Mental Selling: The Sales Performance Podcast

Company culture, communication and resilience are not just an internal concerns; they also directly affect your daily interactions with clients and, ultimately, your ability to meet and exceed sales goals. But how do you take them from concepts to action plans? And how can you measure progress and impact along the way? And how do you prevent it from being back-burnered by 'the urgent' of the day? In this episode, I speak with two senior leaders with Russell Investments, Tina Downing, Senior Director and Lead of AIS Business Solutions and Scottland Jacobson, Global Director, Talent Development, Learning & Development and HR Operations, about the importance and impact of purposefully building company culture, adapting sales to a remote environment, and much more. Join us as we discuss topics such as: - Company culture— what's different about attracting and retaining employees in a remote environment? - How remote selling can actually shorten the sales cycle - The 'Three P Process' that Russell Investments uses to guide and create better client conversations - How you can create more resilient, motivated sales teams  - Feedback- both positive and constructive- as the foundation of company culture and making everyone across the company better “You always have a company culture, whether it’s by plan or default...” -Tina Downing, Russell Investments Welcome to Mental Selling, your favorite sales podcast. Please rate our show, subscribe and leave a comment— we value YOUR feedback!

The handwriting's been on the wall for a while. We’re all inside sales now. Probably 10% of account executives are going back to the office after this pandemic's over. Everyone else is selling virtually. The technology is there, and companies are eager to use it. That said, technology alone can't solve sales problems. Technology and sales enablement tools have to improve efficiency. The tools you use need to help and not hinder the experience for salespeople and customers. Let’s guard our sellers against technology overload. Let’s make sure our tools add value and efficiency and productivity. The best of the best selling happens when there is trust. Let's slow things down a bit. We don't have to race to turn every demo into a sale. Slow down. Dig deep. Find the real issues. Advise. Teach. Coach. Be there for your customers. That's the type of inside salespeople we all want to do business with. On this episode of Mental Selling, I spoke with Bob Perkins, Founder and Chairman of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP), about the impact and future of remote sales teams, creating the sales leaders of tomorrow, and much more. Join us as we discuss: - Remote work—will salespeople want to come back to the office? - How to more efficiently use sales enablement technologies - Hunters vs farmers—how do you measure responsibilities? - Retention & developing the next generation of sales leaders - Encouraging internal sales team development via prioritizing sales coaching 163363

Relationships are not a one and done situation. You wouldn’t consider someone a friend if you spoke to them once and then didn’t hear from them again for years. Customer relationships are no different. If you create that initial contact, only to move onto the next lead shortly after, you’re setting yourself up for massive amounts of customer churn. You’ve spent time with a customer to identify a problem and commit to change. Don’t expect the customer to stay on course without holding their hand. Spend the time needed to gauge their progress. Communicate what is and isn’t being done. Otherwise you’re leaving all your hard work to chance. I speak with Matt Heinz, President & Founder of Heinz Marketing and host of Sales Pipeline Radio, about maintaining (and expanding) these relationships and more. “One of our largest jobs as sellers is to help build internal consensus towards a commitment to change.” -Matt Heinz Join us as we discuss: - Account based sales and marketing: how it has evolved & how to strategically select the right targets - The role an MQL (marketing qualified lead) can still have in an organization - Account based customer retention strategy & salesperson expectations - Rethinking the buying community & building your brand Want to learn more about the strategy, mindset and focus needed for account based sales and marketing strategies to work? Rethinking the buying community & building your brand? How to discern the right metrics to focus on from the wrong ones? This episode of Mental Selling is for you.

"Everyone acts like prospecting is binary- there's sending and not sending. It isn't. It's more than that. It's sending WELL vs. not sending well." -Ryan O'Hara What’s the best differentiator you have for standing out to prospects? It’s got to be the intricate, well-researched template you use, for sure… Or is it? 👀 Buying is individualistic now, which means sellers need to embrace the artistry and humanity of social selling. It turns out people are looking for more than a carefully constructed prospecting email sequence. They’re looking for YOU—your personality. I spoke with Ryan O’Hara about the shifting nature of sales and how he’s innovated his approach to connecting with new prospects. Join us as we discuss: ● The shift to individualistic selling and buying ● Strategies for injecting humor and personality into prospecting ● How leaders can enable sellers to prospect with individuality and personality Key Takeaways: - Harness the power of advanced sales prospecting to boost your clientele - Master the dynamics of hunter/farmer roles for increased profitability - Explore cutting-edge prospecting tactics to capitalize on hidden markets What to Listen For: - [02:58] The time and effort sales should spend on prospecting - [09:51] Getting out of a prospecting rut - [16:15] Injecting humor into your messaging - [20:56] The impact of creating 'win channels' - [22:41] Leveraging video for all it's worth - [33:20] Creating opportunities for people to get to know your name - [44:15] Obstacles and openings created for sales by the pandemic There is much to be done with personalization, and it doesn’t have to be stressful. In fact, it can (and should) be FUN. Ryan has cracked the code for having fun and breaking out of the “Groundhog Day” effect. From channeling the voices of different characters in emails to recording engaging videos, he’s tried it all. The future of sales and marketing is in unique connections, and people like Ryan are paving the way. “I want to figure out a way to attack (prospecting and social selling) in as creative a way as possible. And make it so that not only do they feel loved, and that I care about them, but they feel like I'm an interesting person that they want to do business with on an individual level.” — Ryan O’Hara Ready to take your prospecting and customer relationships to new heights? Listen now.

