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Some Solid Sales Tips

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This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories Podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, and Outreach. To learn more about them and all of the sponsors who support this show and this community, just click over to top1.fm/sponsors.

For today’s bonus, I hand-picked 5 relatively recent tips from the Daily Sales Tips podcast that are particularly solid. I’m just gonna let these roles since they’re all pretty self-contained. Enjoy!

1109. No Nonsense Strategy to Build More Pipeline – Anthony Natoli
1228. The Best Invest – Meshell Baker
1102. Be Creative in Connecting with Customers and Win More – Irfan Jafar
1224. Teams Hack – Jack Wilson
1131. Winning with the Questions you Ask – Katie Jane Bailey

New Sales Job Due Diligence

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Be Specific About What You Want
A 9 Point Checklist for Sales Reps Looking at a New Role
How to Land Your Dream Tech Sales Job
Demystifying the 10K for Sales Professionals: Evan Kelsay

This episode is brought to you thanks to Outreach, QuotaPath, and Vidyard who all happen to have open sales roles. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who support this podcast and this community, click over to top1.fm/sponsors

In today’s bonus episode on the Sales Success Stories podcast I want to talk about doing your due diligence on a new sales role. This is something that has come up over and over again in this community because the position you find yourself in, in terms of the company you’re selling for, the industry, and in large part who you’re working for can have a massively outsized impact on your success in sales, and I’ve threatened for way too long to create some type of resource to help with these decisions. Well, here’s your resources thanks to a thread in the Sales Success Community Slack that Luke started, with some significant contributions from Eddie Baez and David Weiss.

Before we get into the due diligence on the company you’re considering going to work for. I’d highly recommend you do some due diligence on yourself. I even wrote a story about this for the first Sales Success Stories book and shared that audio from that piece a few years ago. If you’ll go to top1.fm/dd for due diligence I’ll include links to all of the resources like that that come up.

The title of that piece was “Be Specific About What You Want.” The idea is that you really need to give careful consideration to what’s going to be the right fit for you. One of the most important considerations is who you’re selling to and what you’re selling. You’re going to spend a lot of time interacting with your buyers. They should probably be people you enjoy spending time with. For me that’s sales and marketing professionals because they tend to be more optimistic and forward-looking, which is important to me because I’ve also sold to HR, Finance, and IT types who tend to be the opposite. They’re typically way more pessimistic and risk-averse. You should also consider what size of organization is right for you. Will you benefit from great training, a well-known brand, and a lot of resources that a large organization offers, recognizing that there will likely be some additional bureaucracy and internal complexity that comes with that, or will you thrive working for a small company where you can be more nimble and creative, but where you’ll probably need to figure out a lot of things on your own and will need to wear some additional hats?

Finally, you’ll want to make sure that you’re targeting the right role and give careful consideration to the price point that you’ll be selling at. Jason Lemkin of SaaStr who I don’t always agree with, wrote a pretty good piece about 9 reasons good salespeople fail, and he makes a really good point about watching great sales reps thrive at a 20K price point who can’t make it selling something that’s 2K and vice versa. Again, I’ve got that link for you at top1.fm/dd

Alright, so now you’ve found a company that you’re interested in going to work for who you think will be a good fit for you. This is where the real due diligence begins because you’re about to commit 100% of your professional effort to this company, and you want to make sure that you get a good return.

I’d recommend you start with the solution. Do you believe in what they sell? If you don’t believe in the product, it’s nearly impossible to find success. In many ways, sales is simply a transference of belief. So take a look at their offering. Look at their customers. Ideally, you have somebody in your network who uses the solution who can share their honest opinion. Now if you don’t already know somebody, you can always reach out cold to a reference the have on their website. This is also an incredible way to set yourself apart in the hiring process. If you want to dig really deep into that idea, listen to the conversation I had with Jacob Gebrewold on How to Land Your Dream Tech Sales Job. The other thing you can do is to reach out to another sales professional in that industry to get their perspective. This just happened recently in the community as well. Sometimes something sounds really good from the outside, but you might learn from somebody that’s in the middle of it that while this solution sounds like a good idea on paper, most companies aren’t investing in this type of solution and it’s a really hard sales. Definitely something you want to know BEFORE you take the leap.

Solid product. Great. Now, what about the company itself? I would dig into culture and financials in that order. Culture is absolutely critical and this is kind of a personal hack and shortcut, but you can learn a lot just by looking at the CEO. What is their background? Do they come from a sales background or did they build their career in product or finance? Personally, that’s more or less my order of preference. A top leader who’s spent some time selling often sets up a really great culture because they understand sales. Anybody that comes from a customer-centric place like product, marketing, or customer service can institute a strong culture based on the customer as well. It’s not a red flag necessarily, but you might want to be just a bit more wary if the most senior leader in the organization comes from a purely financial or engineering type background.

