The Sales Evangelist

How to Not Ruin Relationships When Selling to Friends  Have you ever wondered how to not ruin relationships when selling to friends? This can be difficult because you would still want to keep the relationship even when they’ve said no.  This isn’t a unique struggle, it’s common to most salespeople. Perhaps the products could be beneficial to your friend or family so you want them to try it. You have a moral obligation to at least explain some ways to fix their problem without turning it into something bigger.  Solve the true problem  Assess whether what you have is truly a solution to their problem. You can’t sell a car to your friends when they already have one that is running in perfect condition. Even when you’ve told them about the new features of the car you’re selling, they’re not going to get one because they have a good car that runs just fine. What you presented to them isn’t a solution because there wasn’t a problem in the first place.  It is important for you to seek out whether there is a problem and figure out what it is before you present your product.  Be genuine  Do not present a solution that would benefit you; rather, give them a solution that would benefit them.  Perhaps their car needs fixing and they are spending way too much for the repair. This is a great time for you to share the features of the car you’re selling. If they don’t have the income to purchase it, then help them get the income by looking for a credit union.  That genuine heart helps build trust and your friends will potentially lead you to other people with similar problems. The people you’ve helped will come back to you and buy from you again later on.   Do not pitch something to your family or friends because your sales manager told you to do so. Don’t approach them with the mindset that they’ll buy your product because they feel guilty.  Consider your approach  Always set the rules before you play the game. Consider your approach and be straightforward. Because they are the people you are close with, you have the benefit of honesty from them. Before you make your pitch, remind them that if they are not interested, there’s no need to beat around the bush and that the relationship stays the same regardless of their choice. Once they understand that, then you can move on with your pitch. Put emphasis on the fact that you are willing to help with their problems. If their car isn’t working well and they are spending too much for repair every week, tell them that they can go to another car salesperson. You are merely giving them options on how they can address their problems.  Don’t approach them like you would any other clients. Instead, approach them in a loving way. People recognize trust and love and if you use that approach to your friends and families then you’ve unlocked one great strategy on how to not ruin relationships when selling to friends.  No isn’t always a No Many salespeople keep selling even when the person has said no. This happens a lot because in sales, it is about the numbers and others take it to another level. As a salesperson, you need to have a threshold. Most sales reps, however, see a list of names to reach out without knowing who these people are or their concerns. They see names and they see numbers automatically. They don’t look at the names as individuals who might be facing some personal issues at the moment.  Studies have shown that 92% of salespeople give up after getting a NO without realizing that 60% of consumers say no four times before saying yes. Some say no because they are busy or they aren’t a fit for what the salesperson is offering.  If someone is in the right market and they fall under the criteria of your ideal customer profile, then they do have a problem that you can solve. You have a moral obligation to at least explain it to them, and not just once.  Change your approach from someone who just wants to set an appointment and talk about the product to someone who wants to help them and educate them to overcome a challenge they are facing.  Build relationships Build relationships by being everywhere and being constant. #Socialselling The Sales Evangelist, for example, is virtually everywhere and we’ve been sharing a stream of content on a regular basis. We are found in every platform where our ideal customers may be. We are on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. People may have not expressed their interest now but they are individuals that we can follow up and put into other sequences for us to reach out.  If they aren’t ready to buy this month, then connect with them and ask them if they are willing to receive educational information. If no, then let them go and if yes, then look for ways that you can continue educating them.  Don’t pitch them the product when they’re not yet ready to get it but maintain a relationship and to do a follow-up after enough time. Remember to stay in touch.  Nurture that relationship until such time that it picks up.  A portion of that 60% who said no to you will eventually make a yes if you stick around and pitch in the perfect timing. So, build a relationship with those individuals in a loving way and be present in whatever means or platform they like to digest your content.  “How to Not Ruin Relationships When Selling to Friends” episode resources The Sales Evangelist records podcasts regularly. Some of our contents are answers to questions sent to us by salespeople. If you have concerns, you can shoot us your question anytime. Connect with Donald via LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.  If you like this episode, don’t be shy and give us a thumbs up and rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. We produce podcasts weekly so make sure to subscribe to get more of these sales talks that matter! Share this with your friends and teach them how to subscribe as well.  This episode is brought to you in-part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a helpful guide for sales reps and sales leaders to improve their pitches and presentations. It has 12 courses and you can get the first two modules for free! If you want to take your sales to the next level, then I recommend that you join us with our group coaching.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  If you’re a reader who loves reading and listening to books, you can also check out Audible as well and explore this huge online library with thousands of books. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

3 Things Leaders Do To Hurt Sales Rep Relationships Sometimes, there are 3 things leaders do to hurt sales rep relationships and most times, they do it unintentionally. This is especially hard because sales leaders and sales reps spend a lot of time together. A bad leader can negatively affect how a sales rep makes his sell. While a good leader helps how sales reps can improve their sales.  Marc Levine founded his ImprovMySales business four years ago. The company is dedicated to creating wonderful and profitable places to work. Before this business venture, Marc was part of a sales team as a national account executive and technology and professional services. For the last 16 years, he has been developing leaders and teams, teaching people communication skills, selling services to certain companies including Citibank, Prudential, and Best Buy.   3 Things leaders do to hurt sales relationships There are probably more, but let’s focus on just the three things for now.  A leader does not create a psychologically safe environment The leader forgets about humanity  The leader is emotionally unintelligent August has been a leadership month and people have been talking about the important things to become a good sales leader. This involves setting a vision and becoming a good coach. It’s about creating a culture where sales reps can thrive and succeed.  When a leader fails to create that safe environment, the sales relationship takes a hit.  By definition, psychological safety was a term coined by the social psychologist, Amy Edmonson. Google did a two-year study and analyzed the qualities of its most effective teams. The results of the study have shown that teams promoting psychological safety produced better revenues and their team members stayed in the work longer than others. Psychological safety is a team norm that says it’s safe to take risks, to be vulnerable, to ask for help, and to disagree with the rest of the team.  