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

We all experience pain and grief and in these seasons, we can feel depths of emotion that are hard to resolve.  How does unresolved grief affect your sales potential? Let’s learn about dealing with unresolved grief today with Herdyne Mercier.    Herdyne Mercier is the Chief Grief Crusader and host of  Redefining Grief Podcast with Herdyne Mercier. Her job is to create safe spaces so that broken hearts can be seen, heard, and validated. The process helps you get unstuck from your unresolved grief and get you to a place of purposeful living.    Redefining grief  Herdyne defines grief as experiencing any kind of loss. This isn’t limited to losing a loved one to death. Grief can also be felt when you move to a new place, experience job loss, go through divorce, or when filing for bankruptcy. Herdyne had the exact feeling when along with her husband, they filed for bankruptcy back in 2007/2008. The real estate market crashed and they couldn’t sell their home. Her husband, James Mercier, could not find a job with a

Why Your Brain Lies To You: Cash Is NOT The Best Motivator   Although money is one of the indicators of growth and success, it’s not necessarily the best motivator when it comes to incentivizing a sales team.   Tim Houlihan and Dr. Kurt Nelson are consultants who have spent more than 20 years working with companies to design incentives that will increase productivity within sales teams.  Just a few years ago, they started a podcast that provides practical applications in the real world. One of their topics, motivation through incentivizing, is especially helpful for sales managers.    People tend to make decisions based on an emotional gut response, even though we mistakenly think these choices are made based on rational thought. Emotion and motivation come from the same root making it difficult to distinguish one from the other. Money has less of an emotional connection than we realize and because motivation is tied to our emotions, money can be a poor incentive for a sales team.    Human beings as emotional

Building A Successful SDR Team From The Ground Up    The sales team is the backbone of a business. It’s composed of both SDRs and BDRs, both working to make sure the business is thriving through a steady flow of consumers. For this episode, we’ll discuss SDRs and how you can build a successful SDR team.    Kyle Coleman started his career in B2B tech in 2012 at an advertising agency in San Francisco. He supported clients such as Dell, VMWare and other large companies; however, Kyle eventually realized that advertising wasn’t where he wanted to continue his career.  In a timely move, he was able to pursue an exciting new position in sales and marketing with a start-up called Looker, a data analytics company based in Santa Cruz. Kyle was recruited and became a member of the Looker team in 2013. He stayed with Looker for six years and was able to experience firsthand the growth of the company from six people to roughly eight-hundred sales reps and 100,000 ARR to over 100 million in ARR.    In 2019, Kyle made the

What You Believe Is What You Will Achieve    It’s imperative for salespeople to maintain a positive outlook to make it through this season of unforeseen circumstances. Perception and belief is going to play a big part in how we navigate the unknown so believe that success is still achievable. Donald believes it’s possible and shares his thoughts about how to make it happen and what could potentially hold us back.   In this episode Donald will be discussing limiting beliefs. These beliefs, ideas, and philosophies can come from many influences including a boss, team members, family, and many others. Sometimes, because we’re listening to all these outside influences, we fail to see that everything we hear here doesn’t always reflect the truth. Your actions may reflect what you’ve been told but they don’t always lead to success.  We have to be careful of following so blindly that we are no longer true to ourselves.    Let’s go back to the beginning Donald started out his sales career in business development, sell

Salespeople Have a Love/Hate Relationship With CRMs   Almost everyone is using CRM in their businesses  for its efficiency in data collection. But truth be told, many salespeople have a love and hate relationship with CRM. CRMs are a great way to hold data but it doesn’t offer solutions on how to utilize this data in a way that reflects real time engagement with customers.    Kevin Knieriem is the Chief Revenue Officer at Clari, a revenue platform for companies in Toronto. He’s been with the company for 15 months and he’s had a background in enterprise software for over 25 years. He started his software sales career with Siebel System, the first enterprise CRM and from there, Kevin spent 11 years at SAP and due to an acquisition, also spent time with Oracle.    What is a CRM? CRMs are a place for account, contact, and opportunity information to be stored. These are major components  to track sales so it has been the primary  revenue solution for companies for the last 25 years. Keeping your CRM up to date is

