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

Changes to The Sales Evangelist Podcast The time has come to bring some changes to The Sales Evangelist podcast. The TSE podcast has been around for six years and over time, we’ve been mentioned in a number of magazines including Yahoo Finance, Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Forbes, HubSpot, and others.  This all goes back to you for sharing the content with your friends and for helping us grow over the years. The podcast continues to evolve to adapt to the needs of the industry. Starting this October, there will be a couple of changes to The Sales Evangelist Podcast.  Humble beginnings The podcast has been around for a long time and it’s because of your support. We kept on going and pushing forward because we have the passion and drive for it. We started with two episodes a week: one 10-minute tip and one with a sales expert who’d give us advice. We then jumped to doing podcasts three days a week and later on, to five days a week. The team grew and the quality of content improved.  We started without getting

Even if you consider yourself a fiercely independent seller, you’ll sometimes need help from others because you can’t do it all on your own. Adam Carswell works for Concordia Realty Corporation, a private equity firm that invests in shopping centers. His company works with smaller mom-and-pop investors who can’t make million-dollar contributions and pools their capital with other investors.  No siloes  Adam worked as a residential realtor in 2017 when he decided he wanted to break free. He didn’t want to join a team and work within a system. He wanted to pursue his own course.  He achieved significant success in his first year and expected the second year would be the same. Unfortunately, it was the opposite.  Numerous deals fell through and he wasn’t sure what to do next. He was in a serious relationship so he hid his financial struggles, but that decision eventually blew up in his face. He looks back now and realizes that if he had swallowed his pride and accepted support from the people around him, he woul

A good salesperson knows how to nurture “No” into “Yes”. Hearing No in the sales world is common regardless of what you sell or to whom you’re selling to. When you hear a no, you can’t just back down and give up. You need to get back on track and fix it.  Craig Klein is based in Houston and he works in the energy business. He used to make deals with large oil companies and the deals would take a year or more to close. With that period of time and the level of complexity of every sale, he sought help from others.  He began Sales Nexus to address that inefficiency. Today, his company helps other businesses to grow and aims to help everyone in the community give their fair share of making their community a better place to live.  No is difficult to hear  Craig was trained by Dave Blanchard for awhile. Dave does executive training and he talks a lot about our need to be right. Humans as we are, once the idea is planted in our head and we start dreaming about it, the idea becomes real. If that idea is taken away,

Pulling Profits Out of a Hat Pulling profits out of a hat is something that salespeople are raving about. But how do you go about it?  Brad Sugar has been in the teaching business for 26 years and now has coaching offices in over 80 countries. He’s also a published author with 17 books in his name. He appreciates being able to help others grow their business and keeps expanding his business to be able to help more people improve their sales.  One of his recent books is Pulling Profits Out of a Hat: Adding Zeros to Your Company Isn't Magic 1st Edition. This book teaches companies how  to get multiple growths instead of percentage growth. As salespeople, challenge yourself to multiply your growth. If your company grew by 15% last year, make it an aim to grow it 15 times more this year.  The starting point is to believe that your business can multiply and have the right attitude in getting it there.  Pulling profits out of a hat Every business person is a business owner. Whatever your role is, whether it be a s

For organizations looking to expand their footprint and extend their reach, these 3 tips to improve closing will help them achieve those goals. Johnny Lee operates a sales and marketing firm called C Level Partners that helps organizations expand their footprint, gain new clients, and move in the direction of their goals. He believes that sales is everything. His experience from the management side, from the individual side, and from the sales rep side gives him a unique multi-level vantage point. Listen to understand The biggest challenge Johnny Lee consistently sees is that sellers listen to reply rather than listening to understand. He recently carried out a DILO, or a “day in the life of” exercise with a lean, mature team that all suffered from the same problem. They all listened while waiting for the opportunity to explain why their company was so great.  Sellers master the art of articulating their value, but before we win in the marketplace we have to master the art of listening. We’ve all heard it b

