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Trust me, I’m a Salesman with Yuri Vander Sluis Selling With Trust #268

Yuri van der Sluis Sales Babble

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Trust me, I’m a Salesman with Yuri Vander Sluis Selling With Trust #268

Yuri van der Sluis Sales BabbleDo you trust the value that your products and your services you bring to market? Do you really think its good stuff?  Because if you don’t it’s going to be very hard to build trust with the buyer. People can tell! They know when you’re just trying to get rid of a product and make a commission. They can smell it a mile away.  You’re not selling with trust. This is the belief of Yuri Vander Sluis, the author of the new book “Trust me, I’m a Salesman: How to Earn Customers through Trust and Value”. Yuri and I discuss concrete ways to build trust with real examples of building rapport, closing deals, dealing with price and selling with trust.

When Buyers Trust, Sales are Made

Despite what you see in the movies, you don’t need to be a jerk to  be successful in sales like in the movies. Instead adopt a different approach based on trust.  As mentioned, buyers don’t trust people at the start. But there are things you can do to close the trust gap.

Start with integrity.   How, you may ask can you demonstrate integrity? The best way to to show authenticity. Don’t be in a rush. Take your time to let the buyer get to know you. That’s selling with trust.

Example:

Ask the buyer

“Have you ever struggled with problem A?

In my experience I’ve had clients like you with X Y and  Z issues.

They  often face problems challenged by A.

Is that your experience too?”

You Must Believe in You

If you don’t trust the value you bring to market, you can’t sell and build  trust with the buyer. People can tell when you’re just trying to make a quick buck. Commission structures often get in the way.  Be authentic and believe in your business. If you can’t it’s time to quit. Life is too short being a con artist. Better to be a professional selling with trust.

Overcoming Closing Issues

Often sellers have millions of dollars in the pipeline, but they’re not really closing the deals. Yuri did a study on one of his clients, calling prospects in the CRM. More than had no idea about the company.  When selling with trust you need to go as fast or slow as the customer demands. Some deals take years of nurturing.

Example questions:

  • “Why are you interested in this product?”
  • “Why do you see this as a higher priority than other projects?”
  • “What distinctive value do you think you could get from this product?”

Price Doesn’t Matter

Deals are rarely stuck due to price. Instead sellers need to understand where is the urgency and where is the impact. Secure the value sooner rather than later. Don’t dump your price and yoru margins.

Selling with Trust Take Action Advice

Mature Seller advice:

  1. Ask existing customers why they found value in you personally as the sales person.
  2. Understand from different executive levels what the value they appreciate

New Seller advice:

Call on customers and ask how and why they are using an existing product. What works? What doesn’t work? Learn how to differentiate yourself.

How To Find Yuri Vander Sluis

Yuri is easy to find online:

This is his website www.yurivander.com

On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yurivandersluis/

Link to his new book!  Check it out

https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Im-Salesman-Customers-through/dp/9887890103

Selling with Trust and Rapport in Sales

Here are other past episodes on building trust with buyers. Enjoy!

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Digital Prospecting vs Cold Calling with Ken Guest #267

ken guest sales babble

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Digital Prospecting vs Cold Calling with Ken Guest #267

ken guest sales babbleToday’s guest is Ken Guest, an associate at the Ruby Group.  Ken  has extensive experience in sales and is the author with Mike Jones a new book titled “Digital Prospecting – Finding, Nurturing, and Closing Sales with Social Technologies”.  Ken and I talk about ways to use social media to learn about prospects and then use referral selling to make connections.

Social Prospecting not Social Selling

Ken believes it’s difficult to sell with social media. Better to leverage the information in social media to better understand the buyer.   He believes in connecting with all the people you already know in LinkedIn. Once connected, look if they know anyone who might be a qualified prospect. If they do ask for an introduction.

Ken found that on average, 7 out of 10 people will know the person well enough they will agree to an introduction. Also, 4 out 7 will  agree to a first time conversation. Not all clients will not give you referrals. But that’s OK, the vast majority will.

