the right assumptions. While they're clearly looking for something, it's your job to be a helpful expert and advisor to the process.
Dig Deeper: It's very important to understand the existing state of a prospect's business. Where are they? What do they already have to work with? What can you leverage? Buyers aren't looking for you to tell them everything they want to hear, they're looking to you for understanding. But how can you understand, if you haven't asked enough questions?
Don't Leave a Mess for Delivery: Just because you've got ink on a contract, doesn't mean your job is done. Help yourself by making the client handoff to fulfillment as smooth as possible. As a salesperson, every once in a while you're going to have to do something where you are pitted between meeting a prospect's demands and meeting or working within your companies structure and constraints. Taking care of delivery assures you can ask for favors when needed.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/eric-pratt

Book Recommendation

The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Sean Covey

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Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.

081: Brandon Bruce | Preparation and Endurance Enable Success Mar 20, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Do the Boring Work: The best salespeople I've ever met run the same process every single time. I know how boring that sounds to most of you, but the truth is you don't have to get fancy in sales to win. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Focus on the little things — those foundational elements that you know actually move the needle.
Control the Signal vs the Noise: With the volume of email being sent by sales reps today, combined with the number of calls being logged, you have to stand out from the crowd. Think about your own life — how many emails do you delete without opening? How many calls do you screen with caller ID and wait for the voicemail transcription to see if it's worth your time? If you sound like every other sales rep out there, why would any buyer think differently of you?
Vanity Metrics are Worthless: I'll admit when personal email open tracking first came out I was thrilled. Until I started having prospects open the message 37 times and never hit reply. You know you're in sales to close deals, so if you're going to track numbers, don't track things that are meaningless. When you send an email track whether or not it got a reply. Track whether the reply led to a scheduled meeting or an opportunity. Until you get to that level, you're really just playing a guessing game.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/brandon-bruce

Book Recommendations

Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Endless Compassion by Father Gregory Boyle
Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck--Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
TreeLine-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

080: Mike Donnelly | Lift vs. Propulsion: What Physics Can Teach Us About Sales Mar 13, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

People are Creatures of Habit: Quit spending your mental energy trying to figure out when your prospects are more apt to respond or engage with you. Just like you have a routine, so do they. They likely get out of bed around the same time, commute into the office at the same time, and guess what — respond to emails and phone calls at the same time of day. Look for those patterns and learn to strike while the iron is hot.
Practice Genuine Empathy: A lot of people talk about empathy, but most don't practice it. What does it mean to truly understand a prospect's challenges? Without trying to sell anything, sit down with a few of your ideal prospects and let them teach you. Ask them what industry struggles they're having right now? Ask them how they are personally measured on initiatives. Ask them how they are compensated for success. These small nuggets can turn into a pile of gold.
Be Willing to Walk Away: As excited as you are about what you sell, it's not for everyone — at least not right away. Give your prospect the space to say "no," but make sure you get permission to say "no" yourself if it's the right thing to do. "No" doesn't mean never and by leaning into that notion, you'll create a level of trust most reps never get.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/mike-donnelly

Book Recommendation

No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
TreeLine-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

079: Adam Schoenfeld | Lessons Learned Going From CEO to SDR Mar 06, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Know What to do Next: You just made the investment in acquiring data, hashing out your target accounts and cold prospecting, but what happens when you actually get someone on the phone? Make sure you build out at least the basic infrastructure to know how to handle responses both positive and negative. If your goal is a meeting, make sure you're not getting stuck in a 20-message email thread or look silly when your prospect ends up on your website talking to your chatbot.
Put Your Hands on the Keyboard: Building from the last takeaway, when you work with smaller numbers, you have the opportunity to get more personal in your messaging. Instead of letting your sales automation do all the work, put your hands on the keyboard and customize your outreach. Make it obvious that your message could not have been meant for anyone else other than the person you're sending it to. As Adam said,, you can only deliver your first impression once.
Leverage Messaging from Paid Advertising: If your company has invested in PPC or any other forms of paid advertising, sit with them to understand what's working. What headlines are getting the best click-through rate? Which messages are getting the best conversion rate? These tests make for great email subject lines as well as quick notes. But remember, the best messages don't look like the came from sales or marketing — they look like they came from another human.

Full notes

https://www.salestuners.com/adam-schoenfeld

Book Recommendation

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
TreeLine-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

078: David Cancel | Prospects Want to Talk to the One Who Understands Feb 27, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Learn From Others: Everyone learns from failure, but you don't have to learn from your own failure. Whether it's your peers, other professionals in your network, books, blogs, or even podcasts like this. You owe it to yourself to seek out knowledge both positive and negative from others. But be careful, you want to learn from the best, not just your buddy or some random stranger.
Pride Will Kill You: The stubbornness of pride locks you into your own thoughts. We have a cognitive bias around consistency that once we've formulated an idea that we can't be inconsistent with that or flip flop our position. However, this is ridiculously dumb and short sighted. Be willing to listen to others and study the data that may challenge your worldview.
Good Things Come to Those Who Practice: One thing that continues to amaze me is salespeople not practicing their craft. How much time do you prepare for each call? Showing up to work and running sales calls is not practicing. The biggest personal example I have of this is spending 10 hours on a Saturday preparing for a 30 minute call the following Tuesday. Yes, 10 hours for 30 minutes. That's doing the work.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/david-cancel

Book Recommendation

Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
Treeline-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

077: Mark Roberge | Why Most Customer Success Issues Originate in the Sales Process Feb 20, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Successful Customers Trumps Revenue: The goal of sales should not be revenue at all costs. It's our job to find people we can make successful through the value prop we're pitching. Rather than focusing solely on the signed contract and commission check, make sure the customers you close are going to find value in what they bought 90 days later.
Buyers Don't Have to Talk to Salespeople: 20 to 30 years ago, every buyer had to talk to a salesperson. Today, buyers can watch demos, compare and research alternative products, and even get ballpark pricing online, all before reaching out to talk to a salesperson. In the shifting world of buyer empowerment, you have to provide value in each interaction with a prospective customer.
Live Your Buyer's Job: What does your prospect's daily job look like? What's their role in their company? What are their goals? How do they quantify it? What happens if they don't achieve it? It's not enough to just ask those questions. When looking at things through their lens, you can really dig into what they're thinking before they even look to buy.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/mark-roberge

Book Recommendation

The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
TreeLine-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

076: Max Altschuler | Hacking Sales: Doing More with Less Feb 13, 2018

Show notes

Takeaways

Outsource List Building: While you need to own the process of creating and validating your ideal customer profile, you can and should outsource the data gathering. Using the idea of virtual assistants from countries like the Philippines, building targeted lists of prospects can be done quick and cheap.
Build Outbound to Create Inbound: Instead of blasting inboxes with requests for 15 minute conversations, leverage your outbound messaging to deliver information that entices prospects to click through to your site. Then, using a chatbot tool like Drift, those visitors qualify themselves, generating conversations actually worth having.
Optimize for the Long Term: When comparing opportunities, consider the long term value of opportunities over short-term money. OTE is often a mirage. Make sure you ask the question to understand how many reps actually hit quota and achieve the expected OTE. Oftentimes, it makes more sense to take less money today in order to work for a better sales leader or CEO.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/max-altschuler/

Book Recommendation

Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino

Sponsors

Costello-What if every sales rep inherited the habits of your best rep? With Costello, they do.
TreeLine-Specializing in improving top line revenue, Treeline helps you find, recruit, and hire the best salespeople.

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