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

Getting to know Christina Mautz Christina is the chief marketing officer and head of sales at Moz, an SEO platform search engine optimization.   Know your ideal customers The biggest current problem is the abrupt changes that have happened throughout this year. As a result, we are now in a place where we are having to do things differently.  With so many changes, it’s important to really understand your customer and meet with the people who need what you’re offering.  It’s important to slow down instead of speeding up. Take a step back and assess if you really know who your ideal customers are.  As sales reps, we should be building awareness and driving consideration and interest so the customer is ready to purchase.  Understand the buyer’s journey Since the introduction of the internet, the buyer’s journey is no longer linear. The ability to connect and talk with other people online, has made information easy to share across channels. People are now trying to find their own solutions.  Sales reps need to

Getting to know Kim Fredrich Kim Fredrich helps small business sales reps feel more comfortable and confident about having sales conversations. With this pandemic, salespeople are having an especially hard time talking to potential clients. For Kim, there’s no right time like the present. Even as the future is uncertain for other business owners, Kim is building her second business which includes outbound sales for small service-based businesses and she’s authored the book, “If You Can Have a Conversation, You Can Sell”.    Use Questions as Unique Selling Propositions Listening is an important part of selling. It’s how you are able to ask the right questions and make value propositions.  Always ask open-ended and conversational questions. Don’t give them the chance to stop the conversation with questions that can be answered with “no.” Raise questions in a way that the answer is useful and valuable to both of you. A lot of salespeople aren’t clear on what their value proposition is. They’re not aware of wha

Emotional intelligence is an important factor in making sales reps effective in their jobs.This includes being kind throughout your business practice. How is emotional intelligence going to further your sales revenue? Let’s find out in this episode.  Cole Baker-Bagwell has been a Yogi for 26 years and one of the first rules of Yoga is the ethical rule to do no harm. This entails practicing compassion and kindness which are powerful enough to change the perception of their experiences and other outcomes.  Emotional intelligence - Be Kind Many sales reps today, especially the beginners, can get caught up in product knowledge and competition. As a result, there may not default to compassion and kindness as a practice. This can hinder them from getting to a solution that is beneficial to the customer.  Awareness and mindfulness are important but these concepts have been diluted and misinterpreted in today’s society.  Jon Kabat-Zin’s says that mindfulness is awareness. It means paying attention in a particular wa

Prospecting is not an easy part of the sales process and sometimes, sales reps don’t have much luck with it. How do you change your luck for prospecting? Let’s talk about that in this episode.  Bad Luck in Prospecting Some sales reps just find prospecting is difficult. Donald finds that acknowledging and correcting cognitive dissonance can be helpful in amending that problem.  When it comes to cognitive dissonance, it’s basically a thought, a theory, or an idea that can be opposed to the reality we want to achieve. You can’t have two opposing thoughts going on at the same time.  When prospecting, a sales rep will believe that someone will, or will not, pick up the phone or answer the door. There are these two opposing forces within each salesperson.  When a sales rep leans into a more optimistic point of view, it changes the way they perform, their demeanor, confidence, and the words they say.  The optimists are probably the most willing to solve the clients’ problems and more willing to help other sales rep

How do you grab your prospects’ attention? Sales reps all have their unique strategies and in this episode, Brandan Kane talks about his methods on capturing peoples’ attention.  Getting to know Brendan Kane  Brendan Kane is a growth strategist who helps brands, corporations, celebrities, B2B, and B2Cs stand out in saturated markets. He started out in the entertainment industry managing the digital divisions for two movie studios and realized he was an entrepreneur. That’s when he started building technology platforms and licensing them back to big media companies.  Grab your prospects’ attention It’s important to understand that there are over 60 billion messages sent out on digital platforms each day. It’s a noisy and saturated world. This means you’re no longer just competing against your direct competition, you’re now competing against every piece of content.  Crafting a message is a skill. You must use hook points to grab your prospect's attention. The first 3-5 seconds are your only windows to create t

