Accelerate! With Andy Paul

Aaron Ross is a bestselling author who co-wrote the playbook for new Saas companies. Today we discuss why you need to specialize your sales roles to create predictable, scalable revenue; how to grow and build a sales team; and how he built a $5M business while having nine kids...at the same time!

What is sales enablement? According to Forrester, sales enablement is "a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer's problem-solving life cycle to optimize the return of investment of the selling system.” Yikes! I almost fell asleep reading that. Let’s see what Gartner has to say about sales enablement: "The activities, systems, processes and information that support and promote knowledge-based sales interactions with client and prospects." Better, but I still don't think it quite hits what sales enablement is. Here's my definition of sales enablement: Sales enablement is anything that enables a seller with the information, acumen, skills and tools to have more knowledge-based #sales interactions that are valuable to their buyers. Why? Well, I'm not going to make it that easy... You're going to have to listen to the first epis

Bridget Gleason, Head of Sales and Customer Success at Tidelift, joins for the final episode of the Accelerate! podcast. What!? That's right. We have some HUGE changes coming to show next week. Tune in today to learn what's happening.

Jeff Shore, Founder and President of Shore Consulting, Inc. and a top-selling author, joins me talk all about follow-up. Listen and learn how to provide value that helps the buyer stay informed until they are ready to engage.  ringDNA's Sales Madness Bracket Challenge. Vote for your favorite sales book here: ringDNA.com/salesmadness

Mary Grothe, Founder & CEO of Sales BQ®, joins me in this episode!

Brendan McAdams, Co-Founder at Expertscape, and author of SALES CRAFT: Proven Tips, Practices and Ideas to Advance Your Sales Success, joins me in this episode!

Joining me this week is Adam Hempenstall, the CEO of http://betterproposals.io/, a UK-based, digital proposal platform. We discuss how to build a proposal that converts and Adam shares data-driven insights gleaned from the experiences of their customers. Learn why a proposal is not meant to educate your prospect, what you should absolutely NOT include in your proposal and so much more!

Lisa Magnuson, author of The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals Repeatedly, joins me in this episode.

Lance Tyson, sales coach and author of Selling Is An Away Game: Close Business And Compete In A Complex World, joins me in this episode of the Sales Enablement Podcast! KEY TAKEAWAYS Selling is an ‘away game’; it happens in the mind of the buyer. Away games are harder because you don’t know the obstacles on the field. Skilled players win more. Lance shares a recent coaching story. He told them your goal for an interaction will determine the approach you will use. Asking for their time is a big commitment. It’s important to be extemporaneous in selling interactions. There’s no perfect script for every situation. Selling is 50% process and 50% art. Be likable. Don’t be the person that lights up the room by leaving it! Actively establish credibility and build trust. Display understanding. Andy comments that a friendship of utility, as Aristotle described it, is what you need in sales. Andy discusses trustworthiness and what it means to ‘know, like, and trust.’ Lance talks about how humans judge one another

John Livesay, “The Pitch Whisperer,” speaker, podcast host, and author of Better Selling Through Storytelling, joins me again in this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Storytelling makes you magnetic and memorable! People remember stories, not information. Why aren’t salespeople telling case stories, instead of case studies? John teaches the four elements of a good story. (Hint, the story is about your client or someone like them, not you.) In your story of origin, sell yourself, your company, and your product or service. How can people know, like, and trust you without your story? John explains how to tell it. Build trust first, give your prospect a reason to like you, and then give them something that helps them know you. Trust comes from trustworthiness. Make the prospect feel safe. Use video calls more than just audio calls. You don’t have to look perfect; you have to be authentic so people will relate to you. The steps in the buyer’s journey provide a better progress measurement than a sales funnel. Look at

Kris Rudeegraap, CEO and Co-Founder of Sendoso, joins me again in this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Sendoso sends digital and physical gifts for B2B sales, marketing, and customer success teams. Kris Rudeegraap and Braydan Young left jobs as account executives and co-founded Sendoso (originally CoffeeSender) in 2016. CoffeeSender began by sending Starbucks gift cards. CoffeeSender expanded their gifts to a great variety of items and became Sendoso. Kris comments on how their company grew. Kris explains the use cases he sees most often and how Sendoso is being used with TalkDesk, Outreach, and Salesforce. Sendoso has gifts from about 500 merchants, including e-gifts, consumables, and hard goods. Sendoso also works with Amazon. Kris explains. Sendoso can include hand-written notes. Sendoso also inventories gifts. Kris discusses the various categories and their popularity. About 50% are warehoused and print-on-demand items. The other 50% of sales are split about evenly between E-gifts and consumables. The staff

Paul Smith, author of Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale, and Ten Stories Great Leaders Tell, joins me again on this episode of the Sales Enablement Podcast. KEY TAKEAWAYS Paul Smith trains people to tell stories; his customer base is increasing. He says only 10% to 15% of the time you talk to people should consist of stories, two to three minutes long. That is six to nine minutes an hour. Stories are not like jokes with a punchline. Paul will not supply you with stories to tell. They are conversational. Some of them should be planned within your pitch, some are extemporaneous from a repertoire you’ve built. Paul shares the eight specific questions a sales story should answer. Don’t memorize a story but remember the short answers to those questions in the story. Andy shares a John Steinbeck quote: “If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. … The strange and foreign is not interesting — only the deeply personal and familiar.” Andy works to build the

