Conversational Selling

About Jordan Ledwein: Jordan Ledwein helps companies and sales teams improve efficiency and effectiveness through proven systems, processes, and technology. Widely known as The AI Sales Guy, Jordan is passionate about sharing his insights and proven best practices for AI- and automation-based selling to help sales professionals achieve new heights of success. After graduating from Clemson with a degree in Economics in 2017, Jordan took on a technical sales position with a manufacturing and engineering company. But almost 15 years after first listening to Sandler CDs in the back of his dad's car, Jordan rejoined Sandler full-time at the beginning of 2022. His focus within Sandler shifted to AI & automation as he realized the potential impact it could have on their own business and their current clients. With the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, Jordan decided it was time to start sharing what he had learned about AI and how he was using it in his selling process. He started by creating a newsletter on LinkedIn, The AI Sales Guy, then moved on to international Sandler webinars & podcasts. He began creating content for Sandler and has now created a sales-focused AI Automation Agency - Sell Smarter. His passion is to help others learn how to combine a proven sales methodology, AI, and automation to help them become more efficient and successful. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jordan.In this episode, Nancy and Jordan discuss the following:Understanding commission-only salesJordan Ledwein's experience in using AI to enhance sales processesHow AI tools, like Humantic and Clay, help personalize and scale sales effortsThe importance of optimizing sales systems before integrating AIMisconceptions about AI's role in sales – it assists but doesn't replace human effortA case study showing AI improving productivity and quote acceptance ratesThe integration of Sandler methodology with AI platforms like HubSpotKey Takeaways: People want AI to be the easy button, but instead, think of it as, "How can it make me twice as efficient?".I think of AI that way, where it's assisting what we're doing, not replacing what we're doing. What's coming with Apple intelligence will probably be the most significant improvement we've seen with AI since chat GPTs were released.When it comes to building an AI-powered process, it doesn't happen overnight."Ialways talk about one of my first experiences with AI—it was with just a Google Home in my apartment, allowing me to turn on my lights or do simple things around the house. It started on a very personal level, and I just enjoyed playing around with it. I used a few different sales tools early on, even before ChatGPT was released, that incorporated some AI into them. I was amazed by how much time they saved me and how they improved my workflow and efficiency. Then, when ChatGPT was released, probably the week after it came out, I realized this was where things were heading. I researched AI and learned how to use it in my sales process. I also began explaining it to people in my network on LinkedIn and to clients in different professional contexts, helping them understand its potential as well." – JORDAN"A couple of different ways, and I'll do a webinar for Sandler. I don't even know if I've mentioned this to you, Nancy, but I'll be doing a webinar later in August of this year. I'm not sure if this will get up before or after that, but for Sandler and how we're using AI to bridge the gap, that is what we're saying between the methodology and the technology. The DISC portion is one way that we're doing it. Another big way is through HubSpot, right? What we're doing at SalesLift is building Sandler's methodology into HubSpot in the form of tools, playbooks, process sequences and properties, and all these different things. So, that's one thing we're doing that's been successful, and it's exciting to see how that has grown over the last year or two. But we're also adding in other tools, right? So, another tool we're starting to use is Attention AI. Attention AI is another note-taker, similar to Fathom, Sybil, Otter, or whatever people use nowadays. But we've paid attention to that and customized it to Sandler's methodology. So, it talks about the pains, investment criteria, and decision-making process we discussed on this call. And for those of you familiar with Sandler, those are the three pieces we look for to qualify for an opportunity. So, attention takes that exact transcript and pulls any of those pieces out of the call. Then, when we build a HubSpot that's kind of Sandler optimized, it has the same properties as HubSpot. So, we can actually use attention, and it pushes that deal information right into HubSpot so that reps using both don't even have to update their deals. These tools are doing it for them. It's making Sandler in the flow of work is kind of the terminology that we're using, but also just making it so the tools can easily help us apply this process and just really power everything." – JORDAN"I think the one thing I've been saying, and I think I can still say it for now, is that it's still really early with AI. I know many people are a little hesitant about the idea, and I don't blame them for that, honestly. I can be a little bit hesitant about the idea myself. But I'd rather understand how to use it, how not to use it, use it effectively, use it safely, use it ethically—all of those things. Just starting somewhere to learn how to use it is the best thing you can do. It could be ChatGPT or one of these simple AI programs that just help you create dinner recipes, create a procedure or document, or something like that. I mean, it doesn't have to be that complex. But the better you understand how to use it, the more set up you will be for the future, both professionally and personally. So, just start somewhere." – JORDANConnect with Jordan Ledwein:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanledwein/Sales Lift: https://saleslift.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Doug C. Brown: Doug C. Brown is the CEO of CEO Sales Strategies and a Sales Revenue and Profit Growth Expert. He has led client award-winning and high-performance teams as well as pioneered profitable development programs for companies. He has advised companies such as Intuit, CBS Television, Procter & Gamble, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Nationwide, Embassy Suites, Inc. 500 to 5000 companies, and thousands of other businesses and entrepreneurs. As an independent division head, Doug created, trained, and presented high-impact, results-oriented web seminars for prospects of Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes. Doug increased their division sales by 864% and close rate by 62% in just six months. Today, he helps companies and individuals increase their sales by incorporating sales revenue and profit growth strategies used by top 1% performers through the Top 1% Academy, Sales Revenue, and Profit Growth Masterminds. He also specializes in creating commission-only sales teams and advises companies on how to properly prepare for a high-performing sales team so they can attract and retain elite sales producers. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Doug.In this episode, Nancy and Doug discuss the following:Understanding commission-only salesOptimizing sales strategiesDoug's experience in revolutionizing seminars for Tony Robbins and Chet HolmesHow does someone become a 1 % earnerThe definition and importance of sales optimizationWorking techniques to close the sale Why “Maybies” are the great start of salesKey Takeaways: Optimization is taking a look at everything that you're doing and then asking two questions: How do I make it more effective? How do I make it more efficient?There are no bad clients, there are bad sales and buying decisions that turn into bad clients.If you make mistakes, don't beat yourself up for it because multi-billionaires who are selling make mistakes too."I became a 1% earner firstly, through declaring and deciding that that's what's going to be. It's a mental game in that regard. A lot of people talk about wanting to become a 1% earner, they want to double their sales, but it's just an idea. It's not a committed idea. Firstly, it requires that commitment and, quite frankly, one's now asking to be in the top 1% of earners in the world. You know, that's a commitment, and it takes time, energy, a lot of studying, and a lot of practice—and frankly, money, right? Because we've got to, we must be investing in things and getting around people who are in the 1% and learning what they're doing and how they're doing it. You know, fortunately for us, we train on that. So, you know, somebody comes here, obviously, they'll learn that. But it's still about getting around, you know, and I still do the same thing today, Nancy. I mean, I search out people that I feel a little uncomfortable being around because of their place in life, right?” – DOUG"So, the conversation of selling is really about having a conversion conversation, and I'll explain what that is versus having a sales conversation, right? Conversion conversations are really doing three things. First, they're boosting rapport continuously. So, you know, we're working on trust, like, and respect. A little luck sometimes doesn't hurt, but it's really about promoting those three. Second, it's constantly moving the conversation in the direction of the business return on investment or personal return on investment that the potential buyer is always looking for. I can expand upon that. And third, we're always creating what we call "yes states." When we move from step to step in the buyer's mind, they're thinking, "Yes, this makes sense," "Yes, wow," or "I didn't know that that's good." You want to constantly create a state of yes throughout the process. Now, on business and personal returns, people buy for different reasons, but they all fall into two categories: What is my business return on investment? What is my personal return on investment? When we really understand that ideal client profile and the ideal buyer persona—their motivations, what they want, need, feel, fear, and value—we can construct our conversation to be more like what we're doing right now: just having a conversation. It's not about taking them step by step, like, "Well, hey, we built rapport here. Next step, let's do a discovery session. Next step, let's..." and so on. That's a sales conversation. If you do conversational conversion the right way, in most cases, you never even do a presentation. They never ask for it." – DOUG"So, the other thing I wanted to say about that, Nancy, is if they're getting a "maybe," I would suggest that through their conversational conversion, they haven't been qualifying or disqualifying. When we're thinking about creating these yes states, if we're creating these yes states, but they're turning out to be "nos," it's like your radar goes up as the selling entity. It might be time for you to disengage or at least qualify why. A lot of times, the "maybes" will come at the end because they're thinking the same thing you are: "I'm really not sure if this will work, but we're trying to get it to a sale." And that's where the apprehension comes up, right? As the seller, we would be much better off going—and we do teach this—if you are not the right fit for this, you gracefully disengage and find out who the right fit is. It goes a long way versus just trying to push the sale. Because there are no bad clients, but there are bad sales and buying decisions that turn into bad clients." – DOUGConnect with Doug C. Brown:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougbrown123/CEO Sales Strategies: https://ceosalesstrategies.com/Download the E-Book: https://www.ceosalesstrategies.com/1PETry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Drewbie Wilson: Drewbie Wilson is the Founder of Call The Damn Leads®, where he empowers sales professionals through innovative tools like an e-commerce platform, a robust CRM, and educational resources designed to maximize success. Drewbie is a mindset and sales expert dedicated to helping individuals and businesses unlock their full potential. With a focus on personal growth and proven strategies, he has empowered countless clients to achieve remarkable success. Through his books "Crushing The Day" and "Social Media Mastery," Drewbie shares insights on overcoming limiting beliefs, implementing effective sales systems, and mastering marketing techniques. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Drewbie.In this episode, Nancy and Drewbie discuss the following:Description of the "call the damn leads" approachWhy people avoid picking up the phone and calling the leads How to crush the day by calling the damn leads and create a version of success that makes them happy The number of leads that should be called daily and the importance of tracking metricsThe importance of understanding the value of your time and using it wiselyDrewbie's advice to someone just starting in sales to overcome their fearsKey Takeaways: Everything in life has always come back to sales, for me personally.The one thing that I can always count on to get me a result in sales is to pick up the phone and call the damn leads.Sales is not always the most fun job, as there are many rejections and a lot of work.People want to do business with people. They don't want to deal with robots.You have to keep filling the pipeline because if you go and harvest everything without putting anything new in the dirt, there will be nothing to harvest a little bit later. "I like to take it one step further and look at it as I'm a servant first. We don't have to get too into the religion or spiritual side of things. But ultimately, I look at myself on this planet as a servant first. And so, I'm going into every conversation looking at how I can serve this individual and leave them better off than when I entered this situation, whether helping them with a product or service or sharing some wisdom or knowledge. And to me, I think that's a big differentiator; when you can get into a service-first mindset, you're not calling to sell someone. You're just calling to help. And it feels less transactional. And that's where you can build relationships. And I'm sure you've talked about this before, but people buy from people they know, like, and trust. And I think that trust comes from the ability to communicate, "Hey, I understand you, and I want to help you," because that's why people do business with anyone. They want to get out of pain or get into pleasure. And so, if you can help to be the conduit for that situation, then the transaction is easy to occur." – DREWBIE"So, I started thinking about time, where I'm spending it, and what I'm spending it on, which led me to understand that I get to choose my own work. I get to pick how much my time is worth, where I spend it, and where I invest it. The difference is I must have the skillset and the confidence to show up and deliver that to someone else who's going to be willing to pay me for my skillset, for my time, because time is our one true resource. You cannot buy it. You cannot win it in a poker tournament, as much as we'd love to get a box on Christmas or a card on our birthday. It never goes that way. So, that conversation sent me down a path of realizing that I get to decide what I do daily. And I get to decide where I spend my time, who I spend it with, and what I spend it on to know the kind of return I will get on that investment. As a sales professional, we aim to help prospects understand that the value of what they will receive far exceeds the price they will pay. So, when you can have that conversation with yourself about your time, it's amazing what you can truly start to accomplish." – DREWBIE"Know what your time is truly worth. At the end of the day, that is the one thing I can encourage anyone to take stock of. What is your time worth now? And what would you need it to be worth to live the life that you want to live? It's a matter of increasing your skill set or spending more time working doing what you do great. That's it. It's always a matter of what your time is worth. Where are you spending it? What are you spending it on? And who are you spending it with? Because that's what's going to end up being the recipe for the life that you get to live." – DREWBIEConnect with Drewbie Wilson:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewbiewilson/Call The Damn Leads: https://callthedamnleads.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Tom Latourette: Tom Latourette has been a disciple of the M3 Learning process since 2000 when he was the VP of Sales and Marketing at SBR, Inc. With over 30 years of marketing, sales, and sales management experience, Tom can bring a unique, real-world perspective to your M3 Learning experience. His knowledgeable application of ProActive solutions can greatly impact your productivity as a sales manager or salesperson. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Tom.In this episode, Nancy and Tom discuss the following:The importance of practical, bottom-line sales tools for both sales reps and managers to improve performanceThe importance of understanding what activities top performers do daily to replicate success across the teamChallenges in managing senior salespeople and the importance of aligning their goals with their personal "why"Using proactive solutions, like the COD method (Cause, Outcome, Decide), to guide sales discovery calls effectivelyThe value of consultative selling over feature-based selling by focusing on uncovering client needs before pitching solutionsKey Takeaways: One of the biggest things is that space of really understanding what creates success in your organization.When I'm interviewing salespeople, I watch how they handle the interview because they will interview the same way that they will sell.Ask a few good outcome questions and ensure you're finding out their decision-making process.We've got to do kind of a yin and yang. Sometimes, we have to answer the question but ensure we're flipping. "And our answer was, well, Rich always hits his goal. That's what A players do. That's what high performers do. We didn't have to worry about Rich. And he goes, "Great. Great, I get it. But let me ask you guys a question. You're sitting here at this two-day leadership training program. We're going to be talking about a lot of great stuff. But what's Rich doing today? What's he doing to make success happen 12 months from now?" And, Nancy, we couldn't answer that question. We didn't know. We couldn't answer the question. Rich was already a really good salesperson. We didn't know. We didn't feel we could bring anything to the table for him. But what Skip helped us see was that if we couldn't articulate what success looked like, what the steps a successful salesperson was doing daily, then as a leadership team, or even as a company, we couldn't hire more Riches. We couldn't coach the rest of our people to be like Rich. And maybe we were going to lose Rich because he's watching us spend all of our time with our non-performers, trying to help them get better. Right? And that was a big moment. I remember midway through my career, I felt like my mind expanded and really got to that space of "What are things? How do I get my people to do the right things? And what are those things that they need to do? And how do we do more of them?" – TOM"Ithink, one, you know, probably one of the biggest things we have to do a better job of as leaders, not just of salespeople but leaders of humans, as other people, is. I think sales leaders often don't understand the "why" behind the humans we're working with. One of the questions I like to ask sales leaders I work with is, "Tell me why this person wants to perform better. What are they striving for?" You know, the great thing about Rich was that on January 1st of every year, Rich would take a picture of what he would spend his commission check on at the end of the year. And so, one year, it was a new truck. The next year, it was a hot tub. The year after that, it was a new deck. And so, as Rich's leader, every time I'd work with Rich, I'd go, "Hey Rich, what are we working towards today? What are we working towards this year?" And then I could get alignment on helping him achieve his goals, right? So, I think the first thing, Nancy, is we have to be better humans aligned with our people and understand their "why" better. What is it about this job? What about the goal they're setting for themselves that is important to them? I don't know if that makes sense, and it seems like a soft skill, but I see that too many leaders don't know the answer to that." – TOM"Think about your relationship with a client much like your relationship on a first date. A first date is not about telling you how great I am; it's about uncovering what you're looking for. The objective of a first date is to determine if a second date makes sense. Then, after a second date, you determine if a third date makes sense, and so on, until a strong relationship is formed. One of the things we talk about is getting salespeople out of the space where they think people want to be educated. People don't want to be educated; they want to be validated. Good discovery is about validating your needs and allowing you to be heard. I think salespeople have to get better at discovery, asking better, deeper questions, and being okay with asking before they tell." – TOMConnect with Tom Latourette:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-latourette/M3 Learning: https://www.m3learning.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Adi Klevit: Adi is the leader and visionary of Business Success Consulting Group. Her twenty-five years of knowledge and experience as a trained Industrial Engineer, management consultant, and business executive give her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face. Adi utilizes her practical know-how and wisdom to help organizations and companies of any size dramatically improve their efficiency and performance. By leveraging her ability to understand business processes as well as people and drawing on her high-caliber skills in vital areas of personnel management, finance, and operations, Adi can help virtually any business owner achieve their goals and bring order to their lives. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Adi. In this episode, Nancy and Adi discuss the following:The importance of well-documented processesThe process of mapping and documenting client processesIdentifying pain points that signal the need for process documentation.The impact of documented processes on business efficiency and growthThe role of process documentation in employee training and retentionAdi's unique team approach and company scalingKey Takeaways: You will be surprised how many growing companies do not have processes and procedures in place.The adaptability that you have to have doesn't mean the processes are bad.Don't be afraid to start process documentation. Just start doing it. Don't make it complex."The first thing that we do is we make sure that they have the mindset that processes and procedures will be used throughout the company. That's number one. Number two is that we have to make sure that the documented procedures and processes are accessible and written in such a format that everybody can follow them. So that's very important because if they are stored somewhere, nobody knows where it's very hard to follow and implement them. Then, we have a rollout process. It's a five-step rollout process, very specific, that intends to train everybody on those procedures and also make sure that there is buy-in and that every person understands the importance of having those processes documented. The next step after that is ensuring those processes are being utilized and used in day-to-day management. In terms of what we also do, we ensure that there are regular reviews of those processes and that regular review is either driven by time." – ADI"I think what sets us apart is that we have a strong team. And my idea is that you know, I can't be a solo practitioner. I have a team—a team of writers, a team of consultants, marketing, and sales. You know, I feel like I need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk, right? And I managed to scale my company. I managed to increase it, to make it bigger. All of that allows us to take on more and more clients, and we continually improve our own processes. We want to deliver a great product for our clients, and we do. So that is pretty unique." – ADI"You know, I think it's important to have well-documented processes and procedures that all follow. I think that is extremely important. It's something that people should look at, and having somebody do it for you is going to make a huge difference. Because, as one of my clients just said—and again, you can also watch her video on our website—she said if she tried to do it herself, she would still be on procedure number four. And, you know, I hear it over and over again. So, in terms of expediting things and increasing the organization, I recommend that you document your processes and procedures. And if you need help, contact us." – ADI."Processes and procedures are not boring; they can actually be pretty exciting because they give you freedom, you know? That's another truism—it does give you freedom. And people sometimes think that it's restrictive, especially creative people. They might think that having processes and procedures is a restrictive activity, but the truth is, it's not. Because if you don't have your processes and procedures well-documented, that's restrictive because then you have to reinvent the wheel every single time." - ADIConnect with Adi Klevit:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/adiklevit/Business Success Consulting Group: https://bizsuccesscg.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Roger Martin: Roger Martin is a Co-Founder and Managing Member of the industry-leading health and wellness franchises, RockBox Fitness and beem Light Sauna. Prior to RockBox Fitness and beem Light Sauna, operated as the Chief Operating Officer of a solid oral dosage pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organization. Previously served as President of a large topical semi-solid and liquid CDMO, as a National Sales Director and Sr. Vice President leading sales and marketing teams of up to 500 sales representatives in the specialty and big pharma market. Extensive expertise in pharmaceutical sales management, leadership, sales force deployment, business development, strategic selling, contract negotiation, business-to-business service contracting, licensing, and pharmaceutical and contracted service marketing. Knowledge of myriad dosage forms and therapeutic classes, as well as regulatory environments and payer systems. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Roger.In this episode, Nancy and Roger discuss the following:The definition of high-impact communicationThe difference between persuasion, influence, and manipulation in salesThe importance of storytelling in sales, positioning the customer as the heroThe value of continual learning and personal investment versus traditional financial investmentsKeypoints from Roger's book, An Insider's Guide to BusinessKey Takeaways: The best way for a salesperson to make an impact in their industry, in the world, and on others is to start with genuinely understanding what their prospect needs.Buying behavior is this: you're telling a story, and the customer is the hero.People will buy from people they like, but more people will buy from people whom they trust to solve their issue."High-impact communication, by my definition, is when two individuals have a complete, thorough, and empathetic understanding of each other's wants and needs. And what do I mean by that? Whether it's a personal relationship, a family relationship, a business relationship, or even a vendor-customer relationship, it's about both sides understanding what each other needs to thrive in that relationship. Too often, especially in today's digital world, communication becomes overly transactional. I love how you started by saying that every business and everything else starts with a human interaction.” – ROGER"I appreciate the question because it will allow me to delineate the difference between persuasion, influence, and manipulation. And they are too often conflated. The consumer conflates them; even salespeople conflate the two when really persuasion and influence are about empathetically trying to understand what your pain point, your issue, your area of opportunity is—something that, you know, you're at point A and you're trying to get to point C, let's say. And then I help through persuasion, and I'm going to persuade you to understand that this problem needs to be acted upon. If you think about it for a long time, if you just keep wondering about it, if you stress about it, you're not going to solve your issue. So I'm going to persuade you that you need to take action. And I'm going to do that through very ethical means and just skillful means, but to help build that bridge—just think of, you know, in your mind, literally building a bridge over a small river from A to C, and my product or solution and support and services will help get you from A to C. Now, manipulation is, "Hey, I want to get you to C because I make a big commission off of it, but you really don't need C, and your A is just fine for you, or another vendor would get you to C a lot easier and cheaper than me. But I'm going to use, you know, tricks and slick lines and all that, you know, to get you there." […] People will always exchange money for a solution to a problem that is causing them pain or a solution to a problem that will help them grow to be even more successful. And too many times—and you know this—too many times a salesperson will boast about their company, they'll boast about their track record, about their service record, about their customer satisfaction record. You know what? Those are great. The customer couldn't care less. The customer wants to know, "Can you solve my problem?" You know, "Can you solve my problem?" – ROGER"I would challenge them to continue learning, listen to Nancy's podcast, you know, buy those $997 courses from genuine, great people that you can trust and who will deliver value. Go to that weekend seminar, invest the two grand to do that because you should be investing in yourself as much as you're investing in your business and investing in the stock market. I mean, the stock market is going to make 8 to 10% over the long run. You put that same two grand into yourself, you can quintuple that money in a year. You know, to me, it's a no-brainer about continual learning." – ROGERConnect with Roger Martin:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/realrogermartin/Thrive More Brands:  https://thrivemorebrands.