Getting to know Cody Butler Cody Butler is a marketing coach and consultant for lead generation sales. He helps companies with the toughest aspects of their businesses. In this episode, Cody Butler shares his expertise on how to get responses by crafting effective outreach messages.  Crafting effective outreach message One of the biggest mistakes people make is the lack of brevity. Everyone is so busy they’re sending messages that are dense and hard to navigate.   The messages Cody sends taps into clients’ biggest existing desires. You need to figure out what they want before sending an outreach message.  The goal is to get the person to engage so don’t ask too much in the first email. In this initial email you only need the prospect to raise their hand and say yes!  The second email provides the overwhelming your solution is what they need and you offer a very low key call to action.  In all your communication, what you are looking for is to mitigate potential objections to get the outcome that you want.  G

Donald didn’t believe in sales mindset training and it affected the sales process. Eventually, that belief changed. In this episode, Donald talks about how and why it changed.  Sales Mindset Training  Teaching somebody how to prospect means you’re also teaching them how to land more deals.   Donald went through a program called Thought Pattern for High Performance on CTV. It helped him understand that there’s more to a sales mindset than just the idea of a pep rally or giving somebody a quote.  Sales mindset is more about behavioral changes. It’s about making positive changes and looking at things you can control.                                                                                                                                                                                    The pandemic has affected the mindset of many people and some of the changes haven’t been for the better. There is a need to regulate our thinking and look at our behaviors.  Underperforming salespeople would say that they

Getting to know Joroen Corthout Jeroen Corthout is co-founder and CEO of SalesFlare, an intelligent CRM for SMBs selling B2B. It’s most popular among agencies and SaaS companies. In this episode, Jeroen talks about his CRM platform and all the other ways to use LinkedIn to win deals.  Use LinkedIn to win deals LinkedIn doesn’t share as much information on this platform as truly required. Sales reps have to do serious excavating to get the necessary information they need.  SalesFlare’s system is built around emailing, meetings, calls, and pulling out basic information from social media.  With their services, all these sources come together. When a sales rep adds people to the system, it automatically pulls in the email exchanges they have including the person, meetings, and calls. Other members who are on the team have access to all these exchanges as well.  Automating data means having the ability to follow-up leads easier.  When making a LinkedIn connection, make it as authentic as possible. Try to imagine

Getting to know Scott Roy and Roy Whitten Scott Roy is the co-founder and CEO of the Whitten & Roy Partnership. It’s a sales consultancy that works with organizations to transform their sales performance. They work with 45 countries in the B2C and B2B markets.  Roy Whitten has been friends with Scott Roy for many years and they’ve journeyed through their sales careers together. Roy started in door-to-door selling but later on, transitioned into applying transformational work to B2B and B2C companies. He used his education and works in transformative learning to coach and train more than 100,000 people.  Managing attitude to increase sales The issue is that when sales are going well, the attitude is great. When the sales aren’t going well, the attitude takes a downturn.  As a sales leader, Scott is looking for ways to help his team manage their attitude and drastically increase sales.  Managing attitude is more than just a causative attitude. It’s maintaining a purposeful attitude. It means having the abi

Getting to know Shruti Kapoor  Today’s guest is Shruti Kapoor the co-founder of Wingman, a company that looks at the call data to provide overall analytics to sales leaders and sales teams. She started her career in finance a decade ago as an investment banker and from there, went on to build the business she has today. Analyzing B2B sales calls Since the pandemic, Shruti has learned three things: First, there is a big dip in call volume since March but the number is slowly going up. Second, some businesses froze for a time but it's slowly going back. People have other reasons for not buying and it’s not just due to budget.  Third, people love to talk about their kids so salespeople need to incorporate that into their discussions.  During March, phone calls dropped to almost half. There is also a significant dip in the types of phone calls.  Sales cycles are much longer with many more touch points due to the pandemic and people being remote.  With the changes in call volumes, sales reps must look for other a

