ValuePros Show

Welcome to a special episode of Inspire Your Buyers, titled "The Buying Experience Edge." This time, hosts Bruce Scheer and Mike Wilkinson are joined by value experts Darren Fleming, Todd Snelgrove, Dean Edwards, and David Spiegel-collectively boasting over 125 years of experience in sales, procurement, pricing, and value enablement. In this jam-packed conversation, the team confronts the troubling disconnect between B2B sellers and buyers, uncovering why so many deals stall out or end in indecision. They introduce the B2B Buying Experience Index-a practical, research-backed framework that breaks down the 10 key factors most crucial in shaping a smooth, high-value buying journey. You'll hear why buyers increasingly distrust sales reps, what top performers do to build trust, how to show up with business cases that actually help buyers buy, and why the buying experience-not just the solution-now sways the majority of big decisions. Whether you're in sales, marketing, or customer success, this episode will show you how to make your value clearer, your buying process smoother, and help you stand out from the competition. If you want actionable tips, fresh perspectives, and some eye-opening stats to inspire your team, you won't want to miss this episode. Let's dive in and discover how to become value ready at every stage of the B2B journey! 00:00 "Achieving Value Clarity" 05:22 "Mastering Value-Based Sales Negotiation" 08:45 "Improving the Broken Buying Experience" 10:06 Optimizing the Buying Experience 16:03 "Being Meeting Ready" 17:08 "Inspire: Go-to-Market Storytelling" 22:25 "Effective Customer Engagement Essential" 27:02 Value Proposition Contextualization 30:38 Mid-Funnel Financial Justification Timing 33:57 "Negotiation Readiness through Value" 36:14 "Navigating Deal Approval Processes" 39:31 Empower Approval: Equip Stakeholders 43:47 Trusted Advisor Through Passion 48:18 Enhance Buying with AI Tools 49:16 Enhancing Sales with Buyer Tools

Unlock the secrets to winning executive buy-in and selling on value (not price) in tough economic times. In this episode, host Bruce Scheer sits down with value selling authority Todd Snelgrove (author, "Value First Then Price" and creator of "Total Profit Added"), procurement expert Dean Edwards, stakeholder David, and ROI-selling leader Darren Fleming, to break down how business cases can drive premium deals—without discounting. 👉 Skip ahead to what matters most with these timestamps: 00:00 - Welcome & Introductions: Setting the stage for value selling mastery [Bruce Scheer, David, Dean Edwards] 04:45 - Meet Todd Snelgrove: Lessons from decades of value-focused selling 09:08 - Why Business Cases Win: Procurement, psychology, and profit impact 13:32 - Ability to Pay vs. Willingness to Pay: Insights from the field 20:27 - Inside Procurement: Sales tips from the other side of the table 22:44 - Timing Your Value Message: Why the early bird catches the deal 23:14 - Common Mistakes with Value Selling Tools: Avoid the Excel trap! 31:01 - Proof Points: Academic research, industry stats, and procurement testimonials 36:40 - The Power of Visualization: Why execs need one-page business cases 37:06 - Unveiling Value Navigator: Darren Fleming demos an AI-powered value case builder 42:09 - Adding Trust & Credibility: Referencing real research in business cases 44:48 - Customizing Your Story: Real-time adjustments for believable proposals 45:55 - What's Next: Adding value in every buyer conversation Don't miss: Why buyers pick suppliers who co-build business cases—in 80% of deals! How to leverage AI for rapid, tailored, data-backed business cases (demo included) Insider tips from both procurement and sales sides to elevate your deal performance in 2025 Subscribe & leave a review for more value-selling mastery!

"Inside the Buyers' Minds | Revenue Mastery Series Part 1 – Inspire Your Buyers Podcast Welcome to Part 1 of our special Revenue Mastery Series, "Inside the Buyers' Minds"! Join host Bruce Scheer and expert guests Dean Edwards (seasoned procurement executive), Todd Snelgrove (value-based selling authority), and David Svigel (value tools expert) as we dig deep into what really happens on the buying side-especially in times of economic uncertainty. In this episode, you'll discover: - What procurement teams are dealing with behind the scenes, and how that impacts your sales strategy - Why most sellers fail to stand out-and the one move that can make you a true partner to buyers - The massive opportunity for salespeople who proactively help build a clear, defensible business case - How to move beyond price-cutting and instead become indispensable to procurement and executive decision makers - Actionable ways to reframe your value proposition and sell more effectively in today's challenging economy If you're a B2B seller or revenue leader aiming to win deals with high-consideration solutions, you'll want to hear Dean's candid insights on procurement's "tug of war," risk aversion, and the hidden dynamics that influence how and why decisions get made. You'll walk away with practical tips to engage Procurement as an ally, create measurable outcomes, and ensure you're one of the top 10% who actually shapes the business case-and wins the deal. Subscribe, like, and leave a review to help others find and benefit from our show. For more resources and to access bonus materials, check out ValuePros.io. Let us know your biggest takeaway in the comments! #B2BSales #Procurement #ValueSelling #InspireYourBuy 00:00 ""Adapting to Economic Cycles Webinar"" 07:07 Extended Buying Cycles in IT Procurement 10:00 Procurement Challenges in Economic Uncertainty 11:03 ""Procurement Drives Cost Savings"" 17:35 Maximizing Return from Business Initiatives 19:09 ""Strategic Innovation as Safety"" 23:11 ""Building Effective Procurement Cases"" 25:57 CFO Approval Needed for Large Deals 30:03 Budget Strategy: Value Retention Key 33:48 Vendor Relationship Success Story 35:40 Concentrating Suppliers for Economic Advantage 40:33 Insufficient Supplier Management Resources 43:30 Optimizing Vendor-Buyer Partnerships"

Welcome to this episode of Inspire Your Buyers, where we dive into the transformative power of leading with love, purpose, and connection in the world of sales. Joining us are two inspirational figures: Genevieve Piturro, the award-winning author known for her remarkable TEDx talks and her heartwarming mission with The Pajama Program, and Bruce Scheer, our insightful host. They explore how emotional connection, collaboration, and shared success are essential in today's competitive market. Genevieve shares her unique journey from a high-powered career in New York's TV industry to founding a nonprofit organization that has profoundly impacted children's lives. Her story is a testament to the incredible changes that occur when you align your work with your purpose and passion. So, tune in as we uncover how you can make a significant impact by building genuine connections and providing an exceptional buying experience. Enjoy the conversation! 00:00 B2B Buying Experience Importance 03:33 "Improving B2B Buying Experience" 08:44 Embracing Emotional Intelligence at Work 13:01 Align Business Solutions with Personal Life 16:24 Collaboration in Value Proposition Formation 20:34 "Visionary Collaboration Inspires Growth" 23:13 The Power of Belonging 27:47 "Post-Sale Commitment and Success" 31:35 Visiting Shelter to Comfort Children 33:01 "Pajama Program: From Executive to Purpose" 37:15 Free Leadership Coaching and Tips 40:13 "Leading B2B Sales with Heart"

Unlock the secrets to making your brand truly stand out with insights from Steve Miller, the marketing gunslinger himself. Discover how to be uncopyable and gain an unfair advantage in your market. - The key functions of a business according to Peter Drucker: marketing and innovation. - Why being different, not just better, is crucial for success. - How to avoid commoditization and offer an uncopyable experience. - The value of getting out of your industry box and stealing genius from other domains. - Strategies for creating a unique customer experience that becomes your marketing. 00:00 "Steve's Uncopyable Sales Secrets" 03:21 "Peter Drucker: Marketing and Innovation" 07:18 Indistinguishable Competitors in Digital Security 09:57 Key to Brand Differentiation 13:29 AI-Enhanced Delivery Innovation 17:26 Truck Industry Competitive Dynamics 20:20 American Girl Store Marketing Insights 23:46 Marketing: Creating and Delivering Value 27:43 Velcro's Nature-Inspired Invention 30:21 Defining Customer Value Perceptions 35:02 "Uncopyable: Gaining Unfair Business Advantage" 38:14 "Stand Out: Be Uncopyable"

Discover how to align your revenue team for success in an ever-evolving market with insights from A. Lee Judge's book, "CASH: The 4 Keys to Better Sales, Smarter Marketing, and a Supercharged Revenue Team." Join Bruce Scheer as he discusses the transformative approach to connecting sales and marketing. - The shift in buyer control and its impact on sales and marketing dynamics. - Exploring Lee's CASH framework: Communication, Alignment, Systems, and Honesty. - The significance of fostering a revenue team mindset, bridging the divide between departments. - The role of content quality and quantity throughout the buyer's journey. - The crucial elements of becoming a trusted adviser to facilitate buyer decisions. 00:00 Sales & Marketing Alignment Insights 03:51 ""CASH: Key to Team Efficiency"" 09:19 Marketing Insights from Sales Meetings 12:19 Cross-Functional Team Visits Enhance Value 15:45 ""Revenue Team Sweet Spot"" 17:19 Revenue Team Kickoff Enthusiasm 20:09 Aligning Sales and Marketing for Better Leads 25:47 Rethinking the Customer Funnel 28:13 Modern Buyer's Journey Insights 31:30 Balancing Content: Quality vs. Quantity 33:15 Quality vs. Quantity in Content 38:03 Authority vs. Influence in Decision-Making 39:46 Bridging Sales and Marketing Gaps 43:54 Aligning Sales and Marketing Teams

Join host Bruce Scheer and guest Andrew McMasters as they reveal the secrets to enhancing the buying experience through deep, intentional listening. In this episode, discover why mastering listening skills can set sales professionals apart and drive better business outcomes. - Explore why buyers often value the experience over the product itself. - Discover how deep listening can help sales professionals differentiate themselves. - Learn about the impact of biases and solution-oriented listening on effective communication. - Understand how to engage with buyers by tapping into their core needs and emotions. - Gain insights on balancing speaking and listening to improve sales conversations. 00:00 ""Elevating the Buying Experience"" 05:10 Power of Effective Listening 07:22 ""Listening Beyond Preconceptions"" 12:30 Uncovering Hidden Buyer Needs 16:39 Optimal Conversation Balance in Sales 17:24 Empowering Listener During Demos 21:55 Compassion Melts Fearful Anger 24:42 ""Emotion vs. Logic in Decision-Making"" 30:08 ""Improv Techniques in Sales"" 32:15 ""The Power of Listening in Sales""

Join Bruce Scheer as he dives into creating uncopyable buying experiences with sales expert Kay Miller. Learn how to stand out in sales by offering more than just products—offer memorable buying experiences. - Explore why conventional sales tactics are falling short with today's buyers. - Understand the significance of building trust and engaging naturally with customers. - Discover the concept of personal branding and its impact on sales. - Learn from real-world examples like Katie RV O'Neil's customer-centric selling. - Gain insights on how to create a personal brand that sets you apart from the competition. 00:00 "Uncopyable Moose Branding Strategy" 03:19 "B2B Buying Experience Index" 07:26 Human Touch in Sales Transactions 12:18 "Katie O'Neil: Sales Mastery" 14:25 Luxury RV Sales Strategies 18:57 Personal Branding: The Key to Uniqueness 19:43 Building Trust Through Honest Branding 23:34 Personal Stories in Business Success 29:39 Personal Branding Insights with Kaye 30:25 "Defining Your Personal Brand" 34:17 "Ask Customers Why They Choose You"

Join us on the ValuePros Show as we dive into the essentials of connecting with buyers for sales success with expert Ginger Johnson. Discover actionable insights that will transform your connections and boost your sales performance. - Understanding what true connectivity means and how it differs from mere networking. - The importance of trust, educational value, and emotional connection in sales. - Key strategies for making the first move and building authentic relationships. - The significance of follow-up and follow through in creating lasting connections. - How a connector's mindset—being positive, objective, and willing—is crucial for relationship building. Don't miss this episode packed with powerful tips and real-world examples to help you connect better with your buyers! 00:00 Optimizing B2B Buying Experience 04:15 ""Authentic Sales, Beyond Numbers"" 06:46 ""Self-Discovery Ripple Effect"" 12:45 ""Inspiring Others to Inspire"" 13:47 Connector's Mindset: Key to Success 17:46 Follow-Up vs. Follow-Through 22:54 Grace and Leadership in Sales 26:31 Small Talk Builds Big Connections 29:08 Connector's Mindset Highlights

Discover how to master the B2B buying experience with insights from Bruce Scheer and David Svigel. Learn key strategies to delight your buyers and drive growth. - Importance of the buying experience in 2025. - Critical statistics highlighting buyer preferences and behaviors. - Introduction to the B2B Buying Experience Index. - Four key phases of the buying journey. - Ten essential pillars for an exceptional B2B buying experience. Leave a like and subscribe to the ValuePro Show for more insights! 00:00 "Enhancing B2B Buying Experiences" 04:55 "B2B Buying Experience Index" 06:21 B2B Buying Experience Framework 10:46 "Trust & Education in B2B Buying" 14:18 "Listening: Key to Trust Building" 17:35 Personalized Context in Buying Solutions 21:25 Trusted Adviser: Key to B2B Sales 24:02 "Accelerating Impact Through Collaboration" 27:12 "Post-Sale Commitment and First Impact" 31:21 Transforming B2B Buying Experience 32:48 "Experience Over Product"

Unlock the secrets to transforming your sales strategy with Bruce Scheer and Darrin Fleming as they delve into the Total Value Experience (TVE). Learn how to effectively focus on delivering customer value and improve your business outcomes. - Shift from selling technology features to focusing on customer business outcomes. - Utilize value tools like ROI calculators and value enablement techniques. - Overcome barriers such as product-centric perspectives and ineffective tools. - Implement a framework to build trust, understand needs, and deliver insights. - Enhance win rates, shorten deal cycles, and minimize discounting with value-led selling. 00:00 Buyers prefer sales-free experiences, demanding trusted advisors. 05:24 Total value experience: cumulative buyer interaction quality. 07:09 Buyers' remorse common post-contract; ensure first impact. 11:12 Current tools hinder enhancing buyer value experience. 14:30 Barriers, low value, and discount pressure hinder. 19:29 Right tools align seller-buyer around buyer's KPIs. 21:58 Four phases for delivering high-value experiences. 23:50 Lead with value to enhance win rate. 29:00 Providing tools for sellers to understand buyers. 33:11 Playbooks, training, and coaching for sales success. 36:57 Developing strategic alignment and sales self-sufficiency. 38:31 Creating a higher total value experience discussed. 41:02 Total value experience transforms the buyer journey.

Welcome to the ValuePros Show! In today's episode, Bruce Scheer talks with Scott Presse about the significant benefits of adopting a connected revenue model and the steps needed to execute it effectively. Unified Messaging - Discover the importance of having a unified voice across sales, marketing, and other departments. Go-To-Market Strategy - Learn how to refine and align your go-to-market strategies with a connected revenue model. Cross-Functional Content Development - Find out how collaboration among departments can lead to impactful messaging and tools. Understanding Buyer Journey - Understand the buyer journey to better tailor your messaging and outreach efforts. Sales Enablement Tools - Explore the development and use of tools like talk tracks, infographics, and animations for effective customer engagement. 00:00 Discussing connected revenue strategies with Scott Presse. 04:10 Disconnection exists between marketing and revenue responsibility. 07:17 Sales and marketing: why change, why us, unique. 09:26 Align marketing with executive-level conversations more. 14:24 Align sales and marketing through buyer journey. 18:46 Collaborative sales-marketing builds effective sales tools. 20:18 Collaborative content development for Workfront's sales narrative. 23:00 Collaborative content crucial for effective stakeholder engagement. 28:39 Experiential video-based learning crucial for sales training. 30:42 Operationalize through playbooks, training, and coaching. 32:57 Connected revenue requires strategic organizational shift. 36:05 Leadership commitment and collaboration are essential.

In this episode of the ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and health expert Gloria Treister discuss how holistic health practices can boost performance and well-being. Learn actionable tips for taking control of your health through lifestyle changes and self-advocacy. - How 80% of genetic expressions can be influenced by lifestyle choices like diet, sleep, and exercise. - Gloria's inspiring journey from discovering a parathyroid issue to reversing osteopenia. - Practical advice for making food choices, such as viewing food as either medicine or poison. - The benefits of short exercise bursts, or "exercise snacks," for integrating fitness into daily life. - The importance of understanding medication interactions and how to be proactive about personal health management. 00:00 Gift book focuses on self, health, wealth. 04:07 Love yourself to prioritize health and well-being. 07:19 Prioritizing health improves life for everyone. 12:26 Lack of education on food; medication-focused learning. 14:55 Investigate root causes, not just symptoms. 16:38 Lab testing helps identify health issue causes. 21:00 Challenging doctor's advice: Addressing bone density now. 23:38 Parathyroid issue required surgery; supplements helped. 28:42 Choose organic foods; check PLU labels. 33:48 Exercise refreshes mood and combats post-lunch slump. 37:10 Gut health, exercise, sleep, community boost wellbeing. 37:56 Community contributes significantly to longevity and health. 42:24 House plants detoxify air; affordable air purifier. 44:33 Feel great at any age with hormone testing. 47:54 30-day health guide: daily, concise well-being tips. 51:02 Like, subscribe, review, and prioritize self-care.

In this episode of ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and marketing expert Neil Wilkins delve into the importance of improving the total value experience through strategic marketing. Discover how focusing on customer-centric practices can build trust and drive long-term success. - Emphasizing customer education to build lasting trust and value. - Exploring the concept of value creation without selling products. - Advantages of co-creation, personalization, and collaboration in marketing. - Bruce Scheer's "value-ready framework" for successful sales. - The need for consistent narratives across all company functions for a unified customer experience. 00:00 Excited to discuss enhancing total value experience. 06:44 Improving marketing's role in total value experience. 09:11 Value is subjective; cocreate for effective sales. 11:42 Patience over quick wins ensures long-term success. 15:25 Understand needs, deliver insights, justify value, execute. 20:03 Marketing journey: Awareness, conversion, retention, advocacy. 24:39 Personalization through co-creation enhances customer experience. 27:09 Understand prospects deeply for personalized value creation. 30:36 Customize value story for each discipline consistently. 32:30 Streamlines messaging, reduces risk, builds brand consistency. 37:07 Provide value without mentioning your product directly. 39:41 Align marketing with customer-centric value, cocreation.

Join Bruce Scheer and B2B sales expert Brendan McAdams as they discuss powerful strategies to help early-stage startups achieve rapid customer adoption. Discover actionable insights from Brendan's book and learn how to refine your sales approach for success. - The importance of founders taking an active role in sales. - Framework for securing early customer adoption. - Using discovery conversations to refine messaging and engagement. - Overcoming cultural aversions and negative stereotypes in sales. - Validating products through early sales and feedback. 00:00 Winning early adopters requires founder-led sales efforts. 03:53 Simplifying startup obstacles for successful product adoption. 07:05 Sales is about discovering needs and fit. 12:42 Sales skills are crucial for career advancement. 16:42 Communicate ideas early for effective traction. 17:38 Engage early adopters to gather valuable feedback. 22:32 Mindset to messaging: a natural progression flow. 24:12 Conversations clarify solutions, identify needs, drive understanding. 30:08 Mindset, messaging, and early adopter engagement insights. 31:03 Keep showing up with value.

