The Sales Evangelist

[smart_track_player url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/thesalesevangelist/TSE_1080.mp3" background="blurred_logo" ] Building value is a critical part of any sales process, and the discovery meeting is an important step in that process. How much should you prepare for the discovery meeting beforehand? What should you know? What should you do? The insights I'll share come from the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, designed to help sales reps perform to the best of their ability, find more ideal customers, build strong value, and close more deals. What is discovery? The discovery meeting is an opportunity to learn about the challenge your prospect is facing. It's a chance to go a little more in-depth. It's not necessarily a chance to get all the information about the company or about its history. That's boring for the client who doesn't want to have to educate you. The client is likely meeting with other sellers and they aren't interested in working to educate all of them. Do your research beforehand so your discovery meeting can focus solely on understanding the prospect's true problem and understanding how you can bring value and help them learn more about what you have to offer. Research You can easily find information about the company and its history on the Internet or the company's website. If you show up to discovery seeking this kind of information the prospects will likely think less of you. I've said it before, but you also have the option to call into the company and ask the receptionist for more information. The organization may be able to share an information page or other company literature. The PR department may be able to provide the information you're seeking as well. This information is vital to the discovery meeting because it will help you have a meaningful discussion when you meet with the prospect. Understand the industry Make sure you also understand recent developments related to the industry and the company's role within the industry. If the company is in the housing industry and I discover that the housing industry is booming in states like Arizona, California, and Florida, then that will impact my presentation. If I'm selling marketing services to companies in the housing market it will be important to know that the market is growing. I'll also need to know the top challenges that companies within the housing market are facing. Then, determine how those trends will correlate to your product or service. Case studies If you have a previous or existing client that is similar to your prospect, consider sharing that information. Has one of your clients faced the challenges of growing in a high-growth market? Have you helped a client tackle some of the issues inherent in that situation? Is there a business case study I can share that helps my prospects understand the challenge they are facing? I did an episode some time back about case studies and the folks over at Gong outlined four main steps that should exist within every business case study. Identify the problem. What is preventing the client from growing? What challenges are hindering the company from accomplishing its goals? Develop a measurement. How can you measure the challenges the company is facing? How can you quantify the issue the company is facing? Determine the consequences of the company losing those deals or opportunities. Did they have to let people go or close their doors? Make a dramatic point without going over-the-top. What transformation did your product or service cause in this company? [Tweet "Case studies help companies see what you have done in the past and what you can do for prospective customers. #CaseStudies"] Prepare questions What things did the company try previously that didn't work? The more questions you ask the more you'll learn about them. Go deep. Ask them to tell you more. You may discover that they are currently working with a company that isn't providing the kind of results they need. Why don't they like the current company? Incorporate those facts into your own presentation so you can address their challenges. Find out who will be making the decision and how they will decide. Find out what their budget will be and when they are hoping to make the change. Is there an unconsidered need they aren't aware of? TSE Certified Sales Training Program This stuff works. We teach it in TSE Certified Sales Training Program and we're seeing fantastic results. If you or your team want to check out the program, we'll let you try the first module risk-free. If you love it, we'd love to have you join the TSE Certified Sales Training Program to improve your selling skills. I share this because I want to help you find more ideal customers, have more meaningful conversations, build stronger value, close more deals, and I want to challenge you each and every day to do big things. “Discovery Meetings” episode resources Try the first module of the TSE Certified Sales Training Program for free. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Many sellers understand the challenge of using emails to reach out to prospects, but Chad Sanderson tells us that using brief, compelling stories in sales emails can leave a memorable impression on a prospect who is inundated with noise. Chad has worked as a marketer, seller, sales leader, and entrepreneur, so he understands the perspective of everyone listening to this podcast. Email issues Chad points out that most emails suck. We're all connected to our devices and we're constantly inundated with impressions through Facebook messages, videos, emails, LinkedIn requests, and even WhatsApp or Snapchat messages. That doesn't even include impressions you get while watching television. The only way to effectively break through the noise is to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Everything is moving at a ridiculously fast pace, so if you never slow down enough to truly consider the other person, you'll probably fail to truly connect. You must connect with people in a way that's valuable from their perspective. [Tweet "People still buy from people, so if they don't know and trust you, you must build rapport before you earn the right to talk about yourself. #BuildRapport"] Onslaught As if the crowded inboxes aren't enough, it's also true that many of the emails people send are just drudgery. Chad points to one company that has been pursuing him for several months, and as he mapped the cadence of the messages, he noted that the messages never included anything from his perspective until about email 14. The messages were always about the company. He said it happens all the time because sellers don't realize that approach doesn't work. And though he tries to be kind because he works in this world too, he sometimes has to unsubscribe because the messages aren't valuable. To make the idea simpler to understand, think about this in the context of your friends. Everybody has at least one friend that will not stop talking about themselves. Even in a social setting, people will eventually move away from that person. It's true in sales, too. People business We seem to assume that the rules are different in sales. We forget that we're in the people business and that relationships matter in sales just as they do outside of work. Sales has always been a discipline. It has always been