A salesperson needs to utilize behavioral intelligence to be effective. What does that look like? It’s about leveraging your skills and abilities to follow through and accomplish goals. This is imperative to your success as a sales professional. Mary Grothe joins Paul to discuss productivity and how behavioral intelligence—and your behavioral quotient—impacts your ability to make sales. Don’t miss this engaging episode of Sales Reinvented!
Mary Grothe started her career with a Fortune 1000 company in an administrative role. She quickly excelled and demonstrated the necessary skills to transition into a sales position. Since then, she’s sold millions in revenue. She is the CEO and Founder of Sales BQ®, a firm geared towards helping businesses rebuild sales and marketing departments to achieve growth and increase revenue.
Mary points out that most salespeople are highly intelligent. They are product ninjas who know their marketplace and their competition. They excel at engaging with prospects and making them feel understood. To be productive, they must show up and do the work, day-in and day-out. They tend to excel at the core tasks of their position.
To Mary, being productive in all of these areas is important—but you must master the in-between. In-between phone calls and meetings, where is your time being spent? You must be smart and effective with every minute of your day and not let little things fall through the cracks. If a salesperson doesn’t excel at something, it’s easy for them to only focus their attention on their strengths. How is that remedied? Keep listening to find out!
Mary states that some organizations are a “hot mess” and don’t have a good infrastructure in place to set their salespeople up for success. A good CRM, automation, technology, and a playbook are essential. Structure, guidance, and a constant feedback loop are imperative. If there isn’t a good framework in place, they won’t be productive—it’s that simple.
She’s also noticed that many salespeople aren’t detail-oriented. It’s not in their nature. If they aren’t held accountable through every step of the process, they’ll find activities to spend their time on that they find fulfilling. That is why it is of the utmost importance to have a guidebook and system in place.
Mary is naturally a very organized person (which she’s found is a HUGE indicator of success). It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by emails or distracted by social media. What starts as an essential tool can hinder your progress. She knows you must teach sales professionals how to prioritize their days so they enter the office with a game plan—not just winging it.
The most productive people have a plan and know where every single minute of their day is going.It is a game-changer. When Mary first started in sales, she was the first person showing up at the office to knock out administrative work. She would leave for her day of scheduled appointments when most of her coworkers were just showing up.
Mary became an accomplished salesperson because she was disciplined, organized, and planned her day in advance. She would map out her day the evening before and visually gauge where she was going and what she needed to do the next day to be on par with her goals.
Mary defines the behavioral quotient as the “conscious decision to show up and perform every day at the highest ability”. It is changing your mental mindset so that being mediocre is never an option. Instead, you must have a winning mindset. There is no plan B, and a misstep is equal to lost revenue.
Your mental mindset triggers feelings that dictate actions and yield results.
You must change how you think, how you feel, and how you act to change how you perform. She notes it’s amazing how these changes will impact your results and make you a more productive salesperson.
Mary was willing to do whatever it took (ethically) to find success in her position and strives to help other businesses do the same. To hear her top 3 productivity do’s and don’ts and other tips for success, be sure to listen to the entire episode of Sales Reinvented!
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Goal alignment in business can be a powerful tool. It’s not only a tool—but a necessity. Are the different departments working in unison? Are you part of a sales team at war with the marketing team? If you’re ready to become more productive and ready to find ways to align with the goals of the company, listen to this episode now!
Christopher Ryan joins Paul to share his experience with goal alignment and how it was the key to his success. He is the CEO, founder, and Revenue Growth Catalyst and Execution Expert at Fusion Marketing partners. He is an expert in B2B marketing and helping businesses grow their revenue.
A productive salesperson also needs to master their niche. They should have deep product and domain knowledge. They know how to bring information and resources to the table that a competitor can’t match.
A sales representative doesn’t need to be aggressive. In fact, Christopher points out that the best sales professionals have a desire to serve. They are people who really want to help, not just make a sale. They’ve mastered the art of friendly persistence and the ability to sell without offending the prospect.
Above all else, they recognize that their prospects are human beings. Human beings who aren’t looking for a transaction, but a relationship, a rapport. Successful salespeople have pleasing personalities—they want their prospects to feel happy and confident with the relationship.
Christopher shares his top 4 solutions for helping a sales professional stay productive. What are they?
Christopher brought so much value in this episode and shared some of his best productivity hacks. These are the top 3 things he believes you must do:
What things shouldn’t you do?
Christopher was the VP of marketing at a software company. The business didn’t have good processes in place. Sales reps were unhappy—and unproductive. With full permission, he met with his sales counterpart. They worked together to establish joint goals, defined what a qualified lead was, and implemented a nurturing process.
The aligned their vision and goals. It changed everything.
The cost to acquire a lead dropped from $150 to $65. They went from less than 50% lead follow-up to over 90%. Lead leakage was lowered to less than 10%. That is the power of discipline and goal alignment.
Christopher confidently stated, “If you put your minds together and look forward in the same direction, and have joint goals, you can do anything”.