Make the introduction through an email.  When you get it,  “reply all”, taking ownership to set up a chat. The follow up emails should look like you typed them. To your best ability,  customize the email for the reader.

Two Week Cadence

Ken believes you should wait two weeks between sending emails.  Don’t look too needy. People are busy, give them time to agree and chat. You will get a response.  Digital prospecting via referral selling is the foundation of Ken’s entire prospecting process.  He even sends prospects homework (cross-out the topics you don’t want to talk about) to ensure their time is respected.

Cold Calls and Cold Emails

There is a very low response rate when coldly reaching out. In some situations you have no other recourse. But if you can avoid it, do.

  • Make sure the emails look personal.
  • Speak a bit about your value proposition.
  • Benefits they will experience.
  • Reference people and companies they MIGHT know.
  • Share how prior to working with us, companies have found some good experience.
  • At the end of the email, “…it would be disrespectful of me to presume anything about your business. If you would be open to a conversation  I would certainly welcome it and if you have no interest feel free to let me know that too.”   

Again use the two week cadence. Expect a 11% response rate. Not all bought. Forward back the original email and get a 17% response rate.   In two weeks,

“I’ve sent you a few emails, I haven’t heard back  and have the feeling you simply have no interest. in learning about me or how I work with companies and you’re too polite to tell me that. If you could be kind enough to confirm my suspicions I won’t bother you anymore. ”  The response rate is 71%   Less than 10 people would say “don’t bother me”.  Most would be apologize why they’re not responding due to time.

How To Connect with Ken Guest

This is Ken’s email:   ken,guest @ sandler.com

Connect with Ken on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kjguest/

To get his book “Digital Prospecting”  you can find it at shop.sandler.com

Lead Generation Strategies

Overcoming Sales Fears

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Anti-Transactional Selling with Bill Keeler #266

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Anti-Transactional Selling with Bill Keeler #266

Today’s guest is Bill Keeler, founder of Market Makers, a small business sales development company based in Richmond, Virginia. Market Makers works with local and mid-sized organizations to grow their top-line revenues and does by offering different services to locally owned companies. In this episode Bill shares his views on anti-transactional selling.  In fact, he doesn’t believe in selling, he believes in buying. Only the buyer can make a decision, not the seller. Despite what some sellers think, you can’t make prospects buy. 

Four Step Anti-Transactional Sales Process

During the sales process, Bill asks the following questions and fills out a form. Busy clients appreciate the moment for self reflecting on their business.
  1. Take an “anti-transactional selling” approach when selling
  2. Identify your clients and sort out A, B, C and D:
    • A: Clients who are a perfect fit
    • B: Similar to As, but somewhat different
    • C: retail buyers, who fit sometimes
    • D: never sell to them, they never fit
  3. Figure out what makes you unique, why customers buy from you.
  4. Provide help with staff, tools and process to prop up areas they struggle

Once you know what they need you can prescribe the RIGHT prescription.

Every meeting is a sales meeting or a meeting with someone who can help you with the next sale.

How To Find Bill Keeler

How To Find Captain John Helmers

    • Here are the photos of the graduation ceremony on Facebook
    • This is his the Captain John Helmers LinkedIn profile
    • Post on LinkedIn  with photos
    • Newspaper article
    • What is Army Ranger School 
    • Here are the photos of the graduation ceremony on Facebook

How to Prospect and Generate Leads

Turn those meetings into business. Listen to these past episodes now!

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Return on Investment Buying with Frugalnomics with Tom Pisello #265

Tom Pisselo Sales Babble

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ROI Return on Investment Buying with Frugalnomics with Tom Pisello #265

Tom Pisselo Sales BabbleOur guest is Tom Pisello. Chief Evangelist at Mediafly. Tom, also known as the ROI Guy,  is a successful serial entrepreneur, popular speaker and author. He develops new practices to best communicate and quantify business value to ever more financially-focused, frugal buyers. Tom‘s latest book is The Frugalnomics Survival Guide – How to Use Your Unique Value to Market Better, Stand Out and Sell More and we talk at length on the importance of focusing on  return on investment buying.

