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

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

Think Like A Large Company CEO   Regardless of the size of your company, thinking like the CEO of a larger company will help you better visualize where you are going and how you’re going to get there.    Vicki Antonio is a business consultant and life coach. She started working for startup companies when she was just 13 years old. Her experience with startups taught her the pattern of growing pains which she then used when she fell into the real estate industry. Vicki’s work helped her gain a deeper knowledge of the entrepreneurial spirit and gain a business acumen. At one point, she went into upper management and real estate but when the industry came back, she ended up being a business developer for a global real estate franchise.    That work allowed her to manage 30 shops where her main role was to develop the shop, make it brand compliant, and develop partnerships with brokers. She was a business coach for these shops and helped these businesses become profitable. All the skills she learned from working

You Can't Sell Value If You Don't Value Yourself   Salespeople come from a variety of industries but the one thing they have in common: They all sell value. It can be a challenge, however, to sell something you don’t have yourself. Simply speaking, as salespeople, we can only sell value if we value ourselves.    Jenean Merkel Perelstein is a business and sales anthropologist who uses scientific techniques to help salespeople close the cultural gap between them and their prospects, clients, and the organizations they are working with. Her job is to help them understand the cultural approach and take advantage of it.    Defining value  Value often gets mixed up with values which are the standards or qualities we deem as worthwhile. Value is what we put out into the world, what we offer in exchange. It then becomes part of the larger conversation about money, prosperity, and playing in this market economy. Value becomes part of the interwoven concepts that have to be considered together.    When we stand in stre

Where Sellers Get Stuck   Sometimes sellers get stuck but where exactly do they get stuck?   Umar Hameed was previously working in Silicon Valley where he worked for high-tech launching companies from Asia, Europe, and the Valley into the U.S. market. He noticed that there were employees in the company who were rockstars in the sales department. Others, however, would invest in training, motivation, coaching, and incentives where they’d only improve a little bit. Still others would improve a lot but for only a short amount of time. Umar saw how the problem wasn’t in the sales training, process, or strategy. The problem was with the people and their mindset.   Umar’s work entails looking for ways to give salespeople an owner’s manual for their mindset in order to change their world.   Getting the team together  This can be applied to the sales team and the whole organization. It’s imperative to change the mindset of individuals because that’s how you shift the entire company and improve its trajectory. Conside

Equaling The Playing Field For Women In Sales    Sales used to be a man’s world, used to. The same can’t be said now because women have found their place in the sales industry as well.    Lorraine Ferguson is one of the great saleswomen. She started her career in the industry in the mid-eighties by working for a startup company. Like many women, she didn’t see herself as a salesperson but her job for the startup company called for it and Lorraine ended up joining a team of salesmen.    Lorraine’s challenges  Lorraine was young and inexperienced so she did what she could by imitating what she saw the salesmen were doing. With so much pressure sales, the job didn’t seem appealing. Sales were all about making the deal and sharing the benefits and features of the products and services. Lorraine did what she could but the biggest challenge wasn’t selling. It was her gender. Lorraine felt that she wasn’t taken seriously and several times during a negotiation, she was asked to bring in her boss.    It wasn’t just he

How To Pair Inbound Leads With Sales Triggers For Higher ROI   Are you thinking of ways you can pair inbound leads with sales triggers to get a higher ROI? In this episode, we’ll talk about how to do just that.    Tukan is the CEO and co-founder of LeadSift. It is an intent data platform for B2B technology companies. Tukan's company helps them identify which accounts and which contacts within the accounts they should be going after based on signals of intent.    What is an inbound lead? For Tukan, an inbound lead is anyone who comes into your website and fills out a form on gated content, requests a demo, or in other ways your website offers engagement. Other inbound leads may have come to you, chatted with you and given you their email address.  They could have also downloaded your webinar, your ebook, or another offering. If a person requests some form of information from your company, that is considered an inbound lead.    There’s a variety of sales triggers, including internal triggers or first party data

How To Qualify Your Prospects In Under 10 Minutes   How can a salesperson qualify a lead in under 10 minutes? Jason Swenk can help. He is a self-proclaimed professional Uber driver for his children, who are 13 and 9 years old, but his main job is to work with agency owners grow and create freedom in their company.   The downstream sales process The downstream sales process doesn’t start the conversation by immediately selling to a potential client.  Launching a meeting by talking about a product is a tactic many sales reps use but it doesn’t often lead to closing. The downstream sales process is more about taking away the risks and making sure that the transaction works for both parties and ensures both parties have good experiences.    Mistakes that people often do Oftentimes, people sell their core services right off the bat, and immediately go to the high ticket item regardless if it meets the client’s need. In this scenario a high commission is the goal by trying to capture a major commitment from a clien

Best Sellers In History Recap    The Best Sellers in History has been a hit and we’ve been doing it for the last few months. We have highlighted individuals and classified them as the best sellers throughout history. Over the course of the series, we’ve talked about:  Who they are What made them great at selling What separated them from everyone else How we can take those ideas and apply them to our selling career   The Recap In this series, Donald has talked about several individuals who made their mark. They were influential and persuasive people who were able to make a difference in their lifetimes. We’ve talked about Jesus Christ, Oprah Winfrey, Reginald F Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Benjamin Franklin, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Abraham Lincoln. They were amazing sales people even though they weren’t in sales for a living. For example, Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a salesman but he did sell a major idea.      Abraham Lincoln - sold the whole country on the idea of unity and the nee

