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

Many leaders avoid adequately training their team members because of a single looming question: What if I train them and they leave? They structure their businesses so that multiple people work on a single project while other projects sit undone. It costs them money and productivity. If you're one of those managers, I'll offer you a different consideration: what if you don't train them and they stay? We're devoting the month of January to the topic of mental toughness, and today's topic is directed at business and sales leaders as well as sellers. Leaders When team members aren't trained well, they won't be effective at their jobs. When team members aren't effective at their jobs, the manager will have to help them do their jobs in addition to doing his own. Leaders who fear employee departure often choose not to provide the necessary training, but the reality is that many of those untrained employees end up staying in their jobs. [3:37] What if they stay with you and they don't know what they are doing? Fina

We all have some kind of fear, but when we discover what causes fear and how to overcome it, we can discover new opportunities and success. Fear can prevent us from experiencing amazing things in life, or pursuing new business opportunities. We suffer through anxiety and difficulty when dealing with these fears. But no more! James Moffat, CEO and Founder of Visibility Impact guides new entrepreneurs and people wanting to start businesses by providing them with the tools and information they need to grow their business with proper exposure. He accomplishes this through a number of programs to drive results. His clients achieve bigger goals in a shorter amount of time and gain visibility. [02:00] Self-limiting I used to have a fear of talking to important people. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of their time or attention. It was a fear I quickly had to learn how to overcome in order to succeed in sales. When I finally understood that I was speaking with other human beings, people who were maybe just as nervous abou

It's The Sales Evangelist 1000th episode and Stephen A. Hart from the Trailblazers.FM Podcast is conducting the interview while Donald Kelly answers the questions. This podcast started five years ago after Donald attended sales training to try to improve his performance. He started seeing some gains, and he figured the very least he could do was tell other people what was working for him. He realized along the way that he would get to interview great guests like Jeffrey Gitomer who would share a wealth of information and he was hooked. Donald wanted to share sales content that would help himself and others at the same time. Blessings and opportunities The greatest benefit to a podcast like this is the relationships you build. There's a camaraderie and people want to help each other. [05:50] Perhaps it's because the medium is so new, but a lot of podcasters are connecting with each other to share experiences. People have become like family, and many business opportunities have emerged from it. There's a whole

Your morning routine has the power to start the day off right, which makes it crucial for you to make sure yours is effective. Whether you’re listening to music, educating yourself with podcasts, exercising, or engaging in spiritual activity, you’ll find that you accomplish more when you engage in a regular routine. BRAINPOWER Scientific research suggests that our brains work best in late morning. If we lay in bed scrolling through social media, we’re missing crucial time in our day. [04:29] We should take advantage of that time to engage in productive activity.   Even if you don’t consider yourself a morning person, make sure that when you do get out of bed, you win the morning. #DailyRoutine CLICK TO TWEET   TAKE CHARGE Instead of starting your day focused on the negatives in the day, take charge of your perspective. Because you know what will happen in the first hour of the day, you’re in charge of your day. [05:23] By acting instead of being acted upon, you’re taking charge. If you get an email from you

Failures can be crippling if we allow them to be, but when we have the proper guidance, we can learn how to turn failure into success. Airica Kraehmer of Gracious Care Recovery shares her own story here and reminds us that we can turn our weaknesses into our strengths. MENTAL TOUGHNESS Airica’s story doesn’t directly involve sales, but it does involve difficulty and mental toughness. She started working as a model in the fashion industry and she had a dream to succeed there. She realized that the fashion industry demands that you be your own product and that you bring your A-game all the time. She called it cut-throat. As a result, there’s room for exploitation. Airica found herself the victim of human trafficking because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wrote down her story, and when she finished her book, she looked for outlets that would help her share it. She figured telling her story would help her move beyond the struggle. She became an international best-selling author, and it taught h

