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The Sales Evangelist

I believe in doing BIG THINGS! You should be earning 6 figures easily as a sales rep. But chances are you are not...yet! Sales is the most important department in every company but many sellers are never taught how to effectively sell, much less how to earn their way to high-income status. My own career limped along until a company I worked for invested in sales training to help me succeed. Immediately afterward, I closed a deal worth 4X what the... I believe in doing BIG THINGS! You should be earning 6 figures easily as a sales rep. But chances are you are not...yet! Sales is the most important department in every company but many sellers are never taught how to effectively sell, much less how to earn their way to high-income status. My own career limped along until a company I worked for invested in sales training to help me succeed. Immediately afterward, I closed a deal worth 4X what the company spent on me and saw hockey-stick improvement in my performance. So I started a podcast to “Evangelize” what was working. Today I interview the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales right now: folks like Jeffrey Gitomer, Jill Konrath, Bob Burg, and Guy Kawasaki to name a few. They share actionable insights and stories that will encourage, challenge, and motivate you to hustle your way to top income status. If you’re someone looking to take off in your sales career and earn the income you deserve, hit subscribe and let’s start doing BIG THINGS!

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this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of leads scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator everyone wants to sell to the c suite but almost everyone is doing it wrong here's the truth about what executives actually want in twenty twenty five check it out hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales evangelist podcast i'm a host donald c the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today and on this episode i have a power house guest one of my favorite episodes all year so far this is jessica kill martin and here's why i am a big fan of jessica and why you should be as well so tim me just give you a background jessica not she only has a cool name that's my sister's name as well jessica was this the chief revenue officer and the cmo at cali link jessica was the head of revenue at ass asana jessica was the chief marketing officer at honor and jessica right now worked on and sits on several different boards in boardroom rooms when it comes towards helping teams of many different size these executives to be able to make decision she knows what it is that executives want and in this episode we break down some of the simple like some only most annoying things that we do it and i'm gonna confess that i've done some of these things thinking that this was the right thing but executives are telling us what we should do to sell to them nowadays the games change and if you follow these things i personally know you're gonna see a difference because it's what they're sharing and it's what my experience have led me to believe and to come to know if this is your first time listening to our podcast you better subscribe because i'm gonna tell you every single the time would and drop a gm like this you gonna love it if you have been listening for a while i want you to go ahead and give show some love on linkedin and just let me know that you're listening to the podcast oh great appreciate that as we dive in you'll get a chance to hear why this challenge is so critical at a high level right now and what jessica feels why salespeople people are running into a dilemma with this issue about trying to get to the executives her strategy in the ways that she goes about it i mean i'm ain't gonna tell you listen to her list dive jessica welcome to the show i'm very happy to be here jessica i so i've done this episode will be one thousand nine hundred and twenty eight and i don't get this gi about episodes that often but not to say against anyone else we had on a show but i'm just really fascinated with this topic i think it's something super relevant you had me at hello when you talk about the when we started talking about this discussion because it is so pertinent right now i hear from sellers all the time and i just got off of a call earlier today with a new potential client and one of the same issues we're facing is similar around this topic and here's what it is selling to the c suite it's not the way that it used to be and it is the game is changing in this harder so i brag about you and your experience i wanna just dive in and talk about this challenge what has changed why is this not the same like you know when you know in the past or even yet some people thought they understood the c suite but they actually get to the c suite and sound like an idiot when they get there yeah is this more of a problem nowadays or is it always been an issue yeah i think i wonder whether people have just always gotten bad advice about this because i don't know that it's ever changed i think it's just one of those things where people assume that c suite executives know everything that's happening in the organization they're setting the budget they're setting the priorities and if they only get to the c suite in my case the cmo at zero which is what i was by cali in over various organization they only get to the c suite then they will unlock all the money and all the budget and i just don't think that's ever been true and i think maybe even it's potentially worse these days because we just have so many tools you know like in the average marketing team even a relatively small one probably has forty to fifty different marketing tools that they're using sales is probably similar so if you think about that there's no way that a cmo can understand all fifty to a hundred things that their team is using and can be directly involved in every one of those issues it's just not possible so that brings an an interesting play on it like because yeah i i think it's an old school advice do you gotta get to v very important top officer or you gotta get to decision maker you gotta have decision maker because just and it's kind of like this fig idea of us right if we get to os get to decision maker land then everything is perfect which is not but give me the reality of if i am going after a c suite or when should i even try to sell to c suite before we even get to that like yeah when is even relevant for me to bring in or go after you for the cmo i don't even know how often it's relevant to go after a c suite so i think like the click to tweet right there or something are you just trying to protect is this like a an advertisement to protect c suite to just say no don't go app for them i know every chief sales revenue your officer is printing right now but you know cmos sierra at least and i obviously i can't speak to other you know well i potentially can't speak to other c suite members because i have been part of it for many many many years i'm on the board of you know of of a tech company i do a ton of consulting and advising now i have a lot of interaction engagement with ceos and and cfo cios so i have a reasonable sense of how they all think and you know a lot of what we do is helping our teams be successful by giving them power and decision making and budget and i think that that's probably the biggest insight that i don't know how much people realize is that i actually have very little day to day responsibility for budgeting for priorities for work and you know obviously this is a mid midsize company so if you're talking about a very small company with a team of five things are different but as soon as you start to get to companies with fifty million dollars in revenue hundred million plus things look very different for a c suite it's just we're not thinking about the day to day tools and technology and so oftentimes what happens is if i try to get on the phone with the salesperson and you know data's is obviously a really big thing right now right so if i try to get on the phone with the salesperson and they're asking me with my tech stack is they're asking me with my data stack is how i do reporting i mean i literally have no idea and that's the case for almost every cmo you know we are the consumer of data where the consumer of things that our team gives us but we don't know good details there's just no way and so we can't make intelligent decisions about the types of tools that we should use because we just don't know all the intricate details like if i told one of my team members that they had to use this certain tool they would murder me in my sleep because they're the ones that understand they'd be like jessica ago we can't use that because it doesn't integrate with x y z or we can't use it because we use this other thing and it i don't no i don't know i have no idea yeah but still here's a two parts to this being in the devil's advocate here but i'm different my solution is different it does require the executive the executive need to have an i need to have an executive buy in in this how often is that true though i would say it's it's true in that i will sign off on the final budget so this is typically how it works and i'll share kind of a couple of different ways that buying decisions tend to happen so the first way is i will be in some kind of event or a slack group or something or i'll talking to my ceo and i'll hear about something or or i will understand that there is some new priorities or something new that's coming that i was like oh i didn't think about and i need to think about it and i'll do some research so you know ai seo is a great example where this is something that's very new and i've realized over the past cup you here that this is something that we need to really think about so i will do research i'll check him with friends i'll find out some solutions and they'll i'll go to one of my team members and say hey this is really important you need to think about this here are some companies you should look at and then they'll go and then they'll do some research and come back to me so that's one way that this i think is fairly common is that we just hear about things or just something new is on the horizon i say that that's probably twenty to thirty percent of the time the vast majority of the time it's i'm sitting down with my team and this is how i mean good team should operate how i'm i your team operates this is how good functioning team should operate which is i'm sitting down with my leadership team at the beginning of the year or even at every quarter and saying what are our priorities what are the things that what's our budget what's our budget for tools what are we don't we use anymore what budget can we free up and then what do we need to buy and then we're thinking about okay what of our big priorities is maybe a new data staff maybe it's ai sales tool maybe it's a new enrichment tool and then we just agree that there's a certain budget for those and then each of my team members go off and they do a bunch of research they talk to the vendors and they come back to me and say hey you know and usually they do a really thorough analysis where they present it to me and so they have talked to these three vendors there's this is the price these the pros and cons we discuss it sometimes if it's a big enough purchase and that's gotta be minimum probably forty fifty thousand dollars where i'm even interested in it they'll say i'll say let let me get on the phone with them so i can understand it and then that's when i will give the final okay and then sometimes it even has to go to the ceo the cfo if it's probably a six figure purchase yeah other than that i'm not really interested and i'm gonna let my team members make the final decision because i've given them the budget for it and ultimately they're responsible for the success success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa bill you on the podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcast since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an k o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcasts for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing so the idea here a couple things one if there's as a seller i need to figure out the threshold of where this project may lie and then that's how based on you know how i might go after you know go after the sales process and then also including trying to get an executive buy in and then two i hear some sellers in a background going with the old school mentality to say well that means i have to rely on your team member to sell it to you as opposed to me sell it to them how can i still sell it through them to you what can i do to get to that point without still getting to you maybe yet yeah and when tell no it does and i will tell you there's nothing more annoying to me and to my team members than a salesperson having a conversation with someone on my team and they're having a good conversation and then the salesperson emails me and i'm like i don't want to be emailed there's is you know i trust my team members and literally i will forward it to you know my team member and say wtf t why is this person emailing me and then it just makes them look bad like it makes yeah the person that works for me look bad because it makes them feel like hey i'm the steward of this relationship now you're going over my head and it just and they're embarrassed because i got pulled in my time is wasted when i don't need to be i don't need to be involved in the vendor discussions it's just not helpful and so i wouldn't say to a salesperson do not do that it is very annoying to a c suite and it just causes a lot of churn because sometimes i don't even know that when i team is looking at one of these that's yes and so then it just creates a whole thing where they're like oh i wasn't wasn't gonna tell you yet because we were just starting the conversation and so it just makes everybody look bad so i would say don't do it it's just not helpful and i would say really but probably the most important thing for the salesperson is as you said ask those questions hey what is the process here does your boss know like does a cmo know does the cfo know that you are looking into this because sometimes a head of growth marketing of bp we'll be looking into solution and they don't actually have budget for it and then i'm you know see level person's probably gonna say no so yeah i would ask those questions first that's probably the first thing i'd ask in the discovery is is this budgeted is this prioritized you know or you just not a fishing expedition and if it's budgeted and prioritized then i would say you probably don't need to have a c suite person involved yeah anytime in the near future see that's the interesting part there because yeah and like you said you trust your team they can spend up to ten grand so have added it kid like but do your thing i trust you maybe it's just like you know let me know eventually but that part i don't need to skip around i think that's where most sellers miss because they may not have had those business conversation to have the business acumen to kinda have that type of a discussion that would then prevent the embarrassment like what you're sharing which it makes everybody look bad at that point to try to jump over somebody said which very fascinating old school mentality of for sure on that one but jessica you also bring something up as a discovery let's say i eventually get to you i guess this is a capital expense at this point maybe capex and we're gonna spend high end five figure six figures on this deal the disco face i know you have strong opinions on the disco and i'm not talking about john for travolta are dancing here saturday fever but talk to me about your view from an executive standpoint when it comes to the disco yeah i'm mean i do like some disco music i do not like to be disco so yes no executive likes to be disco we hate it and you know i i've saved so my very first sales job was years and years ago and the our board members told me that i had you discovery and so the first calls i did all the discovery and it was such a giant waste we lost so many deals because we spent the whole time doing discovery and we never actually sold our products and so i learned after about the third call no more discovery and so i would say that the important thing in in when talking to a c suite is that you have done your discovery already by talking to other members of the team so get all that out of the way i don't wanna answer any questions i wanna see a demo of it and i wanna ask questions that's all that i want from because at this point what should have have happened and this is what a salesperson needs to make sure so what a salesperson needs to make sure we're before they yell up home with me is that they understand why we're doing this you know why are we implementing this what problems are we trying to solve they have confirmed that there is budget and there's priority for it and they've confirmed that i'm am aware of this and they also can ask the person that works for me like what questions do i have right so they should be trying to understand and the person that's working for me like they're the most incentivized to make this thing work you know so i'm gonna use darren who is my old head of growth marketing account i dare if you're listening so you know hey darren so darren if he's desperate for example to get in a new you know data is a really big thing so say he's desperate to get in a new reporting platform nobody cares more about recording than darren does nobody does healthy and so his job is to make sure that he's giving all the right information to the salesperson in r one zero ones his job is to make sure that he's prepping me and saying hey i've talked to these three vendors i really like this one we're gonna get on the phone these are the types of things that i want you to ask and this is where i think it's gonna be great these are my concerns so he already fully prepped me and he's gonna say hey i want you on the phone because of this and so i'm on the phone for of one very specific reason and you know usually it's i need to make sure i understand it so i can sell to my ceo or cfo or i wanna understand it because i wanna make sure that it's actually gonna work for what we need or you know whatever reason but there's usually a specific reason that i am going through this demo and so the job of the salesperson is to know that already and so the call is them showing me the product so that i can ask questions of it and then at the end they should say hey i answered all your questions anything else you need for me and then that should be the conversation so it seems like every time i'm getting back darren and i need to be in locks yes and if i'm gonna out be the other three vendors that he's looking at two vendors i need to figure out a way to get to what really drives darren what is the you know how what's in it for him and how can i help him win because he's gonna look at a product that's gonna best help him or a vendor help him win and also to he's gonna come to an executive to show listen this is the best one so instead of me dink around trying to skip over him to go to you look at what's in it for darren how can i best help darren win and do a darn good job of that then he's gonna more likely pick me as that vendor to come to the next level hundred percent yeah because i what i'm getting is i unless you and i have a relationship it seems like anything i do i'm gonna muddy up the water with yeah you and darren but if you and i you know we have we have a relationship i might you know touch base with you blah i spoke with darren you probably still say awesome dk he's great work with the darren you may be gonna influence that part but the point is i don't know you i go with darren build relationship with darren figure out how to make darren win yes and and by the way it's the same exact thing so all the time i will get pings or forwards from my ceo saying hey a friend of mine just started a business or a friend of mine just did this or whatever and they you have this new tool and then i roll my eyes say okay i'll look into it because it's what you gotta do and then all i do is i forward it down to my team and i say hey liza you know ceo wants us to look at this and then they roll their eyes and they look at it and usually they say i guess we'll have a conversation because of the relationship but if it's just not part of our priorities it's just noise and so i think that that's really one of the challenges to it it really has to be you know one of our priorities because it's not like every tool out there isn't great i mean there are thousands and thousands of tools out there that are absolutely fantastic and solve a real problem it's just not every company has the same problems and i don't have yeah trillions dollars of budget to buy every tool and actually the more important thing is not even the money it's the head count so the the fundamental problem that most companies have is that even if we have the budget we don't have the people to implement the tools and so typically what we do is say we can do three tools quarter it's not just about the money so we often money is not the issue the issue is the head count allocation so in most organizations you probably have if you call it hundred salespeople people yeah you might have one or two people that are actually implementing all the sales tools and the same thing in marketing and so when you think about hey there endless tools that we could implement but only one or two people but that can actually do all the massive amount of work to do it that's the real budget allocation is the head count so we have to only pick two to three four pieces of technology that we can implement a quarter at the most just because of that shortage of head count to be able to implement it and so that's another really big issue is that again like it's not that there aren't amazing tools out there yeah we just don't have the bandwidth to implement all of those so it's not even a fact jessica at even if i have a easy to implement solution or if i could take care of some of the headache it still doesn't matter there's still policies and things that need to be taken care of to implement this effectively across the organization where your folks have to do that and it doesn't matter what i can do that piece can be changed it can't be changed also because every single piece of technology and even a medium sized organization has to go through security privacy legal finance there's just a whole process and there's just own again only so many people that can do that and so we typically have to submit our list of priorities to organization and then they prioritize it too so for example at the beginning of a quarter i will tell our legal and finance team i'm planning to implement technologies to help our like you know an ai a content right i'll give them like a list of concepts that i want to go after and say this is the budget then they will say okay yes you can get four contracts and that's what i get and then i work with my marketing operations team and sales operations team to say okay we're going to implement four pieces of technology in these different realms these different genres and then that's when they go out and then they source and find the pieces of technology and then we go through the process are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigator a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high value customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash t s e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started this is good so listen sellers you guys came on this call you didn't think it was gonna go this perfect this is amazing this is so good you kinda answered this question i jessica was howard the decision being made which sounds like you know it's down at the you know darren for example darren ear is like burning for sure now but darren love darren you're doing research then it comes up to you as the cfo a cmo and then that decision but i'm curious like what are those criteria store how are you making that decision it sounds again just some legal and some of those other components but what are some of the things that i don't know that i should be aware of yeah so typically like a a really good rfp process and a a good sales ops leader a good marketing ops leader will put together a really strong rfp and it doesn't have to be it's not this incredibly long bureaucratic thing but they are in advance coming up with the list of criteria that are important to them and so they are the price but that's not always the most important thing sure right and so what they're looking at is you know are they going to meet our security and legal requirements that's really important because we don't wanna go through a loan process and find out that we're gonna get rejected by legal and privacy so we're gonna ask those kind of questions we're going to ask if we need to have integrations we're gonna ask who they integrate with and we're gonna make sure that that's it they integrate with our existing tech stack we're going to think about the types of that basically their terms yeah so you know they require crazy terms or not we're gonna be looking at how they price so for example if they price per you know it's an email and a price per email well cal has millions and millions of users does that make sense for us so we're basically like thinking in advance of it's been almost quite creating a job right so we're thinking in advance of all the things that we need and then in the process of talking to vendors we are basically just evaluating on that on that and then a good leader like a darren or my mobs or sales ops leader will come to me with a presentation and say hey i've talked to these two vendors three vendors for vendors you know they'll give a check mark and x based upon all those different criteria and with their final recommendation and then i'll questions and i usually will take their recommendation or we'll say hey we're close i want you to talk to them and evaluate it yourself final question because i know we there's so much that we could go deep on i wanna get into the brain of c suite right now today august twenty fifth what is the most pressing thing on their minds it's a super duper cliche but it is ai i hate it i hate saying it it makes me wanna vomit saying it but that is all i can tell you being in so many different board meetings that's all board members are pressuring c suite about is what are you doing with ai how are you building things ten times faster how are you selling faster you know how are you thinking about efficiency and and the frustrating thing is that i feel like there is a very mismatched level of expectations relative to the reality interesting and so board members are heavily pressuring all of us to think about you know ai tools and replacement but then when we ask them what success they've seen they can't really come up with good examples and so so that it's just there's a lot of like i wouldn't say panic but it's close to it there's a lot of just this anxiety among the c suite knowing that we have to do things differently but we just don't necessarily have a blueprint of how to get there and i think one of the big things that a lot of people are seeing is that it feels like there are a lot of startups that are coming up that are sort of thinking about how to use ai first and at least from a hike perspective they're doing a good job yeah of saying that they are you know not hiring lots of folks or they're working really fast or using a lot of ai and so there's a lot of feeling among bigger more established companies that they're going to get struck did if they don't think about these practices first but the team members aren't necessarily ai first you know so you have people that are established in their careers ten fifteen twenty years into their careers and it's generally hard for them to make that adjustment of how do i disrupt everything that i'm doing with ai so there's just feels like a really big disconnect between what c suite is being told to do and how we're thinking but then how we're actually able to operate given the limitations of our teams tongue in cheek here so whatever i sell as a salesperson i need to say if i do window cleaning i have to bring ai into that like just how bring that this is gonna help your ai initiatives yeah and i would say that almost every company has a specific ai budget yeah even if they're freezing head count and headache and freezing money for all other tools they have a specific budget aside for ai so what you're gonna find if you're an ai vendor is that everyone's probably gonna ask for a proof of concepts are gonna ask for short term contracts because typically everybody is kind of evaluating it's because also new we don't even know what to look for exactly so so we're all evaluating like three to four different tools at the same time to solve a problem and then we're basically doing a bake off between them so i would say don't be surprised if people are asking for these sort of very short term contracts and that you're gonna have like a lot of churn because it's just very different for ai tools versus other tools it's very fascinating a very interesting world we're in right now and i'm sure we can bring it back on a top deeper run to into this so much great insight here so many great insights jessica if one major takeaway you'd like a sales leader listening to this you know she's thinking about i need to help my sellers to be more effective selling to the c suite and i'm a a seller and i'm listening to this what's your made your takeaway to both of us the seller and the sales leader the number one takeaway is understanding who really has the decision making power and it might be someone way way lower down the chain and you think it is and don't discount that i love it if we wanna get in touch with you what's the best way for us to go about doing so jessica you buy me on linkedin like everybody else alright jessica look forward to connecting thank you so much for coming on a show appreciate your insights thanks so much that was jessica gilmore and i told you i told you i told you right she just got so much fire it was amazing and i i part that i love is like is like the subtle things that she didn't necessarily say but underlined tied back to it so let's give a one of those example you remember the part where she was talking about how you know going over the head of the her team member to go to her it's not so much about that but the fact is we as sellers need to be able to know how to best help her team member i think she'd call those named darren help him to win because if we can help him to win he's gonna be able to help us to get access to her and yeah you might think i'm doing amazing stuff trying to go around circumvent but like she said it's gonna get knocked back down and say who is this dope trying to get in touch it's gonna come back down to this person and they're gonna probably be embarrassed and you're gonna probably be embarrassed and you're not gonna hear from them again so my feeling is listen to what you share try these things because you're gonna see a huge result thank you for checking it out if you love the episode please give it some love on social share it with tag and jessica on linkedin but tell someone else about it just please there's a lot of value in this one don't tell your your your competitors because they're gonna know how to get some answers on you right some edge on you but here's what i would like for you to do though if you wanna get help with improving your sales games to practice some of these things and to get help with objection handling i mean you're opening your pitch maybe there is some for instance there's a part of your your sales call that you just don't know how to fix one of the meetings and maybe you did everything right at least you thought you did but deal didn't go through and you wanna analyze that we have a sales mastermind and it is calling your name like literally i want you to join it we've gonna start in september go to the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind to check it out the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind it would be an absolute honor to have you join us as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise a level of thinking but most importantly i want you to go out and do big things see on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das ko guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network pod sales podcast network
35 Minutes listen 9/1/25
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How can you train your sales team to choose the right leads that bring in money and not waste the company’s time? This is where the power of AI tools lies. To show us how, I've invited Chris Brisson, a sales automation expert, to chat with me in this episode. He shares innovative strategies to strea... How can you train your sales team to choose the right leads that bring in money and not waste the company’s time? This is where the power of AI tools lies. To show us how, I've invited Chris Brisson, a sales automation expert, to chat with me in this episode. He shares innovative strategies to streamline lead engagement, boost response rates, and fill your sales team’s calendar with more qualified prospects.Meet Chris Brisson· Chris Brisson is the founder of Sales Message and Call Loop, two innovative platforms that help businesses supercharge their communication and sales processes. · He is recognized for his forward-thinking approach in leveraging SMS messaging and artificial intelligence to automate the “messy middle” of sales, freeing sales reps to focus on building relationships and closing deals. · His solutions have been game changers for organizations of all sizes, transforming the way they connect with prospects and customers.The Lead Qualification Challenge· Sometimes the problem isn’t finding leads, it’s having too many unqualified leads that bog down valuable selling time. · Chris shares how, when agents start using AI-powered SMS to automate lead qualification, it frees your reps to focus on conversations that move the deal through the pipeline.Why SMS Still Matters· You might have noticed how people rarely answer calls from unknown numbers, but they’re still highly responsive to relevant, timely text messages.· However, context is everything: texts must be invited and sent at the right moment to avoid diminishing response rates.AI Agents: The New Sales Assistants· Chris explains how AI-driven text message agents can instantly respond, qualify leads, answer FAQs, and book meetings—operating 24/7 for consistent engagement. · He details how businesses can feed these agents their unique knowledge base and continuously fine-tune their performance.Practical Implementation Tips· To get started, Chris recommends auditing your forms for phone number capture, ensuring compliance (10DLC), and strategically adding opt-in opportunities. · He reassures that AI-enhanced SMS outreach isn’t an overhaul, but an enhancement to existing workflows."If you don't start today, you’re going to look back in a week, in a month, six months, or 12 months. Like man, I should have started sooner. This is the time to integrate messaging into your business, as it is how everybody is communicating, whether it’s through text or WhatsApp. All of these different messaging channels are in the pocket conversation." - Chris Brisson.Resources· To try out Sales Message or connect directly, visit salesmessage.com or reach Chris on LinkedIn.· If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class.· Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios. Sponsorship Offers1. This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at
