The Salesman.com Podcast

Sales is hard. You know it. Your family knows it. And (if you’re lucky) your employer knows it too. And despite the high potential earnings a successful sales career rakes in, the profession isn’t growing as much as other jobs. For many, it all has to do with rejection. Rejection is, of course, a given in this industry. And some reps take it more personally than others. But then there are the standouts. You know the type—they get rejected just like everyone else, sure, but they’re always quick to bounce back. They’re confident and self-assured, but never cocky. And when they speak to prospects, they’ve got this natural magnetism. This ability to instantly ease skepticism and let buyers know, “Hey, you can trust me on this.” What’s the secret? Self-esteem. And with a bit of work, you can cultivate a healthier sense of self-worth by following just a few proven techniques. In this guide, we’re covering how to improve self-esteem using The Increasing Self-Esteem Framework. Inside, we examine three core pillars to promoting self-confidence while looking at 12 proven techniques you can start using today. We’ll also take a closer look at the best benefits of upping your self-worth on the job. Let’s dive in. What Is Self Esteem? Pride, confidence, self-assurance, dignity—there are many words to describe self-esteem. But what does it all mean? Simply put, self-esteem is your general sense of self-worth. It’s how much you value your thoughts, emotions, and actions. And it’s influenced by beliefs about yourself as well as the beliefs you think other people hold about you. Your self-esteem doesn’t just affect your you-focused feelings though. That opinion you hold about your own value permeates through and influences so much more in your life. Self-confidence, whether low or high, affects: How you interact and connect with others. Risks you’re willing to take. Goals you’re driven to make. Motivation and ambition. Decision making. Physical and mental health. And much, much more. Ultimately, your self-confidence affects nearly everything in your life because self-esteem is directly connected to how you move through the world. Having poor self esteem and living your live via a series of negative beliefs can make the challenging and difficult situations that you'll find in a sales role much tougher than they need to be. Self Esteem Stats Low self-esteem and a lack of confidence can be devastating professionally. Here are just a few stats to prove it. Nearly 4 out of 5 women (79%) and more than 3 out of 5 men (62%) experience a lack of confidence in the workplace. (ResumeLab) Low self-esteem workers are 3X as likely to experience high stress on the job and professional burnout. (Do Low Self Esteem by Johnson et al.) Individuals with high self-esteem from blue-collar families earn $7,000 more per year than their less confident peers. In white-collar classes, high self-esteem professionals earn a whopping $28,000 more than their low-confidence peers. (Self-Esteem & Earnings by Francesco Drago) Nearly all employees think confidence is important for a successful job search (99%), believe they perform better on the job when confident (98%), and feel happier at work when they’re more confident (94%). (Indeed) Why Is Self Esteem Important for Salespeople Specifically? Now, self-esteem is integral for a healthy personal life and a successful professional one. That much is clear, and dare I say obvious. But why is it so critical for salespeople in particular? And why is knowing how to improve self-esteem a real game-changer for career-minded reps looking to grow? Well, it turns out there are three reasons in particular: It makes you rejection proof Buyers want to spend time with winners Your confidence rubs off on prospects More positive relationships with customers and colleagues Reduction in negative habits A) Self-Confidence Makes You Rejection-Proof In the world of sales, you’re bound to get rejected at some point. That’s just the nature of the business. And in reality, your product isn’t going to be a fit for 9 out of 10 prospects you talk to. But what defines an effective sales rep isn’t so much how many times they get rejected. Instead, it’s how they respond to that rejection. Do they lose motivation because of a “no”? Do they lose faith in their proven processes? And do they see that negative response as a judgment on their own abilities and worth as a sales professional? Or… Do they let that rejection roll off their back? Do they continue to power through each day? And do they tell themselves, “Hey, it’s just business”? A healthy amount of self-confidence makes it easier to recover from rejection and get back on the horse. And given how sales and rejection go hand-in-hand, getting this benefit alone is worth a small fortune in this business. “If you look at it from the point of where do you get the confidence and the motivation to go out there and to be successful, you have to address the individual's fear of being rejected and failing. And that is a constant. No matter the technology, no matter the age.” – Interview with Samuel D. Osborne, Educator & Author B) Buyers Want to Spend Time With Winners There’s no point in denying it—confidence closes deals. And I don’t mean the overly confident reps. The ones that wear diamond-encrusted watchbands, are quick to name-drop and tell you all about their wins, and promise their product will change your entire life (hint: it won’t). Instead, buyers are attracted to reps that know what they’re talking about, that are clearly and undeniably smart, savvy, and successful. They want to know that when they listen to you, their business is bound to grow. And they want to be better off because of your relationship. Do you know how you communicate that feeling? You guessed it—by demonstrating self-confidence. C) Your Confidence Rubs Off on Prospects Trust is obstacle #1 for sales reps. And as you’ve probably already figured out, buyers are often inherently skeptical of any sales professional or pitch, no matter how good it is. In fact, a study from HubSpot found that just 3% of people consider salespeople to be trustworthy, beating out only stockbrokers, politicians, care salespeople, and lobbyists. But when you know how to improve your self-esteem and speak confidently about the product you’re selling, you build trust. You go from being a simple scammer, a snake oil salesman, to an expert your buyers can turn to for valuable information and services. And the more your buyers trust what you have to say, the more likely they’ll be to close a deal with you. Simple as that. The Increasing Self Esteem Framework Now that we’ve covered why growing your self-esteem is so important (especially in sales), let’s dive into the meat of it all—how to be more confident. There are tons of books, seminars, and courses on the topic. And if you get lucky, you might find one that works for you. However, the truth of the matter is that growing your self-esteem is hard. For many of us, self-defeating behaviors are ingrained into every thought and emotion we have. They’ve probably even been that way since early childhood. But when you put in the consistent and concerted effort, you can learn to be more self-confident on the job. You just need to know how to do it. That’s why I created The Increasing Self-Esteem Framework, built specifically for sales reps. This 3-step framework (and 12 proven practices) is simple. Just: Increase Your Self Trust Increase Action Taking Increase Flexibility 1) Increase Your Self Trust At the core of the framework is boosting your self-trust. Self-Trust: Having the mindset that whatever comes your way, you will be able to handle it. Someone with a high degree of self-trust feels safe in relying on their own mental, emotional, and physical abilities to tackle life’s difficulties. If you can’t trust yourself, others won’t trust you either. And when you lack self-trust, you often feel conflicted—your wants and needs pull you in one direction, and your self-doubt pulls you in the other. Until you can trust your abilities, you’re always going to feel unsure. A lack of self-trust often doesn’t happen all at once. Instead, it’s a slow degradation caused by consistent self-denial. Maybe your truth was made wrong by family, friends, or society as a whole. Or maybe you’ve just gotten so used to going against what your heart told you because it was more convenient than to listen. 5 Self-Trust Boosting Practices No matter where your lack of self-trust comes from, there are ways to fix it. And the five self-trust boosting practices below are a fantastic start. As with anything to do with relationship building (regardless of whether that relationship is with us or with others), boosting trust should be seen as a war of attrition as opposed to a war of annihilation. In other words, do as many of these practices as often as possible, and let them grow with time. There is no one-size-fits-all, immediately actionable silver bullet that will help you build a bone-deep sense of self-trust overnight. Do your best to be compassionate and patient with yourself as you cultivate your self-trust. This process will take time. But trust me—it will be worth it. 1. Spend Time With Yourself Just like any relationship would struggle to thrive if the people in it didn’t have any quality time together, so too must you spend quality time with yourself. Make time to reconnect with yourself—your thoughts, your feelings, your desires—on a regular basis. If your schedule is so tightly packed that you don’t have any moments of quiet and solitude, then your self-trust has likely suffered. Do you go to bed with a racing mind? Thoughts shooting at you from every angle, begging for your attention? Then you might be overdue for some quality ‘me-time.’ The better acquainted you are with yourself, the more you’ll start to recognize yourself as an individual with true value. 2. Make a Self-Like List While your life’s choices shouldn’t be led by external validation, we all crave validation of some kind. And one form of validation that we often underutilize our own validation. That’s why making a list of things you like about yourself can be so powerful. Take out a piece of paper (yes, it has to be something you can physically write on) and get started. Write out at least fifty things. Anything goes—from past experiences and accomplishments to personal qualities, aspects of your relationships, and unique abilities. It’s challenging to believe that others like us for who we are if we don’t first like ourselves for who we are. So grab the bull by the horns and give yourself the validation that you may, at times, be seeking from others. 