The Sales Evangelist

It’s time to start seeking the wisdom of our industry leaders to build pipeline. In this episode, your host Donald Kelly talks with Radhika Shukla about her years of experience bringing teams to success in sales. Her approach is equal parts methodical, data-driven, and human-centric. Listen in as she shares the proven methods she uses with her team to find new leads and convert them into happy repeat customers.  Start the Planning Process Early Identify “big bets” that you need to win. These are new leads that are great fits for your business that you are going to prioritize. Collaborate with different people in your organization who operate at all stages of the customer satisfaction process.  7-Step Method for Lead Qualifying Start with your ICP. Create a customer profile and become familiar with the industry and common pain points. Ask the right questions. Think of asking effective questions and staying curious rather than jumping straight to solutions. Qualification criteria. Don’t be misled by following the wrong criteria – know what your criteria are from an early stage.  Two-way qualification. From the early stages all the way through the end, give your customers a way to evaluate whether your company is bringing them value. Progress through the sales cycle. Take a structured approach to help you keep track of where you are at with your clients. Data analysis. Become a data-driven seller. The more reports you can get your hands on, the better you can assess your pipeline. Rigorous, regular pipeline review. Revise your plan every 2-3 months. Things change and you may learn new things.  Prospecting to Triple Your Pipeline Invest in targeted research and networking to identify prospects. Network shamelessly. Don’t be afraid to seek referrals from your regular clients. Engage in multi-channel prospecting. Don’t stick to one type of prospecting: e-mails, social media, and phone calls will all reach different people.  Follow up with your customers. Keep a regular cadence of connection with customers.  “You have to focus on understanding your target market, your industry trends, the complete scenario. It’s very important to understand your customer’s business, but also the customer’s customer – how they go to market and how they sell their products and services to their customers. That deep understanding, often people miss.” – Radhika Shukla  Resources Radhika Shukla on LinkedIn Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you struggling to close deals? Cold outreach wastes the buyer and seller's time at every stage, especially when sellers are using shallow and outdated data. Your organization can overcome these challenges with technology that translates comprehensive, high-quality buyer data into real-time insights. 2.            These deeper insights empower sales reps and teams to adopt the habits of top performers, which leads to better outcomes - like more pipelines, higher win rates, and larger deals. 3.            We call this Deep Sales. And we’ve built the first deep sales platform with the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/tse. 2. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Salespeople and leaders alike have access to great tech to simplify and streamline their processes. Tech, however, isn’t everything – if a seller isn’t spending much time selling, they’re still not going to hit quotas. In this episode, your host Donald Kelly talks with Tiffani Bova about shaping the employee experience to drive success. The Connection Between Employees and Growth Employees drive revenue.  Even though powerful tech is out there to help you sell, a salesperson only spends 28% of their time selling and 54% of salespeople miss quotas. If sales reps don’t have the right tools and spend all their time doing administrative work, they’re not providing an excellent customer experience. Salespeople aren’t in control of the pitfalls in their tech, but they can help sales leaders understand what isn’t working. The Employee Journey A lot of energy is often put into improving the buyer’s journey. But the salesperson’s journey needs to match. The more back-end work the employee has to do per each step of the buyer’s journey, the lower their job satisfaction will be. Identify the steps in the seller’s process, and ask if things can be automated, streamlined, or eliminated. Getting Promoted vs. Showing Leadership The higher up you get promoted, the more long-term you should be setting your sights. The C-suite should not be focusing on the day-to-day. Great sellers get promoted, but selling and managing are two different skills. Engage with employees about what their struggles and needs are. Try to offer solutions, and if you can’t, at least you’re aware of the situation. “We do not have a technology problem. We have a people and process problem.” – Tiffani Bova Resources The Experience Mindset by Tiffani Bova on Amazon https://www.tiffanibova.com/experiencemindset/ Tiffani Bova on LinkedIn @tiffanibova on Instagram Sponsorship Offers 1. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Whether you’re tired of receiving the same “pitches” all over LinkedIn or you’re a self-professed introvert like our guest Ben Lai, you know there’s a way to use LinkedIn to sell without selling out. Today on the Sales Evangelist podcast, Ben and host Donald Kelly tackle bringing humanity back to social media. Connection Requests: Being Other-Centric Your messaging should communicate that you care more about the person than the sale. Be courteous and authentic. Don’t use the same lines as everyone else – show others who you are. Identify a commonality that builds trust. People will then check out your profile, so if your message and profile are incongruent, you’ll lose that trust. If you have a limited market, personalize each connection request or meeting request, depending on what makes sense for you. Meeting Requests: Personal AND Commercial Before you reach out, give them a little bit of breathing room (about 1 week) after getting your connection request gets accepted. Find a conversational thing to ask them about, or find something of value to give to the person without them having to do business with you. Letting the meeting come about naturally makes your target more likely to respond. Follow Up: People are busy and don’t always respond right away. Some people you reach out to will want to reward your perseverance. If you don’t follow up, you seem like you don’t care. “If you’re out there to genuinely help people, you’re going to come across that way in the wording and in all of your mannerisms, whereas someone who is annoyingly persistent is predominantly self-centric. They’re only thinking about closing the sale.” – Ben Lai Resources SalesEthos.au - individual or team sales coaching Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you struggling to close deals? Cold outreach wastes the buyer and seller's time at every stage, especially when sellers are using shallow and outdated data. Your organization can overcome these challenges with technology that translates comprehensive, high-quality buyer data into real-time insights. These deeper insights empower sales reps and teams to adopt the habits of top performers, which leads to better outcomes - like more pipelines, higher win rates, and larger deals. We call this Deep Sales. And we’ve built the first deep sales platform with the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/tse. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Social selling can be successful IF you know where to start. Many sellers waste time chasing celebrity status thinking that’s the only way to generate leads, not knowing there are options that can consistently get them to their sales targets. In today’s episode of the Sales Evangelist podcast, Donald Kelly talks with Tony Restell, the founder of Social-Hire, one of the leading social media marketing agencies in the UK. They discuss how to reach out to your target audience and convert that audience into opportunities. Two Roads to Success for B2B Social Sellers You become a celebrity in your field and receive inquiries based on your name/presence. For every “celebrity,” there are a lot of people who are trying to do that and failing. You grow your account by putting in consistent work and focusing your attention on a target market. This is the less risky way to generate leads. Writing Effective Connection Requests Think about how you would open up a conversation with someone at a trade show or a conference. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say in person. Drop a good question in the first conversation to get communication going. You have a 300-character limit. Use it to demonstrate your value as a connection, not to sell. How to Convert Your Audience into Opportunities Find ways to build trust and reach out without pitching. People on LinkedIn get pitched to all the time – you’ll be ignored. Restell’s strategy is doing short (5-10 minute) video calls with business owners on LinkedIn. They can use these short videos as content for themselves. Find ways to let your opportunities approach you. Asking for short interviews to gain information invites businesses to look into who you are and what you typically offer. “What we like to focus on is much more predictable and scalable [than attempting to be a LinkedIn celebrity], and it comes down to the consistency of effort. I guess that comes from my door-to-door sales background many years ago, where it was drilled into us that it’s all about the numbers and it’s all about improving your conversion rates between the numbers. If you do enough of the right things and you improve over time, you’re going to get a known outcome from that. And LinkedIn is no different for sales professionals.” – Tony Restell Resources Social-Hire.com – book a consultation call! Tony Restell on LinkedIn Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

