Sales Samurai

In today’s episode of ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Mark Fershteyn, CEO @Recapped.io who collaborates with buyers through mutual action plans to accelerate revenue, create repeatable playbooks, and ensure seamless handoffs. He shares the why, what, and how mutual cctions plans work.

Episode Highlights

01:52 – Mark shares his background. He never thinks they'd have had the opportunity that they have today.

02:32 – The number one problem for most sales teams is the lack of process and lack of standardization, especially when you get into scale, states Mark.

10:43 - If you do want big changes, it does require big investments. You're not going to get a 20% swing on a 5% effort move, says Mark.

12:33 – Mutual Action Plan is a tool, and the internal parties and your customers are to be aligned on what needs to happen, it's a project plan.

14:31 - It's getting clear alignment and expectations on what needs to happen.

16:19 - Your mutual action plan is almost the business case that you're putting together. 

20:07 – It’s creating that framework, so that your new reps and people that you bring in an organization, they're able to come in and follow best practices, highlights Mark.

22:07 - All of these different paths can converge, that's when you want to start driving the next steps together.

23:22 – We should understand that our customers or our prospects barely read our emails. We should not expect that they're going to collaborate with us 100% of the way.

26:06 – The deal acceleration is the most popular impact that they have seen by doing this, states Mark.

27:10 - If you're able to have a consistent way that everybody sells, it starts giving you visibility and insight into what's happening because it allows you to improve as an organization because you can't improve what you can't measure.

32:40 - Mutual Action Plans are essentially enforcement of the ‘Why’ but without a ‘How’ you can't implement the ‘Why’.

38:24 – Mark points out, setting a date on a checklist or on a task they found that the chances of that task being completed doubled.

42:15 - It's becomes winning what's winnable, and allocating your resources and being strategic with what you're doing, says Mark.

43:34 – Start implementing a collaborative selling approach, start working together on an action and implementation plan, and it's going to do wonders for you.

Three Key Points

If you're looking for a big swing, then you got to take a big swing from an investment standpoint, you have to double down somewhere, or you are not going to get there.

Mark recommends that the first thing you do is create a checklist of the high-level things that need to happen. Number two is including an executive summary, and the third one is access to resources. 

There are different ways we help other customers like you, hear all the different proof points and data points that we can help you with. Here's the business case, shoot this over to your boss, here's my contact information. And if your boss has any questions, I'm right here for you.

Tweetable Quotes

“There's nothing worse than having something fall apart at the finish line….” - Mark Fershteyn

“The bigger you are the more important step process and standardization becomes.” – Mark Fershteyn

“The Mutual Action Plan, it's just a way for everyone to make sure you're on the same page.” – Mark Fershteyn

“So much of sale

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction talks with guest Mike Thompson, Partner at Spark Recruiting. He is discussing why recruiters have to be sales professionals. He shares a great approach for sales leaders around hiring candidates as well as insights from the candidate standpoint.

Episode Highlights

01:40 – Mike says, his background is exclusively in recruiting. He has been in the industry for about 13 years.

03:20 – Mike learned a lot about selling and recruiting as you can sell software, widgets, whatever it may be. 

04:39 - How are you differentiating yourself from the 1.5 million other competitors that are also trying to hire sales talent?

06:30 – Some organizations are pivoting quicker than others and realizing that they have to be more proactive and sell to potential candidates.

08:20 – People want to be inspired by who they're working for more than the company they're joining, mentions Mike.

10:20 – Remote nature of work these days is a good thing for some companies and not so good thing for others, it’s depending on how you're situated and set up. 

12:30 – It's going to continue to get more and more competitive to find talent and retain it as well, it's going to continue to be a problem.

13:37 – Mike shares, the first question he always likes to ask is when you're hiring a salesperson, and what does success look like for the successful individual in a year? 

16:11 – You need to start thinking about how you sell the role and how you can simplify what that job is?

