Future-Proof Selling

Bill Wooditch’s journey started out as a long-haired, beer-drinking failure. Crippled by fear, he couldn't seem to sell water to a dying man in the desert. His biggest fear of all was selling himself short and not living up to his full potential.  By adjusting, adapting and mastering the art of authenticity, empathy, and relentless activity, he transformed fear from being his worst enemy, into his greatest secret weapon.  Bill became the top salesman at a Fortune 500 company in less than 2 years, a top producer for two consecutive years at the 6th largest insurance brokerage firm in the world, and then went on to create his own multi-million-dollar company. He’s also the author of “Always Forward” and “Fail More,” a Wall Street Journal bestseller.  We discuss : Bill’s personal story and how he turned his life around. The importance of momentum. How his success was driven by relentless focus on activity, execution and personal improvement. The importance of maintaining activity even when you have success. Being present and alleviating uncertainty with clients. Being proactive when working-from-home. Key methods from Bill’s two books. Having ‘Walk Away Power’. Find out more about Bill at www.billwooditch.com.

Mark McInnes is a prospecting expert and Australia's leading social seller. He has just written an outstanding book on outbound sales called Tactical Pipeline Growth, Winning the Outbound Battle for New Business.  Mark has extensive frontline experience and has written the book for frontline sellers to be successful in today's market.  We discuss Designing the right outbound cadence How often and which channels should we use Targeting tech decision makers Crafting the right messages Mark’s eight week prospecting plan How Mark gets a 60% response rate How to leverage “Public Signals” Effectively researching prospects and companies Avoiding the feast and famine of sales Key outbound metrics Connect with Mark on LinkedIn, visit his website and find his book here.  

Renee Zamora is a guru on virtual sales management and the author of Part Time Sales Management. He is the founder of Sales Manager Now, a virtual sales management practice supporting small business. He previously had 27 years in sales and sales management. Key Points of our Discussion: Rene’s early sales career and transition into his own business How a good manager can insulate you from company challenges The challenges small businesses have setting up their sales structure The concept of virtual sales management How virtual sales management works The value proposition for small businesses The power of delegation to your sales team vs micromanaging The importance of building trust with your team Top tips on working remotely   Learn more about Rene and his company here : Web page:  salesmanagernow.com Part-Time Sales Management (book):  Twitter:      salesmanagernow LInkedIn:    https://www.linkedin.com/in/renez/

Bill Cates is the author of the new book Radical Relevance, a method for getting the attention of our prospects and customers. Bill has been an entrepreneur for almost 40 years. He has started, built, and sold two successful book publishing companies. After the sale of his second publishing company, Bill devoted the last 25 years to the art and science of relationship marketing.  He has three books on the topic of referrals: Get More Referrals Now, Don’t Keep Me a Secret, and Beyond Referrals. We discuss The importance of narrowing your message. The neuroscience of getting our customers attention. Why we should develop separate messages for different targets. The power and importance of referrals. A "Referral Process Masterclass". The anatomy of effective prospective emails. Learn more about Bill at www.ReferralCoach.com and his fantastic book Radical Relevance

Mark McInnes is a prospecting expert and Australia's leading social seller. He has just written an outstanding book on outbound sales called Tactical Pipeline Growth, Winning the Outbound Battle for New Business. Mark has extensive frontline experience and has written the book to help frontline sellers be successful in today's market.  Some Key Points of Interest The confusion about how to prospect today  How to have high value conversations Being persistent with their outbound and how to do it How to get 60% conversion rates on your prospecting The Quality vs Quantity debate Understanding your Compelling Story  13% of salespeople get 90%+ of the prizes When business gets difficult, the gaps start to show How Mark applies his military background to sales Mark’s five Pillars of prospecting framework  How to target and craft effective messaging  The #1 too you must be using in your cadence To learn more about Mark Connect on LinkedIn and/or Visit Mark's Website

Larry Levine is an expert in B2B sales in the technology industry.  With over 27 years experience, Larry knows what it takes to be successful in the sales world and now shares his expertise by coaching other B2B sales professionals. Larry is the author of ‘Selling from the Heart’ and is a firm believer that pushy sales tactics should be shunned in favour of transparent customer relationships.  Larry expands on this throughout the episode. In this episode Steven and Larry explore: What being authentic means to Larry and how to provide substance to your customers Larry opens up about his challenges with understanding how his clients viewed him as a sales professional Why your online persona should translate to how you engage with people in the real world How improving your writing skills and starting a blog can help to build your network and credibility Understanding modern branding tools like social media and setting realistic expectations around brand growth Stepping up your game when it comes to creating first impressions with potential customers Vulnerability and how it can work in your favour within the sales space Being genuine first up to prevent issues further down in the business relationship Larry’s final points on how to sell from your heart You can check Larry out in the links below - Larry Levine - Website Larry Levine - LinkedIn

