Future-Proof Selling

David is an accomplished top enterprise practicing salesperson, currently in sales and business development and global strategic accounts at Adobe in New York. Despite his fast-paced and high pressure position he has managed to pen an excellent book "Game of Sales."

Prior to Adobe, at AdRoll, Amazon and Google, David helped major brands leverage advertising solutions spanning search, display, video, mobile, and emerging technologies.

Before Google, David was a Business Development Executive at IBM, where he built six strategic partnerships to deliver new enterprise offerings. Also at IBM, David was part of a small strategy consulting practice where he developed and delivered partnerships, go-to-market strategy, product strategy, competitive analysis, channel enablement, business model strategy, global solution design, consulting practice development, and growth strategy.

In this episode we talk about the "Game of Sales" and David offers a lot of advice to salespeople on how to embrace and advance their careers in what is a challenging profession.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The history behind David's book "Game of Sales"
• Tough conversations with customers and the "challenger sale"
• David's approach to prioritisation and effective time management
• How to build an "automatic pipeline"
• The importance of understanding and mitigating risks in a sale
• The key foundations for a successful career in sales
• David's advice on sales calls for new business
• How to avoid "Horrible Meetings"
• How to avoid a customer going "dark" after a successful meeting
• The dark side of sales - how to cope with uncertainty and change

Check out David's book "Game of Sales" and you can find David here on LinkedIn

Karl Sice is Country Business Leader for ANZ at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, the multi-national communications, collaboration and network solutions corporation. He has 20+ years' experience in leadership and business development in IT and financial services, with roles in industry powerhouses Dell, Sun Microsystems, Staples, Gartner and American Express.

Karl is an extremely passionate frontline sales and business leader with a contagious energy. This episode is absolutely packed with valuable insight and advice for leaders, take the 30mins to listen to the full episode, it's very energising.

Key Points of This Discussion

• Karl's career journey in the world of Tech
• Tips on moving into a new leadership role in technology today
• The "colleagant" opportunities in today's business operations
• Shaping a culture rather than focusing on results
• The importance of extracting input from all of your team members
• Managing the pressure of tech business leadership
• Bursting out of the 13 week bubble and planning longer term
• Using your CRM data as an informative reverse coaching tool
• Effectively working with your superiors and offshore stakeholders
• We talk about people, recruiting and hunting for the right attitudes
• People management 101 - no surprises, trust and transparency

A must-listen for current or aspiring leaders of any B2B sales team; but in particular those in the tech space will get a lot out of this.

Learn more about Karl's company Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, and find him here on LinkedIn

Thomas Vanderkin is Global Account Manager for Lenovo, responsible for some of the largest Telcos and Solution Integrators. Over the years as a 'hobby' he has also developed a wildly popular personal brand - Vanderkinverse. His videos and reviews appear on YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social media channels with millions of views, and over 30,000 followers on LinkedIn.

Thomas began his career at GE Capital leasing PCs, then moved to Wachovia mortgage division, and then to the IBM Personal Computer Division, which was later to become Lenovo. He has held various roles in Lenovo including software engineering, project management, and sales. He has several technology articles published and two U.S. patents.

In this episode we talk about how his personal brand came to be, why the content is so popular, and how his brand supports his career in sales.

Key Points of This Discussion

• Thomas's background and personal brand
• How Thomas's huge LinkedIn following emerged
• The business benefit of building a personal brand
• Developing a rapport with people over social media
• Tips for salespeople to begin and improve their social presence
• A deliberate approach to building a quality network
• Leveraging other channels alongside LinkedIn
• Tom asks me about my own experience with LinkedIn
• Tom's final thoughts and advice for salespeople starting out on LinkedIn

Check out Tom's YouTube Channel here, and find him here on LinkedIn

Dan Pfister has been a marketer for over 20 years and has spent thousands of hours testing and implementing a very wide variety of sales growth strategies.

In total they've generated over 50,000 customers and have allowed him to work with brands like Fidelity Investments and Tony Robbins (see below).

Though many strategies have generated outstanding results for Dan, nothing in his experience has generated revenue faster or more predictably than WinBack. It was the strength and reliability of WinBack that motivated Dan to found Strategic WinBack and become an evangelist for this under-valued and under-appreciated sales strategy.

