What is it that you can do to improve your sales position? In this Expert Insight Interview, Jake Thompson discusses competing against yourself to excel in your career. Jake Thompson is a keynote speaker and author on aspiring leaders to build a winning mindset in themselves and their teams.

The interview discusses:

• Competing v Comparing
• Outworking your talent with effort
• Investing in yourself

Competition v Comparison

Focusing on competing against yourself is the key to a successful mindset because you eliminate the chance to get into the comparison game with others. If we compare ourselves with others, we distract ourselves from things that we control, such as our appearance, habits, and daily process. If we focus only on ourselves, we can work on our strengths and weaknesses to find the most effective and unique ways to connect and sell to our customers. Tracking our own progress is essential in taking personal accountability for our circumstances. In March 2020, everything went down for many businesspeople, but it also opened up new opportunities for those who looked at things from the right perspective. For instance, speakers got the chance to work excessively on creating virtual programs for their audience. The point is to find a way to maximize things in every situation.

Outwork your talent with effort

In sales, talent is a small contributor to success. The larger factor is the effort to maximize every possible opportunity. No matter if you are at your first sales job and not really liking it, or you already have 15 years of experience, showing up and planting the seeds for the future every day is crucial. Moreover, there are so many things going on that it is almost impossible to manage your activities without planning. Arrange your schedule to work on your priorities at the beginning and the end of your day. Also, things that you need to work on to improve your outreach, research, knowledge, and growth should be on your daily checklist. The greatest in their prospective fields never stop to learn new things.

Invest in Yourself

Going above and beyond in building your skill, experience, and network means investing in yourself. Continue to add even one percent daily to your professional development, and the results will follow. Building relationships through networking is significant in creating new opportunities. Also, find a greater purpose in why you are doing what you do because it will be a great reminder on bad days. When things start going bad, break the pattern by doing something that will maximize your future opportunity. People like to work with those who have a winning attitude, even when things are not going to their advantage.

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.

Why don’t professional services firms create value for their customers? In this Expert Insight Interview, Dom Meli discusses the death of professional service firms. Dom Meli is a Principal at People At Their Best, international keynote speaker, and author.

The interview discusses:

• Changing approach to stay relevant
• Customer experience as the most valued
• Things that only people can give
• Things to focus on in the future

Change Approach, Stay Relevant

To stay relevant, professional services firms have to add value to their services. However, many of these firms still believe that adding value means delivering service to customers through knowledge and expertise. Actually, creating value for customers has shifted to creating a customer experience. Thus, consultancies and other professional services firms should create a customer experience since their customers want and pay for it.

The Value is Customer Experience

During the industrial and information age, professional services firms were creating value through providing data. Today, businesses compete to be the fastest in learning customer needs and differentiating customer experience. Companies need to start to listen to what their customers want and to focus on providing them a solution. Also, many companies still measure their performance and define success internally. Instead, the best measure for the company’s performance and success should be the difference that service has made in a customer’s life.

Man v Machine

Delivering a great product or service to the customer does not create a good relationship. A good relationship should already exist before doing anything in order to know what the customer really values. In today’s world, almost everything can be copied, automated, and outsourced. But three things cannot, and those three things are: making someone feel valued, being empathetic toward others, and helping people through conversation to find sense in uncertainty. Thus, it is of utmost importance to create something that machines cannot copy, such as an experience through human interaction.

Experience is the Future

People buy for only two reasons. To get rid of the problem they have or to create a reality they want. Thus, creating value means helping customers define what they want and making them feel like they are going towards it. The only way to deliver that value for the customer is to interact with a customer. Besides, the buying experience is 70 percent of how people feel while doing it. People are even willing to pay more if they know that they will get a better buying experience. Thus, homework for professional services companies in 2021 is to focus more on exploring new ways of how they can engage their clients in the process and create a better customer experience.

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 think that soft leadership is the leadership of tomorrow. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, professor M. S. Rao discusses its importance and benefits. Professor M.S Rao is a Father of Soft Leadership, Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants, an award-winning International Leadership Guru, and author of fifty books.

The interview discusses:

• Shit in a leadership perception
• Characteristics of a soft leadership
• Combining hard and soft leadership
• Transitioning to a soft leadership
• Technology and self-reflection

The Perception Shift

Soft leadership represents leading people through a set of soft skills. There is a misconception that leadership has to be tough and only task-oriented. That is why many people think that soft skills are not as significant and a symbol of weakness. However, there has been a shift in the way how leadership is perceived globally. Millennials and newer generations prefer to work, walk, and talk with partners instead of leaders. Thus, even though traditional leadership has its advantages, the future is in soft leadership skills and mindset.

Characteristics of a Soft Leadership

Eleven characteristics construct soft leadership. Those characteristics are character, charisma, conscience, conviction, courage, communication, compassion, commitment, consistency, consideration, and contribution.

The Combination of Hard and Soft Leadership

It is a thin line between these two leadership styles. Hard leadership is vital in situations that are time-limited and in crisis. People need someone who will inspire them while leading them through the crisis. Global pandemic such as Covid19 required hard leadership in terms of enforcing global lockdowns. Even though lockdowns caused much dissatisfaction among people, that was the best solution to stop the spreading. However, during Covid19, many situations called for embracing soft leadership skills as well.