Where there is no vision the people perish, and that’s especially true in sales. Because we aren’t constructing physical structures like houses or sidewalks, the game of sales is largely mental, and it requires a visionary mindset. The book Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, now available as a free download,  addresses the importance of vision and what can happen when you don’t have an eye on the future. VISION FOR SALESPEOPLE Vision demands that we look beyond the work that we’re doing today. It demands that we look into the future, perhaps to the end of the quarter or the end of the year. In some cases, we’ll look to the end of five or 10 years. Without vision, you won’t progress and you won’t grow. We may imagine the worst-case scenario, and then we find ourselves in a loop, playing it over and over in our heads. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps shared his strategy of playing a “tape” of a perfect race in his head. His coach encouraged him to imagine how it would feel to win, the accomplishment he

Behind the scenes at The Sales Evangelist, we're working to increase organic engagement and interact with our audience, and we've discovered a powerful way to develop new leads through Instagram. According to Jaeden Schafer, Instagram typically accounts for about 10 percent more organic engagement than Facebook, so it's a great place to gain a new audience and develop new leads. Who can benefit? [Tweet "Every business, whether it's B2B or B2C, can benefit from Instagram as long as they know how to use it. #Prospecting"] When Instagram initially launched, its goal was to share nice looking pictures. If you're following that original idea, your company will likely benefit from it. [02:16] But what if you're a refrigeration repair company? How do you post compelling pictures of refrigerators? Posting photos of refrigerators all day won't really prompt much growth. So if, for example, you own a refrigeration company in Miami, post pictures of the area you serve with information about the services you provide. Tar

Strategic planning isn’t only for entrepreneurs: Shane Spiers says sales reps must know where they are headed and what the team’s common purpose is. Strategic planning helps sales reps work better as part of a team and achieve more. Originally from New Zealand, Shane now calls the UK home. It is where his career has grown to what it is today. His record is dominated by leading and scaling 7, 8 and 9-figure rapid growth companies, mostly in real estate, construction, and service-based businesses. Shane created Summit Leader to help 7-figure entrepreneurs scale with an 8-figure growth model. His focus is helping businesses scale from entrepreneurial to managed growth. [00:29] Approximately 96% of businesses earn less than $1 million in revenue. Of the 4% that make it past a million, only 10% make it to $10 million. With only .4% of businesses reaching the $10 million mark, Shane hopes to have an impact by producing more 8-figure businesses. [01:20] A COMMON GOAL As a business moves from entrepreneurial to manag

Eric Graf, CEO of Flockgen, explains how mid-market businesses can trade relationships with one another to expand service offerings and lower customer acquisition. As sales reps, we need to make appointments and we need to make sales but often times, we don’t know how to find the best people. Typically, we develop a prospect list and a sales pitch and bring on a marketing team. It becomes the core business. Eric cites this as a common problem that negatively affects business with regard to customer acquisition. At Flockgen, clients are able to increase their bottom line because the cost of customer acquisition is spread among the partners. Expanding beyond the core Mid-market companies can expand the conversation with their customers beyond just the core aspects. When they do, they will realize that the prospect of monetizing exists in multiple areas which are often overlooked. At Flockgen, the cost of customer acquisition is spread across multiple services far beyond what mid-market companies might do in the

Josh Cunningham, founder and CEO of rokrbox,  fast-tracked his entrepreneurial career by helping to solve a recurring problem for real estate clients and learning an important lesson along the way: Don’t trick them. Josh first stumbled upon the ISA, or Inside Sales Agent, role in real estate while attending seminars with Vyral Marketing founder and CEO Frank Klesitz. Vyral Marketing works with top agents to create content and to get referrals and repeat business. THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT Many top professional teams buy real estates leads online, but their agents don’t always do a good job of following up on them. Like any good entrepreneur, when Josh heard a lot of people complaining about a common frustration, he decided to solve the problem. [00:39] He started rokrbox. A rocker box is a gold mining tool used in the 19th century to separate the sand and gravel from the gold. Likewise, rokrbox takes your real estate leads and separates the tire-kickers and time wasters from the motivated buyers and sellers.

