“And I’ve realized that the majority of the finalists in my head aren’t actually sales books. They’re books that deal more with mindset.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 289

What has been the single most impactful book that you’ve ever read on sales?

Join the conversation below and check the link to the LinkedIn post!

Scott Ingram LinkedIn post
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I’m thinking about sales books and just how impactful they’ve been on our thinking as a sales community. It’s something I ask about in every interview I do on Sales Success Stories. Well, not books specifically, but I ask about each guests information diet and most times we end up talking about a few books. So I’ve got my team working on a new resource for you. We’re going through all of the previous episodes and pulling out the book mentions and then making a comprehensive list of all of the books, how many times they were mentioned, by who, and all of that. But this is a topic that fascinates me and I’d love your input. I’ll ask the question like this: What has been the single most impactful book that you’ve ever read on sales? As I think about how I would answer that questions myself I’m struggling to get down to just one book. And I’ve realized that the majority of the finalists in my head aren’t actually sales books. They’re books that deal more with mindset. To see my own choice and to share your own thoughts on this topic, just click over to DailySales.Tips/289 where I’ll have a link to the LinkedIn thread that I started yesterday. Then if we’re not already connected on LinkedIn, let’s take care of that too. Just do me a favor and add a comment indicating that you’re a listener.

Oh, and if you’d like a copy of that book list from the top 1%, send a quick email to [email protected] with the subject line: Sales Books and I’ll be sure to send it to you as soon as it’s finished.

Thanks for listening and be sure to come back tomorrow for another killer sales tip from Jason Bay!

“Without your tips and your ideas this show doesn’t happen, so please share those ideas with us.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 288

Do you want to share your own best sales tips?

Join the conversation below and be part of this podcast!

Active Sales 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 I wanted to remind you of a resource that I’ve been keeping more or less current since the beginning of 2017 and that is my list of every active sales-focused podcast that I can find. I’m working on another big update of the list this weekend, but when I last worked on it at the beginning of July there were 209 active sales podcasts on the list. Just so you know my definition of active is a show that’s posted at least one new episode sometime in the last 3 months. So it’ll be interesting to see if that list continues to grow like it has every other time I’ve updated it in the last two and a half years, or if it has started to shrink. You can find that list at top1.fm/sales-podcasts or we’ll have a link on this tip’s page at DailySales.Tips/288

I have one other ask for you so that we can keep this show current and active. I always need more sales tips, and even though you might be thinking that you don’t have anything of value to offer. You’re wrong! There’s something you’re doing that’s helping you in your day to day sales role and I want to hear about it. So do the other fans of this show. Even if you’re thinking, “Oh, come on. Everybody knows about that.” I can almost guarantee that’s not true. If it’s working. If you’re finding success. Then I need you to share it. Without your tips and your ideas this show doesn’t happen, so please share those ideas with us. I’ve never done it before, but I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t even make your tip anonymous. That could be interesting. However you want to manage it, just let me know. The tip submission details are at DailySales.Tips/submit I haven’t updated that particular page in a while, so just pay attention to the submission details. Know that if you’re a fan of this show and you’ve got something of value to share than I virtually guarantee that we’ll be willing to feature it.

Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing your own best sales tips. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Maybe it’ll be your own!

“The first thing I would do when I would talk to somebody in marketing is to find out what campaigns are running for your market or your product and ask who they’re targeting specifically and why.” – Jason Cahill in today’s Tip 287

How do you get to know your marketing team?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Jason Cahill on LinkedIn
Ceridian
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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 Jason Cahill. Jason works in Commercial Sales at Ceridian and is responsible for their South Western Ontario territory in Canada. Here he is with today’s tip:

