Sales Babble

How To Generate Leads with Relationship Selling with Michael Ross

Today we meet a seller in the trenches. Michael Ross is a business owner, sales manager and sales guy who believes that relationships are the bridges where value is transferred. In this episode Michael shares practical advice on who, what, where and how to connect with others in the marketplace. Michael has just published his second book “A Clear View” and today he’s going to share concrete advice on how to generate leads with relationship selling .

Bringing value to the marketplace

You want to make money. That’s the goal of business. But you want to help people along the way.  How can we do this?Answer the following:

1. What is your target market?

2. Who should you reach out in that market who has influence?

3. Who can you partner in the market to mutually help one another?

Michael share the Zig Ziglar quote:

“If you help enough other people get what they want about of life, they will help you get what you want out of life.”

This is so true. Move from a getting standpoint to a giving standpoint.

How To Generate Leads

Start with local meetups. Pick a vertical market and find out where they hangout. e.g. credit union summits for IT services  as a sponsor or vendor.  Ask good quality questions. You will find two types of people: the qualified and the not qualified. Ask questions about the business, staffing, what’s working, what’s not.  If you meet someone in person try  to get them on the calendar ASAP.

J Abrams  the king marketer says that most businesses undersell their clients by 65%. Ask for recommendations and introductions. Don’t hesitate to ask your circle of influence to help you. They too can show you how to generate leads with relationship selling.

Social Selling for Lead Generation

Marketing campaigns should be tied around social media. Cold calling gives you self-efficacy, confidence, and gives you progress  forward.  If I can do this now, you can do it later. Address your fears and prove you can do more in the future. Note that Social selling conversion rate is very very low. Meeting people creates conversions, visibility and trust.

He quotes Tom Hopkins…

“you’re job is to alleviate pressure.”

Michael’s not meeting with people just to sell a product, but to build relationships that can create greater opportunities.  Be intentional how you connect with people. Virtual relationships have their limits

Take Action Advice

Focus on activity over “sales”. Take an analytic perspective e.g. 10 appointments for 2 closed sales. Focus on the 10, not the 2. Do the best job you can and you’ll like the results. Process not Results.

How To Find Michael Ross

You can find Michael on the web:

* www.mainstreamls.com

* [email protected]

* [email protected]

* LinkedIn 

* Twitter @MainstreamLS

If you send an email, with “Pat Helmers” in the subject line

Two books “Overcoming the Character Deficit” (synopsis on lack of character in society) or “A Clear View” (on self image) for guidance on how to generate leads with relationship selling.

Other Sales Babble Episode

Michael mentioned the sales giant Tom Hopkins in a quote. Tom was on Sales Babble!   

How to Use Lead Magnets To Generate More Sales with Yoon Cannon

Our guest today is Yoon Cannon, a marketing and sales trainer who focuses on hiring,  training and developing sales professionals and sales managers at Paramount Business Coach.  Yoon explains how to build know like trust,  long before you talk to a prospect. More and more of the sale is happening online. This is how to get quick engagement

Lead Magnets To Generate Interest

Sales has changed since the 90s. Let technology do the heavy lifting with  online marketing resources. These resources can preframe and predisposition prospects before you convert them.   62% of the sale happens online before prospects talk to a sales rep. Help your prospects learn more about you.

Lead Generation Magnet

* Give the Download Instantly (automated) on request

* Make it a free irresistible offer

* Position yourself and your company as a “go to” expert

* Its not about what you (or your company) do , but how you can help the prospect

Position it this way: “I have this great resource for your clients and it’s absolutely free.”  

It doesn’t need to be big. It should be easy to consume and solve a pressing problem.  Here’s an example:  25 headline hacks. a plug and play template for you .

Landing Page

A landing page is a must for capturing leads. It is

* a webpage with no tabs or links to distract

* it has just enought copy on the page to motivate the user to subscribe for the download

* prospects enter their name and email address

* the page is connected to a email service

* works best for inbound marketing

CAN SPAM ACT

This is the CAN_SPAM Act of 2003 .  In order to be CAN-SPAM compliant, it’s important your email messages follow these rules:

DO

* Do include your valid physical postal address in every email you send out.

* Do provide a clear and obvious way to opt out of every email you send out, and honor the unsubscribe within 10 business days.

* Do use clear “From,” “To,” and “Reply to” language that accurately reflects who you are. This applies to the person or business sending the message, as well as the domain name and email address.

DON’T

* Don’t sell or transfer any email addresses to another list.