You can also get some really good clues about culture just by reading reviews about the company. Glassdoor, PayScale, and RepVue can all offer some interesting insights. But the most important thing you can do is to talk to people. You should work to have a conversation with at least one member of every team you’ll be interacting with on a regular basis. Obviously, you’ll want to talk to others on your immediate team to get their perspective, but talk to a solution consultant or sales engineer, talk to somebody in marketing, talk to somebody in customer service, and somebody in product. This will give you a broad-based view of the company and its challenges beyond just a myopic sales view.

As you’re talking to some of those sales peers, this is probably a good time to learn a little bit about comp. Validate how many people are at or above quota. Are targets reasonable, or are you being sold a dream based on “faux T E,” shoutout to Elaine for making me aware of this one. OTE is an acronym for On Target Earnings. It’s the amount of total compensation between base and commission you should expect to receive at 100% of plan. Unfortunately, there are a lot of organizations where very few people actually see that kind of W-2 and thus, Faux TE. You should also ask about turnover. I’ve found this to be one of the best indicators of organizational health. If there’s a lot of turnover, be very very careful. It’s almost always a very bad sign.

On the financial side, for the larger public companies, this is a lot easier and Eddie Baez recommends looking at their earnings calls and financials. Their shareholder memos and messages from senior leadership with provide useful background on the operating environment and the firm’s corporate objectives.

For an incredible resource on how to make the best use of public company documents like this. Check out Evan Kelsay’s highly entertaining Sales Success Summit presentation on Demystifying the 10K for Sales Professionals. Again top1.fm/dd.

If the company you’re considering isn’t public, you can look at Crunchbase to find out details about their fundraising activities, and this is just an areas that you’ll need to lean into and ask some more explicit questions about.

The last piece is critically important, and that’s the due diligence you need to do around your potential new manager. This relationship can make or break everything. Make sure you understand their style and their approach, but here you really need to get outside of what they tell you and validate. Certainly, talk to other people on the team about their perspective, but the most powerful thing you can do is use LinkedIn to find reps that have worked with them in the past. You can ask all the same questions about their style and what it’s like to work for them, but the most telling thing of all is probably in their answer to your question about whether or not they would work for this person again and why. Remember it’s super important to get outside of the organization for these detail. Find one or two people who don’t care whether or not you end up going to work for this company to find the truth.

All of that sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Because it is, but every career decision you make is critical to your overall personal trajectory. Going in the wrong direction even for a year or a year and a half can have a major impact long term, while the same is true if you make a great decision and work for an incredible company under super-strong leaders. Trust your gut! If something doesn’t feel right, there’s probably a reason for that. Don’t chase the dollars and the title. They’re important considerations for sure, but in almost every case I’ve ever seen that they’ve been the primary driver, the person who accepted the promise of the big dollars and the big title has regretted it. Too often they just don’t materialize. So be a little bit skeptical. You might even build a scorecard to help you be a little bit more objective in a very emotional decision.

Finally, you can’t talk to too many people. There’s literally no such thing as too many conversations. Talk to people in and around the organization, but lean on your network and your mentors. Join the Sales Success Community Slack and lean in there. To do that, you just need to hold some $SALES coins and your link today is SalesCoin.co/dd. Now if you haven’t created an account yet, go to SalesCoin.co/start and then share your username and wallet ID at salescoin.co/form so I can send you your first $10 worth.

I’m sure we’ll be continuing the conversation on Slack, and you can also ask even more specific questions. It’s a pretty incredible collection of humans. Many of whom you’ve heard here on this podcast.

Good luck in your search and may your next sales role, or the decision to stay where you are, put you on the path to greatness. Thanks for listening!

Investing & Side Hustling for Sales Professionals

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David Weiss is a top performer and expert in sales strategy, sales operations, training, and the ways companies brand themselves to attract a target audience. In this very special bonus episode, Scott welcomes David to engage in a conversation on today’s topic, Investing and Side Hustling for Sales Professionals.

David and Scott touch on subjects such as dollar-cost averaging, cryptocurrency, REITS, owning your own residence, and much more. David shares his thoughts on side hustles and why he believes that most sales professionals jump into their side hustles too quickly and at the expense of their everyday hustles. Finally, David speaks to his ability to build networks and foster relationships and why those two things have been critical to his success.