Getting to know Martin Heibel Martin Heibel’s career has centered around software sales and he is now the co-founder of Ciara, the company where you can find the CRM software tool he calls The Conversation Assistant. Win deals on the Phone Right now reps are having to go back to the beginning of sales relationships and take a look at what the needs of their customers actually are as their needs may have changed. This involves revisiting their USP, their pitch, and how they will approach their customers. As the situation changes, it’s important not to make any assumptions. Make sure that the pitch is inline with the customer’s most current needs.  Martin’s messaging detects the customer’s needs and  pain points.  It used to be that customers would go take part in outbound cold-calling in order to be qualified and these leads would be passed on to sales people. This has changed. It’s time to rethink the process from the first contact and marketing to a qualified lead to actually closing of the deal.  Good rapp

Getting to know Adam Springer  Adam Springer helps B2B startups with their technical sales process by offering his expertise in building systems to help businesses get to a million dollars in a year or less.  Uncovering customer pain points Uncovering pain points is especially important during the qualification stage. Pain points include the prospects’ frustrations, what causes fear, and the goals they want to achieve.  A business must have its ideal customer profile because each person that a sales rep speaks to has their own pains and these pains affect them in different ways. It’s important to understand who you’re selling to in order to come up with the best approach to address their pain.  Sales reps must understand what their prospects are dealing with if they want to know their customer pain points.  When making calls, the goal of helping must be mutually beneficial. If you see that your products or offers aren’t the answer to their problems, you need to tell them and respectfully let them go.  Bring

Getting to know Will Batista and Heidi Peters  Heidi is a digital marketing strategist and consultant. She works with Republicans, the candidate campaigns, state parties, and anyone in the political organization looking for digital efforts. Heidi specializes in various causes and online fundraising programs.       Will calls himself a reformed campaigner. He’s been doing political campaigns since he was 14 years old. Will also worked on digital strategy for a few political campaigns, did communications work, and acted as spokesperson for various efforts. Right now, Will is focused on sustainability efforts for a major utility in the Southwest.  Effectively selling a candidate Oftentimes, people don’t see the need for political markers. They just vote for whomever they want. At the end of the day, Will and Heidi’s job is to go after the gap made up of those who may not have all the information they need.  The first step in effectively selling a candidate is to know exactly what they stand for and what the mes

Getting to know Jeff Fromm  Jeff Fromm has written four books over the last 10 years on Gen Z. He uses thought leadership to stimulate his sales funnel and content marketing as his inbound tool.    Diving into brand loyalty  Jeff thinks of loyalty in terms of frequency of use and price elasticity. Loyalty to a brand equates to using its products more frequently. It doesn’t doesn’t mean using the brand exclusively; it means I’m willing to pay a small premium for it.  Loyalty should matter to salespeople because when you’re helpful to your customers, they’ll want to work with you over and over. It’s the difference between average outcomes and making a lot of money. Professional salespeople are empathetic, they have great listening skills, and they collaborate to solve problems.  Buyers don’t want to buy your product; they want to solve their problem. Questions are your friend, because they help the seller become smarter about the buyer, and they lead to a sale that is a better fit to the buyer’s needs. You hav

Using Past Stories in Your Close  Stories are powerful as they can help promote your product or service in many ways. How can you use stories to close deals? Nathan Hirch is a long time entrepreneur who started with an Amazon business when he was still in college, selling over $25 million in product. He built his company using virtual assistants and other freelancers and within four years, he was able to scale it to an eight-figure business.  Stories are effective Stories make you relatable and as a result, it’s easier to build relationships with other people. The more specific your story is, the better the reception will be and the more you tell your stories, the more comfortable you become in sharing them. As you tell your story, you want to watch for their reactions and listen to the feedback. Adjust your stories accordingly so it’s sharper the next time you tell it.  There’s a certain amount of trial and error when crafting your story as you tweak it and see what works. It’s not necessary to always share

