Have you thought about getting a virtual assistant? Or maybe to become a virtual assistant? In this Expert Insight Interview, Maria Carras discusses both sides – how to hire or be hired as a virtual assistant. Maria Carras helps people launch their independent businesses as virtual assistants and companies to find a perfect virtual assistant.

The interview discusses:

• Benefits of having a virtual assistant
• Finding a perfect fit
• Learning to delegate
• Setting boundaries

The Benefits

Virtual assistants are helpful because they can take care of the smaller tasks for you and provide you with free time to focus on growing your business. Things that virtual assistants usually do are admin work, bookkeeping, marketing tasks, etc. From a virtual assistant perspective, this is a very desirable opportunity because it is location-independent since it is remote and flexible on working hours. From the employer’s perspective, this is a time and cost-effective option for an extra resource.

Virtual assistants already have the background knowledge and a set of skills. They only need to amplify the skills they already have, identify them, and package them to be an attractive option for employers. Also, since we live in a highly innovative and constantly changing world, virtual assistants should stay updated with new and upcoming online systems and tools.

The Perfect Fit

A personality test is a big part of finding a perfect fit between a company and a virtual assistant. Both virtual assistants and employers have to answer many questions to identify values on both sides. Often, the cause of conflict between coworkers can be the difference in personalities, beliefs, cultures, and work ethics. Thus, the key is that both sides have a clear understanding of another side before the discovery call.

Delegation

Hiring a virtual assistant for the first time is a learning process because many business owners have a hard time letting go of the things they used to do alone. It takes coaching and starting with small steps. When you think that you are ready to hire a virtual assistant, it is beneficial to implement standard operating procedures. That way, you will still feel like you are in control even when you delegate the work to the other person.

Boundaries

Employers might not do this intentionally, but it happens a lot that they demand tasks that are out of the assistant’s reach and skill set. Thus, an assistant must set the proper boundaries with a client. Also, an assistant has to train the employer to use the most efficient software for communication and project management.

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.

Trust is such a vital part of sales, but sales leaders and salespeople still struggle to recognize and fully understand it. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Moeed Amin discusses trust-building and its impact on decision making. Moeed Amin is a Director and Founder at Proverbial Door, helping B2B sales professionals to increase their conversion rates and SME owners to scale their businesses.

The interview discusses:

• Trust issue in the sales industry
• Eight characteristics that build trust

Trust in Sales

The research has shown that 40 percent of sales professionals seem untrustworthy. Also, 25 percent of the buyers think of the sales industry as ethically and morally questionable. These results show that sales professionals still have a long way to go to prove their industry trustworthy. Trust is the convergence of character and competence. Competence can be thought to some level because it requires industry-specific skills, but the more important factor among these two is character. If people have the right character traits, they can train to become more trustworthy.

Trust-Building Characteristics

Eight evergreen characteristics build trust with people. The first one is authenticity. How you speak, act, and sell has to align with your values and beliefs because buyers can subconsciously notice if not. The second one is consistency in anything you do. That includes consistency in your approach, professionalism, quality of your relationships, etc. Next comes integrity, which is being honest and truthful. It is crucial to deliver the promises you made.

Furthermore, taking responsibility and accountability is very important in sales. Things can always go wrong, and buyers know that. However, buyers want a seller who will stay with them when things go wrong instead of transferring them to technical or customer support. Interestingly, the next characteristic is guilt worthiness. We live in a world where buyers can easily research your past. We all make mistakes, but people who openly show that they regret wrongdoings they made in the past inspire more trust in them.

Moreover, generosity is a characteristic that alone cannot build trust in people. The reason for that is because by being generous, people think that you want to buy their loyalty. However, this is an extremely significant characteristic because it shows genuine care to help others without certainty that you will get something in return. And last but not least is agreeableness. In this case, that means being empathetic. It means listening, asking questions, and trying to understand another person’s point of view before suggesting yours. Making a buying decision is a very stressful and personal decision for buyers. Thus, to influence buyers to make the best possible decision, you have to understand where they are coming from and see the world through their eyes.

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.

Many people cope with stress by eating, and intermittent fasting is a solution to break that terrible habit. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Laurie Lewis discusses the benefits of intermittent fasting. Laurie Lewis is the owner at Fast Forward company, author, personal coach, and program leader in intermittent fasting.

The interview discusses:

• What is intermittent fasting?
• Embracing the intermittent fasting lifestyle
• How fasting affects your body?

The Base

Intermittent fasting is a pattern of fasting hours and eating window hours. Even though it sounds scary and hard to envision, it is easy to execute. Our bodies need less food than we think, and intermittent fasting helps us start feeling better immediately. It is a very individual process, but the majority of people choose 12-hour shifts to start. That means 12 hours of fasting and then 12 hours when you can eat. Another popular option is to fast 16 hours with eight hours eating window. Many high performers even eat only one meal per day, but they spread it into four hours by eating in parts.

