Mental Selling: The Sales Performance Podcast

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.

How one leader's experience is perhaps part of a broader trend for coping with the challenges brought on by COVID-19. Our discussion with Principal Financial Group’s Gary Karthauser who explores how he’s adapting his leadership style to the challenges of leading teams in a pandemic. One seasoned leader’s insights into how values-based leadership and coaching provides a solid foundation for getting results in the most unprecedented of times.

Most organizations are quickly coming around to the view that virtual training is a must-have — given its obvious benefits. You might be relatively new to it and find yourself doing more virtual because of the crisis times we’re living in. Or maybe you’re more experienced — but you’d love a quick primer on some fundamentals. Seasoned trainer Johnny Walker has just that — with a look at how virtual compares to in-person training and insights for how to do it well. Virtual training is still sometimes viewed as not as effective as in-person, classroom training. But the reality is in some ways it's even more personal, engaging and creates greater training retention. What to know if you're testing the waters of virtual training- and how to get clarity around the fundamentals to create learning environments that generate greater competence and confidence. We also explore with Johnny what leaders need to do, the role of the facilitator and some fundamentals for making virtual training succeed.

In adversity lies the most opportunity. Opportunities arise in challenges and how you approach incoming storms. If you can step in and be a problem solver for your customers, you move yourself from being a vendor to a trusted advisor. See how finding sales opportunity during times of adversity requires shifting focus from selling, toward building connections with colleges and customers to set up future success. As the current economic downturn shows signs of changing where and how we work, what’s it take to adjust and lean in to new ways of connecting with customers and leading teams? Integrity Solutions’ Mike Fisher checks in with fresh insights to deepen how to adjust to the new normal.

Technology alone can't solve what ails the selling process in so many sales organizations. Mistakes so often made by salespeople today are based on simple mistakes grounded in false assumptions and beliefs about people, selling and buying. Our podcast interview with George Bronten, founder and CEO of Membrain and author of the new book 'Stop Killing Deals'. Our conversation with George explores his thinking around sales training, motivation drive, the role of sales managers and the importance of sales coaching.