Conquer Local Podcast

For sales professionals, empathy in sales is essential because, without a relationship, there's no trust. Don't reserve it exclusively for deals you're trying to close immediately.We have Jerry Acuff, CEO & Founder at DeltaPoint, as our guest this week on the Conquer Local Podcast. Jerry was a reluctant salesperson. When he realized his dream of becoming a college football coach wouldn't come true, he stumbled into sales. He says so himself that he would never hire himself. Every step of the way, Jerry has remained humble to his success. Jerry drops his vast amount of knowledge with us; do what is right by your customer—even if that means they don't do business with you—trust is the most important thing you can have with a customer. Empathy in sales has to be there right along with trust. "People buy things from people they like; people buy from people they like and trust."Jerry’s expertise has led to numerous awards and recognitions, including the title of one of the 50 best salespeople of all time and one of the top 10 sales experts in the world, according to salesgurus.net. Jerry has been featured on MSNBC and the ABC Radio Network, as well as on TheStreet.com, WSJ.com, Fortune, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, Managed Care Pharmacy Practice, Fast Company, Selling Power, and “Selling Power Live.” He shares his passion for selling and building business relationships in his 3 best-selling business books: The Relationship Edge, The Relationship Edge in Business, and Stop Acting Like a Seller and Start Thinking Like a Buyer. Jerry is the CEO and founder of DELTA POINT in Scottsdale, Arizona. DeltaPoint works with sales and marketing leaders to implement innovative ways to sell and market in today’s crowded marketplace.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy. 

If you have ever worked in B2B software for any amount of time, you have probably stumbled across the IT Channel and didn't even know it.Andrew Down, Director of Sales for the IT Channel at Vendasta, never thought of himself as a technical person, but 13 years in the IT industry says otherwise. In this episode, we discuss the MSPs (Managed Service Providers), the VARs (Value Added Resellers), and what the difference is between them. The reseller channel is essential in B2B tech, both for end-users, many who buy 100% of their technology through a reseller, and for software companies, some who sell exclusively through the channel. Like almost everything else in technology, the IT Channel is changing. Fast.Andrew Down is a Saskatchewan-based business professional and entrepreneur with strong corporate, non-profit, and public sector sales experience. Other experience includes senior leadership, strategic planning, business development, VAR/MSP/IT Channel, marketing, event management, consulting services, and training. Andrew has a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing from the University of Saskatchewan and has been in the IT industry for over 12 years. He has a passion for empowering businesses to embrace leading-edge technology solutions to improve business operations. Andrew possesses a keen interest in personal and professional development, including networking, non-profit/community engagement, connecting, and continuous learning.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

How does a marketing agency find success through the pandemic, and how can they help their community? It's about keeping local businesses informed and helping them succeed. If they succeed, you succeed.  We have Mitchell Slater, Founder and CEO, from Slater Strategies joining us from Alaska/Florida. Mitchell got his start at just 17 years old in print advertising and quickly realized he had to make the shift to the digital space. He found early success by attending conferences and learning from others' mistakes who have tried and failed. As many agencies went through the same problem, finding success through the pandemic, he knew he needed to figure out how to adapt and help local businesses. Through the challenges that 2020 brought, Mitchell had his most successful year to date. He did this by educating the local businesses around him, finding his niche, and utilizing his network. A key piece to Mitchell's success was no longer being bound by geography because the entire world went remote.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

The probability of selling to existing customers is 60-70 percent, and the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5-20 percent.Master Sales Series is back again; we are reviewing the benefits of marketing to existing customers. As sales professionals, we put a ton of effort into lead generation, but we miss out on opportunities by ignoring the customers we already have. We will go through these five steps:What are the benefits?Before you sell - re-discoverMarketing to customers in the retention stageMarketing to customers in the advocacy stageOnboarding at every stageStudies show 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, but most only spend 21% of their marketing budgets on customers they already have. It's so important to redirect some of our time and effort towards customers who already see the value. They will thrive, and so will you.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

