The Sales Evangelist: Sales Training|Speaking|Business Marketing|Donald Kelly

Sales leaders must help their teams perform at peak levels, so they must start by understanding how to effectively coach struggling sellers.    I’ve seen this kind of coaching done badly in the past, and I’ve walked my own team members through these struggles. I’ve developed tips of my own and I’ve learned from Mike Weinberg’s book Sales Management Simplified.  Questions to ask All sales reps and sales leaders endure dark moments where nothing seems to work out. Despite the fact that we’ve been selling for years, we endure periods where we simply can’t close. Very often, when that happens, there are several key things we must address. These situations don’t develop overnight, and they usually result from slippage in certain areas. Begin by answering the following questions as honestly as you can. You’ll never find improvement if you’re dishonest about your situation.  Does the struggling seller have a desire to succeed and thrive in sales? If he doesn’t have the drive to succeed, no amount of training or co

Meetings serve an important purpose in business so we must learn how to run better meetings to avoid the feeling that we are wasting our time.  Reshan Richards is a career educator who launched an app — targeted for use in schools — that ultimately became a software business. He has seen a significant intersection between things that are effective in both business practices and the classroom. Together with Steve Valentine, also a career educator, he is collaborating to articulate and pinpoint the specific moves that can be borrowed from the teaching profession and implemented in business. Steve has studied leadership and its application in order to work with young people and help them understand basic leadership.  Meeting mistakes The problems that plague corporate meetings often mirror those of ineffective classrooms. Primarily, the transmission of information isn’t right for the audience who is meant to understand it. People often go back to their defaults or their own experiences to measure what is right.

Sales is a year-round activity with no off-season and no breaks, so it’s important for sellers to understand how to deal with stress, fatigue, burnout, and a lack of creativity.  Dana Cavalea is the former Director of Strength & Conditioning and Performance for the New York Yankees. Coach Dana, who helps companies optimize performance and productivity, wrote a book called Habits of a Champion: Nobody Becomes a Champion By Accident.   He became a coach after realizing the tremendous difference that coaches made in his own athletic career, and how they helped him overcome bumps in the road.  Opportunity knocks Dana, who originally hails from New York, chose to attend school in Tampa because he knew it was near where the Yankees conducted their spring training. When he got the opportunity to join the team as the guy who handed out towels and cleaned the weight room, he jumped on it.  Within a few years, he earned a paying job as the director of strength and conditioning and performance, and the team won a c

While proper mindset is important, the actions high-growth coaches use to motivate their teams allow those teams to succeed in sales. Sarah Wirth works for EcSell Institute and studies sales leadership. Along with her team, they look at the coaches in the organizations they work with knowing that great coaches help teams to achieve better results.  Sarah travels the globe studying different teams and applying the best practices they can teach to sales leaders. Their research-based teachings on best practices are grounded in fact rather than opinion.  Misconceptions about coaching  One of the common misconceptions about coaching relates to the timing of team meetings or sales coaching. Most sales leaders do team meetings weekly thinking that getting everyone together via phone makes the team effective. Based on the study, however, the best sales leaders have their meetings once a month rather than once a week. The monthly meeting is much more interactive and educational than the weekly kind of communication. 

Sales from the Street - The Unicorn Seller    Jen is the unicorn seller and everyone is enchanted by her rainbow-colored sales skills. She has lots of techniques and strategies which help her close deals. You want Jen, but she’s from the competing company and just in time, you heard that Jen wants to jump ship. This is your dream come true!  You think of Jen and you automatically think of all the clients she’s bringing along. It’s a whole list of clients and deals closed left and right. Your company will be making money and you’re going to hire more people due to expansion. Jen is the answer!  As a top-performing sales rep, I was once Jen, too. I’ve had my fair share of being lured by other companies. I know how it feels to be offered something and to be on the receiving end of the decision whether to hire the top-performing sales rep or not.  Before making that decision, here are some things that you need to consider.   Why are they leaving? We make decisions out of desperation sometimes, especially if money