17:31 - There's a reason why referrals are the best source of talent attraction. 

20:41 – There's not enough money that is going to sustain someone in that role long term if you just have a terrible relationship with your boss.

22:40 – Sam asks, what does the first year look like for a person from a candidate profile standpoint?

24:47 - If you’re a salesperson looking for a job, and you want to follow the leaders on LinkedIn, you get to see what they post, what they're talking about. 

26:50 – Mike says, he coaches a lot of his clients and sales leaders to take stock on how candidates are selling themselves because that's their best sales foot forward. 

28:05 – If you're hiring a sales individual, and how they approach you is how they're going to approach your clients, says Mike.

30:00 – Sam points out, if you're going through the process of navigating on LinkedIn, then you'd want an engaging leader, creating content, commenting on it, and creating a personal brand for them.

32:25 – Mark states, Automation, and AI Technology do a great job of analyzing resumes, but you're not hiring a resume, especially in sales. You're hiring somebody that's being tasked with creating a relationship and having conversations with customers.

35:23 - You need to be clear on what it is you're looking for, and realistic with that, instead of thinking somebody is going to come in and they're going to bring all these accounts, and all their customer lists over.

37:04 – Mike brought up outside of what's the type of qualities candidates want to look for in a leader, points out Mike. 

Three Key Points

You need to be creative in terms of how you're building your team and not only from an attraction standpoint, but that helps with retention. You can't just throw money at people; you have to invest in the leaders and place them at the core of your hiring campaign because they're going to attract the people that want to follow them that worked for the

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction talks with guest Ralph Barsi and discusses 5 reasons why salespeople miss quotas. He also shares how we can learn and overcome them.

Episode Highlights

01:40 – Ralph shares, he oversees the global inside sales organization Tray.io in San Francisco. They are in a general automation platform and help a lot of companies integrate all the components of their tech stack.

03:23 – Sam enquires, how did Ralph got started in sales and what's his origin story around sales?

05:37 – What's not changed in sales is people buy from people and people selling to people must build rapport and credibility quickly by not thinking about themselves but the sellers point out Ralph.

07:10 – Ralph highlights, buyers have access to so much information to learn from, that's where the sellers come in. That's where sellers need to differentiate themselves as trusted adviser.

10:28 - The first obscurity just comes down to so many sales reps, especially sales development reps, who are initiating a lot of first conversations with prospects that nobody knows who they are.

11:05 – Ralph mentions, you attract opportunities by becoming attractive in the marketplace. You do that by adding value to the marketplace, and the best channel to do that is LinkedIn.

13:32 – You've got to build up who you are and why one should listen to you even more. You don't have to do that if you've been avoiding obscurity this whole time.

15:52 – Sam asks when Ralph says lack of focus, how that impacts salespeople missing quota?

16:25 - If you're trying to serve your mission of closing deals, making your quota, and moving the needle as a sales rep, you have to boil things down to one thing, says Ralph.

18:00 – Ralph mentions, one of the best tools that he has seen that might be effective from a lack of focus standpoint is it was published a few years ago, by a gentleman named Brendon Burchard. He created and published a one-page productivity plan.

22:50 – Sam enquires about Ralph’s thoughts around inactivity.

24:13 – It’s about planning your work, and not just kind of hoping it all works out.

26:28 – It doesn't matter at all if somebody opened your email, it does not move the needle but if somebody responds to your email, engages and books that meeting with you that means there's something you're putting in the right spot in terms of how you craft your messages.

29:10 - No matter what models you look at or acronyms you want to toss around, it always comes down to taking action and doing what you say you're going to do.

30:46 – You will establish conversation flow when you have a beginning, middle and an end in your mind in a conversation, states Ralph. 

32:15 – You’ve to be prepared as a salesperson at all times to establish conversation flow, mentions Ralph.

42:00 – Sam questions Ralph about his thoughts on failure to keep improving.

