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

Even if we have the right process or the best mindset, every seller is going to encounter difficulties, so we must figure out how we'll stick to our mission and achieve greatness in the face of adversity. Weldon Long has plenty of personal experience dealing with adversity in the form of 13 years in the penitentiary, homelessness, and dropping out of high school. He had what he calls a dysfunctional life, but he learned the ability to thrive in the face of difficulty. Difficulties are coming The truth is that difficulties are coming. It's easy in personal life or in sales life to feel overwhelmed and tempted to wave the white flag of surrender. Weldon was in federal prison when his dad died. He got a note to call home from one of the prison guards. He remembers realizing that his dad died with him in prison again. He had a three-year-old son that he fathered while he was out on parole. He realized that he wasn't being a very good father or son. He made the decision to change the course of his life but he had

Sellers who discover how to be successful without a marketing department, in a crowded marketplace, and when the customer isn't even looking will be successful in almost any circumstances. I got a question from a listener named Jon Billings who wanted to know how he could teach people who "don't know what they don't know." For instance, if the customer isn't looking because he doesn't know he has a problem, how do I communicate that? Especially in the case of sellers who don't have access to a marketing department, how is that even possible? Educate Your goal is to educate your prospects so that they will look to you instead of your competition when they need help solving a problem. Educating is the new sales. Regardless of the industry, you're in, your marketplace is likely crowded. How do you stand out from the competition? How do you help customers recognize you as a differentiator? You have to challenge the status quo, especially when many of your prospects already have solutions or they don't realize t

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thesalesevangelist/TSE_1091.mp3" background="blurred_logo" ] When you're looking to grow your business or your brand, it's important that you recognize the three things small businesses get wrong when marketing. We're at the Florida State Minority Development Council expo visiting with my friend Stephen A. Hart. He's a brand alignment strategist who helps entrepreneurs grow an amazing brand that is authentic, relatable, and profitable. Mistake #1: Overlooking messaging Many people hear the word branding and they think of logos or designs. But pretty websites don't sell things. Words do. People get unnecessarily caught up on design but what they need to focus on is clear messaging. You have to clarify your message so that customers will listen. Be deliberate about articulating what you do. In order to do that, you must understand who you're serving. Too many people think they are serving everyone with their product or service but that isn't the case. If I'm s

Hearing from other sellers can help us improve our own techniques, and today Troy Rackley shares his own killer message and how he communicates that he's selling more than water. Troy grabbed my friend Steven Hart's attention and Steven told me I had to interview him. Big shoutout to the Florida State Minority Supplier Development Council for connecting us with entrepreneurs like Troy. Water problems Troy's company, The Next Level of Performance, operates everywhere water flows: residential, commercial, or agricultural. He always begins by asking people what problem they are having with their water. They usually say it tastes bad or smells like chlorine. Troy customizes his solution for the problem the prospect is having. He then asks, "Do you drink out of the tap?" to which most of his customers say no. Troy challenges that answer by pointing out that because our skin is the largest organ of our bodies, taking a 15-minute shower is the equivalent of drinking 8 glasses of water out of the tap. The water is ab

I get a lot of requests to appear on The Sales Evangelist, but Jason Bay set himself apart from the crowd by sending a video email and changing the email game. Jason started his sales career while he was in college, and he and his wife now run a company called Blissful Prospecting, where they remove the stress of prospecting by doing it for their clients. He quickly discovered that the smaller midsize business was overlooked in the existing offerings, and he wanted to provide a less robust service that still produced the same type of results. Mom and pop Jason discovered there weren't a whole lot of companies that were willing to work with smaller organizations. Those companies that don't really have any SDRs and maybe they don't even know the lingo. Jason wanted to help those business owners who are already multitasking with some of their business development. They don't have time to list build and personalize emails. We've discovered the same dynamic at The Sales Evangelist. Many of the companies that need

You may believe that social selling won't work for your company or industry, but if you take advantage of the 4 pillars to leveraging LinkedIn for business development, you'll be surprised at how it can help you expand your reach. Brynne Tillman is the CEO and "LinkedIn Whisperer" of Social Sales Link and the author of The LinkedInSales Playbook and she has spent more than a decade coaching people to unlock the power of the platform. LinkedIn profile LinkedIn has its own social selling index so if you visit getmyssiscore.com you get your personal score, out of 100, that will rate your social selling acumen. Your LinkedIn profile is where that lies. Sellers make the mistake of using their LinkedIn profile as a resume when, in fact, it should be a resource. Corporate Visions reports that 74 percent of buyers choose the sales rep that provided value and insight early in the buyer journey. Your profile is their first impression of us, so do it right. Value Prospects don't care about your mission, your passion, o

Sellers who interact with and provide value to prospects using social media must understand the characteristics that turn this into the kind of social selling your customers want. We're tackling this topic all month, and even if you aren't a big social media person, we're providing an actionable plan to help you get in front of your prospects. It isn't enough to "set it and forget it" or generate large amounts of content in hopes that people will click through to find you. It's thoughtful preparation that gives buyers what they want and need right now. Trying to close I discovered the idea of using social media to sell when I was in college. I was seeking an internship with people who were in Chicago and our college professor told us that we needed a LinkedIn profile. He told us that we had to maintain that profile because that's where business professionals interacted. I thought it was a great idea because I was suddenly connected to millions of other professionals. I also thought it was great that I could

Social selling is the new sales because it utilizes all the techniques and tools that we've always enjoyed as sellers in order to help us build better relationships. Although nothing will ever replace the face-to-face relationships that sellers have with their clients, social selling is a valuable tool. Today Carson Heady shares what he has learned over a 17-year sales career about prospecting and relationship building and how social selling helps with it. Social selling Social media can help you find the right person to talk to that can help you connect with the right people, get a meeting, and stay top of mind. It's a great compliment to the business relationships we should already be forming. Social selling isn't a replacement for the things we're already doing. It's the application of the tools that enable us to get insights or see what customers and their organizations are thinking, doing, and talking about. When I first started using social selling, I was guilty of blasting a bunch of messages on Linke

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