Podcast appearances and mentions of miller heiman

Meet Liz HeimanLiz has been conquering the sales environment since she was 15, hawking lingerie at local flea markets. A self-proclaimed introvert, she recognized that sales success comes not from owning the room but from owning the relationship. Her transformative training programs have powered the success of HP and Coca-Cola. Liz earned her stripes as head of Miller Heiman's struggling Asian-Pacific region. She engineered a turnaround from red ink to black, catapulting annual sales to $1 million within just two years.At the vanguard of B2B sales, Liz specializes in propelling manufacturing companies from uncertainty to profitable and predictable revenue-generating systems.Connect with Liz!Regarding SalesSales SOS PodcastLinkedInFacebookInstagramSpecial Offers: Scale Your Sales with a Sales Operating System: Free DownloadHighlights00:00 Introduction and Career Reflections01:32 Introducing Today's Guest: Liz Heiman02:37 Common Sales Problems in Manufacturing03:26 The Impact of AI and Technology on Sales07:08 Challenges in Sales Management13:13 Chaos in Sales Organizations17:39 Identifying the Chaos in Sales Processes17:54 Managing the Sales Funnel Effectively18:23 Importance of Strategy in Sales20:30 Understanding Sales Math and KPIs25:20 Building Trust and Relationships in Sales27:32 Customer-Centric Sales Approach30:01 Sponsor Message and Show Wrap-UpConnect with the Broads!Connect with Lori on LinkedIn and visit www.keystoneclick.com for your strategic digital marketing needs! Connect with Kris on LinkedIn and visit www.genalpha.com for OEM and aftermarket digital solutions!Connect with Erin on LinkedIn!

Hiring and Managing a Sales Team is covered in this podio, along with the following subjects:- Understanding the Sales Math- Sales for Founders- How sales problems can look like other kinds of problems***************************************Building a strong sales team is like assembling a winning sports team. It starts with recruiting the right players—those who are not only skilled but also share your passion for the game. Once you've got the dream team, managing them becomes the key to success. This involves creating a supportive environment where each member can thrive, setting clear goals, and providing ongoing training and motivation. I'll be talking with Liz Heiman about Hiring and Managing a Sales Team.Liz Heiman is The Sales Operating System Architect renowned for flipping the script on traditional sales thinking. She rejects canned, manipulative tactics that leave sellers and customers disconnected and uneasy. As a speaker and consultant, Liz persistently debunks the sales myths that undermine sales performance. Liz is on a mission to fundamentally change the way people think about sales. She challenges conventions that make leaders believe they have no choice but to accept inconsistent or poor sales results. She transforms chaos into structured, scalable sales ops that drive predictable growth.At 15, Liz was already in her first sales job, and by age 30 she was running the international Division of Sales giant Miller Heiman, where she turned the failing Asia Pacific division into a multi-million-dollar asset. While at Miller Heiman, Liz trained the world's powerhouse sales teams, including HP and Coca-Cola. Since then, she has driven sales increases for hundreds of companies. Growing up in the Miller Heiman tradition, daughter of author Stephen Heiman, it's only natural that Liz internalized the idea that sales is a repeatable, teachable and manageable process. Working with companies of every size, she realized that process is only the first step toward building the infrastructure that supports a successful sales organization. That's why Liz developed the Re: Sales Operating System that scales sales.

Welcome to Behind the Numbers, where host Dave Bookbinder explores the power of sales in business with expert guest Liz Heiman, CEO and Chief Sales Strategist at Regarding Sales. With over two decades of experience since 2002 in building sales infrastructures, Liz shares actionable strategies for creating successful sales systems in midsize companies. In this episode, Liz reflects on her career, starting at Miller Heiman, famous for the Strategic Selling methodology, and discusses why everyone in a company is involved in sales, from accountants to facilities managers. Together, they debunk common sales misconceptions, including the importance of a growth mindset, thorough sales preparation, and how focusing on problem-solving is more effective than the traditional "hard sell." Liz dives into the key elements of the sales funnel, emphasizing how to leverage meaningful conversations, understand sales metrics, and integrate marketing and sales to boost business growth. She also offers valuable insights on building trust and credibility in sales relationships and explains why a customer-centric approach is critical for success. Whether you're looking to refine your sales techniques, enhance your sales funnel, or better understand your customers' needs, this episode is packed with practical sales strategies and insider tips that will help you elevate your sales game. About Our Guest: Liz Heiman is the Sales Operating System Architect and the founder of Re: Sales™. Liz guides “Ready-to-Scale” founders and CEOs to take the chaos out of sales so they can create a more sustainable growth strategy that strengthens the pipeline and streamlines their process to increase revenue on a predictive basis. Early in her career, Liz trained some of the world's powerhouse sales organizations. Using Strategic Selling and Conceptual Selling, she helped them boost sales by improving their sales processes and systems. Now her focus is start-up and mid-sized companies selling into complex B2B environments, including medical, government, and enterprise. About the Host: Dave Bookbinder is known as an expert in business valuation and he is the person that business owners and entrepreneurs reach out to when they need to know what their most important assets are worth. Known as a collaborative adviser, Dave has served thousands of client companies of all sizes and industries.  Dave is the author of two #1 best-selling books about the impact of human capital (PEOPLE!) on the valuation of a business enterprise called The NEW ROI: Return On Individuals & The NEW ROI: Going Behind The Numbers.  He's on a mission to change the conversation about how the accounting world recognizes the value of people's contributions to a business enterprise, and to quantify what every CEO on the planet claims: “Our people are this company's most valuable asset.” He's also the host of the highly rated Behind The Numbers business podcast which is enjoyed in more than 100 countries.  

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to the CEO and Founder of TRANSDEFY, Leenna Jayachaandran.Leenna Jayachaandran, the CEO and founder of the innovative company TransDefy, shared insights into sales performance improvement, the critical role of perspective in sales, and the dynamic shifts in B2B sales. This blog post highlights the valuable advice Leenna provided, which could transform sales strategies for organizations.TransDefy is not just another sales consultancy. Under Leenna's leadership, the company excels at transforming sales teams into high-performing units. Their approach transcends traditional training methods by instilling a deeper understanding of the sales process and its psychology, enabling sales teams to adapt to various scenarios and customer needs.Leenna emphasized how salespeople view their roles and how client interactions can significantly impact their success. Salespeople who see themselves as problem-solvers and partners with their clients rather than just vendors are more likely to build trust and long-term relationships. This shift in perspective leads to more meaningful engagements and better sales outcomes.Leenna also discussed the challenges sales teams face in the current environment, noting that resistance to change within sales organizations is a significant hurdle. However, she highlighted that these challenges present opportunities for growth and innovation. By embracing new technologies and methodologies, sales teams can differentiate themselves and deliver exceptional value to their clients.Key Points from the Episode:TransDefy's work in sales performance improvementThe importance of perspective in salesChanging dynamics of B2B salesChallenges and opportunities in the sales environmentRecommendations for organizations to upskill their sales teamsAbout Leenna Jayachaandran:Leenna Jayachaandran is a distinguished CEO at TRANSDEFY and a consummate sales and transformation leader with deep-seated expertise in strategic planning and client relations across top-tier Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Dell. With over 25 years of experience in sales leadership, career coaching, and mentoring, Leenna has driven substantial revenue growth and enhanced service excellence. Her approach combines a rigorous methodological discipline, including Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling, and a keen focus on building robust global teams, consistently leading to strong ROI and improved bottom lines for her clients.Leenna's recognition as a leading Sales Consultant and a member of CHRO Asia's “100 Best Global Coaches” underscores her ability to exceed client expectations and foster competitive success in fast-paced environments. Her awards in “Execution Excellence” and “Excellence in increasing the Market share” are testaments to her proficiency in turning around sales strategies and winning back crucial accounts. Beyond her professional accomplishments, Leenna is passionate about painting and reading leadership books, activities that enhance her creative and strategic thinking.About TRANSDEFY:TRANSDEFY is dedicated to redefining the sales landscape by focusing on boosting numbers and transforming the entire sales ecosystem. With deep insights into the complexities of the sales process, TRANSDEFY provides a tailored suite of solutions to optimize performance, enhance sales skills, and foster a culture of sales excellence. Their holistic approach ensures that every aspect of an organization's sales operations is addressed, from skills training to strategic planning, providing a comprehensive enhancement of sales...

Dans ce court extrait exclusif, un passage marquant du dernier épisode dans lequel notre invité, Martin-Pierre Gaultier, Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer chez Lemonway, nous a donné ses meilleurs conseils concrets et actionnables sur un thème précis : convaincre les grands comptes grâce à la méthode “Miller-Heiman”.Il recommande de :- Prendre le temps d'adapter la méthode Miller Heiman, et notamment les “feuilles bleues” et “feuilles vertes”, pour structurer les opportunités et préparer les réunions avec une DMU clairement identifiée (voir notre dernier extrait best-of).- Identifier et traiter les doutes / les “red flags” de manière concrète et systématique, en isolant chaque point et en définissant des actions spécifiques pour les corriger.- Organiser des sessions collectives en internes de 60 minutes pour exécuter cette méthode, ce qui permet de convaincre efficacement les grands comptes, même dans des contextes réglementaires contraignants.

CEOs, do you want to unlock the secret to sky-high sales?Your loyal customers might just have the answers you seek.Barry Trailer from Sales Mastery Advisors highlights a goldmine of opportunity: diving deep into repeat and referral sales. Believe it or not, expanding within your existing customer base can yield better returns than braving new territories.Furthermore, while data is crucial, it's quality over quantity. CEOs should focus on insightful data interpretation, emphasizing process-oriented coaching, adept tech use, and consistent training.Barry's revealing Sales Performance Scorecard survey shows just 53% of reps hitting or surpassing their quotas, signifying a pressing need to revamp strategies.Interestingly, the survey suggests a direct link: the stronger the processes and relationships, the better the sales performance. With peak levels, 61% of reps excel in their roles.To truly drive sales momentum, CEOs must revitalize internal processes, and make sure the focus is on nurturing customer relationships and optimizing data utilization. By focusing on these cornerstones, soaring sales are no longer just a dream.Want to dive deeper? All the riveting details await in this informative episode.Chapters00:02 Introduction to the podcast and topic of sales strategies01:07 Discussion on the easiest ways to get more business04:20 The challenges of new reps in new territories07:12 The importance of doing the hard work in sales12:16 The importance of actionable information from data12:51 Levels of relationship and understanding in data analysis14:19 Introduction of the sales performance scorecard assessment.16:22 Low revenue plan attainment and reps meeting quota.18:23 Slow progress in implementing artificial intelligence for sales.20:08 The importance of levels of relationship and process implementation.27:42 Random process can be successful but lacks predictability.29:18 Buyers are better at buying than sellers are at selling.30:16 Many sales teams do not fully utilize the tools provided.31:46 Lack of user adoption and misuse of tools leads to inefficiency.36:11 Managers need coaching on how to coach effectively.38:48 Coaching is often misunderstood and not properly implemented.43:23 Process-oriented coaching and technology can improve sales outcomes.44:28 CRM should be used as a system of record and engagement.About GuestBarry Trailer is prominently associated with SalesMastery, holding a leadership position as a past president of both Miller Heiman and Goldmine. Miller Heiman is recognized as a world-class sales training firm, while Goldmine is renowned for its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications. Barry Trailer's professional experiences extend to the digital platform LinkedIn, where he maintains a professional profile, emphasizing his significance in the global business network. Furthermore, Barry's insights on the pivotal role of a company's coaching approach in influencing win rates have been highlighted, suggesting his expertise in sales management and strategiesSocial Links You can learn more about and connect with Barry Trailer in the links below.Connect with Barry on LinkedIn:(99+) Barry Trailer | LinkedInCheck out Sales Mastery website:SalesMasteryYou can learn more about and connect with Alice Heiman in the links below.Connect with Alice on LinkedIn:(99+) Alice Heiman | LinkedInCheck out Alice's website:Alice Heiman - Alice Heiman

Episode Summary Paul Curto's career journey from a technical background to sales leadership is characterized by a strong technical foundation. He initially worked on network upgrades and designs, later transitioning into consulting with Deutsche Telekom to explore network technologies and innovation. His foray into technical marketing provided a unique blend of technology and marketing expertise. About a decade ago, he transitioned into sales with Aruba Networks, where he highlighted the importance of aligning solutions with desired outcomes and building enduring relationships. RetailNext, the company Paul discussed, specializes in retail analytics, offering e-commerce-style insights to brick-and-mortar stores. Their solutions encompass sensor-based systems for customer traffic tracking, loss prevention modules, and in-store analytics, helping retailers make data-driven decisions. Paul also shared insights into the MEDDIC and Miller Heiman sales methodologies, emphasizing understanding customer pain points, decision processes, and the role of economic buyers and champions. For those implementing MEDDIC, he recommended coaching, tracking keywords with conversation intelligence tools like Gong, and consistent use of Salesforce for reinforcement. About the Guest Paul Curto is passionate about enhancing sales teams and customer experiences, specializing in alleviating retail analytics challenges. His focus lies in empowering brick-and-mortar retailers with e-commerce-style analytics, driving data-driven decisions. With a career marked by inspiring sellers, he emphasizes matching solutions to outcomes and fostering lasting win-win relationships. Sales strategy, enriched by customer-centric methodologies, is his forte, driven by enablement and sales technology. Paul is dedicated to helping clients achieve business success while ensuring exceptional, fact-based decision-making and unparalleled customer satisfaction. Connect with Paul Curto Key Takeaways - RetailNext brings e-commerce-style analytics to brick-and-mortar stores, aiding in business growth. - Data-driven sales involve tracking customer behavior, optimizing operations, and improving the customer experience. - Paul highlighted the MEDDIC and Miller Heiman sales methodologies. - Economic buyers are crucial, and champions play a pivotal role in influencing buying decisions. - A strong action plan is created through MEDDIC, incorporating red flags and strengths. - Reinforce MEDDIC concepts through coaching and deal reviews with the sales team. - Utilize sales technology, like conversation intelligence tools, to track and analyze MEDDIC-related keywords. - Implement MEDDIC opportunity review forms in Salesforce to ensure consistent adoption and reinforcement. Quote "People buy for personal reasons even at work, and so when the sellers try to help you look good for your boss and try to help you make the right decision and become seen as a superhero inside the buying team, that's when you start to make magic happen with MEDDIC in these deals."  – Paul Curto Recommended Resources Books: - "Cracking the Sales Management Code" by Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana - "The Sales Development Playbook" by Trish Bertuzzi - "Never Split the Difference: Negotiate Like Your Life Depends on It" by Chris Voss Newsletters: - Charlotte Lloyd's LinkedIn Newsletter - Matt McNamara's YouTube Channel - Josh Braun's LinkedIn Newsletter - Becc Holland's LinkedIn Newsletter ⁠Connect with Paul Curto⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠Follow us on LinkedIn ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠

Last and final episode!!! Many moons ago, world famous Jiu Jitsu competitor asked John Danaher a question that changed his life forever. "Why ignore 50% of the human body?" That one simple question, opened John's mind to the possibilities..... of LEGLOCKS. John went on to build the most comprehensive leglock system in the history of martial arts and has FOR SURE crippled grown men. In martial arts, there is a process. A best way of doing things. And... my priests.... there is also a process... for sales. Bonding and rapport, upfront contract, pain, money, then decision. You do all of these first... Then, at that point, IF AND ONLY IF, you truly understand the prospect's needs, do you give a sales presentation. Present on exactly what they care about.. and close the deal. But just like leglocks, one step of the process is widely misunderstood, frequently ignored, and goddamn important. The decision step. And that's what we're about to learn up on today. How to navigate all the decision makers in a complex sale. What to do, how to think, and the tools you need... to ultimately close giant deals, make helly commissions, and become..... Rich. Jacked. And a god among men. Behold.

2 of 3! Many moons ago, world famous Jiu Jitsu competitor asked John Danaher a question that changed his life forever. "Why ignore 50% of the human body?" That one simple question, opened John's mind to the possibilities..... of LEGLOCKS. John went on to build the most comprehensive leglock system in the history of martial arts and has FOR SURE crippled grown men. In martial arts, there is a process. A best way of doing things. And... my priests.... there is also a process... for sales. Bonding and rapport, upfront contract, pain, money, then decision. You do all of these first... Then, at that point, IF AND ONLY IF, you truly understand the prospect's needs, do you give a sales presentation. Present on exactly what they care about.. and close the deal. But just like leglocks, one step of the process is widely misunderstood, frequently ignored, and goddamn important. The decision step. And that's what we're about to learn up on today. How to navigate all the decision makers in a complex sale. What to do, how to think, and the tools you need... to ultimately close giant deals, make helly commissions, and become..... Rich. Jacked. And a god among men. Behold.

Many moons ago, world famous Jiu Jitsu competitor asked John Danaher a question that changed his life forever. "Why ignore 50% of the human body?" That one simple question, opened John's mind to the possibilities..... of LEGLOCKS. John went on to build the most comprehensive leglock system in the history of martial arts and has FOR SURE crippled grown men. In martial arts, there is a process. A best way of doing things. And... my priests.... there is also a process... for sales. Bonding and rapport, upfront contract, pain, money, then decision. You do all of these first... Then, at that point, IF AND ONLY IF, you truly understand the prospect's needs, do you give a sales presentation. Present on exactly what they care about.. and close the deal. But just like leglocks, one step of the process is widely misunderstood, frequently ignored, and goddamn important. The decision step. And that's what we're about to learn up on today. How to navigate all the decision makers in a complex sale. What to do, how to think, and the tools you need... to ultimately close giant deals, make helly commissions, and become..... Rich. Jacked. And a god among men. Behold.

Barry Trailer is co-founder of Sales Mastery, a sales research and advisory firm focused on AI-for-Sales solutions and Sales as a Profession. His recent article with Sales Mastery, “Can AI Really Help You Sell?” was published by Harvard Business Review. Barry first started as a professional engineer before migrating to sales and founding CSO Insights, one of the best research firms in professional selling, acquired by Miller Heiman in 2015. Bringing his expertise in sales training and sales enablement to Miller Heiman, he conducted over 400 training workshops and has since continued on his mission of elevating B2B sales today.  Join us as we discuss what has changed and what has stayed the same in the world of selling and go in-depth into the sales relationship matrix. Highlights: Barry's journey in professional sales What has stayed the same and what has changed in sales today Sales Mastery's research with over 500 sales organizations Sales Performance Matrix Episode Resources Connect with Mark Cox https://www.inthefunnel.com/ https://ca.linkedin.com/in/markandrewcox https://www.facebook.com/inthefunnel markcox@inthefunnel.com Connect with Barry Trailer https://salesmastery.com/ Can AI Really Help You Sell? (2022): https://hbr.org/2022/11/can-ai-really-help-you-sell Sales School 2.0 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHvBKz1R6UtA47rx7dSMf1g https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrytrailer/   Call to Action In the Funnel Sales Workshop Free Sales Tools How to Listen: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify

Sales Growth Tools Mentioned In The Sales Podcast Hire The Best Speaker for your sales meeting or marketing conference Take The CRM Quiz: get a free consultation with me Donate: Just because you like the show, the no-bullshit approach, and don't want to buy a book, software, or The Make Every Sale Program. The Sales Agenda: take control of every sales opportunity like a pro. Leadferno: Turn lurkers into leads Founders Card: Get $20,000 in free processing from Stripe, save 15% on Bose, and save on hotels, travel, car rentals, you name it. Send Drunk Emails: ...that get opened and get you paid! Phone Burner: work the phone like a machine so you can be a human when you connect. Sendspark: Send video emails that make an impact so you can stand out from the noise. Use promo code SALESWHISPERER to get 33% off for three months GUEST INFO: Guest Site: https://www.salesassembly.com/ PODCAST INFO: Support The Sales Podcast: https://bit.ly/3JOJ6jC Podcast website: https://www.thesaleswhisperer.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3PeYzKL Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSalesWhispererWes SUPPORT & CONNECT: Check out the sponsors above; it's the best way to support this podcast Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheWes Twitter: https://twitter.com/saleswhisperer Instagram: https://instagram.com/saleswhisperer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesaleswhisperer/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesaleswhisperer Medium: https://medium.com/@saleswhisperer

Are you an entrepreneur struggling to grow your startup or established company? This episode is for you. Elzie talks to Liz Heiman, a sales consultant and expert in startup growth. Liz shares her knowledge of building a successful sales team, establishing a culture of sales within your company, and managing your sales funnel effectively. She emphasizes the importance of creating a mission, vision, and values-driven plan, conducting strategic planning sessions, and hiring people who fit those values.Liz explains the significance of having a Sales Operating System that includes strategy, lead generation, sales process, key account management, and team management. She offers valuable advice on managing a sales funnel and building relationships with customers based on trust. She also suggests that salespeople start with a simple CRM and advises looking into tools that can help put the sales process together, simplify it, and move sales forward. Don't miss out on this opportunity to learn from Liz's expertise and take your sales game to the next level. Tune in now and discover how you can achieve sustainable growth through effective sales strategies.Episode Highlights05:37 - Your sales team is the heart of your business. And everybody says, "Oh, no, no, my product is the heart of my business." Well, it may be the soul of your business, but it is not the heart, because it is the sales team that pumps the lifeblood through your organization and keeps it going. Because without that heart pumping, there's no company. And if you think about it, your heart isn't in your pinky. Because if it were in your pinky, it couldn't pump life blood through your body. It's in the center of your body for a reason, because it needs to be there. And your sales team is the center of your business, because it's all about the customer. And your sales team is the first team that really touches your customer directly. Marketing may influence them, but the sales team touches them.16:19 - In sales, there are a whole bunch of companies that have created methodologies, and you may have heard of some of them. Sandler is one of them. The Challenger Sale is one of them. There's a new one called MEDDIC. I don't know how new it is, but that's kind of a methodology. I come out of the world of Miller Heiman. So, Miller Heiman created programs called Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, and Large Account Management. And that was really the early days of creating methodology or process around sales. So, Solution Selling was also happening at the same time and SPIN Selling was also created about the same time. These are also methodologies. And these are the very beginning of "Hey, there's a process that you follow to do this." 20:43 - This is going to be really shocking to everyone, I know, but leads do not come out of thin air. They are not like combustion from nothing. They actually have to come from somewhere. So, either your marketing team has to generate them or your sales team has to go out to events, or you have to call people. Somewhere, these leads–and you need a plan. You need a strategy. What activities are we going to do, and what results do we need in order to pay for those activities? So, there's a strategy.28:14 - Yes, it has to be a good fit. Yes, it has to be the right solution. But people matter. People always matter. And I have customers that they have a two or three year sales cycle, that relationship matters over that time. And if you let that relationship go and don't pay attention to it, somebody else is going to go make a relationship and when it's time to make the decision, somebody else is going to be in there. So yes, it matters. You matter as an owner, as a salesperson, anybody, you matter. How people feel about you...

