The Sales Evangelist

Sellers must understand what drives their customers and their core needs in order to help them be more effective, and conducting high-quality customer interviews is an important piece in that process. Hannah Shamji is a conversion copywriter who has a degree in Psychology and training in counseling. She likes to merge her understanding of human behavior through customer research with producing an effective customer interview. It brings about accurate feedback and insight and provides a valuable asset to your business.         CHALLENGES OF CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS Focus groups are a popular way of conducting interviews, but Hannah has found them to be time-consuming and not very effective in getting pure, unbiased answers. When we ask the wrong questions, we often get empty answers. There are time constraints in creating the right questions to ask. There is a difference in just writing a question and coming up with a question that sparks the emotions of the customer to draw out the purity of their response. WHY DO CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS You want to speak to the emotional drivers of your audience. This helps bridge the gap between what you might think will sell your product or service to actually selling it. Doing these customer interviews correctly will help you answer the questions of what you should sell, how you should position it, what people care about, and what features or aspects you should focus on. In the past, I’ve done things just because they seemed like a good idea rather than being sensitive to whether it was something people wanted. An example of this was for a college class, my classmates and I had the opportunity to create an on-campus business. What created excitement for us ended up being a complete failure, and ours was one of the first companies in the school’s history to lose that amount of money. We were more concerned with our own interests rather than what the rest of the student body was concerned with. This is why it is so imperative to find out the products and services that appeal to your audience. STARTING THE CUSTOMER INTERVIEW Find your target audience and connect. This audience could be an existing customer you’ll propose something different to or a prospect you aren’t sure will be a good fit. Figure out the target market and pursue it. When Donald first started out in the business industry, he worked for several small companies that did not have a target audience and they just wanted him to go out and sell. The mentality of not having a specific audience to market to is not a good sales strategy. Once you establish who you want to market to, the kinds of questions you ask are imperative. Avoid asking “why” questions. Research shows that when people are asked “why,” they feel like they have to justify or validate their answer, which can lead to defensive answers that may or may not be accurate. Instead, ask the customer questions directly relating to the product or service. FOLLOW LEADS Ask questions to understand the customer better. Find out what drives them, what situations they have encountered in the past, and how they resolve problems when they arise. This can shed light on how the customer can benefit by investing in what you have to offer. Define an anchor. What do you want to accomplish or gain from this conversation? Follow the leads. Ask things that correspond to what the customer is discussing and try to bring about different responses to the same topic. Don’t be afraid to go deeper with responses. Listen for hints about what motivates your customer: why is he interested? Why was he willing to make the investment in your product or service? What sets you apart from competitors? To those managers working to position their companies using messaging, Hannah offers the following: Avoid pitching your product or service. This keeps the customer feelings unbiased and honest. Use these conversations as pure research to better your business. Unbiased customer answers can lead to a successful, productive and efficiently-run business. HIGH-QUALITY CUSTOMER INTERVIEWS EPISODE RESOURCES You can reach Hannah Shamji through her website at www.hannahshamji.com. She provides a guide with do’s and don’ts for customer interviews on her website. 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. This episode is brought to you in part by our TSE Certified Sales Training Program which teaches you to improve your sales skills, find more customers, build stronger value, and close more deals. The next semester begins in March. This episode is 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 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. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

One of the best ways to show your appreciation for your customers and provide value to them is to give them your all. Tiffany Southerland is a career confidence coach who works with both young, and experienced, professionals who are ready to make their career mark on the world and who want to increase their fulfillment in the work they do each day. She helps individuals evolve, thrive, and perform to the best of their ability. A business cannot exist without clients, so it is crucial to have a solid relationship with your buyers. Tiffany serves individuals one-on-one in a group setting and believes that, if they are not happy - if they have not improved or realized results - she has not done her job. It is, therefore, very important for the success of her business that she continually better herself in order to do better for her clients. The goal is not to simply make more money but rather to help the clients. A salesperson who pushes her own agenda over the needs of her clients is likely to lose those clients. The natural by-product of happy clients, however, is increased sales. Tiffany recalls failing to launch a group program twice because she had locked herself into reaching a specific number. She was focused on that target instead of the service she wanted to deliver. Once she removed the target and focused on the experiences, services, and opportunities she wanted to provide for her clients instead, she began to see results. Her level of stress was replaced with positive energy. People began to react differently to her as a result and her new goal was reached. Our unique gifts Tiffany knew that she wanted to build her business for the sake of changing people's lives and she wanted to leave a legacy. She had to realize and believe that she was capable of doing so. She needed to believe that she was uniquely gifted to provide her services in the way her clients wished to receive it. Tiffany was serious about reaching her goal. She knew she was capable of making an impact in a way that only she was qualified to do. Tiffany believes we are all uniquely gifted because our lives are all different. We came into our particular roles in a way that no one else did, even if we are doing the “same job.” Once you internalize that concept and apply the difference to the way you do business, you begin to walk authentically and in your own unique voice.  