The Salesman.com Podcast

Most salespeople barely hit quota. And I admit, that used to be me too. It wasn’t until I started doing one very unexpected thing that my income started to explode… I got unreasonable. And today’s video is all about why you too need to start acting a little less reasonably. Now, I’m 35. I’ve lived a solid ⅓ of my life already. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over my career in sales, it’s that you don’t have time to waste if you want to reach any reasonable level of success. Like, none. No kidding. Success at anything, anything, takes a decade at a minimum. Tough to hear, right? It’s sad but it’s true. And the longer you commit to doing the same thing everyone else is doing, following the same rules, living up to the same expectations, and being the same unremarkable, everyday sales rep, the less time you have to become truly successful. If you want to bust out from the pack, you’ve got to be different. You’ve got to defy the norms holding everyone else back. And you’ve got to start being unreasonable. Today we’re talking about 5 ways to start busting expectations and living a little less reasonably. And once you do follow them, you can thank me a decade from now when you’ve become the person you always dreamed of being. 1) Get Busy Get busy. This one’s a tough one to swallow. But as hard as it is to hear it, you’re going to have to work harder. Yeah yeah, there’s the typical 9 to 5. And a lot of people—the majority of people—clock out and forget about their job. That’s the reasonable approach. But if you want any chance of wild success, you’ve got to put in the hours. Now don’t worry—eventually you’ll be able to cut back. After you’ve built a solid foundation for yourself. But in the beginning, you need time to test what works. To see what doesn’t. And to find your process and path to success. So buckle up. No one ever said success was easy. 2) Get Lazy Threw you for a loop there, didn’t I? “Will, isn’t that the exact opposite of what you just said?” Well hold on a sec. After you put in the work, it’s time to get strategically lazy. As soon as you start seeing results, the next step is to double down on the pieces that give you the best results. Find the 20% of effort that is getting you 80% of the results and double down. Are 95% of leads coming from emails 5 and 6 of your 3-month outreach? Chop off the rest and build out from those. Are 4 out of 5 of your clients just one business sector? Start putting all your efforts there instead. And once you’ve started seeing your results level off, it’s time to restart the process. Find the 20% within that, and then the 20% in that, again and again. The more you refine, the more you can start making tiny changes and seeing huge results. 3) Get Mean Now, you’ve heard the saying “You are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with”? Well, there’s science to back this up too. Did you know most people earn between +/- 20% of what their parents earn? Or that with the right people in your circle, you’re scientifically proven to have more self-control, make wiser investments, and even feel less stress? Your social and professional circle matters. It matters a hell of a lot. And if you want to be successful, you need to ditch people who aren’t progressing at the same speed you are. Yep, they’ll probably be pissed. Yep, they’ll say you’re being unreasonable. And they’re right—you are. But that’s a good thing. 4) Get Zen Get zen. No matter what your spiritual leanings are, there’s something incredibly valuable behind the Buddhist way of living. And that’s minimalism. The better you are at incorporating minimalism, the more successful you’re going to be. Now I’m not saying you should live in a white room with a mattress on the floor and no cutlery… Instead think about this definition of minimalism – Expert Note: “Remove anything that doesn’t help you become the person that you want to be” Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org I did this recently. I stopped recording This Week In Sales, the weekly podcast that I did with sales legend Victor Antonio. It was a great idea at first. But eventually, I realized it wasn’t helping me live the life I wanted to live. So even though I enjoyed doing it, Victor and I decided it was time to call it a day. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. Doing so has freed up a massive amount of time and headspace for me to take on exciting new projects. And I regret nothing. 5) Get Strong Not physically strong. Though there are definitely benefits to that too. But rather, socially strong. Mentally strong. By being assertive. Most people are weak. They’re pushed around by their boss, their family, and their partner. They’re scared of saying no. Now, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep the people important to you happy. But when that happiness comes at the expense of your own, you're laying the groundwork for an unhealthy relationship. And the only light at the end of that tunnel is when that shoddy relationship ends. Instead, learn to set clear boundaries with people. And if they’re crossed, be assertive with your explanations of what you will and won’t accept. Yes, you can keep bending over backward to be a people pleaser. But if you do, you’ll never live up to your true potential. And you’ll never achieve the success you’ve always wanted.

64% of sales professionals are scared of picking up the phone and calling prospects cold. And if you’re like so many other reps out there, you’re not a fan of cold calling either. But in today’s video, we’re looking at why cold calling has reps shaking in their boots. And most importantly, how you can kick that fear right where the sun don’t shine. Now, like I said, nearly 2 out of 3 reps hate cold calling—64% in fact according to our SalesCode Assessment. But what’s really going on here? Why is this simple practice so damn scary? Well, it all boils down to biology. As social animals, we’re built to crave the approval of our peers. And if we don’t get that approval and are rejected, it’s painful. No really, we feel rejection in the same exact spot of the brain that process physical pain. And as anyone who’s cold called knows, rejection happens quite a bit. So it makes sense we’d be anxious about it. Now, the trick is finding ways to overcome that biological fear of rejection. Ways of rewiring the brain to make cold calling less scary. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. With these four techniques, you can say so long to cold calling fears. And start finding more buyers so you can close more deals. It’s as simple as that. 1) Make Fear Your Friend We all get nervous sometimes. Whether we’re jumping out of a plane or just trying a new restaurant, a little bit of anxiety is natural when facing the unknown. It’s what you do with that fear that makes a difference. One thing I’ve found incredibly helpful for overcoming fear is immerse myself in it. You know, really feel the sensations it causes. The racing heart, the sweaty palms. Once that’s done, it’s time for a bit of mental gymnastics. Instead of thinking of these sensations as fear, I relabel them as excitement. See, biologically, fear and excitement are incredibly similar. They both are meant to prepare your body and mind for action. And the symptoms—rush of adrenaline, increased heart rate—are the same. So instead of seeing this as fear, flip it. Think of it as excitement. And then use that reframing to help you act. This will let you stay consistent with your cold calling. And who knows, you may even start looking forward to it! 2) Rethink Your Coping Behaviors Now, this one comes directly from our Social Anxiety Framework from the Selling Made Simple Academy. So if you want an even deeper dive, be sure to head to Salesman.org and get signed up. But just as a brief overview, if you want to eliminate cold calling anxiety, you need to start with your coping behaviors. To explain, anxiety is caused by getting caught in a cycle, a loop. First, there’s an inciting event that triggers your anxiety response. Then you use ineffective coping behaviors to treat that anxiety. Maybe you hide in the bathroom to avoid cold calling. Or you pick up the phone and pretend to dial numbers. No matter what that coping behavior is, it eventually has consequences. You fall behind on your numbers. Your boss finds out. Whatever. And once that happens, your anxiety sparks up again, restarting the whole cycle over again. But you can in fact break this cycle. All you have to do is change your coping behaviors. There are two coping behaviors I’ve found are super helpful. A) Shift Your Attention Shifting your attention. When you’re anxious, the more focused you are on your inward feelings, the worse things get. So next time you feel yourself starting to panic, try shifting your focus to something else. Concentrate on your environment around you. What do you see? What do you smell and hear? Think about the people you’re interacting with. What are they thinking and feeling? The more you take the spotlight off yourself, the calmer you’ll be. B) Get Curious Getting curious. Whenever I feel anxiety starting to creep in, I consciously force myself to get extremely curious. When you force yourself to be incredibly curious, there is little processing room or overhead left in your brain for it to focus inward on your own anxiety. And so, rather than getting caught up in your own thoughts, you become completely immersed in the person in front of you. How can you give them value, help them through a situation, or better your relationship? What are the pain points they’re experiencing right now? How would solving them help? Best of all, getting curious makes you feel better and lets your buyer know you’re focused on them. And typically, they’ll appreciate the attention. 3) The Bodybuilder Mindset Sales is a numbers game. And getting good at sales is too. The more you commit to doing the hard work, putting in those reps, the easier things will get. It’ll be tough at first, I know. Just like your first day ever in the gym is going to leave you crushed. But every time after that, you’re going to be stronger than the day before. So instead of giving up after a bad call, commit to getting the reps done. 40, 70, 100 calls—whatever. Just make sure you do it every day. You’ll find your groove eventually, I can guarantee it. And finally, the last fear-busting cold calling technique is… 4) Start Playing Video Games Start playing video games. No, not real ones. Though if you’re actually able to get your hands on a PS5, send me a message (wink). No I mean start treating your cold calling like a video game session. Make it your goal to see how far you can get on each call. Try new techniques like adjusting your tone or speed to see how it affects your success rate. You can even create a call script that takes on-the-fly guesswork out of the equation entirely. And don’t forget—if you lose the call, you don’t die. You just respawn and get to try again!