Liz Heiman goes over a variety of sales procedures and systems, helping you to gain insights into the best possible approaches. She explains that a framework is a set of guide rails that companies must use to communicate and define their ideal customer. She discusses various recognized methodologies within the sales world such as Sandler, Challenger Sale, MEDDIC, Solution Selling, SPIN Selling, and Miller Heiman's Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, and Large Account Management Process.Liz stresses that these methodologies don't offer any secrets or magic but instead they require an organized process when selling complex products or services to multiple buyers. If you're looking to improve your sales game, then don't miss this episode. Such methodologies are essential for understanding the process of selling complex products or services to multiple buyers. Tune in now to hear more about how these strategies can give you an edge in closing deals successfully.Episode Highlights01:29 - In sales, there are a whole bunch of companies that have created methodologies, and you may have heard of some of them. Sandler is one of them. The Challenger Sale is one of them. There's a new one called MEDDIC. I don't know how new it is, but that's kind of a methodology. I come out of the world of Miller Heiman. So, Miller Heiman created programs called Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, and Large Account Management. And that was really the early days of creating methodology or process around sales. So, Solution Selling was also happening at the same time and SPIN Selling was also created about the same time. These are also methodologies. And these are the very beginning of "Hey, there's a process that you follow to do this." Connect with ElzieLinkedInPowered By Podcast Town We Help B2B Brands grow their revenue through podcasting. Podcast Town is a full-service, white glove podcast agency dedicated to helping B2B brands grow their podcast show, grow their audience and podcast easier. - We help you launch, Grow and Maximize! Let's chat!Podcast Town WebsiteConnect with Liz HeimanLinkedInWebsite

What's the formula for building a hyper growth organization? This has been a hot topic for debate in many business circles. Because the key to tapping into accelerated growth often starts with understanding your audience, your market, and where you can enable your teams to exploit competitive advantages. All of this is easier said than done, but when done right, building in the key pieces you need to unlock hypergrowth can empower your sales teams to close more deals and transform passive buyers into lifelong superfans. In this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast we explore the concept of hypergrowth enablement, what it is, how leaders can effectively spark it within their organizations, and what specific strategies are needed to build a hypergrowth focused company. Our guest for this episode, Jerry Brooner, is the leading thought leader in this space and has worked with top technology companies to help them tap into incredible, exponential growth – while also serving their customers well. Jerry Brooner is the President of Global Field Operations at Enable, a collaborative rebate management platform that helps manufacturers, distributors, and retailers take control of their rebate programs and turn them into an engine for growth. He has over two decades of experience as a high-growth global enterprise SaaS technology executive. Previously, he was the former Chief Revenue Officer at Scout RFP, and has built high growth teams at Dropbox, SAP, Callidus, and Siebel Systems. Download the full episode to hear firsthand what Jerry believes is the winning formula to spur hypergrowth for any organization. Why is hyper growth enablement important? Enablement is a word that is often thrown around, especially in sales circles. I wanted to hear Jerry's take on what the real power in enablement is and why he sees it as the core of being able to create hyper growth. His insights are eye-opening, “ I think enablement is very underutilized and often overlooked, especially at startups. Companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to recruit top talent, but once they're hired they get very little support to be successful. This model is flawed. Enablement is about getting your people excited about their work and equipped with the right tools, resources, and support to be successful on day one – if not before.” And, it's this concept of what you do before a new hire starts that sheds new light on the onboarding process for me. Jerry follows a simple, yet highly effective onboarding process that goes as follows: Education – he provides his new hires with key information about the company, the industry, competitors – any and everything they may need to get up to speed on who they're working for and what they'll be doing. Expectations – even before someone starts, Jerry shares their 30 day calendar with them that outlines all trainings, meetings, and requirements. This is a great tool because it helps new hires coming in the door understand the expectations they will need to meet and enables them to align their personal life to meet their business goals as well. Empowerment – Every new hire has a “shadowing” plan that shows them upfront where and when their hands-on learning opportunities will be. This positions people from the beginning to get excited about learning and aware of where they can go for more support – without trying to figure it all out on their own. This is such an effective strategy – Education, Expectations, and Empowerment – because here at Vengreso we employ a similar model and find that it accelerates onboarding and our reps and SDRs that do this are much more successful – faster. How does diverse hiring drive enablement? We hear it all the time – increase diversity in hiring to produce a more innovative organization. I was curious to get Jerry's perspective on the role that diverse hiring has for enablement and establishing a hyper growth company. He shares, “Diversity in hiring is super important. But, the key is not just racial, ethnic, or gender diversity. You want to also have diversity in where and what industries you hire from. We recruit people from a much wider industry background than most companies do – by design. For example, if we know we're going after a lot of manufacturing customers, we'll go out and hire people who have worked in manufacturing because they understand the industry.” This is such a novel approach to diverse hiring. Jerry makes a powerful point! If you want to better serve or prospect a particular customer or industry, it would make total sense to recruit sales people who may have worked in those industries because they will know that industry, inside and out. Listen into the full conversation to hear what other unique ways Jerry recommends hiring so that your team will be primed for hyper growth. What key metrics and KPIs should you track for hyper growth? In sales, metrics are everything. My motto is: If you're not tracking it, then you can't improve it. Jerry agrees and outlines some key metrics he monitors within his organization to ensure that they're exponentially growing. “The most important part about metrics is that they need to apply to everyone in the organization. Your KPIs need to also make sense for each position or role within your company – all the way up to the VP level as well. Because the power of metrics is it helps you to keep the pulse on what's working, what's not and where exactly you need to focus your attention to see improvements.” One thing that Jerry highlighted that I found to be profound was the lack of VP or Director level interactions with customers. He finds (and my experience also validates this) that when more levels of your sales team get involved with a prospect, you're more likely to close the deal. I mean imagine what it would mean to a prospect to have the company CEO personally reach out to answer their questions. It seems like a simple task – but so many companies don't do it. In our conversation, Jerry also goes through the six high value activities he focuses on to spark rapid growth. Be sure to listen to the full episode to hear these gems and hear why Jerry says it takes 98 of these high value activities to close a single deal. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas.  Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.

With research showing that it can cost 5x more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, learning the art of customer retention should be the top priority of every business. Add that to the statistic that even a 5% increase in customer retention can yield a 75% increase in profitability – there's no wonder the power that creating superfans can have on B2B and B2C companies. But, the key is to understand how exactly to transform a hesitant prospect, into a confident buyer, and ultimately into a lifelong customer. No one understands this process better than our guest, Brittan Hodak – the mastermind behind the best-selling book, Creating Superfans: How to Turn Your Customers into Lifelong Advocates. If you've been struggling with keeping your customers engaged, perfecting your referral strategy, or increasing your customer lifetime value, then this is the episode of the Modern Selling Podcast to download! Brittany Hodak is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and customer experience speaker who has delivered keynotes across the globe to organizations including American Express and the United Nations. She has worked with some of the world's biggest brands and entertainers, including Walmart, Disney, Katy Perry, and Dolly Parton. She founded and scaled an entertainment startup to eight figures before exiting and is the former Chief Experience Officer of Experience.com. In this episode, we dive into all things customer engagement and retention to give you a true competitive advantage on how to give your customers such an incredible experience that they become superfans – for life! How should B2B and B2C companies engage with their customers? I wanted to jump right into the meat of Brittany's book and understand, from her perspective, what she believes is the “secret sauce” to creating superfans. She shares, “I think one of the biggest mistakes companies are making right now is that everyone is siloed. In other words, we have ‘over-compartmentalized' employees away from customers. So much so that many times employees are losing track of how their work affects customer retention. I say that it does not matter what department you're in – everybody is in the customer experience department.” Brittany also outlines a powerful “Supermodel Framework” that companies should be following to ensure that their customer experience is building superfans. The framework breaks down as follows: S – Story – It's important to make it clear to even prospects what your true superpower is and why they should be interested. U – Understand – Sales teams must fully understand their customers' stories and find that intersectionality between what their customers are looking for and what they can provide. P – Personalization – Prospects and customers alike now expect that all communications and interactions are personalized to their preferences and needs. E – Exceed Expectations – In a world where your customers could easily go to a competitor, you have to be in the business of meeting and exceeding their expectations every time. R – Repeat – Creating Superfans requires consistency in your customer experience. What leads them to stay is the experience and reputation you build. Listen into the full conversation to hear what Brittany says is the best way to nail the SUPER Framework and why she believes it will revolutionize how we approach our customers. How do you understand what your customers need? I was curious to know what Brittany recommends sales teams do to truly connect with prospects and customers in new ways by leveraging “stories.” She walks through a powerful framework – in her famous acronym style – that sheds a lot of light on the right way to engage and resonate with your ideal audience(s) in new ways. S – Struggles – Know what pain points your potential customers have and how you can speak to them in your outreach. T – Transformation – Getting clear on the transformation that your product/service can provide makes it easier for the prospect to envision working with you. O – Options – Understanding that every prospect and customer has multiple options is key so that you can always lead with value and become a trusted source of information for them. R – Reservations – Customers (even when they buy from you) may have reservations about making a repeat purchase. Be sure to make every touch point memorable and address any objections or concerns they have upfront. Y – YOU – Think about if what you offer is the best solution for your customer. All too often salespeople focus on the sale with no regard to if their solution can actually solve their customer's problem. If you're not best suited to help your customer achieve the transformation they're seeking – then be okay with communicating that! Join the full conversation to hear Brittany's story gems and how sales leaders should be training their teams to tell the right stories at the right times to convert prospects into repeat customers. What's the best way to ask for referrals? Part of Brittany's book, Creating Superfans, dives deeply into referrals – when to ask, how to ask, and also how to reward your customers for sharing your business with their network. What she explains was spot on and similar to what we do, here at Vengreso, “People ask me all the time ‘how can I get more referrals?' And, something that I've found to be true over the years is, if somebody has never worked in sales, referring business to you is not top of mind. So, many times, unless you ask, you won't get the referral.” This can seem very simple to just ask for the referral, however, I've seen it throughout my sales career – so many companies never actually ask their customers for referrals. Brittany details a practical system to follow to not only get referrals but to acknowledge and thank your superfans for giving them. I find her work absolutely fascinating and her quick tips to thank customers is why the people she works with get such incredible results! Jump into this episode and pay particular attention at the 37-minute mark to get her gems on referrals. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.

There's a seismic, yet quiet, shift that's taking place within the sales industry. Not only are modern buyers becoming more sophisticated and harder to sell to, but the modern seller is also evolving. The demographics of who is entering the sales industry is quickly changing, which is making it clear that a one-size-fits all approach to sales training won't work. That's why those B2B organizations that have been able to enhance how their sales leaders show up in the workplace and how they keep their sales teams continually motivated are silently carving out an impressive competitive advantage. Because when you have a highly motivated (and effective) sales team, then the customer experience is often better streamlined and supportive – helping to turn first-time customers into lifetime customers. And, what sales leaders must do to keep their sales teams motivated and improve their customer service experience are exactly what we dive into in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast. Our guest is not only an expert in this field, but her insightful new book is poised to give sales leaders a much-needed new perspective and tangible strategies to use to elevate how they lead and inspire their teams. Dionne Mejer is the Founder & CEO of Inside Sales by Design and author of the highly anticipated book, The Stepped Approach: Onboard Better, Systemize Smarter, and Bring Out the Best in Your Sales Team. Her innovative inside sales training tactics and proven approach gets her clients results every time. As a 20+-year Inside Sales veteran and executive, Dionne specializes in establishing and growing inside sales teams at mid-sized companies. Her intimate work with sales teams of all sizes and experience levels allows each of her clients to thrive as they discover their own voice in leading their Inside Sales team or rep in shepherding clients to a positive outcome. Her global client Rolodex is equally long as it is impressive, with her clients consistently enjoying a 25% uptick in their funnel activities and a 30% increase in deal closings, as a result of working with her. Listen to the full conversation to hear what Dionne recommends sales leaders do today to revamp how they're onboarding, training and motivating their staff. What should sales leaders be doing today? The pandemic has, in many ways, fundamentally shifted how modern buyers buy. The modern buyer is more informed, harder to reach, and is not easily sold on just features alone. All of these buying complexities make the job of a salesperson even harder. I wanted to hear Dionne's perspective on what sales leaders can and should be doing right now to combat the high sales rep attrition that's taking place. She shares, “The challenge is that we have multiple generations of sales people within our organizations. So, the question must become: How do we take this diverse group of folks with different experiences, different perspectives, different mindsets, and different experience levels, and bring everybody together to have a really, really good customer experience?” But, the key here is that to have a great customer experience, requires that every customer touchpoint (even with sales) is strategic, aligned, and productive. I've had my fair share of “sales fumbles”, where as a potential customer, my needs were never asked or even remotely acknowledged. So, in many ways, if B2B organizations aren't careful how their prospecting and sales processes are set up, they could easily (and accidentally) be working against both their sellers and their potential buyers. I asked Dionne to dive deeper into what challenges she's seeing right now in this space. Her insights were so good, “A lot of what needs to happen now is around how do we, as sales leaders, manage in a remote environment? How do we have a good customer experience? How do we have conversations? How do we set the stage and have expectations for our teams in this new world order, where we have four generations in the workplace and everyone may be working remotely?” Tune into this episode to hear what Dionne says sales leaders can do to answer all of those questions and craft a seamless sales training experience that empowers sales teams to improve how they handle prospects and customers. How should sales leaders train to improve the customer experience? This is a hot topic in many of the sales leadership circles that I'm in, which is why I had to ask Dionne her perspective. In many cases, B2B organizations are leaning in on following sales processes and protocols which often leaves little to no room for actual, valuable conversations that nurture the prospect. Instead, the focus is solely formulaic and too rigidly linear that it leaves many buyers turned off from the sale, with even the first email outreach. I know this space is Dionne's zone of genius, so I ask her to share what she's seeing right now: “In order to give a good customer experience, you have to review and often change your internal processes and/or your external ones. Too often sales teams are told to follow a specific sales cadence – without fail. The problem with that is if you start to systematize too much, then you make it harder for your sales teams to have the value-driven conversations they need to provide an exceptional customer experience.” Download this episode and listen in for the powerful example of what not to do during a demo call and why how you handle a sales rep switch is so important for building trust. What can companies do to create a motivating sales environment that benefits customers? It's one thing to “talk” about what a good customer experience is, but it's an entirely different story to define what that looks like for your sales leaders and reps. Here at Vengreso, our employees are spread out across the globe, so keeping those authentic touchpoints can be hard. We're very initial with building a rock solid team atmosphere – even virtually – where everyone feels supported and personally developed toward their individual career goals. But, I know this is not the case with many other B2B and B2C companies. I ask Dionne to walk us through what companies can do to build truly engaging, inspiring, and motivating environments so that their sales teams want to sell and enhance the customer experience. She explains, “This doesn't have to be complex. Building the right environment to promote positive customer experiences, starts with being clear with expectations. Sales leaders need to have that conversation with their team: What does a good customer experience look like and how do we consistently achieve it?” Dionne teaches sales organizations and leaders to take these three steps: Create a purpose statement – this is your guiding North so that everyone understands why you do what you do and what you are trying to collectively achieve. Put the right tools and systems into place – by having systems, you can automate steps that would free up your sales team's time to focus on building relationships with your customers.  Give your team responsibility in the process – when you disconnect the team from having a say in the purpose of the team or action, then you open up the opportunity for them to disengage from their work. Listen into the full conversation to hear what other key steps and actions sales leaders need to take to uplevel their team interactions to skyrocket their customer service experience. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.

With the oversaturation of cold calling, messaging, sales emails – the modern buyer is savvy to all the ways that sellers reach out. That's why, according to our poll of sales professionals, prospecting is THE most time consuming step of the sales cycle. But, there's a loophole that sales leaders and their teams can use to not only find the ideal prospect, but to make it even easier to engage them in conversations that actually build relationships and lead to sales. It's Content Based Marketing and when done right it can turn online content into a consistent pipeline of prospects. In this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast, we dive into the ins and outs of how this stealth prospecting strategy works, how to get started, and the best way to position your online content to sell. Our guest, Logan Lyles is a pioneer in this field and comes with a wealth of knowledge to share to help sales teams, sales leaders, and sales organizations scale their visibility through Content Based Marketing. Logan Lyles is the Head of Partnerships at Teamwork, a project management platform built for scaling client work. Logan previously served in several leadership roles at Sweet Fish, a B2B podcast agency serving mid-market SaaS companies. Taking over sales from the agency founder in 2018, Logan helped triple the business in his first 6 months.  He also played a key role in landing the agency on the Inc 5,000 List (twice), while helping the company  both 10x headcount & increase ARR by 1,283%.  Logan works from his home office (that's slowly becoming a mini video studio) alongside his labradoodle, Mack, in Castle Rock, CO. If you've been looking for a way to enhance your prospecting effectiveness, this episode is the one to listen to. Download the full conversation now and see how easily you can start posting online to attract your ideal prospects. Does Content Based Marketing Work? The short answer is: absolutely! This podcast is a prime example of that. When you reach out to a cold buyer and ask for a sales meeting, you're often met with objections – that's if you can even get through to them. However, if you take a Content Based Marketing approach, you can showcase your expertise through posts, establish yourself as a thought leader in the industry, and have prospects come to you to learn more. I've used this strategy for almost seven years now to land some of our biggest accounts, here at Vengreso. I'm going into the fifth season of the Modern Selling Podcast and this strategy has enabled me to connect with hundreds of CEOs and key decision makers from startups through Fortune 500 companies. And, in my case, you could start your Content Based Marketing strategy with podcasting. Logan agrees, “Content Based Marketing or Networking is like a Trojan Horse. If you take the podcast route, it is actually a gift if you do the work to promote the person you've interviewed to create the content. Then if they share it on their social media platforms, it helps you, as the interviewer, get more visibility.” Join the conversation now and hear why Content Based Marketing is so effective in lowering the objection barrier and helping you establish key relationships with stakeholders. How do you start with content based marketing? The beauty of Content Based Marketing is, you don't need expensive equipment or a marketing team to get started. Whether it's short social media posts, blogs, or videos – the lift and the skills needed to create content is minimal. I was curious to hear Logan's take on the best way to get started and what he shares is spot on, “After every sales call, there is at least one content creation opportunity. Write down the questions you answered and after the call take a few minutes to either write your response or hit record and make a quick video answering the question.” The way I see it, every sales call should create at least three pieces of content, a written post, a short video, and a possible blog article. Whether you're in sales or partnerships, or running a business, there is a strategy that can be leveraged in Content Based Networking or Account Based Podcasting by creating content with the people you want to know.  You get to highlight their work and they get the recognition – and either way, you're creating a relationship that could lead to a sale. To make it even easier to capture this content, Logan suggests recording your sales call, getting it transcribed and using the transcription to create the content so you don't have to spend much time producing content. What equipment should I use for Content Based Marketing? Getting started with Content Based Marketing doesn't require a lot. The goal is to produce content that your prospect wants to read. Whether it's common questions, addressing problems, sharing new perspectives, or even highlighting new solutions – you get to decide the type and frequency of content you post. If it's video content, we walk through the best pieces of equipment to start with like: Logitech C 920 – this inexpensive HD webcam can record high quality content without much editing needed. Ring Light – make sure you have stellar lighting and this setup will help you create content in minutes. Audio Technica 2100 – get crystal clear audio with this affordable mic and have instant radio booth quality. Listen to the conversation and get the inside scoop of the must-have equipment to get to start producing content that will get your prospects to lean in. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.

