The Sales Evangelist

Behind the scenes at The Sales Evangelist, we're working to increase organic engagement and interact with our audience, and we've discovered a powerful way to develop new leads through Instagram. According to Jaeden Schafer, Instagram typically accounts for about 10 percent more organic engagement than Facebook, so it's a great place to gain a new audience and develop new leads. Who can benefit? [Tweet "Every business, whether it's B2B or B2C, can benefit from Instagram as long as they know how to use it. #Prospecting"] When Instagram initially launched, its goal was to share nice looking pictures. If you're following that original idea, your company will likely benefit from it. [02:16] But what if you're a refrigeration repair company? How do you post compelling pictures of refrigerators? Posting photos of refrigerators all day won't really prompt much growth. So if, for example, you own a refrigeration company in Miami, post pictures of the area you serve with information about the services you provide. Target people who are the customer persona you're trying to attract. It basically just needs to be pretty. Mistakes on Instagram Many people will offer the same tips for setting up an Instagram account: Choose good photos Find out what your customers want Then they expect people to just show up. If the engagement doesn't happen, they just let the page die, which is the worst possible thing you can do on social media. Since social media is about social proof, outdated accounts are worthless. [05:13] When people want to buy something online, they often check online to make sure that the social media accounts are updated. If they aren't, they might assume you'll be unresponsive. Plan to post at least once a week if you want to appear actively engaged. If you're trying to grow, you should post every day. If you find yourself thinking that you don't have the team or the resources to post every single day, remember that there are tools available to help you. Later.com is a scheduling tool that will let you schedule 30 posts for free. You can schedule a new post every day that will keep you active and growing. Instagram tactics Though Instagram is a great place to find new leads, sellers will also want to move those leads from interested to purchasing. Avoid letting your account just sit. Instead, use your account to find new leads. You can do that with targeted Instagram ads or automation. Better yet, use your account to like and comment on people's posts that are in your target audience. [07:53] Consider the food truck business that launched an Instagram page and then shared images of the food it would serve. On launch day, the owners went to its main competitors' page and they liked and followed 1,000 of their followers. They repeated that activity every two days for a different food truck. It grabbed attention because those people would see the business name on their phone as someone who liked their photos and followed their accounts. It's a phenomenal strategy, especially for companies that are just starting. Transition For B2B companies, it's important to understand how the transition will look after you follow new prospects on Instagram. How do you move them to your website or prompt them to download something? When a user sees that you liked some of his photos and followed him, then he'll likely click on your account name to check out your Instagram account. Your account bio will act a little like a splash page or a sales pitch. [10:34] Make sure your bio includes your website, and make sure it really clearly outlines what you do and what your call-to-action is. Direct them to your website or your podcast. Image quality For sales reps who might be wondering what kind of content to post, let's use an example of The Sales Evangelist to talk about what that might look like. For a service-based business, people tend to limit their thinking about the kind of images to post. Choose high-quality images that look really good. [11:53] If you don't have a high-quality camera, it's ok. Start with websites that offer free, copyright-free images, like unsplash.com. Type in your keyword and find hundreds of high-quality photos related to your niche. High-quality photos will make your account look very professional. Include your own "flavor" that meshes with the way you pitch, but make sure that the people who follow your account feel like they are getting some kind of value out of it. Some organizations use inspirational quotes or even tips such as how to care for your a/c unit. Choose information that will give something back to your audience. [13:45] You can use entire blog posts as an Instagram caption. In short, be there, post information your customers want, and do it consistently. Videos Videos have a much higher likelihood of going viral. Jaeden reports that an account he manages might get 400-700 likes, while a video on the same account might get 1,000-14,000 views. [15:31] As a result, videos are a really good way to grow your business because videos are more engaging. Also, though, if the video includes you talking and sharing information, it builds a relationship with your customers because they get to experience your personality in a way that they wouldn't in a photo. It creates trust. Stories Many people go to Instagram just for the stories. If you can create a story that captures people's attention, it's a huge new piece of real estate. When you have a new promotion or a new post, consider using your story to encourage followers to check out your new post. You can promote a podcast, a sale, a deal, or whatever you want people to know. Once you have 10,000 followers on Instagram, you can put links in your story so people can just swipe up on the story to access your links. [17:44] That's when stories become super powerful because it's a free ad that you can push to everyone who follows you. Hashtags Hashtags can be incredibly beneficial or they can be useless, depending on how you use them. Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per photo, and users should take advantage of all 30 of them to be super specific about the content in the photo. The platform's artificial intelligence scans photos to see what are in them, and if you use a big list of random hashtags, your photo won't perform well. The value of hashtags is that if someone clicks on one, they go to a hashtag page that shows all the images that used that hashtag. For smaller businesses, use longer hashtags that have fewer people using them, ideally 20,000 to 100,000 uses. [20:04] Be super specific in your hashtags and use those that fit the size of your business. Success story Jaeden had great success with a luxury travel company. He set up unique accounts for different geographic locations: one for Maldives resorts, Bora Bora resorts, Greek resorts, and so on. Each bio directed users back to the main page. He said it was an easy way to tap into a saturated market that is often expensive to advertise in. [22:00] Within a month, they were getting about 20 percent of their traffic from Instagram. If you don't have time to go and follow 1,000 users on a single day, consider using tools like Ninjagram or Jarvee to automate your Instagram efforts. You put your account into it and then select your competitors, and the tool does the work for you. "New Leads Through Instagram" episode resources Connect with Jaeden at Fiund.com with any questions you may have or to get additional advice or tips. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Strategic planning isn’t only for entrepreneurs: Shane Spiers says sales reps must know where they are headed and what the team’s common purpose is. Strategic planning helps sales reps work better as part of a team and achieve more. Originally from New Zealand, Shane now calls the UK home. It is where his career has grown to what it is today. His record is dominated by leading and scaling 7, 8 and 9-figure rapid growth companies, mostly in real estate, construction, and service-based businesses. Shane created Summit Leader to help 7-figure entrepreneurs scale with an 8-figure growth model. His focus is helping businesses scale from entrepreneurial to managed growth. [00:29] Approximately 96% of businesses earn less than $1 million in revenue. Of the 4% that make it past a million, only 10% make it to $10 million. With only .4% of businesses reaching the $10 million mark, Shane hopes to have an impact by producing more 8-figure businesses. [01:20] A COMMON GOAL As a business moves from entrepreneurial to managed growth, the management, leadership, and logistical challenges become quite different. The startup ways of working can hinder a business rather than advance it. Shane has been down the path many times before. He understands the importance of including sales reps in the process of strategic planning to grow a company. Whether you are a business owner, team leader, or part of a team, it is important to understand what the company stands for and what it believes in. It is important to know the common goal and your purpose in achieving it. A team without priorities, or with different views, cannot work well together. [02:23] STRATEGIC THINKING AND EXECUTION Before you can plan where you will be in the long term, you must make decisions about who you are and what you stand for. Decide how you will differentiate yourself from the competition. In the sales world, particularly, be very clear about who comprises your target market. Know who your ideal customers are, where they are, and what is important to them. It starts with upfront thinking. Know where you want to go and make a plan to get there. Establish your guiding principles first. Build your core. When businesses fail to clearly define their values, it trickles down into the sales force. [03:35] Think about your core as the provider of stability, power, and control that will support growth. Without a strong core, you risk instability from cultural challenges, loss of focus, disengagement, and a lack of heart. An organization or team that is weak will struggle. The core values are what you will do – and won’t do – to get what you want. They are the timeless, fundamental principles that define a company’s culture. It is the first step in strategic planning because it sets your purpose. It is the root of your business. Once you are clear about the Why of your company, you can work on the How. Where do you want to be in two, three or even ten years? What you do want to achieve? [05:50] A PART OF THE WHOLE No matter how large or small your role, you are contributing to the larger story. Consider the time when President Kennedy visited NASA and struck up a conversation with one of the janitors. When asked what he was doing, the janitor replied that he was helping to put a man on the moon. And he certainly was.   When your entire team embraces the attitude and belief system of the organization, incredible things can happen. #belief CLICK TO TWEET   [08:26] Strategy follows when you direct your attention and decisions to how you will differentiate yourself from the competition. Shane believes that decisions about how to best plan and strategize come easier to companies that establish their core principles first. It is easier to make a decision when you know what you stand for. [09:41] One common problem among fast-growing organizations is that they simply have too many priorities. In an attempt to cover all their bases, they lose focus. A long list of objectives combined with a scarcity of time, energy, and resources results in mediocre accomplishments. There is a failure to accomplish what matters most. If everything is important then nothing is. Growth and scaling are about taking one significant step at a time, checking the data and adjusting accordingly. [10:40] ESTABLISH A RHYTHM Once your core is established and you are clear about your long-term focus, it is time to prioritize. Break the ten-year plan out into a three-year plan, into a one-year plan, a 90-day plan, etc. Create routine, focus, and discipline. Don’t become overwhelmed by the monumental task of the long-term goal. Set bite-sized goals instead. Focus on the 3-5 things that will move you forward as a team. Get into the habit of celebrating success every 90 days. To build and maintain momentum, plan for more meetings or a daily check-in. Discuss administrative and tactical issues, provide updates, and take advantage of unforeseen opportunities. Review progress on a weekly basis. Use the collective brainpower of your teams to tackle issues before they become problems. Routines can set you free. Revolve your business around 90-day goals and life becomes more manageable. Take the time to do it properly. [12:41] When the fundamental beliefs of your company are clear, they will drive your company forward. The right people will be attracted to your teams. “STRATEGIC PLANNING” EPISODE RESOURCES You can reach Shane and check out his many free resources at www.summitleader.com. He also hosts a live webinar every month at www.summitwebinar.com. 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. 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. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Eric Graf, CEO of Flockgen, explains how mid-market businesses can trade relationships with one another to expand service offerings and lower customer acquisition. As sales reps, we need to make appointments and we need to make sales but often times, we don’t know how to find the best people. Typically, we develop a prospect list and a sales pitch and bring on a marketing team. It becomes the core business. Eric cites this as a common problem that negatively affects business with regard to customer acquisition. At Flockgen, clients are able to increase their bottom line because the cost of customer acquisition is spread among the partners. Expanding beyond the core Mid-market companies can expand the conversation with their customers beyond just the core aspects. When they do, they will realize that the prospect of monetizing exists in multiple areas which are often overlooked. At Flockgen, the cost of customer acquisition is spread across multiple services far beyond what mid-market companies might do in the core. As an example: There are already a number of partners with great businesses that sell telecom products. Some have had the same product for the past ten years, but their sales reps can’t talk to the customers beyond the core even if they wanted to. They don’t have anything else to present to those customers. [00:53] Flockgen offers an alternative solution. They can drive revenue with those relationships around completely different products and services. Ones that have nothing to do with telecom. They leverage those relationships to introduce new products and services in a way that doesn’t require a lot of cost because they already have hundreds of partners that offer many different things. [02:46] Such a partnership allows you to do more in one place instead of finding a partner with many companies on your own. By focusing on the ways mid-market companies work together to become stronger and build revenue, everybody wins. Creating a well-oiled referral process Referrals are a natural part of sales. They drive revenue and create business. Flockgen partners with people they know and trust. Using the telecom example again, suppose you have a salesperson selling phone systems all day long. As a partner with Flockgen, the salesperson could also talk with customers about sustainability, controlling costs, or operations. He has a credible way to have that conversation because Eric and his team have provided him with content and talking points. He doesn't have to be an expert in the field. Instead, he just has to be able to access the interest in the client. [04:16] The Flockgen Difference The Flockgen concept developed organically. Eric spent the last ten years working in the energy industry where he saw a lot of disruption. There were many new companies with new services and new products, and declining costs all around. Previously, Eric was in the telecom world, which he views as a more mature industry in terms of sales and marketing. Everyone knows each