A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher

How to Land Salesforce Jobs (feat Bradley Rice)

I am really excited about today’s podcast. Bradley Rice is a guest today discussing his path to success and his passion and mission to help other people land salesforce jobs.

Bradley has worked in the Tech Ecosystem for over 10 years and became one of the highest-paid Tech professionals in the world making $225,000 working just 20 hours per week. With sales skills and an entrepreneurial mindset, he started his own business Talent Stacker as a service to put others on the same path. He’s committed to giving back and offering free advice to help people develop their personal brand and tips to showcase their brand on LinkedIn.

Connect with Brad on LinkedIn
Talent Stacker

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE, the sales life you love!

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Leadership Lessons from The Wizard of Oz 

In this podcast I’m going to showcase best practices in navigating difficult and challenging situations while helping your team pivot and keep moving forward, all with the help from our favorite characters from The Wizard of Oz.

Wizard of Oz has always been a fascinating movie for me truly showcasing friendships, friendships among a very diverse group of people, yet they care for and help each other through some very difficult situations. And it shows resilience, strength, and character. The perfect story to use for leadership and navigating challenging situations. 

First, I’ll cover learning to leverage your most precious internal resources through difficult situations just as Dorothy and her friends had to do.

Secondly, I’ll discuss focusing on what you can control to have a bigger impact on your team

Lastly, how to inspire your team to support each other through uncertainty using compassion, heart, courage, attitude, and humor.

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE, the sales life you love!

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Why are your sales opportunities falling apart?

Selling is like walking through a minefield. Take one wrong step, and your deal can blow up in your face. Great salespeople know how to navigate this minefield and successfully move sales opportunities to closure. 

While there are many reasons why a sales opportunity can fall apart, below are some common traps that explain many lost deals. Stepping into any one of these traps can significantly reduce your odds of moving a deal forward and closing the sale.

Trap #1: You didn’t build a strong relationship with the buyer.
Trap #2: You didn’t qualify the buyer.
Trap #3: You failed to uncover an important problem.
Trap #4: You didn’t explore the impact of the problem with the buyer.
Trap #5: You failed to connect your products and services to the buyer’s needs.

Another trap is that the conversation focuses on price
Sure, every client aims to keep the price low, but it shouldn’t be their only interest.

If a lead is constantly talking about price instead of benefits and value, you are probably talking to the wrong person. Many purchasing or sourcing people often take the lead during negotiations with their main focus on price. If you don’t have access to the department they are purchasing for, this deal is primed to fall apart at any moment.

Another important trap: Ignoring the existence of competition
We are very much focused on presenting our “unique” solutions, addressing pain points and proof of the return on investment. While things may be running smoothly, we neglect that there could be competition. It then hits us by surprise later in the sales cycle when the deal gets postponed or lost because of other competitive offerings. Before you know it, it’s “Game over”.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to help you save your opportunities and move them to a closed-won status:

1.       Don’t underestimate the power of effective discovery questions. You need to dig deep.

2.       Don’t be an order taker. Set yourself up as a consultant and trusted advisor.

3.       Qualify your lead early in the sales process and make sure they align with your ideal customer profile.

As sales professionals, we spend too much time and resources nurturing leads to let them slip away. Fire up your sales spidey senses and improve your sales process by catching these signs or traps that indicate your deal is falling apart. Challenge yourself to become proficient at launching a rescue counterattack. You will be a better sales rep with a greater closing ratio for your efforts. 

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE, the sales life you love!

Let's connect on LinkedIn!

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Leveraging Prospecting Emails to Grow your Pipeline

First off, What is a sales prospecting email?

Email prospecting is the process of identifying, researching, and qualifying for cold emails. It’s a way of ensuring that you’re emailing people who fit your product or service.

Email outreach also gives you valuable info that you can use to personalize current and future messages. It’s one way to find people (or prospects) that would make great customers. Email prospecting is similar to cold calling.

So what is the main goal of prospecting emails? Getting recipients to respond, so you can start building a relationship.

Amazing prospecting emails all share a few traits. You need an eye-catching subject line to convince a reader to open the email, and you need a personalized message inside with an actionable call to action. To know if you’re on the right track, you also need a solid way to capture and evaluate how your emails are performing.

First off, you’ll want a strong email subject line

The difference between a good subject line and a bad one is the difference between an initial email that’s read and one that’s ignored.