Jason Cahill: Hey Scott! Jay here! I thought I’d start out by giving some tips to you and on how to start in sales. I have a lot of friends that are in starting up new businesses or scaling up businesses that are doctors, PhDs, engineers, all kinds of backgrounds. But sales is something obviously as we know is very important to scale or start up a business, but they don’t have a background in that or also some people that are starting sales as a brand new career and a don’t know where to start. I thought I’d offer some tips on how to get started. And my first one is to get to know your marketing folks. So a lot of people in sales don’t really think about talking or connecting with the people in marketing. Even though we’re on the same team, we both have the same goal and that’s to find leads and close deals. Most people think of marketing of just people that just lob leads over the fence and sales picks it up and kinda runs. It is kind of like that but I think that if sales started to connect with marketing a little bit more in a meaningful way, it would increase sales dramatically. The first thing I would do when I would talk to somebody in marketing is to find out what campaigns are running for your market or your product and ask who they’re targeting specifically and why. You might hear the word personas thrown around and you find out, why does that persona fit our MQL or marketing qualified lead profile and why now is there something going on in the industry I should know about? Why are we targeting these folks? So I think also asking about their content. So what kind of content is generating right now? Is it a broad stroke on topics that are affecting your industry? Or is it something affecting that your prospect directly in their job, their vertical or even is it a, are they creating things in thought leadership and there’s, collateral like an eBook or even a webinar that you can use to get in the door. Most importantly is that if you’re new and you’re not ready to start pitching your product or service if you’re new to the company or new to the industry or just new to sales in general. Just talk to marketing and get some insight from them on what’s going on and why. If you start pitching too early, you’re going to be extremely nervous. You’re not going to be confident and your prospects are going to feel that you’re nervous as well and you’re going to make them nervous. So, talk the why and the how first and get that information from marketing. And I think that it’s a great place to start, especially for new people that are just getting into the gig. And a, you’ll be ready and armed with a lot of information that is, that your colleagues or even your competition aren’t really talking about, and it’s a different angle to differentiate yourself. Okay? That’s my first step.

Scott Ingram: To learn more about Jason just click over to DailySales.Tips/287, and if you want to be like Jason because you regularly listen to these tips, but want to give back to the community and contribute your own tip. Just look for the Submit a Sales Tip link at the top of the page.

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

“If you get put on a plan, I think the first thing you need to do is take a really big deep breath and do some reflection. Give some thought to whether or not this company and this role is still the right fit for you.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 286

Do you want to share your own thoughts and insights?

Join the conversation below and comment your answer!

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. An interesting coincidence occurred over the course of the last week and I thought I’d talk about it a little bit, and also ask you for your stories if you’ve got one that’s relevant. It started after a friend who’s in a new leadership role reached out to ask if I could point him to any “I got put on a plan and turned it around” type of episodes, after putting one of his own guys on a plan but was really pulling for him and wanted to give him some inspiration. At the time I didn’t have an answer, but then a huge fan of Sales Success Stories that I wasn’t previously aware of reached out to share the story of his own rise to success over the course of the last 3 years of listening to the show, and it started with him being put on a plan at the end of the first year of that journey to now being absolutely at the top of his game just two years later. So I was able to put the two of them together, but all of this made me realize that being put on a plan is not exactly a rare occurrence, but one that’s rarely talked about. So I thought I’d talk about it a bit, and I can speak from some experience here because it’s happened to me twice over the course of my career. I wrote about one of those times in one of my own stories in the first Sales Success Stories book called: A Rapid Rise, an Epic Fall and Getting “Fired Up.”

If you get put on a plan I think the first thing you need to do is take a really big deep breath and do some reflection. Give some thought to whether or not this company and this role is still the right fit for you. Do you see a possible path to success, or is there a high degree of risk that you could grind as hard as you could and still find yourself being walked out the door at the end of it anyway? How’s your relationship with your manager and the rest of the sales leadership? Are they pulling for you and willing to help you turn the corner, or are they just trying to get rid of you?

These are all things I think you have to consider carefully before you decide on your course of action. Once you’ve done that evaluation it’s time to decide and I think that decision is binary. You have to go all-in on either the decision to leave and start looking for your next opportunity or you have to go all-in on turning it around. Trying to play the odds and hedging your bets on both paths I believe is nearly going to guarantee that you fail, again likely on both fronts.

Make your decision and go all out. If it’s me I’m then going to surround myself with the support system I need to support that particular choice. If it’s time to leave then I’m reaching out to my friends and mentors who can help me find the next best opportunity for me. If I’m all in then I’m going to let my leadership know my plan. I’m going to show them what I’m planning to do and ask them for their help in improving that plan and enroll them in helping me execute that plan. This is a good time to ask if somebody else on the team has recovered from being put on a plan. Spend time with them. Find some inspiration and get it done.

I’m sure I could go on, but we try to keep these tips pretty short and that should give you plenty to think about should you find yourself in that position.