Cold as Ice Buyers

According to Tom, the length of the sales cycle is increasing. Organizations struggle with purchasing. The internet provides so many options for buyers that  it’s hard to choose. He calls these buyers cold as ice. The solution is to focus on ROI in the buyers universe. The path Tom takes is Frugalnomics. He believes frugality has everything to do with your sales conversations.

Next as sellers we need to emotionally show buyers the issues they experience. We can do this with stories, examples and diagnostics. Don’t talk at length about why your company is great. Better to focus on the struggles the buyers face. Next move to the benefits they will experience if they choose your solution.

Frugalnomics Focus

Tom recommends sellers focus on the buyers challenges. In his experience they cluster around:
  1. Reduce legacy costs and cost avoidance
  2. Improve productivity of your people by streamlining processes
  3. Reduce risk and many levels:  security, downtime, compliance, etc.
  4. Grow revenue and scale growth
Cold calling it should be a process of teaching not pitching says Tom. Start by sharing insights and advice. This is how to open up a conversation that can build trust. Tom recommends a Socratic approach of discovery questions. The conversation becomes a guided dialogue. If the buyer is qualified,  interest in your product and solution will come naturally.

How To Find Tom Pisello

Sales Presentation Tips

Listen to past episodes on how to give a terrific sales demo today.

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Perfect LinkedIn Strategy with Brian Basilico #264

Brian Basilico Sales Babble

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Brian Basilico Sales Babble
Brian Basilico is a long time marketer, author, speaker and online  strategist who became interested in understanding the process of prospecting on LinkedIn.  After a year of experimentation with LinkedIn Navigator he found it doesn’t work. After a bit of research he came to learn about a series of tools that work with LinkedIn. Together he calls this the Perfect LinkedIn Strategy.

Three Prospecting Sales Tools

According to Brian, Nimble, Crystal and 366 give you direct access to your customers in the shortest amount of time. Collectively these tools capture data on your prospects and allow you to contact the person in the style they prefer.

Nimble CRM

Nimble is a CRM Gmail plugin that leverages and manages contacts stored in your Gmail.  We’ve discussed this in the past. Just last year Jon Ferrara was a guest on  Sales Babble .     $20/mo  for a subscription and it’s the foundation of Brian’s system. Similar to Saleforce, Insightly and Base, this CRM contains the lions share of your customer contact demographics.

366 Tool

366 is a tool that can best explained as a combination of LeadPages, Mailchimp, HootSuite, and email drip marketing campaigns (Similar to Active Campaign).   It can feed from Nimble, and build targeted emails campaigns based on tags. Tags are based on the Crystal profile (see below).   $50/mo for a subscription.

Crystal Tool

Crystal uses Linked and social media to create an instant DISC personality profile using AI.   Creepy and cool all at the same time.  It will recommend you on how to approach a sales call.  According to the company it’s 83% correct,  $29/mo for a subscription.

Evernote

This is a phone app that can scan business cards. Once scanned it sends out a welcome email.  Next it sends a LinkedIn request using Zapier push the information into Nimble.   $69/year for a subscription.

OPEN Prospect Stages

Brian mentioned the OPEN process he uses to walk prospects down a sales pipeline. OPEN is an acronym:
  • Oblivious – clearly not qualified
  • Pondering – interested in learning more
  • Engaged – plan on buying soon
  • Need – needs to buy now

Depending on the stage, you give the prospects different content (email drip campaign from 366) until they reach the need stage. Once they arrive at that state it’s time to call them. This requires three different levels of campaigns.

Social Media

According to Brian,  Social Media is a relationship building tool first, content delivery platform second and a sales too last.  Too often sellers focus on the latter vs the former.

10-10-10 Strategy

Spend 10 minutes/day or 10 people (new or existing) and 10 words. “Just wanted to say hi. How can I help you.?”

Do this daily and you will generate new opportunities. Slow and steady wins the race.