this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator you have a lot of leads coming in you have your sales team that's trying to qualify them the problem is somebody's of these people are not necessarily worth the time of your sales reps when it could be on the call with the ones that were more likely to buy from you what you do with this dilemma there's an idea that we have and i think you're gonna really like it and it's gonna save you a bunch of headache check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c kelly the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you jay my guest is chris son he's the founder of sales message and also call loop and one of the things that chris and i have spoken about in the past is about messaging but in particular today around the issue i talked about in net teaser what do you do when you have a bunch of leads or you have leads coming in but you need your team to focus on actually doing conversations can you do something else and this is where text messages married with ai comes in place i know it's like mind blowing he's gonna lay out some ideas of of strategies that you can utilize now chris has been growing companies and he's a creative he loves the idea of solving problems and this is the problem that come salespeople people come across all the time as we go into the conversation you'll hear about it he's also working with other sellers and sales teams on helping them fix this issue and it's been a game changer for the organization this is why i thought it made sense for us have a conversation if this is your first time listening to our podcast or watching one of our videos i encourage you to subscribe but we'll make sure to notify you over time we dropping you piece of content today's episode is awesome it's gonna be all around that idea of how we can continue to build a pipeline in an effective way when we dive in you'll hear a little bit about this challenge as well as some of the solutions that chris has in place check it out chris welcome back to the show hey donald thanks for having me i'm excited to dive in lots to talk about yeah i'm really looking forward to this conversation because i feel like the last time we spoke was we talked about some things that we can do to be more effective especially using sms but i feel the game has evolved so much especially when it comes to ai and what we can do in a space and agents and all that fun stuff i wanna dive in heavy on it because everyone has taken advantage of ai in some ways shape or form right now you guys started doing this a little bit more to help sellers because i'll give you a quick story last week i spoke to this gentleman one of the things that he shared was that the most important part in his belief that the sales rep is responsible for is building the relationship and accelerating that deal everything else and the you know early part not every but majority of them could be done utilizing an artificial intelligence and then hubspot the other day one of my clients had a meeting with hubspot and it was for their basic sales crm mh she didn't talk to it or do a demo with someone she did a demo with an agent wow and if game was totally changed so i'm i'm trying to look at how can i utilize or what are some ways that we can utilize ai specifically with sms and also help take away some of those nuances that salespeople people face i'm here to learn chris i got my paper and pen let's go love it love it so you know i think business today is really getting disrupted from like the communication side so you're probably have already spoken to ai agents right typically it's called an iv well now you go from an iv into an agent and that agent has your knowledge your brain of the entire business to answer twenty four seven but also to follow up over sms so one of the things that we're doing at sales message is leaning into this future and so i think inevitably consumers really want the end outcome and unfortunately we have this sort of messy middle in between where there's parts of the business can be quote unquote automated there are parts of business where hey look i want my sales team to focus on the demo but all that messy middle to get to a demo so whether it's outreach or new leads are coming in and hey you call them in fifteen minutes or hey are you engaging with that you're getting those text messages in but you're not replying the and so man what a world to live in to where an ai agent can communicate quicker faster easier and do all that qualification upfront to capture data to qualify and then book meetings and so as a sales rep now you're being efficient in the sense that your calendar is full of qualified leads and you're just doing demos right the things that are actually gonna make you money and so there's a lot that's happening as a sales rep but you're letting the ball drop because one may not like it two there's a lot and then how do you keep up with all these little tasks and all these little things and so i think ai is playing a huge part in you know the automation of these inefficient things that the the leaky bucket occurs right so when a new lead comes in you're outbound a text message that text message is essentially engaging with that lead qualifying them that can be twenty four seven and getting the the right information that you need as a business to qualify a lead to then book it and put it on the a calendar and so ai is playing a huge part in this sort of front end lead engagement qualification and essentially booking meetings so again the sales rep can see a calendar full of qualified deals so go back on this and i'm just curious on it is sales but is text messaging though is that becoming is there a a decrease in response rate to text messages because so many automations are out there or talk to me about that component that part yeah i mean there also is the on the consumer side to where look when you're calling me i'm not picking up the phone like i'm not picking up any call that i don't know why i've gotten burned way too many times and so the passive on a consumer is hey send me a text message and i'll reply on my terms and so we're all getting those text messages so if if it's something you're interested in so a friend of mine owns a gym and people that have filled out their form or taken the seven day trial they've gone out of their way they filled out that they want that information and so if if you're just randomly texting people where there is no context and it's at the wrong time well yeah the engagement gonna go down so all this stuff just goes back to basic principle so somebody fills out a demo form and you call them which you should the likelihood they're gonna pick up is pretty low why because we live in a world where we're not gonna pick up a call but if i get a text message and hey it's donald over at so and so hey i'm just couple questions i'd love to understand more about your business do you have like a quick second right and you can pre that over sms you can even continue the conversation over sms to qualify and so that is right time right message that is the context around that so those at the time you know ultimately it comes down to sending the message at the right time to the right contact when they want it most and so if you think that you can go into a world where you can just blast people and send a message those days are sort of gone everyone is getting text and so they're a little bit more att to how to avoid those so i agree with that part the for sure as far as the wanted text because as you explaining this i'm just thinking about it especially with apple's new feature that's coming you know forward like there is no i'm a sales guy as well and sometimes i'll give the benefit of doubt to someone but ninety five percent of the time i'm not answering the call mh but i do look at those messages some companies will send that but again if i did send out something to geico or i sent something to this you know agency and i know the agency responding you're right it does make a little bit difference there and it's i feel like i'm in control as a consumer or the prospect because i'm dictating when i want and what i wanna get from you at that point success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do to nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcasts since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcast for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing let's go back through this so chris like is there this use case is it mainly do you have any data or any results any of your customers as tried this or using it or how you guys adopted it and what is some of the benefits you yeah so first we have a framework right so a lot of people come in they think text messaging don't know how to use it so we have a framework called text your business and so what this means is you can add texting across the whole life cycle so from generating leads to qualifying and capturing to booking meetings driving revenue and getting reviews getting all that so on the front end of this you know we have a lot of companies that come in and they have this eat to lead problem so the traditional way they're going about that is we're calling we're emailing maybe we're using our own personal phone but i really need to scale this out and automate it so i can create these automations and create these conversations on behalf of our team and it has been transformational for a lot of businesses so we worked with that forty five we've worked with a lot of well known companies out there that have installed and implemented text messaging from this lead generation i mean it has transformed their business in the sense where they were sort of going i would say the old way and now the new way is leaning into text messaging and so you know there's a company recently that they left a an amazing sort of g two review and the headline was it changed our entire business and it's just text so you think like wow i mean just text messaging we've been doing this forever but the reality is it's a much simpler way to engage with somebody so even today i'm like all my friends everybody i talk to it's text it's text only now i do have whatsapp groups those are getting a pretty unruly but know texting is the way that that we're really connecting and so for the businesses and the sales reps that are struggling in a sense right when somebody is sort of going through a form that is compliant and they check the box and they go through that you can text these folks you know one of the things i like to say is whether it's sales message or another platform but just text them like when your email is failing just text them so one of the text you can send to a cold prospect to somebody just break out your own phone send him a text message and say hey it's charlie over at x y and z hey you're still interested in texting for your business just want to follow up and see what happens and in most cases people feel obligated to reply now they may say something else some other colorful language but at least gives you the opportunity to engage with them when maybe an email may not and so if you are the ceo of the company i do it from time to time i'll just text some customers hey it's chris just checking in i hope everything is great how's it working at for you how sales message working out for you and the responses i get our media and in many times i'll take that to a quick phone call and so that's really the opener is text message can cut through that so hey are you free in five minutes or hey do you have a quick ten minutes to chat or quick seven minutes to chat yeah i do actually and so a text sort of can pre that phone call that they may have not picked up but now just that little text can open the ability for them to take your call i love this let's say i'm i'm a i'm a a company i'm a sales leader i'm listening to this episode and i'm thinking man i can utilize this for the early part of my to help my bd or to help my team what should i be mindful of and what are some of the things i may overlook when going about you know using text messages or the ai component for instance yeah so first of all i mean text messaging you have to be compliance and so the days of getting a phone number and just texting from that number are gone and to keep the channel right texting as a channel to keep it true and sort of a good channel the carriers don't wanna ruin the channel and so they added sort of ten dlc compliance essentially what that means is you have to be approved to send text messages so it's a clean lane between you and your customers to have this conversation so whenever you whether it's a sales message or another platform you have to get approved to send those text the second part is do it audit of your current business so you probably already have a opt in form you probably already have a checkout or some sort of order taking form and you may be capturing a phone number and so if you're doing that you're not capturing a phone number on a demo form or a sign up form or whatever it is add a phone number right and explicitly say mobile phone number and so people can give you a mobile number then you just want the compliance language at the bottom right so these assets already exist in your business now add a mobile form on that if you have an order form or a checkout form add a phone number there so you're already capturing that asset but you might not be doing nothing with it why not turn it into a new asset a new communication channel and that already exists so there's nothing different that you need to do and so that's the first thing do a quick audit add a phone field to those forms and instantly out you're you're engaging and generating those leads and the the one common thing people say oh it's gonna reduce my conversion rates well is it a conversion that you're after or is it a conversation like you're really after and so yeah that's what i that's the argument that i've had with folks and like oh i i i wanna get the phone number i'm like bro you're gonna get a dumb email you're gonna get a yahoo email address and and good god bless you like get yeah if something give them an opportunity to communicate i don't see people with tons of phone numbers they have tons of emails but they just don't have tons of phone numbers yeah can yeah get the and a big part of that too is oh my gosh how i gonna chat and with all these people right and so that's the perfect place where ai an agent can play a part in this engagement at scale so one of the challenges we face internally too is hey we have our team we're driving a bunch of traffic and driving a bunch of conversations but man my team's busy their on calls are doing this or engaging with other people and other conversations on intercom on email and now we can essentially automate a lot of this front of the funnel conversation i whether it is customer support we can feed our knowledge base of all of the information we have on sales message from our article like our intercom help desk articles but also we can fill that with sales information so as a new lead comes in whether they call right we can do a missed call automation to engage with them over sms or if somebody techs in we get a lot of people that text in to us asking hey how does this work hey you know i've got a team of this and sometimes if the team isn't there and this is sort of prior to setting up some of these ai agents is it would sit there and it wouldn't wait hours to get a response and you know time kills deals right time kills any sort of conversation will now you can just add an agent on top of it to engage have a conversation but you can capture an email you could capture an name capture a company name and feed that into your crm whether it's salesforce hubspot and so hey add these sort of agents where these leaky buckets exist and now you can focus on the important things which is doing a demo right calling them engaging with them so hopefully that helps yeah i mean and i and i think it it does and i can feel i feel like when you first say something like this or you say like ai something initially in somebody's mind i think it's like and let's speak for me you know i might say well that's a whole system i have to set up with something else that we but like you shared it's already there you already have the avenues for it and especially if companies getting inbound your sdr or you know someone is taking care of those right now free them up to do more of the back end stuff and you could take some of that money that you would have used for that sdr upfront while they're closing more deals and dove that into more advertisement or whatever generate more leads because your ai take care hope not even more so you could focus on the back end are you struggling to close deals b2b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigators a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash t s e that is linkedin dot com slash ts s e for a sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash ts e and let's get started the other piece i wanna look at chris like when it comes to you know you mentioned like that you gotta feed it your information maybe the a team member listening to this they're like saying crap well we don't have a whole bunch of information how do i help to educate that bd so to speak but how do you guys work with clients on that yeah so one is you know an agent is a brain and that brain or that agent needs information in order to say the right stuff and so with sales message you can feed it your documents you can feed at your website and just like chat gp right you're you're feeding at all the information about your business and once it has that information you can also have it scour the web to get other information so you're filling that brain with all of that now maybe there's twenty questions people ask that you just wanna make sure you have the right answer now one customer we had they fed the ai agent and was like oh it said the wrong address your your system doesn't work i'm like well the information what you feed it will you know it will use the information you gather from it but the thing with any ai agent is they're gonna hall what that means is you just need to train it right it's gonna learn as you input the right information so if a conversation comes through and it didn't say the right thing well then just update it and make sure it does say the right thing going forward so it's like anything you know it's sort of like a a carving and you know got this block of marble and over time you start to chip away now you've got this beautiful piece but you have to feed it and curate it and make sure it is saying the right things so super simple right you just give it the information about your business whether it's pricing or objections or you want it to capture an email first or whether you wanna capture team size you just sort of build that out and it's your brain it's your engine for conversations really how long before somebody generally start to see result when they implement agents like an in this capacity to what you're saying it yeah i mean instantly once you set it up you can essentially sort of attach that to those new leads coming in so for example you know we have one and when somebody books a demo right we outbound a text message and essentially we're trying to engage with them to get right to a phone call maybe we need to pre qualify them so instantly after somebody fills out a form the agent is engaging with them when somebody text into our phone number so if you go to sales message dot com we have a phone number there so you can call it you text it and an ai agent on the back end now before it was hey we have a phone number on our website people were calling and that was a missed call people were texting and it would just sit there and so now it's like i need an agent to pick up whether it's support or whether it's sales and then we can triage and push that to the rate team and so like that's just a leaky bucket everybody's getting this calls everybody's not responding fast enough it's the perfect place to just layer on an agent and again this whole agent stuff is brand new but the majority of people are really using it for this conversational two texting side of things so whether it is on the lead legion whether it is moving a deal you know further down the pipe or whether it is driving revenue i mean sms mass text messaging is one of the like number one revenue channels for a lot of businesses and so to negate and you know i've doing this quite a long time you know in the messaging space for gosh almost fifteen years and everyone always comes in like man i've got a list of ten thousand people can i start to text them and the reality is they may or may not have given consent to receive texts so that's just yeah one thing to be clear about is you know if you don't start today you're gonna look back in a week in a month and six months and twelve months like man i should've have started sooner and so this is the time to really install messaging into your business because that is how everybody is rolling whether it's text whether it's whatsapp right all these different messaging channels are the in the pocket conversation here's where last one i i have a a question on you mentioned about advancing deals how does that work with text messaging so you know a sales company here we have somebody that you have deals in a pipe how can i use an agent to help advance those deals yep well we all have stalled deals right and the way in which you're engaging or reaching out is maybe call them right maybe you're emailing them and maybe they just maybe they goes to you and so a text is just that nudge hey chris just checking in hope all as well you know you're just sort of advancing that conversation just a little bump a little nudge i mean i imagine donald you've done a lot of deals over the years and a lot of deals have maybe be taken over on sms and so we all have sort of had these engagement moments so we've all experienced it it's just how can we now turn that into an actual system how do we turn it into a process or a whole team is using it to our advantage and not on a whim but creating it in our workflow creating it in the way in which we're engaging with those deals to move things along also to i mean group texting hey who else do we need to bring into this and group techs are another way to sort of get everyone at the seat to the table to move it through you know one cool thing that maybe you've seen this but in the last maybe six months or so we started working with this like soc two company and mh instantly on that call one he's like hey can we text you yep you can text me hey by the way could we set up the slack channel too i was like oh and that like you know just those little things he's like how do you open up channel because if your only channel is email and your only channel is call you're missing out you know so yeah getting early on you know whether it's a slack channel on sms and engaging with them in those ways you're just increasing your chances oh hundred percent chris this was so cool man i'm listening to this and i'm thinking i wanna test this salad how do i get a hold of you how do i me guess i'm gonna have to text you right yeah exactly yeah know they'll call me what's take this way to get what's the best way to get a hold of you chris yeah go to sales message dot com check out the app you know if you wanna give it a shot to fourteen day trial the first thing you'll have to do is just get approved alright it's a simple little process you get approved in a day or two and you can start to text whether it's a local number toll free number you know if you wanna do mass texting we do that as well it's also a calling tool so a lot of companies can consolidate it into one and then i'm on linkedin so me personally if you wanna engage send me a message on linkedin i always up to chat and connect up but yeah and you know the the interesting thing is you know it's got sales message in the name and it is a sales tool but so much more than that and so to sort of install it across the business is where most companies see a lot of success but one use case one problem one primary issue just do that whether it's sales message or another tool if you're not using texting you're a little bit behind so i would just suggest the start now because you don't wanna look back in six months and say man we should have done that we should had a form that's compliant it so love it chris thank you so much for coming on the show today man truly appreciate it arnold thank you man appreciate it oh we young tell a man that with some good stuff if you haven't done so already i'm sure some of you have been go ahead and text chris or you can go ahead and check him out on linkedin take advantage of the things that he has is sharing here because i'm telling you it actually does work and what we've found in the past when we've had a lot of leads come through it's so tedious to go in and to try to convert each of those different leads but once you have a tool like sales message that can be in a background just helping to converse twenty four hours seven as a week and it fed all of your information on in your company it makes it so much easier for the deals to be able to progress and go forward so i highly recommend you check it out me heard them here on the sales evangelist and if you're looking for ways to just improve your skills as you feel like i need to help with objection handling or maybe you're opener when you're doing cold outreach or perhaps when you're doing a discovery call with some of these leads how do you make it better that's where our mastermind comes in and you could find more detail about that by going to the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind we have a new group starting in september and i would love to have you join us again find more details go to the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind and check it out listen i want you to thrive i want you to succeed but most importantly want you to raise the level of thinking go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of angela sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das k guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network sales podcast network
31 Minutes listen 8/29/25
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LinkedIn Sales Navigator is one of the best ways to generate leads; however, the problem is that not many people know how to use it effectively. This is why I’m sharing three hacks to help you find prospects and build your pipeline. Also, it may be beneficial for you to watch this episode on YouTube... LinkedIn Sales Navigator is one of the best ways to generate leads; however, the problem is that not many people know how to use it effectively. This is why I’m sharing three hacks to help you find prospects and build your pipeline. Also, it may be beneficial for you to watch this episode on YouTube, as this will allow you to fully grasp the concept behind the tips I’m sharing with you.Lead Generation Hack 1· My favorite feature of Sales Navigator is the ability to search for people who are new in their roles directly within the search bar. · People new to their roles are more likely to be open to new opportunities and to make changes. You can use this as a trigger for finding leads, and I show you how to do this in the episode.Lead Generation Hack 2· You want to find people who are active on LinkedIn. Once again, you can use the search engine to filter out leads that have recently been posted on the platform. This helps you become relevant and send messages that speak to them.Lead Generation Hack 3· Try looking to see who or what companies your friends are following on the platform. I provide several examples on how to do this the right way to generate leads.Bonus Lead Generation Hack· Piggybacking off of hack 1, I’m giving you an extra hack. When sending them a message, congratulate them and ask them what their first order of business is in their new role. They’ll give it to you on a silver platter, and your job is to transform it into a conversation.“Reach out to those on the lower end of a team, who can give you insights into the challenges their company is facing. You can use this information to your advantage when you reach out to the new manager.” - Donald Kelly.Resources· If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class.· Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios. Sponsorship Offers1. This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.3. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on
this episode is brought you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator wanna generate leads using linkedin sales navigator but don't know how i'm gonna give you three simple strategies today that can help you out easy stuff check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c cal the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today on this episode is gonna be short sweet and straight to the point i'm gonna give you three simple strategies you can use on linkedin sales navigator that can help you generate appointments and most of you have navigator you're using it to like maybe a smidge it of the capabilities that the platform can give you and i'm gonna give you some of the things you can do if this is your first time listening to our podcast or watching one of our video ride because we're gonna notify you every time we drop a new piece of episode today it's all around linkedin sales navigator and we focus on building pipe and helping you to accelerate deals through at pipe accelerating deals we have a lot of content on it but today i wanna talk about building pipeline so here's the first piece i wanted to tell you if you're trying to use linkedin sales navigator to one of the best features that i absolutely love and adore i'm gonna show you here on the screen is when you actually when you do a search and you're searching for new leads what you wanna do is look for people who are you can test this out because you wanna use triggers so to speak triggers if you don't know what that is essentially it's an indicator that somebody may be looking or maybe be ready or open to check out what you have to offer so the first one i like to look at are people who are new in their role now this one is an old but it's a good one but oftentimes i see that sellers don't take advantage of it what you wanna do and i'll give you a strategy how you can utilize this on search capability click on people who are you new to role and you know these are people who are looking for opportunities they're probably looking to ways to make a splash or looking for ways to fix problems or perhaps they're open to new ideas now i wanna warn you a lot of people will reach out to folks who are new to their position as well and try to pitch them but how can we make sure that we stand out in a unique way there's several things that you can do to make that happen i would reach out to individuals especially if you're going after marketing or sales professionals reach out to lower end individuals on that team who can give you some of the insights about some of the challenges that they're facing and you can use that information as you reach out to the top dog that new manager or that new sales vp or whatnot but that's one of the easiest things you can do when it comes to generating new lease because now you sound relevant and as pertinent the other component that you could take advantage of as you're reach reaching out to these people as well is that i like to find people who are already active on linkedin and one of the ways that i do this is by utilizing people posting on the platform it's another simple tool but oftentimes overlooked and you can find this very easily here on a side if go on on linkedin sales navigator now why this is important to me because now i can sound way more important way more relevant and my message is pertinent to that individual so let's say that individual posted something about the conference that they're going to well that's a great way to start the conversation i have to trigger that they're new to their position and i spoke with one of the reps in their organization and found out that these were some of the big challenges they're facing and you may think that part is hard but it's i absolutely not if you reach out to salespeople salespeople will talk to you at like it's just straight up just call the one eight hundred number on the company's site or just get transferred to sales talk to a sales rep and just tell them what you do it and i promise you you're gonna find up if you speak to three sales rep more than i would say two out of the three will probably give you information intel why because during the trenches is just like you are as well so those are the first two things that i i'll tell you one look for people who knew to their roles two get contacted with somebody inside the or in i guess one b get connected with others in the organization to get to validate the issues before you reach out to them there also three look at some of the things that's happened in a world if they're active on linkedin those are some of the people that you can be able to engage with success story hosted by scott declare is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa a bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcasts for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing number three so here's one of third things i'll tell you to do on linkedin is to look at people who are following certain individuals or certain companies so let me give you an example if i know that maybe some of my ic are following a major influencer in the space and i know that they're active on a platform or perhaps better yet i did this with one of our clients people who are following our ceo depending on the company you're working for your ceo one of the executive may active on a platform you can use that and then you can get a smaller in with those individuals you can definitely try with somebody known in the industry but you can go and say something like we're friends because of the fact that they follow a major influencer in your space it just gives you people who may be pertinent and relevant to what you have to offer but the way that i go about doing this with that executive is find those people that are connected you can touch base with your executive and say hey i'm gonna be reaching out some of these people i pulled this list they're active on linkedin and you to their position and they're following you call on man that can't beat that so i would look at those individuals and then and i i'm assure i with my executive and sam i'm gonna reach out to these individuals anything that you i might be able to know if you're close to your executive if you're not close or way up to food chain perhaps you can just still do that search and then you can make a con use that as a conversation i see that you follow donald on donald on linkedin you know blah blah blah and whatever you you wanna use as your message at that point and we could go into that in another episode the point there is that you have an we call at the point of reference if you can use that point of reference in your conversation with the prospect that can see that you're not a total stranger that you actually you have some kind of connection point it makes that transition very easily one of the places the things that i'd like to do with that is like for instance this client their executive was on another podcast yeah was sorry it was on in a in a magazine and what they were able to do was take that article and share it with some of the people that already knew that executive and was able to who were in their space and who were new to the roles and so forth and it just start conversation are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigator is a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high value customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e when let's get started number four with the people who are new to their positions what i always like to do if i'm connected with those individuals so these may be your first degree connections now what i can look at with them is i will say you know congratulations on new position what's your first order of business in your role and they'll tell you what they're looking at that what their issue is at this point or what are some of the things you're trying to accomplish tata they just gave it to you on a silver platter your job now is to utilize that to transition into a conversation and to get them to set an appointment i've done this before and this is worth it very very easily people will d voltage and then you just look at i like to ask a question like the you know that's awesome or look for ways to give value and i give you one example and i've shared this poor in the past but someone was trying to hire new salespeople what's my audience you all salespeople that's not the thing that i do i don't do hiring or or job placement but i told them i'll share this to my community well they're gi and excited that i gonna do that because i was given them some kind of value but then i came back and asked out of curiosity do you guys do training internally or do you do any out of you ever work with outside vendors well perk his ears and he was interested because he's new to the position wanna help sellers so we had a conversation opportunity came from that but that's how you utilize it and i feel that oftentimes people sleep on that one and it's just one of the most powerful ways but these are people you're connected to already that you can utilize those are four simple things and we could go deeper into each of those but i would love for you to test it out and tell me which one you like the most and just let me know on linkedin very easy right you can find me on linkedin donald c kelly and if you wanna get deeper help with this you could check out our mastermind we go through stuff like this every single time we meet you can find more details at the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to build that pipe i want you to get some more money i want you to raise your level of thinking and go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our a podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das ko guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly one yeah pod sales podcast network
