Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

We have to be mindful about I make a point of asking when I’m spending time with the marketing executives and the c-level folks in my network. I always ask them particularly in the marketing space which I think is probably the most it feels to me like one of the most saturated places in the world because there are literally thousands of tools out there so if you’re a V.P. of marketing or you’re a CMO like you’re screwed. I don’t know how they operate with the amount of salespeople reaching out to them and I asked them I like. So what do you actually respond to like how do you deal with this and was talking with with one of those individuals just recently and I’ve seen this sort of validated in some other things here recently is like yes you know what. The first message. Like as soon as I can tell that this is generic not personalized I got loaded into some type of a spam cannon. He says I just take a second and I create a rule that’s going to make sure that I never see messages from that individual or that company ever again. You’re spot on. And so that this rep is actually doing a disservice by sending those fully automated e-mails. They’re going backwards. They’re burning bridges because they’re not being authentic in the way that they’re engaging and that’s to your point. Those marketing folks, I’m glad I’m not in market because they just get bombarded all day every day and you’ve really got to do something to make it through that so you’re not getting tagged as hey never ever reply to somebody from this organization because they’re just trying to fully automate the sales process and going back to the evils of some of these tools that these tools aren’t built for reps to just dump in a thousand people put their feet up and you know casually check for replies every couple of hours. You know it’s meant for automating the menial tasks of what I struggle with. Logging those things in your CRM or making sure you’re being persistent in following up but still doing it in a authentic way customizing that message and not just fully automating the entire sales process because that’s just only going to do a disservice.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

I’m a huge huge fan of Vidyard they are doing just a fantastic job by humanizing that element. Hey I’m going to sift through all the rest of that junk in your inbox. I’m going to send you like you said a video with you holding that white board. It’s so impactful because you really stand apart from all of the other mess in their inbox and people are genuinely more interested. I had a prospect tell me the other day they would rather spend a minute watching a video that’s personalized to them than 40 seconds reading an email. So they’d rather spend more time with something that’s more engaging and more beneficial to them. So I’m absolutely a huge fan of Vidyard. SalesLoft actually has a Vidyard integration for their freemium version and they are absolutely fantastic. Love them over there. Great company.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

You’re exactly right. Good and Evil. There’s two different ways to leverage a sales engagement tool. You can try to boil the ocean and say alright I always send an e-mail to a thousand people and it’s going to be an email that’s me generated. This is who I am this is what I do this is and this is why you should be talking to me. That’s a very me focused e-mail. And I think a lot of that is what you’re seeing and getting posted on linked in people you know with bashing you know ad sales emails because there’s no like you mentioned human to it. It’s a robot going through that and by leveraging a solution like SalesLoft or any sales engagement platform the right way. You have to have that human element you have to be authentic in the way that you’re engaging. That email needs to be about them. It needs to be about how you understand their business and how you understand that they might have some challenges that you might be able to help with and that you want to earn their business not just hey you should do business with me because I’m sending you a templated e-mail. You really have to be sincere in the way that that you’re engaging and make that engagement about them and how they can be better off by having a conversation with you.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

Speedy Readie is another app that I use is great for reading blog posts. You highlight the text you hit enter twice and it allows you to read at. I think I have mine set at 350 words per minute. That way I don’t have to read down it just it reads it pretty much for me at 350 words a minute. So a great app as well. Now when you say reads it for you it does the scrolling for you or what do you mean by that? Pretty much it puts a little bar at the top and it’ll put the word in so you don’t actually have to move your eyes it just will flash the word up to you on the screen and it just blows through these words and somehow you can still really get in there and absorb these words because they’re coming in. You don’t have to move your eyes on the page. It’s really clever. It’s free. I absolutely love it.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

My favorite, I guess it’s an app, it’s on my computer for professionally is an app called aText it’s a text expander. In sales I’m sure a lot of people listening can I guess equate to this you end up typing the same sentences over and over and over. And what aText does is allow you to put in an abbreviation and it will populate that sentence for you or even something as simple as the word SalesLoft. I type that word a lot. So if I type in S L S on my keyboard it types up the word SalesLoft for me it’s capitalized already and even something like: “Cheers, Kevin” I just type in ck and it makes me so much more efficient because I don’t have to sit there and type in cheers comma enter Kevin. I just hammered right through it and I’ve got some that are like three four paragraphs long of aText. I’ll go in there and you know edit it but I probably have hundreds of these aTexts saved on my computer and it’s absolutely fantastic I couldn’t live without that app.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

