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

Every seller should create good content as a tool to gain leads, grow their business, and increase overall success.  Kyle Burt first heard The Sales Evangelist podcast two years ago when we interviewed Alex Berman about using video in sales. Kyle, who once chose business school over film school, went home and started making videos.  Massive success Kyle quickly turned his video capability into massive success for himself. Before video, he was using cold calls, email, and "screaming from the tops of mountains," knocking on every door and delivering cookies. When you're starting out, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.  He realized that video provided a good strategy to get leads. But he shifted his focus to making videos because he wanted to make videos. He realized he had a level of value and a perspective that wasn't being shared.  Kyle recognized, too, that only the people in his bubble would understand the content he was posting because it was niche content.  Coca-Cola He established a weekly s

It can be frustrating for prospects to ask to speak to your current customers, and it can leave you wondering, "Should I Give Client References?" It can be tricky to balance this need, because you don't want your current customers, the ones you've developed into raving fans, to be constantly bombarded by prospects. Root cause Throughout the process, your prospects are trying to determine whether you're a good fit and whether you can truly help solve their problem. I recommend that you develop a wide base of people that can give you good support. But let's address the root cause of how your prospects got to this point. In my experience, it's because they don't have confidence in you as an organization, so they are seeking third-party validation. They don't want to make a bad decision. Put yourself in your buyer's shoes. His job or his reputation may be on the line. His company may not have a lot of money, so they can't waste it on buying the wrong product or service. Diffuse risk This issue usually traces back

Your brand tells your story when you're not in the room, and today Lindsay Pedersen shares tips for forging an ironclad brand with sales reps, entrepreneurs, and other business professionals.  Lindsay is a brand strategist who helps professionals identify the single idea that their business stands for. She's passionate about working with leaders to harness the power of brand every day.  Branding Brand is what you stand for in the mind of your audience. If your audience is a group of customers, it's the thing you mean to your customers. If it's future employers, it's what you mean to them. It's a crystallized meaning of what you uniquely bring to your audience.  [Tweet "When you stand for one idea, it's easier for your audience to grasp it than if you stand for multiple ideas. It's easier for a person to let one idea in. #branding"] When you spray a bunch of ideas out, it's harder for your audience to understand. It's in our interest for our audience to be able to understand because they'll be more like to rem

Growing a small business requires you to think like an entrepreneur, and we can avoid reinventing the wheel if we engage with experienced entrepreneurs to learn more about hyper-growing small businesses. The Florida State Minority Supply Development Council connects us with successful entrepreneurs from a variety of industries, and many of them are using the council to grow their businesses. Every business, regardless of size, struggles with some kind of difficulty. Today, we'll hear from Ebony and Abdullah about how they've overcome the big challenges of entrepreneurship. Accidental entrepreneur Ebony started her career in oil and gas until she found herself facing an ultimatum from her management team. She was being moved to an office that she didn't want to occupy. She took it as a sign to take time for herself. And because of a non-compete clause built into her contract, she took a year off from work and went to coaching school to improve herself and become a better leader. She quickly realized that the i

Business owners and sales reps who try to sell to everyone will struggle to succeed until they decide to focus their efforts on the ideal customer. Today, Dr. Frances Richards, whose company helps people reclaim their wealth by transforming their health, talks about the journey of finding her ideal customer. Sales From The Street allows us to connect with a sales professional and hear about the biggest professional struggles that person faced. Dr. Frances is the host of a podcast called Black Entrepreneur Experience, where she interviews CEOs, innovative thinkers, thought leaders, and black entrepreneurs across the globe. Finding a tribe Her biggest struggle was finding her ideal customer, and connecting with the people that her message would resonate with. When you're building an internet business, there are so many different ways to connect with people that it can sometimes be overwhelming for businesses that are trying to find their tribe. She points to the fact that there are plenty of people telling you

I often learn from entrepreneurs and I discovered a lot about storytelling and leadership recently during the Florida State Minority Development Council's expo. On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we'll hear from two of the entrepreneurs I met there. The best leaders learn from past leaders, whether the leadership was good or bad. CJ Latimore and Gustavo Hermida work in two different industries, but the things they share here apply no matter what industry you're selling in. Urban development CJ Latimore is a public art specialist who characterizes his work as "telling stories through architecture and urban development. He says it's about hanging on to cultural icons even after certain buildings have been torn down. He boils it down to adding a soul to buildings. It's one thing to have a building that's structurally sound but CJ believes it's vital to track the communities and demographics that existed in the building before it was torn down. Very often, when a building is torn down to make way for som

If you find that your deals are falling through the cracks or you're losing your prospects to your competition, perhaps the problem is that you're not leaving anything behind.  You might be thinking of brochures and other leave-behinds, but that's not what we're talking about here. Instead, we're talking about the things you should be leaving behind any why these things are so critical to moving your deal forward.  Research phase Unless you're dealing with a referral, when you're dealing with a prospect, that person is probably considering other people as well. Even if the prospect reached out to you and seems completely interested, that person is ultimately looking for the best deal.  You must stay top of mind. Ensure that you stay relevant and always present without being annoying. You must give the prospect something valuable.  Content Consider leaving content behind that ties directly to what you've already discussed. Or leave content that helps the prospect prepare for the next scheduled meeting.  Once

