March 2019 INSIDE Inside Sales Podcast Recap

The thought process of a salesperson is
beginning to look a lot like that of a marketer, and vice versa. We’re both
looking for ways to stand out and establish a connection with buyers.

My podcast INSIDE Inside Sales is dedicated to
helping SDRs get the tactical, practical, pragmatic, and actionable advice
needed to succeed. Each episode is about 25 minutes of my guests and I talking
about what salespeople deal with on a daily basis.

I find the information provided by our guests
to be extremely useful and actionable, which is why I also do a recap of each
month’s episodes. Read on for a recap of the four episodes from March 2019.

Matt
Heinz of Heinz Marketing Inc joined me for the first
episode in March to talk about why Everybody’s a Marketer. Yes, that includes
salespeople.

To succeed in their roles, SDRs need to be
experts in both functions. Over the last six months, I’ve noticed that many
salespeople are starting to grasp this concept.

As CMO of VanillaSoft, I regularly send out
emails to my list, many of whom are sales reps. The ironic part is that they’re
replying with tips to help me, a marketer, with email marketing. As Mark said, “A good SDR sounds more like a marketer than
they do a salesperson.”

On your first call with a prospect, don’t talk
about your product or service. Take that time to earn your second call by
challenging your prospect to think differently about their business, problems,
objectives, and status quo. You want to get them to the next step, don’t think about closing the deal at this
point.

During our conversation, Matt and I discussed three email mistakes to avoid that apply to conversations and social media too.

• Keep it short! Get your point across in one or two sentences.
• Share a piece of insight that can help you earn trust with the prospect.
• Be patient. It takes time to build trust.

Tune into our conversation and up your game
when it comes to email, social, and phone calls with Matt’s advice.

In my interview with Benjamin
Dennehy, a.k.a.“The UK’s Most Hated Sales Trainer,” we discussed
social selling versus social marketing and The Science Behind the Cold Call.

Is social selling a made up concept? Benjamin
says, “You actually have to talk to a human being, and the skill of talking to
a human being is what sells stuff.” It’s true, the phone is a channel just as
social media is a channel, but you eventually have to get on the phone to sell.

There’s a video of Benjamin’s going viral on
LinkedIn where he demonstrates his cold-calling techniques on a real call. On
episode 18, we break down the call and review Benjamin’s methods.

If you watch the video, you’ll see that he kept
asking for permission to continue the call. Don’t try to badger or bully people
into an appointment. They may agree (to get you off of the phone), but it’s
pretty unlikely the meeting will happen. Instead, keep your call permission-based.

Benjamin doesn’t see a need for researching
the company before making a call. You already know what problems you fix and
should only need their name, company name, and phone number. Tune into episode
18 to find out more specifics of the call. You’ll hear about three beliefs that
are holding you back as a salesperson and discover more expert tips from the
“UK’s Most Hated Sales Trainer.”

On episode 19, I spoke to Nick
Avossa from Exago,
Inc., a business intelligence and analytics tool. As a Sales
Engineer Lead, Nick’s job is Answering the Hard Questions.

As a salesperson, you never want to assume
that the prospect isn’t reading your content. Having a better understanding of
your content is a smart move. It improves your knowledge of your brand’s
messaging and reveals critical differentiators from the competition. If you
genuinely know your content, you’ll be able to use it to move any questions
forward in the sales process.

Sometimes
you won’t have the answer to a hard question. In those
cases, Nick and I both agree that honesty
is your best bet. “I don’t know, but I can find out,” shows that you’re not
going to lie and helps to builds trust.

We also talked about what to do if you don’t
understand the question. Don’t make an assumption. Paraphrase it back and ask
for clarity. You’ll get a better understanding of how that works by listening
to the podcast.

Your customers are going to ask hard
questions, but when they do, look at it as an opportunity. Tune into episode 19
to find out what to do if a prospect asks numerous hard questions, and what actions
to take if you’re still stuck.

CloudTask CEO Amir
Reiter and Director of Marketing Tom
Jenkins are the featured guests on episode 20, How to Stand Out in a
Crowded Market.

During the call, we reviewed four channels
that can be used to connect with prospective customers. We’ll look at some of
the standout points here, but I urge you to listen to the podcast if you’re
still trying to find your edge.

When it comes to standing out with the telephone, Amir says you want to get a
direct phone number to the person you’re trying to reach. Then you don’t have
to deal with any gatekeepers, and you can immediately contact your prospect.

Training and getting primed for the higher
quality leads helps too. At CloudTask, their salespeople start the day with the
coldest, lowest-quality leads and move into top-quality leads once their sales
muscles are warmed up.

Next, we talked about social selling or social engagement. Amir says to start real
conversations and “don’t look for the
appointment as the goal. Look for the engagement as the goal and the
appointment will be a by-product of quality engagement.” You’re sharing,
not pitching on social media.

Chat is having its time in the spotlight these days. Sales chat or support
chat helps to build trust and opens up communication with prospects. Tune in to
learn more about chat and how CloudTask has used it to help one of their
clients generate over $6 million of pipeline in 15 months.

Everyone is looking to delete emails from their inbox, so standing
out with your subject line and preview text is a must. As is true with other
communication channels, you want your emails to be short and direct, yet
personal and valuable. Listen to episode 20 for an example of a great email
Amir received that followed this method.

I hope this recap helps you to identify an episode, or a few, that you want to add to your podcast playlist. I’d love to hear your podcast suggestions! Post them in the comments below or send me a tweet to @ohpinion8ted or message me on LinkedIn

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