46:10 – If you just ask yourself, how good am I at this, you'll get your wheels cranking and, in your head, you'll start making some little changes that make the big things happen.

Three Key Points

To all the salespeople, keep your finger on the pulse of all that's going on. So be on point with where your competitors are today. Be on point with where your customers or competitors are today so that you can help and meet with your prospects and customers.

The five reasons why salespeople miss quota: 1. Obscurity 2. Lack of focus 3. Inactivity, 4. No conversation flow 5. Failure to keep improving.

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Mr. Joe Barhoum, an Author, Consultant, and a Professor at the University of Portland. They are discussing pipeline versus pipe dream, and the four steps to “gut check” your opportunities and overall pipeline health.

Episode Highlights

01:15 – Sam enquires, is this the hardest thing for sales reps to truly understand pipeline and manage pipeline?

03:55 – When you start getting those complex deals that's where pipeline management gets a little bit challenging because there are so many moving parts, says Sam.

05:33 – It’s important to make sure that those opportunities in the pipeline are accurate, states Joe.

06:11 - What you should be doing, to be honest with your pipeline?

07:54 – You need to write all the deals that you have for the current, and the next quarter.

08:37 – Once you have written all the deals the first question is what are the problems that the buyer or the buyers said they need to solve.

10:53 - Why do you think you're going to win, write that down, and then the last step is to write down the two-three biggest risks associated with you winning the deal.

14:35 – Sam asks, how many buyers do we need to be involved with - single thread or multi-thread?

16:13 – If you get to a habit of being critical of your deals, you don't want to be critical of your sales all the time. 

23:00 – Joe highlights, if your only justification for winning is a good relationship then that's not enough, because even if you're liked and trusted, you can still lose.

26:20 – Joe points out that you shouldn't win a deal on accident.

30:50 – Sometimes even having two champions is not enough to win, states Joe.

32:00 – A champion is vital and what level of influence that champion has is the most important question, thinks Sam.

33:33 - If there's a risk that you can validate as a risk, you then have to understand what the likelihood of that risk to occur is. 

36:32 – Sam says the goal is to minimize as many of those risks as possible

39:28 - What are your thoughts on a mutual action plan and how it works with a more complex sale? Sam asks Joe.

41:58 – Joe feels that formalized buying which aligns with the formalized mutual action plan idea, it's going to become more common.

43:33 - How much trust you can build if you help a buyer become a better buyer?

45:37 – You have to understand that the buyer may not have tried to resolve the problem this way before.

 Three Key Points

All four steps allow you to play devil's advocate with your pipeline. The first step is to write down all the deals that you have for the current quarter and the next quarter; the second step is to what problems they want to solve so that you prioritize them. The third step is to write down your justification for why you expect to win, and the last step is to write down the two/ three biggest risks associated with you winning the deal.

If you're trying to figure out the priority, you also have to keep in mind that the priority kind of differs from person to person at the decision-making hierarchy. Of course, asking the right questions, so these things are important to you.

The questions you need to ask buyers are I want to make sure that we're the best fit for you. So, what are you seeing in us? What are you seeing in our technology that makes you feel comfortable? That’s a good question to ask it always have to do it.

Tweetable Quotes

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Lee B Salz, Keynote Speaker, Sales Management Strategist and Author of ‘Sales Differentiation and ‘Sell Different’. They discuss selling differently as well as the mistakes that salespeople do which cause them to lose deals.

Episode Highlights

01:35 – Lee shares that he is a sales Management strategist. He helped put together the strategy, the processes, and the tools to help their salespeople win more deals at the prices they want.

03:15 – It was just natural for him to move in this (Sales Lead) direction, says Lee.

03:48 – Sam enquires from Lee that in his opinion what has changed for the better and the worse from a sales perspective.

06:06 – Sam highlights that technology has been the amazingness of this century. It's made lazy salespeople lazier and great salespeople even better.

08:39 – Lee states, he tells salespeople all the time that you're in one of the few professions that get paid based on results. 

