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.

Building a great sales team and culture is not an easy task. For starters, everyone is selling themselves when they go into a job interview and salespeople are no exception. And with terms like “tenacious”, “a way with people”, “a drive to exceed goals” as standard buzzwords in sales recruitment ads, you’re likely to be interviewing similar candidates. So how do you identify the good from the great?

Everyone is time-poor, but sales managers and leaders cannot afford to skimp on hiring great talent when it comes to sales. That’s why we put together 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2020, an ebook full of valuable advice from sales culture to self-improvement and working with others, to lead generation and negotiation skills. Because it’s time to look past the buzzwords and down into what skills are really behind the best sales reps. And the very best way to understand that is from the experience and expertise of other sales professionals.

Use these insights as you develop your job description, hire and coach the reps on your team.

Know your customer inside out

All good sales reps know their product, but the best ones know their customer even better. They put themselves in the shoes of their target market to build trust and ongoing loyalty.

According to Aaron Tobone, Chief Information Officer at Provider Assist, a good sales rep understands the importance of timing and context to build a customer relationship.

“Be proactive in understanding what is happening in your customer’s business so you can have contextual conversations and provide valuable advice. This is how you build continued trust,” says Aaron.

Building on the facts

Just like you can’t build a home with weak foundations, you shouldn’t build a relationship with flimsy data.

A lot of sales reps will talk about opportunities and forecasting deals without a lot of hard facts to support them. The best salespeople, however, start with the facts and develop a strategy from there.

“When selling, customers want to see results you have achieved for relevant businesses. Always start with the facts, make sure you backup your stories with hard data,” says Nick Hultink, Sales Director, Commercial at Salesforce.

These reps usually input lots of data into a CRM like Sales Cloud, they don’t just look narrowly within the data, either, but try to find patterns across multiple accounts.

Not confined to silos

With 78% of customers expecting consistent interactions across departments, a good sales rep will break down silos between teams. They will also take the time to initiate a constructive discussion about lead scoring and qualification to improve the entire sales process. After all these, teams are working towards the same goal.

“If your marketing and sales teams are not aligned it can impact your ability to find prospects and convert them into customers. If you have a marketing team that is feeding leads from campaigns to your sales team, you have ‘warm’ leads ready to be nurtured,” says Josh Harding, Head of Client Sales, Criterion Conferences.

This kind of cross-functional thinking applies to other areas of the business too. Sales reps that see the benefits of communicating with marketing, service and even finance teams, to find mutually beneficial outcomes are the sales reps you want to invest in.

Technologically literate

Salespeople like to move at pace, so most don’t want to be bogged down by unoptimised spreadsheets and administration. When interviewing your next sales rep, get a sense of the tools and technologies they use to get a deeper understanding of their customer.

A sales rep that embraces and understands the benefits of artificial intelligence technologies is an empowered sales rep. AI can streamline work and help reps make smarter decisions, particularly around customer behaviour predictions.

Can work on the fly

Recent events have shown the positives of staff being able to work from anywhere. And while sales reps may be virtual sellers for now, when they return to face-to-face selling you want a sales rep who can optimise their time when they’re out and about.

There are an abundance of apps available for sales teams to turn their phones into an indispensable sales tool. Good use of business apps can help reps act with urgency to whatever their customers and employers need.

Look for someone who loves learning

“A rut is a coffin with both ends kicked out”, says Marcus Cauchi Fism, Channel/Enterprise Sales Expert at Sandler Training UK.

Great salespeople will take the lead on their professional development by looking for insights from anyone. Be that from their managers, peers, and even their customers.

“What worked 10 years ago might not be what works today. Read, watch, listen every day. Study sales like any other profession to stay current,” says Marcus.

On top of learning, a good sales rep will constantly evaluate themselves to ensure they’re improving and moving forward. There should be a sense of fulfilment from learning something new just as there is from crushing a sales quota.

While not every sales rep you hire will have all the skills listed, recognising their ability to build these skills is what will set a good sales rep and an eventual great sales rep apart in an interview. And they’re the sales rep you should aim to hire for your team.

Find more ways to build the best sales team with our 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2020 ebook.

Read more from Salesforce:

It’s time for sales leaders to rethink how they lead

Introducing the 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2020 eBook

The post Six Traits Of Great Sales Reps appeared first on Head Of Sales.

I can’t quite remember how early in the piece I uttered those words. But I did. To my then business partner, Glenn Dobson, as we joined forces and began to build what would become known as The KONA Group. The irony of that statement was that our business… was a sales and sales management, training consultancy! My title was Director of Quality and I developed what would become some very well regarded training programmes – which delivered outcomes the likes of which our corporate clients had never seen before, consistently, over a 15-year period.