The Pipeline Hoax The American dream or the pipeline hoax? The American dream is about owning a home or a piece of property that belongs to you. But homes are expensive and not everyone can afford the American dream. In the year 2000, people who shouldn’t have qualified for home-ownership started owning homes and this occurrence caused a worldwide crisis.  The housing crisis connects to sales in two ways: greed and improper qualification. Bankers wanted to get more mortgages so they could sell these mortgages to the secondary market. The problem with this is that people who were getting houses were not qualified for the mortgages they got. The bankers did whatever it took to get people through the door. When prices went up, these homeowners fell short and eventually lost their homes.  Sales pressure As sales leaders, you face this situation often. You need to bring in the dollars, and you’re judged based on how much money you can help the company make. Sales reps are expected to have as many deals as possible

Some people believe that quitting is bad, but Dr. Stanley Robertson believes that the winners-never-quit fallacy is preventing your success. Dr. Stan — CFO for a non-profit in Chicago — takes issue with the idea that quitting is always bad and he wants to share ideas about how to become a successful quitter. Quitting  Quitting is simply giving up on something. You can quit going to the gym or quit a bad relationship or quit eating certain foods. You can quit just about anything. It’s easy to see from these examples that quitting isn’t always bad, but he takes it a step further. He believes that the winners-never-quit fallacy prevents people, and sellers, from finding success.  Sometimes we have to quit things, and sometimes it’s even desirable to quit things. In fact, we should be quitting things all the time.  Dr. Stan got the idea from his son, who is a Marine Corps officer. As he approached the end of his tour of duty, he called his dad one day to say he was considering quitting. He wasn’t sure he wanted t

Your company continues to grow and you need leaders to guide your team, so you’re considering the question, “When should I promote someone?”   Because of your company’s growth, you need leaders and you need managers. So who should you promote? What do you look for in the people who will lead your teams? What characteristics or habits should they possess?  Developing leaders Even if your business isn’t growing at breakneck speed, you may need to focus on developing people who can lead when the time comes. The last thing you want to do is keep people in the same position for long periods of time without any opportunity for growth. They’ll get tired and burn out, and then they’ll look elsewhere for growth opportunities. Make sure you’re always looking for ways to create and develop leaders internally.  The qualities necessary for leaders in your industry may differ from those of other segments, but for sellers in general, the following guidelines offer a good start for identifying potential leaders.  Seller does

Sellers often face obstacles in their sales process, and the need to remove them is sometimes referred to as the need to “Shoot the donkey.” Will Batista has worked on several presidential campaigns and other political campaigns throughout the country. He recently led a state ballot initiative to change Nevada’s constitution and now he is now working in the energy sector, particularly in the communications and investor relations of the company. Jonathan Diaz works in the university setting where he serves as an adviser and he also teaches classes.  Shoot the donkey  This phrase originates from an article that Will discovered while he was looking at political media companies. Shooting the donkey means removing obstacles in your course.  In the movie Patton, based on true events, the characters were heading up a mountain but there was a donkey in the way. Failure to get the donkey out of the way would put them in a dire situation resulting in casualties, so they sent out some of the guys to move the donkey. No

Creating an authentic personal brand is important because everything that we develop in business is based on creating a personal brand. As sales reps, polishing your personal brand must be a priority to stand out to everyone no matter where you go or where you are.  Emily Soccorsy and Justin Foster are co-founders of intrinsic branding practice Root + River. They have combined their experience and expertise in branding and passion for personal growth to guide individuals in combining authentic original brands that attract new opportunities and levels of possibilities.  The intrinsic practice  Both Emily and Justin believe that every great brand is a spiritual experience. As coaches, they guide individuals regardless of the roles they play in the organization. Their goal is to make them understand that deep foundational soul of their brand and put that into practical use every day.  Branding is a practice, which means you need to do it every single day whether you are aware of it or not. Intrinsic practice wil