I hate to break it to you, but if your leads aren’t buying, the problem isn’t with them. It’s with you. In today’s video, we’re looking at 5 reasons your leads just won’t bite. And 5 things you can do to fix it. Now, one of the most important lessons you’re ever going to learn in this business is the value of self-sufficiency. Best-selling author Nina Purewal told me once…  “One of the big things in sales is you can't control how people are going to react to you. You can only control what you put out there.” SP #697 – Let That Sh*t Go And Reduce Your Sales Stress Nina Purewal You’re going to run into a lot of different people over the course of your career. Some of them will be a match. And some of them won’t. But for those that are and still aren’t buying, the problem is you. Agh, hurts doesn’t it? Well don’t worry—there are steps you can take to fix those problems. And that’s what we’re looking at today. 5 reasons people aren’t buying from you and 5 solutions. So let’s start with a big one… 1. They’re Only Halfway There Now, in B2B sales, a lot of the decision making depends on logic. Does this product meet our requirements? Is the price within our budget? Can we implement on our schedule? But if you’re only appealing to the logic side of things, you’re missing out on a super valuable opportunity. Because in reality, most sales actually start with emotion. The buyer makes an emotional commitment to buy first and then justifies with logic. Maybe that emotion is that they want to be respected by their colleagues. Or they’re looking for ways to catch the eye of the C-suite. No matter what they’re after, the emotion, the feel, comes first. And when you appeal to that emotional side, you’re setting yourself up for a win. But there’s more. If you’re only using logic in your pitches, it actually makes it easier for the buyer to dismiss taking action. “We’ll circle back to this next year once the economy settles down,” they’ll say. But if you can attach emotion to the purchase too, it’s like tying down a boat with two ropes instead of one. Once the storm comes, you’ll be less likely to lose it to sea. So be sure you’re hitting those emotional pain points too, not just the logical ones. 2. They’re Unqualified A hard truth of sales is that most of the leads you talk to just aren’t qualified. Sure, they’ll give you their time. Maybe they’ve even come through your funnel as an inbound lead so you think they’re a fit. But once you get several steps into the sales process, you’ll realize that every interaction up till now has been a huge waste of time. It’s frustrating, I know. But if you do a bit more work qualifying upfront, you can avoid that hassle altogether. Now, the Selling Made Simple Academy’s Sales Diagnosis Framework explores how to cover all your bases while qualifying leads. So if you’re interested, I’d suggest enrolling today. But as a quick overview, you need to be assessing leads for: Pain. Are they in pain? Is their issue actually a problem? Time. What’s their timeline? Are they thinking today? This quarter? Or in the next few years? Fit. Are they a fit for what you’re selling? Can you really fix this buyer’s problem? Return. Does the value of your solution outweigh the difficulties of implementing it? Will they see a reasonable return? Process. Is your buyer willing to adapt to your process? Will they put in the time, say, training to get the most value out of your product? Budget. Can they afford it? Champion. Is there someone else that you should be talking to that will champion this deal? And last… Agreement. Did they give you their verbal commitment to work together if you can solve their problem? Again, if you’re interested in learning more about this framework, head to Salesman.org today and enroll. 3. They Don’t Trust You Simple question for you here—if you got a phone call one day and surprise! It was you on the other end pitching your product, would you trust yourself? I mean really trust yourself? There’s a lot of hot air and shady tactics in some circles of sales. And if you’re using exaggeration or outright lies with your buyers, that needs to stop today. Because that kind of crap is devastating your trust value. But if not, the problem might just be that you don’t have enough social proof on your side. So to build up that trust, there are a few things you can do. A) Borrow Trust Borrow trust from your company. Provide buyers with case studies, testimonials, and endorsements your company’s earned in the past. B) Bolster Your Reputation Bolster your reputation by building an expansive professional network. And start producing valuable thought leadership content. C) Share Insights Share insights rather than cold spamming. People respond to value, not pestering. If you can do all that, you’ll be 10X more likely to win the trust of your buyers. 4. They’re Being Held Back They’re being held back by the most notorious barriers to implementation ever—the status quo. Sometimes the burden of getting started is enough to stop buyers from committing to the deal. There’s always going to be growing pains. And onboarding issues, fighting for budget, reputation risk, and lack of trust are all objections that, left unaddressed, can kill your deal. That’s why it’s up to you to help your buyer overcome those barriers. If they have onboarding concerns, offer them support during implementation. If it’s the budget, provide c-suite focused materials that outline your product’s cost benefits. If it’s reputation and trust, point to your proven track record or other social proof. You are responsible for equipping your buyer with what they need to forget about those objections. And the better you are at doing that, the more likely you’ll be to get a yes. 5. You’ve Got Commission Breath You’ve got commission breath. What is commission breath, you ask? It’s desperation. It’s bullshit. Or it’s a mix of both. If all you’re thinking about is raking in that commission, I’ve got bad news for you… YOUR BUYER CAN TELL! They’re not idiots. They can smell that crap a mile away. And if you don’t really, truly believe in your product… If the only thing you’re concerned with is a paycheck… Then there’s no way in hell you’re going to make the sale. So, what’s the solution here? Well, you can either find a product you care about, change your focus to providing real value, or, well… get out of the business. Tough pill to swallow, I know. But hey, sometimes the truth hurts!

Don’t know what you’re doing in sales? You’ll be living paycheck to paycheck. Knocking it out of the park? You could earn your first million in just a few years time. So what separates the two? Well, it turns out it’s just five simple strategies. Yep, just five! And those five strategies are exactly what we’re talking about today. Now, maybe my favorite thing about being in the sales industry is your earning potential is directly tied to your abilities. If you rock at what you do, you can literally make millions in this career. But if you’re not so great, well… it can really be tough to make a decent living. If you find yourself in the latter camp, don’t worry—all hope’s not lost. There are some very simple changes you can make to massively boost your chances of success in this industry. And today, we’re talking about five of the best ones I’ve found. So listen up, stay tuned, and get ready to take your selling power to the next level. 1) Have a Simple Sales Process Feeling overwhelmed every day? Lost? Like you’re working your butt off but never really going anywhere? It’s because you don’t have an effective and defined sales process. Now, I’ve covered what a winning sales process looks like in videos before. But just as a quick overview, your sales process should look something like this: A) Understand the Market You’re never going to get anywhere if you don’t understand your buyers and your solution. And that means… Honing your value proposition and tailoring it to your ideal buyer. Understanding your buyer’s journey. And nailing down the numbers. Sales is a numbers game. And the better you are at tracking and playing to those numbers, the more money you’ll stand to make. B) Get in Front of Buyers Get in front of buyers. What methods are you using to get in touch with prospects? If you’re doing things right, your outreach should include not just cold email and cold calling, but also a healthy dose of social selling on platforms like LinkedIn. You’ll also need to fine-tune your sales cadences so you’re reaching out to buyers at the right time and keeping them interested. C) Explain the Value Explaining the value. The best outreach campaigns in the world won’t do a thing if you can’t effectively communicate your product’s value. That means mastering your discovery call, delivering effective demos, upselling and closing like a pro, and knowing how to takeover competitor clients. And that leads us neatly into selling strategy number 2… 2) Become a Master Implementer Knowing how to sell doesn’t—excuse the French—mean a damn thing if you don’t implement it. High performers are master implementers. They have the skills, mindset, and traits needed to kill it day in and day out. And if you don’t cultivate those traits yourself, it’s going to be tough to get a leg up in this business. Wondering how you stack up? Take our Sales Code Assessment to see if you’ve got what it takes or if you need a bit of work. 3) Simplify EVERYTHING Humans are naturally drawn to the path of least resistance. But for some reason, we don’t apply that inclination to our sales processes. And that means we’re working harder than we need to be. So instead of falling into that trap, find the 20% of your sales process that delivers 80% of the results. And once you do, cut the rest of it. Let me show you what I mean. If the majority of your sales leads are coming from just one channel, double down on that channel and ignore the others. If two of your emails in your 30-day sales cadence lead to most of your calls booked, get rid of everything else. The more you simplify your process, the more time you can spend on closing deals and bringing in more, better prospects. Alright so the next strategy I hinted at earlier. It addresses a major myth that’s continually holding sales reps back from achieving killer numbers and crushing their quotas month after month. 4) The 20-Mile March Now, does this sound like you? Last month you were king of the world when it came to your numbers. But this month, you’re behind. Way behind. So you make up for the dip by hitting it hard. You’re prospecting like crazy. You’re sending hundreds of emails a day. And you’re cold calling so much your ears are starting to hurt from being pressed against the phone for so long. Each month is a new battle. And the rollercoaster ups and downs never seem to stop. Sound familiar? If so, don’t worry, we’ve all been there. But the truth of the matter is sales doesn’t have to be like that. Bit of a shocker, huh? Instead, you can follow what’s known as the 20 Mile March concept. This concept, created by business authors Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, centers on consistency. In their book, they found that the leading enterprises, the ones that performed ten times better, than the competition, valued consistency above all else. And the more consistent you can be in sales, think prospecting every single day from 8 to 10, the more successful you’re bound to be. The secret isn’t innovation, creativity, or flexibility. It’s consistency. Fanatic consistency. And if you can develop that unwavering discipline, you’re going to earn 10X more than you thought possible in this business. 5) Keep to One Mentor at a Time Now, I used to read countless books, be 20% of the way through five different sales courses, and have a bunch of unofficial mentors that I listened to each day. And what it got me was no real system and a bunch of conflicting ideas. Instead of doing that, learn from my mistake and stick with just one mentor or trainer at a time. Don’t try to do it all at once because you’ll only end up confused, procrastinating, and exhausted. Now we actually cater to this strategy in our Selling Made Simple training academy. You can sign up, leverage our tools, follow our systems, and get real, all-inclusive mentoring right in one place. No jumping back and forth between so-called “sales gurus.” And no conflicting ideas banging around in your head all at once. Our students love it. And I think you will too. So implement it all, crush your quota, and then—only then—test the next system and improve your skills.

Leads are the lifeblood of any business. And if you’re in sales, bringing them in isn’t just important. It’s your whole job! But what is B2B lead generation and why is it so essential? We’re tackling all that and more today. And be sure to stick around because we’re also going to talk about how you can finally stop chasing those leads and bring them to your door instead. Leads come in, they learn about your products, and you show them why what you have to offer is the perfect solution to their problems. But bringing those leads in is easier said than done. In fact, HubSpot found that a whopping 61% of sales professionals think lead generation is their biggest challenge. Bigger than staying motivated. Bigger than beating out the competition. And bigger even than closing—yep, seriously. What Is B2B Lead Generation? Essentially, B2B lead generation is a business’s ability to identify and attract customers that are a good fit for the products or services. These businesses sell primarily to other businesses rather than consumers—hence the B2B.  Qualify Leads One, qualify leads. Because not everyone is going to be a good fit for what you’re selling. And… Drive Action Get those leads to take action and start moving them through the sales process. Now that leads us up to the next question… Where Does Lead Gen Fit in the Sales Funnel? As you might’ve already guessed, lead generation starts at the very tip top of the sales funnel. If you don’t know, the sales funnel looks a bit like this: Prospects move through awareness, discovery, evaluation, and intent before making a purchase decision. And as they move through each stage, they learn more about their problem, your solutions, and how they’ll help your prospect better their business. Now funnels will differ slightly among industries, with some stages being longer or shorter than others. But when it comes to lead generation, it’s always at the very very top. Your company reaches out to leads, qualify them, and guide them through the other stages of the funnel. Makes sense, right? For many companies, marketing handles a lot of the outreach. But if you’re a savvy and success-minded sales rep, you need to be engaging in plenty of lead generation yourself too. Okay okay, but important question here… Why Is B2B Lead Generation Important? Why do you need to be adding to your workload by reaching out to new leads? Can’t marketing handle it? Well, there are two big benefits to making lead gen a priority in your daily to-do task list. It Generates New Leads Duh—it generates new leads. In addition to the leads sent to you by marketing, you’re adding a new stream of potential sales. It fills your funnel and gives you a better chance at hitting your targets and making more money. Another incredibly important benefit is that… It Gives You Control It puts the control in your hands. You are in control of the sales process. You are the driver of whether you’re coming out ahead this month or falling behind. And you get to make sure your prospects are getting the attention, information, and guidance they need throughout the buyer’s journey rather than relying on someone else to create a good first impression. The power is in your hands. And that alone is reason enough to start your own B2B lead generation efforts. Now let’s talk a bit about terminology. SQl vs. MQL—What’s the Difference? If you’ve spent any time in sales you’ve likely heard the terms “SQL” and “MQL” thrown around before. So SQL vs. MQL, what’s the difference? Marketing Qualified Leads These are the leads that marketing has flagged as going through the initial stages of qualification. Maybe they downloaded a content offer or reached out to the marketing team. Basically, they’ve showed a little bit of interest in what it is you’re selling. And as such, they haven’t yet gone through all the necessary qualification standards to determine if they’re a perfect fit for your company. Sales Qualified Leads Sales qualified leads. These are leads your sales team has determined are worth pursuing. And they’re typically a bit better qualified for the products or services you’re selling. That’s because you or another rep has confirmed that they’re interested, or at least gotten more buy-in than a simple download or a question sent to marketing. SQLs are the ideal. And when you as a sales rep engage in B2B lead gen, your goal is to create more SQLs—individuals that are a good fit for your products, have shown interest, and are likely to end their journey by buying your product. So the question is… How Do We Create SQL’s? How do we create SQL’s? What can we do to fill our pipeline with leads that are more qualified, more likely to buy, and less likely to eat up all our time? Well, there are two ways. We Qualify MQL’s One, we qualify MQL’s. Taking MQLs on hook line and sinker without further qualification is a recipe for disaster. While some qualification has already taken place, it often isn’t enough to determine if a lead is actually going to be a good fit. Instead, you need to do some qualifying yourself by digging a bit deeper. What’s the real problem they’re trying to solve? How does their budget stack up to your implementation costs? Are they even the decision maker here? Your discovery call is going to be the best place to get this info. But even with a few back and forth emails, you can better parse out those that are a fit and those that aren’t. Now, the other option is… Cold Outreach Cold outreach. We bring in the leads ourselves. This is where the rubber really meets the road. And if you aren’t engaging in B2B lead generation yourself, you’re missing out on an incredibly valuable source of customers and, of course, commissions. Cold outreach is all about the cadences. Cold email, social selling, cold calling—these are the activities that generate results. And these are the activities that, when incorporated into your weekly and even daily processes, are going to fill your pipeline with more SQLs and help you skyrocket your numbers. Now, I’ve talked about how to get the best results from these practices plenty of times in past videos. So if you want to dive deeper into each, be sure to check out our library and subscribe so you don’t miss a beat.

