A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher

Episode #13 Becoming a Trusted Advisor

Many people throw around the word “Trusted Advisor” without really knowing what it means AND almost every salesperson out there can claim they are a trusted advisor, but more than likely, they’re not. No one begins their role in sales as a trusted advisor, but that is what we all want to achieve. At the heart of a trusted advisor is trust. Sales professionals have to earn the right to be trusted by our prospects and clients. So how does that happen?

In the sales process when you’re prospecting or working with clients, there are a few areas that are important to remember in the sales process when you’re working to build trust. You need to be able to:

1. Focus on your client for their sake, not just as a means to your own end.

2. Another area to focus on is a collaborative approach 

3. It’s also important to focus on the medium to long-term perspective

4. Make it a habit of being transparent in all your dealings. 

Becoming a trusted advisor takes time and you have to put the work and effort into building trust in order to build relationships with your clients. Many salespeople struggle to become the trusted advisor because they jump into action way too soon. They start out focusing on themselves and they continue down that path. They are looking for and have the desire for tangibility, they’re focused on their own business results, and their search for validation, which leads to wanting or needing to take credit for an idea or solution. Sales professionals need to put their egos aside and focus on the client!

You’ll know when your clients trust you and you have achieved the golden Trusted Advisor status. Among other traits, your clients will:

1.       Reach out for your advice 

2.       They will be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations

3.       Pull you in on more strategic issues

4.       Respect you

5.       They share more information with you

6.       Involve you early on when their issues start to form

I wish you all well as you head down the path of becoming a trusted advisor and not just a vendor trying to sell your product.

As always, I like to close out with my 3 sales tips on becoming a trusted advisor:

1.       You have to give trust to get trust – trust takes time

2.       Focus on your client, put your ego aside

3.       Be transparent – provide clear honest assessments to your client

Let's connect on LinkedIn and send me an email: [email protected] to let me know your thoughts and suggestions for topics!

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Amy Franko is the Founder & CEO of Amy Franko Associates. With over 20 years of client-facing sales experience, Amy’s career includes sales roles with global companies IBM and Lenovo before pivoting into entrepreneurship.  Today her firm works with mid-market technology and professional services organizations to grow sales results, through both sales strategy and skill development programs. 

Her book, The Modern Seller, is an Amazon bestseller and was named a top sales book by Top Sales World. She is also recognized by LinkedIn as a Top Sales Voice. 

One interesting fact about Amy…She currently serves as the Board Chair for Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland, which helps over 18,000 girls build their leadership skills. Her favorite Girl Scout cookie as of this recording is the S’more.

In this interview, Amy Franko will explain what it means to be a Modern Seller and the five critical skill sets that rise above the rest.

Connect with Amy Franko;
Top 50 Sales Blog: amyfranko.com/blog
Amazon #1 Book:  The Modern Seller
[email protected]
LinkedIn

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Thinking back to my podcast interview last week with Eva Jannotta, and thinking through the skillset you need to prospect, close, listen, handle objections, storytelling, and improvising – I would say that the number one trait sales professionals need is COURAGE!

You need courage to pick up the phone and make that phone call when prospecting. Courage to put yourself out there and possibly get rejected, over and over again. Courage to keep going even after you stumble, stutter, and maybe say the wrong things. Courage to be able to improvise when the unexpected happens, you're flustered, sweating and your face becomes red – all things that have happened to me too!

Courage is the quality of being ready to face negative situations involving danger or pain, including emotional danger or pain. Many people think of courage as physical: putting yourself in harm's way to save someone else from harm. But courage is just as important in the emotional state. It’s so scary to put yourself out there and possibly feel rejected. 

So yes, I believe courage is the number one trait of a successful sales professional. Courage comes from having strong enough reasons to act. Strong enough to launch you forward in the face of perceived danger. Strong enough to push you out of your comfort zone, into that perceived danger zone. Strong enough to get your body and mouth moving, even though your heart and mind want to stop. 

And you know what? Every time you have courage to pick up the phone and call someone you’ve never talked to before, you get closer and closer to realizing that it’s ok – you didn’t die, you’re still alive, you made it through and now you have a little bit more confidence to try it all over again. 

Here's how you can get and grow your sales courage.

·       Take a deep breath, focus on how YOU can add value to the person you’re calling, pick up the phone, and dial. Each time you pick up the phone and make a call, you start to build your confidence.

·       When you Focus on your customer – you offer value and serve your customer. Building sales courage starts with putting your focus on being of service to other people and taking a genuine interest in the problems or challenges they have.

·       Practice active listening skills. By using active listening skills, you can tune into the information a prospect is giving you and you’ll be able to hear all sorts of valuable signals that will boost your ability to help them. Success comes from making other people feel heard.

·       It’s important to not get attached to the people on the other end of the calls you’re going to make today. Accept the fact that you’re going to hear “no” – it’s ok. Let the no’s run off you like water off a duck’s back – duck therapy! You’re going to pick up the phone and make another call. 

·       Keep track of the no’s and study the results. By doing this, you’re going to learn a few things:

o   You’re going to learn how many no’s it takes to get to a yes. Then you can easily see that sales is a numbers game and it’s not about you personally. 

o   And by tracking the no’s, also capture the elements and outcomes of the conversation. This will help you to learn, adjust, and pivot for your next conversation.

·       And at the end of the day remember, “it’s just a conversation”. Keep yourself positive, cheerful, and goal-oriented (there’s a reason you’re having a conversation – you’re offering value to help your prospects). And remember, sales success is 80% attitude!

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It was an absolute pleasure interviewing Eva Jannotta. Eva takes us through what thought leadership is, how you can become a thought leader, and why this is so important in professional sales. Eva will also walk you through her 5 Pillars of Magnetic Thought Leadership - amazing content!