How To Find Brian Basilico

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Climb Everyday Sales Process with Mark Steel #263

Mark Steel Sales Babble

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Climb Everyday Sales Process with Mark Steel #263

Mark Steel Sales Babble

Our guest today is Mark Steel. He’s an international speaker, speaking skills coach, podcast host, and avid rock climber. In his 15 years with Microsoft, Mark stood out as a high-impact sales leader, contributing over $1B in enterprise sales.  Mark and I chat about the things leaders, sales people, and marketers need to do to  amplify impact,  and influence with intent buyers. In addition, his Climb Every Day podcast inspires professionals to achieve a life of confidence, growth, & success.

We Create Our Own Success

Mark believes that we create our own success in the steps we take every day. Mark studied theatre but when he got a job at Microsoft, transtioned to a  1 to many storyteller. As he found success he then transformed into a successful  1 to 1 sales professional.

As a professional seller Mark has learned:

  • Speak back what people say to you and you will be persuasive
  • Buyers will tell you everything you need to know
  • Tell a story, but apply it to a customer. Don’t make the stories long and irrelevant. The stories must have value.

Effective storytelling is about understanding the customer, and speaking back effectively what you hear from them. Leverage your experience to augment and compliment what they are saying. Compelling stories are short and sweet, less than a minute and HIGHLY relevant.

Sales is Like Climbing a Rock

Mark has a sales process he calls the Climb Everyday process.  Climbing is a great metaphor for sales. In both cases you’re stepping into an uncomfortable situation with the goal of success.

Climbling is a mental challenge, and not unlike selling, discover what works, what doesn’t work an. Reflect to develop a better methodology and become more efficient executing what does work.

Common Success Stories

Mark shared an example Microsoft story: “This is a similar situation we ran into with Company X and how we were able to help them. We were able to work directly with all the stakeholders,  learn how they communicate, put systems in place and training to make sure the processes were effective. “

Specific and measureable outcomes really matter.

Why Story

Make sure you know your companies “Why Story” : why your company does what they do, why this product was invented etc….

Practice these stories, have a clear message to make sure they are compelling. People will never remember the facts and figures, but they will remember the stories

Take Action

Challenge yourself a little bit everyday. Start a gratitude journal and find a daily affirmation. Push your comfort limits. Try something you’ve never done before. This is where growth comes.

How To Find Mark Steel

Selling Mindset

Here are some past episodes you will find invaluable to your selling.

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Selling with FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) with Louis Kreppert #262

Louis Kreppert Sales Babble

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Selling with FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) with Louis Kreppert #262

Louis Kreppert Sales BabbleAre you looking to create extra income for yourself on a full or part time basis?   Do you have a small business selling products and you’d like to expand and sell across the country? Or, do you have a product idea you’d like to bring to market? I believe all sellers are secret entrepreneurs  fascinated with creating their own gig.  Selling them on Amazon may be the solution
for you in 2019. In this episode our guest Louis Kreppert visits the new Fox.Build podcast studio and  explains the nuts and bolts of the FBA Fulfillment by Amazon program.

In this episode we discuss how to sell on the number one e-commerce marketplace, Amazon. We’ll cover all the basics on selling physical products on their FBA, including cost and fees associated with it. Louis will share some  best practices for success and examples of successful products and others that have bombed. By the end of this chat you will be able to confidently know if this a platform for you and the steps necessary to get started.

FBA Way

Fulfilled by Amazon, is  a program where Amazon does all the storing, packing and shipping versus merchant fulfilled, where you hold all the inventory, do the packing and shipping.  FBA provides sellers the opportunity to only focus on marketing and selling.   Their only responsibility is finding customers and meeting their needs.

Elements of a Great Listing

There is one listing for every product. The best way to sell is to create your own listing and differentiate from the rest. Amazon drives prospects to look at  your listing.  Everything is searchable. SEO is key. The words are great but the pictures are what really matters. A great set of photos shows the benefits. The first photo must be shot on a white background. The rest of the photos can be anything else product related but it  should tell a story. Each photo should have 85% image, 15% words at the most.

The Title should sound human (not a babble of keywords). Then add 4 bullet points, 1-2 sentences long.

