“Asks your prospect to give you a reason for why you should not talk and what that asks them to do is go back and look at your value proposition for why you reached out.” – Nick Cegelski in today’s Tip 489

How do you handle the rejection email?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Nick!

SurePoint
Nick Cegelski on LinkedIn
30 Minutes to President’s Club podcast
Submit a Sales Tip

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 Nick Cegelski. Nick is an Enterprise Account Executive at SurePoint in LA and co-host of the new podcast: 30 Minutes to President’s Club. Here he is with today’s tip:

Nick Cegelski: Okay, I’ve got a tip today for how to respond to the email that says “Not interested” when you’re prospecting. I always give the same response and I actually have this saved as a template in outlook. When I respond to that I say,” Scott, thank you so much for your response. Was it just bad timing on my end or was it a different reason? I don’t want to unnecessarily follow up if it’s a bad fit. Thank you Nick.“ Now the reason that I do this is it actually asks your prospect to give you a reason for why you should not talk and what that asks them to do is go back and look at your value proposition for why you reached out. One of two things should happen here. You either get a concrete reason or objection, why you shouldn’t speak, and you can either address that objection or move on to a prospect who’s actually a better fit for you. But frequently I get people who say,” Oh, I just reread your email. We actually are struggling with that. Let’s set up a time to talk.” Easy tip. I use it every time.

Scott Ingram: For more about Nick, and for a link to the new 30 Minutes to President’s Club podcast, just click over to DailySales.Tips/489 and we’ll have it all there for you.

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

“If you can change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” – Tyler Menke in today’s Tip 488

Do you change the way you look at things?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Tyler!

The Pirate’s Guide to Sales: A Seller’s Guide for Getting from Why to Buy Paperback
The Pirate’s Guide to Sales: A Seller’s Guide for Getting From Why to Buy Kindle Edition
The Pirate’s Guide to Sales
Tyler Menke 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 Tyler Menke is back. You may remember Tyler as the creator and performer of the “Shy Sales Guy” song, and he’s also the author of “The Pirate’s Guide to Sales – A Seller’s Guide to Getting from Why to Buy.” Here he is with some thoughts on mindset:

Tyler Menke: Change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. If you change the way you look at things, things you look at change. Now, I cannot remember for the life of me where that quote originated from or who it originated from, but it is a quote that I’ve played over and over and over in my mind during this crazy time. And I don’t know about others out there, but I have found that this is a time where it’s almost impossible to maintain positivity even for a whole entire day. It’s like a roller coaster and we’re on a ride that has highs and lows and so I’ve sort of given up hope of trying to maintain positivity throughout but I have done this.

Every time that negativity starts creeping into my brain, I’m writing it down and I’m trying to look at it differently. I’m trying to look at a potential positive. So some of the things I’ve written down are disruption with disruption. Is there an opportunity, because traditionally throughout history there is.

Uncertainty. I just wrote down, let it go, be present. I’ve always struggled to be present. I have so many ideas percolating in my head. I always struggle to be present.
So with this uncertainty, I’m trying to make that be a reminder to be present.

Canceled. Lots of things have been canceled, but that’s given myself and my kids and my wife a new appreciation for those things when they do return because they will.

Chaos. often in chaos, there is clarity. And for me, you know, it’s made me realize that family is so, so important and I’ve gotten to spend so much more time with my family and my kids. And that’s been great.
And then lack of control. Well, there’s a lot of things out there that are not in our control right now. And so every time that I feel that I’m just trying to tell myself I’m in control of my thoughts, actions, and behaviors.

And so I’m going to say it again because the quote has helped me, and I think it’s just a great quote. If you can change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. And so hopefully that’s a helpful tip for today.

Scott Ingram: For more about Tyler and for a link to his book, just click over to DailySales.Tips/488

Then be sure sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“The more detailed you can go into these followup calls, the better off you’re going to be.” – David Milo in today’s Tip 487

How do you a follow-up call?

Join the conversation below and connect with David on LinkedIn!

David Milo on LinkedIn
Sana
Submit a Sales Tip

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 David Milo. David is the Head of Sales at Sana (pronounced Sauna), a startup based here in Austin. Here he is:

David Milo: Hey everyone! This is David Milo with your Daily Sales Tip. So today I’m going to be covering the proper structure to do a callback or a followup call. As an SDR or an account executive, it’s amazing to me that a third to half of the calls that you’re making on a daily basis to schedule an appointment are going to be followup calls. The other half or so are going to be your fresh dials. But what’s so interesting about this is that most sales organizations don’t ever actually train on how to do a proper followup.