Sometimes we lose out on promising deals because our prospects are giving us indications that all is not well but we're failing to listen to what the prospect isn't saying. Oscar Trimboli is a deep listening expert who is on a quest to create 100 million deep listeners in the world, and he starts by helping us understand what we should be listening for when we interact with our prospects. Taught to speak We all learned to speak, to do math, and to study literature, but none of us can remember our listening teacher. As sales reps, we spend a minimum of 55 percent of our day listening, but only about 2 percent of us have been taught how to listen. [Tweet "The productivity hack for the sales rep of the 21st century is learning how to listen. #ListenToLearn"] Remember these two bits of statistics as you listen to the information in today's podcast. The 125/400 rule. I can speak 125 words per minute, but you can listen at 400 words per minute. You're programmed to be distracted and filling in 300 words. You're co

Jordan Ray has endured more challenge in her 21 years than most people experience in a lifetime, so when she goes into a large hospital to share the product she has developed, many people believe that she is too young and they fail to understand that she is making a difference and helping others. It's a common challenge that many people face, and I faced it in the early days of The Sales Evangelist when I was 30 years old and advising people who were twice my age. Generations When Jordan's health failed at 17, she discovered a need for patients with chronic health conditions to accurately track their pain and symptoms. The log helps patients track their own experiences as a way to improve their treatment plans. Jordan isn't offended when people discount her because she's young. As a softball coach for 15- to 18-year-old girls, she recognizes that she's only three years older than her players, and she remembers what it's like to be immature. She said she doesn't get frustrated by the fact that people assume sh

Sellers have built up tension and fears which prevent us from reaching our true potential, but if we create a replacement picture of what success will look like, we'll move toward positive change. Mark Panciera is a third-generation funeral director, so he says he has a caregiver's heart, but he has grown into being a sales maven. He's a partner of the Pacific Institute, a performance consulting firm with an international footprint, where he helps leaders tap into their potential to drive greater personal and professional performance. Meaningful change All meaningful, lasting change starts within ourselves and then works its way out. That equates to mindset or habits, attitudes, beliefs, and expectations. It's focusing on the beliefs that are propelling us to our greater good or our higher purpose. It's about the pictures that we hold in our mind. Sometimes as sales reps we get focused only on closing the deal. Even before that, we may routinely tell ourselves garbage that keeps us from reaching our potential

Even if we have the right process or the best mindset, every seller is going to encounter difficulties, so we must figure out how we'll stick to our mission and achieve greatness in the face of adversity. Weldon Long has plenty of personal experience dealing with adversity in the form of 13 years in the penitentiary, homelessness, and dropping out of high school. He had what he calls a dysfunctional life, but he learned the ability to thrive in the face of difficulty. Difficulties are coming The truth is that difficulties are coming. It's easy in personal life or in sales life to feel overwhelmed and tempted to wave the white flag of surrender. Weldon was in federal prison when his dad died. He got a note to call home from one of the prison guards. He remembers realizing that his dad died with him in prison again. He had a three-year-old son that he fathered while he was out on parole. He realized that he wasn't being a very good father or son. He made the decision to change the course of his life but he had

Sellers who discover how to be successful without a marketing department, in a crowded marketplace, and when the customer isn't even looking will be successful in almost any circumstances. I got a question from a listener named Jon Billings who wanted to know how he could teach people who "don't know what they don't know." For instance, if the customer isn't looking because he doesn't know he has a problem, how do I communicate that? Especially in the case of sellers who don't have access to a marketing department, how is that even possible? Educate Your goal is to educate your prospects so that they will look to you instead of your competition when they need help solving a problem. Educating is the new sales. Regardless of the industry, you're in, your marketplace is likely crowded. How do you stand out from the competition? How do you help customers recognize you as a differentiator? You have to challenge the status quo, especially when many of your prospects already have solutions or they don't realize t

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thesalesevangelist/TSE_1091.mp3" background="blurred_logo" ] When you're looking to grow your business or your brand, it's important that you recognize the three things small businesses get wrong when marketing. We're at the Florida State Minority Development Council expo visiting with my friend Stephen A. Hart. He's a brand alignment strategist who helps entrepreneurs grow an amazing brand that is authentic, relatable, and profitable. Mistake #1: Overlooking messaging Many people hear the word branding and they think of logos or designs. But pretty websites don't sell things. Words do. People get unnecessarily caught up on design but what they need to focus on is clear messaging. You have to clarify your message so that customers will listen. Be deliberate about articulating what you do. In order to do that, you must understand who you're serving. Too many people think they are serving everyone with their product or service but that isn't the case. If I'm s

Hearing from other sellers can help us improve our own techniques, and today Troy Rackley shares his own killer message and how he communicates that he's selling more than water. Troy grabbed my friend Steven Hart's attention and Steven told me I had to interview him. Big shoutout to the Florida State Minority Supplier Development Council for connecting us with entrepreneurs like Troy. Water problems Troy's company, The Next Level of Performance, operates everywhere water flows: residential, commercial, or agricultural. He always begins by asking people what problem they are having with their water. They usually say it tastes bad or smells like chlorine. Troy customizes his solution for the problem the prospect is having. He then asks, "Do you drink out of the tap?" to which most of his customers say no. Troy challenges that answer by pointing out that because our skin is the largest organ of our bodies, taking a 15-minute shower is the equivalent of drinking 8 glasses of water out of the tap. The water is ab

I get a lot of requests to appear on The Sales Evangelist, but Jason Bay set himself apart from the crowd by sending a video email and changing the email game. Jason started his sales career while he was in college, and he and his wife now run a company called Blissful Prospecting, where they remove the stress of prospecting by doing it for their clients. He quickly discovered that the smaller midsize business was overlooked in the existing offerings, and he wanted to provide a less robust service that still produced the same type of results. Mom and pop Jason discovered there weren't a whole lot of companies that were willing to work with smaller organizations. Those companies that don't really have any SDRs and maybe they don't even know the lingo. Jason wanted to help those business owners who are already multitasking with some of their business development. They don't have time to list build and personalize emails. We've discovered the same dynamic at The Sales Evangelist. Many of the companies that need

You may believe that social selling won't work for your company or industry, but if you take advantage of the 4 pillars to leveraging LinkedIn for business development, you'll be surprised at how it can help you expand your reach. Brynne Tillman is the CEO and "LinkedIn Whisperer" of Social Sales Link and the author of The LinkedInSales Playbook and she has spent more than a decade coaching people to unlock the power of the platform. LinkedIn profile LinkedIn has its own social selling index so if you visit getmyssiscore.com you get your personal score, out of 100, that will rate your social selling acumen. Your LinkedIn profile is where that lies. Sellers make the mistake of using their LinkedIn profile as a resume when, in fact, it should be a resource. Corporate Visions reports that 74 percent of buyers choose the sales rep that provided value and insight early in the buyer journey. Your profile is their first impression of us, so do it right. Value Prospects don't care about your mission, your passion, o

Sellers who interact with and provide value to prospects using social media must understand the characteristics that turn this into the kind of social selling your customers want. We're tackling this topic all month, and even if you aren't a big social media person, we're providing an actionable plan to help you get in front of your prospects. It isn't enough to "set it and forget it" or generate large amounts of content in hopes that people will click through to find you. It's thoughtful preparation that gives buyers what they want and need right now. Trying to close I discovered the idea of using social media to sell when I was in college. I was seeking an internship with people who were in Chicago and our college professor told us that we needed a LinkedIn profile. He told us that we had to maintain that profile because that's where business professionals interacted. I thought it was a great idea because I was suddenly connected to millions of other professionals. I also thought it was great that I could

Social selling is the new sales because it utilizes all the techniques and tools that we've always enjoyed as sellers in order to help us build better relationships. Although nothing will ever replace the face-to-face relationships that sellers have with their clients, social selling is a valuable tool. Today Carson Heady shares what he has learned over a 17-year sales career about prospecting and relationship building and how social selling helps with it. Social selling Social media can help you find the right person to talk to that can help you connect with the right people, get a meeting, and stay top of mind. It's a great compliment to the business relationships we should already be forming. Social selling isn't a replacement for the things we're already doing. It's the application of the tools that enable us to get insights or see what customers and their organizations are thinking, doing, and talking about. When I first started using social selling, I was guilty of blasting a bunch of messages on Linke

There’s a huge prospecting opportunity right under your nose, and it’s a LinkedIn gold rush that can help you generate more leads and connect with more people. Even if you have been on LinkedIn since 2016 like I have, it’s possible that you aren’t even scratching the surface of what it’s capable of doing. LinkedIn isn’t paying me to say any of this. I’m telling you because I know how much you can do with LinkedIn and I want you to do big things. STATISTICS My friend Stephen Hart, host of the Trailblazers.FM podcast, shared some statistics with me that made my eyeballs pop. When he appeared on The Sales Evangelist, he shared with us the importance of creating content that connects with your audience. He also emphasized the need to incorporate social selling into your existing efforts. LinkedIn is designed to be more than a host for your resume. It’s created to be a community where people interact. CONTENT The article 48 Eye-Opening LinkedIn Statistics for B2B Marketers in 2019 reports that there are 9 billion

When we convince ourselves that we have nothing more to learn, we fail to ask enough questions and we sometimes even commit sales malpractice. Brian Robinson has been in sales for more than 20 years, but he said that he only thought he knew how to sell while he was in corporate America. He calls his plunge into entrepreneurialism the hardest thing he has ever done, and while it was successful, he said his eyes were opened when he entered the world of "you don't sell, you don't eat." Brian is the author of the book The Selling Formula, which codifies the steps he used to succeed in that venture. Intentional questions Many salespeople do the old "show up and throw up." We're so anxious to get to the presentation that we neglect to ask the very best questions we can ask to uncover the needs. We're seeking sincere engagement from our prospect, so this is the most critical component. Brian noticed that the best physicians diagnose illness with a list of carefully-crafted questions. That information became especial