With thirty plus years of federal service in the United States naval academy, Marine Corps, FBI agent, counterintelligence and author of The Code of Trust. With his background in federal law enforcement in counterintelligence, recruiting foreign spies and building trust to align their priorities with those of us he realized the art form of interpersonal communication. When asked to write an article about the work of his behavioral team it became obvious that he was strategizing trust. He was strategizing how you create a healthy relationship. His book is based on five distinct principles.

Sales Expert Interview covers:

• Suspend your egos
• Remaining non-judgemental is this environment
• Shape your thinking when working with entrenched views
• Being generous without expectation of gain

Suspend your egos.

The reason we need to suspend our egos is that every human being is seeking to be valued and affiliated by others. Making the conversation about others and not about ourselves is part of suspending your ego. Robin shares four quick things to do to ensure the conversation is about the other person providing an opportunity to seek and understand the other person for their thoughts and opinions.

How to remain non-judgemental is this environment is difficult to execute:

With another of his distinct beliefs of honoring reason. Constantly asking if what I’m about to say or do about to help or hinder where it is that I’m trying to get to. People focus on the means to goals. Robin focuses on the ends; working towards the end which is a happy healthy relationship. Removing the emotional hijacking by thinking of the cause and effect will inspire trust.

How did it shape your thinking when you had to work with someone who had entrenched views:

Within normal human behavior, everyone has the core belief and priority for their safety, security, and prosperity for themselves and that of their family. And how do they want to achieve them; healthy relationships and how to achieve the core beliefs and work backward. Finding those anchor points and then work towards the more granular things. First forming the healthy relationships you can really accomplish anything. Looking for commonality rather than differences since everyone’s service and a standard is situated around these core beliefs.

The idea of being generous without the expectation of gain:

The code of trust is flawless. Robin describes the third anchor in the principles of the book as: be an available resource for the prosperity of others with no expectancy or reciprocity. If you keep offering your services without building resentment. Evaluating if you are mismanaging the healthy relationship. The only thing we can control in the world is how we feel about the world around us. What was the reason you were offering your resources? You want to work with companies you trust. Trust begets a healthy relationship.

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.

Having helped businesses for over 20 years to develop their organizational culture, Susan Salgado describes an organizational culture in today’s terms as a sociological perspective that includes the values, beliefs, and traditions of the organization. What behaviors are acceptable is what defines a culture. How we treat one another from email communication, verbal communication, the way organizations set up policies are all pieces of how organizational culture is set up. Defining what is acceptable behavior within the workplace is done by developing a culture that fits who you are as a leader and what you are trying to achieve as a company. Your culture will determine what the acceptable behaviors are.

Sales Expert Interview covers:

• Virtual communication impacts company culture
• Does a company culture grow organically?
• Balancing employees accountability
• How to audit your culture

How does electronic and virtual communication impact company culture:

Many defining features of a company’s culture are unwritten rules of acceptable behaviors that will set an example that others follow. The aspects of unwritten rules of a company need to be broken down for new people so they can fit in often that is.

Is organizational culture grown organically or can it be developed deliberately:

Initially growing naturally or organically in very small organizations, however as companies grow, every new level of employees requires more definition of what the company culture is. Susan shares aspects on how to intentionally create a culture.

Leaders face the challenge of how to strike a balance of making employees accountable and not walking on eggshells:

Culture is not about making everyone feel great at work all the time. It’s about making work fulfilling and engaging. In terms of accountability, there is a misconception that leaders have to coddle and care for people. This misconception is ruining our ability to hold people accountable or to higher standards.

How do you assess or audit your culture:

There are some self-reflective questions to pose such as what is most important to us? Why do we exist, what is our purpose in the world and then what is important about how we get to that purpose? How do we bring that to a larger group of people?

What are some traits or outcomes in organizations that have led to greater success:

A high level of collaboration and ownership is what leads to greater results. Leadership from the top down invested in creating a caring and transparent culture where people are valued and appreciated. Transparency, courage, honesty, humility, and self-awareness are premium traits for the right kind of culture. Creating an Extraordinary Workplace Culture with Susan Salgado

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.

People struggle with why they aren’t where they think they should be in their career and their life.  They don’t always have the capacity to figure that out what has been holding them back for themselves.  If you find yourself stagnated or not achieving the goals that you have set for yourself it is because of these traps that you have fallen into. Anyone can change the trajectory of life and at any stage of their life.

Sales Expert interview covers:

• Traps we fall into and create
• The Power of focus
• Important thing and set aside others
• Being accountable
• Try, Failing learning and Repeat system

Finding Traps we create for ourselves and dealing with them

Likening traps to a force field analysis; people focus on the driving focus without paying enough attention to the restraining forces.  Traps are more like the restraining forces or barriers that restrain us from reaching our potential or our dreams.   The book describes 7 traps and a course that is orientated on business traps such as the busy-ness trap.

Important things to focus on and set aside the others

Help people to understand that they live their own life.  People have to realize they have control of their lives.  You can lead your life, your business, your marriage etc. you do not have to be a victim who controls their own destiny.  Help people to focus on their core priorities to achieve their vision and their goals.  They control their destiny.  People understand their vision.