Eva Jannotta helps women leaders defy the status quo, amplify our influence and expand our wealth and power through thought leadership strategy, advisory and marketing. Clients have included women entrepreneur's mentor Ali Brown, diversity and inclusion advisor Stacey Gordon, women's leadership speaker Selena Rezvani and more. Her Big Audacious Goal is to end gender and racial discrimination. Eva grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and now lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her partner. Learn more about Eva on LinkedIn. 

If you like what you hear, please rate and review this podcast! In the meantime, please connect with me on LinkedIn or via email: [email protected]

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I am super excited to share this week’s episode with you. But first, a little background: My 20-year old son is a junior in college and because of the pandemic, he has been living at home this past school year and taking classes online. As for me, I’m thrilled to have my one and only home with me and despite Covid, this has been an incredible year spending time with him and really appreciating the fine young man that he has become. I’m such a proud mom and I was thrilled when last semester he was asked to join the prestigious National Society of Leadership Success – which is by invitation only - based on high academics and leadership throughout his first two years of college. All participation for the National Society of Leadership Success this semester, is of course, virtual.

One of the program highlights from the National Society of Leadership Success this semester is their virtual leadership speaker series. I had the distinct and absolute pleasure to sit in on this weeks’ speaker, Dr. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. What an absolute honor it was for me to hear Dr. King speak. There were so many nuggets of leadership lessons for me to take away, and then I thought of how lucky my son was to be able to sit and listen and learn from Dr. King, as well as all the other young leaders in college listening in. And then of course, I thought about how lucky I was to be sitting here with my son, listening to this amazing leadership discussion. We both were taking notes in our notebooks and then when the roundtable discussion was over, my son and I chatted and reflected on what we heard, lessons learned and how we could both apply what we heard from Dr. King into our everyday lives. 

One of the main points Dr. King talked about was leading with love. We hear about leading with compassion, leading with heart and other phrases like this. What does that actually mean? How does this play out in everyday life? How do you know it when you see it? And how can you lead with love?

Great leadership lessons from Dr. King on this episode!

Please connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know your thoughts!
www.linkedin.com/in/jenlovingsales

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Assessing the readiness to buy or move forward …. What does this even mean? What is it? Well, it’s the process of listening for cues or pain points from your prospect or client and then using those signals to help guide them through the next step in the sales process. This is where you want to leverage your resources and value statements with them. Remember, you are solving for a problem and you need to be able to listen for those cues or pain points, so you can offer up solutions that will ultimately help your prospect or client move forward.

Here are my 3 sales tips to Assess the Readiness to Buy or at least move forward in the sales process: 

1.       Use active listening skills to truly understand your prospects’ needs

2.       Listen for buying cues or pain points

3.       Use transition statements to move forward in the process or uncover objections

Either way – you’ll be heading in the right direction.

You’ve got this!

Connect with me on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jenlovingsales

Or shoot me an email at [email protected]

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In this episode, Paul Smith will discuss the importance of storytelling for salespeople and how to capture attention, build trust, and close the sale. You'll learn why stories work so well and the different types of stories salespeople should be telling.

Sales stories draw people in and actively engage them. Whether you want to build a relationship, negotiate, or close the deal, sales stories help convey your value, your commitment, and your product's ability to solve problems.

You can connect with Paul on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/smithpa9

Or through his website at  www.LeadWithAStory.com 

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In today’s episode, I’m going to focus on asking: asking for the business, asking for the appointment, asking to meet over a virtual coffee – just plain asking! 

You'll hear the most common reasons salespeople don't ask and how to get into the "asking mindset" by focusing on what's possible, learning, and growing in the ask.

When you are ready to make the ask, I'll leave you with some tips and tricks to help you find out what's possible, when you just ask!

Thank you and please rate and review this podcast as well as connect with me on LinkedIn!

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenlovingsales

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Good prospecting is extremely essential for finding new business. The better you are at finding prospects who you can help and support with your services, the more likely you are to turn them into happy customers down the road. 

Finding new customers and growing your business is the backbone of any company – and it’s hard. If prospecting was easy, everyone would be doing it, and your business would grow effortlessly, but that’s not the case. There’s no magic bullet. You have to put the work, effort, and time in. Some people think they can take the “spray and pray” approach (like in hunting: the idea of shooting bullets everywhere and praying that you hit your target). Definitely not a good approach for sales and you definitely will not find new customers flowing in, using this approach. 

Listen on for tips on prospecting and growing your pipeline!

Please subscribe, rate and review, and reach out to me on topics you'd like to hear:
Email: [email protected]

Follow me and connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenlovingsales

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EQ for Zoom: Strategies to keep your prospects and clients engaged.

In today's episode, I have a special interview for you with Jen Ferguson. Jen is the Director of Sales for InsideOut https://insideoutlab.com/ and helps companies by delivering winning sales plays. She is a Speaker and Hostess for LinkedIn Live. Bringing Sales & Leadership with Heart and Ladies Happy Hour to the sales community through her platform. Jen believes in elevating the sales profession, the power of diversity of thought, and that everyone’s unique journey should be celebrated.

Jen has lots of tips to share with you about EQ for Zoom including:
*Keep your camera on
*Turn off self-view
*Read the zoom

Jen recently published an article on EQ in Sales with more tips and tricks.
https://www.saassales.io/why-eq-matters-in-sales-reading-the-zoom-room/

Follow Jen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sales911/
Sales 911: https://sales-911.com/

Brene Brown, RSA Short on Empathy that Jen mentioned in the podcast: https://youtu.be/1Evwgu369Jw

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