Regardless of the metrics or the sales targets, if you can show up authentically, it becomes easier to do anything. You are no longer working to fit somebody else’s mode. You will be perceived differently. People can tell when you are trying to be something you are not. Instead of thinking about making a sale, think about serving a need. If your product or service can meet the need, the entire perspective and experience for both the buyer and the seller shifts. Rather than ‘just selling,’ you are literally meeting a need. Comparison is the thief of joy It is easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others in the same field and to doubt your ability to provide any unique service. Realize that you don’t have to reach a million people. Rather, you need to show up and impact just those people who need to hear your voice. We live in a world now where some people have thousands of followers. But if you have 10 people behind you - who really believe in you - that is a foundation upon which you can build everything else. Tiffany does not claim to be a celebrity by any stretch but she has a podcast audience that shares and believes in her. She, in turn, benefits when they share and connect her to others. It is impossible to be grateful and to take advantage of what you have if you are too busy comparing your achievements to others. Don’t worry about what other people have. Be appreciative of what you have. Have the right perspective and learn how to make the best from what you have been given. When Tiffany embraced this change, she was able to launch her business successfully. She was free to focus on her clients as opposed to focusing on herself and the bottom line. A call to serve Tiffany strongly believes that, regardless of industry, we are called to serve first. Focusing on metrics, for example, serves no purpose other than to appeal to our vanity. As soon as Tiffany changed her focus to the creation of a great product that would change the career trajectory of other women, she was able to truly connect with her clients. It was no longer the work she did for herself; it was the work they would do together that made the business successful. The feedback from her clients has been wonderful. They feel heard. They feel that they are getting so much more out of their experience with Tiffany than they expected. For Tiffany, that is the only result she really needs. Her clients register to improve their interviewing skills, or resumes, but they leave knowing how to clearly articulate what it is they are really good at doing and what they want in their careers. They are able to figure out, and seek out, the right opportunities with increased confidence. Tiffany says the change has been phenomenal and the impact extends well beyond career confidence. The work self and the personal self will eventually collide so they have to be congruent. Don’t go to work as an employee. Go to work as the individual that you are. It will give you the clarity to determine what opportunities are for you, and which ones are not. Have faith not only in the qualifications on your resume but in your ability to deliver. You have to believe in yourself. Focus on service. Take the pressure off yourself by focusing on the people around you instead. Focus on the company you work for, your colleagues, and your clients. When the focus is on them, the pressure you used to place on yourself no longer exists. “Give Them Your All” episode resources Tiffany’s next ‘Elevate your Career Academy’ will launch in March. It is an 8-week faith-based, group career coaching program for women. Learn more about it and register at www.Howdoesshedoitpodcast.com or www.fourcornerscoach.com. This episode is brought to you in part by our TSE Certified Sales Training Program, which teaches you to improve your sales skills, find more customers, build stronger value, and close more deals. The next semester begins in March. 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. 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, and share with your friends!Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Selling a product or service that expands across multiple industries is possible when we realize that selling to everyone takes a team effort. Phil Sweeney worked in sales while in college because he enjoyed talking with people and problem-solving. Now, just two years after graduating, Phil is still working for Negotiatus, a fast-growing tech start-up business he first joined while in school. There were only a handful of employees when Phil first signed on. Now they are at 60 employees and Phil is loving every minute of it. SELLING TO EVERYONE It was exciting, as a salesperson, to have totally green fields ahead in terms of being able to work with, and sell to, any company. Phil had to quickly learn how not overextend himself. He had to learn how to hone in on the ideal customer profile. He had to understand who had the biggest need for the platforms he offers. When Phil first joined the sales team in its infancy, the company really could sell to everyone. It was a huge undertaking. They were also faced with the challenge of being a new company with little success to promote. They were shooting from all cylinders to determine where the biggest impact was in terms of the types of companies that they were attracting. From there, they were able to focus more and more on those types of clients. Phil dedicated blocks of time to the task. For 2-3 hours each day, he would not take any calls, schedule meetings, or go anywhere. Ideally, using blocks of time outside of selling hours, Phil would focus solely on who he was going to call the next day. He used many of the brilliant resources now available such as Sales Navigator, to find the people he needed to find and to learn more about them prior to the call. SHARING THE IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE Now that he is part of a larger sales team, he is having conversations not only within sales but also with success teams and operating teams to understand, in their opinion, which clients have been the most successful and easiest to work with. When selling to everyone is possible, it is easy to find yourself going nowhere fast. It is hard to know the correct verbiage for each industry. Selling in the medical industry, for example, is much different than selling in the automotive industry. It can be hard to land a good appointment until you narrow your focus to the industries that work best for your company. DIVIDE AND CONQUER Success begins when the teams can focus and then specialize across multiple industries. Phil believes it is important to identify as an expert in whichever field or department you are selling to. It is massively beneficial when you can speak the same language as the people you are selling to and when you can understand their struggles. Only then can you hone in on the pain points in order to solve those problems. Phil is closing sales now within 1-2 weeks of his first meetings because he has established himself as the expert in the field with the ideal solution/product. The need for his product is real and he is positioned to offer the main solution to satisfy that need. First and foremost, Phil recommends setting goals and dedicating time to the task. Most salespeople work in teams, so use that to your advantage. In Phil’s team, they announce the number of new contacts, for example, that they hope to reach in the next two hours; it is written on a whiteboard for all to see – and then they get to it. At the end of the time period, they check in on each other. Did they get it done? Or do they need to work longer? They hold each other accountable. Get familiar with the industry. Share tips and resources. Google Alerts, for example, is an excellent tool to stay on top of specific topics in a particular industry which can help you at every stage of your pipeline. Put in the time at the top of the funnel and it will pay off when it comes time to close the deal. In this manner, Phil’s sales team is leading the pack with a 115-150% quota attainment on a month-to-month basis. As a company, they have seen month-to-month revenue growth between 15-30%. STAY HUNGRY, STAY HUMBLE Everything is measured by the week or the month; even the hourly way of team progress is measured. It all resets to zero at the end of each period, so don’t hang your hat on a certain closed deal or a really good day of selling; stay humble. You’ve got to start each day mentally fresh and hungry again. “SELLING TO EVERYONE” EPISODE RESOURCES Reach out to Phil via email at PSweeney37@gmail.com, or give him a call at 631-901-2685.  