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Sales Reinvented

We at Sales Reinvented are on a mission to change the negative perception of sales people. Each week we will be interviewing experts in the field of sales and sharing their knowledge, ideas and expertise with our listeners. They share with us in our vision of a world where selling is a profession to be proud of. The aim of our formatted show is to provide ‘snackable’ episodes that are short enough to listen to in one sitting but long enough to provide real value that will help you in your sales career. Welcome to the Sales Reinvented Podcast.
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Now displaying: Page 6

At Sales Reinvented, we are on a mission to change the negative perception of selling. Welcome to the Sales Reinvented Podcast.

Nov 3, 2021

Digital sales are about leveraging yourself, your service, your products, and the available digital platforms to build relationships. Social selling is where you get to socialize, connect, and have conversations. Liz Wendling emphasizes that social channels are connected to real people in the real world having real conversations. You have to humanize the connection so they feel you’re there to help. One of the ways Liz connects with potential clients is through her “Verbal 2x4.” Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to learn more about her social selling strategy!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:21] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:27] How to improve your social selling skills
  • [3:36] How to use Liz’s “verbal 2x4”
  • [4:48] The characteristics of a great digital seller
  • [5:55] Stop apologizing and stop being self-serving
  • [7:41] Top three digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [10:11] Liz’s verbal 2X4 put into practice

How to improve your social selling skills

Liz sees room for improvement in both empathy and understanding as well as flexibility and advocacy. Selling isn’t about pushing your products but listening to your potential customers to understand what they need. Only then can you solve their problems. You also have to be flexible with the changing marketplace. Potential clients want to work hand-in-hand with someone who wants to help and believes they can do so. 

Liz’s strategy is perfect because it works for her. She makes sure her message hits someone with a “verbal 2x4.” She wants to get their attention to move them toward a conversation. What can you do to get someone’s attention? What can you do that lands with an impact?

The characteristics of a great social seller

Authenticity, flexibility, and dedication are necessary attributes for any seller. Liz emphasizes you must be flexible in your process, authentic in your approach, and dedicated to follow-up and follow-through. You have to be able to have conversations (and resurrect the dead ones). Many people give up on themselves far too early in the process and blame it on the customer because “they don’t know what they want.” Be flexible and shift the message or conversation to re-engage potential clients. 

Stop apologizing, stop being self-serving, and start serving

Liz implores salespeople to stop apologizing and being self-serving with messages. What does that mean? Liz gets far too many messages saying, “I’m so sorry to bother you…” or “I know you’re busy, so I’ll be brief.” It not only puts the salesperson in the less-than position but does nothing to build confidence in the person you’re reaching out to. Get rid of apology language.

Secondly, don’t make it all about you. Make it all about your customer. Don’t say things like, “I’d love to get on your calendar” or “I’d love 30 minutes of your time.” You’re telling someone what YOU want instead of inviting them into a conversation that they want to be a part of. 

What are Liz’s top three digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

Liz’s verbal 2X4 put into practice

Liz teaches her clients to prospect on LinkedIn with a “verbal 2x4.” Liz focuses on the pain, problem, challenge, issue, or dilemma that her target market is muddling through. One area she focuses on with her consulting practice is family law attorneys. They’re spending a fortune to get leads. But they often fall short in sales conversations and conversions—so they’re losing a lot of money. 

Liz’s message hits home: “Many of the firms I work with are struggling with this, they’re spending a fortune on that, but here’s what the end result is.” Then she’ll ask for a conversation. They often respond with, “Are you a fly on the wall? How do you know this?” 

They think their attorneys are bad at closing, not fully realizing that they’re actually bad at opening. Instead of her pushing for a conversation, they’re the ones asking to get on her calendar. The outcome is always a great conversation. If you have a message that lessens the noise, you can have real honest conversations from an authentic place. 

Connect with Liz Wendling

Connect With Paul Watts 

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Oct 27, 2021

According to Fred Copestake, social selling is using the platforms and technology available to you to create a personal brand and start conversations. Digital selling is using technology to continue conversations. The use of video (synchronous or asynchronous) is a piece of the puzzle that’s often neglected. Hear why Fred thinks that’s a huge mistake in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:08] The difference between digital and social sales
  • [1:49] How to improve digital and social selling
  • [2:36] Fred’s perfect digital selling strategy
  • [3:50] The attributes of a great digital seller
  • [4:51] Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve
  • [7:55] Top three digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [9:58] What not to do when recording a video

Fred’s perfect digital selling strategy

Fred’s digital selling blueprint is built around video. What do you need to do on video? What’s the purpose? To communicate or achieve a goal, right? Salespeople need to be equipped with the time and skills to utilize video with their prospects and customers. The use of video in digital sales is what will keep them engaged and move the sales process forward. 

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve

Fred recommends Vidyard all the time as an asynchronous video option. It’s free and easy to use. If you’re talking synchronous video, you’ll need Zoom, Teams, etc. Then you need to figure out where and how to apply it. Where can it be used in the process? With prospecting? After-meeting follow-ups? To send a proposal? 

What is the video trying to achieve? Fred emphasizes that you must be succinct and punchy. You can get a lot across if your video is well-constructed. Another expert tip? Fred recommends investing in a great microphone to make sure you’re recording great audio. If people can’t hear you, they check out and lose concentration. The perceived credibility of the speaker also lowers if they can’t hear you. 

Top three digital selling dos and don’ts

Fred shares some great dos and don’ts: 

  • Get a good microphone.
  • Don’t mess about with childish backgrounds in your videos.
  • Use a natural background that is tidy.
  • Avoid moving off-screen or out of the shot. You are on the video all the time—act like it. 
  • Encourage your customer to have their video on. People will feel more engaged and it’s closer to the real-life environment. 
  • Don’t miss out on the opportunity to do things that some salespeople are holding back on. It’s still in its infancy and you need to take advantage of video.

What NOT to do when recording a video

Fred decided to embrace sending video emails, especially because it’s something that he preaches. He was trying to get a guest on his podcast to talk about virtual selling. In fact, he was sending a video to Tyler Lessard, one of THE experts on digital selling. So he recorded a video using Vidyard. 

Fred tried to be clever in his video and hid behind his chair, saying, “People are scared, please come on, share all of these great tips…” He sent the video without reviewing it. Turns out, he sent the video without sound. He sent a silent video of him cowering behind a chair. He prepped for the video, reflected best practices—making it relevant and personal—but forgot to double-check before he sent it. Tyler did end up on his podcast, Fred jokingly saying it was likely out of pity more than anything else. 

It’s all about preparation and follow-through. He thought about what he was going to say, how he was going to say it, and the purpose behind it (what he wanted to achieve). It was punchy and short and interesting. Give yourself a moment to prepare—and execute—well. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Fred Copestake

Connect With Paul Watts 


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Oct 20, 2021

The world is virtual—that’s not going to change. So Joanne Black emphasizes that we must learn to sell in this virtual world. That means organizations need to give their salespeople the right tools to sell virtually. How do you look into the camera? How do you have a conversation and build relationships? These are the things salespeople can do in person but struggle with digitally. If that’s you, listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented for some tips and tricks from Joanne Black.

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:13] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [1:45] Provide the right tools and training
  • [2:46] Joanne’s digital selling blueprint
  • [4:37] The attributes of a great digital seller
  • [5:41] Tools, techniques, and strategies 
  • [7:25] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [10:19] Share, comment, interact, and invite

Joanne’s digital selling blueprint

Joanne believes you need to have a written strategy that is clearly communicated. How does it apply to each person in your organization? How can you give them the skills to carry out the process? Joanne believes KPIs need to be attached to a social strategy and outreach. Managers tend to shoot from the hip and it leaves salespeople confused. Joanne has been virtual for years and has taken courses on how to sell virtually. She believes you must train and coach your salespeople, allow them to practice, and help them get results. 

The attributes of a great digital seller

Joanne notes that the attributes are very similar to in-person selling. You need to build relationships and play the long game. Some people believe that it’s tough to develop relationships with digital selling but Joanne disagrees. If you are well-trained and know how to look into the camera and have a conversation, you will build those relationships. Most people sell complex solutions which means you likely won’t close in one or two calls. You have to think about how to meet the buyers that are essential to closing the deal.

Digital selling dos and don’ts on LinkedIn

You have to learn how to use digital and social selling tools such as LinkedIn. People go on LinkedIn and pitch, send automated requests, and spew garbage. The best practice is to look at shared connections and read people’s recommendations. You can refer to people’s education, work history, and things they’ve written to reference in a conversation. People forget to be just as social as they would be in person. What are the rules of engagement?

  • Don’t stalk people and send automated messages: Joanne gets LinkedIn invitations and decides who to connect with and who she thinks will pitch her. Joanne connected with someone who pitched her when she responded to her acceptance. Joanne immediately removed her as a connection. This woman messaged her and asked why she removed her...Don’t pitch people in your invitation! 
  • Engage in conversation on LinkedIn. It’s so easy to “like” something. But look at the conversation and share your point of view. Comment and interact with what other people have said to build relationships. 
  • Invite people to connect who engaged with your comments with a personalized invitation. Never send a standard invitation. 

Share, comment, interact and invite

Joanne saw a post on LinkedIn from a head of sales all about referrals. People were commenting all over it and there was a lot of interaction (15–20 were chatting). Joanne added her voice to the conversation and it continued to develop. She decided to write to the head of sales and asked if he wanted to do a webinar about referrals and invite the people who had commented. 

He didn’t respond to that question. Instead, he asked her to come in and chat with his group. She had made an offer with no strings attached and it turned into business for her. If someone posts something within your area of expertise, don’t be afraid to share a best practice. It’s about being open and sharing as much as you can.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Joanne Black

Connect With Paul Watts 

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Oct 13, 2021

Graham Hawkins despises the phrase “social selling” because he believes you’re not selling—you’re solving problems. Modern selling should include leveraging data, tools, and platforms to give the buyer the experience they expect and deserve. Organizations need to acknowledge that the buyer has changed the way they behave and sales professionals must adapt. How can you create a “wow” experience for your buyer at every touchpoint? He shares his process in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:02] What’s the difference between digital and social selling?
  • [1:55] Why is digital selling so important? 
  • [3:30] Give your buyer a “wow” at every touchpoint 
  • [5:12] Successful sellers are specialized
  • [7:25] Tools + techniques + strategies
  • [11:21] Top three digital sales dos and don’ts
  • [13:45] Sales are all about the long game

Give your buyer a “wow” at every touchpoint 

Graham’s digital sales strategy is focused on education—solving, not selling. Brute force sales aren’t necessary anymore. The buyer will never be just a number. The goal now is to educate the buyer and solve their business problems. 

When you educate, you build rapport, trust, and credibility. Once you’ve done that, Graham recommends that you use the digital platforms and tools to get the information you need to give the buyer a delightful experience at every touchpoint. Your focus should be how you can create an enjoyable experience that’s not pushy, pitching, persuading, manipulating, closing, or objection-handling. 