Our particular distinction was that of building scenarios which allowed our participants to practice the techniques and methodologies we were teaching them, on ‘real’ clients. Well, when I say ‘real’ – in the design phase of the programme for any client we would spend days out on the road, with multiple members of their sales force, often all around the country, observing both their techniques but also gaining insights into the reality of their clients’ environments. As we did this, not only were we assessing the current levels of competence and seeing the current sales methodology, we were seeing their clients’ worlds too. We would get to understand what the various sets of circumstances were for our clients’ clients – their operating environments, business objectives, their blockages, their concerns, their business drivers, their decision-making processes etc. and with this intelligence, we would then write “adaptive-fiction” scenarios based on these client realities, ‘changing names to protect the innocent’.

In our ‘live-action’ workshops our students would then meet a new bunch of ‘prospects’, who seemed somewhat familiar to them and they’d practice using the new methodologies we were teaching them, to develop a stronger understanding of the real drivers that would lead to a successful sale. They got to practice, rehearse and refine their newfound skills and techniques in an environment which was safe (no deals were harmed in the making of this skill set) yet were incredibly realistic. The learning was often described as ‘profound’ and certainly ‘the most realistic’ scenario-based training they’d ever experienced. People left our workshops, most definitely, armed with real skills which would help them increase their sales capabilities and enhance their sales careers.

Yet, I had developed a phobia of sorts about actually selling our solutions…

As it turns out, I wasn’t alone. It seems that a great swathe of small business owners also dislike the idea of being in sales. “I didn’t get into business to sell.” I hear. Or, “I’m the CEO, I’m not in sales.” Or worse than these, I see small business owners who subscribe to the old “Build it and they shall come!” Well, I’ve got news for you… yes you did, yes you are and no they won’t. I call these perspectives the S-Myth.  The myth that suggests that as a business owner, (aka Founder, aka Managing Director, aka CEO, aka Director of Quality) sales is somebody else’s concern.

Sales, is absolutely your concern. It always will be your concern. Even when you become a global juggernaut – sales will always be a pressing concern. Let me assure you that Alan Joyce (Qantas CEO), Gerry Harvey (Harvey Norman, Executive Chairman) and Janine Allis (Boost Juice founder and Executive Director) have always got their finger on the pulse of sales in their hugely successful and long-enduring businesses. They may not be out on the hustings but they absolutely understand that ongoing sales are never guaranteed and that, in my words, if you’re not selling shit, you’re gonna be in the shit.

So why is it that so many of us small business-owners are resistant to selling?

20 years of experience, in both selling the various services that my 7 different businesses have offered, in concert with observing, coaching and mentoring in-excess of 10,000 sales professionals, sales managers and business owners suggests that while the reasons have subtle variation, there are some central themes:

• FEAR – the prime suspect. Primarily fear of rejection;
• Misconception – an unhealthy view of what the art and science of sales actually is;
• Limited knowledge of the methodologies of selling;
• All resulting in a deficit in ‘the 3Cs’ – competence, confidence and commitment.

Let’s take a look at each of those in a bit more detail.

Chances are you’ve heard the use of fear as an acronym – F.E.A.R. It stands for False Expectations Appearing Real. In other words, the suggestion is that fear is a product of a vivid imagination, which presents the possibility of negative outcomes/consequences, in such a powerful and compelling way, they end up paralysing the person experiencing those thoughts.

I often see fear coupled with a mantra of “the best way to not fail… is to not try!”

It’s a fair enough apprehension. Most rational people know that when it comes to selling, you are more likely to hear people say no to you than say yes. Anybody who has been anywhere near any kind of sales training in the last 50 years will have heard, at some stage and probably more than once that “it’s a numbers game!”. We get told that “another ‘no’ is one step closer to a ‘yes’!” So when it comes to selling we have read, heard, seen and/or been told that we’re going to be rejected. A lot. And of course, if you’re not a black belt in this mystery called selling, you’re going to be rejected a hell of a lot! Who on Earth wants to step up to that on a daily basis? Right?

This little monster absolutely sat in the dark corners of my mind for, I’d say, the first 15 years of business ownership for me. I’d start to think about the idea of picking up a phone or going on a sales call, or following up to see if they were ready to buy yet and instead of envisaging a positive outcome I’d feel that fear that comes when you look down into a drain grate built into the kerb and there’s one of those evil clown dolls grinning back at you.

