As media platforms change and evolve, some salespeople are struggling to keep up with the social media trends, and are missing out on key sales, or failing to market themselves in a way that keeps up with consumer preferences. To learn more about how to keep up with media trends, watch this video interview with Grant Leboff, who is interviewed by John Golden.

In this expert sales interview, explores these social selling tips:

• Social selling and its popularity
• How to engage with customers and meet them where they are at
• How your online brand becomes your own personal network
• How to get your “network” to make sales for you

What is social selling?

Social selling is when salespeople use social media to begin and finalize sales. With the migration of in person or over the phone sales moving to online sales, salespeople were rushing to create and cultivate a media presence that would draw in customers. However, many have lost interest, or have lost faith in social media to help make sales. However, one key component that might be contributing to the waning away from social selling is that salespeople don’t often know how to make it work.

Be where your Customers Are

Selling as a general process has never changed. As always, you have to be where your customers are. In the past, salespeople often went to conferences, or made sales calls, because that’s how they marketed themselves and added consumers to their pipeline. However, when you look at the current research, there is less initiation in person or on the phone, and more purchase journeys starting online. In order to keep up with these trends, the salesperson has to learn to be present online.

Developing an Online Brand

Developing yourself online is where social selling starts. Leboff emphasizes the media in social media. With the Internet and easily accessible technology, people will Google you and checked your social profiles before ever sending you an email or picking up the phone. With LinkedIn, YouTube etc., salespeople essentially have their own media channel or network.
What makes network’s interesting and successful, be it a major TV station like NBC, or an individual salesperson’s YouTube channel, is the content that is put on the network. If a salesperson doesn’t have content that’s desirable or a good social media profile, and they’re not posting things of value or insight to the target market, they have no chance of making these platforms work effectively. The bottom line is that salespeople must learn to have an online presence, and use their network as a way of engaging with consumers and creating sales.

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.

Pipeliner CRM empowers social selling. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

There is often very little training for salespeople on handling rejections. If a salesperson isn’t able to handle how a “no” impacts them, it could impact their next call, their next activity, and can even compound into altering how they perceive their abilities. Being resilient, and knowing what to do in the face of that self-doubt is key in the sales industry. John Golden discusses this idea with Michael Licenblat.

In this expert sales interview, Licenblat shares his insights on:

• The importance of resilience for salespeople
• How negative thinking can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy
•  How to allow for failure without expecting it

The Self-Fulfilling Rut

The traditional approach is to go into a sale thinking, “you’re fantastic, you can do it,” etc. and turning up with the best version of oneself. However, there is a sharp drop between being elevated and excited, and falling flat when getting a no. After encountering failure, if you stay down and operate from a negative mindset, you can get stuck in this self-fulfilling rut.

Allow for failure, don’t expect it

There is a difference between knowing that rejection is part of the job and expecting it to happen. However, there is a way to anticipate failure while still maintaining confidence as a salesperson. By anticipating that some of the calls will end in no, you can allow for failure, instead of expecting it. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad salesperson, it just means that there are a lot of reasons why a consumer might not buy at the current time. Allowing for failure empowers the salesperson to continue with confidence after getting a “no.”

Future Vision

Look at what’s ahead of you instead of what’s behind you. The feeling of possibility is what drives resilience, not the shame that is carried from past failures. When setting a target, Licenblat recommends that 80% of the focus be on forwarding movement, and 20% be on how to improve from past mistakes.

When a Client Says “No”

Licenblat recommends assessing yourself and the situation in order to understand what went wrong, and the true meaning behind getting a “no.” Being able to identify the problem and make adjustments will help you be more successful in your next endeavor, but also help you recover quickly. Some important questions to ask are, “Is it me?” “Is it my preparation?” Is it them, are they not ready to buy” “Is it in my presentation?” The tendency to blame oneself after a sale goes bad is very high amongst salespeople, and being able to say, “It may not be me, it may be these other factors,” can help remove self-doubt and shame and present a more clear picture of what is really going on. “Spend the least amount of time down possible,” says Licenblat. “The more you take things personally, the longer time you’re down. Recover from the rejection quickly so you can get back out there. “

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.

Pipeliner CRM fully empowers salespeople to be resilient. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

MUST WATCH PANEL DISCUSSION[icon name=”binoculars” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

Let’s face it—the goal of a sale is a close. If a salesperson isn’t closing an adequate number of sales, they won’t be in that occupation very long. The more closes a salesperson succeeds in achieving, the more successful they are, and the longer their career.

Any salesperson will want to know how to close better—meaning more efficiently and more consistently —and of course will want to know how to obtain more closes. Join our panel of sales experts and learn how! Hosted by John Golden.

Lisa Magnuson is an expert in corporate strategic sales and TOP Line Account™ revenue building. As a respected sales consultant, she works with clients to build successful strategic sales programs that drive revenue from large new accounts and enable growth from existing high value customers.

John Flannery works with his customers to develop specific revenue generation programs based around sales process. With 30 years of sales, sales management, and business ownership experience, John has a comprehensive understanding of how sales organizations should run. After 10 years in Fortune 500 companies, he founded, built, and sold his own business in the wireless industry. For 8 years, John was a top producing business partner with CustomerCentric Selling.

Janice Mars, Principal and Founder of SalesLatitude, is a sales performance improvement consultant and is focused on growing top performers to impact bottom line growth. With more than 30 years of experience as a senior business and sales executive, she helps companies build successful sales teams.

MUST WATCH PANEL DISCUSSION[icon name=”binoculars” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

When you go to make a sales call, do you simply dive right in? If so, you’re probably hitting a pretty high rejection rate—especially today when buyers are incredibly educated not to mention pushed for time. Today sales call planning is vital. Join our webinar with author and renowned sales trainer Ken Thoreson and learn how to do it right.