3. Take More Risks One of the best ways we can build self-trust is by regularly challenging ourselves. Regardless of whether or not we succeed in accomplishing the task, just the mere act of giving ourselves the challenge grows our self-esteem and self-trust. Doing so sends the message that we are someone who is worthy enough to be challenged with difficult things in the first place. Ask out that attractive person you have a crush on. Initiate that difficult conversation with someone who you have been meaning to clear the air with. Go after that job you want. Push yourself in your physical exercise goals. Move forward in your life and claim what you want. All of these types of actions build self-trust. You merely have to be willing to accept the challenge and do your best in the face of it. 4. Reward Yourself When you deprive yourself of rewards, your brain gets hard-wired to not give you the motivation you need to accomplish your goals. That’s why it’s so important to regularly reward yourself for your accomplishments. Whether you’re rewarding yourself for one of your goals being achieved or you’re just gifting yourself a reward because you’re a badass who deserves nice things every once in a while, rewarding yourself is a necessary habit to get into. 5. Mark Down Your Achievements So often our wins (both big and small) get lost in the hustle and bustle of daily life. And so often we forget about everything we’ve accomplished over the past week, month, year, decade. The more we forget about what we’ve achieved, the less we remember our abilities in the face of adversity. And the less we trust ourselves to overcome new challenges. That’s why since 2013, I’ve kept a running list of my monthly wins. From professional goals like becoming a best-selling author on Amazon to personal ones like learning how to do a backflip on flat ground, this ever-evolving list is a powerful self-trust booster. If I’m ever doubting my abilities, I just thumb through these accomplishments and my self-trust is restored. That’s why I recommend keeping an achievement list for every single one of my students. And it’s why you should start building yours today. “One of my favorite things that I recommend to my clients is to create a journal. Call it your wins journal. So every time you have a win, small, medium, or large, write it down. Like, “Woohoo, celebrate! Today I talked with John DOE at Google, and he's always super excited about bringing our stuff into his company.” Write that down. So when you do get caught in these anxious moments, go back to your wins journal, like, “Oh yeah, that happened. That was real. Reminding yourself that you are good at what you do. You are enough, you've got this.” – Interview with Michele Molitor, Coach, Hypnotherapist, & Imposter Syndrome Expert 2) Increase Action Taking One of the core influencers of a healthy self-esteem is your ability to take action. When you take action, you’re taking control. You’re pushing closer to achieving your goals. You’re influencing the world around you. And you’re building up more and more confidence with each new win. But taking action doesn’t come naturally. After all, we as humans tend to favor the path of least resistance. What’s going to be easiest for me? As a result, this skill takes a bit of work to develop. But once you do develop it, you’ll feel more confident in your abilities. And you’ll know that with some elbow grease and consistent pushing, you can build the life you want. So, let’s take a look at a few ways to turn yourself into an action-taker. Fear Is Normal (So Use It) Most people think that to be brave is to not feel fear. That bravery is simply not feeling afraid, to be fearless. This is not true. In reality, being brave is to feel fear…and act anyway. It is to act in spite of fear. Taking action when there’s no fear doesn’t require any bravery. In circumstances like these, it isn’t hard to take action. Instead, it’s rather easy. After all, what’s holding you back if not fear? So, if you’re wondering how to take more action in life, the first thing you need to understand is that it’s okay to be afraid. When you start to feel your heart flutter, your mind fogs up, and your palms begin to sweat, don’t panic. Instead, recognize this as an opportunity to become braver. And remember that fear is normal. It just depends on what you do with that fear—act on it or succumb to it. Exercise Your Daily Courage Courage is like a muscle. If you stop using and training it, it atrophies. Just like a bicep, quad, or calf. Now, this doesn’t happen overnight, mind you. But as time passes, it becomes more and more obvious you’ve lost your courage. And by the time you’ve realized what’s happening, you now find yourself succumbing to self-doubt in situations you would have breezed through years ago. To maintain (and increase) your courage muscle mass, you need to use it. You need to train it every week. And if you make it a habit of avoiding stressful situations, you’re going to become less and less courageous. Your courage muscle is going to atrophy. Your comfort zone is going to shrink. And in the end, you’ll be unable to take action in even the most minor stressful situations. On the other hand, if you keep training your courage muscle on a daily basis, you’re not only going to maintain it. You’re also going to reinforce it (especially if you make sure to increase the difficulty of your training by increasing the level of required bravery to take action). Focus on the Consequences of Not Taking Action Like a lot of people, you probably focus way too much on the negative consequences of your taking action. When it’s time to act, you start to invent all sorts of stories in your head on the premise that you’re going to fail. Not only does this lead you to focus on destructive thoughts which are going to make you feel less able to succeed. But it also keeps you from taking action by making you afraid—more afraid than you were at the beginning. You’re so afraid of the consequences that you might suffer by taking action that you don’t make a move at all. And that means you miss out on the benefits of acting. Now, if you want to focus on negative consequences, there’s a better way… Instead, start focusing on the negative consequences of NOT taking action rather than on the negative consequences of taking action: The regrets of having done nothing The shame The disappointment in yourself and your abilities By focusing on what you’re going to feel if you DON’T take action, you’re going to feel a strong and compelling urge to make your move. Build Your Self-Image We tend to live up to the identities we create for ourselves. The self-proclaimed strategists ponder their moves before striking. The person who introduces themselves as an avid swimmer sticks to their daily laps. And the entrepreneur who can’t talk enough about their businesses will risk it all to see them succeed. We become what we see ourselves as. And when you see yourself as an action taker, you tend to start instinctively responding to situations as one. This will become natural the more you act in response to challenges. But you can get started by shifting your own perception of yourself from a problem avoider to an action taker. Start seeing challenges as opportunities. And if you find yourself thinking about ways to get out of difficult situations, tell yourself, “That’s not what I do now. I take action!” The more you do it, the easier it gets. “Success isn't about working harder, because people go, ‘I’ve got to work harder.’ It's not about that. It's about doing the consistent action on a daily basis.” – Interview with Marx Acosta-Rubio, Business & Lifestyle Strategist 3) Increase Flexibility “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” – Woody Allen Life is unpredictable. And more often than not, a plan (no matter how perfect) will fall apart when the time comes to execute. Everyone makes mistakes. And your environment is constantly changing, especially in sales. But when you can increase your ability to be flexible to the inevitable issues that will crop up in life, you reduce your chances of being affected by them. And in fact, you can even benefit from those issues if you’re particularly clever with your pivoting. Whether it’s starting a new job, taking a new class, or getting married, being cognitively flexible helps us to grow and get along better with others. The Biological Basis of Inflexibility An area of the brain called the anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG) tends to be overactive in people who have difficulty with cognitive flexibility. Located in the front part of the brain, the ACG is involved with shifting attention. When the ACG works well, it allows us to focus on something, let go, and then shift to focus on something else. However, when it’s overactive, there is a tendency for people to get stuck. This is what happens when we become cognitively inflexible—we start down one path mentally and then refuse to change direction. The good news is that there are some simple strategies you can incorporate into your life to help you become more flexible and adjust more easily to change. 3 Techniques for Becoming More Cognitively Flexible So, how can you improve self-esteem by boosting cognitive flexibility? Below are three techniques in particular that’ll help you get better at going with the flow and adapting to tricky situations. 1. Practice “Thought Stopping” An important part of gaining control over your repetitive thoughts is to become mindful of them when they occur—and then practice the simple technique of thought stopping. To pull this off, try envisioning a red stop sign when you identify any destructive thoughts. And imagine saying to yourself: STOP! The more you practice this, the more you’ll start feeling control over these thoughts. You can also use a more physical approach by putting a rubber band on your wrist and snapping it when you catch yourself in a loop of negative thinking. No matter which technique works best for you, the important thing is stopping those thoughts dead in their tracks. Before they can do any more damage. “The more mentally fit you are, the faster you are able to actually go from what's a very natural human response to challenge and stress, and be able to shift out of it and get to a positive, more clear, calm, laser-focused, discerning perspective on everything.” – Interview with Adam McGraw, CRO at Positive Intelligence Inc. 2. Document Your Options & Solutions One of the best methods I’ve found for dealing with negative thoughts and boosting flexibility is writing things down. When thoughts are floating around in our heads, they’re abstract. They’re like shapeless, undefined blobs. But when we put them down on paper, they become concrete. And that helps us look at them more rationally, decide if they’re valid, and choose whether or not to act on them. Try writing down: The thought that’s stuck in your head. What you can do to help offset the thought. Things you have no control over with regard to the thought. When everything’s all down on paper, you’ll likely be surprised at how different things look compared to when it was just in your head. 3. Think Before a Knee-Jerk “No” Some people have the tendency to say “no” automatically—even before thinking about what was asked of them. This can be especially problematic in relationships. It is limiting and unnecessary to always dismiss ideas or deny your partner his or her requests. It’s a nasty habit that, when gone unchecked, can easily leech over to your professional life and sabotage working relationships (and career prospects). To help with this, before responding to a question, take a deep breath. Hold it for three seconds and then take five seconds to exhale. And while you do so, actually consider what the best way to respond would be. Sometimes a quick break from automatic responses is enough to drive serious change and promote more cognitive flexibility in life. Wrapping Up In my experience, there are three things that determine your success in sales. First, having a product or service you truly believe in. Second, focusing on providing value, not just making a sale. And third, having the self-esteem to sell confidently, competently, and consistently. With a healthy self-confidence, you’ll be able to push through rejection, attract more buyers, and build trust quicker than ever. And if you know how to improve self-esteem using The Increasing Self-Esteem Framework, becoming a confident sales rep is a snap. Just work on: Increasing Your Self Trust Increasing Action Taking Increasing Flexibility Changing your views on yourself and the world around you doesn’t happen overnight. But if you put in the work to use the techniques in this framework as much as you can, you’ll find yourself becoming more confident every day. And a year from now, you’ll look back with amazement at how far you’ve come.

