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White Collar Warrior with Bill Hart #226 In this episode I interview  Bill Hart, author of the book White Collar Warrior: Lessons for Sales Professionals from America’s Military Elite.   Bill is a real estate expert and business coach who interviewed some of the best and brightest Army Rangers and Navy SEALS.  My son Captain John Helmers is attempting Ranger School for a second time in August 2018.  It’s a great time to look into these elite military schools and see what business professionals can learn from them. It’s About the Mentality Ranger school requires amazing physical ability. But it’s not about athletism. It’s about the mentality. You can’t wing Ranger  and Navy Seal schools. Yet so often sellers wing each sales call. Here are the seven characteristics Bill found common among the military elite: Training – they keep working on their craft and improving their skills. Discipline – they commit to their goals and responsibilities. They create habits that ensure daily success. Fear – in sales it’s cal

Making Sales in Startups with Sean Higgins #225 Sean Higgins is a Residence at Techstars and founder of ilos where he led sales from 0-1Million+ in annual recurring revenue. Sean specializes in helping new companies use outbound sales tactics. The goal is to validate product-market fit and get early traction in the selling process. In this episode we talk about making sales in startups.  Get those first 10 customers today. Solve a Problem Ideas are cheap so what’s really needed is problem solving. Successful startups keep this in mind. Sean believes entrepreneurs should address the hardest problem in the room and keep at it.  Too often startups mistakenly focus on hyper viral growth. Most business don’t work that way. Better to find a group of customers that you can serve and grow gradually. Yes you need to have a long term vision. But focus on what makes your business better NOW.  There are two types of businesses: Traction Based Company – have $10K month revenue Team Based Company – pre revenue raising de

The Index Card Business Plan with Brian Margolis #224 In this episode we meet Brian Margolis, author of the “The Index Card Business Plan For Sales Pros and Entrepreneurs”.  The natural order of life and business moves from the simple to the complex. Yet at the same time big advances in science are the simplest of answers. You too can simplify and advance your business. Brian walks us through his business Chaplanning process with only a set of recipe cards! Have a Strategy If you had a completely free day, what would you work on today? If you’re unsure  you don’t have a business strategy. Let’s get one and build a process that ensures results. Stop procrastinating. Characteristics of Pillars on the Index Card Brians process is based on a set of pillars. Pillars are activities when executed consistently have a diproportionate postive effect on your business. When you execute your pillars, in a week you will see results. Examples of Pillars: Proactivity High leverage activity Action or predictable result Som

Honesty Sells with Colleen Francis #223 Colleen Francis is the Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions and the author of Nonstop Sales Boom and Honesty Sells. Colleen is a successful sales leader for over 20 years, well versed on the challenges of selling in today’s market. She is a Certified Sales Professional (C.S.P.) and an inductee into the Speaking Hall of Fame.  In this episode we discuss the necessity of honest selling and advice on how sellers can build trust with transparency. What Makes for Honesty Sells Trust is built on honoring your word in all you do. Keeping promises matters. Prove honesty through voice mail e.g., promise you will call them back at a set time, then do it If you made a promise and have no news, make the call and share you have no news Customer experience is the key differentiator Have a culture of honesty in your organization. It will spread to your client interactions. Always apologize when you make an error. Coddle them with kindness. Own it. The top performers (u

The Transparency Sale Part 2 with Todd Caponi #222 This is the second of a two part series interviewing Todd Caponi, the former Chief Revenue Officer at Chicago’s PowerReviews. Todd is in the process of authoring a new book titled “The Transparency Sale”. This book is in response to the changing influence of social media in selling and the failure of former challenger sale strategies. Todd has held leadership roles with three tech companies, including ExactTarget, where he helped the organization to a successful IPO and a $2.7B exit to Salesforce.com. Reality of Decision Making Customer decisions are filled with imperfection, tied to subconcious decision making and feeling. People make decisions with feelings and back them up with logic. Sellers who understand this fact quickly learn to focus on feelings first to snag interest and then generate desire. Negotiation Strategy Negotiating policy commonly recommends holding your cards close. Todd disagrees. Play your cards immediately at the start of the negotiat

The Transparency Sale with Todd Caponi #221 Todd Caponi Is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Chicago’s PowerReviews. Todd is in the process of authoring a new book titled “The Transparency Sale”. This book is in response to the changing influence of social media in selling and the failure of former challenger sale strategies. Todd has held leadership roles with three tech companies, including ExactTarget, where he helped the organization to a successful IPO and a $2.7B exit to Salesforce.com. Challenger Sale No Longer Effective There is a false narrative that consumers have all they need online to make buying decisions. Sellers still have tremendous value adding insight and help to enable the purchase at the end. The Challenger Sale  teaches the following: Recommends sellers to provide insights and challenge prospects thinking Demands sellers to become industry experts Challenges buyers to think a different way but…… Due to Social  Media, sellers need to be on top of what buyers are saying about them. N

