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.
Episode 17: Everybody’s a Marketer
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.
Episode 18: The Science Behind the Cold Call
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.”
Episode 19: Answering the Hard Questions
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.
Episode 20: How to Stand Out in a Crowded Market
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