Pat Morrissey, SVP and GM at Upland Software, joins me on this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Pat Morrissey explains customer revenue optimization in the complex B2B selling world at Altify (Upland Software). Their value proposition is about the intersection of strategy, methodology, and technology. Upland acquired Altify to change from a sales enablement perspective to a strategic value proposition for the head of sales, with capabilities to help activate the revenue team and generate customer outcomes. Rethink your go-to-market model and your methodology. The renewal is at least as important as the first sale. Do we understand what problems the customer wants to solve? Can we articulate how we will solve them? Selling conditions are changing quickly. Instead of working out your strategy to get a customer, consider the customer’s strategy and how you will help them fulfill it. Pat shares a case study of working with Workday. Andy recalls being part of a large team selling mainframe computing. Sales methodology

Todd Caponi, author of The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honesty and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results, joins me on this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Todd Caponi has five hopes for sales in 2020. The first hope is the death of the “Death of sales” trope. Cold calling is still important. Sales employment has grown. Classroom training is ineffective. Todd offers solutions. There should be learning every day on the job. Andy talks about the curated book club he offers to companies. Todd advises learning to be a “buyer journey sherpa.” Todd’s second hope is that sales will rise on the list of “trusted professions.” Todd shares the secret of “4.2-star” reviews. If your facade is “perfect,” buyers will spend more time researching you because they doubt you. Andy tells how he used transparency as an underdog Burroughs salesperson against IBM’s fear, uncertainty, and doubt sales pitch. Todd talks about transparent negotiation, showing your motives. It generates trust. Adam Grant wrote abou

Richard Smith, Co-Founder and Head of Sales at Refract, joins me on this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Andy and Richard discuss performing for outcomes as an underdog. In a competitive field, your biggest differentiator as a salesperson is how you speak, how you sell to customers, and how you help them buy. Andy used to sell Burroughs computers and was an underdog against IBM in every sale. Andy found ways to sell, regardless of IBM. He had a similar situation working for Apple when IBM released the PC. Selling is influencing. Andy talks about the two decisions a customer makes before a purchase. Richard says if you shine a light on a problem the prospect has before they know they have it, you will be in place to help them to the solution. If you enter the fray when the competition is known, you can crush the competition with superior discovery and personal service. Success comes through hard work, human connection, and immediate responses with value. Time is the biggest killer of deals. Get the customer throu

Rob Käll, CEO of Cien, Inc., joins me on this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Cien, Inc. is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Cien means 100 in Spanish. The name refers to reaching 100% of quota. Cien offers AI for SaaS businesses that are scaling. Rob tells of working in SaaS and not seeing revenue scale with the sales team’s growth. In 2016, Rob and a business partner addressed the problem of scaling sales revenue by starting Cien. Cien is a web app. A prospect can get a Hidden Revenue Assessment to start the conversation. Hidden revenue refers to reps who are not making quota. AI identifies the root causes of that hidden revenue by analyzing a prospect company’s anonymized sales data. Then the prospect can sign up to start using the Cien AI product. The tool is designed for sales leaders. Most sales coaching today is not structured or measured. AI can help leaders and coaches address the problems using a value chain. Rob explains ‘value chain’ and how to measure ‘inferred work ethic’ instead of activity metric

Howard Brown, Founder and CEO of RingDNA, joins me again on this episode. KEY TAKEAWAYS Howard describes the tools RingDNA provides to help sales teams perform better to achieve better results. Howard started RingDNA in 2012, providing reps with contextual information in telephony, email, and SMS. In 2014, RingDNA started analyzing customers’ recorded phone calls for them. RingDNA helps reps to be better conversationalists and ask better questions, get to the point, and add value. Howard applies his background as a psychologist to the analysis of sales conversations at scale. A change in communication can lead to a better outcome. Science is often hard to find. Variables need to be accounted for in testing. The most important part of AI is knowing the questions to ask. There is no super cadence that works over everything. Reps require effective coaching. Is there a case for combining SDR and AE roles? Why is SDR attrition high? Why are sales closing rates so low? A single contact for the customer mini

Shari Levitin, speaker and bestselling author of Heart and Sell: 10 Universal Truths Every Salesperson Needs to Know, joins me on this episode of the Sales Enablement Podcast. KEY TAKEAWAYS Shari used her sales consulting experiences to write a sales book that is a life book. Citing Brené Brown, Shari notes that who you are matters more than what you do. Shari quotes David Brooks that we have resume virtues and eulogy virtues. The eulogy virtues make the difference in today’s digital environment. We need to do in sales what Alexa can’t do. Shari defines “proven” principles. First, look at the source and filter the principle through your common sense and experience. Try changing one part of your method at a time. Does it work consistently for you? Anything that can be told can be asked. When you ask a question, you get more information. Today, we have to help people learn how to buy, so we ask questions to get them to that buying decision. Shari sees, from company to company, the same default behaviors

Ben Salzman and Kyle Williams, Principals at Dogpatch Advisors, join me on this episode.

Craig Walker, CEO of Dialpad, joins me on this episode of Sales Enablement podcast. SUMMARY Craig Walker and some co-workers at Google Voice noticed that businesses were adopting cloud productivity suites. They recognized that business communications also belonged in the cloud. Craig and his associates left Google and co-founded Dialpad in 2011, offering cloud communication services. Their products are UberConference, DialpadTalk, DialpadSell, DialpadSupport, and AI that instantly converts conversations to text and suggests content in real-time for you to use in conversations. Craig explains DialpadSell and TalkIQ. Sales performance is worsening even while we are in the Golden Age of tech. Good sales reps want to improve. TalkIQ AI can help them improve their practices and performance. Sales people who lack the will to improve cannot easily be helped to change. Andy talks about his company’s curated book club for sales teams. Andy notes the shortcomings of some tech being used today. Craig describes the ad