Sales Babble

7 Habits of Highly Successful LinkedIn Users with Dennis Brown

In this episode we meet the author of The  7 Habits of Highly Successful LinkedIn Users, Dennis Brown. Dennis shares his system for generating leads and helping sellers attain their business goals.

Dennis honed his LinkedIn skills at a logistics freight management company he started in 2003. Once he found a 6 figure client using LinkedIn,  he was sold that this was a great way to find new clients.

LinkedIn is best suited for B2B (business to business) lead generation.

The LinkedIn System

Connect to all your customers on LinkedIn

Connect with all your friends and colleagues on LinkedIn

Look at people connected to friends and clients in your target market

Ask them to introduce you to other connections

Network with LinkedIn Referral Sources

Use the advanced search of LinkedIn to find common people or groups

If in the same group send an InMail introducing yourself

Possible script to create a common bond e.g. the group, common friends, common geography, background, alumni, or skills.  Tell them it makes sense for us to connect

Do not give them a pitch!

Finish the message with “I thought it would be interesting to connect”

50-80% of the people will accept your connection request

Any follow up is no longer a cold call

Advice….

Don’t treat your profile like it’s a resume. Update your profile to reflect your business before connecting with others.

Dennis Brown on LinkedIn and Website

This is his website  www.LinkedAcademy.com

LInkedIn   https://www.linkedin.com/in/askdennisbrown

Free eBook…. text Dennis 63975 with the word “ebook”.

20 Secrets For Sales Success 

Instantly Download “The 20 Secrets For Sales Success” and stop your fear of sales in it’s tracks.  Learn how you can skyrocket your confidence today.

How to Sell Yourself When Getting a Job by Scott Barlow

In this episode we meet Scott Barlow,  the host of the  “Happen To Your Career” podcast.  Scott’s podcast is focused on helping  people figure out what they want in their life, and translate it to their career.

Today we chat about how to take control what you can control and how sell yourself.

Common interviewing mistakes

Wrong mindset – thinking it’s all about you.

Candidates focus too much on themselves.

Candidates fail to think  in terms of the value they can add to the employer.

Challenges

How should I represent myself in a way that does add value.

How to get leads for open positions.

How to sell yourself without being pushy.

You don’t add value to a company submitting generically to HR website.

“Submitting resume to websites is not a wise use of time” – Scott Barlow

Consider the possibility

Getting a job is a sales activity. You’re the product, the employer is the customer. 

People hire people they know.

You can rig the game by getting to know prospective employers.

How to Know People

Ask their advice.

Express interest in their company and position.

Schedule 10-15 minute conversation.

How are you adding value to prospective employers?

They get to talk about their passion.

They get to talk about themselves.

This builds relationships, and they understand the value of building relationships.

How to Add Value to an Employer

Empathize on their life

Be curious – understand their problems and challenges

One piece of advice

Simply contact prospective employers with mindset of adding value

Prospecting tactic:

Use LinkedIn,

search and find one manager,

contact them,

ask them genuinely  “I’m wondering if we could meetup for 10 minutes because  I’m really interested in what you do and I’d love to ask you some questions.”

Links To Scott Barlow

This is Scott’s website  Happentoyourcareer.com

….where he tells stories about people who’ve made massive change and love their new career.

* Happen To Your Career podcast

* Twitter

* Facebook

Links mentioned

Steve Curdy from Table Top Inventing    

Free 8 Day Course

If you’re struggling to find a career that fits you this free 8 day course that will guide you  through the process here. 

happentoyourcareer.com/salesbabble

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Selling With Confidence  is  the online self-paced sales course that teaches you  how to ….

* Be Yourself

* Add Value

* Make Sales

 

Why Can’t I Get a Degree in Sales, an interview with Professor Shawn Green

In this episode we meet with Shawn Green, professor of marketing and sales at Aurora University. We consider the question why colleges and universities don’t  teach sales in their business programs. Given that sales is the foundation of all business, you’d think a degree in sales would be a choice.  It’s not.  

