Have you ever heard of people’s sales DNA? In this Expert Insight Interview, Steve Heroux discusses effective selling. Steve Heroux is a CEO and founder of Victory Selling, author, and sales mentor.

The interview discusses:

• Being empathetic
• Giving the moment of silence
• Being honest and straightforward

Good Empathy

To improve our sales skills, we first need to identify our weaknesses. There are sales DNA tests that can help us to find out which things subconsciously prevent us from making a sale. Ego, the need to be liked, and uncomfortableness in discussing money are some of the major things that prevent salespeople to be more successful. Similar to the need to be liked, is another sales metric called sales posturing. It consists of good and bad sales empathy. People with good sales empathy are patient, they show genuine empathy towards another human, and are willing to stay in touch with the client. People with bad sales empathy are not asking the right questions, have no genuine empathy for the client, and have no intent to stay in touch with the client. However, the point is that if clients see that you genuinely care about their well-being, they are more prone to come back to you.

Embrace the Silence

Another important thing in the sales world is the person’s ability to handle rejection. Naturally, when we get a rejection, we pushback by trying to give more information. What we need to do instead is to take a pause and to acknowledge what we just heard. That way, we show to our clients that we are listening, comprehending, understanding, and answering to them based on what they just spoke to us. By giving a moment of silence to each other to be able to think about what we just heard, we show respect to what other people speak. Also, the key is to let the clients talk more. And we can achieve that by asking better questions. The tone of conversation should be direct and assertive, but by no means pushy.

Speak the Truth

You know that you are doing a good job when your clients are the ones who want to move things to the next level. But, sometimes happens that clients go straight to the price and payment talk without the sales presentation, and that is where many salespeople get stuck and confused about how to continue. If the client wants to know the price without extra talk, simply tell him the price. If something is expensive, saying the price upfront gives the client the time to qualify and to decide whether he wants to proceed with the sale or not. People will respect you more like a salesperson and be willing to work with you more if you show them your honesty and integrity.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Have you ever thought of someone as a brilliant jerk? In this Expert Insight Interview, Katrina Burrus discusses how to turn brilliant jerks into effective leaders. Dr. Katrina Burrus is a founder and CEO of Excellent Executive Coaching, an executive coaching company.

The interview discusses:

• The term brilliant jerk
• Looking, educating, and empathizing processes
• Expanding, executing, and enlightening processes

The Brilliant Jerk

Brilliant jerks are brilliant people who have extraordinary expertise and are extremely valuable to the organization, but they lack bedside manners and leadership skills. If an employee would come to a brilliant jerk saying that he wasn’t able to finish some task, the brilliant jerk would feel threaten and therefore would attack. This behavior affects both the organization and its employees. Some of the consequences are unresolved issues, fear of creativity, high turnovers, litigations, etc.

Look, Educate, and Empathize

The first step to do is to look at the corporate culture and values. Does the company value good leadership, or does it prefer “the end justifies the means” policy? Good leadership can sustain only in the environment which supports it. The second step is to educate. In this step, brilliant jerks need to become self-aware of their reactions, triggers, consequences of their behavior, and how they are perceived. Talking about their past, especially childhood, will give the reasons for triggers and abrasiveness. Usually, it is some pressure they experienced at a young age. The more they become self-aware, the more they will be socially aware as well. As leaders, they have to become able to strategize, to empathize, and to communicate with others in a manner that is the best for the organization. The third step is to empathize. They need to find someone who has their respect and a great influence on their career, and they need to analyze that person on a deeper level by using things they learned in a previous stage. This practice develops the skills to adapt to different people and various situations.

Expand, Execute and Enlighten

The next step is to expand the qualitative research on the stakeholders. This research needs to be very detailed. For example, instead of saying that the problem is bad communication, it should be explained that eye-rolling is the problem during communication. That way, we can approach the specific issue. The next step is to execute, which is a process of practicing new behavior and developing leadership agility through various situations, assumptions, and insights. They finally start to think not only of their success but of everyone’s successes. The last stage is enlightening, in which they empower and motivate others to come to alignment with their vision.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Many companies avoid selling into the public sector simply because they do not know how to do it right. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Rich Milliman discusses strategies and requirements for selling in the public sector. Rich Milliman is a CEO and a co-founder of Extra Duty Solutions, a company which assists Law Enforcement Agencies to administer their extra duty programs.

The interview discusses:

• Fundamentals of selling into the public sector
• The importance of incrementalism in sales

The Fundamentals

From a sales perspective, selling into the public sector is a more complicated process than selling into the corporate or private sector. Rules and regulations of the public sector are ever-changing so, you have to keep up with your updated knowledge. The public sector has different constituencies, so it requires knowing a variety of different agendas and different ways of communication. For example, you have to find ways to talk and keep interested both the police chief and the CFO because they are both business people, but they have different business needs. The business sales process can also last for years in some cases. The good things about selling services to the public sector are exceptionally high retention rates, fewer competitors due to the service specifics, and relationship sales. To become a salesperson for this sector, you need to be persistent, determined, and patient enough to handle the long processes, constant changes, and many pieces of information to collect. Also, a good salesperson must be able to look at the things in a political map sense considering that there are many parties involved with different influences and needs, sometimes even conflicted with one another.