You just can’t compare regular job interviews to sales job interviews. Because in sales, it’s way harder to get a measure on your skills from just one conversation. So if you want to nail that interview, you’ve got to show up READY to demonstrate what you can do. Here’s how. Why Sales Interviews Are Different Why are sales interviews different? What makes it so tough for… Employers to find sales professionals who are actually worth hiring and… Sales professionals to prove they’ve got the right stuff? It all comes down to this—sales skills are damn tough to verify. On the one hand, if you don’t have a verified background in the business, employers can’t look at your experience to see if you’re any good. And if you’re a veteran, who knows if your CV is true to life? Sure, employers can call your old bosses. But most companies are scared of saying anything negative in referrals these days. They might even be legally barred from it. 3 Steps to Demonstrating Your Skills Because you’re an unknown either way, you need to demonstrate your skills in the interview itself. And there are three fool-proof ways to do that. Number one… 1. A 30/60/90 Day Plan Three core benefits here: It shows you’re serious and you’re capable of self-management. It creates a clear focus for your first 90 days on the job, which should lead to greater productivity. And it ensures your goals are properly aligned with the organization. This plan doesn’t have to be super complicated. But it does have to be strategic. And it does have to show you’ve put lots of thought into what it’ll take for you to be successful. For each section, you need to include 3 to 5 goals, each followed by two essential statements… To complete this goal, I will – Then outline the steps you’ll need to take to achieve the goal. And two I will have success if – Pointing out the metrics you’ll measure to determine if you’ve succeeded with that goal. Don’t worry, this is all easier than it sounds. And if you want to learn more about how to create your 30/60/90 day plan, I’ve created a whole video on the topic that we’ve linked to at the end of this guide. For now, let’s move on to the next way to nail your interview… 2. Handling Objections Like a Pro If the hiring manager knows what they’re doing, they’ll put you under a little pressure over something to see how you handle it. Maybe they’ll ask about a gap in your work history. The point here is to see how you respond to pushback. Because as any rep knows, there are always going to be buyer objections. What matters is how you solve those objections. That’s where the Objection Handling Framework comes in… 1. Listen to the Issue Step 1, listen to the issue. This one might be the most important. Because before you can solve any objection, you need to be sure you understand it. So shut up and listen. 2. Repeat It Back Step 2, repeat it back. This will show the hiring manager that you’ve truly heard what they said and aren’t just regurgitating some pre-planned answer. 3. Solve the Issue Solve the issue. If it’s a work history gap, clearly explain the gap—maybe you were focusing on building your skills, earning a new degree, or looking for the RIGHT job. No matter what your answer is, be sure it hits the key points the hiring manager asked about. 4. Confirm It’s Solved And finally, confirm it’s solved. Otherwise, your response was all for nothing. Now, there’s a lot more to objection handling than we’ve covered here. So be sure to check out the full video on the subject that we’ve linked to at the end of this guide. 3. Killing It With Closing Closing is one of the most important sales skills you can have. If you don’t know how to ask for the sale, you’ll never get it, simple as that. So now it’s time to show the hiring manager you’ve got what it takes to close. How? By closing on the job. Use the Closing Framework here… 1. “Does it make sense to…” One, ask the magic question, “Does it make sense to connect on Monday if I’m a good fit?” This question is great because it shows you’re interested, you’re assertive, and you know what it takes to close. But beyond that, it also identifies any issues holding the hiring manager back. For example, if they say no, you can follow up with step #2… 2. “What do we need to move forward?” “What do we need to move forward?” At this stage, you can clearly identify any roadblocks or outstanding questions that are holding you back from securing the job. Need more clarification on work history gaps? No problem, let’s talk about it. Still unclear about what my responsibilities were at my last employer? Let’s dive into it. With this system, you’re showing you’re a closer. And you’re showing you’re ready to tackle any obstacles head-on. And that’s exactly what a hiring manager wants to see.

Like it or not, experts agree there’s a recession looming on the horizon. And the sales professionals that know how to tweak their strategy accordingly are the ones that will survive, even thrive over the next few years. Here’s how to do it. Today we’re talking about concepts covered in the amazing sales book The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson of the business advisory firm CEB. The Last Recession The last recession of 2008 and 2009. If you were working in the industry at the time, you probably remember how hard it was on sales professionals. Clients jumped ship, prospects were unresponsive and had a death grip on their budgets. And old tried and true strategies just didn’t bring in the same results. And yet, some reps were still able to succeed despite it all. Dixon and Adamson’s business advisory firm CEB surveyed thousands of sales reps from around the world during this period. And they found that those who did succeed had one thing in common… They pushed customers to think and act differently. Building relationships still mattered of course. But what was even more impactful was a rep’s ability to challenge the customer, push back, and take control of the sales conversation. And if you want in on that same success during a recession, here’s what you need to do… The 6-Step Push Back Method It all starts with the 6-Step Push Back Method. With a recession, times are tight. Everything is tight. And more than ever buyers want new ways to solve problems, not easy ways to get rid of their cash. For you, that means you’ll have to push a little harder when you know you can help a prospect in a way that’s different to what they want right now. You have a unique perspective on the customer’s business and communication ability. So it’s up to you to push back and teach prospects about the issue they’re facing. Your solution might not be the solution they’re looking for. But with a bit of education, they’ll realize it’s the solution they actually need. Okay, so how do you push back and teach? 1. The Warm-Up Step one is The Warm-Up. This is where you present your assessment of the key issues facing the customer. And you’ll use past clients and other prospects you’ve been working with as inspiration here. Let them know what you’ve seen with other similar companies. And then, wait for their reaction. 2. Reframing After that we move to reframing. This is where you’ll offer a unique insight about their problem that connects it to a bigger, more substantial problem or opportunity. For instance, a prospect may be looking for a project management tool since their accounting department can never hit deadlines. But if you’re selling an accounting automation program, you might reframe the problem as a software problem, not a time management problem. 3. Rational Drowning Step three is rational drowning. This is where you present the data that builds the case for why your prospect should consider your reframing. How much have other companies you’ve worked with increased their efficiency with your product? The goal is to make the prospect uncomfortable with their current approach and more open to a new one. 4. Emotional Impact Next is emotional impact. This step is about connecting the prospect’s emotions with the problem. Storytelling is a fantastic way to do just that. And in the Selling Made Simple Academy, we’ve got a whole framework dedicated specifically to storytelling. We’ve even done a video on the technique  which you can find at the end of this guide. After you’ve connected emotionally, it’s time to show them… 5. A New Way A new way. Talk about the capabilities your customer needs in order to solve this new, reframed problem. Here we’re selling them on the new solution. They have to accept that before we can move on to selling… 6. Your Solution Your solution. This is the final step. And it’s where you’re demonstrating that your solution is the right solution. If you’ve succeeded in each of the five steps up until this point, this final one should be a breeze. So there you have it, the 6-step push back method for selling in a recession. Now there’s one other thing you can do to maximize your selling success during a recession. And that’s… Taking Control Everyone’s priorities are bound to be scattered during this time. And that means nobody will commit to anything because they’re going to feel like it’s one disaster after another hitting their company. If you don’t learn how to take control of the sales process and guide them through it, you’ll be forgotten about for the next latest issue that needs solving. For example, say your prospect brings up the all-too-common issue of price. “Times are tough, budgets are tight. Can you offer a 10% discount?” We’ve all heard it before. But during a recession, you’re going to hear it a lot more. Now one way to deal with this situation is to give in to the conversation. Indulge them, talk to the manager, and see if a discount will work on your end. But what The Challenger Sale’s research found is that the type of rep that thrives during a recession is the one that stands firm when the customer pushes back. Rather than letting the customer guide the conversation into discount territory, they shift. They refocus the conversation on the value of the offering, not the price. When you take control of the conversation, you are in a better position to teach prospects about the problem, educate them on the value of your product, and eventually close the sale. So stand firm, no matter how tempted you may be to give in! Summary No one likes a recession. But with a bit of tweaking to your strategy, you can come out unscathed and perhaps even better off than you were before!