He is also active on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn as PhillipSweeney. Additionally, Phil is part of The Sales Evangelist Facebook group and would love to connect with you there. 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. This episode is brought to you in part by our TSE Certified Sales Training Program which teaches you to improve your sales skills, find more customers, build stronger value, and close more deals. The next semester begins in March. This episode is 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 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. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

When you bring value to customers and care for your clients, you’ve taken an important first step toward generating business referrals… without asking. Stacey Brown Randall considers herself a contrarian in the sales world, because she believes that if you’re asking for referrals, you’re doing it wrong. She helps small business owners and solopreneurs generate referrals and she dispels myths about referrals. She didn’t set out to focus on referrals, but after her first business failed, she discovered that business owners have to figure out how to touch business development every day. You also have to figure out the ways in which you’re willing to do it. TONS OF OPTIONS Sellers have countless options for bringing in clients and prospects to their pipelines, but they have to be options that the sellers are willing to do day-in, day-out. When her own business failed, she asked herself what went wrong. Although there was more than one mistake along the way, she realized that she never figured out how to fill her pipeline consistently. She never found an activity she was willing to do on a regular basis. She researched and found that referrals offer an amazing way to bring in clients, and they’re often quicker to close. They also trust you before they ever meet you, and they are less price sensitive. Everything about referrals is just better. REFERRAL PIECE Stacey was determined to figure out the referral piece when she launched her second business, but all the information she could find said you had to ask for referrals. To her, asking for a referral felt like a second-cousin to a cold call. She didn’t want to do it. In order to help her second business be successful, she decided to figure out how to generate referrals without asking. Once she did that, she moved into teaching other people how to succeed in the same way. REFERRAL MISTAKES Referrals are not about you. If you ask for them, or make them part of your marketing plan and develop promotions around them, you’re making the referrals about you. Stacey discovered that the sales process has three buckets: prospecting activities, marketing activities, and referral activities. What we do to generate referrals looks different than what we do compared to prospecting and marketing. When I’m in prospecting mode, I’m looking for someone who will say yes within 30 days. With marketing, it’s a little more long-term but there is always an ultimate mindset. Referrals, however, require different activities and a different mindset. The biggest mistake people make is treating their referral process like part of the prospecting effort. Or, they think about it like marketing and make it promotional and gimmicky. GREAT WORK If you’re going to hand off the client at some point, you have to make sure it’s a great process and great client experience. Nobody refers to crappy work and no one refers a choppy customer experience. That’s a foundational piece, and none of these suggestions will work if you aren’t referrable. You must do the things that make people want to refer you. The most important person in a referral process isn’t you and it isn’t your prospect; it’s your referral source. You must understand who is referring you. ACTION STEPS Begin by pulling out your list of clients, at least from the last two years, and figure out how those clients learned about you. (Pull data from as many years as you’re willing to do the work for.) You may have this information in your CRM, or you may have to do some digging. Determine who those people are that already referred you in the past, and begin there. You’ll likely realize that you don’t have that many, and you’ll probably discover that you haven’t been intentional about building relationships with those people. Figure out what you’re doing to take care of your referral sources. Because sellers often get paid on commission, it’s tempting to move quickly from one client to the next. Sometimes sellers don’t recognize that it’s a lot of work to constantly seek the next big win. Instead, sellers can spend their time doing activities they enjoy doing for people who know that they truly care. Then, the sellers can watch clients drop in their laps.   If you do the right kind of work at the right time for the right people in the right way, they will fill up your pipelines for you. #Pipeline CLICK TO TWEET   It saves a tremendous amount of time and money. YOUR JOB No one wakes up in the morning thinking about ways to make your job easier. They aren’t thinking about how they can refer you. Your job is to make sure that you’re doing outreach to referral sources and that you’re being memorable and meaningful. You want to use the right referral seed planting language so that you move into their subconscious. When you take care of people, they naturally want to take care of you back. We want to be the person who is constantly giving to them so they think about us in a different way. When an opportunity arises, we want them thinking about us. It’s all about how we take care of people. TOP OF MIND When you know who your referral sources are and you focus on them, you start to notice and develop patterns about those sources. When Stacey was a business and productivity coach, she noticed that her niche happened to be working parents. Their world was her world. Her previous business failure gave her a unique perspective she could share. She initiated a touchpoint that included “off-guard holidays.” In order to be meaningful, she sent Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gifts to her top referral sources. She sent a Wonder Woman water bottle to the moms reminding them that they are heroes. It didn’t include Stacey’s logo and it wasn’t about her. It was about her client. Those clients have never forgotten who sent that bottle. They were seen and recognized. That effort can’t be a