13 Minutes listen 8/25/25
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Are you trying to use AI to speed up your sales cycle, only to find it's making your prospects' experience worse? The key is using technology to your advantage, not against you.In this episode, I'm joined by Doug Foley, an expert in sales enablement and AI integration. He shares his insights on leve... Are you trying to use AI to speed up your sales cycle, only to find it's making your prospects' experience worse? The key is using technology to your advantage, not against you.In this episode, I'm joined by Doug Foley, an expert in sales enablement and AI integration. He shares his insights on leveraging AI tools to build more meaningful client relationships and enhance your sales process from start to finish.Meet Doug Foley· Douglas J. Foley is a strategic advisor, accomplished author, and the founder and CEO of Foley Media AI, where he architects AI-driven revenue engines for CEOs, high-growth companies, and Fortune 100 organizations. · Leveraging frameworks such as his Customer Loyalty Framework and AI Sales Engine™, Doug delivers predictable, measurable growth and transformative EBITDA results. · His practical, results-focused methodologies help senior leaders confidently scale and optimize their businesses.Why AI Matters in Enterprise Sales· Doug shares his journey, outlining the frequent gaps he’s seen in sales enablement and how AI, when implemented strategically, can fill those voids. · Many organizations only use AI for surface-level tasks like faster email writing or market research.· Doug urges sellers and business owners to expand beyond this "tunnel vision" and embrace AI as a tool for relationship-building and holistic sales strategy.Practical Steps for Implementing AI· When leaders are training sales teams on using AI tools, Doug suggests showing them how to map out the buyer’s journey and integrate AI at key touchpoints such as post-meeting follow-ups. · He stresses the importance of system-based thinking in deploying AI and highlights the significant gains in productivity and customer experience that even small changes can deliver.Tips for Sales Leaders and Reps· For busy sales managers, Doug suggests starting small: introduce an "AI-first" mentality in team meetings and encourage reps to share how AI helps overcome everyday roadblocks. · He emphasizes celebrating early AI wins to build momentum and foster an innovative culture.Advanced AI Strategies· Here’s actionable advice for reps targeting enterprise accounts: Use AI-powered research for deeper stakeholder mapping, create hyper-relevant outreach campaigns, and build a memorable, white-glove experience for clients. · Doug shares that impactful AI usage means slowing down to get ultra-targeted, which leads to better results and stronger deal pipelines.“The biggest mistake most people make is they look at it from strictly efficiency...but they don’t look at it more holistically as how can I build a bigger, better relationship and use AI.” - Doug Foley.Resources· Reach Doug Foley at Foley Media AI or on social platforms as @DouglasJFoley.· If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class.· Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue Mango Studios. Sponsorship Offers1. This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at
this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator picture this idea you are selling and you're going after mid level enterprise level organization the challenge that you're facing though is that most of your competitors are doing the same thing you're not getting the responses that you want what should you do the answer is simple but i think you're overthinking in it it's ai and app i'm not talking about your bland outreach emails utilizing ai to take care of some of your busy work so you can have more relevant conversation with the right people we're gonna give you idea a glimpse a taste of what good looks like check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c kelly biz sales a evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today on this episode i have doug foley and you can connect with doug you can find more information about him in to show notes but foley media he runs an organization he works with a lot of clients just like you and myself in this space and helps us when it comes towards go to market strategy and one of the things that we spoke about was how in the world of ai but how can we utilize ai to help us to sell to mid level and enterprise level deals more effectively and doug has some ideas that he outlined and we're gonna tackle that in this episode but before we dive in if this is your first time listening to the podcast i encourage you i will plead with you to go and subscribe because i promise you we're gonna notify you every time we drop a new piece of content and like this one it straight fire so connect with us subscribe and wherever you listen to podcast check it out as well and ps if you're looking to practice your sales skills and you wanna get into a sales mastermind with other sellers that are doing phenomenally check out the sales evangelist mastermind go to the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind again the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind one more time for the folks in quebec the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind we practice we improve we tweak your skills that you can be able to get to the highest level of view sales performance small groups twelve sellers max environment that you could thrive in now as we dive into the episode today you can hear i would go straight into this thing hot we wanna talk about why doug is so passionate about ai and specifically working with enterprise mid level sellers but not only that what are some things that we can do to make sure that we're performing at a higher level well listen isn't for what you said about teams being trained and specifically around how we can think holistically on this welcome to the show doug thanks so much for having me excited to chat i'm really looking forward to this conversation as we were talking earlier the idea of helping enterprise sellers is one near and dear to my heart being an individual has been in that world and also working with clients so i'm coming to you today as a student to steal as much information as i can i brag about a little bit and the teaser are there and about what you're doing but talk to me about why you're so passionate around how we can help seller specifically using ai but at the enterprise level absolutely know i've spent most of my career in different roles so it was leading sales team leading marketing teams or an agency's perspective helping clients with go to market and the biggest gap that i consistently saw was the lack of sales enable and with ai there's now an opportunity to give them sets of tools that they didn't have but i think the biggest mistake most people make is they look at it from strictly efficiency it's like how could i send an email easier or how could i write this outreach easier but they don't look at it more holistically is how can i build a bigger better relationship and use ai and the other systems organizations have to make building relationships more effective and that's probably the single strongest point that they're not currently using it at least most aren't yet and i agree with you on that one and i i would come to say like well let me instead of like let me eliminate one of the guessing part but i'm gonna share a point and then you can help me understand if that's true or not i think because when we think of ai or the introduction to it it's really like chat like some of those basic things like do some research for me or things of that nature and we see it as inhuman but still yet from what you're sharing it can help us to be more human and i i feel like it's easier on the first part where yeah i can have it do to research or i can have it to write an email for me and that tunnel vision is where we are built on it and i feel that's why we've gone into this camp where we don't even think of what you're sharing like i think it's like another right brain thinking what you're getting at here one hundred percent yeah you think about it in such a limited capacity to what you're saying it's i go write my email and then you read the email and it's like that doesn't really sound like me at all and i'll tell you if you learn to train the tool like it's called a large learning model for a reason like you need to teach it how you speak how you interact and how you go to market so if you took it down to just i'm gonna answers this in two part number one how to use it properly but two how to think about it more holistically the first part like to use it properly just using standard chat with zero training garbage and garbage out yep and that's what most people do and i think a lot of that has to do with education but companies that commit the time to either aid training their team and be training the tool they're gonna actually correct a lot of the issues people see you know the hallucinations the poor responses but that requires people to take a step back and say hey do i really actually understand my customer journey but i actually understand the real pain points of what problems am i actually solving how do as a really strong seasoned salesperson come in and actually help add value and solve problems and that's one of the biggest limiting actors is they're not actually syncing more holistically which goes to point number two all of the ai tools require frameworks they need system based thinking i'm at point one i need to go to point two three four and follow a linear path and when you break that that's when it really falls apart but very few companies actually put the time in to enable their salespeople say hey here's the critical juncture you have in your sales structure and here's how we start to integrate ai to help at each different stage whether that's as simple as you know an outreach campaign or an email a follow up an invitation to a dinner and know one of the easiest things they could do if they wanna start is use it for a trade show or an event if you're using a for a trade an event is probably the easiest way to like ease into it because we know there's pre show campaigns now know what are the things we should be using as salespeople before we get to a major event or major trade show most companies don't do that what argue to say less than eighty percent even do pre show but then what do i wanna do or what do i wanna accomplish at the event you know is it getting these people to do dinner and experience you name it then how do i do the invitations and then the biggest one is post show marketing the number of abandoned leads i see post show is staggering but even if they just used an event and i'm sure most of the companies listing probably house some type of trade show or event they do that would grain them or start to teach like hey you know what there's more i could be doing before at the event and post event and then start to look at where can ai help me with this particular goal or objective and that's the biggest transformation we start see people like oh now i'm starting to get it it's not just writing emails it's not just create copy it's this whole systematic thinking of how do i have this as a partner to helps solve problems so let's go back into that and i think that ties back into the first part there is that then when you say training the team is that what you're alluding to training of what it can do or training them how to like a use prompts properly or is it a combination of both i think it's actually three things number one how is a company do we go to market what's our actual positioning and a lot of times we're able to solve problems by just helping them understand these are the core problems that we solve and then here's how we go to market with that like here's the sequences here's the x like the lead timing we have here's key milestones in building a custom relationship whether that's hey if it's from a cold prospect here's tip how long it takes the number of steps if it's warm here's what we do and then the last piece is the training here's what we have available today here's the ai tool here's how to use this ai tool to accelerate this process because at the end of the day all we're really trying to do is shorten a sales cycle and sell more and it really only happens one or two ways where the sell more to people were doing business with or you figure out how to solve more immediate problems success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions which successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa a bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on your yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out of listen to success stories wherever you get since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural byproduct listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcast for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing i'm a sales manager and i'm listening to this and besides the fact maybe i can hire you to do it but i'm trying to figure out like i wanna start doing something to train these reps is there the fundamental thing that i can start doing to teach my reps under what to do because the other parts of this i also find that the sales leaders that are listening they have so many other things on their plate to think like now i need to add i was just trying to teach him how to freaking do linkedin right now you're telling me i need to teach them how to do ai right like where can i start or is this a sales enable win problem biggest and easiest way to get somebody started is an ai first thinking and looking at it from the perspective and this is more of like team calls if they have daily or weekly stand ups you know within a month you probably will find about five to ten hours of productivity gains just by explaining how do i identify roadblocks and figuring out how do i leverage ai to remove some of those so for example and one of the biggest limitations people have is more of corporate licensing it's just really expensive so more companies are willing to adapt c copilot if you're microsoft and gemini if you're google so number one if you're a sales leader understand what tools do you have access to today and then what are some of the roadblocks you can eliminate from some of your team so that the usage becomes habit like how do they start to incorporate the best is just get him using it first if that's your fur block and if you can get him using it that's where some of the idea asian starts to come in place and you could start to identify okay how do i start to pull it in but it does have to start top down and chances are within each sales organization you're gonna have somebody that's champion it some of these already using something whether they're compliant or not you know that's a different story but they're gonna be using it like encourage like hey this is a win they had celebrate those but incorporate it into ai first mentality and you'll start it'll perm the culture because somebody's gonna start winning yeah i like that idea of the team meetings because yeah like you said there's somebody looking at how can i work smarter not harder and they're go into town with this already i wanna go into you know go into the think holistically a little bit further and then i wanna kinda marry this all to what can i do to be better as i'm go for enterprise level account maybe some we can go some examples of what we can do that if that's cool so think it holistically you kinda alluded to this started going on and i'm talking about a roadblock but how can i get that holistic thinking down best thing to do is start with core relationships and reverse engineer success k so if you have great customer and you think okay i know how i want them i know what the experience is start with anywhere you have some type of deliver ability you know let's say you know my job you have to work with key clients use some of the tools for meetings and whether they're c copilot whether it's otter or zoom use the ai tools to make sure that the meeting experience and you follow up with clients give a better white glove experience say hey here's our meeting recap here's what we discussed here's what we're accomplishing here's where we're headed here's our next steps that right there is probably one of the greatest gift sales can give for the customer experience so start there almost everybody has that that why why do you feel that that's the greatest experience did just to start off with that one yeah so if you look at any successful saas company mh their success is based on their onboarding yeah you only have a three day window to get somebody onboarding and using the tool in order to have them using it for a long time so same thing is true if you're a consulting agency something like you have a short window to get somebody who win before you're gonna get referrals yeah and i think every sales ge referrals or lifeblood of any sales pipeline yeah but that comes from how you deliver against that initial promise so quick win if i use ai we have these meeting tools and i can move the needle and show progress regardless of industry that's a better customer experience yeah and they'll follow up with the salesperson it's like hey this person's incredibly detailed they're moving the ball they're responsive really easy when all the tools pretty much exist it doesn't matter what meeting till you use whether it's you know gemini and does it for google meets zoom has it inherently c copilot does it for teams yeah all the tools are there and i what i like about it from my perspective they have i've always been a fan of the post meeting notes those recap and it was a work that a seller had to do at one point like i did but i try to make a basic temple but now like you saying it just makes a big difference with the software but what it does for me is just like we're talking about and i'm gonna be reveal my naive i do prep calls with our prospects and sorry with our prospects but also with our guests and so my good friend here not darren doug and i had a call obviously recorded for today i came into the meeting with the notes that i had for darren not for my stuff for doug and doug is really awesome and was nice and laughed it off with me but the point though is we have so many meetings back to back that oftentimes we can get wires crossed and i think about it from a buyer standpoint when my buyers coming into them when is how many teams meetings did they have this morning already a zoom meeting now i'm meeting with them how are they gonna remember this stuff in two weeks and it builds such a great and you can probably get into the idea of to an agent at this point but it becomes such a great effective tool where they can get that recap but then also prior to that meeting maybe the day before i can have an agent send out hey doug look forward to our recording here are some of our notes that we pointed out but that gets you prepped for tomorrow already but it looks like i am that on the ball but it's just a little details and i feel like when you're going i'm a big track fan and i feel let's say big in a sense of jamaican so it's in our blood right so but one of the things though is like that millisecond of you know you might win a race and i think in enterprise level deals right now it's not necessarily there cost people may be looking at but it's those little millisecond things that make a big difference and that could be one of those things so double tapping on that was just like you got me at hello on it i pipeline velocity like if you have a large sales organization pipeline velocity is this one of the single biggest metrics people are gonna look at next to receivables you know are they getting the bills yep with you so you give me some ideas holistically guys i i can't give you all the stuff and neither can doug give you everything here but we're gonna make sure you can get in touch with them after the episode so he can give you a little bit more if you wanna get that doug i wanna go into this idea now of thinking about from an enterprise level thought process i am a sales rep am listening to this call and i'm going after those mid market enterprise level deals you just gave me a good example here with ai and also i can think holistically but what else can i do to make sure i embrace artificial intelligence to help me sell better and accelerate more deals to the pipe and what things maybe i need to do as a human standpoint how can i help me be more human essentially as a sales rep number one focus on relationships that's paramount fundamental skill regardless number two you need to understand your customer journey in order to use ai effectively if you don't understand where you fit in the journey it becomes very hard to sequence and prepare the messaging to get the breakthrough especially if you're dealing with cold prospects once you understand your positioning you're ready okay i know what i do i what i sell great at it their research tools for enterprise sales are incredibly underutilized mh we had a client last week who came to and said hey here's our top nine clients we need to understand who their board members are we need to understand who the key decision makers are the stakeholders and who else might be involved in the decision in less than six hours we delivered all of that using a variety of tools but you could do that with just g with just chat gp but you need to slow down like who do i really need to contact in that company the interesting thing and i have a very different perspective i think prompting is debt you know you could spend time trying to learn prompting but most salespeople are really gifted at asking questions and if they adopt that same mentality with chat and simply use the voice button like you can are you you can either talk to it through a little wave chat or use a microphone and use text to speech if you ask it really good questions your results will more often than not be better than a perfect prompt yeah because it's a language model you're building a relationship with it and the more you talk to it with the type of answers you wanna receive the higher quality the answers will come over time people always laugh they're like man your chat like your check it's the best answers is everything yeah it's got three years of training it should but it's because i focus less on prompts and more on really effective questions are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigators a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high value customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash ts s e and let's get started i found for me it's very easier with that voice message the voice capability as well so i literally i feel i can do better conversations that you're saying and i can express myself in different ways and it just helps me you're right i do see that as a a a better outcome from it and like you said it's learning i i feel like the latest update with chat or forgot what model one number was but where it allows for us to keep those projects built out and just kinda help build in relationship like we do some content for one of our production company and the brand guide that for instance it was just a something small but it remembered that and started using and it started pulling back information and the more you educated it just we saw that have just performed more effective for us so i i love this idea and i think the notion of me waiting for management to do that versus me taking it on at this level as a seller i think that's mean something i can do right now and don't necessarily need to wait for mom and dad to say use this in this way you know what i mean well it's it's interesting like if you have a a sales rep who has linkedin any of the premium versions of linkedin like sales navigator as an example yeah and they have the paid version of chat go into chat like you can literally take the pdf because you can't scrape linkedin number one compliant but number two it just has problems just print like pete to pdf that person's profile yeah drop it in chat and just ask questions like hey what are the typical problems this person like give me the full psycho rundown of how our company insert url could help this person like the other piece we did recently and this this was for that same client we need to know all the board members yeah it wasn't a prompting i was thinking outside the box i said i need your help identifying all the key stakeholders on the board go review all the recent tax filings and help me validate that they're current and it went through all the k one or not k one's the tax filings from the company the proxy filings it pulled all the people out went to their linkedin built an entire table for us like you just have to think and slow down like okay where do i find this information how would i do it manually and then just ask it to do it on your behalf and it'll go through and this is not using agents nothing crazy just a really clear instruction on what we're trying to accomplish see and what i feel about this is going back to what you stand on an enterprise level deal again is i think we need to slow down to go faster and i know it gets controversial sometimes and people push back on me and what but i'm not saying we don't i'm a prospect or i love selling and you're gonna keep doing that and i found recently if i do and it's it's an old adage but it's just still the same if i am going for enterprise level accounts if i've and mid level business deals if i go for like say ten to fifteen accounts or in this case like you're the client it gave you you know set parameter nine companies there's a lot of business lot of work in that and i found getting that type of information allow me to be way more relevant to my pitch and that's also of belief that i have i recently just shared one that i don't believe in length of emails anymore i think the emails can be long and it's not like a right wrong it's only if the email is relevant and i tested this that's why i'm like i i'm so passionate about it but it comes back to i made that email not like hey i saw i went to you know university of florida but it was a email around relevant things applicable to doug at this point and what challenges that you are facing and compared to your business and all this stuff but the point is i got all this information and it was very easy for my conversation to be way more relevant and the deals went further and i have a couple opportunities that literally came from that just a point directly to that in the pipeline right now you're a hundred percent correct and like like your point about short emails the shorter or the better and i will tell you that is one of the hardest skills right a short condensed email but we're running a campaign right now for a dinner event for a client we always run adjacent test to what they do they have like that wrong hey where we are here's should we have ones like hey if you like steak and technology meet us here at this date let me know if you're interested no way no it is that direct yep cold email we have no relationship with them and i think we've had seven people book a goal forty so i think you know third of the responses are from a cold email campaign but because of ai we could target the right titles yeah the right people in the right geography yeah we can do multi variant testing but like it's granted i do have one of the best email marketers on my team period but it's simple stuff like yeah we over complicate a lot in sales and i would say don't let like the abundance that chat can create or ai can create to overwhelm you get back to fundamentals and use it to do better and to your point like this doing outreach campaign planning i feel like is a lost start yeah you know i don't think people slow down and actually develop a true account plan but now as ai like you can make really rich data backed really impactful campaigns and go one to one with people yeah and that's where people are winning right now there's a company that i'm we had them on a show and what they like go back to the top of the episode as we wrap this up is what you share like quality and will lead to quality out right and go back to those fundamentals it is more about that refined list like what are the people who are right now and i in there this sort of company to have capabilities to build it's a listening tool right and what's coupled with ai there would give on a day to day basis like not outdated signals like you know thirty days ago but right now these are some of the companies that are behaving like they need what you have to offer doing an outreach to those people you're highly relevant you have stuff that you're focusing on that makes you sound like a psychic kick to that prospect as opposed to to see if saying this with a large you know campaign blast with like you know two three hundred four hundred and you're guessing at that point but i think the more we can find the right people at the right moment coupled to what you're saying effective messaging ai can help us do all of that and life could be a lot happier for us enterprise level of mid market sellers so i love it if there's one takeaway you want people to leave with doug what's that one major piece of advice i think the biggest advantage for sales reps we've all had really good dinners for really good dining experiences you know and if you've been fortunate enough if you had a small a walk up the table and say like hey here's the choice it pairs as well with your meal you should seek to be that level of expertise and think about how ai can help create that level of specific experience for the people that you help if you can create a memorable experience and help them solve this specific problem you will shorten the lead cycle you will sell more to them and you'll have more referral sources you can just think of how ai is your companion to make more of that happen absolutely love it doug if folks are listening to this episode wanna get in touch with you what is the best way for them to go about doing so easiest way to go to fully media ai that's f o l e y media dot a i or you can find me on any social channel at douglas j foley doug thank you so much for taking the time to come on a show today man truly appreciate it my pleasure thanks so much for having me that was mister doug foley if you haven't connected with them yet go ahead and find them in the show notes tell doug you heard him here on the sales evangelist and i would be really excited to hear how you start applying this stuff what i liked i think for instance the idea that prompt us dead was one that i wasn't expecting however i see it and i understand it and believe it like the evolution if you're still just doing basic prompts it's gonna be challenging for you but this idea of using the voice and utilizing the speaking with it those are some areas that are really good i also love the fact that you mentioned about is still the little tweaks that we can do and how enterprise level sellers can become more relevant to their prospects and taken an ai to work with this b assistant and i think this is one of the things that i looked at of number of years ago and asking and how can i be better and i always thought there's gonna be more assistance needed and i think ai is that assistant it was like a couple of years ago maybe three years ago i talked about where i saw sales going and felt that with all the work that we have to do an enterprise level deal someone needed to be that we need to get more assistant to help us out well we did get it but in a form of artificial intelligence and it's absolutely amazing check out some of the cool things doug doing in his team you can find our link down into show notes and if you haven't done so already check out our mastermind we begin mid september and i would love to have you join us it's a fun group it's exciting and we're challenging people put it like this we want you to hit that president's club we want you to hit that seven figure level the income level and the mastermind behind is a great way for you to practice with other sellers and to be able to overcome some of those things that would hold you back and learn from some of the top sellers in your industry or in the space find out more information go to the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed but most importantly i want you to raise the level of thinking go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales of evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our a podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das ko guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly they'll yeah pod sales podcast network
32 Minutes listen 8/22/25
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Today's buyers are more informed than ever, thanks to AI. Yet, they remain wary of sellers who rely on it too heavily, creating a unique challenge: How can you leverage technology to enhance your sales process without losing the authentic, personal connection that closes deals?To answer that questio... Today's buyers are more informed than ever, thanks to AI. Yet, they remain wary of sellers who rely on it too heavily, creating a unique challenge: How can you leverage technology to enhance your sales process without losing the authentic, personal connection that closes deals?To answer that question, I'm joined by Daren Fields, a sales expert and author of the Apex 8 framework. He shares his sales methodology to help you start winning enterprise deals in the AI era. Meet Daren Fields Darren Fields is an experienced sales leader, author, and innovator in the world of enterprise and edge software sales. Drawing from years of hands-on selling and sales leadership, Darren has developed practical frameworks to help sales professionals stand out in today’s AI-driven landscape. He is the creator of the Apex8 Framework, a methodology designed to help sellers build trust quickly, leverage AI effectively, and guide buyers through today’s complex decision-making processes.Current Challenge in Modern SalesAI has transformed the buying landscape, making prospects more informed about their product decisions. This has made it harder for sellers to move deals forward, as AI technology can now deliver basic information. Daren wants sellers to think of buyers like a media interviewer who’s filled with fast information. This allows them to match the buyer’s pace and depth by using the Apex8 sales framework and prevent losing deals. The Apex 8 Framework: The Eight StepsThe framework has a core idea of using conscious competence to help sellers remain deliberately skillful and self-aware. The goal of sellers is to help guide buyers' thinking into a mutual success by actively discovering their true problem and validating solutions in real time. Sellers follow these eight steps:o Discovery – Go beyond basic questioning. Research the prospect thoroughly using AI before the call so you can dive straight into real business problems.o Prototyping – Collaborate live (e.g., whiteboarding with AI tools), showing problem-solving skills and flexibility, turning the call into a collaborative session rather than a static demo.o Validation – Actively check if you’re on the right track with the buyer; confirm you’re addressing the real problem and adjust as needed.o Rehearsal – Practice and refine presentations/demos; this is emphasized as an “art form.”o Presentation/Demo – Deliver tailored solutions based on previous steps, not generic pitches.o Finalization – If prior steps were done right, closing the deal becomes more natural and less adversarial.o Debrief – Analyze every outcome (win or lose) in a safe, blame-free environment to identify improvements and share insights across teams.o Handoff – Ensure smooth transition to delivery/customer experience teams with thorough context so clients never feel lost after the sale.Embrace the Human-AI PartnershipAI is a leveler—it helps both you and your competition.Don’t try to replace human interaction with AI; find a balance where technology enables you to be a more innovative, trusted advisor.“Everybody wants to skip through the loss and move on to the next thing. The best teacher in life is failure. The losses teach you way more than the wins.” - Daren Fields. ResourcesTo learn more about Daren or get his book, go to apex8book.comIf you like more guidance with...