As your quarterly deadline creeps ever closer, you begin to have a terrible revelation—you just aren’t going to make it. Not this time. But… why? You haven’t changed a single thing about your sales process. Your cadences are as tight as ever. And your schedule’s already jampacked with cold calling and cold emailing. So, what are you doing wrong? These days, many B2B salespeople find themselves falling behind due to a lack of “social selling”—incorporating relationship building into the sales process. And today, a staggering majority of social selling happens in one place: LinkedIn. This guide shows you how to effectively incorporate LinkedIn lead generation into your routine. Inside you’ll learn the three-part framework you need to use LinkedIn’s potential to its fullest. And with it, you can build a steady and robust pipeline of quality, qualified leads. Best of all, once you get going, the system practically runs itself. Now let’s jump in. The What & Why of LinkedIn If you’re a professional, well, anything then you probably know what LinkedIn is—a social media platform with a twist. Unlike other platforms, the focus is on business. You won’t find piano cats, baby pictures, or “Charlie bit me” videos here. Instead, it’s all about connecting with other professionals, learning business-related tips for success, and growing your career. And as a well-informed salesperson, you can use LinkedIn as a powerful source of leads. As author and sales professional Marcus Sheridan put it in our interview: “As a salesperson, a sales professional, go all-in on LinkedIn. I've watched salespeople's careers and therefore wallets and bank accounts explode because of the way they use LinkedIn.” But why? What makes LinkedIn lead gen so powerful? There are four reasons in particular: It’s huge It’s trusted It’s scalable It “builds trust at scale” Let’s take a closer look at what I mean by each. It’s Huge On the one hand, LinkedIn is a mammoth social media platform. And it’s bigger than most people expect. Sure, sure. Facebook and Instagram and the like are bigger. But LinkedIn still has nearly 800 million members across the globe. Plus, there are millions of businesses with public profiles. Beyond that, the wealth of information you can glean from these profiles is huge too. Past positions and experiences, shared professional connections, branding elements—the list goes on. The benefit here is that there are plenty of opportunities for B2B salespeople on the platform. For example, the enterprising salesperson can use LinkedIn to: Learn about new businesses that have recently entered their industry. Research competitors and their content marketing strategies. Become better acquainted with potential leads. Discover talking points you can use during sales meetings. Ultimately, LinkedIn is big and growing. And the info on it is massive. The Numbers Wondering just how huge LinkedIn is? Check out some of the stats below to get a better idea. LinkedIn has nearly 800 million members in 200 countries and regions worldwide (LinkedIn). LinkedIn has 33 offices, is available in 24 languages, and has 16,000 employees (LinkedIn) More than 57 million companies are listed on LinkedIn, as well as 120,000 schools (LinkedIn). Seventy-seven job applications are submitted via LinkedIn every single second (LinkedIn). It’s Trusted It’s one thing to have access to a massive database of users. It’s another entirely when those users truly trust the content they find on that platform. A lot of that trust comes from the professional aspect of LinkedIn. These are businesspeople interacting with each other—not shiesty scam artists trying to rope new members into their multilevel marketing “opportunity.” It’s also a trusted source of information. Most of the content here is being put out by real professionals with real experience in what they’re talking about. And with that lowered trust barrier, it’s a fantastic place for B2B marketers to engage in content marketing and social marketing. The Numbers B2B marketers and businesses love LinkedIn. And here are some numbers to prove it. An astounding 94% of B2B content marketing happens on LinkedIn (Road Warrior Creative). LinkedIn ranks highest in digital trust among all social media platforms (eMarketer). There are more than 10,000 B2B software Product Pages on LinkedIn (LinkedIn). 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing (Content Marketing Institute). It’s Scalable It’s true—LinkedIn lead generation can be a slow and frustrating process if you don’t know what you’re doing. And if you aren’t putting in the consistent, strategic work, you’re bound to be frustrated. But when done correctly, it becomes an impressive source of quality leads that rival (and exceed) cold calling and cold emailing. Best of all, once you get going, you don’t have to go out looking for leads—they’ll end up coming to you. The more authority you build, the more likely buyers will be to search you out. To want to work with you. The Numbers Conversations on LinkedIn and the amount of content available are all seeing a sharp increase. And for you, that means more opportunities to provide rich insights, demonstrate your authority, and connect with buyers. Below are just a few stats to show how much LinkedIn is poised to grow for B2B marketing. Content creation on LinkedIn increased by an impressive 60% in 2020 (LinkedIn). LinkedIn saw a 0% year-over-year increase in content creation from March 2019 to March 2020 (LinkedIn). Live streams on LinkedIn increased by 437% in 2020 (LinkedIn). It “Builds Trust at Scale” Piggybacking off that last point, as you scale your LinkedIn B2B lead generation, you’re also making it easier to close sales with the leads that do contact you. Let me explain. One of the biggest hurdles salespeople have to overcome is building trust with buyers. You need to establish rapport. You’ve got to prove your worth. And you need to show that you’re there to help, not just sell to them. When you encounter a cold lead, you accomplish all that through conversations. Conversations that take time. But when you engage in a thorough LinkedIn lead generation strategy (like the framework in this guide), you’re creating content that does most of that hard work for you. Plus, that content—if it’s high quality, of course—will also attract industry decision-makers to you. And that means less time spent on all that lead qualification work. The Numbers Business is getting done on LinkedIn. That’s because there are so many potential leads and buyers using the platform. And here are just a few stats to prove it. There are 65 million decision-makers on LinkedIn (LinkedIn) and 61 million “senior-level influencers on LinkedIn (LinkedIn). 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members drive business decisions (LinkedIn). About 1 out of 3 B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research products and solutions before making a purchase decision (Hootsuite). The LinkedIn Lead Generation Framework (“The Flywheel”) Alright, alright. LinkedIn’s great for professional B2B salespeople like you. But how the hell do you use it to generate leads? Enter The LinkedIn Lead Generation Framework (a.k.a. “The Flywheel”). This framework is designed to help you connect with buyers while building relationships at scale. With it, you can boost your authority, automatically qualify leads, and build a bustling new pipeline of potential buyers. There are just three steps to the framework: Insights Authority Outreach The best thing about this framework is once you get going, the momentum of your work actually keeps the whole system moving on its own (that’s where the “flywheel” part comes in). More on that in a bit. Let’s dive a bit deeper into each of these steps. 1. Insights (Spread Your Knowledge) If you want to start generating leads on LinkedIn, you need to be regularly posting market insights. There’s no way around it. This is the first step in pushing the LinkedIn algorithmic flywheel to favor you on the platform. Imagine your success on LinkedIn as a big, heavy flywheel that’s at a standstill. At first you post an insight, and nobody cares. Nobody likes, nobody comments. You might even think it’s a little embarrassing. But you post again, and you get one like. Then again and a few more. Eventually, LinkedIn’s algorithm sees the traction, and it shares your content with more people as they perceive you as an authority. And that gets this big heavy flywheel spinning even faster. The cool thing? Once the flywheel is spinning, it has its own momentum. You can take a week off, and it’s barely slowed down, and the sales leads keep coming in. But to be clear, it does take time and effort to get that big block of heavy metal spinning in the first place. So be prepared! Now, how do you get those insights that are actually worth sharing? There are two types in particular that your audience will find valuable: Personal Insights Company Insights Personal Insights These are insights that you’ve uncovered about your product, buyer, or marketplace. Sharing personal insights is a fantastic way to demonstrate your authority and engage with your audience. After all, you know way more about your product than your buyers ever will. So take the time to collect and share the insights you’ve picked up over the years. A few questions you can ask yourself to start coming up with ideas include: What common sales objections do you face each day? What have you seen change in the marketplace in the last 12 months? What are your buyer’s biggest fears? If your buyers could change one thing about their job, what would it be? What do your buyers need to know but not want to hear? Use these questions as jumping-off points for finding the best insights to share. Company Insights Personal insights take a bit of deep thinking and reflection on your part. When it comes to company insights on the other hand, things are actually quite a bit easier. Because instead of picking your own brain, you’re just picking the brains of others. All you have to do to find a great company insight is shoot a quick email over to your sales manager and marketing manager asking them the following questions: What do you know about the market that you’re selling into that is unusual or counterintuitive? What do you know about buyers that buyers don’t even know about themselves? What shift is happening in the marketplace within the next 6 months that buyers haven’t realized yet? What positions your product differently from everything else on the market? That’s it! Their answers are sure to give you a few nuggets of invaluable insight you can share with your audience. Sharing Your Insights Now that you’ve got your insights in mind, it’s time to actually send them out into the world. LinkedIn provides a couple of different ways you can share your insights, including: Text posts Video posts Image posts Articles Lives There are other options too (like polls, stories, celebrations, etc.). But frankly, I’ve found them to be a bit gimmicky without bringing any more value to the table. So best to stick with the methods above that are proven to work. And don’t forget to be consistent with your posting! The more consistently and frequently you’re putting up posts with real value, the faster your flywheel will spin. 2. Authority (Prove Your Knowledge) The next step to the LinkedIn Lead Generation Framework is boosting your authority. People want to spend their valuable time learning from experts, not nobodies. Experts have the answers they’re looking for. And they’re the ones that can be trusted. When you spend just a few minutes a day building your authority on LinkedIn, you’re signaling to the algorithm that your insights are worth sharing. They’re the ones your network is going to be interested in. And consequently, the algorithm is going to be more likely to show your content to others. So, how do you boost your authority? Build Your LinkedIn Profile Engage With the Platform Build Your LinkedIn Profile This is an essential step that unfortunately gets overlooked. You need to actually create a great and complete profile if you want to start growing your authority. There are plenty of steps you can take to beef up your LinkedIn profile. I’ve actually done several podcasts on the subject alone. Author and social selling expert Daniel Disney pointed out in our interview that there are two things in particular you need to tackle first: “The first two things [visitors] will look at 99% of the time are your profile photo and your LinkedIn banner. And what you want to try and do is plant some seeds.” Use a clear, high-quality photo and background that gives visitors an idea of what it is you help buyers do. A few other steps you can take to build a robust profile are: Get plenty of skill endorsements from other professionals. Take skill assessments. Start gathering glowing testimonials. List your services. Develop a personal brand and keep it consistent across your profile. Engage With the Platform Next up, you should spend about 15 minutes a day engaging with the platform by commenting on content from other experts. But a simple “Great post!” on everything that comes through your feed just won’t do. You’ve got to be strategic by knowing where to comment and what to comment. Where to Comment – Look for posts that have a high comment count (better visibility) that are in your industry. You’ll also want to only comment on posts that you understand and are valuable. And finally, if your buyers are asking questions, you need to be the one to answer with an insightful comment. What to Comment – Don’t every comment without reading the full post. You’ll sound like an idiot. And always add to the conversation (“good job!” doesn’t mean a thing). You’ll also want to continue the conversation by asking more questions. Finally, use the “@” sign before the original poster's name in your comment. That’ll make sure it doesn’t get lost in their sea of notifications. 