Successful sellers are specialized

In Graham’s book, “The Future of the Sales Profession,” the key tenant is about specialization. Buyers expect four things from salespeople:

  • That you do your research to understand them and their industry
  • That the salesperson has to personalize everything to their context
  • The buyers want to learn something from you
  • Buyers expect that the salesperson will anticipate future needs (as well as current needs)

How do you make sure you’re seen as a specialist with a high level of credibility? You need to be a resource to help them solve their business problems. 

Tools + techniques + strategies

Graham firmly believes that anyone in sales needs to invest in LinkedIn Sales Navigator as a starting point. If you’ve identified your ideal customer and buyer personas, Sales Navigator can map an organization and show you who the key players are. 

Tools like Bombora and 6sense can actually show you who might be looking at certain topics in real-time. Seismic and Outreach can help you facilitate the delivery of educational content. Amplify your efforts with technology

Buyers are being bombarded by salespeople resorting to old tactics. If you’re being bombarded every single day, focus on differentiation. How do you become memorable

What are Graham’s top three digital sales dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

Sales are all about the long game

Graham’s largest client is Lloyd’s Bank in the UK. How did he win their business? Graham had engaged with Rob Michael from Aon on LinkedIn which led to him leading a workshop at Aon. He took a selfie with the group at the end and shared it on LinkedIn. He’s not afraid to show the world what he does. Plus, those photos usually get engagement. One of Rob’s friends who worked at Lloyds Bank (Wayne) liked the photo

So Graham sent a connection request to Wayne. He initiated the engagement and Wayne responded by asking to hear more about what Graham does. That’s how their conversation got started. He built credibility over 3+ months by tagging him in posts and sharing value. Eventually, Wayne reached out to connect with him in London. 

After 2.5 years of working with them, Lloyd’s announced a new CEO. Graham reached out to him immediately and introduced himself and shared that he’d worked with them for a couple of years. The next day, the CEO looked at his profile and accepted Graham’s invitation. The moral of the story? Sales are all about the long game. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Graham Hawkins

Connect With Paul Watts 

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Oct 6, 2021

Paula White jokes that digital selling was the red-headed step-child for a long time—but it was true. Because of the pandemic, we’ve learned that things can be done via the phone and technology. For salespeople to excel in this digital sales world, Paula would suggest implementing the right technology immediately. To do this, organizations need to understand what salespeople need to succeed in a remote digital sales world. Part of it? Simply remembering that you can still pick up the phone.

Outline of This Episode

 

  • [1:02] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:01] How to improve digital sales
  • [2:52] Paula’s blueprint for digital sales
  • [3:30] The attributes that make a great salesperson
  • [4:30] Paula’s favorite digital selling strategy
  • [5:23] Paula’s digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [9:03] Always sell with kindness

The attributes that make a great salesperson

 

If Paula was to build a blueprint for digital selling, it would start with training salespeople how to pick up cues over the phone. Then she’d go into assessing someone’s competencies and whether or not they can sell digitally. But salespeople who naturally have certain attributes may excel.

 

Paula believes the first attribute you need to have is active listening. You have to be able to hear and understand when a person is bored, isn’t paying attention, or isn’t interested in a product. You must understand their cues. You must actively listen for door opening signals. You need to be able to pick up on that to close the sale. Secondly, you need to be able to work remotely and not be afraid of using the phone. 

 

Paula recommends using gamification to bring competition to your teams. The best strategy is to get on the phone. Paula has always implemented a “10x10” rule i.e. making sure that your 10 calls happen before 10 am. The goal is 30–35 calls a day to reach your customers. The bottom line? A salesperson’s income comes from closing sales. 

Paula’s digital selling dos and don’ts

 

It’s easy—pick up the phone. Secondly, only sell on a need or want. What does Paula mean by that? People buy on emotion and justify it logically, so you need to find out what someone's needs or wants are. If you’re speaking to a CEO, are their needs or wants financial? Will the product make an end user’s life easier? If you’re speaking to a manager, how will it help both the end user and the financials? Pinpoint who you’re speaking with to understand their needs and wants. 

 

Paula emphasizes that you shouldn’t fake a connection. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. People feel like they’re hidden behind a screen or phone, so don’t forget to bring the human element. Don't try to oversell or you’ll lose the sale. Don’t lose the competition aspect of selling. If you go into the history of sales, you always made a sale with a handshake—it meant something. We don’t have that anymore. So you’re pushing to be in the top 4%. If you don’t have the competitive edge to win ethically, truthfully, and honestly, sales will be a challenge for you. Keeping that in mind makes you better every day. 

Sell with kindness

 

Many years ago, Paula called a customer and spoke to him around April/May. She asked for his business and he said, “Give me a call back the first week in July.” So she did. He answered the phone and he asked where she was from. She answered, “Ohio.” His response? “You don’t read the paper very much, do you?” Turns out, he had gone out of business. 

 

He was an EMS flight pilot carrying passengers to the hospital. His only plane had gone down. When she hung up, her heart sank. So she sent him a simple condolence card. He called six months later and she got all of his business, simply because of her act of kindness. She learned to do her pre-call planning—and that everyone is human. It’s only with kindness that you can grow.

Connect with Paula White

 

Connect With Paul Watts 

 

 

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Sep 29, 2021

Salespeople haven’t gotten many if any face-to-face meetings in the last year. They don’t get to take their clients to ballgames to build rapport. The result of COVID quarantines and working from home accelerated the trend toward digitalization 5–6 years ahead of where we’d be without the unexpected catalyst. 

Video has been huge—both synchronous and asynchronous—for the last 18 months. But what is a “sleeper” tactic that Kurt Shaver believes will be strategically implemented as part of the sales process? How does he believe you should leverage LinkedIn? Learn more in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:01] The difference between digital selling and social selling
  • [2:27] Why is digital selling important? How can you improve it?
  • [4:05] The blueprint for the perfect digital selling strategy
  • [5:32] The attributes that make a salesperson excel in digital sales
  • [6:50] Tools, techniques, and strategies to use
  • [8:50] Kurt’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [12:16] Your LinkedIn profile is a resource—not a resume

Kurt’s blueprint for the perfect digital selling strategy

What is Kurt’s ideal sales strategy? 

  • You have to figure out what your goals are and how you’ll measure them.
  • Once you identify your goals, figure out who you’re trying to reach, what the buying personas are, and what content does the company has to address the different buying personas in different parts of the sales cycle. Content is a huge play. 
  • On the selling side, you need the right tools in place. LinkedIn or Sales Navigator? Will you use video messaging tools or content sharing tools? 
  • You need the right training, coaching, reinforcement, ongoing metrics, and make sure it’s woven into sales so everything sticks. 

What are the attributes that Kurt believes make a salesperson excel in digital sales? Keep listening to find out!

Tools, techniques, and strategies to use

The first activity that Kurt categorizes as outbound prospecting is looking at LinkedIn as a database. Who can you target? What’s your outreach? Can you get an introduction? Can you approach them with a certain buyer persona? He advises that you take advantage of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Zant, Outreach, Sales Lock, VanillaSoft, etc. 

As an individual seller building a network, you have to share relevant content on social networks about your company, industry, and yourself. You must build a reputation as a subject matter expert and go-to resource. People will come to you as a credible resource. Video is a huge area where you can use tools like OneMob, Hippo Video, Vidyard, etc. 

Kurt’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts

What strategies should you adopt? What should you avoid? 

  • Learn how to master the social network that the majority of your prospects use. In the B2B world, it’s likely LinkedIn. People in Sports and Entertainment may skew toward Twitter. If they're in advertising they may use Instagram. Be present on that network.
  • Embrace and get comfortable with being on video. All the apps are adding video—and it isn’t just social networks. 
  • If you want to get ahead of the curve, experiment with texting prospects. This strategy is the hardest to succeed with. In North America, sending a text will get you the highest response rate of any communication medium. But the bad news is that you have to be in someone’s inner circle of trust and you can’t violate that.
  • Don’t treat LinkedIn as a resume (unless you’re trying to get a job). It needs to be more like a website and a resource.
  • Don’t pounce on people when you send someone an invitation. The first words out of your mouth shouldn’t be selling. You court before you ask someone to marry you.
  • If you're trying to build rapport and you get a video conference, turn on the camera so they learn to know, like, and trust you. 

Your LinkedIn profile is a resource—not a resume

Kurt runs a program called “Selling with LinkedIn” where they help sales teams transform their LinkedIn profiles. They always start with the headline. You want it to be a customer-oriented benefit statement. It can’t just be “account executive” or “sales engineer.” You want to say “I help manufacturing engineers streamline processes to drive productivity.” 

They helped a client in a recruiting and staffing business do that. Before the training, his headline was “account executive.” In the workshop, he changed it to “I help fast-growth technology companies source and retain top programming talent.” What was the result? A VP of HR at a fast-growth technology company who couldn’t source and retain talent saw that headline. 

She reached out to him and he got into the sales cycle with her. Two months later, he closed a six-figure recruiting retainer deal with this company. It all started because he invested 5 minutes to reengineer his headline. He called out the types of customers he works with and the outcomes he hopes to achieve for them.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Kurt Shaver

Connect With Paul Watts 

Subscribe to SALES REINVENTED

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Sep 22, 2021

If organizations didn’t have a social selling strategy pre-COVID, they certainly do now. But many salespeople struggle to bridge the gap from selling face-to-face to selling digitally. But is it really that different? According to Diane Helbig, it shouldn’t be. Social selling is still all about building relationships. The approach to building relationships simply starts differently. Learn all about it in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:59] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [1:39] Why is digital selling important? How can you improve?
  • [3:11] Diane’s social selling strategy 
  • [4:36] The characteristics of a great digital seller
  • [5:46] Improve your digital selling with these tools
  • [7:55] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [10:46] Sales is a verb: take action consistently

Why is social selling important? How can you improve?

Diane notes that we better have a digital selling strategy. No one knows what will happen next. Selling digitally simply increases your capacity for doing outreach. Before the pandemic, people just thought they’d work locally. Now, they’ve added digital selling into their toolbox. Because of this, organizations need to pay attention to how they interact in the digital space. 

People think it’s different than face-to-face—but it isn’t. The prospect wants the same engagement, discovery is the same, outreach is relatively the same. Even the conversations you engage in should be the same. Digital selling shouldn’t be more salesy. Too many people change their processes in a digital format and don’t see the same success. 

Diane’s social selling strategy 

Diane believes a social selling strategy needs to start with relationship-building online. It helps you consistently build and nurture relationships with people in your sphere. It allows you to be in contact with people you want sales conversations with. 

So Diane would spend time connecting and engaging with people and getting them on the phone, a Zoom call, and move the relationship forward. You can use LinkedIn to research your target market to see how you’re connected to your target market to get an introduction. These things go hand-in-hand and help you get a warm introduction. 

Improve your digital selling with these tools

Something everyone should be using is an appointment scheduling software like Calendly. Block out time on your calendar when you know people will fill it. Don’t go back and forth with someone to try and get an appointment. Use your calendar because it’s your friend. There’s real value in looking at your calendar and choosing slots where you will engage in digital selling activity. It can be connecting with people, engaging with their content, etc. Use your calendar as your way to stay structured and consistent. 