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott takes a moment to thanks today’s sponsor, the brand new Sales Community Coin:  $SALES
00:25 – Scott takes a moment to welcome today’s guest, David Weiss, who joins the show to discuss Investing & Side Hustling for Sales Professionals
02:31 – David’s thought process behind money management
06:17 – Living to your base salary instead of your commissions
10:42 – Retirement, real estate, and other investments David allocates his extra income to
14:54 – Fear and greed and why dollar cost averaging is crucial
19:50 – Scott and David discuss their own thoughts on investment strategies
27:29 – Owning your own real estate
35:31 – Scott and David provide their thoughts on the right way to go about side hustles
44:38 – David speaks to his own side hustle and the results he’s been able to achieve
47:09 – Posting content and growing an audience using LinkedIn
52:37 – More sage advice on side hustles
56:16 – Building networks and fostering connections
58:15 – Scott takes a moment to promote David’s MEDDPIC course and how owning $SALES Coin can help you gain access at a discounted rate
1:00:58 – Scott thanks David for joining the show to engage in this conversation

Tweetables:

“My philosophy which I live by is, ‘Live to your base. Your commissions are for investments. And I’m going to invest, after taxes, pretty much all of my commissions.’” (05:06)

“The thought that I’ve often had is that same idea that when other people are being super greedy and the market is at the top, that’s when you should be selling and finding other things. And when people are super scared and the market is going down, that’s when you buy what I like to think is assets on sale. Think of it like Black Friday and you’re trying to buy your electronics at half price.” (18:39)

“I’m a big believer that before you spin up a side hustle, you need to get really good at your hustle.” (36:24) 

“So much in life is just being smart with time management and saying, ‘Where am I getting the most value? Where am I making the most money? Where am I having the biggest impact? Let me allocate those things accordingly to get the best possible outcome.’” (52:18) 

“My ethos, what I wake up for every single day, one of my core ‘Whys’ is I have a desire to help the sales community be its best self and help sellers reach their potential.” (56:36) 

Links Mentioned:

$Sales Coin Intro
[email protected]
2022 Sales Success Summit
ALL Enterprise Sales Episodes
ALL SDR Episodes
David Weiss on LinkedIn
MEDDPICC Master Class
Secular Bear Markets
Fear & Greed in the Market
Article on Cryptocurrency
Teachable

Sponsors Mentioned:

$SALES Community Coin

$SALES Community Coin

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$SALES CoinI delayed today’s bonus episode released by a couple of days because I wanted to give those of you who’ve taken action before and subscribed to the listener list a bit of a head start. I always try to provide a little extra value there. If you’re not already subscribed, I hope you’ll do that first. As in, right now! Just go to Top1.fm and drop your name and email address into one of the forms. That’s all it takes.

Today I get to tell you about the launch of the $SALES Community Coin. This is something I’ve been watching and studying for a little over a year since my friend and mentor, Joe Pulizzi, launched his own $TILT Coin in support of his business that’s all about supporting Content Entrepreneurs. I’ve personally participated in half a dozen projects and watched carefully to see what does and doesn’t work with the intent to bring this idea to the Sales Success Community.

All of these coins live on Rally, which they describe as a platform for creators and their communities to build their own independent digital economies. For those of you who are into Crypto, Rally is a sidechain and has its own Rally coin (RLY) which serves as a bridge to the Ethereum Blockchain.

The good news is, you don’t have to understand any of that. In fact, one of the things I’m most excited about is introducing this community to the world of crypto and Web3 in a way that isn’t overly complicated. There’s still way too much friction in crypto and NFTs in general and Rally makes it super easy. You just create an account, and you can buy $SALES coins with a credit card. Easy as that.

But you never have to actually BUY $SALES coins if you don’t want to. I’m setting this up in such a way that there will be tons of ways to earn coins simply by actively participating in the community and continuing to listen to this podcast. Think of it as the ultimate loyalty program where you can earn points that have real value. In fact, my friend and mentor, Mark Schaeffer, who created the $RISE Coin has been challenging me and himself to figure out how to make these coins more valuable than money.

Now, I should probably note that Joe and Mark have 2 of the top 3 coins on the Rally Network of over 300 projects. So you’d better believe that I’m actively learning from the top 1% with this project and believe that together we can grow the value of the $SALES coin into that same top 1% space within the next 12 months.

One of the reasons I believe that’s absolutely achievable is because the vast majority of these coins are being used as “Creator Coins,” that are meant to support some type of creator, and you’ll find a huge variety on Rally. But I’m yet to see somebody build true community with a coin. A community that is actively engaged and supports itself.

Just yesterday an active member of this community reached out to me looking for some career and territory advice as he gets ready to start a new job. I think I was able to be a little bit helpful, but it was connecting him with another member of the community who was much closer to this specific part of the marketing tech space who was able to provide some game-changing advice.