During this discussion Dan shares his expertise and advice on best practice WinBack, backed by some very compelling numbers and statistics.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The value of winning back past customers
• The cost of customer losses to companies if left unaddressed
• The best way to approach and re-engage with customers
• How to best utilise the information your past customers offer
• Are there customers that we should just let go?
• WinBack vs prospecting new customers
• WinBack ROI statistics
• Why aren't more companies employing WinBack as a strategy?
• Why past customers are in many ways your best prospects

Learn more about Dan's company Strategic WinBack, and you can also find him here on LinkedIn.

Andrew Sykes is founder and CEO of Habits at Work, a training company based in Chicago that arms revenue-responsible teams with conversation skills and high-impact habits. He is a master of conversation who helps salespeople and organisations sell more, faster, and keep customers happy, longer.

He grew up in South Africa where he qualified as the youngest actuary at the time and, starting at the tender age of 22, built one of that country's largest healthcare consulting businesses. As a professional salesperson of 25 years, Andrew has studied and practiced the art of habit creation in organisations and in his own life.

This work culminated in the Behavioral Research and Applied Technology Laboratory (BRATLAB), whose team of psychologists and actuaries seek to understand which habits really matter to sustain high-performance and organisational growth, and how to help people to practice those habits.

He co-authored The 11th Habit, a book that shows how to design a company that makes it easy and natural for employees to prioritize and care for themselves, and perform at the highest level as a result. Andrew is a Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and part of the Kellogg Sales Institute Executive Education Team where he teaches the award-winning course "Entrepreneurial Selling," ranked by Inc. Magazine as one of the "Top Ten" courses in the United States.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The importance of conversation mastery in the age of technology
• How the art of conversation can give salespeople a winning edge
• Recognising the different types of conversations
• The power of the reconnaissance conversation in sales
• Andrew shares some examples of best practice approaches
• Respecting the buyer and listening before we pitch
• The concept of the pathway conversation
• The key components of a milestone conversation
• What Andrew believes the future of sales looks like
• Leveraging powerful customer feedback

You can find Andrew here on LinkedIn.

Doug Brown is a highly acclaimed revenue growth expert in revenue expansion, and sales optimisation. He began working for his family business at the age of three, and has since started and built over 35 companies.

During college at Berklee College, Northeastern University, and Salem State University, Doug supported himself by selling music equipment to colleges, universities, corporations, and some of the world's biggest bands such as Aerosmith, Boston, Billy Joel and The Eagles among others.

He served over 12 years in the US Army, during which he was awarded the battalion's most distinguished soldier award graduating 2nd his class.

Doug then became the top-selling sales representative for a 2-billion-dollar company and went on to start his own consulting and auditing company. Across 14 countries Doug has consulted, coached, advised, and trained thousands of people in business, including Enterprise-Rent- Car, Nationwide, Intuit, Proctor and Gamble, and CBS.

His greatest professional success has been increasing a company's close rate by 862% and revenue growth by 116% within four months.

Doug also served as an independent president of sales and training for companies of Tony Robbins, Chet Holmes, and Russ Whitney. His efforts have collectively generated over 500 million dollars in sales - his last client generated 3 million dollars in new sales in 5 weeks and had an increase in revenue of 15 million dollars over the past 5 years.

Currently Doug helps companies with $5M+ in sales revenue to expand and optimise. He also helps other B2B business coaches and consultants to grow their business – to achieve a higher profit and to enjoy their life.

Doug's book Win-Win Selling, unlocking your Power of Profitability by Resolving Objections became an international bestseller in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and the Philippines. It's a unique must-read for anyone who sells, or wants to communicate on a higher level and have win-win outcomes. Doug has also developed a quiz to help salespeople determine their objections-handling style and how it could be improved.

During this podcast, Doug shares his practical perspectives on objection handling and getting to the root of the problem with your customers.

Key Points of This Discussion

• About Win-Win Selling and resolving objections
• Dealing with the human side of an objection
• How people's belief system can invoke objections
• How salespeople should get curious and not offended
• Doug shares some examples of getting to the real problem
• A more successful approach to cold calling
• Choosing language based your customer's language
• Tracking numbers, metrics and following up

Patrick Butler is CEO of Information Security Specialists Loop Secure. He has had a long and successful 13 year career with the company, having started out as an account manager in sales, and working his way up to the C-suite. You could say he knew the business like the back of his hand...until COVID hit suddenly and forced rapid change.

Patrick joins me on the Future-Proof Selling Podcast to share the Loop Secure journey of how they reacted to the pandemic, and the steps they took to transform their business in a very short space of time.

