Podcast appearances and mentions of bruce scheer

Writing, publishing, and marketing a business book can feel overwhelming when you go it alone. But what if you didn't have to? That's where the Biz Book Pub Hub comes in.  We've built a community of over 50 experts who support entrepreneurs becoming authors every step of the way—from the first draft to a fully launched and marketed book. In the Hub, you'll find guidance on writing, editing, publishing, and creating powerful marketing strategies that amplify your book's reach. Plus, our free virtual networking events connect you with fellow authors, helping you grow and thrive as a writer. If you're ready to explore these resources and more, visit www.BizBookPubHub.com. I'm honored to introduce today's panelists, who will share their author experiences. Bruce Scheer introduces a proven model for creating a compelling Go to Market Narrative in his book “Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles.” This book shows you how to align your product, marketing, and sales teams, accelerate revenue growth, and inspire buyers to take action.  Jenny Morse is the author of “Bada$$ Business Writing: 5 Illustrated Lessons for Better Communication at Work.” This book will show you how to use writing more effectively and try to make you laugh while you learn. Lilian Sue wrote “The Powerful Publicity Prescription: Harness the Power of Public Relations to Become a Sought-After Global Industry Expert,” a practical guide for entrepreneurs and small businesses to master public relations, build compelling media campaigns, and become industry leaders.  Please join me in welcoming Bruce, Jenny, and Lilian.  In this episode, we discuss the following:

Get ready to discover the secrets of turning your B2B marketing from ordinary to extraordinary in this episode of Predictable B2B Success. Join host Vinay Koshy as he dives deep with Bruce Scheer, the CEO of Inspire Your Buyers and president of the National Speakers Association Northwest, who brings decades of experience empowering companies like IBM, SAP, and Motorola. In this captivating discussion, Bruce reveals how Chevron's Techron strategy can serve as a blueprint for identifying your unique differentiator. Have you ever wondered how to seamlessly align your marketing and sales with a core narrative that immediately captures your audience's attention? Bruce breaks down his North Star model, emphasizing why an envisioned outcome and a deeply understood customer problem are game-changers for your business. Hear compelling stories and proven strategies that show how companies like LinkedIn and Concur transformed their go-to-market narratives to close monumental deals and outshine competitors. If you're seeking to enhance your sales conversations and establish a genuine connection with decision-makers by addressing their most pressing problems, this episode is a treasure trove of practical insights. Tune in to learn how a robust, validated narrative can be the foundation of your B2B success. Some areas we explore in this episode include: Chevron's Techron Marketing Strategy: Differentiation through branding a unique fuel additive.Soft Skills and Hard Value in Differentiation: Balancing customer attraction with quantifiable value.Challenges for Service-Based B2B Companies: Strategies for quantifying and addressing customer outcomes, including unique differentiators like Fastly's Slack channel.Importance of a Core Narrative: Building a cohesive narrative to align marketing and sales efforts, avoiding disjointed messaging.North Star Model for Narrative Development: A step-by-step process to craft, test, refine, and launch a compelling narrative.Sales Narrative Construction and Validation: The components and importance of a value-driven and unified sales narrative, specific to the product being sold.Identifying Target Buyers and Differentiating Influencers from Decision-Makers: Importance of recognizing the key decision-makers and tailoring narratives for different buyer personas and verticals.Consequences of a Poor Narrative and Importance of Continual Improvement: The risks associated with weak narratives and the need for regular updates and refinements.Illustrative Examples and Success Stories: Real-life cases such as LinkedIn's "deep sales" campaign and Concur's impactful narrative leading to significant deals.Framing Problems to Engage Decision-Makers: Techniques for spotlighting significant problems, including emotional, operational, and financial pain points, and using compelling stories and clear steps to drive action.And much, much more...