Managing tasks as a leader is difficult because all the tasks are urgent and you have the internal battle of deciding which tasks need your attention.  You might have a meeting with recruiters about the hiring, or you’ve got to do an interview with some sales reps, or you’ve got to create a report for the VP, and other equally important stuff. The list could go on and on and in the end, you aren’t able to get anything done to bring in more revenue.  The challenge  As team leaders, the best thing we can give to the sales rep is our care and utmost concern. Unfortunately, though, things don’t go the way we plan due to minute tasks that bog us down. Team leaders are faced with the challenge of managing their time to do the things that will impact the entire team in a good way.  The grumpy sales manager syndrome  The grumpy sales manager syndrome is nothing new and you might have experienced an episode of it once or twice. You are the leader so it’s natural to be bombarded with so many things to do:  make report

Every person in every industry can improve a little bit every day by focusing on self-improvement and developing respected leadership traits. Whether you’re a seller, a sales leader, or someone who isn’t even involved in sales, you’ll likely find yourself responsible for guiding people and helping them succeed.  Luis Weger works with a startup focused on changing the medical construction industry and serves as an offer in the Army Reserves. He recently launched a company called "Self: Reinvented" designed to help others discover their purpose and passion and enhance their resiliency. He believes that anyone can develop their leadership skills, even those who seem to be natural-born leaders.  2 ACT He developed a phrase to help people remember the important aspects of leadership. Leaders must remember 2 ACT. Each letter in the acronym represents two concepts.  A = Aware and Accountable C = Competent and Confident T = Trusting and Trustworthy.  From his experience leading people, training people, and working wi

Some sales teams complain about everything from marketing to CRM and comps, but if you develop the ability to show your team you care, you’ll overcome the negativity and establish a great work environment. I’ve worked as a sales rep, as a sales leader, and as a consultant, so I understand that complaints are a normal part of the sales process. In some organizations, though, the sellers don’t complain as much because they believe their managers care about them.   Imperfect selling scenario It’s tempting to believe that sellers who don’t complain work in better environments. Even if they don’t get great leads, and if they don’t have the best CRM, or if their facility looks outdated, some sales reps enjoy what they do and they enjoy the people they do it with. Because the management cares about their welfare, the sellers are able to enjoy their work. Although your CRM and your environment are important, culture plays a vital role in helping sellers thrive. In a subpar culture, typically the focus remains on numb

Supporting a cause as part of your business model can help you establish your brand and create a personality for your company, and “cause marketing” can draw customers who want to do business with you.  Cause-based marketing stems from a business or a business owner that champions a cause that they believe helps with their personal branding as well as the company’s brand. It benefits a specific cause while it generates more business for the company.  Jaron Rice is the founder of Magothy Payments, Maryland’s highest-rated merchant services provider. He helps businesses become more profitable by lowering their costs of credit card acceptance and helps organizations save money on payment processing.  Payment processing In Jaron’s case, businesses have to pay fees in order to accept payments from their clients. The transaction is called an interchange and it’s set by the card brands: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. The fees are paid to the issuing banks and then there are dues and assessments th

Whether you’re a brand new sales rep, a sales leader, or an experienced seller, the key to success relies on your ability to build a championship sales team.  Will Richter drives revenue for medical device companies by increasing their sales volumes, reducing their operational inefficiencies and crushing their competition. He has the unique ability to find the blind spots in any company's sales process and can turn around a growth plan of action and a winning team in less time bringing bottom-line results faster. Deep assessment Will points to leadership and culture as the keys to building a championship sales team. Whether you’re a business owner, a CEO, or middle management, the culture gets dictated by the leadership. They set the tone for the culture and they define the expectations for everyone on the sales force. Those leaders also determine what will not be tolerated.  Once teams accept mediocrity, it becomes the norm.  When you’re a sales leader, you’ll either inherit a team or you may get the opportu