When you do, you won’t be ostracized for disagreeing but instead, you’ll be honored and validated.  An environment where sales leaders can thrive As a parent, when your kid doesn’t understand something, you want your kid to feel safe to come to you and ask for help without getting embarrassed. The same is true in sales. As a leader, you need to develop a team where your members can be honest and can come forward when they don’t understand something.  You want your team members to come to you about their problems early on in the sales cycle rather than at the end of it where the deal is falling apart. This is the essence of psychological safety.  It’s an environment where people can ask for help, be vulnerable, take risks, and be supported  Create a psychologically safe environment  This doesn’t happen overnight. It happens when your sales reps come to you asking for help and instead of reacting, you validate and support them. Do it a couple of times for the team members to realize that you want to help them.  Sales leaders also need to stop blaming the team members. Blame and accountability are two different things.  Blaming makes the blamed feel bad and threatened. It’s when sales leaders bombard the reps with questions like:  Why didn’t you hit the quota last month? Why did you lose that sale? Why aren’t you doing this? These questions foster negativity. Accountability helps you raise the team’s standard without making the reps feel bad. It’s more like saying, “Hey you didn’t hit your quota last month and I know you're disappointed. Let’s talk about what happened that may have contributed to this and let’s figure out the solutions.” Build an environment where your members can be comfortable in having a dialogue.  As a sales leader, you also need to admit your own mistakes. Research shows that when you admit your mistakes, the people around you will come close and will open up about theirs as well.  There’s power in vulnerability and when you use that power, you will see your sales team come closer and open up to you.  Leaders forget about humanity  The next in the list of the 3 things leaders do to hurt sales relationships is forgetting about humanity.  Salespeople are like stand-up comedians. We go out there showing confidence knowing that we’re going to be rejected. We are a fragile group. When sales leaders remember the humanity of the people on their team, the members tend to go above and beyond. The members put in incremental efforts.  Sales leaders also need to stop making the team members like little versions of themselves. Every member is unique with their own set of skills and strengths. Forcing things that you do well onto them will make them feel resentful. Instead, honor their strength. Validate the things that they do well to make them feel excited and engaged. Make them feel heard and understood.  Remember that you are working with human beings who have hopes and fears. and get scared. Honor that part of them.  Build strong relationships with your sales team Sales leaders need to build strong relationships with their team and practice emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman wrote in his book Working with Emotional Intelligence that people with emotional intelligence are more successful in their careers than those who are just relying on pure intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and regulate your own feelings to understand and empathize with the feelings of others. As a sales leader, you need to be aware of your emotional triggers to be able to manage them. If you fail to develop that, you can easily be overtaken  by your emotional triggers and start to judge your team.  Sales is an emotional game and there are many opportunities where sales reps and leaders get triggered. #SalesFacts These triggers tend to show up again and again and these are no surprises.  Some examples are: When someone didn’t hit the quota When someone’s not adapting to the new technology When someone’s not putting something into the CRM So, list your triggers and think of all the situations and the people that trigger the fight, flight, or freeze responses.   The sales team and all its members are the backbones of an organization. We want them to feel empowered and we can’t make that happen if we don’t provide them an environment where they can thrive and if we keep blaming them. Have conversations with them and make them feel good so that they'd want to produce for you.  “3 Things Leaders Do To Hurt Sales Relationships” episode resources Connect with Marc at improvmysales.com or reach him at (718) 637-7890.  If you like this episode, don’t be shy and give us a thumbs up and rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. We produce podcasts weekly so make sure to subscribe to get more of these sales talks that matter! Share this with your friends and teach them how to subscribe as well.  This episode is brought to you in-part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a helpful guide for sales reps and sales leaders to improve their pitches and presentations. It has 12 courses and you can get the first two modules for free! If you want to take your sales to the next level, then I recommend that you join us with our group coaching.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  If you’re a reader who loves reading and listening to books, you can also check out Audible as well and explore this huge online library with thousands of books. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

With all the focus on social selling, it can be difficult to determine whether you can consider referrals and connections that result in LinkedIn leads as inbound leads. If a prospect connects with your content which leads to a conversation and then an appointment, can that be considered an inbound lead? LinkedIn connections You’re likely among those sellers who understand that your LinkedIn profile is your personal profile. You cherish it and treat it with respect. You post thoughtful content and share impactful videos and write articles and long-form blogs. You’re creating content that your audience can engage with.  If those prospects end up in your direct message as a result and that leads to a conversation, that’s an inbound lead. Though it might not qualify as inbound in the traditional sense, you’re engaging in the same activities. No matter who creates the content, it’s an inbound lead. You could even give it a unique KPI name like “social media lead” or SML. Converting leads If I connect with 15 or 20 business owners today and 10 of them reconnect with me, the result is 10 new social media leads. I can nurture them by creating videos, posts, or articles and tying the content to my new prospects.  Ideally, those people will engage in a conversation. I recently connected with a woman on LinkedIn who later posted a good piece of content. She mentioned me and others she had recently connected with using a “shout out.” Turns out all the people she mentioned continued to engage with her on LinkedIn.  I’ll watch her content now since I had a positive interaction, and I might eventually decide to engage with her company. She’s nurturing us as prospects. Engaging content Having a LinkedIn profile isn’t enough anymore. You must share engaging content. #LinkedIn Then, once you do, be intentional about connecting with those who interact with your content. Work to connect with your second- and third-degree connections.  Try this simple paragraph: Thanks so much for commenting on my post today, James. Permission to connect here on LinkedIn? Usually, when you connect immediately, they’ll appreciate your outreach. You can start a conversation that may lead to further interactions.  Now you’re getting more contacts off your ideal customer or prospect.  Blur the lines Imagine you have a targeted list of prospects that you’re trying to reach. You’re making phone calls to named accounts and you’re connecting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.  If you separate your prospects into different categories, you can optimize them.  I recently connected with someone on LinkedIn who became a social media contact and then a social media lead. When the prospect asked about sales training for a team, it led to an initial appointment.  