Lifestyle to Embrace

When we do not eat for a longer time, we usually tend to overeat later. However, after doing intermittent fasting for some time, your body tells you when it is enough. When you are in a fasted state, you feel sustainably more focused, productive, energetic, and clear-headed. That is because, after a while, you stop being a sugar burner and start being a fat burner. It is a lifestyle that you decide to embrace and not a “thing” to try. Fasting is a healing repair that comes naturally to us as human beings. Thus, it makes us feel better when doing it.

Body Benefits

By not eating anything flavored during fasting hours, we keep our insulin levels low, and we tap into using fat for fuel. It takes around two to six weeks for people to adapt, depending on their health, diet, and other factors. However, when healing starts, every cell in the body restores. There are three processes related to intermittent fasting. The first one is ketosis, in which ketones fuel our brains instead of sugars. The second process, autophagy, is the deep cellular repair that happens alongside fat burning. And the third process is a thousand percent increase in the HGH, human growth hormone, during the fasted state.

Furthermore, exercising during fasted state brings even more benefits to our bodies. However, exercising in a fasted state requires small steps. Start slowly so that your body can adjust to use its fuel when working out instead of using the food that you ate just before the workout. Once you adapt to it, you will see that your strength, speed, and pleasure to work out in a fasted state increases.

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.

Have you ever had that “gut feeling” telling you to do or not to do something? In this Expert Insight Interview, Laura Powers discusses intuition. Laura Powers is a creative entrepreneur, coach, author, speaker, podcast host, and celebrity psychic.

The interview discusses:

• What is intuition?
• Being in tune with body and mind
• Overcoming mental stress

The Baseline

Our intuition plays a significant role in our business and how we operate, and we should not put it aside. Business and intuition should not be separated but should go alongside each other. Making business decisions intuitively should make us more successful indeed.

We all have intuition, but it shows differently to everyone. Usually, it is that “gut feeling” that we have when we feel that something is not right. We should not disregard that feeling because sometimes things look good on the outside but still do not feel right. However, we all probably have a memory from the past when we did not listen to ourselves and did something that did not feel quite right. Of course, the results were not as we hoped them to be. We might not always know what that inside feeling is about, but we should always listen to it.

Listen to Yourself

To follow our intuition, we have to receive messages that our body and mind are telling us. However, that might be hard nowadays since we live in a culture that encourages too much distraction and noise. People are always busy today, and they do not realize the importance of taking some time off from the world and focusing on themselves. Taking some time to do activities that you enjoy and do not take a lot of mental focus from you is an opportunity to have some receptive time. That can be meditating, exercising, walking, even doing house chores, anything that will allow you to be alone with your thoughts and ideas.

Mental Game

Many people have mental stress and do not know how to lift themselves from it. The key is to look at your pain points and figure out what brings you down and prevents you from being where you want to be in your career or life in general. Feeling alone is common when dealing with stressful situations, and that’s why it is crucial to surround yourself with people who give you support.

Examine the relationships, situations, and activities that drain you, and decide to let go of everything that takes too much of your energy. All the relationships and activities you have should be beneficial for you. If not, stop them. When you decide to let go of people and things that are not good for you, your life will immediately start to grow in quality.

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.

Is transparency the new black? In this Expert Insight Interview, Todd Caponi discusses transparency in sales. Todd Caponi is a Transparency Nerd, author of The Transparency Sale book, sales historian, speaker, and trainer.

The interview discusses:

• Imperfection over perfection
• Addressing imperfections
• Showing empathy to facilitate a buying decision

Imperfection over Perfection

When checking a product on a website, 85 percent of people check the negative reviews first. Also, an average review score between 4.2 and 4.5 sells better than a perfect 5.0 score. The point is that imperfection and transparency sell better than perfection. When addressing the flaws first, we build trust with customers, speed up the sales process, and help them make better decisions. If we lose customers over our product’s flaws, at least we lose them fast.

Address Imperfections

Being transparent in addressing your product’s pros and cons is pretty counterintuitive to what people do in sales nowadays. People try desperately to hide flaws and downplay anything that could prevent the sale. However, when addressing the cons upfront, we lay the foundation for the customers. That helps to predict their expectations and to make them feel comfortable working with us. It shows a level of confidence to tell your customers what you do and what you had to give up in order to be great at what you do. For example, IKEA does a perfect job in communicating and controlling that kind of message to clients. IKEA openly shows that you have to put the effort in finding products in their warehouse and assemble them on your own, but in return, you get modern Scandinavian furniture at a low price. People always look for the catch when they buy. The key is to tell them that catch so that they can set the proper expectations.

Show Empathy

Losing a customer to a no-decision happens more often today because people are scared of spending money and making purchasing mistakes. Consensus buying is hard, especially when being virtual. Thus, salespeople’s job is to show a clinical level of empathy towards buyers, build trust, and facilitate the buying process. Many people confuse empathy and sympathy. When you are sympathetic, you get what other people go through. But being empathetic means that you understand and experience what it is like in your customer’s world, and you look for ways to offer your help and support.