What are Diane’s digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to learn more!

Sales is a verb: take action consistently

Diane had a friend who sold customized gift baskets. She was great at what she did. Diane had built a business relationship with her and trusted and respected her. She went through Diane’s LinkedIn connections and found 5 people she wanted to be introduced to. They tried to do the LinkedIn connection process but no one responded. 

So Diane emailed every single one of them and told her friend’s story. Every single one said they’d take her call. She did business with ⅘ of them because she got the conversation. She was discerning about who she asked to be introduced to, did her homework, and asked Diane for an introduction. Because there was a level of trust between everyone, the conversation happened. She did the rest. 

Diane learned that it’s important to know the people that you’re connected to. There is value in the quality of the relationships. Secondly, take it upon yourself to do the research and make the request. Instead of waiting for someone to be referred to you, go out there and take action consistently—with a strategy.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Diane Helbig

Connect With Paul Watts 

Subscribe to SALES REINVENTED

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Sep 15, 2021

Jamie Shanks believes all businesses have come to recognize that customer acquisition has forever changed. You no longer need to deploy endless amounts of people into the field. You can do 8-figure deals from the comfort of your own home. So sellers need to learn new skillsets to aid customers in their journey, knowing they will never be face-to-face like they were before. One of those necessary skills that must be embraced is signal intelligence. Jamie shares more in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Don’t miss it!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:22] The difference between social and digital selling
  • [2:20] How to improve digital selling capabilities
  • [3:35] Signal intelligence in account selection and prioritization
  • [5:00] The attributes of a great digital salesperson
  • [6:40] Take advantage of your sphere of influence 
  • [9:18] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [12:56] Jamie’s favorite digital selling story

Signal intelligence in account selection and prioritization

According to Topo, 50% of sellers don’t meet their sales quota. 83.4% of those sellers had poor time management skills. Account selection and prioritization was the single biggest determining factor to great or poor time management. Jamie would focus on teaching teams signal intelligence. What does that mean?

Not all accounts are created equal. You should prioritize accounts based on buyer intent, relationship roadmaps, and time-based signals like maturity and job changes. These compelling events or triggers are the reasons doors get opened, whether a new account or into the core customer you want to upsell or cross-sell. You need to recognize the signals and turn them into something prescriptive. 

What are the attributes of a salesperson who’s willing and able to embrace digital selling and succeed? Listen to hear Jamie’s thoughts!

Take advantage of your sphere of influence

One of the signal categories has a sales play called “the sphere of influence.” James says to take a sheet of paper and draw a logo in the middle of a happy customer. Draw a circle around it and spiderwebs that come off it. Ask yourself: Who cares about this story? Who would this resonate with? You’ll realize that you have advocates that are being recruited to other businesses. Where is the talent going? Focus on those companies. 

Do referral road-mapping. Work with your customer success team to find out who your happy customers are. Drop into those people’s LinkedIn profiles to see who they know and have access to. One customer can give you a map of 5–10 prospective customers that are within one degree of separation from your happy customer.

Jamie’s digital selling dos and don’ts

Jamie implores salespeople to learn the skills of mining, indexing, and gathering intelligence from tools like LinkedIn. Once you’re able to extract key insights and turn them into conversations, engagements, and opportunities, you can amplify your efforts by paying for something like LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It allows you to tag, save, and organize your total addressable marketing in a prescriptive way.

Don't expect that the new normal will revert to the old playbook. Unless your company took a 50% hit in revenue because you couldn't sell in person, any good CFO will re-deploy those funds to increase the yield per seller, acquire more sellers, etc. The world is reverting to normal but face-to-face meetings aren't coming back. 

The power of signal intelligence

Jamie has a customer in the UX design/software business scaling rapidly and raising hundreds of millions of dollars. They’ve started to embrace the power of signal intelligence. They’re advanced digital sellers that are mining at a global scale. A sales professional found out that one of their customers—a top 10 global bank—went to Tinder and put in an RFP for a UX design. This was one of their happy and active customers that sought an RFP from another vendor. 

So they paused and turned on their signal intelligence and recognized that a department who was looking into this solution decided to select a vendor that he was accustomed to (not realizing that Jamie’s customer was their customer). Jamie’s customer realized that there were past advocates from other customers who were newly appointed inside this bank. While they weren’t the direct buyer, they were part of a buying committee—people who could influence the action taken. 

His customer assembled those happy advocates and gave them a playbook to reach out to the decision-maker to share who they’ve used and why they had to go with this particular company. They ended up pausing the RFP, reverting back, and awarding it to Jamie’s customer. It was a $300,000 deal. If they hadn’t thought through the categories of signal intelligence (buying intent, product usage, competitive intelligence, relationship road-mapping, and time). They might’ve just walked away but they realized they had options.

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Sep 8, 2021

Brynne Tillman believes that digital selling is vitally important today more than ever. She believes that things will never go back to the way they were before—especially with prospecting in the first conversation. Going to conferences, knocking on doors, and going to trade shows will come back. But Brynne believes many companies will still do all of the top-of-the-funnel activities digitally. With the sales world bent on digital strategies, what does Brynne embrace to be the most effective? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to find out!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:27] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:15] Why is digital selling important? How can you improve?
  • [5:03] Brynne’s social selling strategy
  • [9:30] The attributes of a great digital seller
  • [11:45] Tools, techniques, and strategies
  • [13:43] Top 3 social selling dos and don’ts

It’s time to add value + insight

Because people are searching digitally, you have to make sure that you are creating a first impression that’s strong enough that they’ll keep digging into your solution to their problem. According to Corporate Visions, “74% of buyers choose the sales rep who is first to add value and insight.” The only way to do this is to show up digitally. You need to be the vendor that’s the first to add value and insight. 

Brynne’s social selling strategy

You’ve got to position your professional brand as a thought leader and subject matter expert. Brynne’s strategy is focused on selling on LinkedIn. Your profile needs to shift from a resume to a resource. People are choosing the sales rep that provides value and insight—so make your profile a resource.

Secondly, you want to engage in social listening. What does Byrnne mean by that? Make sure that you know what your buyers care about. You can read through their profile, look at their client recommendations, read the content that they share, and even check out the hashtags that they use.

You also need the right content strategy. You have to create good content and engage on that content. All three of these must resonate and create curiosity in your buyer. It needs to teach them something new that gets them to think differently about how they’re doing things today. Brynne emphasizes that “A salesperson’s #1 competitor is the status quo.” If you want to have conversations around your solution, you must be compelling. They must see that what they’re doing isn’t optimal. 

You also have to nurture your existing connections. Brynne likes to call it conducting “CPR” on current connections. It’s identifying clients, prospects, and referral partners. You can do this by searching first-degree connections on LinkedIn. Who are the people you should be talking to that you’ve been ignoring? Brynne had a client that did this exercise and found an old client and within weeks closed a $1.5 million deal. Her commission paid for her daughter’s college education. 

You also need to do warm market prospecting. There’s an epidemic of cold-calling on LinkedIn (i.e. “connect and pitch” and “bait and switch”). When you’ve identified prospects, you want to search your connections to identify who they know that you want to meet. You can leverage those relationships to get warm referrals to start new conversations.

What are the attributes of a great digital seller? What are her favorite tools to use? Listen to hear Brynne’s thoughts!

Top 3 social selling dos and don’ts

There are a few things that Brynne emphasizes you must do—and a few things you should NOT do. What are they?

  • Do NOT connect and pitch. Start real conversations as if you were in a room together. Tailor your messages to be personal. Slow down your outreach to speed up your outcome. 
  • Don’t connect and forget. Everyone is guilty of this. People connect and never start conversations. 
  • Don’t post and ghost. People put out content and don’t engage with likes and comments. It takes time to build a fanbase.
  • Send a personal note with every invitation. A lot of people don’t agree with this but Brynne believes there are three reasons to do this. Taking the time to personalize the message doesn’t feel automated. You can see and remember why you connected in the first place. Lastly, it’s polite
  • Search your connection’s connections to find who they know and leverage your relationships to get introductions.
  • Capture your genius. No one reads 2,000-word blog posts anymore. People are interested in videos and quotes. 

How to leverage your connection’s connections

Eight years ago, Brynne recognized that a client was connected to one of her top prospects, Rob Curley of TD Bank. Brynne had been trying to connect with him for over a year without a response. So she went to her client and asked how they knew each other. They were in a group for parents of children with diabetes. Brynne asked if he could make an introduction. Within twenty minutes, she was given an address for a 10 am meeting the next Monday morning. Brynne would have canceled a trip to Disney World for that meeting. 

She showed up and walked in and he said, “Okay, go.” She asked why she got the meeting. He said he would do anything for his buddy. So she said, “If I can show you how your commercial lenders can get in the door the same way…” He looked at his calendar, picked a date three weeks out, and said “By the way, how much?” It was the fastest Sale Brynne ever made. He’s still her client eight years later. It shows how powerful LinkedIn is as a sales tool.

Resources & People Mentioned

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Sep 1, 2021

In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Bob Apollo points out that for a long period of time—because of COVID—digital selling represented the only means of engagement with a potential client. He notes that it’s hard to predict where the balance will lie going forward. We likely won’t revert to the world before COVID but we’ll see a blend between face-to-face and digital selling. So how do you succeed in a world where digital rules? Listen to this episode to learn more!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:14] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:24] How to improve digital selling capabilities
  • [4:44] Bob’s digital selling strategy
  • [8:10] The attributes of a great salesperson
  • [9:34] Tools, techniques, and digital selling strategies
  • [13:30] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [15:23] Focus on quality over quantity

Bob’s digital selling strategy

Bob believes one of the great things about the last 12–18 months—where most of the customer dialogue has happened digitally—is that we’ve had an opportunity to record and analyze the dialogue. Bob has observed that enlightened sales organizations have invested in intelligent analysis of their salespeople’s calls. It opened a window to see how the shape and structure of a conversation unfolds. This helps make the salesperson aware of their interactions with their customers and what they can improve. It can be a great coaching asset. 

Bob believes that there are certain competencies and skills that are important. There are a lot of salespeople who used to just “wing it” during a customer conversation. They didn’t prepare or clarify their role—and they got away with it. In the digital world, preparation and structure are key to the success of your sales conversation. An agenda, timeframe, and conditional next steps are all important. 

What are the attributes of a great digital seller? Bob shares a few characteristics he looks for, so keep listening! 

Tools, techniques, and digital selling strategies

Firstly, Bob points out that you have to make sure your salespeople are working from a professional home environment. You can’t rely on a dodgy webcam, poor quality microphone, or poor internet connection. Sales organizations have made a modest investment in making sure their salespeople have digital tools that work in an environment where they can be productive. 

There’s also a great benefit of using conversational intelligence and analytics tools. Social media—particularly LinkedIn—is a powerful ally for the salesperson when it comes to doing research. It gives a salesperson something relevant to say to the customer. Anything that allows and encourages a salesperson to do thoughtful research is a good thing. Research should be a platform for better conversations and better outreach. You have to go into a meeting with a clear sense of what you want to accomplish while recognizing that you still need to validate your planning in real conversation with the real customer. 