other and works with a collaborative spirit despite competition. Actual channels exist that allow people to team up and co-market. Eric hoped to build similar channels in the energy industry by borrowing the ideas that worked for telecom. Educating their partners is a key. How does referral marketing work? What are the pros and cons? [05:32] Rightsizing the program and menu for each of their individual partners is what sets Eric and his team apart. No two businesses are the same, even if they do the same thing. What works for one might not work for the other, or for their sales team. Matching capabilities Flockgen matches capabilities in an intelligent way with their partner sales team so that everyone feels comfortable and credible when having conversations. It allows them to drive relationships further. [06:31] Establishing bilateral relationships with their partners is crucial to the success of every party. Each can refer business to the other by promoting services up and down their respective networks. One partner could be driving revenue one day and receiving referrals the next day from others in the network who are doing the same thing. Getting started is easy. It is just a matter of understanding what you do, what a new customer base would mean to you, and what services you offer. Flockgen makes sure everyone in your organization is on the same page. [Tweet "You can’t grow a company alone. Sharing a pool of clients is essential. It saves money and time to partner and share opportunities. #ClientAcquisition"] If you are a large company, then you already have the business development teams and the corporate development teams in place to establish relationships. But it can be difficult to keep those relationships fresh. [09:29] Eric’s approach is for everyone to meet in the middle to allow collaboration and to set clear terms with one another. He believes that despite doing well at the start, many businesses that focus on partnering and collaborating will fail because they are not structured correctly. One partner gets the shorter end of the stick, perhaps. [11:37] Flockgen focuses on healthy partnerships. They maintain the relationships so that you can concentrate on talking to clients and building value. Transparency = Trust Providing transparency is critical to the success of the partnerships they create. When both parties understand the terms, it protects the credibility of the relationship. What happens when I refer to you? What happens when you refer to me? It becomes a matter of trust. It drives behavior. [13:39] When everyone brings the right attitude, a real willingness to focus on the customer, and is respectful of the initial relationship with the client, value is added to all of the relationships. [15:03] Flockgen partners only with those who stand by their work. Those they can trust to do good work and who do not hesitate when asked for customer references. It’s not who you know, it is who you know that you can trust. The partners utilizing the networks at Flockgen are driving their revenues and driving their commissions. It works because everyone is focused on creating the best customer experience. There are lots of folks who represent or promote similar services but they don’t backstop and track and monitor, or intervene when necessary, as relationships mature and transactions come together the way Flockgen does. [17:45] Flockgen levels the playing field. Mid-market businesses in the US generate 26% of the revenue in the US despite comprising only 1% of the commercial active firms. A large portion of the market is generally overlooked and underserved. Eric encourages everyone to take those businesses seriously when thinking about who you are selling to and how you are positioning your services and products. [18:26] Think about how to reach those customers. "Lower Customer Acquisition Costs" episode resources The front door is always open at Flockgen. Visit them at www.flockgen.com 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. 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. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Josh Cunningham, founder and CEO of rokrbox,  fast-tracked his entrepreneurial career by helping to solve a recurring problem for real estate clients and learning an important lesson along the way: Don’t trick them. Josh first stumbled upon the ISA, or Inside Sales Agent, role in real estate while attending seminars with Vyral Marketing founder and CEO Frank Klesitz. Vyral Marketing works with top agents to create content and to get referrals and repeat business. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Many top professional teams buy real estates leads online, but their agents don’t always do a good job of following up on them. Like any good entrepreneur, when Josh heard a lot of people complaining about a common frustration, he decided to solve the problem. [00:39] He started rokrbox. A rocker box is a gold mining tool used in the 19th century to separate the sand and gravel from the gold. Likewise, rokrbox takes your real estate leads and separates the tire-kickers and time wasters from the motivated buyers and sellers. [01:26] TAPPING INTO THE STUDENT MARKET Rokrbox is strategically located directly across from the Texas A&M University campus in College Station, Texas. Many sharp and enthusiastic young professionals go there looking to grow their skills. Josh provides them with the opportunity to develop real-world sales skills, CRM skills, and pipeline management skills. All of his student-employees typically graduate with multiple job offers from some type of sales professional career. [02:21] Since starting in 2013, rokrbox has worked over a million internet leads, hired over 250 ISAs, and trained them to move forward in their careers. Looking back, Josh believes that scalability was his biggest sales-related struggle. He knew he could do the job but wasn’t sure if he could train others to do it. When he first started hiring college students, he realized a lot of the same struggles that most people run into when building any sales team. SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS His first mistake was in not clearly setting expectations for the new hires. The job posting on the Texas A&M website was too vague. It wasn’t clear that a new hire could expect to make a ton of phone calls a day, could expect to be rejected all day, etc. It was just too ambiguous. As a result, a new hire might go through the entire interview process and personality assessment only to quit almost immediately after starting the job. One young man, in particular, spent over 15 minutes learning the types of calls to make, the technology/scripts/dialogue used and the likelihood of repeated rejection. He excused himself to use the restroom and never came back. [04:28] Josh blames himself. He had failed to set expectations and to make clear to potential hires what they were getting into.  He felt as if he had tricked people into taking the job which is not how to start a sales organization on the right foot. OBSERVATION As a result, rokrbox implemented observation into the business. Now, they invite promising applicants back to pair up with a senior rep as part of the interview process. They spend a full hour learning what to expect on a shift – from the technology to the daily team huddle, to the reports and the metrics. They are encouraged to ask questions. It is their chance to interview the business. At the conclusion of their observation session, applicants are asked to send an email to explain how they would fit into the rokrbox culture. It has been amazing to see the persuasive essays they receive.  [05:43] ESSAYS Josh enjoys hearing people explain why they want to be a part of the organization more than having them sneak away on a bathroom break, never to return. He highly recommends showing potential hires exactly what they can expect. Show them what it is like to be on the phone or knocking on doors. Be totally straightforward from the very beginning.   