The post S.A.D.N.E.S.S – Sales Are Dope Never Ever Stop Selling appeared first on Head Of Sales.

“I don’t believe in burnout.” – Grant Cardone

Do something you love and you’ll never truly work a day in your life.

People ask me, “Tony, how do you keep up the frenetic pace of 25 hours every day? How are you not beyond burnt out on selling, calling, and traveling across continents incessantly after 3 decades?” It doesn’t mean I love every element of what I do on a daily basis or enjoy the rejection laden gauntlet… even I run from dawn until dusk and I’ve had moments of near-implosion this year with finishing my next book, meeting client commitments and continuing to publish blog articles .

I blast ahead by getting off on the high I feel miles into a bike ride. I thrive on challenging myself daily for the breakthrough. When you really don’t care about hearing a ‘no’, the yeses are sweet! When all possible rain is water off a duck’s back because you’re making a positive difference, then you’ll make money rain too.

It’s possible to be joyful about this thing called SALES if you’re making a positive difference in the lives of all those you touch.

I have several secrets to preventing and avoiding burnout out over a 30 year career in sales. Here we go:

1. 80/20 rule. Isolate the 20% of your activity that yields 80% of the results or output. Do that before lunch. If I don’t do 2 major things that scare me before lunch, I shouldn’t have even worked that day. Yes, that means directly call 2 or 3 CEOs who could partner with me, who I could consult on revenue acceleration.
2. Curiosity. Yes, it killed the cat but not the human. You must become infinitely interested in other people. Even fascinated by buyer psychology… What makes them tick? How are each of their problems different like a snowflake or fingerprint? You could even take a course from Barry Rhein on Curiosity Based Selling. Prospects are fascinating. Peel the onion with open SPIN questions and turn your ‘listen to talk’ ratio on 20/80. Super hard to do and that discipline of “being fully there” (as I highlight in RSVPselling methodology) will “open doors where there were once walls,” per philosopher Joseph Campbell.
3. Exercise. You’re not going to hit 10X Massive action being sedentary hitting the red bull and jolt cola. Work/life balance comes from concentrating really hard and doing that ‘one thing’ as effectively (and highly leveraged) as possible in that moment. Exercise improves stamina and brain function. You can only become caffeinated for so long. The body’s natural energy systems bloom into a supernova of dopamine (not the Facebook cat video clicker kind), serotonin and endorphins when you can get your heart rate up. For me that’s cycling and not just weekend warrioring it. I often wake in the dark to strike out to put in 60 kilometers.
4. Altruism: I truly seek to help my partners, customers and network to PIF: pay it forward. There are some aspects to what I do that have more residual intrinsic value than money can ever buy. Mentoring wonderful people that exceed my ability. Truly stunning and humbling! Behavioral change at the client level and the client’s team is extremely rewarding when they grok the sales process, methodology and start to hammer high action down through the funnel to CLOSED-WON. Watching all the principles I espouse in these blogs, hardened in the trenches, come to fruition for those that would dare try apply COMBO literally, is what I live for!
5. Passion: You can call it Grant Cardone 10X or Obsession but I stay dedicated to setting 10X goals every day, every quarter and every year to push myself to the next level. I’ve hit many of them inadvertently by shooting for the stars and hitting a mountain.
6. Go off the grid: Every 90 days, shut off all your electronics and go into the outback on walkabout. You’ve gotta unplug from social media, your cell phone alerts, the screens, Netflix and chill, and inbox Zero false hope. Go back to nature or run across your country like Forest Gump. Get real and back to who you are as a human. Epiphanies flow to an open mind. Digital overload has deadened human creativity. Do you think Michaelangelo was rushing to respond to a tweet?
7. Life-Long Learning: Constantly strive for knowledge, wisdom, mentorship, reverse mentorship and read widely across many subject matter areas to cross-train. I absolutely loved this video by Jeb Blount. Readers are leaders and writers are sellers. Never stop learning! There’s truly a correlation between the level of success possible and how much one reads. Yes, you can learn by apprenticeship and doing but you need to get Zig, Bosworth, Eades, Thull, Holden, Rackham, Adamson, Holmes, et. al burned into your DNA! Turn your car into a classroom.

Instead of burning out, KTFB – keep the fire burning.