One of the techniques that Bob believes has been used for quite some time is “upfront commits.” In the early part of a significant dialogue—after you’ve agreed on goals, priorities, and an agenda—you want to say something like: “Would it be reasonable if we achieve the objectives that we agreed on that our next steps would be…” You talk about where you want things to go next. It’s simple, yet powerful. It helps you achieve a meaningful advance and is a great way to keep the momentum going. Listen to the whole episode to hear Bob’s top three digital selling dos and don’ts!

Focus on quality leads over quantity of leads

Bob believes that some of the best salespeople are not the ones that have the largest number of deals in their pipeline. The successful are the ones that have chosen to focus on a more qualified pipeline. They have the discipline to not pursue every attractive opportunity. A lot of good selling comes down to hard work rather than brilliance. 

Bob notes that it also partly comes down to personal confidence. Effective salespeople are confident and they will discard an opportunity when they know it’s not worth chasing. Their less confident colleagues lack that self-assurance to disqualify a weak opportunity. They’re fearful their management will question their pipeline. The bottom line? You need to be confident in your own judgment. A lack of confidence causes you to engage in useless activity that doesn’t drive the needle. It’s not about the number of calls you make, demos you've booked, and activity level. Activity doesn’t always lead to progress.

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Aug 25, 2021

According to Patti Pokorchak, social “selling” should really be called social “prospecting.” Any good salesperson knows you can’t walk up to someone at a face-to-face networking event and immediately pitch them your wares. You have to build a connection and a relationship. Selling digitally should be the same way. Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to hear Patti’s thoughts on successful social prospecting. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:30] The differences between digital and social selling 
  • [2:15] How can organizations improve digital sales?
  • [3:23] Patti’s blueprint for digital sale success begins with engagement 
  • [5:38] Attributes or characteristics of a great digital salesperson
  • [6:47] Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve social prospecting
  • [8:08] Patti’s top three digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [12:08] Why email marketing is still a valid marketing strategy

Social prospecting success begins with engagement 

Patti’s business partner likes to say, “All roads lead to your website.” Patti believes the most important part of your website is your lead magnet. You need to be able to capture someone’s email address. Secondly, you have to engage with people daily. She points out that you can’t pretend that you’re active on social media if you’re just throwing up a link to your blog post. Being active means having a dialogue with people. 

If you comment on large influencer’s posts, you’ll get eyeballs on your answers. Patti gets most of her connection requests and clients through engaging in this way versus engaging on her own posts. She spends at least 15 minutes a day on LinkedIn adding value and engaging on people’s posts. Showing your expertise on someone else’s content helps you become a thought leader. She recommends that you do a weekly blog post, share it, and engage. 

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve social prospecting

Patti notes that social media can be overwhelming. Her advice? Pick one platform. In the B2B environment, the go-to is LinkedIn. Spend your time on that network and get really good at social prospecting. Patti believes that Twitter is a great place to listen and learn, but not great for gaining business. Pick a market that fits your market. If you’re selling to women in the consumer market? Try Instagram or Pinterest. You don’t have to be on all platforms.

Patti recommends that you find ways to always be learning. The Sales Experts Channel has almost 1,000 videos that you can watch. YouTube is full of great content. Follow people that you think are doing social well. 

Top social prospecting dos and don’ts

What does Patti believe is the key to success? She shares some things you should—and shouldn’t—do.

  • Engage on other people’s posts with value-added comments. Don’t just “like” it and move on. It has far more impact than engaging on yours. Read the posts and give your two cents. 
  • Be patient. Social media is a long game. No matter what you’ve heard, do your research and be patient. It’s a high-touch, high-volume business that’s worth taking your time.
  • Pick one social media platform and get good at it. Learn to be effective in 15 minutes.
  • Stop selling. It’s not social selling, it’s social prospecting. You don’t immediately sell to someone in face-to-face networking. Get people to take baby steps to learn a bit at a time. 
  • Don’t just rely on digital and social selling. It’s a passive approach and one-way dialogue. Patti believes in picking up the phone and leaving a voicemail. Follow it with an email portraying the same message. You have to talk to people.
  • Don’t give up too soon. It takes 10–20 touches before you can even think about giving up. 

Don’t forget about email marketing

Patti now owns a hobby farm and garden center. When she started it, she knew nothing about farming and didn't know anyone. But after five years, she’s built a thriving business. Over those five years, she’s been collecting emails and had about 1500 people on her list (of avid gardeners). Patti wanted to celebrate her five years in business. Her garden center is seasonal, so she decided to open on 5/5 at 5 pm and ran $5 specials. 

She didn’t think many people would show up at 5 pm on a Friday—but she was mistaken. She had people waiting outside the garden gate. 50 people showed up in the five hours she was open. She was stuffing money in her pockets. She notes that you cannot underestimate the demand for something people want. A focused email list can go a long way with your target market. Email marketing is a great way to provide value and connect with your customers. 

Resources & People Mentioned

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Aug 18, 2021

Steve Bensen believes that digital selling is important because it’s how buyers are buying. And your best leads—the people most likely to purchase from you—look for answers about your company online. They’re doing searches in Google, researching you, reading reviews, and looking at competitors. You need ads in the right places and content that will satisfy what they’re looking for. You need to provide the answers to their questions while also providing information about your company and what you can do for them. How did Steve achieve that with his business with a focus on digital marketing? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to find out! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:05] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:03] How to improve digital selling capabilities
  • [4:15] Steve’s digital selling strategy
  • [6:14] Attributes + characteristics of a great digital seller
  • [8:08] Tools, techniques, or strategies to improve
  • [9:41] Steve’s digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [13:29] Leveraging LinkedIn learning with relevant content

Steve’s digital marketing strategy

You have to go where your customers are looking for you. Some companies may have a heavy presence on social media. Others may need to focus on writing articles or creating video content. You have to think about, “Where are my customers trying to find out more about this space?” 

Steve used to write an article or blog every night before he went to bed. He had a list of ideas that he added to when he thought of something. Your blog, writing for other blogs, and even just being quoted in other publications is huge. Long-form rich content that answers people’s questions is key. Those are assets that continue to yield leads. 

Badger Maps makes a mapping tool for field salespeople. Who’s looking for that? Maybe a VP of sales or sales operations. Where are those personas looking online? What questions are they asking? What articles are they interested in reading? Make that content so they’ll find you.

Steve notes that it isn’t the same blueprint for everyone. Steve looks at the top 10 places to create content and general awareness and then builds a strategy for each. What characteristics make for a great salesperson? Listen to hear Steve’s thoughts. 

Tools, techniques, and strategies to improve

For digital selling specifically, Steve recommends outsourcing Google ads because it’s so difficult to do well. But Steve emphasizes that content creation and content marketing should be done in-house (whether by someone full-time or part-time). The creation of content—that is valuable and relevant—to feed the SEO machine is best done by someone who specializes in that. But some things are so expertise-driven that they must be outsourced. 

Steves’ digital marketing dos and don’ts

What does Steve believe is key to digital marketing success? 

  • Be consistent. Keep creating great content regularly (email marketing, blog posts, social media, video, podcasting, etc.). Don’t dabble—commit to doing something and do it. The things that work in marketing compound over time when you’re consistent and in it for the long haul. 
  • Specialize. Develop specialized in-house roles. If video content is your strategy, you need someone excellent at creating videos. The same goes for social media marketing and writing blogs. 
  • Don’t be boring. Steve believes a lot of digital marketing material can be lame. You need to find a way to create unique value and don’t just regurgitate what’s already out there. 
  • Don’t get lost in the noise. Create a niche market that attracts your unique customer profile. Feed them the content they need and want to read/hear/watch. Steve’s podcast is called “Outside Sales Talk” because it’s specifically for outside salespeople and it creates value just for them

Leveraging LinkedIn learning

Steve loves creating LinkedIn videos. LinkedIn has a learning platform that allows you to create videos that are made available for anyone to watch. It’s one of Steve’s favorite digital marketing strategies. Steve created a video for them geared toward field salespeople. It allowed Steve to create a lot of reach—180,000 people have watched the video and done the training. It was something a lot of people have gotten value from. 

People reach out to Steve and engage all the time because of that one piece of content. He created something of value for the niche that purchases his product. Plus, it’s on a platform with extensive reach. Steve emphasizes the importance of creating valuable content and getting it in places your user can find it. If you do that, the word will get out about what you do. To hear more of his thoughts on digital marketing, listen to the whole episode!

Resources & People Mentioned

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Aug 11, 2021

Digital selling is omnichannel—anything that you can use online. It can be digital assets, PDFs, web pages, interactive quizzes, communities, and more. But when you sell digitally, you have to make a conscious effort to understand and engage with your buyer in ways and places they prefer. That’s why agility and flexibility are essential to the process. Carole Mahoney shares her thoughts on the digital sales process in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Don’t miss it! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:33] The difference between digital and social
  • [2:11] How to improve digital selling
  • [3:30] Carole’s digital selling strategy
  • [4:43] Attributes salespeople need to succeed
  • [6:39] Tools + techniques + strategies to utilize
  • [8:45] Top 3 digital dos and don’ts
  • [10:46] Learn to be digitally agile 

How to improve digital selling

In 1993 when the internet was first being launched, Carole realized that it would change everything—including the way people communicate and form relationships. That’s how organizations need to think of digital selling today. It’s been ignored for so long because face-to-face was an option, and thought to be more effective. But the way people buy has been changing since the internet was born. Businesses need to catch up! 

They need to be in tune with what is going on with their buyer when they’re engaging in these channels. Carole notes that they often make rash decisions to put everything online without thinking about buyer experience. You must learn from your buyers: how do they prefer to engage online? You don’t want to develop things that annoy or distract from what they’re trying to do. 

Carole’s digital selling strategy

Carole emphasizes that you have to start with conversations with prospects, buyers, and current customers to collaborate. Selling is something you do with others—not to others. If you want to build a strategy, it needs to start with one-to-one conversations. You need to learn about their pain points and frustrations and what to solve. 

How do they go about making confident decisions? How do they prefer to engage? In what ways? Some people hate email. Others can’t get off of it. How do your unique buyers want to communicate? Everyone has a different way to prefer to communicate online. You use that information to design a sales process that’s in alignment with how people buy. 

What attributes do salespeople need to have to succeed with digital selling? Listen to learn more!

Tools + techniques + strategies to utilize 

Carole recommends that all sales teams use Gryphon Networks. Most people just do call reviews and look at what’s already happened—things you can’t have an impact on. But things like role play and real-time coaching with your salespeople can be a game-changer. Gryphon has an AI that can be trained to give the seller coaching prompts at the moment. It can enhance the digital conversation sellers are having. 

Carole also recommends finding out where your team places in core competencies. She uses an assessment that can help you focus where your team needs further training and development. If you’d like to assess your team for free and see how they compare to the competition in your industry, check out the Sales Force Evaluation

What are Carole’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Learn to be digitally agile 

Carole recently held a webinar series for Revenue Collective. Normally, she’d get a list of the people that signed up for the webinar and she’d personally reach out to them. But Carole didn’t get a list. So in her presentation, she shared some links for tools and techniques that were downloadable from her website that people could use immediately. She also made sure her LinkedIn profile was easy to find. What happened? 