Shawn is one of a select few professors who DO teach sales. He is a strong proponent of providing selling skills that will make students marketable in the job place.

Business Schools in the United States

Business schools in the United States have the following characteristics:

Over 4K schools in the USA

All have business degrees and all have marketing degrees

Only 100 or so  have some sales curriculum

10 institutions have degrees in Sales

Business School Graduates

Although sales is not integral in many schools business programs, many students enter the sales profession after graduation.

80% marketing graduates will go into sales:

direct sales (usually start inside sales)

sales support

50% of  all business  administration  graduates will go into sales

Companies can easily recoup their investment in new employees by moving them into sales.

Links To Shawn Green

Shawn can be found in the following:

* LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/pub/shawn-green/0/206/229

* Aurora University:   http://www.aurora.edu/academics/graduate/business-administration/shawn-green.html#.VhLoI8tViko

* Aurora University Sales Institute –  Send email to [email protected]

Lunch and Learn LIVE Workshop October 7th

I will be providing free sales training lunch and learn workshop October 7th, 2015.    

Sign up!   It’s in Naperville, IL

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Selling With Confidence  is  the online self-paced sales course that teaches you  how to ….

Be Yourself

Add Value

Make Sales

The 5 Fundamentals for Closing a Sale

In this episode we will discuss how you too can learn how to close a sale with ease.  And you can do it honestly and without being pushy.   We started with a quote.

Consider Dale Carnegie  the author of groundbreaking book How to Win friends and influence others said”

“When dealing with people,

let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. 

We are dealing with creatures of emotion,

creatures bustling with prejudices

and motivated by pride

and vanity”.

That’s the topic for today.

The 5 Fundamentals for Closing a Sale

Waiting for the the  customer to  up and buy by saying “sounds good to me here’s my credit card”  is not a sound strategy. Instead consider the following:

* Start closing the moment you meet

* Help them make  a decision that’s good for them

* Use the Sum it All Up close

* Ask the Yes Yes Yes   questions

* Use the Why Wait and Put Off the Inevitable question

Go Here For Other Sales Babble Episodes with Closing Tips

Links Mentioned

There were two links mentioned in this episode:

How to Give a Terrific Presentation

How to PRESENT a terrific sales presentation #76    In this episode we shared how to give a terrific sales presentation based on the Selling with Confidence sales system.     It is called the PRESENT sales presentation process PRESENT.

Lunch and Learn LIVE Workshop October 7th

I will be providing free sales training lunch and learn workshop October 7th, 2015.    Sign up!   It’s in Naperville, IL

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Selling With Confidence  is  the online self-paced sales course that teaches you  how to ….

* Be Yourself

* Add Value

* Make Sales

Don’t be shy non-sellers!  You too can start Selling With Confidence today

Sales Management For Dummies with Butch Bellah

In this episode we meet  sales management expert Butch Bellah.  Butch just completed  the book Sales Management for Dummies  to be published in Fall 2015. 

In this interview Butch and I  cover a number of topics:

* Hiring 

* On-boarding new staff 

* Managing quotas

* Compensation

These topics are a must for any  business owner or sales manager who is starting to work with sales professionals.

Sales Management for Small Business

The highlights of this episode include the following:

* Hire hard (only good staff).

* Your bad hires will take up 80% of your time.

* On-board  new staff  to make sure they have a great experience and  immediately start making sales.

* Set up quotas that are realistic and allow new hires to quickly earn wins and  confidence.

* Never mess with compensation. Never be cheap. Pay people what they’re worth.   If they excel, so too will your sales revenue. 

* Performance reviews support continual growth and use it as an opportunity for coaching.

 

Links To Butch Bellah

You can find Butch throughout Social media. He is the owner of B2 Training and Development

* Email  butch@ butchbellah.com

* Twitter:   @salesPowerTips

* LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/butchbellah

* Facebook:  www.facebook.com/B2TrainingandDevelopment

Get Butch’s free book for Sales Babble 

You can preorder Sales Management for Dummies here.