How BDRS and SDR Should Use LinkedIn During COVID19!    The coronavirus pandemic has taken the world by storm. Many industries have been affected, even sales. How do you keep selling at this time? One of the ways is via LinkedIn. This episode will talk about how BDRs and SDRs can use the LinkedIn platform amid Covid-19.    Amanda Statton was raised in Virginia Beach and moved to Tampa about a year ago to work for BlueGrace Logistics. She started sales four years ago and she loves it. Jason Behnke is originally from Chicago and came down to Tampa to study at the University of Tampa. Right after college, he worked in sports and event sponsorship and eventually found his way to BlueGrace Logistics.    Selling in time of Covid-19 The pandemic has touched every industry.  Several manufacturing companies have shut down. People have been working from home for several weeks now but for sales and logistics, an opportunity has been created to transport products and to get help to those in need.    While Amanda and Jaso

How To  Identify, Recruit, And Train A Diverse Sales Team That Sells   Your company’s hiring process must have key steps and criteria for hiring a sales team that will consistently maximize profit.  They should be able to identify, recruit and train a diverse sales team that will push the business forward.    For the last five years Amos Schwartzfarb has been the managing director at Techstars in Austin, Texas and is now running his fifth program for Techstars. In the mid 90s, prior to his job in Austin, Amos led an early-stage sales organization and just late last year, he published a book called Sell More Faster.      Hiring the right people When hiring, Amos believes that many founders and CEOs often look for the characteristics they think a salesperson should have, even before they’re able to answer three important questions. He refers to them as W3:     Who is your customer?    This identifies the people who are actually buying your products, considering every detail. What is their title?  What type of

How To Build A Sales Engine That Will Land Massive Deals – Repeatedly   Every sales person wants to build a sales engine that will land them improve their business, earn massive deals, and generate future sales. In this episode, we’ll talk about how to move toward these goals.    Lisa Magnuson’s whole career has been in sales, specifically in sales management and sales leadership. Sales has always been Lisa’s passion and getting into Clorox, which is used in homes and businesses around the world, is where she experienced closing big deals.    The struggles in generating sales  There are several struggles companies face when trying to generate sales. During a crisis, the most difficult phase of the sales cycle is prospecting which is hard enough without added pressures.  During a time when everyone is already cautious you have to be careful about coming off as self-serving. Just conducting regular business can isolate potential clients. This is a concern that is applicable for both BDRs and SDRs. No one is exe

I'm Afraid of Losing My Sales Job    Everywhere you look, people are affected by circumstances that could not have been foreseen just a couple of months ago. Due to this upheaval, some people are losing their jobs. Is the fear of losing your sales position an added concern for you as well? In this episode, Donald offers some encouragement.    Everyone agrees it’s a hard time. This quarantine is unprecedented in most of our lifetimes and The Sales Evangelist is here for you and Donald has been getting a number of questions about what to do in the event of job loss.  Sales reps from all over the world are concerned and are afraid of losing their jobs. The harsh reality is that in this season, many will lose their positions while companies rally to stay afloat.    Donald has been there.  He had just graduated from college and was working for a small company when everyone was called to the conference room by the CEO and the executive team. Once gathered, they were told that the company was closing its doors that

How To Evaluate The Efficacy of SaaS Programs That Your Sales Team Subscribes To   Is your SaaS program effective?  Is it making you money or costing you more than your return?   Ankesh Kumar is with a company called Let’s Chat and the company focuses on personalization outreach to make sure your dollars are being spent well.    Let’s Chat helps a conversation run smoother. It does this by providing a co-extension that identifies LinkedIn topics that are of interest to your clients, it gives suggestions about how to break the ice, and generally makes it easier for sales reps to speak with their prospects in a more personal way.    Let’s Chat also looks into social platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and others to identify the person or client sales reps are going to talk to. It’s important for first meetings to be friendly, without crossing the line. Let’s Chat also uses its AI capabilities to prioritize the data based on the time spent on a particular topic, the frequency looking at topics and the topics a