Bruce Scheer's “personal why” is to inspire others to inspire others, and he yearly inspires thousands of revenue leaders, staff, and the buyers they serve with clear and compelling go to market narratives. Bruce has been a featured keynote speaker for large corporate events, including Microsoft's CIO Summit, and a guest speaker and educator for industry associations, leadership roundtables, in-company events, and ongoing programs across all major continents. Bruce Scheer is the CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com http://inspireyourbuyers.com In this episode of the Neil Wilkins Podcast https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/neilwilkins Neil and Bruce discuss, amongst many other sales and marketing things, Bruce's 5 step method for crafting compelling messages that sell the sizzle about your products and services: 1. Target the right buyer 2. Spotlight the problem 3. Envision the outcome 4. Showcase the solutions 5. Plot the next steps For more content like this, visit Neil Wilkins Online http://neilwilkins.online

Conversation with Bruce Scheer, a professional speaker and president of NSA Northwest, a CEO of a consultancy, and the author of “Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles”.  Episode on Website 

Do You Inspire Your Buyers? We are all in sales. We are all being sold to. What makes you want to buy? What are the factors that go into the sales process that influence you? What are the things that stop you from your purchase? You may have sat through a presentation only to wonder, "well where do we go from here"? It all pretty uninspiring, isn't it? If you are in sales, B2B or B2C that fact is there is one thing that you need, and that is you need to "inspire your buyers". What does that mean? Do you as know your buyers' pain? How clearly can you paint the picture of their problem, and what the solution will do to relieve it? In this episode of A New Direction President of InspireYourBuyers.com Bruce Scheer uses the "Go to Market Narrative Development" that he has used with industry leaders like, IBM, Microsoft, HP Google and many others. Bruce Scheer's book, "Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story that Sizzles".  Is a quick, power packed, practical, step by step guide to helping you carve out a narrative that causes buyers to want to buy from you. Bruce calls it the "Go To Market Narrative".  And when you see it all laid out it just makes so much sense.  The problem for you and I, we don't ask the right questions and are coming up with the wrong answers. Bruce wants you and I to dig deeper.  And deeper we must go.  If we are truly going to create a narrative in our marketing and sales presentations, then we need to truly understand our buyer's pain.  Problem one...are we truly identifying their real pain. And that leads to problem two:  too often we make ourselves the hero with our solution, when we should be digging into the buyers' pain so deeply, they feel it, and then imagine a world without that pain. By the time to you get to the end of the book "Inspire Your Buyers" has you ready and aligned for success.  Again, it's a quick read, but with a powerful and successful message. Please Thank our sponsors for financially supporting A New Direction: From everyday aches and pains to elite athletes EPIC Physical Therapy has the latest cutting edge equipment and the certified staff with cutting edge treatments to help you get back to doing the very things you desire to do. They are my physical therapists and I highly recommend them!  If you really want EPIC relief, EPIC recovery, and EPIC results do you and your body a favor and check out the professionals at EPIC Physical Therapy.  www.EPICpt.com Linda Craft Team, Realtors have been a partner since the very beginning. They are the relationship real estate professionals, and for more than 38 years they built a reputation in the world wide real estate community as the real estate people with “Legendary Customer Service”. They understand that a home is made not of bricks, sticks and mortar, but of people and those are memories that are personal and last a lifetime.  Click on over to www.LindaCraft.com. Coach Jay here!  Thanks for listening to and reading about this episode of A New Direction. I am a business and life coach that specializes in helping people improve their performance in their business and life and help them become more successful in all aspects of their life. You may have thought about a coach, but you just were not sure if a coach is for you.  That's a great question to ask, and I would encourage you to call me and least chat about it. My gift to you is Free complimentary call.  Let's talk and see what if I am a fit for you.  Just fill out this form and let's start talking.  Coaching Mavericks – Unlock Your Potential with Jay Izso. My business is Coaching Mavericks, because there is a Maverick in all of us that when we find our way with our own unique gifts, talents and abilities, we will be the most successful. I look forward to talking with you! Also Book readers do you use Audible to listen to your books?  I do and I love it.  Now you can get your FREE 30 day trial and other disco...

