Dynamic Leadership

The way you approach people is extremely important, especially in leadership. Think about the last time your superior approached you by saying, “I really need your help with this” vs “I need you to do this now.” Your drive to help was probably a lot different in each situation. Nationally recognized speaker, trainer, author, and business consultant, Velton Showell talks about common strategies leaders use for success. He shares what he has learned throughout his 20 years of working in sales and marketing leadership.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

What does dynamic leadership actually mean?

• Developing a leadership style is important to your success. This can come from working with many different types of people.

A holistic approach to culture

• The number one asset in an organization is people. You can only go so far as an individual.
• Trust is a big part of a successful, positive culture.
• People are sometimes misplaced in roles. It’s a leader’s job to realize when a person is not fitting in somewhere.

Approaching performance reviews

• These should never be a surprise. Make sure your employees know you have their best interest in mind.
• Give people accolades in public.

Building your team and vision

• Have a vision of success in mind and surround yourself with aces then let them fill in the blanks. You will be pushed to better yourself.
• There is a difference between a leader and a boss. Velton talks about the distinction.

Customer service vs customer experience

• Customer service describes a temporary situation while customer experience lasts a lifetime. Think Disney.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Becoming a more persuasive speaker

Steve Stasczak is a motivational speaker who conducts professional speaking training and team building events worldwide. In this interview, Steve talks about how he helps people discover and improve their bad public speaking habits. There is a certain formula he encourages people to use which he goes into. Finally, he gives advice on other ways people can improve their presentation skills.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

The fundamentals of becoming a more persuasive speaker

• Steve talks about the IAB formula used by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address.
• Too many people don’t close out their speeches properly.

Building rapport with the audience

• This is an important first step in any speech but don’t spend too long on it.
• After you’ve built rapport then you can dive right into what the audience can learn from the presentation.

Virtual presentations

• Your audience isn’t always visible and questions may be saved until the end giving you no feedback when you are speaking. Steve gives his suggestions for this scenario.

Overcoming the fear of presentations

• You have to get to the bottom of the underlying issue that is causing this fear.
• Remember that the audience doesn’t want to watch you struggle. They are supporting you.

How to not be boring

• Steve has a very specific way to combat this problem that he teaches in his classes.
• Believing in what you are presenting and being an expert on the subject helps.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Competitive Advantage Has Changed

Jim Pancero, who has been a sales coach for 38 years, discusses how competitive advantage has evolved a lot more than we might realize. He provides great insight into how buyer behavior and expectations have changed and what salespeople can do about this evolution of sales.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

The evolution of sales

• Jim has been selling for almost 50 years. He says that salespeople in the trenches might not recognize the thresholds of change because they just adapt. He goes through the evolution of sales by decade.
• In the past, a competitive advantage could be as simple as manipulating your demo, but this stopped working.

The Amazon Model

• Customers today care about speed, simplicity, and ease of use. The only way you are going to compete with this is if you add tangible value.
• The only time someone buys on price is if they don’t see the difference in the products they are considering. It’s the salesperson’s job to combat this.

Overwhelmed buyers

• Let’s face it. Buyers today are swarmed from every direction with our competitors. The worst thing that can happen is that they feel so overwhelmed they make no decision or they make a hasty one.
• The internet is not the friend of salespeople, and the more options people have the more price sensitive they will be.

Knowing who to trust

• Being proactive as a salesperson will set you apart and allow buyers to trust you more.
• Salespeople have to understand their prospect’s industry and the problems they are having.
• The total cost of ownership piece is an important piece that buyers don’t usually look at. Going with the lower price is a risk to the buyer.
• Salespeople have to ask assumptive questions and have stronger messaging.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The Importance of a Positive Work Environment

A work environment can either foster growth or stifle it. Business and communication coach and consultant, Emrick Garam, gives advice on ways leaders can create the best environment for their teams to achieve business goals and greater success in the future.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

Inspiration in business goals

• A good business idea should speak for itself.
• There must be some sort of inspiration behind an idea to develop a team that is going to care enough to see that idea through.

Bringing an idea to market

• Emrick likes to use past accomplishments as a way to motivate his team to achieve even greater success.
• It is necessary to give people a break every now and then so they don’t get burnt out. As a leader you have to know when these moments are necessary and when a project needs more energy and a faster pace.

Focus on positivity

• We spend a lot more time focusing on things that aren’t working well than focusing on the positive. Positivity can go a long way when working towards a goal. Especially one with a long timeline.

Tailoring communication from person to person

• Not everyone sees problems in the same way, so sometimes it is necessary to change your communication style accordingly within your team.

Continued creativity

• Stepping away from a situation for a bit and coming back with a fresh set of eyes can be extremely helpful for innovation. The best ideas can be sparked in between work and relaxation time.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

A lot of people either don’t know they are in a comfort zone or recognize it and are okay with it. Ursula Mentjes, three-time bestselling author, award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and sales expert, calls this “the danger zone” because if you’re not improving then what’s the point and what’s the fun in that? She talks about how she has seen a single limiting belief stop her clients from growing to the next level and other examples of limiting beliefs that stifle progress.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

What is the belief zone?