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Selling With Confidence  is  the online self-paced sales course that teaches you  how to ….

* Be Yourself

* Add Value

* Make Sales

Don’t be shy non-sellers!  You too can start Selling With Confidence today

 

The Ultimate Sales Revolution with Steve Lishansky

In this episode we meet author and sales innovator Steve Lishansky. We start the discussion with the paradox  that when we ask people what they want,  they often don’t or can’t tell us. Steve explains what’s going on!   He gives advice on  what we can do discover what they truly want and the final outcome they desire. Steve provides thought provoking, “ultimate sales revolution”  point of view and practical advice you can bring to your sales calls.

Download Episode Here!

 

What Matters in Sales is Value

People say that Sales is all about a relationship.  Steve instead believes:

Sales is about the amount of value that’s created in the relationship.

The more value, the greater the relationship

Value lives in the mind of the other person

We ask the question: what’s the % is the first request is what’s most important?    10%

Clients are not clear 80-90% of the time.   They want people sellers to perceive what’s most important to them, but even they don’t know!

Three questions to ask and discover:

*   What do you really want or need, what’s most important?

*  What’s the most important RESULT that will give you?

*   What’s most valuable about that RESULT?

Steve Lishansky Biography

Founder/CEO – Institute for Sales Innovation and Optimize International

For more than 24 years, clients from leading technology, financial services, pharmaceutical, health care, and many other industries have called on Steve Lishansky as a source of deep insight into improving organizational leadership, team performance, and sales success.

He works with senior executives, top professional services providers, and technical experts to advance and accelerate their impact, performance and Steve is a Hall of Fame executive coach, compelling speaker on leading change, strategic leadership, high impact influence, and sales innovation, and the developer of top leadership, communication and sales programs.

Steve can be found at:

* Website:  www.InstituteForSalesInnovation.com

* Twitter:  @SalesInnovated

* Facebook:  Facebook.com/InstituteForSalesInnovation

* LinkedIn:  LinkedIn.com/in/SteveLishansky

* Steve’s book The Ultimate Sales Revolution

Free eBook

Send an email to  Steve @ OptimizeIntl.com

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Selling With Confidence  is  the online self-paced sales course that teaches you  how to ….

* Be Yourself

* Add Value

* Make Sales

Don’t be shy non-sellers!  You too can start Selling With Confidence today.

How to PRESENT a terrific sales presentation

In this episode we share how to give a terrific sales presentation based on the Selling with Confidence sales system.     It is called the PRESENT sales presentation process

PRESENT Sales Presentation Process

P – Preparation

R – Rapport Building

E – Establishing Needs and Understanding Them 

S – Sharing Solutions

E- Engaging Dialogue and Telling Stories 

N- Needs Assessment Met

T- Take Action

Sales Presentation Mindset

The trick to having a great sales presentation is to take the  mindset: I’m here to help and I’m here to add value to your  business.  Give the prospect the illusion of control by working on their list of interests.

Working from their list will require you to REALLY KNOW your product.  A cookie cutter presentation  will never deliver the strongest persuasive argument.  Instead provide a presentation that is crafted towards their needs and desires.

Throughout the presentation you will always be closing.  This happens  each time you get them to say Yes or I understand.

Each YES is a step in  advancing the sale and drawing them closer and closer to a buying decision.

Selling With Confidence

This episode is brought to you by Selling With Confidence, the online self-paced sales course that teaches you how be yourself, add value and make sales. Start selling with confidence today.

Interested is seeing a teaser on this class?  Try the this mini class that teaches you how to construct and share  a pitch for your business and generate leads.

 

Small Business Sales Techniques

Today we travel to the  shores of Lake Winnebago in Neenah Wisconsin to  meet Kent  Zaretzke who owns a Mr. Sandless floor refinishing business.  Kent  is  a classic small  business owner who uses sales to grow revenue. In this episode Kent shares  how he first  connects with prospective clients at networking meetings, how he follows up,  and closes new business. For Kent the trick is to build trust and never ever be pushy!