That connection would haven’t happened without engaging content on social media and our interactions there.   “LinkedIn Leads As Inbound Leads” episode resources If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things. I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Business Proposal Trends in 2019 What are some of the business proposal trends in 2019 that you’ve used and that have worked for your industry? Trends change so often that we have to keep track of all the changes to be in the loop because what’s new today, may be old news tomorrow.  Adam Hempenstall has been in the web design business for almost 20 years. He started doing basic websites and brochure sites before the company transitioned into a custom software company. They started building CRMs for different companies and have now invested full time into improving their proposal tool known as Better Proposals.   Business proposal trends The most important thing is that you're not just seeing a transition from the old school PDF method but the clients’ reluctance to change. There is, however, a massive shift towards people opening proposals using their phones. Proposals need to be web-based these days. It has to do with what everything else is doing. They’re not just documents anymore, they’re experiences. Clients should be able to read the proposals by the time that you’ve sent them.  Aside from that, proposals should be sent quickly. Based on the observed data, there’s a higher rate of conversion for proposals that are sent within 24 hours compared to proposals sent in 3-4 days. The other important thing is trying to understand your client most.  From the data and stats Adam’s company is running, they’ve observed the following business proposal trends in 2019 that work: Convenience over quality Being quick in sending proposals  Caring about your client Convenience over quality  People favor convenience over quality. This is apparent in the number of people watching videos on YouTube instead of going to the shows. Live shows mean better quality but people would opt to watch it on YouTube because it means that they can watch it immediately.  People want things the way they want them. For example, you’ve sent a proposal and the client is reading it in his train ride because that’s the time that he allocated for it. The client is not going to sit there and zoom in through the 15-page PDF proposal you’ve sent. That is not convenient for him. He’s probably going to skim, get bored, and close it down. He’ll make the decision over the price and all that effort of making the proposal is going down the drain because you’ve sent it in a format that isn't convenient for him.  To beat your competitors, you want to stand out when you’re sending proposals. You don’t want to send the same ones that others are sending. This is especially true if you’re selling software, marketing, or anything with digital elements. You want to show your prospects that you are at the forefront of technology.  If you tell your prospective clients that you can make their website better and more responsive, you won’t send them a proposal in PDF form. Instead, you send them a web-based proposal and put a tracker in it.  This will allow you to see the activities that your prospective client is doing. You’d see that your client has opened the proposal and that he'd spent a good amount of time reading it.  You can give him a call half an hour later to just check in on how it was. You’re in a good place to speak about it because it’s still fresh on his mind.  You can’t do that with PDFs but you can do it if you use web-based proposals.  Adam and his team made a high-end proposal for a furniture company. The proposal was great but they didn’t have another meeting with them. After six months, the company randomly opened the proposal and Adam got a notification that they checked the proposal. Adam shoots them a quick message just asking how things are going and if they were able to find a solution to the problem that they were trying to solve last year. The company replied saying that they weren’t able to appreciate the value of the proposal then but are now willing to talk about it.  This is what tracking can do; this is what a notification can do.  It’s equally important to repeatedly follow up after a proposal, but not up to the point that you’re putting it on them.  Just being there and being consistent is enough.  Sending proposals quickly We’ve all had a time where we’ve completed a proposal quickly and had a good overturn deal. There have also been times that we’ve procrastinated and done other stuff instead of doing the proposal and when you’ve finally done it, your client has already gone with the other guy.  Adam’s company looked at the actual data of real proposals that people send through their software platform a few years back. Using the raw numbers, they tried to figure out different factors that affect proposal conversion. You can see the study on betterproposal.io/reports in both 2018 and 2019. They found out that sending the proposal within 24 hours after the initial meeting converts 25% more than if you send it in 2-3 days.  Remembering details In Adam’s company, they meet their clients on a neutral ground. They have their meetings in top-end hotel lobbies because it’s comfortable and you can talk to the prospective client freely. When he leaves, you get to stay, order yourself another drink and write the proposal right then and there. It gets difficult when you give it a few more days because by then you remember very little of the meeting.  All those little things that you forget from the meeting were important to the client and if you wait more days before you write the proposal will lose you the deal eventually.  These include the following: The actual words they used The phrases they used The expressions they made The body language they gave off All those things that you remember within a couple of hours will be forgotten within a day.  Write your proposal immediately after your sales meeting to increase the chances you’ll win the deal. #SalesProposal Care for your clients  This part doesn’t have anything to do with the proposals. It is more of what happens before the proposal, and it’s doing good discovery.  You can’t write a good business proposal for a person or a company if you don't do good discovery. You can have the experience but that will only help you so far. You need to ask questions and you need to dig in and get them to reveal as much as they can.  You need to understand what they are trying to achieve. Scratch beneath their surface-level problems to figure out their fears and help them find the solutions. You’re changing the proposal into a personal level and by then, it’s not only the surface-level solutions of the problems you’re proposing.  You are sending them a proposal that truly addresses their deeper concerns.  Care about them, care about the situation, and do what you can to get the truth of their situation.  So, ask the right questions and don’t be afraid to get a little bit uncomfortable.  Trying out the three suggestions mentioned above will make your proposals better. Instead of sending PDFs, send a web-based proposal and save yourself lots of time. It’s also convenient and it’s a conversion booster. Aside from that, web-based proposals are cheap.  “Business Proposal Trends in 2019” episode resource Sign up to Better Proposals website and see hundreds of templates. They also have contracts and other things you can check.  This episode is brought to you in-part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a helpful guide for sales reps and sales leaders to improve their pitches and presentations. It has 12 courses and you can get the first two modules for free!  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  If you’re a reader who loves reading and listening to books, you can also check out Audible as well and explore this huge online library with thousands of books. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  If you like this episode, don’t be shy and give us a thumbs up and rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

