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Mike Bosworth Talks Storytelling & Sales

Storytelling and sales may not seem like two things that go together, but knowing how to utilize stories as a tool during sales pitches can be an invaluable tool. John Golden interviews Mike Bosworth in this expert sales interview.

Storytelling and Sales were discussed, including:

  • The most critical question a salesperson can ask
  • Why you should never use “we” in your stories
  • Two stories that you should have in your back pocket

Can I Share A Story?

Bosworth utilizes a simple, but powerful question to integrate storytelling into his sales pitch. The question is: “Can I share a story with you about another person who does your job?” In his career, he had a 100% acceptance rate of people wanting to hear his story. Then, he uses the story to lead the potential buyer to several different conclusions. The first conclusion is that he has character, and isn’t going to hustle them. Secondly, it demonstrates that he has worked with other people in their same industry, and has solved their problems. Third, it creates a bit of peer envy, because there is a competitor out there who has solved the problem that they haven’t figured out how to answer yet.

Take the “We” Out of Your Stories:

Everybody tells stories. We tell stories often in our personal lives, like at birthdays, Thanksgiving and during golf games. And some of us share stories in our professional life. What many salespeople don’t understand how to tell a story that is impactful and will ultimately lead to a sale. Most people don’t share stories consciously, where they have a plan and a motive for telling it. A good story will have a setting and a struggle, followed by insight and a revolution, carried out by a hero. Most stories, however, don’t have a hero and don’t develop a personal connection with potential buyers. Stories are lead by “we.” For example, “we started this company,” “we developed blank to fix blank.” These kinds of stories don’t evoke an emotional reaction.

Stories for Every Salesperson:

If you’re a salesperson that wants to use storytelling to increase profits, there are two stories that you should keep in your back pocket. The first is the story of the company that you work for. This is a great story to tell during the first meeting with a potential buyer, and it explores the kind of culture and credibility that the company has. The second story is your own, personal story. This is best to share during a subsequent conversation. You want to ensure that it includes an arc, and will resonate with the buyer. Describe the potholes that you have come across in your life, and show them that you can be vulnerable and take feedback, and can overcome difficulties in an intentional, specific 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.

Pipeliner CRM empowers salespeople to truly connect with buyers.Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

#SalesChats: Sales/Marketing Alignment, with Samantha Stone

Sales & Marketing Alignment
#SalesChats: Episode 31

Sales and marketing departments have struggled to find common ground for some time now. These two different teams work best together, though. Samantha Stone discusses sales and marketing alignment in this #SalesChat, hosted by John Golden and Martha Neumeister.

Stone explains:

• The challenge of getting sales and marketing to align, and how this challenge is influenced by cultural norms
• The biggest obstacles to the lack of alignment, including marketing being measured only on leads and how this creates a disconnect
• Moving away from a lead and metric focus, and choosing smart alternatives like conversion rate
• How to create new goals that sales and marketing can unite on, as opposed to both teams working towards different things
• Embedding quality over quantity in an organization, starting with how we measure marketing
• The benefits to running a pilot program in order to slowly integrate changes that will unite sales and marketing
• Ensuring you find ways for short-term wins, even if they aren’t part of the long-term strategy
• Help marketing and sales understand each other’s dynamics when going through these changes, and the benefits of having empathy in this process
• Creating written down agreements between sales and marketing in order to establish structure, accountability, and expectations
• The importance of ensuring the target market is well established and well understood so that sales doesn’t waste time chasing things they shouldn’t be chasing, and marketing doesn’t generate leads that aren’t qualified
• How marketers can better understand buyers in order to generate more qualified leads
• The differences between inbound and outbound lead generation strategies
• Balancing both the art and science of sales and marketing
• How to encourage a lead to be engaged throughout the entire buying process, even after they have made their purchase
• Practical first steps to unify the sales and marketing departments

Our Guest

Samantha Stone

is a revenue catalyst who helps unleash the possible in organizations that have complex selling processes. She’s a fast-growth, B2B marketing junkie, author, speaker, consultant and persona coach who has also managed to find time to raise four boys with her husband, David. Throughout her career she has launched go-to-market initiatives and led marketing strategies for award-winning, high-growth companies including Netezza, SAP, Ascential Software and Powersoft. In 2012 she founded The Marketing Advisory Network to help savvy business leaders unleash the possible within their enterprises.

Links › marketingadvisorynetwork.com | twitter.com | linkedin.com

Our Hosts

John Golden

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

John is the Amazon Best Selling Author of “Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories.” He recently published his second book “Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling.” A globally acknowledged thought leader, John has a passion for small to medium businesses. He is CSO at Pipeliner CRM.

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, CSO Pipeliner CRM, and Martha Neumeister, Social Media Strategist Pipeliner CRM.

Building Relationships with Seminar Selling

We all know that customers want more than just product and company info. They want confidence in the relationship and to have your attention when needed. YOU need a proactive way to make sure those needs are met so that you can be SUCCESSFUL AT YOUR JOB.

