Sales Game Changers | Tips from Successful Sales Leaders

This is episode 344. Read today's transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. HOWARD'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Are we in the midst of an empathy crisis in our "selfie-culture?" When I think about empathy, I think about helping people and helping people is so critical to the sales process because at the end of the day, our job as salespeople is really to help people make a buying decision. For me, the idea of empathy and sales, they're not two separate things, they're one thing. I love helping salespeople, I love helping revenue teams be the best they can be. Empathy is the ability to understand somebody else's emotions, their feelings and their situation and it's critical. It's critical in my relationship with my wife, with my children, with my coworkers and with my customers and it is critical because we all want to be heard, we all want to be understood and we want to be seen. It's critical to human nature, it's critical to trust, it's critical to relationships."

This is episode 343. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. BART'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "It's a sentence and it's a recommendation. The sentence is it's easy to be, but it's better to become. Becoming is going to take doing and my suggestion for any sales professional out there is do what most people don't do, follow up when they don't follow up, do a video when someone sends an email, make the extra effort. Identify the things that you know in your mind that you should do to be more successful, focus in on those should do's, move them to the done category. Do what most people don't and you're going to be even more wildly successful." RICH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "It's interesting how little we actually talk about what we do and where we go on our trips because Disneyland is Disneyland. We always try to bring it around to the experiences. We let our website talk about the features. They've done their research, they've seen what we do. We want to get to the experiences kids will have when they go on the trips."

This is episode 342. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SAM'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I cannot tell you how many people tell me, "I don't have any stories." We ALL have stories. Stories are simply the intriguing things that happen to us or around us. If something gets your eyebrows up, "I never thought of it that way", "That really moved me", "That's a fresh approach", write it down and then turn it into your little three-act play and distill it into 60 seconds and figure out how to use it in your sales process. The next time someone asks you to explain why you're worth hiring, why this is worth buying or saying yes to you, don't explain, give a real-life example, a 60-second story. That's when we connect and that's the purpose of all communication."

This is episode 341. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. TIBOR'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "One of the habits that people should change is how they think of themselves and how they present themselves to their customers. One of the most difficult things I face is convincing salespeople that they're not salespeople, they're subject matter experts. As a subject matter expert, you can actually lead the conversation in a meaningful way that actually helps that customer take insight from you. Customers are not going to take insight from a brochure carrier, but they will take insights from a subject matter expert. One of the first habits that you should work on is upgrading who you are and what you represent to your customers. Someone who's really a subject matter expert wants to understand where that customer is trying to go, what are the objectives that are driving this decision? What are the business motivators that are driving this? Not just what problems/solutions you have. Most reps are stuck in the present whereas progressive salespeople, subject matter salespeople, can talk in the present but also understand where the company's trying to go because they're focused on impacts and outcomes, not talking about strictly their product."

This is episode 340. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. KEVIN'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Sales leaders - encourage your teams to get out, to get out of their house, to get out of their apartment, to get out of their bedrooms whether it's once a day or twice a day. The weather's better, go for a walk, go to Starbucks in the morning, get that routine going. Sales is really tough, it's a grind and if you're sleeping and working in the same room you need to get out. Get some fresh air, smell the roses, meditate, whatever it takes to get out of that routine of being stuck in your cubicle of a bedroom and embrace it. My fear, candidly, is some of the people that are young in sales are going to get burned out and they're going to give up on a profession that is awesome, you can make more money in sales than any other profession in the world. I would hate for someone to give up only because they got a little burned out because of the pandemic. Encourage your teams to get out a couple times a day."

This is episode 339. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website here. This Fresh Voices podcast was sponsored by the Institute for Excellence in Sales and hosted by Gina Stracuzzi. It featured Tricia Fitzmaurice, Director, National Security Programs, Federal Law Enforcement & Justice at Red Hat Software and Mahsa Soltani, Regional Director of Growth Sales - North America at Akamai Technologies. TRICIA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "The advice I always give to women is to support each other, especially in the IT and technical fields, where there aren't that many of us. Support each other, help each other, promote other women, bring other women to the conversations, help them get their value out into your organization. Somebody else's success does not mean that you are devalued. Look at other people's successes as your success as well, as an opportunity for you to succeed maybe later in something else. Promote those successes among people." MAHSA'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Be your own biggest supporter instead of critic. Tell yourself "you're doing a phenomenal job. You're doing a great job at work. You're doing a great job outside of work." I feel like as women, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and a lot of times we're our hardest and toughest critics. You're doing great and you're doing the best that you can and it's incredible in every phase of your life. Believe that and be your own biggest supporter and tell your inner critic to 'shh' which can really help a lot of times."

This is episode 338. Read the complete transcript on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. LARRY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "If you ask these three questions it will change the conversation and it will build rock-solid relationships with your clients. First, why did you initially choose to do business with me? Stop and listen. Second, "What value have I been bringing to your organization? And stop and listen. And third, "How can I be of service to you right now?" and listen. Think about how those questions can forever change the conversations you have with your clients, build deeper, stronger relationships."

This is episode 337. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. This episode was sponsored by Cox Business. GARY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Visualize your customer with a big sign on their chest that says, "Make me feel important." If you can do that, then you're going to make them feel important and that's where you'll win If you can visualize someone that has a big sign on their chest that says, "Make me feel important today", how can you go wrong?"

This is episode 336. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. KRISTIE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Manage your expectations. The reason why sales leaders are disappointed a lot of times is because you haven't told your team what you need or want from them, so start practicing today. What do I want from you that I'm not getting? Practice having that conversation. I was talking to somebody else the other day and somebody said, "Holding people accountable sounds really hard and awkward" and I said, "Not holding people accountable is worse."

This is episode 335. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. HANG'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "When making a decision, make sure that you have a CLEAR path. C for clarity, L for learn whether it's from experience and whether it's from experiments. E for edge, so make sure you embrace that which is uniquely you because that's your competitive edge. A for access, create your own access. If you don't have it, create and curate it very well. Surround yourself with people who will uplift you, not with people who will diminish you. Finally, R, with Responsibility. Once you get there, share it. We have to get past tokenism, it's okay to bring in a token because I'm much happier that I was hired because I was token, because once I get my seat at the table, I will earn it. It's much better than when I didn't get hired because I was a token or a minority and we have to get past tokenism because all the studies show that it takes 2 to 3 people in the room for us to no longer have a minority."