B2B sales optimization requires a longterm commitment to create quality content that will grow your audience and increase your success. Bill Bice, CEO of  boomtime, said he was born to be an entrepreneur, launching his first business when he was 14. He loves to talk about sales and marketing because it makes the biggest difference in business.    Data and marketing As business owners, we all know that we have to spend money on marketing, but it’s tough to do if you’re not seeing the ROI. For Bill, marketing is about data, which allows you to understand what’s working. The difficulty occurs when you have too much data because it can be difficult to gather valuable insights that help you improve marketing. Smaller companies often have more freedom to bring their sales and marketing together. In larger companies, the two disciplines are separate, and they are often at odds. Marketing isn’t doing the support work the sales team needs and each blames the other for lack of performance.  In smaller companies, the CEO or entrepreneur can decide to tie the two together.  Bill calls himself a big fan of the challenger sales approach, which resulted from research done in Fortune 500 companies. The concept of using key insights to drive a sales approach creates sales optimization in smaller companies. It’s a perfect example of tying together marketing and sales so that marketing generates insights that truly help sellers. It creates better opportunities which result in better success.  Optimize sales To begin with, businesses must be better at  capturing leads  following up on those leads staying top-of-mind with that larger audience that we’re building  In any complex, high-value sale, a content-driven approach to marketing is the perfect way to optimize the sales process.  Then, if you’ve done the hard work of taking care of your customers, they’ll tell others about your business which creates referrals. Now the goal is to amplify that effect.  How do we make word-of-mouth work even better?  Capturing leads Micro-commitments are the most effective part of capturing leads. Your website was once a replacement for the Yellow Pages, and a way to get people to pick up the phone. Now, the most important piece of information for a prospective client is an email address.  If you ask for the prospect’s name, you’ll reduce conversion by 20%. If you ask for the phone number, you’ll reduce conversion by 60%. Every additional field you add reduces conversion by another 8%. Ask for the one thing you really want from the prospect, which is an email address. You have to be willing to do something that is really hard in order to get those referrals and capture those leads.  You have to give your best stuff away for free. Give away your deepest and best expertise in exchange for the really valuable thing, which is the email address. #CaptureProspects The traditional battle between sales and marketing centers around what makes a qualified lead. All we really want is to get people to follow us on LinkedIn and to get the prospects’ email addresses. If we grow our audience in those two places and we’re constantly sending people back to our website with high-value insight, that creates success.  What’s actually hard to do is the day-to-day work in the trenches, because it’s the consistency that makes this work.  Marketing mistakes Many marketers commit the number one mistake of talking about themselves. Nobody cares.  Are you talking about the problems your target audience struggles with, and are you helping them solve those problems? Of the content you provide to your prospects, 90% should be entirely focused on the problems your audience is having and the insights you bring that they can’t get from anywhere else.  The good news is that if you have a niche in the marketing your company serves, then hundreds of those companies will share the same problems.  CEOs struggle to find those insights because they are running their own businesses. Your marketing department must take advantage of that. You must train your sales team to use a key-insight driven approach.  Secondly, you must commit to this kind of approach in your sales and marketing. You should plan for at least a year. It won’t be a miracle fix.  Test and iterate All forms of content work. Whether you use video, white papers, or checklists, you must test each idea to determine what’s best for that particular segment of the target audience. Even with the explosion of LinkedIn, most B2B sales organizations aren’t leveraging it the way they could.  The whole point is to grow a new audience and LinkedIn is the easiest way to get your word out to a larger audience of exactly the right prospects.  Avoid being salesy. Be there to help your network. Use your key insights to drive interest in what you’re doing. Share insights with consistent posting.  Get the executive team involved in building the audience. Then, turn those connections into opportunities for the sales team.  Bill’s team sends 40-50 connection requests a day, and they follow up on each one of those accepted connection requests with a recently-written article by that executive that tackles a problem and shows your audience how to solve it.  Following up on leads Everybody wants more leads, but most companies generate all the leads they need. The easiest thing to do is to follow up on the leads you already have.  Most sales teams aren’t very good at using the CRM so they aren’t capturing leads. No follow-up exists.  Bill’s team created a process that requires going through email boxes of everyone who is client-facing and capturing those email addresses. Add those people to your CRM and then apply a nurturing campaign that follows up on every single lead.  Sellers tend to focus on things that will create a commission in the next 60 to 90 days. When you get a prospect that may take 6 to 12 months to close, you may see a tendency to drop those. Put a system in place to capture those leads and follow up with them. Use that data to understand when they are interested so you can assign a salesperson to them when they start paying attention.  Lead follow-up represents the lowest-hanging fruit in most B2B organizations. Think of the number of people you meet at trade shows, and then figure the number of leads that actually get added to your CRM. They are all valuable prospects, but some may not be immediately valuable. CRM Bill dislikes the fact that CRM systems are designed for sales managers, but his team uses Pipedrive. He does appreciate the fact that modern CRMs integrate email systems so that you can see all the email interaction that’s happening within the company. The more your company automates around CRM, the more likely the sellers will actually use it. Make it a tool that actually makes their lives better rather than just a tool that tracks what they are doing.  In an ideal world, sales managers will work to uncover objections and help the sellers be more effective.  Top-of-mind Once you put some real effort into building a larger audience, it will begin to grow organically because you’re giving them social currency. Word-of-mouth works best, and we want to amplify that. The best way to do that is to give the audience that already knows you — current clients, past clients, and prospective clients — the tools to create referrals for you.  If you’re giving them insightful and helpful content, the next time the issue comes up while they are having lunch with a peer, they’ll have the perfect thing to talk about. As your audience shares your content, you’ll get organic growth.  Getting started Everyone is terrified at this piece because actually doing it is the hardest part. Other than in early-stage startups, companies will struggle to accomplish this unless they tag a dedicated resource. Hire a large enough team to make it happen.  In Bill’s case, they don’t do the writing themselves. They hire people who are already in that market, who understand it well, and who don’t have to be trained. That kind of approach works consistently to develop a steady flow of high-quality content.  It’s a combination of well-written content with good insights that match the company’s tone.  Coming up with ideas is the easy part.  Send an email with a single link and a catchy headline. Drive your audience back to the website. Link all those articles together so that you create a trail of crumbs and you can see what really interests them. Your reader should never reach the bottom of the blog article and not have a next place to go.  