Discover how the power of storytelling can revolutionize your sales performance! Join Bruce Scheer and Kelly Breslin Wright as they delve into the critical role of narratives in aligning company missions, engaging customers, and driving business success. - Crafting unique value propositions and integrating them into a compelling company narrative. - Strategic priority of company storytelling with executive and board alignment. - Importance of conveying the "why" behind a company to emotionally engage customers. - Consistency and alignment in storytelling across the organization. - Real-life examples of effective storytelling, including personal anecdotes and the Tableau story. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share for more insights on enhancing sales through storytelling! 00:00 Left consulting for sales in tech startups. 07:55 Unified strategy requires clear mission, vision alignment. 10:40 Culture emotionally connects, driving increased sales engagement. 19:21 Storytelling fosters connection, trust, and empathy. 23:55 Tableau started to integrate data with visuals. 30:30 Illustrating company's mission, vision, and unique narrative. 34:06 Focus on individual motivation for customer engagement. 38:15 Personal stories build trust in sales interactions. 47:02 Whole company Tableau training enhanced storytelling impact. 49:35 Customers seek thought leadership, trust, emotional connection. 55:49 Tableau: Empowers all users, frees specialized resources. 01:03:25 Use storytelling to improve communication and engagement. 01:06:20 Kelly's storytelling insights enhance sales and connections.

In this episode of ValuePros Show, Todd Snelgrove and guest Mike Wilkinson dive deep into strategic account management and the importance of value quantification in sales processes. Learn actionable insights to enhance your sales techniques and improve customer relationships. - Differentiate between cost, price, and total value to drive strategic account engagement. - Use decoy pricing and the compromise effect to influence consumer choices effectively. - Avoid offering products for free to enhance perceived value and profitability. - Implement structured value quantification tools to ensure consistency and credibility. Align engagement with customers' buying stages for more impactful sales interactions. 00:00 Driving strategic value through customer education. 06:21 Collaboration across departments ensures organizational success. 09:18 Focus on profit, not just total costs. 11:13 Accelerating time to market is crucial. 14:06 Business requirements assessment includes detailed financial considerations. 19:22 Focus on long-term cost, not initial price. 20:25 Companies struggle quantifying value; Excel errors persist. 23:32 ROI is crucial; accuracy and research matter. 27:03 Follow up on customer satisfaction and improvements. 31:04 Quantify your value to capture our attention. 35:25 Majority of buyer journey is independent research. 37:59 Belief and passion significantly impact business success. 41:03 Profitable companies prioritize holistic and strategic value. 42:25 Discounting doesn't increase overall product usage. 48:06 Charge vs. free: Bundling services in industries. 51:03 Value must be central to product development. 52:35 Process ensures effective value delivery and implementation.

Join us on the ValuePros Show as Bruce Scheer and Chuck Marcouiller dissect the art of making a strong first impact in sales. Learn the essentials to navigate the value fog and drive measurable outcomes. - Discover the "Three C's" of value selling: context, clarity, and confidence. - Understand how to define and achieve the elusive "first impact." - Learn why consumers prioritize pain avoidance over potential gains. - Explore the "I MADE" framework for evaluating solution impacts. - Hear a personal story illustrating the importance of assessing value from the consumer's perspective. 00:00 Chuck Marcouiller discusses crucial first-impact selling. 05:07 Define customer impact to reduce software churn. 09:21 No decision prevails; clarity and confidence lacking. 12:20 Clear value fog for better deal success. 13:28 Value is defined by the receiver's perception. 19:32 Decisions blend logic, emotion; emotional impact crucial. 22:41 Three stages: solution impact, status quo impact. 24:58 Evaluating inaction costs, proving initial ROI impact. 27:54 Software implementation requires active collaboration between parties. 32:51 Aim: 90% pass certification, assess coaching effectiveness. 36:00 "Order doesn't matter; essential ingredients ensure success." 37:32 Documented processes create confidence, clarity, success.

Join Bruce Scheer and guest Scott Presse as they delve into effective sales leadership and the transformative power of structured coaching. Discover how to maximize your sales team's performance and boost revenue through targeted strategies. - The significance of Return on Sales Leadership (ROSL) and its impact on meeting quotas. - Importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced sales pipeline for productivity and revenue. - Structured coaching principles for better prioritization and action in sales. - Differences between effective coaching and daily communication. Early-stage coaching in sales cycles for optimized outcomes. 00:00 ValuePro Show features trusted advisor Scott Presse. 04:13 Sales management isn't formally taught or learned. 09:25 Coaching shifts performance, reduces reliance on top performers. 13:10 Evaluate sales leadership by quota achievement rate. 16:13 Calls often lack preparation, lead to low-value exchange. 19:18 Coach early to ensure long-term success. 23:14 Pipeline: Opportunities' aggregate, not deal reviews. 24:06 Quantity vs quality: Achieving quota through strategic engagement. 28:33 Pipeline discipline helps sellers understand business health. 32:13 Strategic focus on select accounts and coaching. 36:17 Coaching guides organize best practices for leaders. 38:42 Seek honesty, ask: What are you proud of? 41:38 Second-line sales leaders need improved coaching responsibility. 45:06 Scott shares practical sales coaching strategies.

Unlock the secrets to leveraging business value assessments in your sales strategy. Join Bruce Scheer and Paul Roberts as they delve into the transformative power of assessments to drive growth and build trust. - Importance of assessments in aligning decision-makers and strategic planning. - Phases of successful assessments: information gathering, analysis, and recommendations. - Role of high-quality presentations in risk management sectors like finance and healthcare. - Establishing trust and mutual commitment before conducting assessments. - Monetizing assessments and ensuring their value is clearly communicated to clients. 00:00 Bruce Scheer discusses value selling with Paul Roberts. 04:15 Stand apart with improved sales and experience. 09:10 10-dimension self-assessment with personalized improvement report. 10:44 Assess options and compete with consulting firms. 15:41 Need proof through assessment before considering big change. 20:24 Peer-to-peer selling maximizes client outcomes effectively. 24:05 Client bypassed vendor, directly chose AWS instead. 25:02 Assessments can be valuable and rebated tools. 29:45 Broaden assessments beyond products for customer clarity. 31:45 Try the free online value assessment tool.

Join Bruce Scheer and Mark Hunter on the ValuePros Show as they uncover the secrets to mastering a value-driven sales mindset. Learn practical strategies to enhance your sales performance and drive meaningful conversations. - Importance of a champion's mindset for success in sales. - Purpose-driven conversations for building lasting relationships. - Structured time management with the "Monday Mission" concept. - Trust-building through effective questioning and listening. Daily habits and goal setting for staying focused and productive. 00:00 Sales expert Mark Hunter discusses creating value. 05:13 Sales: Helping others achieve the impossible vision. 07:04 Mindset multiplies skill and tool sets. 10:32 Mindset determines outcomes, guides through challenges. 15:17 Exercise boosts discipline and changes perspective powerfully. 17:09 Set goals, manage time intentionally, achieve success. 20:45 Conversations prioritized with clients and potential referrers. 22:55 Mark's book offers mindset strategies for recovery. 27:00 Questions should prioritize customer over self-interest. 29:46 Ask opinions; people share valuable insights. 33:54 Co-hosts Sales Logic podcast with Meredith Powell.

In this episode of ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and George Torok discuss the art of making the right first impression in professional settings. Learn actionable insights and techniques to enhance your presentation skills and build lasting connections. - How a childhood birdhouse story helped secure a $10 million contract. - Five essential keys to impactful presentations. - The importance of confidence and how to command attention when speaking. - Tips for virtual meetings and professional presentation. - Why focusing on the audience rather than personal introductions builds credibility. For more resources and tips, visit toroktips.com. Don't forget to subscribe and review the show! 00:00 Making impactful first impressions with George Torok. 03:13 First impressions matter; engage the audience immediately. 08:30 Vendor rejected for attending meeting from airport. 11:36 Visual disruption sparks curiosity and engagement. 14:18 Emotional connection's key; impersonal interactions fail. 17:19 Confidence attracts attention; demonstrate understanding to engage. 21:35 Avoid cliches; they don't enhance LinkedIn credibility. 25:46 Clients hire me for my confidence. 27:28 Ensure audience attention before speaking important words. 30:39 Master communication, first impressions, visit TorokTips.com

Join Bruce Scheer and guest Todd Snelgrove on The ValuePros Show as they explore the final dimension of the Value Readiness Framework-being Impact Ready. Learn how to set up, measure, and deliver real quantifiable value for your clients. Dive deep into best practices for maintaining momentum after closing deals, focusing on metrics that matter, and ensuring client success. Perfect for professionals looking to enhance their value-based strategies and drive lasting business impact. Visit ValuePros.io for valuable resources and tools. Subscribe, rate, and review to stay updated with top-notch content on value creation and delivery. 00:00 Continuation of discussions on value implementation practices. 05:15 Focus efforts, value conversations, agree on calculation. 08:16 Measurement strategy across 3 levels for success. 09:56 Structure, measure, prioritize, align metrics for buyers. 16:23 Business cases speed up close rates, profitable. 18:18 Net promoter score linked to delivering value. 22:48 Marketing investment boosts company profitability and success. 23:54 Address customer perception, research, and value analysis. 26:34 Lowest price doesn't mean more profit. CEO conference's three rules for success. 30:20 Strategic account management increases value, benefits both.

Ready to level up your sales game by 2025? Join us as we dive into the essential steps for being buyer ready and standing out from the competition. - The four-phase value ready assessment for revenue teams. - Key challenges faced by unprepared sellers and how to avoid them. - The importance of personalized attention and leveraging AI tools. - Steps to understand buyer roles, objectives, and challenges. - Building personal connections and aligning with buyer objectives to drive results. 00:00 Move to phase 4, align and negotiate approvals. 05:34 76% of B2B buyers expect personalized attention. 08:58 Researching prospects boosts salespeople performance significantly. 12:09 Becoming buyer ready: transition from novice to master. 14:07 Understanding buyers, anticipating needs, building trust proactively. 18:12 Overconfidence led to losing the business deal. 20:26 Buying decisions involve more complex, larger committees. 23:27 Find 5 connection points for effective cold calling. 28:28 Greatness requires responsibility; buyers' success is essential. 31:05 Encourages taking a value readiness assessment online.

Discover how to master negotiation and create compelling value propositions with Todd Snelgrove's expert insights. This episode of the ValuePros Show dives deep into effective strategies for aligning cost-saving measures and demonstrating tangible value in sales and negotiations. - Todd's approach to reducing inventory and maintaining savings. - Developing simplified agreements guaranteeing 10% savings. - The importance of credible value propositions over price discounts. - Practical applications of behavioral economics in pricing strategies. - Utilizing total cost of ownership and other negotiation techniques to create win-win scenarios. 00:00 Assumed value: Uniquely Swedish industrial bearing company. 06:06 Find value quantification numbers in company reports. 08:44 Optimizing pump performance and energy efficiency ideas. 11:16 Focus on value throughout negotiation and development. 16:00 Knowledge gained during building helps in negotiation. 19:13 Identifying customer value beyond cost reduction. 21:00 Trade-offs: Cost, customer demand, product lifespan, market timing. 24:37 Consider usage, maintenance, lifespan, and overall efficiency. 27:00 Disposal value, operating cost crucial for resale. 31:31 Focus on lifecycle value, not acquisition cost. 36:25 Color printing improves school test scores. 39:48 Customers' value over volume is sustainable business. 41:13 Limit choices to avoid lowest cost justification. 46:25 Behavior influences pricing and value perception decisions. 48:46 Reduce inventory, save costs; outsource for efficiency. 53:28 Guarantees enhance credibility and professional relationships. 54:49 Quantify value proposition, or face business decline.

Discover the essentials of being discovery and demo ready with sales veteran Ray Schloss and host Bruce Scheer. Learn how to engage customers effectively and win sales with practical, customer-centric strategies. Importance of customer-specific and centric presentations Utilizing thorough discovery to identify "win statements" Customizing demonstrations to fit prospects' environments Key collaboration between sales and technical teams Leveraging AI tools for enhanced discovery Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share for more insights. Visit valuepros.io for additional resources and a free value-ready assessment. 00:00 Discovery requires personal understanding, not assumptions. 04:08 Use AI for genuine customer understanding, not salesmanship. 09:09 Show value for 10% increase using storytelling. 10:22 Microsoft focused on business value selling transformation. 15:50 Great product and customer care yield genuine data. 20:30 Feelings remembered, details forgotten from meetings. 21:37 Differentiation is vital in competitive technical demos. 27:34 Identify win statements to prove project success. 29:26 Preparation and dry runs ensure effective presentations. 34:42 Experienced sellers succeed without rigid sales methodologies. 37:37 Willy Wonka confronts Charlie and Grandpa Joe. 41:43 Be impactful and memorable, go the extra mile. 43:13 Prioritize discovery; engage listeners; memorable presentations.

Unlock the secrets to mastering time effectiveness with Morgan Lim, author of "Unleashing the Power of Time." Join Bruce Scheer as he delves into Morgan's OPPTIC framework and its transformative impact on sales performance. - Learn Morgan's unique perspective on partnering with time rather than fighting against it. - Discover the OPPTIC framework for qualifying opportunities and organizing sales activities. - Hear practical tips on how to target the right buyers and maintain focus amidst distractions. - Understand the significance of internal collaboration and time effectiveness. - Explore actionable strategies to enhance your overall sales process and performance. Tune in to elevate your time management skills and drive sales success! 00:00 Time management insights for sales professionals' effectiveness. 03:18 Dysfunctional relationship with time in sales career. 06:26 Partner with time, focus on top targeted accounts. 10:57 Qualify opportunities through balanced, engaging questioning. 14:13 Customer outcome, pain, people, timeline, impact assessment. 18:12 Organize business accurately considering constant changes. 19:52 Focus on three main tasks daily in sales. 23:23 Optimize sales by organizing and being time-effective. 25:53 Morgan Lim's interview on time effectiveness concluded.

In this episode of ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and guest Mike Wilkinson dive into the critical importance of client readiness in B2B sales. Learn how to stand out as a value professional and avoid common pitfalls that hold salespeople back. - Framework of being ""value ready"": 4 phases, 10 dimensions - Consequences of poor client readiness and benefits of being well-prepared - Practical steps for achieving client readiness - Utilizing AI tools and avoiding the pitfalls of copy-pasting - Comprehensive company research and real-world case studies Tune in and get actionable insights to enhance your client-ready approach in B2B sales! 00:00 Discussing client readiness in Value Pros framework series. 05:53 Show client readiness to differentiate and collaborate. 08:43 Evaluate client readiness on 5-level scale. 11:48 Respect the client's valuable time during meetings. 15:38 Focus on mindset, industry knowledge, and trends. 18:47 Automated research tool profiles target companies efficiently. 21:08 Use industry language to better communicate. 23:10 Conduct thorough research on company's internal strategies. 28:11 Contextualize solutions to clients' specific needs. 30:04 All 10 readiness dimensions needed for success.

Want to master the art of sales narratives? In this episode of ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and Mike Wilkinson dive deep into crafting compelling sales stories. Understand the key stages of the sales cycle Learn how to present solution concepts effectively Discover the importance of scheduling follow-up interactions Get insights on a five-part sales narrative model Find out how to make your buyer the hero of the story 00:00 Set theme, foundation, and context for engagement. 05:47 Executives read book during downtime; valuable narrative formula. 08:09 Narrative assists buyers' understanding and engagement. 12:56 Creating a sizzling narrative: framework, structure, targeting buyers. 13:49 Focus narrative on key decision-makers and stakeholders. 18:59 They lack a CRM system, causing issues. 20:31 Highlighting cost savings and problem importance in sales. 23:36 Homework and narrative critical for problem showcasing. 29:32 Managed a $375M HP-Microsoft joint venture project. 31:10 Putting the pandemic in context via story. 34:32 Feeling trapped, resolved to get boat. 39:31 Lay out steps, visualize narrative and problems. 42:21 Visualizing communication issues resonated, prompting stakeholder empathy. 43:16 Contrasted ""big ugly"" and ""big beautiful"" successfully. 48:58 Videos and dialogue change buyers' emotional states. 52:51 Self-assess, improve, and build your market narrative. 54:30 Discussion on narrative skills and resources.

Unlock the power of mindfulness to enhance your sales interactions with insights from expert Joy Rains.   Learn practical techniques to stay present and focused with your clients. - Methods for internal mental preparation and visualization. - Techniques for effective listening and communication. - Importance of being present and releasing judgments. - Practical meditation tools to maintain focus. The value of asking intelligent questions and mirroring language. 00:00 Insights on being present and effective in sales. 04:37 Mindfulness stopped my insecurities, and improved customer interaction. 07:47 Mental preparation and visualization are crucial. 12:03 Release dizziness, listen actively, use open questions. 15:47 Use open-ended questions to gauge customer opinions. 18:32 Focus on listening to understand, not respond. 22:58 Stone Touch reminds me to stay present. 25:45 Numbered breath meditation helps stay present. 27:19 Train mind for success; prioritize customer's experience. 30:16 Episode wrap-up: Mindfulness with Joy Range.

In this episode of the ValuePros Show, Bruce Scheer and Darrin Fleming delve into the art of being "justification ready" in the sales process. Learn how to build compelling business cases that secure decision-maker buy-in and close more deals effectively. - Quantifying intangible benefits and aligning them with strategic objectives. - Understanding the emotional dimension and risk quantification in sales. - Components of a strong business case: problem statement, solution narrative, and financial analysis. - The cost of inaction and leveraging industry benchmarks to motivate decisions. - Insights on becoming a master seller versus a novice seller. Tune in to enhance your sales strategy and boost your win rates! 00:00 Ensure discovery, demonstrate value, justify, execute, impact readiness. 03:23 Engineer evaluating and justifying projects in manufacturing. 08:42 Deals lost due to weak business case, confidence. 10:38 Lack of confidence leads to no decision. 16:20 Most sellers focus on product, not client outcomes. 18:44 Become a business partner, understand and lead customers. 22:21 Align with strategic goals; analyze client and buyer. 27:30 Tool quantifies business case benefits and financial metrics. 28:48 Core metrics drive business value; cost of inaction. 33:37 Quantifiable tangible, critical intangible, strategic impact, possibilities. 35:51 Highlight strategic benefits tied to corporate initiatives. 38:51 Ensure ROI, conduct risk assessment, offer options. 41:16 Thanks for checking out this episode.

Join Bruce Scheer and value selling expert Mike Wilkinson as they dive into the essential skill of being discovery ready in sales. Learn how to master value discovery and improve your sales approach with practical tips and insights. - Understand why value discovery is crucial for customer-centric selling - Learn how to gain a competitive advantage through effective discovery conversations - Discover the importance of aligning with customer-specific issues - Explore the concept of QLS: Questioning, Listening, and Summarizing - Tips on building trust and preparing for meaningful discovery discussions Don't miss this episode and enhance your value-based selling skills! 00:00 Importance of discovery in sales: customer centricity. 05:18 Salespeople struggle to define sales value clearly. 06:47 Solving value mystery, important and fundamental. 12:23 Prepare for client conversations, identify generic issues. 14:22 Building trust is key in specific communication. 16:59 Discovery readiness involves customer-centered, conversational approach. 19:56 Identifying value at three levels of business.