When faced with new challenges, your ability to adapt will determine whether you succeed. In the past 12-18 months, the market has undergone a massive shift. In today’s episode, you’re going to get the facts you need to respond. Your host Donald Kelly sits down with Kate Ahlering (CRO at Calendly) to talk about how automation can save you time and energy so you can apply your focus to the moments that matter. Challenges In the Current Market The game has changed from placing importance on “growth at all costs” (2020–2021) to “path to profitability” (2022-present).  There is a lot more scrutiny from buyers on all types of investment. The path to profitability needs to be clear at the outset. The silver lining: sales organizations get to hone their craft, become more focused, and improve beyond what they’ve been able to offer in the past. Speed of Sales Cycle When balancing personalization with automation, some steps in the process require a more personalized approach than others. Find the parts you can automate. If a customer is already on your website, they’re ready to talk to you at that moment – most don’t want to send a lot of e-mails back and forth. Calendly Routing allows customers to easily book meetings with you from your website, cutting down the amount of time they spend in your pipeline. Getting the Right Meetings Booked Team selling is becoming increasingly common. Streamlining the booking process for collaborative meetings helps your customer get scheduled painlessly. Standardizing the process to whatever extent you can helps give your customers a consistent experience, and makes your process more scalable. Expansion Using Automation There’s nothing wrong with doubling down on your base, but must also demonstrate your value to that base or offer more value. Use analytic suites to become more educated on what works and improve conversion based on data. HackerOne, a global cybersecurity company, implemented Calendly and scheduled 114% more meetings while streamlining their process by 600 hours. “If you haven’t already, take a look at your customer life cycle map. What are the points in time that you really want to engage your customer? What are those high value conversations? What are those inflection points that are so critical? And [ensure] that you have the right amount and the right blend of personalization and automation to ensure that those moments happen.” – Kate Ahlering Resources https://calendly.com/ – Get started with a FREE trial Connect with Kate Ahlering on LinkedIn The Brevet Group: 21 Mind-blowing Sales Stats - check out this website for helpful stats Ahlering refers to How CI Assante Wealth Management Achieved 323% ROI with Calendly - Case Study HackerOne Realizes 169% ROI by Powering Customer Success with Calendly - Case Study Sponsorship Offers 1. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you struggling to close deals? Cold outreach wastes the buyer and seller's time at every stage, especially when sellers are using shallow and outdated data. Your organization can overcome these challenges with technology that translates comprehensive, high-quality buyer data into real-time insights. These deeper insights empower sales reps and teams to adopt the habits of top performers, which leads to better outcomes - like more pipelines, higher win rates, and larger deals. We call this Deep Sales. And we’ve built the first deep sales platform with the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/tse. 2. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill. Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

By now, someone has already told you that sales is about building relationships. If you’ve ever been lured into the trap of trying to be your prospect’s best friend only to find out they weren’t interested, you’re not alone. As you’ll hear in this episode, JC Pollard isn’t afraid to ask tough questions, and that’s how he became a top seller at Gong, hitting 190% of his quota in his first year. Listen in as he and Donald Kelly discuss “soft closing” to get the facts about where your deals are at. Setting Expectations and Being Proactive As a rep, you are (or should be) experienced with your sales process. Take a leadership role in outlining the next steps in the process for your buyer. Give the buyer options so they know you can either close the deal quickly or take more time to evaluate, depending on what they want. Position the outcomes on every call and keep inviting your buyer to tell YOU where they stand. Soft Closing Many reps don’t know how certain their deals are. Instead of keeping yourself in the dark, set your buyers up with an opportunity to close at every step of the process.  If they say yes, this saves you a lot of time and effort. But if they say no, you have an opportunity to do discovery. Wrapping Deals Before the Trial Ends Never launch a trial or pilot without knowing what your customer’s success criteria are.  If you believe your product has checked all the boxes before the pilot is done, check in with them and see if they’re ready to buy yet. If they say no, don’t be afraid to ask, “Why not?” “The best salespeople are ones that are friendly, liked, create rapport, and can really drop the hammer when they need to... That’s what I try to be. I get close with my prospects. I truly care about making friends with them – I keep in touch with people I sold Gong to a year ago. But when they say something throughout the cycle where I’m like, ‘You’re not thinking about that the right way,’ I’m not afraid to also call that out and be like, ‘Hey, can I challenge you on that?’ If you can marry the two, I think that’s where you start to see some success.” – JC Pollard Resources Gong website Reach out to JC Pollard on LinkedIn JC’s post calling out Donald Kelly on LinkedIn! Sponsorship Offers 1. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Why do all presentations look and feel the same? Why does it feel like you have to leave your true self at the door and switch into ‘pitch mode’? Why isn’t there more storytelling? These are the big questions our guest Ravi Rajani sought to answer, and he packed this episode with so much of what he has learned. In this episode, your host Donald Kelly and Ravi Rajani get pumped about the art of telling exciting stories in a sales environment – and the energy is contagious! Understanding “STORY” in a Sales Context S: Simplify story-selling: A simple, but powerful story can get attention, tug at emotions, and build trust. T: Tactically create your story bank: Include the right kinds of stories in your arsenal. O: Obtain delivery mastery: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. R: Ramp up your MVP story: Practice and fine-tune your story in low-stakes environments. Y: Yield long-term success: Over time, build up more stories to become second nature and conversational. Write Great Sales Stories With The ACORNS Checklist A: Attention-grabbing: Be unpredictable to interrupt your buyer’s pattern of thinking. C: Contain a relatable person: A listener should be able to see themselves as your main character. O: Organically unfold: Keep story arcs simple and easy to follow. R: Reveal a villain: Stories with a “villain” have more tension, which gets your listener’s attention. N: Nurture trust: The story should be a larger part of building a business relationship over time. S: Should add business value: Stories should lead right into your hook, prospect impact, and CTA (call to action).  Using Stories to Incite Emotion Bring someone into the room. Rather than narrating, “This happened, then that happened…” Include dialogue. Rajani uses highly descriptive, sensory-focused language to pull listeners in. “What is a story? Let’s take it back to my guy Ralph Emerson. He once said, ‘The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.’ I actually believe that the creation of a thousand relationships is in one story.” – Ravi Rajani Resources DM Ravi Rajani on LinkedIn with the word “Donald” so he knows you heard about him here! https://www.theravirajani.com/yourelevatorstory - FREE script for your Elevator Story Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you struggling to close deals? Cold outreach wastes the buyer and seller's time at every stage, especially when sellers are using shallow and outdated data. Your organization can overcome these challenges with technology that translates comprehensive, high-quality buyer data into real-time insights. These deeper insights empower sales reps and teams to adopt the habits of top performers, which leads to better outcomes - like more pipelines, higher win rates, and larger deals. We call this Deep Sale. And we’ve built the first deep sales platform with the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/tse. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Take a moment to walk in your prospect’s shoes. Imagine you’re interested in a product and you reached out for more information, only to wait weeks to hear back. Chances are you went looking elsewhere for a more responsive seller – and if you want to BECOME that second seller, listen in. In this episode, your host Donald Kelly and Aleks Gollu, founder and CEO at 11Sight, discuss the undeniable effectiveness of video calls and rapid response time. What Causes Friction? AI chat bots, long survey-style forms, and delayed response time are all points of friction that drag out and endanger deals. There is no reason why responses can’t be instantaneous – if your turnaround isn’t immediate, you could very easily lose your prospects. Two Ways to Talk On the Customer’s Terms Give your customer the option to schedule the meeting. Give them an option to get on an instant video call. Over 60% preferred an instant call! These options work best for high-velocity sales (conversion in 30-60 days). How Can Reaching Out in Real Time Scale Globally? Record a video that explains that you’re not available at that time and offers them an option to schedule a call. Use an outsourced agency that follows a sales script for their first call to move things forward. “A lead is 10 times more valuable in those first five minutes than anytime thereafter. When the phone rings, answer.” – Aleks Gollu Resources https://www.11sight.com/ - Call through the website, and let them know you heard about them on The Sales Evangelist Podcast. You’ll be transferred directly to Aleks! Sponsorship Offers 1. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

New reps and veteran sellers alike are looking for the missing piece in their sales game – look no further. In this electrifying interview, your host Donald Kelly speaks with Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Holmes International, about how her finger-on-the-pulse approach connects with the foundational elements of her father’s work (The Ultimate Sales Machine) to bring us into the future of selling.  What is a Dream 100? There is always a smaller number of better buyers than there are buyers. Selling to your better buyers is smarter and cheaper than selling to anyone else. When he was a seller, Chet Holmes spent his energy focusing on his ideal clients rather than selling to 20,000 prospects. “In your face, in your space, in your place.” Chet Holmes used a lot of marketing tactics WITHOUT spamming. Aim to be interested instead of interesting!  