This is one where I would LOVE to have more thoughts and insights from those who have been through the experience of being put on a plan and came out of it with a successful outcome. Whether that was turning around that specific opportunity or finding a new opportunity that was a much better fit where you’re having much better success.

Send me a note to [email protected] and we can work through the details of getting your tip recorded and featured.

As always, thank you so much for listening and come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!

“You put way too much pressure on that deal and if you don’t recognize that only about a quarter of your deals are going to close, then you don’t have enough deals in the pipeline.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 285

Do you have a pipeline problem?

Join the conversation below and share it with us!

Jeff Bajorek on LinkedIn
Jeff Bajorek: Rethink the Way You Sell
208: You Don’t Have a Closing Problem
264: You Have a Planning Problem
278: You Have a Decision Maker Problem

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 Thursday, and that means that today’s tip comes from Jeff Bajorek. This is part 11 of Jeff’s 16 part series that he kicked off back in tip #208 called “You Don’t Have a Closing Problem,” and if you’re paying really close attention that means that I’ve had the numbering wrong for about the last 8 tips, because that opening was #1 in the series. Anyway, with that out of the way. Here’s Jeff with today’s installment:

Jeff Bajorek: You don’t have a closing problem. You have a pipeline problem. One of the things I love about salespeople is how optimistic we are. Everything’s an opportunity. The glass is half full, not half empty. Yeah, that deals coming in. You’re going to close it. No problem. You got this one in the bag. Your quarters made up. Your year is made up. Way to go pack yourself on the back. But don’t pack yourself too hard cause you know what gets in salespeople’s way more than anything is how optimistic they can be. Yeah, that deal’s going to close 25% of the time and that’s if you’re pretty good. So the problem becomes then that you have to close that deal. You put way too much pressure on that deal and if you don’t recognize that only about a quarter of your deals are going to close, then you don’t have enough deals in the pipeline. So then when that deal doesn’t close as it’s going to 2/3 to 3/4 of the time. You’re hosed because you forgot to fill the rest of your pipeline. When you have enough deals in the pipeline, no single one of them become so important that it’s going to make or break your year. That means that no single one of those deals has so much pressure on it that you need to worry about closing it. If you have enough deals in the pipeline; Hey, you’re probably going to hit that number. You may even close more than one of those deals. And what’s wrong with exceeding expectations? Do you have three to four times your number in your pipeline? If you only close 25 to 30% and that’s on the high end of your pipe, would you still meet the expectations that have been set for you? Most of you listening to this right now cannot answer that in the affirmative. That’s your real problem. You don’t have a closing problem, you’re not working enough deals to close.

Scott Ingram: For more about Jeff and for links to the previous tips in this series just click over to DailySales.Tips/285 that’s also where you’ll find the video version of Jeff’s tip and links to help you connect with Jeff, and you should ask him about his Rethink the Way You Sell community. There’s some really great stuff happening in there.

Thanks for listening and be sure come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!

“The more of those 15 elements a client has, the more attractive they’re going to be and the more opportunities you’ll be able to create and the more chances you’ll have to grow together and create something really magic.” – Warwick Brown in today’s Tip 284

How do you identify your most valuable customers?

Join the conversation below and check all the links!

Key Account Scoring Matrix
Warwick Brown on LinkedIn
Account Manager Tips

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 and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Warwick Brown at Account Manager Tips.

Warwick Brown: I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Your biggest customers and not always your best customers. Actually, maybe it’s not so secret after all, I mean, sure, they drive volume, they help the cashflow when they pay the bills, but they also come with low margins, customization, and concert. You know, quite frankly, have all the power. They know how important they are to you and they like to make your work for it. Besides, you know, size only measures, you know who your clients are today. What about tomorrow? So if bigger isn’t always better, how do you identify your most valuable customers? You know the ones with the true growth potential for the longterm.

Hi, I’m Warwick Brown, founder of Account Manager Tips, and I’m about to share with you 15 things to look for to help you identify those key accounts. Let’s get into it.

All right. Well, have grouped these into three different buckets. The first is Growth. So we’re looking for clients that have commercial appeal. There is opportunities to expand revenue and to improve margin.

Number 1 is Revenue Potential. How much do your clients spend? Look for those with consistent growth over the past couple of years. And think about if they’re spending elsewhere and if they are spending elsewhere. How confident are you that you can control the future share of wallet.

Number 2, Cost to Serve. Can you service or look for clients that you can service more efficiently and cheaply now or in the future?

