What It Means To Be A Good Leader And How To Build Better Leadership Teams (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Scott Drake discusses accelerated leadership training, employee engagement, and working better as a team of leaders. Scott Drake founded JumpCoach to reflect on his journey into leadership which was a long and painful one. He set JumpCoach up as a passion project, and it became a social enterprise, and Scott became a leader of leaders. Now he coaches, researches, and helps create a new leadership level.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

What it means to be a good leader
Why the most compassionate people make the best leaders
How being a leader is not about having all the answers

Meaning of Leadership

If you were to go and ask a leader how they knew they were doing a great job, they would probably not have a clear answer. The challenge of leadership is learning what it means to be a good leader and helping your team play the same game.

We all come to leadership positions from different backgrounds, so the experiences that we bring to the table are vastly different.

Compassion

In the simplest of terms, leadership is working through others to get things done. This means you choose to go through other people rather than do something yourself. However, most of us come into leadership positions as experts in a particular field, so we think that being a leader means being even better at this particular field or making sure we bring everyone around us to the same level.

Unfortunately, being a great computer programmer or salesperson doesn’t automatically make someone a great leader. The person who should become the leader is the most compassionate member of the team — the person who can see the world through the eyes of the people they’re leading. A good leader usually has a complementary personality type (see ENFJ) to achieve greatness.

Not Having All the Answers

When people get into a leadership position, they often think they need to know everything and be experts in every aspect of their job. We live in a world where this is practically impossible, with so many specific tasks and roles, each carried out by people with the highest level of expertise.

You can’t know everything, so you have to learn how to trust others. On the other hand, you also have to trust your instincts so that you’re not being defensive all the time. You must shift your focus from trying to have all the answers to getting other people to work hard and solve problems.

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 Most Persuasive Form Of Communication To Improve Your Sales Ability (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Jeremy Miner discusses his NEPQ sales methodology. Jeremy Miner is a sales trainer, author, podcast host, and founder/chairman of 7th Level, a global sales training company. His unique brand of sales training pioneers the use of behavioral science and human psychology.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The three forms of communication according to behavioral science
How to be more persuasive through dialogue
What NEPQ stands for and how to use it to your advantage

ERA-1

According to behavioral science, there are three forms of communication. Once you understand the differences between them, your sales ability will improve dramatically, and you’ll be able to help a lot more of your prospects. The first mode of communication is called ERA-1 selling.

This is your typical “boiler-room” selling that you might see in The Wolf of Wall Street. It is about talking up your product and talking down the competition, keeping constant pressure on the prospect. It is just like telling your spouse that they need to do something, and the more you push them, the more they push back.

ERA-2

According to behavioral science, the second mode of communication, called ERA-2, is more consultative. This is all about asking logic-based questions and selling to the client’s needs. The problem with only selling to the client’s needs is that most of your prospects don’t know what they need, especially when you first start talking to them.

This is why if you’re selling to the needs, you’re potentially leaving a lot of profit on the table. You should never sell to the needs, but rather to the underlying problems.

ERA-3

ERA-3 type of sales is dialogue. We’re the most persuasive when we allow others to persuade themselves. To do this, we need to ask Neuro-Emotional Persuasion Questions (NEPQ). So, what questions and techniques get the prospect to want to engage with us, open up to us, and go beyond the surface of what’s going on?

Unfortunately, there’s no list of questions you can ask every prospect and get immediate results. You’ll need to learn these questions organically with each prospect, and not only that, but you’ll have to adapt your delivery, tonality, body language, and other aspects of communication to every potential customer.

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.

How To Develop Sales Heroes When There Aren’t Any Dragons Attacking The Village (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Andy Gole discusses how to develop sales heroes when there aren’t any dragons attacking the village. Andy Gole is the creator of the Urgency Based Selling system, a consultant, strategic growth catalyst, sales educator, practitioner, and author of Innovate Now and The Biggest Pitch of Your Life.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How to develop sales heroes
How to get the best out of your team
Why it is essential, to be honest with your employees

Opening Closed Minds

Many people excel in chaos or when there’s a crisis. Executive teams, in particular, tend to be fantastic at crisis management. They pull their ranks, come together and… never fix any of the problems. It is all about consistency and anticipating issues when solving problems.

Andy Gole sees salespeople as heroes when they’re doing their job. This is because they are trying to bring their prospects to a higher peak of wellbeing, and the prospects are fighting them. So, when the salesperson succeeds in their task, they open a closed mind.

Salespeople as Heroes

Salespeople are heroic on so many levels not only because they help themselves, the company, and the client, but because opening closed minds moves civilization forward. Andy talks about situations in which “no dragons are attacking the village” because he has been in “do or die” scenarios multiple times.

These scenarios usually prompted him to be very entrepreneurial and creative to succeed. However, he doesn’t believe that the average salesperson necessarily faces such scenarios regularly. The average salesperson joins companies when they’re already established, so they’re not in “do or die” mode. This is why leaders have to find ways to help salespeople be entrepreneurs within the organization.

Being Honest

So, what can a leader or owner do if they find themselves paying their team astronomical figures to wait for the phone to ring? First, they have to level with their employees. They have to tell the sales team that they’re not happy with the results they’re getting.

One way to express this is to say that you’re not getting the return on the assets and that you see the unrealized potential of the team. This could be enough to shake things up and get your sales team to perform better.

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.

Surround Yourself With People Who Have Skills & Passions You Do Not (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Randy Crabtree discusses finding a proper fit within your business and surrounding yourself with people who have skills and passions that you do not. Randy Crabtree is the co-founder and partner of Tri-Merit Specialty Tax Professionals. He is a widely followed author, lecturer, and podcast host for the accounting profession.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How to play to your strengths in business
Why it is essential to be self-aware and accepting of your weaknesses
How to find the right people to help you reach your goals

Playing to Your Strengths

If you were to look at how we approach employees and work generally, you’d find that we do a lot of performance reviews. Unfortunately, these reviews tend to focus on what employees did wrong rather than what they might be doing right. Our focus is always in the wrong place, trying to get people to improve upon things they’re not good at or don’t like.

Randy Crabtree’s approach revolves around understanding what you and your team members are good at, and playing to your strengths, instead of fixing the weaknesses you may never improve upon.

Finding the Right People

When you’re starting out, you have to understand that there are things you’re not going to be good at. This realization frees you up to look for people who can take care of these people for you.

You might be passionate about what you do, but that doesn’t mean that your company will be successful. For that, you’ll need great marketing, accounting, finance, etc. The good news is that you can outsource these things and hire people to handle these tasks from within the company itself. Focus on your passion instead of wasting your time on things you don’t care for.

Outsourcing

We’re in a unique position now to build the hybrid companies of the future, where you have a core set of employees and outsource all kinds of tasks, including HR, bookkeeping, marketing, and everything in between.

You might have contractors coming in for short projects, as well as others with whom you’ve worked for a long time. That is precisely the challenge for leaders and organizations nowadays —making a hybrid business seamless.

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.

How Leaders Should Be Approaching The Current Global Crisis (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Scott Paradis discusses leadership, … Scott Paradis helps people achieve their full potential through his transformational books, online programs, and live training. He helps his clients understand the way life works so they can embrace their ultimate power. Scott had a 30+ year career with the US Army, retiring with the rank of Colonel.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How leaders should be approaching the current global crisis
The two types of leaders and how they differ
Why many people fail in leadership positions

Fundamentals vs. Implementation

The world is going through an unprecedented transition now, and leaders need to understand what is happening and lead by empowering people and co-opting people into the process of moving forward.

Despite all these changes, the fundamentals of leadership always remain the same. However, the challenge is implementation. There’s a lot of anxiety surrounding the changes happening nowadays, and part of our fallback position is to always go back to something secure, something we can try to control. We see this in leadership as well.

Trailblazers and Team Leaders

According to Scott Paradis, there are two types of leaders: the trailblazer and the team leader. The former just focus on being who they are, doing what they do, charting a new path for people to follow.

On the other hand, the team leaders are who we traditionally think of as leaders in a business setting. These people socially engage and connect with others to achieve an objective. The challenge with leadership is taking control of our ego and understanding that leadership is not about achieving any individual’s goal but about helping others become greater versions of themselves.

Carrots and Sticks

When people first get into leadership positions, sometimes they think it is about telling people what to do. Leaders often talk about “carrots and sticks,” and both positive and negative reinforcement can be powerful weapons in a leader’s arsenal.

However, many fail to realize that these tools should only be used to motivate people to become the best versions of themselves.

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.

How Do You Help Remote Sales Teams Work More Efficiently (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Richard White discusses how to help remote sales teams work more efficiently. Richard White is the founder and CEO of Fathom, a Zoom plugin that allows you to record and highlight your meetings in real-time, so you can write notes or share clips from your calls with colleagues later.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

How Fathom came to be and the inspiration behind its creation
How the plugin can be utilized in sales and marketing
How the app can be used in management and training

Fathom

Richard’s inspiration for the Fathom app came from problems he faced during Zoom calls. During the first six weeks of 2020, he took part in roughly 300 calls as part of an extensive sales and marketing push in his previous company. He realized that writing good notes was very difficult on a Zoom call, as it is practically impossible to capture all the nuance of a conversation.

Fathom is designed to solve this problem because the digitization of our meetings should allow us to record these calls, take snippets out of them and help us remember, or get the information to the right people. This allows us to focus on having a conversation during the meeting rather than constantly stopping to write things down.

Sales Applications

Fathom is a free app that records and transcribes your Zoom calls in real-time, and all you have to do is click a button when you hear something important. This will get the plug-in to flag that part of the conversation as something important, according to a set of tags you previously set.

After the call, you’ll get instant access to the entire recording, which is an improvement even on Zoom’s in-built recording system, which can take up to 30 minutes to give you access to the call. The team will then do the rest of the data entry for you, automatically adding the meeting to your CRM, sharing a link to your Slack workspace, etc.

Training and Management Applications

The app also doubles as an excellent coaching tool. Many sales leaders and managers struggle with managing and coaching virtual teams because it is so different from how they used to do it.

If you’re able to find all the critical moments in a call and share them with your team, explaining all the essential tips and strategies along the way, your ability to train and manage them goes up significantly.

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.

How to Create Financial Safety Nets – Business & Individuals (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Laura Adams discusses how to create financial safety nets, delivering tips for individuals and small-business owners to minimize risks and protect hard-earned assets and survive any crisis. Laura Adams is a nationally-recognized personal finance and business expert, author of nine books and audiobooks, including Money Girl’s Smart Moves to Grow Rich and her latest book Money-Smart Solopreneur: A Personal Finance System for Freelancers, Entrepreneurs, and Side-Hustlers.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The most common financial mistakes people make when starting a business
How to build a “financial runway”
Why it might be a good idea to keep your day job for a bit longer

Taking Out an Insurance Policy

There certainly seem to be many more people nowadays who are thinking of going out on their own and becoming solopreneurs. As people start to think about going into business on their own, they should focus on some initial financial things to protect themselves from the get-go instead of learning about them the hard way.

One of the main things that Laura sees people overlook about starting a business is thinking about insurance. This is no surprise: people are generally very excited about their business opportunities. That excitement can be a great tool in generating revenue, but having some insurance is always a good idea as you never know what might happen.

Building a Financial Runway

Laura also suggests testing your idea before investing all your savings into it, especially if it is something you plan to do on the side. Think about your emergency savings goals and whether you have enough of a “financial runway” to ensure that you’re OK even if the business doesn’t do as well as you hoped for.

Most people don’t save up enough upfront, so they end up in panic mode when the business begins to eat into their savings.

Keeping Your Day Job

Another thing Laura Adams encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to do is to keep their day jobs as long as possible. If you’re doing something on the side, you might get excited about it and think it is what you want to do for the rest of your life.

However, keeping your day job for just a bit longer gives you the ability to save up a bit more and keep the benefits you have at work. In that case, the additional source of income becomes a type of insurance policy in its own right.

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.

Healthy Habits for Entrepreneurs from Plant-Based Foods (video)

In this Expert Insight Interview, Kathy Davis discusses healthy habits for entrepreneurs from the perspective of plant-based foods. Kathy Davis is a plant-based life coach, recipe developer, and founder of VegInspired.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

The benefits of a plant-based diet
How to create a healthier food environment
Harnessing motivation from a mindset shift

Plant-Based Living

Eating more plants doesn’t just mean eating more salads. Quinoa, seeds, almonds, fruit, whole grains, greens, beans, etc., are all plants. Adding chickpeas to your salad in the middle of the day can pack in that perfect blend of protein and carbohydrates to sustain you.

Instead of heading into the kitchen at the end of the day to munch on unhealthy snacks for the rest of the evening, why not focus your energy on creating a nourishing meal that will make you feel great?

Healthier Food Environment

So how do people who are constantly on the move or can’t seem to fit cooking into their schedules create a healthy food environment? The trick is to make it accessible. Processed foods high in sugar, salt, and oil, are convenient, but they’ll leave you feeling groggy or hungry an hour later.

Instead, try to make the same simple breakfast every day. Perhaps you want to include nice whole grains, such as oats or quinoa, and some berries. You can make this the night before or even on Sunday for the entire week. You can opt for a salad for lunch or pre-cook some potatoes to take with you. Tweaks like this help create good healthy habits that fuel you on the path to fulfilling your mission.

Shifting Your Mindset

Let’s not forget that Mother Nature makes fruit in perfect little packages to travel with us. Sure, thinking about eating an apple is not nearly as exciting as thinking about eating a bag of potato chips, but it’s all about shifting your mindset.

Think of the food you eat as the fuel for your body. This shift in thinking will enable you to eat the foods that will give you the energy to run your business and create the kind of impact in the world that you want. Also, bring your refillable water bottle with you everywhere and stay hydrated at all times.

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.