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free trial of linkedin sales navigator you're meeting with the prospect and you wanna ensure the opportunity progresses into like a real thing and the deal actually closes what is it that you're missing what is it that could cause this deal to derail in this episode we're gonna give you a framework that could help you to prevent any disasters from happening and it's not that complicated check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today and on this episode have mister darren fields darren wrote book and you're gonna love it is called apex eight framework it's something darren put together not only from his experience as a sales leader and as a seller but also as he works with other companies he's learned over the years some a simple process and as you and i can both guess the world of ai is coming into sales and oftentimes what we find is that sellers are feeling that they're gonna get replaced by ai of some of us do but the ones that are sticking around the ones not only that can understand a buyer's problem but they i also solve that buyer's problem utilizing ai a little bit more in this particular episode today we're gonna talk about that specifically where do we compete when it comes to ai how do we stand out and how does it apex eight framework help us to be more effective now that we're in a conversation with the prospect how do we ensure that deal progresses to the close if this is your first time i'm listening to our podcast subscribe because you're gonna do yourself a favor and get notified every single time we drop good content like this and this one is one of those ones that you're gonna love i love the principle behind this one around prototyping and around the discovery and you're gonna hear how he comes with a different mentality of the discovery rather than just being an generic interrogation it's identifying that problem and having a discussion around it now if you wanna get help and practice on this stuff you can join our mastermind go to the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind again the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind and there that's where we gather together we practice this groups of twelve in each cohort and we help each seller to be able to master or fundamental the the basics of selling everyone is join our mastermind everyone has worked in a mastermind and has put the work in they've been able to shatter their sales quota and i promise you that and i can prove that to you if you wanna find out more about the mastermind and go to the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind our next group begins the third week of september and it would be an honor to have you join us listen listen as we dive in and get an opportunity to learn a little bit more about how this framework came about and why darren so passionate about it darren welcome to the show thanks for having me well i'm looking forward to excited to be able to chat with you into getting some insights on how this can not only help us but also help everyone that is listening this framework is something that you came up with that brag about it in a teaser i would love for you to go deeper on why you decided to come up with another framework daring when there so many other sales methodology so many other processes so many other ideas out there why come up with something else why another sales book well great question you know things have morph quite a bit i think we could pin really on the as of knowledge and you know in my my many years on the tech side enterprise software edge software so and so forth over the period you know as technology evolved and as more and more knowledge was made available to the sellers the demand was there and then when ai came so when ai arrived it just accelerated the knowledge of the shopper right so you know in the book we talk a lot about we provide stories of what sales is gonna look like you know either now today in certain circles or what it look like in the next two years where you have a buying team a selection team a selection committee that doesn't do what they used to do just a couple of years ago so as far as a technical sale as far as consumer knowledge we've all seen the stats so they're will they're highly knowledgeable now ai comes along they have a shopping assistant a research assistant in their back pocket and it's ruthless it doesn't have any emotions it's gonna pick you apart so we needed to come up with something that allowed the salesperson the persuade the revenue generator a way to establish trust very quickly so so we wrote the book and that was the big motivation is what are they gonna do against all of this data i liken it to the media like if you watch in the media right now you have the person doing the interviewing right it's just like a buyer and they have an earpiece in their ear and they're getting fed facts really really fast and the poor guest if they're going after that person he doesn't have anybody doing the research in the background he doesn't have anybody feeding him lines he doesn't have six or seven people that's what they have today they have an ai assistant and while they're talking to you and i did this the other day their fact checking they're doing all these things and so you've only got so much time to get that credit in place and you better bring your facts and because you'll get exposed you know and i think that's what it it's important to understand especially in the world of ai that we're in right now like the sellers can be way more effective and to be more i don't know a i hit say a little cliche term bring more value to the prospect and this is one of those easy ways it's like you have that person sitting you and i level love where you bring that up so the sellers must be one of the things we talked about in our prep call with this level of ai and the way that sellers are selling and how the environment is changing is critical that salespeople people have this level up this conscience competency and i think that's where you're you kinda bring this suit framework in that does help to bring bridge that and i would love to break that down i know we can go through all of the points but what i would love to do if that's okay maybe you can tell us the eight parts of the framework and we're gonna tackle three of them today and then i would love for our listeners to maybe they could check on the book or connect with you to get some more of the juices because there's so much i just don't wanna gloss over it yeah yeah yeah and i appreciate that yeah and conscious confidence is is very important especially in the ai era if you think about it you're walking to find up for me so conscious confidence so if you go in the book in the very first chapter what we try to do is get everybody to start the conscious confidence you know and we start talking about the learning ladder and it's been around a long time some of you may have heard of it or played with it in the past but you know when you when you have unconscious un competence is the bottom of the chart and unconscious competence meaning you're really good but you're not even really thinking about it now when you come into ai with so much facts so much truth and so much capability that for a lot of salespeople like in my industry you know the tech industry and and what i did formally before i went on on my own you know in the software game there's some forty thousand direct sales reps that have been laid off and the reality of it is you know and talking worldwide of course but the reality of it is is because a lot of the software companies are thinking i don't need people who just deliver facts and benefits i need people that can consciously guide the mind of another human into success for both people you know we've talked about consultative selling we've done all of that but really what we're headed is really discovering what the problem statement is how do you solve that quickly in a way that ai hasn't already because ai will give basic answers it won't give the nuances of an industry and then how do you validate that so when we talk about apex eight you know the eight steps are you know you've got discovery you've got prototyping you've got validation those are very very quick those happen quickly there have the rehearsal which was an art form that i'm quite proud of i put that in the book you've got presentation demo whatever you really wanna call but when you kinda get that final stabilization piece you're gonna get that moving finalize you'll find that that's really if you do the first you know five steps right finalizing as a different game than what it used to be debrief is critical that's a game changer and then of course hand off which has to do with customer experience and and commercialization but with the first three when you do a discovery here's the thing how do as a salesperson use ai as much as your your prospect is using it your prospect is going to be given a budget your prospect is gonna be given a task and your prospect is going to use ai if they're not today i literally mean by tomorrow someone's gonna go hey use an ai on that new erp system oh yeah and it'll it'll just right underneath it'll just snap in a real second and just start getting different questions but let's just go ahead and assume they are your discovery of them should be sensitive as well i mean before you even get on a call with them before you get pass the funnel piece and you get into that first prospect meeting you should have the basics too so much so dawn that this is what i mean by that so in the past you know we all used to do let's do introductions right let's all do introductions okay that's when nobody really knew when anything think about each other but it's a hangover from the old days let's go ahead and assume that they've already done a little bit on you and you've done a little bit on them and then this is the intro you know hey dawn good to see you i'm sure you've done a ton of you know research on me and their heads gonna go like this you're go okay got that or they'll stop you and say no actually i haven't had any time i said okay well then let's put this in real time let's do a quick intro but if i say that and they nod their head and like okay so we're good so listen as far as me as far as you i've done a lot of research on i know couple things i know you've been there for six years and let's just get right into it we're both busy folks let's make this happen and what's going on where are we at you'll get to know me as we go through kinda of my discovery process and i'm really gonna try and solve some problems for you here today you know and that's where we're going and again they'll give a quick head nod and then you say alright give me the problem statement tell me what the problem statement is i mean listen you know what you gotta do what's the problem statement how would you write it well that's a great question and they'll just start giving it to you don't ask them what the pain point is don't ask them what they already know all those tricks guys it's gonna be i've done the discovery tell me about the problem statement around the recent press release that came out where your executive told me you know the the world that there was a problem in the supply chain and dawn they will drop right into it and then we'll start problem solving right there because that's all they want you to do they want their vendors to problem solve success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcasts since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcast for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing i got off of a call this morning with an executive from mid level organization and one of the things she said she brought me into basically the inner conversations and one of the things she shared is that she is tired and all executives are when they get on a call with a rep where the rep is going to ban them or they're going to do like the the whole discovery it it goes back to what you're stating like here's the problem and here's some solutions that we might have they know what they want already or they assume they know what they want or what they wanna have solved our job is like what you said we can use ai with that bug in our ear so to speak to help us real time to understand their situation even more so and how we can help them and we have to help them discover challenges that they probably didn't even know they have yet and that's where the value added part comes in where you're not an order taker and i think that's where you're getting at and i that just perks up right there in that process for me and i think it's a it's a hundred percent more sellers need to be at no matter what level of the game you're selling yeah i mean and and i love that and listen you have a competitive frame all the time what do you think the other folks doing they're going to do that why ask a question on something you should already know how am i gonna trust you if you didn't even take twenty five minutes ahead of time we are in a situation where we can't just wait for qualified leads we have to qualify them ourselves beforehand by doing discovery but then we really gotta get to the secret sauce what is it that's really important to them now what i also love dawn is when you do a lot of research and you say hey can you tell me about the problem statement around supply chain that your president was talking about now if your executive that you're talking to or your middle manager or whoever it is you're talking to project league goes that's actually not it darren what it is you're going baby so by giving you get a little back and so what you show when you show you put twenty minutes in to learn about the supply chain that the boss was talking about yesterday keep it real in their reality and they course correct you they trust you already yeah why would they do that and you know there's no rigidity so here's the conscious confidence of it you're trying to get to the meta moments you're trying to get the cognition that they've had that they whole started this whole thing what was said to the executives of the company before you were given a budget to do this what was the driver i'm doing the research i looked of course that's really why you're here is tell me why and so however you get around to well no that's not it but this is it that's it and then you know in apex eight we're just trying to get the people to interact with them and be sincere and authentic because ai is not and so there's that and i usually get into the i find that if we set that meeting up and just saying look i wanna have this first ninety minute meeting because i may or may not have the answer you're looking for so let's both help each other out here and let's make sure that we understand the problems and let's make sure i'm the right person or that this is the right way to go executives like that too so about twenty thirty forty minutes in then you start saying okay so let's just start mock up let's start doing some white coding right let's start doing some stuff now what's great for the technical seller today and when they read apex eight and they get conscious confidence around prototyping it means this you can use a vibe code like pro tract dot ai which is fine you can go to famous can go to lovable you can go to rep these are great vibe coat or whiteboard coat as i'm sorry to hear them called and you could share your screen and you can start working on stuff take that problem statement and start loading it in and start creating and dawn just like they corrected you they're gonna correct you again oh i don't like that color can we change that color well let's prompt that in go ahead and change this color have it match the royal blue that is your part of hp world okay yeah and they're go what's happening here what is going on here and what that is means now is are you selling don or are you collaborating yeah you're collaborate right now you are collaborating are you demonstrating skill yes are you demonstrating a command of ai yes are they gonna start asking you questions like what are you using yes now it's going to be very interesting because what you're gonna do is you're gonna get them very excited you're gonna get them very comfortable you're gonna start solving the problems on the fly you're gonna be using ai you're gonna show a command of ai you're gonna show an openness of view of your company to work with them and be flexible because what they hate now is they don't wanna be pigeon hold anything i sold it for years i put people into erp systems that covered eighty percent of their problems there was always another twenty that had to be done and there was always the most expensive part now that aye is here they've heard the stories they've been at the cocktail parties and now you're showing them how that works that's a good one if it's not maybe somebody else that showed them apex eight is doing the demo they've already wow them and now you're a me too but you do it even better the conscious confidence comes in because you're like okay so you've seen this before yeah alright so how far did you get what did you design well what we designed was this this this and those guys are really good and now you drop into the prototyping of how you would do delivery or what the architecture would look like say you know what sounds like you've already got the product base is what it would look like yeah tell you what let's switch gears let's me start a new one hey you know lovable or whoever let's design an architecture that includes lisa what do we got in there we got we got we got oracle we got this we got the lisa go ahead and talk i'm just gonna as you talk it's gonna go straight in okay and then lisa sees herself and then she starts telling more and then you hit go and now it draws out a whole architecture drawing holy smokes and then that's when you say well there's a couple things we gotta do we gotta validate this are we going in the right direction are we going in the right direction well yeah this is really cool but i gotta tell you i'm i'm really i've kinda already seen this and i've kinda already done this with a couple other other companies but i like what you did with the architecture blah blah blah and then you say now the real work begins and they're like well what do you mean and say well okay this is just a ba now don if you notice what you're doing right there is you're just if they already had the wow from somebody else you're just gonna level it if they don't have the wow from somebody else you're gonna build on it and so conscious confidence is like being a quarterback in the nfl you've got to read the defense every second of every day they don't look the same from one second to the other and they're changing every play using ai on their wrist right that's what's happening and while you're talking they're probably prompting if they're really sharp so when you get in the validation here's the cool thing am i on the right track am i going in the right direction they're qualifying you you're qualifying them at that exact same moment and here's the other thing you've always got other stakeholders are you using ai have you ever used a vibe code like this oh yeah i have my own thing the company bought me and now all that comes out alright so i've gotta get approvals from from ai then because as soon as she hangs up she's gonna go check on all this what executives do we have to talk to well we need to do another meeting and show this to so and so and such and instructions sections and okay let's do this let's schedule another meeting but quickly you know let's move quickly who needs to be out on that meeting now you're closing the next meeting now you're validating what you wanna say and what you also do in there is because you're given in what she wants you're gonna help her sell that dream or him and you're gonna say in the middle though i want to bring to you some of the demo and i wanna bring you some of the things that i think we need to show up so now you're developing a coach and so as you move through the conscious confidence curve of apex eight and you're constantly working to ai and the human side really quickly really and fast you're starting to differentiate yourself from the market are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tough than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigator is a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started i feel like this is where the deal really closes and people often overlook this part because if i can like you said from the get go if i can get you to say hi i never thought about that or if i got you got me to say no this is not the way it was but this is actually what he meant or what's going on i'm invested in something and you're guiding me on how you want to purchase or what your real issues are and how you you wanna go about it and i feel that that part is just it's golden the other piece that i love about this is one thing we talked about was that first ninety second literally is gold can you elaborate on that part just a little bit more yeah i mean i think when you show up in a share economy and that's where we are and you talk about that first ninety seconds and you say i've invested in you already by doing a consciously competent discovery i'm not lazy i'm not just gonna give you a bunch of questions i'm actually gonna answer a couple questions and then get into the real heart of the matter that tells them you're more of an enabler that tells them you're more of a learner that tells them that you're flexible that tells them a lot right in a matter of seconds it's like drag racing you know what like motors sports is a big part of my life it's the first sixty feet i mean if you don't get off the line if you don't get out of you know if you sit there for two seconds as it it goes green the other guy's already he's already got the jump and then everything else is gonna stay the same so i see the first ninety seconds the first ninety minutes the first ninety days those are super critical i mean they're just critical and i love what you said about the validation because if you start doing the validating and you start checking with them am i going in the right direction did what i show you makes sense i mean i just wanna make sure i'm giving you value because i want us to do business together let's not fool each other anymore i make money you make money we all make money but what's more important is when you have success i have success we have great success in both our careers so am i doing this right for you no it isn't going in the right direction well good now you don't need to go back and tell your sales manager you got a deal because you're hurting now you can take it on the channel to say that's not gonna be a deal this yeah there's no reason for me or my company spend any more time on this because it's not there well you can't burn leads you can't do this you and i talked about managers before that's not it we'll talk about debrief talk about handoff offs but the secret here is i'm a salesperson i gotta get to the next person that wants to do business with me as much as i want to do business with them so by the time i get to step number three per apex eight we have a damn good idea whether we're gonna move forward and whether they wanna move forward like you said it's a bit of a close yeah i had a couple of twenty thirty year olds the other day try and do trial closes if i could show you away where you could get more leads in a week and i'm like are you kidding me we're gonna trial close me right now okay i said please stop let's not do let's read my book right but if you think about validate though it's a much better version of that which is am i on the right track yeah yeah man this is cool and then the questions come and you know you got them or now i don't think this is working man i don't think you understood what i am trying to do oh okay now you have still i have a chance to salvage that not much but she got we got one more shot to go back to discovery and go alright well what did i miss why did i miss well the thing you missed is this is in china versus united okay oh okay thank you for that appreciate it that now vulnerability build trust so you just show them the vulnerability you keep it moving love it the last piece i wanna touch base on before we wrap up here is debrief if you just give us like maybe five minutes on this part or a couple minutes yeah deep debrief at hand is gonna help sellers and it's gonna help managers too it really does and it does help product management so here's here's how it goes you wanna do a debrief when win lose draw now back in the motors sports day back when i competed we debrief because every tenth of a second matters right for the military they debrief because lots of lives and whole nation are at stake right so they take it very seriously so i really did borrow that from that world but when we do debrief and if you watch formula one if you watch strive to survive or any of that if you're new fan or a long a long fan you'll see them after a race all have their headphones on and they're all in the zone and they're doing it debrief the idea here is you do it with your winner lose and in the book we talk about to different levels but one of the key little you know pieces of that is you've gotta make it safe so for you sales managers and for you sales guys doing a debrief with your team before you go talk to management or doing it with your managers however you guys wanna do this you gotta make it safe it's a safe zone and the facts have to be put on the table so if you won do a debrief that tends to be a lot easier but challenge yourself to figure out what you didn't do wrong because the other team that studied the apex eight on the other side that lost to you is doing a debrief and they're gonna figure out how to beat you next time so figure out where you got lucky maybe if you wanna think of it that way you know the pit stop could have been a little bit faster that one or we could have done the demo a little bit differently we got almost got ourselves in the hot water when we said something about the accomplish competition whatever it may be put those break those down break down the wins keep this take out that boom now the loss is the hard one no one wants to do the loss everybody wants to skip through it move on to the next thing the best teacher in life is failure right the losses teach you way more than the wins yeah and the losses are your opportunity to make change for the next one and hopefully the next day you're gonna start on another one right so the reality of it is is when you do a debrief on the loss you're going to write up a debrief report now here comes a handoff if it's a win you've written all the things that they loved and you handle that to your services delivery team or to the product team or to contract or whatever it is whatever that's going next right fine and you there's in the book it tells you kind of what was trusted so so forth for goodness sakes a lot of us been there where our services team or our contractor shows goes hi hey don so what are we doing and it just kills every bit of momentum and you're the one that gets the heated call so just do that one just to save yourself a lot of bacon there now on the negatives on the ones where we lose and we write that report up dawn it's not always a sales guy and i know there's heads bobbing and right now it's not always you guys it's not always you it's not me it's not don it's as too many clicks it was the right the color you were gas and electric company and you talked about electric vehicles and we're we're mad at you whatever it is you know somebody in the product department somebody in the management department is gonna need to know that and yeah could be the sales guy and it's everybody's quick to blame the sales guy but if you guys do apex and you nail it and you're moving through psychologically and you get down to the finalist and you lose on three features i guarantee you it's probably not you it's probably something in the design side and we gotta hand that we gotta get the product managers out of may ivory towers hand that piece since they won't come out and sell with you guys just hand on the report and yes by all means yes if your manager gonna fire you then please use common sense don't do this but somewhere somehow you've gotta get a point over that listen guys this is why we lost in our honest opinion do with it what you want i'm on to the next deal see you guys later by and so that's what i love and for you startups and your entrepreneurs and the feedback loops and all the things i teach you guys the handoff is really just a feedback probably to yourselves and you can use ai by the way to do all of this you can do debrief with ai you can do hand with ai you can even talk to ai and say can you please review this i wanna make sure i don't ruffle any political feathers just tell me how to calm this down but this is the sentiment this is the field these are the facts and you and ai your side kick will figure out how to get this over the line so that next time we don't lose that deal i love the debrief idea on so many different levels because it allows one for the seller to be we're not gonna make the same mistake again two the organization is a part of this so everyone we made me it to make some of course correction and it's not just a sales manager but the other departments and then three the other component to it is that if i am winning i am finding out what can be better and i can optimize it to even win faster or more effective a duplicate yeah like it just loves it so much the whole process is fantastic you heard all of those eight steps if there's one thing you want sales leaders or an individual rep listening to this episode to walk away with what's have one major piece of advice from this episode darren just remember that in the ai era it's democrat amortized it's a game changer for you but it's a game changer for your competition so give some conscious confidence about what works from the old analog and the algorithm rhythm days hand some of the hard work off to ai to free you up to be the innovative human in the room that builds trust you gotta learn that balance and so you know learn from me learn from others it just that's what i tried to do when i wrote this book is share with you guys the heartache age that i went through in you know twenty two and twenty three and we did some great projects and some of the highest you know revenue ever but it really took understanding that ai cannot be out or fully in he's gotta deputy gold locks just right down the middle love it listen if folks wanna get to access to you or check out your book what's the best place for them to go to them do so yeah the best way to get at me is you know apex eight the book dot com so apex eight book dot the com and into you know it'll get you access if you guys wanna reach out you wanna get the book you wanna learn about other things we do have new platforms coming out to help you guys kind of rev jen in a box and stuff like that but the main thing is is you know you know just keep tabs on me and we'll we'll go from there love it we'll put that stuff in our show notes darren thank you so much really awesome episode today appreciate your insights thanks for having me talk to you guys all soon that was mister darren fields and i'm telling you he didn't dis point ladies and gentlemen he came he saw he delivered and if you wanna get a check out his book and find more details about him you can see the information down in a show notes but also i mean if you wanna practice this stuff go ahead and do so because you can take at least just a prototype in concept the handoff concept the debrief strategy or even just a discovery part and you could probably radical the way that you're selling right now now some of you are doing amazing job but you know what we can all tweak pieces of our sales process to become more effective we'd love to hear what part of this episode stood out to you to most drop me a message on linkedin donald c kelly that's donald c kelly on linkedin don't just follow connect with the brother and send me a message out accept it and i will chat with you as always i want you to thrive and i want you to succeed this is why i want you to check out the mastermind the mastermind is a place where sellers are gonna practice sellers like you like me we get a chance to experience and learn from each other and to get challenged we set goals on how we can tackle our quota and our targets maybe you're wanting to get three hundred thousand dollars in sales over the next three months like what you need to do to make that happen can help you to break that down make a plan and tackle it together mastermind is awesome everyone get a chance to get into the hot seat every week two people do and it's been fabulous man we'd love to have you check it out again can go to the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind again a sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise your level of thinking but most importantly i want you to go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales of evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das k guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is karl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network pod sales podcast network
36 Minutes listen 8/18/25
