Last year, virtual events were only a replacement for in-person events, but now they are used for developing global communities with a much higher engagement rate at a lower cost. In this Expert Insight Interview, Jonathan Kazarian discusses how we can optimize the virtual experience to work to our benefit. Jonathan Kazarian is a founder and CEO of Accelevents, a company that helps event organizers to provide real experience in a virtual world.

The interview discusses:

• How to increase user experience
• User benefits
• Possibility of a hybrid model in the future
• User Engagement

User Experience

The earlier platforms were not taking advantage of modern technology in terms of affordability and user experience. When creating the virtual events, the first thing is to set up your goals. What are you trying to accomplish with the event, and how can you do it? Bringing everything and everyone to the same place is crucial so that the focus can be on the user experience. In this case, users are both attendees and exhibitors of a virtual event. Thus, the virtual event needs to provide exhibitors the opportunity to collect leads, create interactions with attendees, and have the right audience.

User Benefits

For attendees, having the virtual event available to stream and being browser-based make it user-friendlier right away. For exhibitors, virtual events offer all the things they had in-person, plus collecting much more data because virtual events provide more insights and easy tracking. The exhibitor can also gather much more leads, information about existing customers, interact with potential customers, and deepen partner relationships while being at home. Also, the return on investment on virtual events is much higher for both exhibitors and event organizers.

Hybrid Model

There are so many reasons why people would prefer virtual events in the future. Some people do not feel comfortable attending events in person. Some companies want to save on travel costs. And some people do not see the trade of anymore in being physically present at a conference. While it is still impossible to eliminate the in-person events, with a decrease in attendance over time, it will be harder to justify the costs of both hosting and sponsoring them. Besides, in-person conferences need innovation regarding the event structure, format, and value they create. Thus, most likely, a hybrid model will come into play.

User Engagement

Besides focusing on user experience, all best performing companies focus on developing a community around their products and brands. Building community means bringing together people who share the same ideas. Virtual events allow people to interact and build networks globally, more often, and at a lower cost.

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.

Prospecting is always a topic that engenders a lot of debate and in some, a lot of angst!

Sales POP! is fortunate to interview so many great experts and bring their insights directly to you. In this short video we feature seven experts offering seven different tips:

Phil M. Jones

Dan McDade

Tony Morris

Mark Hunter

James Muir

Ankesh Kumar

Arvell Craig

Each expert brings you one prospecting tip that will help you with your outreach efforts.

While networking is something that you do, being a connector is about who you are. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Michelle Tillis Lederman discusses her new book, The Connector’s Advantage. Michelle Tillis Lederman is among the Top 25 Forbes networking experts, author, and speaker.

The interview discusses:

• Law of Likeability
• Having a clear vision
• Having an abundant mindset
• How to build trust

Law of Likeability

Many people feel that others either like them or not. However, we cannot force anyone to like us. The only thing we can do is to allow people to see things that are likable about us. We have to be open and accepting of ourselves just the way we are. We all have our unique traits that make our authentic selves, and they do not always work to our advantage. But by learning to adjust our behavior to the circumstance, we allow others to connect with us better.

Clear Vision

Every goal you have in life is easier and faster to achieve with connections. However, it is crucial to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve and be willing to ask for it. That does not have to be a vision for the next five to ten years. It can also be a small but clear idea, such as having 100 Amazon reviews for the new book.

Having a clear vision goes together with having the mindset of the spirit of generosity. By asking people what that they are working on and how you can help them with it, you show genuine care to help them. However, have clear answers to those questions regarding yourself too. Because just how you give to others without expecting anything in return, you should allow yourself to receive the same from them.

Mindset of Abundance

It is hard to embrace the mindset of abundance because scarcity is real in this world. However, being focused on scarce things makes us protective and competitive. Thus, we have to shift focus to self-progress and the belief that things can get better. Being grateful every day for even little things is a great way to implement a positive and optimistic perspective.

Build Trust

Trust is an essential part of building influence. The four pillars of building trust are authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, and consistency. Authenticity means being your true self. Being vulnerable does not mean being weak but being open about yourself, your experiences, and your mistakes. It also builds your credibility. Transparency means being honest about how your decisions impact the bigger picture. And lastly, consistency in your actions is the key to keep trust because trust is easy to break with inconsistent behavior.

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.

Technology innovation eliminated many jobs. While technology is becoming involved in almost any job nowadays, many people still feel skeptical about technology sales. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Joseph Fung discusses technology sales. Joseph Fung is a founder and CEO of Uvaro, a company offering a sales training program focused solely on tech sales.