OK, I’m probably exaggerating here but you get the gist right? The fear of being rejected and the subsequent feelings I might experience, of being incompetent, inarticulate, lacking in gravitas enough to be compelling to my prospect, intellectually inferior, an impostor – all of that was often enough to cause me to find ‘better things to do’. Things, which, I would kid myself, would lead to an easier way of selling. Perhaps I could devise a way of selling that didn’t involve actually selling! The perfect thing to waste time on.

Which helps us also understand that a misconception of what sales actually is can be a major obstacle to engaging in it. It had never really, consciously occurred to me until quite recently, that my subconscious perspective of ‘selling’ was that it was something you did to people, as opposed to for them. Selling seemed to be some sort of slight of hand where you used clever techniques and words, which eventually brought people to a place where they found themselves buying.  I knew, because I had been taught a number of moves, like a series of judo-throws of sorts, called ‘objection handlers’. Apparently people would try to resist the techniques and words and not buy from me. And so I had these moves in my arsenal to counter their resistance. So I learned quite early in the piece that people didn’t like being sold to. Therefore selling was something which was undesirable. I learned to ‘trial close’, to ‘always be closing’, to use the ‘hamburger close’, the ‘alternative close’, the ‘assumptive close’. These felt like techniques where, as a salesperson, I might be tackling an opponent down to the mat and putting them in a lock which ultimately resulted in them ‘tapping out’ – “Alright! Alright! I’ll buy!!” That just didn’t sit well with me. It felt like selling was really the art of manipulating somebody to do something I wanted them to do. That was a really good reason for me to not be in sales.

But I was fortunate, in comparison to so many start up founders and small business owners. I’d actually received an education in this called selling, as an employee of a global sales training business. And then, as I’ve shared I went on to create and deliver all sorts of sales training to thousands of people hired to sell for their companies. So at least I’d had exposure to this ‘dark art’ when it came to going it alone. Scores of business owners get their first exposure… when they start their business. Which means they really have very little understanding of professional selling. And in particular, professional selling in this ‘new’ era of internet, Google, Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn – to name a few.

Right now, I’m in the throes of writing a book. I’ve named it “The S-Myth” in a nod to Michael Gerber’s best seller from over 30 years ago, The E-Myth, aka the entrepreneurial myth which is the mistaken belief that most businesses are started by people with tangible business skills, when in fact most are started by “technicians” who know nothing about running a business. Hence most fail. 30 years on and access to information, know-how and ‘hacks’ are readily available in the arena of entrepreneurialism. There’s no shortage of ‘how to sell’ tutorials on YouTube either – yet I see very few business owners who make that sort of educative investment in themselves. Certainly, few could classify themselves as masters of the profession of selling. So, the ‘technician’ still prevails. The person who is, invariably, incredibly emotionally attached to their product or service. They can see all of its beauty and possibility. They know and hold dear to their hearts why their offering is superior to the competitions’. They know exactly why customers/clients should be buying what they have to sell… but as it transpires they know very little, if anything about how to actually sell. (And by ‘sell’, I’m not just referring to the face-to-face interaction that occurs at the moment of purchase decision – I’m referring to the entire process of product/service positioning, creating market awareness – including your website, SEO, SEM, Google and Facebook ads – lead generation, qualifying ideal prospects, qualifying opportunities, defining solutions, understanding and then navigating the clients’ buying decision-making process, presenting solutions, securing the purchase – and after fulfilment, garnering the much vaunted ‘customer review’, in order to sharpen the cycle for the next prospective buyer).

Ultimately, all of the rationale I’ve shared so far can be distilled into a model that I have been teaching to managers and business-owners for nearly 15 years, known as TC3.  TC3 posits that a person’s performance in their role is a direct outcome of their level of competence in performing their routine tasks, their confidence in performing their routine tasks and their commitment to performing their routine tasks. Task competence, confidence and commitment – TC3. Wherever there is a deficit or shortfall in any of a person’s competence, confidence and/or commitment there will always be a corresponding shortfall in performance or results. There are actually six stages of evolution that we all go through in order to become highly competent, confident and committed at a particular field of endeavour – including selling.

So, on reflection, as I consider all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions I experienced when it came to the idea of being a sales person – especially a successful sales person, it’s not hard to rationalise why running for the hills seemed like a smarter move for the better part of 15 years.

Can you relate to any of this? Have I described anything here that you’ve experienced in the journey of getting your small business off the ground, or perhaps, to move from start-up to scale-up?

If you’re a business owner and the sales-voodoo thing is something you grapple with, connect with me on LinkedIn or visit my website where I share more insights.

The post I don’t want to be in sales! 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.