Tracking your performance and setting measurable goals will help you perform better as a sales rep. We can optimize our performance if we calculate our daily output to help us fine-tune our work. Sales professionals are competitive creatures by nature, whether we're competing against others or against ourselves. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates.   Potential I participated in a leadership retreat in college and the speaker asked me to participate in a demonstration by jumping as far as I could. She then measured the distance and asked me to jump again to see if I could beat my original effort. Turns out I did, because I had a measurable goal. If I hadn't measured my first attempt, I wouldn't have known whether my second attempt was better. As a sales professional, you'll benefit if you measure your activity on a daily basis. [03:42] Optimization You're probably already planning some of your work: prospecting, phon

In this episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk about how to take advantage of the power of chat when growing your business. Many organizations have struggled to capitalize on the power of chat, but Amir and Tom share the struggles they’ve had using chat and how we can overcome them. Tom Jenkins and Amir Reiter help companies scale their workforce without having to get offices, pay insurance and taxes, or worry about hiring and training. Instead, they offer technology and strategy. At CloudTask, they provide sales development reps, they manage account executives convenient and they manage the customer success/account reps responsible for renewals and upselling to existing customers. They comprise one office. If someone wants to hire five sales reps, five account executives or five support reps, they will all be in office and managed so that the customer gets what they want – representation and results.   By specializing in sales, customer success and customer support, CloudTask is the best of the breed. [00:

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk with Kris Nelson, head of sales for CoSchedule.com, about how businesses can move from "click, try, buy" to having a full-fledged sales team. CoSchedule is a SaaS-based marketing platform that helps marketers to stay organized through a combination of content calendar, a product, project management solutions and execution via social campaigns and email campaigns. CoSchedule took the time to focus on true growth and the company has seen tremendous results. Prior to reaching that point, however, the business, which began as a "click, try and buy," didn’t even have a sales team. When "click, try, and buy" works Initially, they released the product as a straightforward "click, try and buy," product because it made sense at the time. They also designed it for small teams and individuals. The level of product and the price point didn’t really dictate a need for a dedicated sales team. [01:26] As the product progressed and became more complicated, however, it becam

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we're talking to Kathleen Hessert and Krista Jasso about the newest generation and how to adjust your sales process when selling Gen Z. Kathleen launched a project called We R Gen Z because she saw a lack of information about the newest generation because the marketplace was completely focused on millennials. Her organization conducts original research with a bank of 1,000 teens on a monthly basis to understand Gen Z. Krista -- a member of Gen Z herself -- works as the social media coordinator and intern coordinator for We R Gen Z and she believes that her generation will take the world by storm. Massive spending Gen Z spends $44 billion a year in the U.S. and influences $600 billion when it comes to household spending. It's vital for the marketplace to understand that Gen Z will make up 40 percent of the U.S. population and 37 percent of the global population by the year 2020. [3;47] Organizations that exclude them will be behind in their sales efforts, and they ma

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we discuss time management and how daily planning can help you be more effective in your role as a seller. It seems like there is never enough time in the day to get things done. We need an extra day in the week or at least an extra hour a day.  I was always so busy that it felt like I didn’t even have time to sit down to read a book. Even knowing how important personal development was, I always managed to put it off. Then, I took a vacation. It is amazing how much you can do when you are in the air for five hours with limited distraction. So what changed? What happened? The amount of time I had certainly didn’t change. My focus did. The concept of daily planning How many times have you been told to try daily planning? Now, how many times have you actually done it?  [02:04] If you are the modern seller that I know you are, you are distracted. Reading proposals, talking to customers, going to meetings, checking email ... These are all distractions. Every time an emai