one-and-done. The touch points must accumulate over time. Clients will always think about you in return when you’ve thought about them first. Anything you do must be all about them. PLANTING SEEDS Begin by using the word referral when you’re talking to your clients. When someone sends you someone, send them a hand-written thank you note that thanks the referrer by name. It’s noticeable because it’s a thank you note that you took time to write. Then, when people ask how your business is going, use the opportunity to plant a referral seed. Consider this: “You know, I on-boarded three new clients last week who were referred to me. I love receiving referrals because it tells me I’m doing something right with my business.” Be honest, but plant the idea of referral. The seed may not always fall on fertile soil, but eventually, it will. Aim for the 30 percent who will actually refer you. Like the other steps, it must be a consistent effort that builds on itself. We’re seeking to create a habit for how our clients will behave. “GENERATING BUSINESS REFERRALS…WITHOUT ASKING” EPISODE RESOURCES You can connect with Stacey at staceybrownrandall.com where you can figure out your skill level at generating referrals by taking her Referral Ninja Quiz. The quiz identifies three different levels, and it will help you determine whether you should learn more about referrals. Her website includes all kinds of free content to help you figure out how to move to the next level. This episode is brought to you in part by our TSE Certified Sales Training Program, which teaches you to improve your sales skills, find more customers, build stronger value, and close more deals. The next semester begins in March. 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. 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, and share with your friends!Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

The Red-headed Step Brother of Sales … Client Success; we don’t pay attention to it. But, we should. There were times, growing up in Jamaica when we would have issues with getting water into our house. The pressure wouldn’t be strong enough or a pipe would burst, and we would have to take buckets down to the community water source and haul them back home. Imagine me, Little Donald, carrying a bucket of water a quarter mile each way …and I’m sure I filled that bucket to the very top. Naturally, some will spill out as you walk along, but imagine my surprise to see the bucket only half-full when I got home … A small crack in the bucket caused me to lose most of it. What incentive would I have to go back for more? I needed to fix that bucket. Client success is the same way. Nobody pays attention to it but it is critical to the organization’s success. CLIENT SUCCESS Client success is the function of a company responsible for maintaining the relationship between the client and you, the vendor. The goal of client success is very simple: to make sure your clients are as successful as possible. This, in turn, improves your relationship with the client and the lifetime value of that client. It helps the organization in many ways. As with my bucket example, client success is the source that helps to make sure the holes in the bucket are sealed. We don’t lose water – we don’t lose customers. [02:17] Compare the lifetime value of your client to my bucket of water. The last thing you want to do is lose your customers after working so hard to get them. It would be such a waste to work for a year and a half to land an amazing client only for them to move on after only a year. Multiply that scenario across multiple clients and you’ll find yourself in a whole heap of trouble: you need to fix that bucket. You need to address client success. [03:26] I read a statistic in an article published by the Precision Marketing Group which states that86% of buyers will pay more for a product if they receive a better customer experience. This may not occur immediately but imagine a client does come on board who has an opportunity to purchase more of the licenses, or services, that you offer. Let’s use furniture sales as an example. You sold a nice desk and chair to your client. In the future, what prevents him from going elsewhere if he needs another chair? [04:11] MAINTAINING RELATIONSHIPS What if your client success team was able to actively work that account and learn the goals of the client? If you knew the client was planning to expand in six months, for example, would it not make sense for you to create an opportunity to help them reach that goal? In some companies, sales takes care of this but it spreads the sales force thin. They are asked to find new people, build value, close deals, AND actively farm the account, fix problems, and keep the client happy. You need new business to come in but you also need to maintain relationships with your current clients so they will return to you over and over again. It is virtually impossible to do it all. Something has to give and, in all likelihood, new business will stop coming in. [04:58] Again, 86% of buyers would pay more for a product or service if they receive a better customer experience. Let’s say your product is at premium value and a buyer could go somewhere else next time to get it for less. If the buyer perceives a value in the sales experience he has with you, however, he will stay with you. [05:48] CLIENT SUPPORT Client support, on the other hand, is basically a range of client services to assist clients in making cost effective and correct use of a product. This includes assisting in planning, training, troubleshooting, maintaining, updating, etc. Using the office furniture example again, the client support team helps install and assemble the desk. The client success team does not. In smaller organizations, however, sellers often do it all. Solving problems while also maintaining accounts can certainly be overwhelming. You can see how this could affect new net revenue. [06:32] The emphasis on new business causes client support and client success to be pushed to the side: they become the red-headed step children of sales. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Another statistic from the Precision Marketing Group states that the companies who prioritize customer experience generate 60% higher profits. Instead of hiring three new salespeople, would it not make more sense to hire two sales individuals and one client success individual instead? Hire a client success person to ensure that everyone brought on board by the sales team stays on board. Instead of losing new clients each year, keep them for five or six years – even longer. Give them an amazing experience. Help them. Guide them and fix any problems they might have so they don’t feel neglected. [07:29] It has been said that the client success team is just an appendage of customer support and it is not as important as sales. But we all know that it is much easier, and cheaper, to keep a client than to find a new one. If you give your client a great experience, he will give to you in return with referrals and repeats sales. A happy client will continue to feed you new business. The client success team can then create more opportunities for more sales. [08:46] THE POD APPROACH A ‘pod’ is a term some companies are now using to refer to a three-system approach: one person from sales, one person from customer support, and a third person from client success working as a