The Sales Evangelist team understands the challenges in coordinating calendars and that’s why I love Calendly. This tool is perfect for ensuring that your schedules are well planned and plotted.  Calendly for selling  Calendly is a great tool that we’ve been using for years. The calendar dance is a common routine among sales reps who go back and forth with prospects, and partners trying to set a meeting. When their schedules don’t line up, the task is tricky and challenging at best, so how do you go around it? Calendly is the scheduling app that’s going to make that possible. There are three reasons why I love Calendly and why it’s a great fit for sales reps.  Ad hoc meetings  There’s a difference between being helpful and being lazy. When we deal with prospects who don’t have any intentions of calling, we reach out to them cold. The last thing that you want to do is to give them homework or introduce a possibility of them getting busy and not doing the task with you. It feels a little like imposing a task to

There’s no greater gift you can give to a seller than leads so we’ve uncovered 3 core SEO principles to help increase your inbound sales.  We’re working to unite the two warring departments of sales and marketing. Kyle Carney has a passion for helping businesses grow and he does that with principles that help organizations earn inbound leads as fuel for growth.  Lead generation mistakes Many businesses chase after the wrong keywords in their SEO efforts. They know their industry and their target market but they pursue vague SEO terms. If, for example, I search for “new homes,” that could suggest that I’m looking to buy, or to build, or to discover what a new home costs.  Businesses can improve by being more strategic in their efforts. So instead of searching for “new homes,” they can work to rank for “new home builder in Colorado.” That strategy is crucial for online success because that generates traffic that has qualified itself before the conversation even begins. Google knows everything. It knows where yo

Many sellers rely on old ideology to engage their customers without realizing that if they flip the script, they can set the rules for the sale instead of conforming to the buyer’s rules. Oren Klaff is the author of Pitch Anything, a required reading throughout Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Fortune 500 companies. Oren is the world’s leading expert on sales, raising capital and negotiation and has written for Harvard Business Review, Advertising Age Entrepreneur, among others. He is also an investing partner in a $2 million private equity investment fund and loves motorcycles. Oren is about to release his follow-up book entitled, Flip the Script. Raising money for companies  There is very little flexibility in most meetings, in that what happens in the first few minutes determines the outcome of the whole thing. The pitch is very important because there are high stakes in every presentation. It’s expensive to travel to presentations, so you have to get everything right the first time.  Making a pitch is l

If you ask sellers what they want more of, the second most popular answer will be quality leads, and the good news is that there are plenty of tools available to generate quality leads on demand.  Joshua Smith serves as sales director of a real company called Fizzy Blocks on the front lines of revenue acceleration. He’s the co-founder of a couple of businesses and the author of the book Stacked: How to Guarantee Qualified Sales Meetings With Real Decision Makers.  He recalls that his team wondered where the people at the top of the sales profession go to upscale. Where do they go to be educated? Their challenges are much bigger than the average seller because they are responsible for multiple billions in revenue.  Lead generation process People constantly tell me that they could close more deals if they could just get in front of more people. Research suggests that 65% of sellers’ time is spent on non-revenue-generating activities. For people whose job is selling, that’s a huge number.  So how does any busin

Building a Culture of Empathy and Accountability   Every organization needs a culture of empathy and accountability no matter what it’s doing. Sometimes, we only have empathy and neglect accountability but it’s important to have both. Justin Dauer is with us in this episode to explain to us how to get both and give recommendations on the right way to do it.  Justin is the VP of the Human Center Design at BSwift, a healthcare and benefits management firm owned by CVS Health.  He is also a writer and a public speaker when he isn’t in his 9-5 job, and he enjoys talking about humility, empathy, and accountability.  Discovering agency culture  Justin’s entire career revolves around agencies primarily in the creative direction. In his 10 years being in the business, he observed that agency culture tends to burn people out. In some cultures, the driving factor is perceived by who went out the door last, regardless of the reasons why others left earlier. Maybe they went to pick up their kids from school or went to a