The people who realize the opportunity in what you offer are the people you want to hire. #NewHire CLICK TO TWEET   Josh believes that when building a culture worthy of your organization, it is likely that you will strongly attract the right people and strongly repel the wrong ones.  And certainly, not everyone who attends an observation responds. The work and the pace intimidate some people. [07:30] But he wouldn’t change a thing. Rockrbox invests a lot of one-on-one training in every new employee before they are ready to do the job. Twenty hours on the new hire combined with 20 hours of the trainer’s time: Forty hours is a huge investment if someone might either bomb or quit. TRANSPARENCY It is definitely better to be transparent and upfront. Anything less is simply a waste of everyone’s time. Have a collection of people that are all driven and motivated, in a cohesive unit, and headed in the same direction. A team that supports and enjoys each other becomes a better team because of it. It’s the most harmonious thing you can do with any business. Know the culture you want to create and then protect it. Invite others to observe whether or not it is right for them. [09:16] Once you become a leader of others, give them your expectations and the tools to succeed. Clearly communicate all of it – the good, the bad and the ugly. [11:22] “DON’T TRICK THEM” EPISODE RESOURCES To learn more about how rokrbox converts the online leads of top sales professionals in the real estate industry, visit www.rokrbox.com or contact Josh directly at josh@rokrbox.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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Tracking your performance and setting measurable goals will help you perform better as a sales rep. We can optimize our performance if we calculate our daily output to help us fine-tune our work. Sales professionals are competitive creatures by nature, whether we're competing against others or against ourselves. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.   Potential I participated in a leadership retreat in college and the speaker asked me to participate in a demonstration by jumping as far as I could. She then measured the distance and asked me to jump again to see if I could beat my original effort. Turns out I did, because I had a measurable goal. If I hadn't measured my first attempt, I wouldn't have known whether my second attempt was better. As a sales professional, you'll benefit if you measure your activity on a daily basis. [03:42] Optimization You're probably already planning some of your work: prospecting, phone calls, LinkedIn contacts, and those efforts are all great. But in order to optimize, now you must measure those efforts. If you're making phone calls, what are you measuring? Are you measuring the number of calls? Are you measuring the number of appointments you're setting based upon phone calls? Start writing down and measuring your key indicators. [04:14] If you're measuring LinkedIn activity, what are you measuring? Are you measuring the number of connections you can make? Are you measuring the people who replay to your conversations? Develop key indicators or key performance metrics that you can measure on a daily basis. Trends When you measure those numbers, you'll begin to notice trends. You might notice that you set more appointments on Wednesday and Thursday than on Monday and Friday. You may discover that you successfully connect with more people on LinkedIn on Tuesdays. [04:51] This effort may sound like a lot of work, and some of you may think you can't possibly find the time. Realize that top performers in every industry are measuring and optimizing their efforts. That's how they improve. Coaching That's also where coaching comes into play. Now imagine you're measuring these numbers and your performances while you're being coached. You're going to quickly discover that you're improving quickly. The problem is that we often get comfortable with our performance level. We settle for an acceptable amount of production and we accept it as our best. You may recognize this mindset as, "This is how I've prospected for years, so I'm going to stick with this format." [05:57] Challenge that thinking. Perhaps you'll work with a manager or a sales leader or even the CEO. Accountability will make you even more effective. Strategy When I'm collaborating or sharing with someone else, I may discover different strategies that are working for other sellers. The danger is in thinking that you can't learn from others or believing that you already have all the answers. You won't increase or improve or progress. When I started writing down day-to-day performance, I wasn't competing against my team. I was competing against my previous performance. I started closing more deals because I listened to my podcast guests and got beyond my weaknesses. Then, I read books and got better insights. Really, though, I improved simply because I was conscious of my efforts. [08:36] This year was our best ever, and we haven't even fully optimized our tracking and measuring. Tracking your performance makes a huge difference. Planning Send me an email if you'd like to see what I'm doing and how I'm scheduling my day. I use a planner and a Gmail calendar. I list tasks and color code them to differentiate different activities. If you're wondering, I use green for money-generating activities. I use a different color for admin tasks so I can visually see how my day looks. At the end of the day I ask myself four questions: Did I meet my goals today? What could I have done differently? What was my biggest win today? How will tomorrow look? I'm no genius, but it's working for me, and I want to challenge you to do it as well. "Tracking Your Performance" 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk about how to take advantage of the power of chat when growing your business. Many organizations have struggled to capitalize on the power of chat, but Amir and Tom share the struggles they’ve had using chat and how we can overcome them. Tom Jenkins and Amir Reiter help companies scale their workforce without having to get offices, pay insurance and taxes, or worry about hiring and training. Instead, they offer technology and strategy. At CloudTask, they provide sales development reps, they manage account executives convenient and they manage the customer success/account reps responsible for renewals and upselling to existing customers. They comprise one office. If someone wants to hire five sales reps, five account executives or five support reps, they will all be in office and managed so that the customer gets what they want – representation and results.   By specializing in sales, customer success and customer support, CloudTask is the best of the breed. [00:51] THE POWER OF CHAT One of the biggest issues is a lack of clearly defined ownership. If you look at our partners at Drift.com for instance, their ability to work as a bot or as a human can confuse whether chat is owned by marketing or by sales. Marketing is typically used to drive traffic to forms, to blogs and to sign-ups. As such, marketing tends to prefer automation. Sales, however, relies on people first, so deciding who owns chat is often a hurdle. Failure to assign ownership then creates a failure to act or a failure to implement correctly. [02:19] We manage a lot of cloud chat programs and have noticed that many people view chat as just another tool for the reps to use in addition to calling, emailing, LinkedIn, etc. Rather, with a high volume of web traffic, chat is a key tool in the generation of qualified leads. In fact, because chat allows you to respond quickly with the right answers and in the right way, it can be your number one lead generation tool. [03:17] QUALIFY LEADS People today want answers now. They expect to be able to go onto a website and to be able to chat. It has worked well in the B2C world but is really moving quickly into the B2B world as well. We are finding that an MQL (marketing qualified lead) or SQL (sales qualified lead) that chats with a member of the sales team is 2-3 times more likely to close versus one that goes through the process of filling out a form. It makes sense. A form is stationary and available to anybody. With chat, you are able to quickly let people qualify themselves with a friendly discussion. For example, suppose someone wants to hire a sales rep. Within a few moments, we can discuss salaries and budgets and determine right away if it is something to pursue, or not. [04:54] CHAT CONVERSATION Chat does not replace cold calling or emailing but it does allow the person who visits your website to have a conversation with you and determine for themselves if they want to move forward. The desire to engage is up to the visitor. As the sales rep, you increase the level of engagement with your replies. Consider “I’m here to help sales leaders every day, how can I help you?” instead of “How are you?” People want to work with companies that can fix their problems. Target the message to visitors as much as you can in order to increase engagement with them. You will receive visitors who want to know more about the topic rather than starting from scratch.   