Sales Gravy: Jeb Blount

On this Sales Gravy podcast episode Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Alex Goldfayn (5 Minute Selling) discuss why text messaging is not a substitute for talking with people. This is Part One in our series on 5 Minute Selling - how to get a massive amount of sales activity done, a few minutes at a time. Just Texting It In On this episode Jeb tells the story of a lazy sales rep who lost his business that because he began "texting it in" rather than interacting by phone. "A year earlier, text became his primary channel. Where we used to talk, now he never called. He was no longer blending texting into his account management process; texting had become his account management process. If he had an upsell or special offer, he sent it via text. When it was time to restock, he sent a text. Soon, I started to feel that he was taking me for granted, like he felt he no longer needed to make an effort in order to keep my business. Sadly, for this account manager, one of his competitors called me. She invested in the relationship. I gave her a little of my business and she did a great job. As the business relationship bloomed, I gave her more and more of my business. Soon she had it all." Text Messaging is Not a Substitute for Talking With People This is the dark side of text messaging. It’s fast and easy, but it is not a substitute for talking with people and investing in relationships. Interpersonal communication is a combination of words, voice tone, body language, and facial expression. Since stakeholders cannot associate the words in your text messages with the context of your voice tone and facial expressions, they assign their own meaning, which can lead to miscommunication, or, in Jeb's case, resentment. Virtual Selling Skills Training gives your sales team the tactics, tools, techniques, and strategies to remain relevant and competitive in the ever-changing environment of modern sales.

On this Sales Gravy Podcast episode Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Anthony Iannarino (Eat Their Lunch) get down and dirty about why salespeople need to adopt a phone first approach to outbound prospecting sequences. Three Reasons Salespeople Default to Email for Outbound Prospecting There is no tool in your sales arsenal that is more powerful than the phone. None. Yet sales professionals across the spectrum have abandoned the phone for spamming prospects with an endless stream of email. Fear of the Phone In many cases this destructive behavior has its origin in fear. These salespeople are afraid of rejection and therefore avoid talking to people. Email allows them to keep people at arms length. Ignorance of the Power of the Phone in Outbound Prospecting In other circumstances, it is a case of ignorance. Salespeople have been blasted with the false message that the "phone no longer works." They've been lead to believe that the only way to effectively prospect is by email. Therefore, they stuff outbound prospecting sequences with spammy emails rather than leading with the phone first. Leadership Failures Finally, there is the failure of leadership. From sales managers to marketing organizations, salespeople are not being taught how to do outbound prospecting by phone or held accountable for talking to people. Leaders, through their actions and inaction, encourage email first vs phone first outbound prospecting sequences. This results in thin pipelines and, in many cases, a negative impact to the company's brand. Phone First Outbound Prospecting Sequences The objective of outbound prospecting sequences is to improve the probability of engaging a prospect. For this reason, sequences deploy multiple communication channels and prospecting touches over set duration of time. The key to effective outbound prospecting is talking to people. So, for best results, front load your outbound prospecting sequences with phone touches. The phone is the easiest and fastest means of engaging in conversations with and setting appointments with high quality prospects. Therefore, to fill your pipeline faster, in less time, lead with a phone first approach on outbound prospecting sequences. We created a new FREE guide to help you build better prospecting sequences called Seven Steps to Building Effective Prospecting Sequences

Mastering the "Yes - And" Sales Improv Framework Ever been caught flatfooted when a buyer throws an unexpected objection at you? It turns out that improv can help you handle it and increase sales. On this Sales Gravy Podcast episode, Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and Gina Trimarco engage in a fun discussion on how to increase sales with improv. You'll learn how developing the same skills comedians and actors use on stage, can help you in front of buyers during sales conversations. Improv is the art of off-the-cuff, un-scripted comedy in which the actors respond to cues from each other rather than reading from a set script. The most important keys to effective improv are listening, accepting, and leveraging the "yes-and" framework. Sales improv helps you increase sales by: Becoming more confident Being present and in the moment Building sales conversation organically Asking better questions Being a better listener Keeping buyers engaged Detaching from outcomes During the podcast, Jeb and Gina demonstrate the "Yes-And" improv framework and Jeb fails miserably. The good news is the “yes-and” improv motion is easy to learn with practice. Mastering this framework is the key to increasing sales with improv. Gina also shares her inspiring entrepreneurial story about how she built her sales improv training business. Gina combines street smarts and improv comedy skills with her experience in the corporate and entrepreneurial worlds to teach sales professionals improv techniques.