How Do I Deal With Unresponsive Inbound Leads? There are tricks on how to deal with unresponsive inbound leads. Dealing with people who come to your website and who give their phone numbers and emails but don’t want to talk to you doesn’t have to be difficult. It is true that many who visit your site want the freebies and they ghost you for reasons you can’t comprehend.  The sales reps are frustrated because the appointment is not getting through, nor are the emails, or the calls.  This happens because we’ve conditioned the buyers this way. We’ve taught them the concept of opt-in. They give us their emails for emailed permission-based marketing and we call them or mail them to get an appointment. Other companies are doing this as well and buyers know the pattern and are now looking for ways around it. They often give a bogus email address or an old one that they no longer check making it next to impossible to get in touch with them in the first place.  Deal with unresponsive inbound leads  There are two ways

Write Your Company’s Obituary: Identify or Rediscover Your Company’s Purpose Having to write your company’s obituary sounds a bit morbid but there’s a good reason why doing this is important. One result is that doing so will help you identify and rediscover your company’s purpose.  Josh Levine is a culture company strategist and works with technology, social enterprise organizations, and firms to help them improve their work. His goal is to make the employees love what they’re doing by building strong relationships, higher trust, and deeper engagement.  Josh published a book called Great Mondays: How to  Design a Company Culture That Employees Love. It talks about all his learnings for the past 10 years in advancing the idea of company culture as a strategic advantage. It defined what culture is and gives people the tools that they need to improve the culture.  Write your company’s obituary  This was a tool that Josh’s mentor used and many clients would react negatively upon hearing it. There is more to sal

When I asked The Sales Evangelist community what they wanted to know about sales, one of the questions that emerged was, “Why do salespeople talk so much?” It annoys a lot of people, primarily because if you talk too much, you’re probably listening too little.  Persuading people Somewhere in the growth of the sales industry, sellers convinced themselves that talking would persuade buyers to make purchases. We believed that if we talked more, they’d hear us more and they’d more likely believe us. As a result, they’d say “yes” more.  Unfortunately, that just isn’t true.  The greatest salespeople listen more than they talk. #ListenMore You’ve likely heard the adage that you have two ears and one mouth, so you should listen twice as much as you talk.  If you pay attention, you’ll likely discover that the best salespeople are those who use their speaking opportunities to ask questions. They seek to understand their buyer’s perspective and to stimulate conversation that helps them gather important information.  Sti

Sales From The Street: "The Heart Flow Sales Process" Sales is a process and every salesperson has to master the heart flow sales process before expecting results.  Janet Clark’s company, The Freedom Shift, is a sales matchmaker. Janet matches high-ticket salespeople with coaches and consultants who want to expand their  sales team. She is also helping the coaches with their lead generation and figuring out their qualified leads because this part of marketing can be difficult.  Before she built her company, Janet started in corporate sales selling B2B. She built sales organizations for big telecommunications and internet-based companies. It was only five years ago that she started selling high-ticket transformation programs for top-level coaches and consultants.  B2B selling and transformational selling In B2B selling, a salesperson is selling somebody in a corporation and spending somebody else’s money. Their decision is still laced with emotion but it’s more of making the right decisions so as not to lose t

Modernizing the software demonstration can help prospects better understand your product value and keep your digital buyers connected to your product throughout the buying process. Greg Dickinson is the CEO and founder of Omedym, which is “my demo” spelled backward. He’s trying to help businesses utilize today’s latest and greatest technologies to augment and improve the digital demo process.  Product experience Most sellers can point to a personal experience in which a bad product experience eliminated a vendor from consideration in the buying process.  You won’t necessarily win the deal on the first demo, but you can unequivocally lose it. #SalesDemo People tend to have different processes and sometimes the more junior players are the ones that are giving the top-of-the-funnel demos. If you ask your team members to each give a demo, you might find yourself wondering if each person is selling the same product. The demos can be that different.  Digital buyers Buyers are more digital than they were five years

