“When you’re making cold calls, I’m a huge fan of using what I called “The Permission-Based Opener.” – Nick Cegelski in today’s Tip 889

Have you tried creating your own permission-based opener?

Join the conversation below and share your own thoughts!

SurePoint
Nick Cegelski on LinkedIn
30 Minutes to President’s Club Podcast
Nick Cegelski on Sales Success Stories Interview
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Nick Cegelski, Enterprise AE at SurePoint and host of the 30 Minutes to President’s Club podcast, here he is:

Nick Cegelski: When you’re making cold calls, I’m a huge fan of using what I called “The Permission-Based Opener.” And there’s a couple of different elements of the Permission-Based Opener. But it sounds something like, “Scott, this is Nick Cegelski with 30 Minutes to President’s Club. I know you didn’t expect me to call you this afternoon. Do you mind if I take one minute, I’ll tell you I’m calling, and then you can let me know if it makes sense for us to speak?”

Here are the elements, the name of who you are, your name, the name of your company, acknowledgment that, yes, this is indeed a cold call and you didn’t expect me to call you. And then a permission-based ask that has a time limit. You’re not the salesperson who is going to ramble and ramble. So you can create your own Permission-Based Opener. “Scott, this is Nick with 30 Minutes to President’s Club, and I’m sure you hate getting cold calls just as much as I dread having to make them. Do you mind if I take 28 seconds? I’ll tell you why I called and then you can hang up on me.” Give it a shot. It’s a lot better than just dumping a telemarketing pitch on a customer.

Scott Ingram: For more from Nick, including a link to the 30 Minutes to President’s Club Podcast, just click over to DailySales.Tips/889. Then, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Share an open book calculation on the innovation and how it can be beneficial to the buyer’s organization; a simple cost-benefit analysis will help greatly.” – Mark Schenkius in today’s Tip 888

Why buyers don’t like innovations?

Join the conversation below and go get a copy of his book!

ROI 10
The Other Side of Sales
Mark Schenkius on LinkedIn
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Mark Schenkius. Mark is the founder of ROI 10 where he helps sales professionals get better at dealing with buyers. He’s also the author of “The Other Side of Sales,” where he shares his perspective after 15 years in procurement. Here he is:

Mark Schenkius: I was once at a conference organized by the company I was working for and I ended up having dinner with a group of suppliers. I was fairly new into my packaging buying role and I naively asked the question: “So, what can our company still improve on?”

I wasn’t expecting the tsunami of answers I got that evening. Everyone said the same: “We have so many ideas to share, but you are not willing to implement any one of them.” They even said that it wasn’t very different with other companies.

This made me think. How come buyers are so reluctant? Why are they not keen on innovations? It started to make sense to me and today, I’ll share some of these key insights with you…

If you assume that the cost of an industry-standard product or service is 100, then a unique product or service would cost, for example, 120 for the simple reason that it needs all kinds of adjustments which cost additional money.

At the same time, the more unique a product or service is, the less suppliers there are on the market who can actually provide this. As a result, the price might even go up to 130, because the buyer has nowhere else to go.

Now, this is how buyers perceive innovations: as a financial risk. And this is truly a buyer’s nightmare because the less suppliers there are, the less buyers can leverage the market. And the more unique a product or service is, the more dependent buyers become on this one supplier.

All of this means that buyers lose negotiation power in the relationship which in turn means that they are not sure they are actually getting the best deal possible. And they sure don’t like that.

So that leaves a question: what can you do about it?

Here are some thoughts:

The first option, I’d like to call out is ‘bypass the buyer’. I know buyers are often gatekeepers into an organization, however, try to find potential users of your innovation and get them excited about your product or service. This way, they will influence the buyer rather than you. Convincing an engineer to buy a very special piece of equipment is easier than convincing a buyer to do so.