You can’t expect to get far in sales if you aren’t at least a little skilled at crafting cold emails. So, what gets your prospects to click? How do you create subject lines that consistently earn solid open rates? And what do you need to include in your body copy to drive action? That’s exactly what we’re talking about today—how to cold email clients. And along the way, we’ll look at some of the best cold email templates I’ve used with spectacular results. Now, email—it’s how business gets done these days. Of course, cold calling still has a place in any sales rep’s cadences. And social selling is on the up and up, especially if you’re particularly savvy on platforms like LinkedIn. The problem is, effective cold emails are notoriously hard to craft. With the massive amount of junk mail, spam, and otherwise useless crap that fills our inboxes every day, it can be tough to make sure your email stands out from the crowd. So, what does it take to craft cold emails that earn opens and drive action? What does a great cold email look like? And what are some winning templates you can start using today? Don’t worry—we’re covering all this and more right now. 1: Get Their Attention Perhaps the most important step of any cold email outreach campaign is to first get your prospect’s attention with a great subject line. Now, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this. On the one hand, you can get your market’s attention through gimmicks. Stupid things. Extreme things. These can grab the eye of your buyer. But this tactic comes with the tradeoff of reducing confidence in your abilities as a solution provider—no one wants to buy from a clown. The other technique is to grab attention while still remaining professional. This, of course, takes a bit more tact to pull off correctly. But when done well, it accomplishes the dual effect of building both intrigue and trust. So what are some subject line structures that get attention while still maintaining trust? Well, there are four in particular that I use… A) Direct Subject Lines Direct headlines state the sales proposition directly. No wordplay. No hidden meanings. And no fancy bits stuck on the end. Just straight-to-the-point zero BS. A direct subject line might look like this: “The world’s fastest CRM tool – 20% off today” B) News Subject Lines This is a great option if you have an update about your product or service. It could be the introduction of a new product, a change in the law or legislation that affects your customers using your product, or something else newsworthy that’s along these lines. It could even be industry news like a company merger or emerging competitor. A winning news subject line looks as simple as this:  “X law has moved on. Have you?” C) “How To” Subject Lines The words “how-to” are magic in email subject lines. “How to” headlines offer the promise of solid information, sound advice, and solutions to problems. And prospects find them especially clickworthy when they talk about a problem they’re facing at the moment. This subject line might look like this: “How to reduce your ad spend in 14 days” D) Question Subject Lines Careful here— To be effective, question headlines must include a question that the person receiving the email will either empathize with or would love to see answered. A solid one may be: “Is [X] costing you more than it should?” Now that you’ve got them opening your email, it’s time to build the emails body. 2: Story email structure How can you actually help? What can you offer to solve your buyer’s problems? And why should they spend their valuable time hearing what you have to say? Whereas the attention-getter mainly happens in the subject line, this step of the framework should be handled in the body of your cold email. It takes a bit longer to really flesh out, so a mere seven words—the ideal subject line length—isn’t going to do this step justice. Now, one of the best ways to demonstrate that need is by using… The Story Telling Framework The goal of the story telling framework is to… Highly their Current Reality – Acknowledge where the prospect is now. Show their Future Reality – Show them where they could be. Give the Reality Bridge – Identify the steps they need to take to get there, a.k.a. the “Reality Bridge.” Here’s what that might look like in practice. Hi [NAME],  I recently worked with [NAME], he is in the [INDUSTRY] like you.  Traditional salespeople had failed [NAME]. Here is his story – [LINK TO INSIGHT POST] He went from zero motivation, to proactively racing to get to his desk each morning to prospect.  All by implementing proven frameworks to relieve the pressure of choice from his job. Does it make sense to jump on a quick call to see if you can use these frameworks too?  Cheers, Will Current reality / Desired future reality / Reality bridge See how that all works? Here we have the current reality, the desired future reality, and the reality bridge, all within just a few lines. It’s simple stuff. But it’s wildly effective. 3: Call to Action It isn’t enough to just say hello to a prospect. You’ve also got to get them to take the next step. Setting up a discovery call is usually the right way to go here. So tell them how to do it and make it especially easy on them too. Doing so is simple too. Just ask them at the end, “Does it make sense to jump on a quick call to see if we can…” and then add the desired outcome. It can be “increase your sales”, “boost your team’s efficiency”, “reduce your costs”—whatever. I’ve seen fantastic results with this templated call to action. And I even teach it to my students as part of our Closing Framework. It’s to the point. It’s unassuming. And it’s damn effective too. Alright, so let’s see what all this looks like when we put the four steps together. That’s all it takes! And when you cater this template to your industry, you can start seeing fantastic open and response rates too.

On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Chris Beall explains the exact process to start a successful cold call and the mindset you need to be in to make it stick. Chris has led software start-ups as a founder or early-stage developer for the last 30 years. He is currently CEO of ConnectAndSell, and hosts a podcast which you can find at  MarketDominanceGuys.com. You'll learn: Sponsored by: Free SalesCode assessment Learn your strengths and weaknesses in an instant. Taken by over 10,000+ of your competitors. Don't get left behind. Take the free assessment Featured on this episode: Host - Will Barron Founder of Salesman.org Guest - Chris Beall CEO of Connect And Sell Resources: Connectandsell.com Marketdominanceguys.com Chris on LinkedIn Book: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Book: Sell without Selling Out Transcript Will Barron: Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the Salesman Podcast. On today's show, we're looking at the psychology of the perfect cold call with our guest Chris Beall. Chris has led software startups as a founder or early stage developer for the last 30 years. He's currently the CEO of ConnectAndSell and host a podcast, which you can find over at marketdominanceguys.com with that, Chris, welcome to the show.   Chris Beall: Hey Will, great to be here.   Cold Calling is Alive Again · [00:30]    Will Barron: I'm glad to have you on mate. So this is a, I think I'm going totally sidetracked from what I was going to talk about. We'll go down a different avenue for 30 seconds and then we'll get it back onto the psychology of the cold call, but it seems like it was in fashion two or three years ago, whether it's on social media, whether it's sales training, whatever it is to start to say, cold calling is nonsense, cold calling no longer works. People don't want to be cold called and obviously cold calling is effective when used in the right way, which we'll talk about in this show, but have you found that these conversations and these premises and these debates of whether cold calling is effective or not, it's kind of died down over the last 12 months. I really feel like that narrative has almost disappeared.   Chris Beall: Yeah, I think it has. Email is the thing that's gotten hammered over the last 12 months because COVID came along and I think the rational response to it was, well, let's send a million emails and the problem is a million emails create a lot of noise. And I think that's really what has driven a resurgence of interest in having conversations.   Most Salespeople Don’t Cold Call Because They Like Hiding Behind Emails · [01:34]    Will Barron: I agree. I agree. I feel like it's almost, well, it's not almost, it's definitely easier to spam crappy emails and hide behind your inbox than it is to do the hard work of using ConnectAndSell to make the [inaudible 00:01:47] easier I guess. But the actual calls itself is somewhat labour intensive. If you're doing it correctly, I think it's fair to say is brain intensive. You having to think, you're having to engage your conversational skills, you're having to do a little bit of work there as well. So I think it's people have leveraged some of these automated tools to hide behind email, whereas you can't really hide behind a cold call. Can you?   “Gresham's law of business communications says that bad money drives out good money. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency.” – Chris Beal · [02:17]    Chris Beall: No, you can't. It's kind of interesting, I call it Gresham's law of business communications, Gresham's law, most people probably don't know it. Hopefully they don't, but it says bad money drives out good. So counterfeit money drives good money out of circulation because people hide the good money. And I think noisy communication, cheap communication like email, the bad ones, the spammy ones, drive the good ones out of circulation. And so you have to switch to a different currency. And so I think that's, it's not so much hard work with ConnectAndSells an example, it's easy. You push a button and talk to somebody. How hard is that? But it's hard to bring yourself to push the button and that's rational because you're at that moment agreeing with yourself that you're going to ambush somebody and they're not going to like it.   Chris Beall: So now what? I think that's actually the hump we have to get over. Our fears peak around the fear of exile and in the environment of evolution in the village, exile was the worst. Exile was worse than death, always it has been in human society forever. And when we decide to ambush somebody and frighten them, annoy them, do something bad to them, we are actually risking something worse than death inside of our bodies. We feel it. And we don't want to push that button so that's the hard work. And then getting skilled at it is in a way, once you get over the first part, you can agree with yourself that you're going to develop the skills, but then the brain work is way inside your brain. The cortical stuff, where you're thinking, not worth very much in a cold call. There's not a lot of thinking to be done.   Chris Beall: I remember listening to Cherryl Turner who works at ConnectAndSell, she's perhaps the greatest cold caller in the world. Certainly the best I've ever heard. And when Helen and I, my fiance and I, were listening to her, as I mentioned in the pre-show, we're kind of nerdy, we do nerdy things. So we were just listening to a bunch of Cherryl conversations, because Helen is a big strategic seller. So she doesn't do any cold calling. And she said, “You know what's interesting? Is there are millisecond level emotional pivots that Cherryl uses in her cold calls even though the words stay the same.” That's the hard work.   People Don’t Like Being Cold Called So Don’t Waste Their Time · [04:35]    Will Barron: So I want to get into, we'll dive back into that. I made a note down here to come back to that later in the show Chris because I guess that's more advanced level stuff. Let's start from the foundational side of this and build our way back up to that. And you mentioned, and I don't know if you did this very specifically or if it was more kind of in passing, but you used specifically the word ambush and you were quite heavy handed in the way you were describing what happens most, not all the time, but most of the time when we make a dial to someone. Do you purposefully think about and almost teach and describe cold calling in that matter, in that way that you are ambushing someone to make it real for people when they are picking up the phone? Is there a reason why you use those words specifically?   Chris Beall: Yeah, there is. So first of all, when you dial, nothing happens most of the time, you end up up in their voicemail, which is, so what? Anybody can leave a voicemail, but when you get somebody and they answer, you've ambushed them, they made a mistake. They were not intending to speak with you. I mean, think about it, otherwise you wouldn't be cold calling them. It's just kind of simple math. So I use the word ambush to make it clear that the psychological beginning of the cold call for the other party is that they don't like it. And here's the point. It's not that, I'm not saying, hey, this is a big deal, steal yourself for it. What I'm really saying is, and we get into this in the psychology of the cold call. What I'm saying is that is a great place to start because it's predictable and because it lets you do something for this person immediately.   “A cold call is a great place to start because it's predictable and because it lets you do something for this person immediately. And if you can get in a relationship with somebody where you can do something useful for them, something emotionally useful for them as the very first thing you do within a relationship, you've got a pretty good chance of creating trust.” – Chris Beal · [06:02]    Chris Beall: And if you can get in a relationship with somebody where you can do something useful for them, something emotionally useful for them as the very first thing you do within a relationship, you've got a pretty good chance of creating trust. And so that's why I call it an ambush. Because one, it is an ambush. It really is. Let's face it. And two, until you face it, you can't behave correctly in the first seven seconds of the conversation. You don't have the right mindset for saying what you need to say, how you need to say it in these very, very delicate moments that are there for the taking. And if you blow it, you blown it. For the rest of your life, you've blown it. That relationship is not going to flower. Whereas if you do it right in that first seven seconds, as long as you never blow up, this person will trust you for the rest of their life.   Chris Beall: That's a pretty big pivot point in a relationship, but how do you get your head in the right place to know what to do? It's kind of saying, this will be for American baseball fans. If you want to play Major League Baseball, you have to be a will stand in there against a Major League curve ball, which appears to be coming right at you. If you don't admit that it feels like it's coming right at you, you'll be crashing to the ground and bailing out or you'll be bravely standing there to get hit by fast balls, one or the other. You got to recognise the situation as it is in order to be able to use that truth, the truth of the situation in order to do the right thing.   This is The Absolute Worst That Could Happen When You Cold Call Someone · [08:00]    Will Barron: Got it. I love it. And I love the way you're not glossing over this. Now I try and do this as our training as well because there's a lot of sales trainings out there that talk about tricks or hacks or ways to almost beat the psychological trauma, and I'm using that kind of, that's too strong a way to describe it. But there is an element of, oh crap. I am potentially annoying someone here when they immediately pick up the phone and a lot of people try and gloss over that. And I think if you just be realist about it, it makes it a lot easier because the flip side of that is even though you might annoy someone until you have an opportunity to add value, until you can build that relationship, until you can get the conversation going, which we'll get onto in a second, they can't climb down the phone and come out the other end and strangle you. The worst that can happen is they go, “Right, that person's an idiot, I'm not going to pick up their phone calls again.” Or you damage your personal brand slightly or the company's brand, but there's not that much on the line with regards to most cold calls, is there?   “The opportunity cost of a bad cold call is quite high.” – Chris Beal · [08:54]    Chris Beall: If there's not in a negative sense, there is in a positive sense. It's really interesting. The opportunity cost of a bad cold call is quite high. The cost, sort of the raw cost of a bad cold call in terms of your own emotions, maybe you'll have a difficult time getting over it or not kind of depends on who you are. Grandmothers don't have a problem with this. They can cold call all day long. Younger people who are not so sure of themselves and thinner skin and all that might have to recover a little bit from somebody saying whatever they say. But the fact is, once you deal with the facts, once you actually get into this, this is the fact and you get why it's important for you to recognise and I have got a simple analogy. So say you want to save people's lives because you have a steady hand, you've got a good mind, and a good heart and you want to be a surgeon, so you want to do heart surgery to save people because heart disease is a real big problem.   Chris Beall: So you dedicate your life to studying and understanding anatomy and physiology and maybe even go all the way to bed side manner to talk to the loved ones and all this kind of good stuff. But you faint at the sight of blood. You faint, you're out, you can't be a heart surgeon. You've got to recognise very early in your developmental process as a surgeon, this truth, which is, can you work through the site blood because there's always going to be blood?   Will Barron: I create that analogy is real for you Chris. My partner, [inaudible 00:10:23] and the regulars know, she's a doctor. First day of medical school, the cadavers on the table, chopping them up, cutting them to bits. They were given essentially hacksaws to hack off a limb each to take off to another part of the department and the whole point of that, she didn't realise it at the time, but discussing it after the fact and now she does a bit of teaching as well is to get the doctors or the medical students to cut a few of them out who perhaps aren't capable of handling that trauma. It is a bit weird chopping some dead person's limb off, straight out of college. You're some super nerd. You go for a load of box, the next thing you're hack sawing someone who's donated their body to medicine and science. And so, yeah. So that makes your analogy real because as I said, my Mrs has been through it.   “When people ask me what makes a good cold caller, number one is they have to be able to gain control of their voice in an emotionally difficult situation. It is emotionally difficult because you're ambushing somebody. Can you get your voice to work naturally in an unnatural situation? And if you can do that, you're great.” – Chris Beal · [11:16]    Chris Beall: Yeah. It's an incredibly important. When people ask me, what makes a good cold caller? Number one is they have to be able ultimately to gain control of their voice in an emotionally difficult situation. It is emotionally difficult, you're ambushing somebody. Can you get your voice to work naturally in an unnatural situation? And if you can do that, you're great. But if you faint at the sight of blood, that is you tighten up so much that you sound artificial and you listen to a lot of cold calls and people sound sing songy. They have this different voice, their sales voice, hi blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm whoever, whatever and you just kind of roll your eyes. And that's problematic and you can be trained to get used to the stress. That's actually what we do in this flight school thing is a little aeroplane I have on me here.   Chris Beall: We actually train people to be really, really good at keeping control of their voice in a natural way in the first seven seconds of the conversation. But you have to do it under pressure and no pressure. When you go from those cadavers to a live person, imagine the first time as a surgeon that you've got that scalpel in your hand and or you've got that you're going to crack somebody's chest open, you've got to feel pretty sick. That can't be good, but you've got to somehow be able to keep your emotions under control and behave naturally. Naturally in this case means smoothly. You can't have your hands shaking when you're going to cut somebody's chest open. It's just not good for them. And you also have to think this in cold calling, when you cold call, you're doing it for the other person.   Chris Beall: That's why you're doing it. You're not doing it for yourself. And my friend, Scott Webb who runs sales and growth and a bunch of stuff over at Hub International, he called me one day when he was going into a session using ConnectAndSell with his team blitz and coach session, he leads from the front. He does it himself. And he said, my mindset is wrong. I am going to go into each conversation feeling like I am stopping this person that I've never met from walking in front of a speeding bus. I'm going to save their life. And he went five for five, five meetings and five conversations called me up and said, that's the key.   The Mindset You Need For the Perfect Cold Call · [13:40]    Will Barron: How much of the psychology that we're talking about here, Chris, these metaphors, these analogies, these ways of changing our mental models I guess, the answer is it doesn't matter, but how much of it can be just nonsense and have a positive effect of literally your power isn't stopping anyone walk in front of a bus. But if he goes into a conversation with that mindset, he's going to be in a position of more likely to add value during the call, however you want to describe it. So how much of this needs to be real logical step by step and how much of it is kind of just shifting your mindset, whether it's actually true or not? Does that make sense? That wasn't a very good question, but feel like [crosstalk 00:14:39]   Chris Beall: No, it's a great question. Actually, I love this question because it comes to that intersection of technique which is step by step by step and who we are, what are we bringing to the party as ourselves? Ask anybody who plays competitive sports, especially I'll call it the exacting ones, the slow ones like golf. Golf is a great example of a very, very difficult game to play competitively. A lot of people can hit a golf ball in the range, very few people can hit one on the course and nobody can hit one in competition because it's just too hard to be natural when you're doing something that's slow and considered and has got technique and mindset working together in real time and that's what cold calling is. The seven seconds of a cold call are very similar to the amount of time it takes to set up to a golf ball, pull the club back and actually hit it.   Chris Beall: Yeah. A lot of things can go wrong technically, and then one big camp thing can go wrong emotionally, which is you get tight. When I get tight, I hit the ball left. I'm a natural right to left hitter, boom, there's somebody's house and that's what happens. So when I used to play more competitively, which I don't at all anymore, somehow I had to do something inside myself that said it's okay no matter what happens. That's hard. Cold calling we have to do attitude things, but then we need technique. And the technique is exacting. It is second by second. It's actually millisecond by millisecond and it has to do with the other person's psychology. I think a lot of folks who talk about cold calling deal with the rep psychology, the caller. I don't think the caller psychology is particularly important. Other than they've got to be confident that what they're offering is really valuable for this other person. Even if they never do business with them, that's really important. Everything else, no big deal. At that point, the technique becomes important because it's about someone else's mind. You're doing brain surgery on somebody and you've got seven seconds to get it done.   The Only Technique You Need For the Perfect Cold Call · [17:00]    Will Barron: So let's paint the picture then. Sam, the salesperson is selling a product that they know helps a specific prospect. We can narrow it down into a more succinct kind of metaphor if we like but he knows that they are able to help this individual. They've got data on it. They've got whatever it is. So they're in a really good mindset themselves. What do they need to do from a technique perspective assuming that again, they are confident, they're somewhat calm, they're chilled, they know that they can help this person if they can just get through this first seven seconds, they can book that next meeting. They know that when the prospect gets on a demo with them, it's wrapped up, it's sealed. This person's the perfect person to purchase from them and they're somewhat qualified, somehow they've pre-qualified them. What does Sam need to do in that first seven seconds? And how does Sam need to I guess preempt the buyer's psychology so that they can cater those seven seconds towards getting that next meeting booked in?   “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 in the meeting. It's not. Curiosity is going to draw somebody into a meeting.” – Chris Beall · [17:43]   Chris Beall: Well, I got lucky on this. So first a small point, 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, this human being, 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. It's the universal product of B2B is the meeting. 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 in the meeting. It's not. Curiosity is going to draw somebody into a meeting. So if you look at the emotional journey and say, what about the first seven seconds? You have to know where the prospect starts. The prospect starts in fear.   “Where you need to take your prospect during a cold call is immediately to trust. From trust we want to take them to curiosity and from curiosity to verbal commitment, and eventually to action.” – Chris Beall · [18:26]   Chris Beall: They're afraid of you, the invisible stranger. You just ambushed them. We might call it annoyance or whatever. Trust me, it's fear. Where you need to take them is immediately to trust. From trust we want to take them to curiosity and from curiosity to commitment, verbal commitment, and eventually to action. So our big problem is how do we get from fear to trust. That one sounds impossible. Seems like we should go through a lot of steps, maybe go through value. I have value for you, blah, blah, blah. Turns out we don't need any of that. So Chris Voss actually taught me this, the author of Never Split the Difference. They nailed this in FBI land I guess with hostage negotiators. I asked him one night I was fortunate enough to be at a dinner with him. And I asked him, “How long do we have to get trust in a cold call?”   “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 Beal · [19:38]    Chris Beall: And he says, “Seven seconds.” Oh okay, our research says eight seconds. He says, “Your research is wrong. It's seven seconds.” That's interesting. So what do we need to do in those seven seconds? He said, “Oh, that's easy, all we have to do is show this other party, we see the world through their eyes. We call it tactical empathy. And then we need to demonstrate to them we're competent to solve a problem they have right now.” And I said, “Well, isn't the problem they have right now me.?” And he said, “Bingo, that's why you're in control.” So the reason that cold calling actually can be allowed to work 100% of the time is 100% of the time, you can show that other person you see the world through their eyes. And all you have to do is say something like this. I happen to like this particular phrase, it's easy to learn. It's hard to emit. But if you can get to the point of saying this correctly, with the right heart, then it works.   Chris Beall: 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. That's easy. Except it's hard to say, because we've been told don't be bad. Don't be the bad person ever since we were little tiny children. We have a baby in the family now, not Helen and me, but her daughter. And that baby is already being told by her parents who are wonderful people. But every once in a while, don't do this, don't do that. That's what we get told growing up.   Chris Beall: The main thing we hear is don't be bad. Don't be that bad person. Don't be a bad kid. We're told this, I don't know. I tried to count it once, I figure by the time you become old enough to cold call, you've probably been told half a million times, stop being bad. And now you've got to go and agree to be bad. The bad thing, not even a bad act, but you have to agree, you are a bad thing. You are the problem. Get over that and learn how to say, “I know I'm an interruption.” Hammering the word, no. And then being clear about the interruption part and your voice is hard and flat. And then you've got to switch your voice to playful and curious so that you can offer a solution to the problem, which is you. You're the problem.   Chris Beall: This person has one goal in life at this point, to get off this call with their self-image intact, that's their goal. Isn't that great? You know somebody else's goal. It's fantastic. Offer to help them. So how to help them? Simple exchange. Ask them a question of fact in a playful, curious voice. We know the answer, by the way, they can certainly spare 27 seconds they answered the phone. So offer a simple deal. “Can I have 27 seconds?” As the voice goes up, playful, “To tell you why I called?” Little chuckle helps, “Can I have 27 seconds to tell you why I called?” And then you've offered a solution to the problem they have which is you. At that point, they will trust you for the rest of their life. As long as you don't blow it, how do you blow it? Try to sell to them, turn into a salesperson, then you'll blow it. That is, you've just gone from being the worst thing, an ambushing invisible stranger to a new thing, which is a trusted human being. You're way up on the hierarchy at this point, then you can go to the second least trusted profession in the world by trying to sell to them, or you can offer them the opportunity to be curious about something, better path.   How to Sell Without Selling Out · [22:50]    Will Barron: I feel like a good diagram this out in a really simple frame work. Does this, hey, I understand the situation that you're in. So in this instance, the situation is that I'm annoying you, but later on in the sales process, it'll be a different situation whether you've identified that pain points or whatever it is, here is how I can help you solve the solution. Let's solve the solution. Could this feedback loop happen not just from the first seven seconds but towards the three months of the deal cycle that we're working on. Can we just do this over and over and over and sum up a lot of B2B sales as this three step framework?   “Curiosity within a trust framework is the most powerful thing that leads to good end states. The good end state in a sales situation, well, there's two. One is you decide not to move forward together. So you save a bunch of time. And the other is you decide to take another step.” – Chris Beall · [23:55]    Chris Beall: Yes. I believe this is the framework. I think Andy Paul just wrote a book at which he made clear that this is the framework. His book is Sell Without Selling Out and he offers a four step framework or a four pillar framework of connecting with somebody which is important so you actually connect with them oddly enough, when you ambushed them, it's a funny connection, but it's a connection. So then the question is sort of, well, what's next? And his next is curiosity, which I agree with deeply. So that cycle of connection and curiosity, curiosity within a trust framework is the most powerful thing that leads to good end states, because the good end state in a sales situation, well, there's two. One is you decide not to move forward together. So you save a bunch of time. And the other is you decide to take another step.   Chris Beall: Why does somebody want to take another step? Well, they trust you a little bit more than they trust themselves for making that decision because you're the specialist, you're the salesperson. You know what you know, they're the generalist and they're risking their career. So they've got to trust you more than somebody and that somebody happens to be themselves. So the threshold for the next step is always from the buyer's perspective. Do I trust this person, the seller, more than I trust myself with regard to the decision as to whether we should take a next step? That cycle runs forever. And as long as then, your curiosity allows you to go all the way to understanding and then to generosity, you actually offer something in the next step, you have a cycle that goes on forever. I think Andy Paul has nailed it and I've read the book now twice in the last four weeks. I'm now listening to it. I think that's it. I think that's the great, that's like the circle of life out of Lion King or something, it's that simple.   The Best Salespeople Have a Sales Process · [25:45]    Will Barron: Love it. I love it. All our training, Chris, if you're not familiar is all down to these step by step simple frameworks. That's all we teach because I feel like a lot of sales get over complicated especially when we're talking about enterprise, the complex sale, the long sale, the consultative selling. So I love it when we can break it down as succinctly as that. And we had Andy on the show maybe last week, last Monday, I think it was to cover all this. So the audience will hopefully have heard that before the end of this episode.   Chris Beall: Yeah, so I mean, Andy's been right all along. He brings an engineer's perspective to something that requires engineering thinking, but about stuff that people don't normally think about in engineering fashion, which is what's going on inside that person? And what is a simple driver? Who are you as a salesperson? You're somebody who can help somebody. Why? Because you're a specialist, you represent a specialist capability. Companies are specialists, they do one thing, they don't do everything, it would be ridiculous to do everything. So the specialist comes to offer the opportunity to be helpful to the generalist who might need that specialisation. That's actually at the core of B2B sales. Once you recognise that it's well, at this time, can this person be helped by learning more about what we specialise in? That is, should we take that next step? It's very natural at some point for that to become commercial because otherwise it's imbalanced. Somebody's got to pay at some point, but that's not the big deal. The big deal isn't the transaction. Transactions I think are in modern sales are actually completely irrelevant except in the negative. When you have a salesperson who has had enough time to have a bunch of transactions and they haven't, that's a very lagging indicator that you should have paid attention to something earlier.   How to Handle Sales Objections During a Cold Call · [27:10]    Will Barron: Yeah, that makes sense. Two things I want to get into, one, what do we do if, heaven forbid we get an objection at this, can I have 27 seconds of your time kind of pivotal moment in this cold call. I'm sure there's only three sales objections ever come out at this point, just reworded and rebranded in different ways. But is there any specific pathway we should take at that point? Is there anything we should specifically say? Because I know that the audience listening to this now will be thinking, well, what if, which might be the wrong mindset to have altogether. The correct mindset might be to let's do this 50 times and see how it works but I'll cut off their objection before they kind of throw it our way. What happens if or how do we deal with that objection at that critical moment of the conversation?   Chris Beall: Sure. Well preemptively, what you do is you go from scarcity to abundance. That's our business is we'll take you from conversation scarcity to conversation abundance. And so it gives you the option of just going, oh, okay, talk to you later. And that actually is a pretty good answer when somebody says, “No, I don't have the time.” It's “Great. I'll give you a call later.” That actually works quite well. Push a button now, three minutes later, you talk to somebody else, but make sure you put them on your follow up list and have this conversation. So I got to look at my watch to see what the date is, Wednesday the 23rd. So the conversation would be this when you get them on the phone again, say a week later or whatever. Say, “Hey, when we spoke back on the 23rd, you didn't have time for a conversation. You were walking into a meeting.” Or whatever they told you, whatever the objection is, just play it back to them and ask them, “Is now a better time to talk?”   “You can blow the trust you built in the first seven seconds by insisting that somebody who says they don't have time for you make time. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, but people do it. Sales people do it out of a scarcity mindset.” – Chris Beall · [29:08]   Chris Beall: It's one of those straight things, asking is now a good time to talk is incredibly ineffective. But the comparative asking them, “Is now a better time to talk?” Is very easy. It's got to be a better time last time. Well, they didn't have time to talk. Now they might say “No, actually blah, blah, blah, I'm doing whatever.” But now you're in a trust relationship and this is part of the don't blow it. You can blow the trust you built in the first seven seconds by insisting that somebody who says they don't have time for you to take time. That's the dumbest thing in the world to do, but people do it. Sales people do it out of a scarcity mindset.   “Once you have abundance, you can be relaxed. And once you're relaxed, then your calls will be good.” – Chris Beall · [30:08]    Chris Beall: Well, what if I don't get them again? Pat Lynch, who is the chief of, a sales enablement officer or something like that, a life person, maybe he's a VP, I think of him as a chief, good friend of mine lives here in [inaudible 00:29:38] actually with us in our neighbourhood. He watched my reps once in Denver for a whole day. I left the office, when we used to have an office, I'd left just to have him observe and tell me something. And at the end of the day, he said, “That rep over there, just let a CEO go without any effort to keep him on the phone. I don't understand it.” And I said, “Well, Jordan, why'd you do that?” And he says, “Because I can push a button and talk to somebody else.” So that's number one is once you have abundance, you can be relaxed.   Chris Beall: And once you're relaxed, then that's good. However, if somebody is kind of indicating that they want to talk a little bit and they want to talk about whether they have 27 seconds, you always get to just say this, which is they're giving you the 27 seconds, they're talking. So you may as well just tell them why you called. And at that point, just tell them why you called. I mean, it's a simple trade. They're not going to stop you. So there's not that many ways that somebody is going to say, “I don't have have 27 seconds.” Why did you answer the phone? Don't argue with them. It's just in your head. You know damn well they had 27 seconds. Does anybody answer the phone when they don't have 27 seconds? It's insane. That's a crazy proposition. That's like, oh, I answered the phone, but I actually only have four seconds.   Chris Beall: Well, what if this had been somebody calling to say, “By the way, I'm, I'm holding a check here with your name on it for $2,372,147 and I'd like to know where to send it.” You you'll have 27 seconds telling them your address. So clearly they have 27 seconds. So you could just go ahead and say, you tell me, “Gosh, I don't Chris but I'm really busy.” It's fantastic. I would say, “Well, I believe we've discovered a breakthrough.” And then tell them what your breakthrough is. Just takes 17, 18 seconds and now you've fulfilled your promise and you did it in less than 27 seconds so now you've actually done a piece of psychological magic. You made a promise and you kept a promise. Whoa, and you did it all within the 17 seconds that follow the first seven seconds. And it's a really easy formulation, but it's hard to say.   