We need to reduce friction in sales. Also, we need to create an environment where sales representatives can qualify leads faster and recognize earlier what is going wrong in the losing cases. There is so much value in fast losing. And in conclusion, it all comes down to setting the right expectations, showing empathy, and being transparent

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.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Libby Gill discusses a book she co-authored, Leadership Reckoning: Can Higher Education Develop the Leaders We Need? Libby Gill an executive coach works with executives and entrepreneurs.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• Leadership is not taught at universities
• Importance of “soft” skills
• The most common misconceptions about what it means to be a leader

Learning Leadership

There is a lot of focus on education in today’s world. We are going through a massive change in higher education because of the pandemic, but truth be told, we were going through an enormous change even before the pandemic started.

Universities are great at producing a highly educated workforce and specialists in various areas, they don’t necessarily create great leaders. These institutions don’t seem to prepare people for leadership in the way that they should. This is precisely what Libby and her co-authors decided to focus on in this book.

Soft Skills

Leadership is a decision. You are not born to be a leader; you become one by aspiring to lead. We can all make that choice, and that is what leadership identity is all about. This choice puts us on a path of learning the necessary “soft” skills required to become a leader. These skills are often undervalued, but they are essential.

If you can learn about proper communication, collaboration, empathy, and other such skills early on, you’ll give yourself a massive advantage for the rest of your career. It all starts with self-awareness, unfortunately, most people struggle with this, especially at a young age.

Misconceptions About Leaders

We should not confuse leadership with management. Although the two terms are clearly related, being in a high position within a hierarchy does not make one a leader. The first and most important leadership skill is leading yourself. This means understanding who you are, how you can grow, and how you intend to build your leadership-related and technical skills.

Leadership is also not about being loud or aggressive in your approach. Leaders can have all sorts of personalities, and the key is to find your style of leading.

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.

In the 20th-century, the business focus was on stability and uniformity. The 21st century is the complete opposite. Business in the 21st century is fast paced, digitalized, and innovative. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Lisa Christen discusses people skills required for leadership in the 21st century. Lisa Christen is a CEO, executive coach, and consultant at Christen Coaching & Consulting, focusing on creating leaders, teams, and company cultures of the 21st century.

The interview discusses:

• Embracing the change
• Shifting a mindset
• Creating value
• Mental restoration

Embrace the Change

Business leaders have to shift their mindset and finally embrace the 21s century idea of doing business. The key is in people and their effort to accept the change. Digital transformation is an example of that. We talk about digitalization for many years now, but the actual shift happened when the pandemic forced it to happen. And the reason for that is because people finally realized that the problem was not in technology but people’s attitude towards digitalization.

Shift the Mindset

Computers can already do all the easy, repetitive tasks. What computers cannot do is a creative part for which people need to work as a team and expand their thinking. The occupations are getting so specialized now that leaders should look for the trap of becoming too focused on one area and missing out on new opportunities to learn and grow. The mindset to embrace in the 21st century is constant learning, which is hard for the leaders who have been in their positions for a long time. They are used to being in control rather than being facilitators. That represents an emotional challenge and a trust issue for them. They have to let go of control, allow other people to do things their way, and trust in a positive outcome.

Create Value

The 21st-century business is all about creating value for the stakeholders. Many companies still do not think that way but follow the idea of providing what they believe is the best for stakeholders. Thus, the focus should be more on customer’s wants and needs rather than the company’s.

Mental Restoration

Furthermore, leadership in the 21st century also focuses way more on people’s mental well-being. We all have some activities to decrease our stress levels as yoga, reading, walking in nature, etc. However, mental resting lowers our stress for that day, but it does not eliminate it. Instead, it compounds it in the long run. Mental restoration is a concept that keeps our mental health at the baseline all the time. To achieve that, we need time to be alone with ourselves and our thoughts. That is the only way to restore the energy, get to know ourselves better, and take control of our careers and lives.

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.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Michael Anthony discusses the importance of accountability.  How to shed your fear of success and the secrets behind living up to your potential. Michael Anthony’s company, Think Unbroken, works with trauma victims to help them become the best version of themselves. He has had a difficult background himself, as a son of drug addicts and abusers.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• How fear of success is holding us back
• The importance of accepting responsibility for your own life
• Why acknowledging your past is crucial for your future

Fear of Success

Many people who experienced trauma in their childhood realize that they are trapped. They haven’t matured in the same way most other people have. At that point, they understand that they need to accelerate their maturing process.

In the moment of that realization. One of the most important things you can do is acknowledge that your life is not in accordance with the person you’re capable of being. That said, most people are terrified of their own potential. Only the most mentally stable and disciplined manage to actually do what they know needs to be done.

Accountability

On the backside of doing some really difficult things, you may actually become who you dream of becoming and do the things that you desire. We all wish it were easy and that there was a set path that you needed to follow to achieve success, but the truth is that we’re all on a different journey.

The one thing that people who have been able to create change in their lives all have in common is that they have acknowledged that everything that happens in their life is up to them. They took responsibility for making their lives better rather than lamenting over the difficult position they were in.

Acknowledging Where You Come From

We’re the sum of all of our experiences leading up to this moment. That means everything that ever happened in our life informs who we are at this time. Therefore, to get where you want to go, you must understand how you got to where you are.

Unless you have a clear idea of where you’re going, created based on understanding who you are, nothing is going to change. If you’re unable to look at where you’ve come from and all the experiences you’ve had, you can never plot a path 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 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.