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After three to four follow-up emails, you start feeling like you're just an annoying fly to your prospects. Honestly, you're probably just buzzing their inboxes, especially if you're only sending simple "just checking in" messages. In this episode, I'll show you how to send follow-up emails that act... After three to four follow-up emails, you start feeling like you're just an annoying fly to your prospects. Honestly, you're probably just buzzing their inboxes, especially if you're only sending simple "just checking in" messages. In this episode, I'll show you how to send follow-up emails that actually grab your prospects' attention.Quick StatHere's an interesting stat: It takes six to twelve interactions for prospects to respond and follow through on closing a deal. This doesn’t mean you have to send six to twelve cold calls or follow-up emails. You should probably stop sending those generic follow-up emails—they don't work. The act of reconnecting with a prospect is following up, so you don't have to tell them what you're doing.Use the MEDDIC Sales MethodologyGo back to your discovery call or your initial conversation to remember why your prospect needed a change in their business. When you talk to them again or send them a message, try something like this: "You mentioned you were using a product that wasn't working. Here's how my solution can help you."Check out episode 1923, and I share more details about the MEDDIC sales methodology. Other Ways to Follow UpInstead of writing a regular follow-up email, consider using data or information that isn’t directly tied to the deal you're trying to close. I tell a story of how I did this with an old prospect on a social media platform.Also, try to use more than one method of communication—this will help you stay in touch with them. I'll offer some creative ways to follow up on social media.Always bring something to the table that will help the prospect or identify an issue they may be having in their company. No matter what platform you’re using, this will help with engagement from them.“The fact that you reach out to them is following up. They are going to remember you, and you don’t have to tell them what you’re doing.” — Donald C. Kelly.ResourcesIf you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class.Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about BlueMango Studios. Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.3. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin.CreditsAs one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here:
this episode is brought you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator ever sent the most perfect email and then the end gets crickets or you followed up one two three even four time and now you're thinking am i getting annoying the truth is you probably are but they're not gonna tell you that but how can you follow up you know you should but how can you follow effectively grab prospects attention and actually get deals progressing today i'm gonna tell you exactly what you should be doing to make sure you follow game is much better than what you're doing right now know a i got crickets check it out hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of angela podcast i'm a host donald c cal the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today on this episode today i'm gonna be talking about following up what you should be doing and how you should follow up effectively if this is your first time listening to our podcast subscribe i'm gonna notify you every time you drop a new piece of content but specifically today we're gonna be talking about following up because i've done the same exact thing that you are in yet this dilemma going on right now you've sent out one two three four emails and now you're at the point where you're like dude is this becoming too stock to annoying what can i do to make sure that i follow effectively and properly well the truth is in some cases we do get overboard and we say the same thing over and over again we're just following up and that doesn't quite work but i wanna give you something that's gonna work much better that i found to be effective and that works time and time again i wanna share some stats with you because i don't want you to get in this thing and say you know what you know donald i i don't know if i should be doing these emails over and over again but the study is proven over and over again that it takes anywhere from six to twelve one more time six to twelve interactions before a prospect will purchase six to twelve interaction now that doesn't mean it's six to twelve different cold call or six to twelve email saying just following up that doesn't work but the first thing i'm gonna tell you though you should get rid of is that just following up like it's one of the dumbest things that i find in the sales vernacular or touching bases stop touching my base man like we got no need for that but the following up just following up the act of doing that is the follow up when you are reconnecting with that prospect so what i would tell you here here's the number one thing one in your discovery call on in your initial call with that prospect there's a reason why they're making that change that's the reason why i did an episode the other day on medic or med pic and band and gave you some ideas whether using band or whether you're using in med or med pick that idea finding out the need or the issue that's what you wanna utilize when you are quote unquote following up following up as the act don't use it as the word you know the term i'm just following up donald you mentioned that you had interest in our in quickbooks and how this could be utilizing your organization you mentioned that you were displeased with quickbooks here's what we were you know the the blah blah blog have put together this thing for you that shows the comparison with our solution in quickbooks whatever that is but the point is the issue that they have that's what you wanna utilize that's number one success story hosted by scott declaring is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcast since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcast for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing number two is that there are many different ways that you can quote unquote follow besides just sending the email i love to give them information or insights that weren't even when i reconnect with them that doesn't even tie back to the fact the deal that i'm selling them so let can give you an example and i told the story many time but you're probably new to the show but there is a guy i was following on twitter this was back in the days when it was twitter and we were connecting we chatted he was interested in our solution all i did and this wasn't purposeful all i did i just engage with homeboy on linkedin i mean on twitter and on one of his tweets and then he was like donald i'm so sorry we had some things blah blah blah let's connect after the new year and we were able to connect and so forth the point was i didn't say anything about my solution of services the fact is that i'm there and i'm connected with them helps and that's the critical component usually i find that sellers have one channel with their prospects they're on maybe the email and phone communication i like to get on linkedin and i like to get on text message basis with them because the more means of communication with that prospect the better off i'm gonna be able to be and i don't have just silo to one channel so let's say after i finish an initial call with the prospect i'm gonna get their cell phone number and usually you can get this from your data sources nowadays but i might say hey you know dane before we go here's my cell phone number mean blanket blank blank blank blanket blank feel free to connect with me or send me a text message if something comes up what's the best number to reach you out in case and they're gonna give you so now i got text message and i'm a got email and i have iphone bam but then also linkedin i'm doing that as well but i'll send them messages on linkedin again the key there don't try to do anything with the business do something that maybe of interest you might see that they're in you know you find something to cool about them or you see that they're in you know connect with somebody that you know you know us well not to ask for anything but i was like say hey it was great connecting the other day donald by the way i saw you're connected with jeremy smith as well we went to high school together cool dude anyways look forward to connect next week but the point is i'm just dropping a message to them that is a follow up it is a reminder for them but when because it's not like the person gets amnesia after they meet with you and you have to tell them that this is follow up now the fact that you reach out to them again that is the follow up they are going to remember you and they got are going to remember that they had a conversation with you last week so those things are follow and i'll give you some creative ways i've seen some folks do this which was awesome they might ask you engage you in some of their content you know hey i'm doing a blog or my company doing this and you might maybe disperse a deal that's stall and you get that person to reply back because you know their insights now it's not even a asking for the deal might just hey lot our company working on a blog would love to get us comment from a a coo which be a willing to drop a line but that's a good follow with that or perhaps you know we did a piece of content relative to the pain or issue that do you identify an event donald remember you mentioned your personal story about doing so and so in this issue we did a webinar last week and there's part of it minute numbers you know six to eight our cfo tasha shares an insight that i think relate best to you check out that story here but you share the youtube link or whatnot you can watch that part that is following up without saying hey you're ready to buy like that doesn't a work are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigator is a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash t e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for a sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started the other one too is if you think about it you can even give like a coffee break might say something like hey donald i know it's your life gets crazy and gets busy you know no strings attached here's a a ten dollar amazon gift card enjoy coffee on us but that's another little thing you can do but those are all follow up method the key behind it is bring something that's gonna help that individual or identify issues that they may be having inside that organization and utilize it so if i know that the person that i'm working with is a cmo and cmo are generally in charge of generating leads and maybe it's for my podcast production company that we are trying to connect with this individual court i can definitely talk about that but i can also look at what the issue that she may be facing when it comes to her role of generating new leads i'm you know one of the biggest things that some of the mark cmos are sharing with me is how can it convert you know initial their sales rep rep convert initial leads and to utilize ai in that process here's something a sequence that we see some of the other cmos listed that are we work with our doing thought you might benefit from that as well because this is again insights it's not about my solution but it's insight that i can give them that can help them out and that's where a consultative part comes in as a seller i mean there are many different things you can do to follow up with a key is you gotta do it i just gave you a bunch in engaging on their post on a platform so again a thoughtful comment like what i do on twitter so on linkedin if they post anything drop a message on it one that i love to do is when they're sharing things or the company sharing things about you know jobs or they're sharing that they're hiring i might take that and give it to my network that's an easy one might say hey everyone check out what at my friend of my new prospect at jefferson just posted they're looking for sdr str if you know anyone just go ahead and drop a message you know let jefferson know and you know or whatnot or share this with them but that is another way of me following up they're gonna see and say donald trying to help me out trying to promote me out to his community awesome or maybe even it's gonna be like a simple thing like maybe their company has just posted some record numbers comment on it and then take that and then share it say just solved what saw that you know micro ship i'm making this sup right now making up some name this will put ke the ke is doing just did some record numbers this year congratulations i'm sure was you know your critical part of that just as much as rest of the team anyways congrats but that is a means of following up so many other ways and again i'm not against you call the person but just don't say hey just following up bring up something that you firm your previous conversation usually you have some task or some action items you can bring those up as well anyways that's some of the things that i hope that can help you out and when it's all said and done again following up is a critical component recognize that you need to bring something that's gonna help them out make sure you look for creative ways you can do so i give you several different examples of what you can do and then also just have fun with it you gotta do it gotta do those six to twelve touches and when you do that magic starts happening listen i want you to thrive i want you to be creative if you want i'd learn some more unique ways of how you can follow up and to practice some of them check out our mastermind go to the sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind i want you to succeed more than anything and i want you to build pipeline and generate business and most importantly i want you to raise your level of thinking and go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales of evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das k guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our content writer is karl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network pod sales podcast network
15 Minutes listen 8/15/25
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It’s in the data! Reps who used some form of sales methodology are 33% more likely to hit their quota than those who don’t.But which one is the best one to use? Join me in this episode where I break down MEDDIC vs. BANT sales methodologies to help you decide which one is the best option for you. I’l... It’s in the data! Reps who used some form of sales methodology are 33% more likely to hit their quota than those who don’t.But which one is the best one to use? Join me in this episode where I break down MEDDIC vs. BANT sales methodologies to help you decide which one is the best option for you. I’ll tell you what they are and provide examples of when you should use them.What Is the BANT Sales Methodology? BANT is a simple sales process that most sales rep often learn early in their careers. It stands for:BudgetAuthorityNeedTimingWhen you use this sales methodology, you determine the client’s budget, if the person you’re talking to is a decision maker, what the need or pain you’re trying to solve, and how soon they’re trying to fix it.Also, I like to adapt this method to better suit the client's needs and make it more understandable throughout the process.What Is the MEDDIC Sales Methodology?This has nothing to do with medicine, even though sales reps in the medical field can use it to their advantage. Here’s what MEDDIC stands for:MetricsEconomic buyerDecision criteriaDecision processIdentifying a pain pointChampion I provide an example of selling a software product that’s competing with QuickBooks, and I’m trying to persuade you to use my services instead. This helps you understand each component of the MEDDIC sales methodology.Also, I share details on MEDDPICC (which adds Competition) and MEDDPIIC (which adds paper processing). Which Sales Methodology Is the Best One?Here’s the short answer: neither. It will all depend on your client and the type of deal you’re going for. For example, you’ll use BANT in a situation where the deal is less than $2,500. This is because it’s simple.Usually, it goes over this amount, then you may use the MEDDIC sales methodology. It will all depend on the situation. “There is no one way to do this. Some of you may be using different sales methods. The point is that you need to use something!” - Donald C. Kelly. ResourcesIf you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class.Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about BlueMango Studios. Sponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse.3. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation.Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the
this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator i'm sure you've heard of band and you've heard of medic but which one is the best to use i'm gonna tell you exactly which one i would recommend and when to use it check it out hey hey hey welcome to another great episode of the sales evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c kelly bait sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today and on this episode we're gonna tackle medic and also banned and if this is your first time listening to the podcast please go ahead and subscribe we're gonna notify you every time we drop a new piece of content and if you're a longtime listening or first time call go ahead and holler your boy on linkedin you can find me donald c kelly on linkedin would love to connect with you and here are some of the things that you probably wanna hear as episodes but today one of the things that's come up over recently is this idea of a a sales platform a sales methodology med versus band or you also have med pic as well so there are many different ideas or a part of this the sales methodology but i wanna break it down and let you know which one you should use which one is the best for you to use and also when to use it and what it consists of but let me give you some stats i wanna just make sure you can understand this when before we dive in there's some some real data that goes back to a sales methodology and i wanna sit this on the the top of it because i know some of you gonna get you know donald i don't like that one or this one and i can't believe you said that but i don't share what you use i'm just giving you from my experience and also some of the things that the data proves and also you can use whatever is working for you to close business but i'm just trying to give you some answers on this one in particular so here's are some stats doesn't matter what sales platform what methodology use reps who use a structured methodology are thirty three percent more likely to hit quota one more time reps who use a structured sales methodology are thirty three percent more likely to hit quota and it's a simple fact they have a process they're not guessing every single time and this goes back to some of the things we share no one more wing in it as a sales rep you can't you can't afford it you have to make sure you're predictable and have a an effective way to generate revenue but here's what i wanna let's go through each of the processes and help you understand again i don't care which one you use but just hear me out band is a very simple process let's start off with that band stands for budget authority need and timing one more time budget authority need and timing now the budget is simple how much you're gonna willing to spend on this project the authority is does this person have the capability to make decision or are they an influence or are they just get me more information type of person the need what is the need or the pain or the issue you're trying to solve and in timeframe frame how soon are you're trying to fix this to the buyer trying to buy something next week or next year this all is gonna be helpful as you're qualifying and that's exactly what these methodologies are doing they're just trying to qualify an opportunity to see if this is going to be good for your business or not but if you go into a conversation and you use band literally to way it is hey donald nice to meet you what's your budget that ain't work and socially gonna look kinda weird so the way i like to tell people if you're gonna use band what you wanted i rearrange it and i have it in this format end tab so let me tell you when that is the n is for the need usually if somebody is interested what is the inbound lead or your outbound calling gotta figure out what they're looking for because the need is critical now that you have the need the next thing is the t the time frame how soon are you're trying to fix this problem so we would go through time frame i'd like to use authority at this point or or get authority what's your decision making process how are they gonna go about making a a decision or who's a part of that buying committee and that's the authority and then obviously the last one is gonna be be the budget how much are you investing at this point so n tab literally now when can you use band band is gonna be great eye personally well let me i'll come back and explain further about band as we use a scenario but let's go jump over to med because this one is one that you probably have not heard a whole lot about or maybe you've heard about med but he just kinda never really understood how to use it medics stands for a very simple thing and it's nothing to do it medical by the way medical sales reps can use it but here's the thing the first one is metrics that's the m the second letter is the e which is economic buyer then the third letter is d the first d is the decision criteria the fourth letter the fourth d is the decision process i'll explain each of these the eye is for identifying a pain point and then the c which is the medic at the end is the internal supporter or the champion success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa a bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonated so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcasts since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing so let's go back through the metrics are gonna be like what are some of the qualifying metrics for the solution so let's say and this is this may be like i'm gonna use this example and then you can just think of it in this way easy let's say that i sell a software comparable to quickbooks and i am trying to persuade you to use our services and or your inbound lead and harassment conversation i wanna understand some of the metrics how many things you're processing how much you you make eventually we're gonna get down to maybe how much you think you're losing and so forth but those metrics are gonna be critical as we go throughout that process right the next component is then the economic buyer i wanna figure out who's a part of that buying committee and who's gonna be a person essentially to this gonna say yes is there one individual or is there a committee i've worked on deals where the cfo was that economic buyer but i had other influencers that were a part of it like the department had and so forth that were you know critical to it but the the economic buyer was that cfo and cfo didn't come in until later in the deal the second d is so we had talk about the economic value the first d now is the decision criteria what are you gonna be basing your solution on like when you're evaluating these different vendors are you're gonna be like one that's the most handsome i mean i would win all the time of course but here you're probably gonna look at what are some of those other criteria i wanna get what that is before i guess and that's where sellers usually do they guess like i think they're looking at this stuff don't guess it just find that out and that's a decision criteria then the process the decision criteria is one thing but the what's the process like the decision process are you gonna evaluate it then we're gonna take it to the executive team and then we're gonna take it to the board what does that look like and we need to get that and don't assume because you might think that every company does this the same way to make an enterprise level deals not the case maybe to have different internal policies and you need to figure that out and that's the criteria the next one is in identifying pain figure out what is that pain that the comp the organization is facing why are they needing a new solution at this point and then obviously the last one is the champion you gotta have a champ and some of you then the champion person that supports this caused their their internal seller behind this and they're the ones that are going to champion it inside the organization they have stuff to gain and also a lot till they have stuff to lose as well because they were putting the reputation on the line and most sellers mess up on this one they don't have identify a a real champ and then makes it difficult for them to progress the deal but do you don't do med in that same exact format you're probably not gonna get all the medic information in the first meeting but as you're continuing the process of discovery to conducting in a disco you might get glimpse of information definitely gonna figure out that pain or the issues that the idea the customer might be facing but that's a part of that process that you're gonna be doing in that but i wanna also give you a couple other thing as well when it comes to looking at medic in sometimes there's something called the med pic so let me explain what this is in there's medic with two c's at the end so there's the champion and then there's the competitors the competitor is so spelled the same way m e d d i but two c's at the end cc c the second c is for the competitors you wanna find out who is the incumbent right now maybe you could figure out how you can come up against them or who else are they looking at sometimes salespeople people i wanna ask that because if feel is gonna get kinda screaming but that's where the money is at it's in those awkward conversations so to speak when you have some kind of a little bit of tension things that may be uncomfortable that's where the the the the friction that's where the money comes from i'm gonna tell you that's the case and i've seen that to be true so many times because otherwise you're gonna assume and you know what assuming does you can't take it to the bank it ain't gonna make you money but med pig the other so in that process i'll spell it out is e d d p c so the p stands for paper process and you can see there's usually an extra i that's added into it as well that you can utilize and that may be that may be the influencer or whatnot in inside of the process but i'm just gonna keep it simple for you and let's just say you just keep it at in that med pick in that way that the pee is gonna be that paper process and there's no extra eye but you if you can see how this can quickly get you know bigger and it's gonna be med pick r whatnot but the p in that i've worked in industries that sometimes or it was a very paper intensive process or they have a long paper trail where this must go through this individual we have to legal and all at certain time procurement needs certain things and it's when you get to the bigger deals i find that the med pig portion is gonna be important are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigators a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an allies so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash t s e that is linkedin dot com slash t s e for a sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started so let's ask you now when do you use which one is the better the answer and i kinda teased it how to the begin but the answer is there is no one that's the best one or perfect across the board they're based on situations so let me give you an example in the in a traditional sense you're gonna use band if you're selling for you're gonna sell solutions that are less than twenty five thousand dollars because band is it's a simple thing so let's go back to our software again that i'm selling the quickbooks equivalent people can probably buy the stuff online it's a you know product led growth process so they can go online and buy it but also they can work with a sales rep to get help on it am i gonna spend all day on a deal that's gonna be like ten thousand dollars and go through all of that no i need to do basic the qualification they're probably inbound leads already that's coming into our company and i just wanna figure out is mary ready to buy right now what's the issue what's the time frame any the authority and this is very helpful for brand new bd that can utilize this but once does the deal get over twenty five thousand dollars usually that and it may happen before but it's a bigger deal and it's tend to go into that maybe some enterprise level type selling and in that that's where a medic may come in or med pick may come in because you have the opportunity like let's say for instance if you look at the band where i'm getting one decision maker or person making authority claim i can get that one individual on a call and if i'm you selling to an smb that person is probably the ceo that's taken a call with me under cfo but if i'm looking at a medic situation enterprise level deal bro i probably have like five individuals as a part of this process and no one person is gonna take the planes like i be the one that's gonna this my whole career on this the champ is supporting it but they also have others that to bring it to the part of the process and that's where medic you're gonna see becomes so much more effective and they have more processes so therefore that med pick is critical in that frame you can rearrange your order again get the needs and they'd go around and so forth but the principle is med pick is gonna be able to help you in that vein so i wanna share a stat that i found i thought this was very interesting and i think this is gonna help to solidify what we're talking about with this whole process the stat states that let me make sure i right number because i wanna tell you y'all something y'all go get mad at me and say donald you told me numbers that i don't write but here it is we have found this to be the case that sixty percent of high growth companies use med or a variation of that so one more time sixty percent of high growth companies are using med or a variation of that and here's another one the average b group involves six to ten stakeholders again the average b to b group involves six to ten stakeholders and band is going to have a really tough time with a group like that so that's why you would use med in a situation or med pick in a situation like that i would also look at it in the complexity of the deal again if it's going to when i sold to city kinda of governments in k twelve yeah you can use band but didn't know me rough but when you use a tool like med or methodology like med you're able to get way more help because that sales process is lengthy and you might get your you run your band and you think you got all that stuff on one meeting ain't gonna work one strategy that i found to be helpful though is sometimes i work with teams and i have them do a hybrid of both and you might see how we do that i have the bd do ban when they're doing cold outreach and they're getting a an an opportunity qualified and then the aes are taken over with med pick or medic and in that the medic component medic process can be tied with that band so for instance the sdr str or bd is gonna get the need they're gonna get the you know maybe the time frame and maybe to get the budget and maybe to get the you know authority how they're making decision or who's gonna be a part of the buying committee some of that information can help to qualify that lead that my account executives then can utilize as they're making further discussion points and and that's one way you could do it and if you're getting a whole bunch of these leads you need to get them just qualified really quickly or get them churn use something like a band is gonna be helpful to see if they're qualify so those are a breakdown of the two different solutions and when you might use them again the biggest component you're gonna look at is how many people are part of that decision making committee you're gonna wanna also look at the size of the deal that's gonna be helpful how long does it take for the deal to close if it's something that's gonna be you know individual can make a decision on one day you're probably not looking at a medic on that you're probably looking at like a band and it's gonna be easier and when i train sales reps i usually train them on ban to get them started so easy if they're brand brand new so they can go ahead and learn from that and then as they grow in their career we're gonna get them trained on some other methodologies like med pick there's no one way to do this thing because some of you using challenger and there's nothing wrong with that some of you may be using just sandler process i started off with that there's nothing wrong with that the point though is that you need to use some but these are some of the ways that we found in these solutions are working best i would love to hear from you what methodology do you use drop a message a comment down below if you're watching this on youtube or if you're on in linkedin and you know you listen to this podcast just go ahead and drop me message on linkedin and just tell me donald i'm using blank i would love to hear from you speaking about hearing from you we have something that i think you may like it's our sales mastermind it's basically a place where sellers can come and practice they can get help overcoming the objections and so forth we have small groups twelve individuals per group and we meet weekly for sixty minutes our next group begins in september and i would love to have you join us in that mastermind it's easy it's a great practice avenue and each week we're gonna have two sellers going in a hot seat and those sellers are going to share a challenge we're gonna help them work through it with other sales professionals and you have your group the other the cool thing with a mastermind everyone set a goal at the beginning of the mastermind and we work together to help you achieve that goal at by the end of the mastermind so maybe it's bringing three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in revenue by the end of you know the quarter we break you down break that goal down and how you can go about doing it and put some accountability on it and some practice practice your pitch or evaluate one of your last discovery calls maybe you didn't you got an objection got stuck at we can evaluate that and give you feedback and practice it you don't come across that again but the mastermind is just that it is just what it sounds like a mastermind of other like minded sellers i would love to have you join us to find more information go to the sales of evangelist dot com slash mastermind or go to show notes as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise the level of thinking but most importantly i want you to go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of angela sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das k guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly yeah pod sales podcast network