3. Outreach (Leverage Your Knowledge) If you’ve been regularly posting valuable insights and engaging with the platform consistently each day, your flywheel should already be spinning and sending your content out to the masses. Ideally, this will end up with leads reaching out to you. But you don’t want to leave your fate entirely in the hands of the algorithm, do you? That’s why you need to engage in a bit of outreach to make the most of your LinkedIn lead generation efforts. There are two ways to start bringing in leads on your own. Warm Outreach Cold Outreach Warm Outreach Warm outreach is when you leverage your relationship with a prospective buyer to get them onto a phone call with you. To be clear, these are contacts you’ve already had a conversation with. They may be familiar with what you’re selling. Or maybe you’ve just chatted with them over LinkedIn a handful of times. They might have even worked with a current client of yours. The important element here is they know you. And they likely already have some degree of trust in you. As a result, the process is surprisingly simple. If you get into a conversation in the comments of one of your buyer’s posts, message them directly and ask if they would like to set up a 10-minute call to discuss things further. If a buyer keeps liking your content, message them to see if there’s value in setting up a consulting call where you can help them in real-time. There’s nothing to it! Cold Outreach Cold outreach is a little trickier. Prospects won’t know who you are. They won’t know what you’re selling. And they sure as hell won’t trust you right off the bat. So, how do you win them over? There are three rules to follow here: Be Genuine –People hate it when they’re being placated. And yes, they can tell. Even on LinkedIn. Instead, read up about your buyer. Find something you’re actually interested in (other than closing a deal) to connect over. And be who you really are in each interaction. Personalize – Generic cookie-cutter messages don’t work. And they can actually be quite annoying. Your messaging needs to be clearly personalized to the buyer. Otherwise, they probably won’t even read it (trust me, I’ve ignored messages myself because of this). Share Insights – Never ask without giving first. LinkedIn has unlimited great content. You need to proactively give the buyer a reason to want to engage with you before you’ve built a relationship with them. You can share your own content or pass on an interesting article you’ve found from another expert. How Long Does It Take? This is a tough one to answer because in the end, everything depends on you. The more value you offer and the more you engage with the platform, the faster you’ll see your flywheel spinning on its own. But if you put off posting for a month or two while only sharing low-value articles and unoriginal thoughts, it’s going to take a lot longer to get moving. That being said, I have personally witnessed salespeople use this method to grow their LinkedIn followers by hundreds (or even 1,000s) in a matter of months. Generating enough momentum to start having buyers reach out to you may take a bit longer. But even still, if you stick with the framework, you’ll have a healthy pool of prospects you can quickly and easily connect with to start the sales process. LinkedIn Lead Generation Software: Should You Use It? This can be a toss-up. For some businesses and industries, automating your LinkedIn lead generation messaging makes sense. Especially since HubSpot estimates automating your social media efforts can save on average more than 6 hours per week. That being said, there are some parts of your LinkedIn sales cadences where automation can actually hurt your numbers. Most conversations, for example, should not be automated. Most outreach messages should not be automated. And most human-to-human interactions (in the digital space) should not be automated. Why? Daniel Disney summed it up nicely in our recent interview: “When it comes to either adding people or even messaging, if you’re automating or getting a bot to do that, people see through it, they see through it straight away, and you’re going to decrease the amount of accepted connections you get certainly decrease the replies you get.”  Bots are great for some things. But they aren’t that great at parsing through the colloquialisms, intricacies, and complexities of human conversation. Worst of all, using outreach automation tools on LinkedIn (i.e., tools that sound out hundreds of connection requests a day automatically, etc.) can get your account banned. Final word—just not worth it. But one thing bots are good at is automating admin tasks. Tasks like: Content scheduling Update scheduling Interaction analytics Recommended LinkedIn Lead Generation Software Now, if you decide to automate your LinkedIn lead generation efforts, stick with content scheduling software only. There are a few solutions I recommend to get you started. Below you’ll find the best of the best, along with a short description of what you can do with each. LinkedIn Sales Navigator – Sales nav is almost a standard requirement for sales professionals who are sending personalized messages to key decision makers on the platform. See who is visiting yout profile, send InMail and make sure you're in front of the right audience for a couple of bucks a month. Hootsuite – A go-to choice for post automation, Hootsuite provides plenty of features you’ll likely love. Users can schedule posts ahead of time, tweak wording across social media platforms, let Hootsuite choose the best posting times, and much more. Buffer – Another great option for post automation, Buffer offers a cleaner user experience at the expense of all the bells and whistles of Hootsuite. It’s also better for smaller teams as opposed to organizations. It’s also a bit cheaper too. HubSpot – We all know HubSpot. This feature-rich customer relationship management (CRM) software lets you track and analyze engagement with your prospects. But it also comes with a handy post-scheduling functionality too. What’s not to love with this thing? Wrapping Up LinkedIn B2B lead generation can end up being a goldmine for bringing qualified and eager buyers into your pipeline. This business-based social network is professional, highly trusted, and only poised to grow as more business gets done online. The only trick is, you have to approach your LinkedIn lead generation with a strategic eye if you want qualified leads. Spamming content is a timewaster. Inauthenticity is a turnoff. And in a world of bots, bluffs, and bullshit artists, only those who offer true value to prospects are going to truly succeed here. With my LinkedIn Lead Generation Framework (“The Flywheel”), you can start consistently revving up your presence on this powerful platform. It just takes consistency, genuineness, and a bit of elbow grease. It's the easiest and most effective of all the lead generation strategies on the platform because it leads into what the platform is already encouraging you to do. And best of all, once that flywheel starts moving, the sky’s the limit for your LinkedIn lead generation—and your earning potential.

When’s the last time your life changed because of a single picture? Well I can tell you I started closing bigger deals, closing them more often, and earning way more commission—all because of this one graph *show on screen*. And today, I’m showing you how it can change your life too. One of the biggest issues we as humans have is understanding time. Don’t get me wrong here—we’ve gotten really good at thinking ahead, learning from the past, and evaluating cause and effect. Hell, it’s why we humans are so damn good at surviving and expanding. But even still, we have a hard time connecting the actions we take today with the results we see way in the future. Today / Future And this can be especially problematic for actions that snowball. That have effects that grow over time. And unfortunately, that disconnect is at the heart of why most salespeople fail to achieve real success. That’s why today we’re talking about the graph that helped me shift out of that path to failure and into my success today. 1. The Graph As you can see, this graph is all about… Memory, Effect, & Time Can you see memory, results, and how the two change over time. Once you perform an action, be it cold prospecting or starting to create content, it’s fresh in your brain. And as time moves on, it drifts out of your consciousness. You forget about it. But the effect of that action actually increases over time. The problem here is that since memory fades, we tend to forget what caused the effects we’re seeing. We forget that we are where we are today precisely because of the actions we took 6 months, 5 years, and even 10 years ago. So for example, we get immediate mouth pleasure after eating fast food. The greasy burger. The salty fries. The refreshing soft drink. It’s delicious stuff! And we understand that. But what we struggle to comprehend is that eating that fast food every day eventually makes us fat. We find excuses to hit the drive-through during the week. We tell ourselves, “Oh, we’ve had a rough day, one cheat meal couldn’t hurt.” But all the while, we’re failing to see that these little “cheats” add up to a larger pattern. And before we know it, we’re 10lbs overweight wondering, “what happened?” Tying It To Sales To tie it back to sales, we’re skipping our prospecting. We’re telling ourselves, “Oh I’ll build up my social selling content later.” And all the while, we’re continually chipping away at the potential success our future holds. What we need to be doing is doing the things now that will improve our lives in 6 months from now. The longer term you can think, act, and stay on track, the more successful you’ll be. An Example I’ve got an example for you. Sam the salesman starts investing starting at 30. He puts a thousand bucks in every few months whenever he’s got some extra dough. And on the down months, he doesn’t contribute a cent. At the ripe old age of 65, he’s looking at a somewhat decent retirement fund. On the other hand, there’s Seth the salesman. He starts putting money in at 30 too. And he puts money into all the same investments as Sam. But instead of doing it sporadically, he contributes the same percentage of his earnings every single month. And thanks to compounding interest, those investments pay off. By retirement age, he’s looking at multimillions—far more than Sam. The key, then, is consistency. It’s developing a plan and sticking with it. And the more you can maintain that consistency, the better the results. Now, it’s important to realize that it isn’t just direct consequences that play a role either. There’s also… 2. Second Order Consequences Second order consequences to consider. These are the snowball effects. The consequences that lead to more consequences. For example, let’s say you buy a big TV rather than investing the cash. No big deal right? Sure you miss out on more investment income later on. But what’s the big deal. Well, there’s also the second order consequences to consider. With that giant TV in your living room, you guilt yourself into using the big slab of glass on the wall. I mean, you paid good money for it after all. So you end up getting sucked into stupid shows and spending hour after hour on bad reality TV and cooking competitions. When instead, you could have been reading those self-improvement books you always said you’d get to. The Snowball Continues But we’re not done yet. Eventually you start getting into the third order consequences. At some point, that bad television starts to get boring and you need more excitement. So you buy an Xbox to go alongside the TV. And even more of your time is sucked up and taken away from investing in your future. As you can see, on a five-year scale, the divergence of buying the TV vs not buying the TV is massive. And a single choice today can lead to a multitude of consequences down the line. 3. Putting It Into Action Putting it all into action. What does this mean for you today? Well let me take a second to turn things around and tell you how this realization changed me. As soon as I understood all this, the long-term cause and effect of it all, my life changed in an instant. The success I’m having with Salesman.org now—training thousands of salespeople, creating a 7-figure business, all of it—came about from work I did 3 years ago. And just as importantly, the hard work I’m putting in right now, today, will set the foundation for my success 5 years from now. What Does That Mean For You? The boring, pain-staking grind of cold prospecting you do today is what leads you to crushing your quota 4 months from now. And the cash from those commissions is going to give you freedom. The freedom you need to take your life in a completely different direction than if you didn’t hit your numbers. It may not feel like the grind you’re going through now has any real effect. And in all likelihood, it won’t today. It probably won’t even tomorrow. But over time, the effect of what you do today grows and grows. And five years from now, the choice between saying “yes” or “no” to today’s hard work will be life-changing. You’ve just got to stick with it. Stay consistent. And start thinking long-term. Because that’s the foundation for success.  