Today we talk to Meridith Powell about driving sales in the 4th quarter and how organizations can drive success from the selling side as well as the leadership side. Meridith was voted one of the top 15 business growth experts to watch, largely because she is passionate about helping clients learn strategies to succeed in any economy. 4th quarter complications Meridith calls the 4th quarter of the year her favorite because typically organizations have relaxed a bit and let their guards down. That presents an opportunity for other organizations to put on what she calls a full-court press while everyone else has relaxed. Everyone takes their foot off the gas at the end of the year. They've been working hard all year, and they have achieved decent numbers, so they aren't worried about driving sales in the 4th quarter. They are tired, and when Thanksgiving rolls around, it's followed soon after by Christmas. The cold weather makes it an easy time to be a bit lazier. She calls it the perfect storm of sales lazines

oday on The Sales Evangelist, we're going to talk about the fear of prospecting, how your coworkers often contribute to it, and how you can overcome your fear of rejection. Fear of rejection often keeps salespeople from going after potential deals, but it doesn't have to be this way. Intimidation If you're a new rep and your teammates warn you to stay away from a certain account, it can cause you to fear to reach out at all. In our case, a seller named Rick found himself in this exact situation. He believed so strongly in what he had to offer that he actually went to visit the client. [3:07] He spoke to the prospect's receptionist and he left information with her that she could pass on to the VP of the company. Several days passed and he didn't hear from the receptionist or the VP. Fortunately, his confidence outweighed his fear of rejection. He called the prospect at 7:30 a.m. and was able to talk to the exec because the receptionist wasn't there yet. Eventually, he closed the deal that his coworkers said co

On today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, we talk to Matt Hernandez about the changes in the marketplace, and how the ability to find local partners has helped him drive more revenue for the businesses he serves. In his work with small-to-medium businesses, Matt has worked to figure out new ways to deal with leads because people have become more resistant to cold calling. He believes that, although cold-calling can work, it must exist in the right circumstances. The key is better lead intelligence. Hire the right people Matt doesn't struggle with recruiting or interviewing salespeople.  The key, he says, is to be very upfront about the challenges of the role and hire the right type of people. Hire open-minded people who aren't super particular about their activities and who often aren't as needy. [7:15] They'll be more coachable. Also be very honest about the type of role you're hiring for, the challenges it will present, but also the benefits of the role as well. Moving away from cold leads In the past, se

n today's episode of The Sales Evangelist, I talk to Todd Earwood about the adage that we need not reinvent the wheel, but Todd is doing just that. Todd famously cold-called the CEO of a billion dollar company for 43 straight days until he finally got the interview, and then the job. He began his career in software. It wasn’t until he was making the rounds to thank investors for the success of his latest software endeavor that he realized that marketing was his real niche.   As Todd explains it, one of the investors simply asked Todd what his future plans were, which seemed like such a silly question at the question. Software was all he had ever done. But the investor went on to say that marketing and sales were really the special skills he saw in Todd. Todd reluctantly agreed and MoneyPath began.  [00:54] Clear the path to purchases through quality marketing AtMoneyPath, Todd and his group of marketers ‘clear the path to purchases.’ It is their tagline because they are dedicated to helping sales. In the mark

Today on The Sales Evangelist we’ll talk about planning and setting effective goals. It’s that time of year again where we find ourselves contemplating our achievements over the past 12 months. Some of us reached our sales goals and some of us did not, but we can all benefit from reflecting on what worked well, and what did not work at all. HAVE A PLAN There’s a difference between setting goals by ‘throwing a dart at the goal wall’ versus setting goals based on the experiences that we are guided towards by the people we meet. It is the difference between having hope and having a plan. [03:27] A ‘throw a dart’ goal is as simple as choosing a random number – say $80,000 for example – and then setting that as your commission goal. But why that number? Are you simply hoping to make $80K, or do you have an actual plan in place to achieve it? I hope I lose 10lbs next year, I hope I win the lottery, I hope we get out of work early… Those are all just hopes because there is no plan in place to accomplish any of it. Y