What did they do to pandemic-proof their business and outshine competitors?

Key Points of This Discussion

• Patrick's Company Loop Secure
• What Patrick and his company did to survive the shock of COVID
• Steps to pandemic-proof and remote work-proof a business
• When pivoting, who should be involved in the decision-making process?
• The impressive reactions of Loop Secure team members
• Webinars as a means of communicating new offerings
• The situation for Loop Secure now, six months on
• The importance of alignment between all divisions

Click through to learn more about Loop Secure, and you can also find Patrick on LinkedIn.

Michael Humblet is obsessed with designing, building and scaling sales engines. Founder of Chaomatic, a company focused on unlocking and maximizing revenue growth, and trusted by over 230 companies.

He is a seasoned sales strategist who served in a number of different Sales Leadership functions. Michael Humblet is the host of The Sales Acceleration Show, the sales and marketing focused Q&A show on how to accelerate your business.

Following a recent video Michael shared called The Truth Behind Sales - Dealing with the lake of rejection, we got together to discuss the techniques and qualities salespeople need to keep swimming and find success, despite all the "NO's" we experience on a daily basis.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The three keys to a great salesperson
• Danger of progressing deals too quickly
• The two questions every salesperson should ask themselves
• Sending prospects deliberate and specific information in steps
• Building trust - especially in large corporate deals
• The impact of the freedom of choice
• How do salespeople deal with the fear of "No"?
• Focusing on the "why now?" and "next steps."

Visit his website for more about Michael, and you can also find him on LinkedIn.

Michael Haynes is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Listen Innovate Grow. He has also penned a fantastic book of the same name which is a guidebook to help startup's and SME's acquire and grow new B2B customers.

For over 20 years, Michael has worked with companies ranging from micro-businesses to large corporates across Australia and Canada to develop and implement customer strategies and programs to drive business growth.

Particularly in these trying times if you're struggling to make risk-averse buyers want to buy, need tips on retaining customers, or need to develop more sought after business offerings, this is a valuable episode.

Key Points of This Discussion

• How SME B2B's should go to market in the 'new normal'
• Understanding the risk assessment and decision making process
• Recognising opportunities, and being growth oriented in a changed market
• The three levels of listening
• Sales and marketing alignment in executing changed strategy
• Balancing existing customers, and new client acquisition
• A client of Michael's who is cutting through with innovation
• Creating, or adjusting the business plan with adaptability
• Empowering effective leadership mindset and team culture
• Effectively implementing change and overcoming roadblocks
• World-class change management and execution
• Michael's playbook Deciphering the business buyer

Visit the Listen Innovate Grow website for more about Michael and his company, and you can also find him on LinkedIn.

I am joined by Tim Sleep and Sean Garvey of Odgers Berndtson, Australia's fastest-growing retained Executive Search firm. Recently the company conducted a study where they asked 50 country, regional and global Managing Directors of Software and Services companies about their last six months' experiences in Australia and New Zealand.

They collated their findings into a whitepaper titled Technology Sector MD Insights - The opportunities and challenges of the crisis. How is it affecting our business?

A very pertinent topic for our discussion, and high value for all leaders, especially those in the technology sector.

Tim Sleep

Managing Director Aus & NZ - Odgers Berndtson

Specialises in the technology and professional services sectors, helping build exceptional Non Executive and executive leadership teams. Over 25 years' experience in senior executive roles across retail, IT and professional services.

Sean Garvey

Partner & Head of Technology Aus & NZ - Odgers Berndtson

Leads the execution of assignments at the Country leadership level for Software Vendors, and has worked extensively building executive leadership teams for System Integrators, Digital Platforms, and Telecommunications companies. Sean has over 20 Years' experience in executive search, during which time he has worked for the largest multinational firms.

Key Points of This Discussion

• The nature and scope of the technology sector study
• The raw honest concerns of sales leaders and country MD's
• How decision-making processes have changed, and who's buying
• How are teams managing their sales activity?
• Balancing underperformers against underperformance
• Mental health awareness becoming part of the weekly cadence
• The extent of leader empathy towards their team
• Communication fatigue - even during lockdown
• Cracking the code of innovative new ideas
• The benefits of executives being more available
• Is face to face really better than online? How teams are finessing the zoom world
• Death of the hero leader
• The qualities of an effective leader today
• Headcount versus productivity
• Some of the best remote management ideas that were shared or observed during the survey

Learn more about Tim and Sean and download their whitepaper here.