Sales Secrets

Fraser Bullock is currently the Co-Founder of Sorenson Capital. Previous to founding Sorenson, Fraser was asked by Mitt Romney to be the COO of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in SLC. In this episode, Fraser talks about the challenge of overcoming a scandalous Olympic bid and a $400 million dollar deficit and how he and his team turned it into $100 million profit and one of the most successful Olympic games ever. In This Episode You'll Learn: Washington Post Test The importance of product leadership How to think about building great teams The importance of tools and technology Get up and get up quickly Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Fraser Bullock at Sorenson Capital

Most people sell features. A select few sell benefits but Anthony Iannarino teaches companies to sell something greater than that. People don't buy products, people buy people and until sales reps start prescribing to prospects what is required to win, they will never reach their full potential. In this episode, Anthony Iannarino, discusses the secrets of how to sell better starting now. In This Episode You'll Learn: What you need to do to sell better now Your product isn’t enough Experience isn’t enough ROI and outcomes aren’t enough You are not all that different from your competitors The direction from which you enter a sale defines you How you sell is more important than what you sell Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: The Sales Blog

If you have not heard of the Corporate Executive Board (CEB), you're missing out. CEB is a fantastic research and best practice organization that has revolutionized the way way we think about sales and marketing. One of the leaders at CEB is Matt Dixon, the author of the Challenger Sale. Matt is responsible for authoring a book that has really changed the way people look at sales. In this episode, Matt explains some of his thought around the Challenger Sale - how the book came to be and what companies should should with the information. In This Episode You'll Learn: What is the Challenger Sale How the Challenger Sale was created How organizations should start using this information

Whatever you call it – predictive analytics, machine learning, or artificial intelligence, – you need to be doing it or at least say you're doing it. I'm serious, if your product isn't powered by artificial intelligence then get it on the road map and do what everyone else is doing - sell it like you already have it. With recent announcements by large software companies that A.I. is the next big thing, we've officially crossed the metaphoric Geoffrey Moore chasm and A.I. is here to stay. The question is how do you win with A.I.? In this episode, Gabe Larsen, Director of InsideSales.com Labs talks about the secrets to winning with A.I. In This Episode You'll Learn: Math is the table stakes Data is the differentiator Application is key Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: LinkedIn Post Simple explanation of neural networks Dave Elkington's article on What is A.I.

Proposals are an important part of the sales process but wasting time writing proposals for the wrong people or handing the process of proposal writing inappropriately, can cost sales people a lot of time. In this episode, author Colleen Stanley, talks about three key concepts sales people should focus on to make the proposal process a success. In This Episode You'll Learn: The importance of knowing who you target How to stop confusing a the idea of a customer wanting a better price with idea of a customer pain How to develop soft skills to be more assertive Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Colleen's LinkedIn

Sales development is a popular term for lead development reps or people who handle the prospecting part of the sales process. In this episode, the master Kraig Kleeman, discusses key trends driving this important role. In This Episode You'll Learn: Great sellers are not born they are developed Onboarding is key Cracking the code on the enterprise Understanding the limitations of social selling Unlocking a lot of cash Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Kraig's LinkedIn

Justin Lindsey is a signal finder. As he explains it, he did not start out that way. he started out as builder. His Dad was a ham radio guy and it’s just the way it was around our home. . . from home construction, to solder, to embedded controllers, to early PC building, to programing, even some early robotics. He just built things. This building led him to MIT where his building evolved to solving complex things simply, occasionally even elegantly. He spent the 90’s designing and building fast distributed systems and the companies that housed them. He gained fundamental skills in distributed high-speed computation on large data sets. Computational speed became a passion. Then the world changed on September 11. After which, he was asked to be the CTO for the FBI and my path shifted to applied analytics. What mattered was finding signals that could both explain what had or was happening and to predict what might happen. He began to believe that encoded in the large, diverse, and dynamic data sources of our wor

Every company wants to sell to the enterprise but not every company knows how. In this episode, Mike Schultz, president of Raingroup, lets us in on some new research about what differentiates top performers in large companies. In This Episode You'll Learn: What Top Performers in Strategic Account Management do differently than The Rest The #1 sales competency across Top Performers, and how the competencies are completely different at less successful organizations 6 Strategic Account Management Roles every account team needs Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: echoofhope.org Mike's LinkedIn

One of the most common behaviors in sales is the period-ending push, in which reps are pressured to make extra efforts to reach quotas at the end of calendar cycles. Conventional wisdom dictates that the axiomatic jump in period-ending deal closures observed nearly universally is evidence of the effectiveness of these behaviors. Yet our analysis of over 151 anonymized companies and 9.8 million sales transactions demonstrates that this pattern may be costing the companies studied an estimated $98.02 million per year in missed revenue. This number represents a potential increase of 27.21% in revenue per company if properly addressed. Strategies executed at the end of calendar cycles often unnecessarily alienate potential clients with aggressive sales tactics and encourage sales reps to procrastinate activities or pull deals forward. These counterproductive and often unacknowledged practices can be overcome by behavioral coaching, sales skill enhancement, and improvements to pipeline management and forecast stra

Malcolm Gladwell is the man. He runs a podcast called the The Revisionist History. His 3rd episode talks about why smart people do dumb things and we thought, in sales, smart people do dumb things. The InsideSales Labs team recently released a research report called, " Time-Based Closing Strategies: The High Cost of Procrastination." The report quantifies the age old debate of sales reps closing deals on the last day of the month. In this episode, we discuss why people do dumb things and introduce some of the findings of our research report. In This Episode You'll Learn: About Malcolm's Podcast What really happens on the last day of the month regarding the number of deals, deal sizes, and win rates How much bad behavior at the end of the month is costing companies Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Research Report Malcolm's Podcast LinkedIn Article