The ratings,  “1- 5” stars reviews, really matter. People want to see authentic reviews that  reflect reality. If there are no reviews, that’s a hurdle.

Compensation

You can make money as a full-time sellers (third part seller). It’s important to keep your costs down and add value (beyond some commodity). On average FBA takes 50% of your sale. It costs Amazon 25% for the fulfillment services, and keeps 25% for profit.

Example Product Stories

Win – Louis put a bundle together e.g. birthday party bundled set. Got good reviews and it started selling. Views started to snowball. He sells 10 day. Took 4 years to get this product right.

Bomb – Louis had a product that wasn’t unique. Unbundled hand warmers (successful for a while) then the competition found it. started competing then  drove the price to the ground.

Take Away

Take the Amazon university course or hire an  expert like Louis.

How To Find Louis Kreppert

Louis helps struggling businesses become successful through E-Commerce sales and marketing. In 2014 he started his own marketing company:

LK Sales and Marketing helps people focus on selling products on
Amazon and other e-commerce platforms.

Contact Louis in LinkedIn    or you can reach him here:   Louis@lksalesandmarketing.com

Sales Tools

Here are other sales tool you can add to your tool box. Listen today!

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How to Conquer the Conversation in Sales with Erin Marcus #261

Erin Marcus Sales Babble Conversations

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How to Conquer the Conversation in Sales with Erin Marcus #261

Erin Marcus Sales Babble ConversationsToday’s guest is Erin Marcus, a speaker and consultant that teaches how you can create powerful and extraordinary conversations.  Each day there are consequences to the conversations we have. When they go well, they lead to closer relationships, more sales, happier customers. When they go poorly, the consequences are hurt feelings, lost money, lost opportunities and more stress. Today Erin and I discuss how conquer the conversation in sales. We dig into what it means to be a masterful communicator  and ways you can increase your sales and improve the relationships with your existing clients.

Action Cures Fear

Sometimes we have to give bad news to existing customers. Other times we have to attend difficult sales call in a competitive situation. Sometimes you have to explain why the price is going up. Other times why you can’t meet a commitment. I’ve had to have many of  difficult conversation in my career.  We the  sellers, we’re the face to our business. It’s a lot of responsibility delivering bad news because these conversations can make or break your business. Being pushy or assertive is just the result of desperation and insecurity.  Instead see all sales as research. There is no reason to fear the conversation because as Erin says “action cures fear!” 

Open Ended Questions

Let’s start the conversation with some great questions that build rapport and second understand their needs.

  • Tell me what’s going on……
  • Why did you invite me to this conversation?
  • Tell me about the event your putting together…..
  • Why now?
  • Why me? 

When you’re asked a difficult question and unsure how to answer, consider this; maybe it’s an opportunity to ask a better question!  You might find more information to understand the buyer OR they may come to a realization they’re unclear what they’re asking themselves!

Ask yourself this: what conversations are you bad at?  Maybe asking for referrals or asking for an appointment. Now think about what your average client is worth for you? Think about the money your losing. Also realize you’re losing it  just because you’re uncomfortable having a conversation. If you keep everything in perspective you can find the courage to move these conversations forward.

How To Find Erin Marcus

Get these free tips: Top 10 Ways To Make Hard Conversations Easy

Whatever it is that makes a conversation difficult for you – whether its asking for the sale, delivering difficult news or navigating interpersonal issues with your team – there is a tip in here for you to make it easier!

Building Rapport in Sales

Here are past episodes that babble about the power of building strong rapport with buyers. Listen now!

 

 

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How to Use LinkedIn for Cold Prospecting – Anniversary Episode #260

Pat Helmers Sales Babble Sales Podcast

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How to Use LinkedIn for Cold Prospecting – Anniversary Episode #260

Pat Helmers Sales Babble Sales PodcastToday is the 5th anniversary of Sales Babble! Congratulations!   It’s the sales podcast  that talks divulges  selling secrets for non-sellers.  Here it is 2019 and I’m still talking about the very same subject. I just can’t help myself! Today we’re going to do something special, which we often do on these anniversaries.   We’re going to do a solo episode to chat about something that’s recently been on top of my mind; how to  use LinkedIn for cold prospecting.

