Alec Ryncavage is a serial entrepreneur, elected public official, and cybersecurity expert -- at 19 years old!  He's the founder and CEO of Cybiot - a revolutionary cybersecurity technology for small businesses that protects their retail storefront, office, guest network, employees, and customers while removing the friction of cost, time, and talent.  We rallied the troops to solve sales problems together in his business.  

🔥 LEARN SALES FAST

Jonathan Green joined MongoDB at 32 years old as a Lead Development Representative, the lowest role in Sales. He could've continued being an Account Executive or Sales Manager somewhere else, but he chose OPPORTUNITY over on-target earnings.

4 years,  8 role changes, and 10,000 hours of selling later...

He's the Regional Director of Sales at MongoDB, a $21B tech company.

In this conversation, we talk about how Jonathan cold-called his way into the best opportunity of his life, what hidden traits he looks for when hiring new sales reps, and how you can create a vision for your career in sales to succeed.

Jonathan's hiring @ MongoDB!

Timestamps:

2:01 - How did Jonathan make a career shift to sales? in his early 30's?

4:47 - How Jonathan cold called his future boss and landed a job offer as an LDR.

7:05 - What were the early lessons learned in your career?

8:19 - Complex technical sales is more like project management.

9:13 - INTERNAL relationships are everything for your career advancement in sales.

12:42 - Success in developing yourself starts with a clear vision.

14:43 - What advice would Jonathan give to himself at the beginning of his career?

14:57 - PICK THE OPPORTUNITY, NOT THE ON-TARGET EARNINGS!!!

17:45 - Picking the right career path boils down to asking hard questions.

19:25 - 8 role changes wasn't glorious; it taught me to stay level-headed.

20:09 - Look for sales candidates that overcame adversity; it's a solid indicator.

23:55 - Q&A begins

24:23 - I'm a new LDR doing qualification and prospecting. What would you suggest I keep in mind as I'm having discovery calls and trying to qualify leads for the sales team?

24:48 - BANT is great, but you need to ask the 3 WHY's: Why Us? Why Now? Why Anything?

27:02 - Look for GRIT, INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY, and a TRACK-RECORD of being interesting for new sales candidates.

29:30 - Presentation skills are over-rated. You don't need great hair or a great slide-deck. You need to have genuine curiosity and genuine care for your customers + great work ethic.

What you didn't get to witness in this conversation:

To listen to the full Mastermind session, go to www.mastermind.army and sign up to our email list.

Jed Mahrle is a beast. At just 17, he was hired on to be PandaDoc's youngest-ever LDR. 

He immediately crushed it, got promoted to SDR, and has been crushing it ever since.

https://jed.substack.com/

Step 1:  Define your Ideal Customer Profile 🏦

Just like sales, don't reach out to companies that don't fit your ICP. It's a waste of your time and their time if you

What are the demographics of a company you'd be excited to work at?

What cultural traits and characteristics would make you feel welcome?

What income potential would compel your motivation and hunger to grow?

Step 2: Define activity levels and outcomes to create a sales funnel💪

Just like sales, your activity serves a purpose: book meetings. Use math to project your desired outcomes from your activity levels like so:

(2+2)*5 = 20 touches per week. 80 per month.

Assume a 10% touch point to meeting conversion rate.

2 meetings per week. 8 per month.

Assume a 50% first interview to follow-up interview conversion rate.

4 per month.

Assume a 25% follow-up interview to job offer conversion rate.

1 per month.

Step 3: Create a system to track your progress 🧠

Just like sales, you don't rely on memory or luck to win a new customer. You have a CRM, and you track every prospect in a system to see where they're at in the sales cycle.

Use Google Sheets to track your progress, with the following columns:

Dr. John Musser is the founder and CEO of Enhanced Sales Potential.

5:55 - What are quick fixes can a Sales organization make to improve?

7:53 - How can we drive internal change as Salespeople?

9:43 - Forming internal alliances by treating other teams like internal customers.

11:47 - Watch out for VP's that do this... you might have to leave.

12:51 - What are "Green Flags" in sales leadership - traits that the best leaders embody?

16:17 - "I work at a startup. It's just me and the CEO! What can I do to set realistic expectations and get real results?

19:15 - "How do you give healthy accountability to your team?"

22:00 - "This is my first sales role! How do you think about the closing process.. Is 'Always Be Closing' valid?"

30:19 - Keep exploring the buyer's reluctance and resistance. There's a REASON they're not taking action.

32:02 - "How do you ask for a raise?"

35:40 - How the heck do you get past Google Assistants? (AI phone screeners)

41:45 - Management is telling us not to call inbound leads that unsubscribe to marketing emails. But they're still good leads!

46:00 - My prospect is a VP, but not the ultimate decision maker. The meeting went well, but when I followed up she replied "It was great to have you and we appreciate you taking the time to talk to our team" … what can I do to get the deal back on track?

55:00 - Don't turn prospects off by being needy and desperate. Remember you're on equal footing and equal status. Always "give to get", and ask them to invest in the partnership proportionate to you.

59:18 - Dr. John Musser parts with an extraordinarily inspiring message!

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Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-john-musser-he-him-his-10390/

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Join the Mastermind Army!

www.mastermind.army

Ryan Zadrazil asks: How do I send a follow-up email to gain intel on the deal I sent a proposal for without annoying the customer and "just checking in"?