Chris Beall: I have reps all the time go, “I can't say I have a breakthrough.” It's, well, why are you in business? What? Really? Your company doesn't have any breakthroughs. You leave your customers stuck behind the problem they have now rather than breaking through and being able to progress. That doesn't make sense. Of course you have a breakthrough. Let's come up with simple language so you can say that. Why? Because we're just trying to get somebody curious enough to take a meeting for their own good. That's all we're trying to do. Relax. I believe we've discovered a breakthrough. That completely eliminates the waste and the frustration that keeps your best sales reps from being effective on the phone or even using the phone at all. And the reason I reached out is to get 15 minutes on your calendar to share this breakthrough with you. That took 17 seconds. And I told you why I called.   “The prospect’s problem during a cold call is getting off this call with their self-image intact. That is their problem. That problem will never change, all the way up to the end of the call. That's their only problem, so your job is to help them solve their problem.” – Chris Beall · [33:40]    Chris Beall: And they might say, now here's the objection, the worst objection, here's a bad objection. This objection is so bad I have to warn people about it. It's be ready for this one they'll say, “What? Tell me more.” That's a hideous objection. I call it the Venus fly trap. Because what it does is lures you the rep into holding the meeting that you're trying to sell. So you're under selling a meeting, you're basically saying, oh this is such cheap crap in this meeting that I can tell it to you right now when I ambushed you. It's like what? That makes no sense. Nobody's waiting for somebody to ambush them and tell them how to do their job. It's insulting. What they're looking for is another way to solve their problem. The prospect problem still is getting off this call with their self-image intact.   Chris Beall: That is their problem. That problem will never change. That's it. All the way up to the end of the call. That's their only problem. Help them as Andy Paul says to solve their problem. Well, how do I help them? I make a trade, 27 seconds, I tell them why I called. Now what? Well, I've got a little extra time and I sincerely believe that this meeting's good for them. “Okay, do you happen to have your calendar available?” Question of fact set in a playful, curious voice, not asking them to do anything. No matter what they say, you pretty much say something on the order of, “I'm a morning person, how's your Thursday. I'll send you something, we'll move it around.”   “You don't have to choke somebody to death in order to get them to verbally agree to a meeting.” – Chris Beall · [34:25]   Chris Beall: You don't have to choke somebody to death in order to get them to verbally agree to a meeting. You don't, you can just, you know the meeting's good, modern calendaring allows you to shoot a calendar invite to somebody it goes on their calendar. And in fact, 55% of the time that they're going to show up no matter what you said, and reminders and all that help, but you're going to have to talk to them again anyway, and that's fine. We call this psychologically a connect and so going from if to when. If is really hard. That's a decision, when is really easy. There's a lot of time in the future. We're going to talk it sometime. We're going to meet.   The Number One Mistake Salespeople Make During a Cold Call · [35:10]    Will Barron: Love it. Love it. The big thing here. So I'm going to break down this episode and if [inaudible 00:35:13] said, I'm going to add some extra notes in the show notes to this episode over salesman.org for people to follow along with. So there's that, but something that I don't, you slightly glossed over it because clearly you've said it a million times and it's part of your vernacular. But this idea of just not blowing it is so important because I've had so many from email specific, no one has my phone number. So no one calls or calls me. I don't give it to anyone. You cannot get my number. It does not exist on the internet, any database. All of the people I've add on from different kind of database organisations have tried to get my number. In fact, there was an open bounty a couple of years ago of I'll give you two grand, $2,000 if you can cold call me on my phone. I've only got one work phone.   Will Barron: So I guess that still stands. I've not touched on that in a while. But with that said, I get cold emails all of the time. And the first one I ignore most of the time, because I'm busy. Just my inbox is so full, I just delete stuff. The second one I'll be, okay, well, maybe this sort of to this, I'll read it. Then there'll be the third or the fourth, and at that point, I'm going okay, maybe I should just jump on the call with this individual because hopefully they've demonstrated, they understand what we do, our business, there's some kind of unique insight in there, it's been personalised, perhaps have shared some content I clicked on and was relevant, whatever it is. But then the fifth to sixth email, they blow it.   Will Barron: They do some kind of breakup email or there's some weirdness to it or you can sense a little bit of them going, oh [inaudible 00:36:41] if you're not going to reply to me, I'll end it [crosstalk 00:36:45] before you get to end it. And so I love this idea of just don't blow it because especially with cold calls, you're trying to catch one when they pick up the phone. So that knocks your success rate of connecting down immediately versus an email can be found a day later, a week later, an hour later, wherever it is. So you're already slightly on the back foot with it. Then you use tools like what you have at ConnectAndSell which kind of magnify and increase your ability to get those [inaudible 00:37:12] in, get the people on the phone, which is amazing, but then just be polite and don't blow it.   Will Barron: Because you might have called them at exactly the wrong time. The dogs just got run over, something just happened at work. They literally can't speak because there's a flood in the building and they're trying to deal with it and they thought that you were the plumber and you came with them a few days later, a week later, a month later, whatever it is. And eventually as long as you are polite, I don't know about you Chris but I find that that wears down on me as our company's tiny, I've got tiny budgets to spend, but we do spend money on B2B products and services. And if a salesperson connects with me whether it be via typically a meeting, an email, then a Zoom call, whatever it is. And it's not the right time to do a deal right now, eventually is the right time.   Will Barron: And that's the person I seek out to do business with. So this isn't great when you've got, you're behind quota and you work for a crappy company that's not helping you with marketing leads and your out bounds not going well and you don't have connected sell. You don't have dialling software and you're struggling. This is not the advice that you want to hear at that point when you're on the verge of being sucked and you attained your quota, but for anyone who's doing all right, this idea of just don't blow it and you stay in the same sales role for two to five years, you just keep going along and building that momentum and building that list of people who know I can trust you from afar via cold call and via your personalised emails, via maybe time, a little bit of content creation or content curation if your customers are on LinkedIn or wherever it is, and engage with them there, the events as and kind of conferences as that kind of opens up again, all of this in my experience build up into to 18 months, two years later, you start absolutely crushing your quota and you're doing less work than all the people who are working late and “hustling” because you just built that momentum over time by not blowing it. I know I'm just throwing a lot at you there, but is there something to say for that strategy?   Chris Beall: Yeah. I mean, it's everything. For one thing, 11/12ths of your ideal market is not in market this quarter for your offering because the replacement cycle for B2B products is about three years. So last I checked they were 12 quotas in three years. Therefore only in one of those quotas, 1/12th is your ideal market, somebody is perfect actually in market for your product. So right there, you've got to relax and go, oh, not market this quota so maybe I should talk to them next quota. Now, one of the funny things is about ConnectAndSell about cold calling in general is you actually curate a sub list of people who do answer the phone, where you can have that trust relationship built in seven seconds because you have access to their mid brain at 20,000 bits a second.   Chris Beall: And you're smart. You don't let people have access to your mid brain at 20,000 bits a second. You make them come in through 5,000 bit emails that you can choose to pay attention to or not. And so, okay, I'll call it you're structurally defended, you have a good castle, but people who have to answer the phone in their business or do it by habit like me like to do it because I think talking to people's fun, those people are opening up their mid brain, their decision centres to a 20,000 bit per second flow of potentially psychologically compelling information coming in through their ears. They can't do anything about that. There's nothing they can, nor should they by the way. But if you blow it by trying to go, oh, here's what, I have two goals, one to get you to trust me. The other is to get you to buy something. You're kind of screwed. You got to choose one goal at a time.   “If you are a rock climber or a mountaineer, looking at the summit doesn't get you to the summit, dreaming about the summit doesn't get you to the summit. You have to do the movement in front of you, and you have to do it in a way that you're fairly unlikely to fall off.” – Chris Bealll · [40:58]   Chris Beall: I'm an old rock climber mountaineer. It's an idea in climbing that's really clear looking at the summit doesn't get you to the summit, dreaming about the summit doesn't get you to the summit. You have to do the move in front of you. You have to do the move in front of you and you have to do it in a way that you're fairly unlikely to fall off. That's problematic in climbing it turns out. So it's the same thing. You get to do the move in front of you and you have to do it in a way where you're unlikely to fall off. That is not be trusted anymore. Here's what folks don't get. And this is why I have a podcast. If you get somebody in a situation where as a result of how you interact, they trust you and you don't blow it, you've actually sealed off the market against all competitors with regard to that information or that particular offer for all time because somebody else coming in has now got to displace that trust. And if you try to displace trust that somebody has in someone else, you will not be trusted so they'll blow it.   Will Barron: Got it, got it. I love it.   “You can pave the market with trust and harvest it at your leisure. And your leisure is three years, in general is three years. Your prospect’s readiness is never going to be in the past. It's always going to be in the future. So what are you doing about the future? Well, number one, don't blow it. Number one, just don't blow it.” – Chris Beall · [42:02]   Chris Beall: You can pave the market with trust and harvest it at your leisure. And your leisure is three years, in general is three years. And that 18 months you talked about that is generally the tipping point where you stop working and you feel like you're just having these nice conversations that wow, suddenly they're ready. That's of course their readiness is never going to be in the past. It's always going to be in the future. So what are you doing about the future? Well, number one, don't blow it. Number one, just don't blow it.   Parting Thoughts · [42:50]   Will Barron: Got it. Well, with that Chris, I'll stay on it, I'd love to have you back on to dive into this deeper. I feel like I've only scratched the surface of your brain mate, on some of the things we can pull out on this idea of cold calling and don't blow it, that in its own is super valuable takeaway for the audience. And with that mate, take us through ConnectAndSell, what you do over there, where we can find out more and then tell us about the podcast as well.   Chris Beall: Sure. I mean, ConnectAndSell is super simply push a button and talk to somebody on your list. We do everything else, including navigating phone systems, talking to gatekeepers, hanging up on voicemail. You don't have to do anything. You just push, talk. We do by the way, this thing called an intensive test drive, that's a free full day of production. It's a lot of fun and it's kind of a lottery ticket. Sometimes folks make a million bucks or two. Sometimes they just have a bunch of conversations. You can find out about ConnectAndSell obviously at connectandsell.com where there's a bunch of information, none of which is relevant because the only thing that counts is what does it feel like to go this fast and that's the test drive. And if you really want to kind of go deep on all these psychological concepts, so how to dominate eight markets with the human voice and how to get 14 times more of your emails open because you talk to somebody first, go to marketdominanceguys.com and see if you can wade through Corey, Frank and I talking endlessly.   Will Barron: Amazing stuff. Well, to all that in the show note to this episode and more welcome diagrams and some illustrations about what Chris has shared with us in the share notes over at salesman.org and with that Chris, thank you for your time, your insights on this mate, I really enjoyed the conversation and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.   Chris Beall: Thanks.