Those are the types of interactions I’m hoping to foster and reward, because those who’ve gotten involved in this community in its more organic form through the Sales Success Summits and such have proven to be some of the most thoughtful and generous people in sales. Heck, you’ve listened to lots of their stories on this podcast, but it’s not just the podcast guests. It’s those who’ve really leaned in and gotten involved. Some of whom have become the biggest contributors.

That’s one of the first things we’re going to open up. We started building a Sales Success Community Slack Workspace for Summit ticket holders, and now we’re going to invite $SALES coin holders to join us in that private space.

One of the first places that the $SALES coin becomes more valuable than money is through its power to purchase a ticket to the Sales Success Summit. Right now those tickets are $1,299 at Top1Summit.com, but a limited number of those same tickets are just $999 if you pay with $SALES Coins.

But it’s so much more than that. Anyone who holds 1% or more of the coins will be invited to join the Coin Council to help me steer the value and utility of this project. I’m also looking at creating and rewarding a small group of listeners who will help vet and select the tips that get featured on the Daily Sales Tips podcast, so we can continue to increase the quality and relevance of that show.

So let’s quickly talk about getting started, because you’re going to have to have an account before you can start earning, and like I said it won’t cost you a dime to get started.

Just go to SalesCoin.co/start. You’ll need to fill in 5 fields and click a check box to create your account and get started. Once you’ve done that, you’ll want to go to SalesCoin.co/form and share your new Rally Username and Rally Network ID with me so I can send you your first $10 worth of $SALES coins.

You might want to write this down, but it’s just those two links. SalesCoin.co/start and SalesCoin.co/form. Once you’ve done that you’ll be able to start claiming the coin drops that will probably be included in nearly every email I send. I’m also going to start including them in podcast episodes like this. Here’s the first one of those. For an extra 10 coins, just click over to SalesCoin.co/SSS1

We’ll continue to build on these over time, but it’s really just about being actively engaged. Read the newsletters, listen to these podcast episodes, actively contribute and converse on Slack. Then tell your friends and colleagues in sales about what we’re doing!

Want to take another step and become an even more active contributor. Buy some coins. Make a bet on the future value of this community and this space and consider accumulating enough coins to be a part of the coin council.

I’m not going to get into too much detail around this right now as my plan is to offer a regular series of webinars to talk coin holders through some of the inner workings of the Rally platform and our plans, but it’s definitely worth nothing that coins and communities that are growing are eligible to receive Rally Rewards. This is a weekly distribution shared among all coin holders in the proportion to the percentage of coins they hold.

This week, for example, we’re on track to share about $4500 in weekly rewards and I fully expect that number to be even higher next week.

Like I shared with the core of the community who already hold tickets to this year’s Summit, it can be a little bit hard to understand initially until you experience it. Your best bet is just to dive in. Create your account, provide your details via the form so I can send you a few coins so you can get started, and then watch what happens. Whether you want to be a passive participant or an active contributor is up to you. Obviously one of those approaches will prove to be much more rewarding, but both should be beneficial.

Let’s do that rundown one last time so you can get started. First, go to SalesCoin.co/start to create your Rally Account. Then go to SalesCoin.co/form to provide your details so I can send you your first $10 worth. Then, don’t forget to go to SalesCoin.co/SSS1 to claim an additional 10 coins from there. From there, watch each Sunday that we’re eligible for your rewards to arrive, and just keep an eye on the newsletter for updates and tips.

This should be a really fun and truly rewarding journey. Much like growing as a true sales professional. I really hope you’ll be a part of it.

Thanks for listening, and as always I’ve got another killer interview for you next week with another top-performing sales professional. In fact, this one is pretty mind-blowing. My guest was the top performer of over 550 sellers in his organization for 230 months in a row! You’re not going to want to miss it. So make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and I’ll talk to you again next Tuesday.

Thanks for listening!

Wait, wait, one last thing. I’m going to put up this transcript and all of these links at top1.fm/coin-intro. Do yourself a favor and go there now. top1.fm/coin-intro

The Leader Within – Constantine Johns

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This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring Constantine Johns’ presentation titled The Leader Within from the 2021 Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these video presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com. Here it is:

Remember, thanks to all of our sponsors you can still get access to all of last year’s Summit presentations on-demand for free at Top1Summit.com. Of course, that’s also where you’ll go to register for this year’s Sales Success Summit that will be happening here in Austin on October 10th & 11th. The sooner you register, the lower your investment, so head over to Top1Summit.com and once you buy your ticket, that will also get you access to our private Sales Success Slack Community. Thanks for listening and be sure to come back next week for another killer interview with a real top-performing sales professional. I’ll talk to you then.