Several people from the same company looked at her LinkedIn profile and other downloaded tools. She noted who they were, and reached out to one of them. She sent an email asking about what they downloaded and asked a specific question about it. In the end, it resulted in valuable conversations and Carole will be working with them soon. It was a 45–60 day sales cycle with a Vidyard video and emails—how they wanted to interact. 

The moral of the story? She had to adapt. She had to find a way to connect with people and provide them valuable resources. She had to find out who was interested in learning more and how to have a conversation. She had to use her website and digital assets to find those people and make it easier to engage. It goes to show that you can have a playbook, run the plays, and do the drills. But when you get on the field, you have to adapt. If you can’t adapt, the play will fail, and you’ll lose the game. 

Resources & People Mentioned

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Aug 4, 2021

Tony Hughes points out that we live in a digital-first world. 2020 was a catalyst for accelerating what people are describing as the 4th industrial revolution. He emphasizes that “There’s timeless principles of selling that we need to adapt as we modernize the way that we engage clients.” One of the big trends is that companies are shifting resources from field selling to using the tech stack to sell digitally. So how can you drive change in a digital world? How do you excel with digital selling? Tony Hughes shares his take in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:11] Digital and social selling 
  • [3:41] How to improve your digital selling 
  • [7:35] Tony’s digital selling blueprint
  • [9:46] Attributes that lead to greatness
  • [12:19] Tools + techniques + strategies
  • [16:46] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [19:27] Tony demonstrates the power of connections

How to improve your digital selling 

Most buyer’s journeys begin in their trusted online network. They seek social proof for the things that they’re looking at purchasing. Tony was talking to a group of 18 CEOs about modernizing the way they sell. One was the CEO in Australia for a North American company that sells into the pharmacy industry. The two highest-performing territories in North America didn’t have salespeople in them for four months out of the year. This company had been convinced that they needed to maintain mindshare with pharmacists. When they interviewed the pharmacists and business owners they found some interesting things. 

Firstly, the pharmacists noted that when the reps called on them, it took them away from serving customers. Secondly, they thought the information being shared with them was just marketing material that they’d rather get in an email or snail mail. The only thing the buyer valued is that they were getting a great price. So this company decided to run some testing in Australia, removing their reps completely. The business has never been stronger. Tony’s point? The belief that bots can never replace you is nonsense. 

Tony’s digital selling blueprint

Tony believes that any blueprint has to begin with understanding your ideal customer profile. You need to think about their:

  1. Firmographics: What is their vertical? How big are they? Where are they located?
  2. Technographics: What are the attributes of the organizations? What is their competition?
  3. Psychographics: Are they in a growth mindset? Are they in crisis? Do they outsource? Are they trying to innovate and disrupt the market? 

Companies with a growth mindset are the most likely to purchase. 

Then you need to look at the buyer personas—those that say “yes” or form a consensus. You then build the conversation narrative. Once you do that, you need to map the buyer’s journey and go and be where they are. It will certainly include social media, but it will be in other places as well. You move away from the “us” narrative because no one wants to hear it. You need to lead with a narrative about how they can drive improved results in their role. If you do all of that well, they’ll want to understand why you would be the best solution for them. 

What three attributes does Tony believe lead to greatness? Listen to find out!

Tools + techniques + strategies

Tony recommends that you look at the tech stack that you’ve got. How can you use what you already have? Would your boss say you’re a good user of CRM? Do you capture meeting notes, build a dashboard, and identify the next best actions to take? 

Secondly, use the sales intelligence tools available to you, such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can also build searches that monitor for trigger events within your customer base as well as your ICPs and buyer personas within the marketplace. 

Can you do pragmatic research? Are you using sales intelligence tools that get you emails and phone numbers? Tony believes the fastest path—and highest probability to a new sale—is when you can provide relevance and context through a trusted relationship and a trigger event. Listen to learn what Tony does with this. 

Listen to find out what Tony’s top digital selling dos and don’ts are—some might surprise you!

The power of connection

A great friend of Tony’s is a CEO who just took a role with a new company. As they were talking over breakfast, Tony offered to introduce someone who would be a good fit as a client. When Tony’s friend posted a LinkedIn update about his new role, he liked it, commented, and shared it. He tagged the name of the person he thought would be a good client and said “You two should get together.” This person responded within five minutes and messaged Tony’s friend. 

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Jul 28, 2021

When you’re selling on LinkedIn—or any other social platform—you’re creating conversations. Maybe you’ve made a connection, had a Zoom call, and take the relationship to a trade show, conference, etc. With virtual selling, you may do the entire sales cycle online. The B2B buyer is at a point where they prefer this. So salespeople need to be primed on social selling skills and able to take it to the next level. You have to learn the best way of engaging with customers if you continue to sell virtually. Viveka von Rosen shares some great tips in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:34] Social selling versus digital selling
  • [3:42] How to improve digital selling capabilities
  • [4:53] Viveka’s digital selling strategy
  • [7:57] Necessary attributes + characteristics
  • [8:49] Tools + techniques + strategies
  • [10:33] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [12:35] Understanding the pain point you solve

How to improve social selling capabilities

Digital selling isn’t going away. Viveka emphasizes that you must move beyond “Let’s get on LinkedIn'' and “Let’s shoot a couple videos” to teach sellers how to be charismatic online. They need to learn how to move past images and insert their voice. You can do video cover stories that play where your cover photo would normally go. You can record voice introduction videos. Your profile needs to come to life. But your sellers need to know how to use those features. Viveka points out that your competitors will understand the necessity and are becoming savvy. 

Viveka’s digital selling strategy

Before you reach out and engage with people to fill your pipeline, you need to make sure you look good. Many companies in the social selling space need help. Anyone customer-facing needs a good strong brand. From there, they need to be taught how to engage—not connect. You need to learn how to build face-to-name and top-of-mind awareness so when they are invited to connect they’re more likely to say “yes.” 

Then you need to prove value before you try to take the person home. People somehow think they can get on LinkedIn, connect with someone, and start selling their wares. LinkedIn is about creating strong conversations and building know, like, and trust. You nurture those relationships by sharing valuable content. You need to put this all together in an easily repeatable cadence.

What are the attributes + characteristics necessary to succeed? Listen to hear Viveka’s thoughts!

Tools, techniques, and strategies to embrace

Viveka always recommends that you use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Unfortunately, she points out that a lot of salespeople don’t understand the best ways of using the tool. She also recommends a good CRM—whether it’s Salesforce, Hubspot, or Nimble—that works. Viveka is a huge fan of selling with video. They use OneMob but there are many great email video tools out there. Using video in messages, emails, and texts gives people a great sense of who you are. There are strategies that you can put in place to be more charismatic online. With a little practice, you can use it well and be effective. Listen to hear Viveka’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts!

Your buyer needs to experience the pain point you solve

When Viveka started training salespeople how to sell on LinkedIn (in 2009), most people didn't even know what it was. They didn’t understand the value in it. She had flown to New York to speak to a law firm. She can still see them staring at her with their arms crossed, brows furrowed, questioning the validity of selling on LinkedIn. She started to explain the features and watched their eyes glaze over. She finally just told herself to stop talking. She switched gears and asked them how they would buy a car. They all said that they would do research first. 

So she asked them to Google their names. The first thing that came up was the company website. But halfway down the results page would be LinkedIn. So she pointed out that a potential client will look at their profile to make sure they’re a good fit. So she asked them to click on their profile. What they saw was the most bare-boned pathetic example of a profile. She could immediately see their walls come down. Everyone started to listen. 

The moral of the story? You need to get your buyer to experience the point of pain that you solve, to physically experience it. That will move you toward the sale more than anything else.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Viveka von Rosen

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Jul 21, 2021

Ryan Kugler believes you have to embrace both digital selling and old-school ways of selling, such as sending emails and making cold calls. How does he find success with both strategies? Why does he believe persistence pays off? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented for a completely different take on digital and social selling. 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:10] How are digital and social selling different?
  • [1:36] Why is digital selling so important? 
  • [2:04] Ryan’s blueprint for digital sales
  • [3:01] The attributes of a great salesperson
  • [3:44] Tools + techniques + strategies
  • [4:59] Ryan’s digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [8:35] Why persistence pays off

Ryan’s blueprint for digital sales

Ryan has found that email is the easiest way to connect with someone—as long as you do it right. He always asks a question in the subject line so the prospect wants to open your email. Then you give them the answer to the question you asked in the subject line. It can be a few simple sentences, then you pitch your product. He’s also a huge fan of jumping on the phone. 

Ryan notes that social networking depends on what product or service you’re pitching. If it’s to a consumer, Ryan recommends Instagram or Facebook. If you’re in the B2B space, LinkedIn is the way to go. Ryan has three businesses, none of which are consumer-based, so he doesn’t spend a lot of time on Instagram or Facebook. 

What are the attributes of a great salesperson? Listen to hear Ryan’s thoughts. 

Motivation begins with you

Ryan believes something as simple as listening to great podcasts and being able to hear others’ experiences is extremely helpful. Secondly, you need to educate yourself on sales and find a way to motivate yourself. You have to have the intention to sell. 

If you are a true salesperson, you want to read books about sales, find a coach, a mentor, or something that motivates you to wake up every day and do it. It’s all about investing in personal development. After that, it’s a numbers game: get your name out there. Make sure your product or service is something that people want. 

Ryan’s digital selling dos and don’ts

What rules does Ryan follow to find success with digital sales? He shares some thoughts:

  • When you send an email, your email platform is saving those email addresses. That gives you an address book of people you’ve connected with. Ryan recommends that you go through those contacts once a month and email each person to check-in. 
  • Make sure you’re keeping every email address. 
  • Call and set up an email blast so they get a monthly email pitching your product. 
  • Always reply to every email you get (by the end of the day or within 24 hours). If you don’t return a call or reply to emails, that customer will assume you’re too busy for them and you’ll lose their business.
  • Don’t just sit on your laurels. Just closed a big deal? Great. Celebrate, and get back at it again the next morning. 
  • Always be creating. Don’t get distracted by social media or other tasks. When you’re at work for those 8–10 hours, do the work

Why persistence pays off

Ryan points out that sales involve prospecting, right? You need a base of customers to call. Ryan has a customer he’s been calling for 15 years (leaving messages and sending emails). This person would see his email or hear his name somehow. In March of 2020, COVID hit. This person finally called him back and said “I need this right now.” That phone call led to the biggest sale he’d ever made—it was the same amount of sales he’d done for 25 years. The moral of the story? Don’t give up. The persistence will pay off eventually, even if it takes 20 years. 