About us The second most visited page on almost every B2B site is the About Us page, but 99% of the time, that page includes a boring list of executives and bios. It doesn’t sell you on the company. It doesn’t take you to the next natural place that you should go to.  You’re trusting your prospects to figure out where to go but you really want to control that customer journey and tell the whole story. Managing that journey improves the capture rate of leads.  Many customers choose companies who have a face on the business. They will choose you because there’s a real person behind the business who cares about them as a client.  No quick fix The number-one battle we face in marketing is that there’s no quick fix. This approach works, but it’s a long-term commitment. If you apply it all through your sales team, you’ll create a dramatic trajectory for your company.  The challenger sale reports that 53 percent of why customers buy from your company traces to the sales experience rather than the product, the price, the service, or the delivery. The key is how they are sold.  Episode resources Bill loves to talk with business owners and marketing directors about sales and marketing. You can connect with him at boomtime.com, or on LinkedIn.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things. I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Our Inbound Leads Are Causing More Work Than Good Sales Often, you hear salespeople say, “Our inbound leads are causing more work than good sales.” It’s always on the question of who should follow up on inbound leads and how to go about it effectively. Many small organizations are having a hard time utilizing their inbound strategies effectively. We don’t have all the variables and all the situations within an organization. Still, we can assume that there are three people on a sales team.  The sales team Assume that a sales team is composed of three people: the marketing person who does almost everything, the junior assistant who helps with content creation, and the outsourced person who does the marketing strategies. Among the three, who should follow-up the lead?  Not all leads are created equal. This means that before deciding who will follow up the lead, the lead should be evaluated first. You don’t want your salesperson pitching to a lead that in the end would go to another competitor.  Do a pre-qualification  Do a pre-qualification in your organization to know if the people you are going to have the conversation with are ready to consider the deal. Set a benchmark and rules for what you consider a marketing quantifiable lead. Consider the following questions:  What is considered a sales qualified lead? What is the KPI of your organization?  How many new inbound leads do you want to get per quarter/per month? How much money do you want to generate from those leads? The answers to those questions will lead you to your ideal customer. It would also help you identify the triggers that qualify them to be a marketing quantifiable lead and a sales qualified lead.  The work is far more efficient because when a lead comes in, your salespeople can vet them and follow the pre-qualification factors you’ve set to see if the lead can generate new business for the organization. This is also helpful in maintaining your current customers. There’s no time wasted in sifting through leads and trying to figure out which one works and which one doesn’t.  Create a system Create a system to efficiently manage the workload. The marketing team can do the pre-qualification to increase the odds of the lead being converted into something real. Whenever a lead comes in, let marketing take a look at it and check the website and the title of the person.  Then let the intern or junior marketing rep take over the other tasks like looking into LinkedIn, HubSpot, Marketo, or other platforms you have to find the data that you can transfer into your CRM.  You can then sign that into the sales team for it to become a sales qualified lead. The system prevents wasting time on people who aren’t real prospects.  Marketing can help fix the problem of having to go back to the beginning of the funnel and pre-qualify the leads again because they’re not yet ready then.  Fix your content Develop a good strategy Make a drip campaign for people who are not yet ready  Separate the marketing qualified lead and your sales qualified lead Website leads matter The sales team sometimes takes for granted the leads that they didn’t hunt for. A good example is leads coming in from the websites. Salespeople have this notion that they can get more of those so they ignore them. It’s the mentality that since they didn’t work for it, it doesn’t mean much.  You must recognize that the organization spent thousands of dollars to get that lead. The organization paid for the marketing and the sales rep to produce content on your site. You have writers and you have graphics on your site. You have all the different infrastructure to make sure that your website functions.  It is disheartening when a sales rep doesn’t take that into consideration when a lead comes in via the website.  Whenever an inbound lead comes in, it is best to use your flow process to follow-up particular prospects. It should be written and put in your company’s playbook so that everyone can read it and use it with every inbound lead that comes in.  Follow-up right away  A stat from insidesales.com said that a lead that’s contacted within five minutes is 100 times more likely to convert than leads that are followed-up 90 minutes later. When a lead comes in, follow up right away. You're more likely to convert than if you wait. #SalesHacks Strike while the iron is hot.  Do a quick research and evaluate whether the person is real, see if it’s a true marketing qualified lead, and toss it over as a sales qualified lead if it ticks all the boxes.  The sales team can take a quick visit to the person’s website, check their LinkedIn profile, and the pages they’ve visited on your site.  Tools like HubSpot and Active Campaign allow you to see where they’ve signed up and the number of times they’ve looked at the pages. You can then use these data to have a meaningful conversation with the prospect leads.  Focus on the people that matter Include in your flow process the phone call and email for the first time then do the same things a day later. Connect with them on LinkedIn and share some of their content for seven full business days.  Do the same things that you would do with a cold person. Nurture the lead and try to grab his attention. Even if they’re not ready now, then at least you can toss it back into the marketing pool and revisit it another time.  With the right system and by focusing on the people that matter, your work is going to be minimized but the return is going to be much higher. Filter your inbound leads and let the marketing do the review. Recognize the good ones and toss them over to the sales reps to reach out and convert.  “Inbound Leads Are Causing More Work” episode resources Email Donald for more questions or connect with him via LinkedIn. This episode is brought to you in-part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a helpful guide for sales reps and sales leaders to improve their pitches and presentations. It has 12 courses and you can get the first two modules for free! If you want to take your sales to the next level, then I recommend that you join us with our group coaching. Our next semester begins mid-September.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  If you’re a reader who loves reading and listening to books, you can also check out Audible as well and explore this huge online library with thousands of books. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  If this episode answered your concerns about why your inbound leads are causing more work than good sales then don’t be shy and give us a thumbs up and rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. We produce podcasts weekly so make sure to subscribe to get more of these sales talks that matter! Share this with your friends and teach them how to subscribe as well.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