So let me give you five very simple key steps to make you a better, more effective cold caller to turn more followup calls into appointments.

So step number one is really simple. Just reintroduce yourself and know your name, where you’re calling from.

Step two, buy time from your prospect. Purchase time from your prospect. What I mean by this is sales is a game of seconds, right? Just like football’s a game of inches. Sales is a game of seconds. So you can use a buying time statement. For example. “I understand you’re busy” or “I’ll get straight to the point” or “Hey, I might’ve caught you in the middle of something, so I’ll be brief.” Anything that allows you to gain some more seconds or gain some more time for you to continue to speak.

Step three, recap the conversation and reiterate the need. So it might’ve been a week, two weeks, or even more since you last spoke. Hopefully, you’ve taken some really good notes in that first phone call that you had, but there’s a really good chance that your prospect does not remember at all who you are, what you were calling about, and they don’t remember why they were even interested enough in the first place to let you know to call them back.

So some good things you can do to recap that conversation, remind them. When did you last speak? Was there a specific reason why your prospect didn’t have time? What were the hot buttons that your prospect brought up and what were the pain points that your prospect brought up on that phone call?

Hopefully, again, make sure to take good notes. The more detailed you can go into these followup calls, the better off you’re going to be. You will be seen as a more professional person for taking good notes and bringing that up.

Step four is provide value props. Whatever your value propositions are for the product or service that you are selling. Is it cost savings? Is it better technology? Whatever you’re selling it to be more effective or efficient. Is it going to provide a better ROI? Whatever product or service you’re selling and whatever your value propositions are, give your prospect a quick 20 to 30 seconds elevator pitch as a reminder, because again, more often than not, your prospect will not ever remember who you were and what it was that they were interested in the first place.

So do them in yourself a favor. Give them a quick elevator pitch and a reminder for why they were interested in the first place.

And step five. The final step is the assumptive close. This just means to progress the phone call forward. So this community number of things progressing the phone call forward could mean that you start to ask some discovery questions so you can start to dig some pain points, which will allow you to progress that phone call to a scheduled appointment or talk past the appointment and go right in for the close and getting a date and time for your meeting.

So again, five steps. Number one, introduce yourself. Number two, use some buying time statements. Number three, recap the conversation and reiterate the need. Step four is provide a high-level quick hit of the value props that you have to offer. And then step five, assumptive close. I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments. Thank you.

Scott Ingram: You’ll find a link to connect with David on LinkedIn and more about Sana at DailySales.Tips/487.

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

“Don’t waste precious seconds being inauthentic with fluff and crutch words and get to the point.” – Liz Wendling in today’s Tip 486

Are you using filler words, crutch phrases, and lazy language in your email communication?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Liz.

Liz Wendling Website (FREE Audio Program)
Liz Wendling Blog
The Heart of Authentic Selling
Sell Without Selling Your Soul
Liz Wendling 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’s tip comes from Liz Wending. Liz is a nationally recognized business and sales consultant and the author of 6 books. Liz shows professionals how to make a profound difference in the way they sell and communicate both online and offline. Here she is with one of those ideas:

Liz Wendling: Are you using filler words, crutch phrases, and lazy language in your email communication? The most common and outdated email opening lines that irritate and aggravate and come across, also cheesy and phony sound like this.

The following examples used to be friendly pleasantries back in the day. Now they have become useless phrase grenades that add no value and also keep in mind many spam messages start out with this inauthentic and in personal approach. And here’s what they sound like. “I hope you’re doing great.” “I hope you had a great weekend.” “I trust this email, finds you well.” “Hope you’re having a productive day.” “Hope all is going well.”

Really, do you? First, if you don’t know me at all and you start interacting with me that way it comes across phony and completely insincere. I don’t care if you know me even just a little bit. Those are what I call throwaway phrases that everyone else is using and they add no value. Now I know you’re trying to be nice and you want to start your messages attempting to make a connection with someone, but why oh why would you want to sound like you got stuck in the 1990s and use the sales language that millions of other people are using.