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Jul 14, 2021

Bill McCormick believes that relationships are the most important difference between digital selling and social selling. To Bill, digital selling encompasses all mediums. It’s email, SMS, chat, direct messages, phone calls, video, etc. It’s larger numbers and more impersonal outreach. Social selling is social. It’s about establishing a relationship and a connection with a person and moving that relationship along until there’s an opportunity for a sales conversation. Hear his complete thoughts on digital and social selling in this episode of Sales reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:13] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [2:12] Why digital selling is so important today
  • [3:55] Bill’s ideal digital selling strategy
  • [7:13] The attributes you need to reach success
  • [9:44] Tools + techniques + strategies to improve
  • [12:14] Digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [15:17] Why consistency and persistence are key

How to improve digital selling capabilities

Things can change in a moment. Even as things begin to open, Bill doubts that we’ll return to how things used to be. He believes we’ll be looking at a hybrid model for companies where many more people will work from home. McKinsey reported that 75% of buyers are saying that when they get back in the office, they’d prefer initial meetings to be conducted virtually. 

People need digital communication to set up meetings and have the meetings. Companies need to support their reps with decent technology (camera, microphones, laptop, etc.) and teach them how to use it so they’ll be successful. 

Bill’s ideal digital selling strategy

Bill implores salespeople: Don’t try to build relationships with mass outreach. Use social selling to build relationships. You use digital outreach—like an email campaign—to get valuable information out. The second part—using social selling to build relationships—means you need to slow your outreach to increase your outcome. You have to go fast to go slow. 

So you have to identify social tactics that will build relationships and credibility and build a cadence around that. Don’t just blindly connect with people and pitch your product because they’re your ideal client. You need to identify them, view their LinkedIn profile (or other social platforms), and engage with their content. That gives you a reason to connect with them. Once you’ve done that, you need a well-crafted welcome message with a piece of content that’s educational and ready to send them if they want it. 

When you do this consistently, it builds relationships that lead to more sales conversations. It takes time—but you don't end up burning people. When you do mass outreach and you get a conversion rate of 5–10%, that’s considered successful. But what are you doing to the other 95% of people? When you slow your outreach, you aren’t burning those that aren’t responding. 

Tools + techniques + strategies to improve

Bill believes that much of digital selling will have to be video, which means you have to be comfortable in your own skin. You also have to be authentic and comfortable talking about yourself in a way that shows people that you’re human. You have to be open to learning new technology, tactics, and strategies. You have to be adaptable. Lastly, you must be consistent with digital and social selling. People have to get used to you. It develops a relationship and credibility—that is what makes a difference in your digital selling efforts. 

Video isn’t the future—it’s the here and now. If you’re not using it, you’re being left behind. If you hate the way you look and sound in a video, guess what? You look and sound the same in a physical meeting. It’s not different and you have to get used to it. Treat the camera as someone’s face and look them in the eye when you speak. Eye contact builds trust and it’s no different with virtual communication. All prospects, clients, former clients, etc. are all people. Digital selling can seem impersonal, but you can really create a connection across a screen. 

Digital selling dos and don’ts

Bill shares a few things to keep in mind with digital and social selling: 

  1. Make sure that you’re authentic no matter what medium you’re using. Don’t mislead or manipulate. Don’t give false compliments 
  2. You must understand the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication. In Jeb Blount’s book, “Virtual Selling,” he shares that asynchronous communication is the giving of information. Synchronous communication is a conversation. You have to know the difference between the two and you have to earn the right for a sales conversation. 
  3. Stop practicing the golden rule and practice the platinum rule. Part of virtual selling is passing along valuable information. Bill notes that “We always tell people what we want to say, not what they want to hear.” The platinum rule? Do unto others as they want to be done unto. It essentially means you need to find out what your prospects care about and tell them what they want to know. 

Bill shares a digital sales story that demonstrates the need for consistency and persistence. Listen to the whole episode to learn more!

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Bill McCormick

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Jul 7, 2021

How do you supercharge your social selling? According to Janice B Gordon, one of the steps is keeping your social selling content relevant to your customer. You also have the freedom to showcase your personality and form connections. Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented to hear the 7 strategies Janice uses to supercharge social selling effectiveness!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:03] Keep your social selling content relevant
  • [2:22] How to improve digital selling capabilities
  • [4:32] 7 strategies to supercharge your social selling effectiveness
  • [8:07] The attributes that help a social seller succeed
  • [11:12] Tools + techniques to improve digital selling
  • [13:22] Top 3 digital selling dos and don'ts
  • [16:22] You never know who’s reading your content

How to improve digital selling capabilities

As the world is coming out of the pandemic, everyone is online. Janice points out that if your customers are in the digital pond, you have to be right there with them. 89% of top-performing salespeople find great success on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter. Janice also shares that 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of executives use social media to make buying decisions. They’re influential, they have large budgets, and they buy frequently. That’s why it’s important to sell online.

Organizations need to train and coach alongside the seller. They often just give them training on selling and shove them off and say “Go and do it.” Janice emphasizes that it just doesn’t work. There needs to be a fundamental mindset shift, especially for an older person. It can take them longer. You need to develop and move people from where they are one level at a time. You’ve got to walk alongside the salesperson until they get it. 

7 strategies to supercharge your social selling effectiveness

Social selling is about finding relevant people to have a relevant conversation to serve them more efficiently. Relevant people are ideal customers, stakeholders, and influencers. You have to understand your target market so you know they are relevant to your particular goal. A relevant conversation demonstrates that you understand what they’re looking for, what’s useful to them, and what will help move them forward. In this episode, Janice shared 7 things that can help you do that.

  1. Nail down your ideal customers (the people that love what you do).
  2. Define and optimize your personal profile for sales. Your profile is the window to your expertise and personality. 
  3. If you have a website, people can find you through content on LinkedIn, which might drive them to download something on your website. People spend far too much time on their websites, not enough on their social profiles. If that profile doesn’t represent you, they won’t travel through it. 
  4. Engage and connect rather than connect and engage. You do this with your personality. Engaging comes with understanding your audience and getting on their radar.
  5. Create visibility through your content that both engages and educates. It’s got to be relevant to them and help move them forward.
  6. Turn social conversations into sales opportunities. Social selling is about developing relevant conversations with relevant people. Ultimately, you want it to lead to sales. Take the social conversation offline (or online) to a targeted meeting with them where they know you’ll talk about a solution with them.
  7. Create a social selling customer growth plan. Once you understand your customers, you need to systemize the process so it is scalable. You want to attract more people to have more conversations to create more sales opportunities. 

The attributes that help a social seller succeed

Social selling is about building opportunities to have relevant conversations. But you have to have confidence in your abilities. That’s why someone needs to walk with you to help develop the skills and confidence you may not have yet. 

Janice believes that you have to engage with personality. Use your humor, your quirky stance on the world, and make it personal. You need a tribe of people that identify with your core values and your interests. It gives you a great starting point. You need to confidently talk about personal things that will engage other people. You have to do this to show that you’re three-dimensional. Janice recommends that you: 

  1. Share three pieces of content and ask questions over a couple of weeks. Why? To engage with the people that answer. A question develops into a conversation
  2. Co-create with the customer. Understand that you don’t have the answer to everything. But by developing your listening and questioning skills, you’ll co-create a solution to get more buy-in. 
  3. Lastly, you must love what you do. If you do, you’ll make a difference. 

What are some tools and techniques to improve digital selling? Keep listening for Janice’s thoughts!

Top 3 digital selling dos and don'ts

What are Janice’s dos and don’ts? 

  • Never contact anyone unless you’ve done your research on them. You must have a feel of who the person is and what they’re about—even if you have to speak to someone else first. Why? First impressions count.
  • Always use that sense of someone in your connection. Connect with them using your personality. 
  • Never connect and sell immediately on LinkedIn. No one wants to hear a pitch immediately. 
  • Don’t wrap a pitch telling someone about yourself. They never asked.
  • Instead, ask them a question about something you’ve already read on their blog. Ask about them and their interests. Let them know you want to learn more. 
  • Do not connect and engage—engage and connect. 

Read their blogs and posts, like and comment. When you comment intelligently, you’re demonstrating an interest in them. You can start a conversation. When you connect with them, they’ll recognize you and be excited for the conversation. 

In this episode, Janice also shares a story that drives home the point that you never know who’s reading your content—so keep them coming. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Janice B Gordon

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Jun 30, 2021

Digital selling is the current evolution of sales and marketing. Organizations have to evolve—or get left behind. They need to identify and connect with customers in ways they haven’t before. Technology enables them to do it faster, more efficiently, and more frequently resulting in better outcomes. 

The idea is to be smarter, efficient, and have more targeted selling activities. This should include tools and processes to engage and sell to a customer. It’s engaging in things like digital presentations, videos, digital sales collateral, email campaigns, AI, automation, your CRM, etc. Want to learn more? Listen to this episode of Sales Reinvented with Justin Zappulla!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:13] The difference between digital selling and social selling
  • [2:28] How to improve your digital selling capabilities
  • [3:05] Justin’s perfect digital selling strategy
  • [4:15] The attributes + characteristics of a successful digital seller
  • [5:28] Focus on the virtual sales call
  • [6:53] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [9:01] Justin’s favorite digital selling story

Justin’s perfect digital selling strategy

Justin believes that any great sales strategy begins with the customer, which is why you must take the time to map the customer journey. How do your customers identify, evaluate, and make purchasing decisions? You then build your sales strategy around that. Justin notes that a typical buyer’s journey has three phases, consisting of awareness, consideration, and making the decision.

So you have to focus on how you’re enabling tools, technology, data, and the sales and marketing function to drive the best outcome at each of those stages of the buyer’s journey. How can you leverage data to make better decisions? What digital tools can be implemented by sales or marketing to get a better outcome?

What are the attributes + characteristics of a successful digital seller? Listen to hear Justin’s thoughts!

Focus on the virtual sales call

What’s the area that will give you the most impact? According to Justin, it’s the sales call. During the pandemic, sellers couldn’t meet face-to-face with customers. They learned to leverage Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams, etc. to hold sales calls. In this new virtual world, Justin emphasizes that it’s critical to develop the skills needed to execute that virtual sales call. It’s the new way modern sellers will connect with customers and paramount to master. 

Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts

Justin shares some of his tips to improve your digital sales: 

  • Engage your customers online. Don’t be afraid of this. Your customers are connecting in different ways, so must you. 
  • Learn technology. Make it part of your skillset so you can confidently move through the various stages of the sales process leveraging technology.
  • Be open to doing things differently. Great salespeople are looking for ways to improve and evolve. 
  • Don’t fight the change. It’s a natural progression. Even though it was thrust upon the world, Justin believes we would’ve landed here anyway. 
  • Don't try to do everything at once. Take one bite at a time to get where you want to go. 
  • Don’t panic. Understand that this is natural and enjoy it. 

Justin’s favorite digital selling story

Early in 2020, Justin was on the buyer side of a sales call. It was executed seamlessly. The rep running the presentation was adept at the program. He toggled the views so each participant could see each other and make eye contact. He seamlessly transitioned to the documents and data they were presenting. They used animation tools to highlight key points. They moved seamlessly through each team member that was speaking. It felt natural without being choppy and saying things like “Can you see my screen.” They were well prepared.