From account selection to sales plays, Jamie Shanks helps sales professionals understand and adopt best practices for the modern, social sellers. Jamie is the CEO of Sales For Life, which is the de-facto standard in modernizing account-based sales motion. The company specializes in social or digital selling. It evaluates how you sell today and infuses modern digital sales activities into your process.  Account-based selling Account-based selling refers to focusing on a set number of accounts, whether it’s organized by territory or strategic value. Instead of relying on inbound leads or channel leads, you must go outbound. Jamie named his book Spear Selling based on a sales analogy of fishing: inbound efforts are a little like fishing with a net because you can’t choose the fish that land in your net. When you fish with a spear, you swim in the deep water and choose the whales you’re going to hunt.  Typically, companies focus on account-based motion because they need to increase their average annual contract value (ACV) or lifetime value (LTV).  Adopting an account-based approach Companies often get the very first step wrong, which is account selection. Many companies use what Jamie calls wallet-share based thinking. When he was working with a company in the health and wellness space, an account exec pointed to Peloton as a company he was focused on connecting with. When questioned, the AE mentioned that one of the company leaders was a bike enthusiast who thought it might be a good fit.  The truth is that the health company has no more strategic connection to Peloton than its competitors do. In fact, if they went through the data of relationships, they might discover that the competitors have greater social proximity to the account. That means you may devote 8 months trying to win this account to find that there’s a hurdle you didn’t account for.  Getting the account selection process right is half the equation. Companies that ask their sales professionals to build a list of accounts will likely find that they stack ranked companies based on revenue, number of employees, and market share potential. They didn’t think about the fact that people buy from people and relationships matter.  Sales is a game of relationships. If you could reverse-engineer your existing advocates and customers and identify which accounts have the highest social proximity, you’ll have an advantage that your competitors can’t take from you.  Account-based models A centralized model looks at the equation and asks how certain sales resources like inside sales, BDRs, SDRs, and LDRs can mine the total addressable market. It maps green-flag accounts based on relationships, opportunities, and strengths. They could be referrals, partners to your existing customers, or others you’re connected to. Red-flag accounts are those where your competitors have relationships, strengths, and opportunities.  The decentralized model seeks to identify those accounts that a company already has connections to. The idea is that the company can activate those accounts faster than the competitors can.  Companies might go with the centralized model because it uses the $20-an-hour inside sellers to do the work instead of the more-expensive AEs. They might choose the decentralized model because they want everyone in the field to be able to unearth the total addressable market of their area. Each person is the CEO of his own territory. Account selection is a skill that everyone needs to master. Modern digital sellers The modern digital seller selects accounts based on relationships or social proximity and then plans those accounts using four pillars.  Triggers Referrals Insights Competitive Intelligence These sellers build a war room or a simple one-page document that outlines the compelling stories that they can share with their audiences. When they target the accounts, they’ll use digital technology like video or LinkedIn to share insights and monitor buying engagement. Use account segmentation to think about how much time you’ll spend on every account. Apply Pareto’s Law realizing that you’ll spend 80 percent of your time on 20 percent of your accounts which will yield 80 percent of your return. You won’t spend the same amount of time on every account. These sales concepts have existed forever, but you’ll accelerate your momentum because digital technology allows you to identify who cares, who you should focus on, and how you can move the deal through the cycle more quickly.  Digital sales Social selling includes elements like LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, but those aren’t the only elements. Modern digital sellers use any available technology to aid in the sales process.  Companies that engage in digital account-based selling might go through the following steps: Map the total addressable market. Map the accounts that exist within each vertical. Which accounts do we not have but have open opportunities? Which accounts have we never spoken to? Of those companies we’ve never spoken to, where do we have a competitive advantage like a trigger or a referral? If they use tools like LinkedIn to map the social networks of their customer base, they can determine whether anyone knows someone at those companies. Together with marketing, the account executives can storyboard to create a series of sales plays, which might include social media or digital tools. They can use LinkedIn to communicate with key executives and invite them to an event because they know that conversion is twice as high with physical meetings as with virtual ones. They are using digital tools to bring customers into the analog world.  Sales play Sales plays are no different than football plays. The play seeks to achieve a certain result. The seller needs a first-down. Digital sellers might use video, emails, phone calls and other tools to tell the story of them versus their competitors.  Your goal at an account is to activate the account. The activation cycle is the number of plays that you’ll run against that account. In that time, you’ll either qualify them or replace them. You cannot call into this account forever. The best account-based teams have a defined activation cycle. Let’s assume it’s 90 days. If you don’t activate within 90 days, you’ll replace it with an account that has a great relationship opportunity.  Sales plays exist inside that cycle. You might have three to eight different stories you tell along that 90-day journey. Those sales plays or touchpoints are organized as cadences and sequences.  If you want to win the biggest and best accounts in the world, most companies aren’t coming inbound. You have to tell compelling stories to push them off their status quo.  Build a series Once you’ve identified your targets, you must build a series of plays and stories that make the person actually care.  What are three to eight different things they want to know about?  Do they want to know about market trends? Do they want to see a real-life video of a customer experience? Will they want to know where they stand compared to their competitors? What does the future hold for your customer? Think about the customer and develop a series of stories before you start hammering away at the phone. #StorySelling Get started using all of the available tools. Jamie calls LinkedIn Sales Navigator one of his favorite. There are 500 million people on that platform. He calls it the world's largest party. “TSE 1176: Specific Account-Based Sales Development Best Practices For The Modern, Social Sellers” episode resources Grab a copy of Jamie’s book, Spear Selling. If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things. I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Whether you’re learning it for your own work as a BDR or you’re preparing to help another seller, there are five important keys to help you succeed as a BDR. If you’re looking to move to the next level as a seller, The Sales Evangelist Certified Sales Training Program group coaching program allows you to train at your own pace, either alone or as part of a group. The next semester begins this month.  Drink your own Kool-Aid Make sure you understand the product or service you’re selling. In fact, I recommend that you actually use it yourself. If it’s an enterprise software SAP or something large like that, you won’t likely buy it for yourself, but you should understand how the system truly operates. Know how it will help the customers you’re pursuing.  