Ken Thoreson provides keynotes, consulting services, training, and products to improve business. He has been ranked 4 times by Top Sales World magazine in the Top 50 Sales and Marketing Influencers. He is the author of 5 books; the most recent, SLAMMED! is for first-time sales managers.

As a sales executive and trainer with Dale Carnegie for nearly a decade, Catherine Brinkman generated her own leads. Today, that experience is used with marketing and sales teams to design collaborative marketing campaigns. She specializes in market diversification, content, and social media.

Dan Perry approaches helping companies grow revenue from a unique perspective – he’s done it. He uses this proven methodology now at the Brevet Group to combine strategic consulting, custom training and modern reinforcement to get results. His work results in quicker adoption and enablement of the new programs and processes in the sales team driving improved sales rep and manager productivity.

Sales coaching is one of the top—if not the top function of a sales manager. How much time should a sales manager spend on coaching? Steven recommends at least 60 percent.

So that’s the quantity—but what’s the quality? In this insightful video, Steven covers what sales coaching is, and what it is not.

Pipeliner CRM empowers precise sales coaching. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

In the wake of artificial intelligence (AI) and technological advances, the sales field has become more digital and less personable. However, there are things that AI will never be able to recreate. Levitin uses the analogy of a sous chef assisting the head chef. A sous chef helps the head chef prep all of the ingredients and get things ready so that the head chef can put her love and personality into each dish. AI is like the sous chef for a salesperson. Technology helps the salesperson gather data and information, organize their life, etc., but at the end of the day, it is the salesperson who must finalize the sale using their human attributes. Shari Levitin discusses this concept, and others, in this video interview, hosted by John Golden.

This expert sales interview reviews:

• The importance of empathy in the sales world
• How to learn empathy if it doesn’t come naturally
• Universal truths that apply in the real world and the sales world

Learning Empathy

Salespeople are not always naturally empathic. But, you can learn how to build and learn empathy. “What is more important in establishing influence, which is sales?” asks Levitin. “75% will say competency, and maybe 25% empathy. It’s a trick question, though, both are equally important, but the order matters.” Empathy is often put second when really it should come first. Empathy is the skill that will help you make a connection with someone and creates a relationship. Competency is when you show your reliability, integrity, and knowledge that will ultimately get you the sale, but if you don’t have an empathic connection with someone, they often won’t give you the chance to show your competency.

Practice Makes Perfect

When a person can build and grow empathy, their sales will make a noticeable positive shift. There are a few different ways to practice empathy. First, think logically. How do you build a deep relationship with someone? Don’t just start with surface level commonalities, like a sports team, ask questions that are rapport building. Talk about values, not just vocation. Secondly, practice, practice, practice! You can implement your budding empathy skills with lots of different people, not just those who you are trying to sell to. Try building quick relationships with people at the dry cleaners, at your kids’ sports games, etc. And third, remember what it’s like to be the buyer. Really put yourself in the shoes of the customer.

Universal Truths

Levitin has coined many universal truths that apply both to the real world and the sales world, two of which are, “anything that can be told can be asked,” and “better people make better salespeople.” She recommends teaching communication skills that work not just in the workplace, but in every area of life. “The best salespeople in the world… all they do is listen,” says Levitin.

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.

Pipeliner CRM empowers salespeople to humanly direct with prospects. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

In this video, Adrian Davis offers 2 quick but powerful tips to increase effectiveness in sales management.

1. Don’t drive looking in your rear-view mirror. It’s fine to look over reports of what’s been done, but to effectively manage you need to look out ahead, and manage behavior accordingly.
2. Don’t drive at all! You need to be coaching your salespeople to be excellent drivers themselves. A great manager is really a great coach. Here is some great basic advice on being a coach.

Pipeliner CRM empowers precise sales management. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

What is the Sales Pipeline?

It describes the individual steps salespeople take from initial contact with a potential customer, or prospect, to qualifying that prospect into a lead, and further validating that lead into a sales opportunity followed through the different stages until closed or lost.

Many sales organizations today are not making use of this powerful sales management methodology. Why is this? They simply fail to recognize the benefits or simply don’t know how to shape their sales pipeline.

So let’s look at how to set one up.

How Many Stages Should Your Pipeline Contain?

Write all of the steps within your sales cycle on paper. Focus on the most important tasks that lead your customer to purchase your product or service.

Do not create too many steps, because having too many stages in the sales pipeline is counter-productive. Six or seven steps is the optimum number of stages in the pipeline. But in cases such as government contracts, it might be entirely normal to get from lead to closing the deal many years down the line.

We have analyzed many sales processes across a number of industries, and have found that on average companies will limit their sales process to five steps:

1. Initial contact
2. Qualification
3. Meeting
4. Proposal
5. Close

Each sales step has different weighted value within your sales process. This value, or probability of closure, reflects the likelihood of that sale closing.

How do You Define the Closing Probability?

Let’s say you will need to call 10 prospects—make 10 initial contacts—in order to qualify 1 prospect to the next step. It means that only 10% of your initial contacts make it to the second sales step.

You can freely define your probability of closure according to your experience.

research shows that the most commonly used closing probabilities for each of the example sales steps are as follows:

Initial contact – 0 %
Qualification – 10 %
Meeting – 30 %
Proposal – 60 %
Close – 100 %

Once your enters your sales pipeline, they become a sales opportunity. Each opportunity has its own value. Using opportunity values and probability of closure for each sales step, you can “weigh” your pipeline.

For example, if the total of opportunities in a particular sales stage is $100,000, and the probability of closure for that stage is 30%, then the weighted value of the stage would be $30,000. All of those weighted values added together give you the total weighted value of your sales pipeline.

Learn much more about the sales pipeline here.