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Predictable Prospecting's Podcast

Tired of wondering where your next lead will come from? What if you had a reliable, and predictable, source of new potential customers coming into your sales funnel each month? This is Predictable Prospecting and here I'll show you how some of the best sales leaders in the industry are creating consistent, and measurable procedures to bring in fresh, qualified leads to their sales funnels each and every month.
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 26, 2017

The top of the funnel and improving, augmenting, and optimizing the ability to start conversations with whales on a consistent basis for higher revenue and a higher lifetime value is at the top of most listeners minds. Hardy Kalisher is the Executive Director of  Parallel Path out of Boulder, CO. He is here today to talk about more of the marketing side of things.

His focus is generating awareness and serving up those great opportunities for us. Parallel Path is a digital marketing agency, and Hardy shares his strategies for getting quality responses to bubble up to the top, so that we can get these potential clients into the pipeline and start those all important conversations.

Episode Highlights:

  • How sports create a certain amount of discipline and focus.
  • Getting too many minow leads that are muddying up the pipeline.
  • How digital marketing is best implemented on the outreach side of things.
  • How sales and marketing are both working towards the same goal of growth.
  • Foundationally building a data collection infrastructure for marketing to feed the funnel so that the sales team can engage.
  • Optimizing the marketing for a sales funnel that creates revenue.
  • Optimizing for campaigns that actually close deals.
  • Parallel Path has a proprietary solution structure that closes that loop.
  • Holding on to clients by making relationships last and closing the loop end-to-end and continuing to optimize.
  • Finding the lifetime value of customers.
  • Finding a cost per lead threshold that makes sense.
  • Creating solutions for sales and marketing people to work together to create the golden leads.
  • Having a checklist that leaves no stone unturned.
  • Working on process for efficiency and effectiveness even though each deployment will be custom.
  • From data collection to implementation in three weeks. Challenges are related to allocated sales and marketing resources.
  • The unlimited potential of the future state of digital and marketing.

Resources:

Dec 19, 2017

George Bronten the founder and CEO of Membrain is here today to talk about sales effectiveness and how to drive winning behaviors. Membrain is a sales effectiveness platform that helps complex B2B sales. There goals are to make it easy to execute your process, enable your team, coach effectively, and optimize your strategy.

George is a lifelong entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. Because of the Internet and global competition, George knew the sales process needed to evolve. It is his vision to increase sales effectiveness using modern SaaS technology.

Episode Highlights:

  • After failing to build a successful sales team. George realized that he had some wrong assumptions.
  • George started Membrain to create a way of working and selling that gives a strategy for sales people to use.
  • Everything needs to be centered around the buyer.
  • How can we differentiate when everything looks the same.
  • How we sell is going to be even more important in the future.
  • Having a buyer centered strategy that is centered around the buyer.
  • Making sure everyone has the skillset to execute things properly.
  • Then empowering everyone with the processes to be successful.
  • The huge importance of management and being a better coach.
  • Sales people having multiple roles and problems that arise around that.
  • Focus first by starting with the clients.
  • Reducing the number of mistakes made and having technical people and sales people onboard with new technology.
  • Getting the right people onboard in the right stage of the process. Systemizing this process.
  • The importance of milestones and points of interest in a checklist. Go down the checklist in relevance of the goal.
  • Autonomy and resistance to a checklist.
  • How the sales process is dynamic and needs to be flexible.
  • The process is living, lean, and constantly getting adjusted. The importance of analytics.
  • Start planning what area of the pipeline you can address in the first quarter.

Resources:

Dec 12, 2017

Jamie Crosbie is here today to talk about the top of the funnel. Jamie has experience all the way through the funnel and knows a lot about the pipeline. For the show, I asked her to focus on the top of the funnel, but if you like her processes and workflows by all means get in touch with her because she has a lot to share.

Jamie has over 20 years of experience in sales leadership and the talent acquisition industry. She founded ProActivate over 13 years ago. ProActivate partners globally with forward thinking leaders of organizations to achieve their revenue goals. We provide the top-shelf sales talent you need to amplify your message, leverage your position, and expand your base. Our unique model is the next generation of sales talent acquisition. We qualify talent through an in-depth, precise methodology based on behavioral modeling, digging deep into both skill-set, mindset and simulation evaluations. This allows us to offer only the most qualified sales professionals for your continuing strong growth.