When prospects stop responding, what do sales reps do? Send even more sales messages. It's this ‘spray and pray' approach that is sabotaging the sales success across almost every industry.  But, how can you effectively reach your potential customers in a way that's scalable without becoming part of the growing “sales noise”? That's the question that agile selling tackles and the hot topic of this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast. We welcome one of the biggest champions of agile selling to learn from him what it is, how it works, and why it is the future of how modern sellers should be selling. Stephen Messer is a serial entrepreneur, inventor, investor, and the co-founder of Collective[i]. Prior to Collective[i], he served as LinkShare's CEO and chairman of the board, helping to create the sector of online marketing commonly referred to as affiliate marketing. Under his leadership, LinkShare expanded its network of websites to become one of the largest of its kind with its global reach extending from the United States to Japan, Canada and Europe. Now, with Collective[i], Stephen has helped to create one of the world's largest networks capturing data around B2B sales activities. Using artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, Collective[i] merges client CRM and other relevant sources of data into our network to generate intelligence used by the world's leading sales organization to generate revenue, streamline/automate non-revenue producing activities, and enable enterprises to be customer centric and data driven. Their patent-pending technology and applications designed for sales managers, operators and professionals are essential to the modern sales force.  That's why this is one episode of the Modern Selling Podcast you do not want to miss. Download the full conversation and hear firsthand how agile selling can transform your sales process and win rates. How has the modern buyer changed? Before we jump into our discussion of agile selling and the power behind this method, I wanted to get clear from Stephen on how he's seen buyer behavior change through the years.  From his perspective, there are three core shifts that have taken place: More buyers are involved now in the process. With so many companies shifting to a virtual, work from home model – this inevitably introduced more stakeholders into the buying decision. It's not as easy to get up and walk to your supervisor's office to get approval. Now, emails, Zoom meetings, and a litany of other communication channels have to be involved in a remote environment before a decision is made. Buyers are doing more research. Before buyers would reach out to sellers to gain more information. Now, buyers are doing their own research and being more and more selective with who they reach out to. Buyers are skeptical of working with sellers. How buyers engage with sellers has dramatically changed. Fewer and fewer buyers are giving their real information, for fear of being spammed with endless sales messages. This makes it even harder for sales reps to reach buyers. As so many sales leaders have seen, our modern buyers are going into “hiding” so to speak to get away from the somewhat intrusive sales cadences. But, if sales cadences are largely being ignored and buyers are going underground – what can sales reps do to truly get buyers to be open for a sales call? That's the very question that agile selling is able to answer. Listen to the full conversation to get access to these sales gems from, Stephen Messer, one of the top data-driven sales gurus in the world. What's the importance of personalization? Personalization in modern selling is everything! I have a folder in my email that I titled, “Emails that suck” and I can't tell you how many I get on a daily basis. And, they all have one glaring thing in common – they're never personalized. In essence, I and so many other prospects have just become a “Dear First Name”. These emails aren't written to speak to my exact pain points, they're not conveying value that's relevant to me, and they're clearly written in a way that makes me feel just like any other buyer I was curious to hear Stephen's take on personalization and its impact on engagement rates based on the sales data he sees everyday. Stephen shares, “The question with personalization really is: can we improve productivity in how we reach buyers while at the same time giving them higher value interactions? This is where analyzing the data is so important. Personalization doesn't have to just be in the messaging. It can be in knowing the best time to send the email, or the right platform to reach out to, or knowing who to send the email to in the organization. Personalization comes back to one thing: research. We have to take the time to research who we're trying to sell to, if we're ever going to be effective.” Jump into this episode, and listen to the end, to hear what Stephen says is the best way to personalize your sales messages to stand out. What is agile sales? Agile sales is being offered as an alternative to the traditional approach of people, process, and technology.  According to Stephen, agile sales is all about moving away from making sales decisions based on opinions and “intuition” and, instead, using data to drive substantive changes to the sales process. It's through agile selling that the modern seller will be better positioned to know how, what, and when to reach out to modern buyers and actually get a response. Stephen shares a powerful point in this episode that reminds us all that we can't look at our prospects in a vacuum. We must consider the entire landscape of the world around them to understand their buying behavior and it is agile selling that makes this possible. If you've been looking for a new approach to sales to help increase your win rates and better engage with your prospects, then this is THE episode to listen to. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com.

With the sales enablement industry exploding, why is it that B2B and B2C companies still struggle to hit quota? The answer isn't at all what we would expect. Because despite all of the sales technologies, improved sales methodologies, advanced sales training – there still seems to be a disconnect between how modern sellers sell and how modern buyers buy. But, how do sales leaders effectively close this gap is quickly becoming a hot button topic in the sales community. And, addressing what this all means, why there is a widening gap, and how to efficiently turn the sales tide are exactly the areas of expertise of this episode's guest, Dr. Howard Dover. Dr. Howard Dover is the Founder and Director of the Center for Professional Sales at the University of Texas at Dallas, renowned speaker, and the Amazon best-selling author of The Sales Innovation Paradox: Harnessing Modern Methods for Optimal Sales Performance. Over the past decade, he has trained some of the top entry-level sales producers and regularly shares his findings and modern methods via various conferences and publications. Before working in academia, Dr. Dover founded several companies, including a sales contracting company that he operated for a decade. During his start-up years and government work, he developed the ability to harness technology to increase both the efficiency of business processes and the effectiveness of sales efforts. Download this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast to hear Dr. Dover's impactful insights and recommendations to sales leaders to close the gap. What is the sales innovation paradox? I wanted to kick off our discussion with a term that many aren't familiar with. Over the past three years, no one will argue that we have seen a radical shift in how selling is done. With the pandemic, pushing modern sellers to embrace more virtual selling options, the number of tools at sales professional's disposal has dramatically increased. Yet, sales haven't followed the same trend. Which is why I always say, “a fool with a tool is still a fool.” I wanted to get Dr. Dover's take and better understand what this sales paradox is, how it started, and the implications it could have on the buying/selling process. His unique perspective is quite telling, “How is it possible that we live in a day where we have technology that was designed to make us better at sales, and yet somehow we find ourselves in a place where we are decidedly worse at selling. That is the Sales Paradox. When we look at the research, buyers overwhelmingly are saying they want a sales rep free experience. But, we keep pushing for more and more sales reps to sell.” I've seen the same trend in the industry over the past few years. Like The Sales Paradox asserts, the number of SDRs has increased by 1,300%, but their productivity and success rates are dismal at best. In other words, customers have gotten smarter about buying faster than sellers have gotten smarter at selling. And, this isn't unique for a particular industry. This is a growing trend that is on pace to continue to worsen, if left unaddressed. Listen to the full conversation to hear what sales leaders could be doing to make matters worse and what they should be doing instead to drive more sales conversations. How can sales reps book more sales calls? If there is a sales paradox at play that isn't leading to more sales, then how can sales reps truly book more calls with prospects? Here at Vengreso, we have a very specific method that we follow to personalize all of our outreach messages to increase the chances of building an authentic relationship with potential customers. Many sales reps take the ‘spray and pray' approach and bombard prospects with lots of generic messages that don't speak to their direct pain points or needs. I wanted to hear Dr. Dover's insights as they relate to what he believes is the “secret sauce” to move the sales needle. What he shares was very interesting, “We're giving the customer a phenomenal opportunity to go find defensive mechanisms to run and hide because the sales messaging they're receiving is extremely irrelevant to what they need. What sales reps need to be doing is building relevance into their messages. That's why doing your research before you reach out is so key. Then you'll know more about your prospect and can add that into your outreach to increase your chances to get a response back.” Relevance, like Dr. Dover mentions, is a key part that seems to be missing from the sales motion. With prospects receiving thousands of sales and marketing messages, mastering how to stand out is science. And, building in relevance and personalization is critical to landing a sales meeting. What is a sales disrupter? When it comes to excelling in sales, it often takes unconventional ways. Dr. Dover coined the term “sales disrupter” and I was curious to know what traits embody that title. “A sales disrupter is somebody that doesn't follow the classic Sales Machine. They're willing to break the mold and try new things to personalize and customize the sales experience for potential customers.” This innovative thinking is so important, especially in today's day and age when prospects are leery of getting put into a sales funnel and being aggressively sold to. Dr. Dover finds that sales disrupters do two things extremely well: They look for new ways to authentically connect with and engage prospects and customers to build lasting relationships. They leverage sales technology to enhance their relationships, after they've personally nurtured it. Be sure to download and listen to the full conversation to learn how you can cultivate sales disrupters in your organization to improve sales. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness

The number of buying options for the average consumer has exponentially grown over the past decade. Many of the winning sales “formulas” that worked before the pandemic have now had to evolve to better reach and speak to the savvy modern buyer. But, when there are so many options in the market to choose from – especially in the technology space – how you attract, retain, and expand your customer base has become the topic of much debate within the largest sales training circles. And, that is the exact topic we dive into in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast. We welcome a leading expert in customer acquisition for technology startups to learn firsthand what works, what doesn't, and the right way to leverage sales data to build a rockstar sales playbook. Shruti Kapoor is the former CEO and Co-Founder at Wingman (now Wingman by Clari) which is an actionable conversation intelligence platform that unlocks insights from every sales interaction. She loves IronMan, and wants every sales team to have their own Jarvis! As the founder of Wingman, Shruti, as Wingman's official first salesperson, single-handedly sold their first million dollars in revenue. With an eclectic background with expertise in a wide range of industries, including life sciences research, investment banking, technology investing, commercialization, product development, fin-tech, and sales – Shruti brings a breadth of knowledge and unique perspectives to how she approaches startup scaling.  Download the full episode to her the top sales best practices that Shruti has used to transform a technology startup from just an idea into a reputable and highly profitable enterprise. Top Customer Acquisition Best Practices for B2B Startups Acquiring your first 100 customers is not for the faint of heart. Because once you've already tapped into your immediate network to leverage those friends and/or family that may support you, then your attention has to shift to more sustainable and scalable customer acquisition strategies. No one knows how to do this better than Shruti, so I picked her brain to hear what approach she took to grow her technology startup in the early stages. Shruti shares, “With a startup, the biggest lesson that we learned was that the first thing we had to do was to gain people's trust. And, as your business grows and you hit different stages in your company's lifecycle, you have different levers for building trust. When you're starting out, you may not have testimonials or reviews to lean on, but that's where you start small and build up over time.” We did this exact thing in our early days with Vengreso. Even though Vengreso was born from the merger of seven companies, we didn't have any Vengreso-specific customers. But, once we had a few customers, we leveraged their experiences with the company and recorded testimonials that we could use in our sales and marketing efforts to build trust with potential new customers. Listen to the full conversation to hear how Shruti suggests you ask for customer referrals and get an inside scoop into what you can do to quickly acquire new customers with minimal lift. Proven Sales Coaching Best Practices Having a steady stream of prospects is only part of the sales battle. The other component is having a solid sales team that is properly trained. In my 20+ years in sales, I've seen it all when it comes to the do's and don'ts of sales training. And, like I always say, “buyers have gotten smarter at buying faster than reps are at selling.” So, without a proven and consistent way to train sales reps, many companies, especially technology startups could be leaving lots of money on the table. I ask Shruti what her view is on sales coaching – how to do it the right way and what to look out for. Her insights are spot on and shed a valuable lesson for B2B and B2C companies to learn from. She explains, “Sales training often doesn't happen because of impatience. Sales managers may train their reps once and never revisit upleveling their skills. Or, they'll try to fit in a large amount of training in a short period of time which doesn't truly get results. The key is to be consistent with your training and to leverage technology when you can to build in the discipline and repetition it requires to truly teach sales reps.” I couldn't agree more, which is why, here at Vengreso we follow the OGC approach – on-demand and group coaching. In this model, every sales rep listens to several sales calls each week and provides feedback to one another. In this way, it takes the burden off of the sales manager to be the only one providing coaching or support. Download this episode to learn more about the best way to structure sales training to help boost conversions to hit quota every time. Strategies to Increase Sales Call Conversions With the pandemic and the shift to virtual selling, closing sales has become much more of an art. Finding ways to connect with someone on the other side of a digital screen and move them to buy takes a certain level of skill and craft that many sales professionals have not perfected. Shruti has a wealth of knowledge (and the sales data to back it up) in regards to what truly works to move the sale on an initial sales call. I ask her to share her insights and give us several actionable strategies that we can use to instantly boost sales conversions. She explains, “The most interesting thing the data shows us is that when people set an agenda at the start of the call, the win rate doubles. Yet, despite the data, only 10% of sales reps do this. Setting an agenda gives both parties the opportunity to make sure what they want to be covered is actually discussed.” At Vengreso, our sales reps' meeting invites always include three key components that we refer to as PAL – purpose, agenda, and length. In this way, all attendees know upfront the expectations and structure of the meeting. Download the conversation to hear a host of other sales call gems that can improve win rates and streamline the entire sales process. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.  

The Modern Selling Podcast Episode #217 Miller Heiman Sales Methodology, Where Did it Go? Introducing Korn Ferry Sell with Christoffer Ellehuus, President at Korn Ferry Digital

From Loom, to Dropbox, to Grammarly, and even Calendly – there are hundreds, if not thousands, of productivity management software tools on the market to choose from. Although these tools often draw millions of free users every year – the question often becomes how do product led growth companies truly scale and become profitable sales engines? That's the topic of discussion in this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast. With our expert guest, we dive deep into the sales side of product led growth, what it means, what metrics sales leaders should be tracking, and the proven strategies to use to not just scale – but to grow efficiently and profitably as an organization. In this episode we welcome Kate Ahlering, the Chief Revenue Officer at Calendly – the modern scheduling platform for high-performing teams and individuals. Kate currently leads sales, partnerships, and revenue operations for one of the fastest growing product led growth companies in the world. Prior to joining Calendly, Kate was the Chief Sales Officer for Glassdoor, one of the world's largest jobs and recruiting sites. She led a team of 600+ globally across new business acquisition, account management, customer success & support, channel sales, and revenue operations. Reporting directly to the CEO, she was responsible for Glassdoor's go-to-market vision, strategy, and execution. Download the episode to hear the proven sales strategies Calendly and other large product led growth companies are using to drive sales. What are the challenges that sales teams are facing? With such a digital world, sales teams have had to transition rapidly to meet the modern buyer on a host of online platforms. I wanted to get Kate's perspective on what sales teams are facing right now in the post-pandemic space. Kate shares, “Now, more than 80% of transactions of the B2B buying process have some sort of digital component or online touchpoint. This has made the sales experience and expectations far more complex. I think the challenges that a lot of sales teams face are around how to interact with prospects and customers. How do you engage with your audience and bring value to them as often as you can? That's a constant question sales teams are trying to answer every day.” I've seen this too, with Vengreso, over the past two years. Instead of relying on face to face communication, our sales teams now have to figure out what is the best route to reach out to and engage with prospects. Is it by phone? Video chat? Email? Text message? Social media? These are all avenues now that we have to explore when we reach out to modern buyers. Join in the conversation with Kate to hear what other challenges she sees sales teams facing and how she recommends sales leaders help them move beyond the obstacles. How does Product Led Growth differ from Sales Led Growth? We often throw out these “buzzwords” without truly defining them. So, I wanted to spend time with Kate getting clear on the difference between product led growth (PLG) and sales led growth (SLG).  Product led growth is all about getting more users into your product to rapidly grow your user base. The focus here is on building value to get people into your product. Whereas sales led growth is just that – focused on monetizing your products or services to grow revenue. Once you've grown your product to a critical mass of users, now the conversation has to shift to getting these users to pay. At Vengreso, we experienced this transition ourselves when we made the major decision to move away from being a video sales training company to becoming a SaaS company, with the rollout of FlyMSG.io – our innovative, text expander tool for knowledge workers. It's in this transitional period that we had to focus on how to bring value to our FlyMSG users to both grow our audience base AND to convince them to upgrade to a paid subscription, to ultimately drive sales. I know Kate has had a similar experience with Calendly, so we spent some time diving into the details of how to make this transition from PLG to SLG and what that means exactly. Her insights are spot on, “With PLG, the salesperson's job has to evolve from solely focusing on outbound, prospecting strategies to instead focusing on looking at the user data for actionable trends. For example, if we see that an organization has 100 free users, then it's the salesperson's responsibility to find the key decision maker at that organization, reach out to them, and clearly convey the value in an Enterprise account.” Listen into the full conversation to hear what specific user data points Kate highly recommends that every salesperson tracks to know when and how to drive sales. What are the steps to transition from PLG to SLG? This transition often takes time and a strategic approach. For example, even though Calendly has been around for a decade, their monetization model is still in its infancy. In fact, when Kate joined Calendly, they had not yet monetized their product.  I was curious to know what steps she took to help Calendly make the transition to sales led growth to get a large portion of their free users to upgrade.  According to Kate, there are three key steps to take: Optimize inbound leads. With a robust user base, the key is to enhance their experience. Getting free users to absolutely love your product and see the immediate value in it makes it a lot easier to pitch paid upgrades. Drive value for large target accounts. To accelerate growth, it's critical to look at the data for user trends and identify those large target accounts that could convert to Enterprise sales. However, to do this well, you have to get clear on the value your product brings to not just the individual users, but to the organization as a whole. Establish a sales structure. When you focus on product growth, other key sales systems may not be in place. That's why it's important to get sales methodologies and playbooks established so you can standardize the sales process to easily track sales and success. Want to know more about making this transition? Tune into this episode to get the sales gems that Kate shares related to how she's scaling sales within Calendly. This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.  

How do you 10x your company's growth in under a year? That's a hot topic for debate, especially among software and technology companies. But, you won't have to look far to find the answer. Because whether you explore the business model of leading productivity tool companies such as Slack, Grammarly, Loom, or Calendly – one thing becomes abundantly clear. Product Lead Growth is THE way to rapidly scale your company to not only attract users by the hundred thousands but to position your business to secure funding and next-level sales. But, the larger question becomes, what's the best strategy to implement a product lead growth strategy that truly enables a company to scale and enhances the user experience to create consistent sales. That's the focus of this episode of the Modern Selling Podcast, with a CEO guest who is one of the leading experts in the industry. Jennifer Smith is the cofounder and CEO of Scribe, a modern software solution that helps to capture, document, and streamline processes in minutes. With a background in sales and marketing, having worked with McKinsey, she has helped the largest companies redefine information sharing. With a passion and gift for efficiency and productivity, Jennifer searched for a solution that would make it easier for people to share multi-step processes within teams and organizations. How do you define product lead growth? Even though product lead growth has been a buzzphrase for over a decade, how it often is defined may change depending on who you ask. I was curious to hear Jennifer's take on what product lead growth is and why it's such a powerful strategy to scale. She shares, “With product lead growth, you're focused on the end user, which is oftentimes not the buyer. It's not the person who holds the budget, instead it's the person using the product on a continuous basis who can share it with others which helps to spread the individual user base even faster.” This is such an important distinction that has even powered the rapid growth of our productivity tool, FlyMSG.io. We've gone from a few beta users to over 5,000 active users in a little over a year with no marketing. That's the power that a compelling product can have in driving adoption and quickly positioning a tool as a must-use across a host of different industries. If you have a product and you're not at least tripling the size of your user base every three to six months, then you'll want to download this episode and listen carefully to the growth strategies Jennifer outlines. How does product lead growth really drive sales? It's clear that product lead growth does just that… leverage your product to grow your user base. However, unless a monetization strategy is used, having a large user base won't translate into overall sales growth for the organization. With FlyMSG.io, our text expander and personal writing assistant, we've been able to offer upgrades for paid users as well as enterprise contracts to generate consistent (and sizable) revenue from those who use our tool. But, I wanted to hear the strategies that Jennifer uses to convert Scribe users into long-term and loyal customers. She shares, “It's one thing to see your user base grow exponentially, but then the challenge is, you have to shift your focus from user growth to sales growth. In other words, how do you turn an individual user into a bigger contract or get free users to want to swipe their credit card. For us, we looked at our user data. What companies were users coming from? Where were our Scribes being shared? How could we find large groups of individual users that made it worth us reaching out to their companies to pitch an enterprise solution?” This is a brilliant strategy and one we've used at Vengreso with great success as well. In fact, in one day alone we saw over 20 free users from a single online pharmacy sign up for FlyMSG.io. That told us immediately that there was a potential sales opportunity there to create a corporate account. Listen into the conversation to see what other “signs” you should be looking out for when trying to monetize a product lead growth strategy. What specific strategies turn users into buyers? It's one thing to build a product, but it's another to create a product that users want to use and will pay for. Jennifer is the expert in this field and was clear on how she was able to position Scribe to quickly scale users and sales. She outlines three specific strategies: Build a magical product – your product should be magnetic and have instant value to your users. The faster you can get them using your product, the easier it will be to convert them into a paying customer. Create viral sharing loops – the key in product lead growth is to generate immediate sharing of the tool. For Scribe, a user creates a Scribe that is then easily shared with others via a link or through integration. The more sharing that takes place, the more eyes are placed on the tool and its usefulness – compounding the user growth over time. Give value away as often as possible – a product lead growth strategy only works if people see value in what you're offering and want to use it. The best way to do that is to get people into the tool as quickly as possible, with a low barrier to entry, and no user friction. Want more product lead growth strategies and how you can use them to drive sales? Tune into the full conversation with Jennifer and get ready to take notes! And, if you want to try Scribe out for free, head over to: https://scribehow.com/home and use promo code: ModernSelling to experience this robust tool. And, while you're at it, make sure to download FlyMSG.io so you can type less and do more! This episode of the Modern Selling Podcast is brought to you by Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry transforms sales teams using their world-class Miller Heiman, methodology, employee assessments, benchmarking and talent advisor capabilities to increase win rates and quota attainment. Korn Ferry offers Korn Ferry Sell, a sales effectiveness app available in App Exchange and app source that helps your sales team develop and replicate powerful sales strategies that help sellers win more deals and crush their quotas. Learn more at kornferry.com/saleseffectiveness.

