Future-Proof Selling

Daniel Priestley is a super successful global entrepreneur, international speaker and best-selling author. He is an expert on personal branding and one of the founders of Dent Global. In this episode we run through the framework from his book, Key Person of Influence, which helps to position us as go-to thought leaders in our industry. I actually did the KPI test before this interview and Daniel and I reveiw my scroes across Pitch, Publish, Product, Profile and Partnership. Some really great insights for me and my business which I think you will also find useful. Check Daniel out here. https://www.dent.global http://www.keypersonofinfluence.com/author/daniel/

Salespeople have a tremendous opportunity to stay and out in front of customers and get a jump on their competition by developing their own thought leadership. Bernadette McClelland, steps us through how we need to overcome our own mental barriers and put ourselves out there. We also need to be looking at customer problems from a psychological angle, what is 'behind the problem', why is the customer voicing this problem? Bernadette shares methods for asking the challenging questions.

Procurement & Sales do not need to be in conflict. Dealing effectivey with the procurement function is often key to success in major accounts. Thomas J. Williams is an expert in dealing with procurement and shares with us strategies he has used and taught for many years. Tom is the founder and CEO of Strategic Dynamics Inc, a firm which helps sales organisations sell more effectively by markedly improving their new hire candidate assessment process, sales productivity and business acumen. He is also the co-author of The Seller’s Challenge: How Top Sellers Master 10 Deal Killing Obstacles in B2B Sales. Think of it as a “tactical field manual” about what top-performing sellers do – how they research, plan and implement activities that maximize their chances of winning. And he recently released another co-authored book, Buyer-Centred Selling, which provides sellers strategies and tactics that help the buyer address eleven dilemmas likely to slow and obstruct the buying process. The reader will discover quickly that buying and selling are inextricably connected in their focus on helping the customer buy. https://strategicdynamicsfirm.com https://www.amazon.com/Buyer-Centered-Selling-Modern-Sellers-Collaborate-ebook/dp/B07X8XW5BS  

Making the most of every opportunity is critical in B2B especially where opportunities involve serious investment of time and resources. George Bronten is a Sales Effectiveness Pioneer. We talk about George’s sales journey and how he came to realise the importance of both PROCESS and METHODOLOGY. We discuss why reps that have great results elsewhere might not achieve great results for you and what we can do to make sales performance far more predictable.  George is the CEO and Founder of Membrain, the leading Sales Enablement CRM that enables B2B sales teams to execute their sales process, coach for higher results, and build predictable growth.    https://www.membrain.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgebronten/

Mary Henderson shares her personal branding journey which started in the year 2000. From the start she was very strategic and deliberate in developing her brand. This fuelled a super successful sales and management career where she created hypergrowth and led teams to the heights of success. She has since established herself as a Personal Branding authority. Mary shares with us how building our personal brand can help us stand out to customers and position us for the roles that we want. She also shares how to go about it, and how important it is to narrow in on our specific expertise.  We also cover why it's critical for leaders to work on their personal brand, and to do it while they are in their high level corporate roles.

An understanding of psychology is critical to success in business, in managing ourselves and working with customers and other stakeholders. Bernadette Mclelland in this discussion shares how understanding yourself first is the foundation for understanding others. We explore the importance of understanding what is underlying our and others motivations, why we say what we do and why we act like we do.  The sales profession is always subject to pressure and change, Bernadette has identified Resilience, Resourcefulness and Responsibility as key attricutes to foster to deal with these ongoing challenges. 

Hiring and keeping top sales talent is a hot issue. Kara Atkinson is "The Sales Recruiter" and is a thought leader on recruitment and retention best practices. Kara talks about how we can make our organisations and ourselves as leaders attractive to top talent. The personal branding of a sales leader is a big factor and one that many sales leaders are not leveraging, Kara gives us some critical advice in this area and many others. From positioning our JDs more effectively to the whole hiring process to the onboarding experience, it all plays a factor in getting what Kara calls 'sales virtuosos' into our business.  As well as being the CEO and founder of her own recruiting firm she also heads up the Sparc Network, a sales network exclusively for elite sales leaders. Please check Kara out here. https://www.karaatkinson.com https://www.karaatkinson.com/sparc-network

This podcast was featured first on the Business Essentials podcast  Many business functions have completely changed in the last 20 years including marketing, customer experience and supply chains. Yet the sales function has stayed very much the same, resulting in poorer business returns. Business consultant Steven Norman says that with so much information at the customers' fingertips, it's getting harder to sell. A paradigm shift is needed for many sales teams to achieve more tailored and professional sales skills. For more episodes from the Business Essentials podcast, go to https://omny.fm/shows/business-essentials

There is a lot of glamour and attention in the sales world around prospecting, outbound and winning new business, but we all know the real profit is in serving and growing our existing customers.  It is at least six times more expensive to win a new customer than it is to grow business with existing customers. Everyone understands the benefits but how do we effectively go about it? Darrell Hardidge is the bestselling author of The 10 Commandments of Client Appreciation and The Client Revolution, defining the roadmap to No.1 position. He is the founder of Saguity which helps design customer service metrics and processes for major corporations and private companies. They havecompleted over 750,000 end-user interviews focused on defining what creates service excellence, particularly in a challenging economy. Darrell shares with us how high customer satisfaction leads to strong business growth and helps us get away from price pressure. A must listen for all Sales and Business leaders. Check Darrell and his company out at the links below. https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrellhardidge/ https://saguity.com    

We are using our voice in Sales all the time but are we using it effectively? Using your time diligently and using your Voice effectively, were the two most overlooked areas of the sales profession according to sales legend Zig Ziglar. Denis Champagne is an expert on the voice and many aspects of sales and prospecting. We discuss using the Voice effectively and a range of other sales topics. Denis Champagne hails from Montreal, Canada and is the Founder and President of Lotus Communications, Denis has helped many companies improve their sales and marketing performance.   Check Denis out at the links below. https://www.linkedin.com/in/denis-champagne-47419a2/ https://lotuscomm.com