If you’re a BDR, you’re probably not chasing every single customer. You’ll probably have a territory or a certain kind of client. Look at industry reports to understand your customers and how your solution will help. Ask previous clients why they like your solution so much. It will also help you speak their language and be more confident in your conversations. Know the problem that you’re able to solve for your buyer. Be intentional BDRs must make sure to follow their company’s process, and then they have to go a step further. They must know their ratios.  How many conversations does it take to get to a demonstration? How many demonstrations do you typically do before you land a sale? Keep track of these numbers. Email me and I’ll share my own prospect tracker with you.  When you have these numbers, sales becomes more of a science. Each day, you can specify how many new opportunities you want so you can get to a demonstration.  You won’t be as successful if you aren’t intentional.  Listen Become an expert at listening. Listen to the things your prospects say as well as the things they don’t say.  Read case studies, find out what some of your current customers are doing, and understand their problems. If you listen closely, you’ll begin to notice when they aren’t telling you the real issues. Be a silent expert. Ask tough questions Sellers sometimes want to appear knowledgeable, so they talk a lot. Instead, focus on the caliber of questions that you’re asking.  Make a list of these questions you can ask your prospect. Also, prepare a list of follow-up questions. If, for example, your prospect says that he already has a solution in place, you must be prepared to respond to that. Maybe something like this: “I’m not here to break up great relationships. I do, however, know that contracts end and that people typically will look for new vendors. Would you be open to see if we could benefit your organization?”  Lead with the intro, “Out of curiosity” to soften the edge on a question like, “Why are you waiting until next year to change?” Make sure you find great opportunities for your team. Personalize your approach Take advantage of video to personalize your approach. Depending on the type of business you’re in, use a tool like BombBomb to make a simple video to the prospect and include this in your flow process.  If you’re sending emails and reaching out on LinkedIn, your personalized videos will help you stand out among the other BDRs. Personalized videos will help you connect with the right clients and produce better results.  Outwork yourself Arrive at the office every day determined to outperform the day before. #SalesGoals Compete against yourself. If you did 15 appointments last week, set a goal for 17 this week. Push yourself. Don’t compete against your teammate’s goals. Constantly seek to improve. Success will naturally come if you constantly out-hustle your previous performance. “How To Succeed As A BDR” episode resources If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things. I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Sellers get knocked down plenty of times, but sometimes failure is the greatest sales lesson. Brad McDonald works with Sandler Systems which has 250 franchises around the world that help businesses grow by improving their sales processes.  Failure Brad’s 28-year career in the U.S. Navy taught him that failure could mean the difference between life and death. When he transitioned from the Navy to the sales world, he realized that many of his attempts were going to end in failure. He had to change the paradigm.  The things he perceived were failures — having people hang up on him or cancel an appointment — weren’t really failures.  Along the way, he learned to embrace failure.  Gumballs You must make a lot of sales calls in order to get to yes. On the other hand, if we see the sales calls that ended in “no” as a failure, that will feel bad.  Brad uses a gumball analogy to explain it. If you want a green gumball from a gumball machine, and there are multiple colors inside, there’s a good chance you won’t get a green one. When you put the quarter inside, there’s a good chance you’ll get a different color.  Imagine you’re making prospecting phone calls, or cold calls; the most dreaded form of prospecting. If you make 10, 20, or 30 calls, you’ll eventually get someone who wants to talk, just like you’ll eventually get a green gumball.  You’ll also likely get an orange gumball which might represent a buyer who wants to talk more to see if there’s interest. If you view every orange gumball as a failure, you won’t be very likely to keep going while you wait for the green ones. If, on the other hand, you understand that you have to get the orange gumball out of the way in order to get to the green one, you can embrace it.     Process of failure Brad came from a culture where sailors did what he told them to do and they didn’t say no. He was surprised to find in the sales world that prospects aren’t always honest and they don’t always respect his time. And they certainly don’t feel compelled to follow his orders. Initially, all those things felt like failures.  Failure mimics the stages of grief which are disbelief, fear, despair, anger, and acceptance.  Brad refers to the “ok, not ok principle.” He came to believe that he needed to be ok being not ok.  He needed to not seek to meet his emotional needs in a sales call. Many sellers get emotionally involved in their sales calls and that’s one of the five big conceptual roadblocks in sales. Head trash gets in the way. We get excited when we’re about to make a sale and we stop doing the things we need to do.  Sales activities Brad learned along the way that his focus on outcomes and results was wrong. He was excited when he made sales and dejected when he wasn’t. He discovered over time that focusing on things he could control, like activities, made more sense. He started doing the things he knew would make him more successful and he tracked those things.  Brad focused on his tonality, his demeanor, his body language and other things that were well within his control.  Conceptual issues Brad believes that all sales problems come in one or two categories.  Tactical. What do I say, When do I say it? How do I say it? Conceptual. Relating to the beliefs we have between our ears. Most tactical problems have a conceptual basis. In Brad’s case, he came out of the Navy where he didn’t fear much of anything into a setting where he was afraid to make a cold call. The fear was a result of the beliefs he held about sales. The conceptual issues are these: The need for approval. The problem occurs when you want to be liked more than you want to make sales. The BUY cycle. How do you buy things? How do I treat salespeople when someone is trying to sell something to me? We tend to sell the same way we buy. If you tend to comparison shop, you’ll be more forgiving of buyers who do the same. Negative scripts. Many of these originate in childhood. Examples are the idea that you shouldn’t openly talk about money. Also, very few of us were raised by parents who hoped we would grow up to be successful sellers.  Emotional involvement in the sales process. It’s ok to have a love for your prospects, but you must also have the mindset that you don’t need anyone. Instead, find something that’s mutually beneficial. Money concept. Your very first memory of money seems to have a relationship to how you feel about money now. When Brad made his first big commission check, he felt guilty for earning so much money. He had a money concept issue.  Changing beliefs Changing your own beliefs will take time. It’s a process.  In order to improve in sales, you’ll have to work on yourself and your own feelings about sales as much as you work on your sales tactics and other tools. #SalesPsychology For his own therapy, he sat down each Sunday and wrote about his sales experiences. Those articles helped him process the emotional aspects and taught him to have honest conversations with his prospects.  Salespeople can benefit from journaling about their own experiences, about the perceived failures, and about the head trash.  “Failure is the Greatest Sales Lesson” episode resources Grab a copy of Brad’s book, The Art and Skill of Sales Psychology, or email him at mcdonald@sandler.com.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  You can also connect with me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com or try our first module of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode has been made possible with the help of  TSE Certified Sales Training Program, a training course designed to help sellers in improving their performance. We want you guys to go out each and every single day to find more ideal customers and do big things. I hope you like and learned many things from this episode. If you did, please review us and give us a five-star rating on Apple podcast or in any platform you’re using - Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify.  You can also share this with your friends and colleagues.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