Alice Heiman is the Founder of Alice Heiman LLC, a Sales consultancy since 1997. Before that, she worked for her parents at the famous Sales training company, Miller Heiman. Alice helps companies achieve MLG via proper, modern, non-spam Sales. She is the host of the show “Sales Talk for CEOs” Alice dons B2B buyers' flip flops to share buying preferences for Marketing + Sales: ✅aware of vendors via peers/network/referrals/WOM/influencers via content/social/communities (tks to Marketing + Marketing's influence on peers) ✅learn about/try/buy vendors via peers and website (tks to Marketing) w/OPTION for Sales to help to a smaller extent ❌Turn off + tune out: telemarketing, email spam, LinkedIn spam, bribery via gift cards (Sales Development)

Alice Heiman is internationally known for her expertise in elevating sales to increase the valuation for companies with a B2B sale that have exceptional growth potential. Spending her time strategizing with CEOs, company leaders, and their sales leadership to build the strategies that find new business and grow existing accounts is her passion. She's the host of the popular podcast, Sales Talk for CEOs, where she interviews different CEOs and they share how they've built up their organizations while discussing their challenges and predictions for the future. Alice dedicates time to local entrepreneurs by teaching at the University of Nevada in the entrepreneurship minor, which she helped inspire. Highlights Who is Alice Heiman? - 0:30 The journey to professional sales. - 3:51 The challenge of interacting with people in professional sales. - 8:17 What is golden silence? - 10:05 Experience working at Miller Heiman. - 14:52 How to win friends and influence people. - 22:54 The EOS system. - 25:51 Sales Talk for CEOs: How they are doing for professional sales. - 27:04 Ask yourself: What have we done today to make it easier to be our customer and harder to be our competitor? - 34:26 Advice for CEOs. - 34:40 How to learn more or engage with Alice. - 38:56 Episode Resources How to Win Friends & Influence People To Sell Is Human Traction Connect with Mark Cox https://www.inthefunnel.com/ https://ca.linkedin.com/in/markandrewcox https://www.facebook.com/inthefunnel Connect with Alice Heiman https://aliceheiman.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman Sales Talk for CEOs Podcast 

Would you buy from a company you don't trust on a personal level? We wouldn't either. Every member of your organization that interacts with the customer has the chance to make or break a sale. Recognizing this power can help enable your sales team by removing any pain points along the customer journey. On this episode of The Sales Engagement podcast, we talk with Vince Maltese, Head of Sales Enablement at Accelya. He joins the show to talk all about: - Enablement as the ethos of the company - Company mistakes around enablement & advice on how to improve - Understanding the Miller Heiman methodology - The customer journey and post-pandemic changes - Building out a company's enablement division For more engaging sales conversations, subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or on our website. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for Sales Engagement in your favorite podcast player.

HIGHLIGHTS02:58 Working in Miller Heiman and the lack of succession planning07:51 Not wanting to run the company anymore: An indicator to sell or plan succession10:30 Miller Heiman sales training is for companies with complex sale18:08 Case study: $12M software company complex sale25:32 CEO role in sales: Carrying the vision and meeting with the proper people31:07 Sales playbooks: What kinds of salespeople do you need? How to coach? 37:41 How to connect with AliceQUOTES07:31 "Do I know how to run a $20 million company? And so I love that they were always growing and learning and asking themselves those hard questions because I think it's true about founders. You get to a point where your company outgrows."10:51 "In a complex sale, you have a very long sales cycle for many reasons. There's multiple people involved on the buyer's side, multiple people on the seller side. There's high dollar stakes. There's lots of competitors. There's technical complexities, integration complexities."26:34 "That role of building out the sales organization and being involved in it, even when there's a Director of sales, a VP of sales, or even a chief revenue officer at that point, the CEO still has a role in carrying that vision forward."29:56 "If the CEO can provide some evangelism and some thought leadership by video, on events, be a panel member on a panel, speak at a summit, post on LinkedIn, any of those kinds of things is going to draw people to your company because people buy from people, not companies." 36:02 "It's ever evolving. Playbooks are not static. Playbook should always be updated as needed. And so we develop them with the real humans that are doing the jobs, and then we review them, and we use them, and we continue to update them as needed."To learn more about Alice, you can check out the links below.Website - https://aliceheiman.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, review and share with a friend who would benefit from the message. If you're interested in picking up a copy of Jonathan Goldhill's book, Disruptive Successor, go to the website at www.DisruptiveSuccessor.com.

How can you level-up on value creation if you don't have a sales leader showing you the way? What about building your commercial acumen? Or sharpening your outbound calls? With all of the tech available today, self-coaching is a more accessible and powerful tool than ever. All you need is to define what "quality" looks like and take the time to reflect. This week Luigi is joined by David Pearson who started his career at Miller Heiman. These days he is CEO at Level Five Selling, and a sales coaching evangelist. Luigi and David chat about the opportunity that reflection creates at every stage of your career, whether you have a coach, are a coach, or are flying solo. Connect with David on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpearson72/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidpearson72/) or by phone +1 630 808 6516. The Level Five Selling book trilogy can be found https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08V8D84LN?searchxofy=true&binding=kindle_edition&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_tkin&qid=1633918171&sr=8-2 (on Amazon). Connect with Luigi https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigiprestinenzi/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/luigiprestinenzi/) Find RingDNA here https://www.ringdna.com/ (https://www.ringdna.com/) To help you grow your pipeline check out our Create Pipeline Program https://www.salesiqglobal.com/courses/create-pipeline (https://www.salesiqglobal.com/courses/create-pipeline)

If you are in sales, you have heard of Miller Heiman. And you've probably heard of Alice Heiman, the daughter of Stephen Heiman, who helped her father's business, but then ventured out on her own over 20 years ago. Today, Alice is the Founder and Chief Sales Energizer of her own firm, Alice Heiman, LLC, guiding and coaching CEOs and sales leaders to develop winning strategies to drive revenue growth.  Alice is a long time leader and expert in the sales world as a strategist, speaker, coach, advisor, and instructor. She is also a huge advocate and supporter of giving back to the community and to helping elevate other women professionals.  In this episode of The Revenue Engine Podcast, Alice shares what CEOs should be doing to build winning sales organizations, how to approach revenue with the customer in mind, and so much more! Connect with Alicehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/) Check out Alice's website! https://aliceheiman.com/ (https://aliceheiman.com/) Connect with Rosalyn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosalyn-santa-elena/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosalyn-santa-elena/) Thanks to Sales IQ Global https://salesiqglobal.com/ (https://salesiqglobal.com/) for powering the Revenue Engine.

Sales coaching is critical to your organization's success. These days, businesses are focused more and more on learning and developing frameworks for sales enablement to support coaching. So, what's all the hype about sales coaching anyway – and why is it getting so much attention? I asked Nicholas Gregory, a seasoned, globally recognized sales enablement leader with 13 years of sales and sales enablement strategy development experience, about his thoughts. Nick is currently the Vice President of Global Sales Enablement at Korbyt, a workplace experience technology company. He has held global and regional sales enablement roles at technology organizations such as Veritas, Symantec, Sabre, and Automation Anywhere. Check out today's show, where Nicholas gives his unique perspective, drawing from years of deploying enablement on an international scale to help you coach your sellers to the next level. More Organizations Are Giving Attention to Sales Coaching My success in sales is directly attributed to coaching that I received when starting in the position of what we now call a sales development representative (formerly known as Telemarketer). As a result of a dedicated coaching plan I earned the opportunity to move to an account executive role in just 1.5 years. I asked Nicholas why he thinks sales coaching is necessary and why more organizations are giving it more attention these days. The first is data, which highlights the “why” behind the importance of coaching. With so much information available at our sellers fingertips and the proliferation of sales tools, a huge spotlight has been put on gaps in the coaching process, to help sellers weed through both data and tech. Nicholas stresses one point in particular, “One data point highlights why we should coach, and it shows that implementing a consistent coaching framework can increase rates on the sales forecast opportunities by nearly 13%.” Secondly, sales is an ever-changing profession. With the rapid change in the B2B sales environment (almost daily), expectations for sales professionals are continually changing. There are more distractions now and the pandemic has exposed those gaps. Nick states, “We concentrate investment on the sales side, not on the leader side.” What is Sales Coaching? What hasn't changed is the fact that we still buy and sell. Prospecting has, however, changed quite a bit in recent years. Ask any sales leader over 45, and their knowledge on how to engage the modern buyer through modern selling techniques is lacking. The problem here isn't that they aren't doing it so much that they didn't know how - they weren't trained or retrained to address modern-day prospecting. “Coaching improves both sales behaviors and results through constructive feedback and recognition,” Nicholas says.  “One of the key objectives,” he explains, “is to improve morale and sales skills rather than behaviors, and to build sales rep trust.” The Barriers to Sales Coaching One of the most significant barriers we face in the pandemic is that our people are still remote. Nicholas agrees that the current remote office atmosphere is the tip of the spear when it comes to barriers in coaching. “If you weren't successful in leading into the pandemic, it's going to be hard to fill that gap and advance quickly,” he says. “It's about adapting to and setting the expectations for coaching via the current remote sales tools available to coach in the remote environment.” Coaching is not about “calling people out.” It's about having good intentions and empathy. Technology and Methodology that Supports Healthy Coaching It's essential to provide a platform and methodology to allow coaching to permeate across the organization.  He specifies that it's still crucial to establish coaching methodology as part of your sales culture in the virtual environment. The coaching sales methodology of choice for Nick?  Miller Heiman's professional sales coaching. My personal choice for sales coaching technology? Gong.io is the one we know, love, and trust! Tune in to the show and hear how I put myself on the hot seat when it comes to creating a sales coaching culture with Nicholas. How To Deploy a Sales Coaching Strategy Nicholas gives me two ways of how an organization can bring coaching into their organizations. “One is if your organization and your team are fortunate enough to have the budget and time to go out and purchase coaching framework, IP, training, and consulting… then that would be the ideal state,” Nick explains. Conversely, Nick says that you can start small. You can use tried and trustworthy consulting firms that bring proven methodologies and focus on the imperative and build the framework up, then continue to build out from your small pilot group.  Be sure to listen to the entire episode of Nick's tips on deploying coaching in an organization successfully and how critical it is to succeed in the modern sales world. 

Rich's sales ethics were forged early: two years as a United Methodist pastor followed by 19 years at IBM in sales and marketing leadership roles rising to be a Business Unit Executive. He practiced and honed his skills as a Sales VP in several technology firms prior to joining Miller Heiman for 10 years as Sales VP and Managing Director of the Channel Sales practice where he “wrote the book” on direct and channel sales, The Hybrid Sales Channel. Rich is currently Channel Chief and Head of Strategy for ScaleX.ai, an AI for Sales technology firm HQ in Denver.If you'd like to learn more about working with Lisa and her team directly, go to lisawilliamsco.com and learn how to hire yourself!

Liz Heiman is the founder and CEO of Regarding Sales, a sales training firm focused on helping founders create clear sales strategy. She spent a portion of her career leading the APAC region for Miller-Heiman consulting and took that experience into a career as an entrepreneur.

Mark Boundy is a Business builder, Sales leader, author, coach, consultant, teacher, Chief Clarity Officer. Mark Boundy has grown businesses in a variety of industries by virtue of his relentless focus on uncovering customer value and delivering high-value results.While at W.L. Gore & Associates, Mark began weaving a focus on customer value into Miller Heiman's complex selling methodologies. This combination grew one of that company's most competition-threatened products by twenty percent/year every year while increasing margins and profits.Then, at Lucent Technologies, Mark applied his customer-value approach; pivoting the world's first carrier-class VoIP product away from a cost-saving to a platform for delivering applications which had never existed: virtual call centers, virtual office presence — even the first product roadmap for Unified Communications platforms, and being awarded a patent for a multimedia conferencing.Switching to Commercial Finance, he ultimately found his way to GE Capital.  Instead of simply selling money–the ultimate commodity, Mark learned each customer's business, in order to deliver unique value to each, with decidedly non-commodity pricing. Mark's client portfolio was in the top 5% in top-line revenue, while also in the top 5% for profitability.You can learn more and reach out to Mark Boundy on his website at https://boundyconsulting.com/.You can also get a copy of Mark's book called the Radical Value at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1733996303/.Join the Sales Hustle Community! Text “Hustle” to 424-401-9300!If you're listening to the Sales Hustle podcast, please subscribe, share, and we're listening for your feedback. Also, if you are a sales professional looking to take your sales career to the next level, please visit us at https://salescast.co/ and set a time with Collin and co-founder Chris.Please make sure to rate and review the show on Apple.

In this episode of the Social Lights Podcast, podcast host and https://www.socialmediology.com.au/ (Social Mediology) founder Kate vanderVoort chats with Ian Moyse, Chief Revenue Officer at https://www.oneupsales.co.uk/ (OneUp Sales), and a long-time sales leader. He was awarded the accolade of UK Sales Director of the year by BESMA (British Excellence in Sales Management Awards) and in 2019 and 2020 was listed in the top 50 Sales Keynote speakers by Top Sales World. Ian has built many large communities on social media and is a social influencer for SAP, Oracle, Huawei, Commvault and more. About Ian With a passion for computing since the age of 14, Ian found himself falling into sales at the age of 20 where he embraced sales as a skilled profession and continued to learn. He developed a reputation for being competitive by nature and enjoyed exceeding customer expectations. Ian quickly moved from a sales role to a management role at age 23, where he honed his skills and built committed teams for over 10 years to become a sales leader. Ian is proud of the value he delivers, and of the individuals he has mentored over the years to achieve success. He is an energetic, conscientious, and ambitious sales leader in the Cloud industry. Having advised many firms on improving performance through the aggregation of marginal gains. Now with over 30 years of successful sales leadership, Ian has built a solid reputation as a powerhouse influencer in the cloud and software sales/marketing industry. With a track record of rapidly scaling sales, creating and managing high performing sales teams, including identifying, evaluating, and establishing new markets. Widely published and often interviewed, Ian is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and blogger for major cloud computing companies including Oracle, SAP, SAGE, HP, IBM, Huawei, Commvault, Equinix, CloudTech. Maximiser, Miller Heiman and more. Ian is often requested by 3rd party vendors and resellers to keynote speak on Cloud, GDPR, Transformational Change, Sales Leadership, Social Selling and Personal Branding as a keynote to their customer and staff events. Ian's deep knowledge of indirect channel sales having created strong tier 1, tier 2, OEM and Alliances revenue generating eco-systems. Ian has experience of wide range of sales disciplines - building direct, indirect and inside sales teams across UK, EMEA and USA. BIG IDEA 1 “The brand of the organisation rides off the opportunity that comes with your personal brand.” (5:34) Ian discusses how leveraging his own personal brand and reach Increases both the intrinsic value for the individual, and helps grow the business through representation. Techniques such as social selling and appearing on forums such as blogs, podcasts, panels, and events become mutually beneficial. Through doing so, the brand of the organisation benefits from the opportunities that arise from building his own personal brand, and rides off the credibility he has earned through things he has done prior to joining the organisation. Your personal brand is yours, it goes with you from organisation to organisation. BIG IDEA 2 “It's gotta be something you're passionate about, interested about and bring value to” (14:40) Ian provides insights on starting a group. You have to be knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. People will follow someone who is an expert in the field that is relevant to the subject. You don't start a group where there is no context as being a thought leader in that space, but you can become a thought leader by creating a group on a subject that you are passionate about, and creating the content that goes with it. People will join for the content, and the community will grow from the learning and insights from others that join the group. BIG IDEA 3 “You've gotta be authentic, if you're posting about stuff that I genuinely comment on and speak about, I can not only like your content, I can add an authentic comment.” (26:28)...

Alice Heiman is one of the most sought after entrepreneur sales coaches who Founded and is Chief Sales Officer of Alice Heiman, LLC. It is where she extensively demonstrates the direct correlation between sales performance and a leader’s mindset as she firmly believes and practices that a sales leader’s approach to their sales team immediately and dramatically determines the sales results. Alice has spent over 20 years training sales professionals all over the US on a variety of skills, strategies, and tactics. Despite the fact that sales wasn’t the first choice for her career path, she still found her way in establishing her name in the industry that’s separate from her father, Miller Heiman who owns Miller Heiman Group - one of the most recognized pioneering sales training service providers in the US. Further proving that her talents are deeply rooted into her genes, Alice is a thought leader who is always incorporating the newest research and best practices into her sales programs which are proven and tested to master the complexities of sales and accelerate results. From generating leads, handling objections, closing deals, to retaining customers and getting a consistent flow of referrals, she’s an expert in simplifying the sales process that would fit the company’s culture. Alice will be launching her own podcast that features CEOs of mature companies that are within the $10 - 100 Million range as they talk about how they built their organizations and the things they do to keep their sales in a constant progression. Found out more when you visit her website at https://aliceheiman.com.Join the Sales Hustle Community! Text “Hustle” to 424-401-9300!If you’re listening to the Sales Hustle podcast, please subscribe, share, and we’re listening for your feedback. If you are a sales professional looking to take your sales career to the next level, please visit us at https://salescast.co/ and set a time with Collin and co-founder Chris.Please make sure to rate and review the show on Apple.

With so many sales methodologies available, sales leaders ask themselves how they can pick one and how they can actually implement it and drive adoption among their sales team. My guest in this episode of The Modern Selling Podcast is a sales strategy and methodology enthusiast who has great insights about this topic. Paul Curto is the Head of Global Sales Methodologies at Juniper Networks. He is focused on accelerating the performance of Juniper Networks’ sellers, both direct and indirect. Paul develops and delivers a holistic framework for consistently improving the experience and capabilities of all of Juniper’s customer-facing roles from onboarding through ongoing development and seller excellence and skills.  Paul has a special passion for sales methodologies as applied in a consistent way to improving sales outcomes, as well as maximizing employee productivity, health, and impact. Listen to this episode to learn from Paul about implementing a winning sales methodology in your organization. Aren’t All Methodologies Similar? The short answer is that they all have similarities but also differences. Paul was trained in the Miller Heiman methodology, but when he came to Juniper he had to learn the MEDDICC methodology. What he found is that they had many similarities. “One example of the alignment I found,” Paul says, “was that the economic buyer in both methodologies has exactly the same definition: the ultimate authority to buy in a particular sale.” Another example is the champion, which is the first C in MEDDICC, and who is basically the same as the coach in Miller Heiman, a person who you have credibility with and who has a lot of influence and control. They can even be the decision-maker that the economic buyer puts in charge of making the decision or the recommendation.  Listen to the whole episode for Paul’s insights about the alignment between these two sales methodologies. What about the differences? “One thing I found that Miller Heiman does very well that I don't see really called out in MEDDICC is the use of the red flags,” Paul says. “Most sales professionals like feeling good about the deal. They prefer to ignore these red flags or just brush them under the carpet. But that is not conducive to strong strategies. We're trying to bring out the real vulnerabilities that we have that could actually kill us in this deal. Let's highlight those and let's come up with very strong actions that help us counter those. But we've got to be open, honest and transparent with ourselves with regard to our true position with the customer.” The minimization or elimination of a red flag by means of strong smart actions is how you want to play the game of sales to win. Choosing the Right Sales Methodology As a sales leader, you might be thinking about picking a sales methodology for your organization to really focus on. How do you decide which one is the right methodology? Paul thinks you can make almost any methodology work. “I think familiarity and leadership support is one of the first keys to selecting the right methodology. And once it's selected, you've got to be able to stick with it and reinforce it at every level.” When you're selecting a methodology, think about the accountability you need to that process. It’s very important to have a common language and a repeatable sales process in a sales system that you can rely on to improve your odds of winning deals. “Once it becomes pervasive, once it becomes the common language throughout the sales organization, it really helps us get together and strategize together on how to win important deals and it also becomes the glue between different types of seller personas across the organization.” Listen to learn how they applied a common language across Juniper Networks for the various seller personas who engage at different stages of the sales cycle. Implementing the Methodology What does a successful sales methodology implementation look like? Paul says it's always a work in progress. “In my experience, it's like you're aiming for perfection, but you'll never really get there.” A successful implementation occurs when you have widespread adoption, not because you're forcing everyone to be compliant, but because the leadership team believes it leads to better results. This means that frontline and top leadership are managing the right sales activities that are going to drive the sales outcomes and objectives. “I think we need to start with the managers,” Paul says. “The managers need to feel confident and capable with any new methodology that you're trying to roll out. They have to see the value in doing it because they don't want to feel like it's a complete waste of their time or it's just paperwork to fill out, like a form.” Sales managers also need to be better coaches, teaching the methodology to their reps. “Practice makes perfect. So for better performance, you've got to be practicing all the time. If the sales takes training but their manager is not going to use it for forecasting, for deal inspection, for coaching, then the training just becomes an event and it's unlikely to be used ever again.” Managers must make sales coaching part of their DNA as an organization, analyzing deals with data, and walking reps through what they have done well and what they are missing.  For example, one tactic we have implemented at Vengreso to make sure reps implement their training is adding a few required fields to the CRM, as described in our sales tools ROI blog post. Listen to our conversation to learn how Juniper has implemented their sales methodology so it becomes part of their DNA (hint: it involves their playbooks and a cultural and mindset shift). Finally, Paul mentions that although they use MEDDICC at Juniper, they are also looking at other methodologies for prospecting, negotiation, virtual selling, and social selling. 