• Most people live in their comfort zone. What is outside of this can be referred to as a belief zone.

Breaking out of the comfort zone

• Sometimes we can be afraid of success but not really know why. Picking apart these limiting beliefs can help uncover truths and untruths.
• Talking about your biggest goals can help you realize you are in a comfort zone.

Social Media

• You only post about the best moments in your life, right? So social media is not a true representation of the world.
• Be careful about comparing yourself to others and stay in your own lane.

Staying focused

• Stop pretending you are working when you’re not and have a to-do list.

Increasing sales

• Ursula shares tips on how entrepreneurs can increase sales.

Taking the first step

• Some people get overwhelmed by the process and consequently don’t take the first step. Having a coach can help.
• You have opened yourself to accountability and self-doubt may start to creep in but ask yourself what’s really stopping you from moving forward.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

From Zero to Sales Hero

Amy Lemire Simatos helps businesses, entrepreneurs, and sales teams improve profits while also being an inspirational keynote speaker and an author of the Amazon number one bestselling book, From Zero to Sales Hero: How to Double Your Sales and Income in Less Than 90 Days. In her book, she talks about 10 secrets that helped her go from 30% to 130% of her sales quota in 90 days. In this interview, she touches on some of those points and also the three factors of her “triple-A formula.”

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

The power of attitude

• This is a difficult thing for people to adapt to on a daily basis, but there are techniques to focus on it whether you have an hour or ten minutes.

The importance of activity

• Take a look at your calendar. Are you setting goals and tracking the activity that is going to get you there? Cut out the things that aren’t contributing to hitting your goals.

Accountability

• Where are you placing blame? Is it always outside of yourself? Amy talks about how to build the skill of accountability.
• Don’t get caught up in the last amazing sale you made and think you don’t have to work as hard going forward.

Behind every sale is a sponsor

• There are typically many contacts within an account but few actually hold the decision making power. Don’t get trapped in the comfort of those initial relationships, and don’t fear the people that hold the power.

The trusted advisor role

• Buyers today are very sophisticated and have done most of their homework before talking to a salesperson. So as salespeople, we have to show up as the experts ready to discuss industry trends and ways to make the prospect’s job easier.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

A Tough Love Leader Gets Results

Spending time on things that don’t really matter halts progress toward meaningful goals, so sometimes we need a little push in the right direction. Motivational speaker and sales coach TShane Johnson explains how leaders should push and guide people more. They may not thank you when they are kicking and screaming, but they will when they start to see results. He talks about how the most successful leaders are the ones that actually get in the bullpen with their teams and show them the way instead of managing from a swivel chair.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

Turning negatives into positives

• TShane has overcome a lot of challenges in his life, including being homeless and almost dying three times! He talks about how when we endure pain is when we experience the most growth.

Helping people understand success is hard

• All leaders experience leadership challenges. A great leader is going to push people towards success. Find your why to find your how.
• TShane explains his tough love approach to motivating people.

Low self-confidence

• People are sometimes more afraid of success than failure, and we tend to measure success based on how long and hard we work. What’s actually behind this?
• TShane talks about leadership challenges of helping people break the barrier of low self-confidence.

Being on the other side of failure

• We often come to expect failure and see it as just the norm. But when things start to go well for us, paranoia sets in.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Improving Inner AND Outer Behaviors of Salespeople

Organizations and sales teams perform better when they focus on developing the whole person of the salesperson, not just their external behaviors. Ryan Paugh, leadership coach, motivational speaker, and Head of Sales Training & Enablement at BetterUp, discusses his company’s idea of a whole person approach. He talks about the changing buying process, new demands of salespeople, and how they can keep up. Finally, he tells us the advice he gives to organizations and salespeople on how to stand out in the market today.

This Sales Expert Interview covers:

Craving authenticity

• In a world of bots and disconnected communication, we crave authentic, real communication.
• Too many companies think they can create an authentic company culture with superficial activities. But you can’t force it.

Autonomy vs Accountability

• If you give salespeople more autonomy, you must make sure the goals and expectations are clear.

How to convey authenticity remotely

• A lot of selling (and working) happens remotely today. Ryan provides thoughts on this and the future of remote communications.

Is the role of the salesperson dying?

• Is the role of the salesperson going away or becoming more important and how does trust and credibility play into this?
• Buyers can go online and become an expert on your product so when they come to you, they are expecting more of a coach and don’t just want a “yes man.”

Allowing yourself to be a real person with customers

• Sometimes you will have to tell a buyer that your solution isn’t going to work for them which a lot of salespeople aren’t comfortable with. However, this is what builds trust and credibility.

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 is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.