tough. It has gotten tougher because now everyone can get to everyone else and everyone believes they have something important to say. Slow down and take a deep breath. Think about your general target audience. Instead of thinking about Donald or Chad, think about reaching out to podcast hosts who focus on B2B revenue generation. Then you'll have a little bit of context. You still won't know those people, but you'll have a good place to start. But you have to be able to reach out to prospects at scale. Personalization Chad read a report last week about a company that ran a test of 7,000 emails, personalizing half of the emails to the challenges the person would face based upon their role. Think industry/company personalization rather than individual personalization. They found that the open rates were four to five points higher on cold emails that were crafted to highlight challenges the receiver was facing. Some people argue that isn't personalization, but what we really need to do is understand the conext these people are working in and then show them something that will tap into their curiosity circuit. The next level of personalization involves those who responded to the first round of communication.Instead of researching 100 people I only have to research the 10 who indicated interest in my product or service. Stick to the rule of thumb that you'll do 15 minutes of research on an industry, 10 minutes of research on a company, and 5 minutes of research on an individual. If you can stick to that and not be distracted by dog videos or Tiger winning the Masters, you'll be able to effectively personalize your messaging. Make them curious so that they'll be waiting for the next email. Telling stories Chad related the story of a friend who went into a Men's Warehouse to get a tux. Then he used the experience to reach out to the CEO of the company to highlight how his company could help fill in some of the organization's gaps. Using his own individual experience, he crafted an email that was still only six or seven sentences long so that it fit on a mobile screen. In a B2C environment, share how that brand made you feel or how an individual made you feel. In a B2B environment, tell a story about how you've helped someone whose situation was similar to the person you're targeting. Explain how you were able to help him turn his situation around and tell him about the results you were able to produce. Tell him about the person who is like him. Although you don't know him yet, you know someone who is like him, so tell him that story. If you want to understand story structure better, grab a copy of Creativity, Inc, a book about how Pixar creates stories for its movies. Be human Very few people can write an email the very first time that communicates well and fits neatly on one mobile screen. You'll likely need multiple drafts to get it right. Communicate to your audience that you're paying attention to them and what they are dealing with. Acknowledge awards they won and acknowledge articles you've read about that address a problem they might be having. Consider Barb Giamanco, who reached out to female chief marketing officers to recruit help with a project. She emailed each of them by acknowledging an award each had received.  Then she asked for their perspective on a project she was working on. The emails indicated that she was paying attention to the CMOs' careers. It acknowledged a problem that the CMOs might be having and a desire to address it. It wasn't until the very end of the email that she even mentioned her own intentions. Be authentic and genuine. Realize, too, that once you get an email dialogue started, you have to have the skill set to keep it going. Think about your prospects as human beings. Slow down and think about your target. "Brief Compelling Stories In Sales Emails" episode resources Check out Chad's podcast B2B Revenue Executive Experience and you can find him on LinkedIn, but you must send a note with your connection request. You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

A sudden influx of new leads seems like a dream come true, but you often have to determine which type of customers are the best in order to assess whether it's really a good thing. If you haven't yet grabbed a copy of The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honest and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results by Todd Caponi, get it before he joins us on the podcast in the near future. In the book, he discusses the three types of buyers. The active buyer The active buyer is looking for a solution. He understands the problem and he wants to solve it. These are your inbound leads. They understand their problem well enough to initiate research to try to find a solution to the problem. They may seek a quote for your product or service, and they are proof that your marketing is working. These buyers are finding your website. These buyers are also more than likely going to commoditize you. They are likely considering three to five different vendors and because they don't have all the details about your company, they are going to try to differentiate you based on price as well as features. Although they know they have issues that they must solve, they don't care about the intricacies of your company. They simply need to solve a problem and get the best deal possible. The passive buyer The passive buyers recognize that a problem likely exists but they aren't prioritizing it. In his book, Todd compares it to the small problems at your house that need to be addressed eventually but that aren't a priority right now. Maybe the handle on your door is broken or the blinds need to be repaired. It isn't the end of the world if you fail to complete them. Passive buyers will eventually get around to solving the problem. The status quo buyers These status quo buyers are happy with things as they are. They aren't thinking about the future; they've learned to operate just fine the way things are. Imagine the guy who has a flip phone and doesn't see the need for a smartphone. He doesn't want to change, perhaps because he doesn't recognize that better options exist. Or maybe he's worried that the smartphone will be too complicated and he won't be able to learn it well. Change feels too complex, so he decides to stay with the status quo. But what if someone could educate him and teach him to use the cell phone? Challenging buyers In my own experience, many of my most challenging leads were the active buyers. You might be thinking that these are the kinds of buyers we'd most like to have, and that would be the case if they were always perfectly ready to buy. If my company was always the front-runner, that would be a great situation for us. But we're not always the front-runner, and sometimes we're simply an after-thought. The buyer is likely considering several companies before making a decision because that's how the buying department has structured its purchases. The question becomes can we persuade them to buy once we're having a conversation? Best customers From my coaching and training experience, and based upon Todd's recommendations, we've discovered that the status quo buyers are often the best ones. [Tweet "The customers who don't know that better options exist are ripe for you to educate them. #EducateCustomers"] Your job is to teach them and help them to recognize