Find My Catalyst Podcast

In this episode, Mike and Jody discuss the definition of pipeline and common challenges associated with a Sales pipeline.  Questions Answered: When we say pipeline, what are we talking about? What are some common pipeline challenges? Are there different segments of the pipeline? Key Takeaways: Sum of all of the opportunity that is out there = pipeline Weighted probability of closing that business = forecast Challenge 1 - actually doing the work and getting in front of customers Challenge 2 - Deals sit in the pipeline for too long Challenge 3 - Neglecting to put things in the pipeline because you are not sure if it will turn into anything. Don’t get emotionally attached If you have a 45 day sales cycle, evaluate your pipeline every 15 - 30 days If you have a 6, 18 or 24 month sales cycle, evaluate your pipeline monthly or quarterly. A forecast is a sub-set of pipeline. If I am not managing the pipeline well, it will have a negative effect on my ability to forecast with any level of predictability.  I firmly believe you can forecast if you leverage data and simplify your process.  Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or podcast@catalystsale.com  Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to podcast@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

In this episode, Mike talks with Tanner Brock about his continued onboarding experience with Catalyst Sale.  Questions Answered: What has been the worst thing that has happened so far? How are you overcoming this issue? Why might our outreach number be lower than we expect? What’s next? Do we apply call planning in the context of outreach? How do we measure success? Key Takeaways: Adjustment into an official sales role has been the hardest so far. Rather than trying to be an expert, I am going to be a student. Listening to previous podcasts you have done has been helpful and studying the frameworks. It is important to be humble to understand why it isn’t working. There is a big lack of vulnerability in the marketplace. We need to ask if we have a problem with our ideal customer profile and ask if our message is clear. It can be rewarding to share my experience applying the Catalyst Sale principles in my own life. The only time I want to put together a call plan is when I am going to have a call. Structurally the same concepts apply to outreach we send out. All the Catalyst Sale tools build on each other and help you to think clearly Profit and loss help us measure success.  Gather data to determine if what we are doing is working. Test. Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here or contact Tanner - Tanner@catalystsale.com Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to podcast@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

In this episode, Mike and Jody discuss the best ways to handle mistakes when they occur. Questions Answered: What are the best ways to handle mistakes? How can we handle current mistakes? How do you view historical mistakes? Key Takeaways: It is great to share stories about lessons learned. It is important to be transparent and open. We can all learn from each others mistakes and learn from the stories that relate to those mistakes. If you are unable to fix or address the mistake on your own, it is important to get other people involved as quickly as possible. Don’t make a mistake bigger than it already is. Reach out to others. If you can fix it immediately, fix it! Depends on the scope of the mistake, the type of mistake and your capability to fix it. Owning mistakes can help build a greater level of credibility and trust. People can learn lessons from you when you share historical mistakes. Show Links: Link to Tanner discussion on Ego Link to Twitter Thread Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to podcast@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

In this episode, Mike and Jody discuss the importance of a good first customer interaction and discovery call/meeting. Questions Answered: What should the first customer interaction look like? What is involved in discovery? Why do you want to find out more about the person? How does knowing the person better help you with the sale you are trying to make? What else do we need to know about the first interaction? Key Takeaways: Ask questions. Do research - can be from public or private sources (asking questions.) Deliver the information you have in the context of what is important to the customer It’s important to know the person because they are going to either influence or make the decision. Asking questions and getting to know them helps them realize I am a human being and not someone just trying to sell something. Asking if they have any questions for you will let you know how engaged they are in the conversation. You can refer back to what these first questions revealed in future discussions. Builds a personal relationship. Be prepared to do a demo if necessary Show Links: Call Planning Podcast Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization Purchase Demystify Sales, A Catalyst Sale Course  here  Interested in working with us? Visit https://catalystsale.com and chat with us, or contact us via Twitter or LinkedIn. Please send listener questions and feedback to podcast@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

This week Tanner Brock, founder of 9-5 5-9 Coaching joins the Catalyst Sale Podcast.  Tanner is joining the team in a freelance role as an Account Executive.  As an account executive, Tanner's focus will be on selling Catalyst Sale courses in the B2B space. Tanner is a non-traditional sales professional, who has not worked in an account executive role.  Tanner will be a guest on the podcast in the future, we will share his journey, lessons learned, mistakes, and wins. We discuss one common mistake today, specifically the tendency to focus on how we solve the problem (solution) rather than the problem. Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization Chat with us or contact us via Twitter or LinkedIn. Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

This week we have a listener question - how do you avoid selling on price alone? Questions Answered: How do you avoid selling on price alone? How do you go about figuring out what the problem is? If a customer keeps driving conversation towards price, should we be concerned? Are there other bad habits to avoid? Key Takeaways: Price is one of those things that a lot of people want to know about, but no one wants to talk about in detail. Understand the value that you deliver to an organization. Ask questions about what is going on inside the business relative to the problem you solve for. Find out why they are interested in having a conversation with you, why they are interested in working with you. Be careful about assumptions, ask why price is important to them. Ask, “when you have made this type of decision before, what does the process look like?” Include price on the first page of your proposal. We find ourselves focusing on features and benefits of the tool or software rather than the actual business impact, the thing that you actually deliver, If you find yourself talking more about your product than your customers' challenge, you may be falling into a trap that will be relatively easy to compete with. Features are a dime a dozen. Focus more on value and business impact. Show Links: Submit Listener questions via Live Chat or email us at podcast@catalystsale.com If Disney Ran Your Life Podcast - Season 5  Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization Chat with us or contact us via Twitter or LinkedIn. Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