Every company wants to move up stream and catch bigger fish but not every company can. Selling to bigger companies requires a different strategy and mind-set than selling to small companies. In this episode, Leslie Venetz, VP of Sales at Carpathia talks about his experience of selling and winning in the enterprise. In This Episode You'll Learn: The importance of defining your target companies How to not be afraid to pick up the phone and call How to effectively deal with gatekeepers

Antiquated systems, processes, data structures, and ideologies plague sales and marketing. If we do not optimize our sales and marketing technology stack to empower a formulaic approach that seamlessly manifests itself as clearly defined business results, we will not create sustainable and predictable growth for our organizations. In this episode, Dan Murdoch Director of Demand Generation, talks about the Harmony Theory and how sales and marketing can work together to drive success. In This Episode You'll Learn: Defining the assembly line to revenue Building the optimized technology stack Employing an ABM, Omni-Channel surround sound strategy Implementing industry leading sales and marketing operations Defining clear divisions of labor to move leads down the funnel Employing the Harmony Metric as a means of prioritization for sales action (A weighted avg metric of Lead score + Account Fit score + Contactability score)

Lindsey is a social selling guru. She a practitioner turned consultant because of the success she learned using social tools. Her mission is to now share her secrets and her best practices with the world. In this episode, Lindsey talks about her social selling master class and how she rose to the top mastering key social selling tips, tricks, and tactics. In This Episode You'll Learn: Proven LinkedIn strategic that work How social selling can be an integral part of any selling process Key tips and tricks to get you selling Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 39: Massive Misconceptions of Social Selling w/Jared Fuller @PandaDoc 17: Leverage Social Networks to Gain Access to Big Time Decision Makers w/Brynne Tillman @PeopleLinx

Hiring is broken and if you're like most leaders you're not sure how to fix it. Great resumes, well-dressed candidates, and firm handshakes just don't cut it but what does? In this episode, Ross Rich, Managing Principal, Selection Strategies, Inc. shares with us the secrets of his life's work - discovering and using a data-driven approach to hiring sales superstars. In This Episode You'll Learn: Blending art & science in sales hiring Identifying key performance metrics Mining for performance data Incorporating data-driven attributes into the interview process Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 59: Your Hiring Process is Broken: Lesson from the Movie MoneyBall 15: Creating a Performance-Driven Culture w/Shea Stringert @AdRoll LinkedIn Posts

Sales and marketing have always been known as the odd couple but that doesn't mean it's okay. How can you bring two things together that often don't naturally go together? In this episode, Gavin Harris, VP of Sales of SalesFusion, breaks down the relationship of sales and marketing and discusses how these two functional areas can effectively work together to achieve success. In This Episode You'll Learn: The importance of speed-to-lead How great organizations think about scoring leads How prioritization drives success

This guy is the real deal. Aaron Ross made his fame and fortune at Salesforce.com where he helped Salesforce scale to 100million dollars. For years his book, Predictable Revenue," was called the bible of "Silicon Valley" and it has helped many companies achieve top success. In this episode, Aaron shares with us some of the genius of his latest writings about how CEOs can break revenue plateaus. In This Episode You'll Learn: Use your challenges to power change, not avoid it Seeds, nets, spears,: which is best for you Specialize your people or time Practice getting to the painful truth

When you think of the marketing cloud you think of full automation. Lead routing, lead scoring, lead research, lead nurturing. The list goes on and on. In the world of hiring it's different. There is little to no technology and the concept of predictive analytics is non-existent. It's not right but it is the way it is and it's time we recognize it and change it. In this episode, Gabe Larsen, the Director of InsideSales Labs discusses a data-driven approach to hiring using lessons from the movie MoneyBall. In This Episode You'll Learn: The MoneyBall story - Billy Bean and the Oakland A's The concept of using data in the hiring process like the Oakland A's did What talent is and how it can be used to objectify the hiring process Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 15: Creating a Performance-Driven Culture w/Shea Stringert @AdRoll 18: How the World’s Top Tech Companies are Killing It with Sales Development w/Leaders from Apttus, Salesforce, Docusign, and Hubspot LinkedIn Post Accelerate: InsideSal

We all talk about coaching but not many organizations know how to do it and almost nobody knows how to scale it. Coaching is easy with five sales reps but with 50 or 100 reps, it becomes a different game. In this episode, VP of Sales Kevin Dorsey, gives a three stop process to scale an incredible coaching program. in your sales organization. In This Episode You'll Learn: The importance of building a scorecard Holding your reps accountable by effecting their quota Not be afraid to iterate through the entire process Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: 57: You Suck At Building Rapport: 3 Steps to Build Trust in Minutes 52: How to Master the Art of Selling w/ Author and Speaker Tom Hopkins

Rapport is huge. It's the thing. Sales reps have to do it to sell a deal and they are often terrible at it. People know what rapport building is but they don't know how to do it. In this episode, Gabe Larsen, Director of InsideSales Labs walks through a three-step process to build trust in minutes. In This Episode You'll Learn: The three step process to build rapport quickly using the ROI model Review . . .the source Organize . . .the information Ignite . . .the conversation Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: LinkedIn Post

Every year people guess what will happen the following year but this is different. In this episode, Elyse Archer Sales and Leadership Coach, goes deep into her experience to talk about top trends, tools, and wish list items for 2017. In This Episode You'll Learn: Why and how individual content must be produced by sales people Why we need to change the way we look at metrics The importance of simplifying the sales process Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Elyse's LinkedIn