A few times in life, we come upon a single concept that radically changes the way we interact with the world. And in sales, there’s one concept in particular that’ll change the way you sell forever—The Law of Averages. This concept has taken more average salespeople to top 1% than any other. It might be the most important video that I’ve ever produced. Now, a lot of reps are under the impression that sales is an art. Getting a feel for body language, spotting subtle cues, shifting and re-shifting conversations with prospects. But where a lot of reps get things wrong is forgetting the logic side of things. Following your cadences, hitting that cold call quota, sticking to a plan through thick and thin—that’s the other side of the equation. And if you neglect your numbers, your art is never going to be enough to propel you to real sales success. A) Sales Is a Numbers Game Sales is a numbers game. We’ve heard it all before. And there’s a lot of truth to it. Because when you boil it all down, sales comes down to this: You do a number of activities. Those activities can have an effectiveness on a scale of 1-10. And depending on that effectiveness, they lead to a revenue number at the end of the quarter, and you get paid a commission. It’s as simple as that. And the more you do an activity, the higher those final numbers—that revenue and that commission—will be. More cold calls per day results in more leads. More leads turn into more sales calls. And more sales calls lead to closed deals. Voila, numbers! Now you can tweak that activity. Or you can choose to engage in a different one altogether. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, the more numbers you put in, the more you get out. B) The Law of Averages The Law of Averages come in? The Law of Averages states that over a long enough period of time, a particular outcome or event will occur at a frequency that’s similar to its probability. Confused? Don’t be. Let’s break it down. Let’s say you’ve got a cold calling success rate of about 2%. And over the course of one day, you make 20 calls with zero success. Right now your success rate is… that’s right, zero percent. Now, over time, your actual rate is going to get closer and closer to the real rate of effectiveness, 2%. So on day two, you make 20 more calls and one is a winner! That brings your rate up to 2.5%. The next day, zero winners again, bringing you down to 1.7%. And the day after that, zero again, putting you at 1.25%. But after the next 20 calls, you bring in a client, which jumps your success rate to 2%—the real effectiveness of the activity. See how on the short-term, the effectiveness jumps around and doesn’t match the true effectiveness of your cold calling? But in the long-term, over the course of five days, it comes out to be 2%. And on an even longer timeline, that activity is going to hover around that same percent effectiveness. Okay, so what does this tell us? Basically if you engage in an activity with some level of effectiveness for long enough, you’re guaranteed some form of success. If your cold emails only have a success rate of 0.001%, you’re bound to hit a winner at some point. As long as you keep trying. Now, you’ve got three ways to make the Law of Averages work for you. First, you can put in more reps. You can send out more emails, make more cold calls, send more outreach messages. But there are only so many hours in the day. Do different stuff. Social selling for example if you’ve never experimented with that. The problem here is that you might have a 0% success rate and so it was a complete waste of time. The better way of using this law to your advantage is by moving the average in your favor. By pushing up your success rate and doing the same stuff, but better. C) Move the Average In Your Favor There are three strategies you can take to get the numbers on your side. Number one is to… 1. Only Spend Time With Qualified Clients SO MUCH time is wasted on unqualified prospects that require tons of work but rarely lead to a closed deal. So, how do you get better at qualifying prospects? You follow the Diagnosis Framework. Whenever you hop on a discovery call, use this eight-step framework to find out if they’re the right buyer for you. Pain – Is your prospect’s problem actually a problem? If it isn’t, they aren’t going to be motivated to solve it. And they’re wasting your time. Time – Does the buyer need a solution this month, this quarter, this year? Be sure your timelines match up. The more urgent the need, the less feet dragging you’ll run into later. Fit – Is your solution actually right for the prospect’s problem? Be honest, will it really help? Return – How much will the buyer have to change to accommodate your solution and start getting a solid value return from their investment? Is it worth the hassle? Process – Are they willing to adapt to your processes? If not, best to cut them loose. Budget – Are the prospect’s financials in a good place to afford your solution? Champion – Who else is behind this decision? Is someone influencing whether the deal gets made or not? And if there is, why aren’t you talking to them instead? Agreement – It’s up to you to get your buyer’s verbal commitment on the call. And using the “If we can solve X, will you commit to Y?” structure is the absolute best way to get that commitment. 2. Move More Prospects Into Your Funnel The more prospects you have coming into your funnel, the more chance you have of closing some of them. The Cold Email Framework is a great way to improve your cold outreach. It follow four steps. Lets run through a example and put them into practice – It’s to the point. It’s unassuming. And it’s damn effective too. Alright so the third way of making the Law of Averages work for you is by… 3. Have More Targeted Messaging More targeted messaging means higher response rates. And that, of course, is going to bump up the Law of Averages in your favor. So, how do you have more targeted messaging? By using the Value Proposition Framework. Find Your Value – What do your products offer? How do they help? You can figure this out by first listing out all your available products and then writing down the perk producers (benefits additions) and strain reducers (hassle subtractions) each offers. Find Your Ideal Buyer – This one might take a bit more digging, but it’s well worth it. You start by listing out your buyer jobs. What are their responsibilities? What are their functional, social, and emotional jobs? And then list out the perks and strains of each. Perks being the benefits your buyers want to see from your product, and strains being what annoys a buyer before, during, and after they’re trying to get a job done. Find the Fit – Finding the fit. “Fit” is how well your product values line up with what the buyer needs. The better it aligns, the more successful your value proposition will be. All you need to do here is determine which jobs, strains, and perks the strain reducers and perk producers of your products address. Match them up and you can move on to… Create Your Value Statement – A value statement should be clear, to the point, and touch on the most important points from the previous three steps. Here’s a template you can use to craft yours. Verify the Value – Does this value statement resonate with your audience? Did changing your value proposition increase or decrease buyer response rates? What’s important here is that you keep on testing and refining your value proposition as you go. When you truly understand the Law of Averages, it’ll entirely change the way you do sales. And if you know how to bend this law to your advantage, you can close more deals, earn higher commissions, and achieve more success than you ever thought possible.  

