Sales Tuners

By Jim Brown

SalesTuners is an interview where I talk with great sales leaders and high performing individual salespeople about the Behaviors, Attitudes, and Techniques that have made them great. Learn more at Sal... more

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FAQs about Sales Tuners:

How many episodes does Sales Tuners have?

The podcast currently has 146 episodes available.

Sales Tuners episodes:

September 04, 2018104: Paul Cherry | To Sell Into the Future, Dig Into the Past
Takeaways

Lock in on the Verbs: If you’ve ever been anxious on a sales call, thinking too far ahead or worrying about what your next question is going to be, stop! Your prospect will lay out the entire roadmap if you let them. As you listen to them, focus on the verbs they use. For instance, “we’re trying,” “we’re evaluating,” or “we’re thinking about.” When they use these verbs, seek clarity as to what they mean. Ms. Prospect, you mentioned you were thinking about X, what did you mean by that? What exactly have you tried? What are you still planning to try? How has it gone so far? What were you hoping would happen? If you pick up on the repetition of their patterns, you can remove all the stress from your call.

Understand the Incentives: What’s driving your prospects' decision? And with that question, I don’t just mean the first person you talk to. I mean every person that you come in contact with at the account. Each person has their own set of incentives in an opportunity to either do a deal or not do a deal. It’s your job to get past the surface level responses, figure out who is incentivized by what and what is the real impact of that decision is for them. I promise you, price is never the real factor if you get to their motivations.

Slow Down: It seems counterintuitive, I know. In the age of efficiency, we’re all looking for ways to cut time out of our sales cycle. However, slowing your process down may actually have the effect you’re looking for. Instead of immediately going in for the kill at the first sign of a problem you can solve, dig deeper. Has your prospect been looking at competitive solutions and just wants to see a demo, ask them what was good about what they’ve already seen — and ask them what they wish they had seen, but didn’t. Do they want you to send them a proposal? Ask them what things would prevent them from signing it. I work hard to prevent buyer complacency by transitioning their request with a question to build more context.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/paul-cherry/

Book Recommendation

The Ultimate Sales Pro: What the Best Salespeople Do Differently by Paul Cherry

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36min
August 28, 2018103: Hector Garza | Building Clarity of Conversation into Client Relationships
Takeaways

Give Your Prospect What they Need: Notice, I did not say “give your prospect what they want,” there is a difference. No longer are salespeople the gatekeeper to information. It is our job to facilitate the best buying experience we can for prospects. In that mutual exchange, it’s important to listen to your buyer and decipher the difference between what they need and what they want. Are they asking to see certain features? Guess what? They’ve probably done their homework and need to see that to determine if they want to engage in a full sales cycle with you. Forcing your process on them to start from the beginning could kill a real opportunity.

Evangelize What You’re Great At: I don’t believe it’s possible for a product or service to be the best in literally every category. Yet, every day I hear reps talking about how they’re the best this and best that. Although you may not think so, I assure you this is a turn off to prospective buyers. That said, I absolutely want you to tell the world about the things you’re great at or do really well. This is especially true at the beginning of the buying process. I like to see reps handle objections by accurately responding and then pivoting the message to highlight how the prospect could add additional value by considering something they may not have seen.

Don’t Shy Away From Brutally Honest Feedback: If you haven’t read the book Radical Candor, it’s one I definitely recommend. The gist of it aligns with what Hector was saying with the notion of not only being open to direct honest feedback in yourself but also building that clarity of communication in the relationship you have with buyers. Depending on how you were raised, the directness could be a challenge in the beginning, but if you keep working at it, you’ll see just how appreciated it is.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/hector-garza/

Book Recommendation

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

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26min
August 21, 2018102: Gabe Moncayo | Chess vs Checkers: The Scientific Approach to Sales
Takeaways

Remind Prospects of Their Priorities: When you’re talking with a prospect and seem to be slipping or losing ground, it’s your responsibility to remind them of why they’re even in the conversation to begin with. Ask them questions that harken back to the pains they’ve divulged, the goals they’ve shared, and try to dig into the emotional side of their brain. Remember, they are the ones that have the problem, not you.

Email Should Not Look Automated: With nearly everyone trying to use some sort of automation these days, it’s very important to humanize your outreach. By that, I mean you should make it to the point that with every email you send, literally no one else could have been sent the same message. Some of the things Gabe mentioned and that I’ve seen work as well are: all lowercase subject lines, super short messages that get right to the point, any kind of personalization, and yes, even misspellings from time to time.

