Hey gang ... 

We were not going to do a podcast this week but as I got up this morning I felt compelled to sit down to do a quick one just to say THANK YOU for an incredible 2014 and to share how excited we are heading into 2015.

There are a lot of awesome things on the horizon for TheSalesGladiators.com and our "In the Sales" Arena podcast as well as some new additions to our premium In the Sales Arena members. And, we are launching our modular based, online sales training in January for folks who want a focused learning opportunity to grow their sales skills. So, to say the least, we are jacked up about what lies ahead!

Again ... thanks! You guys are the best, we really appreciate you and we are looking forward to an awesome 2015!

Jim J

It is Christmas Eve as we post this last podcast for 2014 and first we hope you are enjoying the holiday season and celebrating it however your traditions dictate and enjoying every moment of it!

2014 has been a phenomenal year and we expect 2015 to be even more fantastic! Over the past 7 podcasts we have been discovering together what it will take for 2015 to be Our Best Year EVER! So far we have discussed how important it is to:

• Have a plan - our plan!
• Develop and defend a great attitude!
• Be committed to our success - "I will do whatever it takes"!
• Create a vision - that goes beyond a paycheck or a career!
• Keep learning - invest in our own success!
• Take responsibility for our results - we are who, what and where we are because of the choices we make!

Todays podcast simply focuses on how much I believe you are capable of doing this in an incredible way and saying ... "LET'S GO"!

The "Sales Tool of the Week" - is a look ahead at what we have oin store for 2015 for you. We are calling 2015 "THe Year of Sales Mastery" and we are going to focus on what we have to master in order to truly be the "best of the best"!

So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you all! See you in 2015!

Taking Total Responsibility - ITSA #016

Hey folks … welcome to In the Sales Arena Podcast #016! We are in podcast 6 of a 7 part series titled: Living Life Large – How To Have YOUR Best Sales Year Ever In 2015. So far we have talked about the following;

·       The importance of creating a plan

·       Being passionate and enthusiastic about being in sales

·       Being committed – I will do whatever it takes mentality

·       Having a vision for what we do, and creating the career and life we         want by being in service to others

·       Keep learning and growing by investing in our own sales training

This week we are going to lean on you a little bit by talking about how important, or even critical, it is that we take total responsibility for our results!

We answer the question … what if I have a bad?

·      Boss

·      Territory

·      Product

·      Service Department or Shipping Department

·      Economy where I work

·      Or even a bad company!

In the podcast we deal with all of that by asking ourselves some very challenging questions. One of those questions is …

Am I doing everything I can to maximize my opportunity even in light of all of the challenges I face?

There is something empowering about facing all of the inevitable obstacles there are in being successful at sales by asking what can I do to make the best of it instead of blaming the circumstances!

Hope you enjoy the webinar!

How To Make 2015 Your Best Sales Year Ever!

The Power of Learning - ITSA #015

Again our focus in this 7 part podcast series is ending 2014 on a roll so we can start 2015 off with a ton of momentum! This week we are talking about how important it is to invest in our own sales training and growth in addition to whatever our company is, or isn’t, providing for us.

Did you know that the average sales professional that we have trained, with 10 or more years in sales, has 10 or less days of formal sales training? That is the data from us surveying our clients from major companies! And sales people are the lifeblood of the companies they work for!

Yet, it takes 30 hours of training to receive a Certified Purchasing Professional accreditation and an additional 30 hours to receive a Certified Purchasing Manager accreditation. 

Bottom line? Most sales people are poorly equipped and undertrained to deal with today’s much more informed and educated, via the internet, buyers. In this podcast we are recommending some very simple, and inexpensive, ways for us as sales people to put more tools in the bag. Here are 5 ideas for you;

ü     Blogs – google “sales blogs” and find the ones you like!

ü     Podcasts – go to Itunes and do a search for sales and/or sales management. While I don’t think there are any really great ones out there (except ours of course) I do think there are some good ones you might like.

ü     YouTube – again, go to YouTube and do a search for sales training and you will find some good stuff.