21 Minutes listen 8/11/25
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Today, Dr. Noah St. John is here to challenge everything you thought you knew about why some people thrive and others get stuck. If you want to level up your success in any area of your life, the first thing you must do is to change your mindset. Dr. Noah is going to show you how to conquer the "hea... Today, Dr. Noah St. John is here to challenge everything you thought you knew about why some people thrive and others get stuck. If you want to level up your success in any area of your life, the first thing you must do is to change your mindset. Dr. Noah is going to show you how to conquer the "head trash" that holds us back, break through income plateaus, and unlock results.Meet Dr. Noah St. JohnDr. Noah has been teaching clients for 30 years and is credited with helping them add a collective $3 billion in revenue. He is known as the "Done with Head Trash" guy and is a leader of the movement to help people get past their self-imposed limitations. He has written 25 books on the subject and has helped individuals and organizations ranging from 100 to 10,000.Inner Game vs. Outer Game: The 80% RuleDr. Noah argues that success is at least 80% about your "inner game". The inner game is everything happening in your mind, including the beliefs and stories you tell yourself. While "outer game" activities like making calls and sending emails are important, Dr. Noah emphasizes that mindset is the true bottleneck for most people.Clearing Out the "Head Trash"Dr. Noah defines "head trash" as the internal voice that says, "I can't because...". This self-limiting dialogue is what prevents sales professionals and entrepreneurs from reaching their full potential. He explains that by identifying and clearing this mental clutter, you can stop proving your own limitations right.From $4 Million to $20 Million: A Real-Life ExampleDr. Noah shares a powerful case study about a client whose company was stuck at $4 million in revenue for four years. After hiring Dr. Noah, they focused on the inner game, and in less than 18 months, the company's revenue skyrocketed to over $20 million. This success was a direct result of addressing the team's mindset, not just their outer game tactics.Practical Steps to Break FreeWant to get off the "hamster wheel"? Dr. Noah gives steps to take right away.Get Clear on Your Goals: You must be specific about what you want to achieve, whether it's more money or a better relationship.Identify Your Limitations: Pinpoint the reasons you think you can't reach your goals, like not having enough time, money, or confidence.Take Action (Even Without Confidence): The myth that confidence comes first is dismantled here. Dr. Noah stresses that you build confidence by taking action, even if you don't feel ready.Advice for Sales LeadersFor those who lead teams, Dr. Noah suggests bringing in outside help to create a mindset shift. He offers resources, including his online course, and invites leaders to book him to train their teams. By focusing on mindset training and goal-setting exercises, leaders can unlock next-level results and help their teams become unstoppable.“If you take action even if you don’t believe, confidence will come. Most people wait for confidence, but it’s action that really unlocks it.” - Dr. Noah St. John.ResourcesDone With Head Trash Course: donewithheadtrash.com — Dr. Noah’s self-paced program to transform limiting beliefs.Main Website for Programs/Resources: noahstjohn.com — Books, courses, and tools for entrepreneurs and sales professionals.To Book Dr. Noah for Speaking/Training:
this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator you tell yourself all of this garbage i can't do it the prospect won't buy blah blah blah these are a head trash and they hinder you from actually hidden quota and do to what you could be doing on today's episode we're gonna talk all about that and how you can fix it check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c b sales a evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today on this episode i am talking with doctor noah saint john and we're talking about head trash he is known as a father of affirmation like he has twenty five books on head trash and if you've heard me once or twice you know i talk about the mindset components of sales and how we need to get past some of those things that we hinder us and hold us back from succeeding and doctor noah s john's is gonna break down to you why we have some of these had trash and how we can get past it if this is your first time listening to our podcast please make sure to subscribe because we're gonna notify you every time we drop in new piece of content and just like today all of our episodes fall under one or two buckets one we're gonna focus on helping you to build pipe or two helping you to accelerate deals throughout the pipe and this episode is gonna help you do both it changes your mindset when you are doing prospecting but also helps you as you're closing the deals that you don't tell yourself these lies that hinder it as we dive in you will hear a doc nor s saint john break down what ahead trash is and then leads into how we can tackle it check it out doctor to noah welcome to the show great to be here i'm excited to have you and you know we have kindred spirit when it comes back to it because i'm a big believer that oftentimes sales is so much more mental than it actually is like the physical action that you're doing yes you're making phone calls and you you're doing emails and so forth but there's so much mental side and that head trash component man i'm telling you shoot i was bragging about you in a teaser and i spoke about some of the things that you have regarding this and how you know refer to you the father of affirmations so i wanna get a chance to dive into that today and and to go deeper into it but talk to me about why why you are so so keen on this idea of head trash and affirmation and and and just like a mindset component well you said it perfectly because this is what i've been teaching my clients for thirty years is that the reason that some people succeed and some people don't really comes down to just two things you know there's a lot of talk out there and a lot of people have a lot of really confusing things you know you gotta work twenty four seven you gotta a hustling and grind and you gotta do all this stuff and sure you could do that if you want to but i like to keep things simple and easy and the reason that my clients have added three billion dollars collectively over the last thirty years is because i do that i keep it simple and easy so the fact is that when we're talking about this phenomenon called success whether it's success in business success in sales success in relationships success in your health it really comes down to these two simple elements and that is if you think about a venn diagram with two intersecting circles on one hand you have the inner game and on the other hand you have the outer game so like what you were mentioning a moment ago is a lot of outer game stuff make the phone calls follow up do the emails make sure your website is good customer service all that stuff very important you have to do it but in my observation and thirty years of training and coaching people and speaking at conferences all around the country and around the world and i'll do my clients make over three billion dollars i've seen that eighty percent at least of success is your inner game so what does game mean inner game is everything that happens between your ears that you can't see directly but it's affecting everything you do i'll give you a perfect example of what i'm talking about you're speaking at a seminar in los angeles to a thousand business owners and i was speaking about everything i'm talking about now in inter game out game and everything head trash get your foot off the brake a man came up to me after my talk and he said noah you are the coach i've been looking for i wanna hire you as my coach now i didn't know this man from adam ironically his name was adam true story you can go on my website and check it out but anyway so i said okay what's going on he said no my company is at seven figures on the ceo and we got to seven figures but we have been stuck plateau at the same level for the past four years and he said noah as soon as i heard you speak about pet trash and inter game out game everything he just said he said i knew you were the coach i've been looking for oh and he also said by the way i've spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to fix this problem because i've gone to every guru marketing guy out there and he said we can't break through that income ceiling and he said as soon as i heard you speak he said i just knew that you're the coach i've been looking for so i wanna hire you so he literally hired me on the spot that's why i love working with high achieve right because they make decisions quickly and fern they don't dill dal don't tell i gotta think about it i'm like let's go let's do it so i did that and so i coached him and his leadership team for eighteen months and in that eighteen months we were able to get this company that had been stuck plateau for the previous four years to over twenty million in revenues in less than eighteen months that's a six hundred percent increase most businesses we throw a ten or fifteen percent increase how about six hundred percent so right what was the revenue before where was these four million four million for the previous four years so twenty million a six hundred percent increase in less than eighteen months that's unheard of right but all of these i mean i have literally over two hundred of these kinda case studies on my website the point is what's the point of the story the point of the story is ninety percent of what we worked on was in her game right because he'd already spent all this money and that's what on the outer game and that's what enabled them to get to that seven figures but guess what because no one had shown him out a master his inner game he was stuck so that is an example of how powerful it is when you merge your inner game and your outer game together boom you become unstoppable what was his roadblock and his team out of curiosity as you go deeper in that well it comes down to something i call hair trash yeah amazingly i i've written twenty four books on this subject yeah twenty five books anyway and it really comes down to this thing called head trash so let's dive into that right so what is head trash right so for everyone listening to this program and i know we've have we have entrepreneurs we have sales professionals we have people who are thinking about getting into business or whatever you are doing right now i want you to think about the top three goals that you have for the next twelve months alright i want you to write them down and be very specific and very serious about now right there everybody has heard this a million times right oh set you goals he's just gotta talk about goal setting yeah we've heard that in a million times yes you have but there's a good reason that you've heard it a million times number one is most people don't know what they want number two most people really aren't very clear about what they want for example have people say to me hey no i wanna make more money okay here's five bucks go away no you gotta be a lot more clear than that right so that's not enough i want more money no duh we all want more money how much do you want and when by when okay so that's just the goal setting part now everybody talks about that but guess what nobody looks at nobody looks at what happens after you set the goal and guess what that's where everything falls apart why because here's what people do they say well noah one you know i wanna go from you know ten thousand a month to a hundred thousand a month or i wanna go from a million a year to ten million a year or ten million to a hundred million whatever your goal is okay but here's what happens next but i probably can't do it you know i i don't have the time i'm too busy right i can't do that oh i i don't have the money i can't afford it i oh i'm you know what i'm married i've got kids i'm i'm busy i'm don't have time to do all this stuff oh i'm divorced you know i've really been through a lot of stuff i've been through a lot of trauma no kidding we all have ten million excuses right we all have these excuses that we can use and guess what for everyone listening this program if you tell yourself i can't do it because you're gonna make yourself right you're gonna absolutely prove yourself right and you won't reach your goal and then you get to say you're right congratulations yeah you're right is that really what you want so that is my definition of head trash head trash is the voice in your head this is i can't do it because boom and you always make yourself right success story hosted by scott d k is brought to you by the helps podcast podcast network audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcast since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this stay so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcasts for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcasts for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing how do you prove yourself right to make yourself right though oh it's so easy we humans have an infinite capacity to make ourselves right if you don't believe me put a democrat in a republican in the same room and see what happens good luck with that conversation right so no and i always love to use this example put a boston red sox fan in a new york yankee fan and have them both watch a yankee red sox game good luck what's fascinating about that and i use this example in my books my coaching all time what's happening is interestingly they're not watching the same game they're watching the same game but they're not watching the same game why is that well because you have the red sox fan when something good happens to the red sox he's excited he's el related and the yankee fan is the press something good happens to the yankee the vice versa yankee fan excited red sox fan depressing so they're watching the same game but they're not watching the same game and it said just like that with life right so you're saying oh no i wanna go from a hundred thousand to a million i wanna go from a million to ten million i wanna go from ten million to a hundred million i'm too busy and you know what i'll come in and look at your calendar i can find one to three hours per day that i can free up without even like batting an eye meanwhile you're sitting there going oh i can't do it and i can't do it well that's why you need someone like me to come in an objective third party and say did you know you're wasting time on x y and z and like what yeah that's why i help people make more than twelve weeks than they did the previous twelve months while actually winning their lives back at the same time i'm working with one like one client right now he paid me a hundred thousand dollars to coach him and you know that's worth it because i don't even make you know have help people make three billion dollars collectively so he paid me a hundred k to coach him and what happened was i said how much do you think your head trash is costing you he said a million dollars this is easily costing me a million dollars noah i said why don't you just give me ten percent of that million i'll find you a million dollars in the next twelve months so if you give me one dollar give you ten dollars back is that a good deal he goes yeah that's a good deal so he pay me a hundred k that's ten percent of a million as it turns out i coached them for a year i didn't find them an extra million in the next twelve months instead i found them one point eight million in just ten months wow so he gave me a dollar i gave him eighteen dollars back is that a good deal no that's a great deal and he actually emailed me and he said hey i'm on a seven week vacation right now with my wife he said this is a dream i've had for the last twenty years but i never had the time of the money before and he said i bought a new rv this is something i've been wanting to do for twenty years we bought an rv we're traveling the country taken seven weeks off and i'm making more money than ever before so he literally said thank you noah your coaching changed my life that's an example of how powerful this is so like understand that that the power there how this can help like the hand trash component get that like you know we we tell ourself that how do i get off that hamster wheel though and to actually start what are some actionable things that i can do obviously we know we can work with you but if there somebody listening to this and there they're like you i donald i get it no i get it but i just wanna do i wanna stop and yep make a change what are those steps or what can i be mindful absolutely so let me i do wanna give you a resource just to be fair to everyone so yeah if you go to done with head trash dot com easy to remember i'm the done with head trash guy so done with head trash dot com that's my online course it's a do it yourself you go at your own pace and it literally i walk you through the process to be done with that address what a what a great name right i'm the literally the leader of the done with that trash room because who doesn't wanna be done with that address it's no i wanna be done with that address well go to done with that dress dot com easy remember so right now everyone today first of all do that well here's some things you can do right now literally in the next five minutes number one do right your goals yes you still have to do it as boring and as you know obvious as it sounds we humans our goal oriented organisms we are always thinking about planning about j dreaming about just thinking about exactly what it is that we want whether it's a new car a new house to start our business or write a book to do a video or have a ham sandwich for lunch you know we're always thinking about what we want right so that is the first thing and yes you have to be a lot clearer than i want more money no that's gotta be a lot clearer than that alright so where you wanna go where are you right now and where do you wanna go to so every for every human being there's always a gap between where we you are and where we wanna be right so there's you know you're at you're at a hundred thousand i wanna be in a million a million i wanna be a ten million dollars ten million i wanna be a one hundred million dollars whatever alright so just whatever that is okay and by the way i'm not only talking about money yes we talk about money a lot because money's is easy to measure hey you know i helped i helped them go from four million to twenty million that's pretty easy before after boom alright we've got hundreds of those but we're also time out relationships right what is it you want in your relationship maybe you're in a marriage right now and you're like i really want my marriage to be a lot more fun you know i wanna have more spot and eighty i wanna we wanna be able to travel more whatever that is okay or maybe you wanna find that relationship you know what do you want in that special person and really really what do you want i'll give you a funny example of that so back in two thousand seven i had broken it up from a not a good relationship and i was doing exactly what i'm telling everybody do right now i wrote down what do i want in a woman and i was like well let's see i wanted to be beautiful gorgeous attractive smart and she's gotta be shorter than me because i'm just an average sized guys she's gotta be short petite because i don't want a tall one and then the picture i look small forget you no i wanted like down here about it here so i looked all ego right it's all about you go anyway i know that it's all about that come on we're guys we know what it is anyway so she's gotta be petite gorgeous figure right and then not listen to this i said okay first of all i don't want her to drink alcohol i don't drink i'm a tea no drinking i don't want to have tattoos i don't like that to too i don't have that news i don't like that too also i want her to not and this was the kicker oh no smoking that was yeah no smoking no drugs none of that stuff and the kicker was and she can't drink coffee because i don't drink coffee i don't like coffee and it costs a lot of money it's really a dumb habit and i literally wrote that down i said i swear i said this up i said no you just eliminated every woman in the united states you can't this is impossible this is impossible i said well to the flag that's what i want ran i said okay well good luck and i swear i'm not making this i moved here to ohio i was living in new england at the time and i wrote debt list i moved to ohio in april of two thousand and seven and three weeks later i met that woman and she is now my wife we've been happily married for the past fourteen years true story you can ask that is crazy that is crazy she she she checks every box i'm like this is impossible impossible you know so okay hey if it were for me can work for anyone right and i literally said it's impossible i said that i said you you eliminated every woman in america got her got her she's right there so that's so what's the point of the story is hey even if you think it's impossible it still could be possible for you if i it works for me work for everyone yeah and it's it's i think there's a the critical component there is again your some people call it speaking to the universe or or whatever it is but it's it start validating that belief and i'll give you one that i go back on for us i remember at one point i said i couldn't get it was certain type of clients when i first started my business i was like i worked for someone i did software sales i had no quorum ko going for like a a big company or whatnot because i felt i could sell a product but as soon as i started selling me i was like you know what i don't think i can get that i only can get this type of client and it ripple me it kept me going for so long and i kept doing this in my mastermind the guys were like you can definitely do it because they saw a proof in what i was sharing with sales teams but then here's where it happens i got a gig with a large company and you wanna know what happened yeah behind the scenes it was the same exact issue as a small company and i was like this like this for years i hit this this block that i couldn't get them so therefore i didn't even try for them so go back to what you're saying i validated it every single day yeah got yeah yeah i you see most of my clients are already small or you see most people interact with me they're small most people do this they're small then i just put out the small stuff and i didn't necessarily go for the big clients or talk about the issue of big clients were facing or any of that i just kept in my world and i validated it over and over and over again you proved yourself right yeah hundred percent exactly so perfect example there is exactly you prove my phone and i've bet everybody listens program can prove it in their life hey you're like wow no i never thought of it that way no duh that's why i hope it make three billion dollars come on in are you struggling to close deals b2b to b selling is tough than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigator is a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash ts s e for a sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e when let's get started so i'm a sales leader i'm listening to this and i'm hearing is on where i'm a sales rep and i'm hearing this episode and i'm like dang it i know this stuff now i i need a set a goal i need to be clear i need to go for it and i'm gonna use some of this stuff is what advice would you give to a sales leader that can help his or her team to make that shift or an individual to make that shift because sometimes you might say we might see it and say this is my reality and this way it is for me and it it doesn't change there's no other women out there for because this is there's none like it so therefore this is a reality how can i make that adjustment in sense yes well first of all bring me to train your team o two book noah dot com it's easy to remember who should we book book noah dot com yes that's right book noah dot com bring me to speak bring me to train we have licensing you can literally have my training materials for everyone in your organization so we license that you it can be twenty four seven on their phones anywhere on planet earth alright so that's number one go to book noah dot com and book noah dot com number two is what i was saying is when you get clear on what it is you want then the next thing you really need to do we do this with every one of our clients whether it's one on one coaching whether it's group coaching whether it's training you know sales teams or organizations from you know a hundred to ten thousand individuals the point is that then you have to understand what do you think is the reason you can't get it what's the reason you think you can't get it and it all you know it always comes down to the same thing oh i don't have the time i'm too busy i can't afford it i don't have the money i don't have the right connections i don't have the skills like to use your example i don't have the skills i don't have the confidence it almost always comes down to i don't believe i can do it that's really what it comes down to now in certainly some cases remember i talked earlier about inter game and outer game here we are again we can never get away from that so the inter game part is what i've been talking about right your head chest yeah i believe that it won't work therefore it won't work right so like if i had written that i'm imagine if i'd written that list of the woman that i wanted and then i didn't talk to any women you know i was like well she's probably not and i i mean i'll i'll be honest when i met my wife i absolutely thought she was out of my league i'm like my gosh you'll never even talk to me you know let alone go on a date so i called her up and i was all like so you wanna go she's like yeah sure i'm like what feels as say no but what yes you know so yes i was shocked give you a break so you know come on i was a nerd in high school i was a nerd long before it it's cool to be a nerd alright i had coke bottled glasses i had a face of acne and i didn't have shoulder length there and shoulder with there i mean this was the seventies and eighties so come on i that they hear so no i'm not used to getting attention from beautiful woman you know so but you see what i mean i took the action even not believing saw see that's what a lot of people a lot of people think that confidence comes and then you get the result no you have to take the action first the confidence comes as a result of doing something even if you don't think you can do it so what most people are doing because a lot of guru out there saying this well you know sit there looking the mirror i'm good enough i'm smart enough and got down at people like me that's why we make fun of that it doesn't work no just go out there do the thing even if you don't think you can do it and you'll you'll find very often that you did it and i know we've all had that you know have you ever had that you know you're you're like imagining this conversation you mind like oh man they're probably gonna laugh at me or throw me out of the office or they'll just think it's stupid and then you have the conversation nothing none of that ever happened no wow that was easy what was i worried about yeah mark twain had a great quote that i use all the time he said i have had many troubles in my life most of which never happened i love that quote i mean it's so true oh what about this but it doesn't even happen get on just make the presentation you know ask the girl out or ask the guy or whatever do the thing and you'll be i mean and see rejection is part of life it's part of business is everybody gonna say yes of course not most people are gonna reject you that's just math so then you just go to the next one but see what happens if so many people that get so depressed and one of the reasons ironically is because of social media because you get all these guru out there saying well just believe in yourself and visualize it and money comes in and it falls in from the sky really what plan is set on again i think it's on saturn i think that well i'll move there tomorrow because on planet earth we gotta do this annoying thing called take action to get the result we want i know i mean sitting on the couch visualize having six pack abs any junk food and never exercise okay how's that working for you you know we have to do that annoying thing i'll take action what what's so amazing and wonderful really is you take the action and you feel better anyway and then you find these amazing things happen as a result doctor noah you came you saw you delivered if folks are listen this to this and i wanna get a hold of you it the best way to go and take advantage of that course or is there a better way to get in touch with you what what's the best way if you go to my website my main website is good old noah saint john dot com that's my name so just noah saint john dot com you'll see you know different courses that we have there's even a custom gp it's called the million dollar business gap and you can actually determine where the gap is between where you are and where you wanna be that's right on the main website at noah saint john dot com and if you wanna book me to speak for your event go to book noah dot com book noah dot com easy to remember just who should we book book noah dot com why not well doctor noah thank you for taking a time to come on a show today i appreciate this it was refreshing and exciting and i know a bunch of people got pumped up today and ready and i appreciate your time my pleasure that was doctor noah s saint john and i'm telling you man head trash is gone head trash be gone go to his website check out the link that we talked about in the show notes and we have it done in the show notes that we talked about in the episode and just take advantage of it check out the course and see how can help you out but importantly i want you to adjust the way that you think so often we we put ourself in a situation where we limit our capabilities on what we can do and what we are able to do and i would tell you you don't need to do that i would tell you you need to make sure that you raise that thought think about who you are think about the fact that what i always look at the accomplishment of human being and the human mankind and look at the things that we've done over the past eon and some of the amazing things from the moon landing to the pyramids these were all done by humans now you think about that they're no different than you they have blood in their veins and they think and we are it's not like they're you know super humans from other planets but the key that i would find with anything is that we are capable of doing great things but oftentimes we limit ourselves this is one of those episodes that help you to change that mindset so go change that man go hit that pipe it's getting towards the the end of the in a quarter here where we at in the middle quarter you can do it you can accomplish your goals but change way you belief and then go and act amazing things will happen as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise a level of thinking i want you to go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales of evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das ko guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is karl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network pod sales podcast network
29 Minutes listen 8/8/25