* Don’t make it hard to unsubscribe from emails. You cannot 1) charge a fee 2) require a recipient to provide personally identifying information beyond an email address, or 3)make recipients take extensive steps other than simply replying to an email or visiting a single page on a website to unsubscribe themselves from your emails.

* Don’t use deceptive subject lines in your emails that misrepresent the contents of your message.

 

7 P’s To Evaluate Your Offer

Now that you have an offer, let’s assess if it has value:

People – Who’s your Ideal Client

Promise – What is the Result or Outcome they will experience

Product – What you provide

Positioning – What is your Unique Value Proposition (Differentiation)

Proof – Social proof that provide confidence others have found value

Pricing – How the value correlate with the price (ROI)

Prospect Conversion – How the prospect converts to a client

How To Find Yoon Cannon

You can find Yoon all over the internet. Here are her links:

Take Command of the New LinkedIn User Interface

In this episode we dig into the new LinkedIn user interface.   To acquires some insight in this new user interface a past guest immediately came to mind. Brynne Tillman transforms the way professionals grow their business by leveraging LinkedIn and Social Selling. In this episode Brynne walks us through a profile and points out what’s changed, what’s stayed the same and actionable things you can to grow your social selling skills.

Visual Examples of the New Linkedin User Interface

Brynne use her profile and step-by-step we walked through the new LinkedIn user interface.

* Desktop interface mimics mobile app

* Most functionality still exists, just in a different place

* Click the show more at the right for phone numbers, websites, emails etc….

Advanced searches and saved searches have been removed

Boolean searches still work in LinkedIn.

 

 

 

* Posts from your home page cannot be cross posted across LinkedIn groups. You can share with people.

* To share and cross post content across LinkedIn groups, you will need to create a LinkedIn Pulse article. From there you can share across groups.

* The Microsoft acquisition probably had nothing to do with this new interface

* The order of your profile is locked in place.

* The summary is only two lines, you must click  on “more to read” thus it must be optimized for a “Call To Read” to create interest in the reader (potential employer, client, or partner).

* The job description is now the hot spot for describing yourself. I must speak about your clients experience. Include philosophy and deliverables.

* Your job description must convey your value. Answer the question why would someone hire you.

* Only the top 3 skills now show up.

* People can only endorse you skills you recommend.

* Recommendations still exist and can be sorted by you. Place the best ones on top.

 

* Accomplishments are still in your profile. However only one shows in full. You have to click see more to review the rest.

 

* The banner on the desktop is shared with mobile, but make sure it looks good in both situations.

Why LinkedIn is Relevant

Each LinkedIn profile is a micro webpage for all employees in an organization. The goal is to get buyers to raise their hand and reach out. You may not prospect but your buyers will search for you. Don’t leave money on the table!

Permission Based Selling

 

* Warm up people buy connecting on LinkedIn

* Always provide value

* If you set up a call to share insights, add value. Don’t sell them.

7 Healthy Phone Habits to Get First Meetings #150

In this episode we talk about one of the most powerful selling tools you have  in your command, the telephone. Unfortunately too many sellers are ineffective using the phone for their prospecting efforts. Our guest is Marylou Tyler. She’s an expert in managing call centers and setting up efficient processes to maximize phone call success. Marylou is the author of the recently released book Predictable Prospecting. In this episode she shares the 7 healthy phone habits you need to get first meetings.

How To Generate High Quality Leads

Marylou believes you should adhere to a  method to generate high quality leads. For starters, she recommends you first schedule a block of time. This will get you into the calling mindset. A block of time allows you to be prepared for the conversation and advance the sale.

* Set a call objective for every call you do.  Set primary and secondary call objectives e.g gathering intelligence or setting up a meeting. Having an objective creates focus.

* Your tone of voice. Studies show that for compelling calls, 75% of the call is based on how you say it, versus 25% is the words.

* Use positive language. The Midwest is a permission based place. You must frame conversations positively: “oh I’m so sorry to keep you waiting”.  Negative language does not perform as well positive.

* Create a winning opener to get your foot in the door. Imply you have a right to be there. The opener should have an explicit or implicit referral.

* “Good morning Jackie, John recommended I give you a call. Our XYZ product caught his attention and he thought you might feel the same ”  Explicit

* “Hello Jackie, I see your CEO is interested in the XYZ initiative in a magazine article” Implicit

* Craft a interest grabbing statement.  Use words like “maximize , grow, reduce, minimize….” The goal is to  grab their interest and share a result. Build a script and memorize it.

* Know what questions ask.  Focus on  implication questions. Write them down and have them readily available. Don’t let executives disconcert you. Have the mindset that you’re a business executive too and equal to a CEO .  When you ask  questions it tells the prospect you are truly interested in understanding their problem.

* Love your objections. These are the reason prospects want to buy from you. Objections lead to the greater pain point.

Bonus Habit      Always have a reason to call. Set a goal to talk to 20 companies in a  2 hour time span and generate  4-5 meaningful conversations.  Full sales cycle sales reps should target two,  2-hour blocks per week. If you’re inside sales, it’s all day long.

Take Action Advice

Embrace habit. Create a space for repeatable work.  Set a time and you will succeed.

How To Connect with Mary Lour Tyler

* Here is Marylou’s website  maryloutyler.com

* @maryloutyler on Twitter

* Marylou on LinkedIn 

* LinkedIn article

* Predictable Prospecting, How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline

* Win a book!   To enter the contest send an email to [email protected]  Good luck!

How to Prospect and Generate Leads

Here are previous episodes that talk about lead generation and cold calling on the pho...

How To Sell a Software App with Jason Criddle #149

Jason Criddle is the founder of the Smart App Company. In this episode Jason walks us through the story of the roll out of the Smartrapp app. They started with zero sales and grew it to success. We talk about how to sell a software app and the power of  building an Idea from the prospective of an  investor. Also how you should build a  business from the perspective of customers, how to present a need to engage qualified prospects, the importance of building a beta product to get market feedback and then how to ask for the sale and scale those sales up.

Jason is the author of the bestselling book Outgrow – Become Valuable. Today’s conversation shows a concrete example how Jason did exactly that.

An Idea Does Not Make a Business

To go from ideation to creation takes work. Jason shares tips on this process on how to sell a software app, as well as how to start a startup. We  kicked off the conversation with the concept that the IDEA does not make a business. It starts with revenue:

*  Make a Sale: The way you know you have a business is when you make your first sale.  Make your first sale to an investor.

* Build your idea  from an investors perspective.

* Build your business from a clients perspective

* Present a Need – instead of telling ask if they have a need you can fulfill (See the film Wolf On Wall Street)

* Build a Beta Product – Listen to users  and analyze data. Knock on doors and build rapport.

* Ask for the Sale – Get users to buy, whether or not they agree to buy provides tremendous input to your product

* Build an anchor client ( a recognizable customer build trust and rapport).

* Follow Up!

How To Find Jason Criddle

To learn more about Jason and how to sell a software app you can find him here:

http://jasoncriddle.com/

http://thesmartrapp.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncriddle

https://www.facebook.com/thesmartrapp/

People can also get in touch with Mr. Criddle by downloading The Jason App from the App Store or Google play.

Startup Mindset

Here are some other episodes the discuss the entrepreneurial mindset. Listen now!

* Sales Cycling and Startups with Jon Woodroof #145

* Selling with HART with Mega Cindy Vranken #143

* Lose Your Ego Gain The World with Todd Lemense #139

* Location Independent Business Essentials with Dan O’Donnell #138

* What...

9 Ways to Close More Sales with Thomas Ellis  #148

In this episode a returning guest provides advice on a common struggle for sales professionals, how to close more sales. Thomas Ellis is a business consultant, sales trainer and coach. Thomas shares a LinkedIn pulse detailing his views on closing deals .   He provides 9 practical tips. These tips honor the buyer with his famous pleasantly persistent sales process.

Click here to join the Sales Babble Facebook group

9 Tips To Close More Sales

* Accept No Excuses for Poor Performance.

* Stop Looking for Answers.

* Don’t Lose Focus

* Don’t Use Technology as a Crutch

* Stop Chasing Poor Prospects.

* Don’t Take Your Customers For Granted

* Don’t Assume You Know Everything About Your Customers.

* Don’t Rely On Price to Make the Sale.

* Don’t Forget to Sell Your Company.

How to Connect with Thomas Ellis

Thomas is a prolific writer on LinkedIn. Don’t miss his article:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomaseellisOn the web you can find Thomas here:

* www.ewcconsultants.com

* www.mrthomasellis.com

* A Simple Sales Process

Free Resource Guide

As mentioned in the podcast, Thomas is offering a free sales resource guide.

How To Be An Awesome Sales Professional in the 21st Century.

Closing Sales Tips

Let’s keep up with the conversation on closing with these previous episodes. Click a link below now and invest in yourself.