Today Brad speaks with Timothy Rethlake, Vice President of Trade Marketing & Sales Training at Hearth & Home Technologies, the world's leading producer and installer of hearth products. Its product line includes a full array of gas, electric, and wood burning fireplaces, inserts, stoves, mantels, and more.Listen in as Timothy discusses why high-integrity sales are essential to the lifeblood of any business and why many sales onboarding programs are actually setting salespeople up to fail. He also explains why ambiverts make the best salespeople and why he teaches his salespeople to be “lazy”.Timothy then touches on his view on organizational leadership, speaking on how to discover what motivates each individual member on your team and the crucial difference between a big ego and a strong ego and why the latter is a key trait of great leaders.Finally, Timothy shares how Hearth & Home Technologies creates lifestyle solutions by designing fireplaces that “give a robust, visually-appealing flame” while letting clients have full control over the placement of the heat.Visit Our Sponsors:Sub Zero-Wolf, & CovePella Windows & DoorsTopics Discussed: [02:35] What is “high-integrity sales”?[11:40] How anybody can become a better salesperson15:05 Educating sales team to become better listeners[23:03] What happens if the salesperson does not really believe in the product[26:15] Turn your clients into your assistant salespeople[33:03] Motivating salespeople beyond financial incentives[44:32] The Franklin Covey and Miller Heiman process[48:05] How to provide continuing education to your salespeople[52:17] Technologies that Timothy is currently excited about[1:08:59] How Hearth & Home Technologies designs their fireplacesConnect with Guest:Hearth & Home Technologies WebsiteTim Rethlake on LinkedInConnect with Brad Leavitt: WebsiteInstagram Facebook Houzz PinterestYouTube Key Quotes from Episode:Someone that has high-integrity is a whole person—the inside matches the outside.Building trust with customers is really simple: You do what you say you're going to do every time over time. I didn't say it was easy. It's just simple.Often, if the expectation is not met, it's because the expectation was not set or clearly defined.There's a one-second difference between make the call and take the call. [...] Get ahead of it. Be proactive when things do go south.We're all in sales to some degree. It's just that not all of us do it professionally or have it on our business card.A lot of sales onboarding programs set salespeople up to fail. We set them up to go out talking, not to go out listening.Take the blame, give the credit, always, everyday.Often, the profession picks the person rather than the person picking the profession.

Rich Blakeman, CRO & Head of Strategy at ScaleX.ai, has spent his life in tech, leading global teams in Channel, Alliance, and Direct Sales- and leading sales transformations for some of the world's greatest companies during 10 years as Sales VP for Miller Heiman.  Rich started his professional career as a United Methodist pastor, and moved on to spend 19 years with IBM in sales and marketing leadership roles.  Rich says, we live in a human world where integrity, experience, and relationships matter. In this episode, Rich explains that Sales is about how the client wants to buy not about how you want to sell, big concepts guide and keep everybody aligned, and not worrying about things you can't control. Rich emphasizes that content is everything, the result is defined on the outcome for others.  Listen to Rich to see for yourself how he creates an outcome for others, every time.   Secrets to Win Big with Arjun Sen brings you leaders from around the world and all walks of life. 

I grew up in a small town in Monterey County with my parents and two older sisters all choosing a career in teaching. I knew that wasn't my route. After graduating with a double degree in psychology and Spanish I followed the psychology path for a few years but high recidivism and a model where I didn't get compensated for all I put in to the job didn't fit me. Luckily I had a seasoned businessman uncle that guided me through the beginnings of a career in sales and business. Years later this is what I can show for myself:     I've exceeded annual quota 13 of my 16 years in sales. Nationally recognized sales entrepreneur in Yahoo! Finance and Digital Journal. Award winning leadership oriented sales professional - background features more than 15+ years of exceptional performance in progressively responsible roles in sales and sales leadership. Multi methodology model expert (Challenger, Sandler, Miller Heiman, etc) but especially appreciate the power of mastering the psychology of sales. Specialties: Sales Process, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Collaboration Software, Enterprise Class Video and Collaboration, Account Based Marketing, Channel Sales Software, Personalization, and Rescue Dog Network. I was the number one performer while working at Salesforce, experiencing 4 startups that were acquired by Cisco, Experian, McDonald's, and AOL. I've hired and fired and exceeded annual quotas up to $2.5M. I'm an Enterprise seller with zero copy-paste component in my sales process. I also know all sides of the business having created a successful one spanning 3 years. I have experience effectively displacing legacy systems and maintaining Forrester quadrant leader status. This gives me pride and assists in interview processes but most important are authenticity, humility, and respect. No one likes a big ego selling them a business sales solution for 6-9 months. My passion is to help address your business needs. I thrive on showing businesses how they can maximize their results and achieve quantum leaps, easier and faster than ever before. This is what I bring to the table. Extra tidbits: I've traveled to 40 countries I motorcycled through China, Vietnam, and Australia alone after getting my motorcycle license 24 hours before getting on the plane I fell down an 8 story chimney I was 4th in the state of California for the 1500 meters I'm an amateur stand-up comedian and was an amateur hip hop freestyle artist I've gone on 4 bicycle tours with my father totaling 6,000 miles. I lived in Juneau Alaska to work I lived in Costa during high school living with a Costa Rican family and going to Costa Rican high school I lived in Spain in college attending a Spanish university.   Contact Eric: Website Apple Podcast Spotify Podcast YouTube Channel LinkedIn  

Boundy has grown businesses in a variety of industries by virtue of his relentless focus on uncovering customer value and delivering high-value results.While at W.L. Gore & Associates, Mark began weaving a focus on customer value into Miller Heiman’s complex selling methodologies. This combination grew one of that company’s most competition-threatened products by twenty percent/year…every year…while increasing margins and profits. At Lucent Technologies, Mark applied his customer-value approach; pivoting the world’s first carrier-class VoIP product away from a cost-saving to a platform for delivering applications which had never existed: virtual call centers, virtual office presence — even the first product roadmap for Unified Communications platforms, and being awarded a patent for a multimedia conferencing. Switching to Commercial Finance, he ultimately found his way to GE Capital. Instead of simply selling money–the ultimate commodity, Mark learned each customer’s businesses, in order to deliver unique value to each, with decidedly non-commodity pricing. Mark’s client portfolio was in the top 5% in top-line revenue, while also in the top 5% for profitability.   Links for show notes: www.boundyconsulting.com   Mark Boundy’s Youtube video channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5-8m00Dx86FTBu9lTEYIGQ?view_as=subscriber   https://www.linkedin.com/in/markboundy/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final of three shows the dynamic duo wrap up on The New Strategic Selling by Miller Heiman. A New Format! After 113 shows MP and JG return . The Mike Parry and Alan Brazil of sales recruitment have decided to invite guest panelists on to book club to share some of their real life sales experiences. Paul O'Sullivan and Steve Lowndes join the show for the next few weeks as we discuss the legendary book that is the new strategic selling by Miller Heiman.

Part 2 of our three show discussion of the new strategic selling by miller Heiman A New Format! After 113 shows MP and JG return . The Mike Parry and Alan Brazil of sales recruitment have decided to invite guest panelists on to book club to share some of their real life sales experiences. Paul O'Sullivan and Steve Lowndes join the show for the next few weeks as we discuss the legendary book that is the new strategic selling by Miller Heiman.

New Sales Book ! A New Format! After 113 shows MP and JG return . The Mike Parry and Alan Brazil of sales recruitment have decided to invite guest panelists on to book club to share some of their real life sales experiences. Paul O'Sullivan and Steve Lowndes join the show for the next few weeks as we discuss the legendary book that is the new strategic selling by Miller Heiman.

Sam Reese is the CEO to CEO's of mid sized and fast growing organisations at Vistage the largest CEO & business owner executive coaching business globally. Sam brings over 25 years of experience leading and advising senior leaders in complex organisations. As Chief Executive Officer of Miller Heiman, Inc., he implemented an effective international strategy and redesigned the business model to position the company as a brand leader in executive development. The independent distribution model he and his team built became a model for other companies to follow and contributed greatly to outstanding customer experiences and extremely high retention rates. Sam also previously held senior positions at Corporate Express (now owned by Staples), Kinko's, Inc. and British Telecom.We discussed how the world has changed for CEO's, what they are thinking about, what they should be thinking about and how to fast track change inside your organisation. We also discussed leadership and the two critical things Sam believes CEO's and business owners need to prepare for to really thrive in 2021 and beyond. It's lively and fun and full of insight you won't read about online. You can find out more about Vistage at Vistage.com or The Executive Connection in Australia and New Zealand.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Since 2012, Sarah Hinchliffe has been helping clients win more business by improving the quality and professionalism of their sales and bidding skills. She works with large, medium and small businesses with a big focus on Public Sector tenders.Sarah’s work today is built on a successful thirty-year career selling in the technology industry where she worked her way up from a rookie to a director. During that time, she was formally trained in key sales methodologies, including SPIN, Miller Heiman, Strategic Selling and Solution Selling. She developed an affinity with bidding – it plays to her strengths as a storyteller, an organiser and a timekeeper. Attending the Shipley bid management course in 2009 ignited her determination to switch careers and she has been a certified Shipley trainer and consultant since 2012. Sarah regularly writes articles for professional sales and bid publications including APMP presentations.In her spare time, she works hard on her home and garden – all forms of design being a big passion. She stays fit and enjoys own home-cooked food and good wine in the company of her super husband and her handsome lurcher.