Leadsology – Science of Being in Demand with Tom Poland #220 Today we meet Tom Poland the author of the #1 international best selling book Leadsology®: The Science of Being in Demand. Tom shares the process he uses to get prospects to self select and qualify themselves. We talk about simple marketing techniques, sales professionals can use to find great prospects. For Tom a highly qualified lead is someone who Searches and finds your link, Knows your fee/pricing, Books a sales call, Views you as the only (or small set) legitimate choice(s). These KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are most indicitive of sales conversion rates (for Tom typically 50%).  The trick is to filter out unqualified leads prior to the meeting. Prospects self select. Creating an Experience The marketing experiences of the prospect includes: Preselection – only prospects with a set demographic criteria that self select via content marketing Lead Magnet – could be some information of value, commonly a pdf worksheet, essay, or maybe a w

Blizt Episode: Learning a Sales Language   In this short podcast Pat will share some selling thoughts based on recent work with clients. This episode is a “blitz” with advice for new sellers or seasoned sellers of new products and services on the necessity of learning your prospects sales language. ​A common Startup Challenge is to get Beta customers to convert into paying clients. Often times sellers wonder “How do I sell? What do I say? How do I close them?” This is a case of putting the cart before the horse. Sellers fail to deeply understand their market and learn the sales language before selling. This comes with Practice. To become the teacher takes work and empathizing with customer’s needs, wants, and desires. When the time comes, sellers show a path of success. All this work is focused on prospect, in the prospect’s language. Finding a Market Brainstorm exercise 50 verticle market niches. Next align with pros and cons. Then pick 10 that look like a possible fit. Next market research companies in the

Never Lose the Deal with Ganesh Tayi Ganesh Tayi is an author, speaker and CEO of Never Lose The Deal. He is a trusted advisor to companies who want to close more high dollar sales contracts. For more than a decade, he has been personally involved with deals of all levels of depth and difficulty and helped close deals worth over $12 billion. In this episode Ganesh offers  a fresh perspective and powerful proven practices to close more deals. The Challenge Unsuccessful salespeople jump too quickly into building a proposal. This is especially true in the B2B space.  They do this solely from what they hear the prospect say. They fail to deeply understand the full challenge. Too often proposal they propose, is wrong! Successful sales people: Dig deeper and find context of the challenge Understand who are the decision makers Discover how the prospect makes buying decisions Ask about urgency. “How important is it for you to work with a company that offers this value proposition. “ Beware Chasing Ghosts If you fa

How To Hire and Get a Sales Job with Gregg Salkovitch #217 When it comes to the process of staffing a sales position, it’s two sides of the same coin. On one side we have the need for employers to hire skilled and competitive staff. On the other side of the coin is the need for talented employees to get hired by great companies. Both sides are looking for the perfect match according to our guest Gregg Salkovitch. Greg is a recruiter and founder of  Right Choice Resources. In this episode we discuss how to get a sales job and how to hire an outstanding sales professional. The State of Sales in Spring 2018 For sales professionals, 2018 is a sellers market (no pun intended). The market is hot!  Great time to get a job. Companies have a lot of competition when finding candidates. There are few great candidates available. Many sales professionals are super happy where they’re at. It takes a lot to motivate them to move. How Candidates Earn a Sales Job Gregg has the following advice for candidates: Hiring is a

Debunking Sales Myths with Mike Schultz #216 Selling has changed tremendously in the last 10 years. But prospecting has changed even more. Previous  research suggests that 57 percent of the purchase decision is complete before a customer calls a supplier.  This gives sellers the false impression that buyers don’t want or need to talk to them early in the buying process. They do! Mike Schultz visits Sales Babble for clarifying and debunking these sales myths with advice based on hard research. Some Common Sales Myths Rain Group is a sales research institute just completed a study on prospecting. They talked to 488 buyers, asking them what  is the process they have used for past purchases. They study found it’s a sales myth that buyers don’t want to talk to sellers, eg. 67% sale done digitally. But this should slow sellers down.  71%  of buyers said they want to talk to sellers at the early part of their research. They want context. With too many choices it becomes to difficult for buyers to choose “Its the ‘p

How To Sell With Personality Barry Saltzman #215 In this episode Barry Saltzman shares a quick way to read prospective buyers. He believes you should adjust your selling technique based on their personality. Too often sellers take the same approach with all clients. This doesn’t make sense. All buyers are different. All buyers have their own peculiarities. It’s not just about selling your products and services. Instead learn how to sell with personality. Four Primary Traits Barry shares how to sell with personality by categorizing buyers into one of four traits. Each trait is described below: Controlling: Goal oriented. They know what they need to do every morning. Plus they are focused, motivated, driven, and commonly found in leadership roles. Outgoing: Type A types. They are social and energized by meeting people. To build rapport they will spend the first 15 minutes chatting building friendships. By nature they are authentically empathetic. Exacting: Specialist, experts, they look at pieces of whole, an