Secondly, you have probably been instructed by your sales organization to sell your latest innovation on the market. Use that knowledge to tell the buyer that they only have limited time to use or implement this innovation and that you are going to have to offer it to other customers very soon. Buyers don’t like missing out on a good deal.

Thirdly, share an open book calculation on the innovation and how it can be beneficial to the buyer’s organization; a simple cost-benefit analysis will help greatly. And by being transparent, buyers don’t have to worry whether it was a good deal or not.

That’s it. Happy negotiations everyone!

Scott Ingram: For more insights from the professional buyer’s perspective. Definitely check out Mark’s book: “The Other Side of Sales,” and as always we’ll have links to that and more for you at DailySales.Tips/888

Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to click back here either to continue your binge or for another great sales tip tomorrow. Either way, thanks for listening!

“Putting your proposals into some kind of a web-based platform, so that you can track the document opens and interactions, and then you’ll be armed with this information. So you know when is the best time to reach out.” – Kyle Racki in today’s Tip 887

Do you know when is the best time to follow up?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Kyle and Proposify!

Kyle Racki on LinkedIn
Proposify
The State of Proposals
Free Proposal Software from Proposify
Free Trials (and Tribulations) Book

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Kyle Racki. Kyle is the CEO and co-founder of Proposify, a SaaS company based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada that helps more than 10,000 sales teams around the world eliminate the frustration caused by the business proposal process. Here he is:

Kyle Racki: The tip I’m offering today is taken from the State of Proposals 2021, which is a free resource that my company Proposify offers up every year with insights taken from the two million-plus proposals put into our software. Now, this tip is related to timing your follow-up after a prospect has viewed your proposal. So when is the best time to follow up and when is there a good indication that you should follow up?

So the way we found this information was actually taken from our own software Proposify where we actually offer the ability for sales reps to be able to view when prospects open their proposals, which sections they view the most. And what we did was we analyzed view trends like the number of times a proposal is opened after it sent, how long prospects spend reading it, just to see what the impact these metrics have on close rates. And what we discovered was surprising and even a little bit counterintuitive. Prospects require less time to consider a proposal they’ll accept. What that means is that on average, winning proposals are viewed two and a half times before they’re signed. But proposals that don’t close are viewed at least three and a half times before the viewer decides not to sign.

It’s a little bit counterintuitive. You would think that the more somebody looking at your proposal, the more interested they are and the more likely they are to buy. But as the data proves, that’s not the case. It actually is that if they’re viewing it more than two times, more than two or three times for sure, they’re probably on the fence about something. There’s they’re confused. That is actually the best time to reach out.

So if you’re not using proposal software, I recommend putting your proposals into some kind of a web-based platform, so that you can track the document opens and interactions, and then you’ll be armed with this information. So you know when is the best time to reach out.

So why is this important?

Well, because viewing metrics offer a forewarning when a proposal isn’t doing so hot. So if potential buyers opening a proposal for a fourth time, something’s not right. And opportune follow-ups aren’t random. They’re informed data-driven decisions. So, sometimes a little clarification at a critical moment is all it takes to get a hesitant prospect over the line.

So that’s the tip. If you’d like more tips like this about your proposals and what insight from two million-plus proposals can tell you, well, just Google, Proposify: State of Proposals, and skip past the ads. Get to the first organic link in Google and you’ll find that’s on our website where you can download this guide for free. It’s called The State of Proposals.

If you’d like to start easily tracking your proposals to get this kind of insight for yourself and for your own proposals, well then just go to proposify.com. That’s PROPOSIFY.com and you can sign up for free.

Scott Ingram: For all of those tips in one convenient place and to connect with Kyle, just click over to DailySales.Tips/887 and we’ll have everything for you there.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Look ahead to the start of the second half and set a new vision for ourselves, for different areas of our lives.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 886

Do the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year still make sense? Do we have the same aspirations?

Join the conversation below and check out the links!