The term "account-based marketing" gets tossed around a lot. Here's how top brands are really using ABM to get better marketing results. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, B2B Fusion founder Jon Russo explains what account-based marketing is, and breaks down the strategies that top brands are using to penetrate target accounts, get meetings, and drive leads and sales. From researching your ideal customer profile, to building your tech stack and using direct mail to get meetings, Jon gets into plenty of detail about what is and is not working with ABM today. Jon's agency works with industry-leading brands like Level 3, Thompson Reuters and Blackboard. Check out the episode, or read the show notes, to learn exactly what he is seeing get results. Resources from this episode: Visit the B2B Fusion website Connect with Jon on LinkedIn Transcript Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth. And this week, my guest is Jon Russo, who is the COO and founder of B2B Fusion. Welcome Jon. Jon (00:20): Hello, Kathleen. Thanks for having me. Kathleen (00:23): Welcome to the podcast. I am excited to dig into some nerdy marketing topics with you. You know, and especially because we have a particularly interesting topic, I think in a time like this with COVID, which is account based marketing. But before we start talking marketing, can you talk a little bit about your story? You know, your background, how you came to be doing what you're doing now, what and what B2B Fusion is? Jon (00:52): Sure thing, Kathleen, and thanks for having me. I know we've been trying to get this on the calendar and greatly appreciate kind of us getting together here. So, great news. Yeah, my story. Look, that's my favorite topic. We could talk about me all day long, but I've been head of marketing or what they now call chief marketing officer for 10 years in public and private companies. And that was in Silicon Valley, New York city in Luxembourg. So I've seen kind of every iteration of B2B marketing in smaller companies, as well as large companies in that process and how I kinda got to where I am today. One of those CMOs assignments. I remember the emotion that I felt as a head of marketing, having to account for my function. And this was probably close to 10 years ago where I distinctly remember the best practice kind of companies that are out there that are professing the funnels and funnel shapes and definitions. Jon (01:52): And then at that time marketing automation was new. And so one of my challenges as head of marketing was I was trying to take this best practice theory and be able to articulate to the CEO and the board members, what my impact was to the business. And to my surprise, Kathleen, what I found out was I did a, with the help of a, my 22 year old sales operations assistant, who now currently works for me a little bit older now, but at that time he was fresh out of school and we were in Excel putting together marketing impact. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. I'm spending all this money on marketing automation. I'm spending all this money on best practice investments. And I can't get these two things to work and then show it to my board of directors and compounding. Jon (02:41): That was the fact that when we were producing this information, I was literally getting it in real time. So I was basically getting the information the day before a board meeting and racing it to my board of directors. And to my surprise at the time my border directors were like, wow, we never see marketing and actually measured. We've never seen anybody take an interest in this. And I remember coming home that night and sharing that with my wife saying, you know, I can't believe that this, these esteemed board of directors have never seen marketing measurement before, and they are top, top notch VCs. And that's when she said to me, I think you have a business there. And of course, like all men, I'm very slow to learn that. So she said, I think you've got a business there. You should really go after kind of the marketing measurement side. Jon (03:29): And that began my journey a little over nine years ago with B2B Fusion. And really we, we formed an agency that's at that nexus of systems and strategy to get the best measurement. And it's morphed a little bit since that initial vision, but that was kind of how I got to this point in time. I basically thought, well, I could become a CMO or a head of marketing for our 11th year in a row, or I could help other marketers on their journey to be more effective. And I find a lot more passionate in that, quite frankly right now. Maybe it's just where I am in terms of where I'm at in my career. I'd rather see others succeed and help them on the journey because it's not an easy journey for anyone. So that's a very long winded answer as to how we got to this point. Kathleen (04:18): You know, it's interesting listening to you talk about that. There are two aspects of it that really resonated with me. One is when you talked about the emotion involved and having to kind of justify your existence as a marketer and I think anybody listening I'm sure can relate to that because, you know, we get into such technical details and weeds. And it's funny, cause I literally came to record this episode from a meeting with my company sales team, where they were asking about this and, you know, thank God I can pull up my marketing automation platform. And today the tools have come so far. That was the other thing I was going to say really resonated with me was, you know, I owned an agency back around the same time that you were getting started and, and it was a completely different world back then, as far as our ability to track and report. And now, now it's almost like we have too many tools and that's the problem. The bigger problem is figuring out which one to use and how to like how to really use, fully get use out of it. Cause there's just so much available to us. And so the world has changed so much for marketers. So I think it's really neat that that's what you focus on. Every marketer needs needs somebody like that, kind of looking over their shoulder and helping them. Jon (05:35): Yeah. And you know, we're, we're on the Budweiser hot seat here in terms of performance, right, as marketers. And it may not seem that way. No one ever tells you that as a marketer, you just kind of discover it. So and especially as a head of marketing, your shelf, life is not that long. So you better be putting points on that scoreboard quickly. And it takes a village to get the right business processes, the right measurement, the right systems in place. And to your point, now we have 7,000 MarTech choices out there. 10 years ago, it was maybe in the hundreds. So it is exploded. And I think that's kind of where our direction for my agency kind of morphed was we broadly now see two major issues. One is how can we grow faster with this new technology and how do we get the most ROI out of the investments, whether it's measurement or otherwise. Jon (06:35): And sometimes measurement is a distinct question that comes up in and of itself. But those are kind of like the categories now that we're finding most companies asking about in those first two categories, they kind of sorta existed. Like the MarTech really didn't exist at all. But the, the growth one people kind of thought about it, but they're thinking about it a whole lot more, especially post COVID. So those are the three buckets that I'd say today. I think we broadened our lens from that emotion that I felt a few years ago. Because of exactly what you said, the landscape has changed quite a bit. Kathleen (07:11): Yeah. Now one of the areas where you're, I think doing some really interesting and, and forward-thinking work is, is in the area of account based marketing which I feel like has become a big buzzword in the marketing world, but it's really interesting because I'm a part of a couple Slack groups for marketing leaders and sales leaders. And one of them is the revenue collective, which is a fantastic group. And I remember we had a, I co-lead the, the Washington DC focus group for them. And we had a conversation about account based marketing and everybody wanted to talk about it, but then we get on the call. And first of all, nobody really could define it. And those who tried, none of them had the same definition and nobody was nobody really, at least by their own way of defining it was doing it. And so I feel like this, there's this interesting paradox with ABM where we all have heard of it and think we should be doing it. And yet not a lot of people are, and those that are doing it probably aren't like really doing it. So maybe coming to this conversation from that perspective, maybe we could begin by just having you really define what ABM is to you. And, and we could use that as a jumping off point. Jon (08:34): Yeah, no that I could, I could see why there'd be some confusion. And maybe as a precursor to that, I'm drawing upon a hundred plus ABM experiences that we've been through primarily through relationship that we orchestrated through Demandbase slash Engagio. And we've had a great relationship them and through our own mechanisms as well. So across those experiences, I could see why a question would come up. And by the way, if you don't have that well-defined definition, even in your own company, it makes it very challenging to measure and to improve. So oftentimes we start with defining what is account based marketing. Now your mileage can vary quite a bit depending on the type of company that you're dealing with. Right? So typically we see two classes of companies that are doing account based marketing right now. The first class would be more or less along the lines of very large companies. Jon (09:35): So for example, one of my clients McAfee, we did a quite a bit of ABM work for where they had a global sales organization. And one of their challenges was pivoting from a lead based system to an account based system. They have a very different challenge because they've acquired a lot of companies and they're doing a lot of upsell cross sell. So in bigger companies, it's a, an upsell cross sell type initiative. Now it contrast that to another one of our clients code science, as an example, they build apps for the app exchange on Salesforce are explosively growing right now. And they too had a lead based system wanting to pivot into an account based system and why they wanted to do that was really because of growth. So it was new account growth in very specific tiered vertical markets. Jon (10:26): And so account based marketing terminology is used there in terms of acquisition, as well as the upsell and cross sell. There are probably other ways you could define it. I've seen definitions in terms of a triangle of very strategic accounts. Perhaps you're only focused on three to five strategic accounts versus kind of a mid tier accounts. There always seems to be tiering that's involved when it comes time to whatever the strategy might be. So I guess the answer is it depends a lot on the situation but getting that definition right in your company and making sure that it's well understood is critical for the measurement side of things. Kathleen (11:11): I'm glad that you started with what you did because at least in my own experience, I think that the big mistake a lot of marketers make is they define ABM, not by what it really is, but by how it manifests in terms of tactics. And so there are a lot of people who think ABM is just targeted, dimensional or direct mail, right? And then there are people who think it's a particular way of approaching paper, click advertising. And then there are people who see it as a combination of both like, but that is not really ABM. Those are the tactics that you use to carry out your broader ABM strategy. I think you defined it really nicely, which it's really a shared definition of how you're going to go to market and how you segment your list and focus and prioritize at least if I'm hearing you correctly. Jon (12:03): Yes. Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I think you're exactly right. It's almost, in some cases it's almost doing demand generation a lot better than what perhaps we've done before. So I think it's confusing because there's so much technology out there. Now you have the salespeople that have their own definition of account-based, whatever sales, marketing, everything, you know, whatever the flavor is du jour. And then you've got marketers that also have their definition. So it's chaos in terms of definitions which makes it really, really challenging for marketers to say, Hey, I produced X number of MQLs or marketing qualified accounts for, for sales to then go target or go after. So I'm not surprised that you found, you know, what you saw in that Slack channel. It's not a surprise to me. Kathleen (12:54): Well, and then the other thing that I find interesting about ABM and this came up in that conversation, I mentioned that we had in the revenue collective because we had half of the people on the call were sales and half were marketing. And what became very clear very quickly is that it's, it's not, it is something that spans both groups. And it, you know, we always talk about the importance of sales and marketing alignment, but I would say perhaps with ABM, more so than most things, it's so important because there were people who sort of said, well, I'm in marketing and we've started doing ABM, but the sales team's not on board, which basically means you're not really doing ABM. And then we have other people who are like our sales team has a list of, you know, tier one, two and three accounts, but our marketing isn't really doing anything, which also, you know, so it's, it's, that, that is also interesting to me is that it really needs to be a joint effort between the two and, and getting that coordination seems to be more difficult maybe than it should be. Jon (13:55): Yeah. This is a topic we've, we've been talking sales and marketing alignment. We've been talking about for 20 years and I think you're, you're hitting the nail on the head in terms of, for ABM to be successful you really have to have that alignment. And if you have an SDR function, that's the connective tissue, meaning it's the connective tissue between marketing and sales. So you're only as good as that connective tissue in terms of targeting. And let me give you an example on that. I won't name names, but we were in another client situation and you got to remember SDR is a very, very difficult job, very, very challenging job, and probably the most valued job from some surveying that I've done with my peers in terms of what the next generation CMO is. Having said, that we found SDRs that were faking Amazon gift deliveries and to book meetings, because that's how they were incented to get meetings. Jon (14:52): Now, you think about the brand damage that you're doing when now when you're 22 or 23, I don't know what you were like when you were 22 or 23. I couldn't even remember, you know, my head for my elbow back then, but it's a tough job. It's a pressure cooker job that you've got to get these meetings. So you know, bad behavior, but the damage that, that does to the brand and, you know, forget about ABM, just growth. Like how can you possibly grow when you're, you're, you're doing something like that. So that's one very clear example of why that function is so important in account based marketing of that handoff between marketing and sales and that, that connective layer. Kathleen (15:36): I think you hit the nail on the head with the SDR being the connector and it's, it's interesting, cause you do hear more and more conversation about SDRs traditionally having been thought of as sitting in sales and now more and more we're seeing them sitting in marketing perhaps for that very reason. So I'm, I would love to, to hear from you, I think for a lot of people it's hard to, to really picture what a best in class ABM strategy looks like without kind of having some examples. And you do work with a lot of companies, as you mentioned maybe you could share, and you don't need to name names if you can't, but I'd love to hear some examples of some campaigns that have gone really well and been super effective. And what goes into that? Jon (16:20): Yeah, it's a, a thoughtful question. And just thinking back to a couple end points like to me, the end point is what have you done to move the needle from a certain stage? So I can think of cases where we've helped move the needle from say a stage zero to stage one, and we can measurably see what that conversion improvement is over a period of time. So I could give you an example of where we more than doubled it from a 22 to 49% jumped from stage zero to stage one and how we got there was really through a series of plays a series of plays, meaning it wasn't just marketing batch and blasting a bunch of emails. It was being really thoughtful toward very specific accounts. So it started with what accounts were you focused on? And within those accounts, do you have the right contacts, are the contacts that you have? Jon (17:21): Do you have enough research that's done on those contacts? So in this case, in order to get to that doubling, we had to do a lot of pre-work and do some research on those contacts. Then it became a question of what that campaign strategy was. So together with sales, we put together a coordinated touch strategy between marketing and sales, electronic outreach with phone outreach via LinkedIn direct sequence, as well as a marketing followup. So kind of a multitouch cadence or approach. And what we found was the more obviously, I mean, everybody talks about it. The more personalized you can get, the more relevant you will be to that end user. We spent a lot of time on that personalization. It's really hard to do at, you know, people talk about personalization at scale. The most effective way that we have found doing that is actually offshoring research at a very low cost and doing a lot of groundwork that the SDRs quite frankly could or should be doing, but it's, it's a function of their time. So what you're doing is you're trying to speed up some of the research process of the SDRs. So in this case, as we did the multitouch, the SDRs were prepared with their outreach and their canes with some nuggets that they could drop into their sequences and then target that end user. Kathleen (18:47): So can you just, sorry, I want to clarify when you say offshoring research, what kind of research is this? Like, what are you looking to surface? Jon (18:54): So it, it, we've got if you're familiar with a Miller Heiman blue sheets model, it's a similar model to some of the questions that are typically needed to be addressed going beyond firmographic information account industry, revenue size employees. It could get down to somebody's college or university, which you could scrape off of LinkedIn, and you can potentially personalize that the interests in terms of what they follow. There are now vendors that kind of focus in an in and around that area as well. So if you don't want to off shore, you could get a vendor that would focus on it. Anything that could get it a little bit more personalized and then doing the account-based research itself. So any G2 that you can gather as far as what some of the company initiatives are, that two would go into this form. So the way we did it was we had a set of questions that they would go and, and why we offshored is, you know, we would structure it in a way where they would have to fill out or populate the questions and do the research via the web to them present back to the SDRs. And it would be resident in Salesforce, such that you could, you could pull out access information as needed. So that's how, how we would approach that. Kathleen (20:17): What's an example of how an SDR might use some of that? Jon (20:22): Really, really good questions. So we've seen actually an evolution of this too. At, at first we kind of let SDRs, we would give the information to say, you know, have added SDRs, do whatever you need to do over time. What we've learned is there's a lot of benefit and value of having marketing really create the cadence structure or the message and the outreach with the fields that might be populated by the SDRs through that research. So marketing is really the skeleton and they provide the skeleton. It doesn't matter where the SDRs report to, and why we, we came to that conclusion is it totally avoids the Amazon gift scenario and it controls the message. And typically salespeople are grateful that you take, as a marketer, interest in that. And sometimes marketers end up ending the, that tool as well, like the sales loft or the, the outreach. But anyway, to answer your question, I'm, I'm deviating a bit, what we would do then is give them the opportunity to pull that information from the research and drop it into the template, and they're going to have to massage it. There's some level of massaging that has to be done, but what they're not doing as a wholesale net, new creation of that template and that outreach. Kathleen (21:46): Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So we have really good research on the front end. We have marketing essentially dictating messaging frameworks, so that SDRs, you know, are not creating it out of whole cloth every time they have a conversation. And your SDR is really trying to get you that first meeting. What are some of the other elements of, of these really great campaigns you've worked on? Jon (22:13): Yeah, some sometimes we've seen, and I wouldn't say in all cases because I wouldn't want to mislead people, but in some cases doing a direct mail or a customized mail campaign somewhere early on in that prospecting cycle has been helpful. There are a couple companies that are out there that do that. But the one that jumps out to me that we've recently have experienced with one of our own clients is a company called Alyce where Alyce has a lot of sophistication around the interests of the end user and can pull information from the web and make recommendations based on the interest. So for example let's say I was the prospect and you can see visually behind me, I've got a lot of college basketball memorabilia behind me. So it's likely that a system like Alyce would pull that information and say, Hey, Jon is really interested in college basketball, specifically the university of Connecticut college basketball, and maybe there's something related to that, that you could recommend under a certain budget that could eventually get to Jon. And there are ways to get it to the home address now as well. So that has been an effective way. It flies close a little bit to the sun of, you don't want to do a quid pro quo, like, Hey, I'm buying your first meeting. But sometimes what we see is it's, it can be an effective way to kind of break the ice. Or if that first meeting's already established, the second or third meeting, it's just helpful to kind of maintain that momentum. Kathleen (23:52): Yeah, I've done a little bit of that kind of mailing in a past life. And I found that the real utility of it was twofold. One it's getting past gatekeepers, especially if you're trying to connect with somebody who's fairly high level in an organization. You know, flat mail does not do nearly as well at that. And secretaries, personal assistants, et cetera. If it's a package, if it has something personalized, they're going to forward it on. They might open it. They might not, but they're going to forward it on. And then the other one is just, I think, on the recipient end, at least through the feedback I've gotten, if it is truly well thought out, and if you've done a good job of it, a lot of times you'll have, like, we had somebody, this was back in the early days when I had my agency, we actually had a guy that we had been trying to get a meeting with, write us and say, wow, you really like hit the nail on the head with that. Like it's worth having a conversation just cause I totally respect how well-targeted this was. And I think, I think it can peak somebody's interest if you're able to, to really nail something that matters to them. Jon (25:02): I think a good example of that was the last physical conference marketing conference that you and I think were both, that was the demand gen conference in February and Phoenix or Scottsdale. And there was somebody on stage in the millennial section that talked about how she received a yoga mat. And she said she was blown away because she's like I do yoga 24 by seven and out of the blue, this person, after I was already in a sales cycle toward midway or toward the end, sent me this out of the blue. And she's like, it resonated so much. And here she is telling an audience of a thousand plus people of marketers, right? Like we all, we're all drinking the Koolaid. But it was really a really powerful example as to the level of connection, if you can get that personalized touch. And that's where I think Alyce kind of separates themselves from kind of the other, other systems that I've seen on the market that our clients sometimes use as well, but where they can kind of separate themselves as they have the intelligence to figure out what does this person really, really what are they interested in? Jon (26:11): What's relevant to them? What's going to resonate with them? We've had situations where we've actually tested handpicking versus their system and their system has been more effective. So yeah, it's, it's been pretty, it's pretty amazing. And you know, that technology didn't exist 10 years ago, so it's a, it's a new world. So I think that those types of things help with ABM. It's not a Nirvana, it's not going to solve world hunger, but it, if you do things like that your chances of success go by an order of magnitude. Kathleen (26:44): Now you mentioned as part of what you were just describing that it's, there are ways of getting home addresses. And I feel like this is the challenge we're all facing right now is that, you know, people are not in their offices. And so what used to be a simple exercise of, you know, look up the website, scrape the address and go is, is no longer. So can you just touch on, are there any particular tools or anything that you like or a strategy for tackling that? Jon (27:10): Yeah. And I think a couple of the the direct mail providers Alyce and Sendoso specifically, and probably PFL, I just have not checked with them recently, but it wouldn't surprise me if they haven't thought of this because the other two have, they now have figured out a way to drop in a form and capture the home address without storing the data longterm. So they've figured out a way to, to reroute that direct mail and bring it to the home address. There have been some instances that I've heard of, some people were early on with COVID they were very reluctant to receive direct mail because they just didn't know. But I've heard that more as the exception rather than the rule. But, but there are some of those case is out there. The other thing, the other value in doing that validation is direct mail can be a very expensive proposition. And there are ways that we, we have recently figured out ways to do this where you can actually track the ROI, whether it's gaining new meetings or accelerating the pipeline, but it's it's PhD level work like something that would come intuitively you really have to stare at the systems to figure it out. But there are ways where you can actually now begin to track that depending on your marketing automation system, so that too can be valuable data to, to bring back to your company. Kathleen (28:34): Yeah, you're so right, because when it comes to that direct mail stuff having done a few of those, I would say if they're easy to do, but they're easy to do wrong in the sense that you could send a really cheap, not so great item that doesn't, that isn't effective and you could spend a lot of money in doing it. Or you could like narrow your list a little bit more and spend more per person and really get amazing results. And I think that's, that's where a lot of people go wrong is they try to go too big and, and it doesn't, it doesn't have the effectiveness of spending more per individual getting a really fantastic item and maybe doing it in stages. Like we used to always tell clients when I had my agency, pick, you know, if you want to spend a lot, pick 20 accounts that are like super strategic and spend a lot on them, send it out, see how it works. And if it works, then do the next one. Right? Jon (29:28): Yeah. Yeah. Staging, I think is a terrific idea because it does take time like any of this marketing technology or, or anything new, it takes time to see those results. It takes time for end users to adopt to. So you're talking about maybe working something new into a sales person's workflow that didn't exist before or an SDR workflows. So you're changing behavior, which I don't know about you, but for me, it's difficult to change behavior. So it, it takes time, but once you figure it out it's pretty powerful. It's, it's really, really powerful. Kathleen (30:04): Yeah. Now moving beyond the mail piece, because I feel like we could spend all day on that as a topic in and of itself easily. And it's an interesting topic, but when you look at approaching ABM campaigns what are some of the other pieces that go into those campaigns beyond mail and SDRs? Jon (30:25): Let's see, what other things? Other than the personalization piece I guess the biggest piece would be the measurement side of things and really making sure that you are capturing what it is that these campaigns are producing and ideally in Salesforce. So there's probably, there's a whole campaign strategy to get to that point, but the end point would be, you really want to have a clean and crisp measurement. And I'll give you an example of what I mean by clean and crisp measurement. So it's easy for us to get caught up in the campaign lingo and you probably have used Salesforce before. I'll give you an example, the leads object in Salesforce, what they call the leads object, doesn't necessarily relate to anything else in the database. So you could have all sorts of activity on the lead side of things and your salespeople who may work in your contacts and accounts may never see any of that activity. Jon (31:26): Even if you have the technology to in theory, link those two up, there still can be cases where there's activity on the leads that are not coming over to the accounts and to the contact side. So to answer your question on the campaigns, if you're doing all this campaign activity and you're like, Hey, I'm a, I'm doing this great, great job, but if your underlying processes aren't right in Salesforce, it's not going to matter. Your campaign strategy is not going to matter, or it may matter, but somebody else is going to get credit for it. Meaning the salespeople will take credit and say, Hey, we did all this work. Marketing didn't do the work. So really getting clarity around kind of that measurement and NPS is a very, very critical piece. And I can give you an example of a client of ours, that, where they came into the situation and through a dashboarding, we, we learned a couple different things. Jon (32:20): One was there was all this activity going on on the lead side and they couldn't understand it because it wasn't in their targeted tier one, tier two and tier three, they're running all these campaigns. And lo and behold, what we discovered was their ICP was not correct. They thought it was a certain assumption, but through our dashboarding, what we realized was there was a new target market that was returning, eventually returning, a lot of revenues. So what they ended up doing was pivoting the entire company. This is post COVID pivoting the entire company toward that vertical market and, and getting a lot more folks just because of all this activity that was going on. So that's another reason to dashboard. The other example that same client, what we discovered was in the sales efforts, we found that the sales team was following up on certain accounts. Jon (33:14): And in one dashboard we could see the activity level of sales and we could see the activity level of marketing, and we could see that the accounts were different. And so we were like, well, why is there a difference? It goes back to what you said, you know, a minute five, which is why aren't we aligned? Well, now we can visually see sales is focused on five accounts and they're hyper engaged here. Our marketing's got six accounts that are hyper engaged, that that sales is not. So visually we now have the data where we can say, Hey, we're just not aligned. So it goes beyond the theory of alignment. You can actually see it. And this all rolls up to your campaign question, like, what are you doing right in your campaigns, if you're able to dashboard some of that, your chances of campaign effectiveness and future investment go up by an order of magnitude, because now you can have the conversation. It could be a lot more data driven versus, you know, Hey, I just ran this great seven touch cadence, or with direct mail and this, that the other because you really need to measure that days on. Kathleen (34:20): I love that, that we're sort of bookending this conversation and coming back to measurement. Cause I feel like that's what we started with. Like that was the Genesis of your business. And it, it, it does it like always comes back to that. Right. so speaking of measuring, can you maybe share with me a sense of what kind of ROI some of these companies have seen from account based marketing when they do it? Right. Jon (34:45): Ooh, good question. And I've got a bunch of statistics, but I don't have them off the top of my head Kathleen (34:50): Ballpark. Jon (34:54): The hard thing with ROI is you really need to track costs too, with your upside revenue. And what I find is very few companies have that level of visibility. So I don't have a really solid answer on that one other than I can get back to you, but that's not gonna help your podcast. But typically what I see is mostly on the revenue side. So for example, I'll see engagement in terms of accounts that are happening. So if, if you're getting a large percentage of accounts that didn't engage pre ABM to post engagement, that would be a mechanism. So if you have the definitions, right, you're, you're making progress as a milestone of saying, I've got a certain percentage that are showing account engagement and within those account engagements, what percent are then converting to an opportunity after that initial ABM strategy implementation. And that's usually more of a revenue metric as opposed to an ROI metric, if, and I'm really, you know, I'm splitting hairs here. I also think that not a lot of board members and VCs are asking per se about ROI. They're asking about some other questions. They're asking about a cost of acquisition, CAC, LTV to CAC ratios. So they're going more broadly bubbling things up at a more broad sense, which are typically manual calculations. Kathleen (36:34): Do you find that cost of acquisition comes down dramatically with ABM or no? Jon (36:39): I think it all depends if, if your, your focus on strategic accounts, it's costly, no matter what, because you got to, you got a huge buying committee. It's a lot of energy and effort to kind of crack that from a strategic account, but if you're doing a one to many, yeah, it can, but I think it's, it's an investment, no matter how you slice and dice it. I don't think it's any cheaper than demand gen. I think demand gen is kind of the first generation of marketing automation where you can just kind of spray and pray, but you're using a lot of the same technologies and the same people as you are with ABM. So I don't know if there's a huge savings per se. It's just a little bit more focused effort. I think that that would be the best way to think of it. Kathleen (37:28): Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, it's, I feel like this, this could be a 10 hour long podcast on the topic of ABM. But it cannot be because we do not have 10 hours nor does anyone want to sit and listen for that long. So I want to switch gears for a second and ask you a couple of questions that I love to ask my guests. The first is, you know, we talk a lot about inbound marketing on this podcast, and I'm wondering if there's a particular company or a specific individual that you would point to that you think is really setting the standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer these days. Jon (38:03): Hmm. Great question. I think some of the vendors that do a really good job at it, Drift, Gong, the usual suspects, Drift, Gong, HubSpot I would say, would be the strong, strong performers in terms of they're putting out a lot of content. Drift feels like a very natural kind of inboundish, I don't know if you'd kind of call it inbound. It's not, you're not really calling people if somebody has to reach to your website. So I guess that that would be an inbound. So I would say those three are the ones that come to mind in terms of who's doing it really, really well. Kathleen (38:41): Drift certainly comes up a lot when I ask that question and the other ones, I mean, while, I mean a HubSpot of course but Gong has started coming up more and more lately. So it's always fascinating to me to see the trends in how people answer. And when I start to hear certain names over and over again, like that's an interesting indicator. Second question is that... Jon (38:59): Gong has done a phenomenal job there. Kathleen (39:01): Oh, sorry. Sorry. Jon (39:03): No, go ahead. Kathleen (39:03): I was just gonna say the other, the other thing I hear a lot of marketers say is that they really struggle trying to keep pace with all the things that are changing in the world of digital marketing. And I think this conversation is a great example, this struggle with like, what really is ABM and how really do you do it? What, how do you personally stay up to date and current on all things digital? Jon (39:25): Yeah. And that's a, a common issue right now, you know, going back to MarTech of three to five years ago, there was a thousand MarTech providers now 7,000. So how do you keep your finger on the pulse? It will sound self-serving, but relying on agencies that spend time with a lot of different technologies, cross organizations and tapping them, I'm surprised actually that more of our clients don't rely more on us for that type of advisory work. Typically we're attending a lot of the conferences. So you'll see me at either speaking or attending a lot of the major conferences and whereas they may get the opportunity to go to one or two, I'm going to eight in a year or 10 in a year. So we're leaning heavily on kind of your partners for that expertise or understanding is certainly one way post COVID now. Jon (40:25): I think another way is just Slack and being, you had mentioned, Hey, you're involved in Slack channels. And I think you and I are involved in some of the same Slack channels cause we've been communicating on some other things there, but post COVID, I think a lot of stuff now is just gone to communities like Slack. And there are a number of different communities, whether they're marketing operations specific, growth operations specific. I'm on a board that is focused on growth ops and we've got a community. There's CMOs specific Slack channels. So that too would be an area to ask, you know, colleagues. There's even geographical ones. I found one up in the Boston area that that has a heavy concentration of Boston based heads of marketing. So, you know, I think triangulating across all of those sources, as I think about it out loud are probably, that's how I keep kind of in the know so to speak. Kathleen (41:20): Yeah, I think you're right with a lot of these communities. It's a way to shortcut what otherwise would be a much longer process, you know, and, and just sort of take it from the people that, you know, know a lot and let them tell you what, what need to care about. But yeah, I mean, I rely on those communities heavily, although I will say my latest pain point is that I'm in too many Slack groups and there are a few that are just a lot of noise and I'm, I'm now to the point where I'm thinking I'm gonna just exit some of them and focus on the two or three that are really delivering value. Cause it can become a huge, huge distraction. Jon (41:54): I, yeah, I could totally see that as well. And sometimes what I do with Slack is I kind of cherry pick and go in and out, the beauty of Slack for me is if you ask an ignorant question about two days later, everybody forgets about it. Cause it's so, you know, it's pushed up in the, in the threads of threads. So I feel you on that and that's how I kind of dip in and out. I'm almost like a seagull I'll fly in. I'll ask a couple of questions and then I'll pop out. Kathleen (42:23): Yeah. My favorite feature of Slack is that you can set up your sidebar to show you all of your unreads. And I can just like come back in, look at all the unreads. Mark them as read, see the ones that are important and then go. Cause it's really distracting if you try to like jump in every time you get a notification. Jon (42:42): I hear you loud and clear on that. I think that that too could be a generational thing for me. I would never want, some of our clients ask us to have Slack. I reluctantly agree to that because it is incredibly disruptive to my workflow. It is incredibly disruptive to the workflow. So, but there are ways that we've integrated Slack with other project management tools that have helped speed up the process. So it helps them and it helps us but from a workflow process, that can be very disruptive. I agree with you on that. Yeah. Kathleen (43:15): Well I'm sure that there are some people who are listening, who have questions or would love to reach out and connect with you online or learn more about B2B fusion. What is the best way for them to do that? Jon (43:25): Yeah. Great question. So two ways. One would be on LinkedIn or you can always email Jon dot Russo, Jon.russo@b2bfusiongroup.com. And at any point in time, if you just want to have an exploratory conversation or need something to bounce off, I'm happy to do a quick call with you. And you know, we can, we can compare notes, so don't hesitate to reach out Kathleen (43:45): Great. And of course, as always, I will put the links that Jon just mentioned in the show notes. So head there, if you want to reach out and connect with him and if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode, I would love it. If you would head to Apple podcasts or the platform of your choice and leave the podcast, a preferably five star review so that others can find us. And if you know somebody who's doing really great inbound marketing work, tweet me at @workmommywork because I would love to make them my next interview. Thank you so much, Jon. This was a lot of fun. Jon (44:16): Thanks Kathleen. I really appreciate it.