New Startup Client

I’ve been working with a client since October. It’s a start up and we’re trying to understand how to break into the market and add value. We began by building a value proposition in doing a ton of market research to understand exactly the problems and desires that challenge them. My task is to create a process for business development and scale that up into a sales team. We’re getting ready to start hiring and I know exactly how I’m going to train them because I’ve been doing it myself. It’s been really fun selling.

This is how we use LinkedIn for cold prospecting. Because we’re a startup, we don’t have any existing customer to lean on. We are at square one.

Slideshow on LinkedIn prospect

To make it easy to we have slideshow that describes  exactly what I’m doing how I’m approaching prospecting. We use this tool hunter.io to discover emails. This is my tool kit: LinkedIn,  Hunter.io,  Gmail and a telephone. That’s all!

Our goal is to find target companies, then decision makers, then reach out to them a dozen times or so until they agree to meet for coffee or a chat. This is how we use LinkedIn for cold prospecting.

How to Prospect and Generate Leads

Here are past episodes to keep the conversation going. Listen now!

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Five Steps for Instant Sales Improvement with Brian Robinson #259

Brian Robinson Sales Babble

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Five Steps for Instant Sales Improvement with Brian Robinson #259

Brian Robinson Sales BabbleBrian Robinson is a sales and marketing expert, coach, and author of the best-selling sales book, The Selling Formula: 5 Steps for Instant Sales Improvement. After working with some of the largest companies, Brian left the corporate world to launch the only startup in the history of the industry to sell more than one million dollars in business in twelve months—entirely by phone!  In this episode Brian shares the process he uses to train his sales staff for instant sales improvement.

Sales Book

As a long time writer Brian decided to assemble his advice into a book on selling challenges. He journaled what he does when selling, then recorded his conversations. This provided a way for people to listen and integrate itinto their own personal selling strategy. 

Questions are the key to life, and the key to successful selling. Brian has constructed a frame work, with scripted lines and questions, that can be adjusted for instant sales improvement.

Steps of a Sale

Brian has a five step process:

  1. Connect and set the agenda – “Are you opposed with having me share what we’re going to talk about?”
    • I’m going to ask about your business
    • I’m going to ask about the challenges your facing and some solutions we offer
    • I’m going to walk you through how our service works and we’ll talk about pricing
  2. Interview – ask for permission to take notes , shows you care and wantto  collect this information, if you have a bunch of questions they appreciate your preparation
  3. Present your solution – tell stories about your solution from customers in similar situations
  4. Pricing and guarantees – share three prices , have a high-low anchor and most will pick the middle. Have a guarantee that puts the responsibility on you .  Give garauntees that all your competitors do already. Just put them up front.
  5. Close the deal – if all previous steps done properly, this should be a no brainer.

Powerful Selling Phrases – Jedi Mind Tricks

Brian mentioned a few lines he uses time  and again to persuade buyers:

  • Would you be opposed to following up next Tuesday
  • I’m just curious, is there something your uncomfortable with, something we could talk about
  • If I could would you ……. if I could offer you some incentive to move now as oppsed to later, would you be opposed to that?  If I could offer youfree installation would you go now
  • With your permission I’d like to set up another time for us to get together next Tuesday at 10

Email  for Seemly Dead Deals

Brian said the following email gets an 80% response rate and revives many a stagnant deal. This is the script:

Subject: Pat, is it dead or alive?

Dear Pat,

I’ve attempted to connect with you via phone or email and unfortunately I haven’t received any response. So I’m just curious, is it dead or alive?   

Thanks for letting me know one way or another if you would like me to make further contact or to close your file.

Either way I look forward to the courtesy of your reply. 

Best regards,

How To Find Brian Robinson

Brian is easy to find!   Go to his website BrianRobinson.me to connect.
Go to Brianrobinsonbook.com for the first three chapters