Kent tells us all his selling secrets. No matter what you sell, you will find value in these small business sales techniques.

Networking Event Advice

* So what do you do?  “We refinish wood floors, but we do it in a unique way”. 

* Kent is not pushy, he only wants qualified prospects

* If they are qualified he will say “Here is my card, you can call me. Would you mind if I call you in a couple days if I haven’t heard from you?”

* Kent believes in building trust.  Never pushy or salesy.

* If they don’t answer he will call twice. He will leave a voice message.   “Hey Joe this Kent from Mr. Sandless we’re Floor Refinishing , and I talked to Susy at the networking event. She gave me your number and mentioned you were looking to have your floors refinished, I just wanted to give you a quick call, I hope she told you this!  If not I’d like to talk a little bit about your floors and see what I can do for you, explain a little bit about our process, because it’s a unique process and I think it might be a good fit for you.  If you could just give me a call back my number is 920-558-9663.”

* Typically a purchase is around $1K.   He understands it’s big decision for many families. He is patient.

* He offers to give a free estimate. On the estimate sheet he shows the problem issues. He is very clear what non-sanding will do and what it won’t do.

* To close the deal  he asks the prospect when they are thinking of making a decision…. if it’s soon, he will ask if they can put it on the calendar right now.

Links to  Learn More  About Kent

Do you live in Wisconsin? Have some wood floors that need TLC?  If so connect with Kent and ask for an estimate:

* Mister Sandless

* Kent’s Business on Twitter

* Kent’s Business on Facebook

* Kent on LinkedIn

Selling With Confidence

But before we get started I want you to know  this episode is brought to you by Selling With Confidence, the online self-paced sales course that teaches you how be yourself, add value and make sales. Start selling with confidence today.

Sales Babble Mini Course

Also mentioned in this episode the Pitch Your Business Mini Course.  Learn how to give a sales pitch in ONLY 10 minutes. Stop the fear of sales in it’s tracks!

The Myth of Know Like Trust #74

In this episode we talk about things you’ve been taught  to be true all your life. But are they? Things like Ben Franklin’s “A penny saved is a penny earned” or the Eleanor Roosevelt quote “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.  These are empowering statements.  

They are shared to impart wisdom and provide guidance . I love quotes.   But every so often I bump into one that is so ingrained yet I know from personal experience it’s not true.  That’s today’s topic.  

The Myth of Know Like Trust

The statement that people only buy from those they know like and trust is considered a fact of nature. Like gravity, it isn’t questioned. And on face value it’s hard to quibble with.

If you don’t know somebody you can’t buy from them. You have to know them first. Next sales are often motivated by emotion versus logic. If the seller exhibits likability you’re much more likely to be persuasive. That makes sense. And If you don’t trust somebody why would you give them your money? There’s no argument there.

But in my experience I have found this pithy statement false. Let me show you what I mean.

But first I’d like to share a story.

About five years ago I was the sales manager for an Internet startup company. I was hiring a lot of new sales reps and was ready to move to a modern CRM. I had an immediate need to collect metrics across the sales staff. Aggregating sales report by hand was inefficient, time-consuming and frustrating.   I was experiencing true pain.

There were many vendors to choose from and we set up an appointment with one of the major players. They met with us for a preliminary meeting and did a fine job of collecting our needs and desires. They wanted to be prepared for a demonstration and I appreciated their extra effort.

You can’t ask that

A few days later we met for an online software demo. As the meeting proceeded I had some questions.

I asked about things we hadn’t   mentioned in the earlier meeting. They couldn’t answer them.   Or better put they weren’t prepared to answer them. In fact they said,

“You didn’t bring that up earlier; we didn’t know that was important to you”.

So I couldn’t help but ask “Let me get this right, I can only ask you about things we brought up last week? Am I understanding this right?”.