unconsidered need. Consider the book The Challenger Sale. When we can open the prospect's mind to something he doesn't know about, we can create the possibility of change. If you can reveal the problem, you can be the front-runner. Also check out the book Three Value Conversations to help you understand the education process that sellers must adopt. Managing customers You'll ultimately discover that you have all three kinds of customers in your pipeline and you must learn to manage them. The perfect buyers that are the perfect size who reach out to you? Those are the unicorns. You must prepare for all three kinds of buyers. You may even find that you're better equipped to interact with one kind of customer over another. I'd love to hear your insights about each of these kinds of customers and which you like best. "Which Type Of Customers Are The Best" episode resources Grab a copy of The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honest and Understanding the Buying Brain Can Transform Your Results. Also grab a copy of the book The Challenger Sale and the book Three Value Conversations You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Sellers can guide prospective customers through the purchasing journey by holding prescriptive conversations with buyers.  Tom Pisello launched into the topic of prescriptives because he was a product manager who was launching products in the marketplace, with a sales force that had never engaged these particular customers. In an attempt to help buyers make decisions, he created prescriptive tools that would help customers analyze their existing situation and compare it to the new product. Buyer frustration The B2B purchase decision is more challenging than ever for buyers because there are six to 10 decision makers in every decision. Buyers spend incredible amounts of time on their own gathering, processing, and deconflicting information. And 94 percent of buyers have participated in a buying cycle that just evaporated. Buyers are frustrated. About 84 percent report that the buyers' journey is taking longer than they expected. There's a big opportunity for sellers as well as a challenge for them to overcome: to help buyers through a journey that has become much tougher and longer than ever before. The problem is that most sellers show up to meetings talking about themselves: about the company, the product, the services, themselves, and the customers they are working with. Then when the competition shows up for their meeting, they do the same thing. They all sound exactly the same, so the buying process becomes a shootout. Flip it around Instead of talking about the typical things, talk about the challenges the prospect might be having. Then, use that to do some teaching about the challenges you're seeing at other companies. Then, pivot to a Socratic approach. Ask probing, diagnosing questions to identify whether your prospects see themselves in the other customers you described. Do a little bit of cooperative discovery. If you sell office furniture, start by sharing current research about what makes a good office setup. Is open office the way to go? What about standup desks? Instead of pitching yourself or your product, share information about productive office environments. Talk about the challenges of collaboration and flexible work environments. Mention health and engagement. Talk provocatively about these challenges and how they affect your prospect. The book The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson tackles this approach well. Share examples This leads naturally into you sharing stories and examples about how you've helped other customers with their office furniture needs and about how successful they've been as a result. From there you'll use the Socratic method to dig deep. Be careful how much of a challenge you present early on because it's possible that you haven't earned the right to do that. Start with something provocative, but then pivot away from the research to your questions. The goal is to move into a collaboration with the customer. Guide the customer Buyers prefer this process because you're solving a problem and uncovering problems they didn't even realize they had. But even for issues they knew they had, you're putting some numbers to them. You're clarifying how their employees will be impacted by the purchase of office furniture. That's why pivoting from research to personal is important. You're putting it into a perspective your customer can understand and telling the customer exactly what the problem is costing and how you can help solve it. You're helping them to prioritize all of these challenges and becoming a prescriptive consultant to them. As a seller, it's your moral obligation to act as a guide to the customer. Because the buyer's journey has gotten complicated, you need to provide a map of sorts so the customer knows what to expect. Then be prepared to proactively provide information to the buyer along the way. If you know the company will ask for a business case, proactively provide it. Don't wait for the customer to ask. [Tweet "Be an evolved seller who is ready for requests that occur during the buyer's journey. Inspire the customer to buy and then provide the right content at the right time. #EvolvedSeller"] Proactive sellers The buyer's journey is hard. As you're proactively providing content, you can also use smart sales enablement systems to track whether the content is being consumed. If they aren't consuming the information, they may not be as far along in the process as you think they are. You've got to anticipate every step so that you'll have the visibility to know whether you're progressing or not. Bring up your buyer's objections before they become objections. Realize that your prospects spend two-thirds of their time gathering, processing, and deep conflicting. Streamline that for them when you can. Inspiring content Marketing plays a vital role in putting together inspirational content. We must identify the content that will inspire our customers. We're not talking about content that is only about the products or services. It must be shorter, based on the challenges they are facing. Then we need to enable sales to use the Socratic questioning. Look back to your last presentation to determine whether you led with information about the product or service or whether you addressed challenges. "Prescriptive Conversations With Buyers" episode resources You can connect with Tom at tpisello@mediafly.com. Check out his blog Evolving Sellers From Pitch to Purpose or grab a copy of his book The Frugalnomics Survival Guide. Keep an eye out for his newest book Evolved Selling™: Optimizing Sales Enablement in the Age of FRUGALNOMICS. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.  Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The trend in sales now is to provide value to your customers, but there must be some kind of exchange in the transaction, so you may find yourself asking, "When should I talk about price?" How do you bring it up? What exactly will you say when it's time to talk about it? Today we're going to share ideas that will help you provide tremendous value and ensure an effective, value-rich conversation for both parties. This is a segment from our TSE Certified Sales Training Program and we're going to share a snippet from one of our training programs and then offer some ideas based upon what you hear. It will let you learn something about selling and offer you an experiment that you can test for yourself. You'll hear the challenges that other sales reps are facing and share with you what has worked for the group members. Taboo We've been taught that it's taboo to talk about money, so many of us shy away from it. New sellers face the biggest challenge, usually because of limiting beliefs. In the past when I was selling software training classes, I didn't understand that it was worth $10,000 for customers to earn their certification over a weekend. I didn't think anyone would be willing to pay it. I didn't understand that for their $10,000 expenditure, they were going to see a $20,000 to $30,000 increase in their earnings over the course of a year. All I knew was that $10,000 was a lot of money. My self-limiting beliefs made me apprehensive, and this is a common problem for new sellers. You must believe in the product or service you're offering and the value it provides to your prospects. When you do that, you'll develop more confidence in your messages, and it won't matter what the course costs. Bring up the money Once you've identified a product you believe in, when do you bring up the money? That depends largely on the product or service that you're selling. If it's software that costs $30 a month and they won't commit, they probably weren't the right fit anyway. Let them go. If you're selling a software solution that you have to customize for the organization, you're going to need more time. You'll have to gather more information in order to give them effective pricing. If the customer can see the prices on your website, they can weed themselves out at the beginning. People who really want to learn more and have more value-rich conversations will engage. In the later conversations, we can discuss what they'll get for their investment. Addressing price We'll tap into emotion by addressing how our product or service will help them. What will happen if the client doesn't get coaching? Why do I need coaching right now? What results will I see if I get coaching? Because people make emotional decisions and then justify those decisions logically, if we build value well, the $1,500 price tag for coaching won't seem like a big deal. The return on their investment, the ability to provide well for their family, and the possibility that they will advance in their careers will justify the cost. In the case of a more complex solution, when the customer asks about price, be honest when you tell them that you can't predict exact numbers right now. If you can't yet determine all the variables and if you can't determine the exact infrastructure, explain that to the customer. Then invest the time to understand the setup and the infrastructure. Find out what challenges the prospect is facing. Be intentional It's possible that the customer is simply fishing, or in other cases that he is simply looking for a ballpark figure. In the latter case, perhaps try giving him a range for other similar clients. Don't give the customer your lowest number if you provide a range. If the cheapest you've done is $5,000 and the most expensive is $20,000, don't offer the $5,000 number. Go a little higher. Instead, offer a higher number, like $8,000 or $10,000. Once they have a number in their minds, you'll determine whether they are truly serious about moving forward. Content In this situation, effective blog posts that describe the return on investment will help your customers gather information. Especially if yours is a complex solution, you'll help them understand the components involved and what they should be looking for in a vendor. In the case of sales training, perhaps you'd have different blog posts that describe the different levels of training and the different types of service that you offer. The prospect can determine what courses are available and what his options are for in-person training, group training, or workshops. Consider, too, outlining entry-level solutions, mid-tier solutions, and a higher tier. Each solution, based upon the complexity, can solve specific problems. Research The prospect can do some research ahead of time and find answers to some of their basic questions. Because this will be an enterprise solution, he'll have to come to the table prepared to invest money. At this point, it's appropriate to talk about budget because you don't want to begin building presentations or demonstrations if the product or service isn't a fit. Get an understanding of what kind of investment the prospect is looking to make. Be up front. Acknowledge that you'd like to know as soon as possible if the prospect determines this isn't a good fit. Promise to do the same for your prospect. Ask if the company has already earmarked a budget for this project. Find out if they are planning the project for this year. Pain Once you've discovered the pain, use that to see if you can move them toward the project right now. Anticipate that they may not be able to do the whole thing right now, but they might do half this quarter and half the next quarter. Once we have an understanding we can move forward. If you built rapport with this prospect and created communication, it will be easy to discuss finances. Terminology New sellers might ask about the proper words to use. Rather than budget or payment, I use the word investment. That's a given, right? They are investing in sales training to solve a problem. They are expecting to see a return on the money they spend. If it's a new seller who wants to become the best in the company or a female business owner in a male-dominated industry, they are expecting to show some results from their investment. The word payment sounds too transactional. As you're having these conversations, understand that you should wait to mention the money after the buyer has a sense of the value you're offering. They must see the value before they can comprehend the investment. "When Should I Talk About Price?" episode resources Connect with me on LinkedIn or on Instagram and let me know how this worked out for you. You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Human behavior plays a huge role in sales and understanding what makes people tick is one of the most important concepts sellers in all industries should seek to learn. Joe Sweeney has worn a variety of different hats over the course of his career, but he loves human behavior and he says it's the key to success in sales. Buyers You must understand why someone would buy your product. Joe's philosophy, as described in his book Networking Is A Contact Sport, is that networking, business, and sales are about giving and serving rather than getting something. People ask about the number one mistake that salespeople make, and it's believing that the process is about us. We think it's about our product. It's not. Joe gives talks all the time and he starts by saying, "You don't sell anything. What we do is help people get what they want." Instead, sellers tend to take the opposite approach and we talk about ourselves and our product. But your buyer doesn't care about that. All he cares about is whether your product can solve his needs and relieve some of his pain points. Criticism Joe said he spent a portion of his life criticizing other people because he represented a lot of high-net-worth people who did stupid things. When, for example, he encountered a woman outside a hospital dying from emphysema and smoking a cigarette, he made the connection. The pleasure she got from nicotine was greater than the pain she experienced from emphysema. The takeaway is to get good at understanding what makes people tick without criticizing them. All human behavior makes sense, even when we don't. Don't be critical of their actions. Understand people's needs and wants. Keep everything simple. 