team. Together, they create a cohesive relationship that keeps new business coming in, solves issues, and works toward the success of the clients. It makes a huge difference. [09:30] Finally, I previously shared a story about my experience working for a software company where I didn’t really know what to do. I learned, however, from working with client success (known as customer support back then) the type of clients not to pursue, which helped me to recognize the type of clients I did want. I was able to retain those types of clients, build stronger relationships with them, and close more deals. Customer support helped the clients be successful. If they recognized a problem that I could fix for the client, they would bring me in. It worked amazingly. I suggest considering such a system in your organization. If you already have one in place, be sure to evaluate its effectiveness. What is the lifetime value of a client right now? How much money can you expect from that client? Is there a process for upselling or cross-selling? [10:07] Don’t waste your time and energy on a client only to have him fall through the cracks. Don’t go home with a half-empty bucket. EPISODE RESOURCES FOR ‘THE RED-HEADED STEP BROTHER OF SALES … CLIENT SUCCESS” 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. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Prospect.io is offering three months at half-price. Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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 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. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

What is the value of giving prospects hands-on control during presentations and leave behinds? Zvi Guterman, founder and CEO of CloudShare, is here today to tell us. CloudShare is a cloud company providing IT labs as a service mainly for IT training, IT sales enablement, and sandboxing, all in the cloud. Like most entrepreneurs, Zvi got the idea for CloudShare when faced with a problem that needed a solution. In previous positions, there was always a point in the sales process when Zvi needed to build a demo or training talk. When he realized how much time and work he was spending to build that infrastructure, as opposed to actually doing the demo and closing the deal, he knew there had to be a better way. He looked but couldn’t find a service to create labs for him, so he decided to create that service. Ten years and $30 million later, Zvi has seen a lot. HANDS-ON CONTROL DURING PRESENTATIONS Zvi learned from working with his customers and users that, once a prospect is given a hands-on experience, the level of commitment from those prospects increases. It is no longer some vague idea that you are selling but rather a tangible product. When the clients understand how the software works, for example, it is easier for them to imagine using it. They are more committed and less worried because their questions are answered. It also allows sales to collaborate with the prospects on how best to utilize the product.   Hands-on experiences remove obstacles and shorten the sales cycle. #SalesCycle CLICK TO TWEET   A hands-on experience allows sales to move control of the demonstration to the prospect. It increases the prospect’s understanding of the product and allows them the opportunity to ask questions they may not even know they had. Onboarding then becomes super enjoyable. Begin by answering simple questions and explaining terminology. Then, proceed together to determine other areas to test, what type of specific functionality to add, or which performance issues need to be addressed. It also enables sales to personalize a timeline and success criteria for each prospect. OTHER BENEFITS OF THE HANDS-ON APPROACH  Client engagement increases retention. The hands-on process increases usage and reduces the risk of the prospects buying but never deploying the product simply because they don’t have the time to install or set it up. Cases will still arise where the product is not a good match for your prospect. But looking at the big picture, you want to see the No’s. Hands-on presentations shorten the time spent on irrelevant leads because the prospects will see right away whether the product is a match for their needs. Most times, salespeople focus on leads or clients that are not going to progress. Engaging the customer with hands-on opportunities saves times and energy for everyone. Zvi insists that the demonstration parameters be the same parameters the prospects can expect when the product is deployed to their data centers. They do not optimize or otherwise tweak the demonstration. This provides true value to the customers. It also allows everyone the opportunity to enjoy the move toward deployment. The transition is smoother and the actual deployment is faster. THE DUALITY OF THE HANDS-ON PROCESS The prospects are happy with the duality of the hands-on process. On one hand, they have control of the environment. No one will interfere or touch their data. At the same time, sales is available to answer any questions and to collaborate. An in-house test lab is probably the most common scenario in many organizations but scheduling use of the lab is both cumbersome and expensive. CloudShare simplifies and reduces that cost by reducing the amount of lab time.  Hands-on demonstrations are more efficient, more powerful, and less expensive. Providing hands-on demonstrations and a trial in the cloud also allows for more and more advanced scenarios. Zvi sees people utilizing all the available tools together and becoming more efficient. People are now using the data available in CloudShare to calculate the probability of engagement. They can also determine where to concentrate their efforts and to learn about new directions to take. It allows people to collaborate and get the best results. For example, if a sales rep on the east coast notices better results from a demo being used on the west coast, he can quickly learn more about it and how best to apply it. With CloudShare, team members can share improvements implement them on a global scale. Organizations become more efficient as a result. “GIVING PROSPECTS HANDS-ON CONTROL DURING PRESENTATIONS AND LEAVE-BEHINDS” EPISODE RESOURCES The best way to reach Zvi is via email at Zvi@Cloudshare.com. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never, ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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. 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, and share with your friends!Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