* The Perfect Close with James Muir #132

* 4 Step Sales Framing Process with Aaron Janx #131

* Success Hacks for Sales with Scott Hansen #101

* How to Sell Coaching Services with Julie Foucht #98

* How to get your ASK in gear, an interview with Connie Kadansky #87

* The 5 Fundamentals for Closing a Sale #79

* Small Business Sales Techniques an interview with Kent Zaretzke #75

* How To Be Bold By Prequalifying Prospects Part 2 with Tom Reber #65

*

The Invisible Sales Organization with Mitch Russo #147

In this episode we meet Mitch Russo, author of the book “The Invisible Organization” . Mitch and I talk about the pluses and minuses of moving your sales team OUT of a brick and mortar building and using the power of information systems to connect and build culture virtually. Can this work for you? Mitch is certain it can and in this episode he makes his case on how marketing and sales are good opportunities for an invisible sales organization.

Join the Sales Babble Facebook Group

Invisible Sales, What’s that?

An invisible organization is a virtual organization. Instead of staff working out of an office, they are working at home. Sales is a good fit for many businesses to set up virtually.  Unlike operations and production, the tools of the craft are electronic. The key is to have information management systems  in place that measure productivity. Productivity is the only thing that counts according to Mitch.

Success Keys

Selling has historically been managed by CRM based tools. Metrics and such allow pipeline analysis and sense of revenue in the upcoming future. Organizations rich in metrics are good candidates for the invisible sales organization.  Marketing is a candidate worth considering. What makes for organizational success?

* Telephone based selling works best. Outbound lead generation centers or appointment setting.

* Professional development is key to getting staff productive quickly. Mitch recommends using an LMS (Learning Management System) to move training quickly.

* Promote culture through Slack .   It’s a messaging tool that is incredibly easy to use. This was mentioned in an earlier episode.

* Culture is a big deal in any company. Mistake commonly made is to not build the culture before hiring staff.

Organizational Culture

Culture telegraphs to  your staff   the boundaries of activities or actions individuals can take within an organization. It’s the unpublished guide. How this is done:

* Answers the question what it means to be successful and what is failure.

* Explains to staff what they’re responsible for and not responsible.

* Rewards people as leaders in a your sales community. They become models for the organization.

How To Find Mitch Russo on Social Media

You can find Mitch in the following venues:

Website – www.MitchRusso.com 

Twitter – @mitchrusso

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/mitchrusso

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchrusso

Special Gift for Sales Babblers – www.MitchRusso.com/SalesBabble

How to Manage Sales Teams

Here are some other episodes that will help you manage your sales team. Listen today!

* How To Be Your Customers Hero with Adam Toporek #104

* Strategic Sales Skills from Sales Management Author Ken Thoreson #57

*

How Curiosity is the Engine of Sales Achievement with Tony Jalan

Our guest is my good friend Tony Jalan, an experienced technology sales manager and avid LinkedIn pulse writer. Tony believes that curiosity and resistance cannot coexist. We all know that listening is a necessity for sales success. But far too often sellers think they’re great listeners, but in reality  they’re not.

In this episode Tony share the five types of listeners in the selling profession and he makes the case how curiosity is the engine of sales achievement.

5 Types of Listener

Review the following and decide WHICH kind of listener do you think you are? Have you curiosity in sales listening and discovery?

* The Token Listener – They ask a question but only pickup 20% of the answer. Sadly they are pretending to listen. They’re more focused on their agenda vs the prospect’s needs and desires.

* Frosting Listener – They take the first thing you say and jump on the topic they THINK the prospect cares about. They don’t dig deeper and this leads to them becoming the dumpster sales person! Not a medical doctor who diagnosis the patient. If you listen and be curious, your customer will tell you exactly what they want.

* Hard Headed Listener – They hear the prospects message but will not accept the message. There is no curiosity in sales qualification and discovery. Zip, Nada and Zilch.

* Doubter Listener – They disagree with everything and anything the prospect says. They are always looking for reasons to be right and where the customer is wrong.

* Sincere Listener – They ask How, What, When, Where and Why questioners. This is the kind of listening of master sellers!

Curiosity in sales provides you a motive to deeply understand your prospect. It is the foundation of qualifying a prospect.

Take Action Advice

Be Curious. Curiosity in sales is the engine of achievement. Be curious in regards to your relationships, clients and themselves.