09:35 - You've written two sales books on sales differentiate, what sparked that interest, Ask Sam.

11:32 – Lee shares, one of the key messages that he took away at a very young age was the importance of having clarity of the target client.

12:33 – If we go to targetclientsprofile.com, we can download his target client profile worksheet which has nine components to it and that will give us clarity on the right business to pursue.

13:34 - One of the big reasons why that price issue comes up is a lack of clarity on who will proceed meaningful value in what we're offering, says the guest.

14:55 – Sam asks Lee, “You said, salespeople, are overcomplicating the prospecting. How do you believe that? What's your thought process around that?”

15:58- The study found out the key ingredient, the secret sauce to getting that meeting is to take our conversation back to where we started personalization, says Lee.

21:26 – Sam says if we have that TCP, not an ICP, that target client profile, and then we got the right personalization, and then we're consistently following up. 

23:14 – Lee asks Sam if you left 100 voicemail messages, what would you ballpark? How many you think call you back out of 100?

27:35 – We need to have creative ways to get some FaceTime with someone, says Lee.

28:42 – Host enquires, “What are your thoughts around pain selling?”

32:50 - This whole thing is about probing for pain and understanding what's an inconvenience or the problem.

34:00 – Lee states that one of the big questions that salespeople don't ask is, how does your executive team feel about this issue? 

38:35 - There's a pain in this game and we have to be able to position those effectively so that people want to take action on them, mentions Lee.

40:48 - The opportunity that so many salespeople miss out on, it's the recap email. Within 24 hours of that meeting, you send a recap email that has five parts to it.

42:53 - There are plenty of tools that will help you do a recap. You just have to have the discipline to do it.

44:04 – Lee states, it’s not happening because there’s sales laziness, not enough awareness in the sales management suite of looking at not just the quantitative side, but the qualitative side of every step of the process.

44:49 – There's a video series on the website and it's only available to people who buy the book so you go there, fill out the form, upload your recei

In today’s episode of ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Ashleigh Early, founder of the ‘Other Sales Coaching Consultant’, and the host of the ‘Other Side of Sale’. They talk about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in Sales. Discussing challenges facing sales professionals with different ethnicity, religious background, race, caste, color, and gender and how as a Sales Leader we can address these things.

Episode Highlights

01:44 – Ashleigh shares, her career is building and rebuilding sales teams, and as a part of that she had the joy and pain of working at a lot of different start-ups in the tech space.

03:05 – The other side of sales as a podcast and as a blog came into being because of her original co-founder who has since left because she's doing other amazing things.

06:50 - We want to make sure that we are equipped as a business to address the total addressable market. 

08:02 - We need to make sure we've got diverse opinions so that the people who are doing the work get paid properly, and they're included in the decision-making processes. 

10:23 - We need to keep educating ourselves, and this isn't just a black history month or a women's history month thing or Martin Luther King Day. This needs to be a conscious, concerted, and consistent effort at every level. 

12:34 – Ashleigh mentions, there was a study that was done she forget who but they found that almost 50% of women leave tack within 10 years.

14:30 – Ashleigh points out, some elements are never going to be acceptable, that we're never going to be able to fix, but that we can support the people who are in those situations when they come up. 

21:07 – Ashleigh highlights, Madison Butler and Tara Irani, both women of color and LGBTQ, are very open about their experiences and are now helping smaller and medium businesses. 

23:44 – Sam highlights, demographics of sales professionals 3.0. 

24: 36 – Ashleigh states that if you have to scroll more than twice before you see a person of color, you need to go add a bunch more people of color. 

26:58 – Exposing to these other cultures even a little bit makes a big difference just to understand the world is different.

28:39 - It's an understanding that there’s not just the cultural difference on a racial or gender level but there’s an economic level too.

32:06 – If you do D.E.I. wrong, it's illegal, so, it's also making sure you understand the legal ramifications of having a sexist hiring process.