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Is traditional sales outreach becoming less effective? And if so, what replaces it?In today's episode, I chat with Jean-Philippe Schepens van Thiel, founder of AxonJay, about how real-time data, predictive behavior, and AI-generated signals are fundamentally changing how we approach sales. If you’ve... Is traditional sales outreach becoming less effective? And if so, what replaces it?In today's episode, I chat with Jean-Philippe Schepens van Thiel, founder of AxonJay, about how real-time data, predictive behavior, and AI-generated signals are fundamentally changing how we approach sales. If you’ve ever felt like your messaging is falling flat or that your timing is always off, this conversation is your blueprint for modernizing outreach.Meet Jean-Philippe Schepens van ThielJean-Philippe is the founder and CEO of AxonJay AI, a company helping B2B sellers harness the power of predictive signals to find the right opportunities at the right time. With over 15 years in data-driven sales and marketing, including a successful exit to Dun & Bradstreet, JP is now on a mission to help sales teams break through the noise and win deals with precision.Sales Outreach at an Inflection PointBuyers are bombarded by thousands of messages a week, most of which they delete without reading. Jean-Philippe believes we’ve hit a critical point in the evolution of sales, where volume no longer wins relevance and timing does. Instead of relying on old data and gut instinct, modern sales teams need to know when to reach out, what to say, and why it matters to the buyer right now.Build Your Sales CocktailJean-Philippe compares outreach success to making the perfect cocktail: timing, targeting, and content must all be in balance. One missing or outdated ingredient ruins the mix. Using AI, his company translates billions of daily data points into actionable signals then helps reps validate and fine-tune their approach using real-time context.Let AI Enhance, Not Replace, the Human ElementContrary to fear-mongering about AI replacing jobs, JP argues that AI will actually make sales more human. With technology handling research and signal aggregation, salespeople can focus on high-value conversations, empathy, and relationship-building.“It’s not about more data. It’s about the right data.”“Outreach isn’t dead—but it’s evolved.”“You need the right message at the right time.” “I want you to come to me with stuff proving.”Lessons from the FieldStop using last year’s data to make today’s decisions.Think beyond single signals and build context with a cocktail of signals.Use AI to filter your target list down to the 10% who are ready now.Personalize messaging with current, relevant activity not guesses.Combine automation with human feedback to improve results over time.ResourcesLearn more at Axonjay.aiConnect with Jean-Philippe via email (JP@axonjay.ai) or through the websiteImprove your outreach and sales game join our Sales Mastermind ClassThinking of launching a podcast? Check out Blue Mango StudiosSponsorship OffersThis episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot.With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales.2. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn.Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at
this episode is brought to you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator the phone was an inflection point in sales computer was the next one internet was the next one ladies and gentlemen we had automatic outreach with tools like outreach and sales law but i feel that we're in a different inflection point right now yes we have the capability of producing content and information at speeds faster than ever and we have ai that can help us to do so but there's an inflection point that's happening where we're sending out so much information that buyers don't want more information they're get over saturated by it they want the right information and i believe those are the salespeople people that are gonna truly win and today i'm gonna tell you with my guess how you make that happen check it out hey hey welcome to another great episode of the sales evangelist podcast i'm a host donald c kelly the sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for that the great so i'm so excited to be here with you today and on this episode i have the one and only john phillip philippe mister jp himself and he runs an organization where he does exactly what i told you in the teaser i did an episode a while back and we talked about it there three types of emails there's the referrals or outreach which is awesome then there is the probing which most people do you and i do that we're probing trying to get the prospect attention but there is another one where it comes with relevance like that relevancy and it's just so critical where it sounds like you're an expert like you know my issue like bro were you peep through my window that type of content that's the inflection point we're in if you think about it in the buyer or the average individual is getting hundreds thousands of pieces of information throughout the week but the point is most of those go dead because we're overwhelmed we're over saturated and we just have time to go through all of that and spam is taking care of ninety percent of them anyways and the ones that are making through we're deleting because they're not relevant they don't tie to an issue that i have but imagine if you knew went to send to a prospect because of the right information the right timing and you had the right messaging that relevance man magic jp runs an organization where he does that he sold one of his companies to done in brad street and he's gonna talk about that and i'm telling you the guy knows data but he knows ai and he knows sales in the sense of what we need to do to get prospect attention right now i'm in love with what their a solution and i highly recommend it you're gonna see why as we dive into this episode oh ps if this is your first time listening you can tell i'm passionate of the sales go ahead and subscribe and we're gonna notify you every time you drop a new piece of content because they're gonna fall under one of two brackets one it's gonna be something that's gonna help you to build pipe or two it's gonna be something to help you accelerate deals to the pipe even faster today's episode all around building pipe and how you do it my goodness stuff a revolutionary inflection point let's dive in and get a chance to meet jp john philippe welcome to the show thank you for having me i am really really excited for our conversation i got my tablet ready and i'm here as a student as much as i am here as a host because the challenge that we find and you find and every salespeople across the globe right now is outreach is still critical but the way we're doing outreach is evolved i saw post today and i was talking about specifically in europe and how outreach isn't dead but you got another the right way to go about it and i think it's the same thing we're seeing across the us as well where people are being more cautious of information that they're getting because of the proliferation of tools that does mass outreach so the buyers are more apprehensive and they still need our offering so how we do it and that's why i'm coming to this up it's also so excited so i'm excited to hear what you're gonna teach yeah thank you for having me and i have a bit a different way of looking at all this you know like sales and marketing evolution through ai so just a little background i've been already i started this venture almost four years ago so in december four years and before that i sold my previous venture to dun brad street so to dmv so i'm more already fifteen years into the data and into the sales and the marketing and what ai bi can do for b business so that's really my background but i'm like but also an so i love nature so everything is based on nature but that's a a different discussion but anyway so yes today what i see is what everybody is doing is the more you pray and the more you have to pray so it's like praying i'm praying all the time so a year ago i had like five to ten messages on linkedin and now i'm having like above a hundred fifty daily i'm going completely nuts so there because i probably i have founder and ceo in my title so that's why i'm like more targeted than a lot of people so but still it's with those automation tools it's ai tools it's being worse every day and why is that because you you're like we can't predict at what time what message people are pretending to do that it's always based on data in the past as well it's never a combination of so so yeah so what do we do we we try to get the big guns out and and and shoot everything down that we can and hoping something will fold out really clear have to see it like that and which is quite a annoying annoying for the the the recipient because you you're like i get daily targeted by ai companies you you're like saying oh we're gonna increase your sales we need to position people enter your company look did you do your homework i'm my myself and ai company i do that myself so you're clearly not well targeted so that's the first thing that is coming into my mind when you're you hear that so yeah i totally agree with you here's what i wanna take a peek at the first piece that i wanna look at is better timing because when it would it comes to going and do an outreach nowadays better timing is important the right targeting is critical and then better content messages and i think those are some of the things that we have identified so yeah i wanna go and start to just hear me out jp i am a sales rep or i'm a leader of a company and a sales team and i'm looking at these prospects that we're going after and my team is just having a really difficult time doing a straight marketing a straight sales outreach you're not getting the eaton linkedin messages answers and the phone the the emails are just going on replied and my phone messages are not working what can i do and one of the things you shared with me was the better timing how can i know better timing though great so it's always a cocktail so you need to have this whole cocktail right when one of the ingredients is off the cocktail doesn't taste too well anymore so and that's why you get you need to get so you need to get the right ingredients with the right dosage itch at the right time so when your cocktail needs to be so cold it needs to be cold i mean so it doesn't have to be you know like born or whatever so you need to drink it now it needs to be ready now with the right cocktail so yes so timing is utterly important is super important timing but timing alone is not enough so that ingredient is not enough you need to have the right message to right person with the right content it's etcetera etcetera and the right timing so and that's the problem today the economy the business is moving so fast that today i take business decision a and it's raining today to tomorrow sunny and i take business decision b so i might take a different business decision so i need to get the different mix so a different content message because today if i reach your prospect today you need to have this message and tomorrow you need to have a different message probably because the economy i'm exaggerating about with the economy is moving so fast so and that's all also in something that you need to tackle so what do people do is they based their outreach on data in the past so are events that happened in the past and i'm not seeing those events this cocktail is wrong but it's not complete because your your company is evolving the market is evolving so you need you need to be further than that i i'm always puzzled today that still people are protecting bankruptcy based on data that is a year old i don't understand this this doesn't go into my head i just don't understand it nobody has been able to expect maybe it's the only thing they have but that's not true anymore today you have much more heater then only the data from a year ago so yes and i come from the data business so and that's important it's that cocktail so the timing is one aspect that needs to be right so if you have a a demand today or tomorrow we need to be able to get in touch with that company so your philosophy again most of the salespeople people when we're reaching out to prospects we're reaching out to people based on old data therefore that's one of the ingredients that inhibit our messaging from actually or emails from actually landing because of and what are some of the things that you see that maybe an old information old data is it like the title the roles or what are some of those old data that you're you're finding it's always so they base the data on most of the time on official data official company that has been publicized but that's only one aspect like a company is also launching tiktok campaigns a company is having a website a company is in the news a company is everywhere is filing patents is like as a alexa exhibitions participate in trade shows is going abroad as well doing and doing business or this whole elements or ingredients need to fund the right cocktail so that you can use that cocktail to make a prediction that's what we do in our company we try to build that three sixty degree in real time of that company in order to make a prediction and it's not the amount of data because it's not because i have more data than you that i'm smarter and more intelligence no it's the right data it's you know like the relevant data that is also important and we say in our company as well is am i to decide on that i'm not a finance guy i'm not a market here i'm not this i'm not that you are mister use you know your market the best toe that's why we invented some kind of a automatic feedback loop done by human enforcement so by the user so he can validate what the machine is prepping for him and what is right so content wise so therefore you saw already two very big problems is the timing and the content but the content always comes from that cocktail it's never one signal they say it's not one swallow that makes spring it's you need more so and that's also today a lot of outreach tools and say earlier but we work with real time data yeah but you fit one signal and you say oh there's a ceo change let's go for it but that's not enough you need to have the complete constellation consolidation of that company because that could be that yet the new ceo has just been appointed but you're know like that always have an impact on what you're selling success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode episodes he had lisa bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonated so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcasts since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come and speak in an sk o could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create podcast for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing let's give an example because i like where you're going with this and i think it's interesting that we need to use multiple data sources and you're saying a three sixty view of the company but let's give an example and and guys i'm not this is our first time going about talking about this so what we do is we translate data points into signals so that's a very important so one thing we with our company we are monitoring on a daily database hundreds of millions of signals worldwide we cover more than eighty percent of all companies in the world but this means earnings of data points but a signal can be out of different data points so a signal could be a cto where we had before a ceo change or a cto or a cmo change a c level change but that can come from linkedin but that can come from the company website but that can come from the press that can come from i don't know patent filing that can come i don't know for an exhibition he speaks there and all of a sudden we see there's a new name so it can come from everywhere but it's the signal that is important and in that cocktail so we can monitor or we can identify i don't know five hundred signals about that company but only ten will be relevant to make a prediction for you a sales prediction for it yeah maybe other ten will be relevant or twenty will be relevant for a risk prediction other of fifty will be important for a marketing prediction i don't know so it's not all the things that our important but what we do is we show all singers to the end user and then the machine makes a prediction on a certain cocktail singles and then you need to validate this cs or no and the machine is learning from that who validates that then the machine or no no the end user gotcha yeah because the end user knows the market the best i'm a strong believer in a very volatile market like the business market like i said tomorrow you might take a different business decision that we need the human enforcement in there because also i predict that through ai business will become even more human business because you're know like the machine world do its homework will predict the number of potential sales or potential supplies or potential risk or whatever and then you start as a human interacting with other humans and you know then there are other elements like in the guts that will or the energy or whatever that make that will make your deals but you can focus on the ones that are good for your company so if now today you focus pure on gut feeling eighty percent or sixty percent will be not good business for your company but if the machine makes the first election you can focus really why you good at while we are good at it as human and i predict more human business because of ai than less which is a bit of a making up the scenario but just roll along with me a midsize company they just launched a new campaign on linkedin for hiring and then i see that some members of the team are res sharing stuff so those signal points and then i also see that they have some stuff shared on their website about their you know expansion and new rounds of funding and then i also find you know whatever i but i i i get some of these signals and then i see some stuff on twitter and there's a chat going or whatnot or some kind of reddit it about them i see that people are asking about this my solution maybe an hr software now i have signal indicating to me that you guys are gathering and that's really like certain you know superficial stuff i'm sharing here but i see based on the behavior you're pulling that you tell me donald it may be a good time to look at this company can you go and then you send me to go validate that right yes so basically what we do your ic your target market is those five hundred thousand companies we will rank them most likely to less likely according a cocktail signals so if today you have time to do ten you will do ten if today you have time to do a hundred you do hundred because if you don't know that you just pays yourself on the knowledge of the account manager and his research basically yeah and he will find signals but he's doing that manually and basically has the know of the account but it's pure in his head so if he moves company he takes all this knowledge with you i hope you'll have a all in your crm but otherwise it's all gone yeah well and that's what that's what we are trying so we like pre intent we're gonna predict those ten companies based on this cocktail singles well might be interested or might be having big interest in your product go in contact and these are the single so when you engage with those companies you're timely you know what to say because you'll see all the say hey i saw just you just participated there you just file a new patent you lost a new product you're doing this you're doing that so you're having content to discuss and you can validate that in the machine and that's or validate or say so machine there was like an a stupid decision of you so that can have machine not uno not perfect as well so real time data i'm getting update daily right or how often am i getting so daily daily yeah alright and so live updates with this information and then the other thing is right targeting because now how can this help me to make sure i'm targeting to right people i mean it besides the obvious yeah okay i'll explain you that the best with with with just a very simple example so the so we have the customer in the uk for instance and that customer is like a commercial chamber of commerce so what are they doing they're looking at companies from belgium and luxembourg to start business in the uk it's a uk company so it's connected with belgium but it's not subsidized as a commercial one it's a kind of a chamber of commerce and they're giving hr services event services legal services banking service for belgian companies starting to do business in the uk of course it's very important they know those companies before they go to the uk so what is happening today they have like ten sales reps and those ten sales reps are doing their research wherever they want they use some tools as well and they do their research and the problem is detect those companies when it's almost too late because they detect them because they leave a trace in the uk that's how they see them when they hire somebody in uk or where they speak or when they ran at at a trade show in the uk when they're there but that's too late they can't sell half of their services and in belgium we have belgium luxembourg but we have four million companies so you can't do that manually even with ten children so what we do is we rank those four million companies more likely to go to the uk to less likely to go to uk with a cocktail things and these are signals are before they go to uk all but i saw you are going to you have a job post before a sales manager in the uk you're going take two months you're going to that trade show you're doing this so then they can instead of hey do you know my services they have the timing and they have the subject to the content to discuss i'm a big believer in this and this is why i have them on a show guys because this stuff is legit this is the way that the game is changing and i'm not just doing a hype up because it's true because here's why jp there's episode that i did on i think there's three types of prospecting one is direct referral like that's the best of the best jay tells mary connect with donald and you do an email introduction better even great i love donald he does amazing stuff work with them that's awesome number two and that's the i'm calling it the predictive or the it's like the i'm going based on intent and i am not necessarily i'm i don't wanna make it sound like i'm guessing but it's like predictive what you're saying where this falls into based on everything that i'm seeing out there i understand that you're planning to go to the uk and now in my mind i'm like if you out and like oh wow yeah that's something that we are looking at doing we wanna go to the uk because of the predictive behavior the third one is what we do right now where it's the probing where jp have you ever thought about doing business in the uk and it may be this was like six months after i'm in the uk like no i'm already here you're probing something to me but when you come and people tell us go do research and that's where that second categories and this is that research when they're to do that targeting because that now makes me sound like i know you before you even talk and that's like a real consultant because of now i i understand based on these things that's that you're doing this and i think that's just way the sales games going and marketing did this a long time ago when you know like if you remember there's a famous target story where the target i heard about it in college like twenty years ago now but this guy got upset or fifty whatever time i was in college the guy got upset at the local target manager because they're sending baby stuff to his daughter i i know how what to you but the thing is it was just based on the behavior that the daughter was doing on her target account therefore somebody in that house is pregnant yeah it's been refined since then but it's need concept that we're doing for sales right now and if instead of i don't need to go for my whole market share and send a thousand if my market share you said five hundred thousand people don't send five hundred thousand emails i just need to send fifty emails to these people that today are behaving that they're ready my making sense there yeah completely and we saw for instance what happened to that chamber of commerce we doubled their yearly revenue in just one quarter because yeah but these are insane numbers we're doing us so and this is because if the sales reps are using the machine as you know like they're so that they augment their capacity they can focus on this human relationship and this is why sales are very good at that's why their sales they have a lot of they can you like and they can facilitate the sales are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin sales navigator listen up linkedin sales navigators a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high valued customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash ts s e for a sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started i don't know what those signals are for my company do you help me with that yes so what we do we have two ways of doing that so we today we work with sap in the sap so we were when sap where we do exactly what i just explained we're discovering to right moment net new customers but we work with sap in germany as well when we do upsell for their existing customers and these are different cocktails so what we do is we identify for those cases a standard cocktail signals and with that standard cocktail signals you already get a ranking and we guarantee already thirty percent better with that standard cocktail seats and the more feedback you're giving the more the percentage of success going up of course so that's one way of doing this is when you go with the standard solution but when you're a bigger company or you have more interest we can already help you build up your custom cocktail of things and by the way those cocktails of signals are dynamic cocktails of things because the way you're doing feedback we're doing automatic time series we're doing automatic regression the machine is doing that he's proposing all the time new singers as well and he looks at the way you're giving feedback how they're integrated in a cocktail so it's a dynamic cocktail as well so because tomorrow you might like a different taste of cocktail or pros i absolutely love this and i feel like this goes back to that content now my content will sound more original and i can also sound like again sound like i know i heard this thing before and i've tried to adopt it over the years is that the person that if you can describe my problem better than anyone else or even better than me understanding that problem i don't blink an eye about your solution because it sounds like you know my problems so well exactly i think that's what happened when you can come with intent that makes that content so much more effective because i'm again i've done the research but i can see based on the behavior this is what's going on and i sound like an expert you know if another example completely the other way around where we use this technology for translating data into signals and a cocktail signals is a determining mining a prediction of a company what it's going to do bios service your product or whatever if it's going to move it's going to be at rich risk if it's going to hire if it's going to lay off people if it's will do more inefficient etcetera so we having completely something that's got nothing to do with b etcetera but they're using it with super success so basically we are helping an ng that is ref it equipment for the education system in africa and they have a call center they calling companies and they say what do you do with your laptop when you know like when it's end of life or whatever or when employees are leaving the company or you renew them etcetera try they try to call also manufacturers and and etcetera so they're doing more or less a hundred and fifty thousand devices that they refurbished and then sell because they sell a for minimum price to the african education system because if they gave it for free they say they're gonna throw it away so anyway so we doubled that again in three months time so we went from a whole fifty thousand to three hundred fifty thousand because we predicted when companies are going to lay off people and their ic was laying off people so companies that are laying off people that have a green propensity so we went looking for companies that had a green propensity that follow es standards and whatever and that would have going through a restoration or whatever and before they go into that they called them up and on their top of mind yes we're not gonna give them what the employees that are leaving the company or we're not gonna resell it on the on the second hand we're gonna gift them to you and we just talk because the timing is important and because also it's also finding your right ic it's like you know like it's the right company at the right moment and that is open for your message and that you can do with this new technology today and that will change sales i'm pretty sure that i will change sales complete i love it well jp i wish i can continue chatting with you for like another hour taking notes typing stuff like there's so much here and we're gonna put this all in our show notes i'm a big believer in this i feel that this is where we are going and this is the we're at at a a transition point and i the old way of doing sales and this is like i don't know the meridian enough time in the sales world yeah there's a real way i really that too yeah and then we're going to a whole new way and then maybe that new way will change again maybe it's not so much meridian but there's a this is a a marker in sales in pro a business history where we need to become i want you and i feel in the way that i see in my personal life i don't wanna teach you how to sell to me when you reach out to me jp i want you to come to me with stuff proving why i need to be doing business with you it's almost like a case that you're doing at that point but it's validated because it may feel the symptoms but i don't know the pain and then you describe a pain because you watch the symptoms and know it enough exactly so to end is yes we think that's super important i mean ai tools will not replace people in that level in sales they will enhance people and who i to determine what is good for your market nor a machine you need to find out yourself because we say people earn like server this will become even more people business so that's for a super import we're planning to go to the us market we have already customers there so that's for us also very important and we've firmly believe that us market is more open for this than the european market so so that's why we chose to go to the us so we're prepping ourselves we signed sap usa we already roll a a role partially out so yes we're looking for other customers so yes awesome we'll put this in our show notes if folks wanna get in touch with you and to learn about you and to use your service or learn about it how do they get connected to you just write me an email or connect with me through our website action j dot a they have my details are there somewhere on the website or they just sent me an email jp p at j dot i love it jp thanks so much for coming on the show today truly appreciate it thank you for allowing us that was j and i told you i told you i told you the man knows what he's talking about and i'm telling you this episode i want you to go back in it and you're gonna look at this in like a year from now and you're gonna say dk was right because again if we're just sending probing messages i don't want that you're trying to sell me something if you're sending me a referral awesome we would love that or that number two that second one i'm talking about that relevance because you see all of this up in my ecosystem and you predicted and you sound like you're in my window watching me like not in a creepy way like that makes me more interested like how did they know that i do have this issue right now because of all the data the signals you put it out i don't want to do to work i don't wanna teach you how to sell to me i want for you to know my issues on my problems and for you to sell to me and come and answer and bring some solution to me that's what we want amazon did it and most of these other companies and b is finally catching up and i think this is the inflection point ladies and gentlemen you're welcome and if you wanna get some help you wanna get improving on your sales game check out our mastermind we're kicking off a new semester in the fall and i would love to have you join early september sales evangelist dot com slash mastermind as always i want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise a level of thinking but most importantly i want you to go out and do big things see you on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of angela sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das ko guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly yeah pod sales podcast network
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Is it possible to get your entire sales team to work together and crush goals one after another? Consider all the benefits your organization would gain if this were to actually happen.To make this dream a reality, listen to my chat with Justin Balik, co-founder of Wealth InsurED, in this episode. He... Is it possible to get your entire sales team to work together and crush goals one after another? Consider all the benefits your organization would gain if this were to actually happen.To make this dream a reality, listen to my chat with Justin Balik, co-founder of Wealth InsurED, in this episode. He shares three sales tactics that brought his company from half a million to three million in 90 days.Meet Justin Balik Justin has been a force in financial services since graduating from the University of Miami in 2012. He quickly rose from agent to a top 10 manager among 10,000+ peers. Now, he and his wife own a business revolutionizing IUL sales training, producing high-end agents with unparalleled speed and results in the industry. He has helped tens of thousands with insurance and retirement, specializing recently in tax minimization for high-net-worth clients.Specialize Your Sales Roles Most sales teams have reps doing everything: prospecting, appointment-setting, closing, and follow-up. Justin broke the process into specialized roles—so each person focused only on their highest-value work. This helped free up the top closers, who were freed from low-value, time-consuming tasks. The result: higher efficiency, faster pipeline movement, and more revenue. Ask yourself: where is your team doing $10/hour work instead of $10,000/hour work?Go After High-Ticket Clients Instead of focusing on high-volume, low-value sales, Justin’s team intentionally shifted to larger, more valuable deals. They targeted higher-level clients who not only respected the process, but were easier to work with—and produced exponentially greater revenue per deal. Justin’s advice: Identify and pursue the upper echelon of your market, and don’t let assumptions about “difficulty” of big deals hold you back. The truth? Sometimes, bigger clients are actually easier.Deliver Intensive, Practical Training Justin condensed over a decade’s worth of his sales knowledge into a proprietary, one-week, 40-hour training program for new reps. This training ensures each team member is truly equipped—not just motivated—with everything needed to sell at a high level. It’s practical, measured, and outcome-focused.Bonus Mindset Tip Justin emphasized the importance of personal growth alongside tactical skills. Your self-image must outpace the rejection that comes with aggressive activity, or you’ll burn out before you break through.“You can’t succeed in sales if you’re not constantly working on yourself.” Justin Balik.ResourcesGrab these books mentioned in the episode: 10x Is Easier Than 2x, Who Not How, and The Science of Scaling by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy. Follow Justin on Instagram. If you like more guidance with improving your sales skills, join my Sales Mastermind Class. Thinking about starting a podcast yourself? Learn more about Blue