In this episode, Mike and Amanda Goetz have a great conversation about intention, focus, lessons learned in building a business, joining a business and starting over. Amanda is the VP of Marketing at The Knot and Founder of a new side gig.  Questions Answered: What drove you to start building out a side business? How do you keep things straight? How did you start to get comfortable with saying no to things? What compelled you to go out and raise money this time? How do you say no to people? How do you deal with the pain, conflict and challenges? Why do we struggle with transparency? What does community mean to you? How do we overcome not wanting to be self-promotional? Key Takeaways: Ask everyday, how am I going to approach this day and what does success look like Don’t believe in “mommy guilt” Whatever I am doing in this moment gets my full attention. Focus and Finish Your defense is your email. Not every email needs an immediate response. Your offense is when you are in control of what you are doing. In the absence of information, people spin and they ask a lot of questions. I believe in pro-active communication. When people don’t have a true North Star, that’s when you get unnecessary emails. Experience is the best teacher. You have to do applications of these things. When it comes to saying no to business relationships, I think a lot about where it needs to start and it needs to start with knowing yourself. It’s ok to acknowledge highs and lows and talk about those openly. Someone has to be brave enough to go first. This creates a foundation of trust and further vulnerability. Community means to me people who found connection through usually highs or lows. Brands that try to be everything to everyone end up being nothing to anyone. Self-promotion is very different than stating your thoughts. Put your thoughts into the world. You have to bet on yourself before other people will.  Show Links:  Amanda on Twitter Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

How do you create a great proposal? In this episode, Mike and Jody discuss best practices when it comes to proposal planning. Questions Answered: What goes into a proposal? Where does price go? What are some mistakes people make with proposals? Key Takeaways: One of the challenges people will make when coming to proposal writing is they feel like they have to put everything in there. I would challenge you to think of it as less is more. Elements of a proposal: problem we are solving for, why is it important to solve the problem, how do we solve the problem, price If we can cover all four of these things, we have given them a solid framework that they can use to justify a purchase. Proposal should be simple to understand and very clear. My preference is to deliver price as early as possible as late as necessary. At minimum on the first page so they don’t have to flip pages or scroll down. Don’t tell your organization’s entire story up front We tend to overcomplicate and make them too long. Another mistake is finding a proposal that works and then everyone on the team uses it.  Show Links: Planning Templates Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit  

A lot has happened since launching Catalyst Sale in 2015.  In the spirit of making it easier to work with us, Mike and Jody talk about Catalyst Sale and what Mike is working on now. We take some time and distinguish between Catalyst Sale the products, and the advisory services Mike provides. Questions Answered: What will listeners get when working with Mike? What will listeners get from Catalyst Sale? What are you most excited about moving forward? Key Takeaways: You will get tools, not scripts Catalyst Sale will help with  Frameworks Territory Planning Processes - The Catalyst Sale Process Training - Courses, content, blog, podcast Excited about the people I work with and the change happening in organizations.  If you have tried to figure out sales and feel there is a lot of noise and you aren’t sure what you should be doing, give me a call. We can talk through what will work best for you and your problem. My mission is to help people get better at Sales. Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire Mike as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit

Handling Objections In this episode, Mike and Jody discuss a listener tip regarding objection handling.  We bounce around a bit on this one, but ultimately bring it home with some practical thoughts on objection handling. TLDR - ask questions, gain context, don't react. Questions Answered: Do objection handling documents work? Can you build out questions on an objection handling sheet? Key Takeaways: Objection handling documents can work if you are not just reading off of a script. These documents can help with alignment within an organization. When dealing with a pricing objection, ask “from what perspective?” Don’t interrogate customers, but work to gather a bit more information. If you guess, you only have one chance of guessing right. Rather than answer the objection immediately, take a pause and ask one question.  Account plans are a useful tool - You can listen to our account planning podcast here Show Links: www.jodymaberry.com https://catalystsale.com Submit Listener Questions To: podcast@catalystsale.com DM us on Twitter  Work With Catalyst Sale: Listen to our free resource (this podcast) and then put the action items into practice. Share your work with us via Twitter or hello@catalystsale.com Invest in a Catalyst Sale course - self directed. Find our courses here  Hire us as a consultant/advisor within your team or organization  Thank You  Please send listener questions and feedback to hello@catalystsale.com or contact us directly on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. This podcast is brought to you by Catalyst Sale - you can learn more about Catalyst Sale, and the products and services we provide via the following links. Growth Acceleration - Plateau Breakthrough Product Market Fit