34:00 –You can authentically hire a team that is all white, that's the truth. That's not necessarily a bad thing unless you're telling yourself that the team is also diverse.

36:34 - If you cut experience requirements in half, you're going to immediately get a more diverse applicant pool period, says Ashleigh.

42:45 - When you're losing diverse talent, you're losing incredible essential talent period.

45:05 – Ashleigh points out members of the LGBTQ community are 21% more likely to experience discrimination than any other group. Seven out of 10 women have experienced discrimination at work, versus three out of 10 Men.

 Three Key Points

Sometimes the world isn't fair and that sucks, but at least we're here to support you and we're ready to show you how we're going to try and fix things that we can't control.

You need to just look at what you're requiring. Do you need 20 years' experience or do you just need some experience? Do you want a sales leader who is only in it for the money? Think through what you need

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Mark DeChant, Founder of ‘10 Sales Talent’ who gives tips to hire top sales talent.

Episode Highlights

01:48 – Sam enquires, what the landscape of the market is today specific to sales, and what you're seeing out there?

03:01 – Mark says, the work from home thing impacted sales a lot.

05:10 - There's just far more entrepreneurship, people are starting their own business than there has been previously, mentions Mark.

07:30 - How you should be approaching the hiring process in general, and your initial outreach, if you will? Sam asks Mark.

09:04 – Mark states that it's not much of a big stretch to turn that needs analysis document more inward-facing to understand what our ideal candidate profile is.

11:45 - What is the hardest thing for people to get their head around when doing this, asks Sam.

13:22 – Mark points out, sometimes there are just perceptions and biases that sales leaders have about what makes a successful salesperson and it takes some time and works to overcome those objections.

15:55 – Sam asks, what is the narrative that will capture an A player's interest?

16:47 - The clients, companies, and the employers have to have a succinct, powerful narrative about who they are, what they have to offer, and why they can make this person specifically successful, states Mark.

18:16 – Mark highlights, it’s not always the number one driver on how much people are making but we should have that narrative of here's where we were, and here's how we've done in the last 12 months.

20:00 - We need to have that narrative of why should somebody come to a series a $5 million company right now. 

22:33 – Mark says, the best matches happen when there is openness and honesty about what I have to offer.

24:32 – We just have to be candid about what happens before the leadership changes.

27:47 – Mark tells, your candidate experience is a reflection of your leadership style.

29:30 – If you are a client and employer and you are missing, rescheduling, ghosting, and going dark, you have no chance to land top talent, explains Mark.

31:42 – Sam enquires, what are the biggest misfires when it comes to the candidate experience?

33:28 - The candidates get pretty annoyed by the lack of consistency in the messaging of what the process is going to look like.

35:15 – Mark would strongly encourage putting in a personal development plan with your current employees that you can then use as a selling point while you're interviewing.

41:05 – If you're behind your number, you're going to use a PTO that you require to stay ahead of your number.

43:57 – Sam says that it becomes a drain on an individual if you don't allow them to unplug or allow that candidate to understand that.

45:41 – We should need to have a human being on our team to unplug and relax.

46:45 – Mark states, sales leaders should be realistic about the quality of the talent that they're going to be able to hire at the comp plan that they're advertising for.

 Three Key Points

We need to dig into this, what percentage of our reps are making quota? What is our number one rep earning? What is the spirit of the team? Is it growing or is the revenue growing?

It is important to say, is there an alignment where you want to go, and do we have the tools and the resources, and the human capital to take you to where you want to go?

If you want to be finding the top sales talent,

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with Jake Dunlap, Founder / CEO of Skaled Consulting and B2B Sales Leader. Jake and Sam are going to be discussing five things every buyer will be grateful for in 2022. 

Episode Highlights

03:30 – Jake loved reading during growing up, and started to realize very early that sales satisfied a lot of things for him. He was naturally inquisitive.

05:55 - We tend to overcomplicate or bypass some of the things that will make us successful a lot faster, says Sam.