Writing Your Next Chapter – Leila Mozaffarian
Sales Success Summit
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. As we come to the close of calendar Q2 and the first half of the year, I want to talk about what lies ahead and how we might want to think about that.

New Year’s is one of my absolute most favorite times of the year. I love that feeling of a fresh start. Of looking out at the full year ahead and knowing that the possibilities are limitless. I’m not sure I’ve ever looked at the start of the second half of the year in the same way, but this year that seems really really appropriate. As we started 2021 we didn’t know how things would play out from a pandemic perspective, but now I think we’re starting to see a future where we travel again, maybe we go back into the office again. One thing’s for certain. We’re not going back to the way things were at the start of 2020. We’re going forward into a new future that’s going to be different. And I think it’s going to be different in some great ways, and now we have an opportunity to look towards that future. Whether it’s just the second half of the year or the next couple of years and think about what we want for ourselves.

Do the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year still make sense? Do we have the same aspirations? Maybe they’re bigger. Maybe, even more, is possible, and just like I love to do going into the start of a new year, we can look ahead to the start of the second half and set a new vision for ourselves, for different areas of our lives. We can set new goals. We can find new accountability partners, we can find new mentors who can help us achieve what we want to achieve.

I want to challenge you, and really challenge myself, to take some time before July 1st to think about what this next chapter should look like for you. Yesterday on the Sales Success Stories podcast I released a bonus episode featuring the closing presentation from last year’s Sales Success Summit from Leila Mozaffarian on Writing Your Next Chapter. I think it might have just the right message to inspire you to look up, to look ahead, to consider your why, and to plan for greatness.

I’ll have a link to that episode for you at DailySales.Tips/886. I’ll also include a link to the Sales Success Summit on that page as well so you can learn about the experience that I’m working to build here in Austin in October to help you start your greatest Q4 yet.

Once you’ve checked that out. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Create a recovery plan for every service failure you can’t anticipate or imagine. Then make sure your entire team knows the recovery protocols.” – Lynn Whitbeck in today’s Tip 885

How do you prepare your client relationship when things go wrong?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Lynn!

Future Forward Sales
Petite2Queen
Petite2Queen on Facebook
Petite2Queen on Twitter
Petite2Queen on Instagram

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Lynn Whitbeck. Lynn is the Founder & CEO of Petite2Queen & Future Forward Sales. Here she is:

Lynn Whitbeck: How do you prepare your client relationship when things go wrong? There’s a critical juncture in a client relationship when something goes sideways. We all know even the best, strongest relationships encounter a rough patch now and then. This is the inflection point where the relationship can take a wicked turn for the worse or become stronger through recovery.

Here are my 7 steps to repair your relationship and avoid planting a bitter seed:

1. Keep in sharp focus that this is the point your customer is the most insecure.

2. You need to perform emotional repair.

3. Stop explaining.

4. Engage in dramatic listening.

5. Remember, it’s all about the customer’s perspective.

6. Show that you value the customer.

7. Make it right.

To help frame these steps, I embrace that a complaint is the customer’s way to help us do business better. A critical component for recovery from a mishap is step #2, performing emotional repair. And I have a story that will help illustrate this.

There was a situation where we missed completing the emotional repair necessary for a successful service recovery. Here’s what happened.

Our client attempted to contact us at the end of the business day and our customer service agreement coverage had ended by that time. Thus, there was no one available on the customer service team to take the client’s call. At that point, the next escalation point for the client was me. Unfortunately, I was unavailable for several hours due to a family event.

By the time I retrieved the client messages, they had intensified from urgent to apocalyptic. That evening, I return their calls after hours and left messages, but from the client’s perspective, the damage was already done. For some added background, the client was calling us about their own internal issue, which had become a hot mess. Unfortunately, it transferred and transformed into outrage because they had not been able to reach us in their moment of need. The customer felt their trust had been betrayed.