You don’t want to write too much in a chat forum, of course. Start by keeping the conversation focused on the problems you are trying to solve for your prospects. [06:48] The initial engagement is absolutely key but response time is just as essential. Buyers are conducting research and they want answers.   Failure to respond within one minute, despite having the best response in the world, exponentially decreases the likelihood of obtaining a qualified lead. #saleschat CLICK TO TWEET   It is imperative to be super sharp and to answer quickly. [08:10] PIQUE CURIOSITY When you give visitors the information they want to the questions they ask, they begin to ask the more sales-related questions themselves. Knowing how to give people the right amount of information so as to pique their curiosity without being overly aggressive is a skill. For example, the best way to answer many of the questions about a technology product is with a demo. An aggressive tactic might be “this is the best product and it will solve all your problems.” “We want you to get your eyes on this to see what you think about it” is a better approach, however. It allows the buyer to have ownership in the decision. Chat also identifies return visitors so that you don’t have to start all over from the beginning each time. [09:42] SALES OR MARKETING When Sales and Marketing are aligned as a team with the common goal of getting customers, ownership is less important. When Sales and Marketing are not aligned, better results occur when chat ownership is with the sales team.  Sales speaks to people and that brings results. It is really important that everyone involved be 100% clear on which team does what so that each can grow and build expertise. [11:27] Decide first if you will make your own chatbot or use a company like Drift or Intercom. Many such companies have partner systems that can help with deployment. They are also set up to support the user and the sales cycle. It can be a big jumpstart toward a successful launch. [13:30] COMMON MISTAKES Too much automation. We’ve seen companies who don’t get the results they want right away so they just scrap the whole thing versus A/B testing people. Everyone wants leads. It is the goal of every company but people make the chatbots and automation too much about themselves. They try to get contact details and meetings rather than making the initial interactions about web visits. They aim to fulfill their own needs rather than the needs of potential customers. [14:25] Chat gives buyers the ability to raise their hand, to tell you who they are and where they are in the sales cycle. It gives them the ability to get what they want now instead of going through the standard sales process. [15:28] SUCCESSES We have an interesting case now with a client who had used chatbot before but didn’t get the results they had hoped for. They weren’t particularly sold on the idea but were willing to give it another try.   We were able to successfully implement a program on Drift consisting of a training program, as well as the addition of five sales development reps. As a result, they realized $3.5 million in opportunity and $1 million in closed within eight months. They appreciated our complete focus and specialization. We also provided them with quality assurance teams that checked in on the chats, and we worked really well together. [16:17] We represent your company and do what needs to be done, just like employees. The main difference is that instead of getting one new employee, our client gets a whole team. We are remote to you, but not remote. It is like having multiple offices or a satellite office. We check on everything. [18:28] Don’t blind yourself with the idea that you can’t use chat for enterprises. Even if your sales process has you on flights to Hong Kong, or spending nine months working a deal, it can still start with a chat.   Don’t consider chat as a replacement but rather as an extra channel that gives people the ability to communicate with you faster. It can be such a cool tool to add to your cause, to your social network, and to your social ads. When used correctly, chat will deliver results. [19:59] “POWER OF CHAT” EPISODE RESOURCES Visit Tom and Amir at Cloudtask.com or through their partners at Drift.com.  Allison manages their chat and is always more than happy to help everyone. Experiencing their services first-hand is the best first step. 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. This episode is also 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. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Creative content provided by rasmussenediting@gmail.com.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk with Kris Nelson, head of sales for CoSchedule.com, about how businesses can move from "click, try, buy" to having a full-fledged sales team. CoSchedule is a SaaS-based marketing platform that helps marketers to stay organized through a combination of content calendar, a product, project management solutions and execution via social campaigns and email campaigns. CoSchedule took the time to focus on true growth and the company has seen tremendous results. Prior to reaching that point, however, the business, which began as a "click, try and buy," didn’t even have a sales team. When "click, try, and buy" works Initially, they released the product as a straightforward "click, try and buy," product because it made sense at the time. They also designed it for small teams and individuals. The level of product and the price point didn’t really dictate a need for a dedicated sales team. [01:26] As the product progressed and became more complicated, however, it became apparent that they needed a sales team to help the clients really understand how CoSchedule could benefit them. It was simply a natural progression to establish a sales force as the product grew and the price point increased, especially with some of the advanced plans. They moved away from the "click, try and buy," and toward a professional marketing team and into a standard sales cycle. [03:17] Bringing whiskey to a Kool-Aid party I’ve always thought it was a waste of time and resources to have the sales reps focus on low-end sales, think $15 a month kind of stuff because customers don’t need help making a decision at the price point. Higher end products are different. Companies who ask customers to pay more become more concerned with the quality of the product, and that's when you need a sales team. It is truly an overkill to engage someone in a formalized, professional sales cycle at some of the lower price points. At the higher price points, it makes total sense. You have to be sure you are asking the right questions of the organization to make sure your product is a fit. The sale is nice but long-term happy customers are the true goal. [04:25] Move toward a sales force Kris credits CEO and co-founder of CoSchedule, Garrett Moon, as the person who helped take the company where it is today. It began with a series of phone calls to prospects to see if the market was viable and to see if it made sense to move the price point. Once that was established as true, Moon hired more people, including Kris, and the sales process was on its way. [05:58] Kris says that CoSchedule is still an extremely heavy inbound model. They still decide the best fit for each client, whether that be the "click, try and buy," model for the lower level plans, or working with a sales rep for the higher level plans. Kris really had to learn and understand the buying process of the companies that use CoSchedule to determine how many real touch points would be needed from a sales standpoint to be effective.   