Starting a B2B Podcast is a Smart Virtual Selling Strategy On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, Jeb Blount (Virtual Selling) and James Carbary (Content-Based Networking) discuss how starting a B2B podcast can elevate your personal brand and build familiarity. Familiarity Leads to Liking In Sales, familiarity is powerful because familiarity leads to liking. When people are familiar with you, the more likely they'll be to engage on prospecting calls and feel comfortable with you on virtual sales calls. Familiarity is virtual selling lubrication. It takes the friction out of virtual communication and makes everything easier. The lack of familiarity is why you get so many objections. When people don’t know you, it’s much harder for them to trust you. To build familiarity, you must make a direct investment in improving the awareness of your name, expertise, and reputation. Listening to a podcast is such an investment and, one that will pay huge dividends. The Virtual Selling Book Virtual Selling is hot. Smoking hot! Because, to remain relevant and competitive sales professionals must learn how to engage prospects and close deals in a virtual environment. This is exactly why you need my new book Virtual Selling. In Virtual Selling I teach you exactly how to gain a powerful competitive edge and crush your competitors by leveraging virtual communication channels. Don’t walk, don’t wait, don’t hesitate. Go get Virtual Selling now. It is a run-away best seller for one simple reason. The techniques, tactics, and skills I teach you in Virtual Selling work.

Open yourself up to new opportunities It's difficult to see new possibilities during this crisis. It seems like we've been in this pandemic for years rather than months. Secretly, most of us have been living with the hope that the coronavirus pandemic would be over quickly and that we'd get back to normal. With the new surge in cases, what is becoming clear is that everything has changed, that there is no going back, and that the only thing we can count on is new possibilities. In Coronavirus Talk #8, I discuss why it is important that you shift your mindset now so that you are looking though the windshield rather than in the rear view mirror. Adapting to A New Reality The last time I came to you with a Coronavirus talk, it was way back in April. We were talking about gratitude. And a lot's happened since April. One of the things that happened to me was that I wrote an entire book, an 85,000 word book on Virtual Selling. And it's something that normally takes me 18 to 24 months. And I was able to focus my attention and get it done. This is one of the lessons that I've learned during coronavirus. There are all these new possibilities, different things that we can do. And I've heard a lot of people, very smart people, talk about how, even though it seems a little bleak right now, this coronavirus pandemic is going to launch an entire new wave of innovation and it's making a lot of us think differently. I think I told you in a previous talk that I was rethinking in fact, a lot of my values, and it's helped me, as a CEO, begin to transform my company, Sales Gravy, into a different company, and to grow faster. The reason that I'm back, because I really wasn't planning on any more coronavirus talks, is because the coronavirus is back with a fury. We're seeing cases popping up everywhere. Now we're shutting things down again. There's a little bit of panic. I think we're looking at some stiff economic headwinds if we don't get this under control. Everything Has Changed, Especially in Sales And a lot of folks who were thinking that we were going to get back to normal are now faced with the truth, that there is not going to be a "back to normal." Everything has changed and it will continue to change. And it's no different than what happened to us after 9/11. After 9/11, we were expecting things to go back to normal and they never really did. We've traveled again and we continued on with our lives, but security never changed in airports. And the way that we looked at the world, it was always jaded after that moment. Now, I'm not saying that the coronavirus caused us to look at the world with a jaded view. I think it's going to, like I said, open up new possibilities. And I think for all of the folks who were holding on to the hope that we will go back to normal, I think right now you're getting a massive wake up call, in particular with salespeople. Differentiate with Virtual Selling Because if you're in sales, you know that everything has changed and it is not going back. If you want to be relevant, if you want to be competitive, if you want to differentiate, you have to learn how to sell differently, which means you have to adopt new tools, which means you have to become good at virtual selling, and you have to do it now. That is a fact. Look, I'll admit that I was like a lot of folks. I believed that this would be over quickly. I wrote a book called Virtual Selling, expecting that it would have a short life cycle that it wouldn't live very long because people would get back to what we were doing before and back to normal. And now you can see, as the cases have picked up and as we are really coming to grips with the fact that we're in this for the long haul, that the truth is, is virtual selling is the way that we're going to move forward. Rise to the Occasion But here's the good news-- and we're getting this in from everywhere across industries, the size of companies, in different countries,