Jamie is a certified speaker in The High Performance Mindset ® system, a revolutionary model that is elevating the performance of professionals ranging from athletes to executives to sales leaders. During these trainings she shares both the science and working tools that you can use immediately to enhance performance both for yourself and your team members. It's proven that human performance is limited not primarily by skills and knowledge, but by the nature of our thinking, our mental preparation for success and the environment within which we choose to operate.

Episode Highlights:

  • The passion behind ProActivate is to help organizations achieve revenue goals, increase productivity, and maximize talent and performance.
  • They help replace C players with A players and build talent to help organizations create a peak performance culture.
  • They mostly focus on the people piece, but skillset, mindset, and toolset enable people to be successful.
  • How mindset is a peak interest of students.
  • The importance of mindset for any industry. We have 60,000 thoughts everyday and 80% are negative. The impact on a sales person who deals with rejection is huge.
  • How engaging in higher level thinking enables us to perform at higher levels.
  • How habits are something that you do. Moving from discipline and sheer will to habits of work processes.
  • Hiring the best and upgrading the rest.
  • How the workshop has a step-by-step framework for developing mindset skills in a tangible way.
  • How rewarding it is to unleash someone’s mindset to the highest level.
  • For the next year, write down your goals and know your bigger why behind them.

Resources:

Dec 5, 2017

Process and metrics are so important, but there is a whole other side to selling. In this episode, I have a conversation with sales expert Mark SA Smith. We talk about selling professionally and being authentic. We talk about polishing the saw not only with systems and frameworks, but when it comes to the conversational side and speaking from the heart.

Mark shares stories of exceptional sales professionals. Ones who have skills like caring about their customers success, having foresight, choosing who you do business with, and being pragmatic. He talks about the importance of trust, and how the number one salesperson is usually the most trusted salesperson. We also talk about the importance of customer motivation and more.

Episode Highlights:

  • How life can be easier when you are in build mode because you have a path planned out.
  • Moving from knowing what’s next to being OK with uncertainty.
  • Having a growth mindset and progressing in a way that is comfortable for you.
  • How life is a series of challenges and triumphs.
  • How the person who signs the checks is the person who actually closes the sale.
  • Being a trusted partner as opposed to a sales person.
  • Creating customer success through foresight. Making a mutually profitable transaction.
  • Characteristics of a closer are caring about customer success, having foresight, picking your customers, and being pragmatic.
  • Working consistently instead of working hard.
  • The importance of trust and relationships with customers.
  • The product line is only 10% of the sales equation. Most sales people focus on the product. Focus on helping the customer relationship instead.
  • FAB charts or features and advantages. Attempting to map product to customer motivation. It should be mapping motivation to product.
  • Stop pitching and start asking questions and listening.
  • Offering permission to defer helps with building relationship.
  • Where the empathy comes into play and being open.

Resources:

Nov 14, 2017

If you are trying to figure out what to do next when it comes to starting new business and getting doors opened with high level decision makers. This show is for you. My guest today is Caryn Kopp of Kopp Consulting. Caryn’s business is all about  opening doors and meeting with the right decision makers. If you aren’t talking to the right person it is impossible to close the deal.

Caryn is also the author of Biz Dev Done Right which is all about uncovering and managing the blind spots in the sales process. When business development is done right there is no limit to what we can do. Caryn is the Chief Door Opener at Kopp consulting, and her service has helped thousands of business owners and salespeople secure meetings with the right people. Today, she shares expert insights into the sales and business development process.

