Clip from Bonus Episode 1 featuring Steve Woods of Nudge.ai:

I don’t think sales is going to be replaced by the robots. I think sales is going to be professionalized by the robots, and the sales people who think that way. Who think about changing the perspective of a buyer. Who think about engaging in those magical conversations where you see the light bulbs turn on. Those are the sales people who are going to thrive, because they’re good at the stuff that matters and is really hard for anyone but a human to do. And generally those people don’t enjoy the repetitive grunt work of pounding away at activities and doing research on a hundred accounts every single day. Having the robots do that for you is great. It focuses your effort on being a professional. It doesn’t replace you.

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

Absolutely focus, and I would say within focus it’s conviction. Once I’m convinced we’re the best solution for a prospective client, my focus on closing that sale and servicing the prospective client becomes my sole mission. You know that Mark Cuban quote: “Work like there’s someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you.” I’m that someone working everyday against my competition. I’m that sales person on the other end of the evaluation that all of the competition is afraid of because I am investing my entire mission, my energy on making sure that prospective client becomes a Namely client. Having that focus, that dedication to the sale is what has enabled me to close them.

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

So I kid you not, and this definitely helped me. You know the site Quora where you can ask questions. I was posting all kinds of anonymous questions on first of all, what is it like to sell software as a service. I had the founder of Saastr respond to several of my questions. I was writing everything anonymously at the time. Asking HR folks: how do you evaluate HR software. I would recommend this for any product, especially startups out there when you’re trying to figure out your market fit. Just asking those kind of questions. What do you look for when you evaluate solutions… for any kind of solution. I was asking tons of these questions just trying to get myself into the buyer’s mind. What do I need to be, what do I need to do so that you’re going to get excited and want to buy from me?

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

It’s important that whenever you’re speaking with a client or prospective client, that you are delivering a positive experience for them. Because not only presenting the features and the value of what you’re selling. Sales at the end of the day is an emotional buying process. It takes emotion to sell and logic to close. So you really have to bring a positive attitude and positive emotions with whatever product you’re selling. Especially with…

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

I’m a highly competitive individual. My entire life I’ve been in sports. What I love about sales is it’s a team sport, but it’s also an individual sport. In my sports career I was on the track teams which is very similar. I want to be the best, and what motivates me everyday to continue to consume to continue to work hard for my prospective clients is to be the best in my industry. I want to be the one everyone knows they can turn to for services, for advice, for whatever it might be. Because they know I will be the expert for them. That motivates me everyday to work hard. To deliver my all to whatever I’m representing. In this case I’m representing Namely and I’ve completely committed to this company and to the value that I bring to prospective clients. It motivates me to stay on top and work hard because, as I mentioned before, I’m working like everyone’s coming to take it away from me. I’ve got guys slacking me, Slack messaging me,  all the time: I’m coming for you Colin, and it just fuels me and I love it. I love the competition. I love being on top, and if you get knocked off the top it just fuels that fire more and you can come back for ’em. At the end of every quarter there’s always a few of us that just grind it. Put in the extra mile. Midnight before the quarter ends. Who’s going to get that last deal in and ring the bell?

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

Who are the top people on the sales floor or on the leaderboard and what are they doing that you’re not? Maybe they’re not the ones sending ten thousand emails a month, but maybe they’re sending the right emails to the right people every month. But, how do they know who the right people are? So you’ve got to start thinking strategically, what are they doing different that I’m not doing? If I’m an average guy or girl or average professional just sending tons of emails, making tons of cold calls, but I’m not getting the same results as the top folks there’s got to be a more effective solution there. There’s got to be some kind of magic or something different, but there’s no magic at the end of the day. Figuring out what those underlying items are. In our case it could be knowing who to speak with within the organization. Having a great understanding of the decision makers within the market you sell to. To put it simply like some of your other guests have said: Asking and spending time with those top account execs and really picking at their brain

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

For today’s SDRs, and I tell this to our SDRs internally, if your goal is to become an account executive and we now have the fortune of aligning ourselves with SDRs or Business Development Representatives depending on what your company calls them. It’s really shadowing the account executive. Asking key questions. Not only learning about the front end of the sales process. The sales development rep’s role in my opinion is to get folks excited. You’re out there in the marketplace cold calling, dialing for dollars so to speak, getting prospective clients excited about whatever it is you’re representing. The difference with an account executive is more of a consultative approach, at least within our company, it’s digging into the process of that prospective client. So I always like to tell my sales development representatives, the ones I get aligned with anyways, why don’t you start becoming that consultant for them. Not only get them excited, but start practicing early on asking key questions. I give my sales development representatives the same questions I ask prospective clients that I cold outreach to. So they get that rehearsal lesson on becoming an account executive. They start to understand when an objection comes up, how to handle that objection, and how to guide a prospect through a sales process. Just some simple advice would be start early on shadowing the top account executives. They’re going to be busy, but I’m sure they’re going to be open to allowing you to hop on some of their calls shadow some of their calls. If you have the luxury of being in the same office see if you can sit near them, see if you can take them out to lunch.

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

I would say, read and consume as much as you can. There’s so many great books out there. Consistently it’s the great folks that deliver the same kind of messages but in different ways. You just start to consume that information differently whether you’re reading Tom Hopkins or Brian Tracy or Zig Ziglar, Grant Cardone, Scott Ingram. You’ve got to consume all of that information early and often, and on repeat. I constantly go back and re-read and re-listen to podcasts and books. I would say 100% reading and listening is  going to be the key to any career development early on.

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Clip from Episode 16 featuring Colin Specter of Namely:

The thing with podcasts. Absolutely love the Tim Ferriss show. From a sales perspective, Grant Cardone. If you haven’t picked up his Closer’s Survival Guide, by far one of the most valuable audio books that I’ve ever digested as a sales professional. I’d say my first years in the SDR role or early on I was just on repeat listening to those objections to the close over and over and over again. Every objection you can imagine he runs through and prepares you with some type of response so it just becomes automatic. Big fan of Tim Ferriss, Grant Cardone… Zig Ziglar, closing the sale, secrets to closing the sale are the kinds of folks that I subscribe to.

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