A great way to build trust, credibility, and rapport with small business clients is to present category-specific information that’s valuable to the small business community. These presentations steer clear of “pitching” a product or service and create an informational, forum setting that is focused on a specific topic. Employing the Seminar Selling model will create an opportunity to invite clients and new prospects to your place of business to offer information of great value and establish future opportunities to present your company’s offering and capabilities.

Pipeliner CRM empowers salespeople to build precise relationships with prospects and customers. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

Panel Discussion: Turning Customers Into Advocates

It’s one thing to move an opportunity to a close, a nice win. But to build a truly sustainable business (and isn’t that what it’s all about these days?), you need to turn your customers into advocates.

That requires 2 basic elements:

  • a product or service that solves major issues for the customer
  • a sales rep–you–that has become much more of a business partner to the customer than simply a salesperson

It also requires an ongoing relationship that must be nurtured.

Join host John Golden and our panel of experts as we dive into what it really takes to turn customers into advocates!

Dennis-SynalDennis Synal is an accomplished, client-focused and profit-driven sales leadership professional with 25+ years of demonstrated success in defining, managing and delivering substantial sales growth across highly-competitive industries, with a specialization in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. Highly-skilled in direct sales, marketing, product launches, market analysis, strategy development, training/mentorship, strategic steering, oration, benchmarking and leading multi-functional teams. Innovative strategist and forward-thinking business leader, adept at identifying and capitalizing on lucrative business opportunities.

Joel-CapperellaJoel Capperella helps companies get crazy amounts of awareness, a bigger pipeline, faster revenue, and empowers sales enablement transformation. He has over 20 years of strategic marketing execution in the enterprise software, SaaS and technical professional services and has worked with companies of all sizes. From juggernauts like SAP and Oracle, to small startups with new injections of cash.

Adrian-DavisAdrian Davis is a professional speaker, author and strategic consultant with expertise in helping chief executives and sales leaders create profitable growth through strategic client relationships. He is a thought-provoking speaker frequently called upon to address senior management teams and sales groups on the subjects of corporate strategy, competitive advantage and sales excellence.

#SalesChats: Referral Selling, with Joanne Black

Referral Selling
#SalesChats: Episode 30

Referral selling is the only business development strategy proven to turn prospects into clients more than 50% of the time. With success rates like this, you would think every salesperson would be utilizing this tool. Joanne Black discusses referral selling in this #SalesChat, hosted by John Golden and Martha Neumeister.

Black explains:

• What a true referral is, which includes an introduction and context for the introduction, as opposed to just a name on a list
• The way that technology has both helped and hurt lead generation
• The reasons why salespeople don’t utilize referral selling, including lack of a developed, strategic initiative program
• Recognizing the gap between what sales managers want their staff to do, and what their staff is actually doing, and then finding the best ways to close those gaps
• The strategy of referral selling, including setting goals, measuring referrals, and developing referral selling as a skill
• How to implement referral selling techniques
• The fear of rejection, how that holds salespeople back, and how to overcome that rejection
• Understanding metrics, and holding yourself accountable to the results
• Asking questions like, “who are one are two people you know that I should meet,” after clarifying the kind of person you want to meet, and the business reasons why
• Don’t assume that your client doesn’t have any connections or referrals. You won’t know until you ask, and more often than not you will get an introduction to someone in your target market
• Examples of where referral selling has worked well

Our Guest

Joanne Black

is America’s leading authority on referral selling— the only business-development strategy proven to convert prospects into clients more than 50 percent of the time. As the founder of No More Cold Calling, Joanne helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners transform the way they work. An engaging speaker and author of bestsellers No More Cold Calling and Pick Up the Damn Phone!, she shows readers how to leverage the power of referrals.

Links › nomorecoldcalling.com | twitter.com | linkedin.com

Our Hosts

John Golden

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, CSO Pipeliner CRM, and Martha Neumeister, Social Media Strategist Pipeliner CRM.

#SalesChats: Aligning Strategy and Sales, with Frank Cespedes

Aligning Strategy and Sales
#SalesChats: Episode 29

There has always been a tendency for salespeople to be more independent, and prefer to generate their own strategies. This becomes a challenge when you try to create alignment within an organization centered around a developed sales strategy. Frank Cespedes discusses aligning strategy and sales in this #SalesChat, hosted by John Golden and Martha Neumeister.

Cespedes explains:

• Scary statistics. Less than 50% of employees in companies say they understand their company strategy. The closer the employee is to the customer, the less they understand the strategy.
• The issues that arise when salespeople don’t understand the strategy, including problems forecasting, and confusion around strategy versus mission
• How value is either created or destroyed in the marketplace with customers
• The difficulties and challenges that come about if solid sales strategies are not integrated and utilized throughout the entire sales team
• The benefits of disseminating a written sales strategy on a laminated card
• How the front line sales manager plays an impact on aligning their sales team with a strategy in areas like hiring, consistent reviews and coaching, and compensation
• Common mistakes that companies make when trying to encourage salespeople to utilize a process
• The changes that have come about as business has become more complex and specialized, and how salespeople, sales managers, and upper-level executives have to adapt to these changes
• Examples of companies and business professionals that have been successful at aligning strategy and sales

Our Guest

Frank Cespedes

is the MBA Class of 1973 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He has run a business, served on boards for start-ups and corporations, and consulted to many companies around the world. He is the author of six books and many articles in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, California Management Review, and other publications. His latest book is Aligning Strategy and Sales is available from the Sales POP! bookstore.

Links › frankcespedes.com | twitter.com | linkedin.com

Our Hosts

John Golden

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, CSO Pipeliner CRM, and Martha Neumeister, Social Media Strategist Pipeliner CRM.

Eve Mayer: Today’s Social Selling

Social selling has changed the way that sales world advertises, gets new leads, corresponds with potential and current customers, and many other things. Although social selling is a relatively new way to sell, it has changed significantly throughout its short lifespan. When social media was first by companies, there was a large push for everyone to get on board. Now that almost a decade has gone by, however, some things have stayed the same, and some things have changed a lot.

In this expert sales interview on social selling, Eve Mayer and John Golden discuss:

  • How to pick the best social media platform(s) for your company
  • Using your goals to direct your social selling
  • Generational differences in the social selling world

Pick your Platform:

Part of understanding social selling is understanding the different social media platforms available, and how to use them to their fullest potential while also understanding the possible limitations. For example, if you are trying to market to teenagers, time spent on LinkedIn probably won’t get you towards your goal. Additionally, a company doesn’t need to be on every single social media platform in order to reach their goals. If an organization chooses to be on a wide variety of platforms, there’s a good chance that many of them won’t yield exciting results. Pick the best social media platform that most closely aligns with your target market and your goals for using social media.  Also, understand that social media has limitations. A large follower count on Instagram doesn’t always translate into more sales. Another limitation that often frustrates companies is the difficulties measuring the success of social media.

Know your Goals:

While it’s important to understand the platforms you are using, it’s also important to understand what your goals for social selling are. “Very few business goals are going to accomplished by sheer will of having more followers on Facebook,” said Mayer. “You have to enter the process with specific business goals when engaging with social media.” If social media managers are kept in the dark about the ultimate goals of the company, they cannot use social media effectively to move towards that goal. Superiors and upper-level management can assist by helping the social media staff understand the company’s goals.

Generational Social Selling:

Social selling and managing social media does not necessarily mean simply hiring a millennial to do the job. In Mayer’s experience, millennials are often loyal and hard-working, but they have a different set of expectations from their leaders. If you are transparent with millennials and treat them fairly, then you’ll get a much different result. However, it is more about the person than about their generation. “If someone doesn’t have the company image down then they can’t do it. Just knowing the social media side is not enough.” When passing your social media on, it doesn’t matter the age, it matters the ability of the person to present your company on those platforms. Social media is really important, you take an invitation to be on television as really important, and you’d put a PR person or someone else knowledgeable to go and talk about your company. If you’re on the phone, you’d only use a competent, responsible person to represent your company. It’s the same thing with social media. You want to pick someone who is educated and trustworthy to representing your brand.

Learn more tips on social selling from this expert.

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

Kevin Davis: Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness

Great sales managers are hard to come by. Sales managers have a very important job in the sales world. They manage a team of sales reps. They serve as a coach and a trainer. They monitor data and statistics, and a variety of other things. It can be challenging to know which aspect of sales management to focus on when trying to improve from an okay sales manager to a great sales manager. Kevin Davis, author of the Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness, has some concrete actions that you can take as a sales manager to improve. John Golden hosts this expert sales interview.

In this expert sales interview, explore sales management improvement tips such as:

  • The first steps to improving as a sales manager
  • Which sales reps to train
  • The best time to train

Sales Manager Training: Step One

Davis recommends that the first thing a sales manager does when trying to improve is to consider themselves and their actions. Many sales managers think that the problems are coming from the sales team. But, perhaps a better way of finding a solution is to think about what changes the sales manager themselves can make. One activity that Davis does when training sales managers is to ask them to create a report card for each of the reps on their team. At the end of the activity, he asks, “whose report card is this really?” The answer is that it’s the sales managers report card. “Your success is measured on your ability to improve the performance of your people,” said Davis. “If you’re not increasing their performance, perhaps you need to make changes to your management.”

Who to Train:

Often, a sales manager will help the sales reps who ask for extra assistance or the rep that is working on the largest deal. However, Davis argues that the people on the team who are the least needy of you are the ones that need the coaching time the most. “They’re the ones who are often the B players. They may not be working on the largest deals or coming to you for advice, but they’re still the B players. With some coaching on your part, you could develop them into A players very quickly,” said Davis.

When to Train:

Sales people will often not look for coaching. Even if a sales manager is open and available to coach their reps, a lot of salespeople are reluctant to take the manager up on that. To break this habit, sales managers have to provide better, proactive coaching. Davis uses the analogy of the game of golf. At the end of the game, you get a scorecard. If you take the scorecard to your trainer after the game is finished, they might have some tips for you, but they can’t coach appropriately on the aftermath of the game. Unless they observe the swings and the different techniques, the coach’s advice is coming too late, and they don’t see the whole picture. As a sales manager, it’s crucial to train proactively by helping your customers while they are selling. Evaluating them after the sales have already been made is too late.

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 sales managers to manage with precision.Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

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