Episode Highlights:

  • Her book is an Amazon bestseller and it helps uncover the blind spots that keep sellers from executing as they should.
  • It uncovers the strategies and methodology to get the sales success we all deserve.
  • It creates a predictable selling machine to get your foot in the door.
  • The different types of salespeople that are out there. Farmers who grow the business and hunters who find the business.
  • There are many different types of hunters. Closers and those who create new relationships. These are the openers who you want to hire to get business in the door.
  • Salespeople are often strong in closing or opening. Kopp Consulting only hires openers.
  • They offer outsourced openers with a proven process for creating sales messaging for high level prospects.
  • Sometimes salespeople can’t get the meetings because of lack of time.
  • Outsourcing to keep the top of the funnel full with new relationships.
  • Then the sales people only have to go to meetings and close the sale.
  • Getting the relationship open is a very different skill set.
  • Having a full top of the funnel is a very efficient process.
  • How when working with companies it is the bigger the better. They often work on the whale accounts.
  • The client sales cycle may have different lengths, but they all want to keep the top of the funnel full.
  • How they have short term and long term ongoing sales client relationships.
  • How the right messaging, prospect, and readiness opens the door. This process takes two weeks for Caryn’s team.
  • Two week onboarding at the top of the funnel. Launch with messaging and meetings. The handoff once they get the meeting includes remote access email through the client's company. The communication is seamless.
  • They send the invite, and the meeting notification, and then an appointment report with the entire background of the meeting and client needs.

Resources:

Nov 7, 2017

Whatever role you play in a sales position, there are a lot of moving parts and specific challenges involved with your unique role. Today, I talk to an account executive who has held many roles in the sales cycle and is passionate about making life for salespeople easier. We talk about his vast knowledge and lessons learned, along with how his company OppSource has developed a platform to make salespeople more productive.

Today’s guest is Andy Zehren. I met Andy by chance, but discovered that he had so much experience that he would be a perfect guest for the podcast.  Andy is an account executive for OppSource a platform that makes B2B sales prospecting and engagement easier. They help find and prioritize prospects and enable one sales rep to do the work of three with their automated touchplans.

Episode Highlights:

  • How Andy has held a lot of different roles in sales and he started as an SDR.
  • How each different role has had specific challenges.
  • Andy works with sales people at OppSource helping them with solutions to be more productive and make their lives better.
  • The importance of building relationships and challenges with automation.
  • Challenges of spending too much time and energy on a small amount of accounts.
  • Working smarter and hyper personalization. Average attempts at cold prospecting used to be four and now it is nine.
  • Saving time using a template, but making sure that the person you are reaching out to knows that you are a person reaching out to them.
  • The importance of having strong software that helps with followups.
  • Making sure that sells people moving is a seamless experience for the company and the prospect.
  • How OppSource simplifies the process of preparing for the sales workday using a smart technology solution.
  • The importance of finding the most productive call hours.
  • Having the ability to reach out to all of the decision makers and strategic selling.

Resources:

Sep 26, 2017

The current trend with sales teams is moving away from generic messages and the batch and blast approach. The method that everyone's talking about and trying to focus on now is personalization. Customized methods can be incredibly difficult for an SDR to create. My guest today is an expert at personalization for sales teams and we discuss challenges and solutions for crafting personalized emails for effective sales.

On today’s show, I am speaking with Kristina McMillan from TOPO a research and advisory firm that focuses exclusively on sales and marketing organizations. They have dedicated practices for sales, sales development, and marketing. The focus is on market research, executive advisory, and the study of high-growth organizations to understand the processes, levers, and best practices that contribute to high growth.

Episode Highlights:

  • Challenges with creating personalization at scale and having a repeatable structure that allow customization.
  • The four stage messaging framework research, crafting the message, 2-3 touches a week, and using technology to automate.
  • Knowing what to look for in the research stage.
  • The three steps to crafting a message: setup, engage, and offer.
  • The importance of understanding the role of the contact person.
  • The offer should draw the client into the conversation to learn how I can help them.
  • Using the touch patterns together with the framework. Sequencing and cadencing.
  • Touch at least two to three times a week. A frequency that builds familiarity.
  • Recognition and having a multifaceted profile for contacting a client.
  • The importance of telling stories or having cliffhangers and persuasive copywriting.
  • How people will respond when you offer something of value to them.
  • Maximizing your return on effort.