Justin got off that call and went “Wow. This will change how salespeople sell forever.” Moving calls to video and sharing media are the new skills salespeople need to develop. Sales have evolved almost overnight into a new format. This is what high-performing sellers need to do to be successful with sales calls. 

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Jun 23, 2021

Nearly everyone has moved to digital selling for the last year or so. Even though things are opening, there will continue to be a digital component or hybrid model in play. Plus, organizations are enjoying the cost-savings from doing virtual meetings. Julie Hansen points out that Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales will take place virtually. 

Organizations need to have a strategy in place to handle the continued transition. How can they improve it? According to Julie, organizations need to focus on making a human connection through technology. How can you connect with people on the other side of the screen? Julie shares her thoughts in this episode of Sales Reinvented! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:04] The difference between digital and social selling
  • [1:38] Why is digital selling so important?
  • [3:50] Julie’s digital selling strategy
  • [7:29] Attributes + characteristics of a great digital salesperson
  • [9:13] Tools + techniques + strategies
  • [11:25] Top 3 dos and top 3 don’ts
  • [13:53] Julie’s favorite digital selling story

Improve digital selling by forming connections

Most companies have enough technology and tools in place to be successful with digital selling. However, a successful strategy begins with taking the tools you have and learning how to connect with someone through a camera. You have to learn to understand what the customer is feeling or seeing on the other side of the screen. It’s an art and a science. You can’t do the same things you’d do in person and expect it to translate through video. It’s why people don’t feel seen or heard. How do you create an in-person experience in a virtual world? It’s not all about technology. 

Julie believes that you have to learn how to make eye contact and read on-screen body language. If you can’t do that, you’ll make wrong assumptions, miscommunicate, and misinterpret what’s being said. You have to engage someone with a small amount of real estate. You need to understand how your customer is experiencing the interaction. Until you do that, you aren’t creating that in-person experience. It can be as simple as looking at the camera when they’re speaking to you instead of watching the image of them. You have to adapt.

Attributes + characteristics of a great digital salesperson

Julie notes that you need all the same characteristics selling digitally as you do in person—credibility, an interest in others, empathy, curiosity, and trustworthiness. But she emphasizes that those that are successful in the digital world are those that are adaptable. You can’t just “ride it out,” you have to adapt and change from what you’ve done before. If you don’t, you’ll struggle. 

The salespeople that recognize they want to have a deeper connection with their customers and make the virtual experience fulfilling and meaningful are those that will succeed. empathy, curiosity, and other traits won’t show up in a video if you don’t know how to use them properly. Someone won’t feel empathy if you aren’t making eye contact. They won’t feel cared about if your face is a blank slate. You may feel all of those things but must communicate them. Julie shares, “It doesn’t exist if the camera doesn’t see it.” 

Tools + techniques + strategies

Julie sees that people tend to be very passive virtually. People show up like they’re sitting in front of a screen. They’re in receiving mode and settled into a blank “resting business face.” If you’re not aware that it’s typical on-screen behavior, you may panic. One strategy is to learn how to recognize on-screen behavior and how to interact and break through the passive cycle. Julie shares a few dos and don’ts that can help you do that:

  1. Do look at the camera as much as possible. It should be about 80% of the time in person and especially digitally. 
  2. Look at a camera when you’re asking a question. The person on the receiving end will feel like you’re talking to them.
  3. Use gestures if it comes naturally. If you don’t do what comes naturally, it will destroy your energy.
  4. Don’t turn your camera off just because your customer doesn’t have their camera on. It’s not a great excuse. They'll benefit from seeing you.
  5. Don’t jump from call to call. You have to stop and regain your energy. The camera reads energy and sales itself is the transfer of energy. 
  6. Don’t forget about your face. You need to know what it’s saying. You think you look happy but your face isn’t communicating it. Use your face to communicate emotions and give context and meaning to what you’re saying. 

It’s about connecting with your audience

Julie had a coaching call with a salesperson. The business development rep was sent to her because he couldn’t convert calls to demos. She watched some of his recordings and pointed out two things that were impacting his presentations:

  • He wasn’t making eye contact. He didn’t seem engaged and looked down when he asked questions.
  • When the customer’s opened up and shared, his face seemed blank; devoid of concern or empathy. 

They worked through sharing how you feel with your face and making eye contact. The next month, he converted 20% of his calls to demos. It was all about the connection with his audience. At the end of the day, it is your connection with the buyer that makes a sale, not the tools or technology. 

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Julie Hansen

Connect With Paul Watts 

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Jun 16, 2021

Many organizations are revising their go-to-market strategies to include digital and social selling. But what should that process look like? How can you find success if you’ve only known a world of traditional sales? Shane Gibson—the co-author of Real Results in a Virtual Economy—shares some of his tips and strategies in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Check it out! 

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:10] The difference between digital and social selling 
  • [2:45] Why digital selling is important in today’s world
  • [5:15] Shane’s blueprint for a digital selling strategy
  • [9:33] The virtual sales competency map
  • [13:48] Tools + techniques + strategies to improve digital selling 
  • [17:59] Top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts
  • [22:28] Shane’s favorite digital selling story

Why is digital selling important in today’s world?

What can organizations do to improve their digital selling capabilities? Everyone was forced to sell remotely because of the Coronavirus pandemic. We’ve had seven years of digital adoption happen in a year, where the consumer—both business and individuals—have made the majority of purchasing decisions digitally. It’s a larger market accustomed to making decisions remotely. Shane clearly believes that’s not going to stop. 

Shane shares that most people don’t have the budget to fly their sales teams around the world. So you have to knock on people’s doors using digital tools. You have to learn to think like digital-first sales organizations. Why is it so important? Gartner predicted that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales will be conducted digitally. 

Shane’s digital selling blueprint

Shane starts with the customer and works his way backward. He notes that sales leaders fall in love with the tools all the time. The challenge with digital tools is that they’re thrown at you and you get excited about them. Shane emphasizes that you need to get excited about your customer first

Your strategy needs to be customer-centric. What channels are your customers on? What platforms are they making purchasing decisions on? What is their buying process? How do they use digital tools in that decision-making process? How can you develop a process that enables the buyer?

Your customer should be the #1 focus

It’s time to move from giving salespeople the tools they need to giving the customer the tools they need. Up to 80% of the customer buying cycle happens before the sales organization knows they exist. So you must become the #1 source for self-education for potential customers. Content marketing specific to your target niche is a vital part of the sales process.

You must first understand your niche. The #1 challenge for most sales organizations is getting the first conversation with a prospect. You have to move from a focus on closing to a focus on starting the conversation. This starts on LinkedIn, Twitter, and even chatbots on websites. The goal should be starting contextual conversations with the customer and curating content that resonates with them.

What is Shane’s “Principle of Context?” Listen to learn more about the importance of context! 

Shane’s virtual sales competency map

What do sales professionals need to master to become successful with digital selling? Shane shares his virtual competency skills to master: 

  1. Sales mastery: People spend too much time on social channels or playing with data, and spend less time on people skills. But you’re still selling to people. You have to master relational selling skills.
  2. Networking skills: You have to be good at content creation, curation, and online conversation.
  3. Technology fluency: This is the next hurdle a salesperson must master. Can you speak tech? Interpret data? Are you great at learning and adapting to new tools successfully? 
  4. Virtual communications: Are you good at disseminating information digitally? What about broadcasting digitally? Can you easily jump on a zoom call or a podcast? Are you savvy with multi-platform writing skills?
  5. Virtual soft skills and right brain sales skills: Artificial intelligence automates everything that’s repetitive. If you’re a cut-and-paste type of salesperson, everything you do can be automated. Your safe place is right-brain thinking. Can you negotiate and build rapport? Are you creative? Are you good at networking and prospecting? These are key skills that will become the biggest differentiator for salespeople in their organizations. 

What are Shane’s top 3 digital selling dos and don’ts? Listen to find out! 

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Shane Gibson

Connect With Paul Watts 

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Jun 9, 2021

Why is credibility so important for salespeople? Does it impact prospecting and lead generation more than one might think? In this episode of Sales Reinvented, Lee Smith argues that credibility is the thing that sets you apart—and you need to embrace it. 

Lee Smith is the CEO and Founder of SalesFuel. He is also the author of “SalesCred,” and the international bestseller “Hire Smarter, Sell More!” He’s uniquely qualified to share prospecting and lead generation dos and don’ts. Don’t miss it!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:10] Prospecting + lead generation
  • [1:53] Why are they important?
  • [2:33] How buyers qualify you
  • [3:49] The three components of credibility
  • [5:38] Improve your preparation and discovery
  • [7:16] Lee’s top 3 dos and don’ts

Credibility is how buyers qualify you

Successful lead generation and prospecting are all about credibility. Lee emphasizes that too many times salespeople focus on whether or not they fit the ICP, are a marketing or sales qualified lead, etc. He looks at it differently. 

Buyers are looking to qualify you and determine if you’re credible. Do they respond to emails? Do they answer your calls? Do they invite you to compete for the business? 59% of buyers are researching the sellers before meeting with them. They want to know if you’re useful—or a waste of their time. 

They go on LinkedIn, check your website, and do internet searches. If they find nothing—or don’t like what they see—you won’t get invited to the table. Who do you have the most credibility with so you can earn their trust? 

The three components of credibility

You have to be known. You have to show that you have the business acumen and experience to prove that you can help their business, help them achieve their goals, and help them solve their problems.

You have to be likable. Show buyers that you like and respect them. Show up on time, don’t take advantage of them, and don’t pretend to be what you’re not. Don’t try to trick them. You have to be trustworthy and full of integrity. You have to show authenticity, vulnerability, and empathy.

Resilience is key. You will face adversity. You will have doors slammed in your face. You have to learn the lesson from the loss and take it forward and do a better job next time.

Don’t neglect preparation and research

Lee implores salespeople to improve their pre-call preparation skills. Do your research up front and don’t walk in empty-handed—or you’ll walk out empty-handed. You must provide value that is relevant to your buyer. 

You have to ask smart questions. Then you have to shut up and listen to them all the way through. You’ll often get the most important information at the end of someone’s answer. Then you have to be curious and ask follow-up questions. 

The person asking questions leads the conversations. If you’re credible, they’re more likely to answer your questions honestly because they know you can help and won’t misuse the information. It gives you the leverage you need to create a strong offer and close the deal.

What are Lee’s top 3 prospecting and lead generation dos and don’ts? Listen to find out!

Credibility attracts the customers you want

A company was just bought out and was being pushed to do things they weren’t comfortable with. The person who had just taken over the team had listened to Lee’s podcast and was aware of him. Because of credibility that Lee had built through articles, his podcast, other companies that he’d worked with, made him top of mind. So Lee was brought in to work with this group.

Credibility allowed him to attract the type of client he wanted to do business with. Lee believes your credibility acts as a magnet. It either attracts people to you or repels them away from you. He notes that “The more credibility you have today, the easier sales become tomorrow.”