According to Forbes.com "Heiman is a diligent student and teacher of what works. She is among the world’s leading experts on the complex sale." Miller Heiman original with 20+ years growing sales organizations to greatness. Alice demonstrates how sales performance is directly related to a leader’s mindset. When sales leaders change the way they work with sales teams, results are immediate and dramatic. Virtual Keynotes, Coaching and Training - over 10 years of experience presenting virtually#SalesLeaders - Sales shouldn't be hard! Do you have a B2B, complex sale? Do your investors/shareholders expect double or triple digit growth? Is your team struggling to generate qualified leads? Is your team losing large deals? Will you hit your quota? You are charged with growth. Your team must master the complex sale, shorten your sales cycle and build a sales plan that provides sustainable growth. You must focus on acquisition, retention and growth. Our clients have seen a 30 to 75% increase in their sales over the time we have worked with them. We have coached and trained sales organizations from start-up to Fortune 100. It's exciting to see them crush their sales goals. Connect with Alice Phone: 775-852-5020 email: alice@aliceheiman.com LinkedIn   #nolimitsselling #podcastinterview

Sales/Marketing Reading Materials Referenced in Mohnish’s Presentation 1. Marketing High Technology by William Davidow 2. Power vs. Force by David Hawkins 3. Strategic Selling by Miller/Heiman 4. Conceptual Selling by Miller/Heiman 5. Successful Large Account Management by Miller/Heiman 6. The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses by Amar Bhide 7. Inc. Magazine Subscription 9. In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters 8. Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Terry Mitchell from Fujifilm’s join us. Terry, I’d love for you to just introduce yourself to our audience. TM: Thanks for having me on, Shawna. I’m Terry Mitchell and I am director of sales enablement at Fujifilm. And many people know the brand name Fujifilm, Fuji today is a global company headquartered in Japan, operating in almost every country around the world. I would expect most people would know Fujifilm for its photographic film, but today, even though film is still in our name, it’s a very small part of our product portfolio. Photography has transitioned to digital, but so has medical x-ray and printing. And I’m actually in the printing group or what we call the graphic systems division of Fujifilm. We sell a wide range of products for traditional printing as well as digital printing systems. And we sell these through direct sales force to printers or print providers who print everything from brochures to books or newspapers, magazines, labels and packaging, and even signs and banners. Regarding my background, although I started my career in sales, I have spent most of the time in marketing roles. That alone probably makes me a bit unique to your listeners, but I think it has given me a different perspective and approach to sales enablement. SS: Absolutely. I think having a combined sales and marketing background is unique. I think it definitely does give you a better lens on enablement. I’d love to hear from you kind of how that’s helped you in your sales enablement career. TM: In marketing, I spent a lot of time on development of content and sometimes we flip that over the wall to the sales team and we expect that they know what to do with it, how to use it. Sometimes there’s missing links where we haven’t correlated the content to the customer buying or deciding journey and/or provided the tools for the sales team to show or demonstrate value or perhaps even justify an investment. So, it was interesting because I became a certified trainer for the Miller Heiman professional selling skills course, and that really led to my role in developing sales training materials and coaching all around improving our sales performance. SS: Very impressive, very impressive. And in fact, you were recently included in a list that covered 100 sales enablement best practices. And in that, you mentioned that you developed a list of sales effectiveness attributes. I’d love for you to explain to our audience the attributes that you identified as leading to success. TM: Well, we did develop this list and there are 25 in total that we’ve identified. We’re not trying to suggest that that’s the comprehensive list and we’ll never add to it. But what we set out to do was look at all of the different phases of the sales process. So, for example, we have attributes such as how well does the seller open a sales call by setting a meeting agenda stating the value to the customer and checking for acceptance? But we also have criteria here about how well the seller executes the agenda that they established, and they stay on task and focused. We talk about how the seller uses open and closed or layered questions to explore and discover possible pain points within the business, realized and even unrealized needs. We also have criteria around collaboration and how we create a customized or tailored solution based on the prospect’s unique business pain or need. There are a lot of different factors here and 25 attributes in total. All of them, we believe, are important to be effective in selling. SS: Maybe you can explain to our audience how you went about identifying those attributes. What was the process like for developing and validating that list? TM: Yeah, it’s a great question. I attended a workshop session at a conference and actually, it was around what are the effective skills that are needed to be successful in selling? And so that’s where it got started and where some of these were identified and discussed. I took that list and incorporated several of the attributes from the professional selling skills course, since that was the foundational basis for us in terms of how we go about conducting an effective sales call. So, we included the steps of open and discover, satisfy or basically how you present and differentiate your product, and then close with a mutually agreed path going forward. All of those attributes really correlated to that professional selling skills course, but we didn’t stop there. We then reviewed the list with our sales leadership and we added even more attributes. So, it really was a comprehensive look at all of the things that we determined to be contributing to, if not critical to, sales success. SS: I like how you guys built the attributes to kind of help support the sales methodology within the organization. And it sounds though, as you mentioned, that you guys kind of took it a step further and have basically created that list of sales effectiveness attributes to almost guide a sales representative in creating a personal development plan. I’d love to learn how you’re using that. TM: Yeah. When we looked at the 25, we’d like to tell you that everybody in our organization was best in class on all 25 attributes. But we realized that some people earlier in their career, or maybe later in their career, maybe struggle with a certain part of the sales process and maybe were stronger in some attributes but weaker in others. So, we started this idea of developing a tailored, customized personal development plan by having the individual sellers rate themselves on each of the attributes on the list. We used a rating system where one was defined as low skill, three as an average skill, so following some or all of the steps, but maybe not fully effective. And then five is high skill, so follows the steps and is fully effective. We wanted them to be candid and we wanted them to feel that there was a safe environment to be able to identify those things that they felt they could improve in. At the same time, we had our sales managers also rate the individual sellers on the same scale for all the attributes. And the manager and the individual seller then sat down and reviewed the list, looking for common scores. High performance was acknowledged, and then the attributes that were directionally lower were discussed and identified as areas where both the seller and the manager felt that improvement was warranted and that they wanted to take action. So, once that plan was outlined and these areas of focus were determined, we set up training and reinforcing the foundational skills, and then the individual sellers were provided training materials that would address each skill area. We actually have a library of short videos covering most of the skill attributes along with some slide decks and some scripts to assist them with their learning and with their skill development. And then we outlined a plan for actually holding practice sessions and role-plays and other ways to improve their skills. SS: That’s fantastic. Maybe we can dive a little bit deeper. What are some examples of specific actions or accountabilities that are included in the personal development plans? TM: Yeah. Actually, the most common action plan or accountability that came out of these are the role plays or the practice sessions that actually demonstrate that they’ve mastered the identity identified attribute or skill. I mean, you can only do so much and over so much period of time in terms of maybe observing a seller in a direct or live customer interaction. But if they practice and they do it in a safe environment where the roleplay, then they can actually improve their skill and feel like it is a safe environment for them to maybe mess up or trip up and actually improve and get some feedback. So, we started out writing customized role plays around each of the attributes or skills. For example, if the individual seller and the manager agreed that asking effective discover questions was the skill that needed an improvement, then the role play was designed to focus on that skill. And this verified the seller’s ability to use effective discover questions to identify all the customer needs. But let’s say the skill was how well does the seller execute the agenda they established? Well, that’s a tougher one because that’s really going to be best observed during a live sales call. We use both role plays and practice sessions as well as observance during a live sales calls to actually help the individual sellers improve in their attributes. And we also provide coaching and call planners to help guide the customer conversation and stay focused on the agenda. But in the end, the individual seller demonstrates his mastery of the scale and essentially moves from a lower rating of a one or a two to a higher rating of a four or five. And really, at the end of the day, it’s all about improving the skills and then demonstrating the competency. SS: Absolutely. So, you mentioned sales managers a couple of times now during the conversation, and obviously they are critical in reinforcing a lot of the sales effectiveness attributes that you’re trying to put in place among the sales force. How have you partnered with sales managers to help implement and even enforce the personal development plans? TM: Yeah. Actually, I got buy-in pretty quickly. I mean, the sales managers are all about helping their teams improve. They want to make their quota, they want to improve their sales volume. We started out a little bit small, if you will. Each one of our sales managers has 10 or 12 direct reports, and we said, “Hey, just give us three people from your team. And let’s go through this individual assessment and manager assessment and see how it goes and see if we need to make any adjustments along the way.” So, we kind of piloted it and we approached the individual seller to try and gain their acceptance to work on the skills. And then we conduct the role plays, over the phone or face to face, or even a video Zoom call. We assign roles. The individual seller obviously takes the role of the salesperson, I generally take the role of the customer, and the sales manager takes the role of the coach, and we go through the role play and then we debrief with the seller. We ask them what they thought went well. They get a chance to tell us where they were comfortable. We then ask them what they thought didn’t go so well, and they get a chance to be a little vulnerable and explain that. And then we ask what could they have done differently? And they self-realize where they’re strong, where they’re still needing to improve their skill in this dialogue. Along with the coaching framework that we have for that discussion, it really creates a basis for a meaningful discussion and a journey to improvement. And again, we do this in a bit of a safe environment. So, the managers really saw the value in helping their team improve their skills, and they bought in pretty quickly. SS: Well, that’s fantastic. It is critical to get the sales managers bought in. And I also imagine part of that buy-in comes from showing the impact that this is having. So, what were some of the benefits that you guys were realizing from these personal development plans and these sales effectiveness attributes and how have you gone about measuring that impact? TM: Yeah. Our definition of a sales enablement is to deliver the content tools, training, and coaching for those inside sales and direct customer-facing sales roles so that they can continue to improve their sales performance. So, we look at sales performance and we’ve defined it as improving the win rate and reducing the sales cycle lengths, kind of a sales velocity view, obviously they have to have a good qualified number of opportunities in their funnel. We do look at the deal size, but primarily we’re looking at how much they win, and how long it takes sometimes. So, we’re doing that. We’re imagining where we’re measuring the sales effectiveness through just direct observation in the field. And we’re also doing it through reports or looking at perhaps how well they’re doing with emailing, prospecting, getting a meeting, summarizing meeting results, and advancing sales. We’re looking at a lot of different parts of the skill, but ultimately we’re looking at that win rate and sales cycle length. And this gives us an indication as to where that velocity is increasing. Now, we’re still early in the process, however, we are seeing a direct correlation to higher win rates and shorter sales cycles as a result of improving the sales effectiveness skills. For example, when looking at data from 2018 and comparing it to 2019, we’ve increased our win rate by 27% overall and reduced the sales cycle length by about 90 days. So, that’s resulted in an increase in our sales velocity by 47%. Now, that’s pretty powerful. I’m not hanging all the improvement solely on sales effectiveness training and coaching, but we believe that our efforts to develop these personal development plans and then improve our skills is really making a big contribution to our overall success. SS: That’s fantastic, Terry, and those are some impressive results. Kudos to you and thank you so much for joining us today on this podcast. I really appreciate your time. TM: Thanks for having me, Shawnna. SS: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:  Discover the 3 central C's of Value; creating, communicating and capturing value  Learn what is customer perceived value and how outcome appeals to them rather than benefits only Learn how to be a customer experience expert and how to get customers talking about your company   Mark Boundy is a sales, value, differentiation, and pricing expert who helps companies sell more profitably. He's a consultant for Miller Heiman, an advisor and thought council member to The C-Suite Network where he advises corporations on all things value-related, identifying their fundamental differentiators to help them choose where to compete and how that informs boots-on-the-ground selling. In this episode, Mark shares how W. L. Gore & Associates taught and instilled in him the importance of customers perceived value to a business, why value should be a religion to any business, the 3 central C's in marketing, and the importance of focusing on the outcomes you bring to customers rather than benefit.   "I often see the word benefits use differently. So, I no longer like to use the word benefits with my clients. Because benefits sometimes mean less than what I think of its value. I use the term ‘outcomes.’"  – Mark Boundy    Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com      Topics Covered:    1:58 - Mark shares lessons he learned from a material science and engineering company called W. L. Gore & Associates 2:39 - How value has become a religion to him and everyone else at W. L. Gore & Associates 7:49 - Creating Value: Why it is important to know what the value of the customer is going to be and the value of the product to that customer 15:59 - Communicating value: why the outcome is better than the benefit  19:17 - Capturing Value. Why front-liners like salesperson has a significant role in understanding customer's outcomes and why should they be trained in communicating understanding the customer's business 21:17 - On being an expert at your customer's business, how Microsoft Enterprise is practicing to help their consumers understand their market 24:33 - Mark shares how Bob Miller trains their consultants at Miller Heiman. Bob to Mark - “Customers don't buy their products. They buy results or outcomes.”  Key Takeaways:   "You need to be able to have a dialogue with a customer to understand their outcomes and to understand their business." –Mark Boundy     "Help the customer understand that a high price is a low price to pay for the kind of outcome [you offer]." – Mark Boundy    "It's the outcomes is the desirability outcomes, and it's built on the differentiation, the outcomes they get from you that they can't get anywhere else." - Mark Boundy  People and Resources Mentioned The C-Suite Network Miller Heiman Bob Miller Microsoft Enterprise W. L. Gore & Associates Listen to Mark’s Impact Pricing Interview: Ep 15: Mark Boundy – Value Selling: How to Sell Value Rather than Price Connect with Mark Boundy:  Email: mark@boundyconsulting.com  Read his blog: boundyconsulting.com/blog  boundyconsulting.com  LinkedIn  Twitter    Connect with Mark Stiving   Email: mark@impactpricing.com   LinkedIn   Twitter   https://www.championsofvalue.com 

Business builder, Sales leader, author, coach, consultant, teacher…Chief Clarity Officer…Mark Boundy has grown businesses in a variety of industries by virtue of his relentless focus on uncovering customer value and delivering high-value results. While at W.L. Gore & Associates, Mark began weaving a focus on customer value into Miller Heiman's complex selling methodologies .  This combination grew one of that company's most competition-threatened products by twenty percent/year…every year…while increasing margins and profits. Then, at Lucent Technologies.  Mark applied his customer-value approach; pivoting the world's first carrier-class VoIP product away from a cost-saving to a platform for delivering applications which had never existed: virtual call centers, virtual office presence — even the first product roadmap for Unified Communications platforms, and being awarded a patent for a multimedia conferencing. Switching to Commercial Finance, he ultimately found his way to GE Capital.  Instead of simply selling money–the ultimate commodity, Mark learned each customer's businesses, in order to deliver unique value to each, with decidedly non-commodity pricing.  Mark's client portfolio was in the top 5% in top-line revenue, while also in the top 5% for profitability.Mark Boundy aligned with Miller Heiman to combine the world's most successful sales methodologies with his value discipline for his clients.  Now, the Miller Heiman Group integrates an even more robust toolkit: assessments, SPIN, Coaching, Playbooks, Research…all powerful, but combining them with Mark's customer-value-centric methodology gives Mark's clients an added dimension…one that they…and their customers …value. www.boundyconsulting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you have difficulty engaging with your prospects? Would you like to be able to quickly earn their trust? Are face-to-face meetings with your clients really that important? In this episode of INSIDE Inside Sales, Darryl has the opportunity to chat with brilliant thought leader Alice Heiman, from TradeShowMakeover.com. Darryl and Alice dive right in and discuss best practices for getting face time with your leads, finding ways to meet your prospects where they’re at, and dish solid advice on how to be relational without pitching yourself. All this and a lot more on this episode of INSIDE Inside Sales! About Darry's guest: Alice Heiman has been helping companies increase sales for over 20 years. Her deep roots in sales come from her time at her family’s former company, Miller Heiman, Inc. As a thought leader, she is always incorporating the newest research and best practices so that the sales programs she provides produce results. Alice works with sales leaders all over the world helping them master the complex sale and accelerate their results.

Ian is an experienced Keynote speaker on Cloud & Social Selling and also in providing Sales & Marketing consultancy resulting in key marginal gains in performance. He's been a Guest Blogger and Social Influencer for Oracle, SAP, SAGE, Equinix, Cloudtech. Maximiser. Miller Heiman. He and his company Natterbox have developed an amazing integration with the Salesforce system to deliver a far better customer experience for the customers of their customers, that will lead to far less frustration than customers usually suffer when dealing with customer service calls and being transferred from operative to operative and each time starting again with describing the issues they're facing. The system that Ian describes is far different to that. He talks about not just going the extra mile, but by aiming for an extra five miles, and that it doesn't take five times the effort. He believes that by 2020 it will no longer be about price it will all be about customer experience. One of Ian's favourite quotes: "Behind all smart devices and other technology is the need to get closer to the customer" Marc Benioff, co-founder – Salesforce Links: www.ianmoyse.co.uk  www.ianmoyse.cloud Natterbox     Exceeding Expectations links: www.ExceedingExpectations.me Facebook Group Twitter LinkedIn YouTube How to leave a podcast review: https://tonywinyard.com/how-to-leave-a-review-for-the-podcast/

  Miller Heiman Group, the flagship 40-year-old company in the sales training and consulting space, has introduced integration of “Scout” for Microsoft Dynamics. In this program, Dana Hamerschlag, Chief Product Officer of Miller Heiman Group, discusses how Scout improves daily sales productivity and CRM compliance which frees up face to face sales time.  Hamerschlag also explains what tools sellers should focus on to get the most out of their CRM. About our Guest Dana Hamerschlag is the Chief Product Officer with Miller Heiman. In her role at Miller Heiman Group, Dana leads the global product organization and is driving the continued innovation of technology solutions. Dana brings more than 15 years of experience in technology companies backed by venture capital and private equity, where she has run product management, product marketing, strategy, and operations. Previously, she served as Vice President of Product Management at Ellucian, where she led the CRM business and significantly grew revenue from $0 to $38 million, paving the way for a $3.5 billion transaction.  Dana spent the early part of her career at The Boston Consulting Group.  About Miller Heiman Group  Miller Heiman Group is the global leader in providing organizations sales methodology plus sales technology to drive revenue and change business outcomes. The company’s training, consulting, technology and research solutions align process, people, tools, data, and analytics to prepare sales and service organizations for the future of selling. For more information, visit www.millerheimangroup.com.  ______________________________________________ Funnel Radio is hosted by James Obermayer and sponsored by the radio/podcast company the Funnel Media Group LLC.