Your first sentence needs to assist the recipient around the intention of your email. This allows people to decide if your message needs to be addressed immediately, filed away as informational, or can be handled later or sent right to the junk folder. Don’t waste precious seconds being inauthentic with fluff and crutch words and get to the point because remember, spam messages start out with this inauthentic approach.

Every time I teach this concept to someone, they will always push back and say, “Well, why can’t I be nice?” “Why can’t I say something that’s not all about business?” And I tell them that. I’m not suggesting that they don’t be kind. I’m not suggesting that they don’t be a human, but I teach them to write their email backward. Put these pleasantries at the end. If you feel like you absolutely have to be nice to someone in that way, you can put it at the end of the email and just say, “Hope you had a great weekend.” “I hope all is well with you.”

Don’t waste precious seconds in the first line making it look like your spam by using words that do absolutely nothing to increase your value. Leave them out of it and you will get ahead.

Scott Ingram: As always we’ve got more about Liz for you at DailySales.Tips/486. One of those links will take you to a free audio program where Liz will show you how to transform your sales language and change your sales results.

Once you’ve connected with Liz and checked out her resources, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Sometimes it’s not exactly what’s on the surface. Sometimes the details that are just underneath. And if you can really make it important and you call it out and help someone, learn something, that might be all the difference of getting that deal.” – Jason Cahill in today’s Tip 484

Do you like it? Do you love it?

Join the conversation below and feel free to share your own thoughts!

Jason Cahill on LinkedIn
Ceridian
Submit a Sales Tip

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 Jason Cahill is back with another tip. Jason is in commercial sales at Ceridian where he is responsible for South Western Ontario Canada. Here he is:

Jason Cahill: Hey everybody, Jay here for another Daily Sales Tip. I thought I’d bring you back to a sales tip that I learned very early on in my career when I was working for IBM. I was about 19 and I was going for some sales training and actually it was product training but we had this big Texan guy who was probably like 6’7, 6’8, 325 pounds and huge voice, huge presence in the room, big smile, very engaging. And he was talking about laptops and just pointing out some very intricate things about the laptop that we never really thought of, you know, pitching. Cause most of the time, you think about when you’re pitching software hardware, it’s usually spec for spec. Like what’s the processor? What’s the hard drive? What’s the memory?

And he was talking about things like, you know the IBM T-Series has a steel patented steel hinge system. So you won’t get stress fractures in your screen when you open and close it. You like it? You love it? Guess what? It’s free. And it would just get everyone super excited like, you like it? You love it? He would drop the laptop and say “It’s got dropped detection. You know it turns off the hard drive before it hits the floor. You like it? You love it? It’s free.” Like he would just get so excited about these weird things about the IBM laptop that none of us ever thought about before or we would skip over in a spec respect comparison.

It was very detailed and I always remember how excited he got everybody in the room about those small things. And I’ve taken that throughout my sales career and actually I use that today and a lot of my sales presentations I talk about APIs, which most salespeople don’t know about or don’t want to talk about and they’re free If anybody knows anything about software and cloud. And I talk about the same way that we included API or if you’re in professional services and your consultant and you’re like, instead of saying a “Free consultation.” Maybe you say like, “Oh definitely I’ve got 20 years experience, I’ll come to your office, we’ll sit down and have a great conversation, that detailed conversation. I’ll give you a comprehensive overview of what we do. And you know what? Guess what? It’s free. It’s just part of what I do It’s included you like it and you love it. It’s free.”

So anyway, I’ve used that probably my entire sales career and it’s got great results and I think it’s interesting that I learned some specific things that I otherwise would have glazed over when I was at IBM and he called it out, he brought it to the surface as a huge feature and the huge plus and I did like and love it and I was super happy when I found out it was free.

So that’s why sales tip that sometimes it’s not exactly what’s on the surface. Sometimes the details that are just underneath. And if you can really make it important and you call it out and help someone learn something, that might be all the difference of getting that deal. So anyway, that’s my sales tip. Hope you like it, hope you loved it, cause it’s free.

Scott Ingram: As always we’ll have a link for you to connect with Jason and a transcript of this tip at DailySales.Tips/484. You like it? You love it? Well, it’s free, and so is joining the listener list and the video of your choice from the last Sales Success Summit.

Once you’ve taken advantage of that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“There’s a huge difference between an interrogation and an interview and your customers know the difference.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 483

What about your discovery calls? Are they interviews or are they interrogations?