First thing the next business day we were very responsive. We arranged for an all-hands-on-deck meeting with our two teams. We dramatically listened to the clients frustrations around their inability to reach us, and we helped them resolve the original internal challenge they were facing. We also implemented an after-hours service plan to ensure they would always have access to someone on our team. However, looking back, we failed to meet our customer’s expectations while we rapidly addressed and implemented a physical repair, we did not complete the emotional repair that was required. I know this since every time something occurred down the road with this client, they would remind us or me of this one failure when they were not able to reach us.

So, you know, looking back, we should have spent more time outlining what the customer went through. Understanding their emotions. Service recovery is about what the customer experience moment to moment, and only the customer can tell you what they went through.

Please learn from my experience and don’t skip step #2, emotional repair.

My final piece of advice is to create a recovery plan for every service failure you can’t anticipate or imagine. Then make sure your entire team knows the recovery protocols. That way, your front line can be confident if and when faced with a complaint, because this is the point, as I’ve already mentioned, when your customer is the most insecure.

Great service recovery is planned, managed, and demonstrates how we value our clients. Customers come to us for an outcome of our product, but they remember us for the delightful experience we create for them.

This is Lynn Whitbeck with Petite2Queen & Future Forward Sales. For more sales tips, visit futureforwardsales.com/salestips.

Scott Ingram: For more about Lynn, Future Forward Sales, and for more of her sales tips, just click over to DailySales.Tips/885 and we’ll have some great links for you there.

Once you’ve clicked over there, be sure to come back here tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Focusing on those opportunities where you are really required and leaving others with less or without your team direct involvement.” – Pablo Escobar de la Oliva in today’s Tip 884

Are you selling because of your sales skills or is it, because they just want to buy your products? 

Join the conversation below and get your copy of the Teams Win Championships book!

Teams Win Championships Book
Teams Win Championships On LinkedIn
Pablo Escobar de la Oliva on LinkedIn

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today we’ll wrap up our first round with all of the co-authors from the Teams Win Championships crew with Pablo Escobar de la Oliva. Pablo is a Director of Product Management in the Data and Analytics area. He’s interacted directly with clients for around 20 years and in the last decade has held different roles inside sales teams as a Technical Architect, Consulting Director, and Product Director where he’s confirmed the importance of technical roles inside sales teams. Here is the good Pablo Escobar:

Pablo Escobar de la Oliva: Hi Daily Sales Tips Community, this is Pablo Escobar de la Oliva, co-author of Teams Win Championships, for today I want to start with an open question we continuously hear from salespeople: Are you selling because of your sales skills or is it, because they just want to buy your products?

Knowing the answer means you can focus and you can optimize your sales efforts, getting to a better understanding and better position to achieve your sales goals.

Now, Are you struggling to measure how much influence we have in our sales?

Don’t worry. We’ve seen a lot of cases where this is not measured and salespeople are looking for help to know about it.

One of the answers to this question is within your team, or at least within your organization. There are 2 specific roles that can help for this:

First one: Product Management – Product managers will bring the market into your conversations. They are continuously measuring the global market landscape, receiving analysts’ points of view and competitors’ updates. They need to know how much value their products or services provide in order to establish successful GTM strategies. Understanding on your side these strategies is key to know the specific unique value proposition your products and services have to your customers.

The second role is Customer Success – Customer success people have an industry domain expertise attached to direct business outcomes. These are the returns of your customer investments, and this is key for understanding how much business outcomes your product or services provide. So, with the knowledge provided from Product and Customer success you will know how to measure your sales efforts on each opportunity: focusing on those opportunities where you are really required and leaving others with less or without your team direct involvement.

Now, go and extend your team to be successful, and check out our book for knowing how to create, lead and contribute to high-performing sales teams. Remember: players win games but teams win championships. Thanks for listening and happy selling.

Scott Ingram: To connect with Pablo and to get your copy of Teams Win Championships. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/884

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Trust is absolutely key for the success.” – Mattia Bruzzi in today’s Tip 883

How do you establish trust with your prospect or customer?