In today's competitive marketplace, it's not enough to just have a great product or service. You also need to be able to tell a compelling story that resonates with your buyers. My guest today is Bruce Scheer, CEO of Inspire Your Buyers. In this episode Bruce shares his insights on how to craft a story that sizzles and turns prospects into customers.Guest Resourceshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/bscheerhttps://inspireyourbuyers.com/https://vimeo.com/user117050223 Lead Gen Masterclass December 8, 2023orhttps://conqueryourbusiness.com/lead-gen-masterclass/ BE IN CHARGE >> TAKE ACTION >> GET RESULTSConquer Your BusinessJoin us on FacebookLinkedInInstagram

Bruce Sheer is a renowned consultant, author, keynote speaker, and president of the National Speakers Association Northwest, with a career marked by inspiring buyers and accelerating revenue growth. From his perspective, the journey to becoming an author and publishing his book was a mixed bag. On the positive side, it helped him clarify his story, deepen his knowledge, and sharpen his thinking, thereby increasing his impact on others. However, he also faced challenges such as fear, uncertainty, and unexpected expenses during the publishing process. Despite these hurdles, Bruce sees the value in using his published work to scale up his business and is excited about his next book. He has gained significant insights into marketing and the importance of promoting his book to reach his target audience. Join Kim Thompson-Pinder and Bruce Sheer on this episode of the Author to Authority podcast to delve deeper into Bruce's journey and the impact of publishing.

“I always work with my clients to help figure out what that problem is. And then let's spotlight it. Then when you think of an analogy of a spotlight, anything that's in the spotlight is brightened up, and you can see it crystal clear...” Bruce Scheer Top Five Tips For Getting Your Sales Story Straight 1.  Target the Right Buyers 2.  Spotlight the Problem 3.  Envision the Desired Outcome  4.  Showcase the Solution 5.  Prescribe Next StepsTIME STAMP SUMMARY01:12 The importance of targeting the right buyer04:01 Zoning in on the problem08:51 Highlight the solution14:02 Planning ahead Where to find Bruce?Website                         http://www.inspireyourbuyers.com/ LinkedIn                         http://www.linkedin.com/in/bscheer Bruce Scheer BioBruce helps business and revenue leaders boost growth by showing them how to create go-to-market stories and sales conversations that sizzle. Bruce is a best-selling author with a portfolio of award-winning B2B campaigns and collaborations with giants like Microsoft, Adobe, and Google. Using storytelling and anecdotes from his career, he is a powerful keynoter and an engaging, practical breakout presenter.

About Bruce Scheer: Bruce Scheer is President of FutureSight and has over 20 years of business management and consulting experience. He brings unique and insightful perspectives to client engagements, reflecting his passion for technology, strategic marketing, and sales enablement. With confidence, optimism, and a sense of urgency, Bruce enjoys helping global IT services, software, hardware, and professional services organizations achieve marketing success and great business results. Before founding FutureSight, Bruce held executive positions in consulting firms and industries across North America and Asia. He also served as Vice President and West Coast Office Director for MSI Consulting, where he worked with industry-leading clients to identify strategic market opportunities and develop go-to-market campaigns for new products and services. A noted author and speaker, Bruce is available to share his expertise on a wide range of business topics, including the business value of IT and selling and marketing based on ROI. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Bruce.In this episode, Nancy and Bruce discuss the following:The concept of a story that sizzles referred to Bruce's recent book, "Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles."Consumer Dilemma: Overwhelming Choices.The core elements of a narrative that sizzles.Qualifying Decision-Makers correctly.Why evoking emotions in potential buyers is the primary objective for sales professionals.Key Takeaways: Sizzles is an amazing framework for how to design your sales story.Don't be overwhelmed and bewildered by all the selection choices that are out there.Everything starts really with targeting the ideal buyer.People buy on emotion, and then they justify with logic.Don't sell products, sell outcomes." Well, it's an evergreen problem. But it's probably even more acute today. There are so many answers that buyers need to need to choose from. And I don't know if you've ever heard of this whole notion that too many options are shutting buyers down. The other thing is with all these options, you get into this whole selection buyers issue that also drives no decision. There's just so many answers, you know, think about going out and buying a new car or something, you know, there's so many answers to choose from, it might be overwhelming. So, how can you help your buyer buy? That's the bottom line. And to do so, I do believe you need to have a story that sizzles, helps you stand apart from the competitive pack, and helps your buyer get over that hump of fear, uncertainty, and doubt to want to buy from you and buy from you. And that strategic narrative, that story carries the day with that objective." – BRUCE."What other signals would they send that they're an ideal client profile? I'm sure you've heard that ICP is the ideal client profile. So, we get very narrowly focused there. Then, from there, who within that account should I be talking to? Who's the buyer who will carry the day and has the power to sway others within that organization? Yes, we should invest in this. So, who's that consultant and professor down in California who coined this Steve Martin, but he calls it the bully with the Joe bully with the juice? Who's that bully with the juice? Who should we target within that account? Now, typically, for a lot of the buying decisions that my clients face. There might be five or six people who might be part of that buying committee. But again, who's the bully with the juice? And what's their day job? What's their role? What are their responsibilities? What are the challenges they have? And then what are the benefits we can bring them? So, it all starts there. That's the first element, Nancy, target the right buyer." – BRUCE. "How do we characterize that problem, both verbally and visually? And that's one thing, Nancy, that I think most organizations that I see as they go to market are missing the characterization of the problem they solve. They're typically very solution-centric. "Hey, Nancy, I've got this new solution. Let me tell you all about it. Here's what it looks like. Here's what it feels like. Here are the benefits, features, and functions of that whole thing". That's not where you want to start; you want to start that narrative around the problem. And you want to plant that problem and point a spotlight on it, you know, just again, thinking of an analogy, think of that spotlight when you point it on something, that's what people see. And then often they can't unsee it when you do that well. And that's the fun part; if you can crack that code, you're typically going to sell way more and help so many buyers out by helping them have that clarity and conviction around the problem that you can help them solve." – BRUCE. Connect with Bruce Scheer:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bscheer/INSPIRE Your Buyers™:https://inspireyourbuyers.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