How to Not Ruin Relationships When Selling to Friends  Have you ever wondered how to not ruin relationships when selling to friends? This can be difficult because you would still want to keep the relationship even when they’ve said no.  This isn’t a unique struggle, it’s common to most salespeople. Perhaps the products could be beneficial to your friend or family so you want them to try it. You have a moral obligation to at least explain some ways to fix their problem without turning it into something bigger.  Solve the true problem  Assess whether what you have is truly a solution to their problem. You can’t sell a car to your friends when they already have one that is running in perfect condition. Even when you’ve told them about the new features of the car you’re selling, they’re not going to get one because they have a good car that runs just fine. What you presented to them isn’t a solution because there wasn’t a problem in the first place.  It is important for you to seek out whether there is a problem

3 Things Leaders Do To Hurt Sales Rep Relationships Sometimes, there are 3 things leaders do to hurt sales rep relationships and most times, they do it unintentionally. This is especially hard because sales leaders and sales reps spend a lot of time together. A bad leader can negatively affect how a sales rep makes his sell. While a good leader helps how sales reps can improve their sales.  Marc Levine founded his ImprovMySales business four years ago. The company is dedicated to creating wonderful and profitable places to work. Before this business venture, Marc was part of a sales team as a national account executive and technology and professional services. For the last 16 years, he has been developing leaders and teams, teaching people communication skills, selling services to certain companies including Citibank, Prudential, and Best Buy.   3 Things leaders do to hurt sales relationships There are probably more, but let’s focus on just the three things for now.  A leader does not create a psychological

With all the focus on social selling, it can be difficult to determine whether you can consider referrals and connections that result in LinkedIn leads as inbound leads. If a prospect connects with your content which leads to a conversation and then an appointment, can that be considered an inbound lead? LinkedIn connections You’re likely among those sellers who understand that your LinkedIn profile is your personal profile. You cherish it and treat it with respect. You post thoughtful content and share impactful videos and write articles and long-form blogs. You’re creating content that your audience can engage with.  If those prospects end up in your direct message as a result and that leads to a conversation, that’s an inbound lead. Though it might not qualify as inbound in the traditional sense, you’re engaging in the same activities. No matter who creates the content, it’s an inbound lead. You could even give it a unique KPI name like “social media lead” or SML. Converting leads If I connect with 15 or 2

Business Proposal Trends in 2019 What are some of the business proposal trends in 2019 that you’ve used and that have worked for your industry? Trends change so often that we have to keep track of all the changes to be in the loop because what’s new today, may be old news tomorrow.  Adam Hempenstall has been in the web design business for almost 20 years. He started doing basic websites and brochure sites before the company transitioned into a custom software company. They started building CRMs for different companies and have now invested full time into improving their proposal tool known as Better Proposals.   Business proposal trends The most important thing is that you're not just seeing a transition from the old school PDF method but the clients’ reluctance to change. There is, however, a massive shift towards people opening proposals using their phones. Proposals need to be web-based these days. It has to do with what everything else is doing. They’re not just documents anymore, they’re experiences. Cli

B2B sales optimization requires a longterm commitment to create quality content that will grow your audience and increase your success. Bill Bice, CEO of  boomtime, said he was born to be an entrepreneur, launching his first business when he was 14. He loves to talk about sales and marketing because it makes the biggest difference in business.    Data and marketing As business owners, we all know that we have to spend money on marketing, but it’s tough to do if you’re not seeing the ROI. For Bill, marketing is about data, which allows you to understand what’s working. The difficulty occurs when you have too much data because it can be difficult to gather valuable insights that help you improve marketing. Smaller companies often have more freedom to bring their sales and marketing together. In larger companies, the two disciplines are separate, and they are often at odds. Marketing isn’t doing the support work the sales team needs and each blames the other for lack of performance.  In smaller companies, the CE