What does the state of local businesses in Italy look like as we reach the pandemic's first anniversary? Conquer Local travels to Italy to speak with Roberto Giacchi, CEO at Italiaonline. Italiaonline is the largest and top digital group in Italy; they are an email provider, web advertising sales agency, and digital communication agency. They truly act full circle in the digital world, both in what they do and who they talk to. George and Roberto discuss what makes Italiaonline's business model unique and different than the rest of the country, the state of local businesses in Italy due to the pandemic and how businesses adapted to the mandatory lockdown, and the toil of working remote as we reach the first anniversary of when the pandemic started.Born in Turin in 1968, he graduated in Economics from La Sapienza University in Rome. His career began at KPMG in 1994. In 1998 he joined TIM group and followed the M&A activities for the international development of the group in Latin America and Europe. In 1999 he joined Bain & Company, where he followed projects of strategic, commercial, and financial nature, in particular for the Telecom, Internet & Technology sector, becoming Partner in 2005. In 2007 he was appointed CEO of PosteMobile and leads the company from its foundation throughout the start-up phase until its success on the market. In 2014 he moved to Poste Italiane and assumed responsibility for the Mail, Communication, and Logistics business unit, participating with this role in the group's successful IPO up in 2015. Subsequently, in 2016 he assumed responsibility for all Poste Italiane Group products of the Business and P.A. Market. In 2017, he became Group Chief Financial Officer of Poste Italiane; in December 2018, he is appointed CEO of Italiaonline.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

The channel software stack comprises a group of technologies that help companies develop, design, and execute plans to find, recruit, onboard, develop, enable, incent, co-sell with, manage, measure, and report on partners.Influencer of the year - Jay McBain, Principal Analyst - Channels, Partnerships & Ecosystems at Forrester, joins the Conquer Local Podcast this week. Jay brings the fire by bringing the knowledge around everything around Channel Software, Channel Partners, and Channel Tech Stack. He can speak to almost everything; we dig into Google eliminating cookies, why 76% of CEOs believe their business model will be different in 5 years, and how Apple updated their phones to be completely anonymous. He shares four things that every company in every vertical is becoming a tech company: Automation, Cloud Acceleration, Remote Technology, and Partner Experience.Jay McBain is one of the most visible and respected thought leaders in the global channel. Named 2021 Channel Influencer of the Year by Channel Partners Magazine, Top 40 Under Forty by the Business Review, and numerous channel magazines top influencer lists, he is often sought out for industry guidance and future trends. He has spent his 27-year career in various executive channel sales, marketing, and strategy roles within IBM, Lenovo, and ChannelEyes. Jay is the principal analyst for global channels, partnerships, and ecosystems at Forrester, one of the world's most influential global research and advisory firms.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.Resources:Channel Software Tech Stack 2021What I See Coming For The Channel: 2021