“Yes”, they responded.   “The sales engineer’s ONLY prepared to chat about what we’ve previously discussed.”

You Must Be Kidding

I found this to be unbelievable. I was selling software in those days and became quite adept at giving terrific demos. I understand the value of letting buyers control the demo by asking questions. I also know this requires a high level of knowledge and sophistication on the part of the seller. You have to know your software, inside and out. You have to be prepared, but that’s what professionals do. .

But this company didn’t work that way. They answered some of my questions.  In 60 minutes the time was up. And I said “Wait, I’m not done, I still have more questions”.

But the sales rep said “Sorry I only have the engineer for an hour he’s got to go to another meeting right now”.

“You must be kidding”, I responded, “What kind of blankety-blank company are you?”

The rep mentioned he would try to set something up later.  The call ended.

After the meeting some of my people were in the office next to me. They had overheard the call.  I guess we were loud. “Pat” they asked, “What were you yelling about in that meeting?”.

I felt bad because you should know something about me.  I rarely get angry. Frustrated yes, but never angry and rarely loud.  They found the entire thing funny.

But it wasn’t for me.

Prospecting For New Sales Leads

Today’s guest is Steve Kloyda the prospecting expert when it comes to prospecting for new leads. In this episode we will cover:

* Prospecting Sales

* Prospecting Tips

* Prospecting Strategies

* Prospecting Ideas

Cold Calling in 1980

When Steve started in sales his first lessons included:

* How to connect with the senior VP, President, or business owner.

* How to educate them.

* How to ask for the business.

Back in the day cold calling was …..

* No voicemail, either gatekeepers or no answer.

* His first script was “Hi I’m Steve Kloyda do you have a moment to talk ?”

* “The purpose of my call is to let you know about XYZ stock how many shares do you want to buy?”

* Steve was taught to make 100 dials everyday, paint a picture in the mind of the listener what you’re trying to communicate.

From this he learned the fundamentals of successful sales prospecting.

“Cold Calling is Not Dead”

How To Prospecting From Scratch

If you’re starting from scratch, it’s hard and takes energy but it can be done. Steve recommends:

* Make a list of every company in your area.

* Find the executive team and connect on LinkedIn.

* Call them but makes sure every call and voicemail adds value.

* Find qualified candidates  to get an appointment

Voice Mails Must Add Value

You have only one opportunity to make a great first impression. This is Steve’s script with urgency and a compelling reason

“Hi this is Steve Kloyda with the Prospecting Expert my phone number is NUMBER, 

The purpose of my voice mail today is that we have created an XYZ that provides a BENEFIT

Pat If you want to learn more about our unique XYZ give me a call at your earliest convenience my phone number is NUMBER or if you prefer to email me at EMAIL. 

And Pat I want to thank you for the time to listen to this voicemail and I look forward to speaking to you soon.”

 

Gordon Gecko on the original “Wall Street” is a Steve’s favorite example working with the GateKeeper Natalie.

“What’s on your mind, why should I even listen to you”

Steve Kloyda Bio

For more than 30 years, Steve Kloyda has been creating unique selling

experiences that transform the lives of salespeople, prospects and customers.

In addition to facilitating thousands of workshops across the country, he has

personally:

• Made more than 250,000 telephone sales and prospecting calls.

• Listened to and analyzed more than 25,000 sales calls.

• Facilitated more than 6,000 one-on-one coaching sessions.

Steve’s mission is creating ideas that Inspire, Encourage and Empower

salespeople to get in the door and drive more sales!

Find Steve here

* www.TheProspectingExpert.com 

* steve @ TheProspectingExpert.com

*

@SteveKloyda on Twitter

Win a copy of ScreenFlow

This is a $99 value for screencasting and editing software from Telestream.

To win go to www.salesbabble.com/contest and enter your name. I will pick a winner on August 24th, 2015

Sales Training, Sales Coaching, Sales Consulting

Become confident in sales and grow your business. Check out the