Tailor Your Words, Tone, and Body Language: How people interpret you is guided by their social environment and background. What you think a word means could be received completely different by someone who grew up in another part of the country. Additionally, tone, the way you say something, can also change the meaning behind the words you say. It some circumstances it can even change heart rate and body language. These are things to keep an eye on while having conversations with prospects to make sure what you’re meaning to do is received how you’re expecting it.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/gabe-moncayo/ ‎

Book Recommendation

Secrets of Question-Based Selling by Thomas Freese

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32min
August 14, 2018101: Ally Brettnacher | The Power of Social Selling and Building Relationships
Takeaways

Use Social for Call Prep: While doing research on prospects, it’s obvious you need to look at the company website and blog to see what their initiatives are, but it’s just as important to look at social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter to see what’s important to the person your going to be speaking with beyond their work life. Use this information to connect with them on a human level.

Set Aside Time for Social Prospecting: It can be distracting to always have social platforms present while you’re working, trust me, that’s coming from someone who’s looking at Twitter right now. But, by setting aside time to specifically prospect via social, you can add a lot of leverage into your day. Take 30 minutes to scour your LinkedIn contacts looking for job changes. Set up searches on Sales Navigator for your ideal customer profile so you can be alerted with they post something. Set up TweetDeck to look for keywords and phrases that you can respond to in real time. And lastly, set a goal for yourself so you can measure the activity.

Focus on Doing Great Work: I remember being “busy” early in my career and looking at those who had kids and wondering how in the world they did it. Then I had a kid of my own. Now, this is not advice just for parents, but the lesson learned can be greatly impactful for your career. Take an honest look at your day. How much of it are you wasting in-between meetings, having mindless banter with coworkers, or checking your fantasy sports scores? What if you had to get all of your work down between 9 and 5 and weren’t allowed to open your laptop later at night? What would you cut out? What would you be intentional about focusing on?

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/ally-brettnacher/

Book Recommendations

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

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28min
August 07, 2018[CLASSICS] 006: John Barrows | Transfer Enthusiasm into a Commission
Takeaways

Prospecting: By simply picking up the phone you open up a world of new opportunities. Prospecting helps solves a lot of problems while developing you faster.

Time: Time is the most valuable asset any of us have. When reaching out to a prospect be clear on the value by doing research, asking good questions, sharing insights, and testing out different approaches.

Goals: Goal setting is one of the most important things any sales rep can do in their career, whether it’s daily weekly, monthly, or annually. The act requires you to ask yourself questions in preparation for prospecting meetings and help you to proactively address objections.

Objection handling: Feel, Felt, Found - I totally understand how you feel, other people have felt the same way, what I’ve found is...

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/john-barrows/

Book Recommendation

Influence by Robert B. Cialdini

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55min
July 31, 2018100: Jim Brown | You Have My Permission
Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/permission/

Book Recommendations

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker

Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins

First Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero

Think Like A Freak by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

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13min
July 24, 2018099: Najeeb Hossain | Win or Lose, Do It Collaboratively and Intentionally
Takeaways

Be Real: Sales calls should be mutually beneficial. If you’re just talking at prospects, naturally their guard is going to be up. Yes, I know you have required fields and boxes you have to check on each call, but what would happen if you worked with the prospect and said “hey, I understand what you’re trying to accomplish, here are the couple of things I need to be able to get out of the call as well.” If you’re real with them, they’ll understand you have a job to do as well and this track will disarm them.

Don’t Let It Go to Your Head: The rollercoaster of emotions in sales is real. Once you start seeing some success and you find a lot of your time is being spent closing deals, realize the only way to close any deal is to open it in the first place. Make sure you’re balancing the time needed with new prospects. On the flip side, if you find yourself stringing together a bad few weeks, don’t lose your confidence. Focus on the things right in front of you and continue doing the activities you know drive success.