The sales funnel: everything you need to know about top, middle, and bottom of funnel.Master Sales Series is back with another episode. This time we are exploring the various segments of the customer journey. We examine the top of funnel, middle of funnel, and bottom of funnel. The customer controls the journey as to where they are in the funnel. A staggering 83% of the customer's journey in 2020-2021 is now spent doing independent research, and 17% of the time is spent talking to a salesperson.If we are looking at the lens from a content marketing perspective - The top of funnel is all about learning and exploratory; examples of this would be blogs, podcasts, videos, and infographics. The middle of funnel is the consideration stage where you build trust with the customer; this would include eBooks, case studies, gated content, and email campaigns. The bottom of funnel is all around buying and negotiation; this can look like product FAQs, free trials, demos, and presentations.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Out of chaos comes innovation. Ecommerce has grown leaps and bound in the last year due to the pandemic, but it's clear - it's here to stay.Conquer Local is in Amsterdam this week talking with Stephanie Kirk, Director of EU & US Operations at Spotzer. Stephanie doesn't disappoint; she brings invaluable information on ecommerce. She provides talks tracks, breaks down what ecommerce means, and offers advice to the business owner who may be reluctant to jump on board the ecommerce train. It is expected that by 2040, 95% of all purchases will be via ecommerce. The top reason why people make online purchases is that they can shop whenever they want, 24/7.Stephanie did her degree in Theatre & Film, and gained skills in many transferable areas, even though she found being a Magician’s Assistant wasn’t as fulfilling as she imagined. But adaptability is key to a varied life. In 2010 she began a career in Tech, working her way through several key roles with Yell, the UK’s most prominent directory service. Steph’s remit encompassed customer service & process improvement, and, eventually, she headed up Yell’s Digital Agency, the flagship function after their transformation from print to digital. Being invited to join the team at Spotzer in 2018, after collaborating with them on various projects, was a pivotal moment in Stephanie’s career. In the last 2 years, she’s helped Spotzer continue to be successful through rapid change and expansion and now works on partnerships with 19 partner companies across Europe and the U.S.At some point, she had time to travel and thoroughly enjoys exploring new places across the globe, mainly by trekking, biking, or sailing. She and her team are really excited to work alongside Vendasta, and she’s eager to inject a little Spotzer magic to ensure top-quality products and services support more SMBs.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

In the digital landscape, where businesses are heading in Singapore, digital marketing tools and techniques provide business owners the best chances for competition, survival, and even growth.Get ready; our first guest from Singapore joins us this week - Fabian Lim, Founder of Click Media. He shares his interesting career path and how it led him to where he is today. We get a glimpse into what the digital landscape looks like in Southeast Asia, how their market is evolving into the same as western climates, and how they really dove headfirst in the DIY model to learn digital. Fabian shares how different countries have different levels of technology and understanding. For example, there was never a desktop and laptop phase. In Singapore, they skipped over it and went straight to mobile and tablet - the local businesses run everything off their phone.Fabian Lim is a serial online entrepreneur with over 18 years of management consultancy & digital transformation experience. After a six-year stint with Deloitte Consulting, he ventured into digital marketing. Today, he is Founder of WorldInternetAcademy.com & one of Asia’s foremost Omni-Channel Marketing experts, having trained over 10,000 practitioners over the past 10 years worldwide; and LifestyleTrader.org - the World's first 'earn-as-you-learn,' ROI-based, lifestyle trading system.He is also founding director of ClickMedia Pte Ltd, a digital marketing agency established in 2008 that specializes in Omni-Channel Marketing - specifically E-Commerce Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, Facebook Marketing, Google Search & Display, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, Web Analytics, Usability Analysis, E-mail Marketing & Marketing Automation and ChatBot Marketing.His online marketing clients include multi-national companies, public sector organizations, and top regional and local brands in the telecommunications, high technology, education, and retail industries, including Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Polytechnic, Estee Lauder, Asia Pacific Breweries, Bausch & Lomb, Fujitsu, Pet Lovers Centre & FarEastFlora.com. In 2016, he founded FlightSchool.sg - Singapore's first private flying school for aspirating aviators. From Sept 2017 to Jan 2019, he led Yellow Pages Singapore on a digital transformation journey as Chief Executive Officer. In fact, in just 8 months, he turned Yellow Pages from a traditional print publisher into a profitable digitally transformed organization.Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.

Sales is among the most challenging of occupations, even during the best of times. Toss in a global pandemic, and now we have to switch gears to remote selling. Countless hours and resources are spent identifying potential customers, nurturing leads, and closing deals. Much of the working world in a time of pandemic is living through the awkwardness and frustration that can come with remote work in 2021. That is the exact reason we are bringing the next Master Sales Series of 10 Tips for Remote Selling. George Lieth wants to share his knowledge with what has worked with his sales teams and pass them along in hopes the Conquerors can leverage them.Join earlyShare an agendaDress for successBe aware of your surroundingsBecome the master of muteStay seated, stay in frameMinimize distractionsHave empathy Plan for an effective kick-off and wrap upShutdown other programs. Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community and keep the learning going in the Conquer Local Academy.