ü     Audible.com – we have talked about this one before. For a small monthly fee you can download some outstanding books to listen to and will help you grow your sales career.

ü     TheSalesGladiators.com – this is our own stuff and yes, we do believe in it! And yes, we are encouraging you to make it a part of your learning process.

As a matter of fact here are a couple of things you can do to get started …

1.     If you haven’t already … go to www.thesalesgladiators.com and subscribe to our free stuff – the blog, the podcasts and the newsletter. No charge for this stuff and it is right out of the pages of the things we teach in our live sales training events. And every now and then we toss in something special from our premium membership category – check out your invitation to our Members Only webinar in December below!

2.     Try out our 30 Free Trial to our premium In the Sales Arena content that includes 2 sales training webinars a month, 1 live sales coaching call a month and our monthly Master Sales Interview. This is a 100% free trial and our stuff always comes with a 100% money back guarantee if somewhere down the road you don’t think what we are doing is helping you! Our normal, ridiculously low price for all of this is $14.95/month (less than $.50 a day). Right now we are running a “Give Yourself the Gift Of Sales Training For Christmas” special right now where you get an entire year for just $99 (That adds up to just a hair over $.27 a day)! If we can’t give you at least one idea that will pay that investment back a gazillion times over then just shoot me – I’m done! Check out the link for that below …

3.    Here is the link for the free “Members Only” webinar … this is by far one of our most popular webinars every year! WE have been doing this one for 5 or 6 years now and a ton of the participants come back every year for a refresher. The title is “4 Questions To Ask Yourself To Make 2015 Your Best Year Ever!” Spoiler alert … Question #2 may be the most important thing we will ever ask ourselves! So, click on the link and join us for this webinar on December 17th at 11:00am CST. Can’t make it live? Don’t worry … we record every event and send that recording out to everyone who signs up or is a Premium Member of In the Sales Arena! Here is the link: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/496643074

So, let’s make 2015 the year we invest in our sales careers, in addition to and over and above whatever our company provides and make it our best sales year ever!

Vision - ITSA #014

This is Part 4 in our 7 part series How To Make 2015 Your Best Sales Year Ever.  This episode looks at the part that creating a powerful Vision plays in what we accomplish in 2015!

So far, in the first 3 episodes, we have covered having a plan (your plan), being passionate about what we do and what we can accomplish, and we have talked about the part commitment plays in our success.

In this episode we discuss having a "vision" for what we want to accomplish in 2015! We are going to approach the subject at 3 different levels... Beginner - where we all start out if we have never been taught how to create a vision for our life and career or if perhaps we didn't grow up in a way where creating a "big picture" vision for our life was a way of thinking.  Then we are going to look at an intermediate approach where vision is the backbone of how we live.  And last, we are going to talk about 1 main vision that can fuel outstanding personal and professional success for the rest of our lives.

Beginner vision creation - Start with goals we set professionally like annual sales numbers, growth in $'s and new customers, product mix and yada, yada, yada.  (BTW - our STOW is a tool for goal setting.)  That all adds up to how much money we are going to make.  Vision comes in when we ask ourselves what would meeting all of those goals, having my best sales year ever, mean to me and my sales career?

Intermediate vision creation - This method of creating a vision is the exact opposite of the beginner method.  We start with our vision for our life and career and then ask what goals do I need to set and accomplish to make my vision a reality?

Advanced Vision Creation - This over arching vision energizes all of the rest of our visions and the goals that are associated with them!  Getting this vision for our careers and lives, is a game changer!

Homework for the week - If you had your best sales year ever in 2015, what would that mean to you professionally and personally?

(STOW) Sales Tool Of The Week - www.mindtools.com is a great resource for a wide variety of career skills.  Search the site for goal setting and look out!

Quote of the Week - "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no visioin!" - Helen Keller

This is the 3rd Living Life Large episode in a series of 7 focused on what it will take to make 2015 our best sales year ever!.  This episode is about how important it is to be committed to the sales careers we want to have and the life we want to build right along with them.  