The interview discusses:

• Most common fears in tech sales
• Career transition to tech sales

Common Fears

When people hear about tech and software, they often connect them with coding. However, companies spend only about 15 percent on research and development and between 25 to 35 percent on sales and marketing. Thus, there are much more opportunities in sales and marketing. The first thing that many people question is whether they belong in the tech sales field. That is mostly because they already have applied to so many jobs but have not received any answers. And the second thing they question is whether they want to go into the tech sales field. However, many people do not understand that tech sale is about finding the right solution to the customer’s problem instead of forcing people to buy stuff. Technology buyers are so overwhelmed with information and selection that they need a sales rep to guide them to find the best solution.

Transition to Tech Sales

Following the process and telling good stories are fundamental sales skills that people from other industries have too. Thus, shifting the career from a niche market to sales tech is possible and not as hard. A person who was a pastor for 20 years now works in a security software company. Since communication and connection with people are the essences of being a pastor, asking discovery questions, finding a source of the problem, and running a process were already familiar skills to embrace in tech sales.

Another example is a person with experience in operations and logistics landing a job in a data science space company and exceeding his first-month quota by far. Being reliable, responsible, and diligent in his work helped him to understand the tech sales system. Once the system is understood, working in sales tech is not as complexed as the technology itself might seem to be.

And the last example of a radical career shift is a former athlete switching her current finance career to tech sales. As a former athlete, she understood the significance of training, practice, constant improvement, and professionalism in sales as much as in sports. She gained the necessary skills through her past experiences. The only thing she needed was to learn the terminology and tools used in tech sales to get a job.

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 heard of the term humanification? In this Expert Insight Interview, Christian Kromme, a futurist, motivational speaker, and author, discusses his book Humanification: Go Digital, Stay Human. How Technology Will Advance Humanity Towards More Meaningful Future.

The interview discusses:

• The Principal of humanification
• Constant innovation
• Expecting and embracing the change

The Humanification

Technology today is perceived as a cold and external body. Thus, humanification deals with creating technology that is invisible and more in alignment with human beings. The idea is that technology takes over more of a human’s basic needs, enabling us to focus better on our complex needs.

Nowadays, a small group of influential people uses technology to control other people. We can see it the best in the example of social media. Instead, it should be quite the opposite, and all people should use social media for the greater good. Thus, in the Netherlands, new platforms are being created. These revolutionary platforms will be owned by people and used to empower human society.

Constant Innovation

Technological processes are so dynamic nowadays that they require constant innovation and reinvention. There are new companies, which are all about artificial intelligence and continuous learning. Because of artificial intelligence, these companies are more fluid and easy to adapt to situations in real-time. They also require different work approaches than traditional organizations.

Moreover, people’s hard skills will get automated, and they will become a commodity and lose value. The full focus will be on soft skills that machines cannot provide, such as emotional intelligence, communication, creativity, empathy, etc. That shift will come naturally. Some would say that shift has already started with the pandemic and transition to work from home. People value soft skills more and try to connect and build meaningful relationships with people virtually.

Expect and Embrace the Change

The technological evolution comes in waves. Each new wave is substantially more impactful than the previous one. In the last 20 years, we could witness the rise of the internet, e-commerce, smartphones, and apps. However, the expectations are that the next wave will double the change much faster. It might take only ten years for a noticeable impact of the next wave. We see a transition from learning to adapt to technology to adapting technology to the people. Today, if you can speak, artificial intelligence can adapt to you. The next wave will bring holographic technology, making it even easier by being visual as well.

Furthermore, to use humanification to their benefit, people should invest time to find their purpose and improve social skills. In conclusion, the sooner we accept, embrace, and democratize the technology, the sooner we will be able to use it to our advantage and the greater good.

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.

Can sales automation include a human touch? In this Expert Insight Interview, Richard Schnitzel discusses adding a human touch to sales automation. Richard Schnitzel is a Founder and President at Bow Tie Bots, helping entrepreneurs to scale their businesses through “Authencious” automation.

The interview discusses:

• Benefits of automation
• Building authenticity into a digital process
• Starting with baby steps
• Automation in 2021
• The opportunity to use

Automation Benefits

For successful automation, a process needs to have a good workflow. Thus, a company should clearly define what it wants and needs before deciding on what to automatize. But, when automated, the sales process results in better outcomes and faster task completion. Hence, automation increases the company’s efficacy and efficiency.

Build Authenticity in a Digital Process

The best way to bring authenticity into a digital process is to have human interaction at the beginning and end. For instance, when a client calls to book a meeting, answering a couple of automatic questions will go straight to the pipeline and will enable a salesperson to prepare better for the meeting. After the meeting, the new information is put in the system to prepare the base for the next stage and next coworker. The human elements in between the automation increase customer experience and make people less dependent on technology. That way, if automation stops working for some reason, customers will still get the same experience, just a little slower.

Start with Baby Steps

In businesses that need their processes automated, usually, so many things happen at once that people have trouble thinking effectively. For a start, automate a couple of little things to free up your brain so that you can focus on activities that bring higher value to the company.

Automation in 2021

Last year made digital transformation imperative for everyone wishing to scale their business. Companies that had their manual tasks automated are better off during the pandemic. Besides, customers are starting to get along with it as well. However, it is essential to stay honest with customers on what is automated and what not. Let them know that automation should improve their customer experience but give them an option to ask for a customer representative if they want to.

The Opportunity to Use

People today can introduce automation into the business with less stress whether it will work right away. Customers became used to having technology everyone around, so they are more understandable and appreciative of companies trying to enhance their customer experience by leveraging technology.

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.

Your poor health affects not only you but also the people around you. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Tim James discusses how we can make a significant life change by adopting a healthy lifestyle. Tim James is a high-performance health coach and a host of The Health Hero Show podcast.

The interview discusses:

• Choosing to heal your body
• How to sustain the change
• Health as priority

Choose to Heal Your Body

Many people start changing their dieting habits only when they hear a terrifying diagnosis from a doctor. It is better to detox your body as your resolution to have a healthier lifestyle. Taking out meat, dairy, sugar, salty foods, and going for all plant-based diet will make you start waking up as a completely new person, and it can heal your body inside and outside. The secret is in healing your body and then learning how to maintain it.

Sustain the Change

Every change is hard, especially a drastic one requiring a complete change of eating habits and taking out all junk food that we are very used to eat nowadays. People start enthusiastically but slowly give up on it. Having the support of a person or a place specializing in this area and staying committed to your word is crucial.

Healing yourself means changing the environment as not being in a toxic relationship and other stressful situations. When we feel unhappy or stressed, our body reacts to it. However, improving one area of life will lead the others to improve as well. If you start eating healthier, you will automatically feel more energized, focused, and willing to change the other aspects of your life that make you unhappy too.

Health as a Must

Research shows that health and building relationships are the two most important things for people. Thus, our health must be our priority even though we live in a culture where sometimes we choose to overlook our health due to other less important stuff. Four core things to do that will immediately make us feel better are to drink a lot of purified water, chew the food right, avoid liquids with eating food and work on our breath before eating to return our body to the rest and digest mood.

Saying your commitment to changing your lifestyle externally and out load is an excellent motivation driver. This process starts with baby steps, but it builds up to great results over time. The key is to want to live a happy and healthy life now and in the future.

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.

Has anyone recently told you to embrace your failures because they are a path to success? In this Expert Insight Interview, Jim Harshaw Jr. discusses achieving success by learning from failures. Jim Harshaw Jr. is an executive performance coach for individuals and companies, keynote speaker, and a podcast host.

The interview discusses:

• Learning how to fail
• From failure to success
• A four-step process to live a successful and balanced life
• Taking a productive pause

Learn how to Fail

Learning how to fail means finding things at your heart that scare and excite you at the same time and going after them. Failure is an inevitable part of that journey because failing gives you information and lessons before you reach success. Although we see only the end-results for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, they also had multiple setbacks until they got where they are right now.

From Failure to Success

Probably many salespeople feel like they are doing so much already and are still not where they want to be. But, we need to reach that dark moment of desperation to start asking ourselves what is missing. We usually miss realizing that we cannot control the outcome, only the process. We need to stop obsessing with the aftermath and to focus on what we can do now. When we finally let go of the weight of the success that we desperately try to achieve, we allow ourselves to focus on being better in each step of the process. Then, success arrives naturally.

The Four-Step Process

After experiencing their first success, people forget some important aspects and go back to the dark moment. There is a four-step framework for living a successful and balanced life. First, know your values. The second step is to align your goals with those exact values from the first step. The third step is to create the right environment around you. Control the media that you allow into your life. Optimize the area in which you spend your time to support a healthy lifestyle. Surround yourself with people who push you forward and help you to take accountability for your actions. Focus on giving yourself positive self-talk daily. And the fourth and last step is to create a plan which you will follow even when the challenging times come.

Productive Pause

There will come times that will challenge your perseverance and commitment. In those times, the best is to take a productive pause, which means taking a short period to focus on reflecting around specific questions that will lead to clarity of your actions and piece of your mind. Furthermore, when hard times come, think about things that you are grateful for because they are a great source of strength when feeling low.

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.