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Jun 2, 2021

In today's episode of Sales Reinvented, we do a special episode exchange with the Outside Sales Podcast. Steve Benson interviews legendary sales author Victor Antonio. They discuss the importance of the sales presentation process and how to get in front of any objection. Victor talks about the “Hero Story” process and how to gain the confidence of your prospect. This episode is packed with useful information that will help you master your sales presentations. Don’t miss it!

Outline of This Episode

  • [1:22] More about Victor Antonio
  • [2:22] Why you need a presentation process
  • [7:16] How to properly uncover objections
  • [11:58] The structure of a great presentation
  • [15:23] The structure of the hero story
  • [21:15] How to sell a similar product
  • [23:37] How to show a prospect social proof
  • [28:41] How to move toward the ask
  • [31:06] Learn to pivot on the fly
  • [33:26] Steve’s “Sales in 60 seconds” segment
  • [35:46] The best way to practice presentations 
  • [38:18] The first step to master sales presentations 
  • [46:28] How to connect with Victor Antonio

Why you need a presentation process

Victor points out that everyone has a sales process. But somewhere in that process, you have to give a presentation. Most people don’t talk about the fact that there is a process to that presentation. He needs to answer these two questions first: 

  1. Who is your audience going to be?
  2. What are their pain points? 

Before Victor does a keynote or a presentation, he asks his customers to let him talk to salespeople to see what they’re struggling with. They give him the blueprint for what he says from the stage. It’s also important to use their language when he talks to them about their pain.

Victor likes to use the iceberg analogy. You can only see 10% of an iceberg, the other 90% is underwater. Most salespeople talk about features, benefits, and advantages. Customers focus on quality, service, and price. Most salespeople don’t look at the unstated or latent needs. 

If you understand what’s holding a customer back from a buying decision, you can sell more effectively when you present. You need to find the 90% of issues below the iceberg and address them. Listen to hear Victor and Steve walk through a hypothetical scenario to drive the point home. 

How to properly uncover objections

Victor recommends getting all of your salespeople together and asking: “What is holding back our customers from buying?” Remove features, benefits, advantages, quality, service, and price from the equation. What’s left? You’ll end up with a laundry list of things holding them back. Which ones come up the most commonly? You can figure out what the latent needs are. 

You can then bring these concerns up in a sales presentation proactively before they even come up as an objection. Victor will go into a sales presentation and raise the objection himself. Why? Because when you raise the objection, you control the objection and how you can dispose of it. If the customer brings it up, you’re defending yourself—and less likely to change their mind. 

The structure of a great presentation

Victor folds a sheet of paper in half four separate times. Once he unfolds it, he’s left with 16 squares. That is how you begin your presentation layout. Each box represents a slide. He chooses what he wants to start with at the beginning to make an impact. By the 3rd or 4th slide, he’s introducing the first objection. If you continue to interlace common objections into your presentation, you’ll feel the resistance lessen. 

He notes that the biggest mistake outside salespeople make is that they go in and share who they are, what the agenda is, and background about the company. Then they talk about their mission statement and other businesses they’ve worked with. They’ve spent the first 5–10 minutes talking about themselves. The customers don’t care. Those minutes are the most valuable time you have most—most people waste it.

Instead, start by demonstrating that you understand their pain. Spend the 5–10 minutes on them and they’ll be ready to listen to you. How does he work the product and conclusion in using the hero story method? Listen to hear what his structure looks like. 

How to move toward the ask

You have to guide toward your close. It begins once you present your solution. You’re blocking objections and reducing resistance. As you show something, you look for confirmation. You’re conversing with them. Share how you do things and share insight—information beyond the obvious. When you get “huh” or “I didn’t know that” types of responses, you know you’re doing well in your presentation. 

When you get to the end, it’s a natural ask: “We’ve gone through all of these features. Is there any reason we couldn’t start a demo next week to see how this works? You can then look at the data to see if it makes sense.” 63% of salespeople don’t ask for the order or the next stage in the process. 

What can you do to pivot on the fly? What’s the best way to practice presentations? How should you practice to master sales presentations? Listen to the whole episode to hear more of Victor’s expert insight!

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Steve Benson

Connect with Victor Antonio

More about the Outside Sales Talk Podcast

Here at the Outside Sales Podcast, we realized that while there were many sales focused Podcasts out and about, there weren’t any specific to Outside Sales. We wanted to change that. That’s why we created this space where everything is about OUTSIDE SALES. Host Steve Benson, CEO and founder of Badger Maps, talks to industry leaders and experts to learn the strategies and tactics that make them successful in Outside Sales. Hop on to discover practical tips on how to sell at peak performance.

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May 26, 2021

The purpose of lead generation and prospecting are the same: to get prospects into your funnel. Mark Boundy—a Sales, Pricing, and Value Consultant—has amassed wide-ranging experience in the industry for 25+ years. One thing that he always emphasizes is knowing your customer’s wold intimately. Why does it matter so much? How does it impact your prospecting process and level of success? Find out in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:50] Prospecting and lead generation are the same
  • [2:44] Why prospecting and lead gen are important
  • [3:30] Mark’s prospecting process: slow down to speed up
  • [4:54] Attributes of a successful salesperson
  • [8:04] Understand your customer’s world + ask insightful questions
  • [10:10] Mark’s prospecting and lead generation dos and don’ts
  • [11:50] How Mark recruited the recruiters

Slow down to speed up

After you understand the customer’s business you need to provide perspective. You can’t have perspective on something you don’t understand. Your customers are being bombarded with calls and emails. They don’t want to spend time educating someone on their business.

So your job is to slow down to speed up. Before you make a call, understand the customer’s business well enough so you can have an insightful question to ask in the first 15 seconds. It lets them know you have an intimate understanding of their business and know what their big fires are. You can’t do that with a canned script. 

Your job is to be in the top 10% of the fires they’re already fighting. The secret to successful prospecting and lead generation is understanding the customer’s world so well that you can instantly plug into one of their top priorities. You become a priority and a resource to meet their business needs. 

Mark once had a job where his whole region was light on funnel. So they did a prospecting blitz to fill the pipeline. The guy who did the best was only making 5 calls a day. So they asked him what he was doing. The answer? Research

He would find someone that looked like a candidate, researched them to understand them, and prepared 1–3 insightful questions that he can help them answer. He was crushing it. But if he was in an organization that measured “activity” he would’ve been in trouble. 

Measure the right activities

An organization needs to measure the right KPIs. John Tukey—a famous statistician—says “Far better an approximate answer to the right question than an exact answer to the wrong question.”

Mark had worked with two SDRs that he was sharing with other salespeople. He found out that one of the SDRs was getting bonuses based on the number of calls that he made. So what did he do? He gamed the system by letting the phone ring for 1 ½ seconds—and then he’d hang up. What should you measure instead? Listen to hear Mark’s thoughts!

Don’t measure the wrong thing. Measure the number of appointments. If you slow down your reparation, you can vastly increase your number of appointments. You can leave a great insight as a voicemail. At one point, 25% of Mark’s voicemails got return calls. He had earned the right to a conversation.

Understand your customer’s world + ask insightful questions

Mark firmly beliefs you must understand your customer’s problems. Know how your product or service delivers customer outcomes. Then, learn how to translate features and benefits into customer outcomes. When you’re prospecting, you say “My company delivers these outcomes. Does that resonate with you?” If you’ve done your research, you’ll know the answer is “yes” or they’re lying. Sometimes the answer is “no” but can mean they just don’t have time to talk to you.

If they’ve said “no” to your offer—but you know your insightful question impressed them—ask if you can call time to time with any other insights. If they say yes, you’ve received permission to come to the front of the line and move into their circle of trust. Deliver value from the first second you’re on the phone. What are Mark’s top 3 prospecting dos and don'ts? How do you earn the right to a conversation? Listen to find out!

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Mark Boundy

Connect With Paul Watts 

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May 19, 2021

Prospecting—though every salesperson hates to admit it—is the necessary evil in any business. You have to prospect to get leads in your funnel to nurture them through the process. But how you do it matters. That’s what Steve Hall—the Managing Director of Executive Sales Coaching Australia—emphasizes in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Don’t miss it!

Outline of This Episode

  • [0:48] Is it a matter of semantics? 
  • [1:17] Why are they important?
  • [2:52] Steve’s ideal prospecting process
  • [5:52] Attributes a salesperson needs
  • [7:05] Skills for salespeople to develop
  • [7:46] Top 3 prospecting dos and don’ts
  • [10:20] Persistence and resilience are powerful

Is it a matter of semantics? 

Prospecting and lead generation: They’re just labels, according to Steve. Prospecting is identifying potential customers who may have a need that you can supply and can afford to pay for it. Lead generation is looking for people in the middle of the buying process looking to buy. 

In Steve’s opinion, prospecting is more important. You want to prospect for choice. If you have a full pipeline ready to buy, you won’t get desperate. You won’t try to close deals that aren’t ready or close those that don’t fit. The fuller your pipeline is, the less desperate you are. 

Steve’s ideal prospecting process 

Is there an ideal prospecting process? Steve’s answer? It depends. It depends on what you sell, who you sell it to, and what the deals are worth. It also depends on how big your team is. If you’re an individual, you have to do everything yourself. If you have a huge marketing team it’s different. Everyone has different capabilities.

The most important thing is to understand who your ideal customer is and identify companies that fit that. Assuming that a new customer’s lifetime value is upward of $250,000, they’re worth putting effort into. So you need to do research (either you or your minions). Then you reach out to them.

What do you do if someone is an ideal customer but they aren’t ready to buy yet? Do you come back in a year? Do you get them in a nurturing program? Who builds the relationship?

Then you have the actual sales process. Steve has one client that has multiple people involved in the sales process:

  • The CEO’s executive assistant does the research—with the list they’ve come up with as a team—to find out who the key players are. 
  • The CEO or one of his staff get them on a business-to-business call. It works well for them—but won’t work for other companies.

What attributes does a salesperson need to be successful with prospecting? What skills should they develop? Listen to hear Steve’s thoughts!

Steve’s prospecting dos and don’ts

Steve shared quite a few dos and don’ts for salespeople to keep in mind: 

  • Prepare. Don’t just pick up the phone or send an email. Think about what you’re going to do.
  • Targeting is critical. 
  • Get comfortable with silence.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
  • Have a respectful pattern interrupt to get their attention on you.
  • Don’t use smart tricks and techniques. Everyone knows them and is used to them. Be genuine.
  • Don’t be too salesy or too pushy.

Don’t say “Hello, how are you?” Every single person does that. It says “I don’t really care how you are I just want to sell stuff to you.”

Persistence and resilience are powerful

Steve was working with a company trying to invest in aged care facilities. They wanted to talk to the CEO of the company they wanted to work with. The problem was that he couldn’t find a phone number for these people anywhere. Every single number for the company went to a call center!

Eventually, he went to their website and looked at their press releases. The head of corporate communications had their mobile number on the press release. So Steve called him and asked him to forward a message to the CEO’s executive assistant. 

She got back to him and said “The CEO is away—do you want to speak to the CFO?” Of course, they accepted, and that’s how he connected his client to this company. The moral of the story is that not everyone wants to be communicated with. But if you desperately want to connect—try the PR people. 

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