Resources:

Sep 12, 2017

There are a lot of definitions of sales enablement. What is it? How do we do it? Why does it matter? Having a process and mindset that extends across an entire organization can help enable salespeople to be successful. Still, it would help to have a clear plan and goal to get the most impact out of the enablement process.

Today, I have two guests Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey.  Cory and Hilmon just happen to know a little bit about sales enablement. They are the authors of The Sales Enablement Playbook and they run ClozeLoop a sales enablement platform. They are based in San Francisco, and this is a fun and lively episode with two guests diving into the topic of sales enablement.

Episode Highlights:

  • Cory and Hilmon share their definition of sales enablement and focusing on the prospect.
  • How there isn’t a one thing silver bullet type solution to sales enablement.
  • Every department needs to contribute to sales enablement.
  • Having a mindset based on customer engagement where every team contributes.
  • Having the customer conversation at the center of the bullseye. Then as the concentric circles move out there are other team members contributing.
  • Understanding your messaging and how it relates to buyer personas.  
  • Pain points and features and how they relate to customer stories.
  • Issues with a disconnect between marketing and sales. Creating micro content for the salespeople.
  • The three types of sales conversations: lone wolf, scripting, or finding the sweet spot of the entire team's effort.
  • Creating a playbook that allows a natural feedback loop.
  • Knowledge management is about the conversations.

Resources:

Aug 22, 2017

When people in sales hear the word story, they think the focus is on marketing. What if I told you that there was a way for sales executives to use story to frame their sales conversations? Story can be used to explain what a company does, the value they deliver, and how they are different. Story can also be used to begin a conversation, continue a conversation, and feed that all important sales pipeline.

This week’s guest is Jim O’Gara the founder and CEO of Story Dimensions. Jim shares why he began his company. Along with how sales professionals can use story throughout their sales process, and how Story Dimensions can help automate, organize, and publicize the process. Story can be a valuable tool in the sales process, and Jim shows us easy ways to implement story into the process.  

Episode Highlights:

  • How Story Dimensions came into being and what they offer
  • Lack of relevant customer stories and insights in the buying process
  • Providing salespeople with a consistent stream of relevant stories
  • Tactics for using story in different phases of the buying journey
  • Connecting with buyers on a more human level
  • Compartmentalizing the most relevant part of content
  • Structuring content for salespeople to easily share
  • Tracking usage and capturing analytics for matching stories and personas
  • Account based selling and meeting with multiple stakeholders

Resources:

Aug 8, 2017

Starting a conversation is the first step in the sales process, and it is also a step that most salespeople would like to be more successful at. There are a lot of channels that can be used to start that all important first conversation, but today we are going to discuss an emerging channel that can generate curiosity and add that personal touch.

Today, I am speaking with Fernando Silva who is a solutions associate at Wistia which is really the same role as a sales development rep or SDR. Wistia is a professional video hosting platform that offers analytics along with video marketing tools. They also offer advanced marketing integrations for video that can help create the ultimate lead nurturing tool. I met Fernando at a conference, and I was intrigued with how he is using video to reach out and start conversations.

Episode Highlights:

  • How Marylou tripled her response rates with cold video
  • How Wistia targets large and small accounts but they focus on the SMB space
  • Fernando works more on the inbound model of contacts who go to the website
  • They use free accounts for signups, then they begin outreach with customers who fit their target personas
  • SDRs reaching out and introducing themselves with video
  • Researching the customer and their website and pointing out tips and suggestions in personalized video
  • There is a learning curve to making great video, but Fernando can make about 30 in a 2 hour period
  • Putting the word [video] in the subject line
  • Touchpoints and replies help nurture the conversation with more embedded video
  • The easiest way to get started is with the Soapbox Chrome extension

Resources:

Aug 1, 2017

Every business from solo entrepreneurs to small business owners and people working within larger businesses need systems to create consistency, make the work easier, and achieve better results. Today, I speak with Nancy Gaines the CEO and Founder of Gain Advantages on systems and the process of creating systems to free up time and money and create opportunities for businesses of all sizes to scale.