Join the conversation below and get your own copy of the Teams Win Championships book!

Teams Win Championships Book
Teams Win Championships on LinkedIn
Mattia Bruzzi on LinkedIn
AMOP

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today we continue the Teams Win Championships book launch series with another of the 6 co-authors. Today you’ll hear from Mattia Bruzzi. Mattia is the CEO and Co-Founder of WANT2B S.L. an organization focused on providing Sales & Marketing advisory and funding to early-stage start-ups with international aspirations, to help them to develop their vision, get traction and expand globally.

He strongly believes in integrity, passion, hard work, empathy … and a BIG, heartfelt smile. Here he is:

Mattia Bruzzi: Today, I would like to speak about what is probably one of the most important factor in the success of a sales or managing a sales team and its trust. Trust, there can’t be any doubt. Is a must. Is a must for the sales executive when establishing a relationship with a prospect or customer. And even more important, for a manager, for a leader between him/her and the team is in charge of. Trust is absolutely key for the success and for the success of the company endeavor in general, and is very, very important to understand what is needed to establish, consolidate trust.

First and foremost, we need clarity in communication. When we express what is expected, what we want, and we give feedback in a clear way, it would be easier for everybody to fulfill the expectation and comply what is required. Also, the process along the way would be much easier.

Another important point in the communication to establish trust is transparency. If there is no transparency, how can we expect people to trust each other? So its very, very important that when we work to establish trust across the stream or across different companies with a prospect, with a customer. We communicate in a clear and transparent way because this puts people at ease. People will be more comfortable and more open.

The last aspect, key aspect in building trust is consistency. We must perform. We must act. We must communicate in a consistent way. When there are no surprises, people will trust, people will believe and people will open up.

And last but not least, let’s start the process. Let’s lead with example. Let’s be the first one will give trust, will gain trust, and be successful.

Scott Ingram: For more about Mattia and the Teams Win Championships Book, just click over to DailySales.Tips/883

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Stay curious, seek to understand, and you will succeed.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 882

Are you stay curious?

Join the conversation below and let him know how much you’ve appreciated these ideas!

[email protected]
Jeff Bajorek Website
Books by Jeff Bajorek
Jeff’Bajorek on LinkedIn
The Why And The Buy Podcast

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today is Saturday and as usual, I’ve got a great tip for you from Jeff Bajorek, but Jeff’s going to take a little break from his weekly contributions, so this will be the last one for a while. Here he is:

Jeff Bajorek: I was writing thank you notes just a few minutes ago, actually, to some clients that attended a workshop of mine. And these were people who were very early on in their sales career. And one of the common threads is I wrote a personal note. Personal message to each of them was to stay curious. Every single one of those salespeople came to me with preconceived notions. They came to me with ideas that didn’t necessarily hold water anymore. And to their credit, they took these assumptions and they challenged them.

Curiosity is going to serve them well, they’re going to look for new ways to do things. Hopefully, you’re looking for new ways to do things. You’re not so set in your ways that this is the way I do it and this is the only way I do it, as a top performer or someone who wants to be a top performer, you know that times are going to change. Tactics are going to need to change along with it.

So be curious about what’s going on, what’s effective, and what’s working for people, even if it’s not working for you. And then, most importantly, try to understand why. That’s one of the most powerful questions I ever asked a colleague, and here’s another tip, but I think I’ve already given you an episode, something or other was have some of the top performers in your organization or other organizations on speed dial. And when you are out there, if you’re behind your dashboard and driving somewhere from place to place like I used to, or just if you find yourself with some time on your calendar, call those people, see how they’re doing and see what’s working for them, and then ask why. It’s kind of a mastermind of sorts of top performers, but they’ll all be happy to tell you what’s working for them. But the question that you can ask that really drives the point home, that really digs deep, that will help you both is why. Be curious as to why those tactics are working. Be even more curious about why something is working for them, but not for you and vice versa.