08:00 – Sam asks Jake that from a sales perspective, what's been the biggest change in sales since he started?

12:20 – Jake states, know your industry, and know the people you serve.

14:08 - So either quit or shut up and pay for it yourself because those are your choices, mentions Jake.

16:20 – Jake gives differentiation between extremely relevant and personalization.

18:40 - You don't necessarily have to personalize everything, but everything should be very relevant, states Jake.

21:30 - We've got to realize that you've got to move away from one sales process modality and probably have three or four, no intent, medium intent, high intent, and the way that we interact with those people changes a high intent person comes.

24:40 - Think about for just five seconds here about your expectation management with your customers, when you say requested a demo and the first calls with somebody who can't even answer basic questions.

27:30 - Jake thinks that most SDRs are smart enough to be trained on how to do a level one demo a five-minute walk-through.

29:25 - Jake tells reps this all the time, that any company that's in any decent size that says they don't have 30,000 bucks is lying to you.

32:30 - Outbound emails that show someone took five minutes to think through the fit and message first.

40:30 - Jake thinks that there are a lot of things that they think about sales because it's the way they've done in the past that there's no way someone would want to do this.

45:00 – Jake says that buyers don't need you to be their friend to want to do a ton of business with you, that’s not relationship building.

48:30 - If you're looking to up your sales, and are looking to modernize we've got a ton of free resources on our Insights page, or feel free to reach out to us at our website

 Three Key Points

Jake reveals his sales journey stating that he moved to a startup in New York and then started Skaled Consulting almost nine years ago. They’ve got 45 plus people globally, and they’re helping organizations to modernize their outbound, inbound, go-to-market, sales process, technology stack, anything sales, and revenue engine-related functions. They’re working on engagements around operations, enablement and strategy. 

Besides that Jake has got a great sales mind the reason Sam wanted him here were the five things on his list.

Jake thinks they just have to get out of their heads that not having the power they find a relationship, which is like if you define a relationship on benefits and all that this is not true. They are not in the friend-making business instead they’re into the value exchange business, and it doesn't mean you believe that you're rude.

 Tweetable Quotes

“We seem to overcomplicate things in sales” - Sam Capra

“One of the biggest issues that I see right now in sales is many sales organizations are morphing their

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Jason Bay, Chief Prospecting Officer at Blissful Prospecting. They are discussing the three key shifts (identify, engage and create) to make in your outbound approach. They also talk about the challenges around technology.

Episode Highlights

01:14 – Sam says, one can't close the deal unless they get a meeting; everything starts with the prospecting piece of things.

03:34 – Jason says, it's kind of accepted to get a call during business hours if it's related to business.

05:19 – Jason got used to being okay with interrupting someone.

07:03 – In the past 5-10 years whatever shift we have seen in sales, has it gone in the right direction for the better in sales, enquires Sam.

10:15 – We need to find a balance between mass blast and customizing everything. 

12:39 – It's a big deal to get a client, so it makes sense to do this type of segmentation, says Jason.

14:52 – We don't always actually need to personalize to the individual, mentions Jason.

16:50 - There's a whole personalization and relevance kind of thing and he looks at those things interchangeably. 

18:20 – Sam enquires, how as an individual sales professional, should he think of quality first, what's the thought process behind that?

20:30 - We should be thinking about how can we scale the personalization that we’re doing not how we can do personalization at scale.

23:10 – We need to be like not how personalized can we get, but what's the minimum we can get away with and still be increased by 1%, 3%, or 4%.

24:18 - We have to think about how do we optimize the hours of our week during the time that we do spend doing outbound because we can't be everything for everyone.

26:38 - When we can shift the conversation to what the other person cares about, that's how we get people to talk about themselves, says Jason.

28:04 – Jason states the priority drop is how we can get this person talking about themselves.

30:38 – Jason can shift the conversation away from talking about him by talking about how we help people that we help are into in the problems that they have.