Alana Brittain has had a distinguished sales career in the healthcare and technology industries and is currently a Sales Leader for LinkedIn Australia. Alana wrote a great article “Top 5 Tips for New Parents Returning to work”, which created a lot of interest. Here is an excerpt from the article “Choosing to return to work after having a child can be a very personal choice. For some it can be weeks, for others years. It completely depends on what your priorities are and what works for you and your family. After having my daughter eight months ago, I decided to start working again after three months. And it was an eye opener. Despite all the planning and organisation before my daughter’s birth, I completely overlooked everything that is impacted after the big event, particularly the fact that both motherhood and work are demanding, tiring, and stressful experiences.” In this episode Alana and I discuss: The anxiety of having a new role and taking maternity leave The challenges of life after the event The feedback, positive and negative, when returning back Realising you can’t do it all and how to make trade-offs that work Getting better organised at work The importance of communicating with colleagues and your outside support team. Managing your back-up resources effectively Importance of delegating outsourcing Dealing with sleep deprivation Coping with feelings of guilt The importance of opening up the discussion on this topic Check Alana out here https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanabrittain/

Scott Leese works with both domestic and international companies on sales strategy, process, people, pitch and more, with a focus on companies scaling from $0 - $25m ARR. He spent his entire professional career building and scaling sales orgs at SaaS companies. He has a proven track record of lifting organizations to new heights with limited resources allocated to the task at hand.  He also founded Surf and Sales in 2018 to provide an alternative to standard sales conferences by providing deeper learning, meaningful relationships, and an experience that will transform you and your career or business. He wrote an Amazon #1 best-selling book on sales called: Addicted to the Process, How to Close Transactional Sales with Confidence & Consistency- that was released in 2017. It made the list of Book Authority’s 100 Best Sales Books of all time. Some key points of our discussion: Why Scott says “sales is the garbage can of jobs” How becoming a sales professional is a platform for employment security Scott’s personal journey and battle with health during his 20s The importance of process and not focusing on results Scott’s method for uncovering problems, building pain and creating urgency The opportunity we have right now to develop our skills How sales success sometimes leads to corner cutting and bad habits The importance of not skipping steps in your process Find out more about Scott at https://scottleeseconsulting.com and find his book at https://scottleeseconsulting.com/get-the-book/

So many organisations undertake sales training expecting behaviours to change and results to turn around but it rarely happens. But usually within a month the sales team falls back into ingrained habits and sales managers are busy as ever managing the business.  Very few sales managers coach and even fewer coach effectively. John Hoskins shares with us the secrets to driving lasting change in sales organisations through effective and ongoing coaching systems. Some Key Points of this Discussion: The challenges of coaching in today’s environment. The importance of coaching in driving lasting change Allocating time to coaching and feedback The 70/20/10 coaching framework Building a coaching plan Having a sales system to coach to The importance of “ride alongs” for on the spot coaching, call planning, call execution and call post-mortems  The five levels of salespeople and how managers can categorise their team Approx 50% of our salespeople are “technical tellers” who talk too much and lose control of the sale The five levels of sales management, and how most managers are stuck in the buddy, parent or boss model You can find more about John, his company and books here LinkedIn | Website

Learn how Matthew Barnett - Papa Bear at SaaS company Bonjoro tripled his response rates with one sales technique. Matthew was originally an accomplished British Industrial designer & Artist, who turned everything upside down to launch a tech company in Sydney Australia. After a couple of false-starts, Bonjoro was born from a sales hack for his first business, where Matt would send every new lead a personal video to delight and surprise them.  When customers started asking how they could do the same thing, Matt and the team decided to go all-in on the idea, and 3 years later Bonjoro has snowballed with customers and team all across the globe. Matt’s love of building great products is only surpassed by his total commitment to building great business culture, and Matt asserts that Bonjoro’s “customers as friends” culture has been the main driver for the business’ success.  His goal is to be the next Zappos, to be most loved brand in the world.” Key Points of Our Discussion :  How Matt discovered the power of video email. How video gets roughly 3x response rates. Why video is more effective than voice mail and regular email. The importance of trust. The importance of relationships and connecting. The effectiveness of authenticity and personalisation in sales. How opening the sale well can improve your close rates and referrals. Bonjoro’s own internal sales process. The importance of taking care of existing customers. Check out Matt and Bonjoro out at www.bonjoro.com and on LinkedIn