 

Nancy Gaines has been advising small businesses and Fortune 100 companies on how to increase revenues through proven systems for almost two decades. She is a best-selling author and international keynote speaker. Nancy has been named in the Top 100 Productivity Experts to follow on Twitter and has a global podcast downloaded in over 70 countries. Her main focus is creating business processes with actionable steps so her clients achieve more consistency, ease, and ultimate success.

 

Episode Highlights:

 

 

  • Nancy helps small business owners to scale
  • She creates systems and processes to avoid trading hours for dollars

 

  • Models for productivity that help us to scale
  • Five systems in every business
  • Following up with sales, marketing, operations, your team, and money
  • Starting with systemizing your biggest pain point
  • The 24 hours, 7 days and 30 day method for following up (24,7,30)
  • The cold contact email method using video
  • Following up with personalized cards and handwritten notes
  • Customizing the cadence of follow up for different customers
  • Chunking up tasks and doing similar tasks together
  • Having a single focus and single task for phone time
  • Working for 50 minutes and then taking a 10 minute break
  • Taking time to think and ask questions about your business
  • Delegating tasks that are below your pay rate

 

Resources:

 

Jul 25, 2017

Building, training, and growing a sales team can be expensive and time consuming. New businesses and especially growing businesses will need a team to move the sales and business process foreword and generate revenue to continue the growth. Our guest today is someone who has come up with a solution to the problem of creating and growing a sales team.  

Today, I speak with Stephen Hayes the founder of Inside Sales. Which is a group of on demand sales professionals that assist growing businesses with the sales process and with additional sales team help. This process is cost efficient with ready to go sales professionals that also bring tools, techniques, and technology that can be plugged into a growing business to accelerate the process.

Episode Highlights:

  • How companies were struggling with building an inside sales model
  • Stephen noticed the need and created the service solution for inside sales help
  • They will often augment an existing sales team and help them scale
  • They also help businesses that have no team or a sales bottleneck
  • Demand generation, lead generation and opportunity generation
  • With new companies they help build the entire go to market and playbook
  • Importance of having systems in place to measure if the strategy is working
  • They only work with products they like and believe in
  • How being in too much of a hurry causes false starts and loss of credibility
  • Having a full program up and running in 45 days is the timeline
  • Sales cycles and learning curves could extend the timeframe
  • It’s important to treat SDRs well and keep them motivated
  • Tools used are multi touch, multi channel including phone and email and social
  • They also have micro and macro events and direct mail
  • Customized landing pages and video and animation are also used
  • They also focus on great data sources that allow them to work at scale
  • Revisiting lost leads
  • Rewarding and empowering all representatives

Resources:

Jul 18, 2017

Without prospects, there will be no sales. Yet, companies can struggle with incorporating prospecting into the sales process and getting people to balance the time spent prospecting compared with the all important task of closing the deal. This issue can be especially prevalent with leaner bootstrapped companies. Today, we will learn about an innovative method of solving this problem and attracting new sales talent.  

Today, I speak with Patrick Rodgers who is VP of Sales at LearnCore a leading sales training and coaching platform that combines technology with people for optimum results. Patrick is leading and building the sales organization for this bootstrapped company. We talk about the idea of prospecting as a sales function and some of the challenges when expecting AEs to close and prospect.

Episode Highlights:

  • Challenges of scaling a bootstrapped company
  • Difficulty of finding AEs who would go through the entire sales cycle
  • Starting a 9 - 12 month sales training focused on prospecting
  • Learning the process from start to finish they became top producers
  • The program allowed growth acceleration and attracted talent
  • Getting a perspective from different sales representatives
  • Sales roles in the sales funnel process
  • Shadowing into different areas and hitting sales goals
  • Opening doors for the team and making it an easier path
  • Challenges getting AEs to value the meetings set up by SDRs
  • Having a blueprint for AEs so that SDRs and AEs work together
  • Moving from sheer will to habit when changing roles
  • Breaking down the training perspective into a career path

Resources:

Jul 12, 2017

Sometimes old school sales people forget the importance of data. Nothing can help shape and guide the sales process better than having the right types of data. I have a wonderful guest today, who challenges the sales status quo and the ideas of what types of data are important and how to apply that data to the sales process. Then we dig even deeper into the data side of sales.