3 Common Needs Although we could all likely point to hundreds of needs, we really have three basic, common needs. We need to belong to something bigger than ourselves. We need to love and to be loved. Finally, we all want to know that our life has meaning and that we've made a difference. The greatest sales companies in the world have understood that. Perhaps our greatest need is the first one: the need to belong to something bigger. It's counter-intuitive today because with all the social media we falsely believe we're all connected but the truth is that we're less connected than we've ever been. Stated another way, we're more isolated now than ever. Need to belong The company that really understands this concept is Harley Davidson. Its number one competitor is BMW which far surpasses Harley, but Harley outsells everyone. The Harley Ownership Group, or HOG, makes its owners part of something bigger. It's about belonging. Remember the old TV show Cheers? Its tagline captures this desire. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name. In this technology world, we pretend that we're connected to a massive network but we aren't. Need to be loved Coca Cola marketed to this need with the ad about teaching the world to sing. It was kind of a kumbaya moment with people holding hands singing together. They portrayed the feeling that if you drink Coca Cola, you'd feel all this love. Coca Cola understood the Maya Angelou quote: People will forget what you say. People will forget what you do. People will never forget the way you make them feel.  Joe asks his groups, "What are you doing to answer the needs of these people? The belonging needs and the love needs." Need to make a difference We all want to know that our lives have meaning, and Mastercard captured that with the ad campaign that assigned prices to different products. Fishing poles, $29. Worms, $3.25. An afternoon fishing with your teenagers, Priceless. Most of us approach the sales process with the sense that we have to tell people about our benefits. Instead, we should take two steps back and work to understand what makes people tick. Understand needs Work to understand your buyers' needs. The greatest companies do it and I recommend that your listeners do the same. If you're going to be really good in sales, you should wow people. If you sell office furniture, what would differentiate you from the competition? Find something personal, and then do something memorable. Little things in sales mean everything. #BeMemorable Imagine that you have a customer who likes Egyptian art. At the close of your interaction with the customer, hand him a piece of Egyptian art that you printed out. It cost you nothing, but none of the other competitors will have done that. Making money Joe suggests that sales isn't about making money. Although that's a by-product of sales, it's really about creating an environment where we can service people. You can do the same thing in education and in government. Morph your sales job into a servant leadership role. Joe's sister-in-law told him that she always assumed that business was a bunch of greedy people trying to make money. There was a negative energy around sales. Joe reframed it as a positive thing and created a forum where people can serve each other and get what they want in life. Daniel Pink wrote a book called To Sell Is Human all about humanizing sales. I needed that as a young seller when I was guilty of seeing CEOs as something other than human beings. I didn't see a woman who runs a business and has two kids in middle school. Sales development Joe said he hates networking and what it represents. We tend to think of an alpha male chasing someone down with a business card. It's about understanding pain points and needs and then responding to them. Many salespeople are too aggressive and competitive because we feel the pressure. Instead, we have to reframe networking and sales. It's not about us, but that's a tough concept in this narcissistic culture. Joe suggested using a 5-10-15 process in which he holds a minimum of 5 meetings, 10 pieces of written correspondence, and a minimum of 15 phone calls. It's less about the numbers and more about the system. Your listeners could start with a 2-4-6 system. Make a plan that keeps you accountable to yourself. We're basically all independent contractors and this kind of system will create internal accountability. "Understanding What Makes People Tick" episode resources You can connect with Joe at joesweeney.com/networking where you can access inexpensive online training programs. They can help your listeners move the needle in their business and sales lives but also in their personal lives. You can also grab a copy of his book, Networking Is A Contact Sport. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.  Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Sales scripts put sellers inside a box and lock them into selling a certain way, but when you throw away your sales script and do more creative, engaging selling, you'll increase your conversion. Ned Leutz runs two teams for ZoomInfo, a business data and technology company that helps salespeople get in touch faster and drive more meetings and more sales. He'll talk today about throwing away the script in your sales efforts to increase your flexibility and your success. Fast answers People are accustomed to getting fast answers without ever having to engage with a person. By the time the prospect makes contact, the salesperson with a script may prove to be less flexible than the Internet. When that's the case, there's really no need for a salesperson. Ned believes that giving a salesperson a script is the "kiss of death" and that scripts don't drive conversion or sales. Salespeople who are limited by scripts will often fail to connect with the prospect's problem. If the goal is to find mutual challenges that you can solve together, the script will be extremely inefficient. Instead of operating from a script, Ned suggests providing a map to sales reps. He believes in setting an agenda with the main goal of finding a point of mutual connection. Solving problems Ned's team starts with the question, "Why did you decide to take my call?" He says that most people don't take a call with a salesperson unless they have a suspicion that the salesperson can solve a need. About 90 percent of the time, the prospect faces a challenge that he needs help with. The other 10 percent might be a case of someone taking your call because you're just a nice person. In those cases, you'll have to work to qualify the prospect before moving forward. The question seeks to discover what caught the prospect's attention and prompted him to accept the phone call. It eliminates half of the guessing. Start with the end Begin from a point of mutual agreement. Either there's a problem that you can solve or