Sure there are days where you’ll feel overwhelmed (I have many), face the crippling defeat of a lost sale, be met with only silence and rejection, face the blowtorch of internal corporate politics, and flat out want to quit. You’re only human and that’s par for the course. But just like Billy Joel entreated, “Don’t forget your second wind!”

Persistence, tenacity, and grit will pay off in spades. Approach your life and your role with a “beginner’s mind” and growth mindset. Carpe Diem – Seize the day! Sometimes I feel like Benjamin Buttons. You’d be shocked that after reading hundreds of books, attending more seminars than I can remember, and coaching/closure of thousands of sales cycles, it’s still day one on the learning curve.

We’ve never lived in a more exciting time than right now. The machine age, the blossoming of the fourth industrial revolution (from automation to intelligence) where heart, man, machine and software automation are all simultaneously hitting a wild nexus point to finally carry the realm of B2B Complex Sales forward is incredibly invigorating!

The post Secrets To Minimise Burnout appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Every week, a new episode is released as we hear from global sales and social experts who share their very best social strategies and plays. We scour the globe looking for those who do a great job with their social plays and bring them and their ideas directly to you.

In every episode, there is at least one thing you can take immediate action on that will make a difference to your LinkedIn and digital selling approach.

Here are this month’s top selections for you.

3 Rules For Going Viral On LinkedIn.

Daniel Hochuli is LinkedIn’s head of content, APAC and China. He works with LinkedIn’s most strategic clients, big name brands such as IBM, Lamborghini, PwC, Johnson & Johnson, Audi, Philips, Pfizer and many more.

Who doesn’t want their content to go viral?

In this episode, Daniel shares with us the 3 keys to increasing the virility of your content to ensure as many people see your content as possible.

Great insights from someone who helps the best brands get their message out on social.

Sales Leaders why your LinkedIn profile says you’re FAT, DUMB and LAZY. – James Michael.

If you’re a sales leader, business owner or entrepreneur you probably don’t realise how much damage your LinkedIn profile is actually doing to your business.

You might think,

“I’m not using LinkedIn to reach out to start conversations or to support my business growth. Why does it matter”

 James Michael, from Justified Talent, tells us you’re probably driving the best sales recruits away from you and your business and you don’t even know it.

If you intend hiring anyone this year you should check out this podcast so you know what NOT to DO.

How to secure meetings, right now, from the UKs Top 10 SDR – Nia Woodhouse.

Nia is an SDR with coaching platform Refract. Nia spends her days trying to get people to take meetings with her Account Executive team.
 
Nia Woodhouse has just been awarded by Sales Confidence, as one of the TOP 10 SDR’s, in the entire UK.  

In this show, Nia shares her exact outreach strategy, how she uses LinkedIn to open doors to client conversations and a little about her cadence. All the tactics that made her a top 10 performer. 

One of the cool things we learnt is NIA is using voice notes on LinkedIn early in her outreach to create 90% conversation rate. 

If you’re an SDR, a BDM or you just need to find a way to talk to more customers NIA shares what’s working right now. You could do a lot worse than simply follow her lead here.

Automation in sales, at scale with Justin Michael.

Justin is on a mission to help sellers make a bigger commercial impact through the use of automation and technology. 

Justin has worked at a rate of 1000 – 1 doing the work of 1000 sellers in the time and space of one. A Million emails sent, 6years of pipeline built in just 6months. He has worked at Salesforce, LinkedIn and even trained Mike Weinberg’s’ sales development team.  

Who trains one of the world’s best sales trainer’s sales teams’? Justin.

Let that sink in. 

You might not like what he has to say – but you can’t ignore it.
You’re probably going to need to listen to this episode twice.  
Lucky it’s short. 

List of guests

Guests have included many of the tops trainers and specialists you would know as well as some great practitioners sharing what they do and how they do it.

• Jason Bay
• Justin Michael
• Daniel Disney
• Phil Gerbyshank
• Brynne Tilman
• Bill McCormick
• Steven Norman
• Chris Reed
• Jay Jensen
• Cynthia Barnes & more

Subscribe to the pod on your favourite podcasting channel such as Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher or pick up the pod directly at www.markmc.co/boss-podcast

The post The Best of Social Selling – BOSS Podcast Volume 2 (Sponsored) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Why should you listen to the podcast?