See, curiosity helps to kind of spur your imagination, helps kind of spur your understanding. And the more you seek to understand why things work, the more likely and the more able you’re going to be to adapt to the changing times as they will change. And you’ve heard me say this before. I don’t think there’s a whole lot about selling that has changed. Pre covid, post covid, pre the internet, post the internet. The concepts are there.

As a seller, you have a way to help people do things that they can’t do right now. You have an obligation to put yourself in front of them, communicate the value that you have that you can provide, and ultimately nudge them, ask them for the next step, but nudge them into making a decision that will help you both create win-win solutions, create possibilities that weren’t previously available. That’s always been the case with sales and will always be the case with sales, regardless of the tools and tactics that you use to make those sales.

So stay curious. Look for new ways to get your job done, push the envelope for new ways to execute on old principles, but ultimately your curiosity about the foundational principles and the foundational elements of how and why sales are made will always serve you well. Stay curious, seek to understand, and you will succeed.

Scott Ingram: If you’ve appreciated Jeff’s weekly contributions as much as I have. Do me a favor and send Jeff a note. Let him know how much you’ve appreciated these ideas, and encourage him to come back soon. We’ll have Jeff’s details so you can get in touch at DailySales.Tips/882.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“We encourage sales teams to reflect on how their individual and collective value should look and what those values ultimately mean for themselves and to the group.” – Eduardo “Eddie” Baez in today’s Tip 881

Does your team defining their sales identity and formulating a collective vision and mission?

Join the conversation below and go get your copy of Teams Win Championships!

Teams Win Championships Book
Teams Win Championships on LinkedIn
Eduardo “Eddie” Baez on Sales Success Stories Interview
Eduardo “Eddie” Baez on LinkedIn
Career Pipe

Have feedback? Want to share a sales tip? Call or text the Sales Success Hotline: 512-777-1442 or Email: [email protected]

Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. We continue our Teams Win Championships book launch series with another of the co-authors you’ve heard on this show before. Eddie Baez is a Large Enterprise Account Executive at Gartner and is also the CEO and Co-Founder of Career Pipe, an organization focused on creating access to B2B sales roles for minority college graduates and young alumni in New York City. Here he is:

Eduardo “Eddie” Baez: Hi Daily Sales Tip Community. This is Eddie Baez with Teams Win Championships. So my message today is for sales teams looking to define their sales identity and formulating their collective vision and mission. Every good story we’ve ever heard typically follows the same consistent format, a strong beginning with a unique proposition, a detail-oriented and supportive middle, and an ending with a call to action that motivates the reader to well act.

When building the foundations of a consistently top-performing sales team. We think that the process should be no different. When thinking about your sales team’s big collective why, we invite you to start thinking about the end in mind. The team’s “why” should consider the team’s individual sales identities, strengths and objectives and in turn, help you find the collective philosophy of the team. However, before starting any whiteboard sessions, jotting down collective values and the actual vision and mission statements, we encourage you to start with your primary goal as a unit. What is your team want to be known for in the marketplace and what is your team aim to achieve for their clients? What does that impact? What does it look like?

We encourage sales teams to reflect on how their individual and collective value should look and what those values ultimately mean for themselves and to the group. For the TWC team, the “we” focus paradigm is why we wrote this book and what got us up out of bed every single day for 15 months to make sure that the book was completed. Under this paradigm shift, we concluded that everyone at across every function, within the business, sales engineers, product specialists, senior leaders, everyone had an equitable contribution to make to the sales process and impact the client relationship.

So when we embarked on writing Teams Win Championships, we made sure to let go of our individual egos and agendas. We defined our collective identity, the objectives that we wanted to accomplish as a group together, and the audience that we were looking to impact. The reason for that is that it allowed us to create a focal point for converging our efforts and directing all of our skills towards that one common audience and the collective objective or outcome that we were looking to achieve, which was to help as many people as humanly possible with the sales methodologies and frameworks that have helped us throughout the years.