Talk like a real person. If a subject line sounds like spam, it will be treated as spam. Be careful not to use any of these words or phrases that often trigger a spam filter.

Be on a first-name basis. When possible, personalize your subject line with the prospect’s name, company name, or both.

Keep the subject line nice and short. Email readers are more likely to pay attention to a subject line that’s short and to the point.

Next, you’ll want to create an engaging email body

Make it personal. At a minimum, the body of an email should include the prospect’s first name, job title, and company. But a good prospecting email should also touch on specific details of the recipient’s life.

Tell recipients what’s in it for them. When it comes to your pitch, don’t focus on how your product or service works. Instead, use the classic marketer (what's in it for me) model. Make your pitch all about how that product can work for the prospect and their company.

Hit the word-count sweet spot. The body of the email, much like the subject line, shouldn’t be too long. But you also don’t want it to be so short that the reader doesn’t have all of the information. The key is finding that perfect “Goldilocks” length that fits between two extremes.

According to Prospect.io’s study specifically on cold sales emails, the highest response rate was generated from emails with approximately 300 words.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to send a prospecting email:

1.       Blend your prospecting email with a phone call – the one-two punch

2.       Always use a short subject line; approximately 4 words.

3.       Tailor your messages to your prospects

Subtle changes make all the difference in your emails. The best prospecting emails are researched, customized, and part of a well-designed attraction campaign. Give your prospecting emails a makeover with these suggestions to start seeing dramatic differences in buyer response rates and increases in your sales results.

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Episode #69 - Pain Point Discovery

Ever spent time with a prospect who didn't buy? Of course, you have.

Selling to people who can't or won't buy is a huge drain on your sales productivity, budget, and team.

The top two percenters of sales teams need to spend time with prospects who need your help, want your help, and are willing to work with you to solve their problems.

If your prospects don't have pain points, they have no need. And without need, there's no hope for a sale. It's up to salespeople to ask effective sales questions and uncover pain points as quickly as possible.

If you really want to make your prospects happy, don’t pitch solutions based on guesswork. Take the time to talk to prospects and ask open-ended questions and actively listen to the responses. By focusing on pain point discovery, you’ll learn more and your product will improve.

To provide true value to your prospects, start by asking the right questions to help streamline your pain point discovery progress and get more out of your conversations.

First off, Avoid Assumptions

Whether you realize it or not, your preconceived notions influence your interaction with prospects. For example, if you assume your prospect’s primary pain point is poor time management you may ask questions differently, inadvertently leading the conversation. As a result, you won’t gather new information or insight into where your prospect could actually use your assistance.

Next, Actively Listen

In everyday conversation, it’s not uncommon for friends to interrupt one another with random thoughts or related stories. It’s how we make connections. I do this a lot; my friends and family will probably say I do it too much! But when you’re trying to discover a prospect’s pain points, interrupting is counterproductive.

 Rather than talking, actively listen to what your prospect is telling you. Make your connection by asking insightful follow-up questions. The more you engage and show you care about the problem, the more your prospect will be willing to share — and the more you’ll learn.

Now you want to Find the Common Thread

While certain problems will prove unique to specific prospects, many will be more universal. As you identify these trends, adjust your marketing strategies, and re-evaluate product offerings to address these common pain points and make customers happier across the board.

Now, once you identify pain, you can determine how to solve it for your prospect. This is an incredible tool to leverage as a salesperson since you can become a solution-provider rather than a product-seller. Here are a few tips to start positioning yourself in this way:

1. Use your prospect's language when talking about pain
2. Find out who's empowered to solve the pain
3. Identify additional key stakeholders as early as possible.
4. Frame your offering to reflect the prospect's dilemma.
As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to dig deep in pain point discovery:

1.       Avoid assumptions: start every conversation as a learning opportunity for you.

2.       Use your prospect’s language when talking about their pain.

3.       Dig deeper by asking “why”

I’ll leave you with a quote from Dan Storey, author of Next Level Persuasion, “In sales, we only ever really ask one of two fundamental types of questions: Discovery or Positioning, and discovery comes before positioning.”

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE, the sales life you love!

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Episode #68 - Mastering the Sales Conversation

As a sales rep, you’re well experienced in the art of conversation. In a sense, every conversation is selling something, an opinion, suggestion, story, or idea. Salespeople require the skills to make this happen more than anyone. But outside of being charming and putting customers at ease, there are ways you can subtly sell more than you ever thought possible through the right conversational strategies. Having the right talking points can lead to referrals, important connections, and a strong bond with your brand.