Jason Vargas works in the trenches as the Managing Director of Sales Development at Datanyze. If you aren’t familiar with Datanyze, you should check them out. Especially, if you are doing business development. They specialize in helping to find data for tracking, analytics, prospecting and more. Jason is on the rocketship of data analysis, and it shows as he shares new insights and more with us.

Episode Highlights:

  • Identifying the rights types of companies and accounts to target
  • Segmenting by other methods besides demographics
  • Leveraging technology data or technographics
  • Prioritizing segments by how sophisticated their sales methods are
  • Finely tuning who we want to go after and target
  • Maximizing everyone’s time by prequalifying accounts
  • Focusing on the pre sales conversation instead of finding prospects
  • Focus on the first meeting and taking that meeting to close
  • Offloading the data finding process including accurate phone numbers
  • Customization is important with large companies
  • Automation and sales templates can save time with small companies
  • Utilizing a database for mass personalization
  • Having reps record and transcribe a call to use for an email template
  • Hitting send and transforming a prospects day
  • Metrics for outbound 20 emails and 20 phone calls
  • Focusing on quality over volume
  • Patient and persistence persuasion
  • Outreach and finding out where people are on the ladder
  • Startups should not have sales territories, but account profiles
  • Looking outside the box and leveraging technology, process, and people

Resources:

Jul 4, 2017

The number one problem most sales people say they have is lack of pipeline. Yet, lack of pipeline is usually a symptom of other issues. The three key issues that affect lack of pipeline are having the wrong mindset, using the wrong narrative, and executing the wrong activities. 

Today, I speak with LinkedIn’s most read author of B2B selling content. Tony Hughes is a sales improvement consultant and bestselling author. His new book Combo Prospecting: The Powerful One-Two Punch That Fills Your Pipeline and Wins Sales is available for pre-order and will be released in January of 2018. In our conversation, we attack the myths around prospecting and lead generation. Tony also shares some wonderful actionable tips that you can implement right away. 

Episode Highlights: 

  • Treating predictable prospecting as a process.
  • Separation of roles that actually work in large organizations.
  • How sellers need to generate their own pipeline.
  • Everyone in the organization needs to be prospecting and looking for referrals.
  • Getting to a point where the sales process is a habit.
  • After engaging with a client ask for a referral.
  • Lead with why the conversation should matter and add value.
  • Help, help, help and then ask.
  • Ask is this email helping a prospects challenge? If no, don’t send.
  • Speak to prospects at the level of a peer.
  • Combo sell with phone, email, social, etc. using the right narrative.
  • Buyers are interested in what is going on in their industry, provide value.
  • Try to reach a range of people within an organization with the right narrative.
  • More focus on customer experience and human engagement.
  • Embracing technology and the way you sell. Being politely persistent. 

Resources: 

Jun 27, 2017

As an Executive Coach and Consultant, Bryan Franklin has helped multiple businesses pass the one billion mark in revenue. His newest venture, OutboundWorks, is the marriage of the traditional SDR role and the future of sales -- Artificial Intelligence, or as Bryan calls it, Augmented Intelligence. In this episode we’re talking all about using automated tools in the sales process: How to implement them, how they’ll affect relationships with prospects, and what it means for the future of sales. 

Episode Highlights:

  • Bryan Franklin’s background and coaching track record
  • What is Outbound Works?
  • The future of selling: Augmented Intelligence and account-based selling
  • Automating good habits
  • Where does Bryan Franklin sit in the pipeline?
  • Bryan’s process for Implementing an automated tool
  • Will automation replace outsourcing?
  • The future of automation and the phone
  • Does automation mean the end of human relationships?
  • Working with marketing
  • Bryan’s ideal client profiles 

Resources:

Jun 20, 2017

As we march down the sales pipeline, the more information we have the easier it is to connect the dots in the sales process. Having more information and better data makes us more strategic, scalable, and consistent.