So when thinking about your own vision and mission, start by thinking about your individual strengths and intrinsic motivations. We also think you should consider taking inventory of a team’s capabilities. The reason why that’s so important is that there’s going to be a lot of essential tasks that need to be completed, and sometimes you’ll have someone that can absolutely slot in and make it happen. Other times you won’t have that. And you definitely want to make sure that you identify any potential gaps in your process.

And then the things that kept us motivated were the values that we all shared collectively. Those were things like “we” focused approach to sales rather than an “I” focused approach, keeping ourselves honest, leading with integrity, holding each other accountable, even during and through the most difficult conversations we could have with people who went from strangers to family. Making sure that we always kept the goal in mind, kept ourselves disciplined, and made sure that we were empathetic to our lives outside of the project. Not to mention we always made sure to learn something from one another. And whatever the passion or energy waned, we kept each other going.

So all of this helps you to ultimately go forward and create that mission statement and vision statement. The vision should be that idealistic and inspirational picture of what your team’s future holds, and it’s basically a long-term dream waiting to be realized. The mission statement is that we will claim, this is what answers the who, what, where, why, and how, and ultimately helps you accomplish the goals that lead to that dream being realized.

So if I was to recap it, make sure that you understand individual motivations, understand individual strengths, collectively where should you all centralizing converge your efforts? How does that all impact your client? What are the outcomes that you’re looking to achieve as a group? What do you want to be known for in the marketplace? What are the values that are going to continue to drive you forward even in the toughest of times? And what will be those unrealized dreams? And we will statements that will get you across the finish line. Thank you for listening and happy selling!

Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Eddie and to get your copy of Teams Win Championships where a portion of the proceeds from your purchase will support Eddie’s chosen charity: Management Leaders of Tomorrow which is empowering a new generation of diverse leaders. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/881 and if you’re already bought your copy. Do Eddie and I a favor and share this tip and this book with a friend.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Role-playing can help expedite the hiring process as the last thing you want to do is have a long and drawn-out process that might dissuade great candidates from joining your company.” – James Craig in today’s Tip 880

Does your company use role-playing in its sales hiring process?

Join the conversation below and go get your copy of Teams Win Championships!

Teams Win Championships Book
Live Book Launch – Zoom Webinar
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today we continue our Teams Win Championships book launch series with another of the co-authors, James Craig. James is a founder of various entrepreneurial ventures with his current company, focused on monitoring and control of complex systems with solutions in communications, health, and onboard ships. James is a former Canadian Navy engineering officer who has been working in the IT sector but loves to play hard on the water and in the snow. He lives in Canada but gets to travel the world with work and pleasure. Here he is:

James Craig: Hey podcast listeners, another daily tip for you. The use of role-playing in the sales hiring process.

You want to be able to assess who you are bringing into your sales team. If you make the right decision, then it can bolster your team to great success. Make the wrong decision, and it can bring down your team’s numbers or even cripple your company. If you want to see how your sales team member will look like in front of a customer, get the candidate to actually create a 5-minute presentation and pitch an idea to you. You will be able to assess their communications skills, their critical thinking skills, and even their integrity in the sales process. Ask some questions to the candidate a few different ways and see if the message is consistent. And ask them what some of the most difficult problems they solved and more importantly, how you solved them. This really separates out the ones that say that they are great to the ones that actually did the work. You can also assess how creative the individual is in their responses especially when you have some tough questions for them. I also think role-playing can help expedite the hiring process as the last thing you want to do is have a long and drawn-out process that might dissuade great candidates from joining your company.

Scott Ingram: For more about James, and of course links to get your copy of Teams Win Championships and support the charities selected by the co-authors, just click over to DailySales.Tips/880.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!