Sales Game Changers | Tips from Successful Sales Leaders

This is episode 396. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. CHRIS' TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Set goals, define a plan and write it down. Develop personal and professional goals and make sure they're not in conflict, and be honest in your self-evaluation. Because if they're in conflict, nothing else is going to work. Then, have someone you trust – a friend, a colleague, a mentor, a supervisor – review it and help you hold to it. Throughout my career, I've had some really good leaders that have helped me with this. Write it down, where are you in the plan? Validate it and make sure that you're sufficiently outside of your comfort zone. It's always easy to do what you're really good at, but it's much harder to do things that you're not good at and be honest with that. If you write it down and hold yourself to it, then you'll get there. Write down, again, the intermediate objectives and tactics to reach those goals. Step by step, put a timeline on it. Say, what do I want to achieve both for myself and for the company and the timeline that I want to deliver it?"

This is episode 395. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. NYLA BETH'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I like the acronym Be bold, B-O-L-D. It stands for be future-focused. What's coming for your customers and what is your company looking to do? Those two parallel paths, be future-focused and look out for what's on the horizon. The second is orient around outcomes. You heard me mention that word, outcomes a lot, so the O in bold, orient around those. Don't think of sales as the goal is the deal closed, think of it as that end outcome that you want your final customer and your company to achieve. Then the L is really learn about your company. I spend a lot of time in corporate strategy and people say, "What's our strategy again?" Engage and ask. If you don't know who your corporate strategy leaders are, if you don't know what your corporate strategy goals and objectives are, ask, and really learn and make sure you understand it because it's important to what you're communicating to your customers. The D in bold is data, and data comes from everywhere. It doesn't just come from our marketing leads, our inbounds and our outbounds. Be the sensor, drive yourself with data by paying attention to what's happening into your surroundings and what's happening in your customer's arena and bring that together. I'm very confident that if you can follow that and be BOLD, that everyone here is going to definitely be able to continue down their successful path.

This is episode 394. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. AMY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "The book is called The Leader You Want to Be so I hope everyone takes a moment to pause and think about who is that leader and person you want to be. It's really powerful to take stock and remember who's the authentic leader that you are, what are the values that drive you, what are the principles that guide your interactions with yourself, your teams your customers? Then what are the experiences and skills that you bring to bear and that you've really cultivated and could continue forward?"

This is episode 393. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. MATT'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Be optimistic. Nobody likes working for pessimist people. Stay curious, operate with urgency, fall through on what you promise the customer. Be thoughtful, lead with empathy and do it with a smile on your face and good things will come." PAT'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "This is specifically directed for young folks. Ignore on job resumes prior experience requirements, 20 years as a salesperson to apply for this job. Put yourself out there, tell these hiring managers you already have your PhD, that means you're poor, you're hungry, you're driven. You will do whatever it takes to get the mission done and drive success for your team and for the customers."

This is episode 392. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SHANNON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Look at the people that you know that may not play in the same space but are well respected and participate in an economic development authority or a citizen's board of some sort, or a relevant not-for-profit board. Get in touch with them and connect and just make it a conversation about what you're seeing and how you're reacting to the changes over the past year. I was really amazed and so appreciative that I had that support system and was able to provide that for others."

This is episode 391. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. Ron is the author of "The Velocity Mindset." RON'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Stay with your heart. Your heart knows where you need to go so let your heart drive your destiny. Not your mind, because your mind is filled with your limiting thoughts, your stories and all the other stuff we put there. Let your heart drive your destiny."

This is episode 390. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. SANDY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Have a bias for action. One of the riddles I like to talk about is if you look at a pond and lily pads on the pond, if lily pads double every day – so today you have three lily pads, that means tomorrow there'll be six – at what day would the lily pad be half-full if on day 60 the pond is full? Of course, it's 59 because on day 59 the pond's half-full, on day 60, the pond is full. I use that analogy because that's the speed at which the world works today. Everything is moving quick, so you've got to have that bias for action in what you're doing. Bias for action in getting back to your customers, talking about value, introducing new technology. If you wait, you're going to be sitting there, you're going to think the pond is half-full and you're going to wake up the next day and the pond is full. It's going to be too late. If I have to say one thing, it would be commit yourself to have a bias for action with your customers, and that'll make you a more valuable salesperson."

This is episode 389. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ALEXINE'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Get really involved in some of these community-based learning efforts. Clubhouse is a really cool channel for you to be able to learn not just about sales process, there's so many different groups and communities. There's Clubhouse, there's Thursday Night Sales, there's all of these Slack communities, Revenue Collective, all of them. You can connect with so many different salespeople, sales leaders and talk about some of these topics together. My recommendation would be go outside of your company. I think it's really important to have these conversations internally, but more so, what are other companies doing? Always having an ear to the ground of what's going on with other organizations and with other salespeople. I think that is the way forward and I'm a huge proponent of that."

This is episode 388. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. JEFF'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "Let the personalization drive the nature of the call. You can look at a follow-up call based on saying, "Here's what I have to say, isn't it cool?" or I can look at it and say, "Here's who this human being is and what their needs are." But the more personalized you can make your follow-up, the more effective your follow-up is going to be. I'm not suggesting there isn't a place for having something on the shelf that you can deliver, but before you make that follow-up call, look at your notes and find that sense of personal connection. This ties into a mindset that you want to carry through, every single conversation sets up the next conversation and every conversation starts by reframing back to the last conversation. If you're in your sales call, do not end that sales call unless you're already getting the check. Don't end that sales call without making an appointment for the next call. Then when you make that appointment, what do you say? "Back here we talked about this." The more personal I can make that "this", the better off we're going to be. The more personalized your follow-up is, the more effective your follow-up is going to be.

This is episode 387. Read the complete transcription on the Sales Game Changers Podcast website. ANTHONY'S TIP FOR EMERGING SALES LEADERS: "I am a big believer in being your authentic self, because I truly believe you get the best out of yourself when you're being authentic. I'm going to leave everyone with a little exercise that I've used in the past that has worked very, very well. I've used it personally, I've shared it with all of my sales professionals and sales reps around the world. That is, what's your MVP? What's your mission? What I mean by mission is what drives you. What's your vision, what you aspire to be? Then, what's your purpose? What guides you? That's going to be the homework for my sales professionals. Go figure out what's your mission, your vision and your purpose. Once you do that, you can be the best you can be and you can be authentic and be the best at who you are."