Join the conversation below and get a free copy of Jeff’s new book: Rethink The Way You Sell: When It Goes Sideways

Rethink The Way You Sell: When It Goes Sideways
Rethink The Way You Sell Community
Jeff’Bajorek on LinkedIn
Jeff’Bajorek on YouTube
The Why And The Buy Podcast

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. It’s time for your weekly dose of Jeff Bajorek. Here he is with today’s tip.

Jeff Bajorek: Can we talk about discovery calls for just a minute, maybe two minutes? Are they interviews or are they interrogations? There’s a key distinction there. An interview is a conversation between two people. One of those people typically both of those people at some point will ask questions of one another and they’ll wonder where the answers are going to take them and then based on where that answer takes them, they’ll ask another question. And out of this question and answer period this mutual respect, this listening, this empathy, this knowledge, this expertise that is shared and exchanged.

A beautiful conversation happens and when beautiful conversations happen, connections are made. When connections are made, empathy and vulnerability and all those things come together and hopefully if there is a good fit between the situation that the prospect is in and the solution that the seller has, hopefully, there’s a good fit there for a customer, vendor relationship a customer, company relationship, maybe even a friendly relationship can grow out of that if you solve enough of the right problems together.

Well, let’s talk about the other one. Let’s talk about the interrogations. Let’s talk about the discovery calls that go something like ask a question, listen for the answer, move right to the next question without really caring where the answer is. You ever go back and listen to some of your calls or you listen to some of your colleague’s calls or if you’re a manager and you’re probably not spending enough time actually listening to calls so you can develop your team, but listen to some discovery calls.

Does it sound as if the salesperson is actually doing anything with the information that they receive or are they just checking boxes because they asked the question and got an answer? Are they asking questions that they already know the answer to but they want to make sure that there’s common ground between the two people having a conversation even though the exchange really doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and the answers really don’t seem to be dictating the next question?

Think about how you develop your connections with your prospects. Think about how they feel. Sure. I know you got to get your information and I know you’ve got to be efficient and I know you got a lot of calls to make today and this one’s on your schedule and you only have 29 and a half minutes because you got another one at the top of the hour and you got to go, go, go. Be efficient, be efficient. You can’t be efficient with people. You can be efficient with everything else, but you can’t be efficient with your relationships. And so if your discovery calls sound like checklists, sounds like interrogations, start making them sound more like interviews. Notice and recognize what that does with your relationship, what it does with your reputation, and what it does with your ability to make sales to those people and the next people that you talk to and the people that they will tell. Because there’s a huge difference between an interrogation and an interview and your customers know the difference.

Scott Ingram: Click over to DailySales.Tips/483 where we’ll have a link for you to get a free copy of Jeff’s new book: Rethink The Way You Sell: When It Goes Sideways

After you’ve done that, but sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!

“Get your mind completely focused on that customer.” – Lisa McLeod in today’s Tip 482

How do you make sales when you’re anxious and you’re nervous about hitting your number?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Lisa!

Lisa McLeod on LinkedIn
Lisa McLeod on Twitter
Lisa McLeod on Facebook
Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud
Submit a Sales Tip

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 Lisa McLeod. Lisa is the global expert on purpose-driven business. She is the author of five books, including her bestseller: Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud. Here she is with today’s tip:

Lisa McLeod: How do you make sales when you’re anxious and you’re nervous about hitting your number? The answer is probably not very well. Hi, I’m Lisa McLeod and I’ve got one tip for you that I think will help you cause I know it’s helped me.

So if you’re in a time, as many of us are, where you’re nervous, you’re afraid, you’re worried you’re not going to hit your number, you have got to do something to quell that anxiety. Cause if you go in and you start breathing quota, breath all over your customers, they’re going to smell it and it doesn’t smell good.

So instead you want to quiet that has the internal talk track of most sales reps when they go on a call and I’ve been there is how can I close this? How can I hit my number? That gives off an anxious energy.
Instead, here’s what I want you to do.

Before you get on the phone, before you get on a video call, take a breath, and simply say to yourself, how can I improve this customer’s condition? Get your mind completely focused on that customer. How can I add value? How can I improve their condition? How can I help them? And what do I need to know to be able to accomplish that? That will quiet your lizard brain. That’ll light up your frontal lobes. And when you think about how you can help that customer, that is your noble purpose.

Scott Ingram: To learn more about Lisa and Selling with Noble Purpose. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/482 and we’ll have links to everything for you there. You can also see Lisa on that page in the video version of her tip and there’s a transcript for you there as well.

Once you’ve gotten connected with Lisa, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Calling that same person again shows them that this call is urgent. It is important” – Lee Rozins in today’s Tip 481

How about you? Are you calling twice?

Join the conversation below and go check Lee’s LinkedIn post.

Lee Rozins on LinkedIn
Lee Rozins LinkedIn post
Submit a Sales Tip

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 Lee Rozins who is the Head of Sales at Cheetah. Lee posted the results of a test he ran with his team on LinkedIn that really got my attention. It was a little bit controversial, so I’d encourage you to dig into the comments, but here’s Lee explaining what he and his team did:

Lee Rozins: Hey Scott, this is Lee Rozins. I am the VP of Sales over at Cheetah. Cheetah is basically a food distribution company all over the Bay area and the West coast. We ultimately provide wholesale groceries and food ingredients to restaurants and people like me and you actually through our tech-focused app. I’m a big fan of what you’re about and how you pretty much consolidate all of these Sales Success Stories. So I’m super happy to share with you my most recent posts on LinkedIn that went pretty viral with a ton of discussion around it, I think for good reason.

So walking you through this, Scott. Ultimately, I’ve been getting a ton of phone calls from numbers I don’t recognize and I’m sure you do along with everybody else who follows and listens to the two of us. And basically, whenever I get one of these calls from a random number, there’s a very low likelihood that I pick it up, maybe around 10%. However, and this is just for me, but if I do see that same random number, call me back right away a second time, you know, there’s about a 50% chance that I pick it up.

So this definitely got me thinking and since my job and responsibility is to sell as much as we can. Driving revenue. Ultimately, you need to get the decision-maker on the phone as much as you possibly can. In order to accomplish that. I set out to simply put some data behind this idea that I had in my head.

So we ran a pilot, okay. And we called 100 mobile numbers in one day.

These mobile numbers were cell phones that we earned to get, and they were cell phones of small business owners. Most of them were restaurant owners.

So 50 of them we called once and then 50 of them we called twice within a short timeframe. This timeframe was probably about two to five minutes. Okay, so really bang, bang. The results were definitely eyeopening. The 50 that we called, only once, 16% of them answered the 50 that we called twice, 60% of them answered and the most important piece to note here was that not one of these people that we called twice was irritated with the second call. If they were, I want to have shared this with everybody on my LinkedIn and I would have thought this would have been ineffective to be honest.

But obviously, we spoke a ton about us being on top of our game and providing value from the very start, right? Being sharp as attack, a figure of authority, enthusiastic, all that fun stuff. So that we could avoid any irritation and it worked like a charm for us. And before we knew it, we were in the middle of sales pitches talking to decision-makers, which was the main goal that I wanted to prove here.

So the takeaway was pretty simple. Most people, right, myself included, maybe you, we do not want to pick up a number that we’re not familiar with, right? Let it go to voicemail. You know, must not be important. If I don’t have it in my phone, they can leave a message, a voicemail, I’ll get back to them if I want to get back to them. But calling that same person again shows them that this call is urgent. It is important. It’s much different than all the others, which you’re getting a lot of and therefore results in a much higher answer rate and really simply put, you just got an opportunity to pitch your product or service to four to five times the decision-makers in a day. And if you’re on your game, hopefully, your closing percentage is still the same, which would mean you are making about four to five times the number of sales like my testing team did when we did this.

Hopefully, this was helpful. You know, I speak my mind a ton on LinkedIn. A bunch of my coworkers and investors told me that I need to start speaking my mind on LinkedIn and in other channels a little bit more than just in my company because I’m a big fan of selling and truly doing everything I can to separate myself from everybody else out there. Hopefully this was helpful, Scott and cheers.

Scott Ingram: We’ll have a link to Lee’s original post, where again I’d encourage you to dig into the comments. That and a link to Lee’s LinkedIn profile are at DailySales.Tips/481 Check that out. Get connect with Lee, and come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip from Lisa McLeod. Thanks for listening!

You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Well, we’ve made it to the #1 most popular tip in our countdown of the Top 6 Tips from the Last 6 Months. Here it is:

366. Confidence: It Smells, And It’s Contagious – Todd Caponi