Learning how to be accountable first for the choices you make

With a society and culture that wants to point the finger at someone else, it is very tough to teach accountability.  Referring to this as a trap is a language that helps people realize and accept the reality of the situation.  Epiphany breakthroughs get you to a new level of thinking.

Try, failing, learning, and repeat system is the model for successful company

The process of life cannot speed up in an instantaneous results culture.  Business tries to create this very controlled environment:  fearing failure. We need to be open to the iteration process through working at repeating the process until we obtain success.

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.

In Karin’s book, describes as a manager’s guide to getting results without losing your soul as a practical guide to achieving breakthrough results and remain a good human being along the way. Winning well is showing up with confidence and humility, focusing on results and relationships.

Sales Expert interview covers:

• Transfer from top sales to manager
• New manager building confidence
• Becoming a good coach – Inspire model
• Expert salespeople have the skills to manage
• Issues can be dealt with openly

Transferring from being top sales to being a good manager:

Realizing that their individual sales skills now need to be transferred or shared somehow with the people they now lead as a manager. In her book, she provides practical tools and techniques for specific topics that layout step by step guides for a variety of manager topics.

How do you build confidence in a new manager position?

The balance of confidence and humility; showing up with the level of confidence as a subject matter expertise as well as willing and open to learn in terms of leadership. Build genuine relationships; surround yourself with brilliant people on your team that challenge you. Know that everyone with their uniqueness will not work as effectively with the same leadership techniques.

Learning how to become a good coach as new managers – Inspire Model:

The acronym of INSPIRE outlined in the interview facilitates a model that outlines each step for new managers as a coach, in fact, this model taught at different levels of the organizations showed people having more productive conversations. Conflicts get resolved and issues are addressed early before they fester when this model is taught.

The best salespeople innately have the leadership manager skill to lead teams

The best salespeople have a lot of these skills already that they don’t realize can be transferred to management; the skills you use with prospects and customers you need to use internally with your teams.

How can you openly deal with issues

Start by building the relationships and having the trusts. If you knew that someone really cared about you and wanted you to be successful would you want to hear their feedback?

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.

Staying motivated can be a challenge when you do not set goals to hold yourself accountable. Goal setting may seem silly, but it is the one true way to measure and hold yourself accountable for your own success. If you don’t write down your goals and keep them in front of you, who’s to say that you will even remember them the next day?

This expert sales interview explores:

• Achieving Goals
• Association
• Increase Motivation

Achieving Goals

As a professional speaker, Gonzalez keeps the mindset that he is in marketing, and his goal is to get more speaking engagements. He’s a salesman, just like a lot of people that follow SalesPOP!. Gonzalez finds it easier to get himself going by tying something personal and exciting to his productivity. Set a goal, and get the prize. If you write down your goal, it becomes an act of commitment, if you daydream tie it to your goals.

Association

Whom you associate with has a great impact on achieving your goals. If you want to lose five pounds, hang out with someone skinny. If you want to increase your sales, take the top performing salesperson out for lunch or coffee once a week and pick their brain. Successful people will tell you what they did to become successful. You become the people you associate with, so make it a point to hang out with people that are doing what you want to do. Associate with winners, and disassociate with the other people.

Increase Motivation

It is incredibly easy to get stuck in a negative mindset or hold onto things that have happened in the past. Gonzalez recalls a time when he broke his foot and his hand and totaled his sled and how he overcame the negativity. Rather than giving up, Gonzalez made a list of people that could lend him a sled and focused on the fact that broken bones heal. The result? He raced again and qualified for the Olympics. Successful people think about where they want to go, while unsuccessful people think about what they don’t want to happen.

To learn more about the customer experience, watch the entire expert sales interview.

About 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.

Authenticity often being a buzz word that re-emerges over time. In part because humans crave a human connection and that we discuss how that applies in professional interactions. Professionals who remember that they are a person and not just a professional also tend to build a stronger rapport with those they influence. When authenticity is owned by the larger group it becomes the norm. Research supports that groups embrace ways of thinking and behaving that are not rules and regulations in a formal sense tend to be more predictive of behavior than when formal rules and regulations are followed. One benefit of an authentic characteristic includes faster error correction as the average level of conversations is candid instead of measured.

Sales Expect interview covers:

• Managing your impression
• Straight talk and directedness
• Leader’s mistakes
• Transparency and authentic
• Overcoming imperfections

How to overcome the over managing the impression:

Overcoming the over perceptions of other people can be achieved in three steps to influence people. These steps include; identifying when it’s happening, talking about its importance and lastly, leadership modeling the way. Genuine, real and authentic in this manner can influence people to not have cold and plastic impressions.

Become a straight talker and direct:

Teaching people to give and receive in a straight and direct way, from a leadership perspective, is to set the expectation by modeling the way as a leader. Elaborate what is expected of them as far as communication. The more a leader models this behavior, the more it will be mirrored by their team creating…

Being authentic through your mistakes:

No one is perfect. Mistakes are made by everyone, in fact, successful people make more mistakes, learn from them and yet, we often hide the most interesting mistakes we’ve made, missing an opportunity to model how those mistakes contributed to the eventual success. Such as sharing how it hurt, how you survived and learned and how it moved you forward. Periodically sharing these mistakes as teaching moments is modeling a leadership that is genuine and authentic which builds a rapport of a leader that is a human being just like their team and people like that authenticity.

The importance of being transparent to be authentic:

It’s important that a leader or leadership team that is saying that authenticity is important also model it themselves by delivering it. A leader saying it is important, but not do it themselves is not authentic. You must have some amount of transparency in order to be authentic. People know they can believe in what you are saying and see the human being in the leadership role and not simply the list a list of accolades.

Honesty can overcome imperfections:

The more people sense honest and straight forward communication, the more people are willing to not hold it against you. Part of the answer is again in leadership modeling the way

About 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.

As the workforce transitions from an industrial age to the social media age, we discuss the leadership role within the workforce also transitioning.  Exploring how defining your company values, behaviors and culture create a dynamic workplace to leverage social media.  In an age where the workforce now looks for fulfillment and recognition in exchange for their time and how you can now connect with brilliant minds around the globe; we discuss the importance of the benefits of human interaction and workplace intelligence.

In this expert sales interview we cover:

• Transitioning to the social age
• Focus on value as much as results
• leveraging social media
• creating a work culture
• Workplace intelligence

Transitioning from Industrial to the social age:

Companies must adapt to this change to survive.  Leadership itself has drastically changed from autocratic leadership to be leaders that are collaborative and more vulnerable; often less decisive and open to other people’s suggestions.  Corporate America has not transitioned very gracefully.

How to focus on values as much as results:

Know the company you strive to be and identify the behaviors that support that identity.  Once everyone agrees to what the company is striving to be, leaders have to maintain focus, regroup and initiate tough conversations when those behaviors are not being exhibited.

Leveraging Social media without hiding behind it:

By being mindful to not allow social media to become an unproductive time suck.  Because of social media we now have the ability to connect with more brilliant people than ever before, however, we need to take it further in order to create a mutually beneficial relationship that both people will strive within by also building the human to human interaction.  Without that balance, we are not living up to the potential that social media offers.

How to create a deliberate culture in today’s workforce:

Most cultures are organic or accidental; it almost always takes on the personality of the primary founder or the leader.  By asking the employees and not the leadership exactly how it feels to work within this company now and also asking how they would like it to feel.  Using a special survey tool, these results are quantified and presented to the leaders to align and leverage change to minimize the gap between the current and desired culture.

What is workplace intelligence?

Work Place Intelligence is a term for knowing what kind of leader will you respond best to, what kind of culture will strive within, are your purpose and values aligned with the company’s.  Is there a sense of belonging?  These measurable also help determine the company’s workplace intelligence to establish if you are a match and making the hiring process so much easier.

About 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.

Sales Trends That You Need To Know About In 2019

So what are the prevailing winds in 2019 that can power you to sales success? Andy Paul joins host John Golden to discuss the hottest sales trends for the year ahead. Find out what the biggest opportunities are for growth and what obstacles to watch out for. Plus Andy will outline any new phenomena that you may not already be aware of.

So make sure you tune in and join in the conversation as part of the accompanying Twitter chat #SalesChats and add your insights for the year ahead. This live 30 minute video chat might just be the most important event you attend this year, so start off 2019 the right way with actionable insights.

Watch Live 24th January 2019 9am PT/Noon ET

Episode Questions

1. What are the biggest sales challenges salespeople will be faced in 2019 and how they can handle them?
2. What are the most important buying trends this year and what are their impact on how salespeople sell?
3. How can salespeople drive more productivity, performance, and success in their salesforce?

Our Guest

Andy Paul

Andy Paul helps sales teams and salespeople accelerate their sales. He delivers workshops, presentations, and customized coaching programs shaping the sales process, to amp up sales productivity and accelerates sales by moving customers to make fast and favorable decisions.

Links › andypaul.com | twitter.com | linkedin.com

Our Hosts

About 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.

Martha Neumeister

Martha is social media strategist, responsible for all social media platforms of Pipeliner CRM. She is a communication expert with social media affinity, which she has been focusing on throughout her professional career. She has a bachelor´s degree in Entrepreneurship & Management and a master´s degree in Online Marketing which supports her in her career as Social Media Strategist.

About SalesChats

#SalesChats is a fast-paced (no more than 30 minutes) multi-media series that provides leading strategies, tactics and thinking for sales professionals worldwide. It can be found on Twitter (#SalesChats), as a live Google+ Hangout, and as a podcast available on iTunes, SoundCloud and right here on SalesPOP! If you think you would make a great guest for #SalesChats, please contact co-host Martha Neumeister.

#SalesChats is co-hosted by John Golden, CSMO Pipeliner CRM, and Martha Neumeister, Social Media Strategist Pipeliner CRM.