Shifting Initial Sales Meetings From Face to Face to Video Calls One of the most effective points in the sales process to leverage video sales calls and virtual selling skills is the initial meeting. The initial meeting is first step in the sales process. It is the appointment you (or your sales development rep) set during outbound prospecting or from an inbound lead. The objective of the initial sales meeting (often the first step in the discovery process) is three-fold: Make a great first impression and develop an early emotional connection with the stakeholder(s) Fully qualify the opportunity to determine if it makes sense for you to move to the next step with the prospect. Generate enough interest with the stakeholder(s) to motivate them to advance to the next step in the sales process. Effective Initial Meetings An effective initial meeting should be about 30 minutes in length and no more than sixty. Your primary goal is to close for the next meeting (based on the complexity and length of your sales cycle). discovery demo presentation In situations where the opportunity is not a good fit, poorly qualified, or the timing is wrong, you’ll want to walk away. Sometimes the stakeholders will not have enough interest to move forward and won’t set the next meeting with you. I disqualify between 30% and 50% of prospects on initial meetings and never move forward with the next step. For example: If you conduct ten initial meetings over the course of a week, about half will advance to the next step. Depending on your closing ratio, 1-2 of those will move on to closed/won. Of course, some delusional salespeople throw proposals at every prospect, regardless of qualification. This is a terrible drain on productivity and a waste of resources. Video Sales Calls are More Efficient for Initial Meetings A good field rep can handle no more than ten face to face, initial meetings per week and still have time for other important sales activities such as prospecting, discovery calls, follow-ups, and presentations. Most reps never even get close to ten a week. There just isn’t enough time in the day to do more. Driving to initial meetings, and other sales calls eats up the day. But, that all changes when sales reps cut out the windshield time and shift initial meetings from in-person to video. There are four benefits to shifting initial meetings to video sales calls: You’ll increase the number of initial meetings you can conduct a week, which increases the number of new opportunities advancing through your pipeline, which in turn increases the number of deals you close. Because video sales calls tend to be shorter than in-person calls and you eliminate drive time, you immediately become more efficient. You’ll face fewer prospecting objections. More prospects will agree to meet with you because a short video call (to determine if it makes sense to work together) is easier for them consume and lowers their risk of wasting time with you. Reduced travel costs. In Modern Sales, Speed Matters For many field salespeople, the idea of conducting initial meetings via video, rather than in-person, seems un-imaginable. There is no doubt that in-person communication is more effective. However, the efficiency you gain by shifting initial meetings to video sales calls more than makes up for not being there face to face. You’ll be able to conduct far more initial meetings, resulting in a bigger pipeline, and more sales. The good news is video sales calls, are the closest facsimile to being there in person. Done well, they open the door to deeper relationships, understanding, emotional connections and trust. In modern sales, speed matters. Blending virtual selling into your sales process makes you more agile. This allows you to move faster, become more productive, and shorten the sales cycle. Learn more about virtual selling and improve your virtual sales skills with Je...

On part five of this Sales Gravy podcast series on sleep and sales performance, Jeb Blount (author of Sales EQ) and Jeff Kahn (CEO of Rise Science) discuss how sleep can help you deliver better sales presentations. You'll learn the same technique that Jeff uses to help athletes lock in practice, improve memory, and reach peak performance. More Episodes of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part One of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Two of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Three of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Four of Sleep and Sales Performance

On part four of this Sales Gravy podcast series on sleep and sales performance, Jeb Blount (author of Sales EQ) and Jeff Kahn (CEO of Rise Science) discuss the two laws of sleep. Jeb and Jeff explore: Sleep Debt Circadian Rhythm Sleep Procrastination Techniques for battling insomnia More Episodes of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part One of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Two of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Three of Sleep and Sales Performance

In part three of this Sales Gravy podcast series, Jeb Blount (author of Sales EQ) and Jeff Kahn (CEO of Rise Science) discuss the bad things that happen to you when you don't get enough sleep, and how sleep impacts sales performance. Scientists have been studying sleep and health for over 100 years. They have proven that without enough sleep your health, motivation, passion, and cognitive abilities deteriorate. The good news is you can instantly feel and perform better by simply getting enough sleep. Listen to Part One of Sleep and Sales Performance Listen to Part Two of Sleep and Sales Performance

On part two of this Sales Gravy podcast series on sleep and sales performance, Jeb Blount (author of Sales EQ) and Jeff Kahn (CEO of Rise Science) discuss the impact of sleep on emotional intelligence and positive mindset. You will be surprised to learn that the lack of sleep makes it more difficult: to control your emotions perceive the emotions of others effectively manage sales meetings build relationships Jeff says that walking into a sales meeting without enough sleep is the same as going in drunk. You'll learn that the sleep you get tonight is the beginning of your performance tomorrow. Listen to Part One of Sleep and Sales Performance