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Jake Stahl: Jake Stahl is a Fractional Chief Learning Officer who mixes innovation and mind science to redefine training and skill-building. The Chief Learning Officer (CLO) is the linchpin for organizational learning and development initiatives. Collaborating closely with key executives such as the Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer, the CLO crafts and executes comprehensive training programs. With over 10,000 professionals trained in six countries, he has created more than 100 proprietary courses, facilitated thousands of workshops, and navigated the complexities of leadership development. His approach transcends traditional training, integrating value-based selling with the latest psychological techniques and neurolinguistic programming to offer personalized, high-impact solutions like his Adaptive Conversational Blueprint. Throughout his extensive career, he has doubled and tripled sales, sculpted award-winning sales representatives, and ignited leadership potential across ten distinct industries. His seven patents in the field force technology arena, the prestigious International Gold Award for Instructional Design, and invitations to speak nationally and globally on training and development highlight his dedication to excellence. With him, one isn't just investing in a program; they're embracing a custom-made experience that caters to specific needs, fueling growth and reimagining success. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jake. In this episode, Nancy and Jake discuss the following:How does a fractional Chief Learning Officer differ from other traditional roles in salesDifference between adaptive conversational blueprint and standard sales scriptsJake's 2-10 ruleHow neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) can be used to adapt to a customer's communication style quicklyThe power of establishing trust and matching a prospect's communication styleNot selling is the best way to sellKey Takeaways: I teach representatives how to adapt to that quickly in a conversation so they don't need a sales script. If I could eliminate any phrase from the English language, it would probably be, "Hi, how are you?"Two five-year-olds are the best conversationalists on the planet.Remember, everybody wants to be heard."I've been doing this for 30 years across six countries. I've trained over 10,000 people. And to me, the baseline of a good conversation will be trust. I think our flaw is that we don't take time to build that trust in the beginning by listening, understanding the situation a person is in, and then being able to adapt our conversation accordingly. These factors are things like emotional intelligence and the company's perception of your company, and you are taking a lot into play. But conditioning and perception, to me, are huge. If we can understand the other person's position when it comes to conditioning and perception, and we can build trust, the sale typically follows." – JAKE"Yeah, when most people have a conversation or start with somebody for the first time, they're anxious to tell them about themselves because that's always our favorite topic, right? We talk about ourselves. So, when you get into that conversation, my theory—and it's really shown itself to be true over the past 30 years—is that the more time I can give you at the beginning of a conversation to talk about you, the more receptive you're going to be to me. And the more I check in with you during a conversation, the more receptive you'll be to me. So, I established something called the 2-10 rule, which says every two minutes, check in with the person you're talking to in some way, shape, or form. Make a statement, ask a question. So, every two minutes, you do this. And I have some of my clients set a stopwatch because this is really tough for some people to get a hold of. At the end of 10 minutes, regroup. So, Nancy, I've been talking for the past 10 minutes. I've really been let loose. Do you have any questions about what we've talked about so far? Is there anything you don't understand? So, every 10 minutes, you do that. And when you do that, it takes care of one basic thing: the Q&A people typically have at the end. This whole premise, Nancy, is based on the fact that for every 10 minutes you talk, you generate two minutes' worth of questions in the other person's head. So, the 2-10 rule flips it on its head and says every two minutes check-in, every 10 minutes summarize and ask for questions, and your call and your trust level will go through the roof." – JAKE"How it works is by being interested versus interesting. So, when I get on the phone with a potential client, let me give you a great example. When I reach out on LinkedIn and try to connect, my first four connections with that person have nothing to do with me. So, I'll reach out the first time and say, 'Hey, I see you're another fractional executive. Just curious if you'd want to connect and catch up.' Then they write back, and I write—no matter their response—I write back and say, 'So, what's your ideal customer profile? Who are you looking for in the way of a customer?' And then the third reach-out is, 'So, what verticals are you in? What's the place that you live in the most?' And a miracle happens, Nancy. By the end of that third conversation, 80% of the time, somebody either says to me, 'Can I get on a call with you?' or, 'I've been talking all about myself. Tell me what you do.' Either way, Nancy, I'm a winner. And I hadn't even talked about what I did yet." – JAKEConnect with Jake Stahl:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestahl/Jake Stahl Consulting: https://jakestahlconsulting.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Stan Gibson: Stan Gibson is passionate about guiding organizations to build thriving, human-centered cultures. Through his engaging keynotes and leadership coaching, Stan equips companies with frameworks and tools to put people first. He advises executives on adopting transparent, collaborative leadership styles that tap into teams' collective wisdom. Stan's actionable insights help leaders role model vulnerability, foster psychological safety, and unlock the full innovative potential of their people. Organizations that work with Stan soon benefit from improved trust, communication, and knowledge sharing. By focusing on developing a shared sense of purpose and community, Stan enables companies to boost engagement, agility, and performance.Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Stan. In this episode, Nancy and Stan discuss the following:The critical role of emotional intelligence in leadership How emotional intelligence, well-being, and productivity are interconnectedStrategies for preventing burnout and maintaining balanceKey habits to optimize your mornings for a productive dayThe importance of balancing mind, body, and soulTechniques to manage energy levels for peak productivityKey Takeaways: I think that when leaders learn to coach, employees learn to lead. Emotional intelligence is one of the critical things that I believe.You've got to know your system; when you are green, yellow, or red, you work around that.Do things right up front and create a legacy."And so, I really work with many clients on how to start the day so that they have the energy, power, and passion to take care of everyone and everything they do. Despite being only 2.5% of our body weight, our brain consumes over 20 to 30% of our energy. When we spend a lot of time on Zoom, staring at our own reflection, it's like a 1.5 to 2X tax on our brain. Understanding these dynamics helps explain why an eight-to-nine-hour workday can feel like a 14-hour day. So, understanding the three-legged stool—emotional intelligence, well-being, and productivity—is crucial. Effective habits and systems that support asynchronous work, rather than endless meetings, are where I'm focusing my efforts with organizations, Nancy." – STAN"The first thing when you get up, is to thank God you are getting up. I think, "I'm alive, I'm well." The first thing I do is head out to get some water. Your body hasn't had any fluids for the last 10 hours, so it's important to hydrate. [...] The lemon juice comes in a glass bottle, which is better than plastic. This helps me get my electrolytes; even Olympic athletes hydrate first thing in the morning. The second thing I focus on is what I call "mind, body, and soul." You can tackle these in any order you prefer, but I believe you need to work on all three. If you want to work out next or go for a walk, that's great. I'm adapting my approach because, although I used to be a "no pain, no gain" type of person—an ex-athlete who pushed the limits—I understand the tremendous benefits of simple movement. Walking three miles or whatever you can manage in a day is incredibly valuable." – STAN"One tool I use is the Enneagram. I like the Enneagram—and for those who don't know, it's spelled E-N-N-E-A-G-R-A-M—because it identifies nine different personalities. This system is probably over 2,000 years old. The reason I like it is because it's part of your DNA. When you're born, you possess one of these nine types. Strength Finders is more about how you are in your current season of life, because it can change a little bit. But the Enneagram is so unbelievably accurate. It even delves into your fears, your stresses, how you act under stress, and how you react to fears. It explores a whole new element of things that I believe leaders really need to understand. For me, it's fantastic. It's just a real holy grail for self-awareness." – STANConnect with Stan Gibson:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/oxygenplus/Stan Gibson Speaks: https://www.stangibsonspeaks.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Danielle Cobo: Danielle Cobo is a speaker, author, and podcast host who works with organizations to develop the grit, resilience, and courage to thrive in a rapidly changing market. She is the author of the book and hosts the podcast "Unstoppable Grit" Breakthrough the 7 Roadblocks Standing Between You and Achieving Your Goals." This "monster truck driver in heels" gets Lou to jump in the truck while she's racing toward greatness in an unstoppable episode of Thrive LouD. As a former Fortune 500 Senior Sales Manager, she propelled her team to the top national ranking despite the upheaval of downsizing, restructuring, and acquisitions. Her commendable leadership earned her the prestigious title of Region Manager of the Year. Her resiliency motivated her to earn four consecutive national Sales Excellence Awards in a male-dominated industry. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Danielle.In this episode, Nancy and Danielle discuss the following:Danielle's upbringing and how she was raised resilient by her single momThe fear of the unknown and imposter syndromeThe importance of confidence in achieving sales successDanielle's career journey in medical sales and her transition to entrepreneurshipThe inspiration behind Danielle's book, "Unstoppable Grit"Danielle's perspective on failure and the importance of learning and growthBelieving in oneself is the key to success Key Takeaways: And imposter syndrome is a big roadblock that can paralyze our career. When we have confidence, we're willing to take more risks.I've always loved sales training and leadership development, and that's always been my favorite part: mentorship and leadership.I think my upbringing is why empathy is one of my core values."In my book, I talk about the seven roadblocks that stand between us and achieving our goals, and one of the most common roadblocks that we often run into is this fear of the unknown. Our mind likes to know what will happen in the future, but we don't always know what will happen in the future. And so sometimes when we're stepping in, when we're presented with an opportunity per se, say, it's a new job opportunity or a new sales opportunity, a new opportunity to work with a client, sometimes that fear of the unknown can be paralyzing because we don't want to fail. But at the same time, if we don't put ourselves out there and try and explore new avenues of growing our business, career, and life, we'll never know what's out there unless we try. So, fear of the unknown is a big roadblock that a lot of us run into." – DANIELLE"What inspired me to write the book is when working with clients, I saw some commonality amongst many of the clients I was working with. It was those common roadblocks: the fear of the unknown, perfectionism, imposter syndrome—all of these common roadblocks. I saw some consistency in what I saw and the advice I gave. I also found that many people continuously said, when in my initial conversations with them, "I want clarity. I want clarity on what the future is going to bring." So, in the book, I give people each chapter as a story, learning lessons learned through different experiences and practical advice that they can take away and apply to their life on how to build a career and life that they truly love, feel fulfilled and purposeful in. That's what inspired the book: I wanted more people to see what is possible truly, to think outside the box of what's possible in their career and their life, and have clarity on what they want." – DANIELLE"I would say that failure, we don't fail. I believe that when we say, "Well, we failed," it means it's definite. We did something, failed at it, and that's it. And if we look at failure as something that didn't work out, we miss the opportunity to learn and grow for something. So, I believe that we don't fail. We either choose to learn and grow. We learn and grow from every experience that we want. Maybe it didn't go in our desired direction, but we still took something out of it. So, to say that we failed gives ourselves a disservice of going through that experience." – DANIELLEConnect with Danielle Cobo:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellecobo/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Nancy Zare: Dr. Nancy Zare is a sales psychologist, holding an MSW in Organizational Planning and Development and a Ph.D. in Social Work and Organizational Development from Boston College. She is also a founder of multiple ventures, including Rapport Builderz, which helps salespeople develop relationships with prospects that lead to new business, and the author of several books. She helps her clients learn the right words and know the right approach to attract new businesses without appearing "sales-y." Using her knowledge of human behavior and experience in sales, she started Rapport Builderz, where she advises service-based entrepreneurs on how to prospect online, generate leads, open sales conversations, follow up, and get hired. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Nancy. In this episode, Nancy and Nancy Zare discuss the following:AlikeAbility™ System for turning prospects into clientsFour personality styles and how they influence communication and decision-makingTechniques for quickly identifying a prospect's communication styleThe intersection of psychology and salesUse of spirituality to enhance communication and connection in salesEmphasis on focusing on the buyer's perspective rather than just the selling processKey Takeaways: Once you know their style, you're ready to connect their language quickly and authentically, which can translate into doing business together.The more you understand how that buyer makes decisions, the better you can communicate with them in a language they understand and can embrace.My focus is on how buyers buy, not how to sell.Talk so your buyer says: "Wow, I feel comfortable with you!""I've discovered that there are four different ways that people are hardwired, and they communicate and make decisions based on one of four personality styles. And they actually coordinate with the quadrants of the brain. And so, when you speak to people in general, it turns out that you're only connecting maybe 25 % of the time with someone. The other 75%, you're not speaking their language. Hence, your words fall flat, and you're not making connections. " – NANCY"I was born a psychologist. It's true. My parents had a stormy marriage, and I was the youngest child, the only girl in this family. And I watched these adults and my older brothers. I mean, everybody was in a tizzy. And so, I was watching all of this, trying to figure out my place in this, you know, family. And it turns out that around the age of 10, I saw a TV show with an idea of how to get people to get along. So, I tried it on my folks. And I did, and they let me, which is a surprise, but I think it indicates, Nancy, just how distraught they were with their own relationship. Or maybe they saw something in their daughter that suggested I could help them. At the end of this conversation, I turned to my Dad; both parents were present, and both were native-born, English-speaking adults. I translated and said to my Dad, "This is what Mom needs you to do so she'll feel loved." And I turned to my Mom and said, "And this is what Dad needs for you to do so he will feel respected." And notice the words changed, and that's because Mom was the I in DISC. She was the one who needed lots of love, attention, you know, that sort of thing. And Dad was much more the S. He needed respect. He needed a system." – NANCY"Well, spirituality is definitely a big part of who I am. I may have majored in psychology, but I minored in philosophy. So, I've always been intrigued by understanding, you know, what's the meaning of it all and, you know, what's going on behind me. And, by the way, that's very typical of the I. The I tends to be one of those, you know, thinking in the stratosphere and thinking about doing things of significance beyond self. And so, spirituality to me is important because it allows me to connect again in an authentic way, to bring my heart, not just my head, into the sales conversation. So, I bring all of me. Does that make sense?" – NANCYConnect with Nancy Zare:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyzare/Rapport Builderz: https://rapportbuilderz.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Ryan Pollyniak: Ryan Pollyniak is a Cloud Transformation Executive at Western Computer, a Microsoft Gold Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Cloud solutions. Ryan is a seasoned sales professional with a rich background in the Microsoft Dynamics space. Before joining Western Computer in 2015, Ryan spent significant time with an ISV (add-on solution) in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, working closely with partners to sell products to companies using Microsoft Dynamics. Catering to medium- to enterprise-sized businesses, Ryan is well-versed in ERP and CRM strategies and is heavily involved in the Microsoft Dynamics Channel. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Ryan.In this episode, Nancy and Ryan discuss the following:Understanding ISVs in the Microsoft Dynamics Space Aligning sales and marketing strategies for successPrioritizing ideal prospects and avoiding shotgun approaches The importance of transparency and alignment in sales conversationsCritical strategies for ensuring customer satisfaction in complex engagements The role of CRM in organizational successKey Takeaways: Building that network in a closed ecosystem is a continuous act. You can never let your ego or feelings get in the way of treating people correctly because they will come back around.If you sell people things that they don't need, it'll come back to bite you.We're not satisfied if we don't have a satisfied customer at the end of an engagement."And there's a great book out there called Essentialism that focuses on how well some organizations have done that in the past to great effect. So, when taking that line of thought, you want to ensure that your marketing messaging and target audience align with the projects you want to bring in as an organization and what you want your salespeople to follow up on. Otherwise, you end up with a shotgun approach of, you know, getting all kinds of leads in terms of high volume and high quantity, but maybe not particularly the type of companies that you would want to be working with. And that leads to your salespeople getting frustrated, sorting through endless low-value leads. There's a huge cost to that organization." – RYAN"I don't try to convince people very much, which sounds a little bit silly in a sales scenario, but I'm not a big believer in really trying to persuade as much as I am trying to help prospective clients understand once I've identified that we have a good fit and I understand what the client is looking for. It's really about explaining that and making sure that they understand why I am in the position I'm in with all my experience in this industry and why I think the solution is a good fit. And I've had people tell me right out of the gate, 'We're trying to narrow down prospective vendors. Give me the short story; why should I go with you guys?' And I say, my answer to that, Nancy, is, and it takes people back sometimes, is, 'I don't know that we are the right fit yet. Can we talk a little bit more?'" – RYAN"Be honest with people and do what you're good at. Don't try to be all things to everyone, and keep yourself organized in your CRM. That's critical. If your boss is asking you to update CRM or if you're the boss and you're asking people to update CRM, I'm a big believer in systems. Nobody—I can't speak for everybody, but I can't keep everything straight in my head or on paper. I need systems, I need reminders, I need processes. And I think any good salesperson is going to follow those. Any good sales organization will have best practices established in terms of how to use the system and get the most out of it. So don't fight CRM. It is there to help." – RYANConnect with Ryan Pollyniak:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/microsoftdynamicssolutions/Western Computer: https://www.westerncomputer.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Carlos A. Alvarenga: Carlos A. Alvarenga is an independent researcher, writer, and coach. His new book, "The Rules of Persuasion: How the World's Greatest Communicators Convince, Inspire, Lead—and, Sometimes, Deceive" (Post Hill Press, 2023), not only explains how persuasion works in all forms of human communication but also presents a clear and effective model that can be used in both personal and professional lives. Before his current roles, Carlos was the Executive Director of World 50 Labs, the member-innovation team at World 50, Inc. Before that, he served as a Principal in Ernst & Young's Advisory Practice and as a Managing Director at Accenture. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Currently, Carlos is pursuing his Ph.D. in language, writing, and rhetoric at the University of Maryland. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Carlos.In this episode, Nancy and Carlos discuss the following:What motivated Carlos to become an expert in persuasionImportance of defining persuasion and its application in leadershipThe impact of persuasion on sales effectiveness The distinction between coercion, manipulation, and persuasion The potential for persuasion to be used for both good and evil Exploring the dark side of persuasion with historical examples Key Takeaways: It's hard to be good at something you can't define. Persuasion is a fundamental human activity.Persuasion is getting someone to willingly, rationally, and ultimately control their faculties and accept that what you say is true.And the opposite of persuasion is coercion. If I explain to you why doing something is a good thing, that's persuasion. If I trick you, that's manipulation."I explained in the book that if we take these three modes—character, argument, and emotion—we can divide each into seven elements. So, the seven parts of character include, for example, the language you use, your history, where you come from, and these kinds of things. There are seven elements of argument: evidence, logic, and witnesses. Then, there are seven kinds of emotion: positive, negative, contemplative, etc. When I had these 21 elements, I needed a metaphor to help clarify it for me and the reader. I went back to high school chemistry and said, it's like a periodic table. Every message I've ever looked at, and I've looked at thousands, combines these 21 elements. So that's step one. It's like learning chemistry, right, Nancy? First, start with elements like carbon, hydrogen, and whatever else you will use. Then, you learn some very simple formulas. Learn the elements that work for you, which ones you feel comfortable working with, and which you like to work with, and then start putting them to work. Within an hour of coaching, I've seen people become better at this because they now understand that if they use their origin as one of the elements, people will want to believe them more." – CARLOS"Logic is one of the seven elements of argument, so it's on the periodic table. It certainly can be used, right? And people who are doctors and scientists often use logic to persuade. We have broadly spoken about two types of education. If you want to use logic, you can become a philosopher, right? And become a logician and get a PhD in logic. You can become a lawyer. Lawyers also get trained in the use of logic to persuade. But it's one of the 21 elements. We are often persuaded, and we are more often persuaded, I think, by other things. Because you must go to specialized schools to use argument well, most people are not experts at it, either in creating or receiving logical persuasion. So, we tend to be persuaded more by character, for example, or emotion. They operate in different ways. And so, logic is certainly helpful. But I always challenge executives. I say I want you to start persuading me using nothing but logic—strict, well-constructed, internally consistent, effective logical sequences. And if you can make it to three minutes, I'll give you a prize. Unless you're a professional, you can't. Most people fall apart after about a sentence and a half." – CARLOS"Let's start with the fact that persuasion is predictable. Yeah, I can tell you how someone will, what form of listening they'll use most of the time, and whether it'll be effective. And sometimes it's like magic. I work, coach, and say, I want you to change these two or three things you just told me. And the effect is dramatically different. I've had people break into tears when they finally get the message right. And they think it's something that's special. And I say, it's not. You wouldn't be amazed if you went to a chemist and the chemist made you aspirin. Don't be amazed. I'm just following the rules. And if you follow the rules, more often than not, exactly what should happen will happen, just like with real chemistry." – CARLOSConnect with Carlos A. Alvarenga:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlos-alvarenga/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Hamish Knox: Hamish Knox is a member of the global Sandler network. Hamish supports private organizations in Southern Alberta create and maintain a scalable, repeatable, consistent sales engines and an engaged, motivated team by holding them accountable to implementing the structures, systems, and processes shared in our sessions. Before joining the Sandler network, Hamish worked in various industries, including media, communication services, software, and professional sports, which melded his passions for sales and education. Hamish was named the 2020 David H. Sandler Award winner, Sandler's highest honor, becoming the first Canadian trainer to receive that award. He was the first two-time author in the Sandler network, writing books on topics no one likes to talk about. His first book was on Accountability the Sandler Way, and his second on Change the Sandler Way. Sandler Home Office regularly invites Hamish to speak at Sandler's train-the-trainer conferences and Sandler's public Sales and Leadership Summit in Orlando. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Hamish.In this episode, Nancy and Hamish discuss the following:Hamish's motivation to move to SandlerThe importance of having systems in place for success by design, rather than success by default, in sales organizationsDifferentiating on how you sell, not what you sellThe value of David H. Sandler AwardAccountability and the fear of change in salesThe importance of making the conversation about the buyer and not about the seller's needsKey Takeaways: Without systems, it's very much, you know, flying by the seat of your pants, which is a cliche that gets bandied about. Sandler is not just about a bunch of cheesy lines or techniques or saying these seven things; you'll always get the meeting or the order.If we don't have accountability, if we don't have the boundaries defined, our salespeople are going to make it up.I genuinely love what I do."You know, people, what's the cliche about people fear three things: death, taxes, and change? Because our brains are wired to keep us safe, which usually means stuck. Because no matter where you believe that we all came from, whoever, you know, the listeners out there, wherever you believe that humanity emerged from, ultimately, our brains are still wired that way, right? Our brains are still looking for the lions and the saber-toothed tigers that are going to eat us. And so, ultimately, change used to mean that you died, or you went hungry, and then you died. So, you were dead, but you were just more or less full in your stomach when you died. And so, our brains are still back there. So, no one likes change. And the book Change the Sandler Way is really about the human side of change because, ultimately, Nancy, change is super simple. Like, it's, we don't have a CRM today, we do have a CRM tomorrow. That's change. Human beings don't change, they transition, and transition is almost like the five stages of grief. And so that book is all about how we support leaders who go through these same emotions well before their team members actually manage a successful change. I recently saw that 89% of all corporate change initiatives fail. Yeah, like it was a number that blew my mind. And you think about how many probable billions of dollars are spent on these initiatives from buying the product or service and having the team meetings and getting things going to have it fail that much. There's got to be a better way." – HAMISH"Sandler is a number of things. So, number one, it's about differentiating on how you sell, not what you sell. Because what we sell is a commodity in the minds of our buyers. It doesn't matter what we're selling. And the only way to differentiate a commodity is typically by price. And so, with Sandler, we seek to create clarity with our buyers. I was talking to a very, very successful entrepreneur yesterday. We're in a mastermind group, and they were saying, well, what do you suggest I do? Because I'm the primary seller. And I said, well, let's pretend I'm your client. What would you say to me when I say, well, what's going to happen today, right? We booked a call. What's going to happen today? And they're like, well, you know, here's our process for building out, you know, the services that we offer. And I said, well, that's great. But what's gonna happen to me now in this sales call? And he said, well, I don't know. And I said, well, that's a problem because no one wants to talk to a salesperson. And so, If we don't create clarity upfront with our potential, with our buyers, all they're thinking is when is Hamish going to ask for my wallet? They're not actually listening. So, we need to create that clarity upfront using the upfront contract, and which is like a supercharged agenda for listeners who haven't heard about it before. And then pain, humans are animals, biologically that's true, biologically we're animals and animals are wired to move away from pain or towards pleasure. There was a study done in Vegas, which is a great place to study both pain and pleasure, that pain was a five times greater motivator than pleasure. And a lot of people, when they hear that, they don't wanna think about pain. And what I tell my clients is you're never going to say pain to your buyer. You're never gonna say, "Nancy, let's talk about your pain with getting real qualified opportunities in the top of your funnel," because you're going to look at me like, "You went to a sales training class, didn't you? You've got a shiny new toy you want to try out." – HAMISH"The one takeaway I want the audience to go with is it's never about us, it's always about the buyer. So, if the buyer calls up and goes, if we ring ring hello and the buyer goes, what, that's not about us. And if the buyer says, well, why should I work with you? And you say, well, here's some reasons why other people have worked with us. Are any of those relevant to you? So always making it about the buyer and never about us and getting our emotional needs met is very, very powerful." – HAMISHConnect with Hamish Knox:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamishknox/Sandler: https://www.hamish.sandler.com/howtosandlerTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Usman Sheikh: Usman Sheikh is the visionary founder and CEO of xiQ, an award-winning B2B sales and marketing platform. With the fusion of generative AI (x GPT), behavioral science, and a curated up-to-the-minute business corpus, xiQ is revolutionizing the industry with its groundbreaking personality-driven sales approach. As a futurist and design thinker, Usman aims to humanize B2B sales and marketing by harnessing the power of generative AI and psychology. Through xiQ, sellers gain the ability to understand the mindset of prospective buyers, facilitating hyper-personalized engagement throughout the sales cycle. Usman strongly believes in achieving excellence through disciplined and relentless execution. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Usman.In this episode, Nancy and Usman discuss the following:The transformative power of AI in B2B sales and marketingxiQ's use of generative AI, behavioral science, and chat GPT to personalize sales approachesThe evolution from pre-internet to the internet era and now to the AI eraHow AI simplifies tasks, saves time, and enhances productivityThe importance of understanding personality-driven salesKey Takeaways: AI made it so much simpler, gives one that information in seconds, and saves hours that would have been spent. What used to take me six hours out of my day has now been reduced to 30 minutes. We need to master AI. We need to make it work for us. "And we use AI to help you formulate these kinds of capabilities, bringing them into sales to personalize the sales engagement. Nobody wants to talk to somebody who doesn't know who you are, doesn't understand your problems, and cannot empathize with or relate to your actions. They're just in there to sell, and nobody's interested in that, especially in high-ticket sales. So, it becomes increasingly important to be able to find the sweet spots of the person within their personality and cater to them so you can have a better chance of winning." – USMAN"We're not a plug-in to LinkedIn, although I think we get a lot of data from LinkedIn. Think of our platform as an independent search engine; we throw a very wide net out there to collect information. So, you type in the name of a person in their company and start looking for them. You find the person by clicking on them if there is more than one. And it goes, fetches information, analyzes it, and makes a prediction call. All of it, less than three seconds." – USMAN"So, we were living in the pre-internet era. Would that be correct? I was. I saw the internet come. You did, right? And everything was paper-based. If you needed to look up a person or do some research, you had to use Encyclopedia Britannica or one of those, right? There was no Google. It was a different world. And the big brands that were there were those serving Yellow Pages and all that stuff. Those were the brands. But then came the internet age, Google and Yahoo, and now ZoomInfo and Salesforce, and all of these became tools that people used, right? And the old Yellow Pages and so on didn't translate into becoming the ZoomInfo of the business world. It was like the Yellow Pages of the business world in the pre-internet days, right? And so, two things happened. The way we did business changed. Secondly, the players that provided the technology changed as well, and the solutions changed as well. Now, we're entering the AI era. It's a big leap. So, if the internet was a thousand to the paper-based era, then AI is a hundred million to the thousand. That's the big leap, okay? Because it can crunch out this big data and make sense of it in microseconds, right? And so, it can crunch a lot of data to do that, right? Pretty much the whole internet, right? And then some. So, but you know, we as humans need to be able to access that data, that much data in a consumable manner to be interesting." – USMAN"I think not to be afraid of AI. AI provides a lot of new opportunities. So, if the audience is in sales or any business, use AI to discover new opportunities. Everybody who's going to use AI will realize that it can create a lot of new worlds. As a matter of fact, what McKinsey is quoting in terms of generative AI creating net new value for sales is $1.4 trillion a year in sales productivity. That's a lot, right? That's a huge amount. So, that's the opportunity. And as a result of that, Nancy, the way we used to sell, traditional sellers used to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And here we have a chance to move away from that selling into more selling hope and opportunity because there's a lot of hope and opportunity with what we can do with AI." – USMANConnect with Usman Sheikh:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/usmanmsheikh/xiQ, Inc: https://xiqinc.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Kelly Lichtenberger: Kelly Lichtenberger has a strong background in sales and marketing, with experience in various leadership roles. From 2021 onwards, she has worked as the Global Head of Sales Development at Avanan. Before this, she worked at The InsideOut Technologies Company as a Principal, focusing on building and optimizing Inside Sales teams. From 2017 to 2019, Kelly held multiple roles at Razberi Technologies, including Vice President of Marketing and Inside Sales. She was key in delivering network video recording, cyber security, and remote health management solutions during her time there. Before that, Kelly was the President of Consulting Services Group (CSG), where they provided superior customer experience and implemented top talent and technologies for business success. Kelly was also involved in building high-performance sales teams and instituting best-selling processes at Carousel Industries as the Vice President of Inside Sales. Overall, Kelly Lichtenberger has a wealth of experience in sales development, marketing, and team management and has consistently demonstrated success in driving revenue growth and achieving results. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Kelly.In this episode, Nancy and Kelly discuss the following:Value of the human element in sales despite advancements in AI Overcoming fear of rejection in cold calling Differing views on the use of scripts in sales calls Building and maintaining successful inside sales teams Role of emotional intelligence (EQ) in prospecting and sales Benefits of emotional intelligence for women in sales Key Takeaways: You can have a script, but knowing how to play within that keeps the human element there. Women do phenomenally at sales. The worst answer in sales is "maybe." We all have a mutual benefit for everybody, being happy and wanting to stay."I still very much believe in the human element. We hear a lot about AI and tools, what these tools can do, and what this system can do. We miss a big part of the sales cycle when we leave out the human element. I talk to my team often about this, and I think what happens is it comes down to skill set. There are a lot of people who don't have the skill set to use the phone as a selling device appropriately. So, it's easier to say it doesn't work and it's dead. The more people say that, the more it helps me and my teams because it opens the doors. Fewer people are calling, so I'll get through." – KELLY"So, when you think about emotional intelligence, it's the same as EQ. People have heard of IQ, which is knowing how. EQ is knowing you. Emotional intelligence encompasses self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. It's really about adding the human element into sales. When working with a team, I tell them, "We're not going in to sell on step one of the first conversation. We're looking at how to build a relationship, even in your personal life. It's about being you." One of the things that people forget to do often is to focus so much on the product know-how and forget that there's an actual person on the other end. Do we understand their role? Their pain points? What would be helpful to them in their position? If you're facing rejections, know how to handle it, pivot, and not get upset if you have a day where there are many hang-ups or didn't get through and set up the demo. Knowing that motivation, if you're not doing those things again, how do you turn something like cold calling into a skill set and not just give up because it's not working for you? Many people do. Then again, they want to say, "This didn't work." Well, maybe it's that you didn't work on that one." - KELLY"So, active listening is a big part of emotional intelligence, which comes in a few places. It's going to come into social skills. It will come into self-awareness, but really, the social skills of understanding. Knowing when to let somebody speak and actively listening to have it be heard allows you to respond appropriately. When we call someone, I must remind them that they may not always love our product or think that everyone on the planet needs it, but not everybody does, or maybe they don't see it. So, how do we have conversations to open up what they need? And if we fit, great. If we don't, then at least know how to build that relationship because, down the road, there might be something new added into your line of products that they could need." – KELLYConnect with Kelly Lichtenberger:LinkedIn:www.linkedin.com/in/kellylichtenbergerAvanan: www.avanan.comTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Isabelle Fortin: Isabelle Fortin is a standout mindset facilitator, entrepreneur, and public speaker. Her journey is marked by determination and creativity. Through Izzy Fortin Coaching, she uses her experiences and insights to help others grow professionally and personally. Isabelle faced a significant challenge when she was just five years old: she lost her mother. Being the youngest of three siblings, she had to learn how to be strong and resilient early on, and these qualities have guided her throughout her life. Isabelle's career path is wide-ranging and impressive. She served in the Canadian Air Force, an experience that taught her discipline and structure. Afterward, she spent 23 years as a devoted massage therapist, improving her ability to heal and care for others. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Isabelle.In this episode, Nancy and Isabelle discuss the following:Isabelle's transition from military to salesDefinition of a rebel and the importance of rebels in salesStrategy: "Make friends before you make clients."Value of honesty and authenticity in salesAligning company culture with sales team needsImpact of military experience on sales approachTurning rebellious salespeople into rock starsKey Takeaways: You can't go against who you areMake friends before you make clientsIf you give the rebels the tools that they need, they will become rock starsAlways quit a toxic relationship"I think that most sales rebels are extremely people-oriented. They're extremely community- and relationship-minded. And it is truly for them about cultivating relationships more than anything else. They make friends before they make clients. Of course, you know, the business that you are in has to give you that opportunity. I mean, if you're a salesperson in a store, maybe, you know, that's a little bit less, especially if it's a chain store, it's a little bit less of that. But even then, how many great people do we find or quite the opposite? You go to a store, and the person, you know, won't look at you, engage with you, or ask anything. Well, we are less likely to go back, right? So, I think that that's in their nature—to build relationships—and it is about selling who they are first." – ISABELLE"I believe that, of anybody, but especially when it comes to salespeople, thrive when the culture of the company that they work for understands that they cannot be treated like every other employee because they are different. And I find that you know, sales managers—only 6% of them get training in management. And yeah, only 6%. The stats are scary. Very often, I believe that either the company took their top salesman and decided to make them the manager, or worse yet, they took somebody from another department and decided, "Hey, you're a good manager. So, you can now lead the sales team." Sales is a different kind of species. And if you treat them the same as everybody else, they're going to underperform, and they're going to look for a job very quickly. And I think that that is the biggest mistake that most companies do—is deal with their salespeople the "wrong" way." - ISABELLE"The connection that I brought to my personal life from the military was you can work well with somebody you don't like and don't need to. I hear coaches say that very often—find the commonality, find, you know, if that person likes ballet or bowling or whatever, and you like that too, then you know, that's something to base the relationship on. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. Sometimes, the commonality is that you're both humans living on this planet. So, you don't have to share a passion with somebody to get along with them. And that's where I got that from the military because in service, you literally, like a firefighter the same way. Police officers are the same way. You don't have to like someone. You need to recognize that that person is doing their best with the hand they've been dealt. And so that's what I bring from my military career to my consulting company now." – ISABELLEConnect with Isabelle Fortin:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabellemfortin/Izzy Fortin: https://izzyfortin.comTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Alice Myerhoff: Alice Myerhoff is the Founder of Myerhoff Consulting, which helps mission-oriented startups and SMBs with growth strategy, partnerships, and sales processes to increase revenue and maximize their positive social impact. Alice is a Sales and Business Development leader, author, and strategic deal-maker who has built customer portfolios from the ground up and client bases from ZERO. She brings a wealth of multicultural experience across several corporate, education, and nonprofit sectors. 20+ years background in online media/news/advertising/events, educational technology/software, social impact/businesses, real estate, computer gaming, and financial services. Previously held executive-level positions at workforce development, gender equity, and education-focused organizations. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Alice.In this episode, Nancy and Alice discuss the following:Definition of mission-driven organizations Significance of effective sales strategyConsistency of sales principles across industriesMaximizing conference ROI Conference attendee privacy Evaluating conference investments The Sales Glow Up initiative with Lisa ScottoKey Takeaways: I'm interested in supporting organizations that will leave the world in a better place.You can be very methodical about approaching a conference, even as just an attendee, so you get your money's worth out of it.I think if people at the beginning of their sales careers can embrace that and not have it be such an emotional roller coaster, which sales sometimes is, they could save a lot of stress."I think having a definition around who you're targeting is kind of the baseline number one issue. You can't really reach out to your targets if you don't have a target in mind. A phrase that I like to use is, 'You can't boil the ocean,' right? So, let's think about who the client is, how we can reach them, where they are, what they care about, and their pain points. That's the first step. And then having some methodology, like, do you have a CRM? Do you have it set up in a way that allows you to make strategic decisions based on the data you're collecting? Those types of things are pretty key. I like to get my hands dirty, you know?" – ALICE"Attendees don't like to be spammed. Imagine attending a conference; you'd have a hundred exhibitors, and everybody knew you would be there. How many emails are you going to get? And they'll annoy you. And maybe you won't attend the conference again because you don't want to be on that list. So, conferences don't do that. But that doesn't mean you can't figure out who's likely to be there, right? So, you can – this sounds super basic, but sometimes people don't think of it – look at the agenda for the conference. Who are the speakers? You know they'll be there, right? They must show up. Or, you know, sponsors, exhibitors –they will have people on site. And you can even build outreach campaigns just around that information, right? You can make a pretty good guess. This type of company will probably send out a salesperson or a marketing person, depending on what the conference is about. And even if that is your specific target, they can maybe help you connect with that person." - ALICE"People kind of like that idea of showing up at a conference and winging it. I think a lot of people are selling the same way. They're sort of winging it, and you can pick up little tidbits here and there. There's lots of thought leadership stuff happening. I mean, our little videos are part of that, too, even. But building a methodology that allows you to be consistent and have some rigor can make a huge difference. So yeah, I support that. And you know, Nancy, the bigger vision with Sales Glow Up is to create something like that." – ALICEConnect with Alice Myerhoff:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicemyerhoff/Myerhoff Consulting: https://www.myerhoffconsulting.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Nigel Green: Nigel Green is an Advisor to Founders and Sales Leaders and the Author of "Revenue Harvest: A Sales Leader's Almanac For Planning The Perfect Year." Executives and sales leaders hire Nigel to improve sales team performance. By the age of 31, he was a Fortune 300 executive sales leader who had led sales for two healthcare companies that both experienced successful financial exits. Since publishing Revenue Harvest, he has advised dozens of sales teams on building a best-in-class sales team. Two of his clients have scaled and sold for more than 3X EBITDA, while others have attracted investments from top venture funds. Most importantly, they hit their sales targets. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Nigel.In this episode, Nancy and Nigel discuss the following:Problems sales leaders face dailyFocus areas for sales leaders: revenue, profitability, new customersFrequency of team meetings for sales leadersImportance of asking better questionsSales aptitude tests: context and applicationHiring based on competency alone vs. considering chemistry and characterDistinction between a good salesperson and a good sales leaderKey Takeaways: You must build a team to create customers at scale that aligns with the business's overarching strategy.Good sales leaders are productively paranoid about what is right around the corner that could derail my team.At least once a week, the leader has to meet with the team and remind them of this responsibility to meet and exceed future business expectations."I think the problems that sales leaders face could be bucketed under majoring in the minor things. And what that means, if we were to unpack it, is that if you found yourself in this position, it would sound all too familiar to you. You look back on your day; you were busy and did a lot of stuff. Most of what you did was probably internal and not enough external, meaning that you were on, especially today; we're recording this on a Monday. So, a lot of sales leaders today will spend their entire Monday in meetings that will probably not create one single customer, and they will probably not be involved in any training or development of the sales team. And it's certainly not going to be involved in the overarching strategy of the business. It's probably going to be meetings that involve updates around product or operations, updates that have already happened and that you cannot control and ultimately won't matter in creating a customer, training a rep, or the overarching strategy of the business. And that's the biggest problem: many sales leaders don't have enough autonomy in their schedule. And if they do have autonomy, they're still not spending it on the three areas of the business that matter most: customers, reps, strategy." – NIGEL"I ask a lot of really good questions. So, it gets to where I'd never really have to ask anyone for an investment or to hire me because they see through the power of my questions that their life might be better if they had me as an extension of their team. So, that translates, I think, naturally to the types of things that I work on in my coaching business, which is primarily what I do as coach sales leaders. I help them improve the quality of their questions. And as they start asking better questions, they start having better problems. Better problems lead to better results. So, we get to this place where we don't have an activity problem, or we don't have a "we're not hitting our sales" problem. We start having deeper problems around strategy, positioning, technology, compensation plans, team structure, data, and augmenting sales reps with better support systems—not just hiring more people but hiring various sellers for different types of roles in the sales organization. And we start having better problems." - NIGEL"If you want to transform your sales team, you've got to understand that your sales team is only as good as your worst rep, and your worst rep is probably the one that gives you an insight into your sales leader's tolerance threshold. And so be pushing yourselves later to always try to replace your worst rep with a new one. And sometimes replacing your worst rep with a new rep is taking that individual and making them better, making them fundamentally. I'm not advocating for just creating a bunch of turnovers, but I think, you know, if I'm a leader of an organization, I'm trying to find out where's my weakest link and how do I go about systemically attacking that to making it better." – NIGELConnect with Nigel Green:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/revenueharvest/Revenue Harvest: https://www.therevenueharvest.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Roy Osing: Roy Osing is a former president, CMO, and entrepreneur with over 40 years of successful and unmatched experience in executive leadership in every aspect of business. As President of a major data and internet company, his leadership and audacious 'unheard-of ways' took the company from its early stage to $1 Billion in annual sales. He is devoted to inspiring leaders, entrepreneurs, and organizations to stand apart from the average boring crowd and achieve their true potential. He is a resolute blogger, keen content marketer, dedicated teacher, and mentor to young professionals. As an accomplished business advisor, he is the author of the no-nonsense book series 'BE DiFFERENT or be dead.' Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Roy.In this episode, Nancy and Roy discuss the following:Importance of differentiation in businessRoy's concept of the "only statement" Use of passionate language to capture attention Cultivating a client-centric culture An unconventional approach to recruitment: "Hiring for Goosebumps" Embracing audaciousness to stand outKey Takeaways: Differentiation is the key issue facing businesses today. Without it, organizations eventually die.Step outside your comfort zone and do things differently.Treat discomfort as your strategic ally. Be audacious, be brave, and choose to be different every day.Stand out by doing things others aren't doing."And so, I came up with this hiring for Goosebumps approach, which went as follows. First, I, as President of the company, was involved in panel interviews with most of the people we were hiring. And I did that for a specific reason. First, I wanted to show the people in my organization who sat around me what to do, and hopefully, hopefully, that they would copy what I did. Secondly, it shows the person applying for a job that they are important. So, I asked them two fundamental questions. I go, "Nancy, what I'd like to know is, do you love human beings?" Now, you would typically go, "Wow, okay, I've never had that question before. I think I know the right answer, but I have no idea where this dude is going with it." And you would say, "Well, yes, I do, Roy. I love human beings." I'd say, "Okay." So, the second question would be, "Tell me a story. Tell me a story that proves to me that you love humans." Now, this is the killer question, okay, because it separated the wheat from the chaff. The people that treated this as an academic exercise would give me a story that left me cold. Okay. There wasn't any truth to it. It was all mumbo jumbo, superficial, narcissistic chatter from this individual, right? But the person that had the gene told me a story that was so rich and passionate in terms of how they related to people and their feelings for people. Guess what it did, Nancy. It left me with goosebumps, and I got him right now. I would hire that person and teach him the business. People thought I was crazy. To this day, I can have; a while ago, I had a podcast with a PhD in HR in New York, and I told her this story, and she just went apoplectic. In fact, we had to stop the interview. She couldn't take it." – ROY"I want you to be different. I want you to go out, be brave, be audacious, and choose to be different today, right now, in the moment, in some small way. I want you to be uncomfortable. I want you to treat discomfort as your strategic ally. I want you to do it. And tomorrow, I want you to do two things and be different. And the next day, I want you to do three things. I want you to sort of get this persona strand going for you because we need you to be different. Okay, we don't need you to conform. We don't need you to comply with the rules. Now, I'm not talking about being illegal. I'm saying step out, be creative, be innovative, and do things other people aren't doing. That's the source of joy. That's the source of economic opportunity. And we need you in business and organizations to be that way. And you salespeople, if you're not the only one that does what you do, Why do you have a job?" - ROY"Step outside of your comfort zone, but do things differently than everybody else does. Okay, I don't want you to be uncomfortable and continue to do the same thing as everybody else. I want you to be uncomfortable because you're doing things differently, right? In a way that people care about. And the only point I want to make here is that this is not about you doing things for yourself. This is about you doing things differently in a way other people care about. So, my whole "be different" philosophy, Nancy, is about serving others in a way that no one else does. And salespeople, I want you to do that. I want you to serve your clients like no one else does. And I don't care about the textbook. Okay, the textbook got you this far. I want you to put it down. I want you to put the textbook down and do some practical human things that are different than everybody else, including the textbook, that light fires in your client's eyes. And guess what it does to them? It wants them to buy from you because they believe in you, trust you, follow you, and be loyal to the company. Boom. And there goes the revenue lineup. And that's what we want you to do." – ROYConnect with Roy Osing:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/royosing/BE DiFFERENT or be dead: https://www.bedifferentorbedead.