I Don’t Need Anymore Training! It's a mistake for salespeople to believe they don't need any more training. This mindset isn’t productive and it certainly won’t help you improve your skills as a salesperson.  There are many people who don’t think they need to improve upon what they already know. It’s a pervasive issue and it's due to several reasons:  There is a hypocrisy that’s often present in the sales arena Training is expected in many industries so it can be taken for granted. People don't look at areas they can improve on Hypocrisy in sales Salespeople know how to handle an objection like “We have this product already. We don’t need yours." We understand this is a challenge and can share how our product may help them due to the changes in trends. The same is true in sales where trends change there too. We can’t be hypocrites and expect our sales to improve when we don’t improve as well. The change should start from us.  Training is expected Sales is a continuous learning process and there are many opp

Using Direct Mail To Move Prospects Through Your Funnel Salespeople use direct mail to move their prospects through their sales funnel but how does that impact the business? Let’s talk about that in this episode. Nick Runyon loves everything about marketing. He started out promoting his parents’ and friends’ business and ever since he’s been fascinated by connecting people with problems to people who have solutions. Direct mail defined  Traditionally, direct mail has included letters, solicitations, and mailboxes. These can be personalized for marketing messages and are called tactile marketing. Nick started personalized direct mail when he needed to reach out to a gentleman with a portfolio of assets who had an interest in their mission. It was difficult to connect with billionaires but Nick was able to.  Without much information, Nick was able to get his location and send him a package that included his book. Nick wrote a personal message in that book and called the gentleman fifteen minutes after he got th

How 5-Star Reviews Can Increase Conversion Rates Reviews are a great marketing strategy to increase conversion rates. Have you been using your reviews well? In this episode, let’s talk about reviews as a way to increase conversion rates.   Brian J. Greenberg, aka The Salesman Who Doesn't Sell, has founded businesses in e-commerce, marketing, and financial services. He has generated over 50 million in revenue from his businesses and collected over 10,000 reviews and testimonials from customers. Brian is the founder and president of True Blue Life Insurance, and Insurist, whose mission is to be transparent, honest, and helpful to their customers without ever bugging or pushing them. Brian also runs e-commerce websites at Touchfree Concepts and Wholesale Janitorial Supply and is the chief marketing officer for Love Fitness and You.    Reviews are critical in sales Customers look up companies on the internet and read reviews and complaints before they make they ever make a buying decision. Building a good online

4 Steps to Systematic Sales Growth  Salespeople and business owners employ different strategies to achieve sales growth. In this episode, Jimmy Burgess talks about steps to systematic sales growth.  Jimmy has been in real estate for 27 years and the years have let him experience all the different marketing cycles. He was able to build a time and had over a million dollars income in a year and he’s also experienced bankruptcy with just $500 to his name. He is now with Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices Beach Properties and starting his own podcast show.  Systematic Sales Growth Systematic sales growth can be achieved by either doing more of what you’re doing at the moment or trying new things. The whole business pattern is about birth, growth, maturity, and decline. Businesses need to look for more ways to add value to the market and ensure that people will come back to you.  Competence Jimmy talks about ABL or always be learning. Build competence by learning new things to improve the business. Look at your weak

Three Skills to Help You Overcome Objections Being in sales, there needs to be a level of optimism but objections are also part of the process. How do you handle objections? Alison started her career in the human resources field before she jumped into entrepreneurship. She tried building her own business four times but failed each time. It was her fifth try in 2019 that she became a success.   Skills to overcome objections   Alison has 3 C’s to guide her in being successful in sales: Clarity, confidence, and connection.    Clarity starts with customer discovery.  It’s in this stage that prospects are able to share their needs and sales reps are able to define how they can be part of the solution. Objections often fall under three categories - budget, time, and necessity. Prospects either don’t have resources to proceed, don’t have the time to engage, or they have no need for the product or service. When you’re clear where their objections fall, you’ll have a better understanding about how to overcome these ob