You are going to love today’s podcast because my guest is David Hoffeld, and he is all about the science of selling. He is the author of The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal, and he is the CEO and Chief Sales Trainer of  the Hoffeld Group which offers science-backed sales training, coaching, and consulting. We are delighted to have him on our show today, because we love science, data, and research. 

Episode Highlights: 

  • David tried to translate years of research on behavioral science and data into his book
  • He became obsessed with science and the sales process and his numbers increased dramatically
  • Incremental commitments guide customers through the sales process
  • Architecting choices of buyers that will be made contextually
  • Heuristics or mental shortcuts our brains make when we make choices
  • Six commitments the brain makes for a sale to happen
  • Aligning how you sell with how the brain makes buying decisions
  • Higher perceived risk with one option as opposed to several options 

Resources: 

Jun 13, 2017

As much as every SDR loves using technology and programs to help them connect with prospects, no one likes to spend valuable time filling out endless online forms and getting crushed by an avalanche of pre-set tasks.

Our guest today is Matt Bertuzzi, VP of Sales and Marketing Operations at The Bridge Group and author of Lighting Sales Ops, a book about how to make SalesForce work for you. We’re talking all about the top issues SDRs and managers face when using CRMs like SalesForce, and how you can tweak small points of conflict in the pipeline to reduce friction and close deals. 

Episode Highlights:

  • What inspired Matt Bertuzzi to write Lightning Sales Ops
  • The issue every CRM faces
  • Encouraging leaders to lean into new tools and thought processes
  • Breaking down the concept of leads versus context and accounts
  • How to reduce the amount of effort and friction in the pipeline while maximizing impact
  • Eliminating “clicks” and letting the system do the work 

Resources:

Jun 6, 2017

How many times per day do you pick up your cellphone? We all do it -- mindlessly scrolling through our social media news feeds when we get a free minute, glancing over at every chime and vibration our phone makes throughout the day. While this behavior isn’t unusual, it’s definitely not beneficial. New research has shown that even these small interruptions are adding up to be huge distractions, sucking up tons of valuable time in the workday and leaving us feeling stressed and overwhelmed.

Today’s guest, Jill Konrath, is a recognized sales consultant and speaker whose new book, More Sales, Less Time is all about getting more done in the time that we already have!

Episode Highlights:

  • An overview of Jill Konrath’s past books
  • What can More Sales, Less Time teach us?
  • Fighting distraction: How you can get at least one hour of your day back
  • Escaping the email trap
  • Taking a break and getting more done
  • How to leverage trigger events 

Resources:

Books by Jill Konrath:

 

Visit Jill’s website for free ebooks and other resources

May 30, 2017

Our guest today is Alea Homison, Vice President of Sales Strategy at GLG Group. What makes Alea different from some of our other guests is that she is actively working on the frontlines of sales every single day, training members of her team on the newest practices in sales enablement. She’s here today to discuss her work with GLG, her unique 3-stage hiring process for new SDRs, and her advice for curating the best sales environment possible.

Episode Highlights:

  • Alea Homison’s role and her unique process for training and new employees
  • GLG as a case-study for selling a service
  • Sales enablement and the SDR team
  • Alea’s 3 stage hiring process
  • Creating a positive team culture
  • Why daily role-playing with your team is the best thing you can do
  • Hyper-personalizing your messaging
  • Alea Homison’s top advice for SDR’s beginning to work with sales enablement

Resources:

Connect with Alea Homison on Linkedin or email her at ahomison@glgroup.com

May 23, 2017

Have you ever said “no” to a client and walked away from a deal? Maybe you knew that your services weren’t a good fit for their pain, or that they weren’t ready to hear the solutions you presented.

In this episode we’re joined by founder and host of SalesTuners, Jim Brown. As a sales coach who specializes in every stage of the sales pipeline, Jim is an expert in client relations. He’s here to discuss his unique method of using upfront contracts: beginning a relationship by telling the client that either party has the right to walk away from the conversation!