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we are here to help professionals stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices so they can be more effective in their jobs. We are welcoming John Dougan to the podcast today. John is the director of global sales and productivity at Workday and he has spent most of his career helping organizations grow revenue through sales enablement. He is here to talk about some of his advice to build sales effectiveness. Hi, John. We are glad to have you. Let’s just go ahead and dive right in. I would love to start asking you a few of these questions. We are going to start out kind of broadly. We are definitely seeing a lot of visibility and necessity for sales enablement. Do you kind of see this momentum continuing, and where do you see things going in the future for the discipline of sales enablement? John Dougan: That’s a great question, Shawnna. I think it is probably different for every organization, and the reason I say that is, having been a consultant on the side of advising, selling, and delivering enablement solutions and subsequently moved internally with Workday, we are at a different place than many of my other friends who lead enablement functions are. So, Workday has been a real challenge. As an organization, we have been incredibly successful based on our product. It has simply been different by design and, as a result, a competitive differentiator for the last five to seven years. Our sellers have been very successful using a product-centric sales approach. I think the early version of sales enablement that existed at Workday was really a sales training organization that gathered best practices and then tried to scale and repeat those across the organization, which is valiant and was a needed area of development for the company. I think over the last 18 months in my tenure there, one of the biggest changes in sales enablement has been we’ve moved to exactly that. We moved to a function that no longer is just concerned with the knowledge and skills that are required by our sellers, but moreover, the environment that they exist in, the processes, tools, methodologies that they use. And then also the bit that probably excites me the greatest: the motivation side, so, the sentiment, feeling, and emotions that are part of the everyday lives of sellers. So, that’s the shift that I’ve experienced over the last 18 months. Do I see that continuing to evolve? Absolutely. I see segmentation by sales enablement being the next wave, as in almost delineating what in particular sales enablement professionals are really experts at. SS: That’s actually a great segue. I would love to dive a little bit deeper into that, though, and actually understand from you, what are some of the segments that you are seeing evolve in the market? JD: Shawnna, when I look at my team, let me give you the delineation and what it looks like. So, I run the front office enablement team at Workday, and that basically means that we are the diagnosticians who are helping our sales leaders define the opportunities, the problems, and the needs that they truly have. Beyond that, we are also helping our design team, which is part of our back office, really establish what the core learning objectives are. I think it is an old consulting rule of thumb. What problem are we trying to solve? Why are our guys currently not doing it and what are they going to do differently as a result of it? So, my team is responsible for the definition of what that looks like, and then a help in the design stage, but then the delivery stage back end. So, we are the guys that touch the field. Our back-office team does the instructional design, the communications, the events, and the cultural component that accompanies that. So, that’s the delineation that’s happened in our sales enablement function within my team specifically, and these are guys who are striving to be experts. And what I will say is more recently, I’ve stopped hiring enablement professionals and actually hired people who are in the field who want to do something different, or have a natural penchant to help people be better at their jobs, whether that is through coaching or whether it’s through establishing best practices or whether it’s through just setting a blueprint for what successful activity looks like. We started to bring those people in. So, those are the guys that offer the expertise around context and relevance and sentiment to the field. And I’ve got one person who does that in sales leadership and one person who does it for our AE audience. The other segmentation outside of that, I think, is there has to be somebody for systems and tools who really has a focus on the technology stack that is being used and how it’s being received by the field. There are process and methodology, so whether or not you’re adopting account planning, opportunity management, someone needs to manage those in terms of how they fit together. We have our own sales methodology, which has been really a collection of what the best people within Workday do in terms of serving our customers and providing them with effortless experience and overall satisfaction. I’ve talked about us being a product-centric sales organization for many years. There is no doubt about it. Our new focus is all on customer centricity and intimacy, and that’s a big shift. So, I think the person who owns sales process and methodology certainly has to have a finger in that because it’s the way you account plan and think about winning customers for life, the way you manage opportunities in terms of always adding value, always adding insight, understanding the goals, pressures, initiatives, obstacles of the organization you are selling into. I think those are core components of moving to a customer-centric model, and sales methodology and process own that. Then we have what I think has been probably the oldest role in sales enablement and I’m saying this because this is your archetypal, old-school sales trainers who came from this vein, and certainly having sold SPIN and been part of Huthwaite and the Miller Heiman ecosystem, the third component is intervention programming. So, this is people who solve what comes up and they offer a core advisory service. So, as you well know, salespeople like to circumvent about what the actual issue is and the problem they are trying to solve. They often give you a lot of symptoms. Someone has to own that advisory component of helping them really, really define what their problems are, and that falls within intervention programming. Then I’ve got the different roles that sit within our organization and an expert for each of those. So, RSD which is our front-line manager; RVP which is our second-line manager; corporate sales development which is more of our inside sales team appointment setting SDR function, someone who looks after that; and then regional leads because I think it’s very important to understand that it’s not a one-size-fits-all for enablement. It has a regional flair. It has regional components that are nuanced and specific to the audience that you are tailoring it to. So, that’s the overall breakdown of my team. I think within that there is probably a lot of expertise. I think assessment is one that I’m incredibly passionate about, Shawnna. I like the idea of having performance metrics that we measure people against and then beyond those performance metrics, also having behavioral indexing or indices that point to both the leading indicators from a new hire. We sell ERP, right, so at the end of the day, we can only do leading indicators to suggest how successful a new hire is going to be over the first ninety days of their productivity sprint, which is our Sales Academy. But beyond that, if you have been here, how are we measuring against pipeline generation, how are we measuring you against what you did last year, how are we measuring you against where you are year-to-date? Then, what does your pipeline coverage look like, what is the daily velocity that you are doing – all of these things – what stages are your deals in? These are all things that many people in sales enablement will measure. Beyond that, we also need to understand how the utility that salespeople place on the activities they are asked to conduct. We need to understand the confidence they have in executing against them. And then the third layer of that behavioral piece is their motivation to actually do that as part of their job, and that’s the final part of expertise. I’ll take a breath now. SS: That’s an amazing answer. And I want to circle back on some of the core metrics and KPIs that you feel sales enablement professionals need to measure. But before we deviate away from this conversation around how we structure sales enablement teams, I’d love to look beyond your team and how you guys report up into the larger organization. At Workday, do you guys currently report into the sales side of the house, the marketing side of the house, or directly into the C-suite? JD: So, I’m going to give you the answer, because it kind of answers both of your questions. Because from a metrics perspective, I actually believe our operations team have a core responsibility around the performance piece and we have one around the behavioral piece. The only reason I say that is because we report directly into the SVP of sales strategy and operations, and that person is the right-hand man of our chief sales officer. So, our chief sales officer or chairman of sales, depending on what way you want to look at it, has three direct reports. He has the SVP for North America sales who reports into him. He has the SVP for EMEA and APJ who reports into him. And then he has the SVP for sales strategy and operations. And underneath sales strategy and operations, and I actually think this is where Workday are sophisticated, there is a three-legged stool that looks at sales efficacy in its entirety. Those three legs are global sales enablement, which is the team I sit in; there is global demand generation and industry; and then there is global sales operations. And global sales operations is broken into three regions: APJ, EMEA, and North America. So, at a peer level, there are VPs of all of those three areas and they all report into our chief sales officer. SS: Got it. That’s amazing, and that is very sophisticated. A lot of sales enablement professionals have also been talking about, and I suspect it’s in slightly smaller organizations, the need to have a seat at the executive table. Do you feel at Workday that you guys have that through your SVP? JD: I do. I’m trying to understand if there’s any subtext to your question there, Shawnna, because it is a layered question and I think you could answer it a few ways. I think there are lots of people who get bogged down in the apparent strategic necessity of their role within sales enablement, and I think there’s a misnomer there because sales enablement by very definition is a strategic function. But often they need to act quite tactically and I think if you feel fulfilled and valued, and maybe it is a request for advisory services, maybe it is a request to lead and own certain initiatives which touch the field organization. At Workday, we are incredibly well connected to our chief sales officer in every sense, from an advisory component, from a definition of misdiagnosis that happens within that function at every level that’s cascaded. Just our overall OKR alone is ensuring that the skill set, tool set, and mindset that is adopted by our field organization is completely customer-centric and reflected in our sales culture. That alone is a strategic initiative that we all need to solve. We are very fortunate in that we have a large group of people who are contributing to that. There are 35 people in our sales enablement function. The extended legs of the stool that I told you about – demand generation, industry, and operations – are also contributing to that. So, although the entire group has shared OKRs that contribute strategically to the organization, there are people within that who have a tactical role to play. You know, sometimes decisions are made and ownership is aligned to different areas of that stool and you’ve got to play the role that you have. It’s just a difficult question to answer because do I feel my role is strategic? Absolutely. I have phone calls with our GVPs and SVPs and meetings with them every month. So in terms of connection and proximity, I feel that. But make no mistake, our job is the job that is needed when it is needed. We are in servitude to a field organization. Maybe I am just not privy to not feeling like I’m part of a contributing organization, and I certainly don’t feel that I need to argue or prove up the strategic value of my role. At the same time, I have no problem executing and getting down and getting my hands dirty. So, I don’t know, Shawnna. Maybe I haven’t answered your question well. SS: No, no. Absolutely. I think you are in a unique position from some of the other practitioners that I speak with that don’t necessarily feel like they have the ear of their executive team or support for that matter. JD: I’m not saying we don’t get frustrated with them, Shawnna. Don’t get me wrong, right? I understand the frustration that many people would go through and I think in smaller organizations if you weren’t connected to the C-suite, I can see where the challenges lie because you are constantly competing for the eyes and ears of the audience that you serve. And as we know, leadership buy-in to win the hearts and minds of the field is incredibly important. We have that because I actually think the culture of Workday is just great people always wanting to do better, and that’s something you cannot create in a vacuum, so they need that exposure. And it’s also something that can’t be created overnight. That takes time and luckily I joined an organization that was already there. SS: Thanks for listening. For more insights, tips and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there is something you would like to share or a topic you want to know more about, let us know, we’d love to hear from you.

Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Google Podcasts Many who have been in the sales industry for years are beginning to experience what Greg Moore calls a "tectonic shift": the future of selling looks very different than the past. That’s because the digital age has enabled buyers to be more in control of the buying process than they’ve ever been. Sellers need to adapt in order to be the best "future sellers” possible. I invited Greg Moore, Growth Executive and Sales Transformation Expert at the Miller Heiman Group to share his expertise on the matter on this episode of #SellingWithSocial. Greg has been at Miller Heiman for 24 years, enough time for him to see the sales data that came in before the advent of digital sales technology as well as witness the seismic shift taking place today. In this conversation, we dig into the differences between sellingthe past and selling in the future but more importantly, we highlight what will make sales professionals successful in the future. You don’t want to miss it.   This podcast is brought to you by the Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit. Receive a 30% discount on your registration. Join us this April 3rd – 5th in Chicago, IL - Visit http://bit.ly/AAISPVengreso and use the code Vengreso30%. 70% Of The Buying Decision Is Made Before Reaching Out To A Seller In the past, the buying process for most consumers included connection with a sales professional early in the process. There was really no other way for a buyer to get the answers they needed regarding possible solutions to their problems. But digital has changed that forever. Now, the data reveals that 70% of the buying process is completed before a buyer ever reaches out to a seller. Why is that significant? Because it puts buyers in the driver’s seat of the process - which is great if they come to the conversation well informed. But if they come to the sales conversation confident but misinformed, sellers will have a harder time making the sale. In this conversation, Greg explains why sellers need to be skillful at having conversations that tactfully unearth errors in the buyer’s conclusions so they can be led to the solutions they truly need. Sellers Today Must Help Buyers See Problems They Have Not Considered Consider this scenario: A buyer comes to you after doing their own research convinced that they need your product or service, but they intend to apply it to their situation in a way that you know is not going to produce the outcomes they desire. Are you equipped to help them assess their needs from a different perspective and guide them to a better approach? The future of selling will require that you have that skill in abundance. No matter how well informed buyers are - both now and in the future - they don’t know what they don’t know. That’s because they are not immersed in the best and worst practices of their industry day after day like sellers are. Greg says that “future sellers” will be able to guide conversations beyond the initial conclusions buyers have to arrive at the right solutions for their problems. The will be consultative experts who add tremendous value to the buyers they serve. Compare Yourself To This “Future Seller” Character Sketch If the future of sales is going to require a different kind of seller, what will that person look like? Greg says there are four major differences between successful future sellers and successful sellers in the past. Here are the four contrasts he points out… Independent VS Collaborative: In the old way of selling, successful sales professionals were solo performers. In the future, collaboration will be the way to success. Transactional VS Interactive: Rather than focusing on a transaction as in the past, future sellers need to be able to focus on the interaction they are having with prospects/buyers in order to cultivate success in sales. Persuasion VS Co-Creating: There will always be a need for skill in persuading people to see what they have yet to see, but gone are the days when persuading a person to buy is going to bring success. Co-creating solutions with the help and input of the buyer is the route forward. Control VS Transparency: The old school way of selling kept the entire sales process firmly in the hands of the seller, only divulging certain things at certain points in the process. But now that buyers have access to most of the data they need even before speaking with a seller, transparency is in order. What Are The Tools That Will Move Us Into The Future Of Sales? Those who are successful at selling in the future will be the ones who fully embrace sales science and the tools it provides. Greg says the future seller will need… A tool to help with research A tool to help with organization A tool to help discover and understand the trends of the industry A tool to help identify key buying influences A search engine of some type The common denominator of these tools is that they increase productivity and reduce the tedium of the sales job, taking the minutia off the seller’s plate so they can focus on the relationships and interactions that provide true value to buyers. This conversation is a fascinating look into the future of sales and what those of us in the sales profession can do to equip ourselves for future success. Don’t miss it! This podcast is brought to you by the Annual AA-ISP Leadership Summit. Receive a 30% discount on your registration. Join us this April 3rd – 5th in Chicago, IL - Visit http://bit.ly/AAISPVengreso and use the code Vengreso30%. Outline of This Episode [2:58] Greg Moore of the Miller Heiman Group and his path into sales years ago [10:25] What does the future of selling look like from Greg’s viewpoint? [13:50] What does it mean to sell with value? [19:46] Sellers must know how to sell what works, not what buyers think they need [25:43] Characteristics of those who are most successful in selling for the future [31:56] Do the characteristics of future sellers translate over cultures and industries? [36:42] How the science of selling impacts long-term success in sales [41:56] What tools should be in a sales professional’s toolkit? Resources Mentioned Greg Moore on LinkedIn Greg on Twitter: @GregoryTMoore Miller Heiman Group Greg’s favorite movie of all time: Inception Byron Matthews episode The MHG Conceptual Selling Course Neil Rackham BOOK: Spin Selling Documentary: The Story of Sales Kyle Porter, CEO of Salesloft Salesloft CSO Insights BOOK: Sapiens BOOK: Homodeus BOOK: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Apple Watch Fitbit Sales Navigator Outreach.io Chorus.ai Gong.ai Seamless.ai Discover.org Scout data tool Crystal Knows Modern Marketing Engine Podcast - Bernie Borges Connect with Mario! www.vengreso.com On Facebook On Twitter On YouTube On LinkedIn Subscribe to Selling With Social Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Google Play | Google Podcasts

Tamara Schenk is the Research Director at CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman. Tamara recently wrote a book on sales enablement, which is called Sales Enablement: A Master Framework to Engage, Equip and Empower a World-class Sales Force. Sales Enablement is a fast growing discipline with 59% of sales organisations currently reporting a sales enablement initiative or function compared to only 19% in 2013. We discuss what sales enablement is all about, the key trends emerging and what's critical to make it work.

Our guest, Byron Matthews is the President & CEO of Milller Heiman Group.   Check out Byron's new book, Sales Enablement:  A Master Framework to Engage, Equip and Empower a World-Class Sales Force Highlights from this Episode:   Companies investing in sales enablement is up 26% from last year, with 59% of organizations that now have a sales enablement function. Yet, only 34% of organizations are achieving their sales enablement goals. (CSOi Report) B2B companies can assess their sales teams' gaps and opportunities in relation to each component of sales enablement and look for the alignment (per the Clarity Model). Sales enablement cannot be put in a box like other functions. It is cross-functional, and orchestrates all enablement efforts across all “boxes,” including its alignment with the customer journey. Defining sales enablement: Sales force enablement is a strategic, collaborative discipline designed to increase predictable sales results by providing consistent, scalable enablement services that allow customer-facing professionals and their managers to add value in every customer interaction. More about and from Byron:  Anyone familiar with Miller Heiman Group (brands include: Miller Heiman, Huthwaite, AchieveGlobal, Impact Learning, Channel Enablers, and CSO Insights) knows that championing the customer experience is a main tenet of their mission—and also one that I happen to share.As President and CEO of Miller Heiman Group, I bring a broad depth of experience in growing, leading and providing guidance to the best organizations globally surrounding their sales processes, as well as the leading operations that support the mission of a great sales organization. Throughout my career, I have sought out challenges and answered demands that call for singular vision, energy and creativity. I have consulted and collaborated with industry leaders throughout the world and crafted new funnel-management solutions, compensation plans, sales methodologies, and sales-management processes, as well as developed and implemented sales-operations capabilities, sales structure, and territory design, for such Fortune 500 companies as Microsoft, AT&T, Sprint, and Aflac. Personally, I am passionate about the education of sales as a discipline. In collaboration with university faculty and administrators, I am working to drive a nationwide effort to incorporate the study of sales into graduate and undergraduate academic environments. I teach and volunteer my time as a guest lecturer for universities including Cornell and Harvard Business School and contribute to published academic and industry research on sales strategy and concepts. I also run sales boot camps and coach, train, and judge students at university sales competitions across the U.S. and participate regularly as a featured speaker at industry wide events.

The Social Network Show on KDWN welcomes Jeff Sheehan and Al Smith to the August 11, 2014 episode. If you are looking for a job or if you are an employer looking for good candidates, we recommend listening to this show. Jeff Sheehan and Al Smith, who wrote the book Hired! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era give tips on how to search for a job and more. Listen to the show to hear how to "harvest a bounty of riches"; to use social media as a tool but not the only tool to look for a job; to find jobs that are not posted; to use SEO and keywords to get noticed online; to use a "long tail search" to find the jobs you are looking for; and to keep a job once you have been hired. Jeff Sheehan holds a BBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a M.S. in Finance from Bentley University, and a M.S. in Marketing from Georgia State University with additional training at Northwestern University and the University of Virginia. With over 30 years of high-tech global sales, marketing, and advertising experience marketing to many Fortune 500 companies including Intel, Apple Computer, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and AT&T, as well as many others, Jeff is now a marketing consultant and job search mentor, as well as the volunteer director of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church Career Ministry in Atlanta. Jeff ranks in the top 1% of people on LinkedIn. With almost 275,000 followers on Twitter, he is also among the Top 50 People Most Retweeted in the World by Mid-Size Marketers. In addition, he has been recognized by many as one of the top people in the world to follow on Twitter for marketing, social media, and sales. He is a well known speaker in the Atlanta area on the use of LinkedIn, Personal Branding, Social Media, and Marketing. Jeff is a Toastmaster (CC), volunteers extensively for multiple charities, and is an engaging and informative speaker on marketing, social media, and the use of social media in the job search. He is the co-author of the just released book: 'HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era Al Smith has been an executive for seven companies in five industries and has in excess of 35 years of management, sales, marketing, training and coaching experience. Al's record of success as a multiple award-winner in each industry, speaks to his innate ability to transfer skills to changing landscapes. Those skills now aid candidates with their most challenging “sales” and “marketing” experience: Job Transition. National trainer for three companies in two industries, Al has adapted techniques from Xerox, Kimberly-Clark, American Management Association, Miller-Heiman, Systema, and others. He has morphed life tested experiences combined with a proprietary methodology interspersed with self-deprecating humor. Mr. Smith has been heard internationally via webinars, coaching classes, seminars and live speaking engagements. He has helped in excess of 1,000 people with their job search during the past four years. Al's creative presentations communicate complex material in readily understandable terms. Einstein said, “If you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough.” If correct, few know how to help candidates secure employment better than Al Smith. Al is Director of the Unity North Atlanta Church Career Ministry, volunteers extensively and is an engaging keynote speaker whose topics are numerous, entertaining and packed with insight. He is also he co-author of the just released book: 'HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era  

Job Hunting? In Career Transition? Then You Must Read "Hired! The Path To Employment In The Social Media Era"   Jeff Sheehan holds a BBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a M.S. in Finance from Bentley University, and a M.S. in Marketing from Georgia State University with additional training at Northwestern University and the University of Virginia. With over 30 years of high-tech global sales, marketing, and advertising experience marketing to many Fortune 500 companies.     Jeff is now a marketing consultant and job search mentor, as well as the volunteer director of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church Career Ministry in Atlanta. Jeff ranks in  the top 1% of people on LinkedIn. With over 265,000 followers on Twitter, he has been recognized by some as the #1 Marketer In The World To Follow On Twitter , #2 in Social Media, and #1 in Sales. He is also among the Top 50 People Most Retweeted in the World by Mid-Size Marketers.   He is a well known speaker in the Atlanta area on the use of of LinkedIn, Personal Branding, Social Media, and Marketing. Jeff is  a Toastmaster (CC), volunteers extensively for multiple charities, and is an engaging and informative speaker on marketing, social media, and the use of social media in the job search. He is the co-author of the just released book: 'HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era (http://hiredthebook.com)   Al Smith  has been an executive for seven companies and has in excess of 35 years of management, sales, marketing, training and coaching experience. He has been a hiring manager since his early twenties.  Al’s track record of success as a multiple award-winner in five diverse industries, speaks to his innate ability to transfer skills to changing landscapes.    He is national trainer for three companies in two industries, Al has learned from the insightful techniques of Miller-Heiman, Xerox, American Management Association, Kimberly-Clark, Systema and others. He has morphed those taught and life tested experiences combined with with an innovative, proprietary methodology that is interspersed with self-deprecating humor to make many of his points hit home. Mr. Smith has been heard internationally via webinars, coaching classes, seminars and live speaking engagements.  He has helped in excess of 1,000 people with their job search during the past four years.  Al believes that every candidate is unique and should learn every method for finding a job because no single  method is right for everyone.  One size does not fit all.   Al is widely recognized for his creative presentations and ability to communicate complex material in readily understandable terms.  Einstein once said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.”  If correct, few know how to help those in job transition secure new employment better than Al Smith.   A number  of these traits are on display in HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era.   For your benefit, no stone is left un-turned.Al is Director of the Unity North Atlanta Career Ministry, volunteers extensively and is an engaging keynote speaker whose topics are numerous, entertaining and packed with insight.   Topics Discussed We start the discussion on how long the book took to be created and why they decided to write a book like this that covers a multitude of topics relationg to job hunting, the interview process, and strategies to use. Jeff and Al go over their extensive backgrounds and share personal stories, and what motivated them to author this book. They share their knowledge and how they continue to help job seekers, and people in career transition to develop their business skills. How the website  TransitionSherpa was created. What questions people going through a career change should be asking themselves before they start job hunting. Al and Jeff shares what groups of people will benefit from the book "HIRED! Paths to Employment in the Social Media Era" A discussiong takes place about the the current job process for those currently job hunting. Strategies and Tactics on how to organize your resume for optimal results are shared in this interview. Are paid resume services really needed? Tactics for Linkedin and Twitter are discussed and how to network effectively, efficiently, and ethically. What are "Rich Keywords." How to use keywords in your resume. Jeff gives insight to how H.R. recruiters find potential employees and what you need to know to shine among a sea of applicants. Why and How you should be using word clouds to develop your resume. Questions you should be asking during your job interview and Al shares what is the most powerful question you need to know. Tools Mentioned   WORDLE ABCYA Word Cloud Search.twitter.com (Advance)

Interview with Alice R. Heiman, Sales Strategist, Speaker, Author Alice Heiman is a sales expert & networking guru who walks you through what it takes to sell successfully whether it's your job to sell or you're a business owner who never dreamed you'd have to sell. Alice developed her expertise in sales while at Miller Heiman, Inc. before striking out on her own. In her years at Miller Heiman she sold to and trained some of the company’s largest and most complex accounts including: Coca Cola, Dow Chemical, Fidelity Investments and Hewlett Packard. A consummate networker, Alice is the author of the ebook Connecting Your Way to New Business, and the creator of The BizTalk Blender®, a unique event designed to engage people in conversations that result in sales. Alice has appeared on radio and television, and been featured in print publications including Selling Power and Entrepreneur’s Startups Magazine. Her articles on sales are published on numerous blogs including Hoovers B2Buzz, Business2Community, Huffington Post Small Business, Sales Gravy and Successful Meetings. Contact her at www.aliceheiman.com. Join us on Facebook or at www.increasemysmallbusiness.com where we talk about small business issues and tips, from small business mentors, coaches and small business owners.

This episode reveals the secret behind elite performers and good performers and examines the one core difference Bill and Bryan's process has over all others out there. The good news is - it doesn't matter what process you use: Miller Heiman, SPIN, PSS, Sandler - Bill and Bryan's philosophies shared in this episode can dramatically change your results.