What is a Sales Conversation?

Before jumping into some of the skills for better sales conversations, let's take a moment to define what a sales conversation is.

Sales conversations are an ongoing dialogue that takes place between the primary sales rep, the client, and internal stakeholders from both organizations. It typically takes place over a series of in-person or virtual meetings and communications. The purpose of a sales conversation is to explore the client's needs and determine the best solution for them. During a sales conversation, the sales rep is responsible for building a deep understanding of the customer's needs and consistently positioning their solution in a meaningful and differentiated manner to add value and build momentum to the close the sale.

Conversation, like anything else, is a skill you can improve with time. The best way to start having better conversations as a sales rep is to understand its fundamental rules

For a conversation to take place, conditions have to be met. At least two people have to be willing to speak and actively engage. If not, you end up with a one-sided conversation or nothing at all. Those conditions are ensured by the rules of conversation. If any of these rules are not met, the conversation won't be worth participating in for either person. According to Time Magazine, these are the 5 fundamental rules of conversation:

1. Put yourself at ease
2. Put others at ease
3. Weave in all parties
4. Establish shared interests
5. Actively pursue your own

With the high-level definition and goals of a sales conversation in mind and an understanding of how to start one, we can now we can move forward with a deeper exploration of the skillsets that will enhance your conversations with customers and prospects.

1. Presence
2. Relating
3. Questioning
4. Listening
5. Positioning
6. Checking

These skill sets will allow you to create a dialogue; understand prospect needs, priorities, and perspectives; and close profitable business.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to effectively manage your sales conversations:

1.       Trust is the foundation of sales conversations

2.       Put yourself and others at ease

3.       Make sure to weave in others who are part of the conversation. Don’t let anyone feel left out.

Most people’s sales conversations could be better. Not a little better, significantly better. At the end of the day, you want your prospect to feel like they are having a conversation with you at the local coffee shop and not in an FBI interrogation being asked questions left and right. Practice these skills and I know you’ll see an improvement.

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Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE, the sales life you love! Let's connect on LinkedIn

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Episode #67 - The Awkward Silence

In today’s episode, I’m going to talk about that awkward silence that happens when you’re on a sales call. Whether you just delivered the price or handled an objection.

The conversation is flowing smoothly, and then -- it stops. You don't say anything. Your client or prospect doesn't say anything. You clear your throat. They scratch their knee. Your smile is getting strained. They look at the clock.

You're smack dab in the middle of a very ... awkward ... silence.

This is bad news during a first date or a job interview. But in sales, awkward silences are actually good -- that is, if you know how to use them to your advantage. The golden rule of using silence as a sales weapon? Embrace it.

Consider that it only takes four seconds for people to become uncomfortable with silence. So next time you're tempted to break the silence, remember it probably hasn't been very long, so keep quiet.

Still not convinced that zipping your lips is the way to go when a conversational lull hits? Consider the following positive outcomes of awkward silences and the negative ramifications of breaking them.

Silence allows time for prospects to comprehend your offer.

Silence communicates genuine interest.

Silence helps salespeople stand their ground.

Silence prompts buyers to reveal their true needs and concerns.

Since today's sales process is all about the prospect and their needs, it's important for them to understand key points about your product or service to ensure it's the right fit for them.

Author and public speaking expert Andrii Sedniev says pausing before and after critical points in your speech will emphasize important information, pique your audience's interest, and give you a moment to catch your breath. It's tempting to ramble on about important points in your presentation but give them space and you'll increase their impact.

Don't be afraid of silence on sales calls -- use it to your advantage. With a little practice, this technique will become second nature.

Silence can also work to help on your end too by giving you a chance to think through your response before answering. 

Silence is one of the best tactics you can bring to the table in a negotiation. The ambiguity of it can leave your customer wondering if you are showing confidence, expressing dissatisfaction, or feeling uncertainty and doubt. When someone on the other side presents an offer, don’t respond. Take time to think while you wait for their response. Likely, several painful and awkward moments will follow. This is not the time to stare blankly at them, however. Use body language to stay connected. Smile, write something in your notes, get comfortable and wait. They just might increase their offer without you ever saying a word.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips for leaning into the awkward silence:

1.       Embrace it

2.       Use silence as a negotiating advantage

3.       Silence isn’t a bad thing; it could simply mean that your client or prospect is thinking through your offer

Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all. Silence is an incredibly underrated and underused tactic in sales. It is a powerful tool that can help you gain more information, take control of a wayward discussion, better contemplate your answers, and deliver better pitches.