The average length of a successful cold call that ends in a meeting is just 5:14. That’s it! For unsuccessful ones, it’s around 3:14. But as brief as these encounters usually are, it’s actually the first three seconds that make or break a call. This video covers the rejection-proof cold call one-liner that’s guaranteed to help you book more calls, all in just three seconds. Now for most cold callers, even experienced ones like you, the problem isn’t talking about your value proposition. Or convincing prospects to book an official call with you. Instead, it’s that initial line. That first three seconds. Because a whopping 98% of cold calls end in hangups right off the bat. And if you can get your prospects to listen to you after that, then you’re home free. But you’ve got to choose your words carefully. You’ve got to pique interest, interrupt their thought pattern, and set expectations. And that’s exactly what this opener is so great at doing. 1. The Opener The word-for-word opener you can start using right away. So this one actually comes from my friend, Josh Baun. Josh is an expert when it comes to sales and trains teams on how to beef up their numbers and close more deals. I actually interviewed him on The Salesman Podcast where he talked about this very opener, which he both uses and teaches to his clients. So first up, let’s just take a look at the opener, and then we’ll break it down… Expert Note: “Hey, Will. My name is Josh. We’ve never spoken before. You have no idea who I am; complete stranger here, but I was hoping you could help me out for a moment. Do you have two minutes?”  Josh Braun Salesman Podcast Simple as that. Now, 70 or 80% of the time, you’re going to get a yes. And here’s why… A) Pattern Interrupt First, a pattern interrupt. Most sales reps try to come off too familiar so they can start building rapport. But what this opener openly calls out is the fact that the prospect doesn’t know who you are. In fact, you’re a complete stranger! And that simple tweak lets you stand out from the other cold callers and keep prospects from hanging up. Next… B) Time Commitment Time commitment. You’re setting boundaries here. This isn’t going to be an hour-long conversation. It isn’t even going to be 10 minutes. So when they say yes, they know they aren’t getting roped into a major time waster. Who doesn’t have two minutes? Next up… C) A Favor A favor. You’re asking for help because people are wired to help others. We WANT to help other people. And in fact, when someone does a favor for you, they’re actually more likely to help you in the future! It’s called the Benjamin Franklin Effect, and it’s an amazing sales tool to add to your toolbelt. D) Tone Tone. We’re using a tonality that’s not, “Hey, Will, this is JOSHHHHH! Can YOUUUU help me out for a moment?” You’re calm. Because when you’re calm, you’re less aggressive. You aren’t a threat to run away from. And that makes you more inviting. Again, this simple opener will keep people on the line with you 70 to 80% of the time. But you’re job’s not done yet. Then you have to move on to… 2. The Follow-Up Steps Step one kept them on the line. Now we have to move on to steps two and three. These are simple. See If They’re The Right Person To see if the prospect is even the right person that you need to be speaking with. That looks a little something like this… Expert Note: “Will, are you still the person that’s involved with getting sponsors for your podcasts? Or is that someone else since you’ve gotten so big?”  Josh Braun Salesman Podcast As you can see, this implies that you’ve done a little research—a must for rapport building. Now, one of two things is going to happen there. You’re either going to get a positive or negative response here. “Yes, I’m in charge of that,” or “No, I’m retired.” And don’t you want to know that at the beginning of the call rather than going all the way through your pitch? So once you’ve made sure you’re talking to the right person, it’s time for step number 3… Poke & Peel The poke and peel. You’re going to be poking around a little bit to see how the prospect is currently getting the job done, and you’re going to peel the onion a little bit. The exact wording of this last step will of course depend on your industry. But if you were talking about the podcast sponsorship industry like Josh and I were, the poke and peel might look something like this… Expert Note: “So Will, how are you currently going about getting sponsors today? Are you like reaching out via cold email? Are people mostly coming to you, or is it a combination of both?”  Josh Braun Salesman Podcast Here you’re well into the conversation and things are moving smoothly. Very very few people will full-on reject you at this point in the process since the tone is so calm and conversational. And it’s at this point you can start to gather information, continue to build rapport, and nudge your prospect closer to booking a proper sales call. 3. Psychology The right psychology. And there are two things in particular I mean by that. Let Go of Assumptions You need to let go of assumptions. This is a tough pill to swallow for some reps, but the truth is your product isn’t going to be right for a lot of prospects you talk to. But if you assume everyone is a perfect customer, you’re not only going to push buyers away. You’re also going to waste a lot of time with ones that just aren’t a fit. Josh put it nicely in our interview: Expert Note: “When you assume that everyone’s a fit for what you have, what ends up happening is people go into the zone of resistance because you’re going to try to be talking people into things, and pitching everyone, and thinking that you’re a fit for everyone. So instead, shift away from that and discover if the person has a problem that you could potentially help with, rather than assuming.”  Josh Braun Salesman Podcast And the next psychology exercise you can do to get the most out of this opener is… Get Natural Get natural. The calmer you are, the calmer the prospect will be. So don’t go full over excited as that screams that you’re a salesperson just trying to get something from the prospect. Now to do that, you’ve got to put in a little work upfront. You’ve got to practice. And not just once, two times, or even three times. Nope, you’ve got to practice a lot. You can start by standing in front of the mirror and repeating the lines until it comes out nice and relaxed. As if you’re chatting with a colleague about how their weekend went. But eventually you’ll want to practice on a real person. Now you can do that by enlisting the help of some friends or coworkers. OR you can just jump in headfirst and go for real-life prospects. What you choose is up to you. But remember, the more natural and calm you sound, the better you’re going to fare on your cold calls. So, cold calling can be tough. But if you nail the first 3 seconds, you’re well on your way to closing.

Want to make it big in sales? Step #1—stop procrastinating. I used to have a huge problem with putting off my tough tasks till later. And my career suffered because of it. But then I learned how to stop procrastinating for good. And today, I’ve built a 7-figure sales training business, run two YouTube channels, and am now more productive than ever. How’d I do it? I killed my lizard brain. The Lizard Brain What is it? Well, this is the part of your brain that’s leftover from your pre-human ancestors. It’s focused only on the now. It doesn’t understand the future or the past. And it just reacts according to your most basic needs. On the other side of things, you’ve also got your “Human” brain. This is the rational side of you. It can use the past to predict the future. It can plan. And it can choose to avoid pleasure now in exchange for greater gains in the future. But for as advanced as the human side is, it doesn’t deal well with abstraction. If it can’t find a clear pathway to completing a task, it gives up control to the lizard brain. And the lizard brain’s go-to method for dealing with a problem is good ol’ fight or flight. The problem is you can’t fight abstract goals like “increase revenue this quarter” or “boost commissions by 10%.” So the lizard brain chooses flight. It runs. It procrastinates. And your human brain finally swoops in to justify all the reasons not to start in the first place. The good news is you aren’t trapped in this cycle. Because… You can kill your lizard brain and stop procrastinating for good. You’ve just got to do a bit of brain hacking to get the job done. And there are four techniques to do just that. 1. Goal Priming When you’re faced with a daunting task like spending hour after hour prospecting, it’s hard to find the motivation to get started. But that’s because you’re focused on the difficulty of the task. So instead, focus on the end result. How will your work pay off? What will your life look like after you’ve achieved your goals? If you’re focused on boosting your commissions but hate cold calling, think about what that extra money will mean for you. What will having an extra $50K a year do for you and your family? What about the career opportunities that will open up as a result? The more you think about the rewards, the less you’ll think about the costs. 2. Overload Reduction Technique two, overload reduction. There is such a thing as having too much choice. It’s called “Choice Overload Bias” And it’s the documented phenomenon of people having a harder time deciding when they have more options. Worth noting is that they’re also less satisfied with their choice when all is said and done. If you find yourself struggling to get a task started, take a step back for a minute. Are you deciding between 3, 4, 5 ways of doing the task? That’s your problem. Instead, limit your options. Cut down your choices. And just get started. Don’t worry too much about making the right choice. You can always pivot later on. What matters here is moving forward. 3. Deconstruction The bigger the goal, the more intimidating it’s going to be. When you’re dealing with something as huge as earning $50K more this year in commissions, it can seem like there’s no way to start making headway. That of course kicks your lizard brain into high gear. And it makes you 10X less likely to ever get started.But here’s a trick. Break your giant goals down into smaller, more achievable milestones. Shooting for $50K extra this year? Okay, that boils down to $12,500 a quarter or about $4,200 extra a month. How many sales does that mean you have to make in a month? And given your current success rate, how many cold emails do you have to send or cold calls do you have to make to get there? Then you can start chipping away at that larger goal day by day. Instead of earning $50K more this year, you just have to spend an extra 30 mins prospecting each day. And that’s a lot easier to swallow. 4. The 5 Minute Rule The last technique we’re talking about is the Five Minute Rule. And it might be the most immediately powerful. See, the hardest part of most tasks is getting started—the initial hump. But if you can get past that, the momentum you build along the way will usually be enough to carry you through to the end. So instead of avoiding that task that takes you 30 minutes to do, commit yourself to just five minutes. Hate cold calling but need it done? Just do five minutes. Can’t stand updating your CRM? Give it five. Always miserable while learning product specs? Cinco minutos mi amigo. Five minutes is all it takes. So at the next sign of procrastination, just commit to five minutes. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you get the motivation to keep it going