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Jason Friedman: Jason Friedman is the Founder and CEO at CXFormula, LLC, helping small businesses and entrepreneurs grow and scale their businesses, increasing customer engagement, loyalty, retention, revenues, and profits while improving their customer experience and creating raving fans. Their approach is at the intersection of psychology, theatre, business, and marketing. With decades of theatre experience between them, they combine the art of storytelling with the science of human behavior to create reliable and consistent customer momentum, generate massive engagement, and achieve incredible business growth. Jason has worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, including Nike, Disney, Foot Locker, Bank of America, and Harvard, to name a few. He's changing the way people look at the customer journey. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jason. In this episode, Nancy and Jason discuss the following:How his journey in theater inspired Jason to develop the Kinetic Customer FormulaThe importance of shifting perspectives to prioritize the customer experienceFlipping the sales funnel to focus on customer successAdopting a strategic approach to over-delivery. The transformative effects of prioritizing customer success.Key Takeaways: Onboarding is how we help people move from one type of relationship to the next, like every transition, and a relationship is an opportunity for onboarding.Overdelivery is going to kill your business.Focus on the experience you're creating for your customers: take a look at it through their eyes."What we did in theater, it's like: people come into a show, and all the problems in the world are going on for them. Suddenly, they disappear as the orchestra plays, the lights fade, and they become very present. As the story continues, they laugh at certain moments, shriek back at others, and clap. It's all choreographed to the end, where they are on a journey, experiencing a transformation, moving to their feet with glorious applause and standing ovations. After like 20 years of doing this, I realized, you know what? Like, I know how to keep customers' attention and bring them in, crafting the journey that customers go on with brands, companies, online businesses, offline businesses, products, services - you name it. We help businesses create deeper engagement, focusing on clients and building deeper relationships. It results in much bigger businesses, helping you scale your business. That's what the Kinetic Customer Formula is: all those years of experience packed into one nice little package." – JASON"Because what ends up happening is the first light bulb that goes off is the realization that we as businesses make it hard for our customers to do business with us. [...] And so, the first thing I do is have them learn how to shift their perspective and understand the business from the customer's point of view. And when you do that, you realize: "Oh God, this is like, I wouldn't want to be my customer in many ways." And that first kind of light bulb that goes off is an emotional light bulb. Some people have, you know, felt bad because they have done everything they've done, and all they have decided to help the customers. [..] The second light bulb is where people start to understand: "Well, okay, I get it. We can remove the friction, but I still have all this competition, spending all this money on ads and all my clients. I'm still not getting as many people in. I'm still not optimized". And the second light bulb is that we spend all our energy focusing on how to get strangers to come to our business and talk to us, and very little of our energy and money resources on helping the people who said yes to us get those results. Now, I will help them shift their focus to the other side of the funnel. So, we flip the funnel. Those are the first two big light bulbs that blow up for people. And then from there, we go we go further." - JASON"If you can understand your customers that deeply, you can start to provide the journey they need to go on and make them feel safe and comfortable going on because you understand them. And most businesses know such superficial information about our customers, but when we start to go into this kind of a way to look at it, we uncover so much more. And that's where we start to realize: "Oh, you know what? I can look at the business through their lens. I get them now". In fact, in most companies that we work with, Nancy says to me: "Jason, you're great. I used to hate some of my customers. I have fallen in love with them. I understand them better, and they appreciate me more because they know they feel understood". And that changes the entire dynamic." – JASONConnect with Jason Friedman:LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondfriedman/CXFormula, LLC: https://www.cxformula.com/FREE PDF: https://gift.cxformula.com/conversational-sellingTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales

About Jon Keel: Jon Keel is the Founder and CEO of Improved Together, LLC, which helps small business people increase revenue and gain the freedom they want by using proven automated systems. Jon is a results-oriented Business Advisor who has been helping businesses and their leaders stand out and thrive for nearly 25 years. Jon has developed a local, national, and international reputation as a performance-based online marketing expert, actively involved in this arena since January 1997. In addition to being CEO of Improved Results, which he founded in September 1997, he co-developed the Xavier University MBA E-Business program, where he taught online marketing and e-commerce for over three years. Since 2008, his business has focused primarily on expanding its online presence, reputation marketing, and conversion improvement for local and regional businesses. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jon.In this episode, Nancy and Jon discuss the following:The rapid growth of LinkedIn and its frequent updatesImportance of staying informed about LinkedIn's changesNeed for a professional LinkedIn profile.Significance of staying current with LinkedIn's features.Tips on how to grow your LinkedIn followers through engagement.Key Takeaways: The limit on connections is 30,000, but there is no limit on your number of followers.LinkedIn will now show about 60 to 70 % of the posts of the people for whose bell you've clicked.It's essential when you reach out to people and make connection requests that you include a personal message with the person.99 % of LinkedIn users use it ineffectively and don't know due to ignorance."You have to master five principles. I have given a talk on mastering these five principles to be successful on LinkedIn. And, you know, one of them is to have a killer profile. LinkedIn also says, in addition to 99% of folks not using it effectively, that 99% of profiles— and I don't know any better way to say it— they suck. They're terrible. And people need to have their profiles be professional. In other words, would you show up as an amateur or a professional? And it's your choice. The second is to understand that it's about relationships on LinkedIn. It's not a quick sale. LinkedIn is not a transactional platform. It's a relationship platform. So, develop that mentality in your writing and in the videos that you do. And the third is to expand and grow your network. You can never have a large enough network on LinkedIn. And there are ways to do that. The fourth, I'm trying to remember, I'm just having a brain cramp this morning, but the fifth is to stay current, which is what I offer all my members, the ability to stay current through twice-a-month master classes that I hold where I share with them all this current stuff that I've learned. And my objective, Nancy, my objective is not to be the smartest guy in the room. I just hang out with them." – JON"Well, the easiest way is to find people on LinkedIn that you want to follow, that you think, well, that person, I might, number one, have the opportunity to do business with them. Secondly, they might be a great referral source for me. So, it all starts first with following them. And I remember from the "Five Love Languages" book that came out many years ago, it's hard to withdraw before you make deposits. So, you make a deposit by following them and commenting on their content. A certain number of them will follow you back and comment on your comments. That's the way it starts. It's a process." - JON"There's no limit to the number of posts you can do. I personally recommend three a week. Some people post every day, and that's fine. If you can do it, that's great. I personally don't have the time to do it every day, but certainly no more than once a day. When you post more than once a day, your overall post-exposure will increase, but subsequent posts are throttled, if you will, by posting more than one today." – JONConnect with Jon Keel:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonkeel/Improved Together: https://www.improvedtogether.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Eric Boggs: Eric Boggs is the Founder & CEO of RevBoss, an outbound agency on a mission to bring honesty and transparency to the B2B sales process. Using a mix of software automation, creative strategy and messaging, and top-notch client service, RevBoss powers full-service outbound campaigns for 100s of teams across a wide range of industries, including SaaS companies, marketing and creative agencies, video production services, and business services providers. Today, Eric leads the effort to bring happiness to 100s of clients and more than 50 RevBuds worldwide. Eric spent the last 20 years building companies and advising successful CEOs (Device Magic, Kevel, UserVoice, Ignite Social, and many more). He completed his undergraduate studies at UNC Chapel Hill and earned an MBA at UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he was a Dean's Fellow. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Eric.In this episode, Nancy and Eric discuss the following:The importance of human conversation in salesEric Boggs' mission with RevBoss: client and coworker happinessThe role of AI in transforming sales and marketing processesStrategies for generating qualified appointmentsThe effectiveness of personalized email subject linesRecommendations for optimizing email cadence and timing.Key Takeaways: When you see really long emails, it's just laziness because it takes a lot of work to be sharp and direct in your communication.My team has probably gotten tired of hearing me say cut it in half, but I think you can cut it in half and usually cut it in half again.Content quality and volume are moving targets, but they are also goals you never achieve.If it can always be shorter, it can always be better."AI will not replace human-to-human interaction. However, it is in the process of absolutely transforming the steps in the marketing and selling process that ultimately will lead to human interaction. And it's doing that with content and decision-making and process enablement. And frankly, it's going to make the process better in the long run, but it's making it awful messy right now." – ERIC"At RevBoss, we do lead generation for hundreds of clients. Most are marketing agencies, PR firms, and business services-type companies. That's probably 60% of our customers. 30% are SaaS technology companies, and 10% are other. Machine shops and commercial real estate are all kinds of odds and ends. And our strategy and mechanism are generally the same across the board. We're email first and primarily email. But increasingly, we're augmenting that with targeted display ads. And sometimes, we'll layer on a LinkedIn program if it's targeted and small and makes sense. We've never done phone. And I know that's your expertise. No, it's more of a personal preference and experience than anything else. We have plenty of clients that have had a lot of success cold calling internally or with partners. And we've worked, you know, we've told plenty of sales leads in the past, hey, yeah, we don't do that. But I do think that phone will work for you. We've just focused on email because we're good at it. We can automate it with a lot of technology and increasingly automate it with many AI integrations. And that's just kind of how we've how we built the business." - ERIC"As a subject line, I'm rather ambivalent. If it works, it works; if it doesn't, it doesn't. We've had clients where we've dropped emojis and manipulated text. One thing I know works at RevBoss is that subject lines should resemble those you'd send to a coworker. You'd never send an email with a subject line like "Increase your XYZ by some percent," right? Good subject lines are casual, like "Hey, how's it going?" or "I have a question about this thing." You'll get the desired result as long as you broadly fall into that category. Emojis and text manipulation are great ideas." – ERIC"Our general approach is three emails over a week, maybe 10 days. One of the emails is usually like a bump or an inline reply, maybe two; perhaps both are inline replies or forwards. Instead of doing five, eight, or 10 emails or touches over an extended period, we like to do short bursts in seven days. Let that prospect chill out for 60 days 90 days, and then do another short burst over a short period of time. We found that the prospects we retarget—say, I email you today, and then if you don't reply after two or three emails, I email you again in 60 or 90 days—roughly convert at the same rate as net new prospects. So, a lot of the success we're able to generate for our clients is based on repetition, process, and ensuring we're landing in the inbox with enough frequency, the right target prospect, and a tight message to get lucky. And you know, we get lucky to the tune of hundreds of times a day for our clients." – ERICConnect with Eric Boggs:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericboggs/RevBoss: https://revboss.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Benjamin Brown: Benjamin Brown is the CEO of 360 Sales Consulting, a company specializing in helping businesses and entrepreneurs excel in sales and dramatically increase their bottom line. Their proprietary sales system has come to be recognized as a "game-changer" and is in demand by companies of all sizes throughout the United States. Ben's sales career of more than twenty years began with selling health club memberships and quickly worked his way into sales manager and sales director positions. Having held both inside and outside sales positions, his diverse experience includes selling autos, computer products and services, voice recognition software, staffing, and transportation services. Ben is a former United States Marine with six years of service and a Veteran of the Gulf War. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Benjamin.In this episode, Nancy and Benjamin discuss the following:The importance of confidence in salesThe effectiveness of mentoring and coaching in learning salesA 10-step sales process based on Benjamin's proven sales systemCustomizing sales processes based on specific products or servicesThe impact of AI on sales and the enduring importance of human interactionBenjamin's journey into sales and teachingKey Takeaways: 80% of sales is confidence.Children are good salespeople because they close for no reason.Anytime you're in a conversation about working with an individual, there's always a sale.Sales is the essential part of a business that brings in the money.One of the things that I teach is that you have to like it, love it, or leave it. " The best way to learn sales that I found is making sure that you have a proper mentor to work with or coach, especially if you haven't done it before or if you have done it not to the point where you've been satisfied. Sales is a skill, so it's better done in an apprentice-type situation where somebody is grading your performance as you do it. Theory, reading a book, watching videos and doing it and performing it doesn't work well because there's no way for you to get the direct feedback that you need to adjust." – BENJAMIN"We live in a Western civilization where we're trained that your worth and things you want must be earned through your work. You don't negotiate. If you make enough money to negotiate in America, the only thing you know in life is a house and a car. But if you go overseas and go to third-world countries or other places less, their actual mentality or culture is that if you go to a market, an open market in a second or third-world country, there are no prices. Everything is a negotiation. Right? Everything's in the good in some cultures. If you don't negotiate, they will see it as negative. So, I love it when I go overseas, and I go to these places, and at the end of the tour, you'll see the native, the local people selling their arts and crafts at the end, and they're coming at you with the, you know, the pressure for you to buy. You can look and see the Americans because they start to cringe. They're not used to that aggression. But this is how people get things done in their country. We live in an economy where we don't have to deal with that. But we get more inundation through our phones and television, driving down the road. We get hit just like they do. It's just not verbally in our face." - BENJAMIN"There's no need to fear sales if you understand that sales is a language. It's just like sign language or anything else, and if you can understand that, your life becomes a whole lot easier because you'll know when people are selling you and when you need to buy. And that comes through your personal life as well as your business. By doing that, your confidence level will increase because you now will understand that you need to listen more in a conversation because good salespeople are great listeners. And it is key. So, there are three things I say you need to do when you're a good salesperson: First, you need to know where you're going, which means a good sales process. Number two is that you need to be confident. You have to be able to take rejection. Number three is that you must listen. And you must do all three of those at the same time. Hence the skill of sales. So, some people could do one or two, but you need to do all three. And if you could do all three very well, you could become a great salesperson." – BENJAMINConnect with Benjamin Brown:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/360sales/360 Sales Consulting: https://www.360salesconsulting.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Christian Palmer: Christian Palmer is the Senior Manager of Sales Enablement at Justt, the only company fighting chargeback disputes for merchants and winning. Christian's background includes working as an L&D Consultant/Sales Trainer at Phaidon International, where they provided foundational academy training to new consultants and coached and mentored them on both team and individual levels. Christian also worked as a Clinical Consultant at ProClinical, a global recruitment company specializing in the life sciences industry. Earlier in their career, Christian worked as an Associate Consultant at Real Staffing, an international pharmaceutical recruitment agency, and as a Corporate Recruiter/HR Associate at Dutch-X. Christian began their professional journey at Apple, where they served as an Expert. Christian Palmer, M.S.Ed., has diverse experience in sales enablement, recruitment, learning and development, and leadership roles. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Christian.In this episode, Nancy and Christian discuss the following:Definition of sales enablement Importance of sales enablement within a company Necessary tools for enablement Role of sales playbook in enablement Enablement in one-person teams vs. global departmentsKey Takeaways: It's of tremendous value to businesses to bring somebody who can identify the gaps first, then fill them in and be the main voice for the salespeople.I've only seen playbooks succeed at larger organizations with more structure and infrastructure.Everything you say will not be listened to if you don't have it."Sales enablement can be defined in a number of different ways. Because it is such a newer field, it tends to get mis-defined if that's a phrase all the time. And the best way for me to describe it is essentially twofold. I'll probably start with the more form formal definition of it. That is to provide the tools, resources, skills, processes, and infrastructure for sellers to enable them to be more efficient, skilled, and proficient with their actual product offering to sell more effectively over time. That is the more formal side, but I would say maybe something a little bit softer that I guess you could say is more layperson's terms for folks is going to be that I am more or less bridge or support system or the voice of the salespeople. And that can stretch across different cross-functional teams to senior leadership and stakeholders and be able to bridge that gap between what's going on in the ground with sellers and what's happening strategically in the organization." – CHRISTIAN"In probably an ideal world is that you have your LMS, your learning management system, that you're able to create content with and a CMS, a content management system, of which you're able to organize that content of what you made in the LMS into a digestible format for sellers and anybody else looking at it. Both of those tools, more so the CMS, should be able to help you measure success rates of reps over time. That could be done in a number of ways, through their behaviors, actions, and results, corresponding those specific results to maybe some items that they had done during the onboarding within that CMS. But those are probably the main tools. You could throw in another authoring tool or whatnot if you wanted to facilitate making even more differentiated content, like maybe an articulate or something along those lines. Any place that doesn't have either of those. It will be a bit more of a lift for an enabler to assemble something. Those tools make it a lot easier. But there's a ton of them out there. It's hard to know what's going to be best." - CHRISTIAN"I think the easiest way, or the standard way you'll see amongst most enablers, especially those with sales experience, is leveraging that you've been there before. Of course, this gets harder the longer you're not in a sales role. The harder it's going to be to align. However, I think the main foundational selling parts don't change. So, those aspects are what you can align with a rep. Whether it's somebody going on a performance improvement plan, I've been on it several times in my career. One time, it didn't work out too great; the other time, it worked out for me. Using that as leverage and explaining to a seller, like, hey, look, this isn't the end; it's just the beginning, shows vulnerability on my part and shows them that I can relate to what this is—the vulnerability aspect I bring up because that's how you build relationships with anybody. So, whether or not they're actual sellers doesn't matter as much to me. But the fact that they are, and I go in and let them know maybe areas that I'm weak in upfront, maybe areas that I know I'm strong in or where I think I can help them, and start adding value to them without them even asking for it.An example of this would be if you come into an organization where you don't have industry knowledge. This is very much how it was at Riskified for me. I knew nothing about chargebacks or the fraud or policy abuse space. But I did know all the different selling skills I've accumulated and enabled over the years. So, I was able to come in and create sessions and content and additional resources around some of these skills that were agnostic to what Riskified is and what industry it's in." – CHRISTIANConnect with Christian Palmer:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-palmer/Justt: https://justt.ai/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Jeff Savlov: Jeff Savlov is the Founder of Blum & Savlov, LLP, and consults with business families, legacy wealth families, and the advisors who serve them. He brings more than 30 years of unique experience in sales and marketing, business ownership, entrepreneurial endeavors, family dynamics/psychological training, and a common-sense style to his consulting work with families. By integrating his diverse business background, extensive academic work, and family dynamics/psychological training with his experience working in his family's commercial printing business, Jeff helps enterprising families balance family and business/wealth so both will thrive for generations. Jeff has consulted on relationship and team dynamics with Fortune 500 companies such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, and Schering Plough. He also devotes a portion of his time to performance enhancement with corporate executives and elite high school athletes. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Jeff.In this episode, Nancy and Jeff discuss the following:The role of the Sandler methodology in understanding client needs and building relationshipsJeff's background and journey into family consultingThe challenges faced by wealthy families and the specialized assistance they requireStrategies for acquiring clients: speaking engagements and referralsJeff's unique approach to using Metallica's story in his workshopsKey Takeaways: It's easy to idealize being wealthy, but there are many challenges.One of my areas is parenting in the context of family wealth and how to start when kids are young to raise them so that those values will remain there when they learn about money.DISC is excellent for people who don't have the training to help them think about the general categories that people fall into. "I got trained as a family therapist. After grad school, I did another seven years of training in a psychoanalytic institute for seven years. Like I said, I got fully certified and started a private practice doing talk therapy 30 years ago. And just by coincidence, some of my early therapy clients also had significant wealth or family businesses. I was working with them as a therapist, and I could see that there was a need that was different than therapy, but that lawyers, accountants, and wealth managers didn't have the training and background to go into the family dynamic side. So, I saw an opportunity to do something that was not therapy but between what a therapist and business consultants do. I started to work slowly and consult with families. Again, I'm not working on finance taxes or operations. I'm helping families develop strong family teams and work together two or three generations at a time. Now that people are living longer, you can easily have, you know, 80-year-olds, 50-year-olds, and 20-year-olds working together. I help them work together, develop leadership, communicate well, and make transitions from one generation to the next, helping the senior generation step back, give the next generation opportunity, and developing the next generation to step up and take over." – JEFF" In terms of meeting people and those early stages when I'm trying to decide if I want to work with them and they're trying to decide if they want to work with me, Sandler has been incredibly valuable. And what I just said is really at the heart of it. Sandler talks about a level playing field. So, it's not like, "Hey, I'm the poor guy with the poor schmuck with something to sell. I hope you'll buy it." It's more like I have something of value; I'm looking for people who need it, have pain around it that I can solve, and have respect for what I bring. And they're looking for someone to help them with their pain, and it's mutual. And Sandler, that part of the Sandler attitude is that it's a level playing field but a two-way street. I'm not just looking for anyone who'll hire me. And that's a big piece of it. I feel like the rapport part of the equation is something I've always been good at just naturally, and certainly years of being a therapist, and that's a big part of the Sandler piece." - JEFF"I find sales is fun. Even though I am primarily sort of a consultant and I'm doing, you know, professional consulting services, I must find— I'm a solo guy. I must find my, you know, my clients and serve them. And that is sales. And I think that sales— really, life is sales, not in a manipulative way, but life is about understanding people, seeing if there's a common need or desire, and then going for it. And so, I find it a lot of fun. Sometimes, I land a big client, and then I'm disappointed. I must do the work. Not that I don't enjoy the work, but I find sales— I love the hunt. And I find it enjoyable. I don't know, people think it's crazy that aren't into it." – JEFFConnect with Jeff Savlov:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsavlov/Blum & Savlov, LLP: https://blumandsavlov.com/about/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Dave Kahle: Dave Kahle is the President of Kahle Way Sales Systems, a company where they help CEOs and VPs of Sales for Wholesale Distributors increase sales, gain market share, and significantly increase the ROI from their salespeople in 15-30 minutes a week. He is a B2B sales expert and Christian business thought leader. Dave helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He's written twelve books, presented in 47 states and eleven countries, and has helped enrich tens of thousands of salespeople and transform hundreds of sales organizations. Sign up for his free weekly Ezine. Three international entities recognized his book, How to Sell Anything to Anyone Anytime, as "one of the five best English language business books." Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Dave.In this episode, Nancy and Dave discuss the following:The importance of sales processesImportance of sales processes: big picture vs. day-to-dayStrategies to make prospects comfortable: first impressions, appropriate dressing, sharing personal details, effective questioningInvesting in sales managers: their impact on salespeople's behaviorsVirtual selling: increased need for thorough preparationUse of "snippets" in sales conversations and their value in everyday life Key Takeaways: Sharing something personal and unique about yourself breaks the barriers between you and the customer.The depth and detail of your question have a lot to do with how you make people comfortable with you.The sales managers are the in-between step between management and salespeople.Everybody can sell better if they choose to. They can."In that book, we talk about two different levels of sales process. The big-picture sales process is what a sales organization and the salesperson do over time. And then what I call the day-to-day or the nitty-gritty sales process is what a salesperson does with a customer or a prospect. […] Let me talk about the nitty-gritty sales process and how it relates to everyday activity. So, the first step in the prospect is to engage with the right people. And that can trump everything else. If you spend your time with the wrong people, no matter how well you do everything else, it's a waste of time. So, step one is to engage with the right people. Step two is to make them comfortable with you. Because if they're uncomfortable with you, they won't react transparently and honestly. Step three: find out what they want. And again, there's a whole body of content surrounding each of these. I mean, a couple of days' training for each of these. The next step is to show them what you have given them and what they want. And again, that applies to anything, anywhere, anytime. That's why it's the title of the book. Then, you agree on the next step. And again, each one of these can be at least a couple of training days. At that point, you follow up because the decision is typically made in the business-to-business world. The decision to buy is typically made when you're not there. So, you follow up and leverage satisfaction with this, which salespeople often neglect to do but to leverage satisfaction into additional internal or external opportunities. And then you know what? You're back where you started from. So that's the process. That's the process that an individual salesperson uses to relate and sell anybody, anything. You have to do all those things regardless." – DAVE"There's a whole lot of things, like number one, that is so often overlooked, and that is to make an excellent first impression—to look like you, to sound like someone that people can talk to and relate to. So that's step one. And then there are so many things, like, for example, how you dress. I have a rule—you should dress like your customer, only a little better. So, if you're a man wearing a suit and tie, calling on farmers, I mean, your suit and tie is separating you from connecting with that farmer, from making that customer comfortable with you. So, you dress like the customer, only a little bit better. And that's the rule for everybody. And then, there's sharing. I like to share something personal. It forces the customer to see you as a human being, not just a role player. You're not just a salesperson; you're a real person.- DAVE"It's here to stay, and it's growing, and it has, and it required. It requires not necessarily something new, but the salespeople who are selling virtually have to be much better. For example, you cannot make an appointment to talk with somebody on a Zoom call and not be thoroughly prepared. You know, like so, the pressure to be thoroughly prepared so you're not wasting time looking foolish on a Zoom call is far greater than if you stop by. You're just going to stop by and see them, and sometimes you're not fully prepared, but you cannot do that on a Zoom call. Now, it's increased by a multiple. So, number one, they must be far more prepared. You know, with agendas and objectives of every sales call. That's always been a best practice, but many have ignored it. You can't ignore that anymore. And so, you know, that's a big one. And then there are lots of things that kind of fall underneath that, things that you need to do when you're selling virtually that you don't necessarily need to pay that much attention to when you're selling live." – DAVEConnect with Dave Kahle:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davekahleWebsite: https://www.davekahle.com/Housing Lessons: www.thesalesresourcecenter.comTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Craig Lowder: Craig Lowder is the Founder and President of the Main Spring Sales Group, a specialized client acquisition consultancy focused on creating significant, predictable and sustainable sales growth for successful Financial Advisors, Consultants and Business Leaders making a 6-7 Figure Income seeking a strategic senior-level sales executive on a part-time, contract basis to develop and execute sales strategy, including sales process development, performance management systems, and ensure sales execution. With a 30-year track record of helping business owners and sales teams achieve their goals, as author of two highly-rated books, Smooth Selling Forever and Trusted Advisor Confidential℠, and as Founder and President of the Main Spring Sales Group, Craig has learned that success in sales comes down to three things: process, teamwork and access to experience that shortens the learning curve. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Craig.In this episode, Nancy and Craig discuss the following:Craig's journey into salesThe importance of understanding buyer journeys and aligning sales strategies accordinglyThe specifics of Craig's target industriesThe value of choosing the right fit for sales roles within organizationsAssessments in hiring salespeople: value or harm?Exploration of Craig's new book “Trusted Advisor Confidential”Recommendations on maintaining a healthy sales funnelIncreasing importance and the shift in buyer behavior towards virtual sellingKey Takeaways: The basis of selling is understanding the person that you're talking to from a professional as well as a personal level so that you can communicate with them effectively.A professionally statistically valid assessment helps you to determine whether what you're looking at is real.We were going towards virtual selling prior to COVID and COVID was just like the spark plug that initiated the change.If you think effective virtual selling is a 20-to-30-minute conversation at max, maybe 40, but the shorter the better."I have not found a company yet that has a defined, documented sales recruiting process. Step by step: what are the steps, who's involved, what are the desired outcomes? So, number one: having a documented sales hiring process. Number two: developing filtering questions based on the characteristics that you're seeking, so that you can also build an interview scorecard, which will tell you whether they're a good fit for your organization." – CRAIG"I've been on a four-decade journey of being a trusted advisor, a salesperson, a business development person, a new client acquisition person. And I saw a huge gap out there for individuals who are in business. The only way that they can earn a living is by eating what they sell. Unfortunately, whether they're financial advisors, commercial bankers, insurance brokers, consultants, coaches, or even marketing firms, they're very, very good at delivery, but they're not very competent or competent in developing new clients, having a process to do that. And with those, in many cases, particularly those who have letters after their name (PhD, JD, even MBA, I can say that because I have one of those), they go, "No, no, no, selling is too far below me." So, in the book, we don't use the word selling, but that's really what it is. If you were to ask every one of them, "Would you like to have more of the right fit clients?" Unanimously, they're going to say, "Yes." Well, as you and I know, that's technically business development and social selling. But it's like taking the curse off the call by talking about client acquisition. So, trusted advisor confidentiality is about communicating to them what are the six stars (and we're using that in celestial terms) that they need to follow to successively build a book of business filled with right-fit clients and significantly increase their personal income. And those stars include: targeting, messaging, sales process mapping, establishing sales success standards, effective generation, and having a healthy funnel." – CRAIG"Well, the six stars are developed in a hierarchical fashion. You have to have a good target audience and you have to have a message that resonates with them, and you have to have a lead conversion process that mirrors how they buy. So, it really all starts with targeting the right prospects, the right audience so that you can get the most out of your marketing activities as well as your limited sales time." – CRAIGConnect with Craig Lowder:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craiglowder/Smooth Selling Forever: https://www.smoothsellingforever.com/Personal: https://www.craiglowder.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

 About Natalie Doyle Oldfield: Natalie Doyle Oldfield is the President of Success Through Trust, which works with some of the world's most successful companies to increase sales, become more profitable, and increase customer trust and loyalty. She is also a keynote speaker, trainer, and thought leader. Natalie is the author of The Power of Trust: How Top Companies Build, Manage and Protect It. Success Through Trust has developed a methodology and award-winning programs based on this research.  The book was named one of the Top 5 business books of 2017 by the Chronicle Herald. Natalie was named a Top Thought Leader in Trust by Trust Across America Trust Around the World in 2018 and 2017. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Natalie.In this episode, Nancy and Natalie discuss the following:The fundamental importance of trust in business relationshipsNatalie's experience as a chief marketing officer during the 2008 financial crisisThe role of trust in business-to-business transactionsThe outcome of Natalie's research: Trust is a fundament of every buying decision in business-to-business environmentsWhy customers are willing to pay more for products and services from trusted companiesKey Takeaways: I created a proprietary framework and a model to help people build these relationships of trust with their customers and colleagues.Trust is what the most successful companies have in common.People and companies that are focused on building relationships of trust are the ones that are going to be most successful.Everybody can learn how to build a relationship or strengthen a relationship of trust and we can all cultivate and develop these skills."There is nothing more important than trust. And if we think about it, every single decision we make comes down to trust. First, we decide: do we trust? Then, we decide: are we going to listen? Afterward, we decide if we're going to have a conversation. Following that, we decide if we're going to look at someone's capabilities. We make these decisions subconsciously. In fact, in every business and personal relationship, trust plays a crucial role. Because I know most of your listeners are either working in a business, own a business, or are leaders in a business, trust is involved in every single relationship we have. It's the most important question everyone has." – NATALIE"I became deeply intrigued by how customers decide to buy in a business-to-business environment that I went back to school. I did graduate research, which led me to the science of trust. My master's thesis revolved around how people decide to buy in such environments. I found out quite quickly that it all starts with trust. First, we decide to trust, then we decide to buy. And you know, lonely wolf, there's a wonderful, very, very strong, much stronger than when I started 10 years ago, business case for learning and cultivating and developing relationships of trust. And, you know, worldwide, as we know, people buy from people they trust. Well, the fact is that 80% of us buy from a company or an organization we trust. And we pay more. We pay more when we trust. If I'm going to go out for a coffee, I'm going to pay more for a Starbucks coffee because I trust that coffee. I trust the company. I know they know how to create and make an amazing coffee and it's consistent. It tastes the same just like we know in business-to-business environments companies that will provide us with services we trust, or advice we trust, or products that are safe and secure to use, or are going to do what they say they're going to do. So that's how I got into it." – NATALIE"We all decide to trust. We make, as I mentioned, a subconscious decision. And we make that decision based on another person's communication, how they behave, and how they service us. So, it really comes down to these three components, Nancy. So, when you and I are buying a product or service, we're evaluating another person. And when we say we trust a company, well, companies, as we know, are made up of people. So as an example, when we are buying, say, professional services, like an engineering service, design services to ref- let's say we're going to renovate a factory, we would and we're the business owner and we own this plant, this factory. Well, we would most likely talk to a few different engineering firms to get a design. And we would have conversations and as you know, because you know, this is what you share with your audience, it all comes down to conversations and connecting with people." – NATALIEConnect with Natalie Doyle Oldfield:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliedoyleoldfield/Success Through Trust Inc: https://www.successthroughtrust.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Tom Ruwitch: Tom Ruwitch is the Founder of Story Power Marketing, where he helps clients discover the building blocks for prospect-focused stories. In 2001, Tom founded the email marketing software and services company MarketVolt — before most business people had even heard of email marketing. He helps execute marketing campaigns to engage with prospects, convert sales, and maximize customer relationships. He sold MarketVolt in 2019 and founded Story Power Marketing. Today, coaches, authors, and other experts hire Tom to power up their stories because most dish out the same old boring content that turns off prospects, and then they feel frustrated and stuck. So Tom helps them transform content from prospect-repelling to client-attracting, turn marketing from frustrating to fun, and convert results from subpar to superb. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Tom. In this episode, Nancy and Tom discuss the following:The best thing that can happen in your content is for somebody to read it see it or hear it and think.Storytelling can be a really important element of the content that you put out.The lesson is delegate and she can tell endless anecdotes or build endless stories to deliver that.You have to write in your own voice, produce videos in your own voice, and tell stories that are drawn from what you discover about your prospects and your clients, not with AI. Key Takeaways: I do not engage with any company for under three months, ideally six months.In the majority of startups and small businesses, all the sales are typically made by the founder or, in small business cases, the president or CEO of the company.I had always wanted to do something on my own.It's interesting how you can be fueled by the sales piece and the environment in which you sell."And what people need to understand that they need to do with their content is they need to inform and entertain and that's where storytelling comes in. When you deliver valuable information in a more captivating way, that's more story powered, more entertaining, you draw people in, you make the content more relatable and you're more likely to be the one to stand out in your niche.” – TOM"I would say that listening and empathy are probably the most important qualities because what it's about is not just tell, tell. This is what I know and I'm going to tell you everything I know. That's not what it's about. What it's about is hearing and watching and empathizing and understanding what is it that my prospects and clients are feeling and how is it that I can transform them from a feeling of, you know, one feeling to another, from a feeling of frustration to relief, from a feeling of fright to courage, from a feeling of stuck to free. It's almost always about emotional transformation. Even in business-to-consumer products, it's that way. But certainly, in business to business that it's almost always an emotional transformation and understanding and paying attention to the feelings of your prospects and clients and using that as the basis to assemble stories is what it's all about." – TOM"There are businesspeople who think that somehow storytelling is not professional, or it's beneath them, and that: “No, I'm going to write a 1500-word white paper”, or “I must be serious”. And my response is that storytelling in and of itself is not a frivolous activity. There are a lot of frivolous, meaningless silly stories that are being dished out. You know, storytelling is a big buzzword right now in marketing and online. And so, there are a lot of people who just think, oh, I'm going to tell a funny story for stories sake, and that's going to be great. Well, no, it's not great unless the prospect or the client can see themselves and unless there is a lesson and meaning in that story. But those who believe that I don't like stories, or I will be considered something less than professional if I tell stories, I think are missing the point of what a good story can do. As human beings, we are naturally drawn to stories and storytellers. There are all sorts of data to show that when information is delivered via story, we're much more likely to retain it. We're much more likely to trust the person who delivered the information. And we're much more likely to act on the call to action. So, you know, anyone who feels like, oh, it's beneath me or I don't like stories, or my audience won't like stories, when done properly, stories sell." – TOMConnect with Tom Ruwitch:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomruwitch/Story Power Marketing: https://storypowermarketing.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email:  leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Umar Hameed: Umar Hameed aka Mr. Breakthrough is the CEO of No Limits Selling, a professional training and coaching company that specializes in improving the sales performance of realtors and other sales professionals. They use the latest insights from neuroscience and NLP to help realtors break through their limitations and perform at a higher level. Umar is a keynote speaker, an author, and a Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) performance coach. Umar distinguishes himself from other consultants and trainers with his extensive track record and diverse skill set. With over 25 years of experience as a successful business and sales consultant, coupled with more than 13 years of expertise in utilizing Neuroscience, NLP, and Hypnosis to effect behavioral changes, Umar brings a unique perspective to his work. Renowned as a keynote speaker at conferences held in 14 countries, he shares his insights and knowledge with audiences worldwide. Additionally, Umar is an accomplished author, having penned three books, including the acclaimed "Unleash Your Crazy Sexy Brain!". Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Umar. In this episode, Nancy and Umar discuss the following:Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and its role in sales trainingThe concept of mindset and its significance in sales successThe reasons why some salespeople fail to reach their potentialThe importance of discovering one's authentic self in salesThe role of fear and childhood experiences in shaping behaviorThe use of hypnosis to overcome mental barriers in salesStrategies for building a resilient sales mindset Key Takeaways: What NLP is about and how to use your mindset differently.The reason most salespeople don't reach their potential is they don't ascertain or discover their true selves.Our conscious mind says: “No, we don't want to do that, that's scary”. And the unconscious mind is like: “I can do anything”!Look at people, especially the one that drives you crazy, and learn and utilize that to become better and thank them for it." Mindset is very much how we see the world because there is no such thing as reality. So how do we get that perception? It's from our life experiences, and how we see the world. So, let's say, Nancy, for example, you thought that everybody that interacts with you wants to work with you. Let's say that was your belief. Let's say it was a lie, but if you really believed it, you're going to show up in a way that would be expectant of people to want to interact with you. And you know what? People would start doing that because you show up in that way. And if I went into the same meeting and my belief was nobody wants to do business with me, or we're too small a company, then of course, people wouldn't ask and I'd answer questions in a stumbling, bumbling way, not on purpose, but at an unconscious level. So yeah, mindset is how we perceive the world and the meanings we make out of it. And so, the sales mindset is the same, right? It's how we perceive the world. And one of the elements you'll be shocked to hear, Nancy, is our beliefs around money have a huge impact on how well we do in sales." – UMAR"Number one, you know who you are, and you know what you want so you get clarity on what you want to achieve in your sales career. Number two is you get confidence, like a massive amount of confidence that allows you, because your clients are going to borrow your confidence in your product and in yourself to go, I should make this decision. Then you need grit, so you do not give up. That allows you to keep on going, so when the person says no, three times in a row, you still handle the objection. You're not trying to be pushy and force them, but you also don't want them to miss out. And the last component is passion, which is more contagious than COVID. And if you can know your authentic self, you've got those four elements, clarity, confidence, grit, and passion. That's how you reach your potential. And that's what we teach, how to change your mindset. So, you figure that stuff out and it doubles your sales, not because we teach you any new techniques, is because you use the techniques you already know in a bolder, purposeful way. And I'm going to preach here just for a second, Nancy, that whatever you believe, let's label it God. You will put here on earth to shine. And oftentimes when we're babies, we shine so brightly. And then when life's experiences, we get a sense of I'm not good enough, people don't like me. And then we pull our punches, and we start living a smaller life. And that's not why you were put here. The reason you need to shine, Nancy, is because there are people in your life, your colleagues, your family, your community, that once they see you shine, it permits them to do so as well. So, when we live smaller lives, we're injuring people that we love around us." – UMAR"Fear is the biological imperative that when we're about to do something new, something scary, fear comes up. And the reason fear comes up is not to stop you. When you're in the mode of fear, your reaction time is the fastest. You are stronger. You don't feel pain when you get injured. It's all the things that you need to be successful. But in our lives, we've been trained when fear comes up, and go in the opposite direction. Don't do that scary thing. Biology is giving us the tools we need to go do it." – UMARConnect with Umar Hameed:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/umarhameed/No Limits Selling:https://nolimitsselling.com/one-on-one-coaching-resolve-any-issue/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Colleen Francis: Colleen Francis is an award-winning speaker, consultant and bestselling author who helps leading businesses achieve dramatic increases in their sales results. A successful sales leader for over 20 years, she understands the particular challenges of selling in today's competitive market, and that business leaders can no longer rely on approaches to sales based on techniques from decades ago—or even last year. Colleen doesn't believe in the old-school mentality that only 20% of a sales team hit their sales targets. She says, that in today's modern selling era, we should expect 100% of the sales teams to hit 100% of the quota. Colleen works with business and sales leaders to synergize the sales DNA of the organization to seize market opportunities. Whether designing a strategy to target a new market or working with a team to improve its productivity, Colleen's results have attracted clients such as Merck, Abbott, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank, Dow, Adecco, Trend Micro, NCR, Chevron, and thousands of other global organizations. Her latest book, Right on the Money: New Principles for Bold Growth, provides readers with a proven, realistic game plan to redraw maps for sales and marketing in a topsy-turvy world. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Colleen.In this episode, Nancy and Colleen discuss the following:Challenges of selling in today's marketImportance of organizational structure and flexibility in sales processesEffective sales questions: Open-ended and closed-ended questions The evolution of selling practices due to technological advancementsThe impact of COVID-19 on selling practicesThe evolution of prospecting methods and the importance of utilizing different marketing channels to reach prospectsKey Takeaways: We need to be open, we have to be easy to buy from and talk to.it's not a question of whether you do virtual or whether you like it, it's how your clients are operating and how can you best have a conversation with them in the mode of communication that they want.Prospecting is much easier as well than it ever used to be because we have so many other sources."I think one of the biggest challenges that we are facing in today's market is this massive demographic shift and lack of workers. So, reductions in workforce because there aren't people, we just aren't as populous as we used to be, have two or three major effects on us as salespeople. One, it's going to force companies to keep increasing their quotas because they're going to have to grow and they're not going to be able to find salespeople. So, we're going to have to learn how to be more effective at what we do by combining, you know, virtual and in-person and all those kinds of things. Two, it puts pressure on our buyers because there are fewer of them, right? And they're doing more work. They're doing, they have more jobs. And so we're gonna continue in this buying environment where it's risky, people are scared to make decisions, they lack experience making decisions, they have 18 other jobs to do so they don't have time to make decisions. So, I think that those, that one challenge in the marketplace is going to drive a bunch of challenges that we have as salespeople." – COLLEEN"So critical mass influence in my belief in selling is that we build the best client relationships when we have a very broad reach, high, low, you know, East-West, right? Critical mass influence is about building that so that people, so you're easy to find, you're easy to buy from, and everybody feels like they know you. So, it's about using multiple types of media. So, whether it be social media, if we want to call it that, LinkedIn, your email, blogs, all those kinds of media, and reaching out to everybody that is related or potentially related to your customer. You know, Nancy, years ago, there was an ad on TV, if you remember, and I think it was for Clarell, and it was that I told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so on and so on and so on. Yeah, right. This is sort of the modern version of that because people are so important to the sales process, including people you will never meet. And so we have to get to our buyers, our influencers, our stakeholders. We must figure out a way to get our message to the people whom our buyers, influencers, and stakeholders might be listening to onto the platforms that they might be reading. And we also need to get everyone in our organization to do that. It's not just a sales responsibility. It's a marketing responsibility. It's customer service, its operations, it's finance.” – COLLEEN“First of all, we have to have a combination of open-ended and closed-ended questions because that's how a conversation flows naturally. I encourage salespeople to not be afraid of a closed-ended question because it will help you direct the conversation one way or the other depending on where it needs to be. We also must be comfortable being curious, asking the question, why? Why do you feel that way? Why are you saying that? What do you mean? Those kinds of questions so that we can get people talking about the real reason why they're making those statements. The third thing is, from a tactical perspective, we have to ask short questions. So, I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but salespeople will often fall into the habit, and I think this is a conversation breaker, where they ask the question, explain the question, answer the question, and then ask a whole entirely different question without taking a breath. And the poor prospect is, it is, it's terrible. Multi-pronged questions, I call them. Whereas if you ask a short question, you're going to get a long answer. And so, I think that's another way to ask effective questions." – COLLEENConnect with Colleen Francis:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleenfrancis/Engage Selling Solutions: https://www.engageselling.