There are two ways you can get good at something.

• Work like mad, make mistakes, adjust your approach and then try again. Repeating that process until successful or
• ‘Model the Masters’. , look to those who have gone before you and who have already proven to be successful in those skills.

The BOSS podcast takes this second approach and brings those strategies to you.

Every Monday, a new episode is released as we hear from global sales and social experts who share their very best social strategies and plays. We scour the globe looking for those who do a great job with their social plays and bring them and their ideas directly to you.

In every episode, there is at least one thing you can take immediate action on that will make a difference to your LinkedIn and digital selling approach.

Here are this month’s top selections for you.

EXPOSED: LinkedIn Automation in the Sales Process. What’s working now?

In this episode, we talk to an Australian Account Exec who is currently using LinkedIn-Helper (a LinkedIn automation software tool) to help him find new clients and start conversations while he is doing other tasks.

Because using automation is against the ‘rules’ of LinkedIn, we had to ‘disguise’ our guests’ voice to protect him from having his LinkedIn account banned. In this discussion, he opens up and shares how he uses this automation in the sales process, what other tech tools are in his stack, how they all work together and what results he can achieve from the application of that automation.

A warts-and-all, sneak-peak look, under the bonnet of someone driving great results as a solo contributor in the Australian SaaS market.

Interestingly, there are a couple of astonishing things coming out of this discussion that we were not expecting.

Profile Secrets from Australia’s Leading LinkedIn Profile Specialist – Karen Tisdell.

Time and time again, LinkedIn experts have told us that having a great profile is the key to success on the platform. Having an average or lower profile makes it difficult for people to invite you to connect or to accept your connection request. Yet, with a strong profile, all of that becomes so much easier.

What happens when you get a notification that ‘someone has viewed your profile’ of course you want to go and see who that was and try to figure out what might they want.

That simple, but powerful, first impression drives everything that follows – do they send you a connection request? Do they accept yours? As you can see, a great profile is fundamental to your LinkedIn activity.

Karen Tisdell is Australia’s leading LinkedIn profile writer; as you might imagine, she spends A LOT of time thinking about LinkedIn profiles. Here, Karen shares her very best tips so that you too can have that all-important, great LinkedIn profile. A perfect place to start for newer or intermediate LinkedIn users.

LinkedIn Lurker to Influencer in just 15mins a day with Joe Apfelbaum.

LinkedIn Lurker:

Joe Apfelbaum is a high energy marketer and author. Joe wrote a best-selling book on weight loss called ‘High Energy Secrets’ after he lost 43kilos and transformed his life.

It turns out there is a lot in common between weight loss and a LinkedIn social selling strategy.

In this high-energy episode, we hear, what are the three things we need to do, every day, to go from LinkedIn lurker to LinkedIn influencer?

Why you should focus on being seen 1000 times a year by 1000 people instead of being seen just once by 10,000 people?

At one point, Joe even breaks out into a rap about B2B selling. A fun episode with plenty of great takeaways to use.

How to Increase Your Response Rates by 300% with Matt Barnett.

Video messaging has been spoken about a lot recently as a tool that will help you breakthrough with your messages whether that’s using Video via LinkedIn, Email or even Text delivery.

Matt Barnett is the CEO and Papa bear at Bonjoro, a video messaging company. Matt shares with us, what his clients are seeing as far as open rates, response rates and how his clients are currently using video to engage more effectively with both potential clients and their existing clients and how some are getting an increase in response rates of 300%

I use video all through the sales funnel and as a training tool. I think it’s an excellent substitute for face-to-face conversations and a fast way to build some rapport. it’s a great tool to create an easy pattern interrupt

Guests have included many of the tops trainers and specialists you would know as well as some great practitioners sharing what they do and how they do it.

• Jason Bay
• Justin Michael
• Daniel Disney
• Phil Gerbyshank
• Brynne Tilman
• Bill McCormick
• Steven Norman
• Chris Reed
• Jay Jensen
• Cynthia Barnes & more

Subscribe to the pod on your favourite podcasting channel such as Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher or follow the pod on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-of-social-selling  

The post Best of Social Selling Wrap up. BOSS Podcast (Sponsored) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

But life is too short to work with people you neither like nor respect. The first boss I fired was good person and we remain friends today but he could not provide me with a viable territory. It wasn’t really his fault, and he had been told to hire a sales person to ‘dominate the white space’… LOL! I discovered, painfully, that the ‘white space’ is that part of the market that’s already being serviced by your competitors or where there is little need for what is being offered.