Identify YOUR Dream 100 Start by going through your contacts and identifying the people who could be in your Dream 100 – without social media. Don’t get overwhelmed – start with a Dream 5 or Dream 10! Place your focus there, and build on it.  3 Dream 100 DON’Ts It doesn’t need to be “100”. The most important thing to do is find your better buyers – the customers who are really right for you. It doesn’t need to be people outside of your sphere. After looking through your contacts, check your social media, your CRM (customer relationship management), and other places in your SOI (sphere of influence). Bigger isn’t always better. Even if big accounts bring in a lot of money, they may not be profitable, and they may not need you. You may not like working with them, which makes them NOT a dream client! “My father was a fifth-degree blackbelt. He realized that there are only so many ways that you kick or you punch, and it’s just a matter of practicing these things over, and over, and over again. He’s famous for the saying, ‘Mastery isn’t about doing 4,000 different things, it’s about doing 12 things 4,000 times.” – Amanda Holmes Resources http://ultimatesalesmachine.com (Chapter 4 of the book is free!) Reach out to Amanda directly @amanditaholmes on Instagram Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you struggling to close deals? Cold outreach wastes the buyer and seller's time at every stage, especially when sellers are using shallow and outdated data. Your organization can overcome these challenges with technology that translates comprehensive, high-quality buyer data into real-time insights. These deeper insights empower sales reps and teams to adopt the habits of top performers, which leads to better outcomes - like more pipelines, higher win rates, and larger deals. We call this Deep Sale. And we’ve built the first deep sales platform with the next generation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at linkedin.com/tse.  2. This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

If you’re still trying to build pipeline by loading up your “spam cannon,” you’re living in the past. In today’s episode, your host Donald Kelly opens up a conversation with Drew Sechrist, the CEO and co-founder of Connect the Dots (a FREE program that helps you leverage your connections – see the Resources below for a tip to skip the waiting list). Sechrist shares the history of how he got his start as a seller at Salesforce, becoming a top seller, and learning the skills that helped him revolutionize his strategy.  How Relationships Helped a Young Rep Become the Top Seller When Sechrist first started selling, he didn’t have a network to tap into. As he started selling to bigger more complex companies, having connections helped him get his foot in the door. The amount of people selling creates a lot of noise in the market, leaving buyers unsure of who to trust. Personal relationships built Salesforce from the beginning. At the time, there was no way to see how to leverage relationships with the click of a button, but now there are options like Connect the Dots, which shows reps who the buyers are and how to connect with them through the network they have. Taking Sales Beyond LinkedIn 50-90% of your LinkedIn contacts are people you may not know well, so even if you want to make connections this way, you’re going to face the same lack of trust you’re trying to avoid. CTD offers assistance in tracking relationship strength: whether you have a weak, familiar, or strong relationship with your contact. CTD also shows you a consolidated record of each of your contacts so you can evaluate them at a glance. The Problem With Cold E-mails Cold e-mailing is out for 2023 – it could even hurt your brand. Buyers are inundated with cold e-mails that target and pitch but don’t offer value. Your open rate might be high, but your response rate might not! “Just think about it: somebody comes up to you on the street that you don’t know and they’re proposing something to you, it’s like ‘Whoa, whoa, I don’t know you. I’ve got places to go.’ But if your friend comes up to you on the street and says, ‘Hey Donald, I think I’ve got something for you,’ you’re going to give that person a minute to hear them out… Your brand suffers a little bit if you make a request of somebody’s time and it’s not considered to be valuable.” – Drew Sechrist Resources E-mail drew@ctd.ai and let him know you heard about CTD on The Sales Evangelist Podcast, and you will be bumped to the top of the waiting list for FREE access to this program! Connect the Dots Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Sales Foundation. I think we can all agree that sales should be fun. However, many times, we find ourselves in a quagmire where we’re not progressing and deals are not going the way that they should. This is why we created TSE Sales Foundation. It’s a program designed to help sales professionals just like you master the fundamentals of sales so they can radically improve their sales pipeline and close more deals. To find out more about TSE Sales Foundation and our next start date, simply go to thesalesevangelist.com/foundation. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or Spotify. Audio provided by Free SFX, Soundstripe, and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com