In May’s three INSIDE Inside Sales Podcast episodes, my guests shared how the two can help you to advance your sales skills. Read a little bit of information about each episode below to find out which you should add to your podcast playlist.
What’s holding you back from sales success? Is it a lack of training or a lack of understanding of how sales can work with marketing?
Episode 26: Increased Earnings Start with Increased Learnings
In Episode 26 of INSIDE Inside Sales, Andy Paul is my featured guest. You may know Andy from his widely popular Accelerate! podcast or from TheSalesHouse.com, a sales training subscription service. He’s been in sales for more than thirty years and has some great advice to share about self-education.
Andy says you can’t rely on your employer to provide training for success in your sales career. You must continually invest in your own knowledge. He remembers listening to cassette tapes before the age of podcasts to get smarter about sales.
Today, there are plenty of options to learn more about sales – this inside sales podcast, Andy’s podcast and others, YouTube videos, posts on LinkedIn, books, web articles, and more. Andy recommends allocating a certain amount of time every day to learn more about your craft. He says, “If you’re in sales, the one thing you should know everything about, or attempt to, is your profession.”
Don’t get attached to one resource for your information, though. Consume content from different sources and individuals with different mindsets and approaches.
The final piece of advice I’ll share here from Andy is that if your employer doesn’t value your successes that come from investing in yourself, it may be time to find a new employer. Tune into Episode 26 to hear more valuable insights that will benefit your sales career.
Episode 27: Part 1 -The Sales Rep’s Secret Weapon is… Marketing?
Matt Hayman, Marketing Manager at Refract.ai, joined me for Episode 27. He has a deep passion for finding common ground between the Sales and Marketing teams. Yes, this is a sales podcast, but we’re talking about how marketing and sales can work together.
Misconceptions of what the other team does often cause a disconnect between sales and marketing. Traditionally, their activities have been quite different. As the business world changes, we need to get the two parties to understand how each other work and find a way to collaborate.
I recommend defining expectations of how the two will engage. Consider the following while gathering input from both sides:
- What’s a lead?
- Who is the target persona?
- What are the rules of engagement, i.e., speed to lead and cadence?
- What are the consequences of not following the rules of engagement?
Matt takes it a step further and says to talk to people in different sales roles to get even more information. By doing this at Refract.ai, he was able to improve their click-through-rates, acquisition costs, deliver better-qualified prospects, create better content for sales, and more.
Don’t miss this episode to hear more from Matt and me about cooperation between marketing and sales to reach the same end goals.
Episode 28: Part 2 – The Sales Rep’s Secret Weapon is… Marketing?
Refract.ai’s Matt Hayman is back for the second part of our conversation in Episode 28. During this segment, we talked more about getting sales and marketing to work together. Don’t miss the strategy; focus on the outcome instead of the tactics.
Matt mentioned that he’s always testing – an expected quality from an adept marketer. After getting some really good engagement on a video he posted on LinkedIn (1500-2000 likes), he decided to reach out to the individuals that liked the video. However, he didn’t do it in a pushy, salesy way. He reached out and offered value with something like, “I’m pleased you found the video enjoyable. By the way, did you know we also have a podcast? We also have this piece of content…” This personalized outreach resulted in a 500% to 600% in followers on LinkedIn.
As a salesperson, you have the insights into your customers’ pain points and what keeps them up at night. Matt says to think about what marketing can create as a lead magnet from that insight. Make a list of ideas, get marketing to test it, and “you’ll see big improvements in the quality and number of MQLs that you start to get.”
Remember that marketing wants to support you in reaching your goals and driving revenue. Listen to this episode to hear more about how you can make peace with marketing and ultimately help each other out.
What do you need to work on to improve your sales career – your relationship with marketing or your intentions for learning? Listen to episodes 26 through 28 to learn more about these topics. Let me know if you have any suggestions for future episodes of the INSIDE Inside Sales podcast in the comments below. You can also reach me via Twitter or LinkedIn.
PS: sometimes even a sweet inside sales solution can really help!