Dive into the ValuePros Show with host Bruce Scheer and procurement expert Dean Edwards. Discover the secrets to becoming approval ready in B2B sales. Learn about the internal rate of return, information security challenges, and the distinct roles within procurement - purchasing, sourcing, and category management. Gain actionable strategies to build trust, demonstrate value, and navigate procurement processes effectively. Perfect for sales professionals looking to enhance their approach and close more deals. Don't miss out on this invaluable episode! 00:00 Information security is vital for company success. 03:55 Get involved early, don't start late. 07:08 Strategic financial consultants drive cost benefits. 12:11 Identify procurement organization's character and professional behavior. 14:16 Presenting value argument with total cost of ownership. 17:39 Balancing time between internal stakeholders and suppliers. 19:27 Engage with procurement early; understand their needs. 23:58 Establish rapport, influence, assist procurement teams effectively. 28:33 Procurement relies on trust for successful outcomes. 32:04 Positive procurement relationship leads to successful collaboration. 34:38 Engage with us for procurement strategy guidance. 36:50 Dean Edwards shares valuable insights on approval readiness.

In this episode of the ValuePros Show, host Bruce Scheer and guest Todd Snelgrove dive into the crucial phase of driving execution with a focus on being Approval Ready. Todd, a leading expert in value based selling and pricing, shares his extensive knowledge on engaging with procurement, debunking misconceptions, and creating compelling business cases. Listeners will gain actionable insights on building trust, understanding buyer's needs, delivering impactful solutions, and mastering value quantification to succeed in B2B sales. Don't miss this in-depth discussion aimed at helping value professionals get ready to connect the dots so buyers can buy. 00:00 "Value professionals show up ready to connect." 05:14 Discussing value over reducing price in sales. 07:20 Infosys deal and aggressive procurement process. 11:07 Office supply companies deliver similar products, procurement insights. 16:19 Specifying needs, gathering information, evaluating options. 17:04 Negotiate terms, conditions, price, value, measure satisfaction. 22:06 Early cadences, KPIs, preplanning for contract renewal. 26:22 Logic, numbers, frustration with clients in engineering. 27:00 Emphasizing credibility, storytelling, and preparation in communication. 31:47 Excel value case stages, assumptions, value analysis. 35:35 Broken spreadsheets, costly mistakes, and credible platform. 37:48 Sellers often unprepared, asking essential questions. 41:18 Value professionals make compelling, quantifiable case. Connect and stay updated for value selling.

Join Bruce Scheer, host and guest of the ValuePros Show, as he dives deep into a comprehensive framework for value readiness, developed with fellow ValuePros co-founders and extensive market research. Featuring value training expert Mike Wilkinson, this episode covers critical phases like Building Trust, Understanding Needs, Delivering Insights, and Driving Execution. Learn how incorporating value-based strategies can dramatically improve close rates, deal sizes, and reduce sales cycles. Discover actionable insights and assess your own value readiness with the Value Readiness Assessment Tool available at ValuePros.io. 00:00 Selling based on value yields significant benefits. 04:09 Learning value enablement transforms sales professionals' lives. 08:51 3 critical value dimensions to build trust. 12:19 B2B buyers demand preparedness and tailored narratives. 16:43 Identify key people, sell to benefit, value discovery. 20:25 Understand customer needs, provide relevant solutions. 23:50 Align with stakeholders, meet procurement and compliance. 26:55 Prepare team, define metrics, deliver promised value. 31:04 Learn, enhance, improve, connect, and stay updated. 31:54 Special episode, share and leave a review.