How To Build Rapport By Asking Directed, Relevant Questions    For many salespeople, building rapport is a skill that needs to be learned. It’s not always easy for sales reps to build relationships with potential or existing clients.  Asking direct and relevant questions is a great launch fine-tuning the art of building rapport. In this episode we learn more about how to do this well.    Andrew Sletter has been in the same company, the Window and Door Store for 10 years. Their company sells windows and doors with a focus on in-home sales.  They work directly with the consumer and are with their customers for every step of the process, including installation.  The company’s office is located in Bismarck, North Dakota and they handle the North Dakota and Western Minnesota market.    The salesman’s profile Andrew doesn’t see himself as a true salesman. He believes that many salespeople are doing themselves a disservice by trying to fit into a particular profile. Andrew isn’t an influencer or a promoter.  Based o

I'm Succeeding As An SDR But I Don't Think I Will When I Become An AE A change in work setting is a challenging thing since one has to adjust with the new operations and work process. Did you just move from an SDR position to an AE position and you’re feeling lost? Don’t worry. You’ve come to the right podcast episode.    This heading is a question Donald saw posted on Reddit by a sales rep who is worried about his change in roles. The idea of becoming an AE scared him because he wasn't confident that he had the skills to become successful and build value.    Making the transition  This individual has been in the SDR industry for nine months and is concerned that his success isn't because of his sales skills but because of his ability to think outside the box. He thinks he’s terrible on the phone and feels that he lacks the ability to connect with clients. He finds it hard to drive business solutions and when he makes the transition to becoming an AE, he’s concerned his lack of experience and skill will get h

How To Get More Proposals Signed Faster With Pandadoc   Have you heard about PandaDoc and how it can help you get more proposals signed faster? If you definitely want to learn more from this podcast. This episode will talk about PandaDoc and how you can use it to improve your sales journey.   Nate Gilmore is the chief revenue officer at PandaDoc and his job is to grow the company. It is    their goal to help small businesses increase their sales and revenues. He has spent almost 20 years in the small business industry and most of those years were in software.    The idea of proposals  Salespeople can send out proposals and not get a reply for days or even weeks. This  experience is a common challenge for many sales reps. Salespeople need to understand that the entire workflow of the business depends on how well they’ve gotten to know the customer. Having insight into how their organization works, their timeline, and what their needs are will improve the content of what you send and get the right data to send

How To Become A Warrior Seller During The Coronavirus Outbreak   The world has been taken aback by the coronavirus pandemic. Businesses, regardless of industry, have been affected. As a salesperson, how do you become a warrior during the coronavirus outbreak? Jason Forrest works for a company called FPG which stands for Forrest Performance Group and one of their programs is Warrior Selling.    There are four different levels of a sales professional. The first level is the follower. They give all the permission to the customer.  The customer dictates what to do, how to act, and tells the salesperson when they’re going to buy. The next level is the helper, who has the sole intention of helping people and serving their customers. Leader is the third level. They are the people you follow to a place you wouldn’t go on your own. The last level is the warrior.   The warriors are advocates for the product and service they sell. This salesperson believes, supports, and advocates for their products and services. In add

What Is The Difference Between An SDR and BDR?   The next 20 episodes will focus on the conversations about BDRs and SDRs. We will be talking about tips, strategies, and ideas about how businesses can prospect better and connect with potential clients. Today’s episode will discuss the differences between a BDR and SDR in terms of what they do, how they do it, and how they earn.    In the previous episode, Donald was joined by his sales coaching client, Scott Romney. They talked about how businesses can realign and adjust their message to create offers that are irresistible for the prospects, even in a time of crisis. Our level of empathy must increase as we look for ways to understand where people are coming from. Strategies are needed that will help organizations overcome the crisis that many industries are facing in this season. Scott talked about being mindful and sensitive while thinking of opportunities where salespeople can be leaders to their prospects, especially now.    Set your goal. How many appoin

How Do I Sell During The Coronavirus Outbreak?  Many industries are affected by the coronavirus pandemic. With that, there are a lot of questions in the sales community about how to move through this season well.  How can you sell while everyone is quarantined and practicing social distancing?  Scott Romney is a senior account executive at Soci. He loves sales and building relationships. Soci’s goal is to help their clients overcome the challenges that may come from internal alignment or with their local franchise partners. Soci can come in to balance their clients’ social media reviews and  do it using just one platform.    Facing the challenges Businesses that are sole-ownership need to take special care with protecting their brand. The main challenge that salespeople are facing right now is how to keep doing sales without compromising the health of all involved and their businesses. Most salespeople are now hiding by not calling people or having conversations with their prospects and clients. What these sa

How to build a sales engine that will land massive deals – repeatedly   A sales engine is a great strategy to increase your number of closed deals. As a sales manager, how do you build a sales engine to land massive deals for your team?    Nigel Green works with  executive investors and sales leaders of companies to help them scale up faster and smarter. As a sales advisor, he works behind the scenes to ensure that leaders are hitting their targets at the end of the year. Nigel understands that if you don’t relentlessly pursue your craft and coach your team well, you won’t be in the game very long.    The revenue harvest Nigel coined the  term, Revenue Harvest, in this sales leaders almanac containing the fruits of 15 years of experience. He’s been helping various companies build their sales team faster so investors have a chance to grow their private equity. Sales leaders in this kind of environment need to act fast.   When Nigel moved to a farm, an hour outside of the city, he was able to observe the farmi

How To Close More Deals Using Videos Throughout The Sales Process   Closing deals using videos is now becoming a very effective tool in the sales process. As a salesperson and an entrepreneur, we’ll talk about how you can incorporate videos into your sales goals.    Doug Davidoff works with companies in the B2B space around customer acquisition and success programs. They examine a company’s sales structure to figure out how to build it in a way that’s scalable, repeatable, a high probability yield, high-margin, and high-growth.  Because of this, a sales team can get more done in less time.    The beginning  Doug started working for the company when he was just 16 years old, around the same time when he got his driver’s license. Back then, they were focused on traditional sales advisory sales training. For the last seven years, they’ve been looking into the holistic process of customer acquisition. Every three years, they reinvent themselves in an effort to make it easier for companies to work with ease and ef

How To Find Government Sales Opportunities Without Selling To The Government   Salespeople are known for their tenacity and passion to sell but one opportunity that can be overlooked is selling to the government.     Jack Siney worked for the Navy on the F18 Fighter Jet Program and after this experience, moved to entrepreneurial companies and tech industries where he worked for public safety agencies. One such agency installed software in laptops that are in police vehicles across the country. Jack may have started in the government but has now been an entrepreneur for the last 25 years helping the government process more efficiently.    Challenges in Selling to the Government   There is a long list of stereotypes on why doing business with the government isn’t a good idea. Many think that the government is hard to deal with because of all the red tape involved, making the process take a long time. It’s true that in every stereotype, there’s a kernel of truth. However, the government has grown and has moderni

Rethinking The Way You Do Sales Automation   What do you think of sales automation? Is it a go or a no for you? Perhaps it’s time you rethink the way you do sales automation.    Gessie Schechinger works for a company called OnCourse, a brand new sales engagement platform. Most of his life, he’d been a professional peddler, jumping from one sales job to another. He started his career in sales with cold calls, went on to a territory sales job, then became an account manager. From there, he got a taste of CRM. Now with his current team, they’re sharing a tool they’ve created that is helpful for salespeople to automate. Their goal is to use the sales professionals’ skill set and automate those skill sets for a more efficient outreach.    Selling smart using automation  OnCourse is a tool that helps salespeople to automate responsibly. The tool helps to ensure that your emails have accurate presentations, the right address, and all the other information and variables needed for impactful engagement.    In addition