Sales Game Changers | Tips from Successful Sales Leaders

This is episode 454. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Mike is an IES Premier Sales Leaders. Learn more here. Find Mike on LinkedIn. MIKE'S' TIP: "Figure out what your goals are. The goals aren't just, "Make my number." Sometimes the goal is, "I need to be strategically relevant to XYZ customer," "I need to find my own sales process, build my own sales engine." Figure out what your top 2-3 goals are and no more than that. Then work backwards from there. Think, how long is it going to take me and what do I need to do to slowly build up to accomplishing what these goals might be? The buildup needs to be set with marker flags. Marker flags are leading indicators of success."

This is episode 453. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TIFFANY'S TIP: "Seek mentors. I always encourage people because mentors are a powerful thing to have. They can help you with career advice. They can help you through professional transitions. They can help you get some insider advice into promotions that you want or that are available. I think mentors are such a powerful thing. You could have one or two or build an army of mentors. Maybe it is someone that you meet once a month for coffee, I think that every mentor-mentee relationship is different, but someone that you can reach out to that you trust that can give you advice and that you can maybe perhaps lend some value to when you can as well, is really important. Then once you're in a position where you can mentor somebody else, be a mentor and be a guide." LACEY'S TIP: "Make yourself known outside of your direct team. And just say yes to the next opportunity that's presented to you. Sometimes it means getting out of your comfort zone a little bit. If it's something that maybe scares you a little bit, like speaking up in a meeting, or sharing a new idea that you have, or doing a presentation or public speaking, saying yes to just putting yourself in a different scenario even though it might be scary, it's only going to help you grow as a leader.

This is episode 452. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Liz's TIP: "Prioritize, figure out who your ideal customer is, figure out what are the most important things you need to do. Take all of those other things that don't matter and put them on the back burner, but do the things that matter. Prioritize the customers that are going to grow, prioritize the ideal customer that's got the shortest sales cycle and the most likelihood of buying and prioritize out those customers that are wasting your time and are never going to buy from you. Prioritize."

This is episode 451. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Jack's TIP: "I'm a huge believer in mindset. Consultative Selling starts with mindset but mindset is useless unless you do the things and you have the skills to be able to implement that mindset. So A) adopt a mindset but then B) it's all about practice, practice, practice."

This is episode 450. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Paul's TIP: "Treat storytelling like any other leadership skill that you want to have, leadership and sales skills. Study it. It's not the kind of thing that well, if I'm not born with it I'll just never have it. It's not. You can learn it. Read a book, watch some YouTube videos, take a class. It is something you can learn, and you should. Treat it that way."

This is episode 449. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Colleen's TIP: "Carve out some time between now and December 31 to really take a good, hard look at what happened this year, analyze the numbers and plan to make some changes. One of the first things I would do is look at what's working even if I don't necessarily like it and then commit to doing more of that in January, including maybe getting a mentor or finding someone in the organization who's been more successful than you and reaching out to figure out what they're doing that was such a success this year. I think that will help you to create some activity, remember that action creates motivation, not the other way around. If you can find someone who has great ideas on what's creating success in your marketplace today right now and you implement them, you're going to be more motivated which is going to help your mindset."

This is episode 448. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. David's TIP: "I'm a huge believer in a concept that I originally learned from the Grateful Dead and that concept can absolutely be applied to sales and many salespeople do, however, a lot don't. That's the idea of giving gifts without any expectation of anything in return. The Grateful Dead allowed concertgoers record their concerts for free as long as they didn't sell them. What does this mean for salespeople? The more helpful you are, the more valuable information you provide, the more that you help people not just by helping them to understand your company and its products but just by creating something valuable or linking to something valuable or sharing a news story that you see that your potential client might be interested in, the more you're seen as being somebody who's providing something or value, the more people will be drawn to you who will become your fans and will more likely want to buy something from you. Note that it's not free if require an email address, That is precisely the wrong thing to do because that's a coercion technique, that's like saying to somebody, "No, you cannot have my white paper unless you give me something first, your email address." That's not a good way to sell in my mind, that's not a good way to build fans in my mind, better to give it away.

This is episode 447. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Chris' TIP: "One of the things that we've run up against is people always say, "I don't have time, I need to learn time management." No you don't, there's no such thing. You need to learn commitment management. In today's world, we observed people are "over-involved" and under-committed. We've got a gazillion little things going on but they're not necessarily committed to many of them so let's take a step back, go sit down, it only takes you maybe 15, 20 minutes. Make a list of the four, no more than 5 big commitments that you have in your life. Then what you do is you go look at your calendar and match up, "What am I doing with my time to support those commitments?" What you will invariably find is that you've got a lot of stuff that you're doing that's got nothing to do with those five commitments. Simple: quit doing it."

This is episode 446. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. RUSS' TIP: "I think we always forget to do this. Ask for a referral in every sales call. If you get a no on the phone, ask if they know somebody you should talk to. If you're in a sales meeting, ask who else they know in that industry or that market. Ask for referrals, it goes a long way to building your pipeline." PETE'S TIP: "Get out of your own way. 2018 is over, there's a new normal, get on with it. Embrace the change, pick up your game or be left behind. You've got to get going."

This is episode 445. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Attend the next Institute for Excellence in Sales Women in Sales Leadership Forum starting January 14, 2022. Register here. KATIE'S TIP: "I use the same phrase when people ask me, "I want to be a Blue Angel someday. How do I get there?" I say, "Calm seas don't make a skilled sailor." What I mean by that is it's not the easy times in your life, it's not the calm seas that shape you as a person. It is those hard times. It's the rough seas. It's the failures. It's the adversity that you face. How you deal with that, that will shape you as a person, as a mother, as a spouse, in my case, a Marine, a leader, and now as a businesswoman. That's really what I would say, is adversity is a way to improve yourself. Rather than get down in the dumps about it, use it to polish yourself."