Three-call process CoSchedule has a three-call process in place now. The first, known as the discovery call, allows the sales team to learn more about the client’s business, teach them about CoSchedule and then try to determine at a really high level if there is a potential business fit. If everything matches from a budget standpoint and a use case standpoint, they move forward with the second call. The second call is a full-scale demonstration of the product. It provides a great chance for the client to invite all their team members who might use the tool. Kris and his team go through the product with a fine-toothed comb and answer any questions. During this timeframe, they give the potential clients access to a free trial of CoSchedule; a chance to kick the tires. If the team is still checking the right boxes by the end they move into the pricing discussion. [07:28] CoSchedule provides a great tool for marketing organizations and other small organizations to all get on the same page. Their customers often refer to CoSchedule as the single source of truth for all their marketing efforts. Whether it's a social media campaign, or a large trade show event, or a podcast, CoSchedule acts as the organization hub for everything. [08:55] Although they designed CoSchedule with a marketing focus, Kris believes it is also beneficial from an internal project management standpoint. It puts a formal process in place. All the checklist items and all the behind-the-scenes items that go into a large-scale effort are put into a central location with CoSchedule. It unites everyone involved with the effort on the same page.   Everyone can see what works well, what needs more work, and where the team must focus to get the product out the door. [09:53] Building a sales team Growing a sales team, of course, presents a challenge because there are as many different ways that salespeople sell and lots of ways that people sell effectively. Kris works to understand how his team sells best and to accelerate that process and help them get better every day. He scales the number of reps on his sales team based on demand. The number of sales calls, for example, on a rep's calendar really does determine the growth of that team. Kris says they rely on the marketers to continually charge forward with fresh, hot leads so that they can then continue to add more in sales. [11:26] Kris uses his personal experiences as a way to motivate his sales team. In the past, he worked for a large banking finance and software company where it didn't matter so much whether he hit his sales goals. With a smaller company like CoSchedule, however, every single sale matters. Every dollar matters to everyone involved.   As a smaller company, Kris is able to focus on the people who work for him as individuals. Kris expects that the CoSchedule will continue to add to their sales team. He hopes to continually increase the level of sophistication used to deploy that team. [Tweet "When moving from an inbound model to a sales-driven model, you need to jump on the phone. See if the market is there before you hire people. #salesdriven"] Know if there is validity to your product first. You'll be surprised to learn what your product can do. "Full-Fledged Sales Team" episode resources If you would like to reach out with questions or comments for Kris, he can be reached via email at Kris.nelson@coschedule.com 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. Use automated outreach to schedule your contacts and keep you from getting distracted. 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. You can expand your outreach and set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We'll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler's League to focus on prospecting. We'll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we'll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we're talking to Kathleen Hessert and Krista Jasso about the newest generation and how to adjust your sales process when selling Gen Z. Kathleen launched a project called We R Gen Z because she saw a lack of information about the newest generation because the marketplace was completely focused on millennials. Her organization conducts original research with a bank of 1,000 teens on a monthly basis to understand Gen Z. Krista -- a member of Gen Z herself -- works as the social media coordinator and intern coordinator for We R Gen Z and she believes that her generation will take the world by storm. Massive spending Gen Z spends $44 billion a year in the U.S. and influences $600 billion when it comes to household spending. It's vital for the marketplace to understand that Gen Z will make up 40 percent of the U.S. population and 37 percent of the global population by the year 2020. [3;47] Organizations that exclude them will be behind in their sales efforts, and they may never catch up. Mistakes selling Gen Z Sellers often talk down to Gen Z and the generation sees it. Gen Z has what Krista calls a "strong BS filter," and they see right through lack of authenticity. The generation values authentic, genuine behavior. Gen Z is turned off by fake, flashy marketing, instead choosing brands that are transparent about what they value and believe. [6:50] Gen Z cares about who is behind the product as well as the product or service itself. They care about what top executives are saying about topics such as politics and the environment. They include countless outside factors in their decision-making and if a brand doesn't match what they are looking for, they won't support it. Gen Z trends We R Gen Z hosts a trends panel that evaluates what's hot and what's not for the generation. Organizations should understand that Gen Z are the next creators and innovators. Those companies need the young people of Gen Z more than the young people need their products or services. They will buy or shun organizations based on their values and their passion. When Nike included Colin Kaepernick in its commercials, one member of We R Gen Z put all his Adidas clothes away and wore only Nike for two weeks to honor the decision made by the company. [10:19] The founder of Tom's Shoes gave $5 million to anti-gun-violence in response to a school shooting in California, marking the largest corporate donation ever to this particular issue.  