there isn't. Once you've set that agenda, you've established an expectation for the conversation. You've earned the right to discover whether or not there's a problem you can solve. You can ask the key questions of your customer to identify the challenge. The alternative is to play a sales version of whack-a-mole in which you're constantly asking, "Is this it?" "Is this it?" You'll bore the client who will much prefer to research on his own since he'll likely perceive that you aren't listening or guiding him. Nobody is taking your B2B sales call without looking at your website first and deciding whether there is something there that catches their attention. You can assume that the prospect has done some research before accepting your call. Cold calling Ned wants sellers to throw away the script in cold calling because there's enough information readily available to sellers that they should have a pretty good story for why they are calling each prospect. When you call a prospect, it's a suspicion rather than a script. you've got a reason for calling. Your customer will have the sense that he isn't just a number on the list. Ned points out that data companies can't fix a broken sales process or a bad product. A data company can give your sellers the information they need at their fingertips to have a 90% story as to why they might be able to help a particular company. Verifiable outcomes Ned asks his managers to focus on verifiable outcomes. They'll know that a rep had a really good discovery call if they understand that the client feels some sort of pain, they understand that the client is in a current state that he'd like to get out of, and he can answer the question, "What would you be able to do tomorrow that you can't do today if you could solve this problem?" One of the worst sales questions we ask is, "If you solved this problem, how much money would you make?" Most people have no idea. Instead, ask, "If you solve this problem, how would you quantify the impact of that on your organization? Who else would be affected?" It's not important that the prospect be able to quantify it immediately. It's important that the prospect understand the impact your solution will make. That thinking will help them decide whether it's worth making an investment. Business case Ned believes that if you can get cooperative collaboration on building a business case, you know that you have a good chance of closing the deal. He points to ineffective activity as the reason many sales teams struggle. Scripts often result in ineffective cold calling, and data can hurt as well. If you spend your day calling switchboard numbers all day but you can't get a single gate-keeper on the phone, you'll have a hard time moving forward. Ned's company engages in proof of concept in which they inject direct phone numbers into an organization's system and then ask the reps to engage in the same activity they always do. They know the conversations will convert at a much higher rate simply because they're going to talk to more people live. They'll set up an experiment in which sellers make 10,000 phone calls across an SDR group without data and then 10,000 with the data and then evaluate the number of live connections and ultimately the number of meetings. The outcome typically results in 10 more meetings a week, which is 520 more meetings a year. Empower prospects Help your prospects arrive at conclusions on their own. Rather than give them answers, allow them to discover the answers themselves. "It sounds like you see value in this. Your team doesn't have the right data and we can provide them the right data. If you had to build a business case, where would you start?" About 90 percent of the time the customer will say, "That's a great question. How do your customers usually start?" At that moment, you've earned permission to share. You'll earn your customers' trust very quickly this way. Framework Scripts won't get you where you need to be. Instead, give your team a framework under which they work to identify the client's business case and then evaluate whether the expectations are reasonable. If a customer expects to close 20 deals with a product that isn't transactional and has a long sales process, that isn't a very reasonable expectation. The sales rep must negotiate that expectation to something more reasonable. It's tempting to rely on scripts, especially when things aren't going well. It's also tempting to wrestle control away from your reps. Instead, invest your energy into building a map and providing constant reminders around asking good questions. [Tweet "Build your sales map around a mutual discovery process which allows the seller and the prospect to determine whether the relationship will be a good fit. Then provide your buyers room to convince themselves that your product is the right one. #DiscoveryProcess"] You will close deals with a script, but you'll close them at a lower dollar amount at a much slower frequency. Instead of measuring the number of calls you made, measure the number of outcomes. If your number of calls falls, but the number of meetings increases, forget about the number of calls. episode resources You can connect with Ned Leutz on LinkedIn or email him at Ned.Leutz@zoominfo.com. You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Many sellers discover that their perfect pitch is not working because, as they work to build value, they are appealing to logic rather than emotion. We're devoting the whole month to a discussion about building value, and some of today's information comes from the book The Transparency Sale written by Todd Caponey. Todd will visit with us on the podcast in the near future, but today we'll talk about the decision-making process and the role our brains play. Brain power Every day, we engage in activities every day that are so routine that we don't even think about them. When we drive to work, we put a seatbelt on without even thinking about it. When we back the car up, we put our arms over the seat beside us and then look backward. You're able to listen to this podcast while you're driving because you don't even have to think about driving. Todd talks about three levels of the brain, which you may have heard of before. The reptilian part, the limbic part, and the neocortex. The reptilian portion is the core or center, and it's the oldest part of the brain. It prompts us to do things without thinking. It drives our instincts. It's the part that prompts us to react to pain without thinking, and it's part of our survival. The limbic portion is more intricate and it helps deals with feelings and emotions. It helps us make decisions and motivates our behaviors. The neo- or frontal cortex is the newest part of our brain and it's associated with information and logic. It's the largest part of the brain and it ties with math and reasoning and justification. [Tweet "We make decisions emotionally and justify them logically, and it's our brain that makes it possible. #brainpower"] Sales standpoint We typically show up to our prospect meetings with PowerPoint presentations, charts, spreadsheets, and graphs of all the amazing things our product or service can do. We show up prepared to sell to the customer's neocortex -- the logical part. Remember, though, that the logic part of our brain isn't where decisions are made. Decisions form in the middle portion of the