The Transition to Soft Leadership

Many leaders today were being taught their leadership styles by traditional or hard leaders. Thus, for a transition to soft leadership, they first have to change their mindset, and secondly, have to trust and rely on their soft skills. The post-pandemic world will be very hesitant and volatile. Thus, there will be an immense need for soft leadership to enhance global prosperity.

Technology and Self-Reflection

Before the pandemic, people were complaining that technology caused dehumanization and disconnection among people. However, during the pandemic, people leveraged technology to connect, communicate globally, and to continue working virtually. Moreover, many people used this time for self-reflection and to identify things that are truly important to them. Hence, in a post-pandemic world, people will focus more on stuff they are passionate about and have meaning and purpose. The pandemic caused all of us to embrace maybe forgotten humility, humanity, humbleness, and hope.

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.

Does your company have a sales process in place? In this Expert Insight Interview, Doug Brown discusses the optimization of a sales process. Doug Brown is a sales revenue growth expert, business consultant, author, and speaker.

The interview discusses:

• How to evaluate your sales process
• Using the sales process to gain insights
• Key benefits of a sales process
• Referrals as part of the sales process

Evaluate Your Sales Process

The sales process often gets a bit neglected and overlooked in an organization. However, it needs constant checking because it reflects the dynamics of the target market and consumer behavior. Buyers’ needs and target market are very fluid. Thus, it is essential to stay clear and truthful in setting goals. Next, assess whether the organization can actually grow to the planned level. Sometimes, the challenge is in the sales process itself, lack of skills, or people themselves. Not everyone is up for the salesman job. And the last part is to focus on the massive prospecting.

Information Pool

The sales process is the source of the vast information available for performance analytics. For instance, it is easy to see which stage works the best and where the team or an individual struggle the most. That way, managers can set up training for things that need improvement or team up people making everyone works the area they perform the best.

Key Benefits

Research shows that all best performing sales companies have sales processes with clearly defined steps. A quality sales process is duplicatable, consistent, and objective, all three being very critical components for working in B2B. That way, customers have a consistent experience with the company. In addition, the sales process makes it easier to create better sales forecasts and predictable budgets.

Furthermore, managers need to show that they care about the sale process by continuously coaching it and examining its execution. If the manager shows no interest in the sales process, other employees will naturally follow the same behavior. It is a misconception that having sales process in place kills creativity. On the contrary, having a sales process in place enables one to focus on activities that bring higher value to both customers and a company.

Referrals

Referrals should also be part of the sales process. People are usually reactive when asking for referrals, but it is hard to notice it because there are no KPIs to measure the performance. Thus, being proactive and using systematic process will bring a consistent number of referrals. Doing the job right will most likely get you a referral. You only need to improve the way of getting it.

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.

Although account-based marketing has always existed in some form, technology innovation has made it easier to target marketing activities to individual accounts. In this Expert Insight Interview, Mike Maynard discusses the benefits of account-based marketing regarding big sales deals. Mike Maynard is an Owner at Napier, a full-service marketing company, specialized in working with high tech B2B companies ranging from start-ups to enterprises.

The interview discusses:

• What is account-based marketing
• How to prepare for taking larger accounts
• Best way to approach and implement account-based marketing

What is it?

Account-based marketing identifies and focuses on potential clients who would like to spend the most money. Salespeople tend to focus on potential clients who seem to show less resistance. They invest a lot of time in smaller accounts and do not earn enough money. On the other side, focusing on a large account does not take up more time. It requires more strategy and effort but brings a far greater payoff.

Preparation for Bigger Accounts

There are three key things to do to prepare yourself for tackling the sizeable accounts. The first thing to do is to identify your ideal clients. The second thing is to understand who is involved in the decision-making process. Sometimes there is a smaller number of people involved, but sometimes you can find even hundreds of people involved in decision making. It usually depends on the size of a company and on a product or service you sell. And the last thing to do is to work your way to reach those people who are in charge of purchasing decisions. It is essential to understand how things work in reality and not how they should work theoretically. Some people might show genuine interest and care, but they do not have enough authority to help in the sales process.

The Right Approach and Implementation

Nowadays, it is easier than ever to do account-based marketing because now you can scale it. In the past, people were manually addressing targeted companies about new campaigns. But now, you can do account-based campaigns that address thousands of potential clients from once. The key is to understand how to reach those potential clients, get contacts, and build data to put in a CRM. LinkedIn is a helpful tool, for instance, because it can easily reach people with particular job titles in specific industries.

However, job occupations today became so specialized. There are so many new job titles that keep appearing. Thus, properly preparing and understanding which job title you should target is crucial to prevent targeting the wrong people due to lack of research.

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.

Last year, virtual meetings were necessary due to the circumstances of a pandemic. However, many companies have decided to incorporate virtual meetings in their regular work activities from now on. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, James Kelley discusses how technology can drive inclusion in virtual meetings. Dr. James Kelley is a founder and CEO of qChange company, providing a real-time solution to improve leaders’ meeting skills and an author of the book The Crucible Gift:5 Lessons from Authentic Leaders that Thrive in Adversity.

The interview discusses:

• Lack of self-awareness
• How to ensure inclusion
• Mindful meetings

Self-Awareness

Leaders are usually not fully aware of the impact they have on their teams in virtual meetings. How they show up, discuss, and express their points of view sets a tone for the team members. Lack of self-awareness is one of the main issues that people face at virtual meetings. Naturally, people get more self-consumed during a virtual meeting because they can see themselves on the screen. On the other hand, it is easy to notice people’s engagement and reactions. Also, when attending an online meeting, it is easier to get distracted by external factors. That is why it is crucial to set organizational norms and expectations early on. Creating healthy rules and expectations increases the engagement level within the team.

Ensure Inclusion

The key to creating an inclusive environment in a virtual meeting is welcoming new voices by asking questions and being asked questions. When everybody in the team expresses their opinion, that team almost always makes the best possible decision. Thus, leaders can still lead the meeting while making it a collaborative experience for everyone. Moreover, being empathetic of the people’s circumstances is a big part of the leader’s role. Every person in the world wants to be heard and valued. Leaders should allow and encourage everyone to speak up their minds because even bad ideas sometimes produce aspects that lead to good ideas.

Mindful Meetings

Nowadays, there is a real-time technology solution that can help leaders to be more present and mindful at their meetings. A couple of minutes before the meeting, a leader receives a prompt that focuses on behavior he/she wants to improve. Then, immediately after the meeting, a leader and team members give feedback on the leader’s performance. Even though team members’ answers are anonymous, leaders can find out in real-time whether their perception matches the perception of their employees. Everyone focusing on and contributing to professional development naturally creates inclusion and engagement within the team. Besides, creating an experience makes it 75 percent more likely to retain that behavior 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.

Join host John Golden as he discusses Branding 101 with Dawn Foster who is a marketing and brand nerd. In the past 10+ years, Dawn worked with and lead both large and small marketing teams, partnered with C-Suite operations, marketing, information technology, and financial officers, to build brands and marketing strategies across the United States.

With a particular focus on the solopreneur, this is a must-watch for anyone running or looking to start their own business. Brand is everything!

Recorded Live – January 21st, 9am PT

EPISODE QUESTIONS:

Q1: What is Brand Strategy?

Q2: How to be memorable and stand out?

Q3: What’s the best strategy to work towards desired outcomes?

Our Guest

Dawn Foster

Dawn Foster is a marketing and brand nerd. In the past 10+ years, Dawn worked with and lead both large and small marketing teams, partnered with C-Suite operations, marketing, information technology, and financial officers, to build brands and marketing strategies across the United States.

Links › Dawn Foster | linkedin.com | Facebook

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 a 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.

Contrary to conventional thinking, lateral thinking means looking at the problem from a different perspective. Thus, in this Expert Insight Interview, Paul Sloane discusses lateral thinking for salespeople. Paul Sloane is an expert, consultant, author, and speaker on innovation, creativity, and lateral thinking.

The interview discusses:

• Importance of lateral thinking in sales
• Steps to lateral thinking
• Keeping on asking questions

Why is it Important?

So many things have changed recently, including consumer behavior. Customers are more cautious and hesitant. Salespeople’s role has changed as well, and now, they need to guide customers who are overwhelmed with information and choices. But, to provide guidance, salespeople need to establish professional trust and earn respect from their customers.

Steps to Lateral Thinking

Firstly, ask yourself whether you know your target market and your clients’ needs? It is important to remember that customers’ needs change dynamically. Last year’s customer needs are not the same as this year, and they will be different next year as well. Thus, you have to recheck that you have an accurate understanding of the customers’ needs. Next, ask yourself what assumptions you make and write them down. Then, ask yourself what if you are wrong, and what if the truth is the complete opposite? Challenging your primary assumption forces you to take the opposite direction, which sometimes can lead to creating an entirely new market.

Furthermore, think of the new methods that you can try for things that you do regularly. Trying new ways is bold, and even though many of them will not work, some will work and lead to developing a new method. Besides, innovation usually comes from the number of failed experiments at first.

Keep Asking Questions

The crucial thing to remember is to keep asking questions until you uncover a customer’s fundamental issue. For example, a good salesperson establishes a report with the client, asks questions to reveal the needs, introduces the product that solves the customer’s problem, and successfully closes a deal. However, an outstanding salesperson establishes a report with a client, asks questions to identify the problem, and then asks even more questions. That way salesperson understands the client’s issue more clearly and can propose a solution that has a much higher value to the client.

Hyundai is an excellent example of a company that managed to double its car sales during the 2008/2009 recession. By investigating deeper than others, Hyundai discovered that the main reason why people were not buying cars was that they were afraid of losing jobs while still repaying them. Thus, Hyundai offered to carry the risk enabling everyone who gets redundant at work to return it. Hence, intentionally taking a different look at things generates a creative and innovative solution to the problem.

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.