Ralph Barsi earlier he is the one that taught me about putting a ten on everybody’s head. I highly recommend his blog posts. RalphBarsi.com B-A-R-S-I absolutely fantastic content. He’s a thought leader in the space is a mentor to me and really just clear minded on sales, sales process, sales methodology of being most effective building your own brand for yourself and I would say that’s my number one. David Cummings also has some great content as well. DavidCummings.org. I follow his blog he puts out a blog I think he’s been doing consecutively for like three years. He puts out a blog post every single day. And what that means it’s not going to be the longest blog posts which is great because as sales people we can’t sit still. Like you mentioned earlier and you know I just a really short little quip it might be two paragraphs. I love reading David’s content. It’s quick it’s easy to read and it’s relevant. So David and Ralph are two of my favorites that I like to read on a daily basis.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

Smile a lot. Everybody’s heard that you know smile and dial. But it really is impactful it’s part of my routine. Make sure I’m smiling all day long. I’m a very positive person even if something you know shits the bed deal doesn’t go the way I want does not think of it in an optimistic way. How could I have learned from this. So I know it doesn’t happen again so that routine is make sure you’re always in a positive attitude that positivity is contagious and other people in your office will feel it. They’ll receive some of that positive energy and your your customers your buyers will also receive that positive energy when you’re smiling through the phone. And when you’re you know getting excited that’s you know I guess part of my routine is smiling all day long. I love it.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

So the afternoon I like to prep for my next day so usually everyday around 2:00 o’clock I think about OK what did I have on the books today or what do I still have you know later on today. And what do I have on the calendar tomorrow. Let’s start thinking about. All right let’s look up some of these accounts. How am I connected to some of these accounts. Do I need to be reaching out to people in my network to get some of those referrals in to help supercharges those conversations I’m going to have tomorrow. There’s a lot of prep a day early for what I’ve got going on. And how can I help myself. And how can I have my network help me to make sure that I’m going to be successful tomorrow.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

Perfect example from when I was saying, an SDR had set up a demo for us and I had a great conversation with the guy. He was you know a director of worldwide sales for an organization that had 5000 people. So this guy had very limited time. He gave us 30 minutes. We had a great conversation. He said you know what I want you to connect with you know this other guy that would help run this project. And I want to put you in touch with him, a name I had never heard before so I go naturally look him up on LinkedIn and he’s connected to my old boss over at Randstad where I was before SalesLoft. And luckily I’d like to treat everybody and put a 10 on their head. I have a great relationship with my old boss even though that I know I left that organization for a new opportunity. So I reached out to him and said hey how do you know this guy? And he was like he called me immediately. How in the world did you just make the… That’s my best friend from college. Let me reach out to him right now and put you in touch. While that was happening the other guy put me in touch with this gentleman and he replied back. he said I’ll give you 15 minutes. That’s kind of a push off answer right 15 minutes. It’s really hard to even do a little bit of discovery in 15 minutes and especially even create rapport. And while that was happening my old boss had reached out to him. He replied to that email before I could even reply. Fifteen minutes and said Kevin you just turned yourself an hour. That changes the game a little bit. Yeah because of my network and because of the way that I’ve created these relationships and have created positive experiences for people I’ve worked with and worked for I was able to move from 15 minutes to an hour to get this guy’s attention. And he looped in 15 other people along the way on his end that he probably never would have given me the time of day for.

Continue Reading …

Clip from Episode 31: SalesLoft’s Top AE – Kevin Walkup – Leverage Your Network:

What does it mean to have been the account executive of the year for the last two years? Well it means a lot. I’m very passionate about what I do and I think that when I’m on the phone with customers and prospects the passion oozes out of me. You can hear it across the phone because I mean I absolutely love sales and I want to be the most effective seller. And so at the end of the day it’s being more consultative and I feel like an educator at the end of the day sharing you know stories of what I’ve heard other modern sales organizations do to be successful and reciprocating those back in and helping others learn. And I think that’s kind of helped play a big part in being successful in my role as just being being a person that wants to help rather than as the sneaky sales guy. But just to know sales versus a consultant.

Continue Reading …