Number 3 is Demand Stability. So revenue doesn’t always tell the whole story. Spin can look consistent, but sometimes transactions are falling. So consider how your clients use your solution and look for those with consistent adoption.

And finally, Number 4, Access to New Markets. Are they expanding through acquisition and they’ve got a strong international presence? Are they diversified across multiple verticals? Maybe they have sister companies, parent companies, can they help you access new markets? So that’s growth.

The second bucket is Harmony. So looking for clients that fit your solution. You had the synergies, they are a good fit for your culture and your business strategy.

So, Number 5 is Product and Service Requirements. Is your solution could fit? Does it meet their needs? Particularly compared to other suppliers or your customer satisfaction scores high. So how, how well are they using your solution?

Number 6, Culture of Innovation. Innovative customers are great. They can help you enhance your solutions because they may partner with you on product development, they may be early adopters, beta testers, eager to participate in user studies. So that’s a good type of client to look for.

Number 7, Benchmarking. Customers that use your solution efficiently and effectively are invaluable. You know, they can help you optimize your product and processes because they’re using it so well. So they’re also useful for case studies and testimonials. So think about that.

Number 8, corporate reputation. Well, known customers create trust. You know, the brand value of your clients can help you develop networks within an industry. New customers may also be more encouraged to partner with you if you serve others with strong reputations.

And Number 9, the buying process. So the closer you are to the purchasing process, the more effective you’ll be at influencing and managing the account. How centralized is your customer’s buying process? The more centralized, the better.

And finally, Value Creation. Look for clients that have a partnership orientation. To what extent are they prepared to invest in your relationship and how do they view you? You know, is it a strategic supplier?

Number 10, Strategy. Can you help your clients reach their goals or give them an advantage that they couldn’t achieve alone and can they do the same for you? You know win-win.

Number 11, Solidarity clients at work together to solve problems they don’t use automated means they don’t threaten the relationship and they work together, especially when they encounter difficult situations. I love these kinds of clients.

Number 12, Long-term Orientation. Clients that understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day. It makes strategic and economic sense to create longterm partnerships.

Number 13, Planning Behavior. Does your customer engage in a proactive, mutual goal setting? Do they take action? Do they review? Do they adapt? Those are great qualities in our strategic account.

Number 14, Mutuality. These are clients that believe in joint success and they consider you a strategic supplier. Everybody should win really important.

And Number 15 the last Information Exchange. Clients who proactively share information that’s useful to your partnership. They’re open, they’re honest, there is no secrets. They don’t ambush you. They’re here to make it work and they give you what you need to get things done.

All right, that’s it. That’s everything you need to find your most valuable customers. Just consider those three buckets, Growth, Harmony, and Value Creation. The more of those 15 elements a client has, the more attractive they’re going to be and the more opportunities you’ll be able to create and the more chances you’ll have to grow together and create something really magic.

Now, if you want to dig a bit deeper into this, head on over to the show notes because there is a link to a template that I have created for you which has all of the 15 different elements. It has a scoring and weighting formula built-in and you can very quickly and easily identify who your most valuable customers are. All right, good luck with it all and I’ll catch you next time.

Scott Ingram: As Warwick just mentioned he’s created some additional resources for you that are available for download at DailySales.Tips/284 Once you’ve grabbed that template you should also join his Account Manager Tips newsletter where he regularly provides valuable resources like these.

Then come on back tomorrow for another great tip from Jeff Bajorek in his You Don’t Have a Closing Problem Series. Thanks for listening!

“So gatekeepers are human work with them, and you’re going to see a lot more success when you have to call through them.” – Jason Bay in today’s Tip 283

Do you work with a gatekeeper or do you try to get around a gatekeeper?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Blissful Prospecting
Jason Bay 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 Jason Bay from Blissful Prospecting is back with this tip on gatekeepers:

Jason Bay: Let’s talk about gatekeepers. So one of the things that I hear a lot in terms of how people talk about gatekeepers is almost as if they’re not like human beings with the job just like us. And that’s where it starts is this whole, do you work with a gatekeeper or do you try to get around a gatekeeper? And my school of thought and what we see working really well with our clients is to work with gatekeepers because obviously if you have a direct dial and you can get a hold up the person you want to get a hold up, that’s a good first thing to try because your success rate is going to be much higher. You don’t have to go through a persona to do that. But if you look at gatekeepers in another way, as a person that can help you and work together with you, they might be able to get you a warm intro that you couldn’t get yourself. And the chance of, and the likelihood of getting ahold of the person that you do need to contact could be much higher if you’re able to work with them. So I think that that’s where we need to start as framing gatekeepers and looking at them as more as people with a job to help you. That’s why they’re hired an assistant that answers phones is hired to help people that call in and direct them. And the second part of their job is to make sure that whoever they’re putting in contact with is not going to waste any of that person’s time. So let’s look at this first part in a good way of thinking of it is, you know, when you go into a store, we don’t try to work around the person that’s trying to help us. If we need help with something, right? We go to the people at the store and we ask them directly for help. We don’t try to go around them and waste, we’ll hopefully, you’re not trying to waste a bunch of your time looking for it yourself. So we work with these people. These people are there to help us. That’s exactly what an assistant’s job is to do. So we need to be conversational with them and actually talk to them like a human being. So when an assistant picks up the phone and they say, “Hey, thanks for calling ABC company.” The way that you can respond and start off is, you know,” Hey, Jason was blissful prospecting. I was hoping that you might be able to help me out real quick” let them answer. And then you can go into whatever it is that you need help with. But my suggestion is that even if you know who you should be contacting, you should still ask them for help because you can gather some really good Intel and your tonality is very, very important.  And the way that I would describe it again as if you’re asking for someone for help at a grocery store or at a store if you’re doing research on beds or mattresses or electronics at BestBuy, whatever it is. That tonality of, you know, “Hey, I was looking for this and do you guys have this in stock?” That tonality is very important. So the type of Intel that you can gather is really interesting and this is going to help you when you actually do get through to the decision-maker. I want to give you three questions here that can really warm up that call. So once you ask like “I was wondering if you might be able to help me out.” And they’re like, “Yeah, you know what’s up?” Well you know,” Hey I, you know, what we do here at blissful prospecting is actually help a sales development teams increase the reply rates so they can get two to three times more meetings on a weekly basis.”  And I was wanting to know if Scott is actually the right person to talk to about that and they might say,” Hey yes or whatever and give you some more information.” Or they might say, no, so-and-so is not in charge of that. Another really good question you can ask is know, “Hey, I know that you know, currently from our, looks like you might work with Scott closely on this have you heard anything around the office about, you know, any big sales goals you guys got coming up or anything to launch the new year? Anything related to prospecting, anything like that? Have you heard anything around the office.” And you’d be surprised what people will give you? So bottom line here is, you know, with gatekeepers we really need to work with them and look at them as human beings that we can have a conversation with and ask them for help and genuinely come from a place of curiosity of knowing, “Hey, am I reaching out to the right person Is this something that’s important to them? Have you heard anything, anything I can do to make sure that when I talked to this person and I don’t waste their time”. And you can use that Intel for when you get onto the next call and lead with, “Hey, I was talking to you know, Amy or Adam or whoever and they were mentioning that you guys have been talking about this and I was reaching out for this reason” so you can warm up for that next call. So gatekeepers are human work with them, and you’re going to see a lot more success when you have to call through them.

Scott Ingram: For more about Jason Bay and Blissful Prospecting, just click over to DailySales.Tips/283. We’ll also have a link to Jason’s LinkedIn profile so you can connect with him directly because he doesn’t just share great tips here.

Once you’ve done that, come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip from Warwick Brown. Thanks for listening!

“Employees don’t like to be just left to their own devices. They want to know that they mattered. They want to know that there’s a place, they want to know that you value them and they want to make sure that they continue to grow and thrive that’s how you keep them.” – Amy Volas in today’s Tip 282

What should companies be doing to recruit and retain their best salespeople?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

Amy Volas on LinkedIn
Amy Volas on Twitter
Avenue Talent Partners on Facebook
Avenue Talent Partners
Avenue Talent Partners Blog

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 Amy Volas is back, Amy is a sales fanatic turned entrepreneur. She was bitten by the startup bug and can’t imagine spending her time anywhere else. She created Avenue Talent Partners to help with the tremendous task of growing startups through one of their most valuable assets salespeople. Here she is with today’s tip.

Amy Volas: So the question is what should companies be doing to recruit and retain their best salespeople? I think a lot of companies get this really, really wrong or they don’t realize how important this is, so they spend a lot of time upfront within the hiring process and then the hire is made and it’s like; Okay, just go do your job, especially in sales. Here’s your territory, here’s your book, get after it, go to it. We’ll talk on our pipeline call. And that is really dangerous because what employees are talking about in all the data that we’ve pulled from thousands of people that we speak with is a lack and a true craving for being part of something and being part of a culture that’s accountable. And so it starts with yes, the hiring process and certainly being intentional and understanding what you need, why you need it, how you need it, why you need it now, where it’s coming from, et cetera.

But then it’s about, I have these amazing people, what do I do with them when they start? And so it’s about onboarding. Training and onboarding are very different things, right? Both of those things need to happen. After that, it’s developing together a continuing plan for the things that really get this person excited and what’s important to them and what they’re proud of and where they see that they’re growing as a leader. Listening to that and being able to put together a plan of if this is really where you want to go, here are the things that we need to accomplish to get there. Here’s what it looks like. Here’s the work that needs to be done, and having a plan that you can anchor to when you are connecting on your one-on-ones or the time together to have these kinds of conversations. Employees don’t like to be just left to their own devices. They want to know that they mattered. They want to know that there’s a place, they want to know that you value them and they want to make sure that they continue to grow and thrive that’s how you keep them.

Scott Ingram: For more about Amy and Avenue Talent Partners, just click over to DailySales.Tips/282. You should also follow Amy Volas on LinkedIn.

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

“In fact, the world I believe in sees the care and development of people as a means of driving revenue” – DeJuan Brown in today’s Tip 281

What do you think?

Join the conversation below and share your thoughts!

DeJuan Brown on LinkedIn
DeJuan Brown on Sales Success Stories Interview

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 is a brilliant bit of insight from my very good friend, DeJuan Brown. This started with a text conversation where DeJuan dropped the quote that is the title of this tip. It immediately grabbed me and I told DeJuan that we had to turn this into a sales tip because it’s such an important topic. Thankfully DeJuan jumped right on it and this is the result:

DeJuan Brown: I’m a Sales Leader. Now, This is more declaration than confession and there are a number of implications that should logically follow. The sales segment of my title means that I care deeply about revenue as a key outcome in the work I do every day. The leader side of my title means that I also care deeply about the people I serve and desire to make their goals and objectives a key outcome in the work I do every day as well. Follow me so far. Good. Here’s where I’m headed. I believe that there’s a world in which driving revenue and developing people aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, the world I believe in sees the care and development of people as a means of driving revenue and there’s likely a group of you listening who are scratching your heads and thinking. “Of course that’s the case Dejuan.” On another group. It’s probably thinking whatever everyone knows that sales is all about revenue generation in away. Both groups are spot on. Sellers who don’t generate revenue obviously won’t persist in their roles as continued lack of production as a detriment to any for-profit company. If short term revenue burst or what’s being solved for then, by all means, build a team of revenue machines and set them on autopilot. However, if you want to build a team that will generate consistent, predictable and growing revenue over long periods of time, your people and their development should be a top priority.

Larry Levine, author of Selling From The Heart had this to say about the distinction, and I quote “If you want to have ever flowing revenue, then develop, develop and develop your people. It’s creating the environment of learning and constantly and consistently developing your people. Fail to do this and watch what happens to revenue.” End quote. Now by now, we’ve probably all seen the proverbial conversation between the CFO and the CEO goes a little like this. The CFO asked the CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and they leave us?” The CEO responds, “What happens if we don’t and they stay?” The truth revealed by this conversation is that organizations truly do want people who are developing, growing and increasing their breadth of impact. Left unaddressed based on this CEO’s perspective having an organization of people who aren’t being developed as an undesirable state. The truth is as so eloquently stated by my friend Scott Ingram, prioritizing the growth of sellers is not just going to improve their game and increases their ability to achieve revenue goals. It’s also going to make it easier for companies to recruit other growth-oriented professionals as well. So as you think about the quest to drive revenue through the business, consider whether you’re solving for the short or the long term wins. If longterm is your answer. I believe having a people development mindset will help you achieve sustained revenue goals. for a very long time to come.

Scott Ingram: What do you think? If you’re a sales leader, I’m especially interested in your take here. You can join the conversation at DailySales.Tips/281 and I sincerely hope you will.

Then as always, come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!