New sales leaders often feel as though all they do is put out fires. What they need to learn is that coaching is fire prevention. In this episode, I speak with Kevin Eikenberry, Chief Potential Officer at The Kevin Eikenberry Group, about empowering top performers to become great sales leaders. Join us as we discuss: - The blurry line between personal and professional development - 'Will versus skill' in leading people - Pitfalls for new sales leaders who were top individual performers - Transferable skills and skills to build - The underappreciated importance of sales coaching Raise your Mental Selling acumen with us on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, on our website, or anywhere you get podcasts. Please rate our show — it really helps us!

When a liberal arts major sits down and thinks about their future career, very seldom does it include a future in sales. But sales isn’t like it used to be — the typical salesperson today is also quite often an unintentional salesperson. The sales force of today must be deeply empathetic, curious and committed to filling needs. But how do we flip the narrative to attract these kinds of people? We speak with Mike Fisher, long-time Master Facilitator for Integrity Solutions and Chief Sales Officer at Sales Bullpen, about defining what a salesperson really is, how a mindset shift can change the public opinion (as well as their own), and how sales leaders need to look at their team. Join us as we discuss: How a company’s beliefs & view of selling ultimately shapes success Why a positive or negative view of sales will make or break a salesperson The mindset shift required for sales leaders Check out these resources we mentioned during the podcast: The Pay Is High and Jobs are Plentiful, but few want to Go Into Sales https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-pay-is-high-and-jobs-are-plentiful-but-few-want-to-go-into-sales-11626255001

Bringing customer value through a sales approach of asking better probing questions for sales. The questions to ask on a sales call that boost efforts to build rapport with customers. How understanding the probing questions to ask on a sales call and honing better sales prospecting techniques that include asking open ended questions builds rapport with customers. Master Facilitator and Business Associate Mike Fisher joins the Integrity Solutions podcast to discuss the value of asking good prospecting questions and actively and intentionally listening better. He offers real examples of what constitutes value for buyers and how sales people need to start being honest about how (or if) they're adding value and asking rapport building questions in every sales conversation.

Top-performing salespeople- do they make great sales managers? Well, it depends... New sales managers can struggle and stumble if they don’t address a fundamental challenge in their new job: The mindset that worked for them as top performing sales people won’t work for leading and motivating sales teams. And the key to their success as managers is how they shift and develop their coaching mindset to what works best for leading people. Global leadership development expert Loren Margolis joins the Integrity Solutions podcast to discuss the challenges, wrong assumptions and strategies for taking stellar individual sales contributors and helping them become great sales leaders and coaches.

Most economic indicators point to a strengthening economy, now that the pandemic is beginning to wane with the widespread rollout of vaccines. That begs the questions: Is your sales team ready to compete by creating value, not by describing product? Businesses are sitting on piles of cash. People are ready to spend now. But Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is real. Is your sales team truly ready to compete and win – or will you miss the coming wave? Integrity Solutions’ Chief Sales Officer, Bruce Wedderburn, explains what’s different today, including the role of the virtual selling environment and navigating inevitable distractions– and how what worked before won’t do the trick now. Learn to differentiate through the human experience: Pretty soon most purchases – from small scale B2C to even some larger corporate B2B purchases, can be made through automation without even needing to talk to a sales person. This is the digitization and commoditization of all products and services. This can be bad news but also a tremendous opportunity for sales reps to rise to the occasion. One of the things that COVID-19 taught us, especially in the early months of the pandemic, is the need for a human connection. The foundation for great sales performance is empathy, understanding and reassurance. Sales reps need to become trusted consultants to buyers by solving their business challenges and sharing insights not selling products — and going beyond immediate needs. In 2021, your team will need to focus on building trust and rapport in an increasingly digital world while becoming intimately familiar with your buyers’ goals and pains. More and more products are being seen as a commodity so trying to differentiate through describing why you’re different is further putting you into the commodity basket – because that’s what your competitors are doing. Differentiation and sales performance will come from how well your team can deliver value throughout the buying journey, the customer experience, not by how well you can describe your product.

As the COVID-19 pandemic crosses the one year marker, what’s working today for sales teams — and what innovative sales strategies are connecting with customers? Integrity Solutions CEO, Mike Esterday, explores what we’ve learned in the past year, how customers are different today, and how the sales function is seen as the key to recovery for most organizations. Virtual selling, which in truth has been around for a long time, is now the norm. It will be part of every salesperson's role forever now. And it's shown to be better for gathering and coordinating growing numbers of decision makers, setting appointments, pre-call planning and having effective sales conversations. Hopeful signs of recovery. New skills developed under incredible pressures. Many companies have shown tremendous resilience, survived, and even thrived. Those companies doing well are focused now more than ever on customer loyalty while shifting both their mindsets and skill sets. They emerge now believing they can perform at a higher level in this new year. Mike also discusses how managers are shifting their skills too- how they teach sales teams to sell virtually and how they coach virtually.