this episode is brought you in part by the following ts sponsors it takes a lot to grow your business a lot of audience attraction a lot of lead scoring and all the channel managing you can manage plus a lot of long days late nights and weekend a lot of wishing there was an easier way but with breeze hubspot new collection of ai tool it's easier than ever for marketers to track audiences increase leads and score customers fast which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate visit hubspot dot com slash marketers to learn more this episode is brought to you in part by blue mango studios imagine using a podcast as a lead generation source not only attracting your ideal customer but entertaining them and getting qualified leads to find out more go to blue mango studios dot com if you're struggling to close deals you need to try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial all on the house go to linkedin dot com slash t s e again linkedin dot com for sixty day free trial of linkedin sales navigator imagine getting your team to work i mean like a machine where they're producing month over month like shattering records every single time imagine if you get the whole team to be in unison to do that what would that look like how would that be for you and your organization well that's exactly what justin did and it was crazy how would they've seen amazing result from just doing three consistent things over and over again you'll be amazed what it is check it out hey hey hey everyone welcome to another great episode of the sales of evangelist podcast i'm your host donald c ka bait sales of evangelist and i'm so excited for another great episode i'm so excited to be here with you today and an honest this episode i an amazing guest name is justin bali and he runs an organization in the financial space now justin has loads of experience and he is very creative very ambitious went to the university of miami and the cool thing with that is you know about them turnover chains but justin brings a whole lot of knowledge he and his team did something really remarkable they went first month they were at half a million dollars in business that they closed and it was one million second month and then it was two million month three so sorry half a million two million and then three million it was just like crazy what they did over time and i was trying to get from him like what is the system this is when he broke down in this episode and the cool thing is that justin sells b to c but the principle applies to b to b and it doesn't matter what industry are in the concept of how he got his team to behave this way is what's radically exciting and i think it can benefit from you as well if your a first time listener know this podcast podcasts is designed to do two things one help you to build pipe and two help you to convert to the higher rate and close more deals and today we're gonna tell you three things that can make you do that you and your team you're gonna love it justin welcome to the show man thank you for having donald i appreciate it my man i'm pumped and at justin we were joking before we even started this episode when big shout out to nathan for introducing us but we're joking before we started this episode about the standing desk and how we're gonna bring that energy and i prepped and i taught to you up in an intro there so i know you're bringing a fire today so i that's right everyone in for an awesome episode and this is not only benefiting our sales leaders this is also benefiting the individual contributors but justin i want you to take a second you have a lot of passion for sales you have a lot of passion for you know leading your sales organization and your company talk to me about how like where did this come from where did this entrepreneurial sales mindset come from that you develop over the years you know i wish i knew that donald because it's well no it's really interesting okay because yeah i was a kid that i was never serious about anything okay to give you an example when i was a kid kid you could go to my house and play any sport you wanted because i played every sport every team everything and i would change it every year right yeah so i was never serious about anything and it was the strangest thing man i think it was just like the perfect storm of events essentially i found myself in this place and i guess this is where a lot of people you know have this happen as birth out of desperation right but i went to university of miami neuroscience with a minor in chemistry over that's right do you i i studied neuroscience with a minor in chemistry psychology so i was actually studying to be a neuro surgeon here's what yeah but here's what i found out man i got my degree okay i i passed the you know you m and before i went to medical school and after i taken the mca i realized something donald i hated school and that's a problem if you're gonna be a search because i'm gonna have four years of medical school and then i'm gonna have nine to thirteen years of residency after that so you got to be fan about it well i found out too that being a doctor is a weeding out process they weed me out so they got me out of there which is good man which is good because look you don't want a alexa daisy surgeon you don't want them coming and be like wondering how this is gonna go today like this is not a good program you know but it's the weirdest thing man i was gonna say you know justin i i just don't know if i need you to to take out that's spleen exactly exactly i thought this was this is a back surgery what do we okay no yeah so so i found myself donald and i joke about this but it was real i was like you know it it was very disoriented i was finding myself having a midlife crisis at twenty three because i left college my whole life i was i had to set path i was gonna go to medical residency doctor simple i didn't have to think about it and now i have this degree from a very prestigious school that i can do nothing with and i have bills to pay so i was trying to figure out what could i do okay and a guy gave me a random call and said hey you don't know me but i know this guy do you know who this is and i said nope and he said well let me get him on the phone i was whoa whoa whoa what's this all about and he said well we're just looking for some people that wanna make extra money and i was like i'm in he said you wanna know what we do i was you said you guys make money right and i'll come in so that was it so that was literally how i segue so i went straight from university from college into insurance sales and i've never had a job other than sixteen i was a priest at starbucks in the summers but other than that i've never had a job so i was thrown into it and it's the weirdest thing i met people that i cared about and trusted that we're doing super well in this for or to not work right i knew that if it wasn't gonna work it was because i wasn't doing what i was supposed to be doing and for whatever reason i just had this deep seated belief about it and i just ran like hell towards it it's the weirdest thing and let me you didn't ask this but just to give you a little just to give you a little glimpse into some of my upbringing because you said you know what brought this on my dad actually owned well you know you see i don't know if you how young your viewership is but back in the day there was this thing that came out on paper every month okay and it was called a magazine and so my dad had a a magazine body building magazine iron ironman magazine if you ever heard of it yeah that was was my dad's magazine so wow i grew up an entrepreneurial family but here's what was really cool is most people ask me as i was raising up in the ranks what did your parents think about you going in university of miami then paying for school you're gonna be a doctor and then you go make a left turn hard left turn and just you know run into this and my dad with like sage like wisdom and this is just a glimpse into the house raised and what type of person my dad is to me he's like yeah he said justin whether you stay with this for six months or the rest of your life you'll learn things doing these sales jobs then you could learn nowhere else and i had my family's full support from day one so and pretty that's the powerful healthy part i'm not gonna lie honestly thought about that knowing the university of miami ain't ain't going to ain't got no change in the pocket right you got it's pretty expensive about university of my florida but it was different pricing yeah but then to make a switch you know that's critical and then that and that makes sense now with an entrepreneurial mindset i think your parents is understood the formulate and this guy is gonna be successful whatever he does take what you can learn from this which is fascinating and i i build this up everyone because this ties directly to the conversation justin and his team as i mentioned and cheese did some ridiculous number in three months like stupid numbers and justin if i'm wrong to fix me you know quote me help me out here but the first month i believe you guys did one million or a half a million half half half million month two was two and then one three was three million this is business that you guys wrote right yes this is ridiculous like to help us understand the comparison why this is such a it's no matter what the way look at it it's a huge number but why in your world is this a common thing heck no absolutely not why is it you know go deeper why is it not moment and then we can go into what you guys did to make this because i the principles apply to b to b b to c no matter whoever you're selling to absolutely so here's a couple of things right the first thing is we're in twenty twenty five now okay in about twenty eighteen or so i identified in our industry and it doesn't really matter this can apply to any industry whatever vehicle you're in whatever vein you're in there are levels to that game okay and what i would say all is go to the nth degree of whatever that is okay so for me what we could do in our industry i was like wait so you're telling me that the average sale with what we're doing industry wide is a thousand dollars a year is what the client would pay right yeah but later that year i sold one policy that was fifty thousand dollars so fifty clients right in that same year i wrote another one for a hundred and twenty thousand so here's the thing right what i saw was okay wait so i could work my butt off with clients that are un grateful can't really afford what i have end up canceling and oh by the way complaining about it along the way or i could speak to clients that are higher level clientele they never don't pay and oh by the way because they see it as a benefit for themselves while they're alive this is specific to our industry right they will continue putting money into it because they can see it being fruitful for for them i was like okay how many of these can i do so what i started thinking about was this like first of all going to that nth degree but also compressing time frame to give you an idea donald kelly and the a good salesperson in our industry we'll do two hundred thousand a year that's like fairly good that's not excellent it's not bad that's like that's business wrote or is that money that they're earning business written and then your commission level will determine it could be two hundred thousand or more depending on your commission level just simple math okay so what i wanted to figure out okay is how can i do that amount of premium in a month and then in personal production and then how can i do that amount of premium with one client right and then how can i teach other people how to do that yeah so that is we're here's the crazy thing okay there's a ten thousand pound gorilla in our industry that has twenty thousand plus agents okay we have a hundred and fifty right now active and we have more people writing over a hundred thousand a month in personal production in our hundred and fifty person agency than that twenty thousand person agency does interesting the statistics just don't make sense simply because of the training systems that we've put in place that are proprietary that nobody else has period success story hosted by scott d is brought to you by the helps hubspot podcast network to audio destination for business professionals success stories features q and a sessions with successful business leaders keynote presentations and conversations on sales marketing business startups and entrepreneurship one of the latest episode he had lisa a bill you on a podcast and it's all about why you should bet on yourself and she was going through a entrepreneur journey and it just resonates so much with me sometimes we feel that we have to do the nine to five thing but sometimes you can choose to bet on yourself it was a really amazing episode i recommend you check it out listen to success stories wherever you get podcasts since twenty thirteen we launched this podcast the goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information and i feel that we've successfully done so as a natural product listeners like you would reach out and ask could i coach them could i train their team could i come in beacon an sk could i consult for them and that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day so in twenty nineteen one of our clients saw what we did and ask could we do that for them we experimented with it and we started a podcast production agency now we create for some of the biggest brands in the world and it's amazing i would love to show you and your team how we can create podcast for you and use it as an entertaining source but also educational and a lead generation if you're interested go to blue mango studios dot com again blue mango studios dot com and our team could show you exactly what we did it's amazing so this is great this is like know getting into the idea behind this because i feel like the sales leaders listening to this might say well you know no no matter what industry does and they can change your number maybe yours is a number of appointments your team book or maybe it's the number of you know deals day pipeline they build like whatever it is take the thing just don't get locked in on justin being in the insurances but just look at in or financial space look at it in the he and his teams at a goal and then they were able to accomplish it and you pointed out three things and you hit on some of these already that you guys did differently that helped your team to get that massive result the first one was you had the salespeople be salespeople so full cycle number two you kinda hit on already the high ticket and then number three was that you taught them i want you to spend like maybe a couple minutes on each of those it just kinda help us to break down so if i'm a sales leader listening to this or if i'm a sales rep listening to this and you know my company i'm new to a company and they're not giving me to process i can still take some of this stuff an apply so let's talk about the first one why did you change to doing a full cycle having your salespeople be doing the whole you know doing the sales the whole sales process well so you know and this is his parallel to sales i mean it's necessary if you're doing sales i believe that you cannot be successful in sales or really anything if you're not continually doing personal development of some kind okay because the reality is is that the more activity that you do in whatever business that you're in the more activity you do the more rejection that you're gonna get so if you're not continually building your self image at some point once that rejection out your self image that's when you quit right so you need to continually building yourself so i was reading a book semi recently now i'm far to my career right at this point i've already built multi dollar business and i'm looking at this i'm like duh like why were we not doing this right every sales organization in our industry and i'm sure a lot of other industries but are specifically the agent does everything and what i mean by that is they do the prospecting they do the calling the clients or booking the appointments okay they do the closing they do the follow up they do everything that has to do with the sale they're doing all parts of it from beginning to end right any massive corporate sales organization this what i was saying to a lot of what we do is very much more entrepreneurial as i'm sure a lot of other sales or organizations are but there is value in incorporating some of these corporate structures into an entrepreneurial kind of outline right so real simply is this is any large corporate sales program everything is broken up so there's the people that all they do is prospect there's the people that all they do is book appointments there's the people that all they do this is where we fall in the salespeople people is to close the deal then there's the people that all they do is the follow up and so on and so forth right so this is like five or six different departments that every individual is doing what they should only be doing one mh that's what we broke that up and the results have been crazy like way back than we ever thought so i'm misunderstood misunderstanding i thought you were doing full cycle but you broke it up so that they're not doing they're not doing all of those pieces even in i'm the opposite got it so what is it that you're doing with your are they just doing the closing part you're saying they're just at this point deal yes yes yes alright until now they've been doing everything which is what everyone in our industry does they do it all but like think about this why on earth if i have somebody that has a skill set of ten thousand dollars an hour and am i having them do ten dollar an hour work yeah it doesn't make doesn't compute right and yet this is what everyone does it's crazy yeah so was a huge changer for you breaking up the roles giving individuals their different capacity i like that go deeper on the high ticket now because you you mentioned this where you weren't selling just the type of people you're selling to changed as well and i think sometimes as as sales leaders we might say well i want my team to build pipeline i want them to get all different types of deals and in some cases yes that may be the case and maybe the idea here is that i can if the opportunities come yeah we will do it but we're not gonna go and go hunt down the small fishers but talk to me about how that transformation came and then how you got your team to start going off the high ticket especially when they're probably used to smaller deals or you know those other types of clients right so i just six years or seven years ago i saw this program that was phenomenal in our industry again this doesn't have is not specific to us like i was saying before it's whatever the highest end of whatever your industry is that's what i would be looking at okay you're dealing with another level of clientele and it's kinda like this man i saw this mean it's so funny these different things that i see and you put it through your life filter and you're like oh my god this is everything that i've been doing but it's just so well articulated but this is this is what i've been saying and living you just said it right so there was a mean going around that says my five hundred dollar client i would email from my five hundred dollar client i would like to understand exactly every aspect every step of this process and how it's going to benefit me go and then my fifty thousand dollar client i scent and that it's just so true man it's so true i'm telling you you think that selling to rich people is harder it's not it's easier it's easier so it's like why would i deal with difficult pain in the butt and less money or way more grateful excited always pays and fifty to a hundred plus times bigger sale let me do the math real quick you know what i mean is it's just that simple no and i i what i love about is is this like this paradox or this belief that we put in our minds because it's a higher a bigger price like i guess what it is when you look at it when you see how the sausage is made or you go and see behind the curtain you see that oz isn't as mighty because we've all seen those sales reps that are just like they kill they make tons of money you're like that guy is no more smarter than me but what that person has done is it's kinda like what you said there it's they're probably doing five deals a year while you're doing six hundred deals and you're still not even aware he's at in money because of the because in the crazy part about this too is then you might it also the belief in our society that if i do more work that means i am working i'm more successful and i think that part comes off in time so i made two hundred calls today is justin and it's like okay whoop to do but what did i two hundred call lead to if i made twenty calls to high net worth individuals and i booked two meetings down on brick then great that's that's much better then this two hundred so the the the number the volume of work doesn't always equate to the success in the end and i think for when we say we're selling to rich people or to hire ticket or enterprise level clients we automatically i'm justin and i'm telling you i'm confessing here bro we automatically start assuming that it's just like you said it's more difficult and it's harder and i wanna give you my first enterprise level deal because i i remember my first deal in my world was to jose and his wife or the age back company and i was a full time sales rep i wasn't mean this was just my this podcast in the business was a side gig and they gave me three hundred dollars a month to meet with them once a week and i was like oh my goodness somebody's paying but i'm making way more money my sales commission in the my right right right full time software sales but it was just kind of cool this little side gig but then in my mind i felt like i always just had to do this smb but then i work with this large organization bro and it wasn't even like they didn't even think about it they were like okay we're gonna do a deal and it was like thirty k and they're like okay no problem and they just paid it all in one and i'm like what am i doing with all this money this supposed to be i thought you gotta break it up over the course of the three hundred dollars for a month for that probably be like fifteen years to get to that for the point though they didn't think about it harden they didn't think about it as a big issue because they don't make it a big issue because if you can solve their problem you demonstrated to guess solve the problem to trust you to do so because they have so many more of the things that they're doing and i think when you're doing in the small client of five hundred three hundred dollars is like i wanna sc and get every penny from you but that wasn't necessary but it wasn't harder it was actually easier sell to the bigger clients the only thing that the bigger clients i saw from what i deal with they just wanted more insurance to protect self which get so i got an insurance policy that was able to protect my business which i needed anyways so the point was it wasn't much more difficult justin it wasn't and i was just like mind blowing so i agree with a hundred percent of that yeah it is weird right but it's kinda like god you well as you were talking i was like that was a good point i need to bring this up i need to bring this up so it's kinda like this okay there's actually a book written on this two books that are phenomenal ten x is easier than two x so you you know my boy then so ben hardy and i have friends really okay yeah okay so you're so you read his how yeah sorry who not how changed the game for me and then ten x but check out his new book and we'll put it in a show notes it's called scaling so they have there justin if you like the other two you will love love love this one so ben ben i hope you enjoy this episode i'm gonna send you to raw recording but ben is a friend of mine but yeah well no but it's so that's awesome and it's exactly what we're talking about okay because you said it it's just in different words you said people think if someone is selling this amount that they only did five deals versus i did six hundred and i did six hundred deals and i'm not selling nowhere near as much as them right it's because they're doing something different so most people think if i'm doing a hundred thousand dollars a year and i need to get to whatever i wanna get to a million dollars a year they can't fathom it because they equate that to doing ten times the amount of work no no no if you could do that you have to do things fundamentally differently from the ground up right so that's why two x is different is easier than ten x or sorry ten x is easier than two x because x in your mind you say okay i can double the amount of workload and get to that place yes that's true but to get the ten x you have to do things completely differently so yes that's exactly what we did it's just go to nth degree of whatever you can get to in your industry for the highest ticket possible and just do everything that you can to get into that niche i'm just telling you are you struggling to close deals b to b selling is tougher than ever before and that's why i will tell you about linkedin navigator listen up linkedin sales navigators is a sales intelligent platform that helps sales professional effectively prospect and engage high value customers drive higher revenue and increase sales performance sales navigator helps target the right buyers surface key signals such as job changes or which account you should prioritize and shows you hidden an ally so you can find those buyers that are most likely convert fueled by linkedin one billion members platform yes one billion sales navigator gives you the most up to date first party data enabling you to unlock conversations with the people that matter right now you can try linkedin sales navigator get a sixty day free trial at linkedin dot com slash ts s e that is linkedin dot com slash ts s e for sixty day free trial try it for yourself linkedin dot com slash t s e and let's get started justin you got me excited we gotta finish this last part though i mean we got crawl all three of those books and show notes but you trained your team differently you're not gonna give us all the proprietary so so the first thing you did was one you changed your team's mindset you help them to break up compartment the way that you're selling and only do sales activity too you changed their mindset on selling bigger ticket items bigger better clients and then three training talk to me about this in maybe like minute and a half what you did that trained your team okay so real quick is i had to figure out how i could s down over ten years of experience into something that was digestible in a short amount of time and that could be implemented quickly okay that was my challenge and so i did exactly that we created a one week training program and it's a true one week it's forty hours of material but if they go through that program we guarantee that someone who's never sold anything before gets through that program at the end of that they will be able to sell high ticket items in our industry period and here's the thing also nobody else it's not just the training of course like the stuff that we're training about is proprietary but the way that we are testing people and making sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that they have the ability to sell is completely different than any other sales that i've seen everyone else might have a course or something like that or maybe they don't even have anything and they just kinda path their people on the butt and say go get them partner you know yeah that ain't gonna work k and then you're wondering why people are making sales so it's kind of like the i joke with my friends back in a day my buddy who came with this idea dane you said it but dane said he's gonna have a restaurant and the soup was gonna be free but you have to pay for the spoon but that is joke as kid pay for the bowl and a soup but then you know but the with the concept though what you're getting at is that you gave all the knowledge away to your sales rep they didn't have to go find another course and didn't have to go to donald program you gave them a course that they can follow and they can be successful it took work on your part but it was s what i've learned over the years to help you and then two with that understanding of how to sell you gave them the clientele and then you only gave them the things that they need to do those three things and i feel like many of us as sales leaders we feel that we have so much to do we are doing the two x activities we have to do so many of these things so we can't get all of our sellers to up to par simplify it focus on the things that really matter the most and use time in a new book one of the things that you talked about it a little bit in in our conversation today but in a book ben hardy and blake is c author they spoke about using time as a tool and that is an interesting concept so if i give myself a month to do something how much you know the likelihood of me getting and done it's gonna take thirty days but if i say i need to do this in three days all of a sudden i focus on the most essential things and i get it done in three days as opposed to i need to think about this i need to plan it out no let's just get to i need to get to out of these right clients and do it anyways i awesome stuff justin in any last closing words to sales leaders who wanna hit they wanna hit a massive goals man i would say this i learned this way too late in the game and it's part of that who not how thing is that if you're a sales leader because that you said that specifically i would stop trying to do everything yourself the problem is not you you only have twenty four hours in a day i would find ir v and train properly people that you can put in your organization that can help lighten the load because the problem is not how you're doing stuff more often than not it's that you do not have the right who in your business to help you money money money justin i love it thank you so much man if folks are listening to this episode they wanna learn a little bit more about you get connected with you in your organization what's the best way for them to go about doing so you can find me on justin underscore be b a l i k on instagram that's probably the easiest way you can shoot me a dm or anything like that and we can chat no worries awesome we'll put that in a show notes folks can get access to it justin thank you for taking the time to come on a show today man i appreciate you absolutely that was justin bailey i'm telling you he knows his stuff it was fun go ahead and connect with justin tell him that you heard him here on the sales of evangelist podcast and i know he'll be totally excited totally blown away that you're reaching out and he's still what he is doing i mean it works and we've saw it seen it internally some of those books we mentioned you can see them all in a show notes but the the concept of one making sure your team has the different mindset you're breaking down the roles that they're doing two you're giving in a going for the larger type of deals and then three not the ones that are gonna cost you away whole bunch of money and then three having a system that you train them consistently on now stuff like that put me out of business right but the point is people come to me for specialty training they do some of those in house training follow what justin's doing and connect with him and tell him that you heard him on a show listen i always want you to thrive i want you to succeed i want you to raise a level of thinking but most importantly i want you to go out and do big things see on the next one the sales evangelist podcast is created by the sales of evangelist sales training organization it is produced by ts studios our a podcast production manager is nancy paul our audio engineer is j ob our video engineer is das k guest management is done by jill vid and christy vi our a content writer is carl lisa gal our graphic designers y sa and i'm your host and executive producer donald c kelly network pod sales podcast network
33 Minutes listen 8/1/25

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