Our Inbound Leads Are Causing More Work Than Good Sales Often, you hear salespeople say, “Our inbound leads are causing more work than good sales.” It’s always on the question of who should follow up on inbound leads and how to go about it effectively. Many small organizations are having a hard time utilizing their inbound strategies effectively. We don’t have all the variables and all the situations within an organization. Still, we can assume that there are three people on a sales team.  The sales team Assume that a sales team is composed of three people: the marketing person who does almost everything, the junior assistant who helps with content creation, and the outsourced person who does the marketing strategies. Among the three, who should follow-up the lead?  Not all leads are created equal. This means that before deciding who will follow up the lead, the lead should be evaluated first. You don’t want your salesperson pitching to a lead that in the end would go to another competitor.  Do a pre-qualific

From account selection to sales plays, Jamie Shanks helps sales professionals understand and adopt best practices for the modern, social sellers. Jamie is the CEO of Sales For Life, which is the de-facto standard in modernizing account-based sales motion. The company specializes in social or digital selling. It evaluates how you sell today and infuses modern digital sales activities into your process.  Account-based selling Account-based selling refers to focusing on a set number of accounts, whether it’s organized by territory or strategic value. Instead of relying on inbound leads or channel leads, you must go outbound. Jamie named his book Spear Selling based on a sales analogy of fishing: inbound efforts are a little like fishing with a net because you can’t choose the fish that land in your net. When you fish with a spear, you swim in the deep water and choose the whales you’re going to hunt.  Typically, companies focus on account-based motion because they need to increase their average annual contract

Whether you’re learning it for your own work as a BDR or you’re preparing to help another seller, there are five important keys to help you succeed as a BDR. If you’re looking to move to the next level as a seller, The Sales Evangelist Certified Sales Training Program group coaching program allows you to train at your own pace, either alone or as part of a group. The next semester begins this month.  Drink your own Kool-Aid Make sure you understand the product or service you’re selling. In fact, I recommend that you actually use it yourself. If it’s an enterprise software SAP or something large like that, you won’t likely buy it for yourself, but you should understand how the system truly operates. Know how it will help the customers you’re pursuing.  If you’re a BDR, you’re probably not chasing every single customer. You’ll probably have a territory or a certain kind of client. Look at industry reports to understand your customers and how your solution will help. Ask previous clients why they like your solut

Sellers get knocked down plenty of times, but sometimes failure is the greatest sales lesson. Brad McDonald works with Sandler Systems which has 250 franchises around the world that help businesses grow by improving their sales processes.  Failure Brad’s 28-year career in the U.S. Navy taught him that failure could mean the difference between life and death. When he transitioned from the Navy to the sales world, he realized that many of his attempts were going to end in failure. He had to change the paradigm.  The things he perceived were failures — having people hang up on him or cancel an appointment — weren’t really failures.  Along the way, he learned to embrace failure.  Gumballs You must make a lot of sales calls in order to get to yes. On the other hand, if we see the sales calls that ended in “no” as a failure, that will feel bad.  Brad uses a gumball analogy to explain it. If you want a green gumball from a gumball machine, and there are multiple colors inside, there’s a good chance you won’t get a g

There are three great closing questions that salespeople often ask because everyone in the sales arena wants to make sure that we’re closing effectively. The answers to the three great closing questions will help salespeople close like a pro.  Albert Alexander has been a partner in a construction equipment sales company that makes parts for excavators and bulldozers for 11 years now. Albert does all the marketing, inside sales, and digital marketing for the company.  Closing questions Often, sales reps are good at finding prospects and having a talk with them. Things change, however, when they’re turning them into leads. There are challenges in closing.  Sales reps have this predisposed idea about how they purchase that gets in the way when they try to close a deal. Albert’s company grows 70% every year and that’s because they stick people to a process.  For other sales reps, they stop in the middle of the process and it stops the action of the process moving forward. It could be because of the fear of reject