How To Find Tony Jalan

Are you curious regarding sales expert Tony Jalan? You needn’t look any further!

* Heartland Payment Systems -Wisconsin Division Manager

* https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyjalan

* Leadershipcrew

* https://twitter.com/tonyjalan

Join the Sales Babble Facebook Group

Join the other Sales Babblers here and NOW! https://www.facebook.com/groups/salesbabble/

Article on Hiring Millennials for Sales

Focus on purpose when hiring AND selling:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertamatuson/2015/02/06/why-you-cant-fill-sales-positions-with-millennials-and-what-you-can-do-to-change-this/#2c764f094d6f

How To Ask Sincere Questions and Listen!

Here are some previous episodes that preach the gospel of listening. Here’s your chance to LISTEN to some more Sales Babble!

* How To Qualify Prospects using The SORT Questions #99

*

Sales Cycling and Startups

Our guest is Jon Woodroof, a former bicycle shop owner and founder of TwoTone Amsterdam. Jon is a Georgia native, now living in the Netherlands where he started the TwoTone  consulting agency that is “stoked on where startups, sales & cycling meet.”  Sales Babble is passionate about long distance bicycling so it’s only appropriate the Jon talks about sales cycling and startups.

Build a Sales Process

The key to success for non-sellers to to build a repeatable sales process and follow it. It can be this simple:

1. Schedule an initial meeting – phone, Skype, in-person,etc.

2. Ask them for further information regarding their goals in a bullet point form:

* What are you trying to achieve?

* What is their success criteria?

* If we were to work together how would you measure success?

* What would you feel would be success?

3. Prepare a 1 page proposal from the bullet points.  Add time, budget, things previously addressed.

4. Ask them if the proposal represents their goals.

5. If they agree have them send a deposit, and  schedule a kickoff.  To gamify the process Jon places steps at bottom of the email to elicit trust e.g. “two tone consulting sent 1 page proposal”.

Take Action Advice

1. Interview and survey customers and prospects. Create an Ideal Client profile.

2.Have a sales process and follow it.

Where To Find Jon Woodroof

I found Jon on Twitter, you can too.  He is all over social media:

* Twotone Amsterdam

* NL: +31 63 81 46 117

* US: +1 404 496 5108 Assistant: +31 85 064 0913

* Twitter: twitter.com/twotoneams

* Sign Up: Cycling, Sales & Startups Newsletter

* Linkedin: TwoTone Amsterdam 

How To Grow Sales

* The Only Sales Guide You Will Ever Need Anthony Iannarino #130

* Understanding the Value of Testimonials #126

* What is Sales 3.0 with Shawn Karol Sandy #83

* How to Sell Solopreneurs, an End-of-Year Survey with Larry Keltto #43

* How To Sell Like Hell with David Rubinstein #42

The 2016 Annual Fireside Chat With Neil Kristianson #144

This is our annual end of year episode with our favored guest Neil Kristianson, marketing and automated email expert. Neil  joins the fireside chat to discuss the top 10 tools for sales and marketing we used this past year.

Start off your 2017 with these great time savers. Pour a beer and enjoy!

Top 10 Tools Sales and Marketing in 2017

The top 5 tools are recommended by Pat. The bottom 10 tools were recommended by Neil.

* SkyScanner.com -a travel tool that allows you to find the cheapest flight between countries over a months time.

* Witopia.com –  a tool that provides virtual private network services that allows your computer to look like it’s in a different country on the internet (great for banking and communist countries).

* Slack.com  – a messaging app for teams. Very slick way to build culture across teams geographically apart

* WeChat.com – The premiere messaging app for individuals in Asia. Clever tool with features being cloned by FaceBook.

* Genius Scan  –   A terrific app for scanning documents and converting them to a PDF

* Scrivner – a management system for documents, notes and metadata designed to aid the writing process.

* Video Motion Pro – instant video creation software.

* Evernote –  Note taking app to  capture, nurture, and share text across any device.

* GoToMeeting  the most famous screen sharing system for webinars, presentations, and alternative to the telephone

* Lucid Chart –  intuitive and collaborative diagramming solution

Where To Find Neil Kristianson

You can find Neil online for automated email and marketing advice:

This is Neil’s email business Email Splat

This is the Facebook Forum he hosts Beyond the Opt-in

Neil’s new podcast Beyond The Opt-In 

End of  Year Episodes

Here are our previous end of year episodes. Don’t miss them!

End of Year in 2015

End of Year in 2014

This is a previous interview with Neil discussing email marketing