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

Networking Effectively and Creating a Sphere of Influence The idea of networking effectively and creating a sphere of influence is nothing new in sales. It’s a facet of sales that everybody understands and executes. Networking is one sure way of meeting new people, building relationships, and it eventually opens doors for opportunities.  Likky Lavji has been meeting people and building relationships for 30 years. He built and grew his IT company based on his referral network. By the time he sold his company, he had ample knowledge about how to do the business. Now, he’s sharing his knowledge with others. The old methods of doing business  Face-to-face meetings and getting to know people before starting the business are old methods of doing business. Today, people depend on social media to grow their business. We are bombarded with social diversions making us adept in communicating using social media platforms. The downside to that is it’s becoming more difficult for many to have conversations face-to-face.  A

The Accidental Seller Series - Wendell Jordan This is the 4th episode of the Accidental Seller series.  Wendell Jordan is the owner of Jordan Consults and a local SEO specialist. His company works with small businesses to increase their digital footprint.  Growing up, Jordan and his friends wanted to become professional basketball players. However, playing for the NBA became an afterthought when he reached high school. His first few years in college were spent actively pursuing the business side of music. By then, he was in and out of recording studios in New York City. Perceptions of sales Wendell thought of salespeople as sleazy individuals. He first came across sales when he was young.  A vacuum salesman was doing door-to-door sales and he wouldn’t leave until his mother threatened to call the police. The salesman was trying to force his mother to buy a product they didn’t need. That experience had a negative impact on Wendel and affected how he viewed sales.  Wendell’s mother worked for the city of New Yo

How to Seize Attention and Build Trust in a Busy World    As salespeople, we look for ways to seize attention and build trust. While prospecting and building trust among clients is critical, it’s also one of the most difficult tasks in sales.  Ron Tite is the founder and keynote speaker of the Toronto-based agency, Church+State as well as the author of Think Do Say: How to Seize Attention and Build Trust in a Busy, Busy World.  Being an executive creative director at a large multinational ad agency, Ron has extensive knowledge about traditional agency marketing, advertising, and design. In addition to that, he’s also an experienced comedian, using that in his own entrepreneurial journey. Ron is also  an investor who appreciates the need for sales to do business.  The desperate need for attention  Salespeople are looking at the ecosystem correctly but are using the wrong tactics to make a breakthrough. They’ve been chasing metrics that don’t deliver to build long term businesses.  There are so many thought le

How to Negotiate a Mutual Win  Salespeople are always looking for a win and when closing with clients, landing a great deal while being able to negotiate a mutual win  is the idea goal.   Adam Ayers studied mechanical engineering and built a software technology startup after graduating. He is now the Chief Technology Officer and founder of company, Number5, which specializes as an outsource CTO for celebrities, eCommerce companies, and internet brands. Fifty percent  of their operations involve running technology, and acquiring customers, for commerce businesses and executing the data science.  The other fifty percent is on custom technology where they build platforms, APIs, and high-performance software on the internet.  Negotiate a mutual win When Adam was a child he asked his father what inventors do and the response resonated with him.. He was told  the best inventors don’t just invent things, they are capable of selling what they’ve invented. That thought motivated him to make things himself,build a team

The Accidental Seller- "Ashlee Reusch" This is the third episode for the Accidental Seller series brought to you by The Sales Evangelist.  Ashlee Reusch is a business development representative at Cognos HR. Ashlee was always on the lookout for change growing up and thus wasn’t chasing a specific career. She graduated high school a year early and proceeded to go to college. She was aiming to get her radiology technical certification at the local community college. She majored in Science and went into the medical field.  Ashlee had a change of heart and realized that science wasn’t her passion. The classes didn’t excite her and being a creative person at heart, she felt like the course didn’t foster that part of her. She didn’t want to sign up for endless classes to get certifications to advance her career in the medical field in the future. She was at a loss for what to do next and that’s how she fell into sales.  Falling into sales  She was finishing her associate’s degree at a community college and was deci

How to 10X Your Income With Repeat and Referred Business Repeat and referred business is a sure tactic to grow your business 10x. Despite that, not many are looking into it.  A reliable tactic to increase income is to use repeat and referred business. Gia Le, a successful real estate agent in Australia, whose heritage is Chinese-Vietnamese,    uses this strategy with great success. However, before she got into real estate, her career started in finance and insurance sales through the automotive industry.  Gia wasn’t always the top salesperson she is today.  Working for Australia’s largest automotive holding company, she was almost fired in her first three months as an insurance and finance consultant.   Selling using out-dated methods  Early in her career, Gia attended several training programs offered by her company. She learned a variety of  selling techniques and rehearsed the scripts but they proved to be ineffective.. These original methods sounded rote to the more sophisticated customers and the techniq

The Main Things Generating The Most Leads Right Now!    As salespeople, we often ask ourselves about the main things generating the most leads right now because we always want to be in on everything that works. Consumers’ purchasing decisions are affected by their experiences and we want to know what affects them in order to appeal to those emotions and convince them to buy our products or services. Sales professionals that we are, we love leads and we like getting new prospects.  Vlad Calus is the founder at Planable, a content collaboration plan for freelancers and marketing teams. It is the most visual platform that helps you preview your social media content before publishing it. Planable helps you check and review your content before publishing it. It makes collaboration and asking for feedback from your teammates easier as well as  asking for clients’ feedback before finalizing the content and scheduling the posts through social media.  Generating the most leads right now  There are three things that he

Impossible to Inevitable How can salespeople turn the impossible to inevitable?  Aaron Ross is the author of the book Predictable Revenue and a proud father to nine children. The book Predictable Revenue is called the sales bible of Silicon Valley. It changed how the fastest-growing sales teams are designed. The book talked about outbound prospecting which can be a very predictable way to drive appointments and if you have predictable appointments, you can create predictable revenue. It also talks about sales specialization instead of letting the sales reps do the prospecting. Managers must break the sales team into specialized groups to assess where they excel.  Impossible to inevitable  His new book called From the Impossible to Inevitable is the growth bible. It’s more for C-levels:the managers, executives, and the leaders who understand the few key reasons why a company gets stuck and won’t grow. The book answers three questions: Why aren’t you growing as fast as you can? How can you grow faster? How d

The Accidental Seller Series 2 - "DeJuan Brown" This is the second episode of the series The Accidental Seller. There are more accidental sellers in the sales industry than we know of. In fact, there are about 4.14 million sales professionals in the United States who fell into this career.  DeJuan Brown wanted to be a chemist when he was a kid. He also wanted to be a system analyst because he wanted to follow his uncle’s footsteps who worked as a system analyst for Guardian Life for a long time. But in college, he studied Psychology and Philosophy. The mathematics included in studying both Chemistry and System Analysis dissuaded him to push through with his childhood careers.  His view of sales and of the salespeople came about when his father started selling Insurance when he was two years old. Selling insurance then was very different compared to how it’s done today. People are able to sign up online or pay for their premium online but before, selling insurance was a door-to-door sport. His dad would spend

One Major Closing Question You're Neglecting To Ask    There are times when the sale is almost a done deal but at the end of the day, it’s not pushing through because there’s that one major closing question you neglected to ask. This can happen to everyone, not just for the new sales reps.  That one closing question you neglected to ask Let’s take Dave as an example. Dave is a seller who is wrapping up things with Bob in a phone call. Dave gave an amazing demonstration but Bob is being wishy-washy in his response and told Dave that he is still going to analyze internally first before moving on with Dave’s deal. Now, Dave is upset, furious, and blurted out some things.  Dave could have done things differently by asking follow-up questions. Seeing it from Dave’s perspective, his outburst was understandable. He’s been working the deal for three months and he thought that he already got everything right. He already told his manager about it and he’s pretty excited for it to officially close. He needed this sale t

The Accidental Seller Series 1 - "Ludovic Vuillier"    Hubspot’s stats showed that 46% of salespeople did not intend to go into sales. That means a massive 4.14 million individuals are now accidental sellers. Perhaps they were working different jobs and suddenly they decided to go into sales or the circumstances prompted them to go into sales. This series will be about the people who have become accidental sellers by hook or by choice.  Ludovic Vuillier is an entrepreneur who runs the Good Life Manifesto. It is a tool to help you live a good life. It is a guide that’s related to health, business, finance, and relationship.  Ludovic started his career in sales 20 years ago. He sold for myriads of companies and consulting organizations. He also helped these organizations to find success in their sales.  But before he went into sales, he wanted to become a doctor because of his interest in the human body. The downside to that is one has to spend over 12 years in school before becoming a doctor, which is somethi

What Is Social Dynamic Selling & Why Does This Work So Well? Many sellers appreciate how social dynamic selling works well. It’s effective and has connected more than 2 million consumers to their clients.  Rylee Meek grew up in a small town in South Dakota but is now residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He lived in a town with very few opportunities but at the age of 15, he already had that drive to start earning money. He got a job at a pizza joint and made a minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. He dove into the entrepreneurial world at that young age. His family made a significant amount of money from network marketing and that impacted his path. He met many like-minded people who directed him to the right books to read. It was his initial step of taking that entrepreneurship role.  He then started working with a network marketing company instead of proceeding to college. At 19 years of age, he was able to get his   BMW but then he realized that his income came solely from the effort and from working up to 17

How To Elevate Your Sales Game  As a salesperson, you might have asked yourself the ways to elevate your sales game.  Dug McGuirk is a national trainer with Tony Robbins. He is a peak performance strategist to help people get a clearer picture of where they are right now in their sales organization including the results they’re experiencing as an individual salesperson or as a team leader.  He and Tony help individuals see their role in the organization.  Salespeople can’t change the market, the economy, the way the organization works, and the standard of practice. Tony and Dug want salespeople to see the clear picture and help them realize their true potential.  Elevate your sales game  Salespeople are always looking for ways to elevate their sales. The first step to do that is to analyze the things that might be holding back the sales. Sales reps must look at the pattern when they’re stuck. Do not have the tendency of beating yourself up and taking the fall when things go wrong or when you’re stuck.  Assess

Sales From the Street: “I Almost Quit” We all face challenges and sometimes, the sense of defeat is so strong that the phrase, “I almost quit,” is so relatable.  Luigi Prestinenzi struggled in his sales journey as well. His mom was great in sales and worked for Mary Kay, a global cosmetics empire. His mother won awards and was an icon within the company.  All the success, however, came to halt when she suffered complete burnout. Luigi was seven then and he didn’t understand what was truly happening except that he saw his mom hustling and reaching her goals.  Fast forward to 23 years later, Luigi also fell on the same path. Everything was working well for him but all of a sudden, deals fell apart and they just kept falling through. It was the first time that he found himself in a challenging situation.  His manager talked to him one Christmas and he couldn’t focus on anything, not the festivities, his family, or the food. He questioned his life and his decisions and he started drafting his resume and looking f

Many of us are hesitant to use video because of our own fears but it’s absolutely possible to use videos to increase sales.  Brenton Crane isn’t from the advertising and marketing background. He is from data analytics and started his career in Washington D.C. as a statistician at the Census Bureau and analyst in the National Intelligence Agency. He then partnered with the brothers Neil, Jeff, and Daniel for a campaign. The combination of their creative skillset and his analytical skills created a system that makes advertising campaigns effective.  The power of videos in the business The most powerful form of communication happens in face to face conversations between two individuals. These face to face interactions are how you make out the nuances of a conversation. This will allow you to listen to the tone, see the gestures and body language all happening at a subconscious level.  Video is the medium that’s closer to that face-to-face action. When you talk to someone on the phone, you miss the body language

How To Effectively Sell New Products To Current Customers Salespeople often ask how to effectively sell new products to current customers. Some clients are satisfied with the current service they’re getting and they’re not keen on investing in another one. There is a way through this sales ordeal.  Thomas Steenburgh teaches business marketing and sales at the Darden School of Business. He’s also an administrator and has stayed with the school for seven years. His team did a five-year research project on how to effectively sell new products to customers and what’s so hard about it.  Looking at the problem Thomas’ team looked at various factors: The different ways people sell The types of people who excel in the process The organization’s structure The culture that the companies/organization create The combination of these processes which is finding the right process, finding the right people, finding the right organization, and finding the right culture is the key to making this happen.  The challenge  If g

Sales From The Street - "Are You Firing Me?"   One of the scariest questions to ask in this field is, “are you firing me?” You might have asked this yourself, out loud or in silence, but regardless of how, it’s nerve-wracking just the same.  Andy Racic has been in professional sales for nine years and most of those years were spent serving HR professionals. These days, Andy is with a software company called Tango Health. They offer B2B software and outsourcing solutions to help professionals across the country.  The beginning While Andy was living in Houston, he was working for an agency recruitment firm called Michael Page. The agency recruitment space is 100% sales: that is 90% sales and 10% consulting. They were in the business of the oil and gas market and despite the difficult times in the business, their agency was able to establish a good relationship with their clients. Out of the blue, one of their clients asked him to help find a recruiter.  That was an alarming thing to hear because to him it sound

Creating Great Customer Experiences To Close More Deals   Creating great customer experiences to close more deals is often a neglected sales strategy by many. That shouldn’t be the case.  Dan Cockerell grew up in the hospitality industry. He went to Boston University and worked at Disney World for a summer. He officially joined the Walt Disney Company as a parking attendant in 1991 after finishing college. After 26 years and 19 jobs at Walt Disney, he decided to leave to start  his own consulting company.  Most of the employees in Disney who are working as executives in the operation started in the frontline roles to understand the customer experiences at the ground level.  The beginning of Disneyland Walt Disney was ahead of his time. He was an animator and he wanted to create a 3D world where people could escape reality and step into movies. He wanted to create happiness together as a family. This was his original thought for building Disneyland in 1955. He kept the business clean, he was nice to people, an

Use Contact Marketing to Breakthrough to Anyone   Prospecting is always a challenge for sellers, but it’s possible to contact marketing to break through to anyone.  Stu Heinecke is a Wall Street Journal cartoonist, a marketer, and an author. Stu has been nominated for the marketing hall of fame twice and has authored the popular book, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone. There are many ways salespeople can contact their clients and make a breakthrough, Stu’s book helps you navigate the whole process of reaching out to various clients. Stu is now writing his second book about how business cards can help salespeople reach out to prospective clients and what makes these business cards so special.  In the business industry, he helps his clients’ sales teams break through their top prospects. Contact marketing to breakthrough to anyone  Stu is a fan of great business cards. Unfortunately in this digital day, clients aren’t keen on business cards anymore. The tables have shifted and they’re no longer given much empha

What Are The 6 Critical Steps To Developing a Successful Sales Strategy? Sales strategies aren’t born from thin air; rather, there are six critical steps to developing a successful sales strategy.  Lance Tyson is an author and speaker who runs his own training company. Tyson group has been ranked by Selling Powers as one of the Top 20 sales organizations in the world. It has been operating for 15 years and invested in Dale Carnegie Training in 2010. They work in the sports entertainment industry and one of their biggest customers is the football team, the Raiders. They coordinate with the sales team to sell premium tickets, sponsorships, suites, and others. They also work with Michael Jordan’s company and several tech companies where they coach, train, and consult with their sales teams.  Lance isn’t just teaching; he is also out there grinding and doing all the sales work that his salespeople are doing.  Six steps to developing a successful sales strategy  Attitude, perseverance, and grit aren’t part of the