brain, where our feelings and emotions reside. You must help people make a decision emotionally, and then justify it logically. You can build value as a sales rep by using stories to tap into the emotion or pain that the prospect is experiencing. Unless there is some kind of pain, your customer won't make a decision. Status quo The reptilian part of our brain wants us to stay where we are. If nothing is harming us, why would we move? Leave things as they are. Until someone points out the reason we need to make a change and appeals to our emotion, we'll never see a need to move. If a seller use emotion to prompt the customer to move and then help him justify the move logically, he'll be much more likely to make a change. Tie the emotion and the logic together to help your prospects understand the need to make a change. Making it work I recently met a guy who sells water filtration systems in Florida. He begins by asking people whether people drink water, and many people say no because it tastes bad and it's unclean and unhealthy. He points out that taking a shower in the same water can be just as unhealthy because your skin is your body's largest organ, which presents a pain point for his prospects. The seller never mentions price or facts about his product. He focuses on the emotion of wanting to be healthy. Do it with stories or by asking the buyer questions that tap into emotion. Defining sales I define sales as helping people persuade themselves to make a change. If we try to persuade them, their guard immediately goes up. Great sellers leave the buyer in charge of the decision. If your demos are flopping or your presentations aren't working, you're probably focusing too much on logic. Don't sell to the logical part of the brain. Sell to the emotional part. "Perfect Pitch Is Not Working" episode resources Grab a copy of the book The Transparency Sale written by Todd Caponey for more information about the role our brains play in the buying process. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It's super easy, it's helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven't already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won't miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.  Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Smart sellers can make social media work for them by building a personal brand, giving value, connecting with others, and growing their business. Andy Storch is a consultant and coach who is always learning new things about sales and who loves the freedom that selling provides. Though he says he still has a lot to learn, he has an advantage over many others because he's always trying new things. Because he has the confidence to experiment and discover what works and what doesn't, he has a leg up on a lot of other people. Personal branding Whether you're selling services or products, there are very few things that absolutely distinguish your offerings from other people's. In fact, customers can always find an alternative. In B2B especially, they are buying you. They want to do business with you. Relationships are so important for sellers which is why it's more important than ever to develop a personal brand. You must let people know who you are and create authority. To that end, Andy uses social media to let people know who he is, to create authority, to share knowledge, and to build authority. Attracting people As sellers, we initially think we want to get on a call with everybody, but there are a lot of people we just won't gel with. Social media attracts people who want to work with us and deflects others. In an era where everyone is creating content of some kind, we have to put our own content out there in order to build our authority. Given the amount of content that already exists, it's tempting to wonder why yours matters. Even if you're regurgitating information you learned from someone else, put your own spin on it. For some, it's blogging. Others use podcasting or YouTube. It depends on your style and where your clients are. Andy points to podcaster Chris Ducker and his business Youpreneur. In his book Rise of the Youpreneur, Chris says that if you build a personal brand, it's the last brand business you'll ever need to build because you can take it with you and evolve it into any kind of business. Five years from now, you may do completely different work, but if you've built a brand and a following, people will go with you. Building a brand Your personal brand is what you're known for. Having your own website and your own colors is the advanced part of it. Are you known for being knowledgeable, trustworthy, and someone that people want to learn from? Andy posts on social media with the goal of helping his friends discover the things that have previously worked for him. They tell him that he inspires them, and he has created a personal brand as someone who is an achiever, who helps and inspires other people. You want to be known as someone knowledgeable and trustworthy at the end of the day. People who need it Think of your content as giving information to a friend. You are putting it out there for those people who need it and want it at that time, not for people who don't. Don't worry about the judgment from people that your content isn't for. Most people are rooting for you. Even if the content isn't for them, they'll just scroll on by. Action steps Andy's primary business is B2B so he spends most of his time on LinkedIn. When he moved to this business 18 months ago he committed to posting every weekday. Over time he has gained some traction there, though it's a tough platform to engage on. Until you have a really good following of people, it's tough to get likes and comments. Start by finding an engagement group where people are in a group together commenting on each other's stuff. Be careful with this, though, because if you join multiple groups it can be tough to keep up. If you find one, it will help you build your following and gain exposure. It doesn't directly turn into sales, but it keeps him top of mind for people. You don't know who's on there and who's seeing your content. Don't put content out just for the sake of doing so, but find ways to be valuable to the people who follow you. Don't assume you'll start generating sales right away. You're serving people, you're building a brand, and long-term it will work out for you. Logistics The best practice is to schedule content, but Andy calls himself a live-in-the-moment kind of guy who decides each day what to post. He alternates between providing content that targets his ideal clients and general content that would be helpful for larger numbers of people. His target clients are less than 10 percent of his overall network, so sometimes he wants to speak directly to them, but sometimes he wants to engage a larger group. Share experiences Think back to your own experiences and knowledge. Can you turn those into posts or stories that you can tell Would you rather write or speak? You've got to put it out there are hit publish. You won't get much response in the beginning but you've got to keep doing it. When you have a fear of judgment or criticism, it grows as you let it fester. The more you take action, just like with cold calling, you build more experience so it becomes less scary. Podcasting Andy has two podcasts: The Andy Storch Show and The Talent