There are three great closing questions that salespeople often ask because everyone in the sales arena wants to make sure that we’re closing effectively. The answers to the three great closing questions will help salespeople close like a pro.  Albert Alexander has been a partner in a construction equipment sales company that makes parts for excavators and bulldozers for 11 years now. Albert does all the marketing, inside sales, and digital marketing for the company.  Closing questions Often, sales reps are good at finding prospects and having a talk with them. Things change, however, when they’re turning them into leads. There are challenges in closing.  Sales reps have this predisposed idea about how they purchase that gets in the way when they try to close a deal. Albert’s company grows 70% every year and that’s because they stick people to a process.  For other sales reps, they stop in the middle of the process and it stops the action of the process moving forward. It could be because of the fear of rejection or any other reason, but the end result is the same. It halts the closing process.  Imposing your buying style  There are many decision types and processes that they take. For this reason, sales reps should know their customers through their pains and needs and be completely open to the different decision styles they have. Sales reps should remove their own fears and worries of rejection from the sales process and focus on their customers instead. If they do that, they can be empathetic to the needs of the clients.  Say, for example, the client’s million-dollar equipment is not working and it needs a $50,000 part that the company sells. For the sales rep, the amount is huge and so he’d say, “I understand you need to think about it,” but that’s not the case for the client. The client is willing to spend $50,000 for his million-dollar equipment to work, but because the sales rep put his purchasing decision in the process, the entire closing will take a hit.  Sales reps need to change their perspective or their purchasing styles and decisions when closing a deal. Sales reps need to learn to think like the clients they’re talking to instead of imposing their fears, views, concerns, or buying styles to their clients.  Make a good logical decision for and with somebody, even when they’re concerned. Remind them of the things that are logical and that matter.  The first step to close a deal is to put yourself in that person’s shoes better and eliminate the fears and worries.  Closing styles  We all have closing styles and the first one is the assumptive close. It's extremely easy and it’s when sales reps choose and assume the next information that you have to collect and continue down the process. It’s almost like assuming that everything’s good and done after they’ve spoken with the client.  This works for Albert’s company. They’ve implemented the assumptive process and it improved their closing deals to 25%. So, their sales reps ask the following questions:  Hey, where did you want me to deliver that? When did you want that delivered?  How did you want to pay for that?  Is it going to be a Mastercard or wire transfer? Most sales reps think that closing is an event and it shouldn’t be. They think that they have to ask questions and shake hands. That’s not how it works.  If they investigate, build rapport, and lay out the solution that’s logical and emotionally fulfilling, sales reps can assume the next information and assume. Closing is not an event, it should be a natural thing. Sales reps should do all the work upfront and the closing is part of that. Dig into the objection  In the case of objections during a close, it’s often not the truth and just a reaction. Sales reps should dig deeper to overcome the objection.  In Albert’s industry, there are five reasons that clients use to decline.  Time  Money Price Value Quality  Our sales reps dig deeper by feeding either of the top reasons why clients object to a deal. They wait for their response and try not to be pushy. They just make a conversation and wait because people have different buying styles. Some people like to think about it before saying yes, and some others just agree immediately.  After the assumption, sales reps should dig deeper into their objection to see the real issue and not just the surface-level problem. In that way, you can give a solution to the real objection.  A good sales rep is the one who can talk well and has the tenacity to understand and get down to the reasons to investigate.  Being able to compensate with somebody doesn’t lead to a sale, you need to have a purpose and process.  Utilize technology  Sales reps can connect with a customer in a building effect of value. While sales reps are closing, they can talk to their clients in the process. In Albert’s company, their sales reps would send their clients’ invoices while talking to them on the phone. They also email and text pictures of what they’re going to get. They do these things while they’re closing the clients. People love how attentive the sales reps are in the whole process.  When their sales reps close, they strive to make the clients feel like family. It’s different when clients get all the information they need while they are talking to the sales reps.  So, utilize technology and use text and video messaging while closing because these things make them less guarded.  Closing  Don’t think that closing is an event.  Sales reps should start by building rapport and knowing the game they’re playing. #SalesTips It has to be a process that sales reps are moving forward through. As a sales rep, you need to cover all the bases because everyone is the same and the sale is the same. There are different variables but you can sum them up to a few things that you can master.  Don’t complicate it and know that you’re closing from the very start.  “Three Great Closing Questions” episode resources Connect with Albert in his site, ConEquip.com. You can also listen to their podcast at Sellingforlife.com where they share ideas of the entrepreneurial journey. Their company has gone from zero sales to 30 million a year. They’ve become experts in Google marketing and ad words.  You can also connect with him on his email at al@conequip.com.  If you’re a sales rep looking to hone your craft and learn from the top 1% of sellers, make plans to attend the Sales Success Summit in Austin, Tx, October 14-15. Scheduled on a Monday and Tuesday to limit the impact to the sales week, the Sales Success Summit connects sellers with top-level performers who have appeared on the podcast. Visit Top1Summit.com to learn more and register!  This episode is brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It is a 12-course program to help sales reps and sales teams to improve their skills in finding the right customers, to know the activities and strategies that work, and how to ask the right questions to build a strong value and close business deals. Simply go to thesalesvengelist.com/freecourse to get the first two modules for free.  This episode is brought to you in part by Audible. Enjoy the free 30-day trial and explore the thousands of books they have today.  I hope this episode has been fun and helpful to you. Please review and leave us a five-star rating on Apple Podcast. You can also hit subscribe and share our show with your friends and colleagues.  If you can, please provide your review and rating on Google Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, and other platforms where you consume this podcast.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com