Inspire Your Buyers: Go to Market with a Story That Sizzles by Bruce Scheer About the Book: Inspire Your Buyers provides a proven, tested model to develop a compelling go-to-market narrative that will accelerate your revenue growth while rapidly bringing your product, marketing, and sales teams into alignment. Bruce Scheer developed this revolutionary go-to-market narrative model over the course of his twenty-five-year career, helping several industry giants, including IBM, Microsoft, HP, Google, Alcatel-Lucent, and McKesson rapidly grow their revenue with their go-to-market narrative. Bruce's go-to-market narrative model will give you the edge you are looking for in achieving your business growth goals. Using real examples from his career, Bruce offers actionable insights on how to: Target the right buyers Spotlight their Big Problem Help them envision their Desired Outcome Show how your Big Solution will deliver the Desired Outcome Develop a set of prescribed Next Steps that will help you and your buyers move forward faster, closing more deals with a higher close rate Communicate your narrative through simple, unforgettable visuals People act based on emotions, and the best way to inspire them to take action is through narratives. With this book, you will learn how to engage your buyers in a compelling go-to-market narrative that makes them the hero and inspires them to take action with you and your solution. About the Author: Bruce Scheer is an author, international keynote speaker, and the CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com. He has applied and honed his go-to-market narrative development model with industry giants such as IBM, SAP, Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Google, Adobe, Citibank, Motorola and numerous startups around the world. He is the President of the National Speakers Association Northwest and – he and his wife live on Vashon Island, in Washington State during the summers. And, interesting fact - in the winter, he and his wife travel throughout North America, living in an Airstream trailer. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/inspire-buyers-bruce-scheer

Bruce Scheer is the CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com. Bruce's Bio: A friend from the industry asked me “What's your why?” The problem was, he asked me on LinkedIn in front of thousands of viewers! Yes, panic set in and it spun me into some deeper reflection and a concerted look-back into how I've helped others in business and personal circles in ways that were deeply personal for me. After deep soul searching coupled with constructive outside perspective, I was able to land on my “why” - to inspire others to inspire others. I have been given the privilege of working with thousands of b2b leaders, sellers and marketers each year for over two decades in helping them inspire their buyers. It's a source of immense personal joy for me when I can help others up their game in ways they weren't able to before. On the business side, the role I've played can be characterized as “sales and marketing enablement,” and I've done this with and for business, product, sales, and marketing leaders and the organizations they serve for many of the world's largest global businesses including Microsoft, Oracle, HP, Citibank, and McKesson. My clients have rewarded me, my colleagues, and my business partners with repeat business, the ability to quickly grow revenues landing my firm on the fastest-growing company list 2 years in a row, and winning industry awards including HP's Marketing Circle of Excellence and the Corporate Executive Board's Marketing Campaign of the Year. I've been a keynote speaker for very large corporate events including Microsoft's CIO Summit, and a guest speaker and educator for associations, business roundtables and in-company events and ongoing programs across all major continents. Note: Bruce holds both an undergrad and an MBA from the University of Oregon. 