Development Hotseat. He uses the latter to land meetings with target clients who otherwise wouldn't meet with him, and it's working beautifully. Everyone loves to tell their own story and they love attention. Many people don't know how to do that because they aren't going to start their own podcasts. Andy gives them a way to share their stories and experiences. The same people who failed to accept sales meetings with Andy suddenly accepted the offer to appear on his podcast. He's working to develop personal relationships with these people. These people didn't see a compelling reason to interact with him before they discovered his platform. The added benefit is that he's growing his authority and building relationships. Serve don't sell Resist the temptation to include lots of calls-to-action and links. Provide value. They want to know that you're trustworthy and that you have interesting things to say. [Tweet "People don't pay for information anymore. They pay for execution, so give information away. Serve, don't sell. #ServeCustomers"] "Building a Personal Brand" episode resources You can connect with Andy at his website, www.andystorch.com, and on LinkedIn. You can also check out his two podcasts: The Andy Storch Show and The Talent Development Hotseat. You've heard us talk about the TSE Certified Sales Training Program, and we're offering the first module free as a gift to you. Preview it. Check it out. If it makes sense for you to join, you can be part of our upcoming semester in April. You can take it on your own or as part of the semester group. The program includes 65 videos altogether, and we just completed a beta group that helped us improve the program and maximize the information in it. If you and your team are interested in learning more, we'd love to have you join us. Call (561)578-1729 to speak directly to me or one of our team members about the program. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. You'll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Even if you’ve been selling for years, it’s possible that you’ve overlooked some ideas that will help you perform better, like working to shorten the sales process with video.  Today we’ll discuss some ideas that will help you shorten your sales cycle and some ways to use video to accomplish it. I’ll also share a real-life example from one of my clients to demonstrate how effective it can be. POWER OF VIDEO Video is so simple and so powerful that it’s hard to imagine that some people aren’t taking advantage of it. We’ve talked about it on The Sales Evangelist for months because it’s a powerful tool that’s available to every seller. I recently read a study that showed that 7 out of 10 B2B buyers watch a video somewhere in their buying process. So 70 percent of buyers are watching videos that are usually generated by the marketing department. But why aren’t we in sales using it as well? It’s simpler for the buyer to consume, and it isn’t difficult for us to make them. PREVALENCE OF VIDEO Videos are everywhere and we engage with them daily on Netflix, YouTube, and other places. Stories are part of our lives. We can use them in our prospecting, in our closings, and to build value throughout the entire sales process. Use video to follow up with a client or share a testimonial. Create a video overview of your product. CREATIVE USES Chaz works in the 3D printing industry, which for some of us is still rather unfamiliar. Because his product is cutting-edge, it can be difficult for him to explain what he’s doing to his customers. The emails can get long and confusing. His customers have lots of technical questions. Chaz realized that it would be very time-consuming to answer all of those questions each time they arise. When he tried to get his customers to hop on a call so he could answer the questions, they often went dark on him. He decided to use video to answer questions for his customers. It shortens the process because it’s quicker than email, and it helps him build trust with his customers. Chaz said that he can shorten the sales process with video by up to a week. If you could shave time off of each of your deals, how much more could you process? How many more clients could you obtain? Could you close more deals or earn more commission? PROBLEM-SOLVING Imagine your current customers running into trouble with the product you sold them. Instead of asking them to ship it back to you so you can troubleshoot the problem, why not use video to help them identify the glitch. You can walk them through the process and provide guidance that will help them improve the outcome the next time. Chaz uses the video to carry the customer through the process and it freed up more time in his day because he was able to help his customer quickly and efficiently so he could move on to other things. VIDEO TOOLS We’ve told you about a number of different video tools like BombBomb, Loom, Wistia, and Soapbox. There’s another called Vineyard, and probably many more that I haven’t named. Video humanizes you for your customer, and research has proven that people do business with those that they know, like, and trust. When your customer can see and hear you, you’ll be able to build trust much more quickly in addition to helping your customer. You can use video in your prospecting by following up with your prospects. Try using it in your outreach process to see what kind of results you get. We’re testing it ourselves and seeing amazing results. “SHORTEN THE SALES PROCESS WITH VIDEO” EPISODE RESOURCES Chaz is part of our TSE Certified Sales Training Program beta group, which wraps up in a couple of weeks. You can connect with him on LinkedIn, and you can watch the videos I mentioned earlier in the podcast here and here. This episode is brought to you by the TSE Certified Sales Training Program. I developed this training course because I struggled early on as a seller. Once I had the chance to go through my own training, I noticed a hockey-stick improvement in my performance. TSE Certified Sales Training Program can help you out of your slump. If you gave a lot of great presentations and did a lot of hard work, only to watch your prospects choose to work with your competitors, we can help you fix that. The new semester of TSE Certified Sales Training Program begins in April and it would be an absolute honor to have you join us. This episode is also brought to you in part by mailtag.io, a Chrome browser extension for Gmail that allows you to track and schedule your emails. It’s super easy, it’s helpful, and I recommend that you try it out. You’ll receive real-time alerts anyone opens an email or clicks a link. Mailtag.io allows you to see around the corners. You can see when people open your email, or when they click on the link you sent. Mailtag.io will give you half-off your subscription for life when you use the Promo Code: Donald at check out. I hope you enjoyed the show today as much as I did. If so, please consider leaving us a rating on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you consume this content and share it with someone else who might benefit from our message. It helps others find our message and improves our visibility. If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a single episode. Share it with your friends who would benefit from learning more. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com