Finding Business with Scott Channell

More hours of experience won't make you a top sales producer. Hours spent the same way just reinforce the same habits. This episode covers what top performers do instead: find one weakness, fix it and move to the next.

Full transcript and show notes: https://scottchannell.com/more-hours-top-sales-producer/

When the numbers are down, the reflex is to do more. More dials. More emails. Longer hours. Effort is honest and it is the one lever you always control.

The problem is what a week of prospecting actually teaches you. Some calls went nowhere. A few went somewhere. Whether that was your opener or the luck of reaching someone who already had the problem, you cannot say. And when useful feedback does arrive, it arrives months later, after your list changed, your script changed and two competitors made moves.

So you reach for the one thing you can count. Activity is visible. Activity is measurable. Whether it connects to a result is a separate question, and it rarely gets asked.

This episode covers the standard I held myself to when I was setting appointments, and why the judgment that matters happens before the activity does.

Full transcript: https://scottchannell.com/sales-activity-does-not-fix-results/

You cannot really plan a first meeting. It depends on what they say, where they take it, what comes up. So you go in, read the room and adapt.

Adapting is right. Adapting toward nothing is the problem.

In this episode: why discovery calls default to comfort when no end state is defined, the one question to answer before you walk in, and the three things a first meeting can actually be built to achieve. Credibility. Decision criteria. Alignment. The Sales Visitor walks in hoping it goes well. The Sales Catalyst walks in knowing what has to happen by the time it ends. Same meeting. Same buyer. Two different destinations.

Full transcript: https://scottchannell.com/discovery-calls-sales-visitors-sales-catalysts/

Finding Business is hosted by Scott Channell, author of Sell the Meeting and seven other books. More at https://scottchannell.com 

A rule you break under pressure isn't a rule. It's a preference, and preferences don't survive contact with a thin pipeline.

In this episode of Finding Business, Scott Channell breaks down why most sales reps think discipline means staying strong in the moment, and why that's backwards. The real skill is deciding your qualification standards before the pressure ever shows up, not while a warm prospect is on the phone.

Find the full episode transcript on at scottchannell.com.

Most reps think one great skill — closing, prospecting, whatever — is enough to win. It's not. This episode breaks down the Sales Decision Machine: the five components (Standards, Preparation, Feedback Loop, Testing Discipline, Attention Protection) that multiply together to create real sales advantage — and why neglecting even one drags the other four down with it.

Full transcript and show notes here: ScottChannell.com/salessystems

You won’t win a race by revving your engine the loudest while the car is in neutral. The noise is impressive, the fuel is burning, but the finish line isn't getting any closer. Sales productivity isn't about how much motion you create. It's about the quality of your outcome.

The biggest threat to your commission check is not the word "No." It’s a "Maybe."

Many sales reps believe that "No" is the enemy. You’ve been told to fight for every scrap, to never give up, and to keep "nurturing" every lead until they buy or die.

That advice could be exactly why reps that are capable of earning more, much more, are stuck in the middle of the pack.

 Most salespeople believe the difference between top performers and everyone else is talent, Personality, effort. That is comforting to many, but it's also very wrong. If the difference was effort, then the hard workers would automatically win, but that's not what actually happens.  The uncomfortable truth is this, the biggest difference between top performers and everyone else is how they think about the game they're playing. 

 You can be the best at what you do. You can save your prospect millions, and they'll still hang up on you in 10 seconds. Why? Because you lost the battle in the first three seconds of the call.

This episode is about having a fixed verse growth sales mindset. And I wanna ask you a question. Are you really sure that some of your sales goals are too hard? We tend to put tasks into yes or no piles. And when it comes to our goals, we often have an additional category, and that category is what I call the too hard pile. So we treat this like a no and we tend to throw things that we think are too hard into the no pile. But this episode seeks to answer the question"Are things in your too hard pile really too hard?" And, what does that cost you.