Understand the Consequences of Inaction: If you lose a deal, it’s not like it just happens in an instant. The reality is, you lost it much earlier in the process, you just happened to find out when the prospect told you. As you’re running any sales cycle, you must understand what happens if certain things don’t take place. I mean that on both the prospects end as well as yours. If they don’t solve their problem, what happens? If you make the wrong assumptions, what happens? Minimize inaction and you’ll start seeing many more closes.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/najeeb-hossain/

Book Recommendation

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

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34min
July 17, 2018098: Kara Gilbert | Developing a Game Face for Sales
Takeaways

Don’t Be Afraid to Work Hard: Just like the quote at the beginning said, winners embrace the need to work hard, where losers see it as punishment. If you want to be great at something, you have to be willing to sacrifice. Just showing up and running through the motions is not going to make you better. Sure, you may have some short-term success, but it’s one of those things where in 10 years, you won’t have 10 years of experience; you’ll have one year of experience 10 times.

It’s Okay to Ask for Help: You don’t have to know everything. Today’s culture seems to be one of needing to memorize answers instead of developing a perpetual curiosity. Don’t fall into that trap. Ask your peers how they do things. Invite colleagues who aren’t in sales to lunch to understand how they impact the business. Ask your customers what really matters to them. Get the notion of “I know” out of your head and start asking others.

Know What Customers Say: Once a company has bought your offering, whether from you or someone else on your team, dive in to understand their perspective. Why did they buy any solution? Why did they decide on your product? What are they hoping to solve? Don’t conflate this with what you do, find out in their words what was important to them.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/kara-gilbert/

Book Recommendation

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins

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33min
July 10, 2018097: Sam Hay | Breaking Down the What and How of Sales Calls
Takeaways

Set Daily Goals: I know most of you listening to this are the type that set a really big vision for your year. Unfortunately, it’s too hard to see that far into the future. Break down that annual goal and know exactly what goes into it. What do you have to accomplish this quarter? What about this month? What about this week? What about today? The more incremental your goal is, the better chance you have of iterating on what works and achieving the overarching metrics. The last thing you want is to get too far down the road and realize you have no chance of success.

You Have the Right to Call Prospects: Unless you’re day one at your company, the reality is, you’ve had more conversations about your product and solution than any of your prospects. What does that mean? It means you have a right to call and reach out to prospects you believe have the problem your company solves. I believe if what you’re offering truly does solve the problem you’re calling about, not only do you have the right, you have the duty to help them.

Let Prospects Save You: This is one of my favorite tactics in sales. From cold calls all the way through the sales cycle, the notion of intentionally playing dumb can work to your advantage. Notice, I did NOT say, “be dumb,” I said, “play dumb.” Even when I know the answer to a question, I will find a way to ask it — even going so far as saying, “help me out here, what does X mean” or “how does Y happen.” Your prospects will save you… if you let them.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/sam-hay/

Book Recommendations

No Easy Day by Mark Owen

Sell with a Story: How to Capture Attention, Build Trust, and Close the Sale by Paul Smith

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38min
July 03, 2018096: Sean Higgins | No Cheat Codes: Putting in the Time
Takeaways

Manufacture Urgency: Pushing a prospect across the finish line is one of the biggest questions I get day to day. That said, without fully understanding what a company has to gain or lose with any decision will leave you standing alone at the finish line. Let me be very clear, I am not a fan of end of the month or end of the quarter discounts; however, Sean’s notion of “exploding offers” really intrigued me. If you know you’re in a competitive situation and you can get a prospect to show you their current bill or current contract, that would be worth making a deal.

Don’t Position Yourself as the Best: Unless an analyst or third-party researcher has literally labeled your offering as “the best,” don’t talk like you are. Doing so will make you look foolish to any sophisticated buyer. Understand, I’m not saying you shouldn’t believe in your product. If you dig in and understand the competitive landscape - what capabilities each company has as well as the pros and cons of the different offerings - you’ll be able to have a better conversation with prospects. You’ll be able to break down their specific needs and align those to things you do well. Maybe more than anything, don’t disparage your competition. It may work in the short run, but long term, you’ll be the one looking like a fool.

Use Pilots to Close Deals: At this point, it seems every buyer has had an experience of being duped by a salesperson or buying something that had a less than successful rollout. If you have a cautious prospect, but you know your product will help them, offer a pilot. Making it a paid pilot ensures your contact is one that can go obtain budget. Before fully rolling it out, set expectations on both ends. You want to understand, and even suggest, how the prospect will use the product during the pilot period. Lastly, you want to set the acceptance criteria up front to deem what success means.

Full Notes

https://www.salestuners.com/sean-higgins/

Book Recommendation

Ego Is The Enemy by Ryan Holiday

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37min

FAQs about Sales Tuners:

How many episodes does Sales Tuners have?

The podcast currently has 146 episodes available.