Episode Overview Today, we dive deep into the power of narrative in shaping successful go-to-market strategies. Join us as Bruce draws on his extensive experience with global giants like McKesson Technology and SAP, illustrating how visualizing problems through simple yet impactful doodles can redefine buyer engagement. We'll also discuss the conciseness and accessibility of Bruce's new book, aimed at empowering CEOs and entrepreneurs with stories that not only sizzle but sell. From choosing his favorite shark with the help of ChatGPT to sharing insights from his global experiences and the essence of narrative imperative in business, Bruce sheds light on creating coherent and compelling go-to-market narratives. Whether it's his unique approach to problem-solving in sales conversations or his personal anecdotes from biking across cities, Bruce's perspectives are bound to inspire your buyer strategies. Stay tuned as we unravel these insights and more, ensuring your buyer's journey is as compelling as the stories you tell. Bruce Scheer [00:00:00]: Hi. This is Bruce Scheer, and you're listening to the ValuePros Podcast. In this episode, I'm featured with, one of my close friends in the National Speakers Association, Kenneth Kenney. And he features me on his podcast called A Shark's Perspective. And I, I'm just excited to share this episode with you. It features my best selling book, Inspire Your Buyers, Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles. I hope you enjoy this episode. Shark [00:00:43]: Welcome back, and thank you for joining a shark's perspective. I'm Kenneth Kenny, but friends call me shark. I am a keynote speaker, a strategist, a shark diver, host of this show, and your chief shark officer. When you introduce a new product, service, or solution, what are the costs you're expending? I mean, after all, there are the dollars and most CFOs, banks, or investors don't lend twice for any do overs. What about the space that story takes up in someone's mind? There's a lot of traffic there too, so it's not like people are waiting for you to refine it. Most brand market stories are not afforded a second look. With all the cost being literally and figuratively expended, then how do you inspire your buyers with a go to market story that sizzles? Bruce Shear is a professional speaker and president of NSA Northwest, a CEO of a consultancy, and the author of Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles. Shark [00:01:35]: And on this episode, we will discuss living and studying overseas, a story that sizzles, messaging frameworks, the narrative imperative, trick questions with solutions, problems, and outcomes, the big solution, and the path to change, Developing a set of prescribed next steps, communicating your narrative through simple unforgettable visuals, the big solution, and a path to change, aligning teams, shark GPT, and a lot, lot more. So let's tune into a CEO who takes a walk with this podcast with a shark who, of course, takes a swim on every episode of this podcast. So let's dive into this episode of a shark's perspective. Bruce, welcome to a shark's perspective, if you will. Tell us a little bit about your background and your career to date. Bruce Scheer [00:02:20]: Oh, thanks, shark. Yeah. It's wonderful to be on your show. I it's one of my favorites that I actually listen to, and I I've got a list. I walk every morning, 10,000 steps, and I love coming into your show. I always learn something and great takeaways and a host second to none. So, Shark, just a bit about my background. I'm a CEO of your professional liar. Shark [00:02:42]: Yeah. Yeah. But thank you for the compliments. Bruce Scheer [00:02:46]: Yeah. So, anyway, CEO of Inspire Your Buyers, that dot com. So that's a consultancy firm that helps organizations get their story straight and and, you know, very much into revenue enablement. We'll we'll partner with organizations to kinda bring it and help them accelerate revenue growth for some of the largest organizations in the world and scale ups and every now and then a startup or 2. So that's on the business side. I love doing community service, and this is my year to be president of National Speakers Association Northwest. And, that's been a lot of fun, Shark. We're on our way to doubling our our membership. Bruce Scheer [00:03:27]: So kind of applying some of these principles even even in the the not for profit world of the National Speakers Association. Redid the website and working on our value proposition. Just recently, Shark, we formed the West Coast Alliance, and that's 5 chapter presidents, including myself, up and down the the West Coast, making sure that all our members can attend each other's sessions. So instead of just, like, one thing a a month, now you got, like, 5. So that that's been exciting. So just, my my background, credit brokerage house. They were good for me both as an undergrad and a grad. They were good for me both as an undergrad and a grad, and, gosh, lived in Asia for 10 years, frequent Europe all the time. Bruce Scheer [00:04:16]: So I do a lot of international work, and I just kinda landed into, you know, this one domain. I call it the cherry on the top for me. I just love it. But it's helping organizations get their stories straight. And I typically work with business leaders and revenue leaders to do that and then, you know, scale that with their teams, their sales and marketing and product teams. Where all Shark [00:04:41]: of you lived all over? I think you studied overseas as well. Bruce Scheer [00:04:45]: I did. Yeah. I went to University of Copenhagen, lived in Denmark for a bit. Gosh. Hawaii was like a foreign country for me, Shark back in the mid eighties. Went to Manoa for a while. Again, U of O was my credit brokerage house. Cornell, spent time over there, and then I didn't stop doing education. Bruce Scheer [00:05:05]: I represented University of California Berkeley Management Education in Asia Pacific for quite a while as well. So I just kinda continued. I'd bring, props in, and I'd go act like a student and enjoy them. Both the dinners before they they were on stage, and then I'd I'd be a student in the room as well. So I I I love learning. Shark [00:05:27]: Well, I had a chance to read your great book, Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles. What inspired you to write the book, and who was your initial target for it? Bruce Scheer [00:05:37]: Absolutely. Well, I mean, it it's kinda my story, if you would, you know, of helping business leaders over, you know, 20 years go to market successfully. One of my old bosses told me you can't afford to go to market twice. It's way too expensive. And time goes by, you lose an opportunity. And so that was ingrained in me a long time ago, and just thankfully, I've been able to do that practice working with business leaders and go to market teams across HP, Microsoft, SAP, etcetera, you know, go to market with a new product, new solution. I call them big bet shark, where my client has made a huge investment in going to market with, you know, product investment, partnerships investment, investment in building out teams. And, gosh, darn it. Bruce Scheer [00:06:34]: You know, they they typically blow it as it comes to going to market with a story that sizzles. So my my target audience is CEOs and revenue leaders and and entrepreneurs. I get a lot of entrepreneurs reading this and loving it, just because it helps them get their thinking oriented in the right way to build their go to market story. Shark [00:06:58]: Well, you focus a lot on the narrative and the story, and it's something I was thinking about. And you said it right there with entrepreneurs. I mean, people that are, you know, at least in some startups, But the when of when you come into a company obviously will change where you fix the narrative that exists with that company. You know, you're still when it's an entrepreneur, often it's early on and it's a little bit of a blank slate versus you mentioned SAP or some big company like that. If you go in to consult with them, changing that narrative is a lot different. So I'm I'm curious if you can add any insight as to to what you see when you do this that is kind of the win you you take a look at their narrative. Bruce Scheer [00:07:40]: Absolutely, Shark. And and for for the listening audience, I just need to mention, I still have a pretty good full head of hair. I have lost, especially as it relates to some of those bigger organizations like SAP, etcetera. Shark [00:07:55]: Well, the more you listen, the grayer it gets just like mine. Bruce Scheer [00:07:58]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the hair loss, especially for some of these bigger organizations, is when when you're designing a story, a go to market story, there are lots of opinions, and that and that gets amplified in bigger organizations. And every now and then, I'll even have a wizard behind the curtain come out and go, hey. You gotta change that. And he's like, well, you know, we're already a couple months down the road here, and you wanna make changes. Oh, boy. Bruce Scheer [00:08:26]: And, again, you know, like my boss said, you can't afford to go to market twice, and the tax is so heavy. But, anyways, yeah, sorry. You gave me some p PSTD or what are p t PTSD. Yeah. Around, working with my bigger clients and and the opinions that surround them. But one one big winner, Shark, on all this as you're designing your story that sizzles is focus on the buyer. That's the opinion that matters the most. And that's typically like when a marketing director goes, Hey, Bruce, here's our brand guide. Bruce Scheer [00:09:01]: Follow this. I'm like, just going, Have you tested this with our target buyers for this particular solution that we're betting the farm on? Well, no, no, not really. And I go, Yeah, I didn't think so. You know, so let's not focus on internal opinions and insular thinking. Let's develop a narrative and go test that with our target buyers. And that opinion matters the most. That's what drives revenue growth, that that buyer back perspective that I really drive towards with the teams that I serve. Shark [00:09:34]: Well and then also, you said internal, you know, the internal voices. That can include external agencies because in any bigger organization where there's, you know, say, 20 agencies working with them, it doesn't matter if they have nothing to do with brand messaging. They will make certain that they let you know what their opinion is and complicate their the matter more. And until they start to align that message with whatever the the true narrative and story is, it becomes a jumbled mess to your customers. Bruce Scheer [00:10:05]: Yeah. Shark, I won't mention client by name, but they are a top, Fintech provider. And they had an agency that they engaged to, work on their their messaging platform, their their messaging framework. And, they also engaged me and my team, and, it was really wild. I met with the agency, you know, leader, owner, and, 3 times. And I gave them the framework I needed, which is in the book that I sent to you, around how to design a story that sizzles. And I said, hey, whatever you guys do, you know, I know you're gonna do your messaging framework and do what you normally do, but is there any way that you could help me in my job? I need to build a narrative that sizzles. And I gave him the structure and reiterated that three times. Bruce Scheer [00:10:57]: Did I get that structure back from them? Hell, no. Yeah. I I literally didn't. I got the typical messaging map and some, you know, some some, you know, you know, very intelligent, well put together, you know, message bites. But I did not get the story. And and so I had to, you know, kinda irritate my client and do do additional work. Hey. We already did all these interviews with the agency. Bruce Scheer [00:11:22]: What are you doing? And I'm like, well, sorry, guys. We didn't get the answer we needed. You know? So kinda had to do some redo on that to get the narrative straight. And and so far, they're doing really, really well with it. So very often, I try to leverage, you know, the branding work, the agency work, you know, gosh, there's internal people in the organization that cook up stuff too. I typically talk to all the best sellers and say, hey. Send me all your stuff. And that's completely different than anything that marketing has done. Bruce Scheer [00:11:52]: And so I get I get immersed in this, and then we start to craft, you know, hey, a narrative that's gonna work really well for them. Shark [00:11:59]: So tell us a little bit about what is the narrative imperative. Bruce Scheer [00:12:04]: The narrative imperative? Jeez. You know, if if you don't have a killer narrative, a narrative that sizzles, my gosh, you're, you're you're leaving money on the table. And chances are you're gonna take everybody down a rat hole and have a whole lot of no fun. And, when you have a great narrative, I'm telling you, you know, all boats rise, you know? You know? Yeah. You do a great job of of execution around that narrative, and that that's why I typically work with the sales team, the marketing team, and the product team to really align with that narrative where we can put all the wood behind that arrow and really to go really go to market with impact. And when you do that, it's, you know, more profitable. You know, the owners love it, and everybody involved with it is just having a better experience, getting better results. That to me is the narrative imperative. Bruce Scheer [00:12:59]: And sadly, many organizations didn't get the memo. They still don't have it, and there's a lot of opportunity out there to get this right. Hence, the reason for the book, Sharpe. Shark [00:13:10]: Well, I want you to tell us a little bit about your trick question that you've tried to get me on before. Bruce Scheer [00:13:16]: Okay. Yeah. My typical trick question. And I I came to this question having a big argument with a president that I was serving. You know, he, you know, he so the trick question is, what are you selling at the end of the day, Shark? Are you selling a solution, a problem, or an outcome? At the end of the day, what are you selling? Shark [00:13:42]: Oh, I'm not doing the, pull my finger because you've basically gotten me on this before. So go ahead and explain this to the audience. Bruce Scheer [00:13:50]: So, so the answer is, as Sharq had rightly pointed out, it it's a trick question. You know, the, you know, at the end of the day, to sell something, I argue you have to sell all 3. It's not just 1. It's all 3. And then the next part of my trick question is if if I have agreement there, yeah, Bruce, you're right. You do need to sell all 3. Now in what order do you sell them to get a buyer to buy? And that's also I I see people squirm when I ask that question chart. Shark [00:14:25]: So how did you come about looking at it that way? Bruce Scheer [00:14:29]: My my clients teach me. They they pay me to learn from them. And I got into this big fight with, one of my clients, a president. He, you know, he wanted to sell the solution, and we were putting together a a a booth for him for a trade show that he wanted to go to, and I wanted to lead with the problem on that booth. And he wanted to leave lead with his branding, his name, and the solution. And, sadly, his brand was just nothing. Nobody knew that brand. It was, you know, just a total no name brand. Bruce Scheer [00:15:10]: You know, they hadn't invested their 1,000,000 and billions in building a brand. Not at all. And but that's where he wanted to go. And I go, no chance. We really got to lead with the problem. So funny enough, he brought me into that that thinking through through that debate, then I had to prove myself. And, have you heard of a guy named Daniel Kahneman? You know, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, really wonderful. But he he coined and did a lot of research behind prospect theory and loss aversion. Bruce Scheer [00:15:44]: And that that's beautiful work, Shark, because it really proved my case that if you want to disrupt a buyer status quo and get them interested in true change, not just interested, but willing to take action, you really need to break their paradigm and disrupt their status quo thinking. And the number one way to do that is leading with the problem. That's that's the biggest motivator to get someone to want to change. People hate pain and problem, and they wanna move away from that. The second most powerful element to get a prospect to change, to to truly desire that change and take action is to take them into the promised land, the land of gain. And that's the land of land of outcome. You know, what does life on the beach look like when we've been successful, when we've when we've had a successful change? What that look like? So that's number 2 in Bruce's framework, if you would. You know? So, you know, lead with the pain and the problem, and then make sure you've nailed that before you move on. Bruce Scheer [00:16:55]: Next, you move on to the, you know, to envisioning the outcome with that prospect so they can see what life and, you know, looks like when they've been successful, and what's their personal gain in that situation. And then if you if if you've got agreement there and if you've anchored there, then and only then do you talk about solution, but not in the way that most people do where they're kinda, hey. Let's look under the hood together and see what's in this thing. No. That's not what we do. We lead with what I call the big solution and and help them see a a path to change. And then so if you get agreement on those three key elements and those introductory dialogues or on your marketing site, for example, your website, you know, get get agreement across those dimensions, then the buyer can do some more deep, you know, introspection, tire kicking, etcetera, and decide to move forward with you. But that's what you lead with. Bruce Scheer [00:17:52]: Problem, outcome, solution. Shark [00:17:55]: So I really like chapter 6 as well. I find this with a lot of books, and I find it with a lot of brands. They don't really touch on what is really important, and I think you do a good job of explaining this, developing a set of prescribed next steps and how important that is because we get hits with so much information. It's a great idea, Bruce. Now what do I do with it? And then, you know, you sometimes have to lay that out, and I think you do a great job of talking about that. So if you will elaborate on the importance of developing a set of prescribed next steps. Bruce Scheer [00:18:26]: Thank you, Shark. Yeah. And I'm I'm sure you've done this yourself, you know, either concertedly or intuitively, knowing your experience in in the world of marketing and sales. But for me, I kinda came to that epiphany, gosh, early on. Thank goodness. You know, I I got brought into a project between HP and Microsoft, and this project went all the way up to Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and every everything else in the world. But my my most stressful project in my career and, what what teased out of that project was me and my team, we were responsible for go to market stories for 8 different solution areas for between HP and Microsoft. And Mark Hurd and Steve Ballmer, they were gonna make this the strategic partnership that has never been seen before, where you have this huge system integrator and software provider really tight at the hip going to market with these 8 solutions. Bruce Scheer [00:19:24]: So when I started working with the each of the solution leaders, Shark, I was asking them, so, you know, once we got the buyer convinced that they need to buy, what are the next steps? And, most the solution owners kind of hemmed and hawed. Well, we could do this. We could do this, Bruce. And sometimes we do that. But it was kinda wishy washy and muddled. And I'm like, oh, guys, not good enough. We really need to have some hard concrete prescribed next steps for these buyers. And, Shark, these were multimillion dollar purchasing decisions. Bruce Scheer [00:19:59]: So I just believe in my heart they needed that to get it over the goal line. And just thank God I was given the remit to do this, and the solution leaders wanted to support it, wanted to be successful with these big bets. So we designed and hard coded these next steps, you know, which was typically a business case, an assessment, a proof of concept, you know, some reference checking, you know, etcetera. But we got them, you know, kind of hard coded for each of the 8 solutions. And not that the buyer had to do them, but we recommended those steps to help the buyer buy. And because of that, I won an award. And and the HP people that were part of me, part of this, they won the marketing, circle of excellence award for that year because it was a highly successful approach. Each buyer that started a a selling conversation with us, over 50% of those buyers bought those multimillion dollar decisions. Bruce Scheer [00:21:04]: So it was wildly successful. Shark [00:21:07]: Well, a French writer wrote this saying, goal without a plan is just a wish. And so it's always been uber important for me to help get people into those next steps. Otherwise, it's a lot of fun conversation, but it goes nowhere. Bruce Scheer [00:21:19]: So Yeah. And I and I found Shark that you need to kinda build those next steps. It's not easy. It's not just a magic wand. You know, I have to, you know, what's that assessment look like? What are the dimensions of that assessment? What? Where's the benchmark data against that assessment? The business case, the ROI? What's that look like? Where's the proof around that? How are we going to convince a CFO that that business case is valid, that it's worth investing then and the return is going to be higher than that investment. You know, so just, you know, it might be nice to say, but I'd also say mastered by few. You've really got to get get that dialed in. That's a separate effort. Bruce Scheer [00:22:01]: Yeah. Shark [00:22:01]: Well, I love doodles in books, and you get some great doodles. And I I thought it kinda reminded me of this question. The first one, when it's in the introduction, it's almost sort of a signal to me. This is a hand coming out of the water. There was another one where you were telling the story about your dad's boat, and there's a fin on top of the boat, that you'll see. But it kinda goes back to one of the the last chapters, Talk about the importance of communicating your narrative through simple, unforgettable visuals. Bruce Scheer [00:22:29]: Oh, absolutely. Can I give credit where credit's due, Shark? Sure. I asked my wife to do those doodles for me, and and that's this book truly has been a a family project, you know, including, you know, that story about me buying my 92 year old dad's boat Shark [00:22:47]: off Craigslist. Yeah. Bruce Scheer [00:22:50]: Deferring to my smarter brother who's never carried a sales bag. But, anyways, yeah, the the the visuals were were a joy. Yeah. No no doubt about it. You know, in the book, there there's lots of stats in there around the power of visuals. And, gosh, one of my really good friends, another pro in my lane, he he speaks about, Daniel Pink's book, Drive, if you've read that book, Drive. So, he is a lover of organizational development motivation, and and he read that book multiple times. But where the light bulbs went off is when animate if you remember that outfit that used to animate books, you know, they made, like, a, you know, 5 minute animation of of the core of that book and and just light bulbs go off, you know, because of that visual storytelling. Bruce Scheer [00:23:46]: So I try to do that with, the the teams that I serve. How can we visualize the problem that we're solving, the outcome that we're promising, and then the solution that we're delivering? How do we visualize that in a way that's incredibly compelling? And if we can do that, you know, hey, you know, a 1000 words can go away, right? Like that. You know, we've got a picture that's really going to help people get past their sounds simple. It sounds simple. It it's really hard. I'm I'm working with an organization right now. The CEO's business, you know, he's founder of it. They've been in business for 30 years and doing really well, but he wants to take it to the next level. Bruce Scheer [00:24:30]: Visualizing their story, it's it's hard. It's not easy. And and chat GPT hasn't solved that problem for us just yet. You know, it's it's a challenge. And I normally start, sharp just as a bit of wisdom for the listening audience is start by trying to visualize the problem. And and, typically, when I start an engagement, I ask for, hey. Are there any visualization? Send me your slide deck. Send me this and that. Bruce Scheer [00:25:00]: Send me to your website. But send me to where I can see the problem you're solving. And, typically, that's just a loud, you know, thud sound or or or a lot of silence when I ask that question to to send me a picture of the problem. It typically does not exist, and and that's where we need to begin. That's where we really start thinking it through and start to visualize what's this problem perspective look like. And I think you saw in that chapter, I gave an example of some work that I did with McKesson Technology where, which was really great. You know? Getting the team together in a room and and doing tons of doodling as a team. You know, I love to get divergent thinking, so I typically get people into groups. Bruce Scheer [00:25:45]: And even with SAP, we did this virtually, global groups, but get people to visualize it. Show me what they came up with in terms of, that portrayal of the problem domain in a pictorial format, just doodling. And, boy, that's really telling. And and when we get that right, that can move mountains in terms of busting through that status quo bias. Shark [00:26:08]: Well, my compliments to you as well, other than just being a a good thought provoking book too, is you did it very concisely, and it doesn't take 6 weeks to read. Like, some people's books have come out of recent that I've, I I I just I don't have the patience anymore for, you know, these these books that I can't finish in a in a day or 2. Bruce Scheer [00:26:33]: Oh, man. A a guy in our, chapter sent me a copy of his book, and I just saw it. And I go, oh my goodness. This one is gonna take a lot of work to get through. And, it doesn't have to be that way. You know, a lot of books, there's there's a I think there were some rules, Shark. You probably know this really well, but a typical business book, nonfiction was, oh, back in the day, probably 50 to 70,000 words. And and in this modern era, I I think the the common wisdoms between 20 5,050,000 words. Bruce Scheer [00:27:09]: I decided to kinda do something a little bit unconventional, but I I know, Jay Baer's, I think, been on your podcast. Shark [00:27:15]: Oh, most Bruce Scheer [00:27:16]: He did the same thing Shark [00:27:18]: where, you know, Bruce Scheer [00:27:19]: I I I took mine down to 12,000 thinking I did mine kinda fast. And the narrated version of my book, Shark, is only, hour and a half. Jay even beat that. You know? You don't have to go long winded on these things to create the value. And, we just buffed and buffed and buffed on this thing to to make it readable in the course of a flight. Or one of my friends and CEO of his firm shot me a photo. He was out in France and he read my book in the course of a doctor's office visit. You know? So I'm not expecting people to to camp on this thing, and most people won't anyways. Bruce Scheer [00:28:01]: I I wrote it so people could read it. That was my primary aim. Make it short and sweet. Shark [00:28:07]: Well, Bruce, I appreciate you also listening. And as you know, I ask everyone who appears on the show, and you do live off the Puget Sound. So where there there are some some waters, but, what is your favorite kind of shark and why? Bruce Scheer [00:28:22]: And and can I, tell you the story, shark, and your listening audience? I'm a chat GPT fan. I I'm in that app, you know, every day doing something with it personally, for business, what have you. But, I asked ChatGPT to help me with this question. You know, what is my favorite shark? And I'm not shark, and I don't have a podcast called the shark's perspective. So I I I needed help. And I just explained to chat, you know, typically, when you're doing a good prompt, you need to load it up. And I just said, hey. You know, I'm an older sales and marketing consultant getting ready to go into a podcast as a guest. Bruce Scheer [00:29:01]: The host is gonna ask me, what's your favorite shark? I don't know the answer. I do know I'm an entrepreneur, have written a best selling book, have inspired thousands of sellers and marketers through my career, and love learning in different experiences. Can you ask me questions to help me determine what my favorite type of shark might be? And, chat g p t, it's getting so clever now. Shark, it's just getting better every day, but it responds like my best friend. Of course. Let's dive in and find the perfect shark that aligns with your personality and experiences. So it kind of went through an entrepreneurial shark and authorship type of shark, which happens to be a blacktip reef blacktip reef shark, an inspiring shark, which might be a Mako shark, a love of learning type of shark, which is the thresher shark, and then a a unique experiences type of shark that might be the the saw shark. And, I'm, like, going, man, all these sound really cool. Bruce Scheer [00:29:59]: Could you take a guess for me, Chatt GPT? You know, I think mine is my favorite one is the Shresher shark because it's literally a cutting edge shark. It uses its tail to cut into other prey and, and does pretty good. And I I like to try to be cutting edge myself. I'm I'm at consumer electronic show every year, lurk look looking for the latest cutting edge technology. It's just a passion. And so Shark GPT, you know, responds, well played. Based on your profile as an innovative entrepreneur, your love of learning, and your appreciation for unique experiences, the Shresher shark does indeed seem to be like the fitting choice. Its unique tail adaptability in the innovative way or hunt represented it represents qualities akin to groundbreaking entrepreneurs who stand out from the crowd. Bruce Scheer [00:30:51]: Embracing the thresher shark as your favorite seems both apt and delightfully cutting edge. And then it follows on shark with good luck on your podcast. Shark [00:31:02]: Well, Bruce Scheer [00:31:03]: it's like it's like chatting with my best friend. Amazing. A very kind best friend. Shark [00:31:08]: You told me about this right before we get on air, and and, thresher shark's a good choice because I'm trying to remember if anybody else has used that. Now they did leave out the hammerhead shark in the unique shark category, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thresher sharks have that big tail. They basically use it like a whip, and I've only seen a few. You don't see see a ton of them. Bruce Scheer [00:31:29]: Wow. Shark [00:31:29]: But they're mackerel sharks, and they're they're large sharks and spend a lot of time in tropical waters, and they can flick that tail and knock a knock a fish, you know, silly and then go get them. So that was fantastic. Bruce Scheer [00:31:41]: Oh, I love it, Shark. You know, in in in the work and back to the book, you know, I love helping clients find their point of differentiation and, which which many struggle so much to do. But that thresher shark just seems so different as well that, you know, it really has a different angle to the problem. Shark [00:32:01]: Yeah. Well, Bruce, it's a special time in the show. Are you ready for the 5 most interesting and important questions that you're gonna be asked today? Bruce Scheer [00:32:07]: Oh, no. Now it's time to get me flat footed. Okay. Let's go. Shark [00:32:11]: Alright. Number 1 because I I watch your video on your site. That's that's good. Do you enjoy more riding your bike through the woods and the mountains or riding your elliptical Stairmaster bicycle on the paddle board that you use out on the water. Bruce Scheer [00:32:28]: Oh, man. Tough choice. I would definitely if I had to choose 1, what do I like more if I was stuck on an island? Well, gosh, I gotta rethink this one. The bike might do not do me so well on the island. Maybe the the elliptical paddleboard type of thing would do best. And I was telling you, I'd said, gosh. I can do a mile in 8 minutes, so I could probably even get to to safety. But I love my bike. Bruce Scheer [00:32:54]: I I travel with the bike, Shark. Oh, really? Yeah. It's a folding bike. Yeah. And I I, I I I travel around the world with that thing and just love it. I'm trying to be healthy wherever I go, and when I'm traveling, there's rarely time to go to the gym and try to stay to my disciplines, but the bike really saves me. And, I learned from David Byrne a long time ago. There's no better wedding, no better way to take on a new place in a new city and have more interesting experiences than from a bike. Bruce Scheer [00:33:26]: I just see things that people don't see. I see the homelessness. I see statues. I, you know, I see weird stuff. You know? Just a a bike. I love it for having new experiences wherever I go. Shark [00:33:38]: Yeah. Wherever I go, I try to go diving. So that's, Bruce Scheer [00:33:42]: you know Yeah. Yeah. Shark [00:33:43]: That's why I speak so much on on the coast. Alright. Number 2, talking about inspiring your buyers, and you also do some work as a speaker, but let's talk about who would be your favorite inspirational speaker in history, Bruce Scheer [00:34:04]: and, I've attended one of his events in Singapore back Shark [00:34:08]: in the day. Bruce Scheer [00:34:09]: Wow. He had just come out with Awaken the Giant Within and, was on was on his circuit. And and, I respected him as a speaker so much. Of course, he had us jumping into the rafters in this huge congress type thing. We were all going nuts over him, and he got us all riled up. You know, Taylor Swift music. You know, we're just going nuts. But the thing that probably impressed me the most was his ability to connect with Singaporeans on arrivals. Bruce Scheer [00:34:41]: He himself and probably his team did a bunch of research and he was giving local stories and references and literally had the audience in the palm of his hand, probably within 5 minutes of being on stage where everybody's just going, woah, he gets us. And then he just took us on a ride, you know, absolutely outstanding. Shark [00:35:02]: Well, a few 100,000,000 and a few gray hairs later, and he still jumping up and down to Taylor Swift music, and he's still a Svengali with people. It's amazing. Alright. Yeah. Number 3. Let's say you're leaving, and let's say there was not a border to worry about crossing. Would you rather spend a day in Seattle, or would you rather spend a day in Vancouver? Bruce Scheer [00:35:23]: Seattle is probably my first choice now. And the reason is, Shark, is because we have trolls and I haven't seen any trolls up in Vancouver. I'm going to Vancouver tomorrow, by the way. But, you know, and I I love it up there. But, yeah, we we've got we've got an edge at this point in time. We've got trolls. Shark [00:35:45]: Alright. Number 4. You live on Vashon Island. Is that how to say it? Bruce Scheer [00:35:50]: Vashon. Shark [00:35:51]: Vashon. You live on Vashon Island. Bruce Scheer [00:35:53]: Yeah. Shark [00:35:53]: If you could live on any other island in the world, where would it be? Bruce Scheer [00:35:59]: Gosh. I've lived on a few islands. I lived on, Oahu and Hawaii, lived in Singapore, an island state. Any other island. Oh, man. I'd probably head back over to Hawaii. My wife and I are heading there for a week in December, and and I I go back there every year, but I I I really love Hawaii. I got friends back there, and, yeah, I dig it. Shark [00:36:21]: Alright. Number 5, and the and the most important question that you're gonna be asked today is biscuits or cornbread? Bruce Scheer [00:36:29]: Cornbread, please. Shark [00:36:32]: I really know. I don't think about, you know, the Puget Sound and, you know, southern delicacies like that. So wasn't wasn't sure what you would say. Bruce Scheer [00:36:39]: Yeah. And it's unusual, and I I only have it around family events. And yeah. No. It it's a fun one. Shark [00:36:45]: Alright. Well, Bruce, where can people find out more about you, get a copy of this book, and so much more? Bruce Scheer [00:36:51]: Oh, there's a few ways. I'd appreciate if you wanna go to the website, www.inspireyourbuyers.com. And if you're interested in this book or another book that I was featured in, another 2023 bestseller called, bashfully, the most amazing marketing book ever, Those 2 books can be found at www.inspirebuyers.comforward/books, where you'll see the books that I've been featured in this year. And, I hang out on LinkedIn as well. So, my first name is Bruce. It's b, last name, s c h e e r. You'll find me on LinkedIn as well, and I'd love to connect with you and continue the conversation with you there. Shark [00:37:34]: Alright. Well, they call him Bruce. And, Bruce, thank you so much for being with us today. Bruce Scheer [00:37:39]: The real Bruce. Shark [00:37:40]: Perspective. The real Bruce. Bruce Scheer [00:37:42]: Thank you, Shark. Shark [00:37:49]: So there was my conversation with Bruce Shearer, a professional speaker and president of NSA Northwest, a CEO of a consultancy, and the author of Inspire Your Buyers. Go to market with a story that sizzles. Let's take a look at 3 key takeaways from our conversation with him. 1st, you can't afford to go to market twice. That was some great advice that someone once gave Bruce. You can refine your message throughout that story, but that go to market story happens only once. Your wallet likely won't stretch further, so whatever you do, think through that market message. 2nd, when you're designing a story, especially at big companies, there are a lot of opinions. Shark [00:38:24]: Internal teams are tough to align, but then you throw in those extensions of your team, the agencies, and they've all got opinions, and it can become a mess trying to get everyone aligned with the same focus. The best way to narrow that target though is to test your target buyer. Bruce added, do not just focus on internal opinions and insular thinking. It's the buyer back perspective as he described it that is the winner. 3rd, to see the success of the narrative imperative, Bruce said to leverage the sales team, the marketing team, and the product team. You've heard me speak about this on many shows. The more you integrate your story throughout all your teams, the better success your story will have. Got a question? Send me an email to Kenneth at a sharks perspective.com. Shark [00:39:06]: Thank you again for the privilege of your time, and I am so thankful to everyone who listens. Today, I want you to find your story and make it sizzle. Just don't burn your finger. Enjoy this on the next episode of a shark's perspective. Bruce Scheer [00:39:47]: I hope you appreciated that episode, man. I loved it. Kenneth Kenny is just one of the best podcast hosts around. He really studies his audience, read my book, really prepared for that episode, talk about a great host. I hope you enjoy his podcast. All of his episodes are just fantastic. Again, thanks for listening. I look forward to catching you on the next one.