Episode Highlights:

  • The meaning behind the SalesTuner brand
  • Learning through failure
  • Qualification versus disqualification
  • Creating an “upfront contract” with your prospects
  • How to prepare for a team call
  • Getting a client to close: Jim’s number one question to ask a client
  • Self-diagnosing problem areas
  • Funnel math

Resources:

Want more from Jim Brown? Connect with him Linkedin, follow him on Twitter, and check out the SalesTuner podcast!

Download the SalesTuner workbook for free by visiting http://www.salestuners.com/roadmap

May 16, 2017

Building sales pods is the latest fad to hit sales departments worldwide, but is it really the best way to set up your team? In this episode we’re chatting with Tito Bohrt, CEO of AltiSales and Chief of Sales Staff at AppBuddy, about his unique concept of architecture of the sales organization. Bohrt walks us through his philosophy on POD and round robin factory models of organization, and when the best time to use each is!

Episode Highlights:

  • Introducing Tito Bohrt
  • Defining the POD and the round robin factory models
  • When to use each type of organization model
  • Client success stories
  • When is the best time to implement a new organizational structure?
  • Account based selling, prospects, and the POD and farming models
  • Being pleasantly persistent

Resources:

The tech stack Tito Bohrt uses when building early stage sales teams::

Why does he use these products?

  • Salesforce: Good to start with this from day 1. There's no better CRM, and switching CRMs later can be costly
  • Linkedin Sales Nav: The most up to date employees and titles to help you find Buyer Personas at your ICP
  • ZoomInfo: The best source for direct lines, lots of accurate emails as well.
  • Hunter.io: Good tech to help you guess emails if you don't find them on ZoomInfo
  • Outreach.io: Allows the tracking of all KPIs for SDRs and has the dialer integrated. This is a must have for SDR teams at every B2B company. Very superior to SalesLoft when it comes to analytics and customizations
  • Jabra Headset: Likely the best sound quality, but also pricey. If on a budget, any USB headset (even those for gaming) will be good enough.
  • GridBuddy: GridBuddy gives you an excel-like interface to make sales reps lives easier and allowing sales leaders to capture all the data they need for accurate forecasts and analyzing KPIs. This is another must have if you are a data-driven company (and you should be).
  • Rightsignature: All the e-sig capabilities you need for an affordable price.

Want more from Tito Bohrt? Connect with him on Linkedin or send him an email: tito@altisales.com

May 9, 2017

How many of us keep track of calls and personas using a process that feels way too complex and doesn’t deliver the desired results? Today we’re joined by Anthony Iannarino, international speaker, sales leader, and best-selling author. His new book, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, is an absolute must-read for anyone who wants to sell more and sell better. In this episode we’re talking all about the dangers of automating your sales process, and the research and science that backs up Anthony’s methods for creating an effective and lucrative sales process.

Episode Highlights:

  • Understanding sales by using the OODA Loop
  • Why successful prospectors have the mindset of a competitor
  • When asking for a referral goes wrong: Why we can’t rely on technology to do our work for us
  • “Automation is marketing, not selling”: Why you can’t automate intimacy
  • Creating value for multiple personas
  • Getting into an efficient sales rhythm

Resources:

May 2, 2017

Every SDR gets nervous when picking up the phone to talk to a prospect. We get scared of pushing too hard and getting a rejection, and we worry about offending our prospect or making them uncomfortable. How do you manage your own disruptive emotions so that you have the ability to influence the emotions of other people?

On this episode of Predictable Prospecting we’re joined by Jeb Blount, founder and CEO of Sales Gravy and author of Fanatical Prospecting and a new bestseller: Sales EQ. We’re discussing how to push past the flight or fight response that comes up when talking to clients and how to manage the emotions that make prospecting difficult.

Episode Highlights:

  • Jeb Blount’s inspiration for writing Sales EQ
  • The fight or flight response in sales
  • How to control your own fear and anxiety while on the phone with a prospect
  • The Universal Law of Awareness in Sales
  • Identifying the different types of intelligence and making them work for you
  • Doing qualification the right way
  • Walking away from a prospect that doesn’t value your time
  • The differences between having discipline and having habits
  • Jeb’s steps for continuing your education

Resources:

Books Mentioned:

 

 

 

Jeb Blount: 

 

 

 

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