But before I had the difficult conversation about our future together I worked hard for 6 months ‘trail-blazing our value proposition’ into a new vertical. I did the analysis by sizing the market, profiling potential clients and finding the industry influencers. I ran demand generation initiatives by working closely with marketing and I met with the industry leaders. I adopted a top-down selling approach to overcome the resistance we were encountering at mid-levels.

I felt I had earned the right and am committed to success and I said to my boss: “Either you’re going to fire me in 9 months for poor performance or I’m going to fire you in the 60 days for not providing me with a patch in which I can be successful. I’m happy to keep building this new vertical but I also need additional territory if I am to make my number.”

Seriously, when you’re at the interview, always ask: What’s my territory going to be, how viable is it? Also ask: ‘What happened here to make this role available – why wasn’t my predecessor successful?’

Before we continue, have a smile watching this video about Joshua Peters and Michael Blunt from my book. At the end of this post share your most outrageous stories concerning someone firing their boss. Perhaps via e-mail telling them to open their top drawer where the security pass, laptop and final expense claim is sitting?

In one of my posts I provide guidance to sales managers on who belongs in their sales team and how do they decide who needs to be managed-out? The “rule of 24” helps them make the decision but for sales people assessing whether to fire their boss I recommend the three Cs. The following is an excerpt from my Book, The Joshua Principle.

Success is a 50:50 proposition. By this I mean that you bring fifty percent of the potential for success and your employer represents the other side of the equation. You know that companies look for Competence, Commitment, and Character or Cultural fit when hiring someone and you should also consider these same things in evaluating your potential employer. In addition to the three Cs, you need them to discuss the three Ps. You should evaluate the potential for success within their organization based upon their response to the following topics: People, Proposition and Patch. Your employer has an obligation to provide an environment within which you can be successful. This means that they need to have people you are proud to work with (competent, committed and of good character), and a value proposition that is uniquely differentiated in the market; and a territory – patch – that is viable with an achievable quota.

Another good reason to fire your boss, or client for that matter, is when there is misalignment of values. An immutable law of selling is that people buy from those they like and trust… they also stay and work with those they like and trust.

Is your boss a person of integrity? The best boss I ever had was a woman. I think we need more female leaders because they are naturally wired for better relationships and better morality. People who are trying hard need to be nurtured, not napalmed with flame-thrower forecast pressure from lunatic managers seeking to manage what cannot be managed – revenue. Jason Jordan will convince you this is true.

Another boss I fired was the regional VP and I was country manager for Australia. He was a slippery soul, very cunning and good at self-optimization. He was happy to bold-face lie to staff about them being okay, and then instruct me quietly later to fire them. He happily abused his expense account and travelled internationally for his own personal purposes, staying in the finest hotels with limousines driving him everywhere. I didn’t handle it at all well but I learned much about how not to fire your boss.

The last time I fired my boss was after receiving an e-mail telling me to fire 40% of my employees in 48 hours by booking 15 minute back-to-back appointments before office hours in a hotel lobby to then hand them envelopes and advise they were locked out of the office and all systems. It was suggested that I follow the script and tell them that someone would be in touch to make a time for them come and collect a box with their stuff in it. At the time we were the most profitable region in the world – #1 amongst 40 offices globally. But when acquisitions happen, strange decisions get made. This true story is featured in an upcoming book on leadership written by Anthony Howard: Humanise, Why Human Centred Leadership Is The Key To The 21st Century.

So as you consider your current career; does your boss care about you, is he committed to your success? Is she competent? Do you have aligned values? Choose those with whom you share your life; especially with your work.

Photo is of legendary voice artist and actor, Matt Wills. Video was produced by Joel Philips who also plays role of Joshua Peters. Joel is a man of many talents… musician, actor, producer and leader.

The post Why You Should Fire Your Sales Manager Or Boss appeared first on Head Of Sales.