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Critical thinking skills are an imperative attribute if you want to become a productive and successful salesperson. Why are they important? What does a productive salesperson look like? Today’s guest, Deb Calvert, answers these questions—and more—in this episode of Sales Reinvented.
Deb has been in the sales industry for 15 years and is the President of People First Productivity Solutions. Their goal is to build organizational strength by putting people first. She is a certified executive coach, author, and one of the most influential women in the world of business. Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented for her unique insight and knowledge of the industry!
Productivity is about the ability to generate, create, and complete goals and it must lead to revenue production. Being a productive salesperson also means producing new ideas and creating relationships. If you aren’t able to produce the desired results, then you are not reaching your potential as a salesperson.
Being productive isn’t just being busy—it’s about being effective and driving a result.
Deb’s #1 rule of selling is E = O, in other words: “the amount of effort you put into any activity should be directly proportionate to the opportunity associated with that activity.'' She points out that the “big fish” should get more of your attention than the minnow. Deb notes that you need to be mindful of what you spend your time on and be sure it’s proportional to the effort you put in.
Deb iterates that you must change your mindset. You can’t be stuck in the dark ages and refuse to use the technology available to you. Likewise, you must delegate whatever is not essential to the act of selling. Don’t fall trap to the mentality that only you can do something right—train others to take over non-essential responsibilities.
Be willing to set up software and applications that liberate your time. Save that precious time and utilize it only for activities that produce sales. For example, Deb embraces ‘Calendly’ to manage her schedule. She opens up time in a schedule that she has blocked for appointments, and allows her prospects to schedule at a time convenient to them. This saves her the hassle of emailing back and forth to nail down a time.
The #1 attribute that Deb believes a productive salesperson must have is critical thinking. You have to be able to make smart and calculated decisions about where to spend your time and energy. The ability to think critically gives you the power to cut through the noise and distractions. It allows you to be more discerning.
Deb is always looking for more effective ways to carry out tasks. If you have the necessary critical thinking skills required you’ll be able to discern what moves you need to take. Listen to the whole episode—Deb suggests some resources to hone your critical thinking skills that you won’t want to miss!
Deb has some favorite tools and strategies that she was kind enough to share:
To hear Deb’s favorite productivity story and other resources she shares, listen to this episode now!
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Bill McCormick has learned to leverage LinkedIn lead generation in a way that is both productive and efficient. In a world where it’s easy to get lost in social media and get distracted by shiny things, how does he stay focused? How does he use LinkedIn as a social selling tool and not a hindrance? Find out in this episode of Sales Reinvented!
Bill McCormick and his wife launched their Digital Sales Course in 2017—geared towards helping businesses leverage LinkedIn to build relationships. Now, he is the VP and LinkedIn Strategist for Social Sales Link. He’s become a master of social selling tactics. He joins Paul to lend his expertise. Don’t miss it!
According to Bill, “We need to put systems in place to be consistent with activities that will lead to desired outcomes”. If you’re a sales professional, that means making sales, signing contracts, and having money in your pocket. If you aren’t doing those things, you’re the equivalent of busy and broke.
Bill points out that there are more productivity tools available than ever before, but unless you use them properly, they just become further distractions. So how do you refocus? How do you make the switch from doing busywork to engaging in productive work?
Bill’s answer is to implement systems to obtain sales goals. He quoted James Clear, saying that “We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems”. Salespeople are good at setting lofty goals, but productivity will suffer if they don’t have steps in place to reach those goals.
For example, Bill shares some tips from his daily morning routine. His job is selling social selling to other companies (his speciality is LinkedIn). So every day he checks his LinkedIn notifications. He looks to see who looked at his profile or interacted with his content. He makes connections, all the while keeping his end goal in mind.
You must have boldness, persistence, and tenacity to be a productive and effective sales professional. Bill points out that without those attributes, you’ll make it a nanosecond in the sales world.
Bill further breaks down his systems strategy by setting daily goals that you carry out consistently. You need to get into a rhythm, a cadence. Above all, he points out you shouldn’t wing it. Don’t start your day saying, “Hmm, maybe I’ll do this today”. Write down the goals you want to achieve that day and break them down into manageable chunks.
Bill prefers to set timers for various activities so he devotes a set amount of time for each thing without getting distracted. He does the same things consistently, day in and day out.
Always ask the question, “What system can I put in place to reach my daily goals?”.
Do you do cold-calling? Do you have a system in place to obtain phone numbers and contacts? How will you make those calls? If you nail down each step of your process and create a system, you will become more productive.
It’s no secret that Bill is passionate about LinkedIn, after all—he’s made a career of it. When he and his wife first launched their business, they were looking for the best way to get in front of decision-makers. What Bill found was that Linked in was like having someone’s Rolodex. An endless list of connections, online, completely free.
They started making connections and reaching out to businesses on LinkedIn. 30-35% of those communications led to an appt. Of that percentage, they closed 30-40% of those meetings. Bill calculated last year that approximately $450,000 of their closed sales were leads generated on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn was the key to their success. It can be your greatest productivity tool with the right systems and cadence in place. To hear their full conversation, make sure to listen to the whole episode!
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