Incremental Change

It is in an entrepreneur’s nature to spot the weakness and to immediately create the business opportunity by providing a solution to it. It does not have to be a grandiose solution immediately but rather a smaller change that can incrementally lead to a bigger business idea. The same principle stands for sales. Small sales can be done from once, but big sales require incremental changes to the processes and constant customization of services. Closing a big sale from once would be like tossing a bomb and hoping to hit the target. That is why incremental changes offer a greater probability of reaching the target while building trust and creating close relationships with your clients. Employees in different public departments and municipalities as sheriffs or mayors often change. So, the importance of building a close relationship with clients who are employees in different public sectors is that there is a greater chance that they will pass or recommend your services to their successors if they trust you.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Entrepreneurs are interesting people who have interesting stories to tell. In this Expert Insight Interview, Laura Gale discusses how writing a book can help to grow a business. Laura Gale specializes in ghostwriting, publishing, and marketing of business books.

The interview discusses:

• Writing a book as a business strategy
• Things to consider before writing a book

Book as a Business Strategy

As an entrepreneur, writing a book about your work is a very beneficial way to establish your credentials, to differentiate yourself from the competition, to spread brand awareness, and to create a deeper relationship with your current and prospective clients. Writing a book can take up a lot of time that you as an entrepreneur probably do not have, so some professional writers can help you through the process to put your stories into writing. The first thing to do is to develop a strategic intent that serves as a north star – the path which the story will follow. The content will be delivered from your stories, case studies, research, and interview in which you can present yourself in more depth. During the process, many people start feeling imposter syndrome in which they doubt their expertise. If that happens, it is important to remember that your experience brings value and authenticity to your expertise which the audience will appreciate. When writing a business book, the expectations and KPIs are not set by the number of books sold but by the impact, the book has on your business.

Things to Consider

When deciding whether to write a business book, it is important to consider whether your business can handle the lead flow. Scaling the business is great only if you are sure that you will be able to keep efficiency and productivity levels. Your book should also find a fit in your already existing marketing ecosystem. If you already have a great marketing strategy, just replicate it with your book. And last but not least, think about your main idea and if you can subdivide it into 10 to 15 chapters. For each of those chapters, you would need to have enough information to be able to talk between 15 to 30 minutes about it to your ghostwriter. If after all of this you decide that writing a book will benefit your business, then going through the whole writing process will be worth it. Books nowadays are offered in many different formats, but there is a phenomenon in which younger people are going back to the basics by reading more hard copy books. This phenomenon can be explained simply because reading a hard copy book offers a more fulfilling and authentic reading experience.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Our emotional intelligence plays a huge role in our relationships. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Monica Parikh discusses how to increase our level of consciousness. Monica Parikh is a founder of the School of Love NYC, a lawyer, writer, coach, and motivational speaker.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The mental health stigma
• The importance of personal relationships
• The power of transformation

The Mental Health Stigma

Consciousness in this case is taking control of our mental and emotional health. We need to learn how not to let external factors influence our happiness. Many people still do not give mental health as much attention as they should. Nobody is embarrassed to go to the gym 5 days a week to take care of his body health, so why would someone be embarrassed to go to the psychotherapy to take care of his emotional health as well? The lockdowns caused by the global pandemic created not only financial but big mental distress for many. For instance, some people feel emotional distress from being locked with their families 24/7 while people who experience lockdowns alone deal with feeling isolated.

Personal Relationships

Society faces a challenge of one big collective uncertainty. Things that can help us to nourish our mental health are creating morning rituals like exercise or mediation, consuming healthy foods, and controlling social media influence on us. Social media connectivity caused disparity and loneliness for many people. Personal relationships suffer because people did not make them on solid foundations of communication, understanding, financial and emotional equity, and boundaries. Having a successful personal relationship is the main factor that causes human happiness, and for some reason, we invest the least amount of time, money, and effort into it. Personal development is a different kind of education, but the mental and emotional returns you achieve from it are way more worth than any school degree.

The Transformation

People usually need to reach some pinpoint to decide to make a personal transformation. Feeling pain causes us to decide to take a closer look at the problem and to make a change. When facing a problem, it is important to calm ourselves down and to believe that with change comes even more love, intimacy, and everything else that we want. We just need to look at it as an opportunity to evolve. Furthermore, many times people change the relationship partners but keep the same patterns that cause the same problems. Or, people use the same patterns that they learned from their parents. We need to become aware of those dysfunctional patterns and to break them. That is why it is crucial to expand the public awareness of mental health and to resolve the stigma about it.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The leaders serve as a model for those who are following them. In this Expert Insight Interview, Julie Winkle Giulioni discusses how to build leaders who can build other leaders. Julie Winkle Giulioni is a founder of DesignArounds consulting company, leadership speaker, and a co-writer of a Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go Amazon bestseller.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• Modeling behavior
• Showing effort on both sides
• How to embrace curiosity and Sensitivity

Model the Behavior

Leaders who focus on their own personal and professional growth will be able to help their employees to grow as well. Instead of saying what other people should do, the leaders should show the growth personally to model for the others. Besides modeling, leaders should invest themselves in the development of their employees as well. Employee development does not have a “one size fits it all” solution, so leaders should approach different people differently. Two essential principles for building development are cultivating communication and engineering experience. It is important to create relationships with employees in which you learn their progress through a conversation on a regular basis and not once a year. Through those conversations, you learn what kind of experiences you can help employees to co-create to support further growth.

Two Way Street

Many times, it happens that employees still did not reach that growth level that was expected from them by leaders. In that case, leaders should first examine whether that employee feels that he or she is in the right position and whether the desired skills are learned. If the answer is yes, then the leader should put more effort to bring the employee to a higher level. It is very important to create a supportive and pleasant environment in which an employee feels comfortable enough to show vulnerability and to ask for help. However, employee development is not a one-way street in which leaders constantly push their employees further. Employees as well need to take initiative and to be invested in advancing their careers because it is easier to help someone who shows enthusiasm for it.

Curiosity and Sensitivity

To make continuous improvement a part of company culture, leaders should embrace more curiosity and sensitivity among employees. Nowadays because of the easy access to all the information people became very lazy and less wondering. Leaders who approach their employees in a non-judgmental, open, and curious way encourage that same behavior among the employees. And lastly, leaders who are able to pick up on little cues that something is wrong and to approach employees to investigate and help to find a solution, are the ones who engineer employee development.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Situations like global pandemic impact entrepreneurs and make them panic. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Chris Tate discusses agility and resilience in business. Chris Tate is a co-creator of the world’s best Trading Mentor Program, training expert, bestselling author, and speaker.

The interview discusses:

• Believing in yourself
• How to stay grinding
• How to stay resilient

Believe in Yourself

The crucial thing for entrepreneurs is to have self-belief. When the entrepreneurs find themselves in a hard situation such as Covid19, they should go back to basics and remember what internal desire made them want to be entrepreneurs. It is even better to write that down because then you have a landmark that you can always get back to remember your internal motivation when things get hard. Another thing is to focus on the language we use when we talk to ourselves. It is important to replace the phrase “I can’t” with “I want” because that way we understand that the control of what we do comes from us internally rather than from some external factor. Trade and sales are great examples of that because even bad choices make a profit in trade and so many unsuccessful calls in sales lead to one successful call.

Stay Grinding

Furthermore, many entrepreneurs face the problem and they think that they need some grand solution to it. Instead, the business process is a grind and everyday grinding will bring you many little steps that will lead you to the solution. You just must push through it, step by step. Being an entrepreneur sounds like having dynamic work to do every day, but most of it is just a routine process. There is plenty of paperwork, rules, and regulations that you have to go through every day in order to reach that end goal that gives you the excitement and reminder of why you love your job. Being successful in your job is a payoff that comes after the time, effort, grind, blood, sweat, and tears you invested in it every day.

Stay Resilient

Many people face challenges nowadays, and of course, everyone’s circumstances are different but what must be common for everyone is to stay resilient to overcome current challenges. Firstly, we have to remember and stick to the fundamental processes that brought us where we are. And secondly, we have to stay open for innovation, creativity, and taking chances. Someone said you miss 100 percent of a shot you don’t take. We have to stay confident and find a way to stay in the game because the ones who find a way to stay in the game will come out of this situation as winners.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In life, we constantly learn new things. In this Expert Insight Interview, Chris Hervochon discusses how to build a learning culture within the company. Chris Hervochon is a founder of CPA, CVA firm focused on marketing and other creative agencies.

The interview discusses:

• How to learn and use our knowledge
• How to connect marketing and accounting

Learn It and Use It

Learning should be a continuous process embedded in every company culture. That includes striving to achieve mastery and constant innovation in what we do and how we do it. An accounting firm should not focus only on how to handle GAAP, but how to improve overall product and service for the clients as well. Professionals like accountants have a legal obligation to continue their education to keep their CPAs, but informal learning such as going to webinars or listening to some TED talk leader is equally beneficial. By educating ourselves we enrich our minds and we make it easier for ourselves to excel in our business by connecting the things we learned. The knowledge we gain can be used both externally and internally. External use of knowledge would be to answer all the questions that clients have regarding taxes or how and why we do something. Internal use of knowledge would be to know the software that the company uses for easy access to client information and different solutions, to write the knowledge-based articles, blogs, or eBooks to publish, and to explain to new hires how to use the software to speed up the onboarding process.

Connect Perspectives

The thing that marketing and accounting have in common is that they are both data-driven. Marketing’s creativity and accounting’s detailed orientation can create a perfect balance, can show different perspectives, and can help to better understand the bigger picture. People such as accountants or developers who have a stronger left – analytical and technical side of the brain, can create a product that makes total sense to them but very little sense to the end-users. Thus, as a service company, it is important to know how to explain to the client what, why, and how we are doing something instead of just throwing a bunch of numbers or software to the client. In conclusion, constant learning, sharing, and applying knowledge will help the company to achieve its purpose, which is to serve its clients in the best possible way.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.