How can you inspire your buyers with the right narrative? Why is it important for the leaders to get the stories straight Episode 171 (Bruce is based in Seattle, Washington) In this conversation with Bruce Scheer we explore: The dangers of radon acts and hence random results Is everyone on your team telling the same story? Why you need to identify the problem domain Clarifying the real target buyer - the bully with the juice Painting the picture of the big hairy problem Talking about the solution versus features and benefits How to remind the buyer that they might feel trapped Three traps that leaders need to avoid About our guest Bruce Scheer: His company has been on Delloite's fastest growing private companies 3 years in a row. He has won multiple b2b campaign of the year awards. His book achieved Amazon #1 Best Sell status across 5 categories. Get your copy of his books here  https://inspireyourbuyers.com/books/ ----- Excerpts from this conversation with Bruce Scheer: Just to recap on this whole thing, my brother, he sold me a boat that I didn't know I needed or wanted. And I detested boats prior to that, thinking, you know, hey, they're polluting the world. And they're horrible. But you know, the first thing my brother did, he's not dumb. He targeted the right buyer, somebody that had money to buy that thing, but had a place to store it could maintain it. You know, he knew more than I did. But he tired the he targeted the right buyer. And then from there, he helped spotlight that problem, that big hairy problem I had being stuck on an island, especially when an earthquake came and I'm in the pandemic, I'm already afraid and scared, I don't want to die and I want to protect my family. I need that boat. That's enough of a reason that's a big problem that I needed to solve for. And he nailed that problem, name that problem and one word trapped. And then from there, once we had agreement there, then he moved forward then in remember, this is the next day where he started helping me paint a picture about, you know, this desired outcome that I was looking for. He helped me envision that you know, talking about the fun, I'd have some adventure cruising around on a boat and then a happy wife. Very important, George, you know, we've been married 32 years and I don't want to break that track record. So her happiness is a key feature in my my happy life. Then he took me to the solution. And he didn't sell me on a bunch of features, functions and benefits. And I normally see that mistake all the time. I didn't care. I all I cared about was not being trapped and having some fun and adventure with my wife and a happy wife. So he sold me on the concept of boating effectively. And then all he did is let me know that hey, what he had to offer my dad's boat fit within there and what's going to help me and then he just laid out these clear next steps. Of course I'm on my second boat now and I've been very close to getting the third but he got me on way, he all he exposed that unconsidered need that I had, in a way that... he really planted that big problem and just took me all the way through and helped me with that buyer journey that set up next steps. ----- ----more---- Your host is George Torok George is a specialist in executive communication skills. That includes conversation and presentation. He's fascinated by way we communicate and influence behaviors. He delivers training and coaching programs to help leaders and promising professionals deliver the intended message for greater success. Connect with George www.SpeechCoachforExecutives.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgetorokpresentations/ https://www.youtube.com/user/presentationskills https://www.instagram.com/georgetorok/  