Selling SaaS To Doctors vs. Selling Traditional SaaS    SaaS stands for Software as a Service. In this episode, Justin Welsh will teach us how to sell SaaS to doctors and how the language in these transactions can be applied in other areas of selling.    Although Justin Welsh is an accomplished seller, he is also a buyer who makes note of his purchasing experiences.  He recalls one such experience, about eighteen months ago, when he went to the Atlantic Center Terminal to buy a new TV. He and his wife had just moved to a new apartment and Justin wanted a large 60” TV so he could enjoy college football. He went to the store and told the salesman exactly what he needed.  The salesman, however, had other plans. Justin no sooner had asked about the 60” TV before he was hearing about 65”, 67”, and 72” inches TV. Justin was even taken over to the curved and 3D TVs. Justin admits he was a little intimidated by such an aggressive sales tactic. He’d just wanted to get the TV he was ready to purchase so he and his frie

Three Sales Principles I Learned While Visiting Jamaica   Donald Kelly, our podcast host, recently traveled back to his home country, Jamaica. The trip was beautiful and an eye-opener. In watching the work ethic and ingenuity of the Jamaican people, Donald learned 3 key principles that can be used by sellers in the U.S. and abroad. His experience in Jamaica can strengthen and help sales professionals to persevere in their roles.    Jamaica is a beautiful country. It has beaches and looks to be a people with an easy-going lifestyle. People picture Jamaica as a beautiful country but the way it looks doesn’t tell the whole story. It has its fair share of challenges too, just like any other country. The average salary of an individual is $149,000 (Jamaican dollar). That’s $138.72 in the US. People have to learn how to live off a meager income. While it’s not easy, they are still able to make it work. Parents are still able to send their kids to school to get a great education.    Principle 1: Sell lemons  Despite

The Best Sellers in History Series 10 - “Oprah Winfrey”   Welcome to yet another episode for the Best Sellers in History series. For this episode, we are featuring one of the most influential individuals in our century. She isn’t only known among the African-American community. Her fame reaches worldwide and this individual is now worth over $3.5 billion. She started from nothing but didn’t let that stop her as she overcame obstacles all the way to success and influence. She is Oprah Winfrey    Sales Spotlight - Oprah Winfrey Oprah Winfrey was born on January 29th, 1954 and her parents are Vernita Lee and Vernon Winfrey. She grew up in a humble community where she was raised by her grandmother on a farm. Oprah entertained herself by playing and acting in front of an imaginary audience. She had her first speaking gig in front of the congregation at church, where she spoke about Jesus and how he rose up from the dead on Easter Sunday. It was the beginning of her knowledge that this was something she could do. 

How To Train Salespeople That Aren’t Natural Salespeople   Getting training as a salesperson is part of the process and it is especially important for those individuals where selling doesn’t come naturally. How do you shape them to become great salespeople?   John Martinez is a sales trainer and has been training salespeople exclusively for about six years. Before that, he’d had a sales career for over 20 years. Working in corporate America training and building sales teams, he eventually decided to leave to start his own sales training company.    Becoming a great salesperson With proper training, anyone can learn the skills to get better at their job and sales is no exception. Not all salespeople are born for sales but with the right exposure and training, a skillset can be gained to excel. In these cases, one needs the desire to develop the strategies to help them overcome the inevitable hurdles and challenges that can come with a career in sales.  John wasn’t a natural-born salesperson himself.  He had a

How To Develop An Unstoppable Drive To Sales Success   Salespeople and startup entrepreneurs all strive to have an unstoppable drive toward sales success; however, this isn’t an easy feat. There are hurdles to face before that success can be attained. How do you get the unstoppable drive to sales success?   Dre Baldwin was a professional basketball player. He graduated from Penn State and played overseas for nine years across eight different countries. He is now an author and speaker. Dre creates programs for both athletes and non-athletes and does coaching and consulting, among his many jobs. He is also considered as an influencer with YouTube views of over 40 million.     The beginning of his basketball career  Dre started playing basketball at the later age of fourteen. With other players starting out much earlier, many were better than he was and had a greater skill set. With this in mind, he knew the only way for him to get better and earn their respect was to do more than everybody else was doing.    He

Best Sellers In History Series - "Harriet Tubman"   It’s another episode from the Best Sellers in History series. This month, we will be focusing on African American individuals who have been very persuasive. One such individual was Harriet Tubman, also known as the Black Moses. Harriet was born as a slave but managed to escape and rescue more than 300 slaves. In this episode, we’ll focus on why Harriet was so successful in convincing people to leave the life of slavery, even if getting caught meant death.    Sales on Spotlight - Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was born as Emerita Ross in March 1822. The exact date was never known because a slave’s birth date wasn’t recorded. Slaves were considered property and weren’t valued as individuals. She was born in Dorchester County, Maryland and growing up, she was beaten and whipped by her masters.  There was one incident Harriet endured when a slave owner threw a heavy metal object at another slave and hit Harriet instead. This injury caused a scar she would wear th