Don’t be fooled—excelling in sales isn’t about having the right talents. Instead, it takes work to develop the skills you need to crush it. In this video, I’m taking you through the four most important skills in sales that, once developed, will skyrocket you to an entirely new realm of success. Now before we get started, tell me, does this sound familiar? “He’s a born salesman.” “She’s truly a natural.” “What I wouldn’t give for their talents.” If you’ve been on a sales floor for more than a year, you’ve probably heard one of these phrases uttered around the cubicles. Someone, usually a high performer, makes their job look easy. Hitting their numbers, bringing on new buyers like ants to a picnic. And they rarely, if ever, look like they’re even breaking a sweat. As a result, their colleagues think they’ve got some god-given talent. That they’re a natural sales rep. But the truth is, that’s bullshit. Sure, some people are born with a leg up over others. But to be truly successful in sales, you’ve got to be a master of four skills. And sorry to break it to you, these aren’t skills you’re born with. They’ve got to be developed. The natural-born sales rep myth is a crock. And if you really, I mean really want to push your earning potential, excel professionally, and become the best damn sales rep you can be, then you’ve got to get great at these four sales skills. 1. Understanding the Market You can’t even hope to achieve any sort of sales success without first understanding your market. Who are you selling to? What pain points are they experiencing? And how can you best cater your messaging to start speaking their language? Understanding the market is foundational. And to do it correctly, you need to have a hold on two things in particular: the buyer’s journey and value proposition. A) Buyer’s Journey So, let’s first talk about the buyer’s journey. The buyer’s journey is essentially the steps your buyer will take on their way to purchasing your product. A high-level look at a buyer’s journey would look like this: The Awareness stage comes first, and this is when the buyer is first learning about their problem. Next up is Consideration where they’re weighing the pros and cons of different solutions. And finally is Decision, where (surprise, surprise) they’re finally making their decision. Now, each market is going to have a slightly different buyer’s journey. And each buyer is going to make their way through that journey a little bit differently. It’s your job to understand that unique buyer’s journey and guide prospects through it effectively. Now there’s a lot more to learn here, but one of the best tips I have for this is making it about the prospect. Jeff Koser, CEO at Selling to Zebras, explained the benefit to me in an interview: “They don't care about your product, they care about themselves. And they have to. It's their job. That's why there's such a fundamental difference between the buying journey that a prospect wants to go down versus a sales cycle that most salespeople try to conduct. And by shifting to pain, business issues, and value, you're actually making more of the shift to the buyer's journey that they want to participate in.” B) Value Proposition But not just any value proposition. One that’s built based on your buyer’s unique needs, pain points, and end goals. A value proposition, as you likely know, is what sets your product apart from the competition—what makes buying from you so much more beneficial than buying from the other guys. There’s a lot of research that goes into crafting the right value proposition—the wording, the delivery, the specific perks and features. And when you master how to deliver yours, you’re going to find it far easier to attract the right buyers and turn them into enthusiastic customers. 2. Getting in Front of Buyers A perfect product and a perfect pitch only get you so far. To truly succeed in sales, you need to know how to bring in buyers. Because if you can’t, you’ll be selling a perfect product to… well, no one. Getting in front of buyers requires adept skills in two areas in particular—sales cadences and cold outreach. C) Cadences When it comes down to it, sales is a numbers game. For every X prospects you reach out to, Y will actually be interested in your product. And the better you are at fine-tuning your equations to maximize interested prospects, the more successful you’ll be in this position. The trick is knowing how and when to reach out to prospects. On the one hand, you’ll be able to fine-tune your cadences over months and years of experience. What techniques work? What schedule amplifies response rates? But on the other, you can also take a page or two from the books of other sales professionals through training courses. Industries usually differ a bit in buyers’ journeys but when to reach out to them tends to be the same in every business. So be cognizant of that when you’re looking for ways to up your sales game. Another invaluable skill in getting in front of buyers is… D) Cold Outreach Nobody likes “bothering” people when they’re trying to get work done. But the truth is, every successful sales rep needs to know how to conduct cold outreach campaigns if they ever want to make it in this business. Cold outreach is vital in sales. More important in some ways than other skills in fact. As Vice President of Sales at Cardone Enterprises Jarrod Glandt told me: “I would rather have a salesperson that could get in the door and create an opportunity in the first place, than somebody who sucks on the front side of it but is average at the end.” Email, cold calling, social selling—it all plays a vital role in bringing in new leads. And if you develop your skills and build a sophisticated strategy involving each of these methods, you’ll be well on your way to earning a healthy income. 3. Explaining the Value How do you get prospects on board? Not just during your initial discovery calls? But throughout the sales cycle? It all comes down to explaining the value. What can you do for them that they have no chance of being able to accomplish on their own? That’s where this skill comes in handy. And to excel at it, you need to be able to Diagnose, Demo, and Close. E) Diagnose One of the most important skills for all sales reps to master, or if only to start taking seriously, is lead qualification. Is the prospect you’re talking to actually a fit for your product or service? Is their problem closely aligned with the value of your product? And do they seem like they’re motivated to make a purchase decision sooner rather than later? Spending just a bit more time on diagnosing your prospect’s problem and weeding out the bad buyers from the good ones is one of the best ways to cut down on your work time, maximize your efficiency, and prevent a whole lot of wasted time down the line. F) Demo Your product’s got the specs. It’s got the benefits. And it’s got the interested (if not enamored) eyes of your buyer. But in order to clinch the deal, you’ve got to prove your mettle. You’ve got to show that your product really is everything it’s cracked up to be. And that means conducting a demo. Mastering your demo skills is a great way to showcase the true value of what you’re selling. And when you conduct it in an effective, repeatable way, you can rest easy knowing your exciting new lead is sure to sign on and give you their business soon after. G) Close Closing is a bit of a fickle beast. Because when it comes to money and when it comes to crunch time, people can fall back on promises. They can make erratic decisions. And they can choose against their own best interests, even when their perfect solution is staring them in the face. The best closers will be able to navigate all these unique variabilities to ensure the most successful outcomes. We actually have a very specific framework built for this stage of the sales cycle specifically. And just to hint at what’s contained there, the trick is continuously closing rather than building it all up for the end of the buyer’s journey. But that’s all I’ll say here. For more on that subject, be sure to subscribe and check out our other videos on Salesman.org. One thing I will say is if you want to close more deals, make it about the buyer as much as possible. Author, speaker, and founder of The Daily Sales Daniel Disney summed it up well when he told me: “If you want to close deals, if you want to win business, make it about them. It's not about you. It doesn't matter how great your product is. What is it going to do for them? Do your research on them, give them as many good examples of how it's helped similar people, but make it 100% about them.” 4. Developing the Right Mindset Now, there’s not a whole lot I can say about this skill. Because the topic is way bigger than this short video allows. But essentially, you need to be able to cultivate the right mindset if you want to implement the skills we’ve talked about up until this point. You can have the knowledge, you can have the systems, and you can have the experience. But if you want to truly crush it in sales, you need to be able to come to the table each day with the mindset of a winner. One that can stay resolute in their processes, dedicated to their goals, and passionately determined to improve, to succeed, and to grow every single day. Now if you want to see if you have the mindset it takes to succeed, go ahead and click on over to the SalesCode Assessment linked to in the description of this video. With it, you’ll join more than 10,000 other sales professionals who took just a few minutes to find out if they have what it takes to kill it at sales and what areas in particular they need to work on. Because mindset truly is key to success, especially in sales. Now, I’m going to sum things up with one quote I love from my interview with founder of Sales Success Media, Scott Ingram: “The mindsets are the foundation. It all starts with that. You can have the best relationships in the world, but if your head isn't right and you're not in the game, it's not going to matter.” Summary Well that about wraps it up for this video! Remember, if you want to crush it in sales, you really need to focus on four specific skills – Understanding the market. Getting in front of buyers. Explaining the value. Developing the right mindset. With enough talent, skill, and work in each of these areas, you’ll be well on your way to closing more, earning more, and feeling a greater level of professional satisfaction than you could ever dream of. And in the end, isn’t that what everyone wants in life?

