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

Disclaimer: This episode isn’t to convince listeners to become Christians; it’s to highlight how Jesus Christ persuaded people (a crucial sales trait.) As we near Christmas Day, we thought it would be fun to revisit an episode from the TSE Archives. In this episode, Donald kicked off his “Best Sellers in History” series with Jesus Christ. How did he start a movement, persuade people, and convince people to change their lives? Well, he sold them on the idea! And here are the seven reasons he was so successful: He Showed Sympathy and Built Rapport: Even when nobody else would, he sat with ordinary people and those marginalized by society. People didn’t understand these actions, but Jesus shared that a physician comes to heal the sick, not the healthy. In the same way, Jesus spent time with people who needed his help the most.  He made an impact: Jesus modeled how he wanted people to treat one another. As a sales rep, set yourself apart from others by understanding your prospect's pain points and then offerin

Cold outreach can be the worst part of your day for most salespeople. But if you had an easy-to-follow strategy, would that make it better? (Our answer: absolutely!) In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Rachel Pitts, co-host of Women Your Mother Warned You About, to discuss five cold outreach strategies to use in 2022. Rachel’s selling journey started in real estate: Rachel started her real estate journey during the 2008 market crash (AKA a lousy time to start), where she worked for ten years.  After later working in the mortgage industry, she realized her dream was to own a dance studio. And now, she is a full-time dance studio owner. (Congratulations, Rachel!) Why are people afraid of the phone? Well, there are many reasons. But namely, people believe nobody answers. But coming out of COVID, people are isolated and more willing to answer the phone. Plus, communicating over the phone is better at fostering personal connections. Many salespeople are afraid they’re bothering other

While we might be in a post-pandemic world, the myriad of zoom calls is here to stay. But, for any professional, creating and maintaining professional virtual relationships is more complex than in-person. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by actor, author, and founder of Selling On-Video Master Class Julie Hansen to learn how to better engage our virtual audiences.  When transitioning from theatre to camera, she had to practice communication. When everyone went virtual, Julie noticed other people struggling (as she was) to communicate through a camera. So, she created her masterclass to teach skills salespeople could apply to their virtual sales techniques. She also wrote an Amazon bestselling book, Look Me In the Eye, to further educate people in virtual communication. Communicating with a client whose video is off can be challenging. The value of having your video on is huge. Even if the prospect is unseen, looking at the camera as if they’re speaking will create a stronger re

We could spend hours discussing the importance of honing your craft. But, whether it’s perfecting your golf swing, mixing the perfect cocktail, and of course, making sales, practice is what leads to a better result. Today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist features NYT bestselling author Seth Godin. He and Donald discuss elements of his most recent book “The Practice” and how salespeople can use these principles to connect with prospects.  There is a disconnect between what selling used to be and what selling is now. A salesperson is no longer responsible for informing prospects or conducting a sale- the internet does that. A salesperson is responsible, however, for the transference of emotion. And that is the skill most salespeople need to cultivate.  How can the idea of trusting yourself from “The Practice” help an individual sales rep? Most people are their own worst boss. They’re never satisfied with their work and undermine their future potential. The challenge that comes with trusting yourself is ackn

Selling can be a complicated process, especially when prospects have multiple objections to your solution. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by David Smith to discuss how he uses prospect-centered selling to overcome these objections and help prospects make authentic and genuine decisions. David encountered this issue when developing senior housing communities in St. Louis. His job was easy: to fill the communities. But David’s problem wasn’t generating leads; it was converting them to make a final decision.  It’s a difficult decision to leave your home and move into a retirement community. It’s a decision many people don’t want to make, even though it is logically the right choice.  Motivational speaker Brian Tracy says there are four prerequisites to a sale: Having a product or service Being able to afford it Being able to use it Having a desire for it - this was the critical missing from David’s prospects. The solution? David had to draw motivation out of them. It’s a comp

Studies show it takes 8-12 touchpoints to convert a prospect to a client, yet many salespeople give up after the first one or two. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald interviews Fractional CMO and digital marketing expert Daphne Thomson to learn her strategy for effective sales follow-ups and why you should revitalize your process. First things first, the follow-up is more than just a phone call. A follow-up is a value you provide in that touchpoint, and it should be roughly 80% value and 20% sales. Because 60% of conversions occur only after the 12th touchpoint, you must have a system in place to ensure prospects regularly receive valuable messaging. See the prospect as a person, not just a lead. The connection becomes much more powerful once you relate to them on a human level. Salespeople bring in the business, so you’re indirectly responsible for a large part of your team. Hopefully, that drives and motivates you to continue to follow up. To continue to add value to prospects throughout

Account-based selling isn’t like your typical sales procedure. While both take skill and finesse, Account-based selling requires mastery over both your company and your clients. For the past year and a half, Thomas has worked for Amazon Web Services, making nine-figure deals. And on today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, he and Donald discuss what you need to know about selling to enterprise organizations. (Fun fact: On today’s undisclosed episode of recording, it’s our guest Thomas Niewiara’s birthday!) Amazon is (to say the least) not a small organization, and they do both account-based and traditional sales approaches. Working with Amazon Web Services’ global accounts team, Thomas manages large AWS customers. Before, he did many sales and sales engineering roles from Google Cloud to a cybersecurity startup. The difference between traditional and account-based selling: the conventional model is a top-down funnel centered around creating and nurturing brand awareness. In account-based sales, you start by

ABM (or account-based marketing) is the latest buzzword in the sales world, but how can we integrate this strategy within an existing marketing strategy? More importantly, should you? On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by the Director of Global Account-Based Marketing at ON24, Lisset Sanchez-Schwartz, to learn her approach to implementing account-based marketing campaigns successfully. Determine what ABM really means and which type you should utilize.  ABM is a cross of a full range of communications, from events to content delivery. It’s segmenting customer bases into unique groups where you can apply different and specific messages. In some cases, that could even mean a 1:1 strategy. It’s not a tactic or campaign type, but it's an orchestration amongst many team members to holistically approach an account. There are three ABM approaches: one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many. Of course, the personalized you get, the more expensive it is to implement.  Determine if an ABM str

How can you interact with potential buyers (especially enterprise clients) that encourage a dialogue? After all, landing the sale isn’t the only part of the equation; you first have to get their attention! In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Dr. Stephen Timme and Melody Astley to discuss their recent book Insight-Led Selling, which details how to learn how buyers think. But first, why did they write a book? Ultimately, Stephen and Melody wanted to create a resource their clients and community could utilize. It’s harder than ever to sell to enterprise sellers (yes, people say that every year. But it’s true!) And COVID-aside, the subscription-based economy is growing. There are more stakeholders than ever before in traditional buying processes. At the same time, implementation costs for platforms are lower, making it easier to switch between service providers. They interviewed many executives to see how they felt about sales.  From AT&T, Coca-Cola, Proctor and Gamble, and eve

Gatekeepers: the infamous villains of the sales world. Regardless of industry, most high-level executives employ some type of executive assistant or secretary to serve as a gatekeeper. A necessary part of the professional world, these assistants act as a filter that forces salespeople to maintain high standards and thoughtful targeting to pass. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald interviews Natasha Bowles, founder of Natasha Bowles Professional Staffing Agency, to learn more about how salespeople should interact with gatekeepers for more successful results.  The main priority of an executive assistant: securing the executive’s time.  If Natasha didn’t protect her executive’s time, salespeople (among others) would occupy all their time. That doesn’t mean salespeople are bad. But it does mean she ensures the salespeople she lets pass are prepared and offer a product or service genuinely beneficial to her executive’s company. Executives receive 250-1000 emails every day. She is a necessary filter

Like with any job, your sales performance will be far better with the proper mindset. A focused attitude, combined with a strong feeling of self-worth and knowing who you are as a human being, affects all areas of your life. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Robert Workman to learn how to empower ourselves to have a mindset conducive to sales success. You need to have confidence in both your work and yourself.   Have confidence that you’ll show up as yourself, regardless of what meeting, event, or circumstance you find yourself in.  Many salespeople lack a strong sense of confidence but finding that confidence empowers you to do whatever you need to do to succeed. How you can be more focused as a sales professional:  Once you’re confident in yourself, you can accomplish what you know is suitable for your career rather than what other people might tell you is correct. Robert’s book Selling - The Most Dangerous Game encourages you to look at the leadership and style of work in

Whether or not you and your business utilize account-based selling, you won’t obtain the sales figures you want without the right messaging and communication. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by sales consultant and strategic advisor Scott Leese to learn how salespeople can ensure they’re using messaging that delivers results. How can a salesperson ensure solid messaging? Have the client explain and describe what problems and challenges they have. During the first interaction with a potential client, some businesses will try to talk about themselves. Don’t do that. Selling is more than convincing the prospect to buy your product. The first step is simply to pique their interest. The traditional mass-email strategy is no longer effective. People are inundated with vague email pitches.  While this was once a good strategy, the pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction, and the number of importance is no longer volume; it’s conversions. We have to be thoughtful, customer-foc

Every salesperson has been in this situation at some point: marketing delivers a handful of leads, only for nobody to respond after you initiate contact. While frustrating, that’s an unfortunate downfall of the lead-based selling model, and a great reason why pivoting to an account-based sales model could be beneficial for you. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald explains what account-based selling is and how you can implement it into your approach.  Account-based selling is an excellent approach for many businesses. Rather than utilize a traditional lead-based model, an account-based approach focuses on the ideal client account of your company and how you can attract similar clients to them. An account-based strategy will keep your marketing and sales departments unified and focused on the same target, generating more touchpoints and communications with the ideal client most likely to purchase. How to start using an account-based approach: First, make a list of the people most likely to buy

Embracing the technological capabilities of the modern-day isn’t just a good idea; it’s a necessity. On today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Peter Kazanjy, the founder of Atrium and Modern Sales Pros (the nation’s largest sales, operations and leadership peer-education community.) As an author on early-stage sales excellent (Founding Sales), Peter is a sales expert who knows why you need to become a data-driven sales seller. What does it mean to be a data-driven seller? It’s very similar to the innovation we’ve seen in athletics and high-end professions: someone utilizes every available advantage.  Especially with people working from home, there’s an opportunity to use new information to improve rep and team performance. If you don’t utilize these new technological innovations to make data-informed decisions, you’re going to be in a bad spot. How do you sell embracing technology to managers? There are two historical reasons sales managers are typically blocked from a data-driven per

To own or not to own, that is the question. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Mike Farrell, who specializes in outsourcing SDR work so their clients can focus on other tasks. Should you and your company use an external SDR team, or should you invest in and develop a team yourself? Find out in today’s episode. With 18 years in the SDR world, Mike knows when to outsource versus invest in a team yourself. The answer? It all depends on where your company is in its maturation process. Startups and recently created companies likely don’t have the tools, people, or finances in place to develop their own team successfully (and should therefore outsource.) On the other hand, after receiving two or three rounds of investment, it might be wise to create your own team with a more in-depth understanding of what your company offers. What even is “outsourcing”? Mike’s company has two different outsourcing methods: they use their own software, systems and people to perform the tasks themselve

Branding is way more than the marketing or the marketing team - it’s establishing and helping people realize you’re an authority. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by branding expert Marc Gutman to learn why businesses that invest in branding win out over those that don’t. Marc’s branding journey started because of the power of storytelling: Marc worked in the movie business, working with award-winning director Oliver Stone. It was in this field where he learned what the power of storytelling could do for an organization. He moved to branding after moving to Colorado, where he discovered a fantastic community of startup entrepreneurs. Marc started his own business (which he ended up selling) and then started his branding agency, Wild Story. A brand has one job: Get people to buy more stuff for more years at a higher price.  There are two ways for an organization to increase its margins: lower costs or increase the price of goods or services.  To raise the price without reducing t

It’s time to celebrate The Sales Evangelist’s 1500th episode! To celebrate this milestone, today’s episode is a little different. Rather than bringing in a guest, Donald looks back at past episodes to discuss five sales principles that have been important to him as a salesman, businessman, and just throughout his life. Just getting started Listening to the first TSE episode is...rough. But there’s an important takeaway: don’t judge your “episode one” to someone else’s episode 1500.  As a new seller, don’t compare yourself to a veteran seller with years of experience. Nobody is great at something initially. So, just start, and don’t compare yourself to the quality of others. The principles of selling are the same. This podcast has interviewed all types of people, from authors and sellers to industry experts.  According to Jeb in a previous episode, the selling process has not evolved because salespeople still go through similar processes, connect with people, and solve problems. What has changed are the

A common problem for salespeople is interacting solely with just one stakeholder. But in reality, involving multiple people is the perfect strategy to help deals go through (and make more people excited about them.) In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is joined by Amy Hrehovcik to discuss her strategy to apply multi-threading throughout your sales process. Amy’s sales experience is extensive. After selling for nearly a decade, Amy finished at Thomson Reuters before transitioning to marketing consulting (eventually working in a startup as the Chief of Customer Value.) She later pivoted to sales enablement, realizing she had a passion for teaching sellers and empowering sales leaders. Amy now hosts the podcast Revenue Real Hotline, where she discusses uncomfortable conversations in sales. Why did she start the podcast? She wrote an article (Mental Health, The Greatest Competitive Advantage That You’ll Ever Know), and it was viewed by the great Andy Paul. He invited her onto his show, and partici

It’s the golden rule of life: treat others the way you want to be treated. As sales professionals, you do this by playing the long game, building relationships rather than focusing on the sale. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald interviews David Henzel to learn David’s approach and strategy to being customer-centric in modern selling.  What does it mean to be customer-centric? In essence, a customer-centric salesperson sets customers up for success.  It’s helping your customers succeed (or positioning them to be successful) instead of worrying purely about making a sale. Selling out of fear only provides mediocre results. If you sell to make a commission, the customer’s problem might not be solved, and they might not want to be your advocate as readily. A happy customer tells their friend, but an unhappy customer tells the world. To close customer success gaps, you can either write copy on your website to inform potential buyers (as a facet of content marketing) or partner with a sales coac