Planning this podcast brought back memories of my college days as a basketball player and baseball player. I was always curious why some very talented athletes never quite made it while others with less physical abilities excelled. Same held true in my sales career and in the last 20+ years as a consultant helping clients select, develop and retain top sales talent.

The best athletes and sales people I have seen were not necessarily those with the most gifts but were those that were willing to do what others wouldn't. They were then and are now simply the men and women who are willing, within the moral and ethical guidelines we should all be bound by, to do whatever it takes to be the best of the best. They are committed!

To have our best year ever ...there are 5 crucial things we all need to commit to in 2015.

• Execute a proven sales process
• Effectively communicate value to our clients
• Become intentional about building level 5 and 6 relationships
• See our time as our inventory and invest it wisely
• Take full responsibility for our own results

Commitment means "I will do whatever it takes"!

Don't forget to listen for this week's Sales Tool of the Week...it's a good one!

This is the second in our 7 part series Living Life Large - How To Make 2015 Your Best Year Ever! We are focusing on how to develop, maintain and defend having a great attitude and consistently positive outlook on life.

There are so many reasons why keeping a positive outlook is so critical to our success in sales! Here are just a few ...

1. People like being around positive people! Clients will look forward to seeing us when we walk in the door, or talk to us when we call on the phone, if we are always bringing a positive attitude with us!
2. Maintaining a positive attitude is huge as we work to develop the resiliency we need to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of our sales career!
3. Keeping a great outlook day in and day out will help us see possibilities clearer as opposed to the blinders our crumudgeon competitors seem to have because of their lousy attitudes!
4. Work, and life, are just a lot more fun (as they should be) if we stay positive!

This podcast is going to share 3 different ways we can go about developing, maintaining and defending a positive attitude and we can tell you from experience ... THEY WORK!

Our Sales Tool of the Week - this week we are taking a look at how important Linked In can be as a tool to grow our business and the 3 simple things we need to do to get the most from this awesome social media resource.

So, enjoy the podcast and let us know what you think at www.thesalesgladiators.com. While on that page in our website check out the SpeakPipe tool and leave us a voice message about how we can better serve you, any questions you would like for us to answer in a podcast or in our "live" coaching calls. We love hearing from you!

Jim Jacobus

What would it take to make 2015 your best year ever? What needs to happen for you to "Live Your Life Large"? What can we do to finish 2014 strong that can help make 2015 our best year ever?

How we treat November and December 2014 will have everything to do with how big a year 2015 is going to be. The tendency in sales is to let off the gas peddle down the stretch as we have already made our quota or not made our quota and we start managing our numbers by holding back orders to get a great start in 2015. Truth is that is a huge momentum killer.

This podcast will deal with 4 reasons we as sales people tend to coast this time of year and what we can do to turn those challenges around!

Note: This is the first in a series of 7 podcasts titled Living Life Large: How To Make 2015 Your Best Year Ever that will take us through the end of 2014 with tons of energy and allow us to start 2015 with the momentum we need to make next year awesome!

Cold calling, at best, is a challenge for even the best of sales pros! That said, there are many who excel at it and it is the cornerstone of building very successful sales careers.

This podcast is focused on why cold calling is so difficult and speaks to some creative ways, one you might loathe or perhaps adore, and a couple that you can incorporate tomorrow. all of them are proven, by yours truly and others as well, to work!

So, take a few moments to listen to this podcast on "Cold Calling" and then go knock on some doors. We think you will have more fun this way and you will find you are winning more than you lose this way!

Enjoy the podcast ...

Jim J

There are a number of things that can stall out a sales career but the "one thing" I see over and over again is when a sales rep starts playing with the numbers!

It generally starts out with manipulating what we are projecting for the year in a way that makes it as easy as possible to make quota while, at the same time, keeping the sales manager happy!

The second phase has us either holding orders back at the end of the month/quarter/year because we have already exceeded our plan so we can front load the upcng month/quarter year! Or, we are running around at the end of one of those cycles, like a chicken with our heads cut off, just to make the number.

This podcast speaks to the dangers of these tendencies, and others, and what to do about them so our numbers stay on a constant growth trajectory instead of stalling our sales career!