34:50 – What we need to think about is if we're asking for 30 minutes of this person's time what is going to make that time worth it, states Jason.

36:45 - What kind of insights do you share that are helpful for them even if they decided not to use our product or service.

41:10 – People try to overcomplicate what we're doing with outbound, says Jason.

Three Key Points

We need to get good at figuring out if our target market is this big circle. We need to figure out what the segments are, and how can we find patterns between people?

We need to find a balance in how can we still take advantage of the technology that allows us to automate a lot of stuff and make the workflow a lot easier, and not have to customize everything.

Jason highlights – he has a good system for identifying good fit opportunities. He has got some tools at his disposal through phone, email, or social to engage and start a conversation with and he’s able to create opportunities out of it and do a little bit of projection.

Tweetable Quotes

“I'm going to interrupt you, but I get to decide if I am an interruption.” – Jason Bay

“Buying cycles are getting longer and people are buying less because it's so complicated.” – Jason Bay

“Prospects are starving to interact with sa

In today’s episode of the ‘Sales Samurai’ podcast, host Sam Capra, who helps marketing leaders in the retail space go beyond the sale/transaction, talks with guest Shawn Sease, founder of 5bynoon. Shawn shares three things that have no place in cold calling. He also talks about the fundamentals of his scripts and variations to your outbound call strategy.

Episode Highlights

01:21 – Shawn says, he has spent the last 30 years of his life in sales. 

03:04 – Sam enquires, what kind of drives does Shawn has from a sales perspective?

04:20 – Sales are the one thing that's not necessarily linear; there's no one thing that one can do to get to drive the same result, says Sam. 

06:09 – Shawn mentions that the process has to have a little wiggle room in it. 

08:24 - Sam enquires from Shawn, what does he mean by leading with product value?

11:22- Shawn explains, his job is to get people into a meeting, the best way he figured that out is to help people become the next best version of themselves.

13:02 – What they do in cold calling or messaging workshops is they cover what to say, how to say it, and most importantly, why they’re saying it, reveals Shawn.

15:57 – Shawn says, his goal is to have a two-way conversation.

17:23 - When we start getting into objection handling, it becomes defensive, and keeps escalating things, versus just having a natural organic human conversation with someone.

19:38 - When we write the script, we make it pretty generic. 

21:40 – Shawn states, what they figured out is, the best way to introduce themselves is to share some new ideas and innovations around.

23:31 – We need to have the right information, the right data, make sure that we get the right information, and have the right ICP to reach someone.

25:15 – Shawn says there're so many times when they’ve heard people saying that they’re going to give them a meeting because they’re good at what they do.

26:54 – Empathy and sales don’t make sense, especially at top of funnel calling, because we don't have the relationships established.

27:57 - The best customers are the ones who are open to having a real straight talk. 

30:28 – Shawn points out that in the scripts that they write they don't deal with the fear part because they’ve mastered it.

32:57 - We need to understand who we're calling first before we start articulating what value prop is what we're going to say.

34:05 – Shawn states that they use survey scripts in a lot of situations for two reasons.

38:14 – How about we put a time on the calendar right now and that'll keep us from getting a restraining order by continuing to follow up. 

40:53 – Shawn stresses that they need to lighten the load on the expectation here and do something different.

42:00 - We have people send us lists, so we can run it through our validation process to figure out who answers the phone above their SDR funnel.

44:54 – Sam refers to a book by Scott Chanel wherein his estimates that 70% of the effectiveness from cold calling is the list, essentially who are we targeting. 

46:40 - It's kind of a sequence of events, so, its fear, its curiosity, its trust, and a two-way conversation.

50:51 - We better spend our time learning how to handle the objection.

 Three Key Points

The fundamentals of the script of the rhythm of the conversation and starting a two-way conversation involve two things. First, ask for permission to talk and tell the purpose of your call. The second is about building familiarity and then trying to get t