Thank you for listening to A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher. Let's connect on LinkedIn.

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Episode 66 - Creating a Sales Movement

Let me ask you – why is there still a stigma associated with the word “Sales”? And why is there still a negative association with the sales professional?

When you ask people, including salespeople, their perception of a sales professional, you’ll still hear reference to the “sleazy car salesperson” – a profession ranked only second to politicians in the least respected jobs according to a Global News Report from 2018.

Even though I’ve been in sales for over 30 years, it’s disappointing that this negative perception of salespeople still exists, and the needle hasn’t moved much.

What do sales professionals have to do to change this perception?
It’s simpler than you think.

The good news is that the demand is very high for sales professionals with no immediate signs of it slowing down.

Professional Sales is ranked as one of the U.S. 7 most in-demand future-proof jobs, according to a recent study. 90% of commercial sales professionals believe sales is a good job. 70% of sales professionals would recommend a job in sales to family or friends considering a new career.

But in order to change this sales stigma, we need to ask ourselves:

What do other career professionals, like accountants, engineers, human resource practitioners, teachers, lawyers, and doctors, do to earn respect and trust?

They simply ask questions to learn more about a person/business situation, and then they prescribe solutions and recommendations.

Which is exactly what sales professionals do.

If we want to change the stigma associated with sales and sales professionals, we need to be creating a sales movement.

Could it be because there is a certain reputation ascribed to salespeople, a certain stigma, that makes so many want to run a mile at the thought of actually being perceived as a salesperson?

Step up ‘the Snake Oil’ seller…
Back in the 1800s, the US was busy building the First Continental Railroad and a lot of Chinese laborers were employed. These laborers brought a product with them from home which they used to reduce inflammation – it was made of oil from the Chinese Watersnake. Allegedly they shared the oil with their American co-workers who were suitably impressed and wished to replicate it. Unfortunately, Chinese Water snakes are not common in the US and so people made an ointment out of whatever they could and called it Snake Oil, which was not Snake Oil and they tried to pass it off as legit. 

…and thus began the story of ‘the Snake Oil’ seller.

Traveling salespeople move from town to town selling their wares to a gullible market by claiming miraculous benefits and cures. Of course, by the time the oil was found to be of absolutely no use, the salespeople were long gone. 

Changing the Face of Sales
The internet has made experts out of everyone and it’s much easier to ‘shop around for both products and services.

You and Your sales team (however large or small that may be) need to be representatives and ambassadors of your company – they must be conversant with the product(s) that’s a given BUT they must also be fully ‘bought in’ to the company’s mission and brand values. 

It’s time to start treating sales as a profession that people working in can be proud of. Everyone can sell if they are given the right tools and information to do so.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to create a sales movement

1. Ensure your team understands (and uses) the softer, customer-centric sales approaches
2. Focus on corporate social responsibility goals within your company
3. Ensure your entire business is structured towards creating an excellent customer journ

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Episode #65 - The Art of Discovery Questions

In sales, it’s normal to spend hours rehearsing for an upcoming demo and fine-tuning the deck. But when it comes to the discovery call, many of us assume we can wing it. Well, think again. You’ll need a set of discovery questions planned out before the call.

It’s strange because the discovery call is how we uncover critical information early in the sales cycle. Details like use cases and a prospect’s fit for our solution help us prioritize our deals. 

The risk of doing it poorly or not at all is getting stuck in “the land of no decision” with the deal and your quota on the line. You can try dragging both across the finish, but even the best salesperson can’t persuade a prospect to buy a solution and use it if it’s not a good fit.

That’s why it’s so important to ask the right discovery questions at this crucial step in the sales process.

We all love winning business, right? Closing calls are sexy. They’re the calls where a deal gets moved across the finish line, contracts get signed, and commission checks go right into your pocket.

To get there, however, you’ll first need to take your prospect through the entire sales process — beginning with a discovery call.

A discovery call helps you gather information about the prospect by directly talking to them and asking them questions. Such information includes the prospect’s objectives, priorities, and pain points. With discovery calls, you can see whether you and the prospect are a fit for each other. Then you can decide whether you want to sell to them and how. It’s the first step in the sales qualification process.