If we allow it to, fear can hold us back and dominate our lives, but if we focus instead on understanding and managing fear, we can identify the source of our fear and we can improve our own performance. Kristy Ellington shares today why she believes that being fearless is a myth, and how she overcame years-old fears to unlock improved performance in her own job. Fearless Being fearless is a myth because the truth is that everyone experiences fear. Fear doesn't simply infect one section of our lives, but rather every part. We get caught up in our thoughts and emotions, and fear keeps us from doing the things we want or need to do to get to the next level. Fear causes us to focus inward instead of focusing on the client, which is really detrimental in sales. As sellers, we want to focus on our clients and how we can connect with them, but fear keeps us focused on how they perceive us, and whether they are judging us, and how we look to them. Fight or flight Fear triggers our natural fight-or-flight instinct, which diverts resources from our brains into our arms, legs, heart, and lungs. It slows down our thinking so that we can't fully analyze situations and we can't think critically. We have no available judgment and we can't find creative solutions because we're afraid. Fear hinders us in a variety of ways, but realistically it's all in our heads and it's all connected back to some unidentified source of fear that we have to address. Take action For sellers, the need to overcome fear is real, and they don't have a lot of time to do it. They have quotas to meet and they have to pick up the phone. Understand your trigger. If you're afraid of picking up the phone, unpack that fear. It's often the fear of judgment or the fear of rejection or not being professional or expert enough. You fear going off-script and looking or sounding stupid. Use this five-step process before any big presentation or conversation: Notice. Recognize the problem. Admit when you're afraid. Aware. Be aware of where the problem is: tightness in your throat or butterflies in your stomach. Make. Make the connection. Where did you first feel this problem? What's the source? A bad public speaking experience? Evaluate. Is this real right now? You have no reason to believe that anyone will make fun of you, so your own thoughts are causing the fear. It isn't real. Shift. Once you understand that your fear isn't real, you can shift your focus back to your client. Worst-case scenario If you have any kind of fear, it's always valid to determine the worst-case scenario. If you fear elevators because you fear getting stuck and being claustrophobic, ask yourself if it's real. Is it true that you really won't be able to breathe in the elevator? Is it true that the elevator is going to fall while you're in it? That's likely something you saw in a scary movie once. Fear is false evidence appearing real. Imposter Syndrome Imposter Syndrome is huge for many people, and it prevents you from asking questions for fear that you'll look stupid. It can prevent you from understanding the buying decision or the challenges that your customers are facing. People also fear saying "no" to clients who aren't the best fit for fear of what might happen. They fear failure and what failure might lead to. Maybe you don't get the promotion or you don't make enough commission to pay your bills. As a result, you end up with the worst clients on earth because you bent over backward for clients that really weren't worth the effort. Eliminating fear It's probably not really realistic to think that someday you'll be fearless. No matter what level you are in life, you'll experience fear. The fears for a sales development rep will be different for that of a CRO. You'll always experience fear somehow. If you don't experience fear somehow, you're probably not moving forward. You should be feeling fear. It's a biological response. You can't crush it or eliminate it. You must learn to manage it. When you do, you can move forward and take inspired action that's thoughtful and clear instead of action that's chaotic and desperate. Fear is really just there to protect us and keep us safe. Your brain is working to protect you from bad things that happened in the past. Our fears now are social in nature, but they manifest in the same way that physical threats did generations ago. We don't have to spend so much time being afraid of fear. Leadership fears Leaders are just as afraid of looking stupid as the rest of us, just on a different level. They inadvertently create a culture of fear because they are operating from fear. The stressors are different because they have more responsibility. As you address fears, it becomes easier to manage them. "That which we consistently do becomes easier, not because the nature of the thing changes but our ability changes." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson Fear into confidence It's possible to turn fear into confidence. You have to be comfortable with emotion because it's an important part of sales. Empathy is an important part of the work sellers do. [Tweet "You can't possibly understand other people's situations and fears if you can't understand your own. #EmotionalIntelligence"] If you're running from emotion, it will make your job much tougher. Embrace emotion. Embrace fear. Start to learn what that looks like. "Understanding & Managing Fear" episode resources You can connect with Kristy on LinkedIn, Twitter, or on her website KristyEllington.com 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. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Prospect.io is offering three months at half-price. Previously known as TSE Hustler's League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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 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. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Salespeople need mental toughness to weather all the ups and downs of the industry, as well as the pressures and difficulties when things aren’t going well. Sometimes clients choose another seller. Sometimes a customer ends the relationship. In other cases, we do everything we’re supposed to do, and the deal still won’t close. Today Ian Wendt talks with us about one of the most difficult moments in his career and how he got through it and continued his journey. TEACHING INSTEAD OF SELLING Sales is full of challenges, and it requires a certain amount of self-motivation. For Ian, though, the greatest challenge was when he decided that he didn’t want to knock on doors. He realized that while he was really good at selling, he was even more valuable as a teacher. He needed to find a way to make himself valuable enough that he could teach other people how to sell and how to be mentally tough, which was what he was really passionate about. It’s sometimes tough for people to build a sales career that doesn’t involve knocking on doors. Finding a way to make the transition felt daunting to him. He was haunted by the fear of what would happen if he couldn’t make it work. Ian shared a quote from the book Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins that goes like this: “Most people don’t even start if they don’t have a guarantee.” That was Ian’s mindset at the time of the transition. PULLING THE TRIGGER Ian decided to sell for one more summer, and his regional manager used him to do some training. When Ian went to certain offices, those groups started seeing huge spikes in their performance. He was helping them close significant deals and move the needle. He started tracking his results so he could demonstrate his value. Ian asked for the opportunity to run a training program, but his leadership told him there was no such position available in the company. If, however, Ian could prove the value in his training, the company would consider creating one. Ian is a big believer that you don’t negotiate until you bring value, so that’s what he set out to do. He was determined to produce something he could negotiate with. TRACKING RESULTS Ian started tracking the offices, reps, and leaders that he was training. He tracked their metrics and their increases and the improvements in their completion rates for about three months. He