I had a call on Monday with the customer where we went over 2 pricing options, and they asked for a contract!

1:30 - Logan Westberg responds:

Don't let them leave it open-ended with them saving "We'll review and get back to you".

Ask "What's a good time to follow-up? Next Wednesday at 2:00 PM?" - Set a clear next step.

On your next meeting, you can recap what you've shared, and add another piece of content they'd find helpful.

5:53 - When you don't really have anything new to add, you probably shouldn't send an email.

"Typically, these are reviewed and filled by legal within a week or two.

3:08 - Nick Rundlett responds: 

Never "just check in" on a sales prospect after you send a proposal.

It reeks of sales breath, and immediately turns people off.

Instead, serve them as "subject matter expert" of the buyer's journey.

Proactively help them overcome internal challenges and roadblocks they haven't thought of.

"At this phase, your IT/security team will likely want oversight before we can resolve the commercial aspects. They probably have a cloud vendor form we'll want to complete for you; can you share a copy?"

7:25 - Matthew Binder adds:

Your sales process has 2 discoveries: identifying pain and solution, and identifying how to implement change in the company.

Ask what metrics their security/IT/legal/procurement (whatever internal stakeholder) teams will be evaluating the proposal by.

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Every Thursday at 8:00 PM EST, the Sales Mastermind meets to help each other LEARN SALES FAST.

Want us to take a stab at solving YOUR problems?

Join our community at https://www.mastermind.army !

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When you're new to sales working at a startup, you've got a lot on your plate. 

You've got to handle cold calling, pitching, customer relationships, demos, prospecting, follow-ups, and your entire pipeline.

In today's episode of the Sales Mastermind, we help Joel Bein get started off with his Sales career on the right foot working at https://www.crash.co as head of partnerships & content.  

Connect with Joel Bein for inspiration, wisdom, and personal growth:

Timestamps:

0:00 - 3:20 Introduction & Joel Bein's role overview at Crash.co

5:40 Overview of Joel's beginner tech stack, and how to improve:

11:11 How Joel thinks about prospecting by finding clues that his prospect resonates with Crash's mission

17:19 Overcoming psychological resistance to following-up multiple times

Logan Westberg offers a tactic:

Make an up-front commitment to continue following-up if they don't hear back.

Brandy Drzymkowski offers encouragement:

If you've done your research, you trust your research, and you genuinely believe you can help someone, people appreciate that energy and enthusiasm.

21:41 Reid Anderson asks: Who are you reaching out to at the colleges specifically?

24:02 Nick Rundlett concludes: Always pick up the phone and call when you can!

Patrick Downs is willing to turn down the deal.

This causes the prospect to ask "Why?"

"I don't agree with what you're doing. You can always go self-serve through the website. But if you want to work with me and get proper onboarding, we're going to do 15 to start off on the right foot.

Worst case scenario, the prospect gets pissed and rage-calls your CEO 🙃

Best case, you increase the psychological barrier to entry for the self-service path, it feels easier to work on your terms, and their whole team benefits from your service.

Logan Westberg's approach is to be assertively compassionate:

"You're probably trying to do this to save money, but I can't in good faith let you do this because it doesn't work."

There's plenty of pitfalls in "sharing a license" that the customer won't be aware of until it's too late. Appeal to their self-interest; you want what's best for them to solve their problems. Refocus on ROI to the business.

Executed correctly, this can merit a conversation with the true decision maker, or influence them to reconsider.

Reid Anderson has seen pretty solid success by calling the customer on their bluffs.

"I'd have to flag your account legally based on our terms of service, and that'd be a shitty way to start our relationship for us to close your account..."

This runs the obvious risk of losing the sale completely, but the upside to recapture 20 annual licenses makes it worth a shot if they're not negotiable.

Topic #1: What do you do when a gatekeeper says "We'll get back to you if we're interested"? How do I reach the decision maker and move forward?

1:43 - Beginning

Topic #2: How do I help newcomers land their dream jobs early in their career?

16:36 - Beginning

Topic #3: What are the best practices for setting next steps early in the sales process?

35:14 - Beginning

Hidden Topic #4: What are the psychological principles we can use in political dialogue to influence others?

To get exclusive access to hidden off-the-record content, weekly mastermind recaps, and more, sign up for the Mastermind Army newsletter at:

https://mastermind.army

Networking Events are an underrated tool for professional development. It's cliché, but only if you go into it with the wrong mindset.

Jerrod Harlan managed to double his salary from $50k to $100k+ in 24 hours by having the right kind of conversation with the right kind of person. He shares actionable advice on how to do the same, regardless of your industry.

Everything is sales! Even networking :)

Timestamps:

1:01 -  How Jerrod Harlan went from doing "BizOpp" copywriting (which he hated) making $50-60k/yr to making $100,000+writing in the health niche (which he loves!).

2:25 - The sheer power of going to live events in your industry.

3:37 - Don't be afraid to spend big money going to live events.

4:46 - Specific numbers and ROI on going to events.

7:16 - The importance of moving past small talk to deeper conversation.

10:47 - Question: How long did it take for you to build the relationship to the point where you were offered a job?

14:17 - How Jerrod found out about the event that got him a new job.

Connect with Jerrod Harlan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrod-harlan-650643a7/

Copywriting Live Events:

https://www.awai.com/live-events/

https://copychief.com/ = https://copychief.live/