Asking the right questions builds rapport, influences buyers, and seals deals like gangbusters. But asking the wrong questions is sinking your sales numbers like a 20-ton anchor. In this video, we look at five stupid sales questions that are costing you sales and cutting your chances of closing off at the knees. Now, qualifying leads and closing prospects are without a doubt two of the hardest parts of being a sales rep. Do you agree? If so, you’re in good company. HubSpot found that 61% of reps reported lead qualification was their biggest challenge and 36% said it was closing. But part of the difficulty in both cases is not knowing the right questions to ask. Questions let you identify whether your prospect’s problem is one you can solve. They uncover hidden motivations that’ll help you craft a perfect pitch. And they aid in spotting who’s an ideal client and who is going to be a major pain in the ass. But the problem is asking the wrong questions leads to sunk sales. Bad questions make you look like an idiot, a conman, or just a waste of your lead’s time. And even if you have the most groundbreaking, world-shatteringly amazing product in the universe, a single crappy question in your process will leave you struggling to meet your goals every month. But don’t worry, I’m going to help you avoid that completely by pointing out these five worst questions you can ask in sales. Now, I’m also working on a follow-up video where I tackle the five most powerful sales questions successful reps ask buyers. So be sure to subscribe and keep an eye on this channel so you don’t miss it. But for now, let’s get into the bad questions you should avoid asking prospects with every fiber of your being. Here we go! 1: “Can I Give You My Pitch?” Just hearing this one should make your neck hairs stand on end. First off, don’t call it a pitch for god’s sake. Nobody actually wants to be pitched, especially when it comes to sales. But beyond that, the very structure of this question is setting you up for a troublesome power dynamic. Can you see why? You’re asking for permission here. Doing so pushes the psychology and dynamic of the conversation towards the lead having all the power. They are the ones granting you permission. They are the ones who are so generously donating you their time. In reality, the best sales relationships stem from a place of equality. You are bringing real, tangible value to the table. And the buyer is exchanging that value for money. So don’t ever, ever forget—you and the buyer are equals. So remember to act like it 2: “Can You Tell Me About What You Do?” This one’s a bit tricky, partly because so many people ask this question, especially online. And it’s easy to see why—it’s seen as a solid conversation starter. I mean, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? The problem here is this question is a real value suck. You are getting all the benefit here. And though people do like talking about their business, their time is also precious. They likely don’t want to spend it on explaining their job. On top of all that, asking the question also indicates one huge red flag—you didn’t do your research beforehand. Instead, take a minute to look up their profession beforehand. And glean insights about their day-to-day from other value-based questions like the ones we’ll be talking about in our later video—don’t forget to subscribe for those by the way! 3: “But…?” That’s it. One little word. But using that little word in sales conversations can lead to big consequences. Simply put, this word is the start of an argument. And that’s tough. Because it’s a verbal slip so tiny that most reps don’t give saying it another thought. But the word by its very nature is meant to draw contrast. It’s acknowledging your buyer’s previous point and saying, “Here’s why you’re wrong.” In the heat of sales, emotions can run high. And when you’re talking money specifically, both reps and buyers are going to be quicker to react than in normal talks. So rather than test the limits with this word, try to cut it from your vocabulary entirely. Instead, acknowledge their point and just move on to your point without drawing a contrast. 4: “So You’re Saying You Can’t Afford This?” Even in the more logic-based world of B2B sales, emotions like pride can still factor into making deals. And when you frame the question like this—where you’re attributing the low budget to the buyer themselves—it’s going to get them to go on the defensive. And to an even larger point, insulting the company as a whole—even if it is just implied—is never a good way to do business. Instead, try using subtler language when trying to determine if price is the biggest obstacle. Ask, “Is price your biggest sticking point here?” or “Do you currently have the budget for this?” But remember, there’s always money to be found in large companies. Usually it just comes down to an issue of budget reallocation. 5: “When Should I Call You Back to Follow Up?” This one again comes down to simple reframing. Putting the fate of the follow-up in the hands of the buyer is a mistake. People forget. They lose track of time. And their priorities shift over the course of days, even hours. That’s why it’s so so so important to close on the next step yourself. Frame the question so that you determine their level of buy-in while weeding out any objections. A lot to do in one question, right? Here, you should take a page from the Selling Made Simple Academy’s Closing Framework. Rather than saying, “When should I call you back to follow up?” instead try… A: “Does It Make Sense to Jump on Another Call?” The “Does it make sense to…” question intro is fantastic for solidifying commitment from the buyer. But the beauty of it is that if there is an objection, maybe they’re not sure if your product is right for them, then you can follow up with… B: “What Do We Need to Do to Move This Forward?” They’ll then tell you verbatim what’s holding them back from moving to the next step. And you can address those objections now rather than dealing with them later. And that’s going to save you tons of time and hassle down the road. Summary There you go! Five downright terrible questions you should never ask in sales… “Can I give you my pitch?” “Can you tell me about what you do?” “But…?” “So you’re saying you can’t afford this?” “when should I call you back to follow up?” In this business, it’s all about knowing what to say and what not to say. And if you avoid these five questions like grim death, then you’ll be one—or five—steps closer to making more sales and boosting your numbers.

Among all the challenges sales reps face day in and day out, closing is often said to be the hardest to manage. And it’s true—being an effective closer is key to killing it in this industry. But there’s more to closing than most reps think. And there are ways to make closing easier, more effective, and less of a stressful debacle. Today we’re covering how to stop selling and start closing. It’s just one more invaluable sales skill that, once mastered, will secure your success throughout your entire career. Now, let’s get real here. For a lot of reps, asking for the sale sucks. Most Sellers Hate Closing Think about it for a sec—how do you feel about it? If you’re like nearly forty percent of reps out there, it’s probably the hardest part of your job. The stress, the awkwardness, the potential for weeks of work going down the drain if you’re hit with a “No.” Ugh. But the problem is a lot of reps go about this stage all wrong. They try to close on leads at the end of the sales process rather than throughout it. They’re trying to say all the magic words to get their buyer onboard without checking in at each stage of their journey. They’re selling when they should be closing. And closing continuously. Now don’t worry—if this is all sounding a bit out-there and you aren’t sure what this looks like in practice, I’ve got your back. This blog dives into exactly how to start continuously closing in the real world. Before we get into the how of continuously closing, let’s first look at the why. Why should you switch up your closing process at all? Well, there are three reasons in particular. First… A) It Keeps Everyone on Track There’s often a disconnect between buyers and sellers on exactly where they’re at in the sales process. Are they highly motivated to purchase, even before the day’s out? Or are they just testing the waters? And what comes next if they agree to a call? When you close continuously, everyone knows where they are, what stage is next, and what’s to come later. B) No Value Is Delivered With Maybes A sale has value when your buyer agrees to a purchase—duh, that’s the point. But it also has value with a “no.” After all, a no means you get a better idea of the buyer’s objections. Whether or not they’re truly qualified. And, of course, a no also frees up your time to concentrate on other, better leads. But maybes are time-wasters. They suck up hours of the day, even weeks in some industries. And if by the end of it all there’s no deal, that’s just energy that could be spent elsewhere. But when you’re continuously closing, you’re sussing out exactly where the buyer stands. Forcing a yes or no. And eliminating maybes altogether. C) When You Close, You Win Confused leads don’t buy. They string you along for ages and, eventually, drop you like a bad habit. And when you aren’t closing throughout the sales process, your prospects won’t know exactly what step of the sales process they’re in. They’ll be confused. But when you practice continuous closing, you avoid that confusion altogether. And in the end, that means you win. So now, let’s dive into the how of it all. How do you stop selling and start closing? Well, the first step is to… 1) Always-Be-Closing Always be closing. Yeah yeah, we’ve all heard the famous line before. “A, always. B, be. C, closing”… “coffee is for closers”… what rep with an ounce of cinematic taste hasn’t seen Glengarry Glenn Ross at least three times? But what does the ABC of selling look like in practice? For one thing, you should always be closing at minimum at the end of every interaction. Friendly interaction with a new lead? Schedule a discovery call before the convo’s done. Just finished a discovery call? Close the next step by booking a demo. Demo gone great? Set up a time to chat about sales objections and the finer details. Do not—I repeat—do not leave it to the prospect to take the lead here. If you let them get out of a conversation without booking the next step, you’ve just plummeted the chances of moving forward tenfold. Now, you should also be closing within the conversation, not just at the end. Here’s what that might look like in practice. You may say… “So it seems like you’re interested in X feature. Does it make sense that I show you how it’ll interface with your business?” Or maybe… “Does it make sense that [objection] isn’t a concern anymore?” When you close within conversations, you’re gaining mini commitments along the way that keep everyone on the same page and boost rapport at the same time. And in fact, these examples bring us nicely to our next point because they use a very key piece of language. Did you catch it? This simple phrase is vital to the last point we’re talking about today… 2) The Closing Framework The Closing Framework makes closing continuously or “micro closing” incredibly simple. All you have to do is ask… “Does it make sense to…” That’s it. “Does it make sense to… get on the phone and see if we’re a fit.” “Does it make sense to set up an in-person demo?” “Does it make sense to start talking numbers?” The way this question works is it makes micro-closing a collaborative process. You’re showing that you care about whether you and the buyer are on the same page. As President of People First Productivity Solutions Deb Calvert told me in our interview: “The fastest, quickest way to get away from that being perceived as a pushy salesperson who just wants to reach into my pocket, is that you've asked me a question, or you've somehow demonstrated that you care about me and you're interested in where I want to go and what's important to me.”  And it works because it… Relieves pressure from the buyer who’s probably expecting overly aggressive old-school closing tactics. It updates the buyer on where they are in the buying process and lets them know what to expect next. And… It forces the buyer to think logically about moving forward rather than emotionally on what could be at stake. Is this really a fit after all? Now, ideally they’re going to respond with a hearty “YES!” But as we all know, buyers will always have objections. So what happens when they say it doesn’t make sense to move forward? Also simple—you get to the bottom of why. Why doesn’t this make sense right now? Why aren’t they interested in moving to the next step? And in practice, the best way of doing so looks like this: “That’s okay, what would be a good next step to move things forward?” Essentially, what do you need for this to be a winner on your end? The best thing here is you don’t have to be a mind reader. Instead, they’ll literally tell you what’s holding them back. Their objections, their unclear value understanding, their timeline—whatever. And with that information, you can further assess if the buyer is a good fit, if your product meets their needs, and what objections you need to address before closing the deal. It doesn’t get much simpler. And it’s a proven method for driving more sales and crushing your quota.