visited about 11 offices and trained more than 60 reps. Once he had a binder full of information, the leaders called him in to ask what he was doing. They were seeing improvements and they wanted to hear how he was doing it. He got the leadership on board and he created a pitch for his proposed training. They jumped on board with his idea and moved toward getting started. UNSEEN STRUGGLES One of the biggest struggles for Ian was that he wasn’t directly selling anymore. He was investing his time and efforts into these offices and these other sellers, so he wasn’t selling a ton of accounts. He got a few sales, but he went from making a lot of money to making very little. Ian overdrafted his account at least four times, which was unheard of for him. He was battling the stress of the downward mindset. As a result, he now teaches that stress is the number one factor in negativity and negativity is the one thing that will destroy a sales career. Those reps that operate in fear can be completely debilitated. WHAT IF? What if I’m moving the needle but this doesn’t pay out? Or what if I have nothing to show for all my work? Worse yet, What if I don’t make enough to live off of? Ian lived with exactly that fear during the summer he spent training other sellers. He was plagued by the internal debate over whether to return to the regular sales or to keep trying to develop his training idea. RESULTS Ian put himself in a position to do work that he loves. Now he’s over all of the training and content creation for his entire company, and he gets paid really well for it. He’s grateful every day that he was able to create his own future. He recently spoke at a conference where he reminded the audience that sales will always be hard. But, he said, if you can master it, you can really control the outcome of your life.   If you can sell yourself or sell a product, it will allow you to create the life you want, and maybe the life you never imagined. #Selling CLICK TO TWEET   You can find a way to do work that you love and position yourself to look forward to the work week. He loves the opportunity to share what he has learned with other people, and he loves being surrounded by people who are constantly trying to develop themselves. “FEAR AND MENTAL TOUGHNESS” EPISODE RESOURCES Ian is in the process of developing a consulting and coaching program. In the meantime, he’s doing some side work with individual organizations and people.  Connect with Ian via direct message on Facebook @ian.wendt, LinkedIn @ianwendt, and Instagram @iwendtster. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never, ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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. 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, and share with your friends!Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Many of us in sales have jumped into companies without a training process or guidance; we find ourselves winging it and wondering, “Where’s my mentor?” Aaron Walker started in the business when he was 18 years old. At the age of 27, he sold to a Fortune 500 company and retired. Eighteen months later, his wife told him he was becoming fat and lazy; so he went back to work, purchased the company he first started and grew it four times in 10 years. It was all fun until the unimaginable happened in August 2001. Aaron accidentally killed a pedestrian with his car. It changed his life. He sold the business and spent the next five years learning how to deal with the tragedy. CHANGING HIS LEGACY In the process, he realized that his financial success lacked significance. He didn’t want his legacy to be “‘enough money to retire at the age of 27.” Nobody cares. He wanted to make a change. He decided to spend his life encouraging and edifying others. Aaron changed the way he did business. He started looking outward more than inward and he gathered mentors to help him. His life began to take a very different path. With the help of several mentors he has worked with for more than two decades in a Mastermind group, Aaron launched his own coaching company, View From the Top. He now leads 14 mastermind groups in eight different countries to help people live a life of success and significance. ISOLATION IS THE ENEMY TO EXCELLENCE Aaron defines a mentor as somebody who will walk alongside you for an extended period of time, as opposed to a coach who helps you get through a certain point in life. Aaron has been with some of the same mentors for more than 40 years. They help him realize where he needs to go in life. Mentors are people who have been there/done that and whose core values coincide with your own. They are the people who want what is best for you rather than what is best for themselves.   For sales, in particular, mentors are crucial. Aaron believes that it is very difficult to grow and expand alone because we each have only one filter – one life experience that guides how we view things. THE VALUE OF MENTORS Other people see us differently than we see ourselves. As such, mentors can help realize your superpowers. They also help you understand your weaknesses and to see your blind spots. Having a mentor to point out what we would otherwise miss ourselves can be the very thing that puts us over the top. We have many obstacles and upper limit challenges that we need to push through. Trusted and unbiased advisors can point us in the right direction. Aaron recalls a guy in one of his mastermind groups that was putting together a course that was, in reality, absolutely terrible. Everything about it was terrible, but the group helped him tweak it and shape it into something amazing.   It’s the same way in our lives. Aaron admits he lacks tact but never realized that many people viewed him as arrogant and condescending until his wife pointed it out to him. It was one of his blind spots. We need people around us who can help us out. We all know the overly confident, borderline cocky salespeople. Getting them to accept advice, to realize their blind spots and to be humble is tricky. Confidence is needed in sales but people don’t buy arrogance and cockiness. There has to be a measure of humility. A mentor can help you get there. Surround yourselves in business, in marriage, in every area of your life with mentors that you trust to help you get where you want to go. WHERE’S MY MENTOR? To find a mentor, look for someone who has been married for a long time if you have questions about marriage. Find someone who has been in business for along time if you have questions about that. Look for someone who has nothing to lose, or gain, by talking to you. Family members are often biased in that regard because they want you to have what you want to have. You want someone who will give it to you straight. You have to be willing to subject yourself to scrutiny. You have to be willing to accept the truth in order to hear the truth. That is why masterminds are so profoundly helpful – you have 8-10 people with completely different life experiences at your disposal. They can take your great idea, look at it, and point out the things about it that you might not have thought of.  When you work with the same people over months or years, a pattern develops and they see it. Aaron has worked with the same counselor for decades. They talk when things are going well and when they aren’t. Over that amount of time, the counselor realized that Aaron did something completely radical about once every 36 months. This type of behavior classifies Aaron as a ‘creator developer’, rather than a ‘maintainer manager.’ A creator developer is someone who gets bored easily and who doesn’t like everything to be the same all the time. It explains why Aaron has had 12 businesses. He likes to develop and create. Because Aaron had a mentor who was able to point it out, Aaron can now plan accordingly. THE EBBS AND THE FLOWS Many young people don’t have mentors while many people with experience to share aren’t necessarily interested in reaching out. Aaron is hoping to connect the two. Mentors have changed Aaron’s life in many ways. He remembers many ebbs and flows throughout his life. One dark time several years ago was particularly difficult. Aaron relied heavily upon his mastermind group at the time and met with them every week. He just could not get motivated but the group was there to listen. It went on for months. Then, one Saturday, Aaron got a call from one of the guys in the group. It was alarming at first because the group never spoke on the weekends but Aaron knew by the tone of his voice that it was good news. “I know you’ve been in a dark spot for a long time and I’ve been praying for you … but you are wearing the hell out of everybody in the group. You just keep on and on every week. Take the chains off from around your neck and move on,” he said. And then he hung up. Aaron was so mad at the audacity of the call. But then he started thinking. Realizing that his friend loved him enough to tell him the truth was the change he needed to get over it and to move forward. A casual friendship does not give that kind of hard truth.   You can not live the adventure you were meant to live alone. #FindYourPeople CLICK TO TWEET   Put down the facade and be vulnerable. That is where true strength starts. Surround yourself with people who know your good, your bad, and your ugly but who still care about you. It is the solid foundation that will allow you to become all you were created to be. “WHERE’S MY MENTOR?” EPISODE RESOURCES You can reach out to Aaron via his website, Viewfromthetop.com. His mastermind group, Iron Sharpens Iron (ISI), meets on a regular basis via video conference all over the world. Check it out! 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. This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. Prospect.io is offering three months at half-price. Previously known as TSE Hustler’s League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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 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. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

If you've been guilty of bulldozing your prospects or being rude or uncaring, today must be the day you change your mindset: Don't treat prospects like a number. Although numbers are important to those of us who work in sales, we can't let them become our primary focus. They can help us measure our success and determine our strengths and weaknesses, but we can't reduce our prospects to a number. Find the balance Some organizations focus so little on numbers that they don't have any way to replicate their successes. They have no idea how many calls it takes to get to the right customer. They have no idea of their conversion rate. On the other hand, some organizations are so focused on the numbers that it becomes the primary focus of their work. As a result, they often sacrifice quality in the name of numbers. Do not lose track of the people in the process. My wife got a call from a traditional seller in a traditional selling situation last week: he knew nothing about the company except the name and the phone number. He didn't know who he needed to speak to, and it was obvious he was calling from a call center. The caller wasn't prepared and he didn't have a cadence to his call. Dialing for dollars Some companies have a single speed. They spend each day dialing for dollars and relying on phone calls to advance their numbers. They fail to realize that today's buyers are busy. They fail to approach selling from the buyer's standpoint. It never occurs to them that they could have brought value in an email. Or that they could have used multiple emails to share client testimonials or valuable tips or irresistible messages. They overlook LinkedIn as a place to connect with prospects and they miss the opportunity to provide value. They forget that they could mail something to the prospect or research who they should contact within a company. They overlook the strength of using multiple points of entry rather than just blasting the prospect with phone calls. Control your emotion When my wife told the caller that we weren't interested in doing business with him, he got upset. He's no doubt frustrated because he's doing the same activity every single day and not having much success, but it doesn't give him a pass to get upset. Sometimes you've brought value and done everything possible for your buyer, and they still aren't ready to buy. It's ok to say, "Hey, I get this all the time. Sometimes people aren't ready. Out of curiosity, is it because you guys already have someone in place or just that you're not looking to buy right now?" Once they give me an answer, I ask if it's ok for me to send podcasts or videos in the future. If they say yes, then I've left the door open. Instead of sacrificing my connection by getting angry, I keep opportunities open. Develop processes I'm a big proponent of making sure you have processes in place as you reach out to prospects. If you're treating them like a number and calling without doing any research, please stop. You're treating them like a number and they're going to respond accordingly. Offer personal touches. Take 2 to 5 minutes to go on LinkedIn and find out what the company does. Don't eat up too much of your time, just find out the key players and the company mission so you can have an intelligent conversation. Do work If you're trying to reach people the same way everyone else is, you're probably not going to have a lot of success. You're going to have to do a little bit of work to grab our attention in a busy setting. I recently got a video from someone as a form of outreach, and I complimented the person on the video. Then, I invited the person to be a guest on the podcast, and the show is going live soon. It's more work for you, but your job as the seller is to make the buyer's job easier. Don't add unnecessary complication. [Tweet "Treat people like people. Try something unique. People aren't robots and they aren't just numbers. #EffectiveSelling"] "Don't Treat Prospects Like a Number" episode resources This episode is brought to you in part by prospect.io, a powerful sales automation platform that allows you to build highly personalized, cold email campaigns. To learn more, go to prospect.io/tse. It will help you with your outbound to expand your outreach. It allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never, ever be the same. Previously known as TSE Hustler's League, our TSE Certified Sales Program offers modules that you can engage on your own schedule as well as opportunities to engage with other sellers in other industries. This episode is 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. 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, and share with your friends!Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com