Ready to go to market with a story that sizzles?   Then you're in luck because on the show today, we have Bruce Scheer, CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com and President of the National Speakers Association Northwest.    He developed his revolutionary Go to Market Narrative model over the course of his twenty-five-year career, helping several industry giants, including IBM, Microsoft, HP, Google, Alcatel-Lucent, and McKesson, rapidly grow their revenue with their Go to Market Narratives.    And with his book, “Inspire Your Buyers,” he provides a proven, tested model to develop your own compelling Go to Market Narrative that can help accelerate your revenue growth. From targeting the right buyers, learning how to identify the characteristics of an organization that might be a good fit, narrowing down your audience, spotlighting the problem they may not even be aware they have, and helping them envision the outcome if that problem was solved, Bruce's Go to Market Narrative model will give you the edge (and the sizzle) you're looking for in achieving your business growth goals.  Episode Highlights:   How to identify your target audience How to develop a strategic narrative The 2x motivator for change The critical selling step he sees many people skip How to have a great selling conversation His favorite sales book of all time Favorite Quote: “Don't trust your buyer that they know everything.”   Connect with Bruce: www.inspireyourbuyersbook.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/bscheer/  https://twitter.com/bscheer  Youtube: SalesConversation     Stay Connected: Connect with Matt and Luigi on Instagram: @matthew.r.meehan @luigi_rosabianca @theLiquidLunchProject @ShieldAdvisoryGroup. Visit The Liquid Lunch Project website and subscribe to The Weekly, our Friday morning newsletter, for all the latest in the world of finance, tech, small business, and more. www.theliquidlunchproject.com Make sure you never miss an episode — check out The Liquid Lunch Project on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review.  

