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

There can be several reasons why you’re not hitting your sales goals. Today we discuss the number 1 reason you don’t hit your goals. Accomplishing goals With all that happened this year, many are looking forward to 2021.  It’s always important to set your goals and make sure that you accomplish the goals.These are actual goals that you can be accountable for and that will help you become successful.  Say goodbye to the status quo and look forward to the challenges and opportunities.  Failing your goals People fail and don’t win their goals because they aren’t really goals, rather, they’re wishes.  Example of which is: I want to be successful in 2021. It’s a very wishy-washy goal.  Make SMART goals: specific, measurable, attainable, and time-based.  Goals should be something that you can focus on.  Another reason why people fail is because of their lack of visuals of the goals they want to achieve. You need to paint your goals vividly. It’s important to be able to imagine your goals with closed eyes.  The l

Sales reps can get overwhelmed with administrative tasks without even realizing it. In this episode, Anthony Iannarino talks about ways to ensure that admin tasks don’t overwhelm your day. The black hole of admin tasks Growing in sales means more non-sales related work can find its way to your desk. With more success comes more clients and execution can become a challenge as sales reps have to learn to manage all the new information. As a result, a lot of people end up feeling busy but not productive. Busy means you’re running from one thing to the next while being productive means making progress towards your goal.  What can happen is that people get tied up in the transactional work of selling.  Sales reps and sales leaders are the ones who look for prospective clients. We sit down with people and have a conversation about the impact our services or products can make on their business. We create the opportunity. When you’re stuck with admin tasks, however, you’re unable to pick up the phone and make cold c

Due to the pandemic, most businesses have transitioned to working remotely. In this episode you’ll learn how to maximize sales productivity when working with a remote team.  Ensuring sales productivity  At a very young age, author, speaker and organization improvement consultant Brad Jeavons watched his mother selling over the phone. He saw how she used trust and value to make an impact on her customers. The consultative approach his mother used was effective.  Brad made note that using the phone can cover a lot of turf.  Brad also studied the strategies of big companies such as McDonalds and Apple, and how their practices are applicable to productivity and sales performance.  Some of the best practices and operational/enterprise excellence in the world today come from the largest organizations.  With working remotely, we can take all these practices to another level. The 4 Ps in Productivity    The 4 Ps in Sales Productivity:  Plan - you need to be able to focus and create a plan of attack. Know who i

There are times that we feel unproductive. How do you combat that feeling? Join Donald and Andres as they talk about the lack of productivity and how to overcome it.  What unproductivity looks like Andres has subscribed to many methods and ways to become productive. Entrepreneur on Fire’s John Lee Dumas is one of the podcasts he listens to. There’s also the Freedom Mastery Journal where you write down four things that you want to accomplish in a day.  Often, though, it’s difficult for many to finish their list of tasks to do for the day.  The most productive times are in the early mornings or late at night. But always pushing out your workday to late night isn’t healthy. It eventually leads to burn out.  Feeling unproductive doesn’t necessarily mean that you didn't get any work done in a day. It may also mean that you weren’t able to do what you intended to do because you were side-tracked with other tasks.  For Andres, sometimes the inspiration for doing his listed tasks happens at the last minute.  Andres

Ensuring sales productivity while working from home may still be a challenge for many people. How do you maintain sales productivity even with the work-from-home order?  Getting to know Jas Takhar Jas Takhar has been in the sales and service industry for over 25 years. Soon after deciding to try his hand in real estate, he co-founded the REC, and over the course of 15 years, has successfully propelled his team to the 1st place position in Canada under Royal LePage. Ensuring sales productivity High-level sales refers to how many people you’re speaking to and how many conversations are specifically about sales.  Most people who were in sales for a long time had an advantage before COVID. Because they were able to speak with people face to face, they had a higher chance of closing a sale.  Every sales person is now playing on a level field because we can’t meet people in person. Conversations are now happening virtually. Sales reps now need to structure their day and prepare for the virtual meetings. Jas calls

Sales leaders, are members of your team really using their time to prospect and sell? How do you know if your team actually spends their time working towards closing a sale? Let’s talk about.  Getting to know Skip Miller  Ski Miller is the author of Outbounding: Win New Customers with Outbound Sales and End the Dependence on Inbound Leads. This time last year, Skip observed that people were running short and the inbound leads were running dry. It was a problem he knew he needed to address. Salespeople thought they’d be able to hit their sales and unfortunately, they didn’t. He started to write the book to find out the best practices in good salesmanship.  Ensure that they keep prospecting and selling through best practices Revenue is a trailing indicator rather than a leading indicator.  You can start measuring proactive and leading activities, as well as competencies.  Ask your sales team to share their sales pitch, how they talk to a senior buyer, and ask them to share emails they send to prospects or buy

Change is the only constant in this world and The Sales Evangelist Podcast is no exception. TSE has changed over the years and another is on the horizon. Listen to this episode as Donald talks about what you can look forward to doing with The Sales Evangelist podcast.  Welcoming the change The first change is the length of the episodes. Based on a poll, 37% of our listeners said that a good podcast length is somewhere between 20-30 minutes.  Less time with introductions. Instead, we will focus more on the expertise they offer and the wealth of knowledge that will benefit our listeners.  With all the episodes we’ve already published, it gets harder for new listeners to locate the episodes they want to listen to. To remedy that, we’re going to organize the episodes into seasons. The seasons will also be categorized into parent topics such as productivity, goal setting, and more. Finding episodes will be much easier!  The content will be focused on answering your questions and the concerns that come directly fr

The goal for salespeople is to close more deals. In this episode, Sean Doyle talks about the secret to closing.  Sean M. Doyle is with FitzMartin, a sales first consultancy firm that helps companies with their sales, marketing, and alignment. Their approach towards marketing and sales is based on science that drives revenue for their clients, while integrating sales and marketing.  The idea of science-based framework  Most of us love superheroes. As the last touch, salespeople can be seen as the hero for their clients. Most salespeople don’t want the marketing team involved because they have a different process. While the marketing team complains about bad leads, science has a different view. 80% of these leads should be considered to be in a cycle of consideration, preparing to change, and then retreating.  Behavioral science is the transtheoretical theorem of behavioural change according to Prochaska & DiClemente.  There’s more to human behavior than just awareness.  When interviewing an ad agency, ask

There are many things we can look forward to with direct mail. In this episode, Chelsea Martin, the co-owner of Nom’s Bake Shop, talks about how direct mail is the new email. Chelsea and her partner didn’t begin their journey with direct mail immediately but as they grew the company, they ventured into the direct mail space. This strategy became even more important as they shifted from a cookie company to a gifting company.  From a cookie company to a gifting company A lot of people forget about direct mail and how it’s an effective way of communicating with clients and prospects.  The bake shop started out as a family project for their father who recently retired. It was a hobby that he could enjoy while getting a chance to interact with other people.  The company was built with her husband, father-in-law, and sister-in-law. They started with a cookie company and expanded into a gifting company.  Entering into the gifting industry as they created cookies that are individually packaged with the customer’s or

There are many metrics in measuring B2B success. In this episode, Darrell Amy brings us some of the best metrics for B2B companies.  Getting to know Darrell Amy  Darrel Amy helps companies grow their revenue. He started his career in 1993 and was in the office technology world. He got involved in sales training and launched a sales training company in 2004. Darrell has already helped thousands of people through his sales training programs for global technology companies. He’s also been involved in the digital marketing journey.  Growing revenue for B2B companies There are two metrics for growth:  Net new clients  Cross-sell.  Net new growth is the number of clients you have this month versus last month.  The measurement for cross sell is revenue per client.  Different companies, sales teams, and different industries have sales reps who are good at either netting new clients or cross selling.  Your goal is to drive reasonable growth in each area simultaneously to get magical things happening.  For one of

There are many ways you can convert prospects to clients but one way is by using text messaging tactics. What are these tactics? In this episode, Matt Baglia talks about this conversion opportunity.  Getting to know Matt Baglia Matt Baglia considers himself as an accidental CEO. He is the co-founder and CEO of SlickText. Over the past nine years, his roles have varied between marketing, sales, development, design, support, and more.  Use text messaging tactics to convert prospects  With SMS, you must get permission before you can text prospects. It’s different with emails because a prior business relationship is enough reason for you to start messaging them.  Every prospect needs to opt-in and every single person and message needs to be treated like gold.  B2B gets a little tougher as opposed to B2C when it comes to SMS marketing. There’s a lot more catching up in B2B.  In B2C, you always need to bring value to the end consumers. On the B2B side, it’s more about knowing and understanding the risks of every o

Crumble is a great tool to help sales reps schedule more sales appointments. In this episode, Joseph Villegas talks about how to use the tool more efficiently in scheduling appointments.    Joseph Villegas has been in pharmaceutical sales for two years now and still, his passion in the challenge of the industry is unwavering. The game has changed so much over the years that Joseph and other sales reps have to rely on their selling skills.    Schedule More Sales Appointments  Sales pharmaceutical is not the typical B2B sales where they reach out to doctors or customers via email with an attached clinical prescribing information.  The opportunities for sales reps to reach out with doctors is restricted as a lot of doctors don’t allow sales reps to barrage in their clinics, offices, or even do lunches with them.  It’s even worse now with the pandemic as seeing other people in person has become even more difficult.  Sales reps now rely on tools such as Zoom to adapt to the changes brought about by the pandemic w

Getting to know Christina Mautz Christina is the chief marketing officer and head of sales at Moz, an SEO platform search engine optimization.   Know your ideal customers The biggest current problem is the abrupt changes that have happened throughout this year. As a result, we are now in a place where we are having to do things differently.  With so many changes, it’s important to really understand your customer and meet with the people who need what you’re offering.  It’s important to slow down instead of speeding up. Take a step back and assess if you really know who your ideal customers are.  As sales reps, we should be building awareness and driving consideration and interest so the customer is ready to purchase.  Understand the buyer’s journey Since the introduction of the internet, the buyer’s journey is no longer linear. The ability to connect and talk with other people online, has made information easy to share across channels. People are now trying to find their own solutions.  Sales reps need to

Getting to know Kim Fredrich Kim Fredrich helps small business sales reps feel more comfortable and confident about having sales conversations. With this pandemic, salespeople are having an especially hard time talking to potential clients. For Kim, there’s no right time like the present. Even as the future is uncertain for other business owners, Kim is building her second business which includes outbound sales for small service-based businesses and she’s authored the book, “If You Can Have a Conversation, You Can Sell”.    Use Questions as Unique Selling Propositions Listening is an important part of selling. It’s how you are able to ask the right questions and make value propositions.  Always ask open-ended and conversational questions. Don’t give them the chance to stop the conversation with questions that can be answered with “no.” Raise questions in a way that the answer is useful and valuable to both of you. A lot of salespeople aren’t clear on what their value proposition is. They’re not aware of wha

Emotional intelligence is an important factor in making sales reps effective in their jobs.This includes being kind throughout your business practice. How is emotional intelligence going to further your sales revenue? Let’s find out in this episode.  Cole Baker-Bagwell has been a Yogi for 26 years and one of the first rules of Yoga is the ethical rule to do no harm. This entails practicing compassion and kindness which are powerful enough to change the perception of their experiences and other outcomes.  Emotional intelligence - Be Kind Many sales reps today, especially the beginners, can get caught up in product knowledge and competition. As a result, there may not default to compassion and kindness as a practice. This can hinder them from getting to a solution that is beneficial to the customer.  Awareness and mindfulness are important but these concepts have been diluted and misinterpreted in today’s society.  Jon Kabat-Zin’s says that mindfulness is awareness. It means paying attention in a particular wa

Prospecting is not an easy part of the sales process and sometimes, sales reps don’t have much luck with it. How do you change your luck for prospecting? Let’s talk about that in this episode.  Bad Luck in Prospecting Some sales reps just find prospecting is difficult. Donald finds that acknowledging and correcting cognitive dissonance can be helpful in amending that problem.  When it comes to cognitive dissonance, it’s basically a thought, a theory, or an idea that can be opposed to the reality we want to achieve. You can’t have two opposing thoughts going on at the same time.  When prospecting, a sales rep will believe that someone will, or will not, pick up the phone or answer the door. There are these two opposing forces within each salesperson.  When a sales rep leans into a more optimistic point of view, it changes the way they perform, their demeanor, confidence, and the words they say.  The optimists are probably the most willing to solve the clients’ problems and more willing to help other sales rep

How do you grab your prospects’ attention? Sales reps all have their unique strategies and in this episode, Brandan Kane talks about his methods on capturing peoples’ attention.  Getting to know Brendan Kane  Brendan Kane is a growth strategist who helps brands, corporations, celebrities, B2B, and B2Cs stand out in saturated markets. He started out in the entertainment industry managing the digital divisions for two movie studios and realized he was an entrepreneur. That’s when he started building technology platforms and licensing them back to big media companies.  Grab your prospects’ attention It’s important to understand that there are over 60 billion messages sent out on digital platforms each day. It’s a noisy and saturated world. This means you’re no longer just competing against your direct competition, you’re now competing against every piece of content.  Crafting a message is a skill. You must use hook points to grab your prospect's attention. The first 3-5 seconds are your only windows to create t

Getting to know Cody Butler Cody Butler is a marketing coach and consultant for lead generation sales. He helps companies with the toughest aspects of their businesses. In this episode, Cody Butler shares his expertise on how to get responses by crafting effective outreach messages.  Crafting effective outreach message One of the biggest mistakes people make is the lack of brevity. Everyone is so busy they’re sending messages that are dense and hard to navigate.   The messages Cody sends taps into clients’ biggest existing desires. You need to figure out what they want before sending an outreach message.  The goal is to get the person to engage so don’t ask too much in the first email. In this initial email you only need the prospect to raise their hand and say yes!  The second email provides the overwhelming your solution is what they need and you offer a very low key call to action.  In all your communication, what you are looking for is to mitigate potential objections to get the outcome that you want.  G

Donald didn’t believe in sales mindset training and it affected the sales process. Eventually, that belief changed. In this episode, Donald talks about how and why it changed.  Sales Mindset Training  Teaching somebody how to prospect means you’re also teaching them how to land more deals.   Donald went through a program called Thought Pattern for High Performance on CTV. It helped him understand that there’s more to a sales mindset than just the idea of a pep rally or giving somebody a quote.  Sales mindset is more about behavioral changes. It’s about making positive changes and looking at things you can control.                                                                                                                                                                                    The pandemic has affected the mindset of many people and some of the changes haven’t been for the better. There is a need to regulate our thinking and look at our behaviors.  Underperforming salespeople would say that they

Getting to know Joroen Corthout Jeroen Corthout is co-founder and CEO of SalesFlare, an intelligent CRM for SMBs selling B2B. It’s most popular among agencies and SaaS companies. In this episode, Jeroen talks about his CRM platform and all the other ways to use LinkedIn to win deals.  Use LinkedIn to win deals LinkedIn doesn’t share as much information on this platform as truly required. Sales reps have to do serious excavating to get the necessary information they need.  SalesFlare’s system is built around emailing, meetings, calls, and pulling out basic information from social media.  With their services, all these sources come together. When a sales rep adds people to the system, it automatically pulls in the email exchanges they have including the person, meetings, and calls. Other members who are on the team have access to all these exchanges as well.  Automating data means having the ability to follow-up leads easier.  When making a LinkedIn connection, make it as authentic as possible. Try to imagine