The decision resonated with Gen Z. Business is more than money, especially for Gen Z. Older marketers can miss this if they try throwing more money at the marketing effort. Instead, marketers should look at the lifetime value of a Gen Z customer, which is a lot higher than the lifetime value of an older customer who has been with the company for a number of years. [12:13] Digital natives Managers must remember that Gen Z asks why. Previous generations were taught not to question authority, but Gen Z asks why, not to be disrespectful, but to understand the reasoning behind decisions. The generation is curious and they want to understand motivations. Gen Z is also the first generation to be true digital natives. They grew up in a world where the Internet was prolific. When they seek information, their first source is Google and their second is Instagram. [14:29] They tend to seek a wide range of different perspectives on a topic. If someone tells them one thing, Gen Z tends to seek other voices before making decisions because they are used to this expansive focus. Gen Z and video Gen Z responds better to video than past generations. Primarily, the generation watches YouTube and Netflix more than they watch regular television. Many of them learn new things like how to play instruments simply by watching YouTube videos. [16:39] Companies can't take traditional routes when selling Gen Z. We R Gen Z's research shows that 48 percent of respondents said that social media influences their purchases most. Big sales are next because the generation is more frugal than its predecessors and they are watching their dollars more carefully. Companies have to be on social media, present it in an awesome way, and be there for the right reasons at the right time. They've seen all kinds of incredible creativity and they expect it cool and different and new each time they interact with a brand. [20:45] Reaching Gen Z Brands must actually engage with this generation on social media. Consumers are looking to see that brands are liking comments and responding to comments. They must show that they are authentic and real. They must also understand that 64 percent of Gen Z will buy things via smartphones. Most of Gen Z will look to reviews before buying and that they will sometimes buy a product because their friends vouch for it. That suggestion will carry more weight than any marketing campaign. [24:41] Other findings are that 65 percent won't use voice tech such as Siri and Alexa to buy, though they will use them to accomplish tasks like making lists. Spending habits Krista told the story of one of their panelists who loved the idea of the Nintendo Switch so much that it motivated him to get a job. He hadn't had a job prior to that, but the new system motivated him to save his paychecks to purchase it. Gen Z is willing to save for a few months to buy a certain product, but if the product is overly expensive, they fear it will be irrelevant by the time they save for it, so they won't likely purchase it. [27:51] Gen Z has also learned from millennials that they don't want to be burdened with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Their frugality is based upon the things they've seen. they want a different future for themselves. As an aside, clothes, gift cards, and tech are the hottest items for Christmas when you're shopping for Gen Z. They also really appreciate making gifts for the people they care about. Marketing Look at your marketing and your brand. Look at how you're reaching Gen Z and think outside the box. It's a creative group of people and you have to stay a step ahead of them to gain their loyalty. [31:36] Think about accessibility. They want brands to be easily accessible and to make their lives easier and faster. Speed has become their standard, and they want easy. Brands that don't make it easy to access products and services don't stand a chance. "Selling Gen Z" episode resources Follow Kathleen and Krista atWe R Gen Z and find them on social media. If you're a brand seeking custom research, email them at askus@wergenz.com. You can also find Kathleen on LinkedIn or @kathleenhessert on social media. 3 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 and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We'll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler's League to focus on prospecting. We'll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we'll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. Check out our new semester of The Sales Evangelist Hustler's League. We're taking applications for the semester beginning in January, and we can only take a limited number of people. 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. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we discuss time management and how daily planning can help you be more effective in your role as a seller. It seems like there is never enough time in the day to get things done. We need an extra day in the week or at least an extra hour a day.  I was always so busy that it felt like I didn’t even have time to sit down to read a book. Even knowing how important personal development was, I always managed to put it off. Then, I took a vacation. It is amazing how much you can do when you are in the air for five hours with limited distraction. So what changed? What happened? The amount of time I had certainly didn’t change. My focus did. The concept of daily planning How many times have you been told to try daily planning? Now, how many times have you actually done it?  [02:04] If you are the modern seller that I know you are, you are distracted. Reading proposals, talking to customers, going to meetings, checking email ... These are all distractions. Every time an email pings your phone, you are pulled in a different direction. Everyone - from internal teams to clients to prospects to friends - is vying for your time and attention. As a result, important things fall through the cracks. You finish at the end of each day and find yourself wondering if you accomplished anything at all. It all goes back to the very powerful principle of being acted upon as opposed to acting. [02:59] Essentialism Thinking back to a previous episode when we spoke to Greg McKeown about his book Essentialism, I’m reminded that we can’t have priorities.  The plural of the word ‘priority’ shouldn’t even exist. There can only be one priority. Essentialism means to focus on the essentials. As a seller, your most important task is to bring in new customers and close deals. So, what activities will lead you to that result? Until you understand what you need to do as a seller, you will not be able to stay focused. You will always be acted upon. Sure, there will always be important distractions but oftentimes they are not the activities that you need to do to accomplish your goal. [04:46] To help you stay focused and have the time to do the things that matter the most, I want you to think about these three questions: Will the activity move me toward my essential goal of helping people make a decision and close a deal? Do I have to do it? Is this a task that no one else can do? Does it have to be done right now? If the activity doesn’t tie into your goal or responsibility, don’t do it. Set your focus Let’s suppose you’ve set a goal to prospect for 30 minutes a day. It is certainly a step towards achieving your goal, so it needs to be done. But do you have to do it yourself? Or could you pass some of it off to an internal sales team? Or to someone on Fiverr.com? Suppose you get a call from your boss and she needs a report. Does she need it right now? Is there someone on your team that can take care of it for you? If you are the only one who can do it, can you move it to the end of the day so as not to take away from your prime working time? When you focus on the essential things, the distractions fall away. The things that used to pull you away move out of focus. [05:41] I recommend taking an hour each week to plan for the upcoming week. Be sure you are fully vetted and ready so that you can avoid those distractions. What are the important tasks ahead? Schedule everything out. Set time for social media, time for prospecting, time for appointments ... You can even set time to receive emails using Boomerang, or Google, so that you aren’t pinged throughout the entire day.  [08:46] You are acting rather than being acted upon. Once you have the weekly focus set, spend a few minutes at the end of each day to make any necessary adjustments. You will already know what you will do the next day as soon as you arrive at the office. This makes life so much more productive! Plan your day Taking the time to plan your day will save you time. Forget about your friends' Instagram posts. Focus instead on the things that will help you grow your business, grow your pipeline and have a killer year. [11:45] Make the effort. If it sounds like too much work, then by all means - go back to winging it. But if you do, promise me that you will compare your results to the person who is not winging it. How much more productive are they? Are they hitting their goals? Are they working with less stress, fewer headaches, and less frustration? Probably. I share this with you because I’ve been there. I know it works and I’ve seen the huge difference it can make. Try it. Give it a month. I don’t think you will regret it. "Daily Planning" episode resources If you have additional questions or want more insight, email me at donald@thesalesevangelist.com. I may not answer it right away (because I'm scheduling my time) but I'll get back to you as soon as possible. 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 automated outreach that will help you schedule your contacts and it can help keep you from getting distracted. 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 and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We'll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler's League to focus on prospecting. We'll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we'll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com