In this episode, Pete is thrilled to have a true luminary in the world of sales, Bruce Scheer. As the CEO of InspireYourBuyers.com and the President of the National Speakers Association Northwest, Bruce's impact in the industry is truly remarkable.   With an illustrious career that has seen him collaborate with giants like IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Google, Bruce has honed his unique Go to Market Narrative development model. His expertise spans across continents, igniting growth for companies both big and small, from the Americas to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.   Not only is Bruce a sought-after keynote speaker, but he's also a dynamic educator. His commitment to inspiring others is evident in his interactions with thousands of revenue leaders, staff, and buyers, as he crafts clear and compelling go to market narratives. From prestigious corporate events to industry associations, Bruce's influence reverberates across the globe.   Join the conversation, and discover the strategies, insights, and experiences that have propelled Bruce to the forefront of the sales landscape. If you're ready to ignite your own sales approach, this episode is a must-watch.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode Overview This episode features yours truly, Bruce Scheer, being interviewed by A. Lee Judge and Dontaye Carter from Atlanta. They have a great show called the Business of Content Podcast. In this episode we will talk about the major pitfall sellers and marketers fall into - how they are leading with their "stuff" and their "all about me" content as opposed to leading with a "theme" – a point of view that addresses their target customers' big problem and offers a big idea theme that resonates!   The Big Idea Theme Precedes Sales and Marketing Content A main point that's made in this episode is before you jam on a ton of content for marketing and account-based selling activities, you should back up and think of a big idea theme – a central idea that will help you break through the noise surrounding your prospects. You can carry the central idea throughout the conversations and various digital touchpoints across the buyer's journey. Then you can generate marketing content and train reps on how to speak to the big idea theme. In this way, your prospects aren't getting disjointed and non-aligned messaging and content as they engage with your firm. This is very different from how most sellers show up and sell today – pushing product-centric messaging and content that's devoid of content around the customer problems and challenges. They are missing a big idea theme that resonates with the prospect.   What Specifically is a Big Idea Theme? To compare the difference between selling a theme or stuff, let's look at a fun B2C example. It has to do with an Uber ride I took out in Boulder Colorado earlier this year. One morning, I get up and I'm heading out to see a client in Boulder. My Uber driver shows up at my hotel, and I walk out to a minivan. And I'm like, oh my goodness, this is interesting. It's not the BMW or a black SUV. It's a minivan, not my normal first choice! I had a suitcase with me with a bunch of facilitation gear within. He opens up the back, and of course, there's a stroller and some kid stuff in there that we have to move around so we can get my stuff in there. And then I get in the back of the minivan and we take off. We start a conversation, with me curiously asking him what going on in his life. He looks like he's in his late 30s, well groomed, and having many mouths to feed. He tells me he's just dropped his kids off at school and is now giving some rides in between his other daily activities. I asked him about his background and current focus, and if he's just driving Uber for now. He mentioned he's in transition and has an entrepreneurial bent. He was most recently a marketing manager and a Minister and was currently a Founder in a new food court concept in Boulder. He further explained his food court concept – a wonderful food court with 57 food trucks on rotation with a fire pit, live band stage, yard games, and a few beer stations. He strongly encouraged me to come to check it out. He then asked me what I do, and I mentioned I focus in the area of sales and marketing and am focused on helping sellers have conversations with their buyers that inspire change. I then spoke about the idea I was shaping around selling a theme or stuff, and as a former marketer I asked him what that meant to him. He was silent for a while and then responded that he thought he was selling a theme and could share it with me. I immediately responded “I don't think so!” and mentioned he had just sold me a bunch of stuff - 57 food trucks on rotation, a fire pit, beer stations, live band stage, etc. He laughed a bit and said what he's really designing and trying to sell people on is the theme of a backyard party - a place where people can go with their good friends or a place where they can make new friends. He further offered how this party had great food with 57 food trucks on rotation, a huge metal fireplace throwing out huge flames, a stage with a live band, and plenty of yard games for more fun and activity as part of the backyard party. Now he had me with his big idea theme, and I committed to dropping by at the end of the day to check it out. I showed up that evening after my client gig at about 6pm. The place was full and continued to become packed with no place to sit by the time I left at 8:30pm – and this was on a weeknight! Obviously this was a great concept! Who's Leading with a Big Idea Theme in B2B? Very few in the B2B world get this right. They focus on selling the features, functions and benefits of their stuff as opposed to a big idea theme - a “backyard party” if you will. In this episode, we review a few B2B companies that understand the need for a theme and illustrate what good big idea themes look like with IBM, Alcatel-Lucent, and McKesson. We then offer some thinking on how to tease out a big idea theme for your organization.   Episode Timestamps   [1:53] Bruce Intro and Why a Theme is Important Chief Conversation Officer for SalesConversation.com: A firm that helps people with their selling conversations. Message strategy, digitial tools and sales enablement. “Big idea” theme. When you have sellers in the field, they need to have a good understanding of the company's theme. The marketing site needs to convey the theme. Stories need to portray the theme. There are more times than not a major lack of alignment in the central story/idea: How people carry the story/idea throughout the buyer's journey.   [3:44] The Disconnect Between Marketing, Sales, and Content Distribution Most sellers and marketers structure their website around who they are, what they do, how they do things, what makes them different– all about them type of content. Are you selling stuff or a theme? Uber driver story and the notion of the Backyard Party. [10:30] How Have You Consulted Clients on Using Themes? What is the central idea/theme? After establishing this, you can then start to build stories and content. Story of Alcatel-Lucent: Simplify the message and portfolio. Summed it up in a theme for their target audience. Major point - don't confuse your customer.   [15:23] What is a Theme? The subject matter of a conversation or discussion. The subject matter. The focal element. A unifying idea that's a recurrent element in literary or artistic work. What is lacking is the subject.   [16:13] How Would You Apply This Model to Content? All the content is the “wood” behind the “tip of the arrow”. People are punching out content without a purposeful theme.   [18:21] Who Needs to “Get It” in Order to Get an Organization in line Selling with a Theme? Normally start with the leadership team. Helping business leaders get their story straight.   [20:46] IBM Story Was in a state of transition with the question of ‘what is the next big idea theme'? Big idea theme: Different from a purpose statement. The theme of “Out-think”. Difference between a theme and a story. Organizations typically have a couple choices: They can try to transform and grow organically. or The organization can out-think the particular issue   [27:04] Things That an Organization Can Do to Start Mapping Out Their Theme Market scan: Who's in the competitive domain? What's the market chatter/noise? What are the themes and ideas that are already out there? Identify your organization's uniqueness and value that you are trying to create and convey? What are you building towards? What's the Big Idea theme?   Additional Resources Bruce Scheer on LinkedIn Blog Post on Theme or Stuff by Bruce Scheer Article: Big Ideas that can Help Your Sales Performance by Bruce Scheer A. Lee Judge on LinkedIn ContentMonsta The Business of Content Podcast Dontaye Carter on LinkedIn Carter Media Group For More Great Content   I would appreciate it if you would subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts. Here's a cool very short video that shows you how to do this. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help me promote the show to others who will benefit.   Credits Sound editing and show notes produced by – ChirpSound