Want to get better at selling in two seconds? Easy peasy. Ask potential buyers, “What's stopping you solving this problem for yourself?”  You’ll eliminate objections AND set yourself up for an easier close with just one phrase. But hold on—asking the question is only half the battle. To get the right effect, you need to know how to get to the point of asking it. That’s where the real magic happens and that’s what we’re covering in this video. Now, buyers often give objections because they think they can solve whatever problem they have by themselves. They don’t need your help. So why would they buy your solution? But the truth of the matter is, if they could solve their problem on their own, wouldn’t they have done it by now? Instead, something’s missing. Something’s holding them back from solving their own pain points. This, my friends, is what’s known as leverage. If you can get prospects to realize they can’t do it on their own, you’re in a fantastic selling position. AND you’ve also eliminated a slew of sales objections that you would’ve had to deal with later on. But before you can drop this bombshell of a sales question, you’ve got to start by… 1. Properly Qualifying a Prospect Lead qualification is one of the greatest challenges for sales reps. HubSpot found that 34%, over one-third, of reps said lead qualification is the biggest obstacle to hitting their numbers. With the right leads, closing is easier. Prospects are more enthusiastic. And the chances of a busted deal are far slimmer. Now, there are plenty of acronyms for qualifying frameworks out there. Each more complicated and confusing than the last. But when you get down to brass tacks, each focuses on three major questions: What Do They Want? What’s Stopping Them From Achieving This? Can We Help Them Get There? That’s it. Three questions. But how do you get that information out of prospects in the first place? The Selling Made Simple Academy’s Diagnose Framework does a fantastic job of guiding you through how to get those answers. This eight-step model includes everything you need to ask on a discovery call. And whether you’ve gotten a verbal commitment that’ll lock buyers into the deal. The info you learn through this framework ensures you’ll only be working with qualified prospects that are itching to buy. Once you’ve done that, THEN it’s time to move on to step two… 2. Popping The Question The most common objection most reps face is that buyers think they can solve their own business issues themselves. It’s especially common among small to medium-sized businesses because they believe they can save some serious dough by handling it themselves. Once we’ve qualified the prospect, the best way around this objection is to ask them to their face… “You know the issue, you know where you want to go, what’s stopping you from solving this yourself?” The prospect will look you blankly in the face and say one of three things is holding them back… Time Expertise Motivation It all comes down to one or more of those three. That’s it. What’s important here isn’t necessarily that you know which of these three is stopping them. Though as we’ll see in the next step, that knowledge is incredibly useful in closing later on. Instead, the magic here is that the buyer admits they need help. They’re making the need real. Because they’ve stopped, thought about it, and said out loud why they can’t do it themselves. That shift in mindset is powerful. It turns you from a greedy salesperson into someone who’s offering real, true value. You instantly change from a predator—somebody trying to steal their money—to an asset that can solve their problem. And that my friends is huge. So, the prospect has mentally and verbally agreed they need help via time, expertise, or motivation. Now what? Now you have everything you need to close the deal by… 3. Leveraging the Answer Depending on what your prospect said was holding them back—time, expertise, or motivation—you can now structure the rest of your process and closing strategy around that answer.All you have to do is continually circle back to this pain point as you nurture and close on the deal. Don’t have the time to do it yourself? No problem, we can do all the time-intensive work for you. Is expertise the hangup here? We’ve been doing this for decades. Motivation holding you back? Let’s look at the risks of not dealing with the problem. See how that works? The best way you can incorporate this info into your closing strategy is by using the Selling Made Simple Academy’s Storytelling Framework. Let’s take a quick look at what that entails. This framework uses the power of storytelling. People are moved by stories, entranced by them even. And when you weave some skillful storytelling into your closing process, it unites both the logical and emotional sides of the prospect’s brain. Let’s look at the framework. 1. Describe Their Current Reality Describe the buyer’s current reality by pointing to a past client you’ve helped. One that was suffering the same pain points your current buyer is going through. Growth stalling, inefficient teams, whatever. What matters here is that they’re pain points that resonate with the buyer. It’s what they are experiencing too. 2. Dig Into the Unresolved Pain Dig into the unresolved pain. Now is when you “twist the knife”. Your goal here is to make the current prospect really feel what your past client was going through. As a result, they’ll also feel what they are going through more deeply too. You can do that by adding more detail. What are the consequences of this pain? Who does the prospect look stupid in front of because of it? Who’s judging them? And what’s on the line here? 3. Hitting the Success Blockers Hitting the success blockers. What held your past customer back from fixing their problem? HERE is where you incorporate your buyer’s response to the magic question. Was it time? Was it expertise? Was it motivation? This is where we really connect the dots and drive the similarities home. Once you do that, you can move on to step four… 4. Illuminating the Future Reality Illuminating the future reality. How was your customer’s life different after they overcame the success blocker? How was it better? Were they able to achieve or even outperform their professional goals? Did their stress levels drop? Did the higher-ups recognize all the hard work the hero went through to achieve these results? The rosier the future, the more it’ll drive enthusiasm for the buyer. 5. Building the Reality Bridge Building the reality bridge. It’s time to tie everything together. It’s time to explain that you are the guide/mentor that took the hero from their current reality to their better future reality. It was you that let them bridge the gap across their success blockers. It was you that has the time, expertise, and motivation to get the prospect from where they are now to where they want to be. You are the Gandalf to their Frodo. And of course, you can do the same thing for the prospect too. You can make them the hero in their own story. All they have to do is say, “yes.”

Cold calling’s dead? I don’t think so. 82% of buyers say they accept meetings with reps who cold called. And 57% of C-suite execs preferred way to be contacted. So don’t fall for the hype—cold calling is alive and well. And if you’ve already seen some success with it, here are just a few small tweaks you can make to take things from paying the bills to early retirement. Now before we get started, I want to point out this is not a video for beginners. There are plenty of tutorials on how to get started with cold calling. And this is not one of them. Instead, it’s built for reps who have already built a semi-successful process, but you can’t quite seem to make any progress. You’ve plateaued. And despite your best efforts, your numbers never seem to get better. Sound familiar? Well if so, I’ve got your back with these three strategies. So let’s jump in. 1. Tone Tone. Your tone is a critical part of what types of feelings you’re eliciting in your prospect. From pitch and volume to speed and your own attitude—yes, people can hear smiles—your tone of voice says a lot about you as a person. And one big problem reps face is learning how to hone their voices when cold calling so that buyers aren’t scared off in the first second or two. As it turns out, most buyers don’t respond well to an overexcited sales rep on the line. Their over-enthusiasm comes off as suspicious. And no matter how great your product is, you’re going to scare off prospects when you come in hot with the stereotypical sales rep approach. Instead, try taking a calmer, more relaxed approach. And to do that, you need to… Shift Your Self-Worth Let me tell you what I mean by that. According to sales expert and professional trainer Josh Braun, the tendency to sound overexcited on a call comes from reps wanting the sale too much. And you might be saying, “Will, isn’t wanting the sale a good thing?” And on one level, it is. But what needs to take precedence over wanting the sale is wanting the right buyer. Because truth be told, every prospect isn’t going to be a fit for what you’re selling. Some buyers are going to say no. And that’s okay. Expert Note: “The trouble salespeople get into is when they attach their self-worth to the outcome. No, one’s rejecting you as a person, they’re just rejecting what you’re saying. And so when you do that, it’s almost like I feel like I’m on a golf course, and I’m calm and I’m swinging the club, and I’m going to the next hole. And there’s a bunch of holes.” Josh Braun Salesman Podcast There are plenty of other prospects out there. And when you find the right one—the one that’s actually a fit for what you’re selling—that’s when the magic really happens. So remember, stay calm. Stay collected. And try to sound as natural on the phone as possible. Now the second tweak involves… 2. Mindset Mindset. And this one isn’t about your mindset like the last one was. Instead, it’s about the prospect’s mindset. What they are thinking. How they are viewing the world. And most importantly, how they are thinking about you. So first of all, most people don’t like to be cold called. Shocker, right? Because they’re busy. They’re managing their staff, they’re on the hunt for new clients, they’re blah blah blah. They’re doing stuff! And your call is an interruption for getting that work done. Now, most sales reps try to ignore that fact. They try to lure prospects into forgetting about it by being personable, by being likeable, and by demonstrating that they have value. But I’ve got news for you here—your prospect will not forget. They may move past it at some point. But the vast majority of people who pick up a cold call are going to be annoyed. And the more you try to schmooze your way into their good graces, the more they’re going to think of you as just another skeezy salesman. So what’s the solution here? How do you break down that stereotype and shift their mindset? Acknowledge the Interruption Call it out. Tell them you understand you’re being an inconvenience rather than trying to push that inconvenience under the rug. This tip comes from Chris Beall, Founder, CEO, and sales psychology expert. Here’s what he says: Expert Note: “The reason that cold calling actually can be allowed to work 100% of the time is you can show the other person you see the world through their eyes. And all you have to do is say this phrase correctly, with the right heart, then it works. You say, “I know I'm an interruption.” Not something soft like, “Oh, I do believe I might well be interrupting your day.” Or any of the crap that people want to say. Take full accountability for being the ambusher, see the world through their eyes.“ Chris Beall Salesman Podcast When you do that, you’re showing prospects that you understand them. And you’re helping shift their mindset away from seeing you as an inconvenience. And towards being receptive to hearing what you’ve got to say. 3. Structure Structure. There’s a place for freewheeling conversations and meandering discussions. But cold calling is not it. To take your results to a new level of success, you need to follow a general outline of how to get from point A to point B. To turn your prospect from, “Who the hell is this?” to “I want what they’re selling.” So the first thing to remember when it comes to structure is that on cold calls, you’re not selling the product… You’re Selling The Meeting This again comes from the mind of Chris Beall. He told me… Expert Note: “The product you're selling is the meeting, not the product. So you have to believe in the potential value of the meeting for this individual, even in the downside case where you never do business together. So you have to know what's on offer in the meeting. What are they going to learn? That's the product. And I think the biggest mistake that most people make is they sell past the meeting. They sell the product as though the product is going to draw somebody into the meeting. It's not. Curiosity is going to draw somebody into a meeting.“ Chris Beall Salesman Podcast With that in mind, you now have to follow a structure that takes them from the initial stage to booking a call. And that process looks like this… Fear > Trust > Curiosity > Commitment > Action At the initial stage, prospects are in fear. And surprisingly enough, that prospect is afraid of you. Because you’re the interruption. And right now the only thing they’re thinking of is getting off the phone with their self-image intact. So what can you do to move them from fear to trust? Well that’s where the previous tweak comes in—calling out the interruption. Like we said, this is showing the prospect that you’re not like every other sales rep. And in fact, you even know what that prospect is thinking and going through. And alakazam, you’ve built a solid foundation of trust. Only once you’ve built that trust can you then start piquing their curiosity with what they’re going to learn at the meeting. And after you’ve stoked that curiosity, you can bring in the verbal commitment and get them to take action by booking a call.