Today we talk to Meridith Powell about driving sales in the 4th quarter and how organizations can drive success from the selling side as well as the leadership side. Meridith was voted one of the top 15 business growth experts to watch, largely because she is passionate about helping clients learn strategies to succeed in any economy. 4th quarter complications Meridith calls the 4th quarter of the year her favorite because typically organizations have relaxed a bit and let their guards down. That presents an opportunity for other organizations to put on what she calls a full-court press while everyone else has relaxed. Everyone takes their foot off the gas at the end of the year. They've been working hard all year, and they have achieved decent numbers, so they aren't worried about driving sales in the 4th quarter. They are tired, and when Thanksgiving rolls around, it's followed soon after by Christmas. The cold weather makes it an easy time to be a bit lazier. She calls it the perfect storm of sales laziness. You must keep selling during the 4th quarter to keep that quarter strong. Additionally, though, sales has a lag time. The sales you make in the 4th quarter will determine how well your 1st quarter goes. If you don't invest energy into 4th quarter sales, you'll establish a self-fulfilling prophecy for the 1st quarter and you'll be behind all year long. Begin in October It's never too late to salvage the 4th quarter. [Tweet "Embrace the 4th quarter as an opportunity. Shift your paradigm and recognize that this isn't the time to stop selling; it's the time to start selling. #4thquartersales"] Proceed carefully, though. There's a lot happening in the 4th quarter and your clients and prospects have to-do lists of their own. Establish a plan, and identify a sales leader who will focus on driving sales in the 4th quarter. Even if you don't have one, determine who you need to connect with during the 4th quarter. List your top clients, your best prospects, and those who could be doing more business with you. Once you have that list, design the touches. Focus on thanking them for an amazing year and let them know you'll get in touch with them at the first of the year to establish a plan for the next year. Plan for sales in January If you want your January to be productive, you must lay the groundwork in December by booking appointments. By connecting with people at the end of the year and again in January, you keep yourself visible with your most important customers. As a bonus, you're likely to find organizations that need to dump money before the end of the year to avoid paying taxes. For those customers who haven't yet committed, you've taken one more step to move forward at a time when everyone else is resting. 4th quarter trouble If you haven't hit your numbers by the start of the 4th quarter, you're likely in trouble. Desperation sets in and you make decisions you wouldn't otherwise make. Meridith said that when she consults teams, she often finds that 4th quarter is their greatest struggle. She insists that buyers can smell desperation and they aren't interested in working with desperate sellers. When your 4th quarter strategy focuses on thanking them for their business and coordinating for the 1st quarter of the following year, you lose the smell of desperation and you end up making deals. You're also setting yourself up strong for the new year so that next year's 4th quarter won't end badly. Give up the day If you're listening to this episode and you haven't hit your numbers for the year, let it go. Think of it as cheating on a diet and realize that you'll do better next time. If you push hard to make your numbers now, you may get there, but you'll likely drive your customers away. Instead, focus on staying visible and starting 2019 really strong. You'll maintain your credibility and you'll keep your focus on the buyer instead of focusing on yourself. You can't play basketball by focusing entirely on the scoreboard. You have to look at the ball. You must keep your focus on the prospect. Take responsibility The reality for sales leaders is the same for sellers. If your team hasn't hit its goal by the 4th quarter, you don't want to give up the lifetime cycle of a client in an effort to make last-minute sales. Take responsibility for the fact that your team didn't hit the goals. As a leader, you have total responsibility for those goals. You must give them the strategy, the plan, and the accountability to achieve their numbers in the next year. Begin with an autopsy of the things that prevented you from hitting your numbers. Resolve to learn from your mistakes, and do it as a team. Determine the things you did really well, and try to identify where you lost deals. Meridith calls it seeds, weeds, and needs. Seeds are those things we need to keep doing in order to drive growth. Weeds are the things that weigh us down and get in our way. Needs are the things we need to be doing that we aren't currently doing. Make sure to include a plan for how you'll measure your success and how you'll stay accountable. Learn from each other. Make it safe to fail If someone on your team loses a deal to a competitor, make it safe for your team to evaluate what happened with the deal and to coach each other toward success in the future. If you have discipline issues, keep those separate from the coaching environment. You must make it safe for your team to share what is working and what isn't working. Help your team develop those skill sets to succeed. Fill a dry pipeline fast If you find yourself in the 4th quarter without the numbers you need, Meridith has a few ideas to help you fill a dry pipeline fast. Before you try them, commit to keep yourself out of this situation in the future, but use these for emergency situations. Make a list of your 10 best customers and do a holiday check-in. During the call, ask about their goals moving forward. You can find the rest of the ideas in Meridith's blog here, but use these sparingly, and refuse to put yourself in this situation again next year. The fourth quarter is a major opportunity. Don't treat it as a time to take your foot off the gas. "Driving Sales in the 4th Quarter" episode resources You can find Meridith's blog at valuespeaker.com, where you can also access free tools and resources. Find Meridith on the social networking sites, but most often on LinkedIn. 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 and it allows you to set it and forget it. Your prospecting will never ever be the same. We'll use prospect.io in the upcoming semester of TSE Hustler's League to focus on prospecting. We'll give you insights and tools that will help you gain new customers. In addition, we'll provide training and strategies that you can implement today to ensure constant flow in your pipeline. Check out our new semester of The Sales Evangelist Hustler's League. We're taking applications for the semester beginning in January, and we can only take a limited number of people. 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. 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! Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound.Mentioned in this episode:HubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOSHubSpot and bluëmago | STUDIOS hubpspot.com/marketers bluemangostudios.com