In many cases, the discovery call is the most important step in the sales process. It sets the tone for the entire relationship, both pre-and post-sale. Either you’ll be able to establish a relationship, or you’ll be stuck playing catch up.

You could have deals that would normally be relatively standard, but because you didn’t dive deep in discovery, they ended up being unduly complex. The importance of the discovery call can’t be overstated.

The main purpose of a discovery call is to determine whether you and your potential buyer are a good fit. In layman’s terms, it’s an interview to understand your buyers’ pain points, goals, and priorities so you can effectively sell to them.

I consider the discovery call the most important conversation in the entire sales process. It sets the pace of your deal and determines how everything else unfolds in the sales process.

If you carry it out correctly, you’ll form a trusted advisor relationship with your prospect.

If you, do it wrongly, your prospect will ditch you and pick the next available option.
 Discovery calls are crucial for sales professionals to understand the details of a prospect’s situation. Luckily, most prospects are okay with participating in a discovery call, as long as it’s not an interrogation.

Here are some benefits of the discovery call.

1. Prospects will better understand your business and product.
2. You will have a chance to show you’re invested in their success.
3. This is your opportunity to gauge your chances of winning their business.

By investing time and energy in creating a great discovery call, you’ll know for sure whether your prospect is a good or poor fit for your product or service. This will ensure you only spend time on the prospects who are more likely to close, allowing you to exceed your quota and become a standout performer on your team.

Thank you so much for listening to, A Life You Love: Sales Tips with Jennifer Fisher – I look forward to continuing the conversation next week.

Now go LIVE

Let's connect on LinkedIn

Episode #64 - Team Selling

In sales, as in life, communication is everything. However, things get a little more complicated than that when you introduce entire teams into the mix. That’s why in this week’s episode I’d like to talk about team selling and the tactics you can use as a team to build a pipeline and expand your company base. Teams have strengths that isolated individuals don’t, and I’m going to show you exactly how to leverage them to close even the most complicated deals. 

Drop that “lone wolf” mentality. You’ll win more sales with the pack. 

So, what is Team selling?

Team selling is when you work with two or more people from any unit within your organization to win business. Team selling is a collaborative approach where you develop a sales strategy involving two or more team members working together. The goal is to utilize each team member’s talents and skills to maximize sales. Team selling is about effective communication that leads to successful collaboration in sales, which is either between team members or between different departments at your company. 

With team selling, you’re 200% more likely to close deals. And get this: The entire team doesn’t have to convene at every step in the sales journey. Just one group meeting with prospects boosts the chances your team will win.

For this approach, a sales rep will use the help of another member of their team. Their collective skills in analyzing a prospect’s pain points help them develop the best solution for specific challenges. When an organization sets out to win an account or a sale, there will be two or more people involved. These people will be deployed according to their specialization. The upside is getting a better chance of closing a deal since there will be a pooling of resources and skills. 

Here are six times when you want to use team selling.

·       It’s a complex sale: When deals are multi-faceted or multi-layered, they’re better handled by a team (usually spearheaded by the salesperson who has the most frequent and intimate communication with buyers).

·       It’s the big one: Pull together a selling team when your target is an account five or more times larger than you’re used to pursuing. Don’t go it alone: Get management – who might have already sold to clients this size – involved early to uncover obstacles and identify the best resources to tap to win the substantially bigger account.
·       It’s perplexing: Every salesperson struggles with a sale from time to time. But when a salesperson hits a roadblock with a deal – a stop, not just a stall – it’s probably a good time to call a team of colleagues or leaders. Fellow salespeople might have insight or experience that can open the opportunity.
Adding a trusted colleague to a call or getting another person involved with the proposal or presentation can help unlock the door.

·       You want to add leverage: Many sales will move forward if you give buyers access to the C-level. Prospects will feel like they’re getting special treatment or a better deal when an executive attends the meeting, shares valuable information, and offers to be a resource.
·       You want to speed up the sale: When salespeople want to close a deal sooner than their prospect does, team selling can help expedite the sale without setting an artificial deadline or putting too much pressure on a prospect with a laissez-faire attitude.

Teams must be working toward the same goal, and understand the reward for reaching it, all the time. Sure, the goal might always be to close the deal, but agreed-upon shorter-term goals that move the team toward the ultimate goal will keep everyone on track.

As I wrap up this week’s podcast, here are my 3 tips to utiliz

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