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Tracy Beavers: Tracy Beavers is the founder of Tracy Beavers Coaching, where she helps business owners ditch the overwhelming burden of business ownership. She crafts a clear roadmap of action steps and creative solutions to get clients from where they are to where they want to be. Gain clarity. Gain focus. Keep your sanity. For 12 years, she worked as a claims investigator for an insurance company, which provided valuable insights into human behavior under stress. She gained expertise in navigating complex and painful situations, coaching individuals through challenges, and identifying their next steps. Combining this experience with her marketing education, she has transformed her passion into a business focused on helping people. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Tracy.In this episode, Nancy and Tracy discuss the following:Exploring why entrepreneurs and individuals fear salesTracy's method of selling without explicitly sellingThe importance of building genuine connections and relationshipsFinding authenticity and ease in entrepreneurshipThe importance of community for entrepreneursKey Takeaways: Everybody is fearful of sales.Looking at their entire business structure, I can determine their needs.I believe in building a business with authenticity and with ease.We'll never get started if we put too much pressure on ourselves out of the gate to have something perfect or all the bells and whistles with it."When you first start a business, or maybe you're a year or so in, there is a lot of overwhelm that comes with it because you start the business with a passion for doing something. Let's say it's helping women with health and wellness, or like me, I'm a business and sales coach. Then you find yourself being the chief cook and bottle washer, learning the tech, building the website, building the courses, and spending all the plates and doing everything, which feels like a lot. And so, what I like to do with my clients is talk to them about their business, get a very solid look at the framework of it." – TRACY"Selling without selling is a style I created over my years of experience because I would have people come to me and ask me routinely, how are you so successful in sales? You know, how do you gain market share so easily? And the way I do this is through the selling without selling method. My approach is to take the sales out of the equation. I want my clients and students to take the word sell or sales completely out of their language, out of their brain, and park it. And then we're going to show up as our best selves. We will look for opportunities to make true human connections with other humans who want to make a true connection. And then we're going to see where the conversation leads. Because in sales, it's not, not always about me. The next person I meet will want to buy something from me.Rather, my approach is the next person I meet I want to see where the relationship goes. They could be an ideal client for me, but they could also be my next best collaboration partner and open up, open, and introduce me to their entire audience. They could also be my next best referral source. " – TRACY"The biggest thing that I will say that I want everybody to remember and audience lean in when I say this being an entrepreneur is freaking hard. You cannot go it alone. It is a roller coaster of emotion. People that are, it doesn't matter if you're on day one, day five, or year 15, and you're making $80 million a year. Everybody feels imposter syndrome creep in, everybody feels doubt, everybody feels afraid, and the people who aren't willing to talk about it are just not telling you the truth. And so, what I highly recommend for everybody is to find a community of support, even if it's a free community." – TRACYConnect with Tracy Beavers:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-beavers-b650449/Tracy Beavers Coaching:https://www.tracybeavers.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Lisa Scotto: Lisa Scotto is the founder of LMS Growth Consulting, a Business Development Strategy company, and a Co-Founder of Your Cohort, women founded fractional C-suite executive team. Lisa brings to the table 20+ years of sales and marketing acumen, working for some of the largest entertainment and media brands. Past experiences include operationalizing an alternative revenue model for Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, developing custom products at Crain Communications and the World Economic Forum, and initiating the sales and sponsorship team at Superfly X. Additionally, she has spent half of her career working at the Walt Disney Company in various sales and marketing roles.Philosophically, Lisa approaches sales as a discipline and believes that good salespeople don't just sell - they add value. She is passionate about working with teams that are open to new ways of addressing growth challenges and are committed to driving results through collaborative, forward-thinking approaches.Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Lisa.In this episode, Nancy and Lisa discuss the following:The importance of focusing on the big picture in sales strategiesSales as a discipline: consistency and adding valueResearch-driven approach to identifying prospect pain pointsSales preparation as a key to success in salesLisa's journey from selling popcorn at Disney to consultingTransitioning from corporate roles to entrepreneurship during the pandemicSales as relationship-building through meaningful conversationsIntentionality in prospecting calls: planning and adaptabilityLifelong learning and ongoing training in sales effectivenessCrafting high-power questions to make sales calls more engagingKey Takeaways: I think in most organizations people do their day-to-day tasks and they're not thinking about how this connects to the larger picture.I rely on extensive research, and this is not just a quick Google search five minutes before the meeting.My strengths naturally align with sales.Whoever's asking the questions is in control. "I do believe sales is a discipline in the sense that to have results, you need to show up consistently. And I like to use a gym as a reference, right? You don't roll up to the gym one day and decide to lift 250 pounds. You must sort of show up every day or every four days a week, right, over a consistent amount of time for you to build that strength and to build that muscle, right? So that requires discipline. Just like sales, you can't roll up to a client meeting without having done your research, without understanding what the client's problem is. How can my specific service or product help with that problem? And I believe to be good at sales, you need to develop that as a discipline, right? You have to do that hard work, week in and week out to see the results because you never know which call or which prospect or which meeting is going to be fruitful, right? You must plant all the seeds, but you don't know which ones will be fruitful in the end." – LISA"I like to really try to leave no stone unturned and uncover where there might be opportunities. So, I'll give you an example. Let's say I'm pitching a Fortune 100 company, and they just had their annual meeting. I might take the time to review the video of the annual meeting and really understand what is the CEO talking about, right? What is the senior-most leadership team talking about and does that relate to my product or service, right? […] And then try to relate that to my product or service. Another tip that I've done that actually scored me a fantastic meeting with a large organization was I looked at various job openings at a company and mapped based on the roles that they were hiring that they could use my product at the time, right, and scored a meeting with the senior level leadership team.So, it's almost, again, with the lens of adding value, I think your research must go deeper than just rudimentary. It does really need to dig deeper so that you can best understand the client, where they're coming from, what's the conversation going on in their organizations." – LISA"There's this sort of idea that in the past, we went to school and then our school chapter was completed, then we went to work, right? And that was sort of the progression of adult life. You went to school, then you went to work, and then that was sort of where your learning started and ended. Nowadays, there's so much opportunity for people to learn, and not just about a function or, you know, a specific industry. There is an opportunity to learn across different industries and across functions. And I think that ultimately makes you a better salesperson, right? Like if again, if you could connect dots that other people aren't connecting for clients, that's the gold right there." – LISAConnect with Lisa Scotto:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lspommerening/LMS Growth Consulting: https://lmsgrowthconsulting.com/Sales Glow Up: YouTube LinkTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau: Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau are the award-winning and bestselling authors of The Story of French, The Story of Spanish, and the bestselling Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong. Julie Barlow is the author of 8 nonfiction books. In 2023, Julie published a comprehensive guide to self-employment with her husband and writing partner, Jean-Benoit Nadeau. GOING SOLO: Everything You Need to Start Your Business and Succeed as Your Own Boss, with Jean-Benoît Nadeau, drawing on the couple's three decades of experience as freelance writers. Born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and a political science graduate of McGill University, Jean-Benoît Nadeau once held a job for 29 days and has been self-employed for 35 years. A regular reporter and columnist for L'actualité (Canada's leading national French magazine), he has also been a past contributor to the Report on Business Magazine. He has signed papers for various American, Canadian, and French publications. His freelancer status has allowed him to live in various venues like Phoenix, Toronto, Paris, and Montreal and undertake radio, film, and book projects, some of which with his spouse and partner Julie Barlow. They currently work as journalists based in Canada. He also published "The Story of French," "The Story of Spanish," and "The Bonjour Effect: The Secret Codes of French Conversation Revealed. " Their books have been translated into French, Dutch, Mandarin, and Japanese. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Julie and Jean-Benoît.In this episode, Nancy, Julie, and Jean discuss the following:Writers' transition from a creative role to the business aspectThe key messages in "Going Solo"Working more hours vs. thinking differentlyThe importance of understanding the client's expectations and needsThe value of negotiating on multiple levels simultaneouslyThe significance of saying "no" as a critical term in negotiationsConstructive refusal tips: polite ways to decline offersKey Takeaways:I'm a writer and a creator, but I'm also a business person, and I realized that I was the hierarchical equal of my client.You won't earn more if you work more; you'll earn more if you think things differently.The important thing that you do when you want to go solo is to understand your purpose and to love what you want to do.You immediately have intellectual property whenever you write something definite and not a list."The book is really for anybody who wants to start a business. But we're working from experience and maybe addressing more people in the creative field. Mind you, starting a business is creative, period. And I think one of the issues probably applies to all entrepreneurs. You know, you want to do something, be self-employed, and work from your passion. And then you very quickly must understand that it's a business. And it's hard for people to switch from being passionate about something to being business-like. And so, the book takes everybody through from the very beginning, writing your business plan through negotiation and operations and management and all the things you need to understand to make your passion make a living for you." – JULIE"It depends on whom you sell. Sometimes, the market that you have is very small. In effect, when we're magazine writers like us, we sell to about five or six publications. A lot of people publish these publications. But the person we must convince, the gatekeeper, is the editor-in-chief. And so, in that case, convincing them is putting together what we call the ingredients of a good idea, what's in it for them, what's so special about it. Sometimes, we have clients who are completely unknown to us. Some people want us to write a book on them. And so, in that case, most of the selling is just teaching the person how our business works because they have no clue. And if we do a good job there, we will have a client that will understand better where they will evolve." – JEAN"The book is about communication, particularly understanding your client's expectations and needs. So, for instance, we have people who want writing projects who don't really understand what involved the time and the work and what is involved in putting together some writing. So, part of our job is finding out how much they understand. And it's important to do that work sort of upstream from signing a contract with somebody and because it's all going to figure into how much you charge for it." – JULIE"I would say that you will quickly be busy once you have your business going. A very important thing is figuring out your purpose. Julie alluded to that. But you know, if you start a school for social dancing, you're not going to make all the hundreds of little decisions, whether your purpose is to start a franchise of school dancing or have your clients win the Olympics of social dancing or create a shoe for social dancing. You will not choose your clients in the same way as your venue, and you won't publicize in the same way. So, the idea of having a purpose, which is what you are doing this for, is very important. It's the essence of a business plan, which is not a 200-page document but a really, really a document about yourself. And knowing thyself better is the old Socrates motto, really applies to self-employed people." – JEANConnect with Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoît Nadeau:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliebarlow/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jean-benoit-nadeau/Website: https://nadeaubarlow.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/   Connect with Nancy Calabrese:Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Hilary Swan: Hilary Swan is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Rebel Scout Consulting, which supports founders and CEOs without a sales leader during growth or transition as a fractional VP of sales/sales leader. Hilary has spent 14 years working for global sales organizations and has carried the bag, launched new products, led sales teams, and knows what good looks like and how to get you there. The wildly competitive culture of sales is where Hilary thrived, and this proved to be accurate as she hustled her way through the ranks and reached sales leadership, where she most recently led a $18M business over three divisions in one of the country's most competitive industries and markets. Hilary has had a burning desire to feed her entrepreneurial spirit and coveted passion for developing people to win every step of the way. Still, she didn't quite know how to share her wealth of knowledge and expertise until now. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Hilary.In this episode, Nancy and Hilary discuss the following:Hilary's background and motivation for starting Rebel Scout ConsultingThe concept of fractional sales leadership and how it supports startups and small businessesSupporting startups and small businesses in the absence of sales teamsThe importance of embracing sales as a positive forceThe positive nature of salesKey Takeaways:I do not engage with any company for under three months, ideally six months.In the majority of startups and small businesses, all the sales are typically made by the founder or, in small business cases, the president or CEO of the company.I had always wanted to do something on my own.It's interesting how you can be fueled by the sales piece and the environment in which you sell."I was in inside and outside sales, selling many different things. I was in sales leadership. I'd always wanted to do something on my own. I'm not surrounded by a ton of entrepreneurs or people who own their own businesses per se, but I was always so intrigued by it. So, I had been approached about a head of sales role with a startup, which was not right for me then. But it really got me researching what this all looks like in the startup world and where these people get the money. Do they make money? How many of these ideas are good? The failure rates are high. So, I had a, you know, cautionary risk. I researched, but I felt like I hit a crossroads. So, the company that I was working for at the time had been acquired, and I should have been very appreciative because I was going to be moving into a new leadership role, which was a bit of a promotion on paper. I was so not inspired by it. I just, the thought of having to continue to do this or do something in this role was just not, you know, lighting the fire. And so, I felt like this was the time. This is a clean cut to jump two feet in. For those who dabble in starting something while they have a full-time role, it doesn't work for me personally. And so, I felt it was very clear that you have this job opportunity in front of you, and you should be so excited. It's more money, more responsibility, a bigger role, and I couldn't be less excited. I felt like that was my sign just to rip the bandaid off and do it. And so, I did it. And thankfully, it is working out very well. But yeah, it takes a lot to do that step." – HILARY"The fractional model is, I don't want to say it's not new, but it's on the newer side and exactly what it sounds like. It's a fraction, so you're getting a fraction of the time of an executive or a leadership. So, what it really should feel like is for startups and small businesses, they're getting what they need. So, this is across many different specialties. You'll see operations HR. You'll see the Chief of Staff. And so, what it is that you're getting that team member for, to be honest, is also a fraction of the cost likely. And you need their expertise and their membership on your executive team. But having most of these roles filled costs a lot of money. So, what is not better than to tap somebody at a fractional? Engagement where you don't have to bring them on as a W-2 or with the health benefits or 401k. It really is, and I know consulting is in the name of my business, but it's not the consultant in the traditional sense of projects; they do all the stuff and then leave. You really, really should feel like you have a team member on your team with this fractional leader." – HILARY"We're all in sales, and that is okay. That's a great thing. So, the faster you can embrace that and feel comfortable with how to interact with people so that you can get across to them how you can help and serve them with whatever you're selling or doing, the better it will be. So lean into it. It's a positive thing." – HILARYConnect with Hilary Swan:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilarynswan/Rebel Scout Consulting: https://www.rebelscout.co/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/   Connect with Nancy Calabrese:Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Beate Chelette: Beate Chelette is the Growth Architect and Founder of The Women's Code and provides visionaries and leaders with proven strategies, blueprints, and growth maps that provide clear steps to improve business systems, strengthen leadership skills and teams so that our clients and audiences can maximize profits and scale their impact. Beate is known as a straight shooter, and she can inspire, empower, and overcome adversity. Her super skill is working with unique personalities and big thinkers and building executable systems. A first-generation immigrant with $135,000 in debt as a single parent, Beate bootstrapped her passion for photography into a global business that licensed content in 79 countries. She exited in a multimillion-dollar deal when she sold the company to Bill Gates. She is listed among the "Top 100 Global Thought Leaders" by PeopleHum and "One of 50 Must Follow Women Entrepreneurs" by HuffPost. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Beate.In this episode, Nancy and Beate discuss the following:Meaning of "Happy Woman, Happy World"Three essential elements for becoming an authority in one's fieldBeate's insights on strategically growing authority as an expert, seeking recommendationsCommon mistakes hindering leaders from expedited authority growth and how to avoid themThe role of mindset in achieving successExperience selling a business to Bill GatesKey Takeaways:Your strategy must align with your market and your unique expertise.Failure isn't personal; it's an opportunity to reassess and pivot.Your understanding of the problem isn't always the actual problem.Mindset isn't about wishful thinking; it's about decisive action."When we take care of our women who are the mothers to our children, who are the responsible gender for the preservation of the human race, the nurturers, the first thing a child sees when it's born, if we take care of women, the world is probably in a much better place." – BEATE"A lot of times when people talk about: "I want to be successful. I want to be an authority". They're unclear about what authority means or have a strategy to become an authority. Let's investigate that an authority is not a celebrity or an influencer. An authority is a subject matter expert. Most of us are not celebrities. Most of us are not influencers we might want to be, but most of us are experts in what we do. Authority building is specific to your expertise. People often get wrong about this because they look at what other people are doing and promising, especially in the internet marketing world. Then, they are not sure why their TikTok videos are not going viral because TikTok is often used for a particular audience. So, if you are an authority with a particular audience that might not be on TikTok, then you can do whatever you want on TikTok, but it'll never take hold as an authority. So, you have to have a strategy in place that is very specific to who you are, what you want to achieve." – BEATE"In the actual studies of mindset, the objective is it's not wishing, and it's not dreaming. It's deciding this is what I'm going to do. Then, take action and allow God's birth, the universe, whatever you want to call it, to put the right things in front of you because the path is never what you think it is. A higher power always determines the path. Otherwise, we all be successful, but most people think they know best. We don't. We can decide, but we need to let energy spirit guide us in the direction because we have control over our vibration, not how we get there. We keep making the decisions that we believe get us there. And then, as things happen and unfold, my path has never been exactly as I thought it would be. My path has been completely different. And yet I have gotten to places that I never thought I could get." – BEATEConnect with Beate Chelette:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beatechelette/?locale=de_DEThe Growth Architect: https://beatechelette.com/What's Your Talent Worth?: https://quiz.whatsyourtalentworth.com/sf/c666d9e3Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/   Connect with Nancy Calabrese:Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About April Adams Pertuis: April Adams Pertuis is the visionary Founder and CEO of LIGHTbeamers, helping mission-driven leaders and entrepreneurs discover their inherent ability to reach people by teaching them how to share their stories so they can create deeper connections and build strategic relationships. When April speaks, audiences discover the power of their own story to create more cohesive communities, build stronger relationships, and attract ideal outcomes. The key message is always "everybody has a story," which is a powerful beacon used to shine a light on others. April is also a #1 Bestselling Author of 3 compilation books: Elevate Your Voice, Step Into Your Brave, and Shine Your Light, and a host of the top-rated (top 2 %) Podcast, The Inside Story with April Adams Pertuis in 4th year of weekly production. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about April.In this episode, Nancy and April discuss the following:April's expertise in storytelling across various platformsLightBeamers: the origin of her company nameMethodology behind crafting a compelling storySignificance of storytelling in business and its impact on audience engagementChallenges people face in sharing their stories"Little" stories vs. "Big" traumatic storiesKey Takeaways:We learn by listening to other people's stories and how they navigated their choppy waters.There is a natural, magical way to share that story in a way that will be light. There are light beamers.You're human, and nobody wants to do business with robots.In the digital age of AI, we will do a lot of business with robots in the future."It's innate in who we are and how we're designed as human beings that storytelling resonates. We tend to learn through storytelling. This is why storytelling has been around since the beginning of time. We can date it back to the caveman days, and that's how they communicated. They documented their existence by painting in the caves and telling a story. And so, stories do just that, right? They help document our existence. We've come a long way since the caveman days, and storytelling is very sophisticated. There are many ways we can utilize storytelling in our communication. We have unlimited ways to do that now in the digital age that we live in. But at the end of the day, it's still just about connecting with another human being and using storytelling to show that we are all kind of alike." – APRIL"The number one soft skill that most business owners overlook or disregard altogether. And it's what it is really like. I call it a secret weapon in business. This relates to sales, building an audience, and connecting with future and potential clients and existing clients storytelling; we can go so much further with our businesses if we incorporate more storytelling. What performs well on social media is when people, businesses, and the humans behind the business show up and tell real stories. It's not the marketing, it's not the sales pages, it's not even the beautifully crafted testimonials, although testimonials are a form of storytelling. It's just the human being a human. And so, I always say storytelling is going to be the thing that humanizes your business and will allow you to be seen differently than all the other fish in the water because it will make you unique. This is especially important right now in the world that we're entering with AI because AI cannot reproduce your story. So we're going to be bombarded, we are already being bombarded, and I think there's a place for AI; I'm not poo-pooing it, but we need to be careful not just to use AI, we need to use AI and use storytelling, and when you use storytelling, you're going to be able to infuse your personality, your own set of values kind of what you stand for, your flavor, you know, your personality. And that will help create conversions in your sales and your conversations; it's going to bring more people to you and into your audience. It's going to increase your engagement. All those things that we're all looking for as business owners." – APRIL"I'm a big fan of video because you're hearing my voice right now on the podcast. You don't broadcast anywhere on video. So you won't find me on video listening to this episode. But even just the voice, you can hear my voice and the intonation and the way I have inflection. But if you were to see me on video right now, number one, you would see my face. You will see what I look like. You would see my hand gestures because I'm quite animated when I talk, and I use my hands a lot. And I smile, right? I smile, or if I'm feeling something emotional, I might show a little more emotion in my face. And that allows, as human beings, it allows a visual clue as to who we are as people." – APRILConnect with April Adams Pertuis:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lightbeamers/Lightbeamers: https://www.lightbeamers.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/   Connect with Nancy Calabrese:Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Craig Lowder: Craig Lowder is a Founder and President of the Main Spring Sales Group, a specialized client acquisition consultancy focused on creating significant, predictable, and sustainable sales growth for successful Financial Advisors, Consultants, and Business Leaders, making a 6-7 Figure Income seeking a strategic senior-level sales executive on a part-time, contract basis to develop and execute sales strategy, including sales process development, performance management systems, and ensure sales execution. With a unique blend of foundational sales science & real-world experience, Craig partners with businesses and advisors to transform their sales trajectory, ensuring consistent, measurable growth in every endeavor. Craig has worked with over 50 companies in various industries, from retail to manufacturing, financial services to business services. He has increased first-year annual sales by 22 to 142 percent for every client. Craig is the author of two highly-rated books, Smooth Selling Forever and Trusted Advisor Confidential℠. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Craig.In this episode, Nancy and Craig discuss the following:The secret of growing a company to 142%Shift to virtual Selling and digital self-serveChallenges in virtual Selling: Adapting to new technology, maximizing efficiency, and reducing the cost of salesFrom cold calls to warm introductions: Increasing touchpoints with prospectsOvercoming challenges such as wrong people in wrong seats, lack of clearly defined sales metrics, and absence of sales processesKeys to building an effective sales teamImportance of ongoing learning, open communication, mentoring, and recognition and reward systemsKey Takeaways: We are in a virtual selling and a digital self-serve world; the old days of in-person meetings have gone.The virtual meetings that are being held are shorter and more on point.The definition of cold calling nowadays is getting a list of names and numbers and just banging the phone and calling people.Too many salespeople give up after two or three times, and studies show it may take six or seven outreaches. "There are a lot of opportunities for enhancement or growth in the company. A lot of it gets down to having a detailed sales growth plan that everyone is following, making sure that there are defined sales processes that everyone follows, which shorten sales cycles, improve conversion rates, making sure that there are sales success standards present, that are activity as well as results-based, and that there are targets which generally increases the level of activity that's taking place, making sure that organizations have an ideal client profile, understanding the difference between a crow and a pheasant. So, they invest their time in marketing, lead generation, and lead conversion on those opportunities that are the best fit for them. And then finally, and most importantly, ensuring that they have the right people in their sales organization in the right seats." – CRAIG"The reality is, and I believe I said it in the article, there is absolutely no justification for a cold call. With all the technology available today, whether it's LinkedIn, the focus of prospecting should be on getting introduced to the individual in the organization we're targeting to warm up the call. So, there's a likelihood that an individual will either return your call or respond to an email. I would say it continues because of the amount of, and I hate to say it, noise that's out there digitally. If you remember back when you and I were doing this several decades ago, the studies were showing it took, you know, six to seven interactions for you to begin to develop a level of trust. Today, because of all that noise out there, it's taking twice that number of touches before somebody's willing to trust you. So, I think that the trend is that we need to be in more frequent touch with our prospects. The conversations, the emails need to be shorter with a very defined agenda and take a waypoint for the listener, the reader." – CRAIG"In my book, Smooth Selling Forever, I outline 12 reasons why significant predictable and sustainable sales growth will not happen unless you overcome 12 challenges. The top four include the wrong people in the wrong seats. We know that in a virtual selling environment, the role definitions, the makeup of the sales team's skill sets, and experience have changed. Third was not having clearly defined sales metrics, activities, and results. The focus is typically on the results, but we must understand that results are lagging success indicators. We really need to determine the leading indicators of success, which are activities, their calls, their opportunities discovered, proposals or quotes that go out the door, and how healthy our sales funnel is, just at a very basic level. The second of the top four are no defined sales processes. I'm a firm advocate that you need to have clearly defined sales processes, which are technically the documentation of best practices of those responsible for the Selling. And there are at least three, if not more. One, new customer, new project. Two, existing customers, new project. And it could be upsold, cross-sell. The third is renewals or, re-business or reorder business. And they all have different paths that require different steps and may involve different people. But the bottom line in building sales processes is that the sales process needs to be congruent with your target audience's buying process." – CRAIG Connect with Craig Lowder:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craiglowder/Smooth Selling Forever: https://www.smoothsellingforever.com/Personal: https://www.craiglowder.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Mike Ulmer: Mike Ulmer is CEO of Catapult Bookwriting and the author of books about business, hockey, Canada, and leadership. Mike's company, Catapult Bookwriting, has published Unapologetic Leadership by Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng, Drop the Mic Marketing by Jason Hunt, Show and Tell Writing: A Great Short Business Book About How to Write A Great Short Business Book by Mike Ulmer, The Myth-Guided Mind: Unleash Your God-Given Genius At Work And At Home by Michael Hynes, The 50 Year-Old Millenial by Marc Petitpas and The 40 Ways Of The Fox by Ron Foxcroft. He has written for three wire services: the Thomson News Service, Southam News, and The Canadian Press. His work has appeared in Chill: The Beer Magazine, Saturday Night Magazine, and in a compendium of sports Stories called The Way It Looks From Here (2004 Knopf), edited by Steven Brunt. Mike's book M is for Maple is, the bestselling alphabet book in Canadian publishing history. He has appeared in front of 20,000 elementary school students across Ontario and Alberta to talk about writing and everything Canadian. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Mike.In this episode, Nancy and Mike discuss the following:Mike's three-step formula for writing a book: Proposition, Backstory, RecommendationsImportance of a book for business growth and personal brandingThe power of a book as a marketing tool and credibility builderAdvice on starting the book-writing process with personal storytellingTips on daily writing goals and word countsViews on deadlines and their effectiveness in book writingKey Takeaways: Podcasting, blogging, and books form the Holy Trinity of communication.A book provides a 24/7 representation of your expertise.The key is honesty and vulnerability.People invest their time when they read your book; honor that. "Because when you write a book, people are just so impressed. And I've been living off that for about 30 years. So, I'm going to tell you it's true. There's a disproportionate amount of prestige when you write a book. So, it's really a great thing for a business. And if you're the only person telling your story, then you're the only story that counts." – MIKE"If you want to write the book, we can coach you and all that stuff. We can help you do that for a very reasonable cost. But if you want to just do it by yourself, that's okay too. We also do that if you want us to write the book for you. But to answer your question, I don't know if everyone can write a book, but everyone can figure out who they are, what they are, and why they do it." – MIKE"If you feel that your story is not worth telling, someone has gotten in your ear and lied to you because everyone has a compelling story. I make a living finding them. And that's probably not going to be Jermaine to the hundreds and thousands, not hundreds, but thousands of people listening to your podcast. But here's what is Jermaine. That person who told you haven't got a story worth listening lied to you. Right. And that person should be consigned to the seventh circle of hell because people carry around that lie and build their beliefs on top of that thing. It's like a faulty foundation. All you're trying to do is build a good house, but if someone leaves you with that terrible foundation, you'll never have a great house. Whoever told you you couldn't write a book lied to you. Everyone can do it." – MIKE Connect with Mike Ulmer:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-ulmer-554814a3/Personal: https://www.mikeulmer.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About John Lester: John Lester is the Founder of Attitude Selling, helping struggling organizations and salespeople become sustainable revenue creators. Throughout his career, John has been acknowledged as a transformational leader, specializing in revitalizing underperforming organizations. He possesses a deep understanding of opportunity development, excelling in identifying and seizing market opportunities to accelerate expansion and boost revenue through fostering collaborative partnerships, strategic connections, and new market segmentation. Having managed extremely large and complex accounts, John understands the importance of delivering quality, consistent service. He exhibits a unique talent for root-cause analysis, swiftly pinpointing the core issues clients face and articulating them effectively while establishing optimal courses of action. He recognizes that business is ever-evolving. John's observations underscore the critical importance of aligning the organization along the "lead to satisfied customer" continuum for achieving large-scale, repeatable success in sales. John is also the author of "Winning the Inner Game of Sales: The Foundation of Success is Mindset." Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about John.In this episode, Nancy and John discuss the following:John Lester's background and expertise in salesSales as an art and the importance of human connectionChallenges in sales and the impact of mental modelsThe importance of understanding buyers and their psychologyDifficulties solopreneurs face in salesExplanation of Attitude Selling and its focus on mindsetThe Sales Mastermind program and its purposeKey Takeaways: Good salespeople help others achieve their dreams, goals, and objectives.All these mental models are in your head, and until you get them out, they won't work.Wait a minute, if the person asks about price, wouldn't it be worth figuring out why they're asking about price right away instead of pushing that conversation away?You're not going to make progress if you don't get pushed. "Sales is so amazing for a couple of reasons. One is because it is not a science as much as it's an art. It is not practical as much as it's human. And what you're really dealing with in sales is human behaviors and human emotions. You can't predict any of that. And that makes it so much fun. But the other thing that's so amazing about sales is that good salespeople help other people achieve their dreams, their goals, their objectives." – JOHN"I would say the biggest misconception about the role of selling is that the seller needs to go, "Excuse me, but beat the living daylights out of the buyer into submission." All right? Don't. Stop. All right? It doesn't work. But there's so many. Sellers are told and taught, and hopefully not that much anymore, but told and taught that the buyer is uninformed, buys on price, and knows what they want. Stop! They were wrong, okay? The buyer buys because they think it's a good deal. No, none of its true. None of its true. They all come into play, but none of its true." – JOHN"Great question, but it's natural, and I want all the solopreneurs listening to take a deep breath. The solopreneurs, for the most part, start a business because they have some kind of expertise. Usually, it's technical expertise, some kind of subject matter that they know about, whether it's a physician, a psychologist, or a plumber. They go, "Hey, I want to deliver that expertise." So, they understand their expertise, and again, this goes back to what I said in the very beginning: their expertise is a technical, definable offering. But the decision to buy their expertise is not technical; it's not definable; it's human; it's behavioral. And so, they're operating at this technical level, which is fine. Still, in order to sell, they have to change who they are to a certain extent and operate at the human level, and operate at the—I will say—political, not in the sense that everybody thinks of political, but political from the perspective of interaction. They're not used to doing that. I mean, I don't know how many schools in the country at any level offer such courses on how to come to an agreement, how to read another person. I don't know anybody who does, but you need those things. We have lots of classes on accounting." – JOHN Connect with John Lester:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlester973/Attitude Selling: https://attitudeselling.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Chet Lovegren: Chet Lovegren is the Founder & Head Sales RX'er of The Sales Doctor, a company that helps clients prevent their revenue bleed from archaic training, coaching, and implementation practices. After working for 7+ years as an individual contributor, Chet started The Sales Doctor in 2020 as a way for salespeople and sales leaders to take a 'prescriptive' approach to diagnose and solve problems in their go-to-market strategy. Since then, he's helped companies raise over $100M in VC Funds and seen over 125 professionals perform at their best, get promoted, and achieve their true earning potential. His foundations and teachings are a combination of his 11+ years in the go-to-market space, both as a seller and leader. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Chet.In this episode, Nancy and Chet discuss the following:Importance of prescriptive approach in salesComparison of sales strategies to medical diagnosisSignificance of onboarding for new sales reps and managersUse of technology in improving hiring processesImportance of measuring performance and engagementStrategies for identifying and nurturing future leadersAdvice on managing and leading sales teamsKey Takeaways: 90% of what I do is an aggregate of all the information I've taken in, eaten the fish, and spit out the bones.Try a lot of things and see what works best for you.The forgetting curve: within 30 days, we forget 87% of what we learned.Empathy does not mean a lack of accountability. "I like to use the idea of prescriptive because if you're a doctor and you are doing it right, it's not a one-size-fits-all all. And the best doctors who have done the most critical work in saving lives have dug deep into the core problems, not solving for symptoms. But why are these symptoms happening? Because you think about if you have a fever, you're gonna have similar symptoms as if you have a cold, their shared symptoms across certain problems or diagnoses, right? And my favorite saying is a doctor who provides a diagnosis without examination is guilty of malpractice. I think many LinkedIn gurus do this, but many sales teams do it for their opportunities and customers. And if we want to be transparent, honest, value-driven salespeople, let's walk the walk and not just talk the talk. And so, you have to dig deep into what's the problem that my customer thinks they have, what's the problem I know they have because I'm the subject matter expert, what's the gap in that way of thinking, and how can I get them to think, not understand my point of view critically? You know, we're in politics season, and I'm sure everybody's watching all these debates going on." – CHET"Yeah, I think one of the best ways to do this is with software. I'm not one to typically plug software, but there's a tool called Yardstick. Founder Lucas Price has built this incredible tool that helps increase the collaboration between hiring managers, department heads, and maybe individual contributors who are also interviewing people for the role and helps them collaborate in real time so that they have a foundation once that new hire starts to be able to go back and measure, do we have who we thought we had? This way, you can essentially know who you have faster, know if they're the person you hired, and if they're not, work with your HR team to get them out of the seat and get somebody in who will be. Because that's the unfortunate thing." – CHET"I'm okay accepting no when making 50 cold calls a day. You want to make 20 cause that's what's comfortable for you, and you can do that because you're sending more video messages and doing much more personalized email outreach, and it works for you; that's great. Cause I have another rep who can't convert anything via email, but they're fantastic on the phone. And so, I say, if it's working for you, prioritize that. Do we want to try to upscale you on cold email writing? Sure, but if you're booking 20 appointments monthly to make a hundred cold calls a day, I'm not opposed to that. You're hitting your number, which might be what you're good at. And so, I do want to make you better at cold email writing if there are gaps that I recognize, but there's a whole bunch behind that with email deliverability that might've also happened with that gentleman. So, I think it'd be okay with no, but expect why. And remember that empathy does not mean a lack of accountability; you're not a bad person if you want to instill some accountability in your process. Still, you must pull back the books, use a data-driven leadership model, and show people why accountability is in place. And don't manage to the bottom 20% of people who don't want to be at your org anyway. Stop making rules and things that they must follow. Make rules and processes and accountability for the 80% because all you do when you're reactive, and you manage to the bottom 20% is the other 80% of people that want to be there feel like they're getting squeezed out and they quit, and they go take $5,000 a year to work somewhere else." – CHET Connect with Chet Lovegren:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetlovegren/The Sales Doctor: https://www.thesalesdocrx.com/Linktree:https://linktr.ee/thesalesdoctor_rxTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Manuj Aggarwal: Manuj Aggarwal is the Chief Technology Officer of TetraNoodle Technologies, a company he founded in 2000 that provides startups with technology consulting and ongoing education. Manuj started as a factory worker in India, earning $2/day, and ended up in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies in Canada and the USA. Located in Vancouver, Canada, TetraNoodle has served clients ranging from startups to large corporations. They are focused on empowering businesses with Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities. They are an end-to-end service provider for all AI and technology solutions. They do whatever it takes to enable AI capabilities for your organization. Whether building data engineering pipelines, enabling cloud migration, developing data products to validate AI models, or performing QA, they provide the full spectrum of services necessary to succeed in your AI plans. They work with three kinds of customers: Early-Stage Startups that want to embed AI into their products, Small and Medium Businesses that cannot have their own AI teams, and Large Enterprises that need AI expertise to guide their teams. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Manuj.In this episode, Nancy and Manuj discuss the following:Manuj's background in technology and AIThe concept of data being the new oil and AI being the new engineHow AI can be both beneficial and potentially harmful, depending on its useThe overlap between technology and human psychologyThe need for businesses to embrace technology, particularly AI, to stay competitiveKey Takeaways: Data can now be converted into dollars.You can create powerful solutions once you understand how to utilize data and use AI to crunch big numbers.AI is a tool to help you be creative faster.We are entering a vast new era of a new way of doing work. Every company is going to be a technology company moving forward. "The world always values useful resources. So, we consume oil. That's a very valuable resource. We consume food. All kinds of materials that we consume are resources. And people who own that resource can charge money for it. Now, if you look at platforms like Facebook or Twitter, they are, or even Google, giving away everything for free. You can use most of the Google products for free, Facebook for free, and Twitter for free. So, how are these companies making so much money? Yeah, by advertising based on the data that they collect on you." – MANUJ"Yeah, every business grows based on a few factors. One is whether they have a great team managing the business. Another one is whether they have good brand credibility in the market. Another one is whether customers are coming in regularly into their storefront or what have you. All of these take a massive amount of skill and energy. You need to find trained people, experienced people. But imagine if you could use AI to supplement their capabilities. So, let's say if you have a team of five people and use AI to double their productivity in the next 30 days, right? That means your business will grow double within the next 30 days." – MANUJ"See, the thing is that AI is analyzing data and recognizing patterns in that data. So, our world is complex. So, I'll give you an example. So, let's say a child, a 10-year-old child, touches a hot stove. They will know that they shouldn't touch it next time because it will hurt. So, our mind has learned one data point. And it has become intelligent now that this is the wrong action to take. But let's say that child is in the middle of Antarctica, and they are wearing heat-resistant gloves, and it's really chilly out there. And now they touch the stove, it will feel warm and pleasant, not hot. So now their mind is learning that, OK, even there are variations of this situation. So, if the parameters are correct, it may be OK to touch the hot stove. Right? Yeah, so our mind collects this data and then understands these patterns. But let's say extrapolate that to large problems like climate change or finding a cure for cancer or anything like that. There are millions and millions of parameters involved in that." – MANUJ Connect with Manuj Aggarwal:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manujaggarwal/Personal: https://manujaggarwal.com/TetraNoodle:https://tetranoodle.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Chris Weiher: Chris Weiher owns CLEAVER Creative, which produces high-quality videos to get clients' ideas out into the world. They believe that now there is more need than ever to own and understand the value of effective video marketing, and they seek to not only tell the client's story but make sure your audience hears, sees, and feels it. Chris started his career directing and producing short films before founding CLEAVER Creative in 2013. He grew the company by creating animation videos for companies including Accenture, Salesforce, and SAP. In 2019, before the pandemic struck, Chris discovered significant organic traction by creating videos on LinkedIn. Since then, he's been helping businesses develop their video strategies through B2B videos on LinkedIn to grow their brands authentically. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Chris.In this episode, Nancy and Chris discuss the following:The importance of video in the modern sales worldStarting your way in video marketingFirst video creation suggestions The most beneficial places to post videosChris'es recommendations of mixing personal and professional topics to engage viewersWhy should your dress code match the style of ideal clients Key Takeaways: The hardest part for most people is to try and get started.LinkedIn is still the best place to post business-related content and videos.I think where people go wrong with video is they want it to be perfect because we want to be seen as perfect.You must continue to be creative and think of other things, but that can be as easy as just going into your living room and filming a video there: it's not rocket science. "So, a really easy way to get started is to write out 10 FAQs, frequently asked questions, that you receive from your prospective clients. And then 10 questions you don't get asked, but you wish somebody would, you wish someone would say. Well: "Why do I need to be using your service?" That's often a question that people don't come to me with because, by the time we're talking, they know they want to use video, but they don't ask why. And those frequently unasked questions are a good place to start because it gives you a chance to speak your mind about things that people aren't asking you but are very important, and you want to tell them." – CHRIS "I recommend one video a week. There's a lot of folks out there that are in the social media game that are saying you need to have something out every single day. I totally disagree with that. For most people, it will burn out your audience, and they will ignore you. If you are a real B2B company, one video a week is plenty for people to see your face, see you. It's just like going to a networking event. You don't go every day; you go once a month or weekly. And then you want to have some other supplemental material you're also putting out. That could be an article, that could be newsletters, or it could be other kinds of posts to supplement that video. But for some of my clients, they really were doing one, one of my newest clients, he's doing a video a week, and he's already getting referrals from that." – CHRIS"Technology is moving very quickly. That said, the human component will be the hardest thing to replace. And if you can leverage video as a part of your communication strategy, I think that element is never really going to be fully replaced, but it will be supplemented, I think, by AI." – CHRIS Connect with Chris Weiher:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisweiher/CLEAVER-Creative: https://www.cleavercreates.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Tim Fitzpatrick: Tim Fitzpatrick founded Rialto Marketing, which provides marketing consulting, advisory, and outsourced or part-time marketing executive services. They help B2B professional service firms grow faster without the commitment or cost of a full-time executive. Tim achieves this by identifying and removing revenue roadblocks in three key marketing areas: Strategy, which serves as your fuel; Planning, your marketing vehicles; and Leadership, the driver behind it all. Aligning these three elements is crucial for accelerating your revenue growth. Tim tends to work with growth-focused B2B professional service firms like MSPs, IT consultants, cybersecurity firms, business consultants, accountants/tax advisors, attorneys, insurance brokers, etc. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Tim.In this episode, Nancy and Tim discuss the following:Tim's journey from a mathematics major to entrepreneurship in marketingThe common pitfalls businesses face in wasting time and money on marketing due to information overloadWhy having a narrow target market is crucial for effective marketingInsights on the frequency and value of marketing messagesThe benefits of 90-day planning cycles over year-long plans. Key Takeaways: I will be the first person to tell you from a marketing standpoint that it is about testing: there is a lot of marketing you will do that will not work.I am a huge proponent of narrowing your market.The Revenant Roadblock Scorecard is a self-assessment and takes less than five minutes.How can you expect to consistently convert leads if you don't have a sales process?"There are several reasons why people are wasting time and money on marketing. In my opinion, what happens with marketing most of the time is that people battle information overload. There are so many different marketing channels and tactics within those marketing channels today. We're just like, where do we even start? And what most people do is jump right to tactics. I need to have a website. I need to have a YouTube channel or a podcast, or I need to be on Facebook. We just immediately jumped to acting. But when we do that, we're skipping strategy. And the way I think about strategy is strategy is like fuel. The marketing tactics, the channels, those are vehicles. And when we jump right into the vehicle with no fuel, we all know how well that's going to work, right? " – TIM"Too many businesses do not have a firm handle on their ideal clients. And because they don't have a firm handle on who their ideal clients are, their message to the market sucks. You can't create a message that will attract and engage people until you know who the heck you're trying to attract and engage. Without those two elements in place, it is very difficult for your marketing to work consistently and, frankly, for you to know why it's working. Because most people are just throwing the spaghetti up against a wall, hoping it sticks. So, if we can take a step back and invest the time in strategy and then go back to the marketing vehicles, it's going to work much better, it's going to be more effective, and you're going to experience much more consistent, repeatable results with it." – TIM"the pandemic is a perfect example of this. If you had a year-long marketing plan that you had put in place at the beginning of 2020, come March, that plan either went into a drawer or you lit it on fire. Because here's why I don't like yearlong plans. One, there is no year-long plan. And this goes with marketing. It goes with any other planning you're doing for your business. In my opinion, year-long plans are the same at the end as they were at the beginning. They change, and they change quickly. And what tends to happen with year-long plans is they become very complex. There are too many moving pieces, and complexity is the enemy of results. We need to keep things simple. And when we can keep them simple, we have a much higher likelihood of effectively implementing and executing them. And if it's going to change quickly anyways, why take the time?" – TIMConnect with Tim Fitzpatrick:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timpfitzpatrick/Rialto Marketing: https://www.rialtomarketing.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Mike Bosworth: Mike Bosworth is the author of three books on selling, a keynote speaker on sales, marketing, and leadership, and in his later years, enjoys being known as a 'sales philosopher.' Mike's passion is helping people land the job of their dreams, assisting salespeople in exceeding their goals, and supporting their families. He enjoys leading experiential workshops on sales and leadership. Mike began his career in the information technology industry in 1972 on the Help Desk for Xerox Computer Services. He was their top new business salesperson in 1975, managed the "Branch of the Year" in 1979, and was promoted to Manager of Field Sales in 1980. Mike founded his Solution Selling business in 1983. Mike has a B.S. in Business Management and Marketing from California State Polytechnic University. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Mike.In this episode, Nancy and Mike discuss the following:The science of selling through emotional connectionWhy most people do not like salespeopleThe importance of asking for permission to tell the storyThe science behind storytelling for sales success Leveraging the psychology of storytelling in sales conversations Key Takeaways: The authentic secret sauce of connecting with strangers is a 60-second customer hero story.When you're in sales, that's like original sin.No matter how good your story is, you can't go up to a stranger and start telling even a 60-second story: you must get permission."The biggest problem large organizations with lots of salespeople have been trying to solve for the past 40 years that I've been a sales trainer is that 20% of the people sell 80% of the business. And that top 20%, the real difference—and it took me years to figure this out—is that they have an intuitive ability to connect and build trust quickly with strangers emotionally. So, my mission as a sales trainer for all these years has been to help the bottom 80%, the people who are not natural intuitive trust-building connectors, help them feed their families, buy a house, and send their kids to college. And when you go into the enterprise sales range, for instance, in the mid-90s, in my Solution Selling organization, we trained 15,000 IBM salespeople. " – MIKE"So, if you think about it, most people will not admit a problem to someone they don't trust, so the story creates an emotional connection and enough trust that they could risk sharing their problem. And once they share a problem, they go from suspect to prospect." – MIKE"The best salespeople I've known over the last 40 years rarely have to close because their EQ, their emotional intelligence, is so high, and they're willing to help the buyer buy rather than try and "sell" them something, and people love to buy. Human beings hate to feel sold to, but they love to buy. So, the very best salespeople rarely must close because they're so good at facilitating the buying. So smart companies, when they hire new salespeople, they don't teach them about the product; they teach them how their customers use the product." – MIKE Connect with Mike Bosworth:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebosworth/Story Seekers: https://www.storyseekers.us/We Concile: https://weconcile.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Nate Morse: Nate Morse founded the APEX Conversion System, a company dedicated to helping industry leaders generate high-quality leads on LinkedIn. Apex's mission is to assist those with valuable offerings who struggle to find and attract the right clients. They have a three-phase approach that begins with a discovery phase, where they identify the client's values and target audience. Nate's experience in the online world has taught him that understanding the buyer's journey can significantly impact lead generation. Apex Conversion System works with coaches, consultants, agencies, nonprofits, and financial advisors who offer high-ticket products or services. Nate has also authored a book, "The LinkedIn High Ticket Handbook," which guides optimizing LinkedIn profiles and building an audience for conversion. This book is a valuable resource for individuals who know they should be on LinkedIn but need help getting started and making their profiles stand out. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Nate.In this episode, Nancy and Nate discuss the following:APEX's approach to helping industry leaders generate high-quality leadsIdentifying ideal clients and standing out on LinkedInWhy is it that some businesses thrive on LinkedIn and others are lostThe importance of relevancy and personalization in messagingRating clients based on various criteria to identify the best fitOptimizing profiles and avoiding brochure-like content Key Takeaways: The Better Client Blueprint is a process we go through, and we have clients rate their current clients based on different criteria.On LinkedIn, we're not playing the quantity game.The number one reason businesses fail statistically is the lack of market research.When trying to build genuine, lasting relationships on LinkedIn, most people underestimate the initial reason they're reaching out. " So when we talk about industry leaders, I want to ensure that that's defined because we want to look more at the revolutionary aspects. So, they're leading an impact inside the market. And those are the people that their clients, the clients they get, essentially decide what the business creates and turns into—figuring out who is the best client we should be going for. And then what we help them do, once we've helped them figure that out, is find those that are in the market right now and how to stand out versus all the other competition that's trying to go after those ideal clients. So, we do that through LinkedIn. " – NATE"When I was younger, I did door knocking. I knocked on a lot of doors for door-to-door sales and cold calling. In both of those, I noticed that if I knew something about the person I was talking to, there was a way higher chance that they would listen to me because of a genuine relationship. But if I was just approaching them and trying to give them, you know: "Hey, here's the offer," then no matter how good the offer was, it never really hit because it was like approaching someone in a dating scenario and being like, the first thing you say is like: "Hey, here's all the reasons that we should get married." It doesn't matter if you're a good fit or not; that initial building of it must happen. Then we went, okay, how do we help people do this at scale without having to door knock or cold call? That's where we ended up on LinkedIn because we can add a connection note, and we can reach out directly to their ideal clients and make sure their profile is optimized, make sure their messaging converts highTop of FormBottom of Form." – NATE"I think that you're doing, everybody's doing acquisition. They're trying to get new clients, but they need to take a step back and look at and evaluate their current clients and the clients that are getting to see like: "What's the actual impact that you can act strategically versus reactively?". Whether you're on LinkedIn or doing, you know, Facebook or whatever clients you get are, are super important. So before going out there and wanting to be like, Hey, I just need to get clients focused on getting like, okay, who's the right client? What's the impact they're going to have on my culture? All of this, and then when you have that down, everything that you do from there is going to be much more relevant to them, and most likely, even your energy about who you're going after is going to change in other areas of your business." – NATEConnect with Nate Morse:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conversion-marketing/APEX Conversion:https://apexconversionsystem.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Malina Poshtova Delamere: Malina Poshtova Delamere is the Founder and President of Vida Rose Coaching Solutions, a leading executive coaching practice for women whose business, career, and life are in growth mode. Trained and certified by the Center for Executive Coaching and the Fowler International Academy of Professional Coaching, Malina is a Certified Executive Coach, Certified Professional Coach, and Certified Disaster Recovery Coach. She is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and a member of the International Coaching Federation (ICF). A former Fulbright Scholar, Malina holds Master of Arts degrees from New York University (Journalism) and St. Kliment Ohridsky University of Sofia, Bulgaria (English Philology). Malina's coaching practice helps people - leaders, entrepreneurs, team builders - to achieve goals, accelerate growth, solve problems, move forward, and drive change.Malina is a lifelong learner. She is fluent in English, Bulgarian, and Russian and nearly fluent in French. In 2019, Malina learned to sail; Vida Rose is the name of her yacht. Sailing has taught Malina much about leadership, teamwork, trust, resilience, and creative problem-solving. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Malina.In this episode, Nancy and Malina discuss the following:Malina's position in coaching primarily womenThe difference in coaching a woman versus a manWhy Adventure Makes People Better LeadersMalina's belief that opportunities often come in disguiseSuccess is an attitudeHow sailing and the sales world are connectedKey Takeaways: Women tend to be more creative but slightly hindered by limiting beliefs.You're not just a woman leader; you're a leader! Period!You never know where your next opportunity is going to come from.You can overcome your biggest fears with the right team in the right circumstances.When you meet someone, listening to their story and looking for connecting points is important. " My dream job is to coach women. And here's why. Obviously, as a woman myself, I have been there. I have experienced the challenges of professional women, be they business owners, be they on the corporate career track, or entrepreneurs; I've been there, I've done it, I've felt it, I've learned a lot of lessons that I love to share with my clients to help them succeed. As a woman, I am deeply invested in women's success. And I've also had a lot of practice in my 20 years of corporate experience and corporate leadership experience. I coached a lot of men. So I also have the other side's view, if you will. And that is a very helpful perspective." – MALINA "Growth mode is my way of saying you are ambitious, you have goals, and perhaps you need a little bit of help to get you there, or you need an accountability partner or a sounding board to check your decisions. But you are a woman on a mission who wants to succeed, whether in private practice, a corporate career, or as a business owner, and you have very specific goals. At least I can help you clarify and get those goals. So it's not just I want to start a business and grow it; it's more you know I want to start it within the next three, six, 12, 18 months. My goal is to achieve X in my first year and Y in the second year. X and Y could be monetary targets, revenue targets, the size of your team, and how many employees you want to have. I wanna grow my business to where I get to sell it to a larger corporation Top of FormBottom of Form." – MALINA"My unique idea is that adventure makes people better leaders. When you put someone very comfortably and safely out of their comfort zone. For example, I own a small yacht and take my clients sailing. It's not about the sailing. It's about being out on the water, making fast decisions, being aware of the situation, being in a small space with other people, and learning how to communicate with them clearly and impactfully set a strategy, for example, going back to the sailing. Depending on which way the wind blows, it may take you a longer time to get to your destination or a longer time to get back. And it would help if you kept that in mind when planning. Where are you going? Do you have enough time to get there? Do you have enough time to get back? What if changes or the current? What if there's other shipping traffic all around you? On my boat, which is fantastic, I have two helms and two wheels to drive the boat side by side. So, I like to put clients on one side. It's perfectly safe because a qualified captain is holding the other wheel or is standing by at the other wheel. But you put someone who wants to be a leader on a boat with six other people and tell them, hey, you've never driven a boat before; six other people's lives depend on you, drive. Yes, exactly. It's a very safe and controlled environment. But on the other hand, it puts you out of your comfort zone, and it challenges you to make fast decisions, to look all around, to be aware of what's going on." – MALINAConnect with Malina Poshtova Delamere:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/malinaposhtovadelamere/Vida Rose Coaching Solutions:https://www.vidarosecoaching.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Nicolas Toper: Nicolas Toper is the Co-founder at Inboxbooster. His mission is to help email senders achieve better deliverability and avoid spam filters. With over 15 years of experience in web development, email technology, and cloud computing, he is passionate about creating innovative and scalable solutions for online communication. Before launching Inboxbooster, Nicolas founded and led CritSend, the first SMTP relay service that guaranteed email success. He also invented Pilo, a renewable energy battery that recharges when shaken. Nicolas holds multiple patents and certifications in computer science, and he graduated from Y Combinator and the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers. Fluent in French, German, and English, he enjoys sharing his insights and learnings in his newsletter. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Nicolas.In this episode, Nancy and Nicolas discuss the following:Nicolas' story of getting into this businessPractical tips for email senders to achieve better deliverability and avoid spam filtersHow to avoid getting important emails to spamGmail and Outlook practical insightsHow long does it take to correct spam issues?Why do emails from the same sender intermittently shift between my inbox and spam folder?Key Takeaways: Ten years ago, sending emails was straightforward with clear rules, but today, it's a complex and unclear landscape, creating a significant challenge for email senders.Outlook wants your domain to have a good history, whereas Gmail doesn't care about the IP and the domain, but they care about your users' behavior.If you're doing cold emailing, you need to test your email on InboxBooster or another way once a week to ensure you don't have any problems." So, you have a free tool on our system, the InboxBooster, that tells you how to, analyzes your little list, and tells you where you're emailing. Because if you're emailing just on Gmail, it's not the same thing as if you're emailing on the form of two Fortune 500 companies, which is not the same thing if you're emailing, so there is kind of because usually a lot of SMBs are using Outlook. Some other kinds of startups, lots of startups, are using Google Workspace. So, you really, the first step is really to investigate that. And until you know that it's kind of, you will not be able to sound efficiently. " – NICOLAS"Email has become a bit of a puzzle lately, and let me break it down for you. A decade ago, sending emails was a breeze—clear rules, automated stuff, and personal messages. Fast forward to today, and the line between human and machine-generated emails is blurred, thanks to outreach tools like AdRage and Apollo. Cold emails, though less annoying than cold calls, face skepticism, especially from Google, which prefers ads. Now, onto a fixer-upper story about Y Combinator: despite its strong brand, it battled spam on Gmail. Why? They imported a MailChimp template, and some pruning oversight led them back to the promotion tab. We sorted it out, and they saw a 35% click boost. The lesson? Fixing email glitches is like solving a puzzle, sometimes iterative but worthwhile." – NICOLAS"Sometimes we have customers sending probably more than a couple of thousands of emails per day on cold average, and it's working very well. So, it depends on what you're selling. The key elements are as follows: First, you need to know who you sell to if you do cold average. You need to know: "OK, So this is my ICP," and know those people will sell. And then what I'm saying usually is if you don't know who your ICP is, you need to experiment until you figure it out, but you shouldn't sell a lot of emails to be very careful. In deliverability, once you know who you're selling to, you can sell a lot. And the second thing is sometimes because you care about who you're selling to, so basically, what's your revenue? There is another side to it, and I mentioned it: engagement. So, you want one unsubscription link. One clicks the unsubscription link, now it will be a requirement for Google. And the second thing you want is to be between 0.5 and 1.5 of the unsubscription rate. If you do that, you're fine. This means that you have found a Via Negativa if that makes sense, your ICP. If you want people to unsubscribe a little bit because it's a little bit trying to sell them some stuff and some are not going to be interested, then that's fine, but you don't want too many of them not to be interested because if you're there, this means they don't care, and you're not emailing the right people." – NICOLASConnect with Nicolas Toper:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas/Inboxbooster:https://inboxbooster.com/ Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Joe Pallo: Joe Pallo is the Founder of Sell Nothing, a consulting company where he works with C.E.O.s, E.V.P. s, top salespeople, and sales leaders who want to grow their business by establishing emotional relationships with their clients and team members. Drawing from 35+ years of commission sales and 30,000+ sales calls, Joe Pallo is a top sales producer who first earned his hard knocks and big rewards with door-to-door selling. He's developed proven systems and processes through which hundreds of top producers double or triple their business without investing additional time. Clients include non-profit organizations, defense contractors, financial advisors, the top mortgage broker in the United States, and an Olympic champion and flag bearer. As a coach, he focuses on understanding and implementing basic sales principles. He adds a layer of accountability while training and modeling relationship-building skills. Joe is also a creator of the E.A.R.N.I.N.G™ Sales System and a bestselling author of How To Sell Nothing. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Joe.In this episode, Nancy and Joe discuss the following:Why the word "selling" is such a scary word for so many peopleSell Nothing: The story under the company namePeculiarities of the E.A.R.N.I.N.G Sales System™Four uncommon ways to ask for quality referrals without being a jerkThe importance of script in salesKey Takeaways: We've all been on the receiving end of being part of a bad sales presentation or a bad sales call.Referrals are given to confident people.Get a silver bullet on your existing referrals, freshen them up, and then leave a message in a voicemail.E.A.R.N.I.N.G Sales System™ is the essence of selling Nothing.Listening and then repeating back what they said - that's the talking you should do: ask questions and repeat back." It seems like we all know there are two sales that need to happen to get to the next step, or two buckets that need to be filled: the logical sale or the logical bucket, and the emotional sale or the emotional bucket. Both are important, but we all know the emotional bucket needs to happen first; that makes people decide. The logical bucket confirms the sale, and the emotional bucket makes it happen. "Sell Nothing," the book, was written with the concept that we want our clients, my clients, to tell me what they want and why they want it. That's the emotional sale. My role as the salesperson is to fill that logical bucket with words because I know all the logic and numbers, and I have a marketing department behind me. I'm good at making that logical sale. The emotional bucket is filled up with their words. Emotions are weird things—they're fickle and change. They don't make sense. We have to get them talking about what they want and why they want it. The art of selling Nothing is selling what people want and why they want it" – J.O.E."But that's the value of the silver bullet. Yeah, it gets them calling back in, and it will work. It's incredibly effective, but you must take your time and get them immediately. Right? I'll also say something else that may help your listeners. This works well when you get a referral, but it also works well with all the referrals you've gotten for the past three or six months. What's to stop you from returning to the referral and saying, "Hey, a while back, you referred me to so and so. I tried catching them, but what type of decision-maker is he? A numbers guy, is he a talker, a driver?" Right? Get a silver bullet on your existing referrals, freshen them up, yeah, and then you leave it on a message on a voicemail." – J.O.E."Um, I would say it's using scripts when you're selling, having a talk, having scripts. Yeah, if I'm speaking in a group and I'm going to talk about scripts, I'll always say, "Hey, just curious if there are any idiots. Can you raise your hand?" And a couple of people do because they're idiots. But I kind of joke that the reason I ask is that I'm going to talk about using scripts, and many times, I hear people saying, "I can't use a script because I'll sound robotic." And here's my thinking on that, which people may disagree with. But we work hard to get the name; they get the phone number. Then, if we get the phone number, we must get through to the secretary. That's a lot of work. Or we try to get the cell number; we don't have to get him on the phone. That's a lot of work to talk to a prospect. Right? Well, let themselves be passive and sound robotic on a live call. Right? And if that's the case, that person may be in the wrong job. Now, if you think about it, and here's the thing, you didn't sound robotic when I was doing my role-play and calling Aaron. You heard me insert a chuckle. That's intentional because that makes me focused and present on the call. You cannot be passive and insert a chuckle, you know? I'll repeat, it says when I talk to him, I said, "Aaron, it's Joe Pallo. I don't want you racking your brain trying to figure out who I am. We haven't met yet, right?" I'm chuckling right there; he hears it. Yeah, because if you say the same thing consistently, you'll get consistent results." – J.O.E.Connect with Joe Pallo:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepallo-sellnothingllc/Influence People: Sell NothingThe E.A.R.N.I.N.G Sales System: Joe's free gift linkTry Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com

About Ben Albert: Ben Albert is the owner of Balbert Marketing LLC. He found in marketing that he has a unique opportunity to empower business people to reach the RIGHT community, the RIGHT clients, and the RIGHT partners, who share the same beliefs and values as the clients. He is also the curator of The "Real Business Connections Network," where he hosts five podcasts: "Rochester Business Connections," "Learn Speak Teach," "Ben's Bites," "Five Minute Fridays," and "Real Hits." Ben chats with everyone from executives, entrepreneurs, convicts, behavior scientists, sales trainers, wellness experts, and more. It's his role to extract the best nibbles of wisdom from these experts so we can compress decades of wisdom into minutes for the listener. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Ben.In this episode, Nancy and Ben discuss the following:The Real Business Connections Network podcasting umbrellaBenefits of Podcasting: Building genuine connections and Reputation gainImportance of human-to-human connectionsAuthenticity as a core value of LinkedIn's algorithmCrucial importance of sharing successes, asking for testimonials, and leaving feedback in the business worldVideo Marketing as the fastest trust builderImportance of mindset and inner work in salesKey Takeaways: We want to reach the audience where they are rather than where we are.It's better to be different than just a little bit better.If someone helps you, leave them an endorsement, a testimonial, and a review.The inner work makes you a way better sales representative than any specific tactic ever could."Great minds think alike. You understand that in sales, in general, the best way to get a sale is from a referral. Like that's kind of simple, common sense. And I don't even like to call them referrals. I like nominations or recommendations. And at the end of the day, when you're, um, creating content and sharing influence with brilliant people, it leads to reputation gain. It leads to thought leadership, which leads to people talking about you and being impressed with you because you're adding value to their lives. What do you think that leads to? That leads to recommendations, nominations, and referrals. It's simple." – BEN."AI and tech are taking over the world in one way. But at the core, humans purchase solutions from other humans. We're fulfilling products and services for humans, by humans, to help humans. All the tech is just facilitating that process. Really, marketing, adding value, and then making the sales process so simple for you or your team will never go away. The better you are at building those human-to-human connections, and that can be in person, but it can be through social selling. It can be through content marketing or podcasting. The better you are at building those human-to-human connections, the better art you are going to be in business. And the AI can't replace you because there's only one you." – BEN."There's so much going on in video at the core. People say, "I don't have all the lights and the setup." But if you have a phone that can take videos, you can share them. And I think the biggest reason it's hot is that it's such a trust builder. It shows your face, expressions, style, and personality. So, when someone gets on a call with you when someone does meet you, there's already a rapport built because they've watched you, know you, and listened to you. So I think the reason video is so popular is one, it's entertaining, but two, in a sales and marketing context, it's the best way to build easy trust because you're unveiling the person behind the profile, behind the phone. You're showing an extra part of yourself." – BEN. Connect with Ben Albert:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/realbenalbert/Balbert Marketing LLC:https://balbertmarketing.com/Real Business Connections: https://realbusinessconnections.com/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/  Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com 

About Brian Ahearn: Brian Ahearn, CPCU, CTM, CPT, CMCT, is a founder of Influence People, a company where they believe that Ethical Influence is the Secret to Your Professional Success and Personal Happiness. Brian is one of only a dozen individuals in the world who currently holds the Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® (CMCT) designation and one of just a handful to have earned the Cialdini Pre-suasion Trainer® (CPT) designation. He is also a faculty member of the prestigious Cialdini Institute. Brian's passion is to help you achieve greater professional success and enjoy more personal happiness. He teaches you how to ethically move others to action using the science of influence. A cum laude graduate of Miami University, Brian has been in the business arena for more than 35 years and training people for over two decades. In addition to his influence, sales, and leadership work, Brian has been a business coach to regional vice presidents, sales managers, field sales reps, and wealth advisors. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Brian.In this episode, Nancy and Brian discuss the following:The concept of ethical influenceWhy ethical influence is critical for success and happinessRevealing the secret of ethical influenceThe uniqueness of Cialdini certificationWhat differs Cialdini Training from other training organizationsThe principle of liking as a foundation of success Key Takeaways: Leaders aren't going to have success if their followers don't say Yes to the initiative.Scarcity is one of the things that draws people to want to engage or make decisions.Persuasion is about setting up the moment so that it's easier when you attempt to persuade somebody.We're learning machines, and we can be proactive about it or reactive to it, but our brains are always pulling in information and assimilating it, so we're learning." People can get influence and manipulation mixed up. And it happens quite often where somebody, you'll talk about influence, and they'll say, oh, it's just manipulation. And I think there's a big difference between ethically influencing people into decisions that are good for them. And it may also be good for you versus just getting somebody to do something because it benefits you. So, I love it when people throw up the objection that it's manipulation because it's so easy to answer that and educate people at the same time." – BRIAN."Well, one of the things that we talk about is that everything we do is based on research. This isn't "Hey, Nancy, this worked for me; maybe it'll work for you." If it worked for me, I will tell you psychologically why and support it with the principles of persuasion. So, everything that we do is based on research. The heavy emphasis is on the ethical part. And then the third thing that we try to bring forth is practical application. When talking to an audience, I always share a little bit of research to get people excited about how this could be powerful. Okay, here's a practical way to apply it. And I want people to leave, for example, if I do a keynote, to have at least half a dozen ideas they can start doing today to become more influential." – BRIAN."I would encourage everybody to start with that principle of liking because in addition to being more successful at work, think about how much better society would be, Nancy. Everybody had this mindset: I want to get to know and like you. I will look for the things we have in common: positive qualities; I will compliment you when I see the positive; I will temper myself if I see something negative and have a constructive conversation. But the world would be such a better place if people had that mindset. So that's what I would encourage your listeners to do today. After you hear this, the next person you look at, ask yourself, what can I do to come to know and like them more?" – BRIAN.Connect with Brian Ahearn:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfahearn/Influence People:https://influencepeople.biz/Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/Connect with Nancy Calabrese: Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsalesFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/Website:https://oneofakindsales.comPhone: 908-879-2911 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com