"Beg mail is infamous for its ability to hinder the sales process by irritating buyers. You can learn how to drop beg mail for its more powerful sibling, value mail!" Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Anthony Coundouris about what you can do to add value to your emails and maximize your success with buyers. Anthony is an independent marketing officer and the author of run_frictionless, a book that explores the importance of building sales systems to achieve predictable sales results. With his global experience in marketing, Anthony has learned the importance of turning beg mail into value mail. Today, we discuss the reasons why beg mail is often ineffective and how you can add value to your email strategies for more effective sales. Beg Mail vs. Value Mail: Thinking Differently About Communication Over the last few decades, email has become one of the central ways that businesses communicate with their customers. Technology, however, has its downsides. Nearly all of us have experienced spam in our email and on our phones, whether in the form of unsolicited calls, constant email reminders about a product, or even emails about products you don't need. While most of these messages are automated, some fall under the rubric of "beg mail." Beg mail refers to the often-repeated call or email to a potential buyer to get a decision on a sale. Typically, beg mail involves asking a buyer for a decision on a sale, either by repeatedly sending messages asking for another meeting or directly asking if they have made a decision. This format does not add value to your buyers and feels more like a sales "prayer" than a cogent sales strategy. More importantly, Anthony Coundouris argues, buyers usually perceive beg mail as pushy, pressure-oriented, or annoying. A follow-up message often won't annoy buyers, but repeatedly contacting your buyers with similar messages will lead you to beg mail territory. Sales companies resort to beg mail when they run out of energy for communication that adds value (i.e., something new) to a conversation. Anthony Coundouris, for example, found that most of the companies he researched in the United Kingdom switched to beg mail after their initial value mail. These later messages became distracting for the same reason as email spam. But is there a better way to interact with buyers? Anthony Coundouris thinks so. He argues that salespeople should emphasize the alternative:  value mail. What is value mail, and why does it matter? In contrast to beg mail, value mail does not focus on the "chase" but adds something new to the conversation. This might include useful resources and information, tools, and other materials that your potential buyer may find useful. Value mail emphasizes building relationships with buyers rather than simply selling a product. After all, your buyers know you want to sell them something; focusing on communication that helps buyers think about the services you offer and how those services meet their needs will be more productive for both you and your buyers. Value mail is an essential part of any sales strategy with several crucial benefits: It builds stronger relationships with buyers It increases the likelihood that buyers will respond It avoids burning out your buyers It teaches you to find new approaches for sharing your product or service with others It maintains your relevance with buyers Remember that buyers have a limited amount of time and interest. Beg mail can often appear copied and pasted, which gives the buyer the impression that you don't value their time nearly as much as your own. Your time is irrelevant in any sales conversation. Value mail, however, can demonstrate your interest in the needs of your buyers and in applying your solution to help them meet their goals. Ultimately, value mail requires changing the way you think about sales conversations. How do you change the way you think about buyer interactions?? Anthony Coundouris suggests that all salespeople need to make two mindset changes to move away from beg mail to adding value to their engagements with buyers: Get out of the mindset of the quotaPaying too much attention to meeting sales quotas or merely earning the sale can lead you to send communications that lack value. While salespeople have to make sales, they also need to establish trusted relationships with their potential buyers. Get out of the mindset of desperationThe mentality of the quota can sometimes lead to desperation, especially if you are struggling to make a sale. However, instead of falling back on beg mail and other forms of repetitive sales tasks, you should step back and assess your strategies. What are you doing right? What are you doing wrong? Additionally, it is essential to recognize when you need to do more research on your current, potential, and future buyers. Think about the various uses of your product or service. How can you introduce those variants to different buyers? From there, you can consider the ways that you want to create value in your conversations. These might include pointing to new tools or resources you want to offer your buyers or new ideas and product uses you want your buyers to think about. What can you do to add value to your sales communications? There are dozens of different strategies you can use to add variety and value to your sales conversations. That said, Anthony Coundouris suggests beginning with the following elements: Consider interactions you desirePut yourself in their shoes. When someone tries to sell you something, what do you wish they would do to keep your interest? Additionally, you should always think about the types of interactions you want to have with your customers and incorporate them into your communication strategy. Develop a systemInstead of focusing on a single interaction, a sales system will force you to design the entire sales experience. As a rule, sales systems should help guide the experience with your product or service. Consider the various details about your product or service you want your buyers to experience and weave your communication around those experiences. In other words, a sales system will have a variety of pathways you can follow to guide buyers to the details you think will most matter to them. Favorite FeaturesOne easy way to add value is to include a list of five favorite features about your product. The list should provide direct and specific detail about the features without being overly longwinded. If your buyers want to know more, they can ask you directly; alternatively, you can include links to relevant webpages or feature demos in emails. Reliving the demonstrationIf you have a demo of your product or service, consider sending it as part of a future value mail or as a new message to other people in the buyer's organization. The latter can start a conversation about your product or service, which can build buzz for your company. Anthony Coundouris also emphasizes the importance of what he calls "thickening the middle game." Most salespeople pre-qualify their buyers before an initial communication to make sure they are focusing on the right people and businesses. These initial interactions should consider the changes and developments within an organization so you can better tailor your solution to help a buyer meet their goals.  However, the middle part of the sales game presents new challenges for salespeople. For one, the middle game usually occurs after your buyer is already primed with information about your solution; in some cases, the middle game occurs after your first sales meetings. As a result, many salespeople fall back on beg mail instead of rethinking the interactions they want to have with buyers. To avoid this, you should create different types of interactions that you can use at different points in your communication pathway. Lastly, consider crowdsourcing with other people in your industry. Engage in conversations with other salespeople, especially within your sales team, and find new approaches you can bring to your sales playbook. Remember that organizations that do not rely on beg mail are more likely to last. After all, if you add value in your conversations with buyers, they are more likely to move forward with a sale! If you want to learn more about how to move away from beg mail to value mail, check out some of the resources listed below and consider grabbing a free copy of Anthony Coundouris' ebook, run_frictionless! Key Takeaways: Beg Mail vs. Value Mail – One major problem with beg mail is that it so often has the opposite of the intended effect. Buyers often see beg mail as pushy, annoying, or overly focused on the sales chase. These perceptions make buyers less likely to continue a sales conversation. In contrast, value mail ignores the chase and adds useful resources to the conversation. Focusing on value mail can build professional relationships and the brand of your company. Thickening the Middle – Building a strategy for moving a sales conversation from the beginning stages to a sale is no easy task. However, you shouldn't neglect the middle of the sales game, which many people often do. Instead, send different, valuable interactions to the buyer. Always consider what you can do to create value in your next interaction and what kinds of valuable interactions you want to have. Then design your future email exchanges accordingly. Variation Matters – You can maintain your relevance by creating a range of email responses for different buyer needs. This might include letting a client re-experience the demonstration of the product, sharing a list of favorite features, or sending recommendations or materials that enrich a buyer's experience with the sales process. In doing so, you'll create a conversation about your product or service and help them make a buying decision based on the value they can see through you. Resources: Anthony's Links: Follow Anthony on LinkedIn Check out his website for run_frictionless Grab a free e-book of Anthony's book, run_frictionless Read Anthony's blog post:  "Stop Writing Beg Mail and Begin Writing Value Mail" For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests. Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing

"Every salesperson can benefit from making their outreach efforts more focused and efficient. Whether that entails building client lists or focusing on automation, today's episode will give you the information you need to improve your sales outreach." Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Ryan O'Donnell about the value of building a focused client outreach system. Ryan is the co-founder of Replyify and SellHack, two services designed to help sellers automate their outreach process. Since 2006, Ryan has worked in software solutions for salespeople with a focus on optimizing sales processes and improving efficiency. Optimizing Your Outreach Approach for Better Sales Nearly all of us have wondered what we can do to make our outreach process more successful. After all, outreach is fundamental to a salesperson's professional life, yet turning outreach into sales can sometimes feel like a confusing puzzle. Many salespeople run into inefficiencies in their sales outreach methods at the "top of the funnel of sales." Essentially, salespeople sometimes begin the outreach process with an overly broad view of the clients they intend to target. As a result of this broad perspective, salespeople hinder their ability to reproduce sales success by putting themselves in the position of needing many different strategies for too many client types. What can you do to make your outreach process more effective? For Ryan O'Donnell, the critical flaw of the broad "funnel" can be corrected by focusing your outreach on clients who are similar to the clients you already have. What are some of the critical ingredients of outreach? Successful client outreach requires the following three components: The Right Focus The chance of a future sale from your outreach efforts will depend on how well you know your customer base. Ryan O'Donnell argues that salespeople must identify the metadata behind their existing clients to effectively focus their outreach efforts on similar clients. The Right Messaging Learning to customize your sales messages to match the different roles in a company or target the right people is an essential skill. Messaging relies on understanding your existing or potential client's psychological motivators, which can vary from person to person. The Right Systems Many salespeople spend too much time on functions that could be automated. Without an efficient system, you will spend time on things like reply emails when you should spend more time preparing for meetings, developing relationships with your existing clients, and so on. Let's take a look at each of these components in more depth! What can you do to establish the right focus for your outreach efforts? Ryan O'Donnell says there are two significant steps for focusing your outreach. Build an Existing Clients List First, you should create a spreadsheet containing information about 10 to 20 of your existing clients. To acquire that information, you can use websites such as LinkedIn. The spreadsheet should include the following details: First and last name Title Company Company Size Industry Location Keywords Groups they are part of Once you have put together a list of these details, you can use the functions of the spreadsheet to filter your existing clients and look for patterns. These patterns will help you find the types of clients you need to approach as part of your outreach strategy. To put it another way, you can use the spreadsheet to identify the segment of people who make up a considerable percentage of your overall revenue. Build a Potential Clients List Once you have identified the types of clients to focus on, you should search LinkedIn for people and companies that fit that focus. Create a list of potential clients based on your findings and use the same spreadsheet format as your existing clients list. Once you have done so, you can begin to find patterns among potential clients, which can open new ways to find new clients. There are two approaches to building a potential client list: 1. Account-Based Sales Approach Using a list of companies that you target and sell to in order to find the best buyers at those companies for your outreach efforts. 2. Person-Based ApproachFinding details that describe a person so you can identify the right types of buyers for your sales strategy. In both cases, a LinkedIn search and spreadsheet format will help you find more people and companies to approach. More importantly, establishing a clear focus will increase your sales success because your sales and outreach strategy will be based on an existing track record with a particular clientele. When analyzing your potential clients, consider these questions: What product or service are they selling? On what types of clients do they focus? Does their advertising give you a sense of how they are targeting their clients? Answering these questions can lead to a better understanding of who your clients are, what will matter to them in a sales situation, and how you can adjust your outreach method to connect with their motivations and needs. How do you create the right messaging? The key to crafting the right messaging is to customize your message for the different roles that exist within a company. You should target each person on your client list differently because they each have different needs and expectations. To put it another way, each has different psychological motivators. They might be: Motivated by data Motivated by social interaction Motivated by price According to Ryan O'Donnell, introductory messages should avoid long formats and beg mail and focus on creating value at every touchpoint. Short, easy-to-digest messages present a clear call to action and can link to longer content the client can read if properly enticed. You can create value in your introductory and reply messages by Summarizing and restating Offering a different point of view Offering something new for a client to think about in terms of their business needs or personal motivations One way to do this is to put yourself in your buyer's shoes while thinking about the last time you received a cold email. How did you react to the content? Did the length impact how you received the information? Another thing you can do is approach your existing clients to gain direct feedback. Determine why they bought from you in the first place and why they continue to work with you or your company. Acquiring feedback on these topics will help you identify the strategies you need to provide targeted messaging meant for people and companies with different psychological motivators and personalities. Using these data points to construct new messages will also increase your response rate to cold emails. How can you start developing a system? Effectively, you need to automate what can be automated to reduce the amount of time you spend on things that are time-consuming and less unnecessary. According to Ryan O'Donnell, the absence of automation in your sales system can waste 2-5 hours a week on unnecessary tasks. Automating more of your sales system leads to higher efficiency and can include automating cold and reply emails, sales prospecting, and client list building, among others. There are numerous tools you can use to automate your sales system. SellHack, for example, can help you build client lists, find leads, and send cold emails. Additionally, Replyify can help you create email campaigns and devise an efficient email system. If you want to learn more about how to develop your sales system, consider contacting Ryan O'Donnell about the services that he has to offer (see below). Key Takeaways: Focus your outreach efforts by using a spreadsheet to build a list of existing and potential clients. A client list can help you identify patterns in the interests and needs of your current clients, which you can use to find potential clients to approach. Such a focus will make your outreach efforts more effective. Understand that a variety of factors motivates your clients. Your introductory messages have to take into account these differences to have the desired impact on potential clients. One way to work on creating the right messaging is to put yourself in the shoes of your buyers. Learn to automate your process to reduce the amount of time you spend on emails, sales prospecting, and other functions that are less necessary. Automation can cut back the hours you waste every week so you can use those hours for more productive activities such as preparing meetings.   Resources: Ryan's Links: Connect Ryan O'Donnell on LinkedIn Visit Ryan's company at Replyify.com Learn more from Ryan at his blog Check out Ryan's free 7-day Email Crash Course For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests. Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing  

"When it comes to learning as a salesperson, one essential function is opening up to coaching and feedback. This episode looks at why professional feedback matters and what you can do to become open to self-improvement."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Danny Brown about how seeking coaching and feedback can lead to more effective sales and stronger professional relationships. Danny is the Head of Business Development and Alliances at SherWeb, a cloud management service that focuses on helping businesses increase efficiency and improve user experience. Additionally, Danny is an experienced speaker and sales coach who focuses on developing companies and organizations through a culture of continuous improvement. Becoming Better Salespeople Through the Power of Coaching The ever-evolving world of sales demands an ever-evolving salesperson. Drawing on his experience in athletics, Danny Brown argues that all salespeople need to learn to appreciate coaching as a tool for maximizing their success. Coaching refers to the immediate professional feedback provided by peers, managers, and actual sales coaches. The goal of coaches is simple:  they want you to improve. Coaching and feedback are essential to sales success. Those who seek coaching advice are three times more likely to achieve their sales quotas. Overall, seeking out coaching can help reduce your close rate (i.e., the time it takes to close a sale) and maximize your success rate. How should you prepare for receiving coaching? According to Danny Brown, there are three key ingredients that every salesperson must have for successful coaching: The desire to improve The willingness to receive continuous feedback The ability to hone your craft through practice The success of coaching always comes down to you. Just like athletes who are driven by the constant desire to improve themselves, salespeople must have that same drive. Ask yourself:  Are you ready to accept feedback from others? If not, how can you change your mindset to be more open? If you don't have the desire to improve, you are less likely to take the steps necessary to make adjustments to your sales strategies. In addition to a desire to improve, salespeople must adjust their mindset to be open to continuous feedback and improvement. One successful sale or one successful adjustment is not a good reason to stop improving. Instead, you should treat successes as doors to additional improvements. After all, sales can vary from client to client, and the same strategy may not work the same way in each situation. Lastly, practice is essential for honing your craft. Without it, you may fall back on faulty practices, regularly change sales strategies, or stagnate as a salesperson. Danny Brown suggests that salespeople need to turn back to the cadence of sales and to "practice perfect" to fine-tune their sales strategies. More importantly, "practice perfect" requires a mindset of readiness-to-learn to make practice effective and useful. One way to make practice more meaningful is to self-analyze both yourself and a successful sales story. For yourself, you should ask: Who are you as a salesperson? What do you do as a professional? What does your company do? What are the implications of feedback for you as a seller? What things do you need to think about when approaching each sale? What pitfalls do you need to watch out for both in approaching a sales conversation and in soliciting feedback from a coach? When analyzing successful sales stories, consider these questions: What makes the success story a "success"? What worked? How do you repeat that sales story over and over again so it becomes a kind of sales muscle memory? Answering these questions for yourself will serve as a strong starting point before you approach a colleague or manager for coaching advice. When should you seek feedback? Most salespeople receive feedback through annual or quarterly performance reviews. While these are useful, Danny Brown suggests that feedback is more effective when a salesperson solicits it at the start of the quarter. There are two reasons for this: It helps set realistic goals and expectations for the remainder of the quarter. It minimizes the stress you may feel at the end of the quarter when things have not gone well. Essentially, seeking feedback from peers or managers at the start of the quarter means you are more likely to receive continuous feedback that can lead to continuous adjustments. These "micro" adjustments can lead to more sales and significantly less stress, in part because you are more likely to bring your best game throughout the whole quarter. What can you do to solicit useful coaching? The first place to start when soliciting coaching and feedback is with your colleagues. Danny Brown suggests approaching colleagues who are successful in specific areas and seeking advice to help you improve in those same areas. Sales teams should be collaborative, and working together can build a culture of shared experience and teamwork that will increase sales and create a positive working environment. While soliciting feedback from your peers is essential, you should also consider feedback from your sales manager. Managers are in a unique position to provide useful input because they see sales from a business perspective. Unfortunately, many managers are used to impersonal metrics for coaching their employees and may not have the personal experience for more proactive, personalized coaching. Salesforce notes that "only 50% of organizations invest in ongoing training and development of their sales managers." As a result, getting the desired type of feedback may be difficult because it may not be intuitive to your manager. Danny Brown, however, thinks that salespeople should help their sales managers learn to coach effectively. Doing so not only gives a sales manager a sense of importance and value in the "team" side of sales but also helps focus your manager on details that a metric-based view does not provide. To do so, consider asking some of these questions: Did you introduce the story correctly? Did you ask for the sale at the right point? What could you do to better connect with customers? What could you do to prepare customers for a sale? Did you create urgency for the customer? Did you listen well or speak well to the customer? Did you create a dialogue? Did you ask open-ended questions to get the customer excited? Remember that coaching is not a ride-along. You need to provide colleagues or managers with the things you consider weaknesses about yourself. In doing so, you will give coaches specific targets to meet and increase the usefulness of the feedback you receive. Remember:  Never stop learning. Always grow. Always improve. These principles are essential to becoming a better salesperson and for creating "perfect" sales stories. Key Takeaways: Having the desire to improve yourself is essential to successful coaching. Without the desire to improve, salespeople likely won't seek continuous feedback or make the kinds of adjustments necessary for fruitful sales conversations. Seek feedback at the start of a quarter to minimize stress and to increase your ability to make "micro" adjustments throughout the quarter. Doing so can increase sales success and help you lead with your best foot forward. Learn how to help sales managers provide proactive feedback by asking key focus questions. Since sales managers often see sales from a business perspective, they are not always prepared to provide the personal feedback that can help a salesperson make adjustments. Asking the right questions can help managers see their value in a professional relationship and can lead to more personalized coaching. Resources: Danny's Links: SherWeb Follow Danny on LinkedIn Additional Resources: Connecting the Dots: Lessons for Leadership in a Startup World by John Chambers and Diane Brady "Day in the Life: LeBron James" via Owaves For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests. Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing  

"Contrary to popular belief, being a good salesperson isn't just about the customer. It's also about having a better understanding of yourself."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Casey Murray about the role of self-awareness in improving your connection to buyers. Casey is the President of The Virtual CRO and a sales coach who works directly with business-to-business (B2B) companies and their sales teams to improve their sales strategies. His services have helped baseball teams, cloud database and data security providers, insurance companies, and digital health services build better connections with their buyers. In addition to his direct consultation work, he runs a two-hour training seminar called the Win More Sales Program for B2B Inside Sales, in which he teaches attendees how to use their self-awareness to win more sales.   Understanding Ourselves to Connect with Buyers Every once in a while, a salesperson will struggle to have a meaningful engagement with a buyer. After all, no two people are alike, and it can be difficult to "get outside" of yourself to find a different way to approach an unfamiliar sales situation. Our gut instincts can serve us well when working with buyers similar to ourselves, but those communication channels can break down when we encounter people who have a different perspective or who perceive us, the salesperson, in ways we didn't anticipate. These situations can impact our sales performance. They can also rock our confidence in our abilities as salespeople.   How do you address these shortfalls and learn to unlock our best performances? According to Casey Murray, one of the keys to improving sales performance is gaining self-awareness, both about ourselves and our buyers. This means answering several important – and difficult – questions:  Where do you excel or struggle most? What do your instincts tell you about what is and is not succeeding? How do you perceive yourself, and how do others perceive you? How do these perceptions affect your ability to make meaningful connections to potential buyers? Ultimately, learning to interpret how you are perceived in a sales situation can go a long way to helping you adjust your sales strategy in the moment and with specific types of buyers. The selling communication process should involve a near-50/50 exchange, and the way you behave and interact with others can impact how you or your ideas are received. These questions and adjustments are part of a process of self-awareness and part of learning to understand buyers to create more meaningful sales connections.   How do you develop a better understanding of your buyers? There are two primary ways to better understand your buyers: Professional Behavioral Assessments Acquiring a professional assessment, such as those offered by Cassey Murray at The Virtual CRO or directly through TTI Success Insights, will provide you with a detailed write-up that you can compare to a database of personality and performance data points. This will help you identify your top behaviors and provide powerful insight into how buyers may react to you in a sales conversation. Self-Audit Take some time to analyze your sales interactions. Look at both the sales that went well and the sales that floundered. What felt good about the sale that went well (the pace, the flow of the conversation, etc.)? What felt off about the sale that went poorly (one-sided conversation, little feedback from the buyer, etc.)? Try to step back and consider both what you bring to the table and how your natural tendencies might drive your sales conversations in a particular direction. Both methods will provide you with a language for interpreting buyer behaviors and how best to react to them to maximize success while avoiding disconnects in your sales conversations.   What are some common issues in sales conversations? Many issues in sales conversations come down to personality differences. We can break these down into two categories:  behaviors and motivations. Your personality directly influences how you behave in professional settings, and how you behave in a sales conversation can drastically change how that conversation progresses. Are you a dominant-style seller? If so, you likely prefer to exert your influence and take control of the direction of a sales conversation. However, using such an approach to make a sale with a slow and meticulous buyer may result in a lost sale or, worse, a burnt bridge. Slow buyers desire an information-heavy, methodical approach without gut-based calls. Motivation also plays a role in sales issues. Salespeople should consider what motivates a buyer to take action on behalf of the seller. These are sometimes called movement triggers. For example, some people are learners, who learn for learning's sake, while others are pragmatists, who prefer getting to the point. In a sales conversation between a learner and a pragmatist, their individual motivations are at odds. They are effectively a mismatch. In both situations, there is a substantial disconnect between the buyer and seller. Without adjusting the approach, both scenarios may result in a lost sale or the feeling of wasted time. According to Casey Murray, avoiding or mitigating these collapses in sales communication begins with self-awareness. Once you recognize the differences that exist between you and your buyer, you can make adjustments to your behavior to maximize the potential for a future sale. For more examples of common disconnects and issues in sales conversations, listen to the podcast above.   What can you do next? Ultimately, the process of developing self-awareness begins with a self-audit. Ask yourself the difficult questions provided above and think deeply about your positive and negative sales conversations. Identify your weaknesses and strengths and encourage your colleagues to do the same. If you are able, acquire a professional assessment or encourage your employer to do so for your entire sales team. And keep at it. Self-awareness is a tough nut to crack, and it takes time and patience.   Key Takeaways: Self-awareness is crucial to create meaningful engagements with buyers and involves understanding both ourselves as salespeople and our buyers. It also helps us avoid or mitigate disconnects in sales conversations.  Interpreting the behavior and motivations of yourself and your buyers can help you make adjustments to your sales strategies before a sales conversation and in real time. Both can lead to more productive interactions. Self-audits and professional behavioral analytics are two methods that can help you analyze your sales interactions and improve your ability to have meaningful sales conversations. The former is a necessary foundation for developing seller self-awareness. The latter provides substantial data points that can be used to improve person-to-person sales conversations and improve the effectiveness of a sales team by identifying strengths and weaknesses and creating a safe space for addressing them. In addition to his contributions to the podcast, Casey Murray has offered to provide a free assessment to SIX lucky listeners. If you're interested, listen to the episode to find out how you can sign up!   Resources: The Johari Window via Communication Theory Do What You Are: Discover the Perfect Career for You Through the Secrets of Personality Type by Paul D. Tieger, Barbara Barron, and Kelly Tieger (Published by Little, Brown Spark)  The Virtual CRO (Casey's Web site) The Virtual CRO's Win More Sales Program for B2B Inside Sales Connect with Casey on LinkedIn and Twitter   For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests.   Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSoundShow Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing

"Every salesperson worries about their strategies becoming stale, especially when approaching buyers for the first time. If you wonder how you can approach cold calls and meetings with a fresh mindset, then this episode is for you."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Sam Richter about the importance of research for improving the quality of your sales calls and meetings. Sam is the founder and CEO of SBR Worldwide / Know More and author of Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling. In addition to his extensive sales experience and numerous awards, he has also built a reputation as a pioneer of modern-day sales intelligence and has developed digital resources and search engines to streamline sales meeting preparation.   Sales Intelligence as a Gateway to Better Sales Meetings As our society becomes more focused on digital technologies, salespeople must learn to adapt not only to the changes in the market but also to the changes in the expectations of prospective buyers. In particular, good salespeople must pay attention to the sales strategies that work and don't work in the modern sales environment. Many sales are conducted using the method of the "cold call," an unsolicited sale conducted on the phone or in person. Today, the tactics of the classic cold call have fallen out of favor, mainly because they are viewed as formulaic and predictable, making them an annoyance for many potential clients. Most prospective buyers are used to the questions we have been asking for years, and they can often sense the fishing expedition that cold calls create. As a result, many prospective buyers are more likely to show you the door than they are to purchase your product or service. Sam Richter argues that we can take the "cold" out of the cold call by learning how to acquire "sales intelligence." Today, we'll take a look at the what, why, and how of sales intelligence.   What is sales intelligence? Sales intelligence involves using the Internet and other digital tools to learn information about the people you hope to sell to, which you can then use in a sales meeting to create stronger connections with buyers. Good sales intelligence begins with several key questions: What is going on in the world of the company? If you have a personal meeting, you should ask the same question about the people you will meet. What is essential to the company or the people you will meet that might make them interested in your solution in the immediate moment? How do you make your sales pitch relevant to the company and the people involved in a meeting? Alternatively, what will motivate the buyer to say "yes"? Effectively, sales intelligence is a different kind of pre-meeting preparation that turns the conversation from you to the buyer. Unlike the traditional cold call method, sales intelligence asks you to consider the type of connections you wish to create with your buyers and to redirect your research to find those points of connection. In doing so, you gain focus for a sales conversation and learn to ask meaningful and useful questions before, during, and after a call or meeting.   Why does sales intelligence matter, and how can it improve your sales? Before the Internet, many buyers would give a salesperson an hour or two in order to learn more about the product and the people selling it. Today, buyers have what Sam Richter calls "buyer's intelligence." They look up the sellers they plan to interact with and prepare themselves for meetings with specific goals in mind. Sellers, however, don't often do this. Instead, they come ready to talk about themselves even though the buyer is more interested in discussing who they are, what they need, and so on. However, a buyer is less likely to take you seriously if you come to the table with the same strategies as every other salesperson with which they have interacted. Effectively, failing to do your homework gives a buyer the firm impression that you are lazy and disinterested. After all, the one thing most people are ultimately passionate about is themselves. Buyers are no different, and the key to reaching them is learning how to show real interest in them. Another way to think about sales intelligence is by looking at the difference between what Sam Richter calls "low price game" and "high price game": In a "low price game," a seller treats a cold call or a meeting as a means to make a sale. Making a sale is every seller's ultimate goal, but if you overly focus on making the sale, you will likely ignore the value of what you are offering. In a "high price game," a seller treats a cold call or a meeting as a means to provide value. Effectively, salespeople who care about and show genuine interest in what a prospective buyer is doing are engaged in "high price game." Both of these forms suggest that sales are fundamentally about mindset. If your mindset centers on what you will get out of a sales conversation, you'll not only have less success but you'll also find sales less enjoyable. However, if your mindset focuses on trying to help a prospective buyer achieve their goals, you'll find sales more meaningful and more fun. For this reason, Sam Richter thinks sales can be "the most noble profession."   How do you motivate yourself to do the work of sales intelligence? There are two significant reasons why you should take sales intelligence seriously: Increasing your bottom lineTo put it more bluntly:  acquiring sales intelligence can increase your chances of making a sale! Personal motivationsIf you're the type of person who knows what to expect in a sales conversation – cold call or otherwise – then you have an incentive to acquire information about a potential client that will lead to more direct sales meetings. You should also think about the reasons you want to succeed as a salesperson beyond the immediate gratification of making a sale. Naturally, these two points rely heavily on your ultimate goals. It is good practice to establish those goals both on a professional and personal level so you can be strategic about your sales methods and outreach.   What can you do to build sales intelligence? There are a variety of things you can do to acquire sales intelligence, though we only have room to cover a few of them here. Sam Richter has four tips for acquiring sales intelligence: Use Google News or YouGotTheNews.com to find information about a company. If your search does not turn up information on a company, try looking at their industry. You can also use the Sales Intel Engine to simplify and focus your searches. Use the same resources for the people involved in your meeting to find common points of interest or unique professional details that might be relevant to a meeting. You can also look at their LinkedIn profiles to find some of this information. Make sure that your first words during the meeting are about them and their world. Use the 3/5 (3 minutes to find five pieces of information) or the 5/3 (5 minutes to find three pieces of information) model to streamline your search process. Following these essential tips will lead to you asking better questions and making stronger connections with your prospective buyers. For additional resources, see the links in the Resources section below. All of this begins with you. Focus your sales mindset on "high price game" when conducting your outreach, and look towards relevance, value, and points of connection in your research about an industry, a company, or an individual. You will become a more effective and conscientious salesperson and maintain a continued passion for sales.   Key Takeaways: Sales intelligence is a type of pre-meeting preparation that involves using digital tools such as the Internet to learn more about the people we plan to interact with in cold calls or sales meetings. Focus on finding 3-5 pieces of relevant information about a company or its employees to create stronger connections to prospective buyers. Good salespeople know that showing genuine interest in your prospective buyers creates more meaningful sales situations and makes sales more fun. Buyers are adept at detecting a fishing expedition, so the more you can do to differentiate yourself from the crowd will improve your chances of getting the "Yes" for a meeting or a sale. There are good incentives for acquiring sales intelligence, including increasing your sales and helping you fulfill your personal motivations as a salesperson. Both are important as motivators for switching sales strategies to include better sales intelligence.   Resources: Sam's Links:  Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling Sam's Know More University Sam's free tools to help you improve your background research Sam's Bio Connect with Sam on LinkedIn Sam's Sales Intelligence Search Engine (I'm personally a paying subscriber!) Additional Reading:   To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink   For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests.   Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing

"Stories are a fundamental part of who we are, but sometimes salespeople are reluctant to include them in their sales strategies. In this episode, we explore why personal stories are essential to your sales approach."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Mike Adams about how to use your personal story to create meaningful connections with buyers and open the door to a sales friendship. Mike is the author of Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell and the co-founder and CEO of The Story Leader, a sales consultancy which focuses on teaching sellers how to use stories to improve sales. With nearly 20 years in the industry, he has gained exceptional direct experience with the value of storytelling as a sales art, which he brings to today's show.   The Importance of your Personal Story for Engaging Buyers Storytelling is a fundamental part of our humanity. Stories are part of our everyday lives, from books and movies that influence our world to the tales we share among friends and family. Something so essential to our lives can also play a role in the way we approach sales. Indeed, as Mike Adams suggests, most salespeople remember the stories we've been told or have experienced over other minute details. In other words, stories are just as important in your personal life as they are in your sales. Unfortunately, many salespeople are resistant to changing their approaches. After all, they must deal with rejection as a possibility in sales, and the fear of rejection can make the idea of change seem untenable. However, if the first job of a salesperson is to connect with a potential client, then storytelling is a must-have tool for your sales toolbox. Stories help build friendships with clients, establish credibility and authority, and help drive sales conversations by showing how and why your company operates. They are also common features in the business world. Good salespeople regularly use personal stories, and many salespeople become CEOs or company founders. In fact, roughly 25% of CEOs began in sales. What can you do to incorporate personal stories into your sales conversations? First, let's take a quick look at the primary stories in sales.   What are the common story types in sales? According to Mike Adams, there are seven story types that every salesperson should know: Personal Stories explore how you got to where you are in sales, what you do, and why you're there that day. Key Staff Stories introduce a customer to another person in your organization to build that person's credibility before their sales meeting. Company Stories explore how your company was created and why it didn't fail. Insight Stories tap into an aspect of the customer or company that they didn't know. Success Stories explore a successful client's journey, with attention to how things were before they hired you, the challenges they faced, the action plan you devised, and the subsequent results. Value Stories discuss how one of your organization's leaders responded to a challenge or pressure while adhering to the values of the company. Teaching Stories address a seller's struggle to close a deal by providing them with a story about a similar situation and how it was resolved. We don't have the space to cover each of these in depth. Instead, we will focus on the importance of the personal story. However, if you'd like more information on each of these stories, we recommend you read Mike's book, Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell. There is also a free sales course on The Story Leader, which serves as a companion to the book.   What is a personal story in sales, and why do they matter? Personal stories focus on your journey as a salesperson. They can establish how you became a salesperson, the route you took to get to the present, why you do what you do, and so on. They are also a way to tell a client that you are experienced without becoming a walking advertisement for yourself. Stories of this type often rely on anecdotes and a willingness to discuss the human qualities of the sales world. To put it another way, personal stories center vulnerability and honesty in a sales conversation. The goal of personal stories is to encourage an exchange of stories between sellers and customers. These exchanges can give you essential insight into how your clients think about their business or themselves. More importantly, the vulnerability of personal story exchanges builds trust and, ideally, friendship. Since customers and sellers tend not to trust one another, it is often difficult to create those meaningful connections. Personal stories change the relationship you have with a customer, which can help you break through the mistrust and formal nature of a sales conversation. Additionally, personal stories can result in three positive outcomes: The development of authentic connections that are human-to-human rather than brochure-to-brochure Reciprocation on the part of the customer The increased likelihood that clients will provide truthful responses to your questions All of these benefits can increase your sales. More importantly, these benefits build long-term relationships with your clients that are more productive for both sides. The stories and friendships you make during your career will also have lasting value.   What are some of the components of personal stories? Mike Adams suggests that most personal stories should meet the following criteria: 3 minutes or less of content Longer stories tend to include unnecessary details or wander. A 3-minute limitation forces you to create a tight, quick-moving narrative. Focused on 3-4 turning point events Turning point events help explain how you became a salesperson, what led you to become the person you are now, and what you do. They also help establish your credibility as a salesperson by demonstrating experience and history. When deciding on events, focus on the defining moments in your sales career. Personal stories must feature a sequence of related events A standard personal story presents turning point events in a linear and explicitly connected order. In other words, your story must go from A to B, from B to C, and so on. Always include dates and places Including dates and places allows the listener to place themselves in your story. Effectively, you give the listener details that will help them imagine where you were, what you saw, etc. You want your listener to experience you and to know what it is like to be you for a few minutes. Don't focus only on success Personal stories are meant to be personal. Nobody is perfect. Including events of failure gives the listener an incentive to reciprocate your vulnerability, which can create stronger personal connections with customers. Remember that engaging stories are not a simple list of events. There must be a natural flow from one thing to the next. Consider mapping your story and writing down the explicit connections between each moment. Doing so will help you visualize your personal story and streamline the narrative.   What holds sellers back from incorporating personal stories into their sales strategies? Fear. Sellers often fear that customers don't want to hear their stories, perhaps because they are a waste of time or customers want to get down to business. However, Mike Adams argues that sellers should put themselves in the shoes of their customers. From a customer's perspective, you're just a person who intends to talk about your products. They don't know you or know why they should trust you with their business. However, sellers must start the personal conversations that can cut through a customer's latent distrust. Personal stories can break the ice and make a real difference in your sales conversations. All we can suggest is that you try! If you're interested in hearing Mike's in-depth analysis of Bruce's personal story, make  sure to listen to the podcast!   Key Takeaways: Storytelling is a powerful human quality. Stories are part of our everyday lives and impact our world. In sales, they are essential for building stronger and long-lasting relationships with your clients, which provide numerous benefits for you on a personal and professional level. Personal stories can help salespeople break through the initial trust barrier with customers. These types of stories introduce vulnerability into the conversation, which can often build trust and friendship with your customers. Ideally, your customers will respond with their own stories, leading to long-term relationships that are beneficial for all involved. We all must learn to beat back the fear of rejection and vulnerability that comes with using personal stories in our sales conversations. One way to do this is to place yourself in the shoes of your customers and consider how they view a sales conversation. You'll see the value of using personal stories to break the ice!   Resources: Mike's Links: Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell Mike's sales firm, TheStoryLeader.com Mike's online training programs Mike's YouTube Channel on Storytelling Follow Mike on twitter @MikeAdamsSales Connect with Mike on Linkedin Additional Resources: Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play by Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests. Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing

"Sometimes a sales conversation can feel like we're speaking different languages. If you've ever had that experience, you may benefit from this week's podcast on the importance of business knowledge to every sale."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to Darrell Amy about the importance of learning to manage and focus your time to become a more productive and valuable seller. Darrell is the founder and chief innovation officer of Convergo Marketing and a co-host on the Selling From the Heart Podcast. With his extensive experience, he provides business-to-business (B2B) companies with sales and marketing solutions with particular attention to increasing long-term value for his clients. Creating Productive Sales Conversations with the Language of Business Losing a potential sale is a difficult thing to experience, especially if you don't understand why it happened. Every salesperson worries about improving their productivity and earning a customer's emphatic "yes." While lost sales are an unavoidable part of the sales life, there are situations in which knowledge and experience can make a difference. For Darrell Amy, one major limitation in sales productivity is a lack of business knowledge. In other words, you need to recognize the importance of business value – immediate and long-term – in all sales conversations. According to Darrell Amy, developing your business acumen by learning the language of business is essential for maximizing the success of your sales conversations. While good intentions have value to you, they generally lack sales value to the customer. To motivate customers to say "yes," you need to present a clear understanding of the return on investment (ROI). Businesses, after all, have a limited amount of their most prized resources:  time and money. More importantly, businesses typically focus their time and money on their strategic priorities, which extend beyond the return on investment (ROI). It doesn't matter if you're solving a problem or have great ideas. The priorities of a business require that they are careful with the attention they give and the resources they expend. Unfortunately, business acumen is often missing from the sales equation. For this reason, Darrell Amy suggests that we view sales skills and business acumen as the two pillars of sales. Why does business acumen matter in sales conversations? Most salespeople have a robust sales toolbox full of the right questions and actions to drive sales conversations. However, one of the biggest challenges for even seasoned salespeople is learning how to drive business conversations. Some of us jump too quickly into sales conversation mode and skip the business side of the equation. We are also likely to miss two critical factors: Understanding the key drivers for a business, including their business goals and challenges Failing to bring these key drivers into a conversation to show a prospective buyer that we understand where they are coming from  Understanding what motivates a business allows the seller to elucidate how a solution or product fits into the world of the buyer and connects to the top-level goals and challenges of the company. Making these connections maximizes the potential for closing a sale. One way to understand the priorities of a business is to consider the different levels of value. These include: Return on Investment (ROI)What are the immediate, hard costs to the buyer? What are the immediate, expected returns for the buyer? Business ImprovementHow will your product or service improve the business in the long-term (i.e., enhancing workflow or customer retention)? How might these improvements help the business save on the hard costs? Risk ReductionWhat are the risks the business faces as a consequence of its products or services (i.e., lawsuits, data breaches, etc.)? What can you do to minimize or remove those risks? These values are dependent upon the business and its goals. While many of these values are not quantifiable, addressing them can turn a traditional sale into a deeper sale. Businesses are always thinking about business improvement or risk reduction, and the return on investment (ROI) can sometimes become a secondary interest. As such, demonstrating the value of your service or product to the long-term goals of the business offers the buyer more than just the return on investment (ROI). Instead, it offers exponential benefits. Bringing the language of business into your sales conversations, thus, builds upon the two important dynamics of successful sales:  trust and value. How can you use the language of business in your sales conversations? According to Darrell Amy, there are several immediate steps you can take to generate business-savvy sales conversations: Come to a prospective sale having done your homework on the business. Show genuine interest in learning about their business and prepare relevant questions to facilitate that learning. Begin sales conversations by establishing the company's top strategic goals. Connect the flow of the conversation to those goals so the buyer does not lose sight of the impact your service or product will have on their bottom line. Close a sale the same way you started it:  by bringing the conversation back to the business goals you identified at the start. Doing so reinforces the value of what you are offering. Using these methods will create stronger connections between your sales goals and the business goals of the prospective buyer. As a result, you reinforce the value of what you are offering, mainly because you have looked beyond the immediate return to the long-term benefits for the company. How can you develop your business knowledge? While you don't need to earn a business degree to become versed in business language and practices, there are a few things you can do to expand your knowledge base:   Read business books and magazines   Take a look at the top business on Amazon and give some of them a read. Do the same with current business magazines. Both will keep you up-to-date with the field of business and the various perspectives involved.   Listen to online lectures   Many universities offer lectures from various business courses in podcast form. Open Culture has a partial list of some of these courses.   Take an online course   Websites such as EdX and Coursera offer online courses in a variety of business topics. Many of these courses are taught by top faculty at major universities and are either free or relatively affordable. In other words, consume a steady diet of business education in addition to your sales education. After all, good sales professionals realize that learning is fundamental to sales success. Remember that becoming a better seller is a progressive process. It takes time, effort, and perseverance. Adding business knowledge to your repertoire is just a part of the necessary process of adaptation. Take advantage of it.   Key Takeaways: Language of Business - Educate yourself on the language of business by reading, taking classes, and listening to business owners. Rather than relying on well-versed sales strategies, learn to develop your business knowledge so you can clearly and directly invest your goals in the priorities of the client's business. Genuine Curiosity - Begin a sales conversation by investing in the client's business by showing genuine curiosity in what they do and in their top strategic goals. By doing so, you create a stronger connection to the company and its goals, which builds trust and solidifies the value you bring to the table. Beyond Immediate ROI - Think beyond the immediate return on investment (ROI) to the other factors that may improve the client's business. This might include emphasizing the ways your solutions will help the business grow or reduce risk. In other words, think about long-term value in addition to guaranteed returns.   Resources: Selling From the Heart by Larry Levine How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Darrell's links: Contact Darrell Amy on LinkedIn Article: "What is Business Acumen" Article: "The Critical Missing Ingredient in B2B Sales: Business Acumen" Blog Post: "Four Ways Sales People Who Sell On Price Shoot Themselves In The Foot… and Destroy Industries" Subscribe to Darrell's popular Selling from the Heart Podcast   For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this.  Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests.   Credits Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing  

"Some of us have wondered how to become more efficient as salespeople while completing the many day-to-day tasks necessary that lead up to great sales conversations. If that describes you, then this episode is definitely worth your time."   Episode Overview In this episode, Bruce Scheer talks to David Guarino about the importance of learning to manage and focus your time to become a more productive and valuable seller. David is a Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and has over 25 years of sales experience in the electronics and manufacturing industries. In addition to serving as the Director of Business Development at Piston Automotive, he is also the owner of Driven Recruiting, an employment service that replaces the traditional hiring process with an assessment-based talent matching system.   Optimizing Your Most Important Resource:  Time We all know that time is finite, and yet so many of us struggle to use it effectively. For salespeople, failing to use time effectively can reduce productivity, increase stress, and limit our ability to have meaningful engagements with customers. Yet in our fast-paced, technology-infused present, it is easy to get distracted or lose focus. That's why it is so important to learn how to focus and maximize our time to provide value as a seller.   Why is it important to optimize your time as a seller? Remember that everything in business changes. This includes sellers, clients, and companies. With change comes new technologies and systems, new client goals and needs, and new sales strategies and business practices. Let's not forget that the things we sell change, too, which necessitates that we all become effective adapters to our respective "worlds." Adaptation, however, requires energy and time, and the more the industry changes, the more components are added to the average workflow.   For David Guarino, change came not only to his chosen industry – automotive and manufacturing sales – but also to his perspective. He once saw the sales industry as focused on what sellers can do for the company, which he argues led to less trust and transparency for the seller and the consumer. Over his 25 years of experience, that changed, and he now sees sales requiring a focus on the value of time and how best to manage it.   For sellers, time optimization must look at the relationship between the seller, the client, and the company. Two major questions serve as a starting point for interpreting these relationships:   How do we create value for our customers and our companies? How do we manage time to maximize that value?   Creating value through time management requires us to identify the goals and interests that each entity brings to the table. We can then align our personal goals with those of the company, which is crucial for determining where we are most productive and how best to maximize productivity through a focused workflow. These goals can also direct you to the things that are most important for your sales conversations. Ultimately, the goal of optimizing your time is identifying what matters so you can learn to distinguish between the things that deserve more of your time and the things that serve as distractions from your goals, your customer's goals, and your company's goals.   What can you do to manage your time? According to David Guarino, there are three primary goals you can meet to manage your time more effectively:     Identify the areas and times in which you are most effective As we explored in our discussion with Casey Murray, one of the most important processes for salespeople is to self-assess. For managing your time, there are some key questions to consider:  How do you learn (process)? When do you learn (time of day)? Where do you learn (place)? Matching your productivity times and places to your personal and professional goals (seller, client, and company) will provide a starting point for establishing a focus for your time.     Avoid task-oriented workflows and distractions Email notifications, everyday passive sales, and program management are important, but they are always present and can serve as a distraction. You don't need to be responsive to these things at all times. After all, it's not a race. Instead, focus on the most value for your time by turning off notifications when you don't need them, filtering your email messages to place the most important items first in your workflow, and use priority scheduling to avoid creating long lists of tasks that often never end.     Develop a routine Once you have identified your productive times, places, and actions, you can build a daily routine that prioritizes the important things from seemingly urgent things. Routines should place your most critical components during times when you are most productive. Other things such as answering non-critical emails can be built into the routine at less optimal periods to give you a natural workflow.   One method for meeting all of these goals is to build a calendar model for your schedule. Unlike the task-based model, calendars emphasize the important pieces and remove the temptation to treat everything as urgent, which can be stressful and unproductive. Calendars offer structure to your workflow and let you focus on what you do best.   Lastly, we must all take care of ourselves. Pay attention to your sleep patterns and mental health. Losing too much sleep can dramatically impact your productivity. Additionally, elements such as diet and stress can impact your mood, behavior, and thought patterns, which, in turn, can also reduce productivity and work satisfaction. While some of these things are difficult to manage in our lives, it is essential to build a life routine that is reasonable for you. More information on the impact of sleep on our lives is linked in the resources section below.   What can you do to manage your customer's time? Many salespeople are familiar with meetings, whether with clients or colleagues. While David Guarino believes that meetings should be avoided except when they are essential, he also suggests that we establish clear agendas for meetings with clearly stated objectives. Agenda-based meetings often reduce the frequency of distractions and unfocused discussions that lead to less meaningful and valuable sales interactions. Additionally, agendas establish respect between you and the client and appear professional by design.   To make agendas more effective, you can also ask for client input. Remember that a client's commitment to a meeting is incredibly important to them precisely because they are giving you their time. By asking for input, you help the client set their own goals and priorities; they can also suggest changes that may make the meeting more productive for both sides.   Agendas can also reduce our tendency to rush just to complete a task. Rushed communication is always less valuable than meaningful and purposeful communication. To avoid the rush instinct, consider these questions before you respond to an email or direct sales conversation:   Are you responding just to respond? Are you listening to understand and provide value? Why are they asking for information?   These questions get at the nuances of a sales conversation, which help us identify what a client is actually looking for.   Where does this ultimately lead us? According to David Guarino, sales are always personal, and we should strive to emphasize the personal connections in our sales conversations. It comes down to a simple question:  why should anyone care?   In our technology-heavy world, it can be difficult to see the difference between the important things and the things that distract us by appearing urgent. Yet, we must always consider whether our technologies and systems serve our agenda as sellers rather than the agenda of distraction. For this reason, ask yourself a few questions:   Are you using the tools properly? Are they enabling you to be more productive or effective? Are they cumbersome and distracting?   Every seller will have a slightly different response, but your answers may let you see a simple example of the distractions that take away from your productivity as a seller.   Key Takeaways: Value of Time - Recognize that time is valuable to everyone in a sales situation. You, your clients, and your company know that time is important; nobody likes wasting time or feeling like they don't have control over how their time is used. Once you identify how to value your own time, you will be better equipped to adjust your routine and schedule and focus on the things that matter most.   Routine - Build a routine that focuses your energy on the important things. It is easy to become distracted by email or other common interactions that seep into our work lives. While you can't ignore all of these things, you can establish times for certain activities so you can focus on what matters most to your sales strategies. This is part of building a routine that maximizes productivity.   Agendas - Use agendas to make meetings with clients or colleagues more meaningful. Agendas can serve as a guide for a meeting, which increases the potential for productive engagements. When establishing agendas for meetings, make sure to identify the goals of everyone involved and adjust your agenda accordingly.   Resources: Driven Recruiting Connect with David on LinkedIn and Twitter Mentioned in the episode:  Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki  Sales Truth by Mike Weinberg  Verne Harnish Links:  Mastering the Rockefeller Habits  Scaling Up  Gazelles (Service)  Follow Verne on LinkedIn and Twitter  Find Your Why and The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek  When by Daniel H. Pink  What Great Salespeople Do by Mike Bosworth and Ben Zoldan  Seven Stories Every Salesperson Must Tell by Mike Adams  F.U. Money and Unlock It by Dan Lok  OutBound Sales Conference Other Fantastic Resources on this topic: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker  "Sleep Scientist Warns Against Walking Through Life 'In An Underslept State'" by Terry Gross (NPR) The Sales Blog by Anthony Iannarino More Sales Less Time by Jill Konrath (Author of Snap Selling)    For More Great Content Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review this show on Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool short video that shows you how to do this.   Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit from the insights provided by my guests.   Credits  Audio Editing and Production by ChirpSound         Show Notes and Additional Writing by Shaun Duke from The Duke of Editing

  Episode Overview This episode, "How to lead in the buyer journey with Next Steps," featured Darrin Fleming, David Svigel, Principals at ROI-Selling and me – Bruce Scheer. The three of us have been helping sellers for years in having more concerted next step conversations that are useful in leading and supporting the buyer through the buying process. Specifically, we have partnered together to help clients with creating assessments and value-selling tools that are useful in helping buyers see and communicate the case for change and create urgency around change initiative.   When Things Go Wrong (with no concerted Next Steps) There's a typical scenario that we see all the time. A seller is talking to a buyer. They have a wonderful introductory meeting, and it seems like there's some excitement in the air, and then the seller says, "So, what do you think our next step should be?" And then the buyer typically says, "Well, send me some information. I'm going to host some internal meetings and kind of shop this idea around, and we'll get back to you." And so, the seller agrees and spends a bunch of extra time gathering up and sending over information. And then, as one of our friends likes to say, the seller hears a thousand watts of silence! Nothing is happening on the buyer side. The seller chases a few times to ensure the information was received. No responses. Weeks go by. Finally, the seller gets lucky and catches the buyer by phone. And what do they hear? "Oh, sorry, man. Yeah, I have been really busy. We haven't looked at the stuff you sent and haven't had any meetings around it. Hmm. I'm kind of busy now. Can we talk another time?" And, then things just start to slide further South from there. This isn't unusual, and we believe not having concerted next steps to lead the buyer is a strong contributor to the stat we've been hearing - 58% of deals ending in 'no deal.'   When Things Go Right (with concerted Next Steps) I had worked on in a joint initiative between Hewlett Packard and Microsoft, where they had eight solutions that they had identified between them. They wanted a go-to-market program with a concerted selling approach. One of the solution areas was business intelligence, and if a customer engaged with them on it – it would result in a multi-million-dollar deal. We built introductory conversation materials for reps to use in securing a meeting. In the initial discussion, the seller would offer a concerted next step called the Executive Briefing. If the client was willing to sponsor the Executive Briefing, including making sure the right people attended, the Executive Briefing would be confirmed. HP and Microsoft would bring in their "Top Gun" experts to talk to those executives about what business intelligence would mean for their organization. At the conclusion of the Executive Briefing, additional next steps would be laid out for consideration and agreement. It normally included an assessment and business case-building process, and a strategic workshop to shape the initiative, roadmap and action plan for success. What we found was over a 50% deal connect rate when we when we went down this concerted next-steps path. All the folks involved in shaping this program won a marketing program of the year award.   Best Practices in Leading the Buying Journey with Next Steps It is important to put the seller in a position of leading the buyer towards next steps as opposed to the buyer leading the seller - which very often goes poorly because buyers are busy with their day jobs! The seller needs to be helping their buyers create the plan for the future, putting themselves in an advisory role to help define for the buyer what looks better in the future and how to get there. One of Bruce's clients has a buyer journey map they show at every client touchpoint. They will highlight the journey and steps their customers typically take to embark on an initiative and leverage their software and services. They will get agreement around the series of steps, including an assessment and value analysis useful for helping their buyer create an internal case for change. After that's established, they will move to a strategic planning workshop where they can further shape an initiative and make sure executives are fully aligned and bought in.   This is a very different orientation from the norm. Most organizations align their sellers around a sales process that's self-serving. The better approach is more buyer-centric – thinking about what the buyer needs at each next stage of their buying journey, and how can you move the customer through that buying stage with concerted next steps.   Simple 'Next Steps' Planning Framework As you move through the buyer journey a few times, you start to be aware of natural junctures of what that buyer journey looks like, including some buyer-centric milestones along the way. There may be a stage where they want executives to be educated on the case and value of change. And maybe there's another step around strategy - what's the strategy to embark on this change initiative? Maybe there's another step about the initiative itself - who's going to be involved in this initiative? What's the roadmap look like in this initiative and, and what's timing around this initiative? Ask yourself these questions: Outcomes - What are the outcomes that you're looking for at each one of these buying milestones? A few examples of outcomes would be key executives are educated on the opportunity and case for change, executives have agreed to a strategy and executives have agreed to provision resources for an initiative to be born. Activities - What are the activities that need to happen on the seller side and on the buyer side to make sure you're reaching the desired outcomes? Examples include assessments, value analyses, strategic workshops and initiative action planning meetings. Tools – What are the tools needed to support the key activities and desired outcomes at each stage, including Assessment Tools, ROI Calculators, Strategic Workshop Structure and Content, and marketing materials useful in selling each activity and tool as it's introduced into the buying process. In advance of a client meeting or call, it's a best practice to do some mini-planning about what you want to discuss with the client and what are your desired outcomes and next steps you will introduce in the meeting.   Getting Your Next Steps in Place To get your next steps in place, you ask your peers and folks in marketing – what tools do they have that you can leverage? You might be pleasantly surprised that something either exists or perhaps marketing commissioned having something developed that didn't see the light of day. Leverage what you can. Don't stop there though if concerted next step activities and tools don't exist. You might have to cook something up yourself to fill the gap, and get support overtime in having more professional and branded support and tools.   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect Darrin Fleming on LinkedIn Connect with David Svigel on LinkedIn View some ROI Selling Resources Surf the ROI-Selling Blog Join the Value Selling LinkedIn Group See some top-class ROI selling tools See a success story of a concerted next step for Brocade   For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit.   Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound  

Episode Overview In this episode, Tom Williams, co-founder, and CEO of DealPoint and I talk about taking a buyer-centric approach in influencing the buying process.     Energy Being Wasted Energy is wasted not just on the seller side of the sales process but also on the buyer side. When you look at the US and global economy, the amount of time that's wasted on bad deals is just criminal. As for selling organizations, if we can improve how we sell and how we interact with our counterparts in the buying side of the equation, the entire world economy could become more efficient just by doing sales better. Ultimately a good salesperson is a trusted advisor to the customer. And the more we can bring buyers and sellers closer together, the better off everybody is because salespeople tend to be very knowledgeable. They know how to make the buyers life easier or better. If we can help sellers express that relationship a little bit better, then everybody is better off.   What does being Seller-Centric Look Like in the Sales Process? In a typical sales process, the seller starts with prospecting, qualifies a buyer, and then as fast as they can they move to a demo. Then there's going to be some negotiation, and then they go for the close. The problem lies in this is all focused on the seller's needs. And you'll notice that in all of those steps just described; there was no talking about education or talking about the buyer's actual problem. Sellers can very quickly get distracted from how they can help their buyer with too much thinking and focus on what do they need to sell. When the focus isn't on the buyer and their needs, there's a likelihood of several months going by and ending in a bad or no deal. This is a scenario of a seller showing up and throwing up, and racing to the demo to show how cool the stuff is. The buyer hasn't had a chance to express what's in it for them. A lot of times the buyer doesn't complain. A lot of people talk about deals ending in "no decision." This is the case where a buyer makes a decision, and and the decision is they don't want to talk to you. You can't blame the customer. They're busy. You didn't give them enough value or didn't offer them something that made it worth their time to engage with you. You'll be forewarned of this eventuality when you are presenting your sides, and the smartphone comes out.   How can a Seller be Buyer-Centric in the Buying Process? In a good buyer-centric process, there are three components. You want to have a strong understanding of who the buyer is. There's your champion, but there are also going to be multiple decision makers in a typical enterprise deal. You have to be aware not only of what those parties names are but also what their interests and priorities are. You need to be able to present your solution to their problem in their flavor. You are presenting yourself as if you are an advisor to their organization, and you are being brought in and being paid by the organization to help them fix this problem. The CFO is going to have a different set of concerns than the IT manager, so you need to make sure that you understand what those concerns are. To get a meeting with key decision makers and stakeholders in the buying process, you can suggest to your champion the sorts of questions each one of them is likely to ask, and how it would be smart to get a meeting with them to answer those and any other concerns they might have. You can stress you will be able to speak to their concerns as you have great experience in answering those concerns for other buyers in other companies.   When the Real Selling Begins Once you get everyone in the buying party aligned and saying "yes," many sellers think to themselves "mission accomplished." Sadly, that's often not the case. There's now a massive aspect of the buying process that still needs to transpire, and this often is when the real selling begins. The hard part is that the champion may not know exactly how the buying process works inside their organization. This is where it's critical to have a mutual action plan in place. For example, perhaps your solution has something to do with their production line. And they need their production line working by a critical date. Once that's established, you can work back in terms of the key buying steps in the buying process that will need to transpire to hit that critical milestone. For example, you can start to schedule a financial review, and deeper technical review, and a legal review as from experience you know clients generally do these things before the contract is signed. You can then work with the champion to figure out the names of people who will be part of those reviews and how to get on their schedule for review and signoff.   Introduce a Mutual Action Plan Note you are a lot more likely to have the deal go forward because there's a clear plan of action. The buyer also feels good feeling that they're in safe hands because you've done this before and you're helping them guide this goal through their organization. Second, you have much higher accuracy of forecast because now you have these milestones that are set out, ideally with due dates. And if they slip, you know that you're not going to hit your close date so you can tell your manager you are not going to hit as forecast because you are missing these milestones which could be months in advance. You have much better notice. You can now use these milestones as a reason to call and lean on the customer because you can say we committed that to go live at a certain date they said they needed to hit, they are putting themselves at risk by slipping on the internal buying process. Note that you are positioning yourself as on their side and you are trying to help them attain what's important to them. This gets powerful when you can show them a hard dollar number for the cost of potential delay. A mutual action plan can be as simple as a Google Doc that you share back and forth with that customer so that you have these agreed milestones or have a mutual action plan.   Making Your Champion Look Awesome You want to make your champion look awesome. One idea is to have a generic presentation that your Champion can turn around and use for their internal selling – in their brand. They can start presenting it, and they look like a smart person. It's also important to provide them with an executive summary that their boss's boss's boss can digest very quickly. It's very tempting to share a 30 page PowerPoint that has every single part of your value prop in beautiful full-color graphics. But senior decision makers don't have time or tolerance for that. They want a succinct summary, and then they can dig into detail if they want to.   Think about the Buying Experience It's always important to make sure that you are giving a great buying experience. Look at the sales process from your buyer's eyes. What are they receiving? Is it just a whole bunch of emails? Is it a bunch of Google Docs that you're sharing? Make sure that you make it easy for them - not only to understand your value proposition, but also for them to share it internally. Just be cognizant of the fact that the prospect is not as good at this as you are, and give them the tools so that they can be successful inside their organization.   Summary Takeaways Tom certainly knows this stuff and is dedicating his life energy to improving the interconnect between buyers and sellers and high consideration deals. Making the buying process more efficient and effective facilitates beneficial change. That's a wonderful ambition. This happens by making the overall buying process more buyer-friendly and helping your champion buy. You need to have a role or persona-based value proposition to each key party in the buying process. Once they say "yes" is when the real selling begins. So many deals fall into "no deal" after then yes has been given. Here's where you need to help the buyer help themselves in removing friction from getting to yes and a signed contract. For complex sales, once the business side is satisfied, and they say yes you have to get through further technical, legal and financial hurdles. Tom's advice on how to be useful to your champion in these matters is extremely useful.   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect with Tom Williams on LinkedIn Visit Tom's company DealPoint.io Gain insights from Tom at his Blog Listen to Stu Heinecke's Podcast episode with Tom, How the Deal Room Converts the Sale   For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit.   Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound

  Episode Overview This episode features Bernie Borges, Chief Marketing Officer at Vengreso. Vengreso's focus is on helping organizations with their digital sales transformation. Bernie has been on this focus for longer than most and comes to the table as a top-class marketer who continues to be very relevant for sales. He carried a bag in his personal sales career for ten years, and then switched over to the marketing side – so he's walked many miles in both shoes and is gifted in bringing both together to influence revenue growth. We will be talking about Content for Sales, and how to take advantage of and leverage content in your sales cycles. He will be answering the what, the when and the how of introducing content to your buyers to influence their engagement with you.   What is Going on in the World of Sales? We are living in an age where the buyers go through the buying journey anywhere from 50% to 80% on their own. They're conducting research online and talking to their peers. And we know there's data that shows that 94% of b2b buyers consume between five and eight pieces of content from the vendor that they ultimately select.   What is Content for Sales? If you are in sales, you don't want to be solely dependent on content that's coming just from your marketing department to influence the prospects you are talking to. You want to have some influence too. You want content that you can share with your buyers. Content for Sales is content that enables salespeople to influence in a positive, constructive and useful way – helping their buyers by sharing content with them - proactively. The goal is to share content that is useful, relevant and helpful to them. You are providing resources to them so that those buyers want to have a conversation with you.   What are Pitfalls with Content for Sales? The biggest trap sellers find themselves in is "random acts of content." A lot of companies have a sales enablement function. This function exists so that the salespeople can focus on contacting and building relationships with prospects and can avoid the heavy lift of identifying the content that they need. The trap sellers find themselves falling into is working hard to find the content they need. And unfortunately, because it is hard work, it takes some effort and kudos to some salespeople who do it. A lot of other salespeople don't, and they really should be enabled by the marketing department with the right content.   Thinking about Your LinkedIn Profile 62% of decision makers review a sales persons LinkedIn profile and look for evidence that that salesperson can be helpful to them. You want to avoid having a profile that brags about how you make quota and go to President clubs, and how you're a great contract negotiator - because that's not what your buyer wants to read. You want to have the kind of a profile that communicates your credibility, authority, and expertise within your industry. You don't have to be a 30-year salesperson by any means. You just need to communicate that you understand and know the challenges in the industry and the pain points of your buyer, and how you help your buyer. You want to avoid the pitfall of being someone that the buyer visits online and goes "Nope" and moves on. You want to be a thumbs up person – the person they want to engage with. One thing that has not changed since the beginning of time is that sales is about relationships. It's just so easy for the buyer to be invisible and not respond, and it's harder than ever to make those connections to build a relationship.   Being Consistent and Having a Cadence For digital selling, you have to have a cadence. And a cadence means that you are doing things consistently and it's pre-determined. That doesn't mean every Tuesday at 9:30 am. It just means that daily, you've got a preset, predetermined set of activities that you're doing so that you are consistent. So that's another pitfall to avoid if you just say, yeah, I'm going to do this, and you think about it once a week, or every other week, and you just kind of, like parachute in and, and send someone a piece of content that again, is that random act of content. You're going to get limited results. You've got to have a cadence. If it sounds like this takes some work and some effort – it does. 94% of buyers are going to consume five to eight pieces of content from the vendor they ultimately select. Are you going to have the habit and cadence of engaging with your buyers with content that you know that they need to help them on their journey? We don't have a sales process anymore - the sales process is dead. It's the buyer's journey, and we have to engage the buyer on their journey and influence them by being a resource to them. We're not selling to them; we are helping them on their journey. Hopefully, at the end of their journey, they're doing business with you because you rose to the top in being helpful to them.   Content Relevant for Multiple Buyers Let's say you're a b2b sales professional, and you sell a major system. There are ten people on the buying committee. Let's say it's a $300,000 average contract value, and it's a six to twelve-month sales cycle. Your solution has multiple aspects of information about it. So along the way, you need to be feeding content to the different people on the buying committee that's relevant to their role. For example, there's going to be some roles at the executive level, and content for them is all around total cost of ownership, return on investment, the value to the customer experience, etc. Then there's going to be people in the buying committee whose jobs are on the line to implement your solution. They need to understand what's it take to implement. They want to know what's involved, who's involved and what are the resources that are needed? They want to know what are the risks, what's the upside and other details. The point is you need to understand the different personas that are involved in the buying journey, and what their interests are.   Types of Content for Sales Content types for sales are no different than all other content types - whether it's a case study, blog article, third-party research data, etc. As long as the content type matches and aligns with the persona and the journey, that's the most important thing to that individual - addressing the question that that potential buyer is probably trying to ask at that point in time.   The Role of Marketing in Content for Sales Sellers can influence their marketing people on how to take an action toward content for sales. Marketing needs to understand 94% of buyers are going to are going to consume the five pieces of content from the winning vendor that they select. Marketers need to ensure enough content exists to feed those prospective buyers and enable sales people to be influential in the delivery of that content. Sales should be thinking about collaborating with marketing. It's an age-old topic - marketing and sales collaboration. But we're now in the age of digital and account-based marketing. We have more potential for alignment because the lines have blurred between sales and marketing. The modern marketer who is truly aligned with the sales team and the head of sales says to the head of sales, "your number is my number, and I want to work with you on the path to that number." The marketer then needs to support the sellers with great messaging and content they can use in their one-to-one conversations.   Summary Takeaways Here are a few summary takeaways for this episode: The modern B2B buyer is spending a good deal of time surfing and being influenced outside of direct selling conversations with the vendor. They also consume 5-8 pieces of content from the vendor they ultimately select. So, the net of it is the modern buyer is seeking content, and the onus is on you to make sure they get relevant content to influence their decision and ultimately buy from you! You can appreciate Bernie's advice and warning - to stay away from "random acts of content." We also talked about cleaning up and sharpening your LinkedIn profile and recrafting your profile from a customer point of view. This means shifting the content focus – from all about you types of content to more about the industry and customer problems you help customers solve. Furthermore, you should showcase the resources and value you bring in helping customers solve for their challenges. Ultimately, we want potential buyers to want to have a relationship with us, and it's important to help them connect the dots on how we will be relevant to them.   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect with Bernie Borges on LinkedIn Learn about Digital Sales Transformation at Bernie's company Vengreso Download the Content for Sales Infographic Bernie mentioned Visit Bernie's Resource Center to learn more about Content for Sales Watch some videos on Vengreso's YouTube Channel Listen to the Selling with Social Sales Podcast   For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit.   Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound

  Episode Overview In this episode, Chris Orlob, Senior Director of Product Marketing Gong.io and I talk about what's working and not working and CEO level sales conversations. Chris shares some surprising insights about how things change based on how high up in the organization you are having selling conversations – and how things should change to be more in-tune with senior business decision makers.   The Study Says … for Executives … No More than 4 Questions! In the summer of 2017, Gong.io created a discovery call benchmark report. They analyzed a bunch of discovery calls to figure out what was working. They found that 11 to 14 questions was the "sweet spot" for a discovery call. Then in 2018, they released a new study that was pretty contradictory to original benchmark report. It showed that there was a very sharp decline in the likelihood to win a deal if you ask more than 4 questions. The difference between these two research studies was the first one, the one with the suggestion of 11 to 14 questions, didn't differentiate who the buyer was or what level they were in the organization. And the data for the second study was exclusively C suite executives. Bottomline, there was a sharp decrease in success rates after asking just a few questions at this senior executive level.     What's Different About Asking Executives Questions? Sellers often go into discovery meetings asking information-gathering questions that enable the seller. If you're going to ask questions to a senior buyer, they should be questions that benefit the buyer, not you. These are questions that maybe make them think differently about an opportunity that's sitting under their nose, or it's reframing a problem that they've been dealing with. Instead of going through this, like generic line of discovery call questions where you're trying to qualify them, they don't really have patience for that. They don't like taking sales calls anyway, and when they do, they're doing it on a whim and a hope that the seller is going to provide value during that customer conversation. Most of the time, the seller does not. There are a few interpretations of this data. The takeaway is to not ask four questions and that's going to solve all your problems. The first suggestion to get across is the questions you ask have to change - they have to be thought provoking. They can't be self serving. And then the second part is the bulk of your meeting with a senior executive has to be built around delivering insights to them, not just asking a bunch of questions.   Provoking Senior Executives Back in 2009, when we were in a downturn, Philip Lay, Todd Hewlin, and Geoffrey Moore wrote an HBR article entitled, "In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers." This was seminal work that probably started the wave thinking around what we call "insight selling" today. I was working with Infosys on their cloud strategy go to market strategy and messaging, and their cloud leader, Vishnu, would mention to executives, "I've looked at IDC, Forrester, Gartner and others, and pretty much everybody is talking about the cloud and workloads in the cloud. And there's a prediction that in three years, about 70% of enterprise workloads will be cloud-based. So, Mr. or Mrs. CIO, where do you think you're going to be in three years? Do you think you will be on benchmark, below benchmark or even ahead of the pack?" And then he would watch a look of consternation form on their face. Then they would discuss their cloud strategy and how Infosys could be helpful. The best practice in asking provocative questions is to tee the question up with an interesting industry insight or fact or stat, and then move into the question. Then you are leading with insight. You're asking an open-ended questions. You will know you were successful when the executives cancel their meetings for the rest of the day so that they can think about this and maybe go for a walk around the block.   Elevating Sales Messaging – from Tactical to Strategic It comes down to messaging in an educational way. It's elevating your message to be more strategic rather than tactical. A lot of sales messaging is very tactical. Either it's product-driven, or it's just talking about maybe a valid problem or opportunity - but not something a C level executive would deem as strategic. For example, Gong.io used to talk about sales coaching quite a bit and still do in some contexts. But when you tell a story about sales coaching, without doing the right things to make it sound more strategic, you get punted down lower in the organization - you get punted down and delegated to the person you sound like. And for us, that's typically like mid-level sales enablement person. If we tell that story and don't get me wrong, we love selling to sales enablement and helping them buy from us. But we would rather stick with the C suite executive.   Ways to Make Your Sales Messaging more Strategic There are two ways that come to mind that you can make your messaging more strategic. The first way is tying your solution to a more strategic problem that the executive care about. That's the obvious one. It's very straightforward. For example, at Gong.io we talk about a major industry shift - product differentiation is dead. The way to beat your competitors has more to do with your sales conversations now and now that's tying it to a more strategic issue. If you can find an obvious bigger, more strategic problem to tie your value proposition to, that's your first obvious way to elevate the strategic importance of your messaging. But not everybody has that luxury. The second way to make your sales messaging more strategic is to take whatever your messaging against today that is labeled as a tactical problem and wrap it in a larger story. So for Gong.io that would be coaching and tell a story that elevates the strategic importance of that problem. This is called agenda setting. Here's the example storyline we've used for setting the agenda. We have found that there is a shift in the industry. The sales environment today is completely different than it was 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you could hire a sales guy or a sales gal. And their expectations were to just show up and sell and make money. But we have this shift in the last 10 years called the millennial workforce. And these types of sales reps have much bigger expectations from their employers. They don't just want to show up and sell. They want to be the best sales guy or gal, they expect their employer to invest in their training and their development and to help them along the way. And if you don't do something to do that, all they have to do is respond to the latest LinkedIn InMail they've received from a recruiter that week and they will go elsewhere. And then we introduce the concept of coaching and how it fits into that. And now coaching is not framed in this tactical sense of, we can increase your win rates by one or 2%. It's framed in the sense of, hey, you're dealing with millennials. Now you're going to have to provide good coaching, just to build your organization, prevent attrition, and maintain like a world class company.   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect with Chris Orlob on LinkedIn Learn about Conversational Intelligence at Chris' company io HBR article "In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers." For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit. Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound

Episode Overview For this episode, I'm speaking with Andy Paul. We had the opportunity to meet in person at the sales enablement conference in Denver, thanks to Nancy Nardin, Founder of Smart Selling Tools, who made the introduction.  Andy has several books out and has launched a new learning community for sellers and leaders called The Sales House. In this episode, Andy breaks down some essential learnings around his BALD framework.   Humans are Underrated We are in the era of AI, ML, and DL – and we are going to see a lot more automation in the economy. The people who can build relationships with other people and who can truly connect and collaborate with others - their value is going to increase. If you are not curious about what's going on, if you make yourself uninteresting, because you're not interested in other people and what's going on then, yeah, you're gonna be at a disadvantage. Those people who are learners and who want to stay on top of things and who are fascinated by automation – they are going to use it. It's not going to supplant us, and we are going to use it to be better humans! So, you just have to be curious about the other person. And that's going to lead you down a path. And if you need an app that says, hey, when you start this conversation, ask a question about them. That's fine. Use it if that's needed.   What is B.A.L.D.? The "B" stands for "be human." The "A" stands for "ask great questions." The "L" stands for "listen slowly." And the "D" stands for "deliver value." This model applies to any relationship in your life. I call it a "relationship operating system." It doesn't matter whether it's in business or life.   Be Human If you want to connect with someone else, this is what you do. Be human. Don't just be present - be focused. Put your phone away; look somebody in the eye. Make sure they understand that you're there. You're in the moment.   Ask Questions Be curious. Ask great questions. By being interested in someone else's situation, you're making yourself interesting. And that's how the connection is formed. The science on this is pretty settled at this point. You do make people open up as people love to talk about what's important to them what they're passionate about. This includes small talk. Some might say busy executives don't have time for small talk. The science is incontrovertibly clear - small talk is key to making a connection with another person. "Where are you from?" is a great question. Just don't be scripted. Be authentic. You show up with scripted questions – you are likely to get scripted answers!   Listen Slowly Before you respond to questions. You have to listen as you think the person is - hear the words the person is really saying. This is where empathy starts coming in. This is where you've got to be in the moment. You need to slow yourself down. Just pause for a second. Listen, slowly pause and draw them out. Listen without judgment. One study highlights you have roughly 24 biases you have to filter out to accurately hear what the person is saying. These cognitive biases exist and impact how we hear people. There's a great book people can read called "Blindspot" (book link in show notes). The purpose of the book is to help us be conscious of these filters that we see and listen through impacting the way we receive people and project information.   Deliver Value Time is a limited and precious resource for people. They expect to receive a return on their investment of time. We all do. So, if a buyer gives us some of their time, and we give them nothing of value in return - we don't get more time. It's that simple. So, delivering value requires some forethought and some planning. This is the part about sales is hard for people to grasp. Selling is not purely instinctual. It's a deliberate act at every step of the way. We have to plan. In-person meetings, phone calls, emails, whatever - you have to deliver something of value in these interactions. You have to be aware before having  the interaction - what that value is that you're going to be delivering, and what they're going to do as a result of having received it. Value is a deliberate act. Instead of doing a "check-in call" for example, maybe send an email stating "Mr. prospect, I was thinking about you this morning, as I read this article about your business and how companies like yours are using technology similar to what we have been talking about. There are two key points in here I really think we should discuss. Are you available on Tuesday at 9am?"   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect Andy Paul on LinkedIn Visit Andy's new learning community, The Sales House Book Andy mentions, "Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People"   For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit.   Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound

Episode Overview I met Mark S.A. Smith on LinkedIn. He's an avid writer with 14 books under his belt, and has years of experience working with executives. He's a master at selling complex things as fast as they possibly can be sold. In this episode, Mark talks to us about an unusual topic - how to connect with your customers' career goals. Why do we want to do this? Well as Mark breaks this down for us, the bottom line is it's the fastest path to selling success and having customers make what Mark likes to call high consideration decisions to purchase your solution.   A Misleading Question - How Can You Beat the Competition Mark mentioned he often has people ask him, "How can I beat my competition?" And that's the wrong question. The real question is, "how can I help my customer beat their competition?" When you help them do this there isn't competition. The focus is how can you make my customer look so good that it's impossible for them to buy from anybody else who's focused on their product versus on the success of their customer.   It's About Your Buyers' Careers In getting a customer to say "yes," they will also being saying "yes" to how the decision to work with you and go with your solution will affect their career. In the world of corporations, there's only one way you can make serious money. And that is through getting a promotion. And the only way you get promotion is by illustrating consistently that you have good judgment. That means that if you make a few bad decisions that have an impact on the business, you become toxic. You cannot be promoted. So, to net this out, your customer must consistently show good judgement to ascend up the path towards the executive ranks of their firm. So as you are selling to them, just know they are asking themselves "is this going to be good for my career? Or is this going to damage my career?" This is the subtext of every decision-making criterion that everybody makes in the world of corporations. And if you've ever lost a deal, even when you had the best overall solution, the buyer probably didn't see you and your solution as in the best interests of their career. This is most often what you don't hear. Instead, you might hear your price is too high, or the executive committee went a different way. And they'll use a word that when you hear it you'll go, "oh, that's what that means." They'll say it was a political decision. That's the indication that you didn't support their career. They chose a lesser product because it was better for their career, it was less risky for them. And in the world of technology, the number one vendor in the industry is rarely the best technology but the best at supporting the career of their customers.   Does the Best Product Win? No, but if it Impacts Your Buyers' Careers… You probably remember the old campaign and commercials for IBM with the theme, "no one ever got fired for buying IBM." In the case of Microsoft, it wasn't the best operating system, but it was often the most politically correct operating system. With EMC in the world of storage, it wasn't the best storage technology. But politically, it was the best storage company. And with IBM, rarely did IBM have leading edge technology but they did lots and lots of research. They were not always the fastest, but politically they were the correct solution. And so if you just kind of open your eyes to this concept of people are making decisions based on what's best for their career, you'll realize that you're surrounded by examples of why that's the case. It's not the product, but the product's capacity to improve their career position.   Focus on the Outcome, and Connection to Career Progression So, to shift things up, you need to stop talking about the product, and start talking about the outcome that this person has been tasked by their scorekeeper to deliver. Think about their objective, and their objective is set by their scorekeeper. The scorekeeper can be a boss. It could be a spouse. It could be a parent. But there's somebody keeping score. And that's who we also have to satisfy … that scorekeeper. Next, what's going to allow them to win in their job? What will allow them to feel comfortable, confident and certain. Also ask what creates value for them and what might be different in their criteria that's different from their scorekeeper's. Then align your value, once you understand their objectives, priorities and criteria, and then have a conversation about what you are offering that maps to their motivational set, as illustrated by these elements.   Resources and Links for this Episode Connect with Mark S A Smith on LinkedIn Mark